Things beneath other things
My 17-year-old came into the sunroom last night after a long day at school and at work. He works part-time at the mall not far away: it's been a good job; he enjoys the people; he likes making the extra money for gas and for golf. It's a sweet pleasure for me to see him growing, learning, taking on more responsibility, and being good at what he does. He's a smart guy and fun to be around--I'd like to work in any environment that would hire someone like him.
But last night he was weary. He sat down in the chair opposite me. His eyes were blurry. His face was a little sad. He didn't meet my gaze for more than a second or two as we talked. He said he felt like he wanted to quit his job, and told me about someone else he works with who is really a teacher who got "riffed" last spring and hasn't found another teaching job. Cameron wants to be an English teacher eventually, so I wondered whether he was identifying with this other guy's distress.
But as my son got up and headed out of the room, he tossed out to me what seemed to be the beating heart of the matter. "I mean, I'm a senior in high school," he said. "I don't want to work so much. This is the last year I have for being with my friends. In just a few months, we're all going to scatter and go to different schools, go different ways. Maybe we'll never see each other again."
Ah, there it is, my own heart whispered. It was a pain I knew well. Anticipatory grief. Already--at the very beginning of the school year--he is grieving the way his friendships could change, feeling sadness and pressure about the goodbyes he thinks will come in just a matter of months.
I wanted to hug him and soothe his fears, telling him things won't change and that he will always be part of this happy group of teenagers that swim together, hang out at Steak-N-Shake, and haunt the stores at the mall. But I couldn't do that--I know things will change. They are changing. How much his friendships will change, and in what ways, will be for him and his friends to decide over time. But his senior year will be a huge one, and it may offer him choices that will take him in a direction he hasn't yet considered. The changes may feel small and silent, or they may be big productions with lots of fanfare. We will see what he creates. Knowing him, there will be fun along the way, with laughter bubbling up like oxygen in the middle of waves of change.
It was such a reminder to me that no matter which next stage of life our own growth is nudging us toward or how old we may be, change creates a kind of crisis. It's an invitation, really--a call to be in the world in a different/greater/ expanded/more loving way than we've been here before, and that naturally activates both our grief and our hope. We grieve the loss of the familiar (which also can kick up major anxiety for many of us), while at the same time we lean forward, peering with hope and maybe even a little excitement over the edge of the present moment, trying to get a clearer glimpse of the possibilities that are emerging.
posted by Katherine @ 9:23AM
Ponderables
Questions are powerful tools we use for all sorts of reasons. We ask a question to get knowledge we lack. We ask questions to connect with another. Sometimes we ask questions we know the answers to because we want to be right. At other times we don't want an answer; we just want to engage in debate for a while. If you plan to do research on a subject, framing your question well is an important part of getting a good result. Questions can be rudders, steering us toward what we seek, or they can be walls, keeping us from moving forward.
I've been thinking about the big questions we humans tend to ask--How? and Why?--in terms of the very nature of life. How did this all happen? And why? (these questions weren't posed by me but emerged on a professional listserv I belong to). I was thinking this morning about how those questions are answerable or unanswerable depending on who you ask.
Imagine generations set like nesting dolls through the course of time. In this scenario, I might be a big nesting doll, my daughter would be a smaller doll, and my granddaughter yet a smaller doll. If you ask my granddaughter, "Why did our family move to Indiana?" she wouldn't be able to tell you unless she'd heard the story, because it happened long ago--several generations back. If you ask my daughter "How did your parents decide when it was time to have kids?" she also probably would not know the answer to that question (unless sometime previously she had asked the question or been told the story). But if you ask me those questions, I could tell you, because I was there and had a part in determining the outcomes.
"Knowing the story" is an important and necessary part of being able to answer questions and frame a life. Our family stories are important. Our understanding of how we came to be--and all sorts of subtle nuances that are involved with that beginning--can impact the shape, color, and tenor of our understanding of ourselves. But distinguishing between "being there" and "knowing the story" can be helpful, opening up a space for new ideas. The one who experienced the event may have had a much different experience/intention/plan than the one many nesting dolls in who is telling the story as she understands and connects with and shapes it.
