The Doctor is IN

Value-Fulfillment and Me

“Here she is, world,”

sings Rosalind Russell (playing the mother of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in the archival ‘62 musical, “Gypsy”) in her finale burlesque of introducing her daughter.

“Here he is, world…”

…I can almost hear part of me saying, as the rest of me launches anxiously into my first blog––an effort to share (and continue to learn) the tricks of “solving problems.”  Out of this has emerged my motto:

“The unsolvable is solvable!”

So––though feeling quite naked––I nevertheless respond to an inner calling with full commitment to:

(a) answer in an interactive way questions about life and death, relationships and spiritual growth, happiness/health/the universe, and 

(b) where it seems relevant, to drop in a series of “lecturettes” on how things work and why.  

My image of this is a kind of cross between Dear Abby (pen name for pen-named Abigail Van Buren––and now her daughter), ageless wisdom, and timely intuition.

Not being in possession of any questions as yet, I will begin by saying that I believe my own life is guided at this point (age 79) by values, rather than by the power of family traditions or social expectations.  My personal family of origin was somewhat riddled by death…of a self-inflicted sort.  My mother lost her first husband to suicide in the Great Depression, and her third daughter to suicide in the “race for excellence” resulting from my sister’s leap from public high school to Barnard College.  Somber.

But as revealed in the updated Cardinal Virtues (or “Values-Leading-to-Self-Esteem”) of Martin Seligman’s “Positive Psychology,” tightly-held values can lift a person up out of a sense of failure into happiness and fulfillment. Whenever someone asks me, “How are you?” I find myself instinctively saying, “Always serene.  I am always serene, and so I am today.”  That’s a good way to feel.

But it is not without hanging on tight to Four Cardinal Values, i.e. to be…

1. As kind and loving as I can be;
2. As honest and truthful as I can be (without causing unnecessary harm);
3. As fearlessly brave as I can be;
4. As eager-to-learn as I can be.

In short: Love, Honesty, Courage, & Curiosity.

These four “pylons” form the bobbin of my “spinning wheel” which gently gathers up my fuzzy lifestream to produce the kind of “good karma, good friends, and good clients” (for my work as a psychotherapist and mediator) which cause me to feel happy and fulfilled––serene.

To say a little more about each “pylon”:

Love: I have learned (I would say the “hard way”) the Law of Karma––“The measure you give will be the measure you receive,” as Jesus put it (Lk 6:38),  If I want friends, I have to show myself friendly; if I want help, I must offer help; if I want love, I have to give it.  A single lie can fill my world with liars; a single withheld hand can leave me out on a helpless limb; a single refusal to learn my lessons can leave me stuck in a terrible rut.  So, I am as kind and helpful as I can afford to be, and celebrate the reciprocal responses every day.

Honesty: my courage to speak the truth––my truth, at least––keeps me in touch with the real nitty-gritty of life. There are difficult moments in this Third Dimension, and I need to be spontaneous enough to acknowledge the downs as well as the ups, my weaknesses as well as my strengths, what I like and don’t like, what I know and what I don’t know.  What I don’t need is to hide.  There’s a respectful way to say anything, and to resolve conflicts peaceably.

In working with others through Talk Therapy, I find that everyone, down deep, is really doing the best 

that they know how, knowing what they do at the time.  The problem is that there’s still a lot of ignorance loose in the human race.  In our core essence, each of us is really an angel (or at least an immortal soul).  That’s the Real Truth.

Courage: How much pain can I stand?  How much more can I risk?  I find that whatever is un-comfortable, if I contain it and study it, turns into “wisdom”––i.e., knowing what to do (or not to do) so my grandchildren will benefit.    It requires more calm energy to “take a stand” and hold it, than to either fight or flee, but when I do “contain the pain,” the energy flows, and the results are a lot more to my liking.

Curiosity: My drive to understand and know “all there is to know” has carried me through the process of clearing up so many mysteries that I feel my arms are full of “gifts.”  From…  To…

From Plato to Akhnaten (the monotheistic pharaoh), from Abraham to Gautama, from Freud and Jung to Seligman and Rosenberg (of non-violent communication fame), from Kabbalah to Tarot, from prayer to meditation, from marriage to marriage, through degrees in philosophy, theology, and psychology.

Knowledge really is power, but not power-over; rather, power to empower––the greatest satisfaction of all.

But enough about me.

What about you?

Please send your questions about Life to

drmartin-solutions@gmail.com

and we will wrestle with them together.

(don’t send money)

Or you are welcome to call me 
for an appointment at my home office: 
413-695-7939