Friday, May 14, 2021

 Friday, May 14, 2021

 

            I had a terrible night's sleep after 1 am. It was as if someone had plugged me in and turned me onto high. I felt an electrical tingle all over my body. I managed to get some sleep, but not the restful kind.

            When Elsa and I got back from our morning walk, I continued searching for my precious earbud. I discovered it missing yesterday afternoon. I have no idea what I might have done with it. I have another set with a different brand, but I don't know how to use them. I think I finally figured out how they are supposed to fit into my ears. However, there's a problem: they keep falling out. I suspect they're not suitable for my super small ears. Also, I have no idea how to turn them on. It took me time to get used to my other earbud. Once I was, I could slip it in without a second thought.

            I spent most of the day washing floors when I wasn't on a Zoom appointment of one sort or another. I had a meeting with Shelly today. I was particularly concerned about one of my students, who was very negative. I'm not only worried about him; I'm concerned about my reaction to his negativity. It hurts. I wind up pushing him to be less negative but not in a good way. It comes out of my distress. A professional can't be effective with clients if they are experiencing distress. The motivation is inappropriate. 

            I also worked on two other issues. There is someone in my personal life I am very uncomfortable with. I have known them for a long time in one circumstance and am now engaged differently, more directly. It's not going well. Our personal styles of interaction do not mesh.  

            This person looks sociable and friendly on the surface but is very also very introverted. I feel alone in their company. I don't think there is one true self. The sunshine self is as much a part of us as the shadow, even if we're posturing. We all have to do some posturing and not be our 'real' selves. That would be unbearable for all concerned, particularly since our moodiness defines the 'real self'.

            I wondered why I had trouble being in their presence with this contracted aspect. It does make me feel like I'm alone. There is no loneliness like being alone in someone's presence. I know this person has developed this personality as a coping strategy, as I have developed mine for that purpose. It works for them. They have no reason to change for my sake. I was wondering why it bothered me so much. I know the formula; if you are bothered by someone's behavior, assume it informs you about your own.  

            When I focused on this person, I saw their personality compressed into a hard brown impenetrable nut. I wondered if I had that in me. As I think of it, when I was younger, I was terrified that I could never be enough for someone else. I felt this part of me that wanted to stay enclosed and protected. While I could develop enough, so I didn't feel I had to be everything for someone whenever they demanded it, it was still worthwhile exploring. As  I focused on the hard brown nut, there was a change in the energy in my lower left abdomen. Interesting! So, there is some of that in me. I don't know if that makes me uncomfortable with them.

            I also worked on my relationship with mentors. I don't have a mentor for my work. I am out here alone, developing my educational methods. Did I ever have a mentor? Did I ever give anyone that much authority? Yes, I accepted my dad as my mentor as well as my parent. While I valued some aspects of my mother, I never saw her as a teacher or mentor. I neither liked her behavior or her treatment of me. I think I accepted Mike as a mentor as well as a partner. 

            Mentor and partner are different roles. If someone is my mentor, I accept the other person knows more than I do; if a partner, it involves making changes in myself in response to their needs. It has nothing to do with them being an expert at anything. The partner is the person I rub up against, change, and get changed by as a result. But Mike was also a mentor. He represented some conventional ways of thinking and behaving. Mike set the best table, but that's not what I looked for. He mentored me in linear thinking. He was good at that. My global thinking drove him nuts for most of our marriage. I wasn't interested in giving up my global thinking. I was interested in expanding my linear thinking, so I could use both. I have a mind that generates new ideas and new ways of thinking. When I was younger, I understood that my inability to be linear and mentally contained prevented me from polishing my ideas into presentable forms. I felt like a woman who conceives easily and then miscarries just as easily. It was very frustrating. I had made some progress before I met Mike. But it was Mike that helped me improve my writing and learn to contain my mind at will, so I didn't skip from topic to topic as I wrote. I still need help from my personal editors.

            My dad and Mike were the only two people who I think I accepted as mentors. My problem with therapists was that I didn't accept them as my mentors. As a result, they thought I had issues with authority and had trouble holding a job. I never had a problem keeping a job. When I was on the job, they paid me; they were my bosses. I had no trouble with that concept. Fortunately, I never had a boss who pushed me into a space too narrow for me to tolerate. I was usually a valued employee, generally liked by my bosses and the staff. In the therapeutic relationship, I paid them; they were my employees. I was the boss, not them—big confusion. I had a therapist who thought it was her role to become my parent and raise me right. Really?? I was a full-grown adult. I should have some say in what I became. I didn't think any of them was good enough to be my mentor. I expressed this idea to Shelly. She affirmed me. She said narcissism is epidemic among psychologists. It's a serious problem. They set themselves up as the expert. It's not as if they can claim that they have a particular skill, as, say a fly fisherman might, but that they just know more. Really? 