When we ask questions like "How did life come to be?" or "Why have things evolved as they have?" we are trying to make sense of a vast universe, and I think asking the questions gives us a way to honor and value our part in the story. They are wonderful questions, but perhaps--and I'm not meaning to cop out with the "mystery" answer here--the only real being who could answer those questions with any real accuracy is the one who was there.
We can each answer from our relative (and subjective) nesting dolls, of course. We've all heard the stories, and we've had our own experiences. We toss those pieces of knowledge around, back and forth, as we ponder the possibilities. But from our nesting doll position--millions of nesting dolls in by now--I would imagine that the true event that sparked what is now our present grasping/seeing/ feeling/understanding could be outside our intellectual definition.
But perhaps we can feel it if we pick up a stone.
Or sit under a tree and lean back against the trunk.
Or put our feet into a cool stream running through the forest.
Or smell a flower.
Breathe deeply.
Or watch the sky. :)
posted by Katherine @ 8:31AM
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Walking Uphill
The other day my grandkids and I were going for a walk. I pushed the baby in the stroller, while big sister pedaled along on her pink plastic bike. As we got to a medium-sized hill in the neighborhood, Ruby got off her bike and began walking it, saying "This is the part where I walk my bike."
"Okay," I said.
Fifteen feet up the hill she stopped. "I need to take a rest," she told me.
"That's fine," I said.
Twenty feet more and she stopped again. "I need another rest."
"Alright," I said. Then, noticing what a struggle it was for her and wanting to support her self-care in some fun way, I said, "How about if we sing a song the rest of the way to make getting to the top a little easier?"
She thought that was a good idea, so we sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star the rest of the way up. At the top, as our feet touched the pinnacle of this small neighborhood hill, I suggested we celebrate. "Let's stomp our feet and say 'We did it!' really loud," I suggested. She looked a little dubious, but then, watching me stomp my feet, she joined in.
I thought of all the times a process has been difficult for me--more work, more effort, and more tiring than I imagined. I thought of all the times I wondered whether I was up to some task, whether I'd made a mistake, when I was surprised to find out whatever I was doing wasn't the fun I thought it would be. How much better it is to have someone who can support your self-care, wait peacefully while you rest, sing with you the rest of the way, and celebrate when you get there. And what a great thing--at three years old!--to instinctively know how to care for yourself by resting and allowing that companionship, and then join in the celebrating at the end.
Yesterday's finished. We did it! Let's celebrate.
posted by Katherine @ 8:53AM
Why Doctor Dolittle Is a Great Gestalt and Narrative Practitioner
All my life I have been in love with Doctor Dolittle. I love his simple and sweet focus on the things that really matter--rightening the power balance among all living beings, most notably, between humans and animals. Rather than seeing humans as "us" and animals as "them," Doctor Dolittle is sensitive to the mostly unspoken--or unheard--calls for care, dignity, and appreciation from the animals around him. Because he is able to converse with the animals--thanks to the help of Polynesia the parrot early on--he hears and knows their agency and consciousness (although his heart told him this long before he knew it intellectually and practically).
Doctor Dolittle allows life to show itself, and when it does, he honors, supports, and values it. Life as small as a shellfish deserves his focus and effort so that he can learn its language and make contact in the way that is deserving of any shellfish. A pushmi-pullyu is brought back to England only after saying he'd like to make the trip (on the condition that he can return to Africa any time it suits him). Doctor Dolittle creates a new kind of zoo, with little stone houses and doors that lock only on the inside, so the animals can go inside and lock the door when they've had enough of each other--and humans have no say about it.
