The BIG Questions Here Are...

Updated -- April 1, 2022

I had no doubt, when I initially posted this piece that your deep consideration of my offering to you here would be resisted.

This is the internet, after all! Right? And the era of Future Shock, designed to keep you on the fast track. 

Fast fwd is the gig here. Right?

"Surf the web." Keep it moving. That's the modus operandi here. 

Right?  No time for deep.

Well -- readers -- of one thing I'm certain: my offerings here are not a quick fix or chill pill.

Challenged by these realities -- I asked my dear, long-time friend, Walton Stowell, a brillient man in his own right, artist, architect and writer of many books, who I am blessed to now have assisting me with blog writing, to take up the exploration of those "deeper considerations" with me.

I am intent on engaging you, interested readers, in getting to the "deeper." Walton is going to help me and us get to it.

Look forward to joining our adventure.

Now -- if a generic "one" would want to truly grasp -- and -- benefit from GRAD, even embrace its philosophies and practices, an understanding of its origins and the rich potentialities emerging out of its heritage as developed by the clinical team of Groder and Rosen-Jones, are important to explore.

In fact, should you accomplish this task, you will actually have taken first steps on the path of "exploring your dark side, the adventure of a lifetime!" should be inclined for such an excursion.

Heading in this direction, the genuine seeker of such vital wisdom might ask --  

1. How can such a comprehension lead ME to embrace the grand personal -- and -- social theory GRAD and healing strategies purports to be, with not only an intriguing backstory but one that can also bring ME hope in these anguished times?

This leads to a second question --

2. How can a look back at a prison rehabilitation approach, warranting an updated consideration more than fifty years after its sometimes controversial beginnings, become a guiding light through a world troubled with corrupt leadership and followers, some in cult-like denial, others similarly unscrupulous?

"The answer my friend" is not merely "blowing in the wind."

It lies instead, first and foremost and in part, in YOUR exploring YOUR own dark side and taking up its transformation - lead into gold -- as YOUR own, very personal "adventure of a lifetime."

Destination --

Realigning, wherever possible and necessary, your personal current survival orientation -- not by merely pointing your finger at THEM with all your outrage and despair - the Donald Trumps, his allies and enablers, the Vladimir Putins, the Devil incarnate -- but by redirecting and refining your vital Inner Warrior to use its immense power in ways, yet undiscovered by you.

Intrigued?

Begin your adventure at Humanity's Mysterious Power Source.

More on the way.   

It's Official: Groder - Rosen Addiction Development" Theory's Intriguing and Empowering Backstory To Be Told

 ...fictionalized in Anastasia's forthcoming fantasy, historical novel, "Camelot Disrupted."

The true tale, empowering and inspiring with its beginnings in the late 1960s.

Publication expected, March, 2023.

High Leadership People (HLP) And Convicts Share The Same Basic Personality Structure,: Said Groder

 Under construction

The year was 1980 as I sat attentively listening to Dr. Martin Groder lecture at a two-day pre-conference workshop on survivor-type personalities and their addictions -- natural, organic defense strategies living in "civilized" cultures such as those modern humankind has evolved into.

My life was about to change!

More to come, as Anastasia now approaches her first book writing milestone for "Camelot Disrupted: Book One - Lost Hope Regained."

Follow Anastasia's "adventure of a lifetime" as it unfolds.

Thinking About Feelings. Feeling About Thinking.

 Coming soon.

Under construction.

It was December, 2019. Covid-19 and the word, pandemic, were not yet in our lexicon. 

"Northern California wildfires" were, however, a newsworthy phrase that, though we were safe from these tragedies on the east coast, had become an almost daily personal threat.

I had one of my four "honorary" daughters, Taylor, and a boy and a girl godchildren twins out there. Every day. Sometimes moment by moment, ceaseless text messages were filling my inbox.

Taylor was terrified, overwrought -- and -- potentially suicidal. On top of that, her messages were driving me a bit crazy, I felt at times. Certainly they were not only keeping me constantly alert but STRESSED more than I could healthfully manage.

Survival Of The Fittest: What Does That Mean In Modern America?

 COMING SOON!

How Two Schools Of Thought On Emotions Divide Our Congress As Well As Our Most Intimate Relationships

Under construction now.

Ever wondered how a McDonnell or Barr or Marjorie whatever got to be like THAT!!

