The Last Person

I started a transformation journey in 2009. Part of that journey was learning that other people (and that I) had boundaries, and that nobody had the right to cross those. Nobody. And, that in some cases, even with the other person's permission to do just that, it's not a good idea.

But one of the hardest facets about this journey - and it has many facets, like any jewel - has been learning self-care and self-compassion.  I tend to be way harder on myself than I am on others.  As my expectations of other people have lowered to reasonable levels, you'd expect that my expectations of myself would also decrease.  Mmmm, not so much.  If I hit anything less than perfection, I am the first to criticize myself and beat myself up inside over not living up to how well I wanted to do something. So learning self-compassion has been ... shall we say ... a process rather than a destination. I get better at it, then slip back, have to learn the same lessons over and over, and eventually, the marker for "normal" moves a millimeter.  It's progress, but to me it seems glacially slow! 

So, sometimes I have to force myself to do things for myself that I would not hesitate to do for a friend. In fact, Dr. Kristen Neff said something in a video I saw this past summer that stuck with me. She said something like this : if you wouldn't treat someone you loved and respected a certain way, then why would you treat yourself that way? Being compassionate toward yourself, she said, connects you with humanity because as you give yourself a break when you make mistakes, you can be more compassionate toward others when they mess up. (For more information on this, visit www.self-compassion.com ... somewhere on the site are the videos I watched; each one is about 10 minutes. 

Photo "Mirror" courtesy of Arvind Balaraman
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

And self-compassion goes hand-in-hand with another similar term that I've been learning about too: self-care.  Self-care can be just as much doing nice things for myself as it is in not doing (or saying) bad things to myself. So it can include staying away from individuals, groups or situations that are bad for my (mental and/or physical) health, but it can also mean taking steps to look after my needs for sleep, nutrition, and activity, among other things. Lately, I have been taking time out for myself - not to "do" anything in particular, but just to recharge and to follow that old McDonald's slogan: "You deserve a break today..." I don't always practice this, but I find that if I don't, I end up being more irritable and more overwhelmed by the basic day-to-day of life. I cannot give away what I don't have. And so, I need to cultivate a friendship with the last person I expected ... me. I need to be my own friend.

That flies in the face of everything my own culture drummed into me when I was a child. Others first. Self-sacrifice. And as noble as those things sound, I have found them to be fundamentally flawed, because I used to live like that. I was the last person to eat, the last person in line at the store because I would let others go first, the last person to speak up or to speak out.  And by the time I got around to looking after myself, there was nothing left, and there was no energy left in me ... and I just didn't. Or I took the leftovers of what everyone else didn't want. And I got more and more stressed, resentful, and burnt out. 

When I started giving myself permission to look after me first, lo and behold, I had more energy to give to others, and my stress and resentment went way down! It amazed me how that worked. Instead of becoming more selfish, I became more able to be there for someone who really needed me when the time came, less distracted by my own needs and more able to concentrate on theirs. (Huh. How 'bout that.) 

Moreover, I found that I was better able to accept others' care for me instead of brushing it off and saying I didn't need it. Quite effectively, that gave my loved ones the gift of being able to pour into my life, a gift I had been denying them by trying to be too self-sufficient. And I've been learning that when I accept their care for me, and say "Thank you," I give them the added gift of feeling pleased because they had made a difference in my life. Because they love me. And that is so amazing to the last person who would have expected it: me.

The right to take up space

Some time ago, I was watching a comedian on television do his routine.  Comedians are sometimes the only people who can get away with telling truth because they tell it in a funny way (they hope). This comedian's name was Greg Rogell, and the line I remember most is when he started talking about golf and golf caddies. "Golf is the only sport that comes with a slave." He then started to demonstrate. He held his microphone like it was a golf club, made the classic golf swing with it, and then dropped the mike on the floor and walked away.

While that was funny, Mr. Rogell was also highlighting an attitude that exists not only in golf, but in everyday life.  Some people, for reasons that still mystify me, have a really hard time with the simple concepts of saying Please and Thank you.  If someone puts themselves out to help them, especially if that putting out is physically or psychologically hard for them, you'd think that "thank you" might be on the list of things to say.  Treating people with courtesy, respecting their personhood, would seem to be a basic skill.

