bladder, large intestine and ELIMINATION of old stuff

Again from this page:

http://agelessyoga.com/Second_Chakra_Part_1_Water_Element_Emotions_Pelvis_Sexual_Energy_Yoga_and_Relationships.htm

As we said in the First Chakra article, the colon or large intestine has an earth element function, in that it extracts the water from the watery slurry received from the small intestine, transforming what remains into the earth element just prior to its elimination.

[...]

A second aspect of the water nature of our pelvic area is the urinary fluid function that takes place in the lower abdomen. In addition to our intestines and their fluid contents, we have water storage within our bladder. After our kidneys filter out waste products from our bloodstream, they are sent to our bladder for storage. We don’t feel this process as it is taking place. Only at the time when our bladders are full enough so that we are prompted to urinate do we notice that our kidneys have once again cleaned our blood of waste.

Likewise, on a psychological level, it is not unusual for stressful inputs, minor irritations and physical, mental or emotional fatigue to go unnoticed until a sufficient quantity of it has stored. Only then are we prompted by a sense of psychic discomfort of our need to get rid of this accumulated emotional waste.

And like the very natural cycle of taking a restroom break, we are best off not to ‘hold it’, but to instead take a break and empty our stored toxicity and take the pressure off. Not letting go simply increases our stress levels by the increasing toxic buildup through holding on to emotional waste products like worry, petty complaints and overblown concern about every little thing we are thinking or feeling or every little thing we imagine others might be thinking or saying about us.

***
So I'm no longer up all night in a combination of tangled-up fear and anger and pain (triple warmer revs from 9 to 11 pm; gallbladder begins pumping bile from 11 to 1 am [though how the pattern works when you no longer *have* a gallbladder??!? I have no clue]; liver churns with old, unexpressed anger from 1 to 3 am; lungs try to expel old grief from 3 to 5.)

I've moved on! Yay! Now I appear to be working on the 5 to 7 am window (waking up pretty consistently around this time many days, though not all).

The tricky bit is, I'll wake up with my head absolutely *full* of things that *must* be written down NOW (or ideally *talked* about, but there's only me here, so I make do with my computer - which I've learned to leave ON til I've passed through this spate and can go back to bed.[and sometimes I *do* talk, just to myself, even *that* helps, a little, just to vocalize.)

So this time of about 2-3 hours is this frantic window of scribbling ideas, typing them on the computer as fast as I can, just trying to get it all OUT, and at the same time, MADLY needing to go to the bathroom, but can't type and sit on the can at the same time - so, the typing wins and I HOLD IT til I've got enough of the 'mental' stuff out to be able to 'let go'. And also this is the window where I clean my 'integument' (have no idea why *that* particular word comes to mind - too much science fiction/fantasy and too much geeky fascination with bugs and such? Dunno.) Meaning: Scrub teeth (remove night before's gunk, which I partly left on there because I *finally* ate a decent meal, which was good for my teeth and gums - I had a bad spot on one of the lower teeth before that, and now it feels like it's beginning to heal from being 'fed' something besides SUGAR... gotta feed yourself *something* sweet, though, both to deal with the stress and because there's been too much BITTER in life for too long. All kinds of balancing acts going on simultaneously.)

***
And there's the left eye thing: Was having some pain in my left eye, as if a nerve was being pinched or irritated or something. First I thought maybe I'd been rubbing it too much, maybe while I was half asleep or something? But then I suddenly noticed, a few days ago, that I'd been CLENCHING that side of my jaw.

So over the last few days, in addition to all the *other* work I've been doing on 'eye segments' and whatnot (a la Reich, though with my own approach and methods- really all I got from Reich is the 'validation' that what I'm experiencing makes sense and that it's 'valid' to approach 'stuck' emotions via the body as well as via the mind) I've been trying to be aware of when I'm clenching that whole side of my face and RELAX it.

And, oddly enough, in a strange encounter in the women's restroom last night at the restaurant where I had dinner, I overheard two women talking while I was in the stall, and came out and added my two cents. One of the women kept commenting on how *young* the other one looked, how she still looked 25, while she herself looked 'so old, wrinkles around my eyes', and she went on - I look terrible, haven't been sleeping, lost weight - sounded like she must have been through a breakup recently, sounded like she was saying everything BUT what she needed to say, as if she was aware someone might be listening - oh, of course she was. I was actually looking in the mirror when they came in, and their conversation sounded like something I didn't really want to listen to, so I escaped into one of the stalls (I *did* actually have to use the toilet, I wasn't *just* hiding :-)

So anyway, I put my two cents in. But what was interesting was, she said that *I* didn't have any wrinkles around my eyes (in that flurry of 'conversation', there'd been bandied about the idea that women, as we age [or, *most* of us] have to choose between being fat and having healthy skin or being skinny and wrinkly.

I said I couldn't deal with the fat, so I'd have to be wrinkly. And she said, "But you don't have any wrinkles around your eyes." And I started to disagree, thinking, I have *lots* of crinkly eye wrinkles. My brother calls them 'smile lines', which is nice... But anyway, I glanced in the mirror to point them out, and realized she was right!

And I thought to myself, all this work with the non-scrunching and eye segments and literally SCRUBBING away the 'old stuff' along with all the other approaches of ELIMINATION (meaning 'getting rid of', as in the sense of bodily elimination) is actually finally PAYING OFF. It's fricking WORKING!!!!!! Bloody hell, do the happy dance (where's Snoopy when you need him... oh, maybe better is the crazy rock 'n' roll dance that Calvin and Hobbes do.)

So I said to her about 'exfoliating' around the eye area instead of being so fricking 'careful' as we're taught to do, and she said, how the heck do you exfoliate around the eyes? So we were off.

But I later thought I wished I'd had time to say to her about sadness, and the wrinkles around her eyes being unexpressed pain or whatever about her *situation*, and NOT about old age, which was what she was complaining about to her friend.

I wanted to say, 'What you see in your friend's face is HAPPINESS; what you see in the wrinkles around your OWN eyes is that you can't cry when you need to because you feel compelled to 'put on a happy face' even though you *feel* miserable (or whatever she's actually *feeling*). Which is why you're tired and can't sleep, etc. etc.

All classic stuff, not to be dismissive of her situation. But it's probably for the best that I *didn't* think of saying any of those things at the time, because she would have thought I was crazier than she already *did* think I was :-) (wacky sentence structure, have to read that later and see if it's comprehensible - googly face here, which I don't know how to make an emoticon for).

But it was interesting to SEE all this stuff, and have them SEE the IMPROVEMENT in me (though of course she'd never seen me before, so had no baseline to compare to.)

And also interesting how we take things for granted - that the SURFACE is ALL THERE IS.

More to say there, but think I'm starting to repeat myself, and still have one more edit to make, and STILL haven't gone to the bathroom or finished this current layer of 'exfoliation' :-) Mental/emotional OR physical.

Wacky. But cool. Trying to do everything all at ONCE, because I HAVE to, because it all hooks together. But, jeez! It's HARD! And crazy. Because I have to go so FAST, to get it all done, or else it all sticks back in there again, and I lose some of this stuff, and have to start over.

And I don't want to go BACK. I WANT to go forward, to move on, to be DONE with this stuff. FINISHED.

So ok. GO to the fricking BATHroom, NOW.

***
I've wondered if this is what it's like to be bi-polar: Hours, days, maybe WEEKS of being stopped up (I wonder if bipolars tend to be constipated??), bottled up by BEING AROUND PEOPLE WHO WON'T LET YOU EXPRESS YOURSELF, then suddenly, something shifts, a channel opens, a window, and you're free to let all that pent-up stuff OUT.

But you're so frantic to deal with the backlog that to *others* you appear manic, panicked, obsessed. But really, you just don't have TIME to stop and do anything else. You HAVE to deal with everything NOW, because NOW is when you FINALLY have the time and energy and THE RIGHT CONDITIONS to do what you *need* to do.

As I say (yes this is my VERY OWN saying that I made up my VERY OWN SELF, please give me credit if you use it!)

"When conditions are right, the flower will bloom." My very own zen saying. Yes, it's fabulous, no applause necessary, just send money :-)

It's like what I've heard/read happens in the desert when a drop of water falls: The whole place suddenly goes NUTS. That apparently sere, barren, dry, dusty world suddenly blooms with a madhouse of flowers and dormant frogs whose eggs were deposited below the sand the *last* time there was a rainstorm.

GO with it!

***
As I'm trying to become more aware of the relationship between body patterns and emotions, I'm noticing that there seems to be a blockage in the left side of my lower abdomen, as if I can actually FEEL something stuck in there, all lumpy, is that my large intestine, that I can feel from the OUTside?

I keep thinking of it being INAPPROPRIATE (meaning, unnecessary) old guilt for PUTTING MY OWN NEEDS FIRST.

So. STOP TAKING CARE O OTHER PEOPLE. Let them take care of themselves, and YOU take care of YOUR self.

It feels like some kind of two-step, or three-step, or circle step - I become aware of an emotion, or a physical pain, and then I notice the link between what I'm feeling emotionally and what I'm feeling in my body. I work with whichever part I can work with, either the body part or the emotion part, and see what moves.