Or maybe you know others like THAT personally?

If your answer is "YES" to either or both above, what are YOU doing to help change the toxic dynamic?

As this blog (and the other two related) rolls out it's new directions, pre-book publication, circa 2022 (After publication we may again revise.) --- a major intent of all will be to help provide you with viable pathways for "transforming the dark side" yourself and in each and every venue you can hope to influence.

That's your job from here forth, if you are a follower of the blogs I write. If ever the idea of being a socia INFLUENCER, we'll be showing you how, on a one to one level -- over time.

That's what I/we "want" from you. That's what matters for me/us in providing the materials of this blog.

Let's start with the "why" behind what I write hete

The fact that there are two main schools of thought on emotions that might be considered central when trying to understand the divisiveness of our Congress -- might lead some of us to explore some new and improved options for approaching some of our near ceaseless deadlocked situations in that arena and right back into your backyard your living room -- and your bedroom.

Curious? Read on.

For an expanded discussion on how to and what to do we will return later. NH ZOP has plans in the making, our drop in the bucket strategies, now in progress.

Long time coming.

For now our objectives are still in the blueprint stage. Our focus directed to the notion that...

One school of thought holds that our emotions are essential guideposts for daily living. That's the perspective most apt to contribute to genuine problem solving, problem solving taking in human essentials at their most comprehensive.

Much like buying into the need for masking, social distancing and VACCINATIONS to fight off the spread of covid-19.

The other school of thought on emotions postures that emotions are bothersome aspects of humanity that must done away with as quickly as possible. The constituent denying mask mandates of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida are an example of this.

Your concerns that your child might contract the covid-19 virus while attending school simply do not exist.

As many of us recognize, particularly adherents of the first school, all sorts of communication breakdowns and hostility are bred from this dissonance of perspective.

What might this mean? And how might the facts of the matter be reconciled?

In Transactional Analysis (TA) we call the circumstances that  bring this divisiveness about DISCOUNTING, the process of minimizing or ignoring data that is relevant to an individual, a situation or the solving of a problem. 

Gaslighting is one extreme example of this phenomenon called discounting. In this scenario, a conscious, determined effort to dismiss what another person's emotions and judgment hold to be true, is made with the intention of undermining the other's person's confidence and reliance on their own personal perceptions.

Most discounting is unconscious, however. The initiator, typically unaware of the process in motion. We all do this some of the time, even the most conscientious of us, devoted to our complete-as-possible devotion to fact finding.

Conversely, at its most extreme, discounting is the manifestation of psychosis. 

More frequently, discountiing goes on behind the lying and denial we see today, prevalent in our culture, used, most destructivly as justification for violence, along with other deviousness.

"How do people get this way?" Groder puzzled over the prisoners he worked with in his early days at Marion Federal Penetentiery, leading to his establishing the Asklepeion Therapeutic Community there, eventally known to have the lowest recidivism rate in federal corrections, circa late 1960s.

If I were to ask him again, as I did back in the early '80s, "How do our politicians get this way?, he'd probably tell me again, as he did before --

"Convicts and High Leadership People" (HLP) often have the same basic personality structure. However the former, the convicts, play out the dramas of their lives with antisocial rules, grounded in ignoring only the most useful of information, while the former, the HLPs, play by commonly accepted social rules. In this way, they are rewarded by society.

Gains not necessarily made ethically. But so what? Eh?

When we incorporate our GRAD theory into the mix regarding emotions, we open the door to a deeper understanding of this phenomenon and the lethal, mortally wounding effect "discounting" can potentially have, especially as part of a larger pattern. 

In my unpublished manuscripts, my Random House Trilog, I discuss these phenomena at length and how to reverse the negative patterns.

Conversely, how healthful, liberating, empowering, even personally and collectively transforming, are the wide-range of antithetical pathways for humanity available to us, once we know where to seek.

I want to explore this POWERFUL and PROFOUND notion with you on the two schools of emotions. And how utilizing the information we are offering can turn your life to the good, better, best!

My new fantasy/historical fiction book, Camelot Disrupted, Book One, Lost Hope Regained, due out in 2022???, will depict what I/we are suggesting that can help turn up the positive volume for you of your life's satisfaction and your relationships and tone down the negative, even way down!

