Friday, December 17, 2021

 Friday, December 17, 2021    

 

I woke up around 2 pm and was wide awake and somewhat agitated.  I got up to meditate. I put on a hooded sweatshirt, grabbed by fleece throw blanket, and headed to my old-lady chair.  I wrapped the blanket around my body below my armpit.  I never managed to calm myself, but I did get an insight.  

    I have been working on changing my voice.  I had an old friend who criticized the loudness. She wondered if I had a hearing problem, which I didn't.  I didn't know what I did that made my voice so loud. I think I have learned to quiet it since living in Hawaii. You know how long people have lived here by how loud their voices are. Since everything is open here, you quickly learn to keep down your volume unless you want everyone in the neighborhood to be privy to your conversation.  I once passed a house early in the morning and heard a young man hiss, "You're not the boss of me." In any other environment, it would have been yelled. 

     I have been told that there is tension in my voice when I speak, forced speech.  Or at least, that's what I think it means. Just checked it. I was wrong. It means talking rapidly and moving quickly from topic to topic.  Someone just threw the term out at me, leaving me to figure out what it meant.  Love that type of person.  Not the least bit interested in really communicating. The comment came from a person who I was uncomfortable with. Being nervous and uncomfortable sounded like an appropriate description.  I get anxious if I feel someone doesn't want to hear what I have to say or doesn't want to deal with me in general. Let me see. Do you know anyone comfortable in that position?  But I do feel my speech is stressful for me and probably for others.  When I get scared, forget it!  I sound like a repeating rifle.  However, I feel that my regular speech is stressed too.  I want to approach this behaviorally.  Just change the speech. I have had moments of success. If I speak more slowly, and my tone is more resonant.  I find it more relaxing. I suppose it involves breath control. The slower the breath, the calmer the person.  This is a hard switch.  I have to think of talking that way. I have to monitor myself nonstop.  Judy and Shelly both say they don't experience my speech in a bad way.  Shelly says it sounds assertive but not bad. She's not uncomfortable with it. I'm stuck with many introverts in my life, family, and clients.  I want to learn to do it differently.  Those introverts understand my 'assertiveness' in the most negative light.  I would like to expand my presentation range. It's my new challenge.

    I told Shelly that I wanted to work on my voice during our session.  I believe my voice is uncomfortable for many people because I always tend to sound like I'm arguing.  An old habit from feeling that no one wanted to hear what I had to say.  This is a hard shift for me.  As we worked, I uncovered a deep feeling that made me uncomfortable. Like all deep feelings, we have to accept them with equanimity, and then they will sort themselves out. It's the craving and aversion that throw us off course.

    At three, I made ready to pick Isaac up to drive him to the airport. He was heading home for the holidays. He picked up something off the seat and handed me my missing credit card as he got into the card. Oh, well. It's been canceled now, with a new one on the way.  Isaac is anxious to get home to see his family. The poor boy, one of four kids, has been living alone for the first time in his life.  He had no idea what he was getting into.   While I had asked him to be punctual, he took another five minutes before we left.  I got a little anxious but was able to keep it to myself.  I texted M & W's mom to say I might be a few minutes late. As it was, there was no problem.

    Usually, mom is asking me to sign in a few minutes early. Today, there was no response at the appointed time.  I called mom. There was no answer.  I texted her to say I assumed something had come up, and I was signing off just as she was signing on. Did the kids get home late? No, mom had just lost track of time. 

    I started with 1st grade M, as usual. We worked on Phase III with a piece she had written.  Her reading wasn't as good as it usually is.  Why these variations?  With her, I can have her remember whole sentences or long clauses. She can retrieve the words without assistance and spell them.   I remember Aylett Cox saying that the dyslexic students she used her Orton-Gillingham method with said they found the spelling the most beneficial aspect of the program. 

   With 5th grade W, I proposed writing a new story.  I told her I was overwhelmed with the technical aspect of the story we worked on.  She was describing how she and two of her cousins had made a fort out of a bunkbed, blankets, and pillows.  Finding the words to tell how they fastened the blankets was just too much for me. She was happy to drop it too. She quickly came up with another story. It had a great macrostructure. There were three distinct stages to the plot.  The girls are always cooperative and seem to enjoy the lessons, but something about them makes me tense. I have to battle with myself. I don't know if there is something in me these days or something about the girls. I do suspect that a lot has to do with me.  I seem to prefer to be alone a lot more than I used to.  Today, I actually experienced some deep psychological pain while working, which I'm sure had nothing to do with them.   If I didn't believe these feelings could resolve and change, I would do drugs too.  Thank God I have the Vipassana training I have.  I have experienced change and resolution. 

   After the class, I took a nap.  Sometime during that half-hour, the pain shifted. What makes it do that just from staying calm beats the hell of me.  God bless Buddha for coming up with this brilliant insight.

   Over dinner, I read a few pages of Number Sense by Dehaene. These days, children are not expected to memorize their multiplication tables as they were in my day. Dehaene says that most adults don't know the times' table perfectly.  I had it drilled into me, so it has been inconceivable that someone wouldn't have them perfectly memorized.  Dehaene gave this wonderful example to demonstrate how hard they are to learn.  They are the same numbers arranged in a different order, and, in the case of addition and multiplication, the same problem can be arranged in four different ways: 6 x3=18, as 3x6=18, and 18-6x3, and 18=3x6.  If you had your tables drilled as I did, these distinctions don't do much to through you off track, but for a young child learning them who does not have a perfect associative recall, these are hell.

   I continued watching Durrells in Corfu. I thought I had seen the whole series, but I'm pretty sure I didn't see what I'm seeing now. I can't believe I wouldn't remember Larry's relationship with the town beauty. 

   On Hidden Brain last night, the topic was imposters syndrome. That's the belief that you're not as good as people think you are.  It sounds like an extension of the problem we all have, fearing we won't live up to the expectations of others. 

   In the case of imposters syndrome, it's expectations created by previous performances.  But we all deal with the problem of fearing people's reactions when we don't give them what they want.  I know I'm a good teacher. I work with people who have no idea who I am.  They don't know about my training, experience, or success rate.  Some have unreasonable expectations. "What? After six sessions, you haven't gotten my child, who is two grades behind, up to grade level?  It may be worse when we know others have seen our best and expect that as a matter of course. 

    I have dealt with people in my life who have what I consider unreasonable expectations. My mother regularly expected me to do what she wanted me to do without asking. I was supposed to know. If I didn't know, it was a sure sign there was something wrong with me.  

    When my niece was about nine, I observed an exchange between her and my mother. My mother was chasing after her saying, "You never do what you are asked to do." My niece said, "You never ask." My mom heard it for the first time in her life. Right, she never asked. She just expected everyone to 'know' what she wanted. Kafkaesque!