#I already got my application filled out for college to go into psych

[chaos-in-one]

Oh my god my fellow psych majors need to pull their heads out of their asses

Being a psych major is not the same as being a professional in the psych field. You are still studying to be one, you do not have your degree yet.

Being a psych major does not mean you know as much as, let alone better than, the actual professionals.

Being a psych major does not mean you are a specialist who is an authority on any specific disorder. Hell, having a degree does not even mean that. Unless you are an actual specialist, you do not know better than the people who specialize in that disorder.

Being a psych major does not make you an authority on what people have going on in their brains. You are not a professional yet.

Being a psych major does not mean you are automatically right on anything psychology related. There is a reason you do not have a degree yet.

Psych majors cannot determine who has what disorders. You are not licensed to make a diagnosis, because you are still a student, not a professional.

You cannot know what is going on in a strangers brain just because you major in psych. Even licensed professionals cannot do that. No matter how long they studied, or have been working in psych. There is a reason the diagnostic process for most disorders takes so long. So you, as someone who does not even have a degree yet, definitely cannot make that call where professionals cannot.

And, most importantly, being a psych major does NOT give you a free pass to be an asshole to mentally ill people. In fact, the opposite, really. People like them are the exact type of person you will be treating once you get your degree. Mentally ill people like that entrust psych professionals with their wellbeing. If you cannot be decent to mentally ill people that you do not even know, you should not be treating their mental health.

#I already got my application filled out for college to go into psych #and sometimes seeing how other people going into psych act really makes me question my choices #so many of them are so far up their own asses #and also VERY CLEARLY do not actually give a shit about mentally ill people #which makes me feel really bad for any future patients of theirs with anything more complex than the most accepted shit #honestly with some of them I hope they don't get their degree for the sake of the mentally ill people they would be treating #because some of them do NOT treat them with basic decensy #psych major #psychology #psychology major #ableism #ableism in the psych field #rant #psa

[fandoms-are-my-lifestyle]

I got it all (but I don’t ever wanna grow up)

The Bright Sessions • Adam Hayes / Caleb Michaels, Mark Bryant / Oliver Ritz Rating: T • ~5.2k words • AO3 For @staystrange tw:  description of panic attacks

He fills Mark in on everything that happened. It seems like so long ago now, before everything with Sodalis Eximius and Adam and Oliver, and yet it’s still so fresh in his mind - the horror of influencing someone else’s emotions now amplified by the knowledge of what it looks like when someone does use that ability for evil. He will never be like Blackwell - Adam certainly spends enough time trying to remind him of that, and though he will never truly believe him, it helps - but the knowledge of what he could do still leaves him waking up in a cold sweat. His nightmares place him in Blackwell’s stead, the book a constant murmur of emotions telling him how to feel. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and -

“Caleb?” Mark says after a moment. “Have you considered taking off for a year?”

Or: Caleb struggles with his powers, his life decisions, and what he wants after the events of The College Tapes.

The day Adam gets into Yale's English graduate program begins one of the worst mental breakdowns of Caleb Michaels’s life. 

It's late Friday morning; they're lying on Adam's bed in his apartment, still under the covers. Adam's hair tickles Caleb's chin and they probably both have an awful case of morning breath, but Caleb wouldn't move for all the money in the world. He finally has this again, has Adam again, and even three months after everything he hasn't stopped marveling at his luck. 

Adam's blue mixes Caleb’s yellow satisfaction, they're green with contentment, and Caleb relishes in it, delighting in the quiet of -

BANG. 

"Adam?!" A voice shouts from outside. Caitlin. "Adam, did you check?! Did you-"

Adam goes from warm-comfort-blue to black-anxious-sludge in a manner of seconds, eyes and hands anxiously darting everywhere. 

"Phone... phone... Caleb, where's my-"

Caleb wordlessly hands him his phone, the screen already unlocked to show Adam’s home screen, but Adam barely spares him a glance. Caleb can hear Adam’s heart racing, and his own heartbeat picks up the pace to match it. There are four awful, agonizing beats of silence, before -

“I GOT IN!” 

The exhilaration hits Caleb in a rush of blue, flooding his core with exhilaration, and they’re screaming, jumping on Adam’s bed, and dancing around; Caitlin joins them, and the three dance around like fools until they all flop to the floor. 

“What do you say, Adam?” Caitlin says, the light in her eyes mirroring the happy bubbles in her lavender excitement. “Three more years at Yale?”

“As if you could drag me away,” Adam says, and god, he sounds so happy, so relieved, and Caleb wants to sink into that feeling and hold onto it forever. “You’re the deserter here, not me.” 

“Hey!” Caitlin shrieks, reaching over Caleb to shove at Adam. “Desert this, motherfuck-” 

“Okay, okay, okay, Caitlin,” Caleb chuckles, shoving her off his chest with a grunt. “Not our fault you chose Duke over Yale Law!”

“They offered me more financial aid,” Caitlin pouts for the thousandth time since she’d chosen where to commit. “It’s not my fault Yale doesn’t want to keep me!”

“We get it, Caitlin, don’t worry.” Adam chuckles, then turns to Caleb. “By the way, babe, did you ever look into the clinical psych program like you said you would? I know the application isn’t due for a bit, but it’s never too early to start researching, right?”

“Uhm…” Caleb says, and the happy blue glow is still there but now Caleb’s own sickly yellow dread is there, taking over everything, and he needs to get out of here before he ruins everything again. He breathes in deep, as Dr. Bright had taught him, and contains his dread within his own chest before it can come leaking out like water through a sieve. “Yeah, I, uh- I-”

“Caleb?” Adam asks, dark navy worry seeping into cyan happiness and making Caleb feel even worse. “Are you-”

“Ihavetogo!” Caleb jolts up. His heart is pounding in his ears and he can’t see can’t breathe he needs to leave he needs to go needs to - “Fuck, um, I’m gonna. Gonna go for a. Run, I’m gonna go run.” He grabs a pair of shorts from his drawer in Adam’s dresser, socks and shoes thrown on before Caitlin and Adam blink, and then he’s gone.

His feet hit the pavement hard, sending shockwaves through his body, and for a moment Caleb wishes Ben was beside him. They’re the perfect running partner, surprisingly good at knowing when Caleb needs to talk and when he needs to be silent, and right now Caleb wishes he could talk to Ben, or Sadie, or Frankie, but he also doesn’t want to worry them, and he knows that it’s stupid but -

His phone is in his hand.

You’ve reached Mark, for some reason. It’s 2017, last I checked - just text me. Or, you know, leave a message if you must. 

“Mark,” Caleb gasps out, and he’s breathless from running but also from panic. “Mark, I- I- fuck, this was stupid. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called, it’s just, you said- I mean- fuck-” 

He breaks off and takes a breath, wishing for Dr. Bright (Call me Joan, Caleb, I think we’ve been through enough at this point) and her calm beige professionalism, or Frankie’s bubbly orange happiness, or Adam’s easy blue to fill his lungs and let him breathe again.  

“I just- You remember when I asked you, you know… if you knew… I mean. I guess you are grown up now, right? But. How did you- I mean- God this is stupid.”

He hangs up, hands shaking, and there’s no one around him but he’s still so filled with emotion he feels like he could burst. The run isn’t helping, and he kinda wants to scream, because the thought of graduating and having to choose what happens next is - 

His phone rings. 

“H-Hello?”

“Caleb? Oh god, Caleb.” Mark. He sounds… worried? Relieved? All of the above? “Caleb, are you okay? I just got your message - you’re so lucky I emptied my voicemail recently, by the way, I can’t believe - but that’s beside the point, Caleb, what happened?”

“Adam,” Caleb starts, and then gulps in a breath and starts again. “Adam got into Yale English, which, like, we fucking knew was gonna happen, because they would have had to be fucking stupid not to take him, but-”

“Okay, okay, Caleb, deep breath,” Mark instructs, and Caleb is so glad Mark’s the person he called. Mark is no Joan Bright, but some of his sister’s instincts have clearly leaked through. 

“Come on, breathe with me Caleb… In for four… One… Two…”

Caleb listens to the sound of Mark’s voice and breathes and breathes, trying to focus on the feeling of the grass under his hands and - when did he end up on the ground? But he’s breathing and the emotions have stopped leaking out of him like a cracked dam, panic-worry-anxiety giving way to calm. 

God, he’s lucky New Haven is pretty much dead right now - leaking emotions like this, his influence on other people could have gotten very bad very quickly. Just the thought makes his breathing pick up again, but he tries his best to focus on Mark’s voice instead. 

Mark has switched from counting to a steady monologue about his latest date with Oliver, during which Mark had taken Oliver to the MIT Museum of Science so that Oliver could show off how much smarter he is than the MIT scientists. Mark’s pretending to have been annoyed by it, using a nasal voice to imitate Oliver’s insults, but Caleb can feel the lightness behind Mark’s voice even over the phone. He focuses on that lightness, on the cool grass under his legs, and lets himself come down.

“Hey, Mark?” He says finally, cutting off Mark’s explanation of the diner they’d gone to after the museum. 

“Yeah, buddy?” 

“Thanks,” Caleb says, and he’s not sure what he’s even thanking Mark for - calling him back, calming him down, or just being there - but the words resonate with everything he doesn’t have the words to say. 

“Anytime,” Mark answers gently. “Are you ready to talk about it?”

“Yeah…” Caleb takes a deep breath. “I just… Fuck, Mark, I don’t know if I can do psych anymore.”

“What? Caleb, you… Why not? What happened?”

Caleb exhales and lets his head loll back, hitting the tree trunk he’s leaning against with a soft thump. “So… remember that internship I had last summer?”

He fills Mark in on everything that happened. It seems like so long ago now, before everything with Sodalis Eximius and Adam and Oliver, and yet it’s still so fresh in his mind - the horror of influencing someone else’s emotions now amplified by the knowledge of what it looks like when someone does use that ability for evil. He will never be like Blackwell -  Adam certainly spends enough time trying to remind him of that, and though he will never truly believe him, it helps - but the knowledge of what he could do still leaves him waking up in a cold sweat. His nightmares place him in Blackwell’s stead, the book a constant murmur of emotions telling him how to feel. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and -

“Caleb?” Mark says after a moment. “Have you considered taking off for a year?”

“Taking… off?”

“Well, I mean, don’t pull an Oliver and go gallivanting through Europe for a year without telling anyone, but… maybe a break from school would do you good? You could, I don’t know, get a job or something. You’re planning on moving in with Adam in New Haven after you graduate anyway, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, I mean we were definitely thinking about it, but-”

“Caleb.” Mark’s voice is soft but firm, anchoring Caleb to the present. “What’s stopping you? Take a year, figure out what you want. Life doesn’t stop after college, remember?” 

“Yeah…” Caleb breathes, shaky but getting calmer. “Yeah, I…”

“You okay, buddy?” 

(Caleb loves it when Mark calls him buddy. He pretends to hate it, pretends to hate how childish it is as a nickname, but Mark is the older brother he never got to have and Caleb loves him.)

“Yeah, I think… I think I have to talk to Adam. And my parents.” 

“You do that, Caleb.” The amusement in Mark’s voice is undercut by the softness of it, and Caleb loves his brother so much. “And hey, Caleb?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, little bro.”

Caleb laughs, low and breathy. “I love you too, Mark. Say hi to Oliver and Joan for me?”

“Of course. Everything's going to be okay, Caleb, I promise. Oh, also, Joanie said to call her when you get a sec. Something about what you talked about last time?”

“Yeah. I will. Thanks again, Mark. Bye.”

“Bye!”

Mark hangs up, and Caleb closes his eyes for a moment before heaving himself to his feet and pointing himself back the way he came.

Back home.

Back to Adam.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me for this twig,” Sadie jokes over the last of his boxes. “Who’s going to hit the gym with you now, Michaels?”

“He doesn’t need you anymore, Sadie!” Adam sasses back, cerulean playfulness resting lightly in Caleb’s chest. Adam’s rifling through boxes, trying to find their bottle opener (“I know it’s in one of the kitchen boxes, Caleb, but which one?”) and Caleb is sitting on the floor because they still only have like two chairs, and one is being taken up by Caitlin and the other has been commandeered by Ben. Frankie’s flitting from one room to the next, keeping up a constant commentary of thoughts, and underlying it all is green contentment.

If Caleb could freeze any moment in time to live in forever, he thinks this would be it - surrounded by friends, in this tiny shoebox apartment he and Adam now live in. Together. 

It doesn’t get more official than that.

“Michaels!” Sadie yells, effectively snapping Caleb out of his reverie. “This one says he’s your new gym partner!”

“Wait wait wait, hold up, I never said anything of the sort,” Adam defends himself, gesturing wildly with the now-located bottle opener. “All I said was that now that you got this job at the gym, you didn’t need Sadie to be your partner anymore! You’re gonna be training other people or whatever one does in a gym, I don’t fucking know, but I never signed up for any gym-going of my own, thank you very much.” 

“Objection, your honor-” Sadie starts, giggling. “I-”

“Overruled!” Caitlin yells, pulling Frankie down on top of her. “On the grounds of my hunger! And we’re waiting for that bottle opener, Adam, so if you wouldn’t mind...” 

“You got it, Cait,” Caleb laughs. They’d ordered takeout from a place down the road and for a while there’s no sound other than chewing and the occasional “can someone pass me a napkin?” Someone eventually turns on Caleb’s laptop, and they dig out Adam’s clunky old projector to watch Mamma Mia! for the ten-thousandth time. 

“So Caleb,” Ben says somewhere in between “Lay All Your Love On Me” and “Super Trouper,” “What’s this new job you’ve got anyways?”

Caleb turns to look up at them from the floor. Ben, in true queer fashion, is lying with their feet propped on the top of the chair and their head hanging upside down off the seat, and Caleb feels his heart fill with love. Ben’s come so far in the past year, and Caleb… well, Ben will never not be his kid sibling, after all that. 

“It’s a Physical Trainer position at Yale New Haven Health’s gym,” he answers finally. “They offered to pay for my training and everything. I guess they really liked me or something.”

“Of course they did,” Adam mumbles. He’s resting somewhere between sleep and awake, head tucked into the crook of Caleb’s neck, which Caleb would absolutely be teasing Adam for if Caleb wasn’t so completely besotted by the sight. God, he loves this man. “They'd be stupid not to.”

Adam looks up at Caleb, eyes soft with sleep as “Super Trouper” plays from Caleb’s laptop, and Caleb can feel himself falling in love with Adam all over again. He thinks back to what Mark had said on the phone all those weeks ago - Life doesn’t stop after college, remember? - and knows in his gut that he’s made the right choice. He doesn’t need grad school to be happy; doesn’t need a fancy degree like a PsyD. 

All he needs is this family he’s made for himself, and Adam beside him for as long as Adam’s willing to stay. 

With these people around him, he knows he can do anything.

<<From the Voicemail Box of Dr. Joan Bright.>>

Please record your message after the tone. When you are finished recording, press 1 for more options

>> Hey, Dr. Brig- uh, I mean, Joan. Right. Sorry, I know you said I could call you Joan after graduation, since I'm, like, no longer your patient and like an adult now or whatever, but… fuck. That's weird. Um. It's Caleb.

>> Anyways, just calling to let you know that I met with that Atypical therapist you recommended to me today… uh, Alene Orwell? Yeah, her. She's pretty cool, and it's good to know I have someone I can talk to if I need here in New Haven, but… She's not you. Is it weird of me to say I miss you? Fuck. Probably. Sorry, I made it weird. 

>> So, um, yeah. I was just calling to keep you updated. Adam says hi, by the way. Oh, and Ben was wondering if you knew anyone who could help them talk to their parents about the Atypical thing in New York? I guess they finally decided to clue in their parents, but like. I don't really have any advice for them there, so I told them I'd ask. 

>> Yeah. That's all. Um, say hi to Mark and Sam and Jackson for me. I'll talk to you later. Bye!

End of Final Message. 

Working at YNHH’s gym fits Caleb better than he ever thought it would.

It’s not that he hasn’t been a gym rat since high school - the 2.7 pound jar of protein powder Adam teases him about schlepping up the three flights of stairs to their apartment at least once a month definitely defines him as a “meathead,” as Adam would say - it’s that the focused emotions of everyone around him sit warmly in his chest like a clean sweat after a good workout.  People come to the gym with one plan in mind - get in, work out, get out - and the focus behind their drive pushes Caleb to heights he never thought he’d reach.

He loves it. 

His coworkers are great too - Jen with her stick-straight black hair tied in a bun so tight it looks like it probably hurts; her girlfriend Amora, who can lift more than Caleb and will never let him forget it; Greg and Jake, frat bros turned personal trainers and roommates who are constantly bemoaning their singleness and don’t make it weird when Caleb brings up his boyfriend; Caleb’s manager, Tommy, who gives out warm cozy hugs like handshakes and lets the trainers pretty much do what they want as long as they’re not bothering patrons. There’s always a good rapport going between them.

Caleb teaches a weights class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and trains clients on other days. He’s got favorites already, people who come in with single handed focus to be better-faster-stronger, and the rush of adrenaline and joy that he feels whenever they succeed in something leaves him buoyant. Caleb is good at this; he’s a good trainer and a good coworker and he loves what he does. 

He loves it… but he’s not passionate about it. 

He remembers being passionate about psychology, before his ability went haywire and he stopped being able to control it. He still runs through all the parts of the brain and their uses when he gets anxious as a method of distraction, still finds himself reading psych research journals in his spare time and accidentally psychoanalyzing clients like they’re patients. 

He’s still not ready to go back, though. 

Dr. Alene Orwell - Dr. Bright’s recommendation for an Atypical therapist here in New Haven, a tall white woman with flyaway black curls and kind eyes - tells him it’s okay not to be ready. She reminds him that he’s still working on control, still working on trusting himself again, and that it’ll take time to get back to where he was before. She tells him to talk to Adam. 

It’s just - it’s hard, sometimes, to tell Adam about this part of him. Not because Adam wouldn’t understand - he would, he definitely would - but because Adam is so happy as a graduate student at Yale, writing his dissertation on Shakespeare and his influence on queer literature, and Caleb is so, so afraid that he’s going to ruin it. He’s terrified that showing Adam how much he wants to go back to psych - and how much he can’t trust himself to do so ethically - will scare him away from academia, from Caleb, forever.

Logically, he knows his fears are silly. Adam isn’t driven away by superpowers or time ghosts or the way Caleb’s sneakers smell after he gets home from a long day at the gym; he wouldn’t be scared off by Caleb’s stupid insecurities. 

Practically, though… 

Caleb couldn’t stand to feel Adam’s love for him turn to pity. He refuses. 

It’s not like it matters, anyway. He likes his job, likes where he’s at, and his family - both blood and found - is only a phone call or a roadtrip away. 

He just… wasn’t cut out for psych the way he’d thought he was. Maybe helping people work out would replace the way helping people in therapy had once made him feel. 

It would have to be enough.

“I have to commend you, Caleb,” Dr. Orwell says during their next session. “You’ve come a long way with controlling your ability and not having it affect other people. I’m impressed.”

Caleb blushes down at his hands, staring anywhere but at Dr. Orwell. He knows she’s right, knows he’s gotten better at learning when the tendrils of emotion are snaking out of him like pit vipers and that he’s finally gotten the hang of pulling them back. It’s an odd feeling, feeling tendrils of emotions leaking from his body like a sieve, but he’s gotten used to it. He can control it now. 

He’s not as afraid anymore. He’s gotten better at differentiating between his emotions and everyone else’s; he’s learned what it feels like when he forces someone to feel what he feels. 

(Adam had volunteered to be a test subject for that one; they’d gone into Dr. Orwell’s office together, hand in hand, and Caleb had made him happy, then sad, angry, then calm. Caleb had nearly run out of the room crying afterwards, had nearly vomited all over Dr. Orwell’s carpet, but she’d insisted that it was important for him to know what it felt like and, well, Adam had offered. That didn’t really make him feel better, but Adam’s willingness to kiss him and comfort him afterwards while Caleb cried did help.)

He leaves Dr. Orwell’s office feeling lighter than he has in years, since before his Pokémon evolution occurred, and actually finds himself whistling on his way to work. The tune is from some indie band Adam’s gotten him into recently - The Amazing something? Apparently the male singer was in a show that Adam watched on Netflix the other week, and he’s pretty decent. The songs are pretty catchy, that’s for sure. 

He’s still whistling as he clocks in and starts to prepare the weights room for his class, wiping down the surfaces and sweeping the floor clean, when he feels it.

PanicDreadShockFearOhShitICan’tBreathePanicDreadICan’t-

The panic comes on so fast it nearly drops Caleb to the floor. He’s hyperventilating, heart pounding in his ears and he can’t breathe but - 

It’s not his panic. 

The realization hits Caleb almost as fast as the panic had; it’s swift and makes his blood run cold, turning his veins to ice as he tries to isolate his feelings from this intrusion. He breathes in deep, the way Dr. Bright and Dr. Orwell always instructed him to do, and focuses on the churning panic that’s settled just to the right of his rib cage. 

It’s not his, he knows that for certain; it’s a particular shade of red he would never ascribe to himself, but it’s there, and it's definitely bad. 

Caleb doesn’t hesitate. He drops everything and runs towards the feeling. 

The panic grows stronger the closer he gets to it and Caleb kind of wants to give up, kind of wants to drop to the ground and hyperventilate, but he knows that whoever is feeling this way needs help. There’s barely anyone else around the gym right now. If anyone is going to help this person, it’s going to have to be him.

The source of the panic ends up being a young girl, probably only a little bit younger than Caleb himself - maybe twenty? She’s sitting on the floor of an abandoned workout room, and it only takes a second for Caleb to realize that everything not attached to the floor is levitating. 

Atypical. This woman is Atypical.

For a moment, Caleb is frozen. There’s iron in his veins and his feet are made of lead; this woman is panicking, is making things levitate, and Caleb isn’t doing anything to help her. He can’t do anything to help her.

Except… that’s not true, is it? 

He’s trained for this, he knows how to help people who are panicking. Knows how to help Atypicals who are panicking. He doesn’t even need his powers to do it. 

It’s that thought that spurs him on, forcing one foot in front of another until he’s in front of the woman. She’s breathing harshly, eyes unfocused, and doesn’t seem to notice him even when Caleb kneels down in front of her. 

“Hey,” he says softly, and her eyes snap to him. She tries to move away from him, burrowing farther into the corner she’s placed herself in, and Caleb frowns. He moves away from her slightly, doing his best to make himself seem less imposing if he can. It’s not exactly easy to make a jacked 6’2” former football player seem small, but Caleb tries his best. 

“Hey,” he says again calmly, as if he’s talking to a wounded animal. “My name is Caleb Michaels, I’m a personal trainer here at the gym. You’re at the YNHH gym, in an equipment room. It’s Thursday, about 1:30 pm…”

He keeps talking, reminding the woman where she is, and interspersing his own name and identity often so she doesn’t come to and immediately panic again. 

Slowly, slowly, he can feel the woman start to come back to herself. She’s still shaking, body trembling with every breath, but the various pieces of gym equipment have stopped floating around their heads and her emotions have stopped feeling like sludge in Caleb’s chest, which he definitely considers a win. “That’s it,” he says encouragingly. “Can you tell me your name?”

“... Emily,” She says finally. “Emily Harris.”

“Nice to meet you, Emily,” Caleb says. He’s keeping his voice soft, almost whispering, but inwardly he’s smiling like a fool. She’s going to be okay. “I’m Caleb. Can you tell me where you are?”

“At the… the gym. I was- I- I wanted to get in a, a workout before c-class… it’s…what time is it?”

“About 1:45,” Caleb tells her. Her face sags in relief. “Can you tell me what happened, Emily?” 

“I- um, I-” she starts, and suddenly her breathing catches. “Oh my god, you saw- I mean- you- I- ohmigod nononononono you-”

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, Emily,” Caleb soothes. “Here, um, what are five things you can see right now? Just list them.”

“You, the mirror, the weights… my water bottle… the cabinets…”

“Good,” Caleb says encouragingly. He can almost feel Dr. Bright’s presence over his shoulder and tries his best to emulate her calm collectedness. “Now four things you can feel.”

He leads her through the exercise until her breathing starts to calm down again. She’s fisted a hand in her own hair, pulling like the pain will keep her centered in reality, and Caleb reaches toward it. When she doesn’t flinch, he gently untangles her fingers from her hair and they instantly grasp his own, as if letting go would mean becoming untethered from her own tentative calm. 

“You’re alright,” he tells her again, gently running his thumb over her knuckles. Obviously in training he was never to touch a patient, and Caleb knows better than to do so, but he figures he can chalk this one up to extenuating circumstances. “Are you ready to tell me what made you panic?”

“Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” she says finally, suspicious. “You just walked into a room where some freak girl was making everything levitate because of a panic-c attack. H-How are you so calm?”

Caleb smiles at her softly. “You’re Atypical, right?”

“You know what a-atypicals are?”

“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I’m Atypical too. I’m an empath, it’s how I knew to come looking for you. I felt you panic.” 

“Sorry,” Emily says after a beat. “I- Just- Sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Caleb says. “Are you ready to talk about it now?”

“It’s stupid.” Emily blushes, eyes fixed firmly on the floor in front of her. “I… um. I’m normally in control, I promise, you know, I did one of those programs that-”

“The AM?” 

“Yeah, and, you know, I normally am really good at controlling it, but, um, my partner, they, um. They were in a car accident? Yesterday? And, like, they’re fine, and I’m super relieved, but I got, I mean, they texted me they were coming to get me from- from here, actually, and then I didn’t hear from them for like, three hours, because they were dealing with it and then I guess I never stopped to process it but now I’m back and they’re fine, but I- I-”

She stops, shuddering out a breath, and starts to cry. “I was just so worried, and then I came back today, and it was like- like-”

“Like it suddenly hit you all over again?” Caleb says. “I know how that feels. Sometimes, especially when you’re focused on other people, you forget to process events for yourself, until it suddenly all comes back and hits you like a ton of bricks. Your body was so focused on your partner that it probably forgot to focus on you too, and once it remembers, it’s like you’re experiencing everything all over again. It’s like the fight or flight instinct, kind of.”

“H-How do you know… so much?” Emily laughs wetly. “You really sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

“I… studied psychology in school, actually,” Caleb admits. “I was going to be a therapist. For Atypicals, actually.”

“What happened?” Emily asks curiously. Her breathing has evened out and she’s stopped crying; the ball of panic in Caleb’s chest has started to give way to calm curiosity. “Why didn’t you? You… Seems like you’d be really good at it. And you… you said you were an e-empath, right?”

Caleb laughs darkly. “Yeah, um, let’s just say I got… scared. Of my ability. And my own abilities, I guess. I, uh, wasn’t sure psychology was the right path for me anymore, so I, um, took a year off.” 

It’s hard to talk about this, and Caleb isn’t quite sure why he’s telling Emily this, but after talking her down from a full-on Atypical panic attack, he figures they’re not really strangers anymore. 

“You loved it,” Emily says suddenly with conviction. “I don’t… I don’t need to be an empath to know that. You like helping people.”

“Yeah,” Caleb admits softly. Emily’s words ring in his ears. She’s right, he knows - he had loved psychology, loved therapy, loved working with people to make them feel better. He…

He missed it. 

Maybe he was finally ready to admit that it was time to go back. 

“Come on,” Caleb says after a beat. He stands and holds out his hand to Emily, who takes it. “I’ll cancel my class, Tommy will understand. I’ll buy you a coffee, you can tell me more about this partner of yours.”

Emily smiles gratefully, and they leave the gym together.

The day Caleb gets into the University of Hartford’s PsyD program brings about the best decision of Caleb’s life. 

He and Adam are sitting on their couch in their pajamas; it’s almost ten pm, and Adam’s just started the next episode of the sitcom he and Caleb have been making their way through when he gets the email. 

“Adam,” he says, and he thinks his heart stops beating. “Adam, I got in.” 

