What do I mean by inner anthropologist?

 

Premise

I have spent a lifetime exploring my inner culture. Starting as a small child, I would lie in my bed and wonder, “why can I think? why am I here etc.” From there I went on to ask a lifetime of questions and have studied numerous traditions both psychological and spiritual to understand, know, explore both the meaning of life and my own meaning. Feeling like an alien in my family of origin and with many things that felt traumatic to me, I have tried to understand both them and me – how I fit in? why I’m different?

As I traveled along the path of this inner journey, eventually becoming a psychotherapist, I helped many other people traverse their inner path as well.On the other hand, since childhood, I’ve had an interest in the cultures of the “other” – people not like me of different ethnicities  This led me to major in Anthropology as an undergrad at UCLA. My main interest was in excavating people’s cultures, not ruins. From there, later in life, once in my second marriage, I’ve traveled extensively throughout the world, learning about, enjoying and digesting different cultures. While I’ve never lived anywhere else (this relates to some fears and needing of grounding of home), I get easily excited when I meet someone from a distant land or when I travel in their countries.

So the inner anthropologist is an explorer who excavates their internal culture as well as family, society and other people’s cultures to gain greater understanding as well as to feed their curiosity, their interest, and their love of differences while also recognizing that we’re all one. I operate out of a place where I find people different than me interesting, not people to avoid but to know more and to learn from.