Daniel Davis, LMFT

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What Do You Say When Someone Talks About Taking Their Life?

May 29, 2018 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 1 Comment

On a warm July night in 1985, I drove to the Capital Drive in Movie Theater to watch “Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome.”

I was 22 years old and had just graduated from West Valley College with my AA degree in French. My friend Arthur who was 33 years old had suggested that we see the film. I was saddened by my father’s death the year before, but I was hopeful about starting at San Jose State University in the Fall as a transfer student.

On this July night, I parked next to the speaker at the drive in theater in my 1984 Toyota Pickup Truck and pulled it into the window of my truck.

Arthur and I chatted about West Valley College and the Oakland Raiders and Sammy Hagar. Arthur suddenly said when I get my check this month, I am going to get my gun out of the pawn shop and kill myself.

I was very angry at Arthur. I was outraged and insisted that he stop talking about it. Arthur kept talking about it, and I drove Arthur home before the movie ever started. I never told anyone what Arthur had said to me. I never spoke to Arthur again.

A month later, Arthur’s brother Bill called me and told me Arthur had killed himself with his shot gun. Bill asked me to be a pall bearer at Arthur’s funeral, and I accepted the honor.

It took me many years to accept what had happened. I felt grief as well as tremendous guilt over many years. My friend Arthur’s suicide was very painful for me.

I wish that I had known to ask someone knowledgeable about Arthur’s intentions to kill himself. I wish I had known what I could do.

Please watch this video by Janet Childs from the Center for Living with Dying about what to say to someone who talks about taking their life:

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Filed Under: Blog, Grief and Loss Tagged With: 1984, Capital Drive in, Centre for Living with Dying, funeral, Janet Childs, Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome, movie, Movie Theater, Oakland Raiders, pall bearer, Sammy Hagar, San Jose State University, suicide, Toyota Pickup Truck, West Valley College

Genius and Intelligence

November 21, 2017 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 1 Comment

What is your gift?  What can you do that no other human being can do just like you?”

“There is nothing special about me!” said the character, Jack Lucas, in the film, The Fisher King.  “I control my own destiny.”

Life is mysterious. Yet I believe that we all have a certain genius. The word genius comes from the root of gignere which was to ‘beget.’  We bring forth or give birth to something, according to this definition of genius.

In the late 16th century, the word genius had evolved to mean natural ability.  By the mid 17th century, genius came to mean ‘exceptional natural ability.”

The evolution of the word genius seems to reflect our cultural perception that we are not all gifted as individuals.  There are special people who are different than average humans, like you and me.

It is my experience that everyone has unique gifts.  School can be confusing, because of its emphasis on language and mathematical ability.  Often we see a person’s I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) as a number which defines whether she or he has genius or not.  Further, our I.Q. is too often seen as fixed and never changing.

Alfred Binet originally developed the intelligence test to identify which French students would have difficulty in school to assist them.  It is ironic that we now use the concept of IQ to label and shame others.  IQ scores have a long history of gender and cultural bias.

Fortunately, Howard Gardner developed the ideas of Multiple Intelligence.  He asserted that there are nine different types of intelligence:

1.  language (Verbal-Linguistic)
2.  mathematics (and logic)
3.  science (Naturalist)
4.  artistic (Visual-Spatial)
5.  athletic (Bodily/Kinesthetic)
6.  musical
7.  interpersonal (social)
8.  intrapersonal (self-awareness)
9.  existential (meaning of life)

Your IQ score will not reveal your creativity, your common sense, or your social skills.  The singer, Lady Gaga has high Musical Intelligence.  The tennis player, Serena Williams has great physical abilities.  The teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn has high intrapersonal Intelligence.

Yet one does not need to be famous to have genius.  I think each of us has unique gifts with which we are born.  It is our opportunity and privilege to develop these talents.  The saddest thing is when families and schools fail to recognize the uniqueness of each child, leaving one to feel insignificant, powerless, or unlovable.

If we work hard at developing our natural gifts, then we are able to experience the joy of expressing our gifts in sophisticated ways.  Richard Bolles writes, “where your great passion meets the great need of the world, that is where your work lies.”