Then, after doing this for a while (hours, days, whatever) something starts to move, to change, to shift.

small intestine and absorbing stuff that FEEDS you :-)

Link: http://agelessyoga.com/Second_Chakra_Part_1_Water_Element_Emotions_Pelvis_Sexual_Energy_Yoga_and_Relationships.htm

Prior to reaching our 5-foot long colon, the foods and beverages that we have consumed travel through the 30 or so feet of the small intestine, where they remain in a watery state while our small intestine extracts out the nutrients.

Traditional Asian systems of healthcare talk about this nutrient extraction process metaphorically as the “minister’s function.” The small intestine acts like a king and queen’s minister, in that it intelligently chooses what is worthy of presenting to the king and queen – in other words, ‘the nutrients’ - and leaves the rest to pass along, eventually exiting out the back door of the castle. The small intestine sorts through the castle’s many visitors, and only keeps the most usable and high-priority ones, letting the rest go.

Lets take a look at our lives analogously as it relates to our intestinal function. In much the same way as we take food and liquids into our bodies, we are taking information and experience into our psyche through our senses. We see, hear, touch, smell and taste the world. Much of this information and experience is digested, (and sometimes not digested all that well), providing us with energy, direction, insight and purpose.

If we don’t eat healthy foods and beverages to begin with, it is too much to expect our small intestines to extract out nutrients that were missing in the first place. Likewise, if our lives consist primarily of low quality relationships, stressful work life or personal life experiences, or if the way we take in life’s experiences is chaotic, unbalanced or mimics gorging or starving ourselves, then we simply cannot expect to end up with all that we need to operate our body in a way that provides sufficient energy to feel successful and happy with our lives.

people say I think too much

I think a lot because I *have* to - the emotional language that many, if not most, people seem to take completely for granted, as if they learned it from the cradle (and they probably *did*!) is something I'm learning slowly, painstakingly, and largely from books. Which, hel-LO, guess what - takes THINKING.

Morons.




That said, I DO hope that, at some point, it WILL become like riding a bicycle.

emotionally absent mother

When googling 'emotionally disengaged parents' I came across this about the Emotionally Absent Mother. I then googled *that* phrase, and came up with several other pages, which I'll just paste links to here for safe-keeping:

Ghost Mothers: How to Heal Abandonment and Neglect, and Find Forgiveness
http://searchwarp.com/swa28453.htm

Ok, so maybe just the two links for now.

***
I don't know if I've googled this particular phrase ('emotionally absent mother') before, or found it and forgot it, or *thought* of it and forgot it, but the 'list' of ways to deal with the 'absent' mother is nearly identical to what I've ACTUALLY BEEN DOING for the last 5 or 6 years. Yay me! I'm ahead of the fricking curve! Only I'm not going to make any money off some dang BOOK in the process :-( Ach.

Once again, what it does is VALIDATE that my ways of thinking, approach and NEEDS are all perfectly normal, and hey, probably quite common, it's just that in the CONTROL FREAK-Y way of our culture, we're not allowed to TALK about, and so none of us know that we're NOT ALONE.

All caps. Sounds like I'm screaming. I'm just EXCITED, and in the absence of being able to WAVE MY ARMS and JUMP UP AND DOWN, you'll just have to interpolate (read between the lines) and figure out what I'm tryin'a say. 'k?

permission to be angry

The power of not being allowed to be angry at one's own mother is insane. And to be held to that double-standard - she was allowed to walk all over ME, to make fun of me, mock me. But SHE, that paragon, that fragile little soap bubble of damaged self-esteem, was to be protected at all costs. Even if it required sacrificing ME on the altar of her - what - neediness? Or my father's inability/unwillingness to give her what she needed?

And not only that, but when my father was a jerk to me or my middle brother started breaking in his 'bully boots' on my poor, battered psyche - not only was there no one to stick up for me, but I was expected to just put up with it.

Jesus fucking CHRIST on a - toothpick.

silent treatment

The silent treatment was (and possibly remains) my mother's favorite 'punishment'.

I quite honestly don't know if she even knew she was doing it - she'd just walk away, leave, right in the middle of something as if you had just horribly offended her or said or did something absolutely unspeakable.

I don't know if my brothers had this same experience; my sense is that she reserved her greatest contempt for me, the one who was supposed to be an extension of her right arm, her auxiliary emotional unit. I keep struggling to find words to express this particular feeling and experience - of being cast out by the one whose - loyalty? I most needed. By being repeatedly cut off by that very person whose well-being I was most responsible for.

And how backwards it all was - that MY needs, I, the CHILD in the equation, never got to put my own needs first and foremost. That I was always and forever GUILTY for having any needs at all, whatsoever, and for having the unmitigated temerity (?) of expressing said needs to the aforementioned (so-called) 'parent'.

I wonder how many times I'm going to have to repeat all this beore I'm finally DONE?

parental disengagement, mis-attunement

Another thing that seems to be taking a really long time to sort out is: How could my parents be both largely uninvolved in my upbringing in any engaged, emotional sense and yet have such a profoundly negative impact on my sense of self?

I think the answers are all there, already, meaning that I've thought them and/or written them down, possibly repeatedly, but haven't yet been able to assemble the pieces into a coherent picture. The puzzle analogy, again.

And also that first sentence contains what I believe is a well-known, long-understood, very common pattern recognized by various study-ers (?) of human nature: The disengaged parent. I'm not sure I've seen that particular term used, exactly, but that seems to be getting close(r) to the right word to capture my sense of the parental units' behavior toward me.

***
My parents were not 'permissive'; they were, instead, insanely stingy, unbelievably un-generous, not only with money, but with their time and emotional energy as well. They made every smallest request or need on my part seem like some absolutely unreasonable demand, with which I was going to turn their lives into a living hell. Forget about asking for a bicycle or a puppy or anything beyond the barest, most basic survival needs; I wonder if my early fondness for old, worn-out clothing came from the fact that most of my stuff came from the Goodwill, and I would never dare asking for anything new for fear of being criticized in some way? (As an adult, I loathe spending money on nearly everything, though there are a few things I spend money fairly freely on, such as food - to my mind, food, being the basic building block of the body, is a really stupid place to pinch pennies. A classic penny wise, pound foolish move [not the word I want].)

The other thing that keeps coming to mind is my mother's apparently absolute inability to see me as anything other than an extension of her own needs. That is, anything that I said or did that was congruent with her wants and needs at that moment were seen as Good; anything I said or did that went against her wants and needs of the moment were seen is inherently bad.

(Pulling out eyebrow hairs at the moment, from what I think of as my 'anger venting' mole, in the middle of the left eyebrow - whenever I get to this mixed0-up tangle of emotions - shame that I'm 'bad', anger that *I* can never get *my* needs met, even now, so many years later; fear that I'll be 'caught' saying 'bad things' about my parents, and then cycling back around to anger because, don't MY feelings count, too?)

Putting the above 'aside' at the center: How do I break the cycle of guilt/shame/rage that I encounter whenever I think about my parents, especially my mother?

I had a self-talking-to time a bit ago (a few hours ago?) where I was having an imaginary 'conversation' with my father, setting 'boundaries' with him that I was never able to set a s a child: Saying no, telling him to go away, telling him to 'stop it', whatever 'it' might have been at the time.

My mother is harder - both she and my father saw me as inordinately responsible for her emotional health and well-being from at least as early as the age of six, if not before. They put me in charge of 'taking care' of her - I was her 'minder', as the Brits say.

And this is not a woman who was mentally or emotionally incompetent in any - usual? - sense of the word.

I'm not really sure what happened there. She (according to dad, and to *her*?) was vulnerable, and fragile, and in need of protection. And so, said 'protecting' fell to me, as soon as I was old enough to be 'shamed' into it, which I think was around age 7 or so. But my experience of my mother? was that she was mean, and spiteful, and made vicious, snippy remarks.

It's only occurred to me recently that maybe the reason nobody else seems to 'know' about any of this is that she only did/does it when no one else is around?

So I've come up with the idea that I must only be around my mother in the presence of 'witnesses', which, at the moment, I think, means my nieces. They may as well be exposed to the inner working of the family early on, eh? Disassembling the Wizard right before their very eyes, so they can see how his 'smoke-and-mirrors' machines work. Give them the tools to take the sonofabitch apart themselves, later on. Which they will surely have to, given that their upbringing seems to be echoing much of the same shit I grew up with. Sigh.

It's

needing little direction

One of the drawbacks of being a smart little bugger is that you pick things up too quickly.

On the surface, being a fast learner would seem to be a feature, not a bug. But if you learn too fast from your so-called 'mistakes', the very idea of 'mistake' itself gets ingrained into your psychomotor (?) system in such a way that it becomes very difficult to root out in later life.

Working backward from the premise to some kind of (possibly?) understandable explanation: Mom told several stories over the years about how I could (as a child) remain insanely clean while playing outside - one that sticks in my mind is the story of me playing in the dirt all day in a white dress and somehow managing to keep it spotless. Or, later, my own recollection of helping my dad change a clutch cable on the VW bug while wearing my favorite (at the time) white tank top, and somehow never getting a single spot on the shirt, in spite of being otherwise covered in grease and dirt nearly up to my armpits. (A skill long since lost, I might point out - I've gotten much better at learning all the tricks for quick removal of nasty stains, or wearing bibs/aprons/other protective clothing, or better yet, changing into something I didn't care about getting dirty in the first place.)

