I got up at 8 am and walked up to my Easter Island statues. I still dare not go further. When I got home, I did some work on the blog. I had made arrangements with Ronen to pick up Adam's delivery bring it over to him. Adam was on quarantine because his mom, Judy, was diagnosed with the virus.
Ronen came out with two large bags, the length of his legs. Wow! I wasn't expecting that. His display made it look like a take-out-sized amount. It seemed too heavy for me to carry. He walked me over to Adam's, a mere two driveways down the street. Adam was thrilled with what he got. Thrilled.
Judy and I had both looked at the site and thought it was overpriced. Adam had worked in a restaurant and understood what the 'iofarms were offering. Judy and I did not.
I stopped for a minute to speak to Adam- at a safe distance. Then I headed back home. I stopped at the stand where Ronen, and his wife, Elizabeth, were sitting. I told them that their site did not accurately represent the quantity of food they provided. I suggested that he take a picture of himself with full bags for the $20, $40, and $ 60' box.'
They told me that they wanted to put together a 'Betty box' with precisely what I wanted. I told them I don't eat a lot. It would probably all be too much for me. They said for me to tell them exactly what I wanted and when I wanted it. I was not to worry about having too much and having it go bad on me. They told me they were used to moving 150 lbs. of lettuce a week. I started crying. I hadn't realized how much I was worried about getting vegetables, forget even fresh ones. This act of kindness means so much to me.
I had an invitation to join Sam's virtual first birthday party on the line. I set the alarm, so I didn't forget. In preparation, I showered so I didn't look homeless or mentally ill. I also washed Elsa, whose eczema is full-blown. I treated her with a medicinal soap that I have to leave on for at least 5 minutes. I was dressed and ready for the party.
I tried to sign in before my hosts were ready. It took a while to get all the grandparents online. In the meantime, I got to look at Sam's empty highchair. I read a little while I waited. I tried to be subtle about it. I only found out afterward that my image never appeared while my audio did work.
We all sang together. Sam had his first piece of cake. He loved it and cried for more. David, Sam's dad, orchestrated a few rounds of peek-a-boo. All of us online covered our eyes, and removed them, and cried," Peek-a-boo," on David's count. This was something else that delighted Sam.
Friends dropped out when it came time to open presents. Dorothy, my sister, and Sam’s grandmother had made cloth books. One was just a fun one with shapes, but the other was amazing. She made a picture book of Sam right after he was born with his parents, four grandparents, and some additional shots of Sam on his trip to Australia. Karin, his mom, got teary, saying it was amazing.
His other grandparents bought him a rocking horse and a slide. It took a few attempts, but Sam figured out how to get on and off the horse himself and made progress on getting that horse to rock back and forth before the end of the party.
He didn't quite get the slide. He wanted to walk up the slide instead of climbing the ladder in the back. Karin picked him up each time and helped him slide down it. He also enjoyed crawling under the slide. Nancy, David's mother, said David had loved the slide when he was a child.
David's brother, Alex, is a doctor in NYC. He said he was currently involved in converting operating rooms into ICU units to accommodate virus patients. I can't remember the exact number of rooms involved, but I am pretty sure it was over 50, if not close to or over 100. What I do know, I was surprised by how many operating rooms there could be in a hospital. Alex is at the hub of the virus right now. We all wished him well.
I took a nap and read some of A Better Man by Louise Penny.
Dorothy called and told me she is making face masks. As in all war efforts, women start sewing and knitting to help out.
I managed to do one chore. I put the blankets away that have been sitting on my dining room table for several weeks, washed and waiting for attention. Yay! I completed a chore.
I watched the episodes of Schitt's Creek that were available. While I'm committed to finishing the series, I probably wouldn't if it was continued because the mannerisms of many of the characters are wearing on my nerves.
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Musings:
I've already mentioned that I'm reading Brooks's The Social Animal. I love the way the man writes. There is so much joy. I don't agree with everything he has to say, especially with some of his political points of view, but I always love how he presents his ideas.
In the chapter on self-control, I came across some theories of what strategies people use to assert self-control. He said different ideas have dominated in different periods of history. In the Victorian period, it was step #3, will power. The inner self was like a torrent of water that had to be constrained. He calls it the 'hydraulic' approach to self-control.
Step # 2 is the decision-making process. It assumes you can reason with a person and get them to see their greatest benefit. Once they see what is best for them, it will follow as day follows the night, their behavior will change.
Sept #1 is dependent on our perception of the situation. Perception always proceeds steps # 1 and #2. People's perceptions of the same situation differ; different things trigger people in different ways.
As I work in schools, I find that most adults assume the decision-making approach with kids. They even talk about 'making good choices." It is always assumed that the teacher knows what a good choice should be. This approach drives me nuts. I have always thought that this was an ineffective strategy. Brooks says, "The evidence suggests that reason and will are like muscles and not particularly powerful muscles." p. 152. That certainly supports my experience. I have never been able to reason myself into action. However, I also believe that if reason doesn't support a change of behavior, change is impossible. The decision-making step is necessary but insufficient to promote change.
Also, I find that people use moralizing and condescending or pleading tones when they use the decision-making approach. Here's the problem; sometimes children consider 'bad' behavior best for them. When the rational decision approach is used with 'that tone of voice,' there can be no discussion. The teacher can't get to know the child and what their priorities are and why. Telling anyone that pursuing the speaker's preferences is the only reasonable or intelligent thing to do is a no-win situation. While it might produce temporary changes, permanent changes do not follow. Whenever this approach has been used on me, I knew that person had no respect for me or my point of view. Who is going to follow the advice of someone who doesn't respect you? All they want to do is remold me in their 'own' image or for their own convenience. For me, that privilege of being molded in someone else's image belongs to God alone. My parents had the right to install a cultural framework, but that is it.