Adam’s eyes light up, tiny suns boring into Caleb’s heart, and when Adam kisses him Caleb almost cries. It’s all coming to fruition. It’s all going to be okay. 

Adam looks so soft, face alight with happiness, wearing Caleb's old football sweatshirt and ratty old pajama pants, and Caleb honestly can't help himself. It's all going to work out. He's gotten into the University of Hartford's Clinical Psychology program, Adam is working his way through Yale's English program to get a doctorate in Shakespeare study because he's cool like that, and they're together and in love and everything is finally going well for them. 

"Marry me," he breathes, and Adam's breath leaves his body. "God, fuck, this wasn't how I wanted to do this, fuck, I have a ring and everything upstairs, I was going to do this properly, but… fuck, Adam, I love you. I never want to spend another moment without you. I know we can't live in a world of our own, just the two of us, but I want to create one with you. I want you, all of you, and I- fuck."

He gets down on one knee, looking at Adam, and it's like he can't breathe. He feels like he might cry. 

"Adam Hayes, will you marry me?"

"Caleb…" Adam breathes, and there are tears in his eyes. "Yes, Caleb, yes!"

He pulls Caleb back to his feet, and when Adam kisses him, Caleb feels hope bloom in his chest. 

Right now, everything is perfect. 

#the bright sessions #adam hayes #caleb michaels #adam x caleb #the college tapes #mark bryant #oliver ritz #joan bright #caitlin park #frankie meeks #sadie greenwood #ben bernard #Leo writes

[pidgetyy]

My application for The Underpass, a roleplay hosted by @fireflythenightlight (and which I found through my dear friend @validwofjobs). Legacy is a mostly-human, slightly-pheonix girl who loves planning ahead, making new friends, and her two identical pet giant geckos, Lychee the pet leachie and Guinep the familiar leachie-salamander. The rest about her can be found in these incoming walls of text under the cut!

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Backstory- 

Legacy grew up with an older and younger sister, the treasured “only son” of her parents, especially her father. Her name, before she realized she wasn’t a boy and chose a new name for herself, was Terrence. Her family lived in an apartment above a pet reptile store, run by her father. She got her familiar, Guinep, as well as her beloved pet, Lychee, when she was 8. She bonded with Guinep especially as her familiar, but the identical Lychee received plenty of love too, and in the first few years she had trouble telling apart the identical and closely bonded New Caledonian Giant Geckos by anything other than their temperament- Guinep was very calm, but Lychee tended to be a lot more snappish. Lychee followed Guinep’s lead in warming up to Legacy quickly, but remains a little aggressive towards strangers. 

Legacy was almost 15 when she finally admitted to herself that she didn’t think she was really a boy, after two years of suppressing and refusing to believe her own feelings. She began to grow her hair out, and stared longingly at the girl’s section of stores, but didn’t dare to expose her identity to her parents, whose reactions she couldn’t predict in the slightest. After about a year and a half of planning and psyching herself up, she finally had the guts to come out to her parents. The fallout didn’t come to the extremes she’d read many a horror story of online, of physical abuse or conversion therapy, but her parents still refused to acknowledge her preferred pronouns or name, and began to threaten homeschooling her, to keep “their only son” away from “the influence of those queer friends of yours.” She refused to be homeschooled, and her parents responded that, if she insisted on this, then they wouldn’t be paying college tuition for a daughter they didn’t have. Upset to say the least, she haphazardly packed the belongings she thought of first and could fit in her backpack, and left. It was the largest decision she had made in her life, and it was completely unplanned.

Her grandma on her mother’s side lived in a small house halfway across the city, and Legacy hoped her parents hadn’t shared the news with her about her identity, because she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. It came as a surprise not that her grandmother knew, but she actually accepted Legacy, scoffing and asking her to “give me your real name, girl” when she introduced herself grudgingly as Terrence. For the next few months, she lived there happily, upset about some of the belongings she had forgotten to bring but definitely not willing to go back to her parents, who didn’t bother to come find her (after her grandmother had sternly told them over the phone not to come unless they were going to treat their daughter right). Her grandmother bought her real girl’s clothes, and even helped her dye her hair a bright shade of bubblegum pink she’d had her eyes on for months. She finished highschool a semester early, something she had already been planning to do since before coming out. Her grandmother, unfortunately, was starting to decline in her old age. She was in stage 4 of Alzheimer’s disease, beginning to get to stage 5, when she was finally deemed no longer able to care for herself and was placed in an elderly person’s home to be cared for. By that summer, Legacy was back on the streets, preferring them against going back to her parents.

She took a job as the sole member of the “Maintenance Crew” of a cafe/coffee shop in a slightly busier part of the city in order to pay for her own living necessities and her leachie’s. From age 17 to the start of rp, Legacy worked there, cleaning up spills, keeping tabs of what sanitary supplies needed restocking, and keeping the rest of the shop sanitary. She made use of the keys she had to the shop, coming in before dawn, and definitely before opening hours, to clean the shop and then to clean herself, and fix her hair to look presentable. On particularly cold nights, she would spend the night there, more to keep her beloved pets warm than for any other reason. Though her high body temperature was usually enough to keep herself and the leachies warm, she didn’t want to risk any of them getting sick on especially stormy or windy winter nights. Most nights, she would instead find a friend happy to lend a couch for the night, or a fellow homeless person she trusted enough to watch her back while she slept next to, for safety reasons.

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Personality-

Legacy is a generally cautious and consistent person. She sticks to her daily routine and her plans rather than acting spontaneously without thought. Unexpected changes and surprises are strongly disliked, because she hates being unprepared for something and sometimes has trouble dealing with surprise changes to her own plans because of that. Besides not being a big fan of practical jokes, she tries not to act outwardly uptight or prissy in social situations, even if her careful organization, tidiness and plans may make her seem like it. Most people wouldn’t pinpoint her as a homeless kid if they saw her, because she dedicates a considerable amount of time and money to making herself look very clean and neat. Half of the backpack she wears is filled with two other outfits, which she mixes-and-matches often. When she feels like a fashion change is in order, she’ll donate some clothes and buy new replacements for them at a local clothing exchange store. 

Her careful and well-put-together nature stems from a deep fear of making mistakes. Legacy hates the thought that she might make some mistake, do something wrong that could ruin her life as it is now, or change it beyond recognition (even if the change was for the better). So instead, she chooses inactivity. Though she could probably find a permanent place to live if she got a second job and saved carefully, she doesn’t, and instead spends most of her paycheck on unnecessary things like new clothes when she no longer needs it to buy food and water for her and her pets. She waited and planned for over a year to come out to her parents, and it still didn’t end well, so now she just tries to avoid taking any risks like that again (besides hiding her gender- she’s definitely done doing that. She presents as female and uses her real, chosen name. Most people don’t even realize she wasn’t born a girl). Legacy prefers to be a follower in social situations, rather than a leader. That way, she’s less likely to take the brunt of the consequences if a wrong decision is made. Safer. She prefers being safe, and right now her routine and life is safe and predictable, so she doesn’t see a need to change it or plan to end up anywhere else in her life.

Her caution about life decisions and other areas doesn’t quite extend to the social side of her life, however. Legacy’s a people person and a definite extrovert. She likes to surround herself with new friends at any chance she gets, and has a great memory for faces and personal details. Since middle school, she hasn’t forgotten a friend’s birthday or favorite color. Stranger’s opinions generally don’t have the power to change your whole life around, so with that low-risk assessment of friendship Legacy goes at making friends with a sort of wild abandon. Her charisma isn’t exactly impressive, but that doesn’t matter when she can just walk away and try again with someone else if the first person doesn’t seem to like her all that much. Even though she could listen to details about a person she barely knows for hours, and loves to learn new details about anyone, she’s dismissive of people’s opinions, especially if they’re about her. Few people have ever managed to become such an ingrained part of Legacy’s life as to earn the title of “Friend I actually care about and will make an effort not to lose.” Legacy shows up at many a party, flitting between groups for a while usually before finding someone she likes enough to hang out with for the rest of the night or couch-crash with, but refuses to get any farther than slightly tipsy even if the drinks are free. Being drunk is far too risky a thing for her to ever have attempted, even as tempting as it sometimes was. Party-going and friend-making are a few items on the short list of things she rarely, if ever, plans for.

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Extra Facts™-

-She is, by a small percentage, a Phoenix hybrid (1/8th, or 12.5 percent to be precise) by her great-grandmother on her mother’s mother’s side. She doesn’t have the identifying wings because of her lack of more phoenix-hybrid ancestors, but does have the noticeably higher body temperature and small flame-producing ability. She doesn’t have a ton of control over the flames, and they’re likely to appear, purposefully or not, when she’s feeling strong emotions.

-her favorite color is, by far, pink. Second is light green.

-Partially because of favorite-color influence, partially because of its sweet flavor, her favorite food is watermelon.

-She isn’t a vegetarian, but she generally doesn’t like meat very much. 

-She wishes she had the spare money to afford an instrument. Legacy used to play the flute in her middle school band, and loved it, but she left it behind in her parent’s house.

-Lawful neutral

-She’s a Libra (her birthday is September 28th)

#the underpass #underpass rp #underpass application #original rp #original story

[geminimoonbeamx]

Home, Again: Chapter One

A/N: Soooo, if you know me at all you know that thick Bucky is my religion and I love him with all of my heart. These new pictures of Sebastian on the set of ‘Devil All The Time’ have got me twisted. Literally I’ve been fawning over them for days. That man is too much for me and my libido and this is the product of that.

Word Count: 2k+

Rating: This particular chapter is pretty mild, lots of cursing mostly- the next chapter, and the ones to come after that will be extremely explicit though so get your bodies ready.

Summary: Moving back home was never in her itinerary, but after the loss of a family member and being fired from her job, she finds herself back in the town she grew up in and face to face with the man who’d haunted her teenage wet dreams. Now in her early twenties, maybe she can do something to make those dreams a reality.

A Plus Size Reader x Dad!Cop!Thick!Bucky Barnes story

It’s a surreal moment for you- waking up in your old room. The one that you’d grown up in, that you hadn't spent more than a couple nights at a time in- in the last six years.

Like some weird, out of body experience. Looking at the ceiling through blurry, sleep bogged eyes, with the sun shining clear and bright through the curtains fills your stomach with nostalgia that makes you feel like you might barf. 

You sit up, trudge to the bathroom, half feeling like you’re about to get ready for school or something- about to but on your Volleyball uniform or something.

While you're brushing your teeth you can't manage to drag your eyes away from your reflection. The bags under your eyes, that are ever present, seem to be deeper. Probably from all the moving you’d done in the past couple of days.

Picking up your entire life, and moving it from Brooklyn all the way back to Springs Port had not been easy.

Luckily your friends had been game for the three hour drive, and the little bit of heavy lifting(Pietro and Quill we’re life savers) when it came to your bed and room furniture. You’d sold your couches and tables. You didn't have your own place anymore, didn't know when you would again and since you we’re currently unemployed, you could use all of the extra cash that you could get.

That was you:

Living back at home. Job less. And broke- because you used that almost all of that furniture money to rent the U-Haul.

In that moment, with those harsh truths, you can't manage to look at your reflection anymore.

After taking a shower and getting ready- contouring and highlighting and concealing all of your self hate away, you do feel a bit better. It was a coping mechanism, yes. But You needed to be presentable anyways, you think.

You’re fine. You are fine, Y/N. Everything’s fine.

If you keep repeating it, and accept it as your reality, you’ll feel better, right?

You linger on that thought as you eat breakfast, which is a definite perk of being back home. Your grandmother stands near the stove- a pan hot and the kitchen full of the delectable smells of not only the omelets she was stirring up, but the crock pot that had who knows what already brewing.

Also, the ever present, and pungent herby smell of marijuana that followed her ever since her accident undercurrents that.

It sure beat the instant oatmeal you used to eat mornings back in the city.

“That smells so ridiculously good” You start as you slide onto one of the chairs at the kitchen bar “Also, good morning, Grams”

“Good morning, baby bird. You’re up early” She comments, as she gives you a knowing side eye “Or did you not sleep at all last night?”

There's honestly no use lying to her. She’d always had this sixth sense when it came to that- it had made your childhood a bitch.

“I slept. A little bit” you defend yourself, pouring yourself the cucumber orange juice she’d made. Sounds weird- is actually extremely refreshing. She likes to make weird concoctions with the fruits and vegetables she grows in her garden.

You get another one of those all knowing looks.

“Okay I didn't sleep as much as I could have, but I was just getting everything else unpacked. I’m finally done” you punctuate with an innocent shrug.

“You unpacked all those boxes? Y/N Y/M/N, there was about twenty of them. You’re not supposed to get unpacked in 24 hours, you need to give yourself time to process this change in your life. I really thought that indica was going to help. You should’a been knocked on your ass” She tells you as she plates up your food and sets it in front of you.

You thank her, and bite your tongue about the whole “processing” thing. She’d been all about that lately- since Grandma Vee died a few months ago and she’d started her group therapies; she’d become some kind of self made, self help guru.

You figure it’s better that then her falling apart.

You’re all kind of waiting for her to fall apart.

“I was thinking i’d go into town and job hunt today” You bring up the topic softly, both of you most of the way through your spinach, bacon, mushroom and goat cheese omelet.

She tutts at you, of course she does.

“I invited you to come back and live with me, I’m not expecting you to pay for anything, you know that” You love the way she words it. You wonder if she really thinks of it that way, that you’re here for her benefit and not the other way around.

“Grams, I get that I really do. But I have like fifteen bucks to my name right now. Even if it’s just something part time, I need to work” You tell her, in complete seriousness.

You’d had a job, steadily, since you were fourteen years old and the broke bitch life wasn’t for you.

She fussed, tells you that you that she is very capable of helping you with whatever you need. Promptly informs you that Grandma Vee’s life insurance will hold both of you down for a long while.

You don’t get how she can talk about her death so easily. Calm and level headed. It’s still that iron hot pain that comes from losing a loved one that burns for you. You’d felt it before and yet it didn’t dull one bit this time around.

“Yeah, that’s gonna be a fuck no from me. You have to use that money for you, grams. You know she’d want you to” is your blunt reply and she chuckles and throws her napkin at you as you stand.

“You watch your language in my fucking house, girl. You’ve always had such a bad potty mouth”

It’s inherited, you don’t tell her.

With a few more words of dissuasion from her and a kiss on the head and the reassurance that you’d still help her with her garden, even if you were working from you, you grab your keys and walk out into the already hot, New Jersey air.

--

It’s summer, mid June and Spring Port is and has always been a resort town. Sea side and picturesque- people flood in during the summer season.

It doesn’t surprise you that the towns square is currently a tourist trap and that parking is hard as shit to find. No matter, you find a space eventually.

Your turquoise Jeep Wrangler is the same one you’d driven before college, that you hadn't taken to the city with you. It has some  issues sometimes- the starters a little finicky and has to be worked on every six months or so, but it honestly still runs like a charm. Can get you from A to B just fine now, and you guess it is way better than subways and busses.

You end up walking around the entire towns square, and you’re glad you’d gone with slides instead of wedges. Everyone seems to be hiring, tourist season and all. And in the end you fill out four applications- handwritten at that which you think is a little funny.

It’s not that Springs Port is tiny really- with a population of 12, 000, there are definitely smaller places. Towns square is actually pretty decently sized- about twenty five or so tiny stores and restaurants scattered along main street. There’s a theater. Three gas stations. You guys don't have a Walmart in the towns perimeters technically- but there's one just a few miles away. And everything's waterfront, the docs a skip away. The Atlantic a continual backdrop.

Compared to New York though, it’s a blip on the map,. It feels smaller to you now that you’ve lived in the big wide world.

You’re walking down the cross of Harbor and Main- on your way to Goodies- which you hear Angie now owns, to meet Wanda and B for lunch when your feet get stuck where you are.

Frozen on the spot.

As you look at the flower shop, that’s overflowing with greenery across the street.

Infinity Flowers-

You can't help the draw to the store. Your feet seem to have a mind of their own- and you end up inside before you can really think of it.

Hell, it smells just like it used to. You haven't stepped foot in here since…

It’s pretty busy in the shop- it always was though. Best flower arrangements in the whole Garden state was it’s slogan, and it only exaggerated a little.

“I’ll be with you in one sec- Oh! Y/N” The bleach blond head that belongs to none other then Mantis bobs as she comes over and envelops you in a tight hug “I heard you we’re back in town! I was wondering when you we’re going to come in. I haven't seen you in so, so long”

She says all of this without letting you go and you chuckle and endure it because this was Mantis. Always such a hugger.

“Yeah, I was just job hunting in town and I thought I’d stop by”

“So you’re back for good then, yes?” She asks, after letting you go. Going to greet another customer warmly, while still managing to small talk to you. She’d always been good at making people feel at ease.

You tell her not really, just for the moment, as you fix the hydrangeas in the window display. They have them all wrong-

“Those we’re always her favorite” Mantis tells you what you already know and you nod and swallow the bit of sadness that bubbles up.

This. Is why you tend to stay away from this store. Thoughts of your late mother assault your psyche here, always- but also...you can't help but feel like you’re supposed to be here. Some of your happiest childhood memories we’re in this shop, surrounded by flowers. You can recall the sound of your mother’s laughter best here…

You leave the shop, after you’ve filled out an application.

You don't know why you did it but-

“I’m pretty sure I just got a job at Infinity Flowers” You inform Wanda and B, who are already sat at a booth in the little pub waiting for you when you get there. Sharon couldn't get a break from the station to come, but you couldn't hate her for it. She was just living her dream.

“Really?” Wanda asks, attempting to choose her words wisely “That's- I would never expect for that to be where you’d decide to work”

“What she means; is do you think that’s a good idea? There’s ghosts for you in there girly” B, Brunhilde(she’d kill anyone who used her full name though) has always been the bolder one in your group of friends. And that would never change.

“Mmm, I don't know what I think. Wanna day drink about it?” You suggest with a shrug as you go to wave down a waitress. One of their house made hard lemonades we’re sounding real good right now…

“Bitch, some of us have to go back to work” Wanda argues while B excitedly agrees, telling you that she’s already started.

Two and a half house lemonades later you are sufficiently buzzed and feeling better. Wanda has to get back to work at the antiques gift shop though, you you leave Angie a hefty tip(or rather your employed friends do) and head out.

It’s hot as hell, honestly and you think you might go sit on the beach for a while until you sober up enough to drive- you’re telling your friends that when you see a patrol car roll up to the bakery on the corner.

Out of the driver's seat exits one Bucky Barnes. AKA your teenage wet dream.

And holy god, does he look good. He’s flanked by a tall dark skinned man who you don't recognize, but who is also pretty damn fine.

You know you’re ogling, and your friends are laughing at you and taunting you, but in that moment you really don't care.

“Hot damn, he is still so fine, oh my god” You groan and Wanda chuckles as she lights up a cigarette.

“Yeah? The dad bod doing it for you?” She questions on an exhale of smoke.

“Totally. Is it possible that he got even more attractive? Like? How? And why did Sharon not tell me about this” You try to pull your eyes away from him, you really do.

But you’re a little drunk and the feelings you’d harbored for the older man come trickling back. Yeah, he’s gained some weight. Is broader- his shoulders big. His whole frame hulking. But he still has that swoon worthy dark hair, and that jawline you could see even from here. You wonder if his eyes we’re still that stormy blue color that you’d spent literal years dreaming about...You desperately wish you could go up and take a closer look.

“He’s really been hitting those doughnuts since the divorce, huh?” B snarks and you turn a cold glare at her.

“Don't body shame him. That’s disgusting” You snap and she holds up a hand.

“Jesus, you know I’m just kidding. I forgot how fucking touchy you are about him” She defends herself and you try not to go on a rant about how talking about anyone's body, male female or anyone in between.

You end up doing it anyway and the whole time Wanda grins and tells you how much she’s missed you, and B tells you how much of a sensitive cunt you are.

All in all, it’s good to be home. Even if you are a total failure of a human being at the moment, your brain can't help but tac on to the end. As you watch the police cruiser pull out of the parking lot, and think about the man that sits inside- you think about the fact that you aren't sixteen anymore. And he’s not married...

And in that moment- you realize just how good it is to be home. 

And there it is. If you'd like to be tagged in future chapters, please let me know! I’m thinking, and have this planned out to be about five chapters. Just a sexy, juicy, emotional quick read. Some Angst ridden smut coming your way!

Also- I appreciate reviews and reblogs more than you could imagine. They are literally fuel for me- so if you can spare some time to give me your opinion, I’d love you forever!

@gifsbysimplysonia @peacefulwriter88 @prettybubblesintheair @lostinthoughtsandfeelings @lostinspace33 @4theluvofall @plumfondler @tatathekissypotato @jaamesbbarnes @jalapenobarnes @siren-kitten-his @brieannakeogh @skishenanigans @paulxrudd

#Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x plus size reader #Plus size reader #thick bucky #dad bucky #cop bucky #marvel au #cop #marvel #wanda maximoff #brunhilde

[brutlistarchive]

i’m stupid and i moved back in with my abusive mother . 

so to give this a little bit of color to make a long story short --- i’m really fucking stupid and let my emotions guide my every decision so really this is my own fault lmao . my mom has a seriously good “ i’ve emotionally developed / grown as a person and will support you in your journey to heal and prosper “ ruse that she regularly grooms to stay up to date and i fall for it every time because she’s the only family i have , and you know i’m desperate for that familial connection and just generally like to believe people can be good and change . she’s hyper manipulative so she plays this like a harp until i’m in a position where i have to rely on her , then she treats me like shit . gaslights like nobody’s business and uses my mental illness to prey on me and how it cripples me . she was a lot more physical when i was a teenager ( tried to smother me with a pillow when she was half naked and drunk , made me stand in place and threw half the dish set at me because i have adhd , and got distracted filling the horse trough which overflowed partially like maybe two , three feet into the pasture . it happened a couple of times because i was . a teenager with adhd who she refused to medicate for god knows what conspiracy fueled reason . maybe if she wasn’t gone for months on end and i had the proper parental supervision all of that could’ve been avoided but that’s just me , forcibly alienated me from any friends i made who got too close because she was homophobic and thought they were gay so she made up lies about them stealing from us , withheld my prescription for my medications given to me by the psych ward i stayed at for three months i had admitted myself to because she thought i looked fine and was making it all up , bought a bunch of basement food and stored them under our house and bought a bunch of camping gear because she didn’t know who would get raptured or not so she wanted to have her bases covered for me because she really thought it was me who was going to get left behind because i had just recently come out as transgender , came within millimeters of joining a cult and very nearly forcibly made me join too , i really could go on  ) but since i’m twenty six and now much bigger than her and also a fucking adult , she keeps it to just emotionally manipulative and abusive behavior behind loud and aggressive body language .  i moved back in with her in a one bedroom apartment because we both hated kentucky , and wanted desperately to go home back to washington state . so impulsively with no real pre - planning that’s exactly what we did . i’m on the couch , naturally . i tried working for amazon but within two days i discovered there’s something seriously wrong with my lower lumbar ( i think maybe it’s a pinched nerve? feels like a hot coal shoved into my back ) and it put me on my knees on more than one occasion , and came home sobbing in pain , so i had to quit that job . now i’m stuck looking for work again which is !! super . i don’t even know how many applications i have out / have called to check on . a lot .  on top of this i’m seeing a psychologist finally , trying to get my pcp set up with my new insurance company since they still think mine is dozens of miles away and out of my reach (doing that monday ) so i can start taking my medications again so i can be ... healthy lmao as well as start transitioning , and also i’m trying to figure out how i’m going to get into the adult high school classes at the community college so i can get my diploma , and get a good start on my education . i want to get into botany !! i want to have my own nursery . i mean i know how i just don’t have any money to pay for the classes , and my orca card is running out of cash in my e-purse so i’m trying to save what i have left for my wednesday appointments with my psychologist and job interviews . 

lately her most recent over the line argument was that she thought i was wasting my time getting my high school diploma which would give me a better access to the universities i may want to attend in the future as well as make me applicable for financial aid , instead of getting my ged so i can get a trade job which would be faster , according to her . of course she yelled . of course she made me cry . of course this is the last straw lmao  . woops , the short version of the long story is still long .  basically i’m asking for just a little help to have a little money put into my bank so i can afford to travel between work in the future , and i don’t know . just so i can start saving to get out of this terrible situation i put myself in . so i can get into those classes . so i can have at least a good jogging start towards my future . i really don’t care how much you send . anything is a big help . i just need to start saving because it’s day two of things going bad and she’s already making me suicidal again . i should’ve known better .  anyway . here’s my paypal . please disregard my deadname . thank you for reading , thank you for passing this along . have a good night . 

#abuse / #s.o.s.

[insightexploration]

Being Myself

Introduction

I am a story teller.  As a teacher, a therapist and friend I have always used stories to make a point, illustrate a principle or just to entertain. For the last 49 years people have been encouraging me to write them down. Here are some of them.  Make of them what you wish. After writing them I am filled with an overwhelming gratitude for the people who have crossed my path in this life. The most important is Susan Riley, my partner of 59 years to whom I dedicate this effort. None of this would have happened without her.  

How I found my calling

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.”  e.e. cummings

Doors

One of the most obvious truths I have encountered in my work with students and clients over the last fifty years is that many people are unhappy with who they are and how they are living life. Some have no idea of who they would like to be or they know who they want to be but the road to a meaningful and satisfying life is blocked by anxiety, fear, confusion or crippling depression.  Many times their ideas about who they should have become have come from their family and the disparity between this ideal and the reality of their lives is creating great sadness. I would like to posit that many times in life doors appear offering us a way out of this dilemma.  We then have a choice to ignore the door and continue on a less than satisfying path or we can walk through it onto the unknown path to a more fulfilling life. 

I would like to illustrate this by sharing a bit of my own story with you. Let’s start at the beginning. My parents gave me the name Lawrence because they thought it would look good with “Doctor” before it.  It does.  After my grandfather died during the depression, my father left premedical studies to support his mother and three siblings by doing physical labor.  In the 1930’s he began his own company and for fifty years was a successful, if not affluent, businessman.  It was my parents’ intention that I would be the first member of my family to finish college and that I would fulfill my father’s dream by becoming a physician.  Even though my “Doctor” looks good, I am not the right kind of doctor.  Unfortunately for them, I was a child of the sixties and “do your own thing” was our mantra.

Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.”  My journey to my bliss was not direct but was determined by several doors that at first were ignored and then recognized as messages from something larger than me.

After the Russians became the first country to send a satellite into space, I was seduced by the national passion and set my sights on becoming a scientist. This was a mistake but it was a mistake sanctioned by my family and the culture. Although it was not as good as becoming a physician, it was good enough for my parents.  

In my senior year of high school, with the idea of becoming a key player in the race to the moon, I visited a counselor at Pasadena City College and expressed my desire to become a nuclear physicist. She looked at my transcripts and shook her head.  I was not the most motivated student in high school but my dad said if I wanted the car (necessary for dating) and if I wanted to play sports (necessary for impressing potential dates), I had to maintain a B average.  Since grades were reported on my transcripts every semester, I knew I had to maintain a B average between two quarters.  So if I got an A in one quarter I would allow myself to get a C the next.  If I got a C, I would work to get an A the next quarter. Therefore, my high school transcripts show 6 semesters of 5 courses each, all of which are Bs. So, my counselor was looking at 30 Bs.  

Her response to me voicing my aspiration was, “You are not bright enough to be a nuclear physicist.”  “However,” she added, “you are not bad at anything.  Why don’t you become a teacher?”  Looking back, this was a door.  One I completely ignored and, in fact, felt angry about. 

So I gave up on PCC and began college as a physics student at Cal State, L.A. in 1960.  In retrospect, I would have saved myself a lot of grief if I had paid attention to her.  While science and math did not come easily to me, I did well enough to be able to transfer to the University of California at Berkeley, home of one of the world’s premier physics departments.  After two years there I received my degree with a major in physics and a minor in math.  When I showed my mother my diploma, her response was, “Take good care of that, it is worth just as much as the ones they gave the students who got good grades.”  Alas, I was well on the road to parental disappointment. 

