Creative Connections & Client Communications
Difficult Reality Motivating the New Choice

The recent TV docudrama about the legendary comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis focused upon its ending: the break-up of the fabulous duo after 10 years of astounding success! But was this an ending –and didn’t we all say, lamentably, “How could that have happened?” … “They really should have stayed together!” … “They had the world in their hands!”– or was it a a fresh start for each of them, from a very, very high plateau? We all know that Martin went on to a distinguished recording, TV, and movie career, and Lewis went on to prodigious success as a comic actor, director, producer, and philanthropist?

Between the ages of 48 and 54, my profile was scant, dormant, in the astrology world. With SA Uranus=Ascendant I made a protracted effort during that time period to gain ascendancy in the business and arts world, and the bottom line of that great effort registered that I failed. I refer to this period as my mid-life crisis. I was out in the cold. –But was I?

Just as with Martin and with Lewis … and with countless clients over the years … and with myself dramatically, I looked at measurements yet to come to signal a beacon of further development and new direction. I remember as vividly as I remember anything in my life the day I had a consultation with myself and determined that my failure in one direction was a signal for my complete dedication into another direction …not the one I thought it would be, but into astrology, to contribute all my faculties and energies to the field. –It was the right decision.

The realization sent me immediately to the telephone to do something about it. I was fortunate that an idea shared there led immediately to a new book contract, and the rest of the developments have been continuously and conspicuously affirming. –Let’s study these dynamics therapeutically:

Reality Therapy was originally founded on the principle that we are responsible for what we do and that we choose all we do. –Read that again, please; the concept is very important.

Of late, this has been adjusted to include the sense of choice (the work of William S. Glasser): if you want to feel better, you must change how you are acting and thinking; you must choose more need-satisfying total behaviors. Reality therapy then becomes a way to help others make better choices for themselves.

Hidden within this premise is the operational truth that in order for the new thinking to get off the ground, it is necessary to have a good relationship with another human being with whom to discuss the plans, from whom to feel support in changing behavior to feel more fulfilled.

A client called four days ago: he had just been laid off by his firm, along with many, many people. He was bereft and at sea. What would happen now?

Was there a new calling for my client? Would his grief/panic give way now to the measurements coming up: tr Pluto conjunct Ascendant on and off for the next nine months; and SP Moon conjunct natal Sun in six months and tr Jupiter conjunct Sun three months after that?

Did my client have someone close with whom to plan a new path? Was there a support mechanism built-in with the considerations for a new choice that would affect the life considerably?

Often to a client in the midst of transient insecurity –with bills to pay, with ego attacked, with dreams now shattered—any suggestion that maybe this action within reality, this seemingly negative push from the environment, is a nudge into a new and proper direction for further development can sound shallow and uncaring. While it can very, very well be the truth within the grander scheme of things (dramatically clear in retrospect), it must be managed very carefully in discussion, in order to plant a self-redeeming seed, a hope and fresh determination … not offering a pabulum stop-gap feeling.

How often have you sat in consultation with a client who is in the “wrong” job? Either you have pointed it out to the client or the client has offered the information. What would happen if a change into the right direction took place … at an appropriate time and with the appropriate support?

Part of the Choice/Reality Theory is founded on the pleasure principle: we alter our behaviors to make us feel better … and, very often, within reason, money is not the grand comfort; feeling involved, making a statement, self-esteem are.

***If you had your choice now of all the things you could do –this side of total re-education and outlandish whimsy—what would you do to feel terrific in your work, fulfill your needs, and be a happier person?***

That’s the key question.

When Dean Martin felt overshadowed by Jerry Lewis’s comedy antics in their act, Martin chose to go it alone, feeling more important, appreciated, valued, fulfilled, happier. His family supported his choice and he made it very, very big.

When Jerry Lewis was pushed out on his own, he unleashed all his dormant talents as director, writer, actor, cinematographer, and the rest is history.

These new lives for these two men were brought into being by the totally unexpected, seemingly irrational break-up of the most successful status quo imaginable in show business at the time!

I think it is very important to know that the Self comes first. It must come first for talents to bloom as best they can, for efficiency in self-expression to be achieved, for pride and contentment to be illuminated. The astrologer is often the first person with whom the person under the pressure of drastic change can discuss options and potentials. This opportunity to be the support for the future –with imagination and realism, with vision and strategy—is a most fulfilling expression of the astrologer’s talents and responsibility as well.

If the job schism occurs at a level not involving a distinct profession, there is every indication often of the new way, the fresh dimension, in the client’s hobby, which heretofore may have been the only niche of fulfillment in life. Allying the hobby with a profession is often a freeing outlet of personal talent, dream, ambition: the community-production actor could very well place his accounting skills into a theatrical organization; a hobby painter could work to become a docent (teaching guide) in a museum or working in art-education youth programs instead of being a welder.