If you haven't figured it out already, I don't like how the decision-making model is applied. (I repeat, a person must decide to change before change is possible, but it is not enough.) Teachers marvel at my work with children. Guess what! The key to my success starts with my respecting their right to control their own destinies. When I work with a child whose behavior causes problems for the teachers and for themselves, my first question is: does this behavior make you happy, or do you want to change? If the student, or any person, says they like how their lives are going, my hands may be tied unless I can address their particular need. Lecturing them is not a good idea. If they say they don't want to change, I can ask, "Why do you like what you get from this behavior? If the kid gives me that sly smile, I know what they get is the ability to upset people. Power. I can follow this up with some other questions.
I recently worked with a boy whose behavior verged on the bizarre, standing on his desk, making odd sounds, being generally disruptive. When I asked him how he would feel if he didn't behave that way, he said invisible. My solution was to help him recognize that the teacher and his classmates were aware of him even when he was quiet. How did I do that? I asked him if he was aware when one of the students in the class was absent, even if they were usually quiet. I helped him see that everyone impacted the group, and he was no exception. Notice this was step #1; I helped him change his perception. That was the starting point. He still needed help dealing with his habitual emotional responses to situations. It took a few weeks, but he changed and became more comfortable being one of the many. Whenever I ask these questions, I have to be open to the person's answer; I can't pose the question rhetorically, asking the question in such a way as to tell the student the 'correct' answer. I know there is nothing I can do to change someone unless they want to.
I make it clear to the student that I have little investment in their decision. Their behavior will not be my problem because, one way or another, they won't be part of my life. I am saying they should change because I really believe it would be best for them. I don't push students. I have had to wash my hands of only a few students I have ever worked with. They were firmly committed to their 'dysfunctional' behavior by any conventional standards. No one can make another person change if they don't want to. All we can do is help people achieve their goals. Then the question is how to help them.
As much as we can't expect people to change if they don't think it would be to their benefit to do so, we also can't expect people to change because they agree it would be best for them or because they want to. Asking young children to use Step #3, overriding some impulse is asking the impossible. The prefrontal lobes that help us use this approach are not fully developed until we are in our mid-twenties. While it is possible, it takes a profound inner change in a child to force themselves to control negative behavior that serves a function in their lives.
I have had to experience some deep change before I can push myself to make those changes. The mountain has to be reduced to a molehill before I could push myself up and over to the new world.
Step# 1 involves changing one's perception. I have used that to help me make behavioral changes on something I wasn't overly invested in. When I was in my twenties and found that my sweet tooth was impacting my weight, I changed my perception of sweets. I found them too much, either too fatty, as in ice cream, or chocolate cookies, or sickly sweet. That worked for me. I felt disgusted when presented with those foods and pushed them aside.
But there are deep reasons for behavior that is not so easily accessible through steps 1-3. I have a deeply held belief that feelings anchored in the mind/body have to be addressed for a successful, long-lasting change to occur that feels comfortable for the person. I'm not quite sure where this additional approach or step comes in the sequence. It can come before making a perceptional change or after. However, it has to go after decision-making and before the hydraulic approach of step #3 when we overwhelm our impulses' inner wellspring. The method of dealing with one's deeper feelings frees us from always having to fight some internal drive, which will undermine our resolve. It soothes that beast within us, quiets it, so we aren't required to exercise a teeth-grinding exhibition of will.
The source of those impulses which drive behavior can be quieted. There are several ways to approach these changes that I know of. I didn't find conventional therapy to be beneficial. Traditional therapy, as I experienced it for most of my life, emphasized the decision-making model. I am working with a life-coach now who is on the same page I am. What a delight!
I did find that mindfulness meditation helped a great deal. The idea behind it is to sit with sensations and stay calm. Sitting quietly and observing without either craving or aversion stills that impulse surge. It teaches us to keep calm in the face of distressing moments. The distressed response can be quieted over time, and when it is, behavior changes. That response quiets through this approach because we can have those feelings and realize that we are just fine and don't need that behavioral response. I compare those responses to the fierce barking of my dog when someone comes to the door. I understand that dog is acting to protect my home and me. I thank the dog; I love the dog for its impulse. I say thank you, but this response is unnecessary now. I know that the person approaching the house is not a danger to me, you, or the house. All's good. You can let go. So many of our responses come from accumulated negative reactions we have experienced that finally flood us. It is possible to get to the point where you're not constantly battling your inner impulses.
Trauma-based therapy is also helpful. Most of our negative behavior is caused by some trauma, be it writ large or small. Trauma has so many causes. It can be a small moment of embarrassment that was life-changing. It can be a moment when you discover that you are different from the rest of the people in your group. It can be a moment when you see your knowledge or skill level is inadequate for the situation. You may have to face the contempt of a group of people without the support of your own group. It could be when your life was threatened. It could be when you saw your buddy killed in front of you and could nothing to help him or her. Or it could be when you ran into a tiger while you were walking in the woods one day and barely escaped with your life. There are so many opportunities for trauma in life. In modern life, we still experience these shocks, but there are so few ways to 'shake them off.' Primitive life afforded those services to the members of their group. They were built into the rituals of daily life. It was understood that life filled with 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."
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