Tag: self-awareness

Day 194 “Buddha Nature”

The bus I am riding on is actually a small house. The bus driver sits at the front door and collects fares. The front door opens into a dining room, where riders are playing cards. I move back further, into the adjacent sitting area. My friend Sandy is here and she has a young child; a girl. The girl remembers me although I am sure I have not seen her in ages. The bus stops, and panicked I rush to get off, only to discover this is not my stop, so I rush back on the bus. I feel frazzled, but laugh at my error and return to my seat trying to relax. Then I realize I am missing my purse. Thinking I’d left it at the last stop, I holler to the driver to go back, but then see that I’d left it on a table in the front hall. I pick it up and notice that it is lighter than it was. In fact, it is the purse, emptied of its contents. I am outraged, and accuse all the occupants of the bus. As it turns out, I know many of them, and I rifle through their belongings looking to recover mine. Worst of all, my passport was in the purse and losing that is a nightmare. I know the culprit is on board.

Coming to terms with the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is difficult, not unlike being robbed of one’s identification. In the dream, it is my passport I am worried about. My passport, in particular, is the only document that bears my full legal name. More importantly, it allows me to travel.

Replacing a passport is possible, but difficult. Metaphorically, I have lost my passport to come and go freely. Life now needs to be measured or paced, and I do not have credit to draw on. My purse has been emptied.

The bus that I travel on is me: the driver, the same robotic ego that takes me mindlessly through my daily route. The passengers are me also. Sandy is my over-analytical, uptight self, which is balanced by- or, perhaps (if I am more honest) protective of- my little girl innocence. The card players, and readers on board are me too. So is the thief.

Why is my bus a small house? My husband and I bought a small house over a year ago to retire in. We haven’t moved in yet, but it continues to be our promise for the future. Is this a premonition dream then? That the greatest struggle, or lost, will come when we move to our little house? Time alone will tell.

Derek Lin says that we each have a Buddha Self – an enlightened, loving self that lies at our inner core. As in the dream, I am struggling to find my bearings, conscious of the need to register my progress, and be on alert. I have long since moved away from a time when I trusted the process, and I am feeling disconnected from my Buddha Nature.

I can only hope that those who surround me don’t lose sight of it also. Reconnection will be my saving grace.

Day 193 “Character Counts”

I knew something was wrong the week before my granddaughter’s first birthday.  Despite the increase in asthma medication, I was not able to get my breathing under control.  On the day of her celebration, I was in Emergency, then back home with Prednisone: the wonder drug.

This summer was more active thanks to a new home with a pool and within walking distance of a park.  Our new lifestyle felt promising, especially the fact that we were entertaining more, and enjoying the great outdoors.  Thor was still recovering from a spring full of surgeries, so his movement was limited, but he too felt more positive.

By July, the pain in my body had increased, but I told myself:  No pain, no gain, and pushed harder.  Isn’t that how the body works?  When record high temperatures hit mid July, I decided that was to blame for my troubled breathing.

The Prednisone didn’t work, so I continued to up my meds and rationalized that once the frost came, everything would be better.

Soon school was back in and with it the onslaught of germs.  I constantly felt like I was fighting something, and then one day, standing talking to a peer, I felt faint, unable to breath, and was sweating profusely.  I called the doctor.  An xray showed pneumonia.  A bout of antibiotics and I would be good as new.

Except, I wasn’t, and my breathing became more and more laboured and the dizzy spells continued, and the sweats, and I found myself back in Emergency and on the wonder drug again.  Twice, with no effect.

By December, the doctor decided that maybe this wasn’t asthma, and began to treat me for COPD, and arranged lung tests.  Nothing.  So, I went for heart tests.  Nothing still.

No, it’s asthma!  declared the lung specialist and he upped my medication, stating he would see me in two weeks.

In the meantime, I felt more and more like I was swimming against the tide, through thick, debilitating muddy waters.

I just want to be able to breath again!  I told him on my next visit.  To be honest, none of these meds are making any difference, and I am fed up!

Now I like this doctor just fine, but he has a undeniable sense of self-importance and on any given occasion is prone to answer his own questions before hearing my response, but this day he stopped and looked at my file.  Really looked at my file.  He went on-line and looked back over all the tests, and former tests and diagnosis, and sat back and looked at me with renewed interest.

You have Fibromyalgia, he said, as if realizing it for the first time.  This is not asthma.  This is Chronic Fatigue. 

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  My family doctor had mumbled it questioningly months before, then dismissed it in favour of further testing.  I can treat your lungs, he said, but it’s back to your family doctor for the rest.  

So, there it is.  A diagnosis.  Eight months of struggle, exhaustion, self-doubt, and frustration, and here is where I land.

There is relief in knowing what I am up against, but there is also an enormous sense of disappointment and a bracing myself for what is to come next.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, like Fibromyalgia, is an unknown that draws at best blank stares, but mostly, misinformed advice.  I brace myself for what lies ahead.

As the criticism, and ‘you shoulds’ rolls in, I realize that I will need clear boundaries, and the ability to deflect the controversy.  Now more than ever, I will need to walk with my head held high, choosing the path that supports me best.

Now is the time that character counts.

Day 191: The Fear Response

I am little and hiding behind the green-brocade, swivel chair in our family’s living room.  My mother is sitting on the chair, but she doesn’t see me.  The room is full of adults talking, smoking, and laughing, but I am afraid.  My father has pulled out a gun and is pointing it at another man.  I want to scream out to him to stop, but I cannot.  My voice is frozen.  I am paralyzed and helpless. 

I wake up.

And remember.

My parents loved to party when I was a child, and I wanted to be part of it.  In later years, I would perch on the staircase and listen to the exploits, but the dream takes place in the early years, when we lived in a bungalow, and I would wander out of my bedroom and hide behind the living room chair, wanting to be close to my mother and hoping I wouldn’t be found out.

My father never actually owned a gun that I know of, but he did have a violent temper, and on more than one occasion ended the evening by beating up on one of the male guests.

I learned fear in my father’s home.  I learned that to step out of line was to invite violence.

What I didn’t learn is how to define that line, so I lived most of my childhood in irrational, and sometimes paralyzing fear.  Survival, unharmed, became a goal and focus.  I spent countless hours and years upon years trying to figure out how to avoid my father’s wrath.

And in the meantime, I failed to learn about a healthy fear response.

I didn’t flinch when my older sister took me to a biker bar when I was only twelve.

I didn’t think anything was amiss when I was allowed to stay out to all hours of the night, and no one asked where I’d been.

It never occurred to me to question a strange man giving me a ride home.

When home is a scary place, everything else seems tame.

Day 190 “Name Change”

My father named me despite my mother’s protests; she’d carried the name for all her life and never liked it.  I grew to hate it too.

“Is it possible to change your first name?”  I started asking when I was nine, but I wasn’t sure what other moniker I might adopt.  Heather appealed to me as it was reminiscent of the moors in England where my family hailed from, but when I met a girl named Heather who I didn’t like,  I looked for another name.  Ali, short for Allison, became my next desired name.  I even wrote a book about her.

I never did change my first name, but at the age of nineteen, when I first got married, I acquired a new surname, and with it the hope for a new life.  Being married, I was sure, was an official step into adulthood and away from childhood struggles.  I exchanged a mundane family name for one that sounded more regal.  I was a new person.  Well, maybe for the honeymoon period, but of course, I was still the same, and the distance between me and my past had not lengthened.

Marrying again brought a new surname, erasing the mistakes of my first entanglement.  Under this name, I became a mother, completed my degree, and launched a career.  I liked this identity.  It connected me to people I loved, and felt good.  I wore the name years beyond the divorce.

When I met Thor, and the discussion of marriage came up again, I had to make a choice – retain the name belonging to both my ex-husband and my children, or embracie a new identity.  Two weeks after marrying, I would be entering teacher’s college, so decided to change my name to honour this life change.

As a woman, changing my name is akin to establishing landmarks in the journey of my life.

Day 187 “The Thorns”

I grew my thorns at a tender age before my flower was even in bloom.

I grew them with clenched fists, in a fetal position, sobbing into my pillow while the rest of the household ignored me.

“Take that mood to your bedroom and don’t come out till you are over it,” my father would say.

“I don’t need anyone!” I would tell myself, over and over again, and chastise myself for forgetting in between.  If I didn’t need anyone, I reasoned, I could never be hurt like this again.

I reinforced those thorns throughout my second marriage, changing my mantra to “I don’t need anything.”  Married to a man who either made me pay for everything I got or deprived me of my wants, I decided that the answer was to just not want for anything.

No matter how strong I thought my defense system was, it didn’t work.   I still suffered.

In retrospect, maybe I suffered more because of the thorns.

My flower is long past bloomed, and I no longer have need of the protection, but it is not easy to let down one’s defenses.

Maybe by writing, I can one by one, strip the thorns.

Day 185 “The Desire to Control”

In the bedroom, my mother is trying to settle the baby.  I am in the kitchen trying to clean up when a gust of wind, followed by a wall of water hits me.  The floor around me is quickly filling up with this flood of elements and I push my way through to find the source:  the sliding glass window on my third story balcony is bent and off the track, unwilling to close. 

“Grab me duct tape,” I yell, but no one hears me, so I rush to find it, trying desperately to minimize the damage. 

Duct tape is no match for the storm brewing outside.  There is no way to fix this problem.

This dream has unsettled me.  I can’t shake the image and the feeling of hopelessness.  Too many responsibilities.  Too many things in need of repair.  How did everything get so out of control?

I know it is a dream, but the need for my inhaler coming out of it is real.  I have been struggling for weeks, no months, to get my breathing stabilized, and it is weighing on me.  I am the same age my father was when he was diagnosed with emphysema; is this to be my fate also?

I try to go back to sleep, but can’t shake the image and the feeling that there is no solution.  This is the end, my dream self realizes.  When I do slide back, the images are no different:  my baby daughter drowning in a pool and no one reacting but me, and I am too late; trying to take a shortcut home through the woods, only to find it is a dead end, blocked by police who turn me around, then realizing I have lost everyone, including myself. 

Deep despair.

The dream is flooded with images from my life.

The setting is reminiscent of the apartment I rented after my first divorce.  Marriage was to have been my salvation, but instead, here I was, more broken than before thrown back into the turmoil.  Just released from the hospital, my sister Mai came to live with me.  She was too fragile to live with my other sister, but the two were often present, adding to the chaos in my home.

The kitchen was how I defined myself at the time.  I could cook – had cooked at home for the family – and I became the mother figure for all lost and single souls looking for a home cooked meal and a warm place to land.  No one seemed to mind that my schizophrenic sister sat rocking endlessly in a chair in the corner, nor that my ailing (mentally as well as physically) older sister would drop in unexpectedly, bringing with her a constant storm of drama.   Maybe it was dinner theater for those whose lives were comparatively tame.

The baby is my middle daughter, who traumatized by illness during pregnancy, struggled in the first years of her life, unable to sleep and constantly screaming in pain.  For three years we dragged her from one specialist to the next desperately looking for an answer and eventually found one, but I remember the daily heart wrenching  feeling of inadequacy as a mother who couldn’t meet her child’s needs.

The path into the woods was the one I took so many days as a child to find solace.  Deep in the shelter of trees, there was peace and tranquility and it filled my soul many days and gave me the courage to carry on. The path is long gone and many have been lost in my life, myself included.

All my life, I have fought to overcome.  Overcome failure, dis-ease, dis-order, and in-sanity.

Bottom line, as the dream so eloquently points out, is that there never is a way to fix all that.  There is no sudden solution or ending.  The storms of life rage on, ready to unleash their power at any time, and the only hope – the only answer – is to hold ground through it and humbly pick up the pieces afterwards, knowing that this is the best anyone can do; the best anyone can be.

Control is an illusion.

Chasing Success

“With your mathematical aptitude, you should consider a career in accounting.” My guidance counselor has called me in for an interview concerning my post-secondary plans.

You should be the Treasurer for a large corporation, I hear my father echoing.

“I am not interested in math.”  Blunt.

The counselor leans back in his chair, drops his pen, and runs his fingers through his thinning hair.

“And what would it be that does interest you?”

“Children.  I want to work with children.  I was thinking maybe as an Early Childhood Educator.”

He picks up my report again.

“Your grades indicate you can do much better.  How about psychiatry?  This aptitude test you completed also suggests this is a good field for you.”

“Maybe, but I’d rather be a teacher.”

“Not many people have your academic capabilities.  You can potentially be very successful.”

I can feel myself shutting down.  How many times have I been through this?

* * *

I am eight years old, and the school has called my parents for a meeting with the teacher, Principal, and a woman from the Board office who has been conducting tests.

“We want to accelerate your daughter,”  the woman explains.  “Testing shows that she is gifted, and we believe her educational needs would be better served by sending her to a different school, where she will be with peers of her intellectual equal.”

I sit in the room, like a fly on the wall, and listen as the adults passionately discuss my future.  The educators clearly have the upper hand – they are talking about what they know.  My uneducated parents (neither attended school beyond grade eight) are clearly out of their element – my mother worried, my father not knowing what to think.  He turns to me.

“What do you want to do?”

“Go to the new school.”  It is easy for me.  I am game for adventure.  Success is miles away; not something I need worry about now.

* * *

“We called this meeting to discuss V.J.’s course selection for high school.”

My mother has come alone this time, and as usual, is daunted by the professionals that sit before her.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“As you are aware, V.J. has signed up for Art next year.”

“Yes?”

“I won the Art award this year.”

“That is all well and good, V.J. , but you are an academic student, and while Art has its merits, it is not a course of study recommended for a student of your caliber.  We would like you to consider taking something more in line with your future success.”

I drop Art.

* * *

“What do you want to do with your life?”  my mother asks on the way home.

“I don’t know, Mom.  There is really only one thing I’ve ever wanted and that’s to be married with children.”

“I don’t know, Veej,” my mother shakes her head.  “Men don’t like smart women, and from everything the school says, you could be much more successful.”

“Yeah, and alone, right Mom?”

“Well, I just can’t see who will put up with you, to be honest.”

* * * *

“Why are you here?  Not why are you here in this group, at this moment, but why are you here in University, studying psychology, or whatever other major you have signed on for?  Who are you serving by being here – yourself, or your parents?”

The group is mandatory group therapy, part of our first year Psychology credit.  Lead by a tall pear-shaped woman, with long stringy blond hair, and a gangly young man with a blonde beard.  Psychologists.

The question makes me uncomfortable, because to be honest, I don’t know the answer.

“I used to think I knew what I wanted,” I answer, “but my life feels like it’s always a game of tug-of-war, with me at one end and everybody who knows better at the other.”

“Go on,” the woman encourages.  “Tell us why you feel that way.”

“Well, I feel like there are things I could do with my life, you know, worthwhile things, and at the same time, all I really aspire to is normalcy – if that makes any sense.  I mean, my mother certainly didn’t want me to be here; she thinks it’s a waste of a woman’s time to get an education, but my father, he’s kind of proud of me, and I like that….”   I am rambling, not even sure where I’m going with this.

“My parents want me to be educated,” another student pipes in.  “They say that you can’t be successful without it.”

“But what does that mean?” the lanky leader questions.  “How do you define, success?”

“Exactly,” I continue.  “Are we ever successful when we follow someone else’s script for us?  Or is rebellion the only answer?”

“Rebellion can be self-destructive.”

“No doubt, but if we follow our own path, isn’t that what we are doing?”

“How about you?” the woman turns the conversation over to another, and before I can speak further the class is over, but the questions linger with me.

They linger on into the next week and the week after that, and by April, I have made my decision:  I am not here for the right reasons.

I drop out and get married.

And ‘success’, or any concept of success becomes even more elusive.

Divorce follows within two years, and I realize that maybe my mother was right:  maybe I am not loveable.

I jump in again, this time more committed; this time bearing three children and feeling a semblance of completion.

And it ends, and I am alone again, and broke and struggling, and I begin to wonder if others really did know what was best for me after all.  And as a divorced mother of three, I definitely know that had I pursued higher education and a more suitable career the struggles would be lessened, and I would at least have financial security.

I never really have defined success for myself, apart from wanting happiness, and maybe this has been the problem.

What is your concept of success?

Day 169 “Intention and Results”

Every so often, life has a way of taking over, and sending me spinning off balance.  These are the times where I reset goals in an attempt to regain equilibrium.

Now would be one of those times.

So I take inventory and line up my priorities once again:

1.  To work 90 minutes per day.  (Even though I am still technically on holidays, a teacher’s workload is intense, so I can always work.  Here, I am trying to minimize it so it doesn’t take over.)

2.  To spend 60 minutes per day writing.  ( I see writing as a luxury because I do it mostly for self-serving reasons, therefore; I tend to undervalue it and it is the first to go.)

3.  30 minutes of exercise per day.

4.  Choosing to eat healthy foods that support my well-being.

Number four is the clincher.  I have some food allergies and a lot of sensitivities, so eating properly becomes really important for my health.  Why then, is this goal so difficult to keep?

The intent is good, but what is it about food that makes it so difficult to control?  If I had the answer, I would be rich, especially in this age of health and weight consciousness.

Yesterday, for example, I ate a healthy breakfast, and an equally satisfying lunch, and had planned my dinner ahead of time.  I ended up being out longer than I expected, and felt the temptation to grab something “snackish” to fill in the gap, but I managed to hang on till dinner.  Then the cravings started.  I wanted something sweet to compliment dinner – a habit that dates back to childhood.  So I ate the remainder of a chocolate loaf.  I didn’t stop there.  I had an errand to run and thought about stopping to pick up a chai tea latte, overlooking the fact that I had eaten dessert.  I talked to myself about my goal, and settled on coming home and making a low-fat latte.  I enjoyed my treat, and felt sated, but then remembered that there were potato chips in the cupboard.  I convinced myself that a bowl of chips was better than eating from the bag, but of course, I wanted more.  I was far from hungry at this point.

The resulting indigestion and inability to settle down for a good night’s sleep was not a new experience.  Neither was telling myself that I won’t do that again!

The results speak for themselves.  As much as I want to think I am conscientious about what I eat, I remain overweight.

What is the food replacing? I ask myself.  What function is it serving?

A number of things come to mind.  First, I am an emotional eater.  I eat when I am upset, but I also eat when I am happy, especially if I have accomplished something and am proud of myself, such as keeping on track for an entire day.  It is easy to see where this habit derives from by watching my grandchildren.  Food is an easy way to console and celebrate.  I have no doubt that is how my mother handled me.

Sometimes I eat to suppress needs.  Now this is getting personal, but because of Thor’s condition, there has been no sexual intimacy for some time, yet the urge remains for me.  Potato chips have been my go to food when feeling lonely for a long time.  I know it, but still go there.

Overeating creates a cycle that is difficult to break.  I feel good about myself, I self sabotage, I eat junk, I feel bad and indulge more.

There is also the problem I wrote about the other day:  instant gratification vs long-term gain.

I have no self-control in the instant.  If there are no chips in the house, I can usually talk myself out of the need for them, but if they are on hand, I have no self-control.

Why is it so difficult to shift my focus to long-term gain?  Herein lies the complication.   In order to be able to commit to something in the distance, I have to be able to believe in the future.  (Boy, this is tough stuff!)  Truth is I stopped believing in the future a long time ago.  I have chosen, instead, to live for the moment.  That way, I have convinced myself, I won’t have as many disappointments.

As a child of parents who were never able to follow through with promises, I first learned the pain of disappointment, but it didn’t end when I left home.  I chose partners and built relationships that repeated the pattern.  And then I took over.  I proved again and again to myself that there is no gain in setting my sights on the future.  The future is too intangible and unpredictable.

What I failed to tell myself is that not all of the future is foreseeable or predictable, but planning ahead (in the moment) can help prepare the way.  Choosing not to eat those chips in each moment helps secure a healthier self in the long run.  Eating the chips, conversely, will ensure that my goal is never met.

If I ever hope to see results from my intentions, I will need a new, and responsible attitude.

 

Day 168 “Hidden Messages”

“I’m not as smart as you.  I’d probably be okay if I was smarter.”

“That’s not true, Mai!  You are very smart.”

“Do you really think so?”

My sister and I were doing dishes after supper.  I had come to visit parents and Mai, who lived just upstairs from my parents’ apartment, joined us.  Mai is paranoid schizophrenic.

“You got 96% in your nursing program.  Intelligence is not your problem.  You have a mental illness.  That is different.”

“I did, didn’t I?  I used to be a good nurse.”

“I’m sure you were.”

Mai would attempt to take her life at least once a year, resulting in the eventual loss of her job, and much of her independence.

“Do you want me to do the washing?  You must be tired.”  Mai set down her dishtowel and backed away from the sink.

“I am just fine.  We are almost done.”
“You’re probably just tired.”  Mai removed herself from the kitchen area of the apartment and sat down.

I realized in the that moment that it was actually Mai who was tired, but somehow, she was unable to articulate that, so she projected her feelings onto me.  It was an aha moment for me, and explained much of Mai’s behaviour.  I would notice it when we went out together.  If she would suggest that I was hungry, cold, or whatever, it really meant that she was.

“Mai is unable to speak directly to whatever is bothering her,”  I explained to my Mother later on.  “So we can’t take what she says at face value.”

“It must be part of her illness,”  my Mother deduced.

I agreed at the time, but then it became apparent to me that my Mother did the same thing.  Her hidden messages were not as easy to detect.

“How can you keep a husband and work full-time?”  she might ask me, which I would take as criticism.  Or, she would say:  “You were out having lunch with a friend, what about your husband and children?  What did they do for lunch?”  Such statements would grate on my nerves, until I decided not to take them personally and investigate what she was really saying.

“Did you ever want to work outside the home, Mom?”

“Oh, I would have loved to, but your father wouldn’t let me.  A woman’s place is in the home.  When I did go to work, it was only after I threatened to leave, but he never liked it.”

My Mother’s seemingly judgmental comments were actually expressions of regret for the limitations she felt in her own life.  Apart from not being allowed to work outside the home, my Mother also didn’t cultivate any personal friendships.  “My children are all I need,”  she would say.

My family, I came to understand, are masters at hiding the truth.  It warranted a look at my own behaviours and communications.

I am highly skilled in convincing myself that immediate gratification far outweighs longterm gain, thus my ongoing issues with weight (or should I spell that wait?).  Put a high calorie, non-nutritious snack in front of me, and I will go for it everytime – hungry or not.  I convince myself that I deserve this, or I’ll be good tomorrow, or that it’s just this one time, all of which are lies.  Thor is my co-consipirator in this process.  We support each other’s need to overindulge.

So what, I have ask myself, is the hidden message behind this behaviour?  And if I am to get honest with myself, what will that look like?

Clearly, I have work to do.

 

Day 155 “Straw Dogs”

In today’s reflection, Derek Lin explains that straw dogs are small figurines, woven from straw, that are used in rituals, and later burnt or discarded.  He says that we are like straw dogs in the ritual of life, eventually discarded in death.   He suggests that this imagery should help us put things in perspective, and see the triviality in our mundane arguments.

I must be missing the point, but I could not resonate with today’s reading.  In fact, quite the opposite.  It bothered me.  I felt this was a flippant view of life’s process – to assume our role as trivial, like straw dogs, and therefore, meaningless.

I am not a taoist, as I have said before, but I have partaken of different rituals, and it occurs to me that a ceremony using small effigies could be effective.  It could give us the opportunity to consider the many ways that we glean our identity and reevaluate the importance of each.

For example, my therapist recently gave me a small, woven doll to represent my inner child.  She suggested that I carry her with me to remind me of the little one’s needs.  This figurine represents one part of me.

I could also make straw beings to represent the many other parts of my self, such as the risk-taker, the rebel, the conformist, the artist, the insecure, the pessimist, and so on.

Doing so would give me an opportunity to consider the role that each plays in my greater being, and I could realize that some of those aspects are just straw dogs and ready to be burnt or discarded.

If I chose to throw all those individual aspects away, I might understand that I am greater than the sum of all my identifiable traits, and be humbled into appreciating the mystery that is life.

I am not ready to view the totality of my existence as a straw dog, but I am willing to admit that sometimes, it is worthwhile to stop hanging onto that which has no value in the larger picture.