Blogs

Discover how photographer William Frucht captures a world that is simultaneously a “slow evolution” and “an infinite mad dance,” in his exhibit Shooting Fast & Slow. The show will be on view from March 6 to March 29, with Opening Reception on Saturday, March 7, 2–4 p.m. The event and exhibit are free and open to the public.

Frucht’s photography follows two distinct paths. One path — the slow path — is photographing abandoned or distressed places with a big medium-format film camera and a tripod. “The images that emerge are meditations on the slow evolution of the world,” he explains. “I am in a dialogue with the past, photographing events that unfold not over seconds and minutes but over years and decades.”

The second path — the fast path — is street photography using a small digital camera. “I immerse myself in the moment,” he says, “trying not to think but simply flow, reacting to fleeting gestures, expressions, and chance arrangements of light and shadow that flicker into existence like virtual particles and then as quickly vanish. Yet even when the world is an infinite mad dance I try to work slowly, as if slowing time itself, to wait for the moment when forms, colors, expressions fall into place.”

“Recently,” he reports, “a third path has emerged, in which I try to capture fast moments with slow processes, like an excursion into an imaginary universe that crosses reality at an angle.” Curious? Come to the City Gallery exhibit in March to how these creative paths diverge and converge.

The following bio appears on his web site.  City Gallery does not guarantee its accuracy: 

William Frucht is only the second person in U.S. history to win the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, the Nobel Peace Prize, and the National League Most Valuable Player Award all in the same year. Just a few years older than the city of Danbury, Connecticut, where he currently resides, he still works as an acquiring editor at Yale University Press, although his colleagues increasingly think of him as semiretired at best. In his spare time he devotes himself to remaining inconspicuous, failing upward, and using his powers for good and not evil. He is also a photographer whose work has been exhibited in multiple states as well as in private collections here and abroad. He has been a member of City Gallery since 2015.

Shooting Fast & Slow is free and open to the public. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

Emotions, Emotional Boundaries, and the Stories Your Mind Tells

I want to start by sharing something that happened a while ago. It showed me that the tendency toward rescuing and fixing doesn’t necessarily disappear just because we’ve done a lot of work.

But what does change is this:

We’re no longer compelled to act on it.

Here’s what happened. I live in a condo complex. My doors were open, and I heard a child outside on the phone. It sounded like he was telling someone his mom wasn’t home and he was going to be late.

And my first thought was: “I could drive him.”

Now. I have no idea who this child is. I’ve never heard this voice before. I don’t know the situation. And I needed to leave for a meeting in ten minutes.

But my nervous system moved toward rescuing immediately. That’s my first thought. And here’s a saying I learned early in recovery that came in really handy in that moment:

“I’m not responsible for my first thought, but I am responsible for my second thought and for what I do next.”

What changed in recovery wasn’t that the rescuing impulse disappeared entirely. What changed is that I can notice it without acting on it. And I can notice it without attacking myself for having it.

That right there is emotional boundary work. Because emotional boundaries aren’t just about other people’s feelings. They’re about how you relate to your own emotions.

Here’s what’s important about that story. My first thought was to move toward someone else’s discomfort. That’s what I used to do with emotion too. If I felt anxious, I didn’t stay with the anxiety. I moved away from it. Sometimes by rescuing. Sometimes by replaying the past. Sometimes by inventing worst case scenarios.

And this is the part that took me years to understand: All of those behaviors are attempts to manage discomfort.

When I heard that child, my system was trying to reduce anxiety by taking control. That’s what rescuing is. It’s control disguised as helpfulness.

And when I don’t act that impulse out externally, that same anxiety energy can turn inward. It can become rumination. It can become catastrophizing. Rescuing, ruminating, and catastrophizing are all attempts to manage emotion when we don’t feel steady inside.

They’re different behaviors. Same root.

Read the rest at your own pace here.

One of the most difficult parts of setting boundaries isn’t deciding what to say.

It’s dealing with what you feel. Sometimes even before you say it. And definitely after you say it.

In my experience, the number one thing that stops people from setting boundaries isn’t a lack of skill. It’s guilt and shame. It’s that tight, nauseous feeling in your stomach that says, “You’re being selfish.”

Let’s start by normalizing something.

If you feel guilt and shame when you set boundaries, that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re changing.

If you grew up in enmeshment, where everyone was in everyone else’s business, boundaries can feel like betrayal. If you grew up in emotional abandonment, boundaries can feel like you’re leaving someone alone the way you were left alone. If you grew up with both like I did, setting boundaries can feel even more overwhelming.

Healthy boundaries live in the middle. They’re not enmeshment. They’re not abandonment. They’re healthy separation with connection.

But if you’ve never experienced that middle, it doesn’t feel like healthy separation. It feels like abandonment.

So of course guilt shows up and shame flares.

The question isn’t how to eliminate those feelings overnight. The question is how to build the capacity to handle them. And eventually, how to reduce them at the root.

Here’s how.

Read the rest at your own pace here.

One of my clients recently asked me for concrete examples of emotional availability and vulnerability.

She said something like this: “I show empathy. I validate people. I listen. I’m curious. I really try to be there. So why do I keep ending up with emotionally unavailable people?”

It’s such an honest question. And it’s one I was perplexed by for years before recovery.

Back then, I believed emotionally unavailable men were attracted to me. That part was true. What I didn’t see at the time was the other half of the equation.

That I was not just attracting them, I was also attracted TO them.

What I eventually figured out was that the reason all that was happening was the *I* was emotionally unavailable. And that makes total sense, because what emotionally available person would be attracted to and stay in relationship with someone who’s emotionally unavailable?

This was completely subconscious, of course.

If this is stirring something, you can read the rest at your own pace here.

A quick note in case this connects for you — my live workshop Boundaries for Real Love is coming up later this month.

We’ll be looking at the quiet ways people override themselves in relationships and what supports staying present without force.

Details are here if you’d like to take a look.

When Other People’s Feelings Feel Like Yours

One of the most common themes I see with my clients and one I lived inside for decades is this experience of feeling other people’s feelings.

It’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it.

It’s like being permeable. Like there’s no membrane between you and the emotional world around you. Other people’s emotions don’t just register. They enter. They move through you. They take up residence.

And when that’s your experience, there’s an unspoken rule running the show.

If they’re not okay, I can’t be okay. And if they’re not okay with me, I really can’t be okay.

Even if you don’t literally feel other people’s emotions in your body, many of us still act as if we’re responsible for them.

Someone’s upset and we rush to fix it. Someone’s disappointed and we scramble to soothe. Someone’s uncomfortable and we contort ourselves to make it better.

That impulse can look kind. And sometimes it is.

But not when they haven’t asked for support. Not when someone needs space to grieve. Not when discomfort is actually part of their process.

If you recognize yourself here, one simple and powerful pause is this question:

“Do you want to be cheered up right now?”

And another, even more important one:

“Am I responding to their pain… or am I reacting to my own discomfort that stems from their discomfort?”

Read the rest at your own pace here.