Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

  This morning, when I ran into one of my walking acquaintances who I knew wrestled with her body image, I was moved to share Laughter Yoga with her. I don't know if it was primarily developed as a form of breathing exercise or a mood elevator. I experience it more as a physical exercise. Either way, it is also good for developing abdominal muscles. If you sustain laughter for a minute, those muscles let you know they were activated. Yvette finds the exercise tiring. 

   I am sleeping better; I wake up less frequently and sleep through the morning. Last night  , when I woke up at 1:30 to pee, I was wide awake. I didn't look forward to the rest of the night. I planned to get up and meditate if I couldn't fall back to sleep. No worries. I woke up again shortly after 4:30.

  I had an appointment with my therapist/life coach this morning for the first time in three weeks. She was touring Morocco.  I asked her how it went, expecting to hear a great story. Hmm! Not so much.

   She got Covid and was thrown off the tour. When Shelly came down with a cold, her friend insisted she take a Covid test and ran to the leaders. Shelly was put into a cab and sent into the world alone. I would think the host country would terminate touring rights for a company that sends a contagious person into the general population without support. 

   Shelly was on her own in a country hostile to Americans and unaccompanied women. It didn't get all the details, but she continued traveling and touring.  It cost her twice as much as the original plan. The tour company did not reimburse her. I assumed she wouldn't have anything more to do with this supposed friend.  But no- Shelly is into forgiveness. She understood her friend was panicked by her Covid diagnosis. When I spoke to her today, she still suffered from 'a cold.'  She wasn't meeting with clients in person, just remotely.

    I told Shelly all that had happened in my life over the interim. I told her how a video on empaths helped me solve one of my problems.  The agony created by longing was resolved.  That was a significant change - on to bigger and better issues.  Issues around my work were always lurking. That I am a superior teacher and have developed remarkable method for teaching my work doesn't get recognition.  While getting more recognition for my accomplishments from the educational community and those I work with would be nice, the main issue is getting the work out there for other educators and parents to use.  I'm my own worst enemy.  

   I watch others promote their products shamelessly.  What is there to be ashamed of?  But I wasn't raised with that kind of entitlement. If I advocate for myself, I'll feel a lot better whether others respond.  When I think of calling schools to put my name on a list of tutors, I feel a combination of shame and humiliation  

   That got Shelly and me into a discussion: How do shame and humiliation differ? They feel different. Shelly said humiliation is triggered by some external action—someone says or does something that humiliates us—while shame is generated internally. But they are linked somehow.

   I experience humiliation in my upper torso, particularly on my upper back. I feel shame in the lower half of my body. I don't know if anyone else experiences it this way.  It is those feelings that stop me from extending myself.  I have a list of topics I want to make videos on. My fear prevents me from even envisioning a coherent presentation.  Now, generally, I'm pretty comfortable playing the fool.  I'm a risk taker. 

    I tried out my 4" chainsaw yesterday. It didn't work. I  recharged the battery. It still didn't work. I tried the second battery. It still didn't work. Anxiety hit.  I am more vulnerable to anxiety these days. There are so many possible causes I'd have trouble choosing.

   I described the feeling of anxiety to my friend Jean. It feels like there's a racing motor inside me while I'm standing still. I dealt with it as a child by moving as fast as that internal motor. While it kept me sane, it wasn't the best solution.

   My response to my current anxiety: I hopped in my car and headed down to Home Depot, determined to buy another pruning chainsaw. I love this little gadget. It's good for branches less than six inches in diameter. 

   I started searching the tool aisle and was directed to aisle three with the motorized gardening tools.  Everything was under lock and key. An employee was in the aisle, but he was helping someone else. He said he'd be back in a minute. Ten minutes later, I was wandering the aisles, looking for help.  The same man came out of the outdoor gardening section, saw me, and apologized.  He got caught up in something else.  I decided on the Ryobi 6" chainsaw.  It was $99 without the battery. It said I had to order it online at the Home Depot site.  The clerk turned to leave and said he'd be right back. Where was he going? Over to the tool aisle. But they don't carry chainsaws.  He knew that- but they might carry the battery. All Ryobi batteries are the same. Hey, I had a Ryobi drill at home. What did the battery look like? I couldn't remember. He said all Ryobi batteries were the same. If I had one, I could use it with my new purchase.

     Judy called on her way to work. She had quite a story. She got a call from the water company.  They read our meters once every two months. Her household had used an enormous amount of water.  There must be a leak. 

   Paulette, Judy's sister, does the maintenance work around the house. She knew where the pipe was. She set about following it looking for the leak.  She heard it before she saw it.  The PV pipe was only a few inches underground. When she uncovered it, she discovered it was gushing water with a large root pressing against the pipe. However, the ground around it wasn't supersaturated, and there were no above-ground puddles.  They would never have detected a leak until they got the bill. The bill for three households on that property is usually $200. This last bill was for $2000.

        The twins did very well today. I had Twin E first. I knew which one it was because she greeted me cheerily.  Twin A is more subdued. She is more restless in the sessions. She is also considerably more advanced. While both girls are reading in a grade-three level book now, Twin A's word recognition and fluency are significantly better. I have done work with Twin A on figuring out what a word really is when she decoding of a word is correct but does not provide the accurate pronunciation of the word. I'm just starting the process with Twin E. 

   A friend called to ask for advice. She has a difficult relative, an alcoholic who hurles insults - a real joy. My friend read me a text exchange. She wanted my advice on how to respond. The exchange consisted of the other party criticizing my friend, her defense, and his attacking her on a different issue.  My advice: stop reading the texts. There was an issue here, the well-being of a child. All the rest was nonsense. She'd started reading the text again.  She said she wanted to fix the problem between them. It's unfixable. She has to keep an eye on the real problem, her access to the child and his well-being. The rest has nothing to do with anything.  It's noise, pure distraction.  She should ignore those attacks. She went back to reading the text to me. Again, I told her to stop.  This is addictive behavior, one I'm familiar with in myself. I know how hard it is not to go down that rabbit hole. I hear Mike's advice echoing in my head: it's a problem to be solved; keep your eye on the problem, not the distractions.

   I know it's addictive because I do it. Negative thinking is the default mode of the human mind. The argument is that as our brains developed, we had to contemplate dangerous experiences to learn from them and figure out alternative ways of dealing with them. There's no point in dwelling on positive experiences. There's nothing to fix.  

   The problem with rumination may be worse now than it was in the past, but since both Buddha and Christ addressed this issue, it is clearly not completely new to the human condition.

   It's worse now because we in the Western world live such isolated lives.  I think the primary feeling of loneliness is fear. We know no one is committed to our protection. Each person lives in their own social pod. So many of us have no one. We weren't designed to live that way. It puts us in a constant state of hypervigilance because no one else is watching out for us.  In a group of committed people, everyone is watching out for everyone else.  There's a crowd protecting us, and we're ready to protect anyone and everyone in that crowd.  That's security. Not just a firm base but a wide one as well. No one person has to assume full responsibility. Everyone is equally on board. Ah. Sounds so relaxing.

   But we don't have that option anymore. It's every man for himself, so our rumination tendencies run amok. I recommended we start an RA group, a Rumination Anonymous. Rumination is more akin to eating than alcohol. Alcohol, you can give up entirely and survive, but not so with eating or rumination. They both serve survival functions. That's the problem.