In time, if you heed: your good sense, the wisdom of your own emotional intelligence and the wisdom, expertise and guidance I, personally, and we, the board members and active retreat center and community members of NH ZOP, have to offer through our programs, projects and extensive, personally-tailored, collection of road maps for the journey.

We'll have you soaring in no time, provided you do your part. And stay healthy!!

More on the way.

But I'll give this one piece in the meantime ---

GRODER WAS A FIRM BELIEVER IN THE NOTION THAT THE PROBLEMS IN OUR CONGRESS COULD -- MOST IMPACT FULLY BE RESOLVED IN THE --- BEDROOM!!

Not on the steps, as some like Marjorie..would have it.

What do you think about that?

“Original Elite” —Mss Study Group Class Part One -- Culminates With Life Saving Success!

Also read:  Anastasia Commenting On Taylor: "I Was Afraid She Was Going To Kill Herself"

We are amazing!

Pandemic syndrome symptoms plaguing you?

2

Feeling agitated, driven by fear and urgency, mental fogginess, lack of motivation, unfinished – not yet even begun -- GRIEF healing -- resentment, isolation- threatened by civic unrest and violence and on and on – in the era of the pandemic and Trump?

Consider this ...

Taylor (not her real name), a long-term NH/ZOP Board and community member, was still, three years after, struggling to manage and heal from one of the Northern California wildfires of 2018 that had consumed her home, leaving only a pile of ashes where the marriage and family life she had once worked so diligently to create, were also part of the rubble. 

Emotional devastation, hopelessness, despair and suicidal ideation were never far from her mind.

In February, 2020, just weeks before covid-19 pandemic lockdowns was mandated, I, unknowing of what lay ahead, set out to guide Taylor through Part 1/10 of my unpublished Random House Trilogy  to help her save her life.

My belief was that if I could teach her to healthfully deal with her intense, survival-driven emotions and acting out behaviors, I thought I could help her turn her life around.

FYI: Thinking clearly about emotions, especially those telated to survival threats, real or imagined, generally feels as life-threatening as emotions can be!

Often they are experienced as terrifying, to be avoided, minimized, denied or repressed. Anything to get away from them.

Learning to " think about these feelings, feel the truth of what you are thinking and manage them effectively was quite the challenge I hoped to help Taylor surmount.

When we began, Taylor could do none of this.

Actually, as a pandemic survivor, you too probably already know about this difficulty yourself, and/or are learnng, more or less effectivly, that living under constant concerns for survival, as people are doing world-wide, can be pretty terrifying for real.

So how do YOU or I manage it?

Especially when the imminent threat is gone but you still feel TERRIFIED, as did Taylor for three, long, harrowimg years.

Almost FROZEN with fear, confusion and anguish!

Now, the NH ZOP Board Members who made up this "Original, Elite Mss Study Group" with Taylor are celebrating and, alongside her, developing skill in this area. 

Mastery will still take time. 

Imagine how incredibly life changing this has been for all of us!

Especially these past eighteen months!

That's also the story about how we came to title one of our next important initiatives, The Mindful Cult Of GRAD.

It was those feelings: fear, terror, loss, abandonment and rage for starters -- that seemed most apt to derail Tayloe.

And, of course, that same bundle of hard to manage, pandemic-evoked emotions challenges most of us.

Now -- get this -Taylor ASSURES ME - eighteen months after her having completed what I intended to be only a  five or six week class/study group that continued for all the eighteen months of the pandemic -- We Won!!

Begun just !! two weeks prior to our initial covid-19 pandemic lockdown March 16 -- the combination of this class and our twice weekly Pandemic Survivors Support Group, NOT ONLY SAVED Taylor's Life-- as I set out to do, but additionally, with her diligence, courage and trust in me, built on our 31 year!! relationship -- I was able to succesfully guide her to put her life on a path of ascending to BE and DO her best possible.

And, to even learn to enjoy life again.

WOW!! 

All that during the pandemic as we, along with everyone else is and was fighting to come through severe adversity.

So, as of last Friday -- 

I am pleased and proud to announce I graduated Compassionate Warrior Woman In Training, My Taylor!!

Look for details on how you, too, can now qualify for participation in the NH/ZOP Mss Study Group Class, Part II, beginning this week, Friday, September 3, 10 a.m. to noon.

For additional information on our Mss Study Groups/Classes and other projects, contact us at: MountainWomanRJ@aol.com.

More to come.