Tuesday, October 19, 2021
I slept well till the early morning hours. Then some troubling thoughts interfered with deep sleep. I did manage to doze on and off, but that's never as good deep sleep.
I just finished reading the section on Buddhism without Belief by Batchelor, where he describes his own problems with negative thinking. No, that's not quite accurate. It's not negative thinking is ruminative thinking. We get emotionally caught by a thought, either positive or negative, and dwell there to the exclusion of being present in the here and now. I need to be reminded that I'm not the only one who gets caught. The trick is having the skill to free ourselves from the grasp of obsessive thinking. That's what separates the men from the boys.
I love the Vipassana approach to meditation because it doesn't just teach how to stop obsessive thinking; it teaches how to heal the wound that caused it in the first place. It does it with calm awareness of sensations on the body. Some may think, how can that help? You're not solving the problem that has upset you in the first place. No, but it helps me regain balance, so I am better prepared to solve the problem in the present. For those of you who are puzzled, wondering how observing bodily sensations can help, I can appreciate that. You have to experience it to believe it. This method doesn't just resolve emotional disturbances; it can help with physical pain.
During my first sit, I was in terrible pain. When I sat cross-legged, my left inner thigh (yes, it was already damaged before Mike made it worse) hurt. To get relief, I would straighten my legs and lean against a wall. I fractured my coccyx when I was twelve. I rediscovered that pain in that position. I returned to the cross-legged position for relief. I finally locked my legs into the cross-legged position and did Vipassana mediation. I didn't think of what I experienced as pain. I merely described it, pulling, burning, pulsating, etc.- and the pain stopped. Wow! That made me a convert.
I think most people just push unpleasant thoughts aside. I wasn't good at that. I was trained to pay attention to my feelings without the complimentary training of dealing with them. Thank God I found Vipassana; it was life-changing. It's hard to know what goes on in other people. I do know that I don't appear to be distressed to many people. I don't know that I am any more distressed than anyone else. It may just be that I announce it when I feel that way. I believe in reconciliation. Reconciliation between two people and reconciliation between the many aspects of myself. It's worked for me. However, I think my perspective is confusing for others. If they were to say something, they would have to be at their wit's end. I don't pretend to be at my wit's end. However, I have to consider that others don't function as I do and my announcing a disturbed state of mind is a trigger for them. I didn't have to explain anything to Mike. I could just ask for a hug. It was an immediate soporific.
I call Darby, a friend I made in the neighborhood. She is a piano tuner. She has clients pleading with her to tune their pianos. I learned there are only four piano tuners on the island, and two of those have been off-island for a while, perhaps because of Covid. While Hawaii may be the safest place in the nation, people went to the mainland to help their families during the shutdown. Darby has concerns about going to people's houses and being exposed. She feels badly saying about saying no to people.
I had Mama K's crew in the afternoon. Before we met, I called her expressing concern about Twin E. She had been the one who was doing better than Twin A. Now, she was falling behind. Was there a problem at school? Was her teacher making her feel bad about her poor reading? Was someone bullying her at school because of her reading problems? She was just calling out the first word that came to her mind, regardless of the letters on the page. Sometimes, the first sound of the word she called out might be the same as the first sound of the word written on the page, but not necessarily. When we worked today, I got a different impression. She was saying the first word that came to her mind because she wanted to be a good reader, and that is what she saw good readers doing; Words just magically came to their minds. She was one of the students who thought she must have been absent the day the magic was passed. Yes, the way words pop into the minds of good readers does seem like magic to children who can't do it. When you think about it, it is magic, totally.
Twin A was off to a doctor's appointment with mom. I didn't work with her today. Her mom said she read a book. Mom watched her use my crossbody blending technique to figure out the word. You go, girl.
Then I had K. The primary paper his teacher had sent home was there for him. I had him work without a model. He made a mistake saying the sentence, "The quick lazy fox jumps . . ." He stopped and corrected himself. Then he wrote the sentence and his first and last name without a model before him. I used to take him ten to fifteen minutes to write these words. Today it took under three minutes. I couldn't believe it. He said he is using the primary paper in class. The difference was amazing. I asked him if he took spelling tests every week. He said no. Hmmm! I wonder. I wrote his teacher to ask her.
I had Dash later in the day. He is doing so much better. The turnaround was when he got his left hemisphere auditory processing center to function and perhaps listening to the audiofile. He still had trouble remembering that the final y in a longer word was likely a long e. I also repeatedly reminded him that the syllable structure dictated a short vowel sound, VC, a vowel followed by a consonant sound.
I asked him how his reading went today in school. For the first time, he remembered reading there. I told him his teacher was going to expect him to do more work. He said he knew. Did she tell him? No, he could tell. Was he able to do that work? Yes. Was he surprised? Yes. Yay!!!!
Darby called to get information from the neighborhood yenta, me. Did I know why the lady who lived across the street stood in front of her house leaning on the rock wall with her phone for a good part of the day? No. I had noticed that myself. I would find a way to ask. Also, did I know the name of the heavy-set man who walked in the evening? He had made several strange comments to her, nothing personal. Advice on how to cheat someone, etc. This fellow is a ball of hyperness and negativity. He complains how the people in Hawaii are not friendly. This is the Aloha state; it is committed to friendliness. If he can't evoke a friendly response here, he's screwed wherever he goes.
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