I read a fascinating article this morning, written in 2007 by Catherine Elick, entitled "Anxieties of an Animal Activist: The Pressures of Modernity in Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle Series." Unfortunately in order to read the article you have to buy it--and it is largely about themes and structures in Lofting's work as they relate to children's lit (and therefore to all of life). But it's a wonderful, provoking, heart-expanding read. Two of Elick's points really hit home for me:
- "personal agency is linked to language"
- Doctor Dolittle was working "in the service of healthful subversion of hierarchy"
Wow those are big thoughts. Yes, me too! Many of us working with language and therapies are aware of this first item inherently. Yes, of course, language, vocalizing, expressing, connecting are linked to the emergence (and evolution and growth and healing) of the person. And while Doctor Dolittle doesn't give the animals their voices, he cares about and respects them enough to learn their languages so that he can hear what they have to say. Their expression--the sharing of their stories--increases and expands and makes visible their own personhood. It is a service of healing for all involved.
Working in the service of healthful subversion of hierarchy is just a mind-numbing concept for me. Of course we are! This is perhaps why I love Doctor Dolittle most of all--he was sensitive to the imbalance of power, the lack of dignity afforded the animals around us, the objectivication of these loving beings who support us unconditionally while we often happily and mindlessly keep ourselves center-stage.
Doctor Dolittle would have a lot to say right now to the BP CEO on behalf of the shellfish and the gulls--and all endangered life--in the Gulf. He would find a way, maybe with a bumbling, slightly absent-minded and brilliant idea, to provide a creative solution that doesn't empower one and disempower another, but seeks to balance care, compassion, dignity, respect, listening, and action in systems that actually hold in reverence the lives being impacted by the event.
I hope you arrive soon, Doctor Dolittle, in your friend, the Giant Sea Snail, and bring us an idea for right action, for a healthful balancing of power that respects all beings from the tiniest hermit crab to the most powerful BP executive as we seek to love our world into balance and honor the web of life upholding us.
posted by Katherine @ 11:25AM
Monday, June 14, 2010
Peace after the Storm
“The difficulty to end up in a peaceful place after a disagreement”
I saw this phrase in an e-mail earlier today and thought it was beautiful and profound. Yes, it is difficult to end up in a peaceful place after you disagree with someone. On one level, there are the typical life events. Your husband makes you mad. What do you do? Do you tell him, hold it in, tell yourself you’re being silly? Do you rage about all the annoyances you’ve bottled up for the last three months? Do you tell your friends? Do you simply talk one-on-one with him about it? Are you ready to hear his grievances toward you, too?
Thinking about my earlier post about narrative approaches and/or Gestalt approaches, I think Gestalt, with its focus on the arising moment and its awareness of what’s going on bodily and in the field, offers the better and more possible path toward ending up in a peaceful place. In narrative, I might be listening for themes—limitation, disappointment, obstruction. I might say things to myself like “why do I always attract this pattern? Why do men always show up to be different than they first appear?” In Gestalt I might notice my energy level. I’d notice where my body was tight. What I was feeling. Where I stopped talking. Whether I bit my nails. I think I would be more likely, using Gestalt approaches, to welcome my observations about myself, and in narrative I might be more likely to wonder about why I was willing to settle for an ass like him when he obviously doesn’t treat me well. And then my focus would be on my attraction to asses and what it means…LOL! Maybe this isn’t the best use/right application of narrative, but I do think there’s something in the idea that narrative looks for themes as though they are real. A theme I accept could be a kind of defining container for my “problem” and the players involved in it. If I don’t remember that this is all playing fast and loose and that a theme is like a cloud in that it takes a certain shape in this moment but not only looks completely different in a second but is a different shape from someone else’s view, I might think he’s the “bad guy” who plays the necessary role in my “good girl” fantasy.
With Gestalt’s focus on the here-and-now, my noticing takes me to me and to the field. Nobody has specific roles to play. I’m not a good girl and he’s not a bad boy. We are expressing the arising moment, and it encompasses us and is us and we can find wisdom, experience, and possibility in it. The possibility might draw out some hurt but that might also lead to peace. Nobody is damned; no one is to blame; no one takes on the “bad guy” role. Let’s see what comes up to be seen, healed, and released.