Several things happened at Berkeley which were pivotal in guiding me to the path I still follow.  In my first semester at Cal, I was required to take a course in which we read several of Shakespeare’s plays.  Reading Shakespeare revealed a new world to me in which there was more to human behavior than met the eye.  I loved this course but could not afford to spend much time on it while taking advanced courses in physics and calculus as well as two other electives. If I had paid attention to the joy and excitement I felt reading and writing about the human psyche as Shakespeare saw it, I would have known where my life needed to go at that time. However, I was, as James Hollis says, in the midst of my first adulthood, an attempt to live out the life one is expected to live by one’s family and culture.  At the end of the Shakespeare course my instructor, a wonderful teacher, said, “You are the smartest C+ student I’ve ever had.”  I think it was a compliment.  But again, I had ignored an important sign.  After I finished my Ph.D. in child psychology I returned to thank him for opening the doors of the human psyche to me. Surprisingly, he remembered me.  I have contacted him again recently and he remembered my name and told me he has focused much of his work since then on children’s literature and fairy tales. 

In my second semester at Cal, I began volunteering at an elementary school in the West Berkeley ghetto where I tutored some of the worst students in the school.  For a middle-class white boy from the suburbs of Southern California this was a real awakening.  To my surprise, I found that individual attention could turn some of the worst students into academic successes.  Witnessing the wasted potential of children in the sixth grade already consigned to the garbage heap of American life changed me.  It was the sixties.  I was young and idealistic and it became my personal mission to save as many kids as I could.  I wanted to help children that others considered unreachable. A door had appeared.

Although I realized that my life was turning away from hard science, I found employment during the summer between my junior and senior years in the Apollo program at the Research & Development center at Aerojet General in Azusa, California.  My assignment was to design a monochromatic light source to simulate the effect of unfiltered sunlight on metal which would simulate the environment on the moon.  While this brief experience as an engineer was enjoyable, I realized that I was much more interested in pure theory than I was in the practical application of scientific principles.  Also I wasn’t a very good engineer.  I blew so many circuits they nicknamed me “Sparky.” I also realized that I was quite a few brain cells short of theoretical physicist material.  It occurred to me that I could combine my interests by becoming a teacher of physics, math and English literature in high school.

Being confused, I once again visited a guidance counselor when I returned to Berkeley in the fall.  After a battery of tests were scored and interpreted, I returned to find out just what I was supposed to do. I had spent an inordinate amount of energy purging my life of Christian Fundamentalism so imagine my surprise when I discovered that my number one, absolutely no fail, born to be occupation was “Minister.”  I was even further incensed when I found out “Psychologist” was a close second.  I happened to be taking Psych 1A as an elective in my senior year in order to graduate and had the book with me.  I raised it up and said defiantly, “You mean this bullshit?” and walked out of his office.  I finished my last year of university somewhat unenthusiastically, married my high school sweetheart (we are still married) and moved to San Francisco where she took a secretarial job and I enrolled in education classes at San Francisco State College.

It is with some humor that I reflect on my professional career and see that I have spent most of it teaching psychology and practicing as a therapist trying to bring spirituality and psychology together.  I should have listened to both of those counselors but knowing the expectations my parents and I both had of me, I did not.  Doors had appeared and I ignored them.

After four years of rigorous physics and math courses, the education courses at State left me nonplussed.  I lasted two weeks.  I started looking for work and fell into the most defining moment of my professional life.  You can call it grace, coincidence or synchronicity but it has happened so many times in my life, I know it is real.  This time I walked through the door.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do so I looked for part time work.  I found three jobs: gardening for a psychologist, driving an autistic child to and from his psychiatrist and tutoring a supposedly “minimally brain damaged” eight-year-old boy whose mother was a psychologist.  In a matter of days, a whole new world opened up to me.  It was less exact and predictable than the world of formulae and numbers, but fascinating in its complexity and ambiguity.

Alan

The most important of these experiences was tutoring a boy I shall call Alan. His mother was desperate.  One after another, a series of tutors had failed miserably in their attempts to teach him to read. He was repeating third grade and his psychologist (who was very well known in his field) had told Alan’s mother that her son would be lucky to finish elementary school.  From the first moment I met him, I knew Alan was smart; he had a great vocabulary, a wonderful sense of humor and a keen interest in the world of science.  He just couldn’t read.

Rather than tackling his reading problems head on as his other tutors had done, I decided to approach them indirectly through a subject which interested him. We began to do chemistry and optical experiments under the suspicious eyes of his mother.  Alan really liked the experiments, especially the ones involving explosions or really bad smells.  Every so often I would be reading an experiment and I would ask him to read a short word.  After a while, he was reading more and more of the experiments and starting to read books with me.

Since Alan was Jewish, I thought it would be important for him to know some of the heroic stories of the holocaust.  I learned one of my first lessons on the workings of a child’s mind when we started to read a child’s version of The Diaries of Anne Frank.  When we had finished about three pages he said, “I don’t like girl stories.”  So we returned to science, where a 21-year-old WASP in an identity crisis and an eight-year old Jewish boy with a learning disability could find true happiness. 

My work with Alan encouraged me to start reading about psychology, learning disabilities and children in general.  Since I had very little experience in this area, I decided to visit his psychologist for direction.  His office was in a very posh area of San Francisco and filled with fine art and beautiful furnishings.  It effused monetary success.  He said that it was wonderful that Alan had a friend like me, but that I should give up hoping for a normal life for him.  I looked around his office at the plush furnishings and thought, “If someone this stupid can be this rich, this is the career for me.”  I re-entered San Francisco State where, with the financial and emotional support of my wonderful wife and the enthusiasm engendered by the discovery of my life’s work, I achieved a straight “A” average.

My wife, who had been interested in psychology long before me, also began taking psychology classes and realized it was her life’s passion too (second to her passion for me of course).  I was mentored by several members of the psychology department and, in 1966, I enrolled at the University of Minnesota in what may have been the best program in clinical child psychology in the United States.

Alan finished elementary school, junior high, high school and college, and is a happy husband and father who, along with his wife, runs his own very successful communications business.  He told me several years ago that he continued to be interested in science after I moved away but gave up chemistry when he realized he would never be able to use it for his true purpose, to blow up his school. 

Some important influences in my life

“If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.”  Muhammad Ali

My Last Name

Dettweiler is a fairly unusual name.  Things happen to me that wouldn’t happen if my name was Smith or Jones.  For example, upon meeting me for the first time, a person often will say, “I knew a Dettweiler (not necessarily spelled like this) in Pocatello.  Is that a relative?”.   “Probably,” I always answer.  My branch of the family settled in Ontario, Canada so when we moved to Victoria, British Columbia I was often asked about my family. The doctor who set up the British Columbia health plan was a Detweiler (different spelling) and people used to say things to me like, “If you are half the man your father was you will be a fine person.”  His son was a lawyer in Victoria who did a lot of pro bono work for legal aid.  I used to get calls in the middle of the night from guys proclaiming, “I was framed” or “You gotta help me.”  Very seldom does anyone spell it correctly and often people mispronounce it.  For reservations at restaurants I always use my wife’s name which is Irish and much easier to spell for the person taking the reservation.  There is some irony in this as I will explain later.  

The Dettweilers, who were Swiss German, came to Pennsylvania from Germany in the early 1700s.  About 20 years ago when my son visited Switzerland, he found the Dettweiler homestead which, until recently, had remained in the family.  Over the fireplace were tiles inscribed with the words, “Detwiler, 1513.” My dad had recently died and he buried my dad’s favorite pipe behind this building.

It is thought that since they were Mennonites, they were escaping religious persecution in Europe and fled with other Mennonites to the community in Lancaster County.  My branch left Pennsylvania for Canada in 1810.  After arriving, the patriarch of the family lost his wife and remarried within the church but did not register the marriage with the government.  Eventually a huge tract of farm land near Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario was seized by the government since the children who inherited it were not legal heirs.  

When I first moved to Canada it was a fairly fractured country.  The French wanted out and the West felt like the neglected child in a large family.  So when people would refer to the government as “Those bastards in Ontario,” I thought maybe they were talking about my relatives.  

My name has caused me to have some interesting interactions.  One client came to me because he was Swiss and he knew my village. He said, “I used to drive through it every day on my way to the airport in Zurich.”  Once he said to me, “Larry, your ancestors may have come here 250 years ago but you are still very Swiss German.” Curiously, I asked what he meant by that.  “Well, the French and Italian Swiss work to live.  The Swiss Germans live to work.”  

I had another client come to me because he recognized the Mennonite name. He had left the Ontario community and was feeling lost.  They shunned him and he felt completely out of touch with mainstream Canadian culture.  He was neither here nor there and it was very difficult for him.  

I once went to a panel discussion about death and as I listened to Elizabeth Kubler Ross I grasped a whole new understanding of the meaning of life.  I was delighted by her statement, “But what do I know?  I am just a Swiss hillbilly who has sat with thousands of dying people.”  After the talk, I walked up to her and told her what an inspiration she had been to me.  She looked at my name tag and said, “Oh look!  You are a Swiss hillbilly too.  I know your village.”

One of my students, originally from Switzerland, asked me if I knew the difference between European heaven and European hell.  I said I did not. She said, “In European heaven, the cooks are all French, the lovers are all Italian, the cops are all British, the mechanics are all German and everything is organized by the Swiss.  In European hell, the cooks are all English, the lovers are all Swiss, the cops are all German, the mechanics are all French and everything is organized by the Italians.”

Back to the family history.  After losing the land my disenfranchised great grandfather moved the family to Michigan in the late 1800s where, during the First World War, the locals blew up their house because they spoke German. But they persevered and my Grandfather left the Mennonites and became a preacher in the Evangelical United Brethren church, eventually settling in L.A. where I was born and spent my early years.  Hollywood to be exact.  

I have always taken great pride in being the descendent of Swiss German Mennonites and my wife has felt the same about being Irish. All our lives we have chided each other on the stereotypical traits of these cultures.  Recently we did genetic testing and were shocked to find out that my proud European heritage accounts for only 9% of my genetics and her Irish heritage is about the same.  Surprisingly my number one heritage is Irish and hers is English/Scottish. No more Irish jokes for me and no more superior race jokes for her.  I now refer to her as the Limey oppressor and constantly ask her when she is going to let my people go.  I believe most of that Irish heritage comes from my Grandfather Mooney.  His family considered themselves Scottish but I think they originally came from Ireland.

My Grandfather

It is a sad truth that many of the men I have seen in my work have had very little contact with positive male role models while growing up. I was fortunate to have two. They were not perfect but they taught me about being a responsible husband and father and gave me the belief that I would be able to traverse this life successfully.

Soon after I was born my dad left to fight in the war in Europe.  My mother and I moved in with her parents, Nana and Grandad, who lived next door to our house in Hollywood. My father was gone for three years and during that time my grandfather was really the only father figure in my life.  The closeness of this relationship was reflected in an event that occurred three years after my father came home. At age 6 I was selected to be a participant on the Art Linkletter radio show, Kids Say the Darndest Things. When Art asked me if I looked like my father I replied, “NO, I look like my granddad.”  

He was a first-generation American son of Scottish grocers who settled in Danville Illinois.  He had three obsessions, money, religion and baseball.   When my cousin researched the family history she discovered that when his parents arrived at Ellis Island their name was Muney. The immigration officer said, “This is America. You can’t have the name Money.” So at that point their name was changed to Mooney. Apparently, the name went deeper than the spelling.  When my grandparents were in their 70s my grandfather would send my elderly grandmother back to the store if he thought she had been shortchanged by even a penny. I remember watching her leave the house in tears having to go back and haggle with the store manager.

The major accomplishment in his life had been to bring Fritos to Los Angeles. He worked for this company his entire life but was always quite happy to remain a salesman driving his truck around Southern California.  Although he was obsessed with money and loved to buy and sell property he never made a lot of money.  At one point in the 20s he owned a square block of Wilshire Boulevard but sold it shortly after he bought it because he said it would never amount to anything. 

Although my grandparents were very kind to me, shaming was definitely the response of choice to what they considered to be bad decisions about money. Once, when I was about ten, we were visiting them on a Saturday afternoon.  I had a crisp five dollar bill in my pocket and there was a corner store at the bottom of the hill on which they lived calling to me the whole afternoon.  I walked down to the store and bought a dollar toy for me and a little tin bank for my brother that cost four dollars.  Looking back, I think, what ten year old spends one dollar on himself and four dollars on his five year old brother?  It would seem to me that this act should have been seen as an act of generosity and commented on as such.  However, when I returned, my grandfather said, “You bought the bank for the wrong person.”  

He never wanted to waste anything.  When he and my grandmother were in their mid-nineties they lived in an assisted living/end-of-life care facility for members of the church. My grandmother had been taking hormones and stopped taking them because of problems with bleeding.  My grandfather decided that it would be a waste of money to just throw them out and since they were so helpful to her he would take them.  Several months later he asked my mother to take him to the doctor because he was suffering pain in his chest.  It turned out he was growing breasts. Later, my grandmother decided that she just didn’t want to live any longer and she stopped taking nitroglycerin for angina. Again my grandfather didn’t want to waste the money so he started taking the pills, passed out and suffered a concussion and went into a coma. While he was in the coma my grandmother died.

When he came to my mother played a recording of the funeral for him but he just couldn’t get it into his head that his wife had died. One day when my mother was visiting him he told her that Stella had left him and had run off with another man. My mother, after trying uselessly to convince him that she had died, asked him how he knew she had run off of another man.  He told her he had an invisible radio under his pillow and every night it played the Stella and Alan show and on this show Stella had run off with another man. He then told my mother, “I know why she left.”  My mother asked, “Why?”  He said, “I wasn’t giving her enough sex!”  This was too much for my mother, the daughter of these devoutly religious people, and she ran crying from the room.

I’m not sure how his obsession with religion began. I know he was raised in a severe Scottish Presbyterian household.  He told me once that his father had beaten him for whistling on Sunday. I do know that as a young man he smoked and drank and was not terribly religious. At some point he found Jesus, stopped smoking and drinking and joined the Evangelical United Brethren church. The minister in this church was my other grandfather, Elden Dettweiler.  

He was what we called in those days, a character.  Some of the funniest stories about my grandfather concern his poor vision. In his later life he developed cataracts and at that time cataract surgery was very serious.  When they removed the cataracts the patient had to stay in bed motionless for an extended period of time so often the surgery was postponed until it was absolutely necessary.  I remember that he would take me on his rounds in his Frito truck.  We would place a wooden chair in the stairwell on the right-hand side of the truck and I would ride around telling him when the lights turned green when the lights turned red, what lane to be in and generally help him complete his route. When I think back on this it is absolutely terrifying and I would never have allowed my children to do this.  But back then nobody thought twice about it.  On another occasion we were driving in the mountains and he pulled up behind a parked police car to ask directions.  He went up to the car window started asking the officer where we were only to get no response.  He soon was yelling at the officer demanding to know why he wouldn’t talk to him.  My grandmother got out of the car walked up to calm him down and realized that that the car was parked with a dummy in the front seat in order to slow people down as they traveled down this mountain.

Although he fancied himself somewhat of a handyman, his inability to negotiate the physical world was often a humorous topic of conversation when the family was together and he was out of earshot.  Even though we lived in Southern California, he would wear long underwear all winter long.  In the summer, when temperatures rose to the 80’s and 90’s, he would cut the sleeves off but still wear the underwear.  I remember one year I was staying at their house in Glendale when the annual cutting ritual was being performed.  He would fold the underwear in half and cut both sleeves at once.  On this occasion, I watched as he carefully folded the garment and proceeded to cut one arm and one leg off.  I could tell he was angry but he put it aside, carefully folded the next garment and again, cut off one leg and one sleeve.  Under his breath I heard him mutter, “Shit.”  It was the only time I ever heard him swear.

He was obsessed with baseball all his life.  I remember that we would go to games played by the L. A. Angels minor league team on a regular basis.  It was especially fun to go to the games when they played the hated Hollywood Stars, another minor league team. When the Dodgers moved to L. A. he would spend hours next to his radio or in front of the TV transfixed by the slow, deliberate pace of major league baseball.  Afterwards, if I was around, he would relate all the funny things Vin Scully had said and give me a summary of the game and the glorious or miserable play of the Dodgers.  

All in all, I feel very fortunate to have had a grandfather who was so present in my life and at one time told me, “You are going to be very special and make us all proud.”  Certainly in my early life my grandparents were as much my parents as my mother and father and as I grew older we remained close.  As different as they were from who I consider myself to be, the feeling of being cared for and nested in matrix of relatives who would be there if needed gave me a sense of security and well-being that has never left me.  For that I am grateful.  However, he was a character.

My Dad

When she was about 12, my mother was standing on the steps of her church in Los Angeles as a car driven by the new preacher’s son pulled up to the curb. Her brothers always teased and frightened her so when she saw the boy get out and run around to open the car door for his sister (my aunt Irene), she said to herself, “That’s the boy I am going to marry.”  She had never seen a boy act so politely with his sister so she figured he must be something special.  Later, on their first date, she waited anxiously when they pulled up to their destination.  “Don’t open that door,” he said, “It is broken and I have to come around and open it for you.”  Well, he wasn’t such a gentleman after all but she married him anyway.  She said my dad never opened another door for her, but I know he did because I learned to do that from him.

My dad had a hard life as a young man.  He was the son of a preacher during the depression and told tales of working the orchards of the California central valley, driving unsafe trucks and polishing cars at a parking lot. (When he answered the ad he did so even though he wasn’t from Poland.  The ad was for a polish boy). They lived off the hand me downs and food supplied by parishioners. There was no money.  He got his first pair of new shoes when he was in high school after his father had landed a fairly lucrative position at the church in downtown LA.  Just as it seemed they had turned a corner, his dad died suddenly and he and his sister had to quit college and get jobs to support his mother and two younger siblings.  

He managed, along with some partners, to start a wholesale florist business which did well, if not spectacularly, for 50 years until he retired.  He worked long hours six days a week but I think he loved it. My mother was not so crazy about it.  Shortly after I was born he was called up for WW2 and after my brother was born, he was called up to Korea for a year.  So between the wars and the long work hours I didn’t have a lot of contact with him. 

When my dad knew he was going to be drafted for WW2 he tried to enlist in the Navy.  He was told, “Mr. Dettweiler, you are almost legally blind, we can’t take you.”  So he tried the Air Force and they said the same.  Then the Army drafted him and made him an artillery spotter.  A clear example of military intelligence.

After the invasion of Germany he was driving a truck into a town one day and saw a big sign saying, “DITTWEILER” which was the name of the town.  He said to his friend beside him, “Hey, this is my town. Too bad they misspelled my name!”  They were laughing when around the corner came a German Panzer tank that began to shoot a machine gun at them.  They pulled a quick U turn and raced back to base camp, happy to be alive.  When they got out of the truck they noticed bullet holes in the back of the cab right above their heads. After a moment of shock and relief my dad said, “I guess they didn’t know who I was.” That’s the way he was.  No matter how bad things got in our house or with his business, my dad could always come up with a story or a joke that would get us all laughing.

After he returned from Korea he recognized my mother’s overprotective nature and thought I was becoming a “mommy’s boy.” So he started taking me to work with him on Saturdays when I was 11 and on the rest of the days during the summer when I was 12.   On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we would get up at 2am and get home about 4pm.  On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we would get up at 5am and get home about 2pm.  Since holidays were the busiest times for him, my friends would be spending their Easter and Christmas vacations at the beach while I was putting in 70 hour weeks with my dad.   I loved it.  Unlike my friends, I had money to spend and was learning about the world of men, a world I had been shielded from by my mother.  I learned the value of hard work and all the guys encouraged me to stay in school so I wouldn’t have to work like this for the rest of my life.  It was a valuable lesson.

When I was in Boy Scouts I asked my Dad why we never went camping.  He said son, “I camped all the way through France and Germany and up and down the Korean peninsula and I will never spend another night in a tent.”  Returning home after one campout I explained enthusiastically how we had eaten this great stuff called Spam and that we should get some for the house.  He looked at me disapprovingly and stated, “There will be no Spam in this house.”  I think his experience in the army really shaped his attitude toward life in other ways too and has helped me understand some of the reasons he and I differed so much as adults.  But he was a good man and a good father.

My dad was pretty tolerant but my grandfather was a confirmed anti-Semite.  We lived in Hollywood which was heavily populated by Jewish folks and he would often make denigrating remarks about them.  One day, at my dad’s workplace, I went to lunch but did not have enough money for the bill.  After a short conversation with the elderly Japanese owner, we settled on a price that equaled the money I had on hand. When I returned to the shop, my dad asked me if I had enough money for lunch. I said, “No, but I Jewed him down.”

This was a phrase I had heard my grandfather use on many occasions and had also heard my friends use.  He looked at me the way he always did when he was displeased, tilting his head down and looking over his glasses, and said, “I want to talk to you when we get home.”

When we got home he sat me down and brought out about twenty 8 by 10 glossies of pictures he took on the day his unit liberated Dachau.  He had me look through the sickening photos of nude, emaciated bodies stacked in huge piles, bodies hanging on barb wire, bodies in mass graves and then, the ovens.  

“This is where talk like that ends up.  I never want to hear you talk like that again.”  

My dad said that occasionally when he was directing the shelling of German positions he would realize that he was killing men who, had his ancestors not left Germany, might be friends or relatives.  After Dachau, he said he didn’t feel so bad about it.

I never did talk like that again and it is fitting that when I have been in really bad places in my life, it has almost always been Jewish men and women who have taken me under their wings.  At one point in my life I was so impressed by all the Jews I knew I considered converting which led to my brief flirtation with Judaism. Dettweiler, however, is not a great last name if you want to be Jewish.

My brief flirtation with Judaism

During my second year of grad school I got very interested in working with autistic kids.  A visiting expert put a Jewish family in touch with me regarding their 8 year old son who was autistic.  The father had been a lawyer in Romania before the war but when the Nazis came his gentile friends smuggled him and his wife into the Ukraine where they hid from the Nazis and their collaborators for the remainder of the war.  I never had the courage to ask them about that experience but from films I have seen and books I have read, it must have been horrific.

They were so grateful for the work I was doing with their son Sammy they sort of adopted us. They insisted on paying me and we occasionally were invited to the house for dinner.  I was doing behavior modification with Sammy and one of the things behaviorists are known for is keeping excellent records of time and behavior.  I would be in the middle of tracking Sammy’s behavior carefully when the door would fly open and Miriam would appear with a tray full of baked goods, coffee and sweets.  “Eat, Eat,” she would say.  “You are so skinny.  Your wife needs to feed you more.”  So much for that data collection.

Sammy made such great progress that his parents decided to enroll him in Hebrew school with the ultimate goal of a Bar Mitzvah.  I had him on a token economy in which he bought things with the chips he earned for speaking and reading.  One of the things he bought with his chips was a TV guide.  He would then memorize the whole thing and be able to tell you when and on what station every program was broadcast during the week.  I thought, “How hard can it be to memorize a little Hebrew?”

Well the Rabbi at the school thought different.  He said Sammy was retarded and couldn’t learn anything.  So I asked for the best student in the school to help me and by using M and Ms as rewards I taught Sammy the Hebrew alphabet in about 30 minutes.  The Rabbi was ecstatic.  He said I had performed a Mitzvah and asked me what my last name was.  Oh Lord, all my credibility was about to go out the window as I prepared to tell him my Teutonic title.  

Immediately Miriam said, “This is almost Doctor Dettweiler.”  “Ahhh,” said the Rabbi with a smile. Next week when I returned all the kids were getting M and Ms. Apparently the Rabbi thought that was why Sammy was learning so quickly. 

At one point, a young rabbi came to Victoria to take over the Synagogue and we ended up in the same tai chi class as Danny and his wife Hannah.  He took on the job of refurbishing the Synagogue which had fallen into disrepair.  As a fundraiser he invited Shlomo Karlbach, a singing Hassidic rabbi and a friend to Hanna’s family, to come and give a concert.  I had listened to Schlomo on the radio when I was a student in San Francisco so I was excited to attend.   “Bring your guitar,” Danny said, “we are going to get together and sing after the concert.”

I took my guitar and left it behind the coats in the cloak room before we entered the Synagogue proper.  Danny and Shlomo were working their way through the audience and when they came to me. Danny said to Shlomo, “This is the guy.”

Shlomo said, “Get your guitar you are going to accompany me.”  

A lump formed in my throat and I said, “But I don’t know your songs.”

“No matter,” he said, “God will help you.”

So I got my guitar and accompanied him all night long.  When it was over, people approached me and said things like, “I didn’t know you were Jewish” and “So now you are out of the closet.”

“I’m not Jewish,” I would say.

“How did you know the chords to the songs?”

“God helped me and he only plays three chords so it wasn’t that hard.”

One fellow actually asked me if I wanted to join his Jazz band.  I demurred saying I only played simple folksongs.

“Nonsense,” he said.  “I heard those arpeggios you were playing.”

I thought to myself, “What’s an arpeggio?”

After, a bunch of us went to a house where we sang Yiddish and Hebrew songs for a long time. Then the moment that I was dreading came.  He asked us our names.  As we went around the circle everyone gave their first and last names. When my turn came, I only gave my first name.  He asked me what my last name was.  When I told him he asked, “Dettweiler, what kind of name is that?”

“Swiss,” I answered.  “But my father fought the Germans and liberated Dachau,” I blurted out. This seemed to please him and we sang a few more songs on that most memorable night.

The next morning my wife and I went out to breakfast at a local restaurant and who should walk out the door as we are walking in? Shlomo.  Racing out he said, “Pray for me brother, I am late for the ferry!”

Later, telling Hannah how much I enjoyed the evening, I said I had been entertained and moved by his stories.  She replied, “Yes, and some of them may even be true.”

I told this story to a client recently and she told me a quote from Rabbi Akiva Tatz.  “All my stories are true.  Some happened and some did not, but they are all true.”  I love this quote. 

Perhaps the thing I love most about Jewish culture, aside from the philosophy of saving the world, is the humor.  

I had a colleague who had twin boys that were coming to the point in their lives when they should start studying for their Bar Mitzvahs.  He told me that he had no connection to the religion in which he was raised and his wife was not Jewish.  I said, “You know Jerry, it is a part of their heritage and they don’t have to do it if they don’t want to. Why not give it a shot?”

“Well,” he said, “I might but I really don’t like the rabbi here in Victoria.”

I took this problem to my friend Louis who was president of the Synagogue.  In typical fashion he told me a story.

Once there was a shipwrecked rabbi.  His parishioners looked for him long and hard and finally found him.  When they went on the island they saw a beautiful little structure made of driftwood and palm leaves.  He explained he had built a synagogue in which to worship. They looked up the beach and saw there was an identical building. “Is that a synagogue you built also?”  “Yes, and I wouldn’t set foot in it.”   I don’t think Jerry’s boys ever did their Bar Mitzvahs.  

I don’t know why Judaism has always fascinated and impressed me so but it probably had something to do with all that bible reading I did as a kid and the fact that Jewish people have played such a large and positive role in my life.  At one point I felt such an affinity for the culture and religion I considered converting but somehow it just didn’t seem right for me.  There was a culture and a history that I did not feel a part of.  When I was discussing this with my good friend Bernice who had been a great help in establishing my parenting courses, she said, “Larry you are welcome to become a member of our Synagogue and our religion, but really, you are such a Baptist. Why don’t you just stick with your roots?”  I am not sure what she meant but somehow it made complete sense to me.  So next I need to talk about my roots.

Jesus is Watching

At the time of my birth my parents were members of the Evangelical United Brethren Church.  This was an amalgamation of two churches that had spun off from the Mennonite Church. It was fundamentalist and during my early years our lives pretty much revolved around the church.  My dad’s father had been the minister before his untimely death.  My other grandfather was a deacon.  My grandmother played the organ.  My dad was the choir director.  My mom taught Sunday school and both she and my uncle were the soloists in the church choir. My cousin and I were the youth duet and we can still do a pretty mean “Old Rugged Cross.”

