Winter 2003

This information effective for Winter 2003. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Merrill College

[MERR-120]

120. Personal Empowerment

Instructor: Frank Andrews
Office: 317 Thimann
Phone: 459-2776, mesg: 459-4002, home: 423-0969
E-mail: andrews@chemistry

Note: Merrill 120 is admission by consent of instructor only, upon application by the student. Copies of the syllabus and application instructions are available from the notice board outside my office, 317 Thimann.

Course Description:

This is a cross-disciplinary course on Personal Empowerment, General Problem-Solving, Psychological Unblocking, Creativity, Goals, Wisdom, Meaning. and Richness in Life.

Much of this course is devoted to individual goal-oriented behavior, or what is commonly called problem-solving. How people identify, take on, and solve their problems will be considered through intensive personal scrutiny, exercises, and reading, both in class and outside. The purpose of the course is for the participants to experience control over their lives, to choose and solve problems which lead to their own long-term satisfaction and to the enrichment of their society. The course is of professional value for people who plan to be counselors, teachers, administrators, problem-solvers, or who wish to cultivate their creativity.

The following topics will receive special focus:

• Problems, purposes, and goals
• Meaning in life
• The origin and cultivation of emotions
• Languages, model-building, and reality
• Thinking and creativity
• The steps of solving problems
• Common blocks and techniques of unblocking
• What’s it all for, and how do you experience appreciation, caring, concern, delight, enthusiasm, joy, sensitivity, surrender, and wonder in the process of it all

Readings: From the Bay Tree Bookstore:

• Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg,
• The Art and Practice of Loving, by Frank Andrews,
• Meetings at the Edge, by Stephen Levine, and a number of handouts.

Notice: This course is intended for people of all majors who are doing well and want to do better. It is not a course in psychotherapy and is not designed for people who want psychotherapy.

Enrollment is limited. Admission is by permission of instructor on written application from student. You are admitted when I give you the course number needed to enroll.

Please read this information sheet and get all your questions answered so you can make a clean decision either to request admission to the class or not to. If you are admitted, you must attend the first class meeting to hold your place.

General Philosophy: If this course leaves you with the habit of self-examination and gives you some tools for that examination, it will have proved one of your most valuable classes. Use all the work, the reading, whatever happens in class, how you respond to anything in your life throughout the term, as grist for the mill of the course. The responsibility for the outcome is yours. You may well find yourself bored, triumphant, angry, disgusted, excited, whatever, by things that happen in class, in the reading, or in the exercises assigned. Just notice how you are reacting and go ahead and do the assignments anyway. Use the class and this term as a microcosm of how you run your life. Learn from whatever happens. But do the work of the class, whether you want to or not. People stop themselves from growing and succeeding by giving away their power in favor of what they want or don’t want. It’s okay not to want to do the work of the course, but do it anyway, confronting the barriers and distractions that will come up.

Reading: I will announce when each reading will be due. Be sure you have read it by then. I will hand out some dittoed reading in class. Read these by the class meeting after they are handed out. Be sure you get the reading done by the deadlines. This is a course in overcoming blocks. So when you come up against your habitual blocks push through them. Use the help of the class, if need be. We could build a whole course around any one of the books, and most of the ideas and practices take effect only after months or years of practice. Remember that the value of this experience is not measured by where you are 10 weeks from now, but by the quality of your life and what you accomplish in the years ahead.

The assignment when reading is not the usual understanding or remembering of the material. It is to read each reading by the date due with the strong aim to get what you can from it. Note that is not to judge, evaluate, agree, disagree, or criticize. Watch how you use negative judgments of parts of a book, or of an author’s style (e.g., don’t like it, jargon, sexist language, old fashioned, etc.) to write off the author as a loser with nothing to say to you. Know that everything life will offer you will have its negative features as well as its positive. Learn more than just from the content of the readings learn about yourself from your response to the readings. Notice if you get righteous about your personal judgments.

Journal: Great numbers of people have found that keeping a self-reflective journal is, by itself, a way to transform their life. The journal you keep for the course is an important part of the experience. As you do the readings, as or after you do exercises in class or out of class, as you reflect on the events of your life, write your reflections in the journal. Write almost every day; by so doing you will create a relationship with journaling that is far more powerful than what you would get from, say, weekly journaling. A loose-leaf notebook works well. Your journal is your scratch copy; don’t rewrite anything, regardless of the mess. If you want to make changes, leave the first version, so you can still read it, and make the changes on a separate sheet. The journal should be a complete record of your work and written reflections arising out of the course experience. Please begin keeping it immediately.

I want to read your journals. This will motivate you to do and reflect on the work of the course. This is hard motivation to come by in our society. Rarely do people give a damn what we do. Turn in the new pages you have written to me as you write them, i.e., on most of the class meetings (and at the very least every week). [Note: I plan to walk to and from campus from home carrying your written material in my pack, so please take the current pages out of your notebook or photocopy them for me.] If there are parts you don’t want me to read, either write a note to that effect at the top of the page(s) of private material, or tape or staple another sheet over the private areas. I will make no attempt to read what you don’t want me to, and I will respect the confidentiality of all the material in your journal. I intend to return your pages to you at the next class meeting after I get them. I may write comments on some of them, and I may just put a check mark to indicate I read it. If you want comments on particular parts, request them and I will be sure to write them. You are likely to find that reading through your journal from time to time is a rewarding process.