My explanation is that mom was such an obsessive clean-freak when I was a kid that I absorbed the message that 'dirt=bad', and therefore, if *I* made a mess, *I* was bad. Because my mom would completely freak out anytime I made a mess of any kind. I also attribute my early hyper-organized approach to Lego-sorting (also a story relayed by mom, I only have a vague, hazy recollection of using old silverware trays to store my Legos) to mom's nearly pathological dislike of 'messes'. But, I also really *hated* having to sort and sort to find the pieces I wanted when I was making something, so maybe some of it was down to my own impatience with inefficiency and time-wasting.

I once had a massage therapist who was more useful as a shrink than any actual 'shrink' I went to. I was talking to him about my hyper-sensitivity and hyper-vigilance and how I *hated* to have people tell me things more than once, because I usually got it the first time and was insulted that they didn't recognize my intelligence. (It never occured to me, at least at the time, that maybe *they* were the ones who needed the repetition, not me.)

I explained all that to him, about how it bothered me that people never seemed to notice how quickly I was learning, and that I felt insulted by their repetitions of things I'd already 'got'.

He said, "Well, you only need to be told once. Or sometimes only half a time. Or maybe even not at all." I was so happy to finally be understood, and heard, and have SOMEbody get what the heck I was talking about, I actually cried. And of course he understood - the relief of not having to carry around that burden of being misunderstood (at least on that particular issue) any more.

And of course this is not universally true - it only *used* to be true for things I really cared about and/or was interested in; and these days, some things don't stick because I think some of that hyper-focus has gone away along with some of the hyper-vigilance. Coping mechanism disguised as learning skill.

Another validation I got (and I think I may have told this story already, but it's *my* blog, I can tell my stories as many times as I want, neener neener :-) was from a guy I had a brief, 5-day 'affair' with (why the quotes? not sure), who said, "You're smarter than most people, aren't you?" I preened over that one for days, and savor it still. I keep it in my mental pocket-full of imaginary rabbit's feet and worry stones - things that help me get through.

***
One of the many messages from that time that I'm still trying to root out of my subconscious is that I am bad, that I am, somehow, intrinsically wrong, no matter where I am, no matter what I'm doing, no matter how I'm doing it.

I think this is the legacy of two hyper-critical parents (yes, I'm aware that I'm repeating myself; the only way to 'over-write' messages that were grooved into one's consciousness by much repetition is: Much repetition. Of the 'new', preferred message.)

Each parent was hyper-critical in their her/his own way (I think I've covered this ground enough that I don't feel the need to repeat the specifics here.) Combine that with my hyper-attentiveness, and you've got a recipe for a really fucked up, terminally anxious kid. Thank somebody that I discovered books so early and was able to create an escape hatch! Alice's bizarro world down the rabbit hole was *nothing* compared to the feeling of dealing with my folks. In fact, I think that's why so many of those twisted tales I read as a child made sense: They were pretty dang accurate descriptions of my world.

gift economy

Some brilliant writing/thinking about gift-giving vs. 'exchange' (market) economy from
http://www.gift-economy.com/athanor/athanor_003.html [bolds mine]:

The two logics, exchange and gift giving, also produce different kinds of subjectivities. The practice of exchange creates an ego-oriented ego according to its logic of self interest while the practice of gift giving promotes more other-orientation. Exchange is a gift turned back upon itself, doubled and made contingent. It requires quantification while gift giving is mainly qualitative. Exchange is ego oriented and gives value to the self, while gift giving is other-oriented and gives value mainly to the other. Exchange places the exchangers in adversarial positions as each tries to get more than the other out of the transaction. The values of patriarchy are implicit in exchange, and drive Capitalism, as each contender struggles to reach the top of the hierarchy to own more and to become the Big Man. The kind of ego that is based on the exchange logic is necessary for the market, while the gift giving personality is eliminated, or is easily victimized and becomes the host of the exchange ego.

One superstructural consequence of this kind of ego formation is that consciousness itself is considered in the light of exchange as self reflecting, in a sort of equation of value with itself. The subconscious is thus placed in the gift giving position. We might say that our idea of consciousness in its capacity for self-evaluation is made in the image of preparation for exchange. It floats upon the gifts of the subconscious and of experience, without a clear indication of how those gifts come into the mind. Similarly the market floats on a sea of gifts without a clear indication of where they come from and how they constitute profit.

In individuals, the coexistence and conflict, as well as symbiosis of these two kinds of ego structures, can be seen as a result of the exchange paradigm, not its cause. That is, it is not that human beings are greedy and therefore create the market and capitalism. Rather, the system has an existence that is over and above that of its individual participants. The market and capitalism create the human ego structures that are well adapted to their needs. Greed is one of the human qualities that is functional to the maintenance and development of the market as such. Competition for narcissistic self aggrandizement and dominance are played out on the economic plane because otherwise the market would not 'grow' and maintain its control over other possible ways of distributing goods i.e. gift giving. Patriarchy supplies the motivation that drives Capitalism and the individuals who embody the motivation, with the ego structures and belief systems that justify the embodiment. Capitalism supplies the tools and rewards with which individuals and now corporations carry out the Patriarchal agendas on the terrain of so called 'distribution' of goods to needs through exchange.

Mothering, on the other hand, involves the unilateral free distribution of goods and services to young children and a consequent creation of human bonds between givers and receivers. Society has assigned this role to women. Although it may be characterized as the distribution of goods, mothering is usually not seen as an economic category. In fact by overvaluing exchange and making it dominant, the market devalues mothering, making it dependent and subservient. The gift paradigm allows us to see that the direct distribution of goods and services to needs that is present in mothering can be understood as an example of the practice of an alternative economy. As a mode of distribution, it is present in all societies because it is required, not by the biology of women, but by the biology of children. That is, for a very long period of time, children's biology does not allow them to independently satisfy most of their own or others' needs. It requires and elicits other-orientation and unilateral gift giving from their caregivers.

And from another article by this same author, The Exemplar and the Gift by Genevieve Vaughan,
http://www.gift-economy.com/articlesAndEssays/exemplarAndGift.html:

Masculation

When children are small, the nurturing mother is the main model or exemplar for their concept of the human. They creatively receive her unilateral gifts and give some communicative gifts of their own, imitating her. (Chodorow 1978) When boys find that they belong to a gender category which is the opposite of that of the nurturing mother, and that they have another gender name, they have to give her up as exemplar and give up also her gift giving ways as the content for their identity. For young children particularly there is little else in life other than the gift giving and receiving they are doing with their mothers. What is more, as I have been saying, gift giving permeates our lives and language though we have been taught not to see it. In other words, gift giving is a necessary part of all life but boy children are being taught it is not their role. What is most evident about patriarchal fathers, the male models that are usually given to the child in place of the model of the mother, is their ability to command, perhaps to punish, their distance and independence, even their ability to be the exemplar of the category 'male' and extend it to the category 'human'. The generality of the one-to-many exemplars of concepts is probably not evident to children and may be interpreted simply as power. The misconceptions which underlie the male identity are passed down from generation to generation. Women learn to privilege the male way more than their own way with the result that they give to those in the not-giving category more than they give to those in their own gift giving category. With their many gifts they paradoxically privilege not-giving

and

The projection of the problem of categorization and gender into the market is helpful in that it displays the misplaced elements in a depersonalized arena which is visible to all. In the market as in our childhood experience, once again a one-to-many relation among an exemplar and items in a privileged category is evident. In the market, money is the exemplar of value. The 'sorting process' takes place, and some goods are allowed into the magic circle of exchange value, while others remain excluded, part of the gift giving background. Exchange for money is a way of naming the commodity as a value, not by giving to it but by giving something for it. Money functions as this "name", (similar perhaps to the word 'male') while the quantity of money that is given for the product, tells us how male the product is estimated to be.

The excerpts are somewhat random; I wanted to capture enough of the gist of these thoughts to provide a 'place holder' while I digest these new ideas and new language (new to *me*, that is.) The writing is dense and full of unfamiliar coinages. But I really like the way her mind works - she seems to skate fluidly and effortlessly from one concept to another, weaving the threads together in an over-arching tapestry that helps the Big Picture come clearer. Universal (or is it Unified?) Field Theory, here we come! We're gonna catch you yet, you elusive little bugger.

still sorting

What if some parents really *aren't* well-intentioned? What if the idea of being 'well-intentioned' never even entered their heads? What if, instead, they view the concept of 'parent' as being the equivalent of 'hammer', and the 'child' is really nothing more than a nail to be pounded on, right through the bleedin' wall, if necessary?

When I say pounded, I don't mean physically. In fact, I would argue that subtle (or not-so-subtle) verbal put-downs are, in the long run, more damaging than physical abuse, because they're so hard to spot. If someone punches you, it's an injury that's pretty hard to deny. There's a broken bone, or a black-and-blue mark, and you definitely remember the person actively hurting you.

Whereas with verbal abuse, the person can claim they 'didn't mean to hurt you,' and so the pain that you feel is called into question, as if there's something wrong with YOU for feeling hurt when someone calls you names or makes fun of you or tries to make you feel stupid.

stories :-). And: chameleon?

