Author: Craig Constantine

Elizabeth Cunningham | Self-Advocacy

April 6, 2023 · All posts on Apr 6

On Castbox.fm — Elizabeth Cunningham | Self-Advocacy

What role does self-advocacy play in creating authentic and fulfilling relationships?

Self-advocacy is redefined as a cornerstone for personal and relational growth.

In advocating for your needs, you’re actually leading the way for the people that you serve to advocate for their needs.

~ Elizabeth Cunningham (4:15)

The conversation explores the concept of self-advocacy as a foundation for personal development and authentic relationships. It begins with reflections on the openness of participants at the Art of Retreat and transitions into how self-advocacy is an overlooked cornerstone in personal and professional life. Elizabeth emphasizes that advocating for one’s own needs fosters not only personal growth but also serves as an example for others, countering the misconception that self-advocacy is selfish.

Another focal point is the journey toward self-awareness and identifying areas where needs are unmet. This includes helping individuals recognize patterns of self-sacrifice and enabling them to understand the importance of prioritizing their own well-being. Elizabeth highlights the challenge of meeting people where they are without pushing solutions onto them, stressing the importance of cultivating genuine curiosity and allowing others to arrive at their realizations.

Takeaways

Self-advocacy — A foundational principle for personal and relational growth.

Self-awareness — Begins by identifying where personal needs are unmet or ignored.

Community dynamics — Movement and service-based communities often prioritize others at their own expense.

Leadership in needs — Advocating for personal needs models the behavior for others.

Coaching strategies — Effective coaching meets people where they are and avoids imposing solutions.

Cultural openness — Environments like retreats foster unique receptivity to self-growth ideas.

Intersection of service and self-care — Balancing helping others with self-prioritization creates a sustainable cycle of compassion.

Resources

Elizabeth Cunningham’s Linktree — Provides access to her all of her coaching services and work.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT)

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Open with Tom Huntington

April 5, 2023 · All posts on Apr 5

What are the key principles and ideas behind the “Open and Curious” project, and how do they apply to fostering meaningful conversations and personal growth?

Explore how curiosity, complexity, and personal growth intersect in the journey of crafting conversations and podcasts.

But a lot of us get this memo—who didn’t get it early in life—begin to get it in middle age. I’ve never had this thought before, but the middle age thing… what [our culture calls] the midlife crisis. Well the midlife crisis is really getting […] I’m not supposed to keep trying to be perfect.

~ Tom Huntington (5:11)

Craig and Tom engage in a thoughtful conversation about curiosity, control, and personal growth, touching on how these ideas intersect with podcasting and everyday life. Tom expresses his excitement about Craig’s project, Open and Curious, seeing it as a principle of life and an approach to understanding healthy human nature. They discuss the tension between trying to control outcomes, especially in conversations and creative work, and allowing curiosity to guide the process. Craig reflects on how developing curiosity can help podcasters move conversations in meaningful directions without forcing control, while Tom emphasizes the importance of being open without slipping into chaos.

Another theme is the challenge of balance in life and learning. Tom shares his personal experience of trying to manage too many ideas, leading to a feeling of being out of balance, and describes the importance of self-awareness in recognizing the problem as internal rather than external. They also touch on midlife revelations, where people begin questioning the pursuit of perfection and the pressures of society. Tom’s reflections on mental health and how openness affects both individual growth and relationships add depth to the discussion, bringing in insights from neuroscience and attachment theory.

Takeaways

The power of curiosity — developing curiosity can guide conversations and lead to meaningful outcomes without needing control.

The balance between openness and chaos — being too open can lead to chaos, while too much rigidity can stifle growth and learning.

The challenge of midlife revelations — midlife often brings a realization that the pursuit of perfection is futile, prompting a shift in perspective.

Learning from self-awareness — recognizing that certain recurring problems are internal, rather than blaming external factors, is key to personal growth.

Curiosity in podcasting — allowing curiosity to shape the direction of conversations can lead to natural, engaging dialogues, especially in creative projects.

The role of self-compassion — focusing on what was done well, rather than dwelling on past mistakes, fosters a healthier mindset.

Managing too many ideas — having too many ideas can lead to overwhelm, and it’s important to prioritize and recognize when to set things aside.

Mental health and openness — staying open to learning and new experiences is crucial for mental health, but must be balanced to avoid overwhelming chaos.

Attachment theory in growth — understanding how relationships and brain science intersect offers valuable insight into personal development and mental health.

Resources

The Developing Mind — a book by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel that explores how relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are, drawing on neuroscience and attachment theory.

Open and Curious — a project focusing on curiosity, conversation, and personal growth, discussed extensively throughout the conversation.

