Wednesday, April 24, 2019

    I woke up at 5:45, 15 minutes before the alarm went off.  The Peas hot/cold pack was still warm.  These peas do their job.  As I walked Elsa, I called the Friends Society of Princeton about my marriage certificate because I am hedging my bets and pursuing another original. If I don't get it to SS within a month, I have to start the application process all over again.  My call to Princeton Friends was to see if they had a  record of our marriage I could use to prove we were married.  Mike and I were not Catholics in 1982 when we were married; we had been attending the Princeton Friends Meetings on Sundays for a while.  There was no one to answer the phone.  Their message said someone comes in to check messages twice a week.
    When I got home, I called the Princeton Health Department to find out if the scroll we made with our wedding vows signed by all the attendees would suffice as proof.  There is no official heading from the Princeton Friends, only what I wrote.  It says we were married in the Meeting House on February 20, 1982.  But of course, this is something we, I, wrote, and my sister transcribed on to the vellum scroll. It's nothing official from the Meeting. It's all very frustrating. I played FreeCell to comfort myself.    I was told that the person who could answer my question was on jury duty and was only in on Mondays and Fridays.
    I finally got up, did my oil rinse, washed my dishes, and drank my two cups of water in preparation for Bikram.
    On the way home from Bikram, a song came on that brought up the image of me and Mike (I know this is considered grammatically incorrect, but I love it.) dancing together in our kitchen. He would get this beautiful smile of almost childlike pride, delight, and love.  This is the first time I have seen his face in my mind since he died.  Before this, his image looked somewhat unfamiliar, even in photographs. I've had this odd feeling that he was a stranger I had seen frequently, like at Costco.
    I had seen this phenomenon before when my dad died when I was 15.  I was struck then that I could not have a clear image of his face. When I was teaching in Ohio in my 60s, there was a young woman with two young children who lost her young husband to a fatal heart attack.  I overheard her in a conversation in the lunchroom, saying that she couldn't envision her husband's face.  She was distressed by this.  I was able to tell her about my experience after my father died and tell her that I thought it was normal.  Now, as I experience this myself again, I'm sure it's normal.  When I see his face looking at me with love pouring out of his eyes, grief hits hard.  I will never see those loving eyes again. How will I live without them?  If I  remember all the wonderful moments, we shared,  will my life will seem barren?
I am looking forward to grief deepening.  I wish myself good luck and hope I come out the other side a better person, a stronger, more loving person.
    When I got home, I showered, did MELT,  used the Tiger Stick, washed my Bikram clothes by hand, and hung them on the line. Then I made my soup.  I haven't mentioned it, but I do something else regularly. I put Intrasound power in my mouth, hold it there and swallow it when I drink the soup.  Intrasound is a clay that is infused with sound waves.  I do know that it helps with skin conditions, pimples, skin tags, and maybe even age spots.  I don't know if eating it helps any more than an alcoholic who doesn't stop drinking knows if they can be better without it.  But I do know that it does no harm, and I do know that I am in good health.
    Intrasound products are known as MakesNoClaims in my family.  When Damon was in his adolescence, he looked at the jar and asked what it was.  I tried to explain it to him, as I did above.  He looked at the container and found the words "makes no claims" on it.  For him, like his dad, it was a clear signal that it was nonsense.   I thought his reaction was funny and adopted the name MakesNoClaims, or as Yvette refers to it MNC.  I continue to use it. If nothing else, it acts as a way of blessing myself, wishing myself good health.  I think that's good. But I have to say I have seen results.
    When I had rotator cuff surgery in 2003, I had to keep my arm in a sling nonstop for a week.  During that time, I applied MNCs to all the parts of my arm and chest I could reach without moving my arm. At the end of the week, I got to move my arm when I went into the doctor's office.  All the parts that I had applied MNCs to were yellowish; all the places couldn't reach were black and blue. Wow!
    What boiling water was leftover from the soup in the pot, I poured on my weeds. Then I had a telephone appointment with my therapist.  I don't feel I need therapy because I'm in good shape.  My therapist is someone I started working within Ohio, and I developed the best working relationship with I have ever had. It is continuously productive.  I find that now that I'm not struggling with my daily life, I can continue to develop and resolve old issues that don't serve me well.
    I had my telephone appointment with Shelly, my therapist. This woman is amazing because she sees that my methods work for me, and she supports me as I do my work.  This takes enormous ego strength. She is more concerned about benefitting me than feeling that she is in control of the situation.  I hope that I am that way when I work with people.  I start by telling clients that they are in charge. That the work has to feel safe, comfortable, easy, fun, and effective.  If I make a suggestion, they are not to follow it if it doesn't feel right.  It doesn't make any difference if I'm proven right in the long run.  This is a learning situation. The only right thing is what helps the client to learn at that moment.
     If it's not clear to you already, I have my own ideas on how to do therapy, and I don't like a lot of the available approaches. I had a therapist that thought I was incapable of holding a job. I think she had that feeling because she saw me as someone who had problems with authority based on my relationship with her. Here's the problem: I don't see a therapist as an authority; I see them as my employees, and it's their job to give me suggestions and work with me, not on me.   Most therapists saw that as an outrageous perspective.  I have been kicked out of more therapists' offices than you can imagine.  I knew I needed to do the work with another person. It's the therapist's job to hold a safe space.  Most of the therapists had their own idea of what that meant, which wasn't compatible with my view.  They, therefore, concluded that there was something wrong with me. Really!  How about we weren't on the same page.  My current therapist has told me that the profession has been changing their point of view. Halleluiah.!!