            After my 9 am appointment with Shelly, I headed down to Target to get another earbud. I took the extra one I had. The tech guy at the electronics counter couldn't figure out how it worked. I bought another one. I wanted one with a hook over the ear. I have tiny ears. They don't look that small because I have a tiny head. It was a struggle, but he got a new pair hooked up to my phone, and I had sound. I still couldn't get the earbud to stay in.

            I had an appointment with E. I did healing work with him, and we've been very successful. He was doing better with his schoolwork and his family. He is generally more at peace with himself. I know E outside of our sessions. Today I asked him if he ever asked anyone for what he wanted or set a boundary. He thought about it. He didn't with his family or his friends. I told him his passivity could cause problems for him in his lifetime. When I am in a healing session, I constantly check if it's okay with the person. Is this image right? Yes or no? On a rate of 1to 10, how do you feel about this? I am constantly checking. I put the client in charge. Well, it's about them. They should be in charge. To say it's a limited interpersonal relationship would be putting it mildly. I don't do that as I relate to people socially. Can you imagine someone constantly asking you if it's okay to do something? "Is it alright if I sit here? Can I cross my legs? Would it disturb you if I turned a page? Yikes! No. I told E that he has to learn to be there more for himself. In a worst-case scenario, he would attract someone assertive and expressive like me who didn't care about his feelings. That person would assume he was okay with whatever they wanted to do. He cried out in horror. I told him that I was frightened by people like him, just as he was frightened by people like me. I'm not interested in someone I can walk over who will allow me to have everything my way. I don't like that. Mike said he was attracted to me because he thought I would take care of myself and be concerned about the other person. He had that right. But he had to be there for himself too. I wasn't going to do all the work for two.

            J had some math work. Again, there was an exercise I didn't understand. He did it differently than I did. He wanted to do some reading work but couldn't get it to come up on the computer to share. He told me that he was moved up in his reading from yellow to green. This is the first I've heard about this grading system. There are four colors: red, yellow, green, and blue. I asked him if this improvement reflects our work together or his alone. He said both. I had asked him for his level before. He said he didn't know. Now I will know what to ask a kid in the LAUSD system.

   Today was Scott's 50th birthday. Yvette organized an event for him in our driveway, inviting all the yoga participants. Yvette and Scott strung up decorations; Deb made cupcakes for the event. I brought out chairs from the house or organized others to do so. Yvette had a few 'prizes' and passed them out to those who answered questions about Scott correctly. I got one. She asked, "How long had Scott been doing Bikram?" I first said, "One year." But then I remembered he was in my classes before the pandemic started; "That's over a year." I said, "Two years," and got the prize. 

            I called Dorothy. I haven't spoken to her in a while. I had a great time. When we talk about information, we both have fun. Today's topic was why China was so polluted. My new next-door neighbors are Chinese. They were at the party since Mei came to the yoga classes. They told us they left China because their son was having terrible problems with the pollution. I asked if they were from Beijing. No, they were from another big city. All the cities were polluted. I asked about the country. They said the country was even worse. All the rivers and land were polluted. People in the country areas were dying of cancer. Egad!

            I was disgusted thinking of a dictatorship that thinks nothing of the welfare of its people. Dorothy explained that the problem was industrialization. China and Russia pushed it because their people were starving. Then industrialization developed its unstoppable engine. 

            I howled to Dorothy about the dysfunctional earbud. I kept falling out. This was so frustrating. She said she would send me the name of the ones she used. She had a two-ear set as the new ones were but only ever used the one from her right ear. The other one she left in the charger. I'm afraid of an earbud that's only the size of my ear. I will lose that in no time.

            I also had a short talk with Jean, my hanai sister. She's always busy with something. Short talks are good as far as I'm concerned.

        I am delighted with my Vit C serum facials. I originally bought Vit C. crystals that were not for cosmetic use. The grains were large. I felt like I had rubbed sand on my face. I discovered that there was something called cosmetic grade Vit. C. powder. Ah! I bet it's ground up. I put some of what I had in my coffee grinder and got this wonderful powder. I ordered cosmetic grade Vit. C. crystals, only to discover their grade was not as fine as what I got in my coffee grinder. I put the new stuff in the grinder and saw 100% improvement.