Friday, April 15, 2022

 Friday, April 15, 2022 

   I had a wonderful night's sleep, peaceful, only disturbed by my need to use the bathroom a few times. I set up multiple alarms because I had a 7:30 appointment with my dentist. I discovered a rough edge to one of my few remaining natural lower front teeth. At first, I thought, "Damn. Chipped another tooth!' Then I realized the tooth lined up with a repeating wound on my inner lip. It wasn't a canker sore. I couldn't figure out why I had that problem. Now, I knew. Besides the disturbed area on my inner lip often being a source of irritation, I was concerned about the long-term impact. I hoped the dentist would see it as I did and smooth down the edge. He did, and he did. It was only a few minutes, and it cost me $88.00. Okay. He has to maintain an office, expensive equipment, and pay his receptionist and dental hygienist. I didn't know how he dealt with his dental assistant. She's his wife and the mother of his two children.

   I stopped at Costco, down the street from the dentist, to top off my gas tank. I don't use a lot of gas. I don't drive much, and my car is an electric/hybrid car. Six and a half gallons of gas cost me $32.00. I'm sure no one reading this who will remember this time in the world will be surprised by that price.

  The updates were up to date. I focused on gardening. I cut back the out-of-control bougainvillea in the yard. I wound up with scrapes on my wrist that looked like the razor cuts of someone with a psychological problem. The thorns on that plant are impressive. I once leaned on a rail to stabilize myself without seeing a thorny branch. I punctured a vein. I screamed for Mike. Fortunately, it wasn't an artery. I wasn't in any serious trouble. However, a large bougainvillea thorn can puncture a truck tire.  

  I had an appointment with Shelly. Fear is the leitmotif of my life, as it was my mother's. I think she passed her fear to me. As an adult, I dubbed her the high priestess of fear. She had PTSD. She didn't live in an era where it wasn't recognized other than vets of WWI and II who suffered from shell shock. There was also no psychological method for dealing with this problem. We were doing much better by this time. We recognize trauma is widespread and have developed some effective methods for helping people.

   I worried about a student I did one session with. I was asked by another tutor to help with a student who was having trouble learning to read. As the tutor described the situation, I realized the student was one of the most disabled students I had encountered. (Adolescent D may give her a run for the money.) I had trouble connecting with the student via Zoom. Nothing worked. I also had a bad feeling about the situation. Some intuitive warning. When I did connect, I chose to go right to the BrainManagementSkills. I lead her through a spin release. She knew exactly what I was talking about. People whose perception is disturbed recognize the sensation of spinning in their heads. I guided her into a release, warning her, as I always do, not to do it if it frightened her. I have used this method for over twenty years and have never had a bad outcome. I advise the student to stop if they feel fear. There are two reasons for this: a) it won't work, and b) the student won't want to do it again. The problem is these students have no control over their minds. It's vital that they feel in control. Their usual response is to STOP the spinning. They fight it. With the spin release, they relinquish control and allow the spin to find its own speed and spin-off, much as a tornado does. BUT- they must observe it calmly. If the student does feel fear, I teach them how to control the spin calmly. I have them imagine a brake. They can control the speed of the spin using that brake. It works. I understand that every spin is a moment of confusion that got stuck. 

   With this girl, she calmly announced that her spin was as big as the whole city of LA. That scared me, not her. She was calm. She was delighted to have it recognized and be given a way to get rid of it. The problem is I never heard from her tutor or her parents again. I had images of the girl excitedly telling her parents what happened and her parents assuming the worst. Evangelists might interpret the spinning as contact with the devil. The girl may not have been traumatized by the spin release, but she would have been by them if her parents had responded that way. 

   I repeatedly tried to contact the tutor and the parents. Neither responded. That was pretty scary. I was left to figure out why they ghosted me. I finally wrote the tutor that if I didn't hear from her, I would assume the parents didn't want me to work with their child. No word. As is the case with service professionals, the motto is "Do no harm." That is the absolute priority. While I might not be the direct cause of harm, I would have set up the situation without knowing the circumstance beforehand. I suppose I will never know. I believe I had a perfect record- up to this point. This is the first incident where I have had to question my judgment. It's scary. It's scary that I may have done something that indirectly caused harm. It's scary that someone perceives me as dangerous, even evil. It left me more reluctant to take on new students. Of course, I've also had the current problem of dealing with grief over my husband's death, made worse by the anticipation of facing a significant surgery without him.

