Tuesday, August 27, 2019

    Okay, I'm not doing so well today. Mike's regular hugs helped me to regain balance. He didn't just hug me; he sent me all his love and affirmed me in a thousand ways. There was a program on NPR today about Sweden's problems where it is the ideal to live alone.  People talk about dark thoughts overcoming them.  I wonder if this is universal.  

    When I got to Bikram, Jeff came up to hug me.  He offers that to a number of us.  These hugs are usually aloha hugs, per functionary greetings.  When I told him I really need a hug today, he leaned into it and sent me good vibes. I said how much I missed Mike and sobbed once or twice. It helped. Doing the class helped too.   

    Why would we sink into negative thinking if we are alone? To begin with, I'm sure this isn't true for everyone. Some people retire to the wild and live happily. Well, maybe I'm thinking of a book I read about someone who lived in a desert setting alone.  Of course, he wrote a book, so mentally, he wasn't alone.  He was reaching out to others. Also, I don't know how long he stayed out there.

    Back to why we would sink into negative thinking: I thought I wrote about this already. Maybe not. As you may already have realized, I think in terms of evolutionary psychology a lot.  I ask, "How would this behavior have helped us survive in the period when our brains circuits were formed?"  "How would negative thinking promote our chances of survival?"

    My thinking is that if we found ourselves isolated, totally alone, in the hunter-gatherer period, something had gone wrong.  Either we were physically lost in the wild when we got separated from a group, or we had been banished from the tribe for some social infraction.  Either way, it was a life-threatening situation, and we had to think of a way to solve this problem. Since I am not lost in a physical wilderness, I must have offended the tribe members.  I have to think, "What did I do wrong? How can I get back in their good graces?" Ergo, I set in on negative thinking. Since I haven't done anything wrong and I haven't been exiled from my tribe, I don't have a real-life circumstance to contemplate. I have to fish around for negative things to think about myself. Remember, if early man couldn't figure out how to get back into their good graces, he was as good as dead. No one could survive out in the wilderness alone forever in those days.  Maybe thirst and hunger could be addressed, but when would he sleep? Who would keep watch and protect him from wild animals?   What if he injured himself?  He was doomed. 

    I have read some books which tell of people who get lost for extended periods in the wilderness,  but these folks had modern-day weapons, and they weren't out there forever.  I confess I don't know enough about how the hunters of early America functioned.  I have a feeling there are stories of survival that will contradict my theory.

 

Monday, August 26, 2019

    I woke up around 4:30 and only dozed after that.  My heart was racing, and my breathing became shallow.  I was reminded of the way I felt after my dad died when I was 15.  I had insomnia until the first night, I slept in my dorm room my freshman year of college.  With my dad gone, I had no buffer between me and my mom, who took pleasure in telling me that I was wrong about everything and that no one liked me.  I was terrified.  

    I think I feel somewhat like that now without Mike.  Mike was a buffer for me, even as he was a critic.  His supportive behavior outweighed his negative.  Maybe it was nothing personal; perhaps I just projected those traits of my father onto him.  

    My mom first met Mike when our relationship was well set.  I hadn’t talked to her for a year; I needed time off for good behavior. Mike and I went to her house for dinner.  I desperately needed a nap.  I went up to my old room to lie down, something my mother would think completely inappropriate when there was a guest.  Mike, knowing how my mother would respond, got a chair, sat at the head of the bed, and read and protected me from her assault. I had to get through to my nonconscious mind that a) I survived her attacks, b) she’s been dead now for 18 years, and c) I can survive the criticisms of others.  

    When I left for Bikram, I already had yoga brain. It didn’t clear during the class. I felt a little dizzy and nauseous.  When I was young, it was pregnancy scares; not that I’m old, it’s stroke scares.  I lay down after 15 minutes and stayed down for the rest of the class doing nothing.    

    When I got home, I did half an hour of work on the blue flowers with the great name of plumbago.  Then I showered and went to school.`    

    At school, I worked with K on her attitude and fears. I see a clear improvement in B’s reading. It is hard to convince kids that it is worthwhile to stop when you are not sure of a word and use the conscious process to analyze it.  I keep telling them that each time they do that, they are training their nonconscious mind to do that work.  Once the nonconscious mind knows how to do it, it can do it at lightning speed.  We use our conscious minds to teach and train our nonconscious minds.          . 

Sunday, August 25, 2019

 

    I found the perfect bedtime reading: The History of the Semicolon. It's fun and interesting without being overstimulating.

    I set the alarm for 7 am but woke up early and was on my feet by 6:30. I did the long Sunday walk with Elsa, picking up garbage along the way.  When I got home, I washed the dishes and made sure I had my two cups of water in me before I went out and worked on the blue flower bushes, known as plumbago. I cleared the cut branches off the bushes where I had dumped them and moved them onto the driveway.  Then I did some more trimming.  I don't know if my neighbors are aware that I am doing this work yet or not.

    I came into the house in time to get ready to leave for church at 9:30. I was dressed and working on the computer when a text came through, telling me Judy and Paulette were leaving their house and would be here in a second. 

    I was tired before I even got to church. There was a table set out for aloha Sunday, which means parishioners bring sweets to share after the service.  I had something to look forward to.  

    I told Judy and Paulette that I was hearing more negative messages in my head.  I see them coming from people who might indeed say something to me, but so far haven't.  Why do I do this to myself? From what I hear in media and literature, I'm not the only one who suffers from negative self-messaging.  This is certainly not all my mother's fault.

    As I observe myself doing it, I noticed that I take some pleasure from torturing myself, like chewing on a sore tooth. Good God, why?  The only thing I can think of is pain is a stronger sensation than straightforward well-being.   I did a release: I release anything negative about loving the feeling I get when thinking negative thoughts and keep anything positive or anything I still need." That helped a little. 

    Mike was my antidote to my negativity. Besides getting angry when I put myself down, saying it was an insult to his good taste, he would hug me and make me feel worthwhile.  As I thought that, I could feel this wonderful, loving energy move through my whole body, scrubbing each cell of that negativity.  It felt great. I hope I can recapture it as needed.  

    The issue is, "Do I have a right to express myself in the blog and my work?" My mother always told me that no one was interested in what I had to say. I'm sure many people aren't, but I do get some positive feedback. Some people enjoy and maybe even learn from what I write.  One or two is a satisfying number.  Fifty to 100 would even be better.  I have worked hard on being me. I've given it a lot of thought.  I would love it if others could benefit from what I have learned. 

    Damon called. He had been calling both his mom and me once a week. He talked about the impact of losing his dad on him.  He realizes he can lose all of us.   We are sitting in God's waiting room, and his parents' numbers are coming up.  I always enjoy talking to him.  At the end of our conversation today, I asked him to give me permission to shoot my mouth off. I gave him the words to say, "I give you permission to shoot your mouth off anytime you like." He said, "I give you permission to shoot your mouth off." I said, "Any time you like." He dutifully repeated that last phrase. I think I will tell him to post that to me regularly.  I know I gave him the words, but it helped anyway.   I enjoy shooting my mouth off, following the thread of some miscellaneous thought, generally about the human condition.  The thoughts are usually triggered by something I have read, heard, or observed.  Thank you, Damon, for being your dad's replacement in this arena. 

    Now, you are not to think that Mike was a source of unconditional support. Oh, no. But for some reason, his negativity never affected me.  As little as twenty years ago, he said that he would have fired me from my job because of my unconventional teaching practices and sometimes my behavior. This is despite the evidence that my teaching practices were successful.  Sometime this year, I brought that up.  He said it was just him being neurotic. 