But no. Instead, such people are more likely to find fault with something else that same person is NOT doing, but which they never said they expected. Since different people have different priorities, it is impossible to read minds; expectations need to be stated at the outset, even if it might seem like a no-brainer.  For example, I'm more of a sit-and-visit kind of person; the housework can wait.  For others, housework is this huge thing and they can't sit and visit until it's out of the way. So my sitting and visiting is like laziness to them, perhaps even inconsideration. Yet their refusal to sit and visit until the housework is done tells me that things and appearances are more important to them than friendship and spending time with people. Dishes don't have feelings. People do.  

And yet, who is it that apologizes when the topic comes up? Typically it has been me - because no matter which way you slice it, for whatever reason, I usually end up looking like the one in the wrong... and I have been cow-towing to guilt trips my whole life.

All of my life, I have been fighting for the right - taken for granted by most - to take up space in the world, to be appreciated, and to own my own feelings and opinions without being told (verbally or non-verbally) that they are insignificant. Or wrong.  Or whatever other negative adjective you might want to use.  I'm uncomfortable with confrontation, and my natural response is to withdraw or feel bad for friction existing between people - even if I'm not one of those people. The fact that it exists makes me feel and act guilty.  I lose sleep. I get far more upset for far longer than I need to. Often, I feel like if I screamed at the top of my lungs to be heard, nobody would listen anyway; even if I have something important to say, a large part of me doesn't believe anyone will pay attention to it. 

Photo "Businesswoman Asking To Stop" by imagerymajestic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Maybe (and I know that this is a rather big logical jump for some) maybe a big part of it has to do with the fact that I'm under five feet tall. Not being taken seriously because of my height, not having my short legs taken into consideration when doing tasks that take an average-sized person about half the number of steps it takes me, and being twitted (or laughed at) for something over which I have no control, is one of those sore spots with me, because I've had to put up with it all of my life.  

People do it without thinking of the consequences, and they think that by doing so they are funny, or somehow superior.  As if it is by some accomplishment of theirs that things are easier for them (when it is simply a fluke of DNA), they criticize (or laugh) and tell me to keep up. (By the way, these are the people who treat me like a slave without saying thank you...)  Or they laugh and tell me to stand up (when I'm already standing.) Or they worry out loud (like someone did once), when I drop a few pounds, that I'll "disappear."  One person even looked past me and asked where I was ... pretended he couldn't see me.

Ouch!  That behavior and those kinds of statements convey dismissal of my existence and (knowingly or not) they are an attack on my worth.  They reduce all that I am down to what I look like on the outside, and they fail to acknowledge accomplishments that a regular-sized person would be proud of and never would expect to have called into question. Yet it happens to me all the time! Because of that patronizing "I'm better than you, and you don't even have the right to exist" mentality, this kind of belittlement (no pun intended) really hurts. 

In the past, I wouldn't say anything when people treated me this way (or worse yet, I would try to laugh it off), but all that succeeded in doing was (a) send the message that I was okay with it, and (b) make my resentment grow and grow so that finally, I would explode - and not in a nice way.  Someone would invariably get hurt.  And then I would end up looking like the bad guy.  After all, they were "only having fun." Or worse yet, they considered their fun-loving nature (read here: cruelty) to be part of their personality, and took my affront to their unthinking behavior as a personal attack against them.  Suddenly they were the injured party.

Wow. What is worse, I would beat myself up for weeks, months, sometimes even years, for something that at the source, had more to do with someone else's thoughtlessness and insecurity than it did about my reaction to it. It's what kept me in abusive relationships with some people for far too long.

So I'm looking at things a little differently now.  I am telling myself that I have a right to take up space, that my feelings and opinions matter and are valid, and that I have the right to tell someone who is behaving like a jerk toward me that they're behaving like a jerk.  I have the right to expect an apology from them, (not the other way around) and I have the right to require them to be accountable for their actions, to realize that they can't just say any old thing they want to and to blazes with the consequences.  I have the right to be angry when that happens, to work through that anger and to take the time that I need to do that fully before moving past it and on with my life, with - or without - them.  

Maybe someday soon, I might even act on those new ways of thinking. 

Stranger things have happened.