   My objective was to work with the cause for the depth of my reaction. Even I thought it was extreme. It was an outcome of my mother's fearfulness, the reality of other people's extreme positions, and my visceral knowledge of what one human being is prepared to do with another over a disagreement from the perspective of my parents' experience in Nazi Germany.

   I knew I was strongly influenced by my mother's fearfulness. When she went into fearfulness, I lost control over myself. I was terrorized. I felt where the fearfulness was in my body, around my solar plexus. Looking at the front of the body, it moved clockwise. I released the spin from my back, following the principles I learned through Hands of Light. It expanded and slowed down. I reached a place where I could tolerate the spinning.  

   I thought my mother needed me to be fearful so I would be in sync with her feelings. That harmony is craved by all social animals. We want people to share our perceptions to affirm us. 

   With fearful people, some desire is for entrainment that creates harmony with the other person. But it can go beyond that. The fearful person wants the other person to experience their fearfulness so they don't have to. They become calm as the other person becomes more frightened. It's a release for them from their own stress. They take pleasure in frightening people. Sadism in its purest form. My experience with my mother in my twenties led me to believe she saw herself as sadistic. It was also clear she didn't think it was her finest characteristic. 

    In the session with Shelly, I allowed my mind to spin to match my mother's without experiencing it as fear. Wow! I could give her something she needed without losing myself. This is what Vipassana teaches. You observe the physical sensations without giving them an emotional label. You remain detached. It's an amazing process. 

    It would have been nice if the experience had ended there. But anger came up, my own capacity for cold, contemptuous rage. Besides this being an unpleasant feeling, I feared it for another reason. I am a first-generation American of direct German descent. My father was Jewish, but my mother was Christian. She often raged about the Germans, "those Nazis." forgetting that my sister and I were genetically German. I was afraid of being victimized as the members of the previous generation were. And I was afraid of being a victimizer as my relatives in Germany were. No, they never did anything to hurt another. They didn't work in concentration camps. They didn't pursue Jews to persecute them. However, they did live and work in Nazi institutions. One was in the German Navy, and another was in the secretarial pool in the bunker. Maybe that's why I never see myself as just a victim or just a villain. I understand I have both in me. Most moral people would prefer thinking of themselves as victims and not villains. Even the Nazis thought of themselves as victims, fighting to throw off their oppressors. Oh, we are an interesting species. The session ended there.

    Jean, my hanai sister, called to tell me that Damon's wife, Cylin, thought to have the wolf in The Bad Guys wear some sheepskin to make him a wolf in sheep's clothing. Love the way that woman's mind works.  

   Back to writing about sacrifice. It's such a bug-a-boo for me. My argument is that no one should describe themselves as making a sacrifice. Life is full of choices. We have to choose between ice cream flavors. If more than one appeals to you, and you're committed to limiting the amount you'll eat, you have to sacrifice one of them. 

     Some choices have a greater degree of discomfort built into them. What were my options when Mike was in the hospital for five weeks before he died? I could stay by his side or go home, leaving him alone in the hospital while I sat on the beach on the Big Island. Really?? I needed, yes, I needed, to be by his side. Abandoning him was not a choice. Besides caring about the man, leaving would have damaged my self-image. I'm not referring to what others might think of me. I mean what I think of myself. Circumstances force our choices. Are there people who would have chosen to sit on the beach all day? I'm sure. It wasn't in my wheelhouse. 

    There are social contexts where sacrifice is an important concept; the military works it big time. Sacrifice is noble. Combat is an extreme circumstance. We are required to make drastic choices. It helps to cultivate an attitude of sacrifice as noble. When in a pinch, the combatant's self-image is at stake. With the value of sacrifice embedded in their self-image, there's a greater likelihood they'll take one for the team. In that context, it is necessary. The combatant can take comfort in their sacrifice, as can their family when they lose them. 

    Trump didn't understand why people sacrifice. Now his self-image is something of a whole different caste. It does not include doing things for others. He sees no value in it. It gives him no joy. I can see embedding the importance of self-sacrifice into that psyche might have value. 

   I wrote myself out of my original argument. I see value in teaching the importance of sacrifice. I have seen it misused. I have been subjected to people who place themselves in uncomfortable situations and claim value because they put up with it. I consider that a form of evil. They nurture the worst traits in the other person. They are undermining them rather than elevating them. I wind up back there with Ben Franklin- everything in moderation. Take anything to its logical extreme; it's bound to be whacko.