What to write? The first rule is write anything, but write. “You cannot stray the path bends with your feet.” Go for quantity, not quality. Watch perfectionism block you from getting started. And learn from it and overcome it. Watch yourself procrastinate. And learn how you do it and overcome it. Never beat yourself up for writing anything. Date what you write. Work toward feedback. I.e., when you finish and read something over, write, “When I read this over, I feel.” Dialogues are good to write, e.g., regarding any problem. Write out a dialogue with the problem, or with yourself, or with any other person(s) involved, or with society or events or your body. Sitting at the notebook with pen in hand draws things out of you that you wouldn’t guess were there. You can consciously choose the orientation of your writing to draw out what you want. I will assign writings from time to time. Be guided by Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down the Bones, which is not only a book on writing, but also a superb metaphor for living.

One last suggestion. People tend to write about events and their feelings about events. Their style suggests there is a mechanical connection between the two that we are here on earth to go through a set of motions dictated by circumstances, feeling the way the circumstances dictate. Life, however, offers more than that.

The Whiskered Guru

                 The cat snores softly; 
                 I ask him, "Why are we here?"  
                 He yawns and stretches.

I hold that we are here to learn, to grow, and to love. A powerful strategy for turning your life into a learning, growing process is to live life deliberately as a process of discovery and intention. So in concluding a journal entry, ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” You can learn about yourself, others, and the world from anything. What it takes to learn is the determination to learn. You can practice scanning events and your response to them with the strong will to see lessons. Thus you “discover” the lessons in life (Or maybe you “create” them. It makes no difference.) Each of us lives a life that is incredibly rich in lessons, tailored precisely for us.

Words can be more than just talking about something. Certain words are actions, not symbols. If you promise something, commit to something, the act of saying or writing the promise is the promising, or at least the formalizing of the commitment. So couple your discovery statements with intention statements. These don’t have to be big intentions. Make them specific and checkable: “I intend to strike up a conversation with one new person before I go to bed tonight.” “I will pass up desert at dinner.” Mark you intention statements so you can quickly find them later, to see if you held to them. I you did, then acknowledge yourself for your success. If you didn’t, then use that as an opportunity to learn, and recommit, not as an opportunity to beat yourself up.

Five problem areas : Immediately choose 4 to 6 problems or problem areas or goals of yours to focus on throughout the course. These will give you concrete directions for applying the generalities from the reading and class. I’ve listed below a few of the problem areas some people have used, just to stimulate your thinking. Yours should be genuine problems or goals of yours. Choose the most important ones in your life right now. You can, of course, keep the nature of some of yours to yourself. ASSIGNMENT: Bring a thorough statement of each of your problems to the second meeting of the class.

It will be most useful if you choose a variety, since techniques appropriate to one kind are not necessarily useful with another. These areas might relate to academic, social, or romantic or sexual life, to family, job, leisure-time, money, physical health, or vaguer areas of concern, anxiety, stress, or challenge. You are likely to find that you will work a lot on some of these areas, not much on others, and that new areas arise to occupy you during some of the term. Examples:

Changing a Habit. Being late, overeating, over-smoking, over-drinking, under-studying, speaking too much or too little, under-exercise, procrastinating, quitting, failing, sexual performance, excessive drugs. These often represent conflicts between long-term and short-term motives.

Communication Problems. Hiding truths, unassertive, resentful.

Unwanted Feelings. Depression, anger, anxiety, tension, shame, boredom, pressure, worthlessness, meaninglessness, fear, guilt, futility, embarrassed.

Unclear Motives. What am I doing here, what to major in, how to spend leisure time.

Skill Problems. Coursework, music performance, paper-writing, mathematics, chess, baseball, taking examinations, getting money, loneliness, coping with changes (like leaving home), time pressure.

Relationship Problems. Parent, roommate, sibling, romantic partner, friend, child, other relative, coworker, boss, teacher, employee, pupil.

Others. Something you want to have, to become, to change, to affect, to do, to experience.

Success in this course will depend on your willingness to work at the (extensive) assignments and to share your insights and frustrations in class and in writing. Assignments and exercises are likely to cover a wide spectrum including the interesting and relevant, the boring and irrelevant, and the downright obnoxious. All will be valuable grist for the course, which is designed to heighten your self-awareness while you learn to make self-awareness a tool for life-long growth.

You can expect to probe your own motives for all aspects of your life and for your future plans. You can expect to do a lot of reflecting and journal writing. You should plan to give this course the 15 or more hours per week that would represent 1/3 of your course load this term. You can expect your normal ways of responding to stimuli to be challenged in such a way that you experience greater personal control over the quality of your life and over your actions.

