You know how some people have these families that are filled with wise aunties, insightful grandparents, and excellent problem-solving 3rd cousins on your mother's side?
Well, that is not my family.
They are fine people (for the most part). Incredibly interesting. Engaging to have conversations with. People you'd probably enjoy living next door to or sitting next to on a plane, but they are not the people you would turn to when you feel really lost and need insightful, wise counsel about how to proceed.
It is for this reason, that I am always on the look-out for those "kindred spirits" (past and preset) who meet my need for validation, direction, good judgement, and connection.
Recently, I encountered a new "kindred spirit," a 20th century British psychoanalyst named Marion Milner (1900-1998), through a quote by her in a daily twelve-step reader called Everyday a New Beginning.
This quote comes from Ms. Milner's first book titled A Life of One's Own, first published in 1934 under her pen name Joanna Field, and it is a compilation of a 7 year self-study by way of journal keeping, into what makes for an authentically "happy life."
I came to the conclusion then that 'continual mindfulness' could certainly not mean that my little conscious self should be entirely responsible for marshalling and arranging all my thoughts, for it simply did not know enough. It must mean, not a sergeant-major-like drilling of thoughts, but a continual readiness to look and readiness to accept whatever came...Whenever I did so manage to win its services I began to suspect that thought, which I had always before looked on as a cart-horse, to be driven, whipped and plodding between shafts, might be really a Pegasus, so suddenly did it alight beside me from places I had no knowledge of.
First and foremost, it must be said, I was thrilled to see the word "mindfulness" in a book written by a western woman in the early 20th century.
Second, as a life-long journal keeper myself (in various formats),
I have a great appreciation for the capacity of building self-awareness and insight through the written word.
And lastly, I really like the idea that 75 years before the publication of Gretchen Rubin's 2009 book: The Happiness Project,
another woman, on another continent, was also contemplating and publishing on the same topic.
It would seem there are millions of women over time who have acquired knowledge and wisdom about how to "compose a life" (to borrow another book title by another woman named
Mary Bateson,
daughter of renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead),
yet their stories remain hidden in the bookshelves behind their more publicized male counterparts.
Not coincidentally, the twelve-step reader I just referred to, Everyday a New Beginning, is a tiny, hand-held book with a green cover that I unearthed from the free shelf at the Boston Public Library in 1995, when I was 18 years-old.
Funny now to think about, but being young as I was, I didn't know that it was actually a book designed for women in Alcoholics Anonymous. (Yes, feel free to laugh now, I do.)
Innocently, in my first semester of my freshman year of college, I just saw the book, opened it up, and fell in love with the idea of women offering hard-won wisdom to other women who really needed it.
Alcoholics Anonymous was never to become a part of my journey, but I still love the book, and it remains one of my steady guides to stay on track when I feel like a train that is about to derail.
Since reading that quote by Ms. Milner, as a psychotherapist myself, I have decided to take a deep dive into her work and writing about her life.
This led me to an online article by yet another female thinker of our time, Maria Popova
who created the website Brain Pickings.
The article is called: "A Life of One's Own: A Penetrating 1930's Field Guide to Self-Possession, Mindful Perception, and the Art of Knowing What You Really Want."
In the article, Ms. Popova includes multiple other passages from A Life of One's Own that were equally enjoyable, and I will include them below, perhaps you may find a kindred spirit as well.
As soon as I began to study my perception, to look at my own experiences, I found that there were different ways of perceiving and that the different ways provided me with different facts. There was a narrow focus which meant seeing life as if from blinkers and with the centre of awareness in my head; and there was a wide focus which meant knowing with the whole of my body, a way of looking which quite altered my perception of whatever I saw...
Not only did I find that trying to describe my experience enhanced the quality of it, but also this effort to describe had made me more observant of the small movements of the mind. So now I began to discover that there were a multitude of ways of perceiving, ways that were controllable by what I can only describe as an internal gesture of the mind. It was as if one's self-awareness had a central point of interest being, the very core of one's I-ness. And this core of being could, I now discovered, be moved about at will; but to explain just how it is done to someone who has never felt it for himself is like trying to explain how to move one's ears...
If just looking could be so satisfying, why was I always striving to have things or to get things done? Certainly I had never suspect that the key to my private reality might lie in so apparently simple a skill as the ability to let the senses roam unfettered by purposes. I began to wonder whether eyes and ears might not have a wisdom of their own...
I had been continually exhorted to define my purpose in life, but I was now beginning to doubt whether life might not be too complex a thing to be kept within the bounds of a single formulated purpose, whether it would not burst its way out, or if the purpose were too strong, perhaps grow distorted like an oak whose trunk has been encircled with an iron band. I began to guess that my self's need for an equilibrium, for sun, but not too much, for rain, but not always...So I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know...
I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it...
I had at least begun to guess that my greatest need might be to let go and be free from the drive after achievement- if only I dared. I had also guessed that perhaps when I had let these go, then I might be free to become aware of some other purpose that was more fundamental, not self-imposed private ambitions but some thing which grew out of the essence of one's own nature. People said: 'Oh, be yourself at all costs'. But I had found that it was not so easy to know just what one's self was. It was far easier to want what other people seemed to want and then imagine that the choice was one's own...
It struck me as odd that it had taken me so long to reach a feeling of sureness that there was something in me that would get on with the job of living without my continual tampering. I suppose I did not really reach it until I had discovered how to sink down beneath the level of chattering thoughts and simply feel what it meant to be alive...