    I have no clear idea why Mike's criticisms never threw me. Weird.  For starters, he didn't make his criticisms with a mouth full of contempt.  He just made a statement.  What other reason could there be why I was unaffected by such negativity?  I knew he loved me?  I knew in my heart of hearts that he valued the very thing he was criticizing? 

    Mike liked everything to be structured and familiar. He wanted thinking based on what the ancient Greeks wrote. None of this, let's make up something new stuff. I'm let's make up something new all over the place. That's what I do. Find new solutions to old problems.  

    The other thing Mike was critical of was my rambling mind. I would jump from the profound to the mundane and see connections. We went together to see one of my therapists about this one.  During the session, I said something like, "I use primary sources." To which Mike said, "I use primary sources. I have read the original Plato, Aristotle, etc." Thank God, this therapist knew how to respond to calm him. She said, "Betty is  a phenomenologist." Oh.  Mike had studied the phenomenalism and got it.  At the end of his life, he got to the point where he was able to enjoy my wandering mind.  He saw me as a constant source of entertainment.  He said you never knew what was going to come out of my mouth next.  

 

____________ ___________ __________

Musings:

 

    From participating in Vipassana meditation, I learned that meditation's objective is to reduce gross sensation and be better at perceiving subtle sensations. It's a little like turning the volume down low; you have to be more attentive to hear the sound.  If I'm not alert, I hear nothing. Then maybe I don't exist anymore.  In the Buddhist tradition,  the focus is on self.  In the Christian tradition, the focus is on God.  God is everywhere, omniscient, infinite.  You can find God in everything, but you have to be "still" to know.  God is in the subtleties.  God is a constant, not a variable. It's like listening to air conditioner noise. 

    This is also true for ourselves. If we can move past gross sensation and perceive only subtle sensation, we wind up being about an interesting as air conditioner noise too, But boy, it can feel so good, so peaceful – if you can endure the feeling of the infinite.  Not so easy, peasy.          

Saturday, August 24, 2019

 

    I worked on putting more weight on the outer edge of my left foot and shifting my hips, so there was more weight on the inside of my right sits bone while walking, driving, and at yoga.

    I stopped at Office Depot after yoga to buy brown wrapping paper and rolls of packing tape. It said, “Buy 2, get one free.” So I went up to the counter with two of each.  The discount didn’t register. Neither the woman at the checkout counter nor I could figure out what the problem was. The store manager finally sorted out the problem  I went back and got the third one of each product. My excuse is that I had yoga brain; I don’t know what the clerk’s problem was.

    I have been thinking sadly about all the ways I disappointed Mike or made him sad. Gifts were an issue. The man never got the right gift for me, but, Lord, he tried.  I have two gifts he gave me for Christmas 2018 still unopened.  I don’t want to get rid of them because he gave them to me, but they accuse me.  He tried so hard and always got it wrong one way or another.  It makes me so sad that I couldn’t be more gracious.  

    That is not to say that I never appreciated anything he did for me.  If he went to the store and remembered to pick up something I might need,  my heart swelled with joy; I shared that with him.  I was so grateful that he thought of me. 

    The theme was the same in both cases.  I have adverse reactions to people who ignore who I am. My mother accused me of all sorts of sins. She also insisted that I had thin, baby-fine hair.  People on the street would stop to tell me what beautiful hair I had.   I argued with them; why would my mother lie to me?  

    I continued believing that I had thin, baby-fine hair until I was thirty-five.  I was using the same beautician my sister was.  The guy commented about what thick hair I had.  I set him straight.  I also told him I wasn’t the one with thick hair, Dorothy was.  He said no.  You have thick hair; she doesn’t.  Now, I believe that was the year she had a medical problem, and it may have been hard on her hair.

    Then I was treated to any number of therapists who had no idea what to do with me and made it up as they went along rather than acknowledging their confusion.  Loved it!   Once Mike and I got together, he often came to therapy sessions with me to protect me.  He saw me the way I saw myself and agreed these therapists didn’t have a clue.  I didn’t fit into their paradigms.  All told, I don’t do well with people who lay a trip on me.  Inappropriate gifts feel like that. 

_______ ________ __________

 

Musings:

    Brooks on love- OMG! He writes about the process of falling in love most romantically. His language is excellent, but heaven protect me from that form of falling in love.  Been there, done that.  It doesn’t work for me. 

    In my experience, that total consumption of self into the loved one. “I love you. I am you,” as Brooks describes it, is the experience of a repressed personality that has been cracked open.  In being cracked open, he discovered something about himself he didn’t know; he had never let himself know.  He fell in love with this aspect of himself. 

    He married the woman who affected him this way.  I hope they find/found stability because I don’t think you can happily be someone else, or even see that person entirely responsible for the person you became. 

    There are those moments of inspiration.  Brooks writes about Thomas Merton’s moment of inspiration, the moment when he realized the universality of man, himself included, and loved everyone. While this is one aspect of our spirits, there is the other. There is a part of ourselves that is not universal, which is specific to us. That part leaves us feeling ‘other’ and isolated. 

    While it’s great to remember our universality, as long as we’re alive, we must be our unique selves, too.  That is our contribution to this mess we call being the human life form on this earth.  

    Hopefully, we can pull this off without killing each other.  We’ve had good moments.  We’ve had truly horrible moments.  We are pulled between the universal and the specific.  Finding that balance means being truthful with ourselves and to ourselves. But like all abstractions, that means different things to different people. I guess I’m just along for the ride. I can only hope that I can continue to find it interesting.  Hopefully, it doesn’t become too interesting. 

Friday, August 23, 2019

As I was driving to Bikram this morning, instead of contracting the right psoas to shift my weight, I focused on shifting the angle of the right sitz bone. This engaged my right psoas, as before, but also engaged the outside of the right thigh muscles to push the hip over. 

After Bikram, I went to Home Depot to see if I could get help with my one-gallon Home Depot brand garden sprayer.  The one I had stopped holding the pressure. I could hear the air releasing but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I bought another one.  It didn’t work the first time I tried it.  I hoped someone at the store would know what was going wrong.  

The clerk in the garden center didn’t know anything.  She called for help. After 10 minutes, a woman came to help.  She took one look and called for some man to help.  Another 10-minute wait. He came and showed me how to tighten the top. “Okay, I said. Now pump.” He could hear the air escaping as well as I did.  I got another, “I have no idea,” and he walked away.  The woman came back, brought me a new one, waited while I set it up, and checked to see if it would work. I walked out none the wiser but with a sprayer that would work well enough for me to do the job I had in mind.

I got my phone out to call the monument company, but before I got a chance to dial, I got a phone call from a friend.  We set up a lunch date for the fourth. When I called the monument company, I got a voicemail prompt.  There is only one guy in this company.  I know he left for India right after meeting with me to buy more stones. He may not be back yet.  Even if the one I selected doesn’t work out, it won’t be a problem.  We can inter Mike over Christmas when the family is here and set up the monument any time after that.

As I left Home Depot, I called Jean.  She had good news: her broken foot was completely healed, and she no longer had to wear a boot. We also talked about Shivani, who is having some medical problems.  She tried to get an appointment with a doctor. The earliest appointment is in October.  There was a rush to retirement recently in San Fransisco by doctors who didn’t sell their practices to younger doctors.  It looks like this major city is facing the same problems some rural areas face.  

I went out to spray the hibiscus the second time ten days after the first against blister mites.  I realized the sun was hot and decided to wait until early evening so the spray wouldn’t damage the plants.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

 

    I called to make an appointment for Elsa's grooming for next Friday. The Dog Groomer guy works from 6 am to 12 pm. He's supposed to be good, and he's half the cost of Petco. 

