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Empathy for others may encourage showing integrity

empathy integrityIntegrity is about being true to yourself, your values and your word.  Yet it is easier to ignore the situation that my come up – even if it impacts our values.  One step in standing up for our values and helping others is being able to understand the other persons point of view.  The word for that is EMPATHY. 

As adults we know that empathy is a key to our ability to have good social interactions with others.  That may include siblings, parents, work or school mates or even someone that we have a fleeting interaction with on the street.  How do we help to develop empathy in ourselves or our children?

Here are three questions you might ask yourself or discuss with your children that will help us to understand the other persons point of view. 

  • What are they feeling right now?
  • How are they viewing the situation
  • What is really important to them right now?

If you can look deeply into yourself to see if you can even begin to imagine the answers to those 3 questions you are on the road to understanding the other person’s point of view.  You are developing EMPATHY.  The question that is left is “What will you do with that information?”   Will you ignore it?  Will you use it to take compassionate action – in line with your values?

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The Wudang Swimming Hole

SL371660It’s almost summertime weather here. Blessedly, we’re not there yet. In July and August it can get pretty unbearable – intense, humid heat that doesn’t even abate at night when you lie sweating under your mosquito net, the warm sluggish air from your fan the only thing moving, and moving more like flowing honey than wind at that. We adjust our training schedule so that we rest more in the middle of the day and train early in the morning and late after the sun goes down, but the weather is a real trial to the spirit nonetheless.

But summer has its perks. The mountains behind the school become almost jungle-like, lush and tropical where they were dry and brown all autumn and winter. And the little river valley (in places a canyon, really) becomes a breathtakingly beautiful place to go for a walk or, when its too hot to stand it any more, a swim. On either side of the river pool where Wudang residents most often go to swim, the hills on either side rise in rocky cliffs patched with tufts of brilliant green. For the adventurer, one can climb up rocks and rapids and find several smaller pools further up the valley, and one really wonderful place where the river flows narrow and deep and dark and cold between overarching rocks and trees high overhead. It’s beautiful in a way that makes one stop and appreciate it, even if your mind was on other things.

I suppose any popular swimming spot in the world has its share of litterers – people who selfishly use a beautiful place but mar it for later visitors. That is certainly the case at the swimming hole. As the summer wears on and more and more people go to swim, the rocks and water are littered with food and drink packaging. There is no restroom easily accessible from the swimming hole, so human waste further soils the rocks on either side of the pool. All year round people take baskets of laundry to the river to wash, and so there always seems to be some soap bubbles or an odd sock floating in the eddies among the rocks. But all of that can be left behind if you make your way upriver a little ways, and serenity returns.

I am always writing about my thoughts regarding my training, but today I offer this little picture of the natural setting of my master’s school. Shifu has made it plain that as we study Daoism and try to follow nature, we are meant to be learning about and following our own natures and not to confuse the idea with a bunch of trees and rocks. But who does not feel somehow calmer and purer when surrounded by natural beauty?

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“Quackles” is our entry in Duck Race for Hunger

Quackle'sWhat does Quackle’s our duck have to do with hunger in Anne Arundel County?

Here we are in the year 2014 and according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations there are 842 million who do not eat enough to be healthy.  That is a figure that equates to 1 out of 8 people on Earth that go to bed hungry every night.  One third of all children under the age of 5 in developing countries die from malnutrition.

But never believe that this is a problem just for southeast Asia or the deserts of Africa.  In the state of Maryland – the fourth richest state in the USA – one in ten children live in poverty.  In Anne Arundel county we are experiencing a growth of over 26% in applicants for food stamps to supplement the food for families.  However please note that if you make 14,000 a year for a family of four – there is no assistance for you.  If you may 12,000 you get $113 a month to feed your children.

That is why with over 1100 students in our county who are homeless, we are aware of the need to help others.  I personally am a member of the South Anne Arundel Rotary Club who provides food on the weekend for over 90 students in South County schools during the school year.  The first question I am asked is what about the summer.  Yes I know that is a problem and we are currently working with others looking for a way to address that issue.  But for now we are feeding during the school year over 90 families that would otherwise have much less or no food in their house.

You can help by supporting our Quack for Packs Family Fun Day on June 1 at Camp Letts in Edgewater.  By buying a duck for $10 you will help feed 2 families on a weekend.  I personally would invite you to come to Camp Letts between noon and 3 PM for the Duck Race, good food, fun games and music and help us feed these families on the weekend.

Balanced Life Skills is a Title Sponsor this year and we will be there to have a good time with you too.  I hope many of you are able to attend!  “Quckle’s is our Duck in the race.  Join our efforts to win the Golden Duck Trophy!

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To Thy Own Self – Be True

be true to yourselfOne of the hardest concepts to teach children about integrity is having them understand the idea of being authentic and staying true to ourselves. Sure we say the old famous lines all the time. You know the ones I’m talking about. “If so and so jumped off a cliff would you?” or “Those that matter don’t mind and those that mind don’t matter.”  We say these things in an effort to teach our children to be independent thinkers, to do the right thing, to stand up for what they believe in, to help them feel good about themselves.  But we sometimes forget that our children learn by what they see us doing, not from the words that come out of our mouths. If we want our children to be their own unique wonderful selves 100% of the time… then we need to do the same.