My first recollection of a reference to Jesus was when I was very young. I was in the back yard and apparently I had my hand down my pants because my mother said, “Don’t touch yourself there, Jesus is watching!”  Sage advice, no?  A couple of years ago my friend and fellow psychotherapist Ralph got very interested in men’s sexual health.  He wanted us to do a workshop on the topic. Ralph is a former Mennonite minister so I said we could do a short workshop entitled, “Don’t touch yourself there, Jesus is watching.”  Later he sent me a photo from Farmington, NM of a big porn warehouse and a billboard across the street with a picture of Jesus and the warning, “Jesus is watching.”  I didn’t know my mother had ever been to Farmington.  

I used to lie in my grandmother’s lap in church staring up and the glass skylight of Jesus carrying a lamb.  She would tickle me to keep me quiet and I thought this must me what heaven is like.  Those moments are stuck in my memory and the peace I felt is still salient in my mind.  Even after all these years and the rejection of fundamentalist Christianity if not Christianity in general, I love to sing along with the old gospel songs while speeding down the highway. Somehow it still touches me at a deep level.  

They tore that church down to make a freeway and moved it some distance away.  Eventually we moved so my parents started going to a Methodist church, primarily for the choir, I believe.  That ended my experience with the EUB church and ironically, they merged with the Methodists at some later date.

Although my mother remained religious all her life, I think my dad had lost his religious beliefs after fighting in Germany and Korea. The battle of the bulge and the liberation of Dachau caused him to seriously doubt the existence of a beneficent and loving God.

One experience that I remember clearly is an interchange between my father and my grandfather after my dad returned from fighting in the Korean War.  He was quite bitter about being called back to war after serving in Europe and I think what he saw in both conflicts led him to question all the beliefs that had been instilled in him as a child. We were sitting in my grandparents’ den and granddad asked my dad, “Art, when you were in the foxholes and the Koreans were shooting at you did you pray to God?”  My dad answered, “Mr. Mooney, I figured any God that would send me to the hell I experienced in Europe and then send me to Korea to experience it all over again at the ripe old age of 35 wasn’t worth praying to.”  All I remember after that was a deadly silence that settled over the room.

As they grew older, my grandparents could not travel to the new church so they started going to a store front mission EUB church nearer their house in Glendale.  As a young teenager I loved going to that church.  It was fire and brimstone and stand on the third verse. Every week the minister would ask for people to come forward and testify.  I remember one ancient old man who stood up on his canes and said, “I used to be a Lutheran but now I am a Christian!”  

I started having my doubts in college and attending UC Berkeley in the early 60s put an end to any religious aspirations I might have had. Also, the rigorous scientific training I received while completing my degree in physics caused me to doubt anything one could not see or validate scientifically.  

As I said earlier, between my third and fourth year I worked on the Apollo program for NASA at Aerojet General.  There was another intern from Cal Tech and we were talking about religion and discussing the fact that in those days they made you fill out a form designating a religious preference when you registered for classes. He was from Idaho and lived in a town with a lot of Mormons.  He stated that Mormon girls would go to great lengths to convince you to convert to Mormonism.  I doubt this was true but when asked for a religious preference he answered jokingly, “Mormons.”  But the joke was on him. For four years he was bombarded by letters, calls and visits from Mormon missionaries trying to convince him to rejoin the flock. 

My wife and I married in 1964 in a high episcopal church that her mother attended.  Before the wedding with had to meet with the priest and he asked us, “What do you think makes a good marriage?”

Being fresh out of Berkeley and full of myself I answered, “Intellectual compatibility.” 

He frowned and said, “I was thinking more of the love of Christ.”

“Oh yeah, that too.”  I said.

During the rehearsal, we were told we could not have the wedding march because it was from A Midsummer Night’s dream and celebrated the marriage of Titania to an ass.

Susan said, “If the shoe fits….”

Also, two of my best friends, Iranian Jewish brothers, wanted to throw rice and the priest said no because it was a Pagan ritual.  Really?  Sometimes religion just seems so silly. 

When I was working at Camosun College in Victoria, B.C., the departmental secretary was a born again Christian.  I made the mistake of sharing my childhood history with her and she assumed we were cut from the same cloth.  One day I could not get the duplicating machine to work and I asked her for help.  She came over and laid her hands on the machine, closed her eyes and intoned, “Lord Jesus, help Larry to do his work and repair this machine.”

Somewhat stunned, I pushed the start button and, you guessed it, it worked. She winked at me and said, “You and I know the power of prayer, don’t we?”

My last experience with Jesus came in 1986 when my wife asked me if I remembered the last time we had spent more than a weekend alone without our kids.  “Well,” she said, “it was in 1967, before our oldest was born.”

“Ok,” I said, knowing something was coming.

“We are going to take a two week trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico.” Our oldest was to stay at home and the younger was to go to a basketball camp.

“Why Santa Fe?” I asked.

“I don’t know, we just are.”

When we were first married I used to scoff at these decisions based on her intuitions but over the years I have learned that she is almost always right about what we need to do.  She has said on the ship of life she is the rudder and I am the motor although I sometimes feel like the bilge pump.  So we flew to Albuquerque and landed at night. The next morning I got up and looked out on the west mesa and thought, “My God, this is where I belong.”

As we drove north toward Santa Fe the feeling got stronger.  The next day we were downtown when my back started to hurt. I had injured my back seriously playing Rugby in College and every so often it would flare up and I would be incapacitated.  As the pain intensified I told my wife, “I am going back to the motel to lie down. Call me when you want to come back.”

On the way to the car I passed the Cathedral of St. Francis.  I don’t know what came over me but I said to myself, “You are 43 and you have never sat in a Catholic church.” 

Growing up in the Evangelical United Brethren church we were taught that these were havens of evil and not places to enter so deciding to challenge this absurdity, I went in and sat in a pew.  As I sat there I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the saints, the architecture and the knowledge that this lineage had been around for almost 2000 years.  I sat there and soaked it up for about 30 minutes and when I stood up the pain was gone.  And I never even saw the Devil – disappointing.

The next day we went to the Sanctuario in Chimayo and the same thing happened.  Afterword we went to a small shop where my wife bought me a small milagro shaped in the form of a human back.  I have never had a serious problem with my back since that trip.  

We had been trying to buy the house we were renting for years but the landlady kept changing her mind and we had given up.  My wife suggested we also buy a house milagro to help us find another house to buy.  

When we returned to Canada I immediately went to the local bank and was getting cash out of the machine when I heard a familiar voice call my name.  It was the landlady.  Nervously I touched the house milagro in my pocket.

“Larry, I want to sell you the house.”

I said, “I don’t think I have enough money for a decent down payment.”

“I don’t care,” she said.

So we bought it.

At that point we decided, “Someday we are going to move to Santa Fe.  We are both going to be in private practice in a little adobe office with a portal out front.”

We started going to Seattle for Jungian training and analysis in the early 90s.  At some point we decided we wanted to live there and my wife moved to Seattle in 1995.  I spent 3 more years at the College where I was teaching until I was ready for early retirement.  We tried to get things moving in Seattle but it never really came together.  So we said, “Let’s just go to Santa Fe. That is where we belong.”  

It was very interesting to watch the responses of our friends and colleagues.  Most could not understand why I would leave a secure teaching position with a good salary and great benefits as well as a nice little private practice for a place with no prospects in sight.  I would reply, “I don’t know.  I just have to.”

I added one caveat.  “We have to begin in Albuquerque because that is where the jobs are.”  She agreed, sort of.  She went down and found us a great place up in the hills outside of Albuquerque. Then, because fate likes to play tricks, I got a job in Santa Fe and had to commute every day.  A little over a year later we moved to Santa Fe.

I eventually quit that job and we are both in private practice in a little adobe with a portal out front.  I guess Jesus was watching on that first trip.

The last remnant of my Christian heritage sits in my garage covered by a blue tarp.  On one of my aunt’s trips to visit relatives in Michigan, a cousin took her to a vacated church where her father had preached.  As she looked around, her cousin said, “That is the pulpit from which your father preached his first sermon.” Overcome with emotion she asked if he would ship it to her.  When she moved from her home she gave it to me.  My wife does not want it inside the house but I told her we’d better not get rid of it because, you guessed it, Jesus is watching.

As I left Christianity behind I longed for some philosophy that would fill the need I had for something bigger than myself.  The first was Yoga.

A Hopeless Case

In the early 70’s I was working as the treatment director of a small residential center for preadolescent children on Vancouver Island. I had recently graduated with a Ph.D. in Child Psychology and was a firm believer in the behaviorist school of psychology.  As you may know, behaviorism holds that we are shaped by our environment and anything invisible to the human eye is not worth talking about.  My wife, Susan Riley, who had a great respect for the mysteries of life, would sometimes recount tales of extraordinary events to me and my favorite response was, “That’s not physically possible.”

In addition to working at the center, I was teaching at the University of Victoria and running around North America giving talks and doing my best to become well known in the behaviorist community.  Fueled by copious amounts of caffeine and putting work before my family, my health and the activities that brought me joy, I seemed to be achieving my goal. I felt quite full of myself.  

The first warning I received regarding the folly of this adventure came from the nurse at the center who said to me, “If you don’t slow down, you will be dead by the time you are forty.”  I was thirty at the time.  I remember one of the teachers at the center giving her class the assignment of writing a short book in the form of “Dick and Jane.” One of the kids entitled his, “See Larry Run.”  In the book were several pages of stick figures. One was pictured with a coffee cup in his hand and the words at the bottom of the page said, “See Larry Drink Coffee. See Larry Run.  Run Larry, Run.”

One morning while I was sitting at home grading papers, drinking coffee and preparing to dash off to work, I was instantly incapacitated by a blinding pain in my chest.  I crawled to the phone, contacted my doctor’s office and was told to immediately drive to the hospital which was about a half-mile away.  When I got there I was put in a bed and connected to a heart monitor.  I, as well as everyone else, thought I was having a heart attack.  As I lay there suffering from excruciating pain, I had a thought that I previously would not have believed I was capable of considering.  I thought, “If I am going to be in this kind of pain for very long, I want to die.”  At the moment I finished this thought, a voice inside my head said, “Stop drinking coffee, spend more time with your family and study Jung, Yoga and mysticism.”  

“Of course,” I answered.

After numerous tests, it was discovered that I did not have a heart condition but that I was suffering from gallstones and a jaundiced gall bladder.  Rather than a traditionally masculine condition caused by overwork, dedication to achievement and general disregard for my own body in service of some greater calling, I was suffering from a condition, according to my nurse, that usually was associated with the words fat, forty, fertile and female.  

Being the rational, masculine achiever that I was, I soon dismissed the voice inside my head as part of a delusional thought process caused by the pain.  The next evening I was again visited by the excruciating pain associated with a stone passing through the bile duct. Uncharacteristically, and with great prodding from Susan, I decided this was a sign and that I needed to pay attention.  In this experience, as in many other significant changes in my life, she has had the wisdom to know what was best for me when I did not.

So I gave up coffee, stopped traveling and began to study Jung and Yoga.  After surgery to remove the gall bladder I also began to experience extraordinary events.  I began to practice astral traveling, experienced precognitive dreaming and generally saw myself as a rather extraordinary fellow.  

One my favorite things to do was to attend yoga workshops on Saltspring Island led by John Robbins.  John was a great hatha yoga teacher and had spent some time at Yashodhara Ashram studying with Swami Radha.  I always left these workshops feeling very healthy, happy and centered.  This feeling would usually last until I had to face the realities of marriage, children, work or a ride back to Victoria on the B.C. Ferries.  

It was at one of these weekends that I had an experience that would change my life.  John asked us to sit in a meditative pose and then played a record of a woman chanting.  I later learned the woman was Swami Radha.  As she chanted, I began to see myself sitting on a large round circle on top of a hill overlooking a lake.  Across the lake was a snow covered mountain.  Later, I was transported to the other side of the lake and looking back, saw a beach with an A frame and other smaller buildings.  When I recounted this vision to Susan she gasped and said, “I had a dream about that same place!”  

Wanting to make sense of this, we discussed our respective experiences with Elaine Griff, our hatha yoga teacher in Victoria.  We drew a picture for her and as she examined it she began to smile and said, “That’s Yasodhara Ashram. The circle is the foundation for the temple.”  Knowing that this was an important sign in our lives we decided to attend an upcoming workshop with Swami Radha, Life Seals.  Little did I know what was in store for me.  

We arrived at the workshop and at some level I knew that something big was going to happen for me.  In a nutshell, Swami Radha cut right to the quick.  What was exposed would be called, in psychoanalytic terms, a raging phallic narcissist.  I won’t go into the details, but the key words here would be, “It’s all about me.”  At the end of the workshop, I approached Swami Radha and asked her, “Would you work with me?”  Her response was one of the most painful but truthful pieces of information I have ever received. 

In her lovely German accent she said to me, “I think you have been lying for so long, you no longer know the truth.  I think perhaps you are a hopeless case.” These words were not music to a narcissistic ear.  I was shattered.  I lost about ten pounds over the next two weeks and began the process of manufacturing all the rationale necessary to convince myself, and anyone else who would listen, that she was a charlatan.  In retrospect, everything I have accomplished in my life since then probably began at that moment. Most importantly, I believe my 60 year relationship with Susan would have never survived me had Swami Radha not uttered those words.  

One of my favorite concepts from Jungian psychology is the “wisdom of the psyche.”  Over the next year my psyche worked overtime and forced me to see more and more how correct her assessment of me had been.  At the end of that year Susan and I went to the ashram for a visit and all I could say to Swami Radha when I met her was, “We’re doing really well.”  It was as though I had to make a report to my probation officer before I could even say hello or offer up the customary box of Black Magic Chocolates.   

In the following years I had many experiences with Swami Radha but I feel it is only now as I am in my eighth decade on the planet that I grasp their significance.  Looking back, I think I wasn’t ready for her teachings the way Susan was.  I believe that following a spiritual path requires complete surrender. I was not ready to surrender.  I still needed to hold onto the illusion that I was in charge of my life.  Even though my experiences with her were limited, I would like to share some of them with you.  They were profound for me, have influenced me greatly and, I hope, exemplify her ability to be amazingly insightful, brutally honest, incredibly caring and delightfully funny, sometimes all in the same moment.  

I remember being at a Straight Walk workshop listening to Swami Radha when she looked into my eyes.  At that moment I felt an incredible stirring in my heart and a wonderful feeling of well-being.  I asked her if she had done that to me. She replied, “Ja, I give you a little light.  Most times people don’t notice it.  You know, the only things that are really important here are the light and the mantra.”

Stunned, I asked, “But what about all the stǖrm und drang, the tears, the confessions and so on?”

“Oh Ja,” she said.  “That is the entertainment. If I don’t do that, you don’t come and pay the money for the workshop.”  

I never really knew if she meant it or was just having some fun with us. 

On another occasion I decided to ask her about the experiences I was having. As I told her about astral traveling, visiting other people’s dreams, precognitions and other paranormal events, she listened attentively and then asked, “Do you ever forget to take out the garbage?”

Taken aback, I responded, “Uh….yes.”

“Are you ever unpleasant with your children?”

“Yes,” I replied sheepishly.

“Do you ever fight with your wife?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “Why don’t you work on those things and let these other things go?  Anyone can do those things you talk about but very few can be really good husbands and fathers.”

So I did.  I have never missed a garbage day since.  As for my relationships with my wife and children, it has taken a lot longer to reach the point where I believe I have successfully integrated Swami Radha’s advice.  

From the beginning, I noticed that she treated people differently.  In workshops I sometimes felt like she had it in for me.  Other people who would whine, complain and generally demonstrate what I, in my wisdom, considered a low level of consciousness were not confronted at all.  After one particularly painful encounter I was feeling aggrieved so I decided to ask her about this.   “Swami Radha,” I asked, “why are you so tough on me while at the same time you let some people in the group off easy?”  

“Ja, I only give you what you can take.”

The incredible gift behind this statement only became clear to me later in my studies of Aikido. My instructor, after being asked why he never praised us but only approached us to correct, replied that in the East, to be corrected by one’s teacher is a great honor.  If the teacher does not think you are worthy, you will be ignored.  When Swami Radha said she gave me only what I could take, she was paying me a great compliment, offering me a great gift and, I hope, was telling me that I was not such a hopeless case after all.  

After fifty years of working in the helping profession, the value of this gift has become clear.  As a helper, I must have a high standard of self-awareness or else I will project my own unconscious complexes and insecurities onto those who I am supposed to be helping.  I must be willing to take all that is given me by my teachers. In essence, those of us who consider ourselves “helpers” must first clear our own psyches before meddling in the psyches of others.  Leo Buscaglia captured this concept perfectly in one of his videos by quoting a Zen monk who said to him, “Don’t walk through my mind with your dirty feet.”  Those of us who want to help others walk through this world with joy and purpose must first cleanse our own feet.  

Swami Radha loved to point out the symbolic meaning of one’s actions and appearance.  Once, when giving a talk with David Bohm at the Victoria YMCA, she was talking about the ways in which we communicate who we are without even knowing.  She was talking about clothes and asked, “What is the symbolic meaning, for example, of someone whose clothes are all brown?” Pondering this, I casually looked down and saw brown shoes, brown socks, brown pants, brown belt and a brown shirt.  I don’t know if she meant this for me but it certainly had an effect and perhaps explains my annual purchase of at least one Tommy Bahama Hawaiian shirt.  

On another occasion Susan and I were sitting in the ashram dining room eating with her and a friend of ours.  At the end of the meal, our friend casually cupped his hand and collected the crumbs on the table in front of him and brushed them onto the floor. 

“Look!” she exclaimed.  “Look how you have just created work for someone else with your thoughtlessness.”  She never pulled punches if she thought you could take it.

I think it was very hard for her to carry all the projections and expectations that were laid upon her by all of us.  She once told me this was the hardest part of her work and actually revealed that she wasn’t sure how long she could continue to do her work since it took such a toll on her.  I remember one particularly frustrating moment at a workshop when she sighed and said, “When are you boys going to stop projecting your mother complexes all over me?”

I think this burden weighed heavily upon her and at one point she told Susan, who was planning to go to graduate school in order to become a counselor, “Do you really want to spend your life sitting in a room with someone who is projecting all over you?” 

Fortunately, Susan’s answer was yes and she has had a very successful career and has many grateful clients to show for it. This question reveals the difficulty Swami Radha experienced while helping us travel further down the road of awareness and enlightenment. 

On another occasion she talked about the ridiculous expectations of many of her followers and students.  It was particularly curious to her that many could not reconcile the fact that an enlightened being could have a jones for Black Magic chocolates.  It also baffled her that people in workshops would be upset by the fact that this guru would have to take breaks in order to attend to bodily functions. Apparently she should have been above such mundane needs.   Fortunately for us, she never stopped her work and, I believe, is working still, even after her passing.

I can give one example of this.  Over the 80s and 90s our contact with the Ashram diminished but our appreciation for Swami Radha and the Ashram did not.  After Swami Radha passed and in the year of the Ashram’s 40th Anniversary, we returned.  I decided to do a weekend program at the Ashram which I translated as “What am I going to do with the rest of my life.”  At the time I was working at a job I did not particularly like and wanted a change but was unclear what that change should be.  

Although we were in a location where cell phones should not have worked, on the day before I was to begin the workshop I received a hostile, angry message from one of the administrators at my work. So I began my workshop at this peaceful, loving Ashram with hatred and anger in my heart. 

We began on Friday night and I hardly slept.  In the morning I went to the temple and sat in seiza as we began to chant.  About ten minutes into the chanting, with my thoughts churning about the phone call, I started to heat up.  Soon I was sweating profusely and feeling light headed.  At some point I lost consciousness and my head fell to floor. I awoke suddenly to Swami Radha’s voice saying loudly, “You can’t evolve spiritually and change your life while you are angry at the same time!”  Stunned, I moved to a chair and recovered my senses and began chanting again.  

When the chanting was finished I approached the leader and recounted my experiences.  He advised me to do the workshop but let the focus be finding the meaning of that experience.  So I did and the workshop changed from “What am I going to do” to “Who am I going to be” for the rest of my life.  Many changes came about as a result of that workshop and, once again, they began on the foundation of the Temple.

When the temple that Swami Radha worked so hard to build burned to the ground a few years ago, I was struck with horror but also realized that nothing is permanent and the experiences I had involving the temple are still with me.  All of us who have been blessed by Swami Radha and the Ashram now have to help in our own way to rebuild the temple.  Swami Radha always trusted the divine to provide for her in times of need and it never failed her.  I trust that the same will be true for the temple rebuild and for all of us who have been touched by her. 

Swami Radha is gone now and I regret that I was not more mature when I knew her.  I am sorry that in many ways I was a little boy and not the man I am today. Looking back, I believe she was the most enlightened person I have ever met and she may have saved my life both figuratively and actually.  In the years I knew her, I heard many of her students referring to her respectfully and endearingly as Mataji.  I never used this term because I never really felt I deserved to use it.  I had never really surrendered to her. 

I don’t know what happens after death.  Are we are reborn?  Do we move to another plane?  Does Saint Peter meet us at the Pearly Gates?  All I know is that I want to meet her again.  I will be ready this time.  Thank you Mataji.  

During the time we were involved with Swami Radha, we were so enthralled by the practice of Yoga we began to train as yoga instructors at the local YMCA.  I felt somewhat out of place in this endeavor as I was the only man in the training program and I am very inflexible (in so many ways).  On one occasion we were doing a posture and the instructor said, “Where do you feel the effect of this posture?”  No one answered and she said, “In your ovaries.” I said, “I don’t feel a thing.” She said, “I have a special asana for you.  It is called the Steer.”  If you know how a bull becomes a steer, you know the meaning of this communication. No more funny comments from me.

But I persevered and one day I was approached by the program director.  She said that there was a class, Yoga for Teenage Girls that needed an instructor. Apparently several teachers had tried to lead this class but had become so frustrated by the girls they had left in tears.  The director said she had heard I was a child psychologist and would really appreciate it if I would try to teach it. So I did.

The course was taught in the small chapel and the first day I walked in I was greeted by six very attractive young women who probably saw me as their next victim.  As I began teaching the class they would talk to each other and generally act out.  After the second class I was so frustrated I sat down and said, “I am volunteering to teach this class.  I am not getting paid.  Do you want to do Yoga or not?”

In Aikido we talk about and practice getting into harmony with your attacker.  I had not experienced Aikido yet but I decided to follow this path with the girls. They said they wanted to do Yoga so I told them to bring their favorite music the next week and we would do Yoga to the music.  So the next week we did Yoga to heavy metal, Jesus music and crappy pop. They loved it.  They started to warm up to me and fortunately whenever I started to feel sexually attracted to one of them I could look up to the picture on the wall and be reminded that Jesus was watching, even in the Yoga class.

Eventually we started having a little discussion group at the end of the class and they would share hopes and fears and problems they were having.  All in all it was a wonderful experience and for years after, some of the girls would come to my office at the College just to talk.

Japanese Culture and Aikido

At some point I realized that Yoga was not the path for me.  I was drawn to Japanese culture and began to investigate Zen.  My first encounter with Japanese culture came when I was 11 years old and I started working for my father.  My father was a wholesale florist whose business was located in the middle of two square blocks known as the L.A. Flower market.  As I said earlier, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday he would get up at about 2 in the morning, eat breakfast and go to work.  On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday he would not get up until 5.  I would go with him and work at the shop doing menial tasks on Saturdays. Later, during holidays and summer vacation I would work full time at the shop. The main thoroughfare was Wall St so I can say I grew up working on Wall St.!

There were many other wholesale florists on the street as well as two large open markets where wholesalers and growers would bring their flowers to sell to retailers and route runners who would call on retailers who did not come in to the markets.  About half of the wholesalers and a lot of growers were Japanese Americans.  My dad was very highly respected by them.  During the war, when the Japanese were moved off the coast into internment camps, his company took over the running of the Japanese American flower market.  Many Japanese Americans were robbed of their businesses and possessions during the war by unscrupulous individuals and companies but when the Japanese Americans returned, my father’s company returned all property and material to them.  

After the war there were two Markets, one almost completely peopled by Japanese Americans and one almost completely peopled by European Americans.  When they amalgamated, the Japanese would only accept one person as the director, my father.  So I had a lot of contact with people of Japanese ancestry and came to love the culture and the food.  However, when I went away to University, I lost touch with that culture.  

In the early 70s while still involved in Yoga, I realized that I really wanted to learn a martial art.  I had been a pretty wimpy kid and relied mostly on my wits to avoid fights with other kids.  I also made sure that every year I had a really big, tough kid as a friend.  Heaven help the kid that picked on me. So I figured it was time to get a handle on male violence and to be able to fight my own battles.  At one point in this search I had a dream that seemed really strange to me.  I was in a basement fighting the guys who had picked on me in high school.  For some reason I was wearing a black skirt, which seemed very strange.

I visited many martial arts schools and dojos but it seemed to me there was a lot of ego involved and that a lot of the people teaching were pretty nasty guys obsessed with competition and bravado.  In 1975 I attended the Transpersonal Psychology conference in Asilomar and saw that there was a morning workshop in Aikido, a martial art I had never heard of.  The instructor was Bob Frager, a psychologist and head of the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology. I later learned he had studied Aikido in Japan with the founder himself.  He has written humorously and informatively about this experience.  And, he was wearing a black skirt.

After two mornings of practice, I was hooked.  I returned to Victoria and at my first day back at the University of Victoria, I opened the campus newspaper and was surprised to see an article about a young man from Hawaii who was going to begin teaching Aikido on the following Monday.  This could be seen as an occurrence of what Carl Jung refers to as “Synchronicity,” two or more seemingly unrelated events that occur simultaneously and are perceived by the observer as carrying a message that would only have meaning in the psyche of that person.

I began studying with Gary Mols Sensei and he did a great job of teaching us physical Aikido as well as presenting Aikido philosophy in an understandable and useful manner.  I had been practicing Aikido for about a year when Gary Sensei announced that we were going to Vancouver to participate in a demonstration that the new Japanese sensei there was giving.  We arrived at the gym and all went into the change room together.  After changing into our dogis we proceeded upstairs and the demonstration began.  We all demonstrated but Kawahara sensei’s demonstration was the most amazing and terrifying.  I had never seen such power and precision. After the demonstration we went back to the change room, changed into our street clothes and were preparing to leave for lunch together. As Kawahara sensei was getting dressed I noticed he was looking around and saying something in Japanese to one of his students.  I realized that he was looking for his socks and I looked down to my feet I realized I had put on his black socks and not my own. Terrified, I left the gym and even after many years together as student and teacher, never told him about this.

Kawahara sensei made many visits to Victoria and I consider him one of my best teachers ever.  I wanted so much to learn from him that I even studied Japanese so I would better understand him.  On one occasion, he, my friend Gary Anderson and I sat in the wheelhouse of Gary’s fishing boat drinking scotch and carrying on a conversation about life itself.  At one point I asked, “Sensei, you drink, you smoke and you like to consort with women. Is this good for you?”

He replied, “Not good for body, but good for spirit!” Gary and I both erupted in raucous laughter.

After our first summer camp with Kawahara sensei he gave a little speech. As we were sitting in seiza completely exhausted but filled with the joy seven days of intense practice had brought us, Kawahara sensei began to speak in Japanese. Ishiyama Sensei translated.

“You Canadians are the worst Aikido students I’ve ever seen in the world. I thought Americans were bad but you are worse.”  Imagine the shock we all felt as we were being ruthlessly criticized after a long week of intense practice. What we didn’t realize was that this is a traditional Asian practice used when training students.  It keeps one from becoming inflated and in fact is a compliment.  If he did not have hope for us as students he would not criticize us.  So every year after practice Kawahara sensei would rip us up one side and down the other and we got used to it. In fact, we sort of looked forward to it.  So imagine our surprise when after four or five years we sat down at the end of the practice and waited for Kawahara sensei to tell us how terrible we were.  On this occasion all he said was, “Your Aikido is getting better.”  It was like the heavens had opened up and God himself had blessed our Aikido.