Yes, I think it's possible that Gestalt would get us to peace faster, and with fewer bumps and bruises (and straight-jackets and detours) along the way.
Opening and Closing
As I mentioned a while back, I'm in a two-year training program at the Indianapolis Gestalt Institute, learning, practicing, and connecting with others around the idea of making authentic contact, becoming aware of needs and wants (and the various ways we get them met, or not), and becoming intimately and intricately in touch with the here and now. Most of the other students in the class are therapists and chaplains...I am the only writer/spiritual director (as far as I know) in the bunch.
I've lived with and loved Gestalt for a long time. After studying narrative and specializing in it (through a pastoral care lens) in seminary, I discovered Gestalt and fell head-over-heels in love, because while narrative gives you a doorway in through story, definition, and conception, Gestalt offers an open stage on which all is unfolding, fully embodied, within and around you. The two work together as first- and second-order awareness, processing, and just full-on experience. Perfect!
Yesterday I was very aware of the contact cycle in almost every encounter I had. When I was hungry I was aware of the sensation, building energy, contact, and withdrawal. When I was talking to my son, I was aware of what we wanted from each other, how that was met, when out contact was complete, how we withdrew. It was wonderful. I was surprised to learn there was a lot of completion and rest (withdrawal) in my day! In fact all the occurrences resolved sweetly into rest. A great awareness! A great experience. I wonder what will come today. :)
Vigilance
There are lots of reasons—and good reasons—we are vigilant in our lives. We want to protect our families. We hope to protect ourselves. We watch our money. We notice where the dandelions spring up in our yards. We saw that look he gave you. We wonder whether our jobs will last. We watch for clues—continually—from our environment. When to laugh, when to look up, when to duck.
Some of us learn vigilance very early as a creative adjustment to a situation in which we needed to keep our eyes open and our wits about us. We were always watching, watching. Thinking, thinking. Preparing a mental plan. If he comes home drunk, I’ll do this. If she doesn’t come home at all tonight, I’ll do that.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my own vigilance lately, about the gifts it’s given me (it’s a create tool for any writer, because it helps you notice absolutely everything), as well as the challenges, the straightjacket, it offers the way I look at the world. Sometimes my vigilance is exhausting because it wants me not only to notice everything but to anticipate everything and then to do exactly the right thing with the information popping up for my noticing. This is, of course, impossible.
Vigilance also doesn’t really know the limits of her own powers—she’s immature in that way. She promises perfect safety. She promises that we’ll know what to do. But she doesn’t see how her presence changes things that arise. Allowing and Breathing let whatever is emerging in the moment show up, unshaped, unmolded, reasonably—or relatively—uncontrolled. But Vigilance holds everything tightly in the name of keeping the person safe. This means a certain amount of shaping, controlling has to go on—there is a forced construct to protect.
I think it’s possible to soften Vigilance into Noticing, which can then relax into the arms of Allowing. A certain amount of growth in safety has to happen to make that journey, and a supportive environment that can be trusted is certainly part of the mix.
posted by Katherine @ 10:21 PM 0 comments 
A new start
After a few months of inactivity on my blogs (did you notice?) I was faced with a dilemma. Do away with my method of posting to my site via ftp, or sign up for Blogger's new hosting (because they were discontinuing their support of ftp). I waffled about it for a while, wondering whether I should continue or not. But then today, decision.
Continue. :)
So the new process will involve doing real updates from Dreamweaver CS5, and that might mean a few wrinkles along the way as I try to keep all the past posts live and the images happy and displaying well. And then of course there are the links.
The narrative piece here of course is that old lighthouse effect--while you're focusing on one thing, your back is to something else. And it's probably slowly falling to pieces. Don't worry, the attention spins back around again and all will be well. It's just a matter of time and experience. :)
posted by Katherine @ 10:21 PM 0 comments