May each of us have the courage to take the heroic journey of individuation.  May we work and struggle to develop the natural gifts with which we are born.

Charles Baudelaire writes that “genius is childhood recaptured.”  A healthy relationship with our inner child may assist us in developing our unique talents in love and work.  Please watch this video by Judith Peterson,M.A., on the Inner Child:

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Filed Under: Becoming Aware (Consciousness), Blog, Career Development, Dialogue Tagged With: “What Color is Your Parachute?, ability, Alfred Binet, artistic, athletic, average, Bodily, book, character, Charles Baudelaire, exceptional, existential, Fisher King, Genius, Howard Gardner, humans, I.Q., intelligence, Intelligence Quotient, interpersonal, intrapersonal, Jack Lucas, Kinesthetic, Lady Gaga, language, Linguistic, logic, mathematics, meaning of life, movie, Multiple, Musical, natural, Naturalist, Richard Bolles, school, Science, self-awareness, Serena Williams, social, Spatial, special people, The Fisher King, Thich Nhat Hahn, Verbal, Visual

Museum: Art as Therapy for Teenagers and Adults

April 26, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

One of my favorite things to do with my mother – who was born in 1934 – is to go to the De Young Museum which is located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, USA.  My mom loves to go to exhibits with art from all parts of the world.  My mom and I as well as other friends have seen sculptures of sub-Saharan Africa, American artists, art of the Olmec people of ancient Mexico as well as European artists – Mattia Preti, Domenikos Theorokopolos (also known as El Greco), Claude Monet, James Mc Neil Whistler (the painter known for  “Whistler’s Mother”), Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh – and modern artists, like Keith Haring and Jackson Pollock.

My mom had a series of strokes that began in 2006.  These strokes made it very difficult for her to communicate at first.  I later realized how much she was able to learn and understand when I took her to the De Young Museum.  I asked her if she wanted to rent the device which would allow her to listen to a description of the art.  My mom said, “Yes.”

I pushed my mom in her wheelchair through the exhibit as she listened with her headset.  I would roll her to each painting, paying careful attention to what she said she wanted to see.  At her request, we stopped at virtually every painting for 3 to 5 minutes.  She listened to every recording – the entire recording – about the artists, the paintings, and the history of when the paintings were created.  Often, we would enjoy a delightful gourmet lunch on the patio, looking out at Golden Gate Park.  These visits were wonderful and have been some of my most joyful moments with my mom as we took the time to absorb great works of artistic masters.

Art has the capacity to transform us.  Symbols are very powerful and can affect us deeply.  A movie such as “Schindler’s  List” or a painting, like the “Mona Lisa” moves many people very powerfully.  A picture is worth a thousand words.  Just one flash of an image can have a profound effect on our emotions and thoughts.

Silence is also very powerful.  We are often afraid of solitude in our American culture.  Our iPhone or television can drown out silence all day long, all year long.  For a lifetime, we can be cut off from our interior life.  We may wake up at 3:00 in the morning with an anxious dream – sweating.

In silence, we can find our compassion and creativity pouring through us.  Once we thought we would never find creativity, then it comes through us like a burst of fire.  The embers of creativity always lie within us smoldering.  This creativity inside us is just waiting us to notice it and express it.  Join Sue Renfrew in this video and learn how to meditate and contemplate about a painting, whether you are at an art exhibit in a Museum or anywhere else.

 

 

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Filed Under: Art, Blog, Consciousness Tagged With: ancient Mexico, art, Artists, Claude Monet, compassion, creativity, De Young Museum, Domenikos Theorokopolos, Edgar Degas, El Greco, European, Golden Gate Park, headset, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Jackson Pollock, James Mc Neil Whistler, Keith Haring, Mattia Preti, modern artists, Mona Lisa, movie, Museum, painter, painting, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, San Francisco, Schindler’s List, silence, stroke, Sue Renfrew, Vincent Van Gogh, wheelchair, Whistler’s Mother

What is a Meme?

