Friday, April 14, 2023

 Friday, April 14, 2023

      I stayed in bed until seven-thirty. I fed Elsa before we walked. I only did a thousand three hundred steps before we turned into the driveway and went home. She pooped on the walk. Yay! I won't have to worry until dinner.  I meditated for an hour. I kept falling asleep.

   I had an appointment with Shelly. While I've associated my bad feelings with fear in the past, today, I identified them as shame. Shelly had suggested a protocol related to generational problems, which were passed down from generation to generation. It was four statements. The first was, "I know your fear." I had difficulty with that. I had no idea why. As I worked on it over the week, it became, "I know your shame." We are afraid of our shame. As well we should be; it's a lousy feeling.

  Any emotion prevalent in humans today had survival value. If we provoked someone's disapproval, we could be shunned. Shunning in today's world is painful but no longer life-threatening. Shun me now, and I'm off to Target to buy my meal. In the early days of humanity, Target was not an option. To be shunned by the group was a death sentence.

   We are no longer afraid of what causes our shame; the disapproval of members of our peer group is no longer a threat to our lives. However, because we live in a pluralist society, the discomfort of others is a constant. It must have been already in Christ's time and even in Buddha's, two hundred fifty years earlier, because they both addressed the problems of shame and guilt.

   When I finally did the release protocol, releasing anything negative about my hatred for this feeling and keeping anything positive or anything I still needed, I got an image of a hole in my chest, oozing and dark with decay. Not only did the wound look terrible, but so did I. Ghoulish. I focused on the wound for a while and then thought to do the opposite release; I released anything negative about my need to hold on to the wound and keep anything positive or anything I still need." Ah ha! I should have known. It is essential to explore cravings as well as aversion, using Buddhist terms to describe the cause of suffering. I was in a life-and-death struggle with my mom over which one of us was a good person. We competed for the victim role.

    Hidden Brain talked about people who play the victim card. They were talking about actual sociopaths who make false claims for profit. It is hard to resist reaching out to a victim. I listened to the broadcast from a different perspective. My mom didn't claim victimhood for profit; she claimed it to secure her identity as a good person. In a colloquium at Princeton University, I heard that being considered a good person is vital to people's identities. Even serial killers on death row will claim they are good people who have done a few bad things. This raises an interesting question: at which point do you say someone is a bad person versus a good one? Are there people about whom we never ask that question?  

  No one gets out of here alive, and no one gets out without harming others. The question is how much, both quantity and quality-wise. It's the unbearable thought that we unintentionally did harm that hurts others. My bug-a-boo is with people who cannot bear to recognize their actions have been harmful, regardless of their intent. Worse yet are those who have to vilify you to preserve their identity as the victim and, therefore, be the one who is pure of soul.

 I have recognized this as a bug-a-boo of mine for a long time. I have wondered why it is such an issue for me. Of course, I had to fight to the death with my mom, who insisted she did no harm, and if I suggested such a thing, I was pure evil. But that still didn't quite satisfy me. The expression is, "If  you want to know who you really are, see what you project onto others." I'd look for this trait in others to avoid them. It still didn't sit quite right.

   I have told everyone on the planet how wounded I am from my mother's treatment of me. All that is true. I didn't see myself as playing victim so much as asking for help. But now I have to finally view it from a different perspective. Am I still engaged in that life-and-death struggle with my mom for moral superiority?  

   I certainly gave it up on the surface. I understood how wounded my mom was. I understood that not only was her childhood difficult, but mine was also difficult for her. I understood that just by being me, I had caused her injury. I wish she could have recognized the harm she did me and say I'm sorry. She's been dead since October 16, 2001. What are my chances?  

   I had a session with Adolescent D today. First, I asked if he had progressed on his video assignment. The teacher approved the topics, and D had ideas for people to ask if he could interview them. He said no. Was he committed to not doing the project? Basically, yes. It felt too bad to do it.

   Doing it would mean coming out from hiding. The boy has expended a lot of energy in perfecting the skill of hiding. In the last session, he said he was hiding something that would make me and his mom dislike him. There's a good chance we already know whatever he is hiding unless it concerns his communing with the devil. I doubt that, but I did rack my brain for something that could be so disturbing. I finally decided it had to be something that everyone knew about already. He has an exaggerated idea of his ability to hide who he is.

  On the other hand, I said something about people avoiding him if he hid because they couldn't see him. That rang a bell for him. I proposed turning to work on reading for the rest of the session. He wanted to continue working on the mental attitude that blocked his progress. He won't improve until this psychological is issue resolved. I proposed he see a therapist. No to therapy. He didn't need it. He was doing it on himself. "How was that going?" What did he think we were doing? I snuck in under the radar. I know more about this boy than anyone else on the planet. Hopefully, I can help him.

    I spoke to Steven's mother about his experience at school. It's not been good. He's immature and behind in reading. I thought he was in first grade; he's not. He's in Kindergarten. Who pushes reading in Kindergarten? The curriculum for that grade drives me nuts. I disapprove of pushing word recognition skills that young. Phonemic awareness? Yes. I like what Waldorf does with language skills. It doesn't read books to children. The teacher tells stories. The children learn to tell stories. They develop verbal expression skills. Reading books to children is a poor substitute for storytelling, but it's the best most parents have to offer.

  Steven's mother said he had two additional problems. His teacher complains about his behavior but won't use a readily available strategy to help him calm himself. Just hand him a sheet with the times table. He will happily focus his attention on that. Does he have to learn to control his attention? Yes, but he's in Kindergarten now!!

  The second problem is that kindergartener Steven has a stalker. He's a classmate of his; yes, a five-year-old stalker. He insists Steven is his best friend and must always be near him. He throws major league temper tantrums if he can't be by Steven. This boy pushes Steven to do hurtful things to other children and threatens him if he doesn't do what he says. He has threatened to kill him. Is that metaphorical? Does this child hear these words at home whenever someone is mad at him, or do those words hold a severe threat? The story scared me. I can't imagine how Steven must feel. I do know Steven wants nothing to do with the boy. The teacher does everything she can to keep the two boys apart.     

   Steven's mother wondered how it could be that her son didn't receive the necessary instruction to learn what he needed for Kindergarten. I believe most teachers have no idea how to teach. They learn how to present prepackaged lessons but not how to respond to student confusion, except with more of the same. Steven's mother is an excellent cook. I pointed out the difference between people who follow recipes and those who " cook by instinct." Those instincts come from knowing how different foods and spices interact. Good cooks can tell you what type of sugar or salt was used. Me, I'm lucky if I know if there is any salt or not. Most teachers are in the last two categories. They are presenters of material. When it comes to cooking, I'm on one of the bottom rungs. I still wind up with something I can eat every night.

  The 'follow the recipe" type of teacher finds my approach to teaching reading very disturbing. It's too confusing. Too chaotic. Language is chaotic. Reducing it to some simple form when teaching does not eliminate the truth. I teach students how to deal with the chaos and have a good time doing it.

    Yvette and Scott drove the puppy Yvette adopted to the vet to be neutered. The poor baby is only three months old. When they brought her home, she was still recovering from the anesthesia. She had thrown up before they left and threw up more when she came home. Because she wasn't eating or drinking, Scott bought Pedialyte so she didn't dehydrate.