    After Bikram, I did some healing work on one of the students who complained of terrible pain for days.  I love doing healing.  I love discovering the unexpected.  What was expected was that the source of the pain wasn't where it hurt.  As I think of it, I think I was working at the upper end of her psoas muscle. That would explain a lot of things.

    I went to Island Naturals to buy some almonds to compensate for the scrawny almond chips in the Hersey's milk chocolate with almonds nuggets.  Then I went to Costco to get gas.  When I left there, I immediately dialed the NJ Department of Benefits and Pensions.  I want to check that I am claiming zero deductions, so I can contribute to the tax bill before next April.  Mike claimed three deductions.  He always believed that money was better in his pocket than someone else's.  Fortunately, we had money to pay the bill at the end of the year, so it wasn't a source of conflict.  According to his memory, his parents fought about money nonstop.  It was a touchy issue for him.

    I didn't get to speak to an agent from the NJ Benefit and Pension Department until I got home.  There was something like a twenty-minute wait.  They confirmed that I had claimed zero deductions. 

__________ ___________   _____________

Musings:

    Hidden Brain had a program on rebels.  Rebels are people who break the rules. What makes for good rule-breakers versus bad ones?  How about morals. How about having the attitude that the civil rights leaders maintained.  I shared the passage below about a week ago.  It deserved to be included here too. I may include it in every entry.  I think it is that vital.  Heaven protect me from do-gooders who believe that just because they mean well or have a worthy cause, they will do no harm by whatever standard they use.  My mom was like that. Yikes! 

    Here's the passage which Brooks included in his book describing the introspection the civil rights leaders demanded of themselves.

"Even in the midst of these confrontations, Randolph, rusting, and the other civil rights activists were in their best moments aware that they were in danger of being corrupted by their aggressive actions  In the best moments they understood that they would become guilty of self-righteousness because their cause was just;  they would become guilty of smugness as their cause moved successfully forward; they would become vicious and tribal as group confronted group; they would become more dogmatic and simplistic as they used propaganda to mobilize their followers; they would become more vain as their audiences enlarged; their hearts would harden as the conflict grew more dire and their hatred for their enemies deepened; they would be compelled to make morally tainted choices as they got closer to power; the more they altered history, the more they would be infected by pride. P.148 Brooks. Road to Character.

 

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

    I have rediscovered contracting the right psoas to move the right hip back and up and the left hip front and down as I walk.  I’ve been here before, working on that muscle. The difference is that it affects my whole body differently each time. 

    When I got home, I wanted to work on getting the green waste I cut down yesterday off the remaining blue flowering shrub so it can flourish, but I was too tired.  I read a little of the article on spiritual direction from Mike’s folder from the Mercy Center and fell asleep.  I had a wonderful nap. 

    When I got up, I worked on the blog.  I still had the shrub on my to-do list, but there were great radio programs on.  I did some more work on the blog. Then I moved into the library to see if I could locate books while listening to a program.  

   Looking for the books is causing neck strain as I twist it here and there to read the titles. My vision problem is compromised by my trifocals; If I don’t get my head position just right, the lens distorts my vision. Duh! I decided to place all the books on their side so I could easily read the titles.  I also grouped books by the same subject or author.  That made them easier to find, and I found three additional books.  I may be ready to send out the first box of books.  It also occurred to me that once I check with all the seminaries that might be interested, the Hawaii deacons and the church members, I can go back to the seminaries and offer the books to the students.  It’s not what Mike wanted, but it is the best I can do. 

     I went out to deal with the blue flowering shrub.  I decided not to do any cutting today because I need to give my wrists a rest.  I pulled all the cut branches and tree trunks I had cut down off the shrub and lay them on the driveway.  This way, the bush can recover from this radical pruning.  I am hoping it can grow without the support of a fence.  I plan to trim it on the side facing the fence so that I can maintain the two-foot separation.  I will have to ask Margo when I see her on Sunday if this plant can grow that way.  If not, I’ll have to find a different solution to creating privacy between our neighbors and us.  

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

    There were twenty-two students in today's Bikram class. Wow! Great! I want the studio to do well. That will guarantee its survival. When I got home, I had my breakfast soup, did some work on the blog. Then I went out to do another hour's work on clearing the blue flower shrub off my neighbor's fence.

    My leg was in pain. I felt it in the left calf and the inside of the left thigh. The doctors told me that when I experienced that pain, that's when I would need to have a hip replacement. I applied Salon Pas to my left calf, the muscles on my back just below my ribs on the left side, and the left side of my neck. The pain left. Let's see: Salon Pas or total hip replacement? If I can fix it, why should I consider major surgery?  

    Each time I experience nerve pain in my left hip or leg, I wonder, "Is this it?" I know I can run into an unmovable wall at some point. But so far, each time I get that pain, I can resolve it, and it is a door to even more significant improvement.  

    I showered and went to school to work with the two kids who are having trouble with reading. Most of the children were sitting on the floor on their computers. K. looked reluctant to come when I called her. I asked another student what they were doing. It was 'free time' on the computer; they could do anything they wanted- within the legal limits for third grade. I called her name more loudly to communicate that she could stay and have her 'free time,' I would work with the student in the other class in the meantime. I like to give the children as much control over their relationship with me as I reasonably can. If they feel more empowered and believe that I care about what they care about, they will be more cooperative. Mrs. Buffington repeatedly tells me that K. asks for me every day.        

     I worked with B., a student in Mrs. Davis's class. He said he was experiencing some improvement. First, I checked his recall of how the silent -e affected the preceding vowel. I wrote a list of single-syllable words ending with a silent e : pale, here, file, pole, tune. I had him point to the vowel chart, distinguishing between the long and short vowel sounds for each one and tell me how he knew it was a long vowel. Then he read a level J book, which is the end of 1st grade. His reading was much better. Blending was still a problem. He wasn't using the physical cueing I taught him, the cross-body blending. He switched a sound at the end of the word to the beginning of the word. He also had trouble holding a sound, particularly the vowel sound, even when he had correctly identified which one to use. He makes little use of context clues. He read almost as almist. I read the sentence for him using his pronunciation. To my ears, the meaning of the word could be figured out in the context of that sentence. He couldn't do it. I used the word in a sentence that I thought he would be more familiar with. "It is almist time to go home." In this context, he could recognize the word and correct the pronunciation. 

    Then I went to work with K. She brought a level J book, end of 1st grade. I went and got a level M, end of second grade. She was again reluctant to read. I had her name the letters and ask me to tell her a word when she couldn't figure it out. She did that for two pages and then lapsed into reading the words she could read and naming the letters in the words she couldn't or didn't want to try to read.   

    I asked her if she was reading at home. She said no. She found it boring. I asked her if it was boring because it was hard. She said no, she didn't find the material interesting. She's only interested in art and music. Oh, boy. Love this type of resistance. The boy I am working with is scared, but he is committed to learning to read, unlike this girl. I asked her what she is interested in. She said Bruno Mars and named some songs. She said she didn't need to read the lyrics because she already knew the words. Great!

    It occurs to me to ask her if she likes movies. Books give us the script for the movies we create in our heads- if we know how to convert the words into visual images. I have found that many children don't have a clue about how to do this. I am going to work on this the next time I see her. 

    When I got home, I printed out some material on Bruno Mars and the lyrics of a song she expressed interest in. Then I grabbed Elsa, and we were off to the vet for her Lepo shot. The doctor told me that she is still overweight, although she has already lost 2 lbs. Since I had her there last. He said one more pound and she will be okay. I have taken to throwing her food across the kitchen floor. It's good for both of us. It creates a walking challenge for me, and it makes her rate of consumption more visible. I think Elsa enjoys it more. She has to follow the trail and find her food. I mentioned this to the vet. He said he did this for his dog too. 

    He did a check up on her and said she was doing well. He had told me that her wounds from her dog attack would get worse before they got better. I only saw extensive bruising on her abdomen, but the bite wounds were shallow and cleared up quickly. However, he confirmed that when one of the dogs was picking her up by the scruff of her neck, he intended to shake her to death. That takes my breath away. If Marsha hadn't been there, I doubt I could have saved her on my own. I have to let this trauma go. After all, she's fine except that she is overweight.  

    On the way home, I heard a Fresh Air interview with Charles King, who wrote "Gods of the Upper Air,' about a group of anthropologists led by Franz Boas, who set out to prove that white men of European descent were not biologically superior to all others. Still, their position of power was a result of accidents of culture. There has been a dramatic change in this viewpoint within my lifetime. I was introduced to some of these theories of equality by my father and the camp I went to, Ethical Culture School Camp, which was interracial. My mother, at least, was an early champion of a woman's rights. She wasn't political, just a free spirit who didn't like being confined as a child and climbed trees and ran free in the woods like a boy. Wonderful qualities in a mother. 

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    I think Mike saw that I did not see men as the enemy, any more than I saw any other human being as a potential enemy. I understood that men had their trauma. This does not mean that I didn't and don't resent the ways my life is confined by the cultural construct that makes doing certain things more difficult for me, and all women to succeed. But I do see it primarily as part of the cultural construct, and that, in one sense, men are as much victims of this construct as women are. I learned this from a rapist. 

    I was visiting a rural commune in Maryland sometime in the 70s. I was lying in the sun when this man loomed over me. He just made pleasant, friendly sounds. I would normally be alarmed, but I figured that someone involved with the commune was okay. Little did I know.

    He proposed going for a walk. I joined him. It seemed innocent enough. As we were walking down a slope, I was a little ahead of him. I could feel his energy leap out to attack me. I knew his intention. Without turning around, I reached my right arm back to take his hand and said, let's go. His energy receded.

    We walked down the hill a little way and sat down to talk. Don't ask me why I cooperated with this after that close call; I don't remember, but I do know that I felt safe. We talked for hours. He confirmed that he was about to rape me. I told him that now if he were inclined to hurt me, he would drive his head into a nearby tree. He also confirmed that. 

    He told me something about his childhood. I don't have any memory of the details, but I do remember that he had a woman or women in his life who were hostile to him as a male. I heard how he had been tormented for what he was. I thought that all men suffer from this to a certain extent.

    My husband's mother proudly told me that she was determined that her son would never think he was a prince or had special privileges. Duh! Babies don't come into the world with that attitude. It is taught. I have also heard other members of the family define their sons by their testosterone in negative ways. I thought of the cultural prisons that men were forced into, particularly when I was younger. There were as many things men couldn't do and remain 'men,' as there were things women couldn't do and continue to be considered 'women.'. Technically, men have more power. They do in any number of areas. But I saw them as trapped much the way women are trapped.

    While I appreciate that there are sins that are the only in the domain of men, there are also sins that are also only in the domain of women. Also, may I remind one and all, it is mostly women who raise the men. They hold the biases of the culture as much as men do. 

    It is not that I don't think there are problems with the cultural pattern, but I don't think men should carry the whole burden, particularly not individual men. I also know the problem with getting people to give up a supposed advantage for the sake of equality. It is hard to understand that they will be better off with the change themselves. I suppose you could say that is a spiritual perspective, but that's the one I use.  

    Mike presented problems for me because of his arrogance, which runs in his family in both women and men; he presented challenges for me because he was used to giving orders at work. I'd say, "Don't CEO me." Mike was willing to change. God, I loved and love that man. He was the best. He not only wanted to be a good person; he was willing to see the ways he failed to meet that goal and make changes.

    My' rapist' friend was way beyond my reach. He never hurt me, but I am as sure as I can be that he went on to rape other women, and possibly men. But I came out with a different perspective on the male version of the human condition that made a significant difference in my life. Empathy never goes to waste.

    

 

 

Monday, August 19, 2019

    I missed writing about Sunday.  It was uneventful.  Church, reading, napping.  Kathrin went to stay with a friend for a few days. 

    I spent an hour to an hour and a half cutting back the blue flower vine off the fence I share with my neighbor.  I like doing this work. It's hot and sweaty but detailed work. It's like a game of pick up sticks: to free one vine, I have to cut away another.

    I went to school and worked with two students. I first worked with a girl, K, in Mrs. Buffington's class. The child lacks confidence, not confidence in her reading, confidence in her ability to survive making a mistake.  She didn't want to read.  I had her name the letters in the words. Doing this keeps her in contact with print and helps improve her visual perception of the letters in the words. 

    I also worked with B, a boy from Mrs. Davis's class. He had not used the auditory processing center as I taught him to. If anything, it was more blocked.  I asked him directly how he felt about using it.  Thumbs down.  He said it felt weird, and he didn't like that.  Sorry bud, if you're going to make a change, you're going to have to go through weird. I also worked on identifying vowel sounds, the effect of the silent e at the end of a one-syllable word, blending using cross body blending, and a tolerance for the unknown. 

    Then I went to the bank and post office.   I found three statements of payment from a retirement fund.  I had thought they were from Ohio, but, no, they were from NJ.   NJ claimed they had sent me these checks, overpaying me by a mere $3,000, which they are going to reclaim.  I checked with my local bank that I had, in fact, deposited there.  Raymond James had no record of them.

    While I was there, I got a notarized document stating that I was Mike's wife to get a record of his medical and prescription payments for the year for next year's tax purposes. 

    Then off to the post office to mail the notarized letter to Kaiser Permanente to request the statements and mail a large envelope containing 83-year-old documents I found when going through old papers. These papers document my father's efforts to secure affidavits for members of my family, who were Jewish and still stuck in Nazi Germany.  I discovered that my uncle had initially been denied a visa because he had psoriasis.  Can you imagine being condemned to death because of that?  My father wrote to the authorities that psoriasis wasn't contagious, and it could be cured.  The first is true; the second is not. 

There was also a letter concerning relatives of mine who didn't make it out.  Alfred and his wife Lina died in Auschwitz.  Their daughter Antonia survived in a concentration camp at Theresienstadt. My father was able to bring her over to America when she was 21, after the war.  She lived a full life here and died in old age in Florida.

     Where did these papers come from?  I had never seen them; they were in Mike's files.  I don't know how he got hold of these papers rather than me. I have now mailed them on to my cousin Mike, who is the family archivist.

    I tried to nap when I came home but didn't have a lot of luck.  I read some more from the binder that Mike got from the Mercy Center in SF as part of his program to be certified as a spiritual director.  There are some notes of his own.  I was hoping I would gain some more insight into him, but they're strictly academic.

    Josh and Yvette were coming up for dinner. I made a point of walking Elsa and bathing her before dinner to be presentable for our appointment with the vet on Tuesday.   Yvette picked up food from a Thai place in town.  Yum!  They talk story about their adventures with Izzy, their 13-year-old dog. 

    Izzy was diagnosed with glaucoma. Besides having no vision left in her right eye, glaucoma caused the eye to swell. Painful.  Yvette and Josh chose to have the eye removed. She had to wear a cone for two weeks while the eye healed.  They kept a careful eye on her to make sure she didn't get into trouble. Yvette took off from work. Whenever she was home, she carried Izzy in a dog backpack. The day before the stitches were to be taken out, Yvette went out, and Josh didn't pay attention for a minute.  Because their door was open, Izzy could get out at will. When Josh looked up and saw her, her cone was covered with blood. Josh freaked out.  As he cleaned her face, working to determine how her eye was, he cleaned away chunks of flesh. He thought she had been attacked and not only had her stitches been torn out, but flesh from within the eye was affected. When he got her cleaned up, he saw that the eye was just fine. 

    Then he thought she must have gotten into to meat B left out.  He went down to check with him. There was a pig's head sitting in the driveway.  Now, Josh understood the source of all that blood and flesh.  He did text B to let him know what happened.  B came up to apologize. 

Elijah had shot his first pig. They had butchered it and left the head out.  Besides being messy, eating pig flesh poses an additional problem for dogs.  Dogs can get pseudo-rabies from pig meat.  While this form of rabies does not affect humans, it is fatal for dogs.  Yvette called the vet. They told her they hadn't seen many cases of it, and many dogs on the island had a taste of raw pig flesh. They would know after four days if they were in the clear.

    I soaked my foot as I watched television. Doing this gives me a great excuse not to search for books on the list. It's hard to do in so many ways.  Time-consuming and heart-consuming.   I did some work on the blog while watching Murder Call and Australian series.   When it started, I was struck with how bad the acting was.  But there as many shows in this series as there are in a soap opera.  The performers keep on improving. 

    I walked Elsa.  I usually read a little before switching off the light at night.  I have been reading A Diary of a Country Priest. Too boring. I started a book of Jewish Folktales.  I will take this to Seattle and give it to Karin and David to read to Sam.

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 Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    Some reading experts argue that when teaching reading, comprehension is king. As far as they are concerned, teaching word recognition skills without engaging comprehension is not reading.  They are opposed to teaching word recognition skills apart from a context where a student also works on comprehension.  Can you guess? I'm not in that school of thought.

    As a counter-argument, one could say that seeing is not seeing unless there is perceptional processing of what is seen.  Therefore, we should never repair vision problems unless it is in the context of perception of the real world. (Surgery?) Problem: there is no visual perception without seeing.  If there are problems with seeing, that should be addressed first.  Likewise, students who have difficulties with word recognition need to have these needs addressed, and they can be addressed independently of or simultaneously with comprehension.

    If the argument is that teaching word recognition outside of the context of comprehension is boring, I don't find it that way. I find working on both phonics, which I approach through phonemic awareness, and instant recall, which I approach through cognitive techniques, fun. Yes, fun.  I love it.  I find it endlessly fascinating.  When teaching phonemic awareness, I learn something new about the language regularly.  I find the correlation between orthography and phonemes in English so much fun. It's a game.  Because I see it that way, I can pass this on to my students. 

    Since comprehension can be taught without someone being able to read 'words' for one reason or another, I see it as a separate discipline, as complicated to teach as English word recognition.

 

Saturday, August 17, 2019

 

            Another designated D-Day.  Today is the day I am planning to start dismantling Mike’s library. 

            It started with Bikram at 8 am as usual for Saturday. Kathrin and I stopped off at Island Naturals and at  Costco.  I stayed in the car while she went into Island Naturals. She said she was just looking for shredded coconut.  I sat in the car listening to the Saturday NPR shows.  I waited, and waited and waited.  I thought there was probably some hold up in the store, but when I saw people who I had watched go in come out with shopping bags full of stuff, hmmmm … . I got out of the car to find her.  I figured she had gotten involved in some conversation and I wanted to move on.  As I entered the door, I saw her finishing up at the cash register.  I got behind her as she exited said, “ I ‘m right behind you.”  She must have been distracted, because the clerk called her back to point out she had left two items on the counter.  Her arms were laden as we walked to the car. 

            I was more the dawdler at Costco.  I love to check all the food sample tables.  She just wanted to check on two items.  I bought almond milk (Always pick up some when I go to the store.  I’ve been there when they were out.), 2 packages of salad and two bags of lemons.  I ran into Kathrin as I was heading to the check out.  As it was my turn to be checked out, she came up behind me.  Then she went to customer service to get some information, and I headed to the car.  I’m proud of myself because I could lift the 8 quart package of almond milk out of the cart and get it into the trunk by myself.  

            When I got home, I was exhausted.  I’m frequently tired.  I dozed rather than slept.  Judy was supposed to come over at two pm to help me start with the library.  I didn’t want to be alone for this transition.  I delayed it a little bit; I told her to come over at three. We talked a while before we started doing anything else.  It is always good to see her. She means a lot to me. 

            I did the little bit of straightening and cleaning I’d been putting off and then took a video and still pictures of the room.  I sent the pictures to Damon to be archived.  He knows what he is doing more than I do.        

            After taking the pictures, I got out the list.  Judy thought we would be looking for a dozen books or so.  No, Notre Dame in New Orleans has requested something like 100 books.  That may sound like a lot but there are 3700.  One hundred is a mere drop in the bucket – or out of the bucket if you prefer.

            While Mike’s library is somewhat categorized: American History here, Egyptian there, St. Bonaventure here, Aristotle there. Since he didn’t use any established system, sometimes a philosopher is in the philosophy section and sometimes in the theology section.  The books are not in any neat order.  I mentioned my idea of asking parishioners to come over and help me in the search.  Judy thought it would be a neat idea to set up a treasure hunt.  An adult party. 

            As Judy left, I expressed my gratitude to her for being my friend.  It means the world to me.  She said that I didn’t need to.  I could feel her discomfort.  I told her I wasn’t expressing it for her sake but for mine.  It would do me damage if I didn’t express it, literally, as in getting it out of my body.  I told her to just think of it as my farting, farting gratitude, having to because the pressure build up was making me uncomfortable.  Mike and I understood that with each other.  This was one of the great things about our relationship: we could freely express our positive feelings about each other without making the other one uncomfortable.

            Well that wasn’t always true.  Mike used to claim that I was objectively this most beautiful woman in the world. (My only near competitor was Jane Fonda.) Now that didn’t  make me comfortable.  I wasn’t out of touch with reality; I knew that no one except Mike would consider me that beautiful.  I finally convinced him to just tell me that he thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world.  That would be perfect.  That I could accept.

            In the evening, Kathrin and I were invited for dinner at Amanda and Brian’s house.  They are renting from the Glicksteins’ and are included in feasts orchestrated by the Glicksteins’ at my house.  It was great food and good company. Then I was ready to go home.  I was planning to do more work in the library.  I did FreeCell instead.  But I did find one more book.  

            I think I have to reorganize the list the Notre Dame librarian sent me.  I should make two lists, one by author and one by subject.  I think it will be easier to find the books that way. Also I think I have some duplicate lists.  

 

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 Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

 

            I touched on this subject before: why is it so hard to accept expressions of love and gratitude. I am pretty sure I wrote that I think that one reason we talk about praising, thanking and loving God is so we have a safe place for us to express these emotions, and express them we must or suffer. Holding them is can be as uncomfortable for us  holding in our pee, poop or sneeze.  

            But then we have to ask, are there times when it is inappropriate to express these feelings.  I would say yes too.  There are people who don’t relish the burden of our feelings for them, positive or negative, especially if they are inappropriate, rising out of our desperate needs. I don’t have a clear set of rules.  I just consider myself lucky that I found Mike and he delighted in my expressions of love and gratitude. He didn’t experience them as demands.  They weren’t. 

            I remember when I was in graduate school is Wisconsin in the 60s.  A woman I knew peripherally made the following comment: “We always desire passionately; if only we could accept passionately.” I remember thinking, “Wow! What a great idea.” A few years later, her husband of many years left her.  I reminded her of her comment.  As is so often the case, she didn’t recall the words that just slipped out of her mouth.  I had returned them to her.  I hope they helped her as much as they helped me and continue to do so.                         

  

Friday, August 16, 2019

    I  loaded the paper recycling in the trunk of the car the night before and was planning to stop at the transfer station on the way home from Bikram.  Three stoplights after the transfer station, Kathrin asked me if I was still planning to stop there. If I don't leave some reminder for myself, like some of the trash on the front seat of the car, I forget what I was planning to do.  I turned around at Costco and headed back.  Kathrin asked if she could have some time to look in the thrift shop that is located there.  I said sure I would be able to dump the trash on my own.  She was out of the shop reasonably quickly because they didn't have any books she was interested in. 

     When I got home, I experienced some nerve pain in my left wrist.  I was pretty sure it was coming from my shoulder or my neck.  While I was planning to do more trimming of the blue-flowered bushes against my neighbor's fence, I thought I'd better put that off for now and give my body a chance to rest.  

    Kathrin prepared a brunch of fried eggs and lox and cream cheese on crackers. I was planning to do some less strenuous gardening since I couldn't do the blue-flowered bushes.  Instead, I went down for a nap after washing the brunch dishes.  I must have laid down around 11; I woke up sometime after two.  The phone rang several times.  I was so tired I didn't care.  It wound up Judy had called twice in a row and left a text.  She hadn't heard from me and was getting worried. I explained my exhaustion.  I told her if I went on for six months like this, I would be seeking medical care. 

    I finally got up and did something with my day.  While I didn't trim the blue-flowered bushes, a massive job involving cutting down some haole koa trees in the process, I was up for trimming my bougainvillea running amok in the upper back yard outside of my bedroom door.  I moved the radio from the kitchen to the bedroom to listen to Fresh Air while I did the garden work.  After I finished trimming the shrub, I raked the waste on the front driveway that I had cut when I trimmed back the vines from that shared fence the other day. Then  I raked up the green waste in the upper back yard from the work I had done a few weeks ago.

    While I took a break and worked on the blog, Kathrin was getting ready for a date. She was playing some music by Sade. I thought her voice is so powerful because there is always longing in her voice. I remember being younger and having those feelings. Maybe they will come back after a while, but I didn't have them while Mike was alive.  The longing was to love someone deeply and freely.  I had that with Mike without having to lose my center.  

    I think I've written about this before, but what the hey.  One day early in our relationship, I went up to him and told him how much I loved him.  He said he wasn't feeling it right then. His comment wasn't a putdown or a way to push me away; it was just a fact.  I told him that was okay.  I still was enjoying feeling love for him.  He had a wonderful reaction. He said, "I'm so jealous." He was jealous of my feeling of love.  He wanted that feeling for himself too.  I had a relationship with him, where I could freely express my appreciation and feel completely safe.  It was worth everything.  I don't know if there are many people like Mike out in the world.  But he was the only one I found like that. How much of that limited exposure I had to people like this was due to who I was or because there are only a few people like him in the world, I don't know.

    Whatever, I sit here now realizing that I don't feel some huge ache for something unfulfilled in the realm of human connection.  Mike and I were genuinely able to build something together that satisfied me.  I can only hope that it satisfied him as well.  I am aware that if it didn't, my blame is limited.  It had something to do with his inability to freely accept love. I will never know. I doubt I would have ever known even if he had lived to tell me because everyone's experience is so much their own.

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 Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    

My point of view of human nature isn't quite as dire as many that of many Christian religions, if not all religions. Most religions talk about the evil in man, and good comes only from God. There is a push back from some groups, arguing that man is capable of being fundamentally good.  My point of view is that man is pulled in both directions. Complex.  

    Our need to belong, our need to connect, is compelling. Of course, that very impulse can be used for evil. Do I think evil, therefore, outweighs good in us?  I don't know. I do believe that when we harm others, we also harm ourselves.  

    I worked with a Guatemalan man tortured for a month and then thrown out in the street to finish dying.  He was able to see the auras of the men who were torturing him.  He said those auras got darker with each act of cruelty they performed. I'm of the school of thought that we can't set out to hurt others without hurting ourselves.  This does not stop us from harming others. That's inescapable.  Sometimes we hurt others entirely by accident. Sometimes we hurt others by rejecting them for what they do to us.  I have rejected people in my life simply because I couldn't cope with their negativity. I'm sure I hurt them in the process.  I can only hope that my openness about why I rejected them helped them modify their behavior.  I know that there have been people who have rejected me and shared their profoundly negative opinions of me.  If they didn't do this to hurt me, I became a stronger and better person for their input.  Intention has a significant role in our impact on the world.  But that is tricky.  We have to be honest with ourselves about our intentions.  Ah, there's the rub.

    I think we have a drive to be connected and see ourselves and be seen by others as good. I remember reading somewhere that even serial killers on death row believe they are good people who did something wrong.  Wanting to be seen as good can be the very thing that drives us to do evil things. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Very tricky.     So the drive to be seen as good can lead us to do the opposite. I'm beginning to persuade myself that the direst statements of religions about the basically evil nature of man may be right. 

    I have to wonder why we are so vulnerable to our worst impulses. How has this furthered our chances of survival? I guess when we are living hand to mouth, and we have to make sure the food makes it into our mouth and the mouths of those who support our well-being, these traits make sense. As absolute power corrupts absolutely, perhaps the absolute abundance corrupts these other impulses.  On a simple level, I know I feel much better off eating fruit, but I reach for cake, cookies, and candies.  Now, this is a dysfunctional system if there ever was one.  It does look like our intelligence, which created this abundance, is the author of the circumstances for our imbalance. I'm back to vigilance as a solution to the problem.

    Vigilance is what religion teaches.  Always be on the lookout for the presence of sinful intentions in what you do.  Sinfulness is overreaching, or perhaps it's under reaching too.  If we attack ourselves, aren't we also attacking a human being? Can we hurt ourselves and not hurt others? Does it make any difference who is the subject of the torture or the abuse?

Thursday, August 15, 2019

   This morning, I found an email from Crista, the Bikram studio owner, who taught the class yesterday, saying, "I was so impressed with your practice today!! You really have been working hard in class, and it shows," asking me to write something about myself for the student spotlight and thanking me for being part of the studio community.  It is a supportive community to me, besides the wonderful impact of the practice itself.

    I rushed home because I had a telephone appointment with my therapist a 10 am, four pm her time.  I showered and was ready to go. As usual, I asked myself, "What's is most annoying me?" I am having the voice of a friend coming to mind telling me what to do about any number of things. He is the type of person who loves to instruct but cannot tolerate having anyone give him advice. He's not an arrogant man.  There is some trauma behind his behavior.  Unfortunately, his information is frequently inappropriate.  If it has any value, I make a point of acknowledging it. While I know what drives him to behave this way, it can still get on my nerves, having someone willing to correct me but never say anything positive.   

    As I started working on my reaction, I realized the problem is l that, like him, I feel that no one values what I have to offer.  In my case, it is around my work as an educator and a healer.  I think my work is good, but there aren't people beating down my door.  I have always realized that there is something I am doing or not doing to cultivate this situation. My work isn't that off from the mainstream to be rejected.  

    The teachers I worked with last year at the elementary school contacted me when school started, telling me that they hoped I was returning.  They had already identified some students who needed help. I worked with one child who had visual distortion and showed her how to correct that. The second time I worked with her, it was clear that she could use my processes to clear up the problem.  The second child I worked with was a boy who was having trouble with phonics.  When I checked what part of the brain he used for auditory processing, he pointed to the brain's visual section.  I showed him how to engaged the auditory part of the brain.  I haven't had a second session with him yet, so I don't know if he has shown any improvement. Both the students had some trouble with blending individual sounds to pronounce the word; I showed them the cross-body blending starting with the vowel sound, and I showed the girl the procedure I use for decoding multi-syllable words.  In the second session with the girl, her reading accuracy was much improved, and she initiated utilizing the method I taught her for decoding multi-syllable words. How's that for two sessions with a child that is over a year behind in reading?  

    Yes, the teachers know I'm good, but they think it has something to do with me rather than the procedures I've developed.  I try to tell people that the methods are straightforward; they can be taught in ten minutes to a student.  But no one is interested in learning them.  Yes, it took a particular person to develop them: my background in reading instruction, neuroscience, and linguistics, and my problem-solving mind put me in that unique position.  But what I have developed is simple to apply. 

    Given how easy it is for me to produce improvement in students, the better the student, the more quickly the improvement, you would think that there would be people banging on my door.  Ah, that's the problem  I don't want people desperate for help banging at my door.  When I think of being well-known, I fear I'll be attacked like Orpheus by the Thracian women, torn to shreds. 

    Even I know that I won't be physically attacked, but that is the image in my mind. Why can't I imagine a situation where I can protect myself from people's desperation?  What I came up with is that I feel everyone's problem is my fault.  

    Why would I feel that I am responsible for all suffering in the world?  My father taught me  I was somehow responsible for all suffering in the world, even the suffering of those on the other side of the planet.  This philosophical position is assumed by some, if not all, spiritual disciplines.  There is also the effect of the butterflies in Madagascar. If they can cause weather changes on the other side of the world, it is not unreasonable to assume that everything we do has a ripple effect on the whole world.  I believe this to this day, but the way I assume responsibility in my nonconscious mind is disproportional to my impact.  I was introduced to this idea as a young child.  Children take things very literally.  My adult mind, my conscious mind, doesn't make these assumptions, but my nonconscious mind learned these ideas as a young child.  They are buried in there.  

    Then I had my mother, who blamed the bad weather on me. She was using me as a whipping boy for her anxiety.  I mentioned before that she made some cockeyed assumption that she wouldn't do damage to my sister or to me by using us that way.  

    When Mike was studying for the diaconate in the early 90s, another applicant made an observation about me.  He said to me, "You're like me.  You feel guilty about everything." He said that he was made to feel guilty about WWII, and he hadn't even been born when it started.  I had never thought of myself that way.  It was interesting to have someone see that in me.  Having guilt inappropriately laid on you as a young child creates a pretty steep mountain to overcome to reclaim an appropriate concept of self.

    I have mentioned before that I think Mike also carried a burden of terrible guilt for who he was.  His guilt was laid on him by his mother, who always screamed and yelled when she didn't get what she wanted.  Then there was that day in the late 40s when six or seven-years-old Mike came home from school and told his parents that he had announced that his parents were Communists in school. It was during the pre-McCarthy period. Mike remembered his parents tearing through the house, looking for every piece of incriminating paper.  I knew Mike's mother as an older woman when some of her energy had been drained; she was still difficult.  I can only imagine how she behaved toward that vulnerable young boy, accusing him of trying to harm his parents.

    I found out about that story from my friend Judy; Mike had told it to her.  When he was in the hospital, I was able to tell him how Jean's mother, his ex-mother in law, dealt with it when Jean did something comparable. Jean's mother (her parents were also active Communists) was gentle; she didn't scare jean; she just advised her not to say anything in school and asked if she could do that.  

    While Mike was in the hospital, unable to communicate, I told him I was going to tell him a story.  I told him how Jean's mother dealt with the situation. I then told him he had done nothing wrong, despite his mother's ravings.  That little boy had heard his teacher put down Communists.  He was proud of his parents.  He understood that they embraced the idea because they wanted equality for all people.  (Many people confuse the 'how' of  Communism, a dictatorship of the proletariat, with the economic 'why,' economic equality for all.) He was proud of his parents and stood up in their defense.  

    When I was finished with the story, I asked him if it helped to hear it.  He nodded, yes.  I suspect that if he had brought this trauma up with therapists long ago, a therapist who was prepared to deal with PTSD, he would haven't had high blood pressure which caused his kidney disease or anxiety, for which he took extremely high doses of antidepressants which may have been the cause of his pancreatitis.  Ask me if I resent his mother for her unbelievably self-centered behavior?

    I called NJ Benefits and Pension to find out when I would receive Mike's pension. First, they told me that I had already received three checks.  The person who answered the phone excused herself and said she had to check with her supervisor.  She came back to tell me that I had been receiving the wrong amount.  They had already overpaid me by three thousand dollars.  They said they I will receive less money until they recoup the money. Good thing I caught it now rather than later. I noticed that there were no taxes withheld. Mike claimed three deductions.  So Mike.  Money was always better in his pocket than someone else's. I had to change that. I would rather not have payments hanging over my head. 

    When living in Princeton, the town decided to install curbs on the edge of our property.  If they were repairing the curb, it would have been on their dime.  Since it was a new curb, we had to pay for it.  When the job was finished, I called the country office asking for the bill.  They told me that they would send it sometime in the future.   I went down there and told them they had no right to place me in debt and demanded that they give me a bill now. Something like five years later, I got that bill. It was so long ago that I forgot that I had already given them money. Fortunately, they remembered.  I still owed a small amount.  I have little confidence in the stability of the economy.  My parents went through the inflation in Germany and the Depression in the US.

    I had some plans to go to school today, but I was too tired. I texted the teacher, telling her I needed to rest, and I hit my favorite napping couch. I set the alarm for 1 pm because I had a two pm chiropractic appointment.

    Once there, I placed a call to the bank to see if they could give me exact information on the individual checks I had deposited so I could check if I deposited the New Jersey pension checks. They said yes, they could verify specific checks.  Yeah.  

     I showed the chiropractor how the simple shift of my head, moving my chin slightly to the left, changed my posture.  She continued working on my left foot and moved up to my calf and my neck. 

    Dorothy, my sister, called while I was in with the chiropractor  I called her back after I got out and talked to her while I drove with the phone on my lap on speaker.  I stopped off at Target. I decided I needed a Hersey's Milk Chocolate with whole almonds. I bought one instead a package of six. Unfortunately, I can't rely on myself to eat just one.

    I stopped off at Island Naturals to pick up some progesterone cream to help with my hot flashes.  They didn't have any. It's Hawaii. You cannot rely on products being in at any time.  You have to grab things when they're on the shelf.  

    I went home and took another nap.  I got up in time for dinner.  Kathrin spent some time fishing around in the freezer. She found some salmon. She made it with veggies and rice. It was delicious.  From her, I'm learning not to eat more than I want. According to Ayurvedic medicine, when you burp, you're finished. 

    After dinner, I watched some TV while I sorted and dumped that last of the papers Mike had saved.  Here I found renovations plans for our house in Ohio, which we sold in 2014. The man threw nothing out. As long as it was orderly, he kept it.

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 Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

    Brooks talks about the value of losing ourselves in something bigger than ourselves. That can go bad in no time.  The KKK and its values are bigger than the individual.  We have a thirst to be part of something bigger than ourselves, an institution worthy of such submission. 

But that submission, like everything else, involves choices. We sacrifice A to achieve B.  

    I look at the human condition through the lens of evolutionary psychology. We are social animals. Like chickens, if we are raised in isolation, if our own kind does not value us, we fail to thrive. We can die of loneliness or go mad.  We are designed to be part of something larger than ourselves. 

    The first institution was the family, the group, and the tribe. While groups may have varied in size, it was always a group, just like wolves. Our need to lose ourselves in something larger is morally neutral.  

    Worse than that, it can be used against us. Those early families, groups, and tribes were committed to the survival of the group for the survival of the individuals in the group.  We have institutions now that set goals which are irrelevant to the welfare of the members of the group, see the members of the group as mere pawns to serve the interest of the organization.  

    With the Industrial Revolution, institutions arose that made production of commodity important, independent of the wellbeing of the individuals. This rendered humans comparable to slaves, perhaps even more dispensable since the institution wasn't even responsible for their maintenance.  Workers became throw-away commodities used for some purpose that was of no benefit to them. 

This is what Marx saw that inspired him to develop his solution to the problem.  While his intention may have been honorable, he was painfully naïve as to the human condition.  He assumed that once the oppressed rose to power, they would be kind to others having experienced oppression themselves. Boy, did he have another thing coming to him!

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

    There were only four students at Bikram this morning. This is after there were 28 in the class on Saturday morning.  Crista taught the class; Heather is out for a few days.  She usually teaches mornings Tuesday through Friday.  We did the class in silence, followed by a lavender washcloth chaser during the final savasana. 

    I went home directly after class.  I had plans to go out and do more work on the clearing the blue flower shrubs, but I played some FreeCell instead. It's hot dirty work out there, and I think squeezing the clipper is hurting my wrists.  

    I was going to go to school today, but by the time I got in the car, it was already 12:30.  Then I remembered that today was Wednesday, early dismissal. School's out a 1 pm.  I went back inside the house, slipped out of my dress and into home wear, and sat down to read Mike Fanuel's, Damon's good friend,  book Stop Making Sense. It's billed as the new Brene Brown. 

     After I read a little, I fell asleep. Nap.  I had a healing telephone client at 5 pm.  He is doing fantastic work. 

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 Musings: I'm putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.

Musing: I've been reading Mike Fanuele's book "Stop Making Sense." I haven't finished the book, but from what I have read, I find his premise very upsetting, assuming it's true. (I am planning to finish the book. It's interesting in its own right.) Mike's premise is that appealing to the intellect does not persuade people to behave differently. We respond to everything emotionally and therefore shouldn't ever appeal to reason, which he argues doesn't exist, basing his premise on Kahneman's Thinking Fast Thinking Slow" thesis. 

    Yes, there is plenty of evidence that we 'decide' upon an action before our frontal lobes can get involved.  We are often acting before our conscious minds wake up to what is going one.   Our conscious minds are merely observing what our nonconscious minds decided to do, not initiating that action.  It all happens fast enough so that we trick ourselves into believing that we make conscious rational decisions.  

    Mike's premise means that our conscious minds have no role except to observe and concluded that it is in control. But the title of Kahneman's book is "Thinking Fast; Thinking Slow," not "Thinking Fast and Not Thinking at All." Our conscious minds have a roll in decision making.  

    I learned Vipassana meditation, which involves observing bodily sensations.  I learned to observe what was going on in my body, which gave me a heads-up about my nonconscious mind's decisions. This gives me a chance to intervene, when necessary.  God forbid I had to intervene at all times and that most of the moment by moment decisions of my life were not automatic.  I only have to intervene when there is a potential problem with my behavior for myself or others.

    There is a process called 'reframing," which teaches people to look at an experience differently. Reframing is a mental process. The slow thinking process gets the fast-thinking process to change its mind. As those of you who know me or read this blog from the beginning know, I recently lost my husband of 45 years.  I could see this as the end of my life or the beginning.  I choose to see this as an adventure.  C.S. Lewis reframed the death of his beloved wife as a different phase of the marriage.  Despite the physical absence of the partner, the co-creation of their life experiences continued. I adopted this point of view.  Reframing is not an appeal to emotion through poetry. It involves a conceptual change. 

    I agree with Mike's Fanuele's thesis that it is necessary to appeal to emotion if you are going to persuade someone to do something differently.  Our intellects and our emotions are codependent.   The intellect can be used to bypass or repress emotion, but emotions can be used to escape undesirable feelings too. What does it mean to appeal to people's emotions to influence behavior?

    Ask any conman. Conmen don't approach their victims through poetry, they use arguments, bullet-points if you like, but these arguments target emotions.  Those emotions are usually ones like fear and greed or maybe desperate need. Conmen and grifters are the bad angels, those who prey on others. What about the good angels, those who are out to persuade people to do what is right for themselves or others, or at least what they believe is better, without using meaningless tricks.

    I'm an elementary school teacher. How do I convince children who got stuck along the way to change? There are children I can't convince to do anything differently.  With those, I sometimes fall into the unfortunate emotional appeal evoked by threats. I'll bully them. I'll tell them their lives will be terrible if they don't make an effort. If they only want to do what comes easily and is fun, they are screwed. (I don't use that word.) When I see myself approaching it that way, I have to use my conscious mind to get myself to pull back. I've never seen bullying work.  If I did, I'd go for it. Rightly or wrongly, I think the quality of a person's life is benefitted by literacy and reading.  

    I have been working with children in the third grade for the last ten years.  How do I convince a child to change?  Do I use poetry and stop making sense? No.  But I have to say something that makes sense to the child. I can't just point out how their life will be better if they do it my way.   Last week, I worked with a boy who was uncomfortable trying to pronounce words unless he produced something familiar. Well, folks, every time you come across a new word, it will be unfamiliar. Avoiding the unfamiliar is an emotional response and a psychological problem.  Learners have to develop a tolerance for the unfamiliar.    Giving students a lecture with the ideas mentioned above might be a good start, but it doesn't address the problem. The problem is the student's fear of the unfamiliar. My question to this boy was. "Do you think pronouncing an unfamiliar word is dangerous?" Isn't that what fear signals, danger?  So I engaged his slow thinking process to ask his fast thinking process this question.  He was a bright boy without any obvious emotional problems.  His answer was, "No," and he was able to move ahead.  I appealed to his emotions, emphasis on HIS, the ones he was feeling that interfered with his ability to tolerate the unfamiliar. (There are evolutionary reasons for us to avoid the unfamiliar. But that's for another day.)

    Mike has spent many years in the corporate advertising world. I can well believe emotional constipation is the rule there.  The day of being able to bully people into buying a product is gone.  I remember negative advertising designed to make people feel that they were social misfits for one reason or another. Those were bullet point arguments; they were memorable, and they worked. Now they are positive bullet point arguments for why you should use a product.  I can see why that wouldn't be too successful.

    Mike sites the Cadbury ad of the gorilla playing the drums to a Phil Collins song. It increased sales by 20%., a wow! result. No bullet point here. Why was it successful?  The unexpected tone of the ad captured our attention.  It became like an earworm or an eye worm.  We talked about it with others. We became members of this smiling subgroup who were in, who got it.

    Mike points out the Trump appeals to emotion. Part of his appeal is that he is surprising and engaging as that gorilla playing the drums.  He is full of surprises.  He upsets our ideas of what a national leader should behave.  Then he also appeals to groups that feel excluded, ignored.  He says, "I see you." Now that is not just poetry. "You count" is a  bullet point.