All Stirred Up

At school one of the most usually heard answers to the question, "How are you?" is, "All stirred up".  Somehow I imagine that outside of an intensely introspective program that demands so much self-questioning such a response is not quite as common.  Yet in my program it is not only the run of the mill, it is also part of the goal.  By breaking yourself down, you can build yourself back up.

Sadly, being 'all stirred up' is not really as comfortable as I'd like.  I had a difficult weekend.  I stayed with a client who has been very ill.  Even though I was nervous about my competency handling all of her new needs, I didn't state that to her family, wanting to present myself as fully able.  Then, when her feeding tube came out (this is NOT supposed to happen!) and she had a hole in her stomach and unknown liquids seeping into the floor, all of that fear of my incompetence flooded forward.

She is fine now.  Her family decided simply to remove the tube anyway, as she is beginning to eat orally again, and it is obviously a hassle and liability.  That should be it for me, but instead I have recurring moments where the flood of incompetence, fear, and want to help, all return.  Guilt for an accident I do not know how I could have prevented.  Shame for crying on the phone with her family.  Fear of something happening again.

And in my program, we are supposed to turn toward our suffering.  We are not supposed to repress or ignore or turn away from painful emotions.  So 24 hours after the incident, I am sitting with a student therapist, in tears, trying to process what my response says about my ingrained character, and where to go from here.  I am writing papers about Jung and the Persona and Shadow, and talking about my own Caregiver Persona of Competence, Willingness, and Patience- and the Shadow of Incompetence, Stress, and Anger.  Part of me would rather be watching tv, eating chips, and drinking a pop.

Yet at school it is always said that if things are stirred up then there is movement.  And if there is movement, there can begin to be change.  Learning.  Acceptance.  So I go on faith that all of this work and pain means that in the end I really do come out stronger.

The Quandary of Detachment

This week has been a practice in detachment.  In Buddhism, which I am fairly immersed in as I attend a Buddhist University, detachment is considered one of the keys to happiness.  All suffering can be traced back to one root: grasping attachment.  As humans we cling to what we love, and that very clinging can lead into desperate pain.  Jealousy, anger, grief- these all stem from clinging to what we cannot control.  Lately, in my Counseling Skills class, we have been discussing the idea that even clinging to our self-image, our biography, can cause suffering, because we are always changing and therefore do not always match our ideal versions of ourselves.

Confusing?  It can be, particularly because Buddha was not saying that we should not love.  Quite the contrary, he believed that by eliminating attachment, we could actually love deeper, better, and more.

On Monday I worked with one of my clients, a very old woman with rapidly progressing dementia.  At 97 years old she is almost always a little lost.  The combination of age, confusion, and interacting medications means she swings rapidly between good days of jokes and smiles, to bad days where she barely eats.  So when I arrived on Monday to help her with breakfast, she would hardly even swallow the chocolate Boost she had been so enthusiastic about the week before, let alone eat a piece of toast.

As I struggled to convince her to take even a tiny drink I could feel myself growing impatient.  No, not impatient: desperate.  In her situation, it really is fully possible that she will die in the next few months.  Obviously, if she refuses to eat, that could happen much sooner.  I wanted so badly to help, to be able to miraculously get her to drink her full Boost and more, because I know how precarious her health is.  I was clinging with all of my might to my desire to make her eat, and only becoming more and more frustrated in the process.

Finally, after nearly twenty minutes of unsuccessful convincing and coaxing, I just stopped.  I looked at her: sitting with her eyes closed, shaking her head, wan and sad.  She was so uncomfortable, so unhappy, and at that moment, eating would only have made her that much more miserable.  I realized that by actually detaching from my own desire to make her eat and listening to the wisdom of her body, not my desperation, I was loving her more.  At that moment, it was more helpful to her for me to let go, stop trying, and just sit with her.  Even though I wanted so badly for her to eat, because I want her to live, I recognized that by letting her go, I was loving better and from a less selfish place.  I managed to get one more swallow of Boost down, and left it at that.

When I returned on Wednesday, her everchanging body was back in sync, and she able to eat again.  I am grateful for that.  Yet I know, eventually, I will have to let go again.  I will have to let go of my attachment and grasping in order to love her in the best way she deserves.

Taking the Leap: The First Post

I spent nearly an hour last night gazing at my computer screen, unable even to come up with a title for my blog, let alone a posting.  Created at the suggestion of my boyfriend, who imagines, probably correctly, that a blog would probably be a good outlet for me to unload my swiftly spinning thoughts, I was immediately embroiled in an old sort of stage fright.  As a child I used to spend hours writing stories in small notebooks with cartoons on the cover.  I never really had writer's block, but I always resisted allowing anyone to read what I had written.  Instead, I hid short stories, and character sketches, dramatic teen poetry, and endless journal entries in books in the back of my closet:  For my eyes only.  To this day I only very rarely let people read my writing, unless it is a purely academic venture.

A blog seems entirely contrary to such a habit.  On blogs people can spill all details of their most recent exploits, to be commented upon by the readers.  Even more numbing to me is the idea of posting a piece of poetry, or heartfelt commentary on a particular issue, or story that hits painfully close to home.  Somehow, the idea of this creative venture, in which both one's soul and one's talent are up for public commentary feels wrenching.  Perhaps it's the last component, the talent, that I fear criticism of.  As a counseling student I am consistently examining my own personal flaws, and I can handle negative feedback about them relatively well.  For in my neuroses, I am probably my roughest critic. On the other hand, my talent, my raw intelligence, my creativity- throwing these out for judgment feels infinitely harder. 

Yet in one of my finals last semester, an oral exam, my professor told us we could make a choice:  Choose to answer the question we struggled with the most, the one we dreaded, and receive full credit, or choose an easier question, possibly not for the full credit.  The lesson seemed clear: Meet your demons head on, or as we liked to say in my meditation class, invite them to tea.  Make friends with your demons, for they are a part of you. 

So in a way, this blog is inviting my demons to tea.  I can grapple with the concept of allowing my words to be public domain, and along the way perhaps come to know myself, my work, and my world more deeply.