ABANDONMENT

It is only in the state of complete abandonment and loneliness that we experience the helpful powers of our own natures…Child means evolving toward independence. This requires detachment from origins. So abandonment is a necessary condition.

-- C. G. Jung

ACTING

In Coming Up Roses, an indie feature premiering at the Woodstock Film Festival in September, [Bernadette Peters] plays a former musical actress, the disturbed mother of two girls who find that singing show tunes to lift the spirits doesn’t always work. “Yes, another light part,” Peters says, sounding mystified, or amused, by her choice. “And do you know what I had to do one day? I had to find a way to hit my 15-year-old daughter.” (The actress playing the role was 19.) “I mean really smack her around. I’ve never hit anyone in my life! ­After I did it, I felt like I was having a heart attack for a week.” For a second it seems she may have one again, but instead the moment resolves in a giggle. “Isn’t it a strange profession? When you have to look for something like that within yourself, it’s scary. And what’s also scary,” she adds, touching the moon at her throat, “is that you find it.”

-- Jesse Green , New York magazine

         

ADULT

Change the locus of trust from others to oneself. As an adult you are not looking for someone you can trust absolutely. You acknowledge the margins of human failing and let go of expecting security. You then trust yourself to be able to receive love and handle hurt, to receive trustworthiness and handle betrayal, to receive intimacy and handle rejection.

-- David Richo, How to Be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration