On My Way

 I've been on this journey for a while now. And now, I'm one course away from finishing this program. I'm within sight of beginning a career in counselling. 

After I get my credentials from the soon-to-be-opened College of Counselling Therapists of PEI (CCT-PEI), I will be able to call myself a Counselling Therapist. Until then, I will be finishing my studies, applying to obtain my credentials, and searching for an appropriate office from where to provide services.

I feel as though I have started the last leg of my graduate studies journey, and at some point, that last leg becomes the first leg of my second career. 

I have no rose-coloured glasses here. I know it will be difficult. I know I will struggle at first. Most new business owners do. However, I have my training, I have a few people who want me to contact them in the fall of this year (after I get my credentials) and who will be happy to come and see me as paying clients. And I have word of mouth, which in this province is a powerful thing, for good or ... not. 

Plus, I also have the support of family, friends, colleagues, professors, and the most amazing supervisor. That means that if I have a question about anything to do with the counselling business OR about getting myself unstuck as a therapist, I have someone to mentor me. 

Thinking back to when I first started this blog, little did I know then where that journey would lead me. Random events converged to funnel me in to a decision that I initially made as a back-up plan in case I got fired. (At the time Stephen Harper was the prime minister and public servants were in his cross-hairs!) That back-up plan quickly became my ultimate goal, something I lined up for me to walk into after I retired. 

I retired near the end of September 2020, after the pandemic had ravaged the world and we were heading into the second wave. However, since the Emergency Measures Organization had identified counselling as an essential service, I was able to do my practicum at a local church (thanks to Grace Baptist and Pastor Jeff Eastwood and the elders' board!) for the past 7.5 months. The day after tomorrow, I will see my last client as a student.

It all seems so surreal to me. The idea that in six months, I will likely have my own practice and be seeing clients there ... boggles my mind. Six months! 

I have very little idea what lies ahead. The stepping stones of this journey lead to the other side, but what that shore will look like is a mystery to me. All I know is that this is what I was meant to do, what I was made to do. 

And I will relish every moment. Even if I get my feet wet. :D

 

Point of view

The other day, I got a chance to watch somebody do something that I didn't have the courage to do: talk to a complete stranger who (by all reports) could have become angry and violent given the subject matter of the conversation. 

I was supposed to have talked to the man... but basically, well-ll-lllll .... I chickened out. This person I was watching had offered to talk to him for me - and had asked me if I wanted to watch and see "how it was done." I jumped at the chance.

Every fear I had nursed about this conversation never materialized. The man was polite, courteous, and even understanding. That was amazing enough in itself. However, what was even more amazing for me was how my friend approached the conversation.

Instead of fear and trepidation, there was confidence, friendliness, and humor. 

I thought a lot about how the conversation went with my friend in charge, and how it might have gone with me at the helm. I didn't like what I saw... but I did start to understand what the difference was. It was "point of view."

Later, after the conversation was over, I told my friend about my epiphany, my inner realization about the point of view determining the course of a conversation, a social interaction, a task. 

You see, my friend actually expected things to go well. There was an inner confidence, a belief that most people would be nice and that there was no need to worry. (I don't have that.) There was also the fact that my friend stayed "in the moment" and didn't play the "what if" game. (I do that all the time!) 

Point of view, or perspective, or mind-set, determines a great deal of things in life. It can cause us to be adventurous or reticent, thoughtless or thoughtful, confident or fearful, trusting or suspicious, and everything in between. My friend was always told that she could do anything that she set her mind to, that the world was a wonderful place, that her own opinion of herself was the only one that mattered, and that people could be incredibly sweet. I was told that I was a screw-up, that the world had it in for me, that the most important thing in the world was what people thought about you, and that my feelings and thoughts didn't matter at all. 

Photo "Serpentine Pathway Stones On A Park Walkway"
(concept) by arturo at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

We came at this conversation - and I came to realize that we come at life - from two completely different points of view, based on our own experiences in our growing-up years. Suddenly, in the presence of my friend (after the conversation was over and I realized that all went well) I remembered someone saying once that we create what we believe ... because what we believe determines how we act, and also it determines how others react to us. I have no doubt that if I had talked to that man, he would have become irritated with me because I believed that he would and because I would have therefore been apologetic and hesitant with him, stumbling over my words. And therein lies my problem. 

My problem lies within me. It lies in my own point of view - created early on in my life by people whose own point of view was warped and distorted, and adopted by me because I didn't know any different way to be.

The good part of all this is that through this experience, my problem - which had been "out there" and quite cloudy and hard to grasp - gelled and came into clear focus for me. That is the first step in doing something about it.

Yes, I will make this a matter of prayer - and of focused self-talk using what I know to be true instead of what I have been told by those who don't know any better. But I also know that if I need help or focus doing that self-talk, I can ask for help. I don't need to struggle through it alone.

That's something those people in my early life would never have suggested because, well, "What would people think?" I'm learning not to listen to that tired old song. And now that I know what to ask for, you can bet that I'll be asking for it. 

And I'll get there. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

The Truth : Taking Responsibility

| This above all: to thine own self be true,
| And it must follow, as the night the day,
| Thou canst not then be false to any man.

- Polonius, in Hamlet, Act I Scene iii (William Shakespeare) 

I've been having discussions with a few people lately about how important it is to be honest about even the little things, to maintain personal integrity. The practice of honesty with oneself (and then inevitably with others) is one that, in today's society, is slowly going the way of the whooping crane. 

It is high time to revive it. 

During the last four and a half years, I've been living a lifestyle that demands rigorous honesty - first with the self, then with God and with others.

That forces me to be realistic with myself about a great many things I might otherwise have shoved under the carpet and lived in denial about. It fertilizes my conscience. It demands that I own up to my mistakes - even to (and especially to) my children. It makes me examine the motivations behind my own behaviors that still at times baffle me.

I've discovered that as I embrace this personal honesty, I have less tolerance for being snowed, no matter who's doing it. It's like I have this "BS meter" that points not only within but also outward. It pings all over the place when I hear people talk whose power has gone to their heads - notably politicians, high-ranking officials in businesses or organizations, and the like. 

However, the loudest pinging goes on when I am not being true to my moral compass, when I allow myself to be led astray or I start rationalizing my behavior to myself. That's a good sign. The loudest pinging used to be when I noticed someone else being dishonest. I still notice, but it's tempered with the knowledge that it could just as easily be me compromising my principles to satisfy some ulterior motive.  I know. I've done it.

Insisting on honesty doesn't mean I'm not tactful when I notice something askew in someone else's behavior. It doesn't mean I "let it all hang out" and justify my lambasting someone by saying that I'm being honest. Nor does it mean that I keep silent when silence is not called for. It means that I look at my own reactions and check my own integrity first. It means that I understand that I am human. Fallible.  And that it is okay to make mistakes - as long as I recognize them, and that I learn from them. 

Telling myself the truth is the first step in me taking responsibility for my part in whatever situation has become unlivable. It doesn't allow me the luxury of blaming another person entirely for the state of a relationship or a situation.

When I do need to confront someone, I remind myself to do so in meekness and kindness, with consideration for that person's feelings. It's the way I want to be treated whenever I mess up.

Wouldn't you?

Even when they don't "get it"

When I was a few decades younger, my parents would never allow my brothers and me to fight. Not once.

When we disagreed or got angry at each other (which invariably happened) we were told that we didn't hate each other, that we loved each other, and what would we feel like if something horrible happened to that other person and we never got a chance to make things right? Guilt and shame were the weapons used to coerce us into "making up" ... we were never allowed to work it out between ourselves.  We weren't allowed to feel what we felt.

All that really succeeded in doing was to make us doubt ourselves, to doubt our own feelings, and to not know how to resolve issues we had whenever they arose. We were forced into forgiveness before we'd even gotten a chance to fully define the problem. We learned to be insincere and to get away with it. This had far-reaching repercussions on our own emotions. Depending on our personalities, we either withdrew into ourselves, exploded in angry outbursts, or poured on the guilt and manipulation to make the other person capitulate. 

 Nobody said that he or she was sorry. We instead tried to make it up to the other person by doing something nice for him or her. We also never learned what true forgiveness was. 

Thanks to Tina Phillips at
www.freedigitalphotos.net 
for this photo, "Young Love"
Notice how what appears to be love ... isn't.

It wasn't until much later (many years after I left the family homestead) that I learned that an apology is actually being sorry and saying so, not for being caught but for hurting the other person. And in the same way, I learned that forgiveness isn't saying that nothing is wrong, that I was wrong to feel what I felt, or that what the other person did wasn't really all that bad. 

That kind of mentality kept me in a type of emotional slavery to my own sense of self-justification. I held onto things that people did to me out of a sense of not only being wronged, but of wanting someone else - anyone else (but especially the ones that wronged me) - to admit that I was the victim.

I learned, through therapy and some intensive working on my inner self, that forgiveness is recognizing that there is a moral debt that someone owes you, but choosing to write that debt off and not expect repayment. 

Ever. 

And that it is a process. It takes time. Sometimes a LOT of time.

And over time, I also learned that forgiving someone doesn't require the other person to apologize or to change in any way. In fact, very often the other person doesn't know that he or she has committed an offense and - if confronted - would never admit to any wrongdoing. Or, if they admitted it, they'd go right back to doing whatever it was all over again.

Instead, I learned that forgiveness is not really about the other person at all. It's about the person who forgives. It's about letting go of the need for justice. And what happens when you forgive is that it frees you. There is a lot of energy expended in maintaining a grudge. Forgiveness makes that burden disappear. 

And it does more. It actually liberates the other person to experience the consequences of his or her own actions without my help or influence. Don't ask me HOW this works; I just know that I've seen it over and over again. And every time I struggle with forgiving someone and finally come to that place of letting go, I learn it all over again. 

Even when they don't get it, even when they continue on in the same behavior, forgiving them allows me to acknowledge the wrongness of their behavior, and then to choose to release myself from the obligation to extract my pound of flesh from them. 

That's energy I get back. That's strength I need to live my life every day, unencumbered by the torture of "what they did" or "what they said." 

Forgiveness, even when the other person doesn't know or does not care one bit, does what very few things can do in the inner life of the one who forgives. It does what Abraham Lincoln did for the slaves after the American Civil War.

It emancipates. 

The Scar

I have a large, V-shaped scar under my left kneecap. 

I got it when I was two years old. I was out playing in our yard, a giggling, squirming bundle of blonde curls and mischief, and my brother - then 8 years old - was trying to catch me. 

He saw me headed toward the back of the house, where our parents kept a big steel drum for storing "hard garbage." There, they would put those huge apple-juice cans and other things like glass bottles that Mom couldn't use for canning. It was a dangerous place - strewn with things that had been tossed but didn't quite reach the tall steel drum - about three and a half feet tall. 

He called out to me, warning me not to go back there. I squealed and ran toward the forbidden territory; everything was a game. He ran after me - trying to reach me in time.

Just before he did - I fell.

Something broke my fall - but I wouldn't recommend it. There was an old vinegar jug made of glass that hadn't quite landed in the bin and had broken on the ground. Sharp shards and razor-sharp edges were everywhere. 

I landed on my knee, directly on a piece of that jug, on a portion of sharp glass that was sticking straight up from the bottom edge of the jug. 

I won't go into the gory details, but I ended up nearly becoming a permanent cripple that day. The glass very narrowly missed slicing my patellar tendon and doing damage to the inside of the joint. Amid several people holding a screaming child down, in that small two-year-old's knee were placed eighteen stitches: five internal and thirteen external. I was ordered to keep my leg straight and the rest of my family were recruited to enforce that order - until it healed. 

"Knee Replacement Surgery" photo
courtesy of olovedog
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

When the stitches came out, the doctor tested my knee joint to see if there had been any permanent damage to the tendons and ligaments. He breathed a sigh of relief when all was normal. 

I don't remember a thing about that incident. Matter of fact, I don't remember much of anything specific about my life before I was six years old, but that is a whole different story. 

I do know that I have had a scar from it ever since. As I grew, it did too. 

That's an interesting concept. 

Your scars grow at the same rate that you do. They show up bigger than they were when you were younger. However, keep in mind that they cover the same percentage of your body that they did when they first happened. And while some scars do fade - some don't. The deeper the original injury was, the more permanent the mark (and possibly the crater) it leaves behind. And some injuries (and even some surgeries) will cause degeneration to happen more quickly than normal (hence, early-onset osteoarthritis or degenerative disc disease), while others will leave no residual effects.

I have a theory that emotional injuries work the same way. 

The depth, extent, and frequency of emotional injury will determine the degree and the severity of any lasting effects from those injuries. And ... it will also determine the length of time it takes to heal from those hurts. 

Or to find a way to cope with what can't be changed. 

Having been emotionally damaged by various experiences, and having healed from many of them, I have a few pointers to give someone who is dealing with the after-effects of deep emotional scars. 

• Healing takes time. The deeper, the more intentional, and the more systematic the hurt, the longer it will take to recover from it.
• Emotions are NOT BAD. If you feel bad because something bad happened to you, that is a NORMAL response. It's supposed to feel that way. If you feel angry because you were wronged, that's normal too! Anger is a normal response to injustice!
• Pain is sometimes necessary in order to diagnose ... and to heal. Pain lets you know what area needs work. Seek to know the reasons for your pain, not just to be delivered from it. The former leads to healing; the latter to addiction and dysfunction.
• Healing happens best from the inside out. If something only scabs over on the outside, it will only be a matter of time before someone or something hits you in that place again - and it will hurt. A LOT. Healing from the inside first will allow the outside to take care of itself, and for the healing to be permanent.
• Talk about your feelings with someone you trust. Pray, talk through your feelings, get it out of you and don't hide from it.
• If you can manage it at all, keep a healing journal. Write about how you feel. Be honest with yourself at all times. The ultimate goal is to get better from the hurts of the past, to make restoration to those whom you have hurt as a result, and to free yourself from the killer known as resentment.
  
• Finally, to do all this, GET HELP. It's okay to ask for help from someone who is trustworthy and will not break (or who will even joke that they have the power to break) your confidentiality. Move past the shame and go see a counselor, attend a 12-step group, or talk to your pastor or spiritual advisor. Agree to accept his or her counsel and do not settle for activities that will only modify external behaviors or satisfy some desire for revenge.

One more thing about emotional scars. Like physical ones, they are what's left over after the hurt has healed. Emotional scars can be quite noticeable even after you have dealt with the root cause and it's no longer hurting you, but the presence of the scar doesn't mean that you haven't healed. It just means that you survived. 

Don't be ashamed of your scars; they can open conversations and give people hope, and help them to heal from their wounds too. That's the way it was designed to work.

Peeling Onions

Over 30 years ago, my husband was to be away from home on a ministry weekend. Normally I would have been able to go, but my job as a waitress for the summer months prevented me from going. It was the first time we were separated since we'd been married a year or so previous. 

I was pretty much an emotional wreck inside, trying to hold it together. 

My supervisor - also the cook - noticed that I (usually quiet anyway) was more quiet than usual. She asked me what was wrong. I put on a light, airy tone, "Oh, my husband had to go on a trip this weekend - I'm just missing him."

She was silent for a minute, and then she seemed to snap out of her reverie. "Could you go out to the big fridge and get me that bag of onions in the bottom of it?" I went obediently... and found the biggest mesh bag of onions I'd seen in my life. There must have been ten or fifteen pounds of the things in there. I carried it to her.  "Yes, that's the one. Look, I need those onions peeled for the special tonight. Use the paring knife in the top drawer." 

"You want me to peel ... ALL ... of them?"

"Whole and Halved Onion" courtesy of bplanet at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

She was nonplussed. "Yep. Set yourself up over there and put the peelings in that can." She pointed to a large tin garbage can in the corner. "And use the bread-bowl to put the peeled onions in. I'll take it from there." 

It wasn't until I was onto my third or fourth onion, my eyes stinging and burning, unable to hold my tears back, that I realized what she did for me. 

She gave me a way to cry - to shed tears in abundance in front of the kitchen staff - and still save face. 

Nobody knew how many of those tears were from the onions - and how many were from missing my husband. 

Not even my boss. I was so grateful to her for that.

I found myself thinking about that experience today after having to deal with a highly stressful situation for me, one that involved telling someone how I felt, someone who hurt me - quite probably inadvertently - the details of which are not important. Even after all the unwrapping that has already gone on in my life, all of which has been as painful and as tear-provoking as peeling onions is - it is still hard for me to stand up for me and say how I feel; the fear of rejection and the dread of confrontation is that strong. 

Yet, just as there are many layers in an onion, there are deeper and deeper levels of recovery - and this is one. I am constantly reaching new levels of vulnerability and honesty with myself and with other people. It's difficult, and I wouldn't be able to do it at all if not empowered by my relationship with God. However, the more I honest and vulnerable I am, the more real I can be, the more convinced I am that it's the only way to stay in that place where my life intersects in a meaningful way with the lives of the people with whom God orchestrates relationship.

Most people can spot a phoney a mile away. 

Yes, peeling onions - getting and staying real - stings and causes tears to flow; it might even make people avoid being around that process because they only like the finished product. Be that as it may, getting beneath the surface, where it counts, is what matters to me. It's the only way that I've found to live with myself.

Rethinking Normal

"I'm sorry," she blurted out through her tears.

"Sorry... for what?" 

"I'm blubbering all over the place..." her voice trailed off. She oozed misery, ashamed of her inability to control her emotions.

Her friend stared at her in disbelief. She was living under a great deal of stress, she was in nearly constant physical pain, her husband had abandoned her and was sleeping with someone else, and one of her kids was dealing with a life-threatening illness. 

And she was supposed to "keep it together"??

~~~~~~~~

I think that many people have gotten a warped view of what "normal" is. It's not "normal" to be unaffected by the body-blows of life. If it were, we would never have been given emotions to begin with. They were given as a pressure relief valve, a way to identify when boundaries have been crossed, or when we have experienced loss or injustice. They give us a way to identify what's wrong and take the first steps toward achieving balance.

I agree that it's never a good idea to pitch a tent in the wilds of self-pity and stay there for months or years. However, when life deals us a bad hand - as it is bound to on occasion - it's okay to react. It's normal to feel those unpleasant feelings.

In fact, as hard and horrible as some of those feelings are to experience (and I must admit there were times I wished that I could shut my feelings "off"), in the final analysis, I'd rather feel them than shove them underneath, subjugate them, and have them show up (and they WILL show up) another way: ulcers, heart disease, high blood pressure ... maybe even cancer. 

Our culture seems to place a great deal of value on "having it all together." However, it's been my experience that those who seem nonplussed in the face of tragedy - with rare exceptions - are putting on a front that they think others want to see. They're living in denial, lying to others and sometimes even to themselves. They shut off not only the unpleasant emotions, but they find they are unable to feel the pleasant ones after such a long time of "clamping down."

I used to live like that - and I prided myself on it, even to the point of making such an aloof exterior seem virtuous. 

When the facades came down and I started discovering who I really was, I learned that it's okay to be human, to be vulnerable, to admit weakness, to own up to mistakes, to have emotions and express them, .... in short, to be real. Many of the experiences through which I learned ... were hard lessons, to be sure, but having lived like this for nearly four years now, I'm realizing that this life ... this unmasked, unwrapped life ... THIS is normal. 

And - even though it is sometimes risky, and sometimes I cry - it's still good. I'm more alive than I ever was behind that mask - and it's worth a few tears now and then, to be able to know happiness.

After the miracle comes

In my last blog post, I talked about my friend whose faith through a trial has been tenacious. Of course, the amazing happened in her life and God really showed Himself strong in her situation when all seemed hopeless. Here is an account of her miracle, and a few comments on it. 

And now that she has received her impossible dream-come-true, like Henny Penny from the fairy tale by Andersen, she looked around and found that nobody from the circle of friends she expected has lifted a finger to help her rid herself of the vestiges of her old life and get started in a new one. A new group of friends pitched in their time and resources to help her. But as she sat across our supper table from me last evening, she shook her head and said, "Nobody from [XXXXX] even showed up." 

I tried to make excuses for the group she mentioned, but it was tough, you know? Everyone makes time for what is important to him/ her. 

Snowflakes - miracles in themselves

Yet ... this time has been great for her to strengthen friendships with those who really do care about her and about her happiness and who show it. I've had priceless opportunities to put "skin" on my platitudes and actually roll up my sleeves and invest a little "sweat equity" into the relationship. 

Am I stiff and sore this morning? Oh yeah. Do I regret digging deep into two of my most precious commodities - time and energy - to help her? 

Absolutely not. In fact, I've been encouraged by her excitement, even challenged by her getting into the "Christmas spirit" (something I haven't felt for years, except in fleeting moments, nothing sustained) and wanting to decorate her place for the holidays. Everything feels so fresh and new, and her gratitude for God's goodness is tangible. 

It is wonderful that so many have had the blessing of praying for her and being able to take part - in some small way - in what God did for her. But it would have been nice to not have left the other, more practical things, for others to do. 

There are a lot of ads on TV these days about child sponsorship and giving a goat to a family half-way around the world. But what about the person who lives in our city, goes to our church perhaps, who is living below the poverty line and who struggles to make ends meet? who has to choose between food and electricity? What about the homeless in our own back yard? What about "at-risk" families in our province or state who don't have enough money to buy Christmas presents or school supplies or shoes for their kids? 

I'm talking to me, too. Ouch!

I know of some families who have given up on buying each other gifts for Christmas and who donate their time at the soup kitchen, or who donate the money they would have spent on Christmas shopping ... to turkey drives or the food bank. Thinking "outside the boxes" beneath the tree might do a lot of good for people who need help; it would also let them know that someone cares for them in a way that surpasses platitudes. And the thing about giving in that way is: it not only meets a need in someone's liife, but it helps the one who gives ... in ways that can't be measured. 

It might even spark some Christmas spirit. 

Saddle Sores

Sometimes, getting along with people is hard.

Put another way, the intricacies of interpersonal relationships are such that they can turn into a mine-field more than a healing zone. 

Whether at home, work, church, school, or elsewhere, the potential for misunderstandings and power-plays (and everything in between) is huge because people are human - and humans make mistakes. Humans also like to be right, and will do anything to convince themselves that they are right. Even if it means manipulating the situation in such a way that the other person looks wrong - or stupid.

I was bemoaning such a relationship last night as I tried to get to sleep - and sleep would not come. The more I thought about a particular sequence of events, the worse I felt. The feeling of being betrayed, irritated, used, taken for granted (even possibly taken for a fool), and ... ridden - was tangible. This morning, as I tried to make sense of it all, tried to identify what was wrong, I listed my feelings as if they were physical symptoms ... and because I have a background in equitation, suddenly it became clear to me.

I have saddle sores. You know - the kind that horses get. Only mine are emotional.

To test my theory, I went to Google found an article on saddle sores, what they are, what causes them and how to prevent them. It's as I thought. Saddle sores are tender, raw spots on a horse's back or sides that happen when there is repetitive rubbing against the hair follicles. They usually happen where the equipment (like the saddle and/or the girth, or the strap that holds the saddle on the horse) comes into contact with the horse. 

Friction causes saddle sores. It doesn't have to be a whole lot of friction, just a few millimeters is all it takes, but it's the repetitive nature of it over a prolonged period of time, back and forth, over and over, that causes the hair follicles under the saddle to become inflamed and tender, and it can lead to infection, and sometimes even dead tissue - which (after removal) means that the hair never grows there again. And did I mention that saddle sores HURT? Think blister. Think abscess.

Ouch. A horse with a saddle sore can't be ridden for a long time, until the sore is healed completely. That can mean weeks of treatment. 

What am I getting at? Well, the author of the article says that there are several underlying causes of the irritation that leads to saddle sores and other similar sores that appear under the bridle or other riding or harness equipment. These main causes are: 

• the way the individual horse is built - this can't be changed, but allowances can be made for it;
• the riding equipment that's used: saddle and bridle, especially if these things are unclean. A dirty saddle or bridle is stiff and crusty, doesn't bend with the horse's movements, and rubs the hair and skin raw; and
• how well the rider rides - this can be changed!

Now. Here's where my mind started kicking in; here's the analogy part. Think of the following symbolism (if you haven't already figured it out):

• the horse is the one feeling "ridden" or "used" - in this case, me;
• the saddle and bridle (also called the "tack") is the rules and regulations, the organizational framework in which I and the other person/people involved operate; and
• the rider is the other individual (in essence, the one who is "riding" me). This is the person who has some sort of power or control over me, whether by delegated authority or by function.

Photo "Horseman On Horse" courtesy of dan at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Treating saddle sores is far more unpleasant for everyone than preventing them from happening in the first place. It takes a little extra care, but the time investment is well worth it. It makes the relationship far more enjoyable - in the horse world and in the human world!

In particular, as I review the three main causes for saddle sores (the individual makeup or quirks of the one being ridden, the flexibility of the rules and regulations under which everyone operates, and the skill of the rider), might I suggest the following applications for preventing the emotional effects of being "ridden?"

• Judicious use of padding - Saddles come in standard sizes; horses don't. Good riders know that a great saddle pad, if used properly, can help prevent saddle sores from happening. If the horse has physical quirks, such as bony shoulders for example, adjusting the pad before putting the saddle on the horse can prevent that extra pressure from bearing down on the horse's back. In the same way, knowing where someone is sensitive and making allowances for those things can help prevent the rules - and the one holding the reins - from rubbing him or her the wrong way.
• Making sure the rules are fitted to the person - The equipment has to fit the horse properly in order to be effective. There are guidelines to use to make the bridle fit comfortably so the horse isn't in pain all the time, things to remember to make sure the girth doesn't pinch, or the front of the saddle doesn't bear down on the bony part of the shoulders. If you need to awl another hole through a strap to make it fit right, then that's what has to happen. If you need to get someone a special piece of equipment to make his or her life/job/ministry/schoolwork better while still staying within the boundaries of decorum and being considerate of others involved, then that's an investment that needs to be considered seriously.
  
• Keeping the rules from becoming rigid and inflexible - Good riders know the importance of cleaning their tack after every use - at least wiping off the saliva, sweat and dirt with a damp sponge or cloth - and regularly cleaning the saddle and bridle with saddle soap, a sponge and a little water to keep the leather supple, to prevent it from getting brittle and rough. Rough leather rubs against the animal and causes saddle sores faster. In the human application, a good rule of thumb here is "people before things."  Consistently refusing to listen to someone who has a need and a right to be heard and appreciated in a meaningful way, can drive a person to the wrenching decision point of wanting to permanently end the relationship.
• Being open to instruction - Bad riding: continual bump-bump-bumping on top of the horse, yanking at the reins, or flopping the legs around, can cause more friction and more quickly irritate the places where the tack comes in contact with the horse (not to mention irritating the horse itself!); it can also damage the equipment and not make it last as long. This can be fixed if the rider is willing to take lessons and listen to someone who knows more, to benefit from the experience of an expert. In the same way, it's important for the person at the controls to have an extremely rare quality: the capacity to be teachable. Being teachable increases flexibility and benefits both parties; it improves the relationship and helps it last longer and be more enjoyable for all concerned. 

Like all analogies, this one has its limitations, but I think I've drawn enough comparisons to at least provide food for thought. 

Learning to sit tight - and then some

"It won't be long now. Sit tight." This is a common statement I've been encouraging myself with lately. 

Are the days something to be endured
or something to be embraced

Diminishing "today"

I've been waiting for a few weeks for certain specific promised events to happen. The timing of these events is completely out of my control, and yet I am figuratively kicking at the fence, checking the mailbox - as if by doing so, I could hurry it up - and the "new me" recognizes that it's the "old me" that's so impatient. 

I don't complain as much, so I'm better at waiting than I used to be. 

Or am I?  My former obsession with controlling the end result by harping and hounding, by ranting and railing, has given way to a more subtle monitoring of the situation, trying to manipulate or at least watch what's going on. 

Even knowing when something is likely to happen doesn't help, because then I cross the days off the calendar in my mind, and fall into the "I can't wait" mind-set. When I catch myself saying, "I can't wait" for this or that to happen, that's when the alarm bells start going off. Viewing this or that day, or this or that group of days (such as Monday to Friday?) as something to be endured before I can begin to live or enjoy life, is completely opposed to the lifestyle that I have adopted the last few years: "Live fully today." If I am marking time until some future date happens, aren't I wasting the potential for joy and happiness that I could experience today? Can't I find something about this day for which I can be grateful?

Perhaps I need to encourage myself with a different message - like "One day at a time" or "Let go and let God" ... and ask myself an action-inducing question, like, "What can I do to accept and enjoy today just as it is?"

Hmm.

Putting me on

"You're putting me on."

No, I'm putting me on.

Some time ago, I heard someone make a required phone call to another person.  The tone was friendly, open, sincere, and would have put the other person completely at ease.  The caller obtained the required information easily, effortlessly.  I would have thought that they were old friends.  

What the other person didn't hear, though, was the tone of voice and the choice of words that came out of the caller's mouth as soon as the call ended and both parties hung up.  It conveyed disgust and contempt for the person who'd been at the other end.

Here's where I got this photo

I can't say anything in judgment.  I've done it - lots of times.  Sometimes we have to talk to people whose company we don't particularly care for - and we have to be civil to these people, for the sake of politeness or social norms.  Especially in situations like a businessman talking to a potential client, or a sales clerk talking to a customer. There's a mask of civility that we wear when we need to. We put it on - and when we're done, we take it off as soon as possible and confirm to ourselves that we didn't enjoy the experience.  I'm not so sure that it's wrong.  But I am sure that it's human.  

But when the other person is consistently crossing a boundary, belittling us or using us, it's time to take off that mask of geniality and let the other person know that he or she has crossed the line.  

For me, that's the time when, instead of putting a mask on, it's time to put ME on.  The real me. 

I've discovered something as I do this.  The more I put me on, the less I want to put on the mask.  I like the me that I'm becoming - and I don't want to be the doormat, the pushover I used to be, the one who strove for the least amount of splash upon entry, the one who hated making waves, the one who just wanted to disappear.  Putting on the mask becomes a distasteful task.  

Sometimes putting on that facade is necessary.  Sometimes.  But a repeated pattern of that kind of behavior can make me practiced in hypocrisy - I can so easily 'put it on' and 'take it off.'  It kind of scares - and almost sickens - me.  That's one reason I hesitate to engage in it.  I'd far rather be totally honest.  