     I get clear images as I work to plummet the psychological depths of myself or others when I do healing with them.   Working on the growing sense of grief, I had the image of falling into a bottomless pit with a fairly wide mouth.  I was hanging on by my fingertips, grabbing for tree roots sticking out of the side of the pit wall.  I understood that this was the descent into the abyss that I would have to face.  I have not just lost Mike; I have lost a large part of myself.  My ego was not attached to Mike as my husband as Mike's mother's was to his father.  She told me that she felt she stopped being a person after he died.  She defined herself by him.  No. I'm not that way.  But, if one can experience grief for a loss of self when one moves from one city to another, one experiences grief with the loss of a constant presence that has moved with me from house to house, city to city, and state to state for 45 years. He was a huge part of my life, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.  I think this is a loss even for couples that don't get along. Mike and I were joyful with each other, able to appreciate what we gave to each other and grateful for the appreciation we received from each other.
    I have no regrets about what I did or did not do while he was alive, but I feel very sad about the loss of what might have lain ahead for us.  We both did our best for each other and ourselves, but we never reached the top of the mountain.  We were still making changes to aspects of our relationship.   That progression has been brought to a halt.  I will continue working to be a better person for myself and for others, but now I do it without Mike. It feels like I'm doing this in an empty room instead of one filled with our joint efforts.
    After the session. I cleaned up the microwave from the mess I made with the exploded Peas Hot/Cold pack.  I scraped everything into a roasting pan. I was concerned that those little plastic balls get into the environment. I looked for some container that I didn't think would break down quickly.  I couldn't find anything, so I abandoned the project.    Then I boiled more water for weeding.
    I did some more writing. Yvette came up. She had invited me to go to Kua Bay yesterday for today, but I was tired, and she had to get her car safety check inspection. Maybe some other day. I went back to writing and finished one entry.
    I finally ordered a new pedometer on Amazon.  I just need a simple one that keeps track of my steps, no more. I had read an article in the NY Times about the problems created if we sit more than 13 hours a day and walk less than 4,000 steps. I'm choosing to pay attention to the less than 4,000 steps, which I can easily measure. I don't know how long I sit. When I was in teaching, I was up on my feet a lot, or at least I was moving a lot.  Now, I'm not so sure.
    I spoke to a client who gets hurt a lot doing 'good' things for people and finds that the people she 'helps' are often angry at her, and she can't figure out why. There's something wrong with this picture.
    As I mentioned before, I use imagery in my work. It is through this imagery that the nonconscious mind can communicate with the conscious mind. I told the client that I had an image of a hissing gargoyle.  She responded to the image. She assumed this was an image of the rage her attackers felt.  I told her no, this gargoyle represents your rage.  We all have the capacity for this level of anger in us.  Our primitive minds respond intensely.  Those who feel that rage spark and are afraid of it, submerge it and make an extra effort to be 'good,' 'understanding,' 'compassionate.' Oy vey! Being 'good' to prove our 'goodness' to ourselves and deny our own rage backfires. Now, two disclaimers.  Not every good, understanding, and/or compassionate person is suppressing anger. "By their fruits shall  you know them." Look at the people they have a direct effect on: do these people become stronger, clearer, better, or do these people wind up not changing or even having greater trouble in life?
    This rage element is an essential part of our psyches.  We must learn to recognize its value without allowing it to rule us.   Our nonconscious minds inform us when our boundaries are being violated.  It gives us information about ourselves and our needs. This does not mean that once we see this aspect of ourselves, we walk around, growling at everyone who brushes past us in a rush. Quite on the contrary.  This nonconscious response is operating on a life and death level.  When someone just brushes past us in a hurry to get from point A to point B, our lives are not in danger. Intense rage is not appropriate.
    Another disclaimer:  Anger at people who have a history of mistreating us is appropriate.  However, launching a full-body attack is not. Avoidance is a good strategy here.
    This client is an artist and was excited about getting off the phone to draw and write about her gargoyle.  The gargoyle is like a barking dog. Most of the time, the dog's fierce barking at some passerby is inappropriate.  There is no danger.  But, we love our barking dogs both because they are, after all, making an effort to protect us and, as importantly, they are ours. We must love what is ours. That does not mean allowing unrestrained action, any more than we would let our dog bite the mailman just because he is at our front door.
    Coincidently, this client is reading my blog and also asked what the Tiger Stick was.  I looked it up so I could email her a connection only to discover that it is called a Tiger Tail, a poetic name.
    One of my readers commented on how well I write and asked if I think about the language.  You bet I do.  While I had people tell me in my 20s that I should write just the way I talked, my written work didn't come out that well. Mike pushed me to write clearly.  Another activity had a significant effect on my writing: I did co-writing with students.
    I started co-writing in the 1980s.  I was working with a third grader that couldn't read at all.  I thought if I can give him material that he has 'written,' he would be familiar with what was on the page and might find it interesting to read.  I had him give me something to write about, but I constructed the story and the sentences as I was typing it on the computer. Then I would print the stories out for him. The first story was short and simple, but rapidly the stories became more complex and longer. His mother called to tell me how impressed she was with his stories. "Well," I said, "He's not really writing them; I am." She said, "You don't understand; he is speaking better." Huh? I'm doing the writing, and he's improving?? This is worthwhile looking into.
    I have co-written at least 100 if not several hundred of these stories with students, and in each case, there are reports of improving speech, writing, and reading skills.  Parents will call me to tell me that they see these improvements thinking I don't know the effects.  If I describe the procedure to someone, I often have people say that it can't be effective; the student isn't doing the work.  I think I am modeling language for the students; I am modeling how they can express their ideas.  I have control of sentence structure and vocabulary.  It's pretty amazing, and it's fun. And I learn to improve my writing as well. It's win, win, win. Can it get any better?
    I did some more work on my blog before I did my nighttime routine.
    I walked Elsa, washed my face, brushed my teeth, went to bed, and then said, "Goodnight, Elsa. Goodnight, Mike."