I felt like the Pied Piper yesterday - my aura was amped up to some radiant rainbow brightness. People, of all ages, shapes, sizes, stripes, seemed to be unusually friendly to me. Maybe I was just being more 'out there' than usual? Maybe all this work with boundaries, etc., is finally beginning to pay off?*

*meaning that I'm less afraid of people *crossing* the boundaries, because I'm getting better at protecting them. So maybe I'm more open, again, more free? Like I used to be when I was younger.

Story continued:
Two little boys - one, possibly Nigerian? who had marginal English - and another, smaller boy, whose nationality I couldn't guess - were kicking a soccer ball in front of the library. As I went in, the ball escaped and rolled toward me, and I kicked it back, which seemed to both please and surprise them (or at least the older boy, whose age I can't really guess, but, while he *looked* quite small, he *seemed* a bit older. Maybe somewhere around 13? No clue.) When I left, they were still playing, and the older of the two boys said, "Want to kick it?" (or something like that, and no, he was not being hipster - I think his English was just minimal.)

So I stayed and kicked the ball for a while, but the younger one seemed less excited by my presence, and though the older one consistently kicked the ball my way for me to have a try, the other boy didn't. So after a while, maybe five minutes or so? I said, "Thanks," and went on my way.

And later in the day, as I was on the homeward leg of my run/walk loop, two little kids were sitting on their back porch and yelled at me, "What's your name?" as I went by. I stopped, put my hands on my hips and yelled back, "What's *your* name?" And they told me. I told them mine, but with the distance and the wind I think they were calling me some other name altogether. *shrug* If I see them again some time, maybe I'll correct it.

And then I was going around the back side of the park, and there were some kids and a dad kicking soccer balls into some nets. I came over and asked if I could kick some, too, and he said sure. So I kicked into the second net that they weren't using for a while, then decided to try being 'part of the gang'. I turned and asked if I could get in line, too.

They didn't seem to know quite what to make of me, but they were accepting and open. And there was only one little girl in the bunch - quite the livewire, full of life and energy, and she kept looking at me, sizing me up. I think she couldn't figure out what category of 'grown up' I fit into, or whether I was actually a 'grown up' at all. And one of the boys, who seemed maybe - East Indian? He was darker-skinned than the others, who were all latino - was really friendly to me and chatted me right up, and I overheard him say to the others, later, "I really like her." :-) Grasshopper's face lights up again :-)

That's what was funny: Kids, all day yesterday, kept treating me like I was one of them. It's cool, because I've long felt (as per a recent writing) that I missed out on much of my childhood, somehow, what with the reading and being cooped up alone so much, and moving constantly, and my anti-social parents.

So I'm getting to make up for it now!

Walking home from the park, I was feeling good and not really ready to go home, but it was getting dark and I was near the house, so I was sort of bouncing, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and these teenagers came up the street toward me, carrying skateboards. The first two were a boy and girl (couple?), and they seemed to be a mix of goth/emo/punk/whatever.

And they WAVED to me. Like, all casual and friendly (best California surfer girl voice, there.) It was the damnedest thing. I don't know if the near darkness made it look like I was a lot younger than I am? or what. But I waved cheerfully back, feeling slightly idiotic. "All life's a stage," or some such thing.

All day long it felt as if I was the same age, status and social class as whatever person I was near. The ultimate social chameleon, maybe. I don't know if this was 'good' or 'bad', but I sure had fun! And so did everyone else, or so it seemed.

Oh yeah, and I gave a guy at the grocery store my phone number! Out of the blue! I've NEVER done that before.

But I just felt like it - he was really friendly, and we ran into each other three times in the span of 10 minutes in a way that made it seem, well, karmic or something. Like we were destined to meet, and what the hell, why not?

So I finally worked up the nerve to give him my phone number. I'd thought of doing it in the store, but there were too many people and it didn't feel right.

Then I was sitting out in the car, wondering if I'd see him one more time, so I wrote my number on a scrap of paper, thinking that, if I saw him a third time, it was meant to be; and if not, not. So I was getting ready to start the car and back out, and looked one more time in my rear-view mirror, and lo and behold, there was a woman I hadn't seen in years walking right behind my car! So I jumped out, managed to remember her name before she got too far away to comfortably catch her, and talked to her for a bit.

When we parted ways, I remembered the guy, and thought, Well, he's probably gone by now and I've missed him.

So I got back in my car and started to back out, but it was really crowded and busy, and there were lots of pedestrians and cars passing behind me.

As I sat there and waited for a clear spot, lo and behold, who do I see walk out, but The Guy! And of course he walks right behind my car and over to his truck, which happens to be parked almost opposite mine on the other side of my same row of the parking lot.

So I watched for my window of opportunity, and when the mob had cleared enough for me to back out, he was still there, just trundling his empty basket back to the store.

He didn't see me in my car, but I kind of called to him, and he turned and walked back over.

I stuck my arm out the window with the number, and said, "Here, I've never done this before."

He glanced at it, said, "____, huh? My name's _____." And we shook hands, he was very friendly! And I was so shocked by the smoothness, ease and simplicity of the whole thing that I just smiled at him, said, "See ya," and drove away, as he continued walking toward the store to return his cart.

There were lots of little thing I liked about him in that insanely brief encounter: He was friendly without being aggressive, in that almost-shy-but-still-confident-enough-to-speak-up way that I really like :-)

And when I first spoke to him, he was standing in front of the dairy cooler, where I wanted to get some whipped cream, and he was loading his cart up with little cartons of chocolate milk!

First, I was delighted by the chocolate milk, and then I had to tease him about getting so many, so I said, "I think you need more chocolate milk." He said, "Well, there just aren't any big ones!" So I said, "I'll just look the other way while you take them all." He laughed.

Then we met again over by the cookies/frozen food, where he pulled the classic, "We've got to stop meeting like this," or one of those lines. He was endearingly - simple? Or so it seemed - if we meet on Saturday as planned, we'll see how that 'simple' looks in a longer-playing encounter.

***
The red flag that's struck me so far is that, in his message (he called me a couple hours after our meeting, which seemed fabulously perfect timing! Not too long, not too short, but JUST RIGHT!) he said something about "being really busy right now." And then when we talked (I called him another hour or so after he left his message) he mentioned being 'busy' again, and further reinforced it by saying something like, "I'm a busy guy." Or something like that. I remember being a bit puzzled by it, frankly. Why would a person say that, when they're just getting to know you? And yet seem not to be in any hurry, or have any trouble scheduling time for you? Another one of those 'split personality' moments that I'm beginning to really hate about people, especially when they seem to have no awareness of their 'alter egos'. Which, I guess, is kind of why it's called 'split', isn't it. (One then has to ask: Why are you, Grasshopper, so consistently attracted to this sort of person? Are *all* people this way, to some degree or other? [And I would answer, "Yes, we're all this way to varying degrees."] But the *degree* to which they're split - maybe it's something to do with being raised by two people who seemed especially out of touch with, or even frightened by, their own emotions? And who seem(ed) to have ridiculously few resources for dealing with same?

Posit re: introverts?

Thinking out loud:
Introverts are those who, by nature, are non-aggressive. They are, therefore, in this world of dog-eats-dog, survival of the fittest, "it's a jungle out there," often coerced into doing things they don't want to simply because they lack the - fortitude? to stand up to someone more aggressive.

Eat your Wheaties! Part of me shouts. But that's just my dad's voice talking, from the dim and dark recesses of my childhood recollections.

So here's the actual posit: Maybe introversion is a coping mechanism rather than a trait.

Maybe introversion is a defense mechanism developed by non-aggressive types in reaction to too much exposure to aggressive people who continually trample their boundaries?

So this is obvious. Well, sometimes I have to work it out my own way through my own dang process of head-scratching.

finding the middle

The idea that I MUST choose people/things that SCARE me?

Mapped courtesy of my father, who never encouraged, praised or comforted me, but only gave me that little shove out onto the eight-lane freeway of life, no concern that my poor little carcass might end up mangled or at the very least, flattened.

I was thinking about putting together a band, and breaking into a cold sweat thinking of some of the people I might play with who scare me.

I play with them, and often prefer them, because they're challenging, and interesting. But they also sometimes push me in ways I don't like to be pushed.

Often they're men, though sometimes they're women with really strong personalities. Which I like. But again, there's this feeling of jockeying for position, which, in the men, I ascribe to testosterone and/or social conditioning; and in the women, I sometimes associate it with needing to be in charge.

I like to think that my *own* preferred method is a kind of fiercely democratic approach, where I INSIST on each person having their own input, because I actually PREFER it that way.

Maybe it comes from growing up with a passive aggressive mother who doesn't know how to speak up? And in later years experiencing a similar thing, both with a boyfriend/longterm partner and several women in various situations. So I'm wary of people who don't overtly say what they want.

What I LIKE is somewhere about in the middle, halfway BETWEEN 'getting run over by a Mack truck' and 'pansy wansy, wimpy, then later passive-aggressive angry'.

Actually, that's a pretty depressing way to put it.

I like people who speak up for themselves, but not aggressively; who are confident and go for what they want, but without running over or disregarding the needs/wants/feelings of other people (specifically, *me*) in the process.


***
Once bitten, twice (thrice? multiplice?) shy...

containment device - and some yoga/heart meridian ideas

Favorite word so far today: Flapdoodle :-)

***
This blog is becoming yet another storage device (auxiliary to my brain) for random ideas - like my bulletin board, covered with scraps of paper and post-it notes; the whiteboard on my fridge,which has scrawled ideas, thoughts, things I want to remember, layered on top of each other, the older ones faded and hastily wiped out when something urgent and new needs to be kept track of.