Aikido has given me many gifts. One of these is body awareness. One form is awareness of my own body and a sense of where it is in space and perhaps more importantly, where it is in relation to others and the effect my presence has on others.  The lack of this ability in others is painfully obvious every time I am negotiating the aisles at Whole Foods.  Another important lesson is that my Ki, or life energy, must flow out ahead of me, even if I am moving backwards.  This is true in both a physical and psychological sense.

The most dangerous person in an Aikido dojo is a beginner. There are two reasons this is true. First, a beginner is often so determined to do a technique correctly and with force that they may ignore the limitations of a partner who will be injured if a technique is applied too forcefully or rapidly.  One of the major lessons in Aikido is to be aware of partner’s ability.   Secondly, beginners are so focused on technique that they lose awareness of their own body and bang into others and also sometimes throw partner into other practitioners. According to Ishiyama sensei, this is not a problem in Japan.  Even beginners have the well-being of those around them in mind when practicing.  Growing up in close proximity to others and in a culture that stresses awareness of how one’s behavior affects others leads to a sensitivity many of us here in North America lack. 

Ishiyama sensei, a practitioner and teacher of Morita therapy, says this also has its disadvantages. While we are focused on self-development and individuation but often fall short in our assessment of our effect on others, according to him, the Japanese are likely to avoid individual achievement and individuation in favor of conformity and group identification.  In his mind, the middle path involves development of self and a development of our recognition of our effect on others.  This is very similar to the basic tenets of Naikan, a school of Japanese psychology.

One of the most difficult aspects of aging is the limitations that my body is experiencing.  I gave up physical Aikido several years ago when my arthritic joints just refused to cooperate.  I notice that I sometimes lose balance or bump into doors, something I never would have done in the past.  I hope I am still doing mental and spiritual Aikido in spite of my body limitations.  What good is a martial practice if it does not transfer to daily life?  Really, how many times in a day is someone with a wooden sword going to attack me?  And yet I can be sure that every day will bring interpersonal and psychological challenges.

When I was first studying Aikido, I began to look into the martial philosophy of Budo.  I realized that for the Samurai, an honorable life meant serving one’s lord faithfully and without question. Dying in the service of the lord in battle was the most honorable act one could perform.  As a young professional with a wife and two children in modern Canadian culture, this didn’t seem very practical so I set about trying to translate this philosophy of ancient Japan into a way of life that was applicable to me, now.  I realized that if I considered integrity and truth as my “lord” then my ego, not me, would have serve those concepts and, in fact, may have to die in their service. This approach to life turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined but I hope it still guides my behavior today.

One of the greatest gifts I was given in Aikido was the opportunity to confront my own fear and to finish something to which I had committed myself regardless of my fear.  On one occasion a Japanese Zen monk stopped by our dojo in Victoria and gave a talk after practice.  He asked the question, “What are the three things you must do to become proficient in Aikido?”  Some of us answered, “Practice.”   He said, “Yes, that is one.”  Students then offered numerous other suggestions to which he answered “No” repeatedly. When no more answers were forthcoming he said, “The answers are practice, practice, practice.”

I did not always want to go to practice and sometimes I would have to drag myself to the dojo. Sometimes fear and anxiety would stalk me as I stepped onto the mats and I would want to make an excuse and leave.  But I almost always went and I always stayed.  Five minutes into practice my spirit would be soaring and often at the end of class, soaking wet with sweat and joints aching I would think, “My God, it is good to be alive!”

I used to be a very anxious person.  I think I come by it naturally since my mother, Virginia, was extremely anxious.  I think her philosophy was that if you worry about it enough it won’t happen or if does you will be ready.  Since most of what she worried about didn’t happen she was reinforced for her worry.  See, it works.  I worry and it doesn’t happen.  

I once asked my supervisor why I was seeing so many clients with anxiety.  He answered, "The world is a scary place.”  I said, “For this I am paying $170.00/hr?”  I remember hearing Chuck Yeager being interviewed about a scene in the movie “The Right Stuff.”  He was asked if he was afraid when the plane he was testing went into a death spiral.  He answered, “No, fear just gets in the way of the job to be done.”  

Once, when I was feeling anxious about a high-school math test I asked my dad the same question about the battles he fought in Germany and Korea.  He had a similar response.  He said that no anxiety means you are not paying attention, too much anxiety is crippling but some anxiety is good because it forces you to focus on the job to be done.  Although, he did say that the one thing that really scared him was seeing the Germans advancing across snow covered fields in their white camouflage outfits.  He said on one occasion he thought he was watching ghosts advance against his position.  

I knew I finally had a pretty good handle on anxiety and fear after an experience I had a few years ago at the local hospital.  I started feeling a pain in my chest one evening and after it became quite intense I drove to the hospital and was admitted to the ER immediately.  I was given an EKG, administered nitroglycerine and put through the tests given to heart attack victims.  I was informed I had suffered a heart attack and my life was going to change.

Everyone left the room eventually except one male nurse.  We began to talk and he said he and his wife, also a nurse, wanted to move to Vancouver, Canada.  I proceeded to tell him the best way to do that and we had a long discussion about the Canadian medical system. At some point he asked, “Do you have a spiritual practice?” Surprised, I said, “Sort of.  I have studied Aikido for many years and it is the basis of how I live my life.  Why do you ask?”

He replied, “this is not how people who have suffered a heart attack usually behave.  You are not depressed, not upset, not angry and you don’t even seem worried.”  I answered, “What good would that do?”  

Eventually, after three days of tests it was discovered that my heart was perfectly healthy but had somewhat of an unusual but not dangerous rhythm.  My favorite experience was the treadmill.  As we reached the final stages and I was gasping for breath wondering if I would be able to finish it, the tech said, “Keep going Larry.  Keep going.”  The she exclaimed, “Don’t follow the light, don’t follow the light Larry.”  After, she said, “You have the most boring normal heart I have ever seen.”

Pondering what the nurse had said, I tried to understand why anxiety no longer seemed to be a real issue for me.  I decided it was Aikido that had helped me lose that burden.  A side effect of this experience was that it brought my mortality to the forefront and I had to decide what I needed to complete before I leave the planet.  This book is one of those things.  

I believe the discipline required for conscientious practice taught me to face my fears, overcome my own laziness and anxiety and complete tasks because I had committed to completing them.  Striving to live with integrity was the greatest gift Aikido gave to me.  It has become the foundation of how I try to respond to every challenge I face in life.  I do not always succeed and fear, laziness and negativity are always lurking.

A funny example of the difficulty of translating ideas across cultures was told to my wife by Dr. Hugh Keenleyside who was a member of the Canadian delegation to Japan before WW2 began. Apparently the Japanese had just begun to celebrate Christmas and as Dr. K. entered a Japanese department store he beheld a large, beautifully decorated Christmas tree.  At the top was a large replica of Santa - nailed to a cross.

I studied Japanese for two years at the University of Victoria.  The two people I practiced with most often were my sensei and friend, Ishu Ishiyama and my colleague, Michiko. Japanese is very different from English and I remember some humorous experiences.

Michiko told me she was once discussing American politics with a class when she first began teaching in Canada.  At some point the class broke into raucous laughter and she asked them why.  They told her she had just said she wanted to discuss the difference between Canadian parliamentary elections and the American plesidential erection.  I will forever be grateful to her for teaching me a response to, “O genki deska?” a greeting roughly translated as, “How are you?” She told me a good response would be, “O kage sama de.”  “Fine, because of you.”  How much richer than, “OK”.

On another occasion I climbed the stairs to Ishu’s house and asked politely, “May I come up into your house?”  He laughed and said, “You just asked if you could throw up in my house.”  He once told me that I could study for years and I would never completely understand Japanese.  One reason is that they leave a lot out that you have to fill in with cultural content, much of which is unknown to westerners. Sometimes the subject or object is left out of a sentence.  Verbs are sometimes omitted and can be negated at the end of a sentence if the speaker senses discomfort in the listener regarding the content of the sentence.  So a sentence might be, “As for Johnny, a good boy he is….not.”  The other reason Ishu said it would be difficult to ever understand Japanese completely is that the language, by its very structure, serves the purpose of hiding meaning from foreigners. There is also the problem that there are really two Japanese languages, one for men and one for women.

The importance of syllabic stress and context in the language was demonstrated by one of my teachers who gave this example.  Mr. Yamada visits Mr. Tanaka.  Ms. Tanaka answers the door and says, “Mr. Tanaka is not home. Would you like to come in and wait for him?”   He said this in three ways, all of which sounded exactly the same to me.  Apparently the first phrasing meant indeed he would be home soon.  The second meant he was away and you shouldn’t really come in but politeness requires me to ask you to come in.  The third meant either he was dead or was never coming back. Japanese people interpret these differences with ease. We, of the literal English language, do not.

This teacher also told a story about arriving in San Diego from Japan.  He said that in Japan when you are first asked if you want something to eat or drink you refuse it and say something to the effect of, “No I couldn’t possibly eat a bite.” You refuse a second time then grudgingly accept and eat every morsel or you insult your host. So, arriving at his host residence looking haggard and thirsty in the California heat, he was asked, “Would you like a drink?”  “No thank you,” he said.  His host said “Ok” and began to orient him to his new home.  He thought, “What is wrong with this person?  Why does he not ask me again?  Who are these impolite barbarians?”

This penchant for politeness and indirectness often confuses us westerners and our missing the hidden meaning in the communication makes us seem stupid or rude.  Soon after Ishiyama Sensei began teaching Aikido he realized we did not have the same standard of cleanliness that he did.  One night after class he asked us, “Would you like to wash the mats now?”  We had already opened the fridge in the dojo and started to drink beer so we decided we wanted to do it at another time.  He later told me he was astounded at this response as it was not a request but a command.  A Japanese person would know that.  We did not.  When I arrived for the next practice, the fridge was gone and buckets and rags were set out so we could clean the mats before practice.  He never had to ask again.

All in all, the influence of Aikido, Japanese culture and Japanese people in my life cannot be overestimated and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to experience the insights and kindness those experiences afforded me.  Domo Arigato. 

Ishiyama Sensei, Kawawara Sensei and Me

Buddhism

Our annual Aikido summer camp would start on Saturday and by Wednesday we were so exhausted we would only practice for half a day. Full-time practice would resume on Thursday.  One year we were told that a Zen monk from Japan was present in the camp and would lead a meditation at noon on Wednesday.  Those of us who were interested arrived and lined up in two rows kneeling in seiza while Kongo Sensei began the meditation with a loud cry of “Mokso!” which can be roughly translated as “clear your mind.”  He would then walk up and down the lines carrying a large stick (Jo) and if you felt you needed to focus your attention you could bend forward crossing your arms and he would give you a good whack on the shoulders. Kongo sensei, his head shaved and dressed in the flowing robes of the Zen priest was most impressive.

After the meditation we all made our traditional journey to the local pub for lunch, beer and perhaps some pool. When I walked in the door Kongo sensei was bent over the pool table, cigarette hanging from his mouth, pool cue in hand, whiskey glass on the edge of the pool table and a tall blonde hanging from his arm.  I thought, “Now this is a religion I can get into.”

When we returned to Victoria Kongo sensei moved into the home of the Tibetan Lama who lived two houses away from our house. Unfortunately, the Tibetans ate almost all meat and he was getting sick because he was a strict vegetarian. Seeing this, we gave him a portion of our garden and in that small portion he raised the most amazing vegetables in precise lines and perfect symmetry that made our gardening attempts look haphazard and amateurish.  Our neighbors were a bit upset, however, as he liked to fertilize the garden by urinating on it.

Kongo sensei further demolished my preconceived notions about Buddhist priests by showing up one day at our front door in a white leisure suit and a white hat that made him look like the Japanese version of Roddy McDowell’s character in A Clockwork Orange. Susan said, “Kongo sensei, you like Canada don’t you?”  He replied, “I like Canadian women. I have date at disco.”

Kongo sensei gave many lectures in Victoria, usually translated by my friend and Aikido teacher Ishu Ishiyama.  On one occasion he gave a lecture on the Buddhist approach to anger at the University of Victoria.  At the time, my wife and I were separated and I was very angry so I decided to go to the talk to see if the Buddhist approach to anger management could help me. After the two hour talk I was quite sure my anger was under control and I walked peacefully across the campus to my car.  On the way home I started thinking about my situation, conveniently overlooking the fact that I was the person most responsible for being in this place, and started to become angry.  Eventually, I became furious, drove home in a rage and spent an hour yelling and pounding my boken (wooden sword) into my mattress.  It appeared that I hadn’t quite integrated the Buddhist approach to anger management at that time.

My most interesting conversation with Kongo sensei was regarding reincarnation and the effect it had on one’s life. It was a very interesting conversation conducted in his halting English and my halting Japanese.  He maintained that believing in reincarnation very much changed how you lived your life.  His main point was that if one believes that the results of one’s behavior in this life will be carried forward into the next life, one will be more careful and more considerate of others.  Although I’m not convinced reincarnation exists, this still seems like a pretty good way to live.

My wife and I were quite involved in Jungian studies and analysis in Seattle in the 90s.  On one occasion we went to a panel discussion by several practitioners who described how they worked from a Jungian perspective.  The panel included a minister, a catholic priest, a counselor, a Jungian analyst and a Buddhist teacher who was also a psychotherapist. Each of the panelists spoke for about ten minutes describing their work.  The last teacher was the Buddhist and all he said was, “Yes, all of that is true. But in Buddhism we just call it paying attention.” I was smitten and soon began to explore Buddhist philosophy and practices.

I have always been drawn to Zen Buddhism because of its simplicity and its similarity to the philosophy of Aikido. I think I dabble in Buddhism but do not really practice it.  By the end of my life I would like to become a more serious student.  It just seems to be so practical and clean.  My one concern with Buddhism is that I am not sure it deals with what Jung would call the human shadow, our dark side. Jung said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”  Perhaps my thought that this is somewhat contradictory to many of the forms of mindfulness is due to my own lack of understanding but I have had experiences with practitioners of Buddhism who seem to not have a very clear view of their own dark side.  However, it is a wonderful philosophy and a very useful tool.  I wonder why I still cringe when someone tells me their approach to therapy focuses on mindfulness.  I need to look at this. 

One of my most entertaining experiences with Buddhists took place many years ago. When my wife finished her MA we decided to celebrate by spending a week at Rio Caliente outside of Guadalajara.  It was a great place with pools of varying warmth for soaking. The water sprang from underground and at the source was so hot you could burn yourself seriously if you were to step into it. One day a few of the guys decided to hike through the desert and over a hill to a town known as Tala.

We set off early in the morning following the river until, we were told, would see a path that would lead up into the hills and eventually to Tala.  As we trekked on, occasionally we would run into a vaquero on a horse and I, being the only person who spoke Spanish, would ask directions.  After about three hours we were hopelessly lost and one of the guys, a serious student of Buddhism and somewhat of a proselytizer asked me, “Do you really speak Spanish?”  I said that I did but that I had forgotten so much that I could only speak in the present tense.  He said, “In Buddhism we call that enlightenment.”  Unfortunately, when we moved to New Mexico I took courses in Spanish and now I can use the past tenses.  I guess I am no longer enlightened in English or Spanish. 

We finally came upon a huge house in the middle of the desert surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by unsavory looking men with automatic weapons. From a great distance I yelled, “Donde esta Tala?” to one of them.  He raised his hand and pointed in the very direction from which we had come.  "Aya!“ he yelled (There). So we followed the river until we came to a park and I asked a nice young man in Spanish if he would give us a ride in the back of his pickup to Tala.  He said, “Sure man.  I am from San Francisco. No need to speak Spanish.” 

We ate in Tala and then took a taxi back to Rio Caliente.  It was a great day but they never let me forget my inability go get us to Tala.  At the restaurant the Buddhist kept trying to find out what was in the food because he was worried that there might be lard or some other meat product.  Lard in Mexican food?  Are you kidding me?  I was embarrassed that this rich guy from New York was grilling the waitress from a poor Mexican village about her food.  It seemed to me that true mindfulness and loving kindness would require one to eat the food no matter what was in it.  Is it going to kill you to eat some lard and treat the Mexicans with respect rather than grilling them on the purity of their food?  It seemed very insulting to me.

The food at the spa was good but all vegetarian and a lot of the people there were pretty sanctimonious about what they ate.  About 5 days into our stay the Feral Cats were looking pretty tasty so my wife and I jumped into a taxi and rode to Tlaquepaque, an artists’ center not far from Guadalajara.  There we feasted on chicken and beer for lunch and steak and wine for dinner before returning late at night and stumbling to our room.  The next morning the breakfast room was surprisingly empty and the soaking pools were unusually vacant.  We later found out that something had gone wrong with the food and everybody had food poisoning and all were sick in their cabins with the full range of glorious symptoms associated with this disorder.

When people recovered, they asked how we had managed to avoid the plague. I responded, “When you have reached the level of spiritual enlightenment we have, bacteria have no effect on your body.”

Actually it was a wonderful place and the staff were magnificent. One of the visitors who was an English Prof at UBC said he was going to write a novel, “One Hundred Years of Massage.”  I suggested he follow it up with a sequel, “One Hundred Years of Diarrhea.”

A lot of the visitors were Texans and their unabashed extroversion and outspoken manner prompted my wife, a true introvert, to say, “In my next life I am going to be a Texan.” 

It is a sad fact that Guadalajara has become a major battleground for drug cartels and I believe the Spa has now closed.  I hope the wonderful people who worked there are surviving and that perhaps it will open again.  We loved it.

Buddhism still interests me and perhaps I will get off my Butt (or onto it) and find the deeper meaning in this wonderful tradition.

My first great therapy experience

When my wife and I reunited after a 4 month separation in the early eighties I was quite confused. I wanted to see a therapist but being really well known in town I didn’t know who I trusted enough to see. She suggested Alice, a woman she had met in a women’s consciousness raising group.  Alice was sort of the Grand Dame of the lesbian community in town and practiced psychotherapy even though she had very little formal education.  My wife said she was brilliant and that I would like her for that and her keen sense of irreverence.  So I went to see Alice.  Here is our first conversation:

A: Hello Larry.  I must ask you why you came to see me.  I don’t see many men in my practice. Actually, none.

L.  Well, I know every therapist in town and quite frankly I think I could bullshit them all.  My wife doesn’t think I can bullshit you.  

A. Ah.  Tell me, what is your worst fear?

L.  My worst fear is that I might be ordinary.

A.  I have bad news for you.  

We worked together and she was wonderful.  Even though she became a close friend of my wife, she was always objective and helped me realize many insights.  After I stopped seeing her we became friends and colleagues and eventually shared an office. We are still good friends and my wife always stays with her when we are in Victoria.  I am so grateful to have had her in my life.  

Forever Jung

When I was teaching at Camosun College in Victoria, B.C. I was head of the union negotiating committee for one year.  I typed up a proposal for the administration concerning Professional Development.  Not being a good speller I ran a spell check on it. However, in the early days of computers, spell check would run from your cursor forward to the end of the document and my cursor was sitting in front of the first word in the paper.  When we met, the president said he liked the proposal but that for my professional development I would have to go to spelling class.  I had not spell checked the title of the paper and had misspelled “Proffessional.”

But all ended well as I myself was eventually awarded a large PD grant in the early 90s which allowed me to travel to Seattle where I studied Jungian psychology and underwent 5 years of Jungian analysis.  It changed my life forever and I will always be grateful for that grant that had resulted from a paper with a misspelled title. 

My wife, who is a psychotherapist, has always been interested in the ideas of C.G. Jung.  In 1990 when I was looking for a new direction in my life she invited me to accompany her to a program at the University of British Columbia built around a series of 20 half-hour filmed interviews with mythologist Joseph Campbell done by Fraser Boa, a Toronto analyst.  Campbell discussed the meaning of the great myths within Jung’s theoretical formulation.  I was smitten.  At the conclusion of the films I told my wife, “I want to spend the rest of my life doing this work.”  I wasn’t sure what I meant by this comment but I felt something powerful was stirring within me.

The introduction and end of each film was accompanied by a Bach Concerto. So I must have heard the beginning of this piece about 40 times.  After leaving the auditorium, we got into our car, turned on the classical station and lo and behold, the Bach concerto began.  I knew this was a sign that my life was to change forever.

I began a search for mentors which ultimately led me to Seattle where I found a wonderful Jungian analyst, Ladson Hinton.  My wife and I joined an association of Jungian oriented therapists and traveled to Seattle for therapy, supervision and study groups.  All of my work with clients today has its roots in those years in Seattle.  

My therapist and my supervisor in Seattle probably taught me more about doing therapy than any other person, book or course I have ever taken.  One of the best sessions I ever had with Ladson (I still talk to him once each month) involved my guilt about not committing myself to my full time job at the college in Victoria.  I was heading toward early retirement and I was trying to establish myself as a therapist in Seattle.  I was in transition.  

I told my therapist I was feeling guilty about not putting in my hours at the college and the following conversation occurred.

LD:  I am feeling guilty about not spending the whole week at the college during this attempted transition.

T: Do your students mind?

LD:  No, they are fine with it and can get me on the phone or by email.

T:  Do your colleagues mind?

LD:  No, my department operates on a system of seniority and since I am the most senior member, they will all move up when I leave.

T:  What about your dean?

LD:  She is completely supportive.  She is happy that I am following my true calling.

T:  So what you are telling me is that no one really cares about the issue about which you feel guilty.

LD:  Yes.

T:  That is Completely F***ing Nuts!

LD:  I have just finished studying the DSM and I had never seen that diagnosis.

T:  Well there is a new version coming out and they have included this diagnosis.  There is a page just for you.

When I was trying to formulate my future I kept vacillating between moving into adventure and what I considered to be my true calling on the one hand and security and stability on the other.  I had a dream that I was in the Safeway store near our house and the hands on the clock on the wall were spinning madly.  We worked on the dream and the next week he brought in a quote from Jung in German. I read it and it translated to, “Whoever takes the safe way is as good as dead.”  After that I set about changing the direction of my life.  I would not be here doing what I do if it were not for him.

My other mentor in Seattle taught me so many things about therapy it would be hard to put them all down here. The most important was the idea of induction. He said that intuitive, empathic people often experience strong feelings when encountering another person.  He maintained that a field exists between two people and that the unconscious emotions in one person can induce the same feelings in the other person’s unconscious. Therapists can use this tool to notice what they are feeling and use it as an insight into the unconscious feelings of the client.  I find this concept really helpful to clients that are empathic and often have strong feelings they don’t understand when they are around certain people. They are feeling what the other does not or cannot bring up from the unconscious.

On another occasion he drove home the importance of relying on one’s intuition when practicing as a psychotherapist.  He described an experience he had had years earlier.  As he was sitting listening to a young women talk about her difficulties with her father, he became aware of a presence in the corner of the room.  Eventually he realized it was a native American beating on a drum.  Out of nowhere he asked her, “Tell me about the drum.”

Shocked at first, she related a story about her favorite toy as a child, a drum.  At one point her father became enraged and destroyed her drum.  This conversation evolved into a search for the meaning of the drum and eventually led to her becoming an ethnologist who roamed around North America recording the drum songs of different tribes.   

All in all, these two men radically altered my life and the wonderful life I live now is in many ways, a testimony to their skill and caring.  

My Work

“Life is change, how it differs from the rocks.”  The Chrysalids, John Wyndham

My First Real Job

In 1966 I entered graduate school at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota as a student in the Clinical Child Psychology program. This program was primarily test oriented and this did not seem right to me.  I was less interested in how a child was performing or acting and more interested in why. One event in particular sealed my fate in this program.

I was asked to go to a school in Minneapolis to administer a Wechsler Intelligence test.  I arrived at the school and found most of the students were black and poor.  The teacher involved told me the child I was to test had scored below normal on the intelligence tests administered by the school but that she thought the girl was more intelligent than the scores indicated.  

I sat down with Felicia and began to ask her the questions on the exam.  One of the cardinal rules of this sort of testing is that you don’t ask a child why she answered as she did, you just record the answer.  Some questions have general answers that give you full marks.  If you offer a specific answer, you lose points. So when I asked “Where do you get groceries?” and she answered, “Albertsons,” she lost a point.  I couldn’t help myself.  I broke the rule.

“Why Albertson’s?”

“That’s where they take the food stamps.”

Poverty had just lost this girl IQ points.

Then when I showed her a picture of a coat, she identified it as a sweater.  More lost IQ points.  Again, I broke the rule.  We were in the beginning of a Minnesota winter and this little girl was wearing a tattered sweater.  So I asked, “Do you have a coat?”

“No,” she replied looking down.  

When I tallied up the points she indeed had an IQ below normal. When I told the teacher, she said, “I guess I was wrong.”  She put more faith in the test than her own judgement.  Discrimination and poverty had consigned this girl to a limited future and I really wanted no part of this.  

As much as I wanted to work with children, I did not want to do it this way.  I drove back to the Institute and found Harold Stevenson, the chair of the department, and told him I wanted to change programs from Child Clinical to Child Development, a research based program, a program focused on “Why?” Fortunately, there was another student who wanted to move in the other direction so we swapped fellowships and I became a student of developmental psychology and he became a student in the clinical program.  We also became good friends.  

I am particularly thankful to Harold because without his prodding, I would never have heard many of these stories.  At the end of four years of graduate school and after 10 years of university studies I was sick of it all.  I told him I would do my research and finish my Ph.D. after I left Minnesota.  He reached into his drawer and pulled out a sheet with the names of every one of the students who had left without finishing. Next to those who did finish later was a check.  It was a paltry number.  

“But I don’t have time,” I said.

He said, “There are two kinds of theses.  There is the Magnum Opus, a masterpiece of research and a real contribution to the field.  Then there is the kind you are going to do.”  I will ever be grateful for that. That degree opened many doors for me and allowed me the privilege of being a part of so many lives and to have had such rich and instructive experiences.

As I recount the stories I am writing here I feel such gratitude to the students, clients, teachers and children who have shared their lives with me in such a rich manner and to all the people who said to me, “You have got to write these stories down.”  The first time this happened was in 1970.  I had returned to Minneapolis to take my final Ph.D. orals.  We never even talked about the thesis. They just asked to hear more stories about the wild kids at the treatment center where I was serving as treatment director.  Harold, a prolific writer himself said, “You have got to get these stories recorded."  That same year my sister-in-law, Melba Riley told me the same thing on several occasions.  If two people from such different backgrounds found my stories interesting and funny, I thought they must be worth writing down. So here I am all these years later finally getting it together.    

As my graduate school days came to an end, I began to receive inquiries from a number of prestigious universities in the United States, Canada and Europe.  In those heady days of unfettered expansion, graduation from a first class program in child development ensured numerous offers from departments desperate for qualified people.  I had over a dozen offers of employment, but I wanted to work with children as well as teach at a university. Unfortunately, by switching from clinical to developmental psychology, I had eliminated my chances of achieving certification in most states.

Through a series of coincidences, word about my search reached a psychiatrist in Victoria, B.C., Canada who invited me to visit him at the Pacific Centre for Human Development, a residential school for "emotionally disturbed” children. He offered me a job as treatment director and put me in contact with the chair of the University of Victoria Psychology Department who was delighted to have someone from the Minnesota Institute of Child Development in his department as a part-time instructor.  I took the jobs, flew home to finish my degree, and in the fall of 1970 my wife, my two-year-old son and I emigrated to Canada with plans to stay for two years, gather some experience and then return to California.

What I found when I arrived at the Centre was shocking.  The kids were running the place and the staff was barely surviving in an environment of fear and chaos. Bribery and physical force were the two main methods of control.  I wanted to establish a very tight program of behavior modification with strong incentives for academic success and reasonable conduct.  The staff were very resistant and undermining of this program and something drastic had to happen. So one morning I came in and I told the staff, “I am going to demonstrate that this program will work.  I want you to all take the day off and come back at three.”  

