I didn't get up immediately when the alarm went off, knowing I could stay in late. But the bathroom beckoned, and I was up and out.
I had an 11:30 Zoom appointment with D. I made plans to do my in-town chores after finishing with him. In the meantime, I washed my bathroom floor and sprayed a gallon plus vinegar on weeds.
I learned something interesting about my Bissell, or more to the point, this kind of vacuum cleaner. Judy gave her Hoover model to Yvette. She said it streaked her floor, and she didn't like it. I discovered why she had that problem. As I was washing the bathroom floor, dirty water came out of the vacuum. It would have left streaks if I hadn't vacuumed it up.
Where did that dirt come from? I didn't encounter it usually when I wash the floor. Well, I had used the machine on the lanai rug. I hadn't dumped a massive amount of water on the carpet as I would if I had been using my Rainbow. I can trust the Rainbow to suck up every drop of water and leave the carpet looking bone dry. The Rainbow has world-class suction. There's no other vacuum like it in the world. When using the Bissell vacuum on the lanai rug, I used it according to the instructions. I only used the water from the dispenser unit on the machine instead of dumping massive amounts. The water in the collection unit was black.
At the end of the day's work, I dumped that water into the toilet and washed out the collection container. Everything was sparkling. So, where did that dirty water come from? From the residue of dirt from the carpet cleaning that got stuck in the vacuum. It took three washings of my bathroom floor before the water in the collection container came up mildly cloudy. I have no idea how most people use this machine, just following the directions. You can't possibly get a floor clean utilizing the amount of water the device dispenses. It uses less than a quart on my kitchen floor compared to the three gallons I use before the water comes up clear. Used the way this vacuum is designed, it's only suitable for damp mopping, spreading the mud around evenly.
I got an email from Elise with the video of the alternating slides with the audio file playing underneath it. Incredible!!! Elise is one of my driveway yoga buddies. When I asked if anyone knew of someone who could help me make such a video, Elise's name came up. I had my grandson, August, working on it for a while. He really didn't have the skills. I'm sure he will be interested in how this was done. She did a fantastic job. She used the slides I created on PowerPoint. She had to show me how she did it. Maybe I can do the video for the other four stories.
When I opened up Zoom to connect with D., there was a different procedure. I had to sign in first. Well, that took some additional time, but I was in by 11:30 as planned.
He was drinking tea while he talked to me. I advised him not to do that while he was on the computer. If he dumped tea on it, he would destroy the school's laptop, and it would cost his mom $300.
I started with the multiplication facts. I sent D.'s mom instructions to post the multiplication facts WITH the answers around the house. My hope is that they will sneak into his brain as he catches sight of them over and over and over again. Once the four facts we are currently working on are secure, my hope is the neurological pathway for the associative recall will be more firmly in place, and we can proceed more rapidly with the rest of the facts. We'll see if my theory works.
D. read 3 x3=9 as 3x9 – 'nothing.' I stopped him immediately to find out what his experience was. Did the numbers move, switching places, or was a number erased? As it wound up, the first three were erased from his visual field.
I asked him if the switch happened on the page or in his head. He said it happened in his head. This is a visual processing problem. I have done work with him on this before without much success.
I asked him how he felt about his mind making switches like this. Did he dislike it or like it? He said he liked it. He said it made what he had to look at shorter and easier to work with. I pointed out that it made what he was looking at altogether different and, therefore, wrong. I didn't understand how it helped him. We spent a fair amount of time talking like this. I have found that exploring someone's thinking is the best thing I can do. Telling them what they're doing is wrong is a failure, more frequently than not. It just frightens the person.
I was only hoping to help D. become more aware of the process, what he experienced, and how it affected his reading and math. But I got a lot more out of it than I had hoped for. I asked him how he felt when he came across long words. He said, embarrassed. Wow! Wow! Wow! I have tried to get to that feeling before. D. always denied it. I didn't argue with him. Some people are unbothered by their failure to perform as well as their peers. This just slipped out. Amazing! If I hadn't pursued my line of questioning, genuinely wanting to understand his perceptions of the situation, I would never have gotten there. We identified his bad feeling as sitting in the pit of his stomach.
The embarrassment is dysfunctional in this setting. It creates fear. Fear is the last thing you need when you're dealing with a perceptual problem. Fear is designed to deal with real-life situations, like that tiger charging at you, not abstract symbols. Fear creates neurological movement in the brain to perceive a 3D environment, not a 2D image sitting peacefully on a surface.
I was a little nervous doing this online with the parent listening. I am sure the mother does listen from the other room because she told the regular classroom teacher she didn't have to work with D. anymore now that I was available. She understood what I was doing for her son. How was she going to respond to what I was about to do? Well, the kid was more important. Once I had led him through the visualization, he would be good from now on. At least that's been my experience.
I started by telling him I would ask him a silly question, and I wanted the answer from the front part of his brain, not the back part. I told him these two parts of the brain see the world in different ways. Here goes: "Do you think anyone is ever going to kill you if you never learn how to read?" He laughed. The answer I was hoping to get. I asked him, "Do you think your mom will kill you if you never learn how to read?" More laughter. Good.
Once it was clear that he felt no threat from his family or the world, I told him to see a little him around the brain's soft spot. He was to turn the little him around to face the back of his brain. I told him to have the little him tell every cell in the back of the brain that no one would kill him even if he never learned how to read. As he did that, I asked him if he felt more relaxed. He said yes. That is the sign that the process is working.
He continued with the exercise for a while. It takes time for the conscious mind to communicate the information to every cell in the unconscious mind that needs to hear it.
Then there was a glitch. I asked D. if part of his brain asked why he wouldn't be killed even if he never learned to read. I asked him if he knew the answer to that question. His response was that if you worked hard enough, you could learn. I corrected him. I told him I knew of no examples of people ever being killed for not learning how to read. (Well, that's not entirely true. But not directly in the sense of "You're condemned to death for being illiterate. Unfortunately, the illiterate are often judged badly by the courts filled with literate people. The illiterate are the 'other.') I did tell him that there are people killed because they do learn how to read. Since this child is black, I did not tell him that black slaves were killed if they became literate. I told him the story of Afghan women who put their lives at risk to get an education. He was finally able to let go of all the remaining fear in his body – for now, and possibly forever.
The origin of this visualization came to me years ago with a boy I was working with. I had an insight that we are all designed to conform to our tribe members or fear for our lives. This was a valid fear when we were roaming the savannas in small bands. Our nervous systems are hard-wired to be the same as those around us, or 'like' them, so we can be 'liked' by our social mates. Not being able to conform while we roamed the savanna did put people's lives in danger. That was real. We no longer kill those who are disabled. It's a luxury of abundance and safety. Hopefully, we never have to return to more primitive times.
When my session with D. was over, I went on with my day. I am trying to drive more now instead of less since I learned I have to use up the tank of gas I got in June when I bought the car before it goes bad. Instead of driving all on the electric motor, now I have to make sure I use the gas motor as much as possible. I can see as the car toggles back and forth between the two engines. I was still driving with the electric when I go slowly into town on flat ground. The car even charges as I roll down a hill.
I went to Target, picked up three apples, two birthday cards for my September birthdays, and of course, two bars of Hersey's Milk Chocolate bars with whole almonds.
Target didn't have plastic bags in the produce section. When I checked out. I asked if they stopped providing plastic bags. The clerk thought they had just run out. I put the apples in each of my short pockets. The third I carried out in my hand. The chocolate bars went into my purse—the cards I carried in my hands too. I was going to stop at Costco to pick up some stuff, but I was too tired. I headed home for a nap.
I find I am on edge. I get snappy over minor annoyances, mostly with people I don't know well. I meditated after I napped. It helped somewhat.
I read an article about the regeneration of cartilage in arthritic joints in mice. They have discovered that if they irritate the endpoints of the joints, they regenerate cartilage. The medical procedure involves making little chips in the bone and then applying some chemical to stimulate the growth. I figure if I put more pressure on the arthritic hip joint, it will have the same effect. My hip problem is clearly the result of having misused my body. I am aware I was doing things incorrectly by the time I was twelve. That means I didn't start avoiding using the left side of my body correctly because of pain, well, not in my hip joint.
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