When it bothers me the most is when I am in a situation where I believe that I am in a safe place - and all of a sudden I realize that I'm not - and that I need to put 'em on - let 'em think I'm behaving the way "they" want me to - so I can get away unscathed, unjudged.  Whoever "they" are.  Someone who calls himself my friend, for example.  Or perhaps at church.  Maybe even when visiting family.  Or at work.  

What a joy to realize when I really AM in a safe place, with trustworthy people, people who accept me for who I am and who don't judge.  There are a few such people in my life.  I appreciate their friendship - and their company - SO much!  

When I first started this new way of living and came across the expression, "rigorous honesty"... I thought that it meant with others.  It does - to a point.  But what I've come to understand is that it refers primarily to relationship with God, and with myself.  If I can't be truthful with myself, and with my Maker, I am SUNK.  The fact that I sometimes don't share EVERY little thing with someone else tells me that I'm learning who is trustworthy and who is not.  I can trust those that are trustworthy.  It's okay NOT to trust those that aren't, and learning who isn't trustworthy can only be done by trial and error. 

LOTS of error.

Of course, I try my best not to lie, even to those that I don't necessarily trust with my feelings.  I will answer truthfully, but ... briefly.  I've learned not to elaborate and give people ammunition to use against me later, even if they think that it's 'helping' by sharing something I've said in confidence.  

And I SO look forward to the times when I spend time with people I trust, so that I can put ME on.

Cone of Silence

It was the way things were.  Nobody thought anything of it.  Nobody talked about it, least of all the ones who were the most affected.  And everyone thought that their situation was the same as everyone else's.  We all used the same language when we talked about (or was it around) it - each knew his or her own reality but sadly, nobody else's.  If we'd known, maybe we'd have figured out that something was wrong.  But nobody said a word.  There was a cone of silence around the topic.  We got together, we played catch, we skated on the pond - and we each assumed that the others' lives were just the same as ours.

That's how it went on for so long before the truth came out.

The truth was, someone (and maybe a lot of someones) in our number was a victim of child abuse.  Someone's parent was unable to control his or her anger, and took it out on his or her child.  Often.  And not just physically, but verbally, emotionally. Maybe there was even sexual abuse happening.  The home - supposedly a haven of rest and safety in a scary, mixed-up world - was in fact a war zone.  Except that the enemy lived under the same roof.  And the victim never knew when he or she would be targeted again.  Every time, he or she vowed to him or herself (whether consciously or subconsciously) that once free of this place, nobody would ever be able to push him or her around again. That things would be different. 


Ruled by fear - or anger - or both - the child became an adult and moved out. But the pain, the fear, the anger - these reactions were constantly in the driver's seat.  They controlled the person's behavior so he or she pushed people away or smothered them with either need or caretaking, whichever the case, and the misery never ended.  Like soldiers with PTSD, this child (now an adult) was always on "red alert." The danger was past - but not on the inside.  Relationships were not a safe place.  There was no "off" switch.

Here's the link for this photo

Abuse.  It's an ugly subject, made all the more subjective because of the pain and the stigma associated with it.  Fingers point - more point back.  Children live in denial all their lives and honestly believe they deserved it.  

Nobody deserves it.

And the pain can stop.  But it takes honesty.  Brutal honesty with one's self.  Not just about the self but about the past.  The truth really does set free.  The trick is in untangling the lies and separating their roots, untangling those tendrils of shame from things as they really were.  The cone of silence MUST come off.  Healing can't happen until we start talking about it, exposing it to the light.  If it stays in the dark, it thrives like the monster it is, and gets bigger.  Buried perhaps, but stronger and stronger. The light of truth does dispel the darkness of that network of lies.

That takes time. A LOT of time.  And a lot of help from someone else, someone who's been through it before, someone flesh and blood who can walk alongside as the one who's recovering works through those things.  More importantly, it takes a lot of help from a Power far greater than any human can give.  

I know.  I was one of those kids who played ball and thought everyone's life sucked just like mine.  

And I got help.

Old scars just are

"All she ever talks about is crap."

I'd trusted this person with how I was feeling, what my world was like, what my innermost thoughts were.  Now, months and several revelations later, as I lingered by the grate which allowed conversation from the kitchen to be transmitted to the upstairs, I heard those words.  Betrayal, like a double-serrated knife, pierced my insides and then twirled them into a hot knot of confusion and doubt. 

I was sixteen.

I found myself thinking about that moment lately - as circumstances surrounding my work situation have been changing, and there is more focus on the mechanics of what we do instead of the good that we can do - which leads to things taking twice, three, even four times as long as they could. Suddenly, everything I write is being scrutinized because somebody I never met had something to prove to a superior. The totally reactionary and unnecessary "100% quality review" process is extremely subjective and it's extended beyond grammatical and punctuation errors.  And the whole time, the end client waits while we argue over semicolons and commas, whether to include this phrase or not, even whether to give a client the requested benefit or not.  That same sense of betrayal is there, rising higher and higher in my psyche.  Gut-wrenching.  Suddenly what I've been doing all along - and I was told by this same person for years that it was high quality work - isn't good enough. 

The result is an incredible sense of sadness, of fatigue, of a lack of motivation, a growing dread of going to work, even physical symptoms like joint ache, muscular pain, and headaches. My subconscious mind has my body convinced that my job site is not a safe place for me anymore.  I wonder how many more in my section are feeling the same thing to one degree or another.  My sympathy for our clients with work-stress-related psychological problems has multiplied.  With nobody to consult who can effect change, nobody to talk to about these feelings except the catch-all provision, "You can always talk to Employee Assistance," there is nowhere to turn; I feel trapped.  Guilty too - since I get the message, "You should be glad you even HAVE a job."  

Yeah, unemployment sucks.  But there are worse things.  

Even my recovery tools - skills I've learned in my new lifestyle of growth and rigorous honesty - seem inadequate to deal with this situation. Being honest and telling the truth could get me in trouble - not good in today's oppressive atmosphere of looking for ways to save salary dollars.  Being grateful feels like shoving my head in the sand.  Doing the next right thing ... well, I can't even do that if my judgment is going to be questioned.  The only recovery tool I have that even comes close is acceptance: "sitting with the pain." "Accepting what is." Yes... yes, I suppose I could do that. 

Perhaps the pain is worse because it hits me in one of those old scars.  Perhaps it's just a natural and normal reaction to this kind of treatment.  