They were shocked and I could tell they were expecting to find the building burned down and me dead when they did return.  But I had a devious plan that had nothing to do with Behavior Modification.  After they left I found the two most violent and powerful kids in the school and offered them a deal.  I pulled out two twenty dollar bills and said, “If there are no incidents at the school today, each of you will get one of these at three o’clock.  The kids can do anything they want but there can be no destruction or violence and you can’t tell anyone about this.” 

They agreed and we had a peaceful day.  No other child at that facility would dare to challenge these two.  When the teachers arrived they were stunned to find a school functioning quite well with no violence or destruction.  They bought in and we began a behavior modification program immediately.

It took about six months, but the place began to run smoothly.  It also became evident to me that, while we could affect major change in some children, we were sending them back into the same environment which had produced their behavior in the first place.  I initiated a parent training program and found that education and some introspection helped many of them to become adequate, if not perfect, parents.  I will never forget the gratitude of some of the parents when they were finally able to take their children home.  It was working with the staff and parents that led me to the conclusion that I liked teaching adults as much as working with children.  

After two years at the Centre I was asked to be the Canadian representative at the First International Conference on Behavior Modification in Minneapolis.  In preparation, I distilled all the data we had collected over the previous two years and wrote it up in a report which was eventually published as a chapter in a book summarizing the proceedings.  Among the many fascinating aspects of the data was the fact that children who had been considered unteachable had covered two or three years of math and English in the space of one year.  

How were we able to do this?  As Jean Piaget has said, learning is a fundamental human drive.  If you create an environment in which inquisitiveness is nurtured and rewarded, learning is inevitable. We made education a positive experience for these children by allowing them to work at the level at which they were competent and we rewarded progress, no matter how small.  We also focused considerable attention on their interests.  Every person alive, unless he or she has been completely beaten down in life, has a passion for something.  If you can discover that passion, you can unlock the motivation for learning.  For Alan it was science.  For many of my adult students it has been the desire to raise healthy, happy children, or perhaps to understand their own childhood.  

At the end of my three-year tenure at the Pacific Centre, I had the background I needed to become licensed as a Clinical Psychologist and did so.  I left the Centre, opened a private practice and eventually was offered a job at Camosun College where I taught for 23 years while continuing to carry a light load of clients in private practice.  The two-year commitment became a 28 year commitment until my wife and I moved to Santa Fe, NM in 1998.

I learned so much at the Centre and I realized that a true understanding of developmental psychology can be a powerful clinical tool.  I also had a lot of humorous experiences, some of which I would like to share.

Shortly after I arrived one of the teachers told me the five boys she had in her class were paying no attention to her, physically assaulting her and that she was going to quit if things didn’t change. I had not implemented the program yet so I tried something desperate.  I hauled the kids out about 15 minutes before lunch one day and took them to the activity room.  I said, “We have about 10 minutes before lunch and I am going to challenge you. I am going to take on all five of you and if I am still standing at the end of 10 minutes I want you to promise not to bother your teacher anymore and to be good students.”  

Their eyes widened as they relished the thought of pummeling a senior staff member to death and were a little disappointed when I told them there would be no punches, no nasty stuff below the belt and no biting.  But they agreed.  So I said, “Go!” and they did.  

We went at it for ten minutes and at the end I was still standing, barely.  They were elated and promised to behave as agreed and they did.  I made five good friends that day and we never told anyone.    

The nurse at the school was a wonderful Scottish woman who had seen it all. She had learned her nursing skills in the worst neighborhoods of Glasgow and described herself as a spinster.  She told me that if she was going to have to take care of someone she wanted to get paid for it and marriage salaries were not that great. She was a prankster of the highest order.  I remember showing up to camp and her approaching me with a “special sandwich I made just for you.”  Peanut Butter and cotton balls.  Yuk.  

She used to put pills out on the kitchen counter in the morning and one morning she was going to do a dental inspection so she laid out about 30 pink pills that were intended to highlight dental issues when chewed.  There was one incredibly difficult boy at the center at that time, Donny, and as he entered the kitchen he gathered up all the pills and downed them.  She went ballistic.  She often lectured the kids on the dangers of taking drugs so this was a major affront to her warnings. She grabbed him, hauled him up the stairs, castigating him all the way and then locked him in his room and screamed, “You could die from doing that.”

He took full advantage of this opportunity, yelling, “Helen put me in here to die, Helen put me in here to die!”  

She paid no attention and her parting shot was, “Don’t be surprised if your urine is red!”

The next morning she was doing bed checks and when she came to his bed he smiled and proclaimed, “It was pink!  And, I am not dead!”

She replied, “How do you know you are not in heaven?”

Stunned, he blurted out, “You’re here!”  

She relished talking about one experience she had with Donny who had an undescended testicle. She maintained that was why he was so ornery.  She was examining him one morning and asked him to move his penis to a position that would not hinder her from examining the offending testicle.  

He said, “It doesn’t move that way.”

“Yes it does,” she replied.

“Helen,” he proclaimed, “You know a lot about pills but you don’t know anything about penises.”

On another occasion we took the children from the treatment center to a beach campground for a summer camp experience.  One of the boys in my tent was wetting his sleeping bag every night and we were pretty sure he was doing it on purpose.  So I told him, “If you pee in your sleeping bag again, we will take you home to the Centre.”

That night I was awakened by the sensation of warm liquid spreading in my sleeping bag.  Startled I awoke to find him urinating into my bag.  “What are you doing?”

“You told me you would take me home if I peed in my bag so I decided to pee in yours.”

He had me.  

Another child taught me that using power over a child can often lead to resentment and retaliation on the part of the child.  This boy had a terrible learning disability which caused him to see written material backwards.  He wanted to go home to Yellowknife for Christmas so I told him he had to learn five letters before December if he wanted to go home.  When the time came to show me his work he said, “I actually learned six.”  He then wrote the following message for me.

U O Y K C U F.  

This was a powerful lesson for me about the misuse of power and authority.  I sent him home for Christmas, a trip he deserved just for being a child, regardless of his disability.

I got into another bad situation with ultimatums when I was showing a new boy around the school.  He was yelling and cursing me, the school and his parents and said he would never stay at this “F…ing S…hole of a school.”  Exhausted and fed up, I turned to him and said, “You can stay here or go to jail!”

“I’ll take jail,” he replied.  

Once again I had backed myself into a corner.  Just then I remembered a story a professor of mine had told me.  At the end of the war he was drafted and asked, “Europe or Asia?”  Since the war was over in Europe he answered enthusiastically, “Europe.”

“Europe’s full,” the officer replied.  And he was off to Asia.

So I said, “Jail’s full.”

Although he was one of the most difficult kids to deal with, he eventually came around and became a model for other boys to emulate.  When it was time for him to leave we gave him the choice of returning to his dysfunctional family or a foster home.  He chose the foster home.

Bobby was a developmentally disabled boy who had suffered some kind of abuse as a young child and had formed an attachment to Dinky Toy cars and would walk around for hours making car noises as he pushed the cars through the air.  At one point a new boy, Alex, arrived.  Alex claimed to be a vampire and after a few weeks I was convinced he was right.  More than one staff member had bite marks on their necks.  He took a fancy to Bobby and manipulated him into a very exploitative homosexual relationship.  We decided to use behavior modification to try and convince Bobby to avoid Alex.

My friend Barney and I brought Bobby into Barney’s office and explained a program in which Bobby could earn points by staying away from Alex.  When Barney asked him “What do you like that you could earn with these points?”

Bobby replied, “Well, I really like it when Alex sticks his tongue in my mouth and goes lubalubado.”

Barney calmly replied, “That is not on the list.”

Having worked with several autistic children I considered myself somewhat of an expert in behavior modification with this challenging group.  So when a young autistic girl showed up at the center I decided to record a teaching video for staff to watch in order to learn how to use such skills as shaping and prompting to teach behavior.  One of the things that made Jeanne special was that she had an ileostomy collection bag on her side.  It would fill with urine and have to be emptied often.  What I didn’t know was that when angry, she would pull the bag off and empty it on the floor.  

I sat down with a simple reader and her lunch.  I would point to letters and prompt her to repeat them as I was being filmed through a one-way mirror.  She began to get agitated as she did not like her lunch to be contingent on completing the tasks I set out for her and when I turned to look at the clock, she whipped off the bag and emptied it on my head.  This video became extremely popular and was hauled out every time there was a staff party.  

Several years later, after Jeanne was released, I went to visit her in Vancouver. When she came to the door, she gave me a big hug and said, “Remember Larry. You teach me to read.  I dump PeePee bag on your head.”  Then she laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes.

I had many other memorable experiences but these are some of my favorites. 

Some stories about change

I am in the business of change.  People generally want their lives to change and are looking to me for help.  Ironically, I find change difficult.

My wife likes to ask, how many Dettweilers does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer 1:  Change?  Change? Answer 2:  1 but I liked the old one better. Answer 3:  2.  One to change the bulb and one to administer CPR after he accidentally electrocutes himself.  

Often change occurs slowly in incremental steps.  Sometimes it is rapid.  Here are some stories about change.

In the spring of 1968 I was sitting on the lawn in front of the athletic center at the University of Minnesota with my friend Tom after an enthusiastic afternoon of handball.  Tom’s dad was head of the Presbyterian Church in the US.  He had told Tom that he and other religious leaders in the US were trying to convince Dr. King to cancel his tour of the South as they felt his life was in danger.  Between the war in Vietnam, the killing of the Kennedys, the civil rights killings, the assassination of Malcolm X and the specter of Richard Nixon on the horizon, I said, “If he is killed I am going to Canada.” Dr. King went on the tour and was assassinated in April in Memphis.  My wife and I, not wanting to raise our children in a country so racked with hate and violence moved to Victoria, B. C. Canada after I finished my Ph.D. in 1970.

Like many Americans I think I assumed Canadians were a lot more like Americans than they really were.  Also we were not prepared for the hostility toward Americans that many Canadians felt.  I began to get an inkling of this when I was told a joke by a co-worker during my first week as treatment director at the Pacific Centre for Human Development.  It went like this.

There were three Canadian surgeons who each went to study in different countries.  When they returned they sat down over coffee to compare notes. The first said that in Japan all internal organs are color coded so to do a replacement you just replaced yellow with yellow and so on. The second said that in Germany all organs were numbered so you just replaced a one with a one and so on.  The third said surgery in the US was really simple. American bodies only have two moving parts, a mouth and an asshole and they were interchangeable.  

I don’t think a day ever went by when I didn’t hear what was wrong with America from a person, the radio or a newspaper. This didn’t bother me too much since I probably agreed with their assessment of American foreign policy. What did bother me was the way in which the anger and hostility was directed not so much at the politics and government but rather at the American people.  

And with my loud, extraverted personality and American accent I was often targeted as a typical American.  And, like most stereotypes, there is some truth there.  Canadians often describe Americans as brash, rude and arrogant.  When I first went to Canada in 1970, I think I was living proof of this stereotype. Here is an example.

In the early seventies I was teaching at the University of Victoria and they were putting on Saturday courses at a College up-island.  I was asked to teach one and the University thought it would be easier to send the three of us who were doing this up in a limo rather than pay for us to drive up individually.

So the first day the three of us met.  Here is the conversation I had with Cary, one of the other teachers.

L: Hi, I am Larry.

C: Hi I am Cary.  What department do you teach in?

L: Education this year.  But I hate that department.  It is terrible. What about you?

C: Education.  (Dead Silence)

L: Boy I am tired.  My son plays hockey on Saturday at 5 in the morning.  What a stupid sport.

C: I coach youth Hockey.

I had dug a deep hole but if there is one way to connect with a Canadian it is to criticize America or Americans.  It is the second most enjoyed sport by Canadians after Hockey and it runs all year.  Not to mention that there is an endless supply of material for them to work with. 

L: I came here from Minnesota but I really was glad to leave.  The weather was horrible and I didn’t like the people very much.

C: My mother is from Minnesota. 

Sometimes I shudder when I look back at the person I was then, a truly ugly American, but Cary was extremely forgiving and we became close friends on those rides up and down the Island.  He and Judy and I, a Canadian, a Brit and an American, were a bit embarrassed by the fact that we were riding in a limo on that first day.  The next week it was a little easier and on the third Saturday we asked him to wash it during the time we were teaching because we thought it was dirty.  Eventually we began bringing wine and food and we would eat, drink, tell stories and laugh all the way home.  And, more importantly, I began to realize that the Canadian character, emphasizing self-effacement, politeness and interpersonal restraint (a lot like Minnesotans actually) might be something I would want to emulate, eh.  

I soon took it upon myself to be a little less outgoing and developed a Canadian accent, dropped “huh”, added “eh” and began to try to assimilate.  This must have happened somewhat unconsciously because I took my kids to Disneyland in the early 80s and after talking to a woman in line for a few minutes she asked me, “Where in Canada are you from?”  

This led to a lot of funny situations, especially in my private practice. I had become Canadian enough that people couldn’t tell I was a Yank. So clients would come in and rant and rave about Americans and at some point I would have to say, “You know, I am an American.” Often they were shocked as I had become so good at passing as a Canadian.

The truth is that Canada did change me.  It was there that I learned so much about myself from many wonderful friends, teachers and students.  However, as early retirement loomed, we decided to cast our fate to the south.  America, with all its faults was our home and we just felt more at ease there among people from our own culture. This is really hard for Canadians to understand.  On paper Canada seems such a better place to live.  But we are Americans and we feel more at home here.

I spent the first 27 ½ years of my life as an American.  I spent the next 27 ½ years as a Canadian.  I have spent the last 20 as a New Mexican, in a state that is an entity unto itself.  I love it here but when I die I want my ashes spread on the west coast of Canada because that is where I learned how to live life. 

My experience with the Victoria Family Violence Project required me to learn quickly on the job. When the director, Alayne Hamilton, first asked me to consider the position of consulting psychologist, I dismissed it out of hand as I had no experience with abusive men or group therapy.  She persevered and eventually I went to Ahimsa House, home of the Project to talk to her and Mike, one of the men working there.  I demurred but Mike said, well we need a licensed Psychologist working here or they won’t fund our program.  You are the only psychologist in town we are willing to let in this building so we are not letting you out of the building until you agree.  

In order to learn more about the program, I apprenticed myself to a lay leader in what they called Phase I, the entry level to the program. The idea of a Ph.D. Psychologist apprenticing with a lay group leader who installed cable during the day and had never finished high school raised some eyebrows but we worked well together and I learned the basics of the program during my twelve weeks with this group.  At the end of the group I told him I thought he was gifted in this area and I hope I had some influence over his eventual enrollment in and graduation from the Social Work program at the University.  Concurrently, I was accepted into the therapeutic group which was being run for the lay leaders, all of whom had been through the program.

The leader of that group was a professional therapist who had never received a degree but was gifted in his work.  I learned more about leading groups from him than anyone else I have ever known.  After ten weeks I was ready to start my own group.  My partner Wendy and I became so good at sharing this role it often seemed as though we were two heads on the same body.  

We led groups of 6 to 8 men who were attempting to change their lives for the better and to stop the violence that had so dominated their lives in the past.  One of the things we tried to teach them was to change their communication patterns by expressing their feelings to their partners rather than expressing judgments or controlling statements. One night the following conversation took place between two of the guys. I will refer to them as Tom and Jerry.

Tom said, “My wife won’t let me express my feelings.”

Jerry said, “What do you mean?”

“Well I told her I feel she’s a slut and she got mad and told me to shut up.”

“That’s not a feeling.”

“Yes it is,” he said somewhat agitated.”

“No, that’s a judgement and an insulting one as well.”

“No it’s a feeling.”

By this time both guys were getting pretty mad.  As the banter continued and tempers begin to flare I found myself splitting into three people.  First there was fearful Larry who was looking for the fastest way to the door.  Second there was Aikido Larry who was thinking about which technique he would use when one of these guys came after the other. Lastly there was adult psychologist Larry who said, “Let’s examine this interaction.”  I managed to put my fear and distracting thoughts aside in order to focus on the job to be done.  This is a core concept in the Japanese approach to problems known as Morita Therapy.

I asked Jerry to demonstrate a feeling statement to Tom.  With a malicious grin and a gleam in his eye he said to Tom, "I feel you’re an asshole.”  I thought, uh oh, here we go.  

After a brief pause Tom said, “Okay I get it."  That was the closest I ever saw anybody get to coming to blows during my five years working there.  But he did get it and became one of the best communicators in the group.  An unusual way to facilitate change but it worked.

There was one guy in the group who was particularly difficult to deal with but we all really liked him.  In his case, change was slow.  He had a pretty good handle on his anger at this time after having been through the program twice but he really got upset when he thought something was happening to his daughters, both of whom often found themselves in dire straits.

On the last night of these groups that ran for six months, we would meet and discuss how we all had changed and improved over the period of the group. When his turn came he told a story about how he had dealt with a man who was harassing his daughters.  It had angered him so much that he went up to the man’s third-floor apartment, grabbed him by the feet and hung him over the side of the railing and told him to stop bothering his girls.  This was the last night and I didn’t want to open this up, process it and show that, in fact, that it was not completely congruent with the non-violent philosophy of the family violence project.  So I just asked a simple question.

"How is this an example of the improvement and change you’ve experienced as a result of this program?”

“Oh hell, before this program I would’ve dropped him.”

I once had a student we will call Julie whose parents had come from Greece. After she had left for college, her grandmother moved from Greece to Canada when her husband died.  She stayed with my student’s parents and didn’t do much of anything except wander around the house in her black garb, watch television and cook.  After about six months she called Julie and asked her if she would take her out to buy some different clothes. This was quite a surprise to Julie.  Also grandma wanted to know if she would help her enroll in English classes at a local college.  A bit stunned she did both.  Over the next few months she noticed a radical change in her grandmother.  In addition to changing her clothes and going to school she began taking driving lessons.  When Julie asked her grandmother one day why she had made such a big changes, she replied, “Oprah.”

Years ago I owned a house in Victoria B.C. that had been built in 1910.  It constantly needed repairs and I had a fantastic handyman named Burt who would do the work.  He always asked me to help, mostly because he liked the company and not for my skills at home repair.  One time he and his wife were with me and my wife at a friend’s house.  I asked him how much it would cost to repair my front porch. He replied, “400 dollars.”  I said, “What if I help?”  His wife answered quickly, “600 dollars.”

Anyway, Burt liked to drink.  He never drank on the job but his binges were legendary.  I called him one day to tell him I was getting new gutters on the house and I just couldn’t get the old ones off.  He said they were going out to dinner and he would stop by afterward to look at it.  Around nine that night Burt and his wife showed up and he was three sheets to the wind.  It was windy, dark and pouring rain but he said, “Bring a flashlight, hammer and ladder.”  He climbed up, looked at the gutter and asked for the hammer. 

I said, “I have been thinking about all the ways to get this down and I just can’t figure it out.”

He reared back, swung the hammer and the whole gutter flew off into the yard. He said, “That’s the trouble with you f…ing intellectuals, you think too much.” No one has ever confused me with an intellectual before or after that incident but it was definitely an example of the superiority of action over thinking, at least in this case.  In Japanese psychology, thoughts and feelings are seen as fleeting and not under your control and the fastest way out of a bad state is to do something.  This is very different than western psychology.

Burt taught me a lot about home repair but that night he was definitely my action guru.

On another occasion I was talking to my mentor in Seattle when he told me he had been to the 100th birthday party of a famous Jungian analyst.  He asked the birthday boy what he had been up to.  After hearing a long list of projects, plans and activities he said, “Joe, how do you do all of that at your age?  I get tired just thinking about it.”

Joe answered, “I don’t think about it.”

So now when I really need to do something I try not think a lot about it.  If I can just get started, it usually takes care of itself. 

A dramatic and fascinating example of change being inspired by a complete stranger was described to me by a former student.  This woman, who we shall call Eleanor, was at a major decision point in her life when this event occurred. She told me about it in a career and life development course I was teaching in which she was a student.  The students had completed several inventories designed to indicate appropriate career paths they might follow.  She had the most interesting test results I’ve ever seen.  I said to her somewhat jokingly, “It looks like you could either be a CPA or a counselor.”  She told me that, in fact, before coming to graduate school in counseling she had been debating whether to become an accountant or counselor.  She clearly had a wide range of abilities. 

One day while she was in the process of trying to figure out which path to follow she was leaving the grocery store with her hands full when a stranger opened the door for her.  She smiled and said thank you, and he said, "You should become a counselor.”  She stood there stunned and when she turned around he was gone.

She went back to school, completed the prerequisites for graduate school and counseling, and enrolled in a graduate program with a specialty in grief counseling.  Today she works as a grief counselor and is known in hospice circles as the "angel of death.”  She seems to have the ability to walk into a room, sit down next to person who is dying but can’t let go, place her hand on the person and within a half an hour the person has let go and is gone.  She has found her calling thanks to a stranger’s comment.

This is a most remarkable woman.  She suffers from a serious disease but never talks about it or uses it as an excuse to avoid difficult situations.  She has now finished her Ph.D. and will continue with her life’s work, helping the dying and the grieving.  She works a lot with immigrant families and told me she always takes her shoes off when she enters a trailer or small home.  I assumed this was a sign of respect.  She said, "No, I am often the tallest person in the house and I don’t want them to feel small.”

After reading about the importance of action in Japanese Psychology and the importance of starting small I was reminded of a story I heard Bill O’Hanlon tell about Milton Erickson, the famous psychiatrist who was best known for his work in Hypnosis and his somewhat unconventional (at least for his time) approach to clinical problems.

When one of his students heard he would be visiting a large U.S. city where his depressed aunt lived, he asked Erickson if he would stop in on her.  He agreed and when the aunt opened the door he found himself in a musty, dark house with all the curtains pulled confronting a woman who appeared to have nothing to live for and who only left the house to attend church on Sundays.

After speaking to her he found there were two things that gave her life meaning, going to church and growing African Violets.  In his own inimical way he said, “You know I don’t think you are a very good Christian and I don’t think your flowers serve much of a purpose either.”

Stunned, the woman asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, a fundamental tenet of Christianity is caring for others.  You don’t do anything for anyone else and you are the only person who gets joy from these flowers.  I am going to give you a task but I seriously doubt you can do it.  I want you to look into the church bulletin and see if there is anyone who is suffering or grieving and send them one of your plants.  Again, I doubt you will do this.”

I guess the challenge was too much to resist so she did it.  The response from the recipients and the pastor were so positive she did it again.  Soon she was sending violets to anyone she heard of who was in need.  When she died, hundreds of mourners showed up to honor “The African Violet Lady”, a person they saw as a caring and generous woman.  

And it all began with a challenge and one small act of kindness.

Except for one semester, I was a student in University from the fall of 1960 to the fall of 1970.  I saw many changes during that period, one of which was the introduction of drugs to student life. By the end of the decade I was a pretty heavy user of Marijuana and dabbled in other drugs. After I moved to Victoria and took my first job I continued to use drugs recreationally.  

Shortly after Ishiyama Sensei arrived in the mid-seventies and became our Aikido Sensei, he announced we were going to do a demonstration at the university.  We arrived, changed and went onto the mats to warm up.  He approached me and told me I was going to do the knife attacks.  This was fine with me because we had always used wooden knives in practice.  He then went to a small box on the edge of the mats and extracted a long, very pointed metal knife.  As he handed it to me I asked, “How do you want me to attack you?”

“Any way you like,” he responded.

I realized at that point that if either of us made a mistake, I could die. So I did my best to attack at full speed and with lethal intent and he countered every attack.  It seemed like it went on for hours. That night it was broadcast on the local TV station and I realized it was only about three minutes.  But I knew at that time that I wanted to experience every moment of my life with that same awareness and intensity.  I never used drugs again.  

In 1981 I was approached by my Dean regarding a pilot project in Infant Day Care.  In Victoria, B.C. there were no infant day care centers (centres!) and the government was about to initiate a program designed to encourage the establishment of infant day care. The College Day Care Centre was going to be one of the first and he planned to expand our Day Care Worker training program to include infant care.  He wanted me to head up the creation of the program.

I said I would do it but I hadn’t read any research on the subject in 10 years since my graduation from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota.  I asked him if he would send me to Stanford for a month where the author of the textbook I used in my Child Development class was a professor. He agreed.

I contacted the professor and she agreed to mentor me in this endeavor if I would keep a record of my findings and give a copy to her so she could use the information for her next book.  This sounded like a good trade to me.  Summer came and I was off to Palo Alto while my wife stayed in Victoria with our two sons.  Our trade was that she would fly them down at the end of a month and the boys and I would visit relatives and generally enjoy California, Oregon and Washington while she had time alone.  So the time came and I drove down to Palo Alto where I would stay with my good friend Carol for a month. 

When I got there I was suddenly overwhelmed by the immensity of the commitment I had made.  I had not done anything like this in 10 years and I didn’t like doing it back then.  Also, it was the hottest summer in Northern California history and the first time I walked into the Stanford library I felt smothered by the oppressive heat as there was no air conditioning.  Additionally, I was not in the best emotional state as my wife and I had recently reunited after a separation that had really knocked the wind out of my sails.  And, most importantly, being a Cal graduate, I was feeling guilty for consorting with the enemy, Stanford. 

My first visit to the library lasted about an hour and I left frustrated and angry that I had put myself into this situation without really assessing how difficult it would be for me.  I missed my wife and boys, was not really that excited about the research and remembered that after finishing four years of graduate school, I never wanted to see another journal article as long as I lived.

But I had a job to do so the next day I promised to stay until noon. Reading about infant perception in the morning, I found myself beginning to get interested in the amazing things researchers had discovered about infants over the last 10 years.  The next day I stayed all day and soon I was going in at night and on the weekends. I was amassing reams of note cards and when I met with the prof at the halfway point she was delighted to see my work and said I had saved her many hours of work that she could now spend with her three young children. 

This is a good example of some of the principles of Kaizen, another form of Japanese psychology.  I started small, gradually increased my time on the project, kept with it and the project overcame my emotional state.  It really became my life. More importantly, it proved to me that I could do a very good job on a project that had to be its own reward.  There was no prize, no money or pat on the head when I was done.  Finishing the task with thoroughness and integrity was the only reward.

My clinical supervisor in Seattle once said to me, don’t think of the Psyche as part of you, think of yourself as part of the Psyche.  In the same way, this project was not part of my life, I was part of it.  I was an employee of the project.  It had a life of its own.

There were other benefits as well.  I got to know Carol really well and we remained good friends, exchanging letters at Christmas and at our Birthdays.  One of the first things she told me, having been born on December 25th, was, “I will not accept one card.  You have to send two.” We were on a pretty tight budget but occasionally we would go out to dinner.  Her boyfriend had recently left her and she would offer to pay if I promised to walk by his house with my arm around her feigning mad love and affection.  Also, I joined the Stanford Aikido Club and practiced every day there was a practice.  When I finished the project, the boys came down and we had a great vacation together.  

When I returned we set up the program and the Day Care became a fantastic resource for the community.  The people who actually made this happen were the wonderful teachers in the training program and the exceptional day care supervisors at the centre.  Also, I had a lot of new material for my course in Child Development.  I will always be grateful for the experience this project afforded me.  

Sometimes life wakes you up and change is immediate.  My friend Ron is a great example of this.  Ron’s family owned a very profitable furniture store. From an early age Ron showed great ability in art and design and was a genius working with his hands.  He once showed me a report card from a prestigious private boy’s school which he attended.  All the grades were rather mediocre except art. He excelled at art. He also showed me a picture of a beautiful boat he had built while still in elementary school.  It was a work of art. However, Ron’s parents had other plans for him.  They wanted him to become an architect and a professional of whom they could be proud.  So even though his academic record was not astounding, off he went to study architecture at University.  Not surprisingly, he flunked out.