***
Link(s?) today:
I especially like this one, about the Heart Meridian:
Heart: Fire-energy yin organ
http://www.lieske.com/channels/5e-heart.htm

Here's a quote (taking what I NEED and leaving the rest, as always - wheat from chaff):

What happens to the memories of the amygdala? They become our individual nightmare, the invisible conditioning of all our actions, the blind spot of our lives, the origin of all our terrors, the unknown reason why we do what we done even when we do not know why we do it.
[...]
And this is why there is yoga. Can we destroy these nightmares to which we have no access to, can we change those distorted faces of the gods, can we dissolve our conditioning?

The answer is, of course, yes, and the path is YOGA. And this, why? Because the conditioning of the amygdala can only be removed by the intelligence system previous to it, and this is the heart, with its electromagnetic force and its power of transformation. Otherwise, the amygdala can act on its own by passing the intelligence centers of the neo-cortex.

I'm not a regular practitioner of yoga, but there was a time when liked it, when it was part of my 'routine' for a while. But then things shifted and moved on.

And now a space is opening (both literally and figuratively) for this to return to my life.

I'm looking forward to having it there again, the body care routine. I've been missing it. Not sure how it's going to fit in, yet - most likely I'll revisit the old favorite poses that used to be part of my daily (nightly, really), calming-down, stretching, relaxing routine. Shoulder stand and plow pose were favorites, and very powerful when done in the right way, space, time, and with the right kind of mental atmosphere. When I did those on a regular basis, they really helped.

I'm working on creating an environment that attracts me naturally to doing what I need to do. I've finally (and no judgment implied - just happy to get here :-) cleared away much of the mental detritus that was preventing me from creating it before. (Still having trouble with the off-gassing from the PVC blinds - it's pretty horrible when the sun hits. Don't know why it never bothered me til this last year, must have hit some kind of critical mass of toxic load or something?)

I'm now actually ENJOYING my little house - the space is beautiful, with lots of light; the searing heat of summer is gone, and we've entered that magical window of indian summer, where it's still warm, but with cooler breezes and more moisture in the air.

But summer was a healing time - the unusually high heat forced me to sink into the ennui and torpor that eventually became an enforced REST, taking my various bodily functions off the perpetual red-alert they'd been living in for all those cold, winter, spring, early summer months. That was a loooooooooong stretch.

Now I feel recharged, and ready to deal with winter, almost. This little transitory stretch, I hope, will help me prepare in the other ways I need to.

***
I don't believe in all the 'mystical' BS in the above quote from the linked article, but I *do* strongly believe in changing the patterns of the amygdala-driven fear responses with some kind of conscious attention to how the pattern is working - or, more accurately, not working, at least it's not working the way I need it to. Which is: Less frantically, and in a more calm, even, smoothly-flowing fashion :-)

Which requires me to become conscious of my 'triggers' and learn, to the best of my ability, to provide myself with ways to calm myself when something sends me into red-alert territory.

Fortunately I have enough friends now who are conversant with all these ideas that I can reach out for help far more easily than I was able to in the past.

I believe that the body really only 'unlearns' old patterns experientially, that is, via the mechanism of experiencing the old situation in a new way, with a new person, and a different outcome. That's the key: The different outcome. Like a kind of Pavlovian training for the emotions (which is not *my* idea - I picked up the gist of that somewhere from a link which I'll add if I can find it.)

***
More links:

Can emotion be quantified?
http://www.allbusiness.com/health-care/medical-practice-alternative-medicine/12799613-1.html

Water Cluster Quackery
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/clusqk.html

Chinese Acupuncture - 24-hr clock & horary clock, + 5-element chart
http://www.wingchunkwoon.com/accu.asp

we do not create our relationships -

our relationships create US.

I partly just wanted to see how that looked in black and white. But I also think it's true: We don't really EXIST outside of our relationships (the whole 'one hand clapping' thing, maybe). Our self-understanding is an amalgamation, a patchwork, a montage, whatever you want to call it, of all the different ways we are seen, and treated, by other people.

We HAVE no fixed character. I mean, there are certain aspects of us that seem to remain, relatively unchanged, and those must be the traits we were born with. But for the rest? It all seems to morph according to - actually, that's not true.

I just watched some interviews with a couple of actors from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Interestingly, the character who, in the movie, plays the 'uncertain', insecure one (Cameron) is, in the interview, the more solid, secure person. Whereas Matthew Broderick, who plays Bueller in the movie, seems much less 'himself' in the interview.

There's an odd combination of traits in Broderick: An almost scary need to please, to be liked, and yet, he wants to be liked for who he is, rather than simply for jumping through the hoops.

He's like the eternal little kid, the one who never grows up - who knows exactly what bullshit you (the adult) are trying to pull on him, and he calls you on it, in his inimitable way; and yet, at the same time, he never actually becomes the adult he seems so desperately to need.

He's like a foil - his job is to draw out that which is needed, in the other person, but he has no character himself.

It's like these words are typing themselves, no volition on my part, I'm trying to figure something out, and I'm hoping that if I just keep typing and typing, SOMETHING will become clear

Why do I relate to this Bueller character?

He grew up (in the movie - in my mind, I keep conflating Broderick with the character he plays) with these two relatively childlike parents with sort of incompletely formed personalities - like two high school students who suddenly found themselves responsible for a child, a job, a house, and have no idea how they ended up in this situation.

Just like MY parents. Probably just like MOST parents, if not all parents, if it comes down to it.

I mean, who is really ready to have a kid? No matter how much preparation you've done, no matter whether it's a 'planned' child instead of an unplanned one -

I'm suddenly remembering reading somewhere that the concepts of 'child' and 'childhood' are relatively modern ones - Victorian era, maybe? That children before that time were really just thought of as 'small humans', rather than being treated like practically a different species as they are today.

Hm. Something in that, can't quite grab it. Something to do with power, and development into a full human being?

***
There's something amiss, missing, AWOL in the whole picture.

There's something VITAL lost in the translation, transmission, what's the word? from teenager-hood to 'adult'hood.

Teenagers - maybe it's something to do with rites of passage? Where a child makes her way in the world on her own terms, rather than being forced into some pre-conceived mold?

And the 'adults' around her also went through this same passage, and therefore aren't burdened with all kinds of emotional baggage which they then try to foist off on their kids?

And so the kids don't end up being miniature adults long before they're ready, but instead make the 'crossing' in their own time, their own way?

But then I'm remembering from - National Velvet, is it? With Mickey Rooney and - I'm embarrassed to say i had to look this up - Elizabeth Taylor. What struck me about that film, and about a number of films made in that time period - what was it, 1950's? (I looked it up, that one was made in 1944). I was going to say, war-era - there was something very sincere and real and genuine about those movies. The children in them actually did seem very 'adult', often, and the adults, while often 'serious', seemed less - authoritarian? More gentle?

Now of course these are movies, and hardly likely to be particularly accurate reflections of the real people of the time, any more than current movies are. However, movies do tend to capture the - what's that word, zeitgeist? - sort of general 'feel' of a time period or generation.

And it seems like something was different then.

The Baby Boomers messed it all up. Somehow they are/were a pivotal generation, who 'took' something from both the generation before them AND the one after them, and left a kind of social vacuum behind, kind of like a sonic boom.

***
Maybe our world is just too narrow, too black and white? I've seen, more than once, the idea that we all must become 'specialists' to survive in the modern world.

But specialists, by definition, are people who have a pretty narrow view of things.

Is this really what we want, in terms of a healthy, balanced society and culture?

Or is this just the most convenient shape for the cogs that are needed to run the capitalist machine?

***
Movies give us the illusion that we can step outside the cage that those who crave power and wealth have created for the rest of us. But the fact is that, unless you are very greedy (and thus very driven to chase after wealth and power), the best you can ever hope to be is somebody's lap dog.

I mean, the guys who really pull the strings are the ones who can pull together the funding to make a movie that conveys whatever that person's 'message' is. Movies are the most powerful propaganda machine on the planet.

I wonder if the reason a guy like Matthew Broderick doesn't look very happy in middle age is because the parasites have fed off of him for too long? Movie directors seek out people (actors) who possess the qualities and characteristics that they, the movie directors, do not themselves possess.

They then parade these actors around a set the same way a little girl or boy plays with their dolls, making them act out the stories the director would like to imagine.

***
The kids, or actors, do what they're told. Within certain limits, if the actor (or child) is favored by the movie director (or parent), then that child/actor is 'rewarded' by being asked to do it again. To play the same role, over and over, to please the parent.

Something about how kids who naturally fit with their parents (good match) are rewarded by the parents; kids who are not a naturally good match with their parents are punished.

Kids who are rewarded for being nothing more than themselves grow up well adjusted, comfortable in their skin, confident, and trusting of authority.

Kids who grow up being punished for failing to conform to something that most parents don't even know they're asking for, end up spending their lives trying to 'please', and/or, alternately rebelling against authority figures out of residual resentment.

(Feels like I've got this big pile of puzzle pieces that I just KNOW fit together to make a really cool, interesting, and above all enlightening picture; but I can't seem to put them together fast enough.)

***
It's as if parents needed kids to pull their weight in the old days, because there was always so much to do, the kids pretty much had to take on adult responsibilities as soon as they were able to do so. And so the transition from childhood to adulthood was much smoother, or maybe it really felt like one continuous, natural movement?

Or, maybe the dividing line between 'work' and 'play' is much too artificial? That it's less about what's 'fun' or about eschewing responsibility...

***
It's almost as if there's simply not enough room for all these people on the planet to 'take their rightful place'. Like the parents are afraid that if they give the kids too much power - what? What will happen? What are they afraid of?

That the disrespect that they've shown these children will be thrown right back at them. And indeed, I think there is a backlash against the greed of the Baby Boomers, and the destruction they've visited on the planet in service of their insatiable appetites.

As kids get smarter and smarter, and are empowered by fancier technology that lets them learn at their own pace, they need adults less and less. But parents, feeling these young ones nipping at their heels to get the hell out of our way, stop IMPEDING us and slowing us down - are resentful? and also, don't really understand what they've created.

Also, the 'system' is not well integrated, the left hand and the right hand operate independently, without coordination. It's like this thing where we have car manufacturers designing faster and faster cars, and yet we're expected to only drive them at 60 m.p.h. It makes no sense.

I remember thinking something similar when I graduated from college and was looking for a job - in college, I'd been fed new information almost faster than I could handle it, the assumption was that I was smart, and you push kids as hard as you can when they're young and their minds are ripe for learning.

And yet, the instant they're out of the classroom and into the work world, suddenly they're only allowed to learn as quickly as the lowest common denominator will let them, namely, the boss. So you've gone from one set of parents who constantly expect you to 'drive with the brakes on', to school where you're completely overwhelmed, back to an out-of-control authority figure whose sole aim in life seems to be to squash you and hold you back.

Argh.

***
There's also the question of whether we fit the roles the people around us assign us to or not. Sometimes we're assigned roles because that's what's needed, that's what's convenient for everybody else. And if we happen to naturally fit that role, great. But if we don't? If we're being shoe-horned or forced into some role that we don't fit? Not good.

It's especially difficult when it's a parent who thinks they're doing 'what's best' for a child, when what they're really doing is blindly imposing their own needs upon said child without really seeing the actual child's strengths, weaknesses and needs.

***
So you have parents who aren't paying attention and parents who push us this way and that like overgrown chess pieces or furniture on the stage set of their own life, or sometimes parents who alternate between the two, sometimes fixing you in the glare of their own high-beam ambitions, dragging you into their ventures, then abandoning you to your own devices when you turn out not to be what they expected and/or hoped for.

***
Or maybe the reason Broderick doesn't look very happy these days is that he's no longer the Golden Boy? It's as if he doesn't know that being the Golden One requires an admirer in order to BE Golden - just as the moon has no light without the sun, and a pretty woman's 'power' is only so in the eyes of one who findes her attractive - being 'golden' is not an absolute, intrinsic power like being the strongest or smartest or fastest. It's a REFLECTED power, and thus subject to the whims and vagaries of the person conferring that power with their favor.

In other words, we're back to the lap dog idea. I'm not sure, but maybe Broderick thought charm was a - somebody said this better recently, have to see if I can find the words she used - an ABSOLUTE power as opposed to a REFLECTED power. I think the words this other person used were 'coercive' and 'persuasive'. Charm depends on your ability to persuade the other person to like you; coersion requires only that you be strong enough (either literally, physically, or by controlling the wealth or other resources that allow you to puchase said power) to control other people directly.

***
I keep thinking I *almost* understand how all these pieces fit together, and then the picture escapes, eludes me. But I'm pretty sure it's all about power: Who has it, and who doesn't.

***
Actors are people-pleasers. They keep wanting to be liked for who they are, but they keep getting 'assigned' roles that limit them to just that one facet of themselves that the director/parent has latched onto. Maybe that's why I liked Paper Heart? The girl in that movie seemed as free from the director's preconceptions as I've ever seen - it's almost as if he said, here's a really cool person, I'm just going to follow her around for a while and see what she does. But maybe that's how the movie was written. Sigh. Round and round. Maybe there's no such thing as reality? Or, what is it Calvin says? "Reality continues to ruin my life."

the worst thing

about doing all this 'stuff' (processing) alone is the amount of time and energy it takes. It leaves very little for doing anything else.

But I'm getting better and faster at it all the time (meaning, more efficient), so there's hope! Yay! And someday, soon? I hope to find someone with whom to do the relational portion of the work. Because some of it just simply cannot be done alone.

I disagree with Maslow.

I think CONNECTION is the first and foremost human need. This may be because it's the thing that has been most sorely and consistently lacking in *my* life, but still. It's what I think.

Everything you *think* you know is wrong

Here's a posit: People become introverts because they experience their early (formative) relationships as draining rather than as supportive and nurturing. That is, the cost/benefit ratio of interacting with others often leaves the 'introvert' drained rather than charged up.

I would define myself as introverted by the standard definition, and I would say that *my* introversion stems largely from feeling that I am often more attuned to other people than they are to me. Interactions with others cost me more than they give me in return. Hence my current focus on 'two-way street' as a prime the main criterion for anything resembling a 'close' relationship: I'm trying to break the old pattern. (Insert here: "There's A Hole in the Sidewalk".)

The first, and worst, offender with respect to 'lack of attunement' was my mother; the second (mostly out of sheer absence, unavailability and lack of interest rather than that he couldn't figure it out) was my father; and the third was my middle brother, who was *quite* capable of compassion, but who chose to use his ability to 'read me like a book' to torment me rather than support and/or encourage me.

I guess that's supposed to be 'normal' behavior for siblings, par for the course, but in my case not only did my mom not even seem to notice what was going on (dissociation from things that perfectly echoed her own childhood, the pain from which was still sharp enough that she couldn't deal with my pain, the pain her own daughter was experiencing... compoundment. A new coinage, yes, I just made that up.)

Not only did my mom never notice that my brother was torturing me, but when I complained about it to dad (it seemed pointless to bring it up with mom, because she'd [mentally and emotionally] run off and hide in La-La Land whenever it happened), but dad would actively say "Just don't let it bother you," and would never, EVER call my brother out for being an asshole.

I still don't understand that behavior, to this day. The thing where an adult sides with the abusive child, rather than the one who's being stomped on. What IS that? Why do (some) parents do this? Are they STUPID? Fucked up in the head? What? I no understand.

***
This kind of introversion (need a name for it, even if only for myself?) is when you understand 'them' better than they understand themselves. And your - sympathy? Empathy? Compassion? Is used against you as a weapon. It's seen as a weakness to be taken advantage of. Reminds me of that scene in The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible is being held prisoner and he grabs Mirage when she gets too close, threatening to kill her. The bad guy says, "Go ahead,"but Mr. Incredible doesn't do it, because - well, he's just not that kind of guy. The bad guy, of course, perceives this as a 'weakness' on Mr. Incredible's part; but Mirage points out that showing compassion for another human is NOT weakness: It's a great strength. So, in summary: I'm Incredible! Yay, me! :-)

***
Back to the original subject:
The title of this moment of writing is more aimed at a culture that is constantly trying to label and pigeonhole everything - people and their behaviors, especially.

I was just reading a blog about introversion (in my ongoing pursuit of an 'answer' as to whether introversion in inborn or an acquired trait - I'm going for a mix of nature and nurture, at this point.)

The woman writing the blog made an aside (why is it that the 'throwaway' comments are often the ones with the most 'juice'?) about how her son is a daydreamer, the same as she was when she was a kid. Her 'aside' was that if she was a kid these days, she'd probably be diagnosed as ADD. And then the gem:

"It’s not that I had any problem paying attention, I simply chose not to. Whatever was going on inside my head at any given moment was usually a lot more interesting than what the teacher had to say."

So *there's* the real truth: She daydreams because she's bored. Because what's inside her head is more interesting to her.

The real PROBLEM is not kids who are 'ADD'; the REAL problem is adults who fail to properly ENGAGE the minds of the children for whose 'education' they're responsible.

But we can't say that, because we might hurt the poor teachers' feelings. Or something.

Why is it that kids are continually having to be 'dumbed down' in order to not offend some less competent, less intelligent adult? Why are power structures almost always skewed in favor of the ineptitudinosities^®* from the shallow end of the gene pool? Don't answer that, I don't think I really want to know.

*I may just use the ^® as a way to communicate "here is a coinage I just made up," in case it's unclear. Of course people are coining 'new' words left, right and center. I just want credit, when I'm actually due some. Thanks. :-)

***
Also this, from a commenter at another blog (http://pastaqueen.com/blog/2009/02/in-defense-of-quiet-people/, anji • February 26, 2009 at 6:11 pm):

Amen sistah! I didn’t talk for the first two years of school… and, when I did? All the kids cried because they thought I couldn’t speak and I scared the shit out of them.

I hated school, I hated being the center of any attention, I hated making small talk….

But now? I’m now the freakin’ teacher and have to talk and explain my thoughts as part of my job… granted, I’m not a chatterbox but I no longer get bowled over or let my shyness take over…. I still love having quiet moments at home, I enjoy my peace that I can find at any time… I love being able to entertain myself and I also loved never getting into trouble because I was talking too much in class or anything.

The bolded statement is the one that interests me - I wish I could ask the commenter about this, but the comment was written over a year and a half ago, so I'll just have to guess.

What I'm wondering is, was this teacher silenced as a little girl in such as way that she was too frightened to speak for fear of "talking too much"?

Because it sure sounds like it to me, reading that fragment of her story and knowing how often little girls are discourage from 'talking too much' because it draws attention to them (attention which, at least through my feminist lens, is expected by the culture to be reserved for males).

So she maybe isn't really a natural introvert at all, but was rather, scared into it by some adult or adults in her life.

***

I also think that while a tendency toward reflectiveness may be inborn (the penchant for mulling things over in one's head before speaking), that introversion is more a reaction to the social brew in which one was soaked as a child. It's more about the 'mismatch' thing where a parent and child are so dissimilar in temperament that the child (because of the parent/child power imbalance) becomes the 'ugly duckling'.

Whereas reflective kid born to reflective parents will see herself in them and vice versa (no pun intended about the 'mirroring' aspect :-). And so will tend to remain quiet until she's sure she has something relevant to say, but will not be 'shy', per se, so much as just reticent until she's got a good read of the lay of the land, so to speak. And when she's around people she trusts and/or knows well and is comfortable with, she'll be more comfortable with speaking her mind.

But even that, what I just wrote, seems to me to be about me, since *I'm* writing it - I think the reason I don't just blurt out whatever I'm thinking is because I was so often pounced on by the people around me. Never mind that they were often wrong in their 'mis-corrections' of me; the effect was the same: To SILENCE me. To make me doubt myself; to make me unsure.

I still struggle with this to this day - I can't tell you how many people have told me I 'should' be more sure of myself, because I'm often RIGHT.

But for each one of those people, I've had plenty of others question me on something I was absolutely sure about (and which, in retrospect, on verification from a source I trusted, turned out to be right), who managed to undermine me to the point where I didn't speak at all.

Of course, over the years I learned to - what - uncover? or, reveal? can't find the word. These people who spoke with such great authority on subjects about which they knew absolutely nothing, or only enough to be dangerous (such as my mother, who learned it from her father, and also I can think of at least one boss who was notorious, at least with me, for doing this - it's not universally a male trait, but men do it pretty dang often. I've taken to calling men of all stripes out on this, no matter their age, 'status' or whatever. "Taking them down a peg [or a 'notch']," I believe is what it's called.)

'Expose', that's the word I was looking for. And that word, which brings, once again, the image of the 'man behind the curtain' (a la the Wizard of Oz) being exposed to the bright lights of day, truth, and reality, reveals what I (think I'm) looking for: Fear. Fear of being exposed as a fraud, a shyster, a cheat, a know-nothing. Fear of being exposed as the charlatan and poser one really is. Seeking power at the expense of others' - credulity? Is that the word I want?

***

On reflection, after writing all this, I don't think I really care how other people define introversion. I'm just trying to find a way to deal with my particular 'form' of it. And it helps, sometimes, to walk through 'how you got here', to help you figure out how to go somewhere else. Or something like that. I'm sure there are a million 'sayings' that sum up that sentiment more eloquently, I may even *know* some of them already, but just can't think of them right now.

But for now, those words will just have to do. And they do just fine!

***
Some "Murphy's Law" -like sayings, from "Says You" (as heard on KUOW, 4 Sept 2010) :
[these are paraphrased - I tried to write them down as fast as I could, but missed some bits. Note to self: See link at bottom for possible 'confirmation'.]

First law of theater attendance: The last people to arrive in the audience will be the ones seated in the middle of the row.

Mechanic's law of physical irritation: As soon as your hands are completely covered in grease, that's the moment at which your nose will begin to itch.

The isolation conundrum: The more you want to be alone, the more likely that you'll run into someone you know.

The immersion [principle?]: The moment you are completely immersed in the tub is the moment the phone will ring.

The queue ______: Whichever line you're in will be the one that moves the slowest. Corollary: If you *change* lines, the line you *move* to will slow down.

The toolbox truism: The only tool you need will be the only one missing.

***
Word for today (so far :-) :

Fremescence: A dull and incipient roaring.


Ah, here's a possible reference/source: http://www.joe-ks.com/murphy/Murphys_Laws.htm


***
A Terry Pratchett quote:

"People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense."

*placeholder*: introverts are created, not born

Tentative theory to pin up and throw darts at.

Who is this 'norm' of whom you speak, and why

have I never met him?

The frequency with which you mention his name would suggest a ubiquity that would be impossible to ignore. Yet I have YET to encounter him in any walk or stratum of life.

stop BLAMING me for BEING HURT!

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick! If I EVER hear another person tell me I'm 'too sensitive' instead of apologizing for being a jerk, I'm going to fucking PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE!

In fact, when middle niece was telling about a mean thing oldest niece had done, I said, "Did you punch her?"

Both girls looked at me, a little shocked - this is *not* the Auntie they're familiar with, who normally eschews all violence.

But I am definitely ALL about teaching this little one to STAND UP FOR HERSELF so she doesn't get pummeled into a bloody, emotional WRECK like her Auntie did.

I also suggested that middle niece tie older nieces shoelaces together whenever older niece was mean to her. Oldest niece said, "Oh, that'd never work, that's the oldest trick in the book!" I said, "Good thing, then it'll never get you." But I think middle niece still filed it away, maybe? for future reference.

Yay! Inroads against meanness and bullying being made! Fire BACK!!!!

childhood emotional trauma and later life resiliency (or lack thereof)

From this website http://www.uic.edu/classes/psych/psych270/PTSD.htm.

I'm just going to cut and paste a big segment for now, then come back and see what I want to keep later (bolds are mine, except title):

Damaged Self
Trauma forces the survivor to relive all earlier struggles over autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy.

The developing child's positive sense of self depends upon a caretaker's benign use of power.

Traumatic events violate the autonomy of the person at the level of basic bodily integrity (Body ego -> first sense of "I")

The belief in a meaningful world is formed in relation to others and begins earliest life. Basic trust, acquired in the primary intimate relationship is the foundation of faith. Trauma creates a crisis of faith.

Damage to the survivor's faith and sense of community is particularly severe when the event themselves involve the betrayal of important relationships.

Survivors oscillate between:

Uncontrollable outbursts of anger and intolerance of rage in any form.

Seeking intimacy desperately and totally withdrawing from it.

Self esteem is assaulted by experiences of humiliation, guilt, and helplessness.

Vulnerability and Resilience

Individual personality characteristics count for little in the face of overwhelming events. With severe enough experience, no person is immune.

Individual differences play a part in determining the form PTSD will take. It is related to individual history, emotional conflicts, and adaptive style.

Highly resilient people are able to make use of any opportunity for purposeful action in concert with others,

while ordinary people are more easily paralyzed or isolated by them.

Comment: This person seems to suggest and/or assume that 'high resiliency' is a personality trait. A lot of assumptions being made here (by the writer) - how can you tell, in retrospect, whether the traumatized person started out being resilient, but became less so over time with repeated blows to their self esteem? Chicken and egg.

Note to self: As always, take what you need and leave the rest - take this particular bit of 'advice' with many grains of salt....

Some features of highly resilient people:

1. Alert, active temperament

2. Unusual sociability

3. Good communicating skills

4. Strong internal locus of control

and

GOOD LUCK

Increased vulnerability is enhanced by:

1. Disempowerment (children, adolescents)

2. Disconnection from others

3. Lack of social supports

4. Poor or absent communication avenues

The Effect of Social Support

The survivor's social world
can influence the eventual outcome of trauma.

The emotional support that is sought takes many forms and changes during the course of resolution.

In the immediate aftermath, rebuilding of some minimal form of trust is the primary task. Assurances of safety and protection are of the greatest importance.

Then, the survivor needs assistance of others in rebuilding a positive sense of self.

Others must show tolerance for the oscillating behaviors of the survivor. It is not blanket acceptance but the kind of respect for autonomy that fostered the original development of self esteem in the first year of life. (Movement toward self-regulation).

The survivor needs the assistance of others in her/his struggle to arrive at a fair assessment of her/his conduct. Harsh criticism or ignorance or blind acceptance greatly compounds the survivor's self blame and isolation. Realistic judgments include a recognition of the dire circumstances of the traumatic event and the normal range of the victim's reactions. They include the recognition of moral dilemmas in the face of severely limited choices. This, hopefully, leads to a fair attribution of responsibility.

Finally, the survivor needs help from others to mourn her/his losses. Failure to complete the normal process of grieving perpetuates the traumatic reaction.

The Role of Community

Sharing the traumatic experience with others is a precondition for the restitution of a meaningful world.

Once it is publicly recognized that person has been harmed, the community must take action to assign responsibility for the harm and to repair the injury. Recognition and restitution are necessary to rebuild the survivor's sense of order and justice.

Repeated trauma in adulthood erodes the structure of personality already formed, but repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality.

Under conditions of chronic childhood abuse, fragmentation becomes the central principle of personality organization. Fragmentation in consciousness prevents the ordinary integration of knowledge, memory, emotional states, and bodily experiences. Fragmentation in the inner representations of the self prevent the integration of identity. Fragmentation of the inner representation of others prevents the development of a reliable sense of independence within connection.