Are you being authentic and staying true to yourself? Sometimes we put on a mask, portray a different persona in order to fit in or be liked. It has somehow become an accepted practice in our culture. You might be one way with your family and totally different with your co-workers or boss. We may hide the way we feel about a certain subject in order to not be alienated, left out of a conversation, not part of the in-crowd. Yet we don’t understand when we see  children doing the exact same thing at school or with their friends.

We frequently compare ourselves to others, and change the way we act, accordingly. We make assumptions based only on what we see. “She has no control over her child” we may think when we see a child melting down in the middle of the grocery store aisle without knowing the whole story. Comparing ourselves to another parent can make us feel worse or perhaps in the case of the lady with the child melting down … better; it just depends on the parent we choose to compare ourselves to. But if we want to live truly authentic lives of integrity, then the only person we should be comparing ourselves to and trying to be better than; is to the person we were yesterday.

With bullying being such a huge issue in our schools, it is so important that we give our children the right tools so they know what to do if ever faced in the situation. One of those tools is teaching our children that not only is it important to be accepting of ourselves for the unique and wonderful people they are; we must accept ourselves in the same way. To Thy Own Self Be True! 

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Talent and Kungfu

DSC_0612One of my kungfu brothers and I were talking about talent the other day. We were talking about this guy my brother had seen on a TV program, who could shoot objects out of the air with a bow and arrow as easy as breathing. Apparently this man had picked up a bow some time when he was young, and on his first shot discovered he had a knack for it. He then spent his whole life honing this skill until it was practically superhuman.

Here in Wudang, I’ve seen talented people come along, who, without apparent effort, are able to do things that I only wish I could do: jump higher than their own height; kick as quick and sharp as a punch; bend their bodies into astonishing contortions; dodge punches with incredible reactions, etc. There are even people who show a natural affinity for the internal, emotional practice I’ve talked about, and seem to approach the rigors and trials of life in a kungfu school with a calm placidity I envy.

But I do not think talent is really what kungfu is about. Kungfu is not about making naturally athletic and ferocious people better at beating people up or doing incredible acrobatics. It is about finding one’s weaknesses and strengthening them, and then finding the next weaknesses and strengthening those, ad infinitum. I think, from this basic tenant flows all of kungfu’s virtue. Building up where one finds weakness makes for a balanced and healthy mind and body. And the emotional ability to look at one’s own failings day in and day out without giving up on your own self worth is an incredibly powerful skill, engendering calm and poise.

It is in regard to this last quality that talent can actually be a hindrance. No matter how lucky you are, eventually you reach a point where talent can’t carry you any further, and work is required and those weaknesses have to be confronted. There have been plenty of students who get as amazing at kungfu as they can on talent, and sort of plateau, get frustrated, and leave.

Talent or no, the real fruits of kungfu are found when the talent stops and the hard work keeps going. The talented people who also apply themselves and practice, like the archer mentioned above, achieve amazing things. But there is plenty that the rest of us can glean from applying the kungfu model to the things we do in our lives.

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Keeping our promises are so important to our kids

o-PARENT-PROMISE-KID-facebookGina’s daughter Monica has been having a hard time learning her multiplication tables. “I can’t do this, it’s too hard!” Monica tells her mom. In a moment of desperation, Gina promises Monica that if she works harder and learns all her time tables by the end of the month she will take her to the zoo to see the new Panda exhibit she has been begging to go to. Monica becomes excited and this promise of a special outing is all she needs to study a little harder. Two weeks later Monica comes home from school very excited to show her mother a test she took. “I got them all right! Now I can multiple how many more minutes until you take me to the zoo! Can we go this Saturday?” she sings out loud and dances around her mom happily! “I’m sorry Monica but I have to work. Maybe next weekend we can go.” “But the exhibit ends this weekend and you PROMISED!” Monica whines disappointingly.

If you are like most parents, you can probably relate to the above scenario. Sure the promise may have been different; but the intention behind it most likely was the same. We make commitments to people all the time, and the reality is that many times we just are not able to keep them. While we make these promises with all good intentions, the reality is that a broken agreement like the one above can have a very dramatic impact on our kids.

A promise, as defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is: “a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified; or a legally binding declaration that gives the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act.” When we don’t keep a promise to our children, it sends the message to them that we don’t value them. They believe that we have chosen to put something else ahead of our commitment to them. Even when we break small promises, our kids learn that they cannot count on us. Whether it’s going to the zoo or getting grounded for slamming the bedroom door, when parents consistently keep their promises, kids learn dependability. They learn that when mom and dad say they will take away their iphone if they go over their minutes… they will do it!

When a child grows up with parents who only make promises they can keep, that child learns the value of a promise; and that child will grow up to be a person of integrity who also only makes promises that he or she can keep.