Ron may have been the most introverted and shy person I have ever met in my life.  Upon returning home after failing in University, his parents took him into the business and made him the director of personnel.  There could not be a job on earth for which Ron was more poorly suited.  Fortunately, he married a woman who was very supportive and realized he could not survive in this job. One day, after waking from a terrible nightmare, he resigned his job, sold his stock and begin a business building wooden toys for children.  He would isolate himself in his garage while doing his woodwork and his wife would handle all sales from the kitchen of her house.  She served as the business manager, doorkeeper and was a welcoming presence who always seemed to have something delicious to offer you while you were picking up toys.    At some point they began to build a boat.  After years of work it was a beautiful sight to see. Eventually they divorced and Ron moved to a local island where he now builds boats that have been commissioned by people who value his unique ability.  What would his life have been like if his parents had seen this gift and nurtured it?

If you were to walk into the office that my wife and I use for our psychotherapy practice, you would see lots of turtles.  Turtles on the desks, turtles on the tables, a turtle candle holder, turtles in the windows and turtles on the floor.  Not live turtles but every kind of turtle you could imagine. You would even see a turtle painted on a drum on the wall and a turtle night light.  There used to be more turtles but my wife said, “Enough is enough.  We are taking some of these home.”   She has replaced them with shells and stones in the same places.  She has her magic and I have mine.

When I taught and worked with the First Nations Salish people of Vancouver Island they told me the turtle clan was the healing clan and that I belonged to that clan.  This was an incredible honor so I started collecting turtles.  People saw my turtles and starting giving me turtles so I have a lot. People have brought them from all over the world.

I have turtles everywhere to remind me to slow down.  My nature is to go fast, to want to finish everything before I need to and come to closure too early.  There is also a practical issue here.  I do not have the physical abilities I had when I was younger and when I get ahead of myself I tend to break things, harm my person and otherwise cause havoc.  

My mother was the same way.  She fell many times in her 80s because this previously active and athletic woman just could not slow down.  She would stand up from her easy chair, set off at breakneck speed only to trip and fall.  On one Super bowl Sunday I got a call from her residence just as the game was going to start.  She had fallen and they could not stop her nosebleed due to her use of blood thinners.  The woman said that my mother had asked her not to call me because she knew I was watching the game but that they were really worried.  

I drove rapidly to the residence where I found my mother covered in blood and rapidly swelling and darkening around the eyes.  I did not feel adequate to deal with this so I called 911 for an ambulance to take her to the hospital.  When the first responder walked in he looked at the game on the TV, then my mother, then me.  "I gather you are rooting for different teams,” he said.  

We all went to the hospital and she sent me home and said, “Don’t come get me until the game is over.”

At the beginning of the final quarter, the hospital called and the nurse told me I had to come get her NOW.  They needed the bed.  I guess Super bowl Sunday is a high volume day in the ER.   The next week I bought a TiVo box.

I used to take her to the Coumadin (blood thinner) clinic to get her blood tested. One time she registered very high blood pressure.  “I am a nervous Nelly and I always will be,” she said.  “And I gave it to him.”  Then looking at me pensively she said, “He doesn’t seem to be like that anymore.”  

I looked at the nurse and said, “Thousands of dollars in therapy.” She said, “Me too.”

One last story about change.  My brother and I were extremely close. I was five years his senior and from the day he was born I felt responsibility for his safety and well-being.  In 1965 my wife and I were living in San Francisco taking courses at S.F. State and preparing to move to Minnesota where I was to begin my Ph.D. studies.  He was still at home in L.A. with my parents.  Shortly before Christmas my father called to tell me that my brother had acute Leukemia and that although he was undergoing new treatment (a variation of which saves children today), he was not expected to live.  Over the next six months he was in and out of hospital, suffering intensely through repeated relapses and remissions.  My life vacillated between the hubris of entering graduate school and the depression resulting from the impending loss of my best friend.  I think I engaged in a lot of denial.  Susan says we visited him once in hospital while he was sick but I have no recollection of that.  The day finally came when my father called to tell us to come to L.A. to say goodbye. 

It was the sixties in San Francisco and compared to my friends at home and my father’s contemporaries, I had long hair.  Today it probably would not even qualify as long hair but it did at that time and it identified me as belonging to a certain cohort that was not popular with my parents’ generation.  Whenever I would go home my dad would offer me money to get it cut and I always refused. I think that although this was a version of what Erikson calls a negative identity (identity through opposition) it also was symbolic of the emergence of my own identity, separate from my family and the dominant culture.  

As my wife and I were getting ready to go to the hospital to say goodbye to Steve my dad said, “I want you to get a haircut before you see him. I want him to remember you as you were.” 

I was completely paralyzed.  I had to choose between being who I was at the time and pleasing my father, who I knew was in a state of total despair.  So I agreed.  After the haircut, as I drove up the driveway to pick up my wife on the way to the hospital she came out of the house with tears running down her face. “Steve is dead,” she said.  I never got to say goodbye to the second most important person in my life.  Tears form in my eyes as I write this fifty years later.

I was psychologically sophisticated enough at the time to know that the real reason I was sent to the barber was so that I would not embarrass my parents. Although not being able to say goodbye to my brother and my best friend was a result of parental narcissism, in some ways it was a powerful experience in the activation of what is called in Psychosynthesis, my own internal unifying center. 

I vowed that day that no matter how my future children presented themselves to the world and no matter what choices they made in life, I would support them for themselves and not how they reflected on me.  Being my parents’ child, I couldn’t always do that but the two fine men I see today are proof that my wife and I, nutty as we were in those early years, got that part right.  I remember when my youngest son was about eight, my wife said to him, “You really like yourself don’t you?”  He looked at her like she was the dumbest person on earth. 

“Of course,” he replied.  She looked at me, smiled and said, “If he only knew what we have had to go through to get to that place that he takes for granted.”

Although I held this against my father for years, when he was dying my mother asked us to come to L.A. to say goodbye to him.  She said she didn’t want the experience with Steve to be repeated and that she was the one who wanted me to get a haircut and had regretted it ever since.  She knew I blamed my Dad and that she didn’t want him going to his grave with that between us.

I think that my wife and I, coming out of very different but equally dysfunctional families, have been our own best parents.  Even during our worst times together we often have been able to sidestep our own narcissism and support what is best for the other.  My wife sometimes says that I saved her from her family but I often wonder about it when I see the humane society bumper sticker, “Who rescued who?”

Psychosynthesis

In the early 70s my friend John gave me some information on Psychosynthesis. After reading a few articles, I became fascinated by the approach to psychotherapy and life in general.  Let me lay out some of the theory.

Think about how you act in different situations.  For example, at work are you one person and at home someone completely different? When you are with your parents or other authority figures do you behave differently again, perhaps like a compliant child or an obstinate rebel?  Are you the outgoing leader with some friends and the passive follower with others?  Like the famous Dr. Jekyll, on some days are you the perfect mate or parent and on other days the diabolical Mr. Hyde?  Do you sometimes wonder, “Why did I do that?” Do you find yourself joyful one moment and in the depths of sadness in the next with no idea of why you experience such intense fluctuations?  In Psychosynthesis we call the people you become in these different situations subpersonalities.  In other words, you assume a different identity in each situation, often without even being aware of it.  

Unfortunately, the beliefs, thoughts, feelings and expectations that motivate our behavior when we are “in” one of these subpersonalities are often unconscious and unexamined and can be completely different for each subpersonality.  This leads to splitting and internal conflict between the different parts of ourselves and we seem to be in a state of war with ourselves and others.  These subpersonalities have formed as a result of early experience and probably served us well in our attempt to survive and even prosper in our families and culture. However, in adulthood these patterns that reflect our adaptation to what and how others wanted us to be do not reflect our true nature nor are they effective in the world we now inhabit. In fact, they may be quite destructive and counterproductive.  For example, someone who complied and was always nice in order to avoid physical abuse from an alcoholic father may find herself constantly bending to the whims of others and not looking after her own welfare. This kind of person often asks, “Why do I keep doing this.”

Although this is not a healthy or happy existence, in our culture it is “normal.” Many of us live in a trance as we follow the dictates of these parts of ourselves that do not reflect our basic nature or our deeper desire to live in harmony within ourselves and with others. While in this trance we can experience addictions, compulsions, poor interpersonal relationships and a general unhappiness that can appear as depression, anxiety or as other psychological symptoms.

Psychosynthesis is a process that carefully opens the doors to the unconscious realms and shines a light on the dark secrets that keep us prisoners of our past. As we examine the genesis of these subpersonalities and discern which aspects of each subpersonality are congruent with our true nature and which are not, it becomes possible to reconstruct ourselves in harmony with our true selves so that we can become whole people who interact in a healthy manner with both the world around us and the world within.  

We all come into this world potentially whole.  By this I mean that we have the possibility of living out a destiny that is congruent with the gifts that reflect our own unique being. If you are comfortable with a spiritual perspective, you might conceptualize this as following your soul’s journey.  If you are not comfortable with this approach, you might look at this way of being as living in harmony with your own intrinsic nature or even your own genetic code.  

If you have observed very young children you probably have noticed how unique each child is, even shortly after birth.  Some are very wary and observant of the world around them and others are virtually oblivious to their environment.  You may have noticed that some are “people oriented” and some are “object oriented.”  As a parent, it was a shock to me that this uniqueness surfaced very early in my children and seemed totally independent of and resistant to environmental factors. One would wake if a pin dropped and the other would not be awakened by a train barreling through the front room. One has always been fascinated by ideas and the other by concrete problems to be solved.  Effective parents see these unique traits and abilities in their children and engage in mirroring their children.  In other words, they see that their children have certain abilities and dispositions and they actively recognize and foster, or at least accept, these aspects. When this happens we say that there is an empathic response from the parent to the child’s authentic self.  This does not mean we cannot set limits or teach our children good social skills. It just means that good parents have a basic respect for who the child is as they engage in the difficult process of preparing children for adult life.

Unfortunately, most of us do not experience perfect parenting nor are we perfect parents ourselves.  When, as children, our abilities and feelings are not recognized or actually are demeaned or punished and we are dismissed, shamed or otherwise experience an empathic failure, we learn very quickly what is acceptable and what is not.  For a child, rejection by a parent is terrifying and, in the child’s mind, can be experienced as life threatening.  In Psychosynthesis we call this the fear of nonbeing.  As a response to this and other fears we develop subpersonalities that help us cope with the world around us and insure our survival.  This is why we call these adaptations survival subpersonalities.

A common example is the subpersonality of “The Pleaser.”  If parents only mirror and shine on their child when he or she is compliant and helpful and meets the parents’ expectations, the child may develop a subpersonality that as an adult requires the person to be helpful and giving in order to feel any self-worth.  The person may also experience an inability to form boundaries, say “no” or know what he or she actually wants in life.  Another child might respond to this expectation by developing “The Rebel,” whose identity and self-esteem is dependent upon constantly being in opposition to authority and others’ expectations.   In fact, both of these subpersonalities could exist in one person. The important factor here is that we, as adults, often are not aware of the unconscious motivations and feelings behind the behavior we exhibit when we are “in” these subpersonalities.

Each subpersonality has its own way of interacting consciously with the world but there are two unconscious aspects of each that are very important.  The painful, shaming experiences of childhood are pushed out of our conscious awareness and into what we call the lower unconscious.  Outside of our awareness, these unconscious memories and experiences often drive the behavior we exhibit when we are acting out of that subpersonality.  In fact, at its most extreme, the main goal of the subpersonality is to avoid all feelings and memories that resurface in situations that resemble the original wounding experience and, in the mind of the inner child, activate the threat of nonbeing. On the other hand, those gifts and unique aspects of our being that were not accepted and for which we were shamed are also repressed into what we call the higher unconscious. In this realm such denigrated characteristics as intuition, sensitivity, creativity and artistic ability may reside completely hidden.

The initial work of Psychosynthesis involves examining each of the subpersonalities while delving into the repressed unconscious experiences that led to their creation.  The process of uncovering the painful experiences as well as our true gifts can be lengthy and intense but very rewarding as we discover the motivation behind outmoded, destructive and maladaptive behavior, thoughts and feelings contained in the farther reaches of the subpersonalities.  

As we examine how the subpersonalities were formed, how they have evolved into adult subpersonalities, how they form alliances between each other and how they experience conflict with each other we see that some aspects of each subpersonality may be helpful to us in our journey to wholeness and happiness. It also becomes clear that other aspects, useful in surviving our youthful fears, are no longer helpful, limit our ability to function and are downright destructive.

Most importantly, we want to integrate the positive aspects of each subpersonality into our everyday life.  This process is called synthesis.  We want to synthesize the many subpersonalities into one whole personality which, although it may behave differently in different situations, always reflects the true wholeness of the person we really are and helps us to reach our individual destiny.  Our behavior becomes a product of conscious thought and feeling rather than being driven by unconscious shame and guilt and the avoidance of nonbeing.  We refer to this ultimate state as functioning from the authentic self.  

As memories surface and the unconscious material becomes conscious, a sense of “I” begins to evolve.  In other words, an observer that is independent of childhood or cultural conditioning begins to surface and we begin to see who we really are, how we actually experienced early life and how we want to live life now, in harmony with but not bound by the expectations of others.  As Psychosynthesis progresses, it becomes clear that the “I” is a reflection of a deeper aspect of you, your self. The self is the ultimate expression of who you are and, if you have a spiritual approach to life, a representation of your soul.  If you are not comfortable with this concept, think of the self as the totality of all of your potential and experiences which possesses the innate knowledge of exactly how you should lead your life.  

In Psychosynthesis we speak of the will, which provides the impetus for our behavior. The will of the survival personality drives you to respond to life in a way that avoids re-experiencing the wounding of your childhood and the fear of nonbeing.  As we age, these responses become less and less satisfying and eventually become counterproductive.  Their ineffectiveness and the unhappiness that accompanies them is often the reason we end up in psychotherapy. The “I” has its own will and as it becomes stronger during the process of Psychosynthesis, it is able to direct your behavior in a way that is more congruent with your nature than the dictates of survival personalities. Ultimately, you may experience the will of the self which can appear as a calling or a motivation to action that you cannot possibly ignore regardless of how foolish it may seem to others.

As the “I” strengthens and the self becomes clearer, it becomes possible to disidentify from each subpersonality.  In other words, we can still inhabit the subpersonality but the behavior we associate with the subpersonality is now serving the healthy needs of the self rather than keeping unconscious fears at bay.  For example, one may begin to parent in a way that serves the needs and healthy authentic development of your children rather than serving your own primitive need to feel safe by being in control or serving the need for your children’s culturally sanctioned accomplishments to augment your own self-image. You may begin to do your job in a way that makes the most sense to you and allows you accomplish more than when you were working primarily for the approval and adulation of your coworkers and superiors.  On the other hand, you may find that as the need for the approval of others wanes you feel a desperate need to explore a career that reflects your basic nature and not the expectation of parents, spouses or the culture in general.  Be warned that such major transformations, although personally healthy, can be very disturbing to the others in your life.  This is not a process to be taken lightly.

Although dredging up the past and recovering memories and feelings that are painful can be very unpleasant, the freedom from unconscious control allows one to fully function in the present without the need for validation from others or the need to meet unrealistic expectations of yourself and others contained within the unconscious areas of unexamined subpersonalities.  It becomes possible for you to be a happy, satisfied and whole person just being who you really are.

I have been asked, “Isn’t this all about me? Is this not a selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic process in which I am involved?”  My experience has been quite the opposite.  When we are operating from the needs of survival subpersonalities, our motivation is unconscious, driven by unrealistic demands and fundamentally designed to keep us safe from our fear of nonbeing.  We behave with hidden agendas (often hidden from ourselves), we blame others, project our feelings and motivations onto others and are generally unhappy whenever the world doesn’t live up to our expectations.  Living from the self allows us to moderate the need for external validation, relate to others in an authentic, altruistic and empathic manner and to be fundamentally satisfied and happy with life.  This is the beauty of Psychosynthesis, a path to self-acceptance and harmony in both the internal and external world.  

Some Useful Psychological Concepts

The Guilt-Resentment-Persecution Triangle describes the dynamic of many relationships.  The idea here is that if you use guilt to convince someone to do what you want them to do they will do it but feel resentment.  Sometimes the resentment is conscious and sometimes unconscious. Resentment then morphs into persecution. This can take many forms.  One of the most common is passive aggressive behavior. Forgetting, postponing, or just plain not doing are examples of this behavior.  I knew someone once who was a master at this. His wife kept on asking him to put in skylights that they had bought and he kept agreeing but never did it.  Finally, she erupted, showed him where to put them in and demanded that he do it, shaming him in the process.  He finally did it but he “accidentally” put them in the wrong places.  The example of the boy I forced to learn letters earlier was also exhibiting passive aggressive behavior when he learned his letters and them presented them to me in an insulting way.  

The Victim-Rescuer-Persecutor drama is also a useful way of seeing some relationships.  When one sees oneself as a victim it is often assumed others fall into one of two categories, rescuer or persecutor.  And if you are not a rescuer you are definitely a persecutor.  Although there are real victims out there, someone who continually takes the victim stance often is not willing to take responsibility for his or her behavior and blames others for the consequences of that behavior. Heaven help the person that points out that this person is often responsible for his or her own predicament.  A common pattern seen in narcissistic individuals begins with the narcissist feeling like a victim because others are not giving him the constant validation he needs and feels he deserves.  This validation actually serves the purpose of fending off unconscious feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.  Usually, when validation is not forthcoming the narcissist then feels justified in becoming the persecutor and will attack those who hold him responsible for his attitudes and behaviors.  Unfortunately, there is usually someone out there who, for his or her own conscious or unconscious reasons, will step up and rescue the narcissist.  This can be called collusion.  One need only read the entertainment or political news sections to see this drama replayed over and over.  

Unconscious empathy is a skill that some people possess without even knowing it. It involves unconsciously picking up what another person is feeling even though the other person may not be expressing it. The feeling is then perceived as coming from the receiver. Have you noticed that sometimes after speaking with or spending time with a particular person you feel angry or depressed or inadequate?  While this feeling may belong to you, sometimes you are unconsciously picking up what the other is not willing to recognize in him- or herself.  While this is a great tool, especially if you are a therapist, it is also a curse.  People with this skill, often called “sensitives”, need to learn how to discriminate between their own feelings and the feelings of others not being expressed. Psychological boundaries that protect us from unconscious assault are also important to develop.  

Much has been written about the concepts “Masculine” and “Feminine” and the differences between them.  I do not think these are particularly helpful concepts in the 21st century. They often suffer from overgeneralization or stereotyping and tend to be used in a pejorative manner.  I think the concepts of Eros and Logos are more useful.  Eros is the domain of feelings, connection, empathy and intuition.  Logos is the domain of thought, logic and rational analysis. Both are necessary but in the past the former has been ascribed to women and the latter to men.  Traditionally, men who live in the world of Eros are seen as sissies and women who live in the world of Logos are seen as unfeeling and cold.  Although everyone usually favors one of these approaches to life over the other, it is a balance that is necessary, both in men and women. Different situations require different solutions.

A third principle that is neither Eros or Logos is the Power principle. The Power principle is neither relational or logical.  The fundamental axiom is “might makes right.”  I am bigger and more powerful so you will do as I say.  History is replete with examples of this principle and it usually doesn’t end well for the powerful, even if it takes generations to overcome the oppressor.  It is particularly destructive in relationships between people and especially damaging to children.  Also, like guilt, it engenders resentment and eventually retaliation, if possible.  

The Inflation Deflation cycle is a useful concept to understand mood swings and such concepts as narcissism, depression and anxiety.  A simple analogy my supervisor once used is helpful understanding this cycle.  Think of your personality as a balloon.  A balloon that is underinflated will not support itself.  It just lays there.  A balloon that is overinflated is very large but very thin and can be popped easily. The key to a healthy personality is to have a balloon that is just the right size to support itself but not so big that it pops easily when life does not support your self-concept or inflated ideas you have about yourself. Many people oscillate between these two states depending on the feedback the world around them provides. 

Good parenting is about helping a child develop a personality that can support itself and be content in the world and at the same time not be so big that it ignores the needs of others and is self-absorbed or narcissistic.  Narcissism is the psyche’s way of blowing up a big balloon to cover the unconscious little, flaccid balloon that is the true nature of the narcissist.  

How do we encourage and support our children in their quest to be themselves and be effective in the world without creating a narcissistic monster?  Here are some ideas.

Parenting

Parenting is a very difficult task.  This statement will, of course, surprise no-one who has actually tried it.  In the fifty years my wife and I have shared the title of parent, we have, like everyone else, learned gradually through trial and error what it means to be good parents.  We are still learning.  I sometimes wonder how parents cope with the number of books, courses and "experts” who are willing to tell them how to raise children.  It must be very frustrating, especially since many of the experts seem to disagree with each other.  My daughter-in-law said than when she expressed her fears about parenting to her grandmother she replied, “There are probably 100 ways to raise children and 99 of them are ok.”  I spent a lot of time working with parents both as a teacher and a therapist. Here are some of the ideas I thought were important.

There are two things you can do to begin becoming a better parent. First, find some way to rediscover the memories of your own childhood. When did you feel good about yourself? When did you feel bad?  What would you change about your parents and what would you leave untouched if you had your childhood to do over again?  Parents who remain naive about this part of their lives are likely to re-enact the negative aspects of their own childhood in some way with their own children.  Through reading, reflection, discussion or therapy you can re-parent yourself and break the cycle of abusive or ineffectual parenting that is often passed from generation to generation.  Secondly, familiarize yourself with developmental psychology. Find out what needs and behaviors are normal for children in your child’s age group.  Often, what may seem strange or unruly to parents is normal for children in a particular age group.  In addition to these two fundamental tasks, there are a variety of parenting techniques and ideas that I have found to be very helpful which I will present in the following pages.

It seems to me that the most important thing you can do as a parent is to recognize who your child is.  What is his temperament? What are her interests? What are his strengths and what are his challenges?  Above all else it is important to recognize that this is her life and not yours.  Children should not have to live out their parents unrealized dreams and aspirations. My previous story about Ron is a good example of this.  Given this assumption, there are some useful tools for helping children to develop within a family and culture while still maintaining their own identity.  Let’s look at the four strokes first.

A stroke is something you experience from the environment around you.  A positive stroke such as a smile or praise feels good, while a negative stroke, such as criticism or a spanking, feels bad.  A stroke is said to be conditional if something has to be done by the child to receive it.  On the other hand, unconditional strokes are not related to the child’s behavior.  For example, if the child takes out the garbage and mother says, “Thanks a lot,” this is a conditional positive stroke.  Sending a child to her room after she teased her sister is a conditional negative stroke.  In both cases, the stroke was a result of some specific act.  In one case the consequence, or stroke, was positive and in the other it was negative.  "I love you” is an unconditional positive stroke since your love, which feels good, is not connected to anything the child has done.  If you are in a lousy mood and you say to a child, “Get lost,” this is an unconditional negative stroke.  This remark feels bad and is in no way related to anything she has done.  What are the effects of these different strokes?

The receipt of unconditional positive strokes is absolutely essential to the formation of positive self-esteem in a child.  The message conveyed is, “you are o.k. for who you are; no matter what you do I will still love you.”  Many parents who were abused or neglected as children have never experienced this kind of stroke and, as a result, don’t understand the importance of letting their own child know how much they care for her.  For many parents, their own unhappiness may be so great that they cannot express love or appreciation to anyone.  For these kinds of parents, repairing their own self-esteem through therapy is the first step towards being able to give positive strokes to their child.

One of the most meaningful ways you can deliver unconditional positive strokes to your child is to spend time doing what she likes to do.  This may be swimming, reading a book, going for bike rides, preparing a meal together or just hanging out.  Children invest their parents with a lot of power.  You are very important to your child. Spending time with a child doing what she likes to do gives the child the message that you consider her needs important and that you like her. This is a message that enhances her self-esteem.  Of the four strokes, this is the most important for children to receive from their parents and is, unfortunately, the least common.  Unconditional positive strokes by themselves are not enough however. This does not prepare a child for a world in which there are limits and can lead to an inflated sense of self, sometimes termed omnipotence or narcissism.

Conditional positive strokes, while they also enhance self-esteem in the child, act as reinforcement of behavior that is considered acceptable, appropriate or pleasing by the parents.  For example, when you say to your child, “You did a good job,” or “I really appreciate you taking your dishes to the sink,” or “Thank you for picking up your clothes,” it not only gives her a feeling of accomplishment and self-worth, but also serves to increase the behavior that earned the stroke. We will talk more about this later.

The conditional negative stroke, or punishment, as it is more commonly known, is, unfortunately, the most common tool parents use to try to influence their children’s behavior. Parents tend to use punishment because it is fast and easy and often puts an immediate end to an unacceptable behavior.  However, in the long run, punishment often does not work.  While punishment teaches a child what kind of behavior is considered inappropriate, it does not necessarily teach her what is appropriate.  For instance, if you punish a child for whining, she doesn’t really learn another more constructive way to ask for things she wants. In the end she probably will whine because it occasionally pays off, making the punishment worth suffering.  Punishment also has the effect of arousing a child emotionally and she may get upset, angry, or fearful.  Stirring up these intense negative emotions does nothing to help a child learn appropriate behavior and, when the child begins to associate these feelings with the punisher, she may form a negative image of the parent in her mind.  The child learns to fear, avoid and lie to her parent. Furthermore, punishment, especially physical punishment (e.g., hitting or spanking), models negative behavior. If a child is hit every time she does something a parent doesn’t like, the message is: “If you don’t like what someone is doing, hit her.”  Punishment is also likely to result in revenge.  The punished child may see herself at the losing end of a power struggle and try to find a way of getting even, often by repeating the behavior she was punished for in the first place.  Prolonged or severe punishment will result in the formation of a negative self-image as the child incorporates the belief that she is bad. Punishment may sometimes be deemed necessary by a parent, but is often overused in our culture.  We will discuss some alternatives later.

Because of our own inability to deal with a child or because of problems in our own lives, we may feel compelled to deal out unconditional negative strokes to our children. Sarcasm, critical remarks about a child’s character (“You are a bad child.”) or the use of undeserved negative strokes of any kind is abuse.  This is devastating to the self-esteem of the child who receives it.  Since the negative stroke is in no way related to the child’s behavior, the message to the child is “you are not worthwhile no matter what you do.”  Many parents will recognize this kind of stroke from their own childhood, and should eliminate it from their own parenting. Unlike punishment, which may be unavoidable, abuse is never appropriate.

Knowing that negative strokes are to be avoided, how can we as parents deal with misbehavior? There are essentially three options we have open to us in these situations.  

The first option is for a parent to change herself or her attitudes toward her child’s behavior. It is important for parents to realize that their thoughts about how children should behave are based mostly on their own specific experience in a family and in a culture. Sometimes, these expectations are not realistic and behavior that you consider inappropriate may be entirely normal for a child of a given age.  This is why it is important to have some knowledge of developmental psychology. Find out what is normal for children the same age as your own.  For example, if your two year old daughter is constantly saying “no!” is getting into everything and is generally driving you crazy, you may have to give up trying to control her every move through constant punishment and accept this as normal for a child of her age.  This doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be consequences for her behavior, but it is extremely important to remember that, in most cases, what you are seeing is not deviant nor aimed at you personally.  This is particularly important to keep in mind when dealing with adolescents who have a natural bent toward independence and question all forms of authority.  I have found pediatricians, day-care supervisors, parenting courses and other parents to be helpful sources of information about normal, age-appropriate behavior.

Changing yourself or your attitudes will not always be the right choice and may lead the child to an unrealistic belief that the world will change to meet her demands.  If this is the case, one of the other two options will be more appropriate.  However, examining your own behavior and attitudes is always a good place to start.

The second option involves changing the environment.  To return to the example of the two year old, this approach would involve accepting her curiosity as normal and moving everything breakable or dangerous in the house above the child’s reach.  Eventually she will lose interest in these objects and also learn what she can and can’t touch.  Sometimes children are in classrooms or schools that are not suited to them. This is another situation in which you might like to change the environment.  Again, this may not be the best approach.  In some cases it may be best for her to learn to cope with less than perfect situations and realize that the world will not always accommodate to her.