Podcaster Community — a community for independent podcasters where ideas like Open and Curious are shared and discussed.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Ya big softie

April 5, 2023 · All posts on Apr 5

Maybe I’m just a big sentimental softie, but I bet if you peer deep into your past, you don’t see a list of names, dates, and places. Instead, I bet you get a hodgepodge of images and events, and I bet that some of the details are hazy or mixed up, like who was there, what they were wearing, or whether it happened when you were six or when you were eight. But I bet the feelings are clear. You’re probably not confused about whether you felt proud or afraid, welcomed or rejected. And I bet that although you could describe these memories to me—a golden-hued day at the zoo, the last fight your parents had before they got divorced—the words would leave a lot out. To really get me to understand, you’d need to hook your brain up to mine, Avatar-style, so I could feel what you felt.

~ Adam Mastroianni from, You’ll forget most of what you learn. What should you do about that?

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Mastroianni’s article is about learning. In particular, how and why and when we forget, and what might we try to do about that fact. I go through cycles of grasping at trying to remember, and leaning into the forgetting. At the end, I expect I’ll forget everything. (Just sayin’.)

My life improves when I realize that my happiness is relative to where I set my sights. If my goal is to remember as much as possible, I’m going to fall short and be disappointed. If my goal is to be pleasantly surprised when I’m reminded of things (experiences, ideas from others, and my own ideas) which I had already discovered, then that suggests a different course of action. Rather than strain to hold on to everything, I try to release everything from within my mind, and try arrange the world around me to bring me joy.

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Entire vital function

April 4, 2023 · All posts on Apr 4

So far as man stands for anything, and is productive or originative at all, his entire vital function may be said to have to deal with maybes. Not a victory is gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a service, not a sally of generosity, not a scientific exploration or experiment or textbook, that may not be a mistake. It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.

~ William James

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How does this even exist?

April 3, 2023 · All posts on Apr 3

In fact, now I’m wondering if that’s one way you know something is great? When you say: “How does this even exist?”

~ Austin Kleon from, The making of Lilo & Stitch

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Yes, that’s definitely one way.

In about ten weeks I’m making my annual journey to Boston and neighboring Somerville for a parkour event. Much has changed over the years I’ve been going. It’s moved from Septembers to Junes. The size has waxed and waned. A few of the same people are usually there, and there is an endless banquet of new forever-friends.

If you get into doing this thing, and you start going to play and train with others, you soon have a very unusual problem: The more you run into a particular someone, the more it happens in different places. You start to have this precious view of who this person is separated from where that person normally is. Sometimes you know someone well, but have no idea where you know them from. It’s weird. It’s awesome. How does this even exist?

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A glimpse

April 2, 2023 · All posts on Apr 2

The best way to get a vivid impression and feeling of a landscape, is to sit down before it and read, or become otherwise absorbed in thought; for then, when your eyes happen to be attracted to the landscape, you seem to catch Nature unawares, and see her before she has time to change her aspect. The effect lasts but for a single instant, and passes away almost as soon as you are conscious of it; but it is real, for that moment. It is as if you could overhear and understand what the trees are whispering to one another; as if you caught a glimpse of a face unveiled, which veils itself from every willful glance. The mystery is revealed, and after a breath or two, becomes just as great a mystery as before.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne from, Nathaniel Hawthorne on How to Look and Really See

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*sigh* Some people can write.

There’s a practice to reaching that effect. At first, I couldn’t pull it off. After much practice, I can now arrive at this state quite regularly. Alas, at no time have I ever imagined as delightful a description as Hawthorne’s. The interesting part of the effect—at least, the effect I’m experiencing—is that it is quite clearly me that is different. Our brains are powerful filters; salient is how we describe that which our brains admit. In experiencing this effect, it feels like the salience filter is transparent… as if, instead of feeling swamped by sensory input, the window to the world is momentarily perfectly clear.

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Bitter or better?

March 31, 2023 · All posts on Mar 31

The Stoics would agree that the world can be ugly and awful and disappointing. They would just remind us that what we control is what we do about this. We control what difference we try to make. We control whether it makes us bitter or makes us better—whether we complain or just get to work.

~ Ryan Holiday from, Why I Pick up Trash at the Beach

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My grasp is failing. My ability to keep track of this, and make a plan for organizing that, is waning. Each year I more quickly become frustrated at unforeseen twists and foreseen complexities. Believing I’m successfully juggling just two things, I’m surprised to discover one has already hit the floor. I’ve moved beyond having a to-do list long enough that many items are below the fold; the regularity of adding items near the top means the items below the fold will never get done. Instead, I have multiple systems piled up in sedimentary fashion. Entire segments of my life, which I thought were integral to my identity, have fallen below the fold.

And every day my life gets better. I wish I’d learned the lesson sooner.

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Why aren’t you working on that?