I can accept that old scars just are.  They will hurt and get deeper when they are re-wounded.  They don't have to define who I am, though.  I can still hold my head high because of the good I have done.  I can continue to do the work that I was trained to do, I can continue to help the clients, and I can roll with the punches until the inevitable happens: the end clients will wonder what is taking so long and complain.  And then the reactionary pendulum will swing in the other direction.  I know that; I expect it. 

Now, the trick is to get from here to there intact, the only way I know how.  One day at a time.

Different and same

I just saw a video this morning that I must share.  It's about five and a half minutes long and it is about a young man named Ryan Pittman.

His story is so powerful that it stands alone.  A lot of people have tried to get across what everybody needs to know.  Ryan succeeded.  He has given hope and inspiration to so many people.



I know he inspired me.

The imaginary family

Grief comes in stages and waves.  Everyone goes through it in their own way.  And you can grieve a loss even if the person hasn't died ... or left you.  And it doesn't even have to be a person.  

I once had an imaginary family.  It was one I created - in my childhood - a coping mechanism to escape from the unpleasant realities of growing up in an abusive atmosphere.  I deluded myself into believing that I grew up in a Christian home, that I was fortunate, that my abuser really did love me, that I deserved the beatings and the constant criticism and that really, it was a happy, closely-knit family.  

Like I said...imaginary.  

The first wave of grief happened almost ten years ago.  Details don't matter - it was just my wake-up call to the fact that the family I had created never existed. With that realization - came a short period of denial (not long because the truth was undeniable) ... and then shock.  I went into an emotional tailspin.  I reverted back to the mentality I had when I was fifteen - and what I was then wasn't ... uh, shall we say ... appropriate.  I scared myself with my own behavior.  Afraid I might lose my ministry, I sought counseling - but got one of those "cookie-cutter" people who are more interested in statistics, pressing charges, and following the social worker manual than in listening to what I needed.  I told the counselor in my first session: "I don't want justice.  I want to be free."  I finished my minimum mandatory EAP sessions with that person and left, never to return.

Then the anger hit: white-hot rage. I cut off all ties with my family of origin, couldn't even talk on the phone with them without spitting nails.  For a good eight months I was livid as I started to review memory after memory.  The outrage was incredible.  Fortunately, I discovered the ministry of Joyce Meyer - and was able to work through about half of the rage and come to a place where I was willing to forgive.  At that point I was able to know a little peace.  My life started to make sense again, away from that family, whom I finally saw without the rose-colored glasses of denial.  But not quite enough grace to forgive.  Not yet. 

That was 2004.  In November of 2004 there was a crisis in the extended family that thrust me back into contact with them again.  I reverted within six months to feeling oppressed, criticized, abused all over again.  I gave up hope that it would ever get better.  Somehow, I was holding on to the idea that if I was just good enough, brave enough, honest enough, strong enough - they would see what they had done to me and change.  I was wrong.  

Four years later, on another front, I was ready to ask for help.  And I got it!!  This time, I got an amazing counselor and started to heal from the inside out.  It took about six months to a year in some areas - but there was progress.  I was able to come to a place of forgiveness.  I was even able to feel some compassion for my chief abuser.  Which, by the way, in NO WAY makes the abuse "all right."  Forgiveness isn't like that. (And that in itself was a revelation to me.)

For the first time in my life, I actually experienced acceptance from a whole community of people ... and happiness within me.  And freedom from the burden of holding on to so many of the negative messages I was raised with, lies I believed about myself, mind-sets I was indoctrinated with.  It was HUGE.  I was ... amazed.  It was so freeing, so many lights came on that I felt compelled to write a book about the process.  And I did!  my e-book was published on Smashwords on September 25, 2011. I named this blog after it. 

And I thought - silly me - that my family of origin would be happy for me.  

One person was.  I will give that person that much.  The rest - as I have come to find out because they discussed this behind my back - judged me and condemned me for telling the story of my journey - from December 2008 onward to my entering the world of recovery from the chains of the past. In doing so, I happened to mention once or twice in the book, that I had been abused as a child. This was the bone of contention for my family of origin. When given the chance, they said nothing to my face, so I assumed they were okay with me publishing! But I had forgotten what their natural way of dealing with things was: nicey-nice to my face and venomous behind my back. Some even accused me of lying, of making it all up.  Not directly - to be sure (because that's all part of the dysfunction) - but I did find out about it.  The feeling of being unaccepted, of being (how shall I put it best?) crucified by my own mother and extended family - was almost as unbearable as the first.  The main way to describe this feeling is "betrayal" followed by "frustration (also known as, "If they'd only ____") - and most recently, "profound sadness."

This second major wave of grief hit right after Christmas 2011, during a visit that opened my eyes to truths I didn't want to face - as dedicated to truth as I have been, there were some things I was both shocked and disappointed to learn.  I could call this wave of grief a lot of things but I think I can best sum it up by calling it "The goodbye wave."  

There is something so final about that word. Goodbye.  I read a poster once that said, "The only thing that's harder than letting go is moving on." That was the crossroads I have been facing the last few months.

I really had to finally accept that these people bore no resemblance to my fantasy / imaginary family - that my self-created idyllic group of people never existed and that these people ... the real people who would have ruined my life if God hadn't stepped in and rescued me ... would NEVER change, showed no desire to change, even insisted (and still do) that they did nothing wrong.  I knew that if I stayed around them, they would destroy what little bit of healing I had been able to enjoy, and that it was unhealthy for me to continue to expose myself to their extreme dysfunction.  My recovery from those chains took me too long and it was too hard a journey to have it stolen from me, eroded away foot by foot until there was nothing left.  

I'm still in the middle of that wave, riding it hard through all the stages of grief all over again.  It's difficult.  But I'll live through it ... and with better tools to be able to handle it.  And in the end, I'll be healthier for it.

Slippage

Today I tackled a job I've been putting off for a while.  I used to do it every month, but in the last few months ... not so much. I needed to balance my checkbook.

I can hear the collective groans.  The thing is, I used to be really good at recording every expense.  Treated every debit card transaction like a check, recorded it right away.  Then my habits changed and I started saving receipts when making a debit card purchase, (this to avoid perfect strangers behind me in line from being upset at having to wait while I write down the amount! wow.  Reality check: how codependent is that??) intending to record them later.  Most times I do.  Sometimes - and this is usually the case especially with those pesky  automatic payments - I forget.  This results in what some call "slippage."  A missed transaction or two doesn't seem like much.  But it can be dangerous!

To my surprise, when I finally dug my check register out today, I discovered I had not reconciled it to my bank account in about six months.  Ouch!!  This wasn't going to be good.  

Source of this image:
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-
775368-checkbook-register.php

After carefully verifying every transaction the bank said I put through, I ended up having a few hundred dollars less in my bank account than I thought. (Talk about slippage!!)  Not a nice feeling to be sure.  A little unsettling (pun not intended) as a matter of fact.  But, I bit the bullet ... made the change in my check register, and now everything balances, although the balance is less than I would have wanted.  Before I sat down with my wallet today, I thought I was doing pretty well.  That's the trouble with slippage.  It adds up.

It's sort of a relief to know where I stand, though.  To know that I'm square - that I won't be caught short of funds when I have to make a payment in future.  But lessons learned:  the arrival of the bank statement is the perfect signal for me to make time to make sure I've been scrupulously honest with myself.  And speaking of honesty - this putting the recording off until that evening or the next day ... has not been working for me: with all my other daily duties, I easily forget about the paperwork, and before I know it, I have a whole whack of receipts falling out of my wallet.  So - perhaps it's time to get a little more meticulous about my record-keeping - to take the time to do it at the checkout as I used to do.  It's another way of looking after myself, of reminding myself that I have the right to take up space in the world.  Even if I have to slip around to the far end of the checkout after paying, for the twenty extra seconds it would take to record my purchase.

It's just that easy to fall behind, to not be as diligent as I once was - not only in my paperwork, but also in my inner life.  I once heard someone say, "Keep short accounts with God."  I'd say that applies to all relationships including the vertical one.  I talk about it ... but when all is said and done, I do tend to let things slip.  I "coast."  I don't live intentionally - and that results in spiritual slippage.  Fortunately, I don't have to wonder if my Record-keeper made a mistake.  If there's a discrepancy, I know I'm the one who goofed.  And although it's humbling, it's better for me to reconcile with God ... and with anyone else for whom I have not been "present" ... so that my life is balanced.

Balanced is good.

Phostered Phonies

The culture we live in discourages certain behaviors and encourages others based on what it thinks and / or believes is important.  It's not just endemic to one particular subculture or social group, it's pandemic across our entire culture to treat certain actions as laudable and others as lousy - and some of them literally make no sense to me.  To my way of thinking, some actions that are commonly praised need to be exposed and deplored; some which are discouraged need to be re-examined and considered carefully as models upon which to base our interactions with each other. 

In today's culture, for example, in response to a simple question, "How are you?" the answer "Great!" is encouraged - even if you're dying inside.  The answer "Lousy," though honest (which is the goal, right?) is criticized as undesirable, a "downer." Or in the church setting, "not speaking in faith." Even the response, "Okay," is suspect.  ("Just okay?  You should be joyful! deliriously happy! Great!") So I've started to compile a list of some of the more commonly accepted / condoned practices, those ones which foster dysfunctional relationships, phoniness, and judgment, and which reject healthy relationships, honesty, and acceptance.  

1. Segregation.  Oops, I mean mens' (or ladies') groups and/or getaways.  Church is notorious for these. While paying lip service to marriage and family, these groups /events can foster the exact thing that they claim they are trying to avoid.  "Spend more time paying attention to your wives, men. And to help you do that, we're going to get you to leave them at home for three days straight while you hang out with each other and 'bond.' Yeah, golf to your heart's content, spend the family finances on a hotel bill and green fees, and don't be there with your wives and families the only time in the week that you get to spend with them."  Same thing with ladies' groups - also known as women's retreats.  "Okay, ladies... here's how to save your marriages. Rob your men of the joy of sleeping in with you on the one day they can do so per week, so you can go grouse about them behind their backs with a bunch of girls, get fifty-dollar facials ... and play slumber party."   I just don't get it. Then again, I've never been big on girly-girl stuff.  But I digress.  I'd prefer to see "couple's retreats" or "family retreats." Wouldn't that be radical.
   
   
2. Manipulation.  Oh, come on. This is HUGE!!  Everything from "come to the social gathering, there'll be free food" to "oh, he won't mind. All I gotta do is look at him and bat my eyes and say 'please' with a little pout.  He'll come around" to the classic guilt trip mothers give about all those hours of labour and how the child somehow "owes" them for that. It's everywhere!! Control the other guy through manipulation.  Or intimidation.  (Such as implying that someone is not a good wife/mother/husband/father/son/daughter/friend if that person doesn't do a specific action that is all the rage, like oh, I dunno, go to church every time the doors are open, or watching a certain movie that "everyone" is watching). 
   
   
3. Sexism.  Yes, you heard me!! I hear it all the time.  "All men are lazy messy pigs."   (Uh, no they're not.) Or "All blonde [or pretty] women are dumb."  (uh, beg pardon, but ... NO.)  And the most intricate of mental yoga moves (i.e., twisting the mind into a pretzel shape) to account for the many MANY exceptions to whatever sexist rule we hear and believe (really? after all this time?)  ....one of those pretzel moves I heard recently was the "80/20 rule."  I couldn't believe my ears.  That is (giving the example of men and untidiness) 80% of men are slobs and 20% are not, whereas 80% of women are neat freaks and 20% aren't.  Hm.  It doesn't wash with me.  I happen to believe that people are people - - you know, human beings.  Gender - or should I say hormone level - does determine a tendency to do certain things.  But to justify your need to grouse about the opposite gender just because your own life sucks or because you consider your own gender to be superior to the other - is kind of a giant step backward, no matter what gender you are.
   
   



Source (via Google Images):
http://vi.sualize.us/view/8c5074cff0e59aa428a3fc85cebd1c7d/
(classic manipulation through guilt)

4. Bullying. Oh, I'm not talking about the classic bullying that is so much the topic of news stories and so forth.  The kind I mean can take several forms: minimizing another's accomplishments by finding fault with them (how about stopping a conversation or reducing it to a whisper with sidelong glances when that someone comes in the room?) or even the socially acceptable practice known as "practical jokes."  (These, in my opinion, are neither funny nor practical, and if continued, can cause someone to seriously consider the ultimate escape from life.) I see it happen in all spheres of life - work, church, school, other social groups - and in every case it is seen as, "Well, that's just so-and-so.  He's/ she's harmless."  Tell that to every teen who has considered purchasing a one-way ticket to the Other Side because they never get a break from it - and they don't foresee it stopping when they graduate. Or go into the workforce. 
   
   
5. Fatalism.  The "I can't help it, it's just me" mentality can be not only defeatist, but it can be used as an excuse for inexcusable behavior.  Just saying.
   
   
   The truth is, of course, that not one person can change him or herself.  Only God can change the heart. The choice then becomes, am I willing to give it to God and give Him carte blanche to change me in this or that area? 
   
   
   If we are serious about developing relationship with God, perhaps it's time to revisit some of these areas in our own lives.  I've given my opinion on them to spark thought and reflection.  You don't have to agree with my take on things; that's not important - but if I've caused someone to pause and rethink the way he or she thinks and acts, then perhaps this post has been worth the risk.