Thursday, April 11, 2024

 Thursday, April 11, 2024

    I had an appointment with Shelly at 9 am. Last week, I dealt with the unconscious rage someone felt for me. 

I believe our primitive brains do feel a need to 'kill' people who are a threat to us. We feel easily threatened in our modern lives. Our primitive brains see contradiction as a threat. We are designed to live in small, highly regulated groups. They needn't be hierarchical. No, they can be non-hierarchical. However, the social rules are the same throughout the structure and are accepted by all. The pathway for all social interactions is laid out, and everyone understands them. If someone doesn't, they have to leave the group. Leaving the group in primitive times meant death. No human could survive on their own for long. You were either in and a valued group member or a future valued member (a child), or you were not. Nowadays, we have no single social structure; there are no rules we all accept.  

 Currently, we don't live in a well-regulated world. The rules are different from home to home and even within a home. Parents come from different cultural backgrounds and often move to a location with an unfamiliar culture to both parents. This applies to immigrants and people who move from one part of a country to another. We all stand on shifting sands, unsure of the rules. Some can live with the confusion. Those who can't insist their rules are right and judge others. It is nerve-wracking for one and all. 

    We casually throw around the phrase 'I could kill you,' meaning no harm. Most of us never acknowledge the impulse. However, the impulse is in there. It scares us all. We know the depth of our anger. It haunts us if we haven't acknowledged this impulse and made our peace with it.

    When I did healing professionally, I led many clients through visualization to free them from fear and to help them recognize that the impulse doesn't make them killers, not even potential killers. I never did it with myself, even though I know how freeing it can be. Last week, I faced someone's anger at me. For the purpose of love and healing (an essential frame for the visualization to be healing). I allowed them to 'kill' me. I can't remember the details of the image, but I know it relieved some tension in our relationship. I saw differences.  

   Over the week, I thought it wasn't only the other person who wanted to 'kill' me; it Was also me who wanted to 'kill' them. I had to face that. I was sure that some of my anger at this other person had nothing to do with them. it was misplaced anger at my mother. I adored her. She was also lethal. She became enraged when she didn't get things her way. She needed total agreement with everything. I had to know 'what to do,' whatever she thought should be done. It was maddening. I have never dealt with the depth of my anger toward her. I still hadn't after this session. But I was able to deal with my anger for the other person. While I'm comfortable with my experience, I'm not comfortable sharing it in this format. Some may take the impulse literally. Many thoughts and impulses arise from the depths of our unconscious minds and don't result in action. Thank God. But those forces can be unleashed.

    The massacres in Rwanda in 1994 is a frightening example. That impulse was unleashed. We all need to be on the alert. We can't take it literally. We can't make that part of our brains our masters. Neither can we assume it's not there. It's there in all animals. We have to surrender it to God in the Christian tradition or sit with it with equanimity in the Buddhist tradition. If we don't acknowledge it, we leave ourselves open for disaster. Those poor Hutus who woke up from that dream to discover what they had done. Many still soothe themselves by believing their hands on violence was justified. That's one way of dealing with the horror, but it doesn't lead to peace; it only leads to more horror. We are the most dangerous animal on the planet.

    My image; it was violent and relieving, not because it 'destroyed' the other person, but because I observed the anger calmly, trusting it would do no harm to the other person. These images always have to be done for the purpose of love and healing of both parties. They may, in fact, be dangerous if they are taken too literally, even in our imaginations. I faced my anger calmly. I didn't have to fight it anymore. I didn't have to deny it to protect myself from seeing it in myself. Again, I saw an immediate change in myself and the other person.

     At 10:15, I had an appointment with twenty-six-year-old S. No, she had done no reading since our meeting on Tuesday. Today, she ran into a problem. She couldn't remember words she had been reading with ease. This is common in the learning process. It could be a reversion to an old pattern or the mind fighting back. Her brain was changing with the new learning. I wasn't concerned about the 'setback.' But I was concerned about her emotional reaction to it. I worried she would take it as a bad sign.

    S particularly struggled with the name Deena. Not only couldn't she remember the name, which she read repeadtedly every time we met, she couldn't remember the double ee stood for the long /e/ sound. Then she couldn't for the life of her sound the na in the right order. She kept switching it to an. She allowed me to push her through. She got it. But I'm not sure what was going on in her brain. She couldn't tell me. I assured her we could fix it.`

     I called the supervisor at the solar company I engaged to replace the solar panels I got from Hawaiian Solar in 2017. Those panels wound up being a bad batch. Many have given out already. They were replaced one at a time- but it took forever. There are only seven Hawaiian solar customers affected by this problem. Beth, the office administrator, is one of them. The company decided to give these customers the choice of continuing with them or accepting a warranty payment. I chose the payment, not knowing all the implications.

    Provision Solar assigned a young man to my case. He asked me basic questions. He called me again to say he needed the Enphase report on my current panel production. He encouraged me to go with the complete replacement, using 400 kw panels instead of the 300 I have now. That was the last I heard from him. On March 14, I had Beth send him a diagram of my existing panels, showing which had already been replaced. I never heard from him again. I didn't even receive the proposal for the partial replacement. I called him; he said he had sent it out last week; he was on the road now and would send it out when he returned to the office. Nothing. Today, I asked to speak to his supervisor. He said I would have the proposals in the next 35 minutes. I received an email containing only one proposal. I called the supervisor to report that I received the complete replacement proposal but not the partial one. I received both within the next 35 minutes.

  The supervisor advised me against replacing the defunct 300 panels with more of the same. They were hard to find. Was he telling the truth? I called Beth at Hawaiian Solar. Beth confirmed that the 300 panels were hard to come by. They weren't making them anymore. She had to search in the back rooms of warehouses. I trust Beth completely.  

    The other question I had was about the tax rebate. According to the proposals the young man sent me, I am entitled to a tax rebate with both proposals. I checked this with Beth, too. She said no. If I just replace the panels that had never given out, I would not be eligible for the tax rebate. I will check this information with my accountant.

   I was home all day because I had the fifth appointment with the Sears repairman. Two of them were canceled at the end of the day to say they didn't have a repairman available. On the third one, the problem was diagnosed. On the fourth visit, the repairmen discovered the wrong parts had been sent, and he had to reorder. The fifth visit was a successful one. My refrigerator ice maker worked again.

   I am making changes in response to what I'm learning. I've stopped drinking orange juice. after my shoulder and elbow surgeries, my caretakers fed me orange juice daily and oatmeal. I continued after they left. On one of the podcasts, orange juice was condemned for containing too much sugar. I substituted green tea for the o.j. Green tea is considered a superfood. 

   I also learned the importance of having contact with the Earth on one of the Huberman podcasts. Everything on my property is rocky. Darby and Patrick have a lovely, thick lawn. I asked her if I could walk there once a day. Of course. I could feel the difference immediately. I don't know if it is as healing as it claims to be, but it feels good.

   These podcasts also discuss diets, such as sixteen-hour fasts and sugar-free diets. In response, I ate more and gulped down sugar. I panicked.