What
is success? Someone has said that a person is a success "who
has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; whose life is an
inspiration, whose memory is a benediction."
Given
that definition, why would I choose to discuss the Biblical Job
as an example of success? At first recall, the story of Job is one
we don't willingly wish to revisit. After all, it's about the richest
man in the east losing everything he owns. Property is one thing,
but this man's ten children are wiped out as well. Worse, it's about
his whining and complaining (the Prologue is titled, "Job's
Complaint to God.") in response to his loss. And even worse
than that, just because his wife gets real angry in her grief and
tells her husband to drop dead, she's dropped from the story and
we never hear of her again! So this column is a tribute to Job's
wife, who I think models a certain kind of success for women.
I
believe that the story of Job (and Job's wife) is a profound teaching
about coping skills and the rewards that accrue to those who cope
well. Every aspect of life, personal, social, and business, contains
the ups and downs, increases and losses, that call on our ability
to handle stress. The built-in mechanism we humans have to metabolize
stress and to reach higher levels of wisdom and creativity is grief.
I've learned, after all these years, that my mother's version of
swearing, "Good Grief!", was absolutely right. It's not
only good, but imperative, that we register every reversal of fortune
and honor, every drowned disappointment with grieving feelings (remember,
our tears contain stress hormones). The more we attune to feelings,
the faster they resolve. In this way, our grief doesn't become a
grievance.
|
"A
person is a success who has lived well, laughed
often, and loved much..."
|
The
first grieving feeling available to us is actually the protective
defense we call "denial." When Job said, "The Lord
giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord,"
he entered this first stage of grief. We know this because the rest
of the story is about the other reactions Job discovered: strong
anger, relentless obsession about the unfairness of his loss, and
the depression that wiped out his immune system. Job's wife, like
most women, didn't sit with denial, but quickly tuned to anger before
Job did. I'd like to think that she moved through her grief, as
resilient women do, and reached new levels of self-acceptance, self-renewal
and personal power long before her husband did. To reinforce that
belief, let's call her Sophia, the name of Wisdom and the feminine
God-Force.
With
Wisdom, we can successfully overcome every seeming setback. The
story of Job (and Job's wife) tells us that as we respect all our
feelings, anger and rage included, we learn to accept the creative
cycles of loss and regeneration, and we achieve understanding and
great abundance. Sophia is referred to in the Wisdom literature
as "the breath of the power of God," and "breath"
means "inspiration." So:
1. Speak your grief and help others express
theirs.
2. Know that as you process anger,
obsession and depression, you are
moving beyond false beliefs in failure in order to reach powerful
possibilities.
3. Nurture every vision of success.
Studies
of successful professional women confirm that they, like Sophia
or Job's wife, use "creative aggression" in furthering
their aims. "Creative aggression" means speaking out,
taking a stand, defending opinions, formulating goals and taking
the steps to achieve those goals. Being successful, then, means
being yourself (even if that means being angry), speaking from the
heart, and finding Wisdom to help your self and others understand
and enjoy the wild and wonderful ways of the world. Using the feminine
force of God means powerful self-expression, and this self-expression
spells "Success."
Dr. Gail
Feldman is a clinical psychologist, award-winning author, and
enthusiastic public speaker. Her most recent book, Releasing
the Goddess Within, coauthored with Katherine Gleason,
is now available Her classic, From Crisis to Creativity:
Taking Advantage of Adversity, has been published
in an updated edition in London by TimeWarner. She is also trained
in hypnotherapy, regression therapy, and eye movement desensitization
and reporcessing (EDMR).
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Dr. Feldman
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© Gail Carr
Feldman, PhD
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