March 29, 2023 · All posts on Mar 29

Richard Hamming was a mathematician who worked at Bell Labs during the 1940s-1970s. He had a habit of sitting down with scientists in other fields and asking them “What are the important problems of your field?” After they explained their field’s most important open problem, he would ask them: why aren’t you working on that?

~ “CFAR!Duncan” from, Appendix

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Ouch! I wonder if Hamming got punched in the face a lot? That’s a link to an appendix that doesn’t have an attributed person as the author. But if you can see past all that, it’s a series of eight prompts which really cut through my bullshit. “Why am I not working on that?” …well, actually, I am trying to work on that. Unfortunately, I’m also dividing my efforts in too many other directions simultaneously.

Maybe that’s just me though?

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Fragmentary

March 27, 2023 · All posts on Mar 27

The paragraph above has a topic sentence, then three fragments. Yes, fragments. Like this and the one before it. A fragment is a non-sentence; it does not have a subject and main verb. Students are taught that fragments are errors. Hogwash! Writers use fragments all the time. Your English teacher may not like it and the college admissions office may not either. But, learn to use the fragment.

~ Mylinh Shattan, from The Sentence Fragment

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Shattan is writing about writing, and mentions how sentence fragments can hold imagery. I’ve been wondering if this isn’t a critical skill for spoken conversation. Speaking a fragment feels like throwing up a sign post: “Exampleville 15” is helpful in that it gives a definite distance. Deep in a conversation, if I drop in a fragment, it can be a way to indicate I think we’re headed somewhere in particular; fragments can check that are trains of thought still match. Fragments dropped into conversation make sense—like inside jokes—because we’re both on the same journey.

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It’s all problems

March 26, 2023 · All posts on Mar 26

Spearman was right that people differ in their ability to solve well-defined problems. But he was wrong that well-defined problems are the only kind of problems. “Why can’t I find someone to spend my life with?” “Should I be a dentist or a dancer?” and “How do I get my child to stop crying?” are all important but poorly defined problems. “How can we all get along?” is not a multiple-choice question. Neither is “What do I do when my parents get old?” And getting better at rotating shapes or remembering state capitols is not going to help you solve them.

~ Adam Mastroianni from, Why aren’t smart people happier?

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I’m left wondering if the very intelligent are those who can figure out if a problem is, or is not, well-defined. I blast through all sort of work—well-defined problems in Mastroianni’s article—but it doesn’t seem to fulfill me. As soon as I know the problem is well-defined, I lose interest. As soon as I can see a path provided by a solution, I lose interest. Sometimes, I go through the steps to actually do the work. But mostly I just lose interest as soon as know how it would be done.

All of which makes for a vicious cycle: my ability to generate work vastly outstrips my ability to do that work. And I feel the weight of guilt for not doing that work which I feel should be done.

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Get to the point

March 24, 2023 · All posts on Mar 24

Perhaps the most critical communication skill. Be brief. Use as few words as possible to say what you need, and everyone will appreciate it.

~ Morgan Housel, from Rare Skills

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I’m aware that my blog posts, and the weekly 7 for Sunday email derived from them, are often a rambling mess of garage-door-up thinking. I do edit. The key thing that I’m trying to do is to integrate ideas into what I already know, to see what new connections and new ideas I might find. So this post is not at all about telling you, Dear Reader, how to get to the point or even how important it is to get to the point. In fact, I don’t have a point (in this post in particular, and also generally.) Most of the time, if I reach the end of the post and discover I do in fact have a point… well, that’s terrific. I feel it would be cheating to then cover up my work by editing the thing to get more directly to the point.

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There is purpose to existence

March 22, 2023 · All posts on Mar 22

People should not look at their approaching golden years with dread or apprehension but as perhaps one of the most significant stages in their development as a human being, even during these turbulent times. For me, old age has been a renaissance despite the tragedies of losing my beloved wife and son. It’s why the greatest error anyone can make is to assume that, because an elderly person is in a wheelchair or speaks with quiet deliberation, they have nothing important to contribute to society. It is equally important to not say to yourself if you are in the bloom of youth: “I’d rather be dead than live like that.” As long as there is sentience and an ability to be loved and show love, there is purpose to existence.

~ Harry Leslie Smith, from Don’t dread old age…

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“Quiet deliberation,” indeed. I find myself increasingly in that state, (although I am still too–often found in the state of denial.) During interpersonal situations, I find myself thinking: “What could I say here that would actually be useful?” and coming up with “nothing” as my answer I’m left to choose between contributing silence, or contributing social lubrication. That’s a shift of intention which comes from decades of glacial movement towards true self-awareness. I believe it’s time yet again to reschedule my mid-life crisis; it seems I have some more thinking to do.

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