I had just begun to ponder over the fact that all the things which I had found to be sources of happiness seemed to depend upon the capacity to relax all straining, to widen my attention beyond the circle of personal interest, and to look detachedly at my own experience. I had just realized that this relaxing and detachment must depend on a fundamental sense of security, and yet that I could apparently never feel safe enough to do it, because there was an urge in me which I had dimly perceived but had never yet been able to face. It was then that the idea occurred to me that until you have, once at least, faced everything you know--the whole universe---with utter giving in, and let all that is 'not you' flow over and engulf you, there can be no lasting sense of security...
By continual watching and expression I must learn to observe my thought and maintain a vigilance, not against 'wrong' thoughts, but against refusal to recognize any thought. Further, the introspection meant continual expression, not continual analysis; it meant that I must bring my thoughts and feelings up in their wholeness, not argue about them and try to pretend they were something different from what they were...
I had also learnt how to know what I wanted; to know that this is not a simple matter of momentary decision, but that it needs a rigorous watching and fierce discipline...It had taught me that my day-to-day personal 'wants' were really the expression of deep underlying needs, though often the distorted expression because of the confusions of blind thinking. I had learnt that if I kept my thoughts still enough and looked beneath them, then I might sometimes know what was the real need, feel it like a child leaping in the womb, though so remotely that I might easily miss it when over-busy with purposes. Really, then, I had found that there was an intuitive sense of how to live...It was only when I was actively passive, and content to wait and watch, that I really knew what I wanted...
By keeping a diary of what made me happy I had discovered that happiness came when I was most widely aware. So I had finally come to the conclusion that my task was to become more and more aware, more and more understanding with an understanding that was not at all the same thing as intellectual comprehension...
As soon as I began to study my perception, to look at my own experiences, I found that there were different ways of perceiving and that the different ways provided me with different facts. There was a narrow focus which meant seeing life as if from blinkers and with the centre of awareness in my head; and there was a wide focus which meant knowing with the whole of my body, a way of looking which quite altered my perception of whatever I saw...
Not only did I find that trying to describe my experience enhanced the quality of it, but also this effort to describe had made me more observant of the small movements of the mind. So now I began to discover that there were a multitude of ways of perceiving, ways that were controllable by what I can only describe as an internal gesture of the mind. It was as if one's self-awareness had a central point of interest being, the very core of one's I-ness. And this core of being could, I now discovered, be moved about at will; but to explain just how it is done to someone who has never felt it for himself is like trying to explain how to move one's ears...
If just looking could be so satisfying, why was I always striving to have things or to get things done? Certainly I had never suspect that the key to my private reality might lie in so apparently simple a skill as the ability to let the senses roam unfettered by purposes. I began to wonder whether eyes and ears might not have a wisdom of their own...
I had been continually exhorted to define my purpose in life, but I was now beginning to doubt whether life might not be too complex a thing to be kept within the bounds of a single formulated purpose, whether it would not burst its way out, or if the purpose were too strong, perhaps grow distorted like an oak whose trunk has been encircled with an iron band. I began to guess that my self's need for an equilibrium, for sun, but not too much, for rain, but not always...So I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know...
I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it...
I had at least begun to guess that my greatest need might be to let go and be free from the drive after achievement- if only I dared. I had also guessed that perhaps when I had let these go, then I might be free to become aware of some other purpose that was more fundamental, not self-imposed private ambitions but some thing which grew out of the essence of one's own nature. People said: 'Oh, be yourself at all costs'. But I had found that it was not so easy to know just what one's self was. It was far easier to want what other people seemed to want and then imagine that the choice was one's own...
It struck me as odd that it had taken me so long to reach a feeling of sureness that there was something in me that would get on with the job of living without my continual tampering. I suppose I did not really reach it until I had discovered how to sink down beneath the level of chattering thoughts and simply feel what it meant to be alive...
I had just begun to ponder over the fact that all the things which I had found to be sources of happiness seemed to depend upon the capacity to relax all straining, to widen my attention beyond the circle of personal interest, and to look detachedly at my own experience. I had just realized that this relaxing and detachment must depend on a fundamental sense of security, and yet that I could apparently never feel safe enough to do it, because there was an urge in me which I had dimly perceived but had never yet been able to face. It was then that the idea occurred to me that until you have, once at least, faced everything you know--the whole universe---with utter giving in, and let all that is 'not you' flow over and engulf you, there can be no lasting sense of security...
By continual watching and expression I must learn to observe my thought and maintain a vigilance, not against 'wrong' thoughts, but against refusal to recognize any thought. Further, the introspection meant continual expression, not continual analysis; it meant that I must bring my thoughts and feelings up in their wholeness, not argue about them and try to pretend they were something different from what they were...
I had also learnt how to know what I wanted; to know that this is not a simple matter of momentary decision, but that it needs a rigorous watching and fierce discipline...It had taught me that my day-to-day personal 'wants' were really the expression of deep underlying needs, though often the distorted expression because of the confusions of blind thinking. I had learnt that if I kept my thoughts still enough and looked beneath them, then I might sometimes know what was the real need, feel it like a child leaping in the womb, though so remotely that I might easily miss it when over-busy with purposes. Really, then, I had found that there was an intuitive sense of how to live...It was only when I was actively passive, and content to wait and watch, that I really knew what I wanted...
By keeping a diary of what made me happy I had discovered that happiness came when I was most widely aware. So I had finally come to the conclusion that my task was to become more and more aware, more and more understanding with an understanding that was not at all the same thing as intellectual comprehension...
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