On Idealizing
By idealizing the person to whom she becomes attached, she attempts to keep at bay the constant fear of being either dominated or betrayed. Inevitably, however, the chosen person fails to live up to her fantastic expectations. When disappointed, she may ferociously denigrate the same person whom she so recently adored. Ordinary interpersonal conflicts may provoke intense anxiety, depression, or rage. In the mind of the survivor, even minor slights evoke past experiences of deliberate cruelty. These distortions are not easily corrected by experience since the survivor tends to lack the verbal and social skills for resolving conflict. Thus, the survivor develops a pattern of intense, unstable relationships repeatedly enacting the drama of rescue, injustice, and betrayal.

Relationship problems
1. Desperate longing for nurturance make it difficult to establish safe and appropriate boundaries.

2. Denigration of self and idealization of others.

3. Empathic attunement to the wishes of others and unconscious habits of obedience make her vulnerable to people in positions of authority.

4. Dissociative tendencies make it difficult to form conscious, accurate assessments of danger.

5. The wish to relive dangerous situations to make them come out differently leads to reenactments of abuse.

A New Diagnosis -- Complex Post Traumatic Stress

A history of subjection to totalitarian control over a prolonged period (months or years). Examples include hostages, prisoners of war, concentration camp survivors, and survivors of some religious cults. Examples also include those subjected to totalitarian systems in sexual and domestic life, including survivors of domestic battering, childhood physical or sexual abuse, and organized sexual exploitation.

As far as I'm concerned, emotional trauma should be included in this category. A child who is regularly and repeatedly GASLIGHTED by one or both parents, and possibly by a sibling or siblings as well, has been fucking traumatized, no two ways about it.

Alterations in affect regulation, including

Persistent dysphoria

Chronic suicidal preoccupation

Self injury

Explosive or extremely inhibited anger (may alternate)

Compulsive or extremely inhibited sexuality (may alternate)

Alterations in consciousness, including

Amnesia or hypermnesia for traumatic events

Transient dissociative states

Depersonalization/derealization

Reliving experiences either in the form of intrusive post traumatic stress disorder

symptoms or in the form of ruminative preoccupations.

Alterations in self-perceptions, including

Sense of helplessness or paralysis of initiative

Shame, guilt, and self blame

Sense of defilement or stigma

Sense of complete difference from others (may include sense of specialness, utter

aloneness, belief no other person can understand, or nonhuman identity)

Alterations in perception of perpetrator, including

Preoccupation with relationship with perpetrator (includes preoccupation with revenge)

Unrealistic attribution of total power to perpetrator (caution: victim's assessment of

power realities may be more realistic than clinician's)

Idealization or paradoxical gratitude

Sense of special or supernatural relationship

Acceptance of belief system or rationalizations of perpetrator

Alteration in relations to others, including

Isolation or withdrawal

Disruption of intimate relationships

Repeated search for rescuer (may alternate with isolation and withdrawal)

Persistent distrust

Repeated failures of self protection

Alterations in systems of meaning

Loss of sustaining faith

Sense of hopelessness and despair

hungry

No criticism. Observation only.

So today I observe that as my stomach (and other bits further down?) seem to be reaching maximal 'emptiness' (meaning, no food), my head gets clearer and clearer and (at least at the moment) much of the stuff I've been battling with seems to flow clearly, cleanly and easily from me onto the screen.

I sense a limit to this, because soon my brain will be out of food, and I will have to recharge.

At this point, will I have enough cranial capacity left (when running on synaptic 'fumes') to recharge properly? My plan is to go get broiled salmon and mashed taters at my favorite place - a heaping helping of omega-3s + lots of lovely carbs for calming, plus the MOUNTAIN of butter I intend to add over top of the whole thing. YUM!!!! (oooh, if i'm nhungtryot careful i'll make myself so hungry I can't finish this. TUMMY SAY: go EAT!!!)

it's decided to maim me first

Overcoming the internal critic is an ongoing battle. Great source material for funny drawings.

Sometimes it feels like it's going to eat me alive, like a big monster in my gut.

Or maybe it will maim me first, like Calvin's bicycle:





And another random image I found on the web that fits quite nicely:


***
“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.” ~ Paulo Coelho

Lies, damn lies

The trick with the people I grew up with is to not let them get you alone. Make sure there are always witnesses. Because they will say things in private that they'd never admit to in public, that go against the public image they want to present.

You cannot TRUST them. They are unfair and have no qualms or scruples about DOING WHATEVER THEY FEEL LIKE and then MAKING IT YOUR FAULT THAT YOU GOT HURT.

They always claim that their meanness, their cruelty, their insensitivity and unkindness has nothing to do with it.

***
People who do things secretly, under cover of night, hidden.

I want MY people to be OPEN, FAIR, TRUSTING and TRUST WORTHY.

titration & capacity

dripping a little bit in at a time, to control the flow so it
doesn't exceed capacity.

seeking - stability?

I think what my family, and particularly my brothers, don't understand is that I missed an entire section of my childhood, somehow. I'm not entirely sure how it happened or what happened - I think it was a matter of timing, and poor emotional resources on my mom's part, and total emotional unavailability on the part of my dad.

I think I did my best to survive, but I was operating at almost a survival level in terms of getting my emotional and developmental needs met, in spite of living in a comfortable house and having most of the comforts an average, middle-class family might expect.

I keep wondering if those first seven years, when money was so tight and we moved so many times created a kind of instability for me that my parents didn't register and my brothers didn't experience? It's as if I have a different, separate history from any of the rest of them, and they just simply don't *get* it.

And without anybody to 'witness' it or who actually *remembers* how it went .... well, I'm not sure what to do.

I feel this strong need for 'validation' of my experience(s).

In the past, when I've tried to talk to mom about this, I've found myself getting angry with her because she never seemed to be able to see my point of view. She'd always get defensive, and try to make *me* feel guilty for being upset with her. And it would spiral down into one of those useless, pointless arguments that goes nowhere and before long you no longer have any idea what the discussion is even *about*. Down the rabbit hole.

I wonder, if I could talk to her about the FEAR and the TERROR that I have experienced most of my life (with brief exceptions, such as the first two years I was with ex-partner), I wonder if she would LISTEN? I'm remembering that another reason I'd often find myself angry with her was because, instead of listening to MY story and asking me questions and wanting to know more or understand, instead she'd constantly turn the conversation to herSELF and make it a competition to see who had the worse time of it. Which is totally pointless and a waste of time.

I think I'm still looking for a way in, a tiny crack in the sidewalk where I can somehow, some way, find closure, completion, understanding of this story. If I can find even ONE person who somehow GETS it, who was there, who KNOWS what I was going through - then maybe I can regain something like emotional solid ground? Instead of feeling constantly at sea, adrift, unanchored, floating (and not in a good way).

Staying away from them is one solution, but they're also the only people who KNOW me at that level, to that depth. No one else on the planet was around for that period of my life.

I keep trying to 'figure this out', over and over and over again. Like a dog worrying at a bone. I can't seem to let it go - even when I'm not consciously thinking about it, the insecurity of it seems to nag at me.

***
The problem is that money doesn't solve the basic issue of lack of connection. Or, "Money can't buy you love." Which is why it's hard to get motivated to go out and look for a job when I don't have any reason other than just my own survival to keep me going.

And it's not that I don't CARE about myself; it's just that it's not enough. Not enough of a reason to get up every day and slog through a tedious, mind-numbing pile of crap that I couldn't care less about. It just doesn't make sense.

images

Maybe the reason I love the Pirates of the Caribbean is that there are so many fantastic visual metaphors?

One favorite moment is when Cap'n Jack's ship is sinking, and he steps off onto the dock just as the crow's nest hits the waterline and disappears. To live life with such aplomb, such style - as if everything is exactly as you meant it to be, never a moment's doubt. Or, never *showing* it, anyway. It seems to be a kind of mindset, a fearlessness.

I have to remember this is a movie, Hollywood. In real life, the ship would sink 50 yards away from the dock, or you'd get your foot tangled in a line and trip, or, or, or. And Johnny Depp has so insanely much money that he's got the first 4 or 5 levels of Maslow's Hierarchy covered for the rest of his life, barring major mishaps.

But still. Can you take that *attitude* and somehow combine it with a realistic approach? Keep your expectations low, but always walk with your head held high? Or some such?

Don't worry, I haven't been brainwashed by some 'positive thinking' guru - never happen, I don't believe in it.

***
The hard part is that these stories are always about men, and any women in the story seem to be afterthoughts, asides. And the women are almost always young, and beautiful.

Remember: Most Hollywood movies are bankrolled and produced by aging, fat, balding men living out their fantasies on the silver screen. So they cast a guy like themselves as the lead (that's the only explanation I can understand for the success of someone like Jack Nicholson) and the woman of their personal dreams as the female sidekick.

***
I can tell myself this stuff over and over, but it still doesn't help.

It's still insanely exhausting to be female and forty-something and broke. The idea of getting on the treadmill just so I can afford to feed and house myself so that I can be well rested to go get back on the treadmill the next day - I don't see how people do it.

I did it for as many years as I could stand it, until I basically had to run out of there as fast as possible while I could still escape under my own power and not with an escort of men in white jackets flourishing scary-looking syringes...

***
I'm scaring myself. I have to stop this.

Turning to my old friend Distraction, yet again.

Later, 'gaters.