Class meetings will be directed by the instructor. They won’t be typical seminar meetings in which the game is to kick ideas around. Our game is our mutual growth. They won’t be encounter groups in which people emote at each other and are left raw. There will certainly be emotions expressed during class meetings, but they will be grist for our mill of self-observation. We are here to support each others’ growth, so we intend to bring emotions to closure and use them for the growth of us all.

The personal nature of the course makes evaluation of student progress difficult. Letter grades are inappropriate for this course, though you of course have the right to request one. Narrative evaluations will be based on the journal, class participation, and your own self-evaluation. The narrative evaluation is unlikely to capture the most important elements of the experience.

Do not hesitate to phone me at home, 423-0969; my family does not mind. My home is at 1025 Laurent, located 2 blocks toward the bay on Laurent off of High Street, or 2 blocks up Laurent off of Escalona. Number is on mailbox, curb, and house.

Human interactions are generally conducted under sets of agreements designed to benefit all the people involved. Usually we don’t make those agreements explicit. Thus, different people have different senses of what the agreements are. This leads to innumerable troubles. Often we go along in the spirit that if you don’t mention my broken agreements, I won’t mention yours. In our culture people don’t appreciate the importance to their lives of making clear agreements and then keeping them, whether they want to or not. We’ve not been taught to abide by, argue for, and believe in OUR decisions. We play social and business games, but refuse to play them wholeheartedly. So we hold back and sabotage ourselves.

How do agreements work? When we are in touch with our motivation for some enterprise, we willingly agree to all sorts of things. But later, when out of touch with that motivation, we can’t recreate the feeling that led to making the agreement in the first place. Then to what do we give allegiance? What is the final arbiter of our behavior? Too often we let that be our feelings or our wants. When we are lost in the seas of circumstances, feelings, and wants, the only rudder we have to keep on course is the fact that we gave our word. We made an agreement, either with ourself or with someone else. So we can let the final arbiter be our word, our commitment. By strengthening the power of our word, we stay on purpose and give our life thrust and direction.

This course is conducted under an explicit set of agreements. Each person’s keeping all of these agreements is essential for full benefit to be realized by everyone.

1. I freely choose to be in this course, and take that choice seriously and am responsible for keeping my contract of agreements.
2. I embrace the purpose of the course as the personal empowerment of every member of the course. I will work hard to assure my own growth and will support all members in their own. I agree to ask for support in keeping my agreements and to give that support to other participants.
3. I will attend all class meetings, on time, and stay until class is over. Class is scheduled for a full 90 minutes, and Frank intends to end each class by the scheduled ending time. If it is after that time and the class is still going on and I have another pressing activity, I am free to leave.
4. I will bring my notebook to class.
5. I will notify Frank and/or the class in advance about any previous commitment of overriding importance which I choose to honor, rather than attending class.
6. I will notify Frank and/or the class immediately of emergencies which prevent my attending class. I will do this responsibly, aware that I have agreed to attend and my absence will make a difference to everyone. Frank’s extension is 2776, and his message number is 4002.
7. If I miss all or part of any class, by the next class I will find out the details of what happened and learn and complete any assignments that were made.
8. I will treat problems and incidents in people’s lives that are shared in class as private communications, never to be disclosed outside class in a form that could lead to identification of the sharer with his/her communication.
9. I will do the assignments when assigned. That includes keeping the journal on most days and turning it in weekly.
10. I will write a thoughtful evaluation or retrospective paper on my experience of the course at the end of term.
11. I will handle whatever complaints I may have by communicating them to the person best able to do something about the situation. If about the class, this is likely to be Frank. If about some class member, it is that person. I agree not to complain or criticize to someone who can’t do something about it.
12. I agree to be responsible for my own emotions and feelings in this class, and not to blame them on others. I agree to create value for myself and others out of what happens.
13. I acknowledge that there will be no guests or visitors to this class, other than people Frank may invite to come as professionals.
14. I acknowledge that there will be no final exam in this class, but that the class will meet during the entire scheduled final exam period.
15. I will take risks and expose my secret and embarrassing problems in the writing exercises and verbally in class rather than play it safe and hide my natural human attributes from myself and others. I will support others in doing the same.
16. If I break my agreements, I will use that occasion to examine the role of agreements and commitment in my life, to look at what it means to be committed, and to see who is responsible for what I do and don’t do.

I have read the information describing this course and have gotten all my questions answered. I want to take this course and hereby ask to be admitted. I know the class will be held MWF from 3:30 to 5:00. I have read the Contract of Agreements, and have asked enough questions so that I understand all its features. I agree to be responsible for that Contract, for making its provisions my own, so that this course becomes “my course” and the agreements are “my agreements,” not those of someone else, dumped on me.

Name:________________________________________________
 
Major:______________
 
Year: Fr__, Soph__, Jr__, Sr__, Grad__, Other__.
 
Email address:  (only if you read your email regularly) 
 
When do you plan to graduate?________________________________________
 
College:_________________________________
 
Phone:____________________
 
Address:___________________________________________________________

Please use the rest of this sheet and the back side if necessary (or separate page(s)) to apply for acceptance into this class this term. Thank you very much.