December 15, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

“There are two kinds of people in this world; those that enter a room and turn the television set on, and those that enter a room and turn the television set off,” says the character Raymond Shaw in the movie, “The Manchurian Candidate.”

There are people who wish to sell us things. Advertisers want us to buy cheeseburgers or shampoo. Leaders, like principals and bosses, hope we buy the idea that following all the rules is important and makes us a good student or employee. Politicians want us to believe that voting for them will make life better for ourself, our family, and our community. Effective leaders are good at using special ideas, called memes.

Memes are ideas that infect our minds like a virus. A virus works by entering another person (or a computer) and making copies. Even though a meme acts like a virus in our mind, a meme is not always a bad thing. It depends on what the idea is about. Richard Brodie writes: “a meme is a thought, belief, or attitude in your mind that can be spread to and from other people’s minds.”

A fad like wearing a beard or using Instagram is due to memes. This is a meme: “Instagram is the way to connect online that gets me more friends.” Another meme is: “Men who wear beards attract sex partners.” Do you believe these memes as true? Where do these memes come from?

Before seven years old, we take in the memes of our parents, neighbors, schools, and culture. We are programmed like a computer with these memes. I can believe that “I am intelligent” or “I am stupid.” Either one of these beliefs effects my performance at school or work.

The patterns in our brains evolved over millions of years. If we look at archeological sites, we can see that our environment changed very little over most of the time. Only in the most recent time, our environment started changing so fast that our daily routines changed in a single lifetime. Memes supported our lives for millions of years in a world that changed very slowly.

We live in a world today that is changing very rapidly. Think how much smartphones have changed our lives. I no longer use a telephone book to find contact information. I receive and send text and emails that travel all over the world in an instant. We have a tremendous mismatch between the wiring of our prehistoric brains and the complex opportunities and challenges of modern life.

Advertisers, politicians, and sales people use memes to influence us. We can be programmed like a computer, metaphorically. Our minds are programmed by using repetition. Commercials repeat the same idea over and over. We are also programmed by confusing us with conflicting information. I remember a vacuum salesman at my childhood home. He was talking so fast, explaining about the monthly payments. I just wanted him to leave and stop pressuring my father. Salespeople can talk so fast that you feel trapped. We may feel the only way out of a painful sales pitch is by being rude or is to buy something. Another method of creating a meme is by attaching the idea to food, sex, or danger of some kind. The most powerful memes are linked to sex, food, and danger, such as a way to protect your children.

Too often, sex sells Budweiser or Nacho Cheese Doritos. We are being manipulated by smartphones, television, malls, and cruise ships. The price may be right, but what is the cost. I sit for a timeshare presentation to receive my blanket and my bottle of tequila. I am on vacation for a limited time, but I am spending my time listening to a salesperson talk as fast as he can to manipulate me into buying a timeshare. I feel trapped. People often take the bait and buy the timeshare. Often, this is a poor financial decision.

Life can feel overwhelming. We can make ourselves depressed with our beliefs. Our thoughts have a significant influence over our mood. Our worldview has a big impact on the quality of our life. Please watch this video and learn to think about depression differently:

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Filed Under: Blog, Emotions, Spirituality Tagged With: . Advertisers, actor, archeological sites, bosses, brains, Budweiser, children, commercials, computer, cruise ships, danger, email, employee, evolved, food, Frank Sinatra, ideas, infect, Instagram, iPhones, leaders, malls, mememics, memes, millions of years, minds, movie, Nacho Cheese Doritos, patterns, politicians, prehistoric, principals, program, Richard Brodie, rules, sales people, seven years old, sex, smartphones, student, television, text, The Manchurian Candidate, virus

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About Daniel Davis, LMFT

I create an environment where clients experience their unique significance, authentic empowerment, and profound acceptance and collaborate with clients to identify solutions to their current crises. For more information on how I can help you, contact me today by calling 408-249-0014 or emailing info@danieldavislmft.com. I look forward to speaking with you! Read More…

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Daniel Davis, M.A., LMFT
Counselor in Santa Clara, CA
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