The final option, the one which parents most frequently turn to, is to try to change the child, usually in the form of punishment.  While this particular response is relatively easy and quick, it is not very effective and has, as we have already seen, many negative side effects.  As an alternative to punishment, there are several ways we can modify behavior.  Let’s look at them.

As a preventative measure, I would suggest that the most important thing a parent can do is to provide a good role model for the child. Behave as you would like the child to behave.  Children learn best by modeling.  If they see violent, negative behavior, that is what they will model. All the parenting skills combined cannot undo bad models.  

It is also important to state limits clearly.  Often children will misbehave just to find out what the limits are, their thinking being, “How far can I go before she will react?”  Limits must also be consistent.  If, for example, it is o.k. to throw toys on one day, but a punishable offence on the next, the child learns that the world is an unsafe and unpredictable place and will probably act out her anxiety in some way that you will find unpleasant.  This is not to say that limits can’t change. When you realize that a limit is unrealistic or unfair, it is time to change it. When dealing with older children, for example, good parents will listen and try to come to some mutual agreement about fair limits.  

The most effective way of changing behavior is through conditional positive strokes or positive reinforcement.  Many children misbehave in order to get attention. The theory behind positive reinforcement is to grant children the attention they desire when they are behaving appropriately and to deny it when they are misbehaving.  In other words, reinforce appropriate behavior, ignore negative behavior.  A former student of mine who taught dance to school-age children told me about a child who was a constant source of disruption in her class,  He would stand in the back row of the class gyrating and making strange sounds.  At first, she would stop the class and admonish him, but this had no effect.  This behavior became more frequent and disruptive as the class progressed.  Finally, at the end of her wits and having turned into a screaming banshee, she decided he had to go.  As a last resort, however, she decided to try positive reinforcement.  She completely ignored him when he acted up in class and paid attention to him only when he was acting appropriately. Amazingly, within about two weeks he was one of the best members of her class.  The secret to her success was a process called shaping.  When we shape a behavior, we begin by reinforcing any small approach to the expected behavior.  In this case, she began by reinforcing him when he was standing still and paying attention.  When the initial task is learned, the child is reinforced for gradual improvements and failure or negative behavior is ignored until the final goal is reached. Thus the child experiences positive strokes for attempting to change rather than experiencing punishment and failure.

Changing a child’s behavior is seldom as easy as was described in the above example.  One of the problems with children who misbehave for attention is that they have learned that the only way they will get attention is to misbehave. Often, a child will decide that a negative stroke is better than no stroke at all. In these cases, the continued negative responses she receives lead to the development of low self-esteem. Furthermore, children with very poor self-esteem sometimes reach the point where negative responses from others take on the role of positive reinforcements.  In other words, the child’s attitude is, “I only feel good when someone is treating me badly.”  Life for these children becomes one attempt after another to get someone to yell at them, hit them or otherwise respond negatively.  Parents, not knowing any other response, deliver negative strokes thinking they are punishing the child when they are, in fact, reinforcing negative behavior and solidifying low self-esteem.

People with poor self-esteem are destructive to themselves and to others. When I worked in a residential treatment center in the early 70’s, we admitted a boy who was the angriest, meanest six-year-old I had ever met.  His favorite pastimes were setting cats on fire and smearing dog feces inside little girl’s mouths.  He was the product of a violent and alcoholic home and his whole life seemed to be dedicated to enraging adults to the point where they would become abusive with him. I decided to implement a plan which consisted of completely ignoring him until he did something positive.  This plan was to be carried out by all staff members at the center.  About five minutes into the plan, he broke a window.  He was ignored and, to his amazement, no one responded. Realizing something was amiss, he found the smallest, most defenseless girl in the center and began pounding her mercilessly in the face. Obviously we had to immediately stop him and find some consequence for his behavior. I’ll never forget the grin on his face as I marched him away to his room. He had won.

There are two factors which contributed to this boy’s behavior.  The first is the need for attention which we have already discussed. Children must feel they can affect the people around them.  If they cannot affect you in a way that results in you giving them positive strokes, they will find out how to produce negative strokes.  The second is the need for power.  Children who feel powerless in their lives will attempt to gain power by acting in ways that are destructive to themselves and to others. How can we as parents ensure that our children have a feeling of power over their lives?  With young children, this can be as simple as letting them pick out their own clothes, or which bedtime story to read.  As they get older, you might let them set their own bedtime and decide which TV shows they want to watch.  Responsible parenting allows you to gradually give a child more and more control over her own life.  Children who know you respect and trust them will respond in kind.  A child who receives your trust will be trustworthy herself.  

Parents sometimes allow children too much power.  Children should not be allowed the freedom to decide to stop brushing their teeth, eat unhealthily, verbally or physically abuse others, miss sleep or participate in dangerous activities.  This is neglect and can result in omnipotent children who have little regard for others and believe life should meet all of their expectations.  The proper balance of autonomy allowed and limits imposed is something we all have struggled with as parents.  Children need power over some aspects of their lives, but they also need to feel safe in the hands of a parent who is in control of herself and the welfare of the child.

I would like to make one last comment about power.  Beware of power struggles. Try to avoid them by planning ahead and seeing what difficulties will arise in situations you face.  Don’t get into battles you can’t win.  Decide what rules and limits are really important.  Be really clear about them and don’t back down. Everything else should be negotiable or flexible, depending on the situation. Although children understand and respect strength in parents, they also place great value on fairness.  It is wise to avoid power struggles but we all eventually find ourselves in these battles which constitute the worst (and sometimes the funniest) memories of our parenting lives.  Try to have a sense of humor.  

Another alternative to punishment is the use of consequences. Consequences can be natural or logical.  A natural consequence is a consequence that occurs directly as a result of a child’s behavior and without the parent’s intervention.  If you go out in the rain without rain gear you will get wet and cold. If you do not eat dinner you get hungry. I do not recommend the following technique but it was an interesting example of learning as a result of natural consequences. When my son was about nine or ten months old, I was trying to teach him to stay away from hot things.  I would point to the stove and say, “Hot!”  He would put his hand on a cold burner and say “Hot!” very pleased with himself.  I used lots of different objects to try and teach this, all to no avail, since nothing was ever really hot. One day I was sitting drinking a cup of coffee and he walked up to me.  I pointed to the coffee and said “Hot!” Before I could stop him he stuck his finger into the coffee, immediately withdrew it and yelled, “HOT!” From that point on he always avoided anything I told him was hot. Again, I do not recommend this procedure, but it does exemplify the principle of natural consequences.

Often behaviors do not have natural consequences, or the consequences are so awful you cannot let a child experience them. For example, you do not teach children about not going in the street by allowing them to be hit by cars.  You can, however, apply logical consequences in these situations.  Logical consequences are consequences which make sense to the child and are linked in some logical way to the behavior.  Spanking, for example, is not logically related to any behavior, nor is being sent to your room without dinner because you swore.  Not getting desert because you did not eat your meal, however, is a logical consequence because the consequence is related to the behavior, eating your meal.  When I was trying to teach my one-year-old son not to go in the street I used logical consequences.  I would hold his hand, walk with him to the curb and say, “No street.”  He would look at me like I was crazy and say “No street.”  I would then let go and if he walked into the street I would pick him up, say “No!” firmly and take him into the house.  He would protest but we would stay inside for a while just to make the point. Going inside is a logical consequence to not behaving safely outside. I repeated this each day, each time moving farther away as he reached the curb, turned around, smiled and said “No street.”  When I felt that he had learned not to go in the street, I let him wander while I sat on the porch and watched.  One day he began to walk toward the corner about a half a block away.  My wife started after him but I said, “Let’s see what happens.”  When he got to the corner he turned his head, smiled, said “No,no,no!” and came back.  Needless to say, he got a lot of positive strokes for that decision.  

In the end, you may have to resort to punishment, but it should be your last option.  If you do resort to punishment, make sure it is being carried out for the child’s good and not yours.  In other words, the punishment should teach the child about limits or consequences and not be just the result of your frustration or anger. Avoid physical punishment.  This is bad modeling and is not necessary. Lastly, it is important to separate the behavior from the child; make sure the child understands that, though you may not like what she is doing, you still love her. Improving a child’s behavior at the expense of her self-esteem is a hollow victory.

It is important to not confuse reinforcement or positive strokes with bribery or natural and logical consequences with threatening. Reinforcement is spontaneous or part of a contract.  For example, we may reinforce a child who has just brought home a great report card or a child may earn a certain amount of money by completing tasks for which she is responsible.  We may spontaneously reinforce a child because she has done something that we have decided is appropriate or more mature than we previously accepted.  For example, a child may begin to baby-sit her younger sister when you go out. These are all things that are good for the child.  On the other hand, bribery is a calculated way to get a child to do something for you, usually after the child has started misbehaving.  For example, a child starts to scream in the store and we say, “Be quiet and I’ll get you a chocolate bar.”  The child learns, “If I misbehave long enough I will eventually get what I want.”  If we are going to reward a child for good behavior, it should be spontaneous or agreed upon before you go in the store. If the child misbehaves, no reward will be forthcoming.  

Threats are not very effective because, like bribes, they are usually made after the negative behavior begins.  In addition, threats are often seen as a challenge by the child, who may think to herself, “Let’s just see if she means this.”  Also, parents often threaten consequences that cannot be carried out, or that hurt the parent more than the child.  If I want to go shopping and tell my toddler that she will be taken home if she misbehaves, I am actually giving her a wonderful way to avoid shopping and setting myself up for a disappointing day or an opportunity to go back on my word.  Before getting into potentially troublesome situations, be really clear with your children what you expect of them and what will happen if they do or do not meet your expectations.  Do not make the child wait too long for positive consequences and if you resort to a negative consequence, it should be clear why this is happening.  

This reminds me of an experience I had with my youngest son. Threats are almost always a bad idea with children.  Threats you can’t carry out are even worse.  It was Halloween and we were going to take the boys to a party at our oldest son’s school after dinner.  We were having shrimp salad and my youngest son refused to eat any. So at first I told him we wouldn’t go until he ate two bites.  He refused.  Now I had really set myself up here in a power struggle I could not win.  We were going no matter what.  So I backed down to one bite. Still no agreement.  So I picked up a shrimp, stuffed it in his mouth, picked him up and loaded him into the car.  At the party he ate candy, bobbed for apples, played games and generally had a great time.  When we came home we put them to bed and he was so exhausted he was sound asleep before I could even kiss him goodnight.  As I leaned over to kiss him, his mouth opened and there on his lower gum was the shrimp.  

Parents ask a lot of questions about discipline.  Instead of thinking of discipline as punishment, it is helpful to think of it as teaching children how to govern their own behavior.  The child who has experienced unconditional love, conditional positive strokes, limits, good models and a minimum of negativity is not going to need to misbehave for attention or to prove her own power.  However, all children (and adults) misbehave.  What is important is our reaction to that behavior.

We said earlier that there were three ways to respond to misbehavior: Change yourself, change the environment or change the child.  All three approaches are appropriate in different situations. It is important to decide which one is best in the particular situation in which you find yourself.  Elizabeth Creary, in her book Beyond Spanking and Spoiling, says that the best way to answer the question, “What should I do?” is to ask yourself another question: “How can the needs of the child and my(our) needs get satisfied in this situation?”  Considering only your own needs produces a child who feels unloved and unseen, while considering only the child’s produces a spoiled child who does not understand how to get along with others.  The goal is to work toward a compromise which will lead to a situation in which both your needs and the child’s needs can be met.  To do this you may have to change yourself or your expectations, change the child’s environment, or you may have to change the child.

Children are not machines–you cannot learn how to “fix” them in courses or books. Although these sources of information are helpful, you cannot apply pat, simple solutions to complex problems. Bruno Bettleheim, in his book, The Good Enough Parent, says the key to being a good enough parent is to first understand why the child is doing what she is doing.  He maintains that, based on the child’s experience and level of understanding, everything a child does makes sense to her at the time.  According to Bettleheim, the first step in dealing with a problem is to understand the child’s perspective.  Why is the child doing what she is doing?  Is she scared?  Is she desperate for attention or power in her life?  Is she just acting like a normal four-year-old?  This approach requires us to listen to children. Although I have not addressed this topic here, it is extremely important and entire books have been written on the subject.  I enthusiastically recommend learning how to listen to your children if you have trouble in this area.  Secondly, he advises us to try and remember what it was like to be a child, to try to imagine what our own responses might have to the situations that cause problems for our children.  

Closely related to this idea is the concept of mirroring.  Mirroring entails recognizing what your child is feeling or thinking and reflecting it back.  This process begins with comforting an unhappy baby, returning her smiles and gazes and engaging in loving conversations with the cooing and babbling infant. Later we can show children that we understand why they are unhappy or angry even though we may not alter our limits or environment to satisfy the child’s desires.  A friend of mine once told me of an experience with her two-year-old granddaughter who was staying with her while her mother was delivering her second child. At one point during the week the toddler picked up a doll and started banging its head against the table while repeating over and over, “No want baby!”  My friend said, “I know you are angry and it is ok to be angry about having to share mommy, but it is not ok to hit the baby. Mommy and Grandma will love you just as much now as we did before the baby came.”  This process of mirroring tells the child her feelings and perceptions are valid even if her behavior is not acceptable.  It tells the child she matters and is worthy of existence in this world.  Mirroring helps to form a sense of self which will help a child to make healthy decisions later in life.

If we are able to do these two things, understand the child’s motives and feel what the child feels, we will most likely make the right decisions. Trust in your own intuition and your ability to become better at this very difficult task of childrearing. Integrate the information you feel is helpful with what you know in your heart is right for you and your child. Remember that, no matter what else happens, if your child leaves childhood knowing you love her and will always love her and has been given the tools necessary to negotiate the perils of life, you have been successful.  She will accept herself, will be able to love others and pass this gift to her own children.

White Seal Speaks

On March 12, 1862 the steamship Brother Jonathan arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada from San Francisco.  It brought with it a most unwelcome guest, Smallpox.  When the disease began to appear in the locals, the government moved to inoculate as many people as possible. As many white people as possible, that is.  When native people camping near Victoria became ill, they were forced to leave and return to their villages.  There was no attempt to vaccinate them.  Between April and December of 1862, half of the indigenous population between Victoria and Alaska perished.  Later, more died.

Around the same time, the government started sending boats into the inlets where native villages lay.  They would tell the inhabitants that they had one hour to get their children ready to leave for residential schools run by the Catholic and Anglican churches. There the children lost their families, their names, their language, their culture, their religion and in many cases, their innocence and virginity.  All of this in the name of “civilizing the Indians” and bringing them to Jesus.  After my wife read this she said, “They didn’t lose it. It was stolen.”  A moving story was told to me by a man whose grandmother experienced this travesty.  When I said, “You should write down her stories,” he replied, “She says you have stolen everything else from us, you can’t steal our stories too.”

This history, and many more injustices, were on my mind when I first arrived at the Red Lion Inn in Victoria on a crisp fall morning to begin teaching a basic counseling skills course to some of the Salish people of Vancouver Island. Never in my life have I met a kinder, more welcoming group of students.  After all we had done to them, they still made me feel welcome.

The tribes, or bands, had horrible social issues.  Drug and alcohol abuse, family violence, sexual abuse and suicide were rampant. Each band had a social worker who had to deal with these problems.  Often the workers had no training and few resources and were overwhelmed and desperate for help.  From this need sprang the Camosun College Native Band Social Worker program.  I was chosen to teach several of the courses, beginning with Basic Counseling Skills, a week long all day program of instruction.

I remember unloading my station wagon that was packed with boxes of reprints and then carefully reviewing my presentation schedule complete with exercises and role plays before arriving at the classroom promptly at 9:00am.  No one was there.  Around 9:30 people began to straggle in and at 10 I began.  At lunchtime I carried all my boxes back to the car unopened and returned them to the college.  It was clear to me this was nothing like any group I had ever taught before.  What did I have to offer these people?  The problems were horrendous and I was lost as to how to approach the topic in a way that made sense.  I should have known then that I would learn much more from them than they would learn from me.  In retrospect, teaching in that program was one of the highlights of my life.

The indigenous people of Canada like to be referred to as First Nations people and they do have their own nations.  Nothing was more moving than watching some of my former students graduating from University with degrees in social work wearing the beautiful beaded and buttoned capes of their people.  While other students were introduced by their name only, the names of First Nation students were followed by phases like, “From the Salish Nation” or “From the Haida Nation.”  It seems to me this communicates that, “Yes we are part of Canada but we are our own people.”  This, in spite of all we have done to try to destroy that identity.

My first lesson was about the First Nations concept of time.  At the end of the day I asked if we could start on time the next day.  

“What time?” one student asked.  

I said, “How about 9:30?”  

He said, “9:30 white man time or Indian time?”  

“What is the difference?” I asked curiously.  

“White man time, 9:30.  Indian time, see you for lunch.”

Everybody laughed and we decided that 10:00 white man time would suffice. One wonderful elderly lady said, “Yeah we got to go to the Bingo tonight so we can’t get up too early.” Everybody laughed again and then let me in on that well known First Nations disorder, Bingo Addiction.

The older lady then said, “Larry, you hear about the two Indian boys lost in the woods?” “Nope,” I replied. One says, “We are lost, do you think we should pray?” The other says, “Sure but I never been to church.” The first one says, “I have lots of times and I know what they say.” “OK then, pray.” The first one screws up his face and in the loudest voice says, “Under the B!”

For my first exercise I chose reflective listening, a style of listening that shows the other person that you hear them, understand them and have empathy.  My first attempt went something like this:

Ernie (a chief):  “You know about 5 years ago I quit drinkin’.  Me and my friend Paul was out on my fishin’ boat one night and we drunk up a storm.  Then next day I woke up and Paul was gone. Overboard in the night.  I still cry about it.”

Frankie (a wonderful young man who I will talk about later): “Ernie it sounds like you come here with a heavy heart.”

Never in all my years of teaching counseling skills had I seen people so naturally listen and speak from the heart.  I had nothing to teach them about this.

After a long discussion about what was troubling them most, I realized they were frustrated by their inability to stand up to the white bureaucrats who controlled their lives.  Assertiveness and outspokenness are not valued traits in their culture but are essential when dealing with government agencies and what they would call “European culture.”  They found the course useful and I will never forget the stories they shared with me as I learned who they were and what they needed from me.  Their kindness to and tolerance of me, a representative of a race of people who had treated them so badly and knew so little of their culture moved me deeply.  They invited me back to teach Child Development, the next course.  

One of the funniest stories was told by a woman from a village so remote you had to fly in or travel by boat to get there.  She said as the plane flew in it would pass over hot springs frequented by “white hippies” bathing nude in the pools. The people of her band called them the white seals and it was a local custom to report on any white seal sightings after landing.  Hence the title of this piece.

One of the reasons direct communication and assertive behavior was difficult was that much of the communication between them was indirect or spoken in metaphor.  Assertiveness, confrontation and in some cases even eye contact were considered rude.  This left them vulnerable to being steamrolled by the white authorities and was often confusing to a culture as direct as ours.  One of the best examples of this was the avoidance of eye contact as a sign of respect. Many of my students remembered being beaten because they would not look a nun or a teacher in the eyes for fear of appearing disrespectful.

Once we had to make an important decision.  We sat in a circle and I laid out the problem.  One of the students started by telling a story about his sister.  The next described a fishing trip. This went on as each told a story.  I became more and more confused and frustrated and was about to demand that we deal with the issue at hand when Chief Josephine said, “Well, I guess we have arrived at a decision.”

Stunned, I asked, “When did that happen and what was the decision?”  They all laughed and one of them said playfully, “Oh, you white people are so stupid.”

Somewhere in all that metaphor was a discussion and decision about the topic but I’ll be damned if I had any idea what it was.  

On another occasion I was teaching a course at the College and there was one First Nations student in the course.  I assigned a paper that required the students to describe how their parents had disciplined them as children and the effect it had on them.  The lone Salish student came to me and told me she couldn’t do the paper because she was not raised like that.  She explained that if a child misbehaved some adult or elder would take them aside and tell them a story, most likely with that pesky trickster Raven at the center.  It was up to the child to realize the meaning of the story and apply the moral to his or her own behavior.  So she wrote a beautiful paper relating stories she was told and how her behavior changed in response to the stories.

At the end of one course I taught, the students asked me when I would have their papers finished and grades submitted.  I said, “Well, you know, I have to go fishin’ with my brother up in Uclulet and then I have to go huntin’ with my dad. Also, my cousin wants me to help him clear some pasture….”

Amid howls of laughter, one of them said, “You really understand us don’t you?” I hoped I did.

Those courses and the education I received from those people prepared me for one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. After I had taught the courses, I received a phone call from one of the First Nations employees at the College.  She had relatives in the course and said to me, “Larry, my sister’s son is in terrible trouble and I know you understand our people. Could you help him?”

I agreed and soon met with the boy.  He was about 17 and what transpired between us is confidential but let me tell you he was in about as much trouble as you could imagine.  I can also say that my attempts to help him failed miserably. The rest of the story I can tell because it appeared in the local newspaper.  

At some point he got loaded up on drugs and alcohol and robbed a convenience store at a gas station.  He beat the attendant so badly he was in hospital for weeks.  After his arrest it looked as though he was on his way to adult prison. Soon after this happened I received a call from the chief of his mother’s tribe who asked me if I would write a letter to the judge pleading with him not to send the boy to prison but rather to turn him over the elders of the tribe.  The judge agreed.

One of the issues he faced was the fact that his father was white and his mother was First Nations.  As a child he was beaten by the white kids for being First Nations and beaten by the First Nations kids for being white.  So this action by the elders solidified his identity as a First Nations person.  They told him, “You are one of us.”  

The boy was taken into the tribe and they began teaching him the old religion and the respect for nature and life in general that were so central to the culture. Then they placed him on a rural trap line for the winter where he had to practice the skills they had taught him and to survive on his own, completely sober.  At the end of this experience they held a Potlatch, a ceremony in the long house or big house in which gifts are given by the host to others in the tribe.  These were outlawed by the early white government as part of a heathen culture and only recently have been allowed as part of First Nations heritage.  Really, what good capitalist gives away what he owns to his neighbors?

In this case, however, the recipient of the gifts was the young man beaten by my client.  Each member of the tribe donated money to cover expenses and lost wages.  Then each member stood up and expressed the shame they felt after hearing of the treatment he had received from one of their own.  Then the young man who had beaten him stood up and expressed his shame and they embraced. The last I heard of this fine young man thirty years ago was that he was helping First Nations youth around the province in a program aimed at preventing drug and alcohol abuse.  

We often talk about shame as a bad thing.  In this case it served to solidify this boy’s identity as a member of the tribe and emphasized the fact that he belonged and was truly a member of a race and culture with values and expectations.  It gave him an identity not as a “half breed,” but as a proud First Nations young man whose behavior reflected on his brothers and sisters in the tribe. That may have been the most important letter I have ever written.  

Another moving experience happened during the first course I taught.  On Wednesday one of the younger members of the group, Frankie, approached me and said, “I like you Larry.  I want to explain to you what it is like to be an Indian.” 

He suggested we go over to the shopping center and buy a couple of hot dogs then he would tell me what he wanted to tell me.  There, in the midst of middle class white people going about their daily business I had one of the most moving experiences of my life.  

He began by saying, “I used to hate myself for being Indian.  Then I hated white people.  Now I don’t hate anybody.”

He talked about his life as a child and the difficulties of growing up First Nations in white culture.  At some point in his adolescence he entered a program that had the purpose of teaching young First Nations boys the old culture and the values that were so central to his people before we showed up.  It transformed him and he became the proud young man he was at that time with a purpose in life based on love and respect and not on hate.  I will be forever grateful for that experience. Sadly, Frankie died young but his memory lives on as an inspiration to those who want to live a purposeful life.  

At the end of that first week, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and aware that somehow these people had changed me.  But I was wondering if I had achieved anything of substance when Chief Ernie walked up to me, grabbed my hand and said, “Thank you Larry.  I think what you have taught me will really help me help my people.”  I only hoped the same was true for me.  

 One last thought

Anthony Sutich, along with Abraham Maslow, founded the Transpersonal Psychology movement.  While in graduate school training to become a psychotherapist, he was diagnosed with an arthritic condition so severe he was given the choice to spend the rest of his life either sitting or lying down as his joints were well into the process of becoming completely immobile.  He chose to lie down.  I met him at a conference in the early 70s and you would sit behind him and he would talk to you through his frozen jaw while looking at you in a mirror mounted to the side of his gurney.  He worked as a therapist and helped many people, probably as much by inspiration as by psychotherapy.   

Later in life he decided to return to school and finish his Ph.D.  He finished the work but became very sick and was not present when his committee met for the last time and granted him his degree.  That night the chair of the committee had a dream in which Anthony came to his bedside walking.  “Anthony, you’re walking” he said in the Dream.  “Yes,” Anthony replied.  “I have died but I want to know if I passed the final review of my thesis.“  "Yes Dr. Sutich,” replied the chair.  "Good and goodbye” answered Anthony.  The chair was then awakened by the phone.  It was Anthony’s wife saying, “Anthony has just died.”

Whenever I am having a bad day or the world is not behaving in the way I want it to (this seems to happen a lot) or I feel frustrated, angry or hard done by I think about Anthony Sutich who gave so much to so many people and will be remembered for his kindness, indomitable spirit and for accomplishing so much in spite of probably having a lot of bad days.

[janetvillanueva]

May Museum Hopping (+ a brief reflection on my life and education)

The end of May came with my cousin and I visiting the newly-opened National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of Anthropology. This post is way overdue, I know, but bear with me - everybody knows I’m nothing if not lazy. (No hay nada nuevo.)

This trip of ours wasn’t planned at all. We decided on just winging it, hopping on a bus bound Lawton first thing in the morning. All we knew was that we were going to the new National Museum and making plans on the spot. It was a good thing that we arrived early, because even at ten o’clock in the morning there was already a line that extended all the way to the bottom of the museum’s exterior staircase.

We only got in after waiting in-line for around twenty minutes, but it was worth it.

We ended up spending three hours there. This museum made me long to pursue marine biology again - heck, it literally revived my passion for marine biology. The whole museum was beautiful. I loved that it looked so old-fashioned on the outside but so modern on the inside. I do wish that they had more exhibits, though, but if that were so I probably would have never left that place. The good part was that I was able to practice my Spanish reading skills at least a little. I also have to mention the fact na ang lakas ng air-con nila. So your make-up is likely gonna stay intact the whole time you’re there.

My cousin and I then went to the museum just across Natural History - Anthropology - after getting lunch. It turned out that it was actually the museum we should have gone to first. All the floors were filled with artifacts. The Anthropology museum actually felt more genuine, in a sense, and there was much more to be gained from the exhibits than those in Natural History. I also got to read part of an old book that was completely in Spanish and whose foreword was written by Jose Rizal himself. While I understood less than half of it, skimming through the pages trying to make sense of things made me realize that my problem when it comes to language-learning isn’t in grammar, but in vocabulary - had my vocabulary been much wider, I probably would have understood most of it without a cinch. There were also a couple of things in the museum that were in French, the simplest of which I understood through my basic-yet-mediocre French skills and some knowledge on grammar rules Neo-Latin languages usually share.

I recommend going to the National Museum of Anthropology first if you’re looking to feed your brain - like, really feed your brain. We were only there for about three hours and while we were able to get to all of the exhibits, I believe that if I were to go there a second time it’d probably take me the better part of the day just relishing each artifact and artwork one by one. There were things about the ivory trade between China and its neighboring countries, chicken bones and nut shells salvaged from the remains of a long-sunken ship, an astrolabe from another sunken ship, pottery, et cetera. There’s also a huge courtyard in the middle of the building located on the lowermost floor where you can just unwind and sit on the stone benches. NMA really is that museum.

I can only wish that others would appreciate these two museums just as much as I did and not just go there for the sake of taking pictures to look ‘cool’ and ‘in’ and ruin what should be a place that is both peaceful and conducive for learning new things. I got to contemplate about a lