The Bridge #100

in which we celebrate longevity !

Hello

& Welcome ! The Bridge is a newsletter connecting the professional and the personal creatively across cultures and a diversity of topics, until we are not only full of ideas but also ready to take action.

The Bridge turns 4 years old today! 🎉

Writing and publishing every two weeks (with the occasional bonus essay peppered in to keep things spicy) for 48 months has created new habits within me that are now difficult to shake. I’m stuck at the speed of turtles, snails, and sloths… but watch out! Even sloths know how to drive a car:

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Something to Consider

In the movie Soul there are two main characters, one afraid to live, another afraid to die. They team up to help one another and in the process discover a meaningful life is perhaps to be found in the little things (like helicopter seeds falling from a maple tree in summer, or like eating your first slice of NYC pizza).

A bit banal, maybe, and yet there's nothing more profound than realising for oneself the joyfully funny truth of a story told about two fish (as recounted in the film) —

A fish swims up to an older fish and says, “I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.” The ocean? says the older fish. That’s what you’re in right now. “This?” says the young fish. “This is water. What I want is the ocean.”

Get it? It’s a joke about the meaning of the story, of the movie. It’s talking about the search for meaning in life, when we’re already living it…

While we let that sink in (slowly), try listening to the film soundtrack. It’s a mix of jazz and metaphysical space age type stuff. An unusual musical concoction, if we’re honest.

(but hey! we're making things up as we go— Nothing more to it.) We’re serious.

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Something to Spark Conversation

Going through the archives of The Bridge, I remembered that after attending to the first nine months of my second daughter’s life, there were things I learned that I felt compelled to share. Recently our daughter turned 3 years old, so maybe there are other things that I have learned from her.

Maybe? 😊

Here briefly are three lessons I’ve learned watching my three year old grow:

(1) It’s really complicated raising kids bilingual. For those who have read up on the topic, it can seem simple. One parent speaks their native language all the time, and the other parent speaks the other language, so then the kid feels it’s normal to hear each language, and their mind starts to make sense of it early on while their minds are like a sponge… Except that Gwenn just started talking in the last year, and I was her primary parent. If I spoke in English while other kids were around (such as, at a playground) - then it would drive potential new friends away, because French is the language that the other kids were learning. So gotta speak in their language. Plus, Gwenn was learning basic vocabulary, and if I was constantly saying the opposite of what she was trying to say, then she’d get frustrated expressing herself, or I’d get frustrated not knowing if she’d understood me. So it was important to create a close bond first, and the basics of communication. Now that she’s more verbal, we can talk about colors for instance when in the privacy of home, and I’ll give the English word for rouge (as an example), and she’ll say (in French) “or, papa, also called red.” Success!

(2) It’s OK to express anger. This goes for parents as well as children. Sometimes she yells at me, not wanting to go to bed. Sometimes she wacks me on the head for taking too long to go outside. Other times I’m yelling at her because I’ve said it patiently, I’ve said it quietly, I’ve repeated it simply and tried explaining it goodnaturedly, I’ve offered a firm command and I’ve asked her nicely, and still she isn’t doing whatever it is that seems very important to me that she do. So I’m yelling! And it becomes an expression of all the other frustrations and humiliations we endure as parents that are legitimate too, and sure - it’s not good to yell. But there are different ways to do it, I’ve learned. And when we’re learning the difference between our children expressing emotion in a healthy way and expressing their protest in a manipulative manner, this is useful for knowing when to give them space and when to ignore them. It’s also so important that we parents not be repressing our emotions, AND YET being able to apologize and restore connection through a loving hug full of forgiveness and re-affirmation of the basics… this makes all things better.

(3) Two parents are not enough for raising kids well. We know that it’s difficult for a single parent to raise children, and we know that if both parents are working, it’s going to be difficult as well. I’d argue that we honestly shouldn’t expect two parents to be the “ones responsible” for raising kids at all. It’s definitely a “village” effort: We need the teachers and nannies, the friends of the kids, and the parents of the friends of the kids, the adult friends without kids, the neighbors… everybody helping out to sprinkle wisdom and joy and balance into the kids’ lives, because two parents on their own are going to get tired, plain and simple.

Thanks for reading!
(I guess you can tell by how “briefly” I wrote these lessons out, I could talk about parenting all day every day. Might be I weave some of that in to The Bridge in year 5 more often. Thoughts?)

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A Thing to Enjoy

So… last summer I spotlighted a song that helped put Black Eyed Peas on the map, (“Where is the Love?”). The chorus is catchy but the verse lyrics are so deep, they should be studied in schools. (check ‘em out.) Much more profound than their “I Gotta Feeling” but maybe when the world seems in trouble, and it’s hard to ignore, and we’re not sure what else to do, we dance in a club and sing simple lyrics to forget our pain : Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night, because then no matter what else, when we’re dancing, then it is (a good night).

So then I recently discovered another gem (“Gone Going”) from the Black Eyed Peas repetoire, a song featured on the same album as some other dance hits, and it’d be normal to question whether or not lead singer will.i.am has stuck to the message he’s preaching, but the world is strange, and this song has a soulful reminder: He a star now, but he ain’t singing from the heart / sooner or later he’s just gonna fall apart / ‘cause his fans can’t relate to his new found art / he ain’t doing what he did from the start / And that’s putting in some feeling and thought.

So good when we put in feeling and thought, and we connect to our souls, uplifted by our art. Important to carefully guard that, when money could be traded for it, and you’d be rich and famous, but after a time it might be “Gone Going.” & what is it you’d most want to keep (your money or your soul)?

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Let’s Practice

It’s said we need to do it ourselves to be happy, that we can individuate and become independent and find our true path through planning on our own and do our own thing: The myth is not easy to resist. Not easy to balance the need to succeed to be safe and the need to feel safe to stop succeeding, to know when we’ve hustled enough.

This year I made it a primary mission to help others liberate themselves from holding too tight to one identity (what we do for work, e.g.) — with the mission to help money to flow more freely and our emotions too. So that we can be healthier and richer in community.

To that end, I’m wanting to spread the word about my coaching practice with you. If you have a moment, please check out my new website and share with those for whom you think it could resonate. Thanks in advance!

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Thanks for being part
of the conversation! 😊

😎 Speak soon,
JPC 😎