The Road Not Taken

Today I found myself thinking about Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken (published in 1920).  I looked it up and read it again and found myself moved once more by his description of a choice he made that had a great impact on the rest of his life.  And so it speaks to all of us at one point or another.  

I have noticed that in the last few months, I have been approaching closer and closer to those divergent paths, all the while "sorry I could not travel both and be one traveller..." (lines 2, 3) ... and I find myself wishing, as I read about Frost's experience of choosing the 'road less travelled by' ... that the same will be true of my life, that I will find that 'that has made all the difference (lines 19, 20).  

When I mentioned this to my husband, he smiled. "But you've been taking the road less travelled all of your life!" he exclaimed.  Then he started listing all of the choices I made that were firsts in my family, the community where I grew up, the various spiritual journeys of growth and healing that I have been on, and on and on the examples came.... everything from getting my Bachelor's degree in the 1980s, to child-rearing choices I made, to applying for a management position when I was still a clerk (and being in the top three candidates to be assessed - 14 years ago - a lifetime for some), ... and now this.  

Image "Arrows Choice Shows Options Alternatives
Or Choosing" courtesy of Stuart Miles at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

This - this career path I've chosen (and for which I am going for my Master's degree) - this feels somehow more ... pivotal than most of the other times. As I get closer to where the paths REALLY diverge, when I am going to have to make that decision, clear away the brush and follow that second path, I notice more and more how different the paths seem from each other, and how much more that second path is in keeping with the series of choices I've made all of my life. Like my husband told me, I've never been one to follow or to join ... and I can lead when I have to ... but this is more like walking alongside individuals on their various journeys. And getting to that place is not going to be easy. It's going to be a lot of hard work, and I don't know what lies ahead.  I have an inkling perhaps, but I don't KNOW.

It's scary.  It's really scary.  But in their own way, all of those previous decisions have been scary too.  And if I never follow through with this choice, I'll always wonder what might have happened if I had.

So as the crossroads loom closer and closer, I take the next step. And the next one.  One at a time, bit by little bit.  Yes, I know where the road will take me, but if I worry about stumbling, I will end up pacing back and forth in the middle of the road - and that will get me nowhere.

Deep breath. 

More than meets the eye

For the past couple of months, we've not been able to use the left side of our double kitchen sink due to a leak in the drain. Hubby put a container under the sink to catch the drips from when someone "forgot" and used that side of the sink, but he finally got fed up ... and called a plumber. He happened to mention that the remaining drain seemed sluggish, so the guy agreed to take a look at that too, while he was here.

He arrived early this morning. A few minutes later, the offending pipe crumbled in his hands from being rusted through. A replacement pipe, wow. Things could be worse.

The problem with the other side of the sink, though - the side of the sink we were still able to use - was more involved than just using an auger to clean out the sink trap, or replacing a piece of pipe. No - it went way deeper. All of the drain pipes were up to 50% coated on the inside with the sludge of decades of use, people washing dishes, draining off the fat from meat, etc. Down the drain all that stuff would go, and .. out of sight, out of mind. 

Until now. 

Photo "Rusty Water Tap" by
franky242 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Since I was home today, I got to see (and hear) them at work. It was a rather long and involved process ... and I couldn't help but think of the parallels between our plumbing problem and the situation many of us face when we've been trying to look after everyone else's crud for so many years. We pride ourselves on our ability to deal, even tell ourselves that we're doing what's right ... and then we wonder why we're sluggish, why we're sometimes barely able to function. 

So we ask for help and we think, yeah, this is an easy fix. Until it isn't. 

We end up having to replace some stuff in our lives with other, more functional stuff. That part is fine. But it's when we start digging a little deeper that we find that there's ever so much sludge we've allowed to accumulate. Things like making allowances for other people's mistakes, covering for them, not letting them experience the consequences of their own actions, and so forth. Learning to accept that these tendencies are there is hard - but it's a necessary step in being able to be willing to open ourselves to change. And, the malady goes so deep - it's so much a part of how we define ourselves - that the only way to handle it is to ream all that goo out of our psyches where it's had a chance to congeal and harden ... which takes time. 

It's inconvenient. It's painful, even. We have to put considerable investment into it. But getting help from someone who knows how to navigate those things means that it will take less time with fewer mistakes than if we tried doing it by ourselves. That's worth the inconvenience. 

And having that stuff removed from our lives makes the pain worth while as well. It's just the process that is the hard part. So we knuckle down, pay the price, and let it happen. 

The frustrating thing about inner healing, or growth, or recovery - whatever you want to call it - is that those looking on from the sidelines can't see any of the things we go through to get from A to B. All they see (if they are perceptive enough) are the results - the new attitudes we develop, the relationships that we begin (and end), and the things we say yes (and no) to, for example. This is a journey that is more than what it appears. There is more to it than what meets the eye. There are deeper issues. There is much that is unseen and that may never be seen. 

However, when we enter the process (and truth be told, many times we might not have undertaken the process if we'd known how much was involved), and when we are open and honest with ourselves, it's almost as though the changes happen without us even being aware of most of them. We just suddenly find ourselves doing something that we never would have dreamed of doing before ... and ask ourselves where that came from!  

Yes, there's more to it than meets the eye, but on the whole, it's worth the trouble. And someday, maybe even today, we'll even be grateful that the old pipe sprang a leak in the first place.

Plugged in and turned off. Or on.

My daughter's iPhone 4S took a hissy fit yesterday after almost three years of faithful service. The decline happened slowly. It kept less and less of a charge over time. Finally, she had to recharge it four times a day (or keep it plugged in), and there were other difficulties that made it kind of 'high maintenance' for her. But she loved her iPhone so much that when Apple went to a more bells-and-whistles and a less reliable-and-dependable iPhone a couple of years ago, she refused to upgrade. 

"It's my baby," she said. She didn't even upgrade the operating system on it. (I envied her after I made my software upgrade - but there was no going back; the deed was done). 

So she took it in to the dealer to avail herself of the extended warranty. After two to three hours of frustrating back-and-forth, the answer came in. Water damage from humidity (last time she dropped it, it was into a snowbank and was 2 years ago, and she got it out right away and dried it off before water could enter). Water damage. One of only two things the warranty didn't cover. 

Ouch. 

But - she needed a phone - and since Steve Jobs passed away, it appears that Apple hasn't come up with anything that even remotely compares to the 4 and 4S. So-o, she switched to a different (Android-type) phone. Some things she likes better, and she knows that she will eventually like this phone as much as the other one; others, she sits and pouts and says, "I miss my baby." 

I get that. 

But I also get when it is time to say goodbye. In electronics and with people.

When the other party needs constant recharging, constant checking, constant stroking, constant reassurances that things are okay - and punishes you when put on "standby" even for a short time ... perhaps it's not all that healthy. It's plugged in all the time - but that means you're tied down. And turned off. When only ONE person is being "fed" in a relationship, it's time to seriously take stock.

Not that relationships are anything like cell phones ... are they? Okay, SOME similarities. 

It's difficult. It's hard to let go of something that - for a while - has brought you some happiness. Even if that happiness was mixed with pain. When there is a growing sense of obligation rather than appreciation, it's time to re-evaluate. When you're constantly feeling "less than" (in other words, less important than) the other person - how is that healthy? 

Image "Low Battery" provided by
David Castillo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Perhaps it's time to recharge your OWN battery. Perhaps that caring for that other person has kept you running on empty and it's time to take some time for yourself. You can't give away what you don't have; replenish the reserves. Getting your identity and strength from another human (who has limitations just like you) drains you in ways that you may not realize. Finding out who you are and feeding that person inside (getting plugged in and turned on) will go a long way toward figuring out where that other person fits into your life. If at all. 

Unplugging the other person from your battery might seem cruel, selfish, and un-giving - but until he or she finds out how to self-charge, that draining will keep on happening (if not with you then with the next person who pays attention). Plugging into your own energy resources will feel awkward at first - it always does - but you are the only you that you have, and it's important to look after you.

It's amazing how freeing that is. It might not feel like it at first, but there is an energy build-up that slowly makes itself known - and upon which you can rely.

I know because I've lived that. I've had to remove people from my life who were sapping me of strength. Sometimes I miss those people - but I don't miss the feeling of being constantly given the message "Low Battery." 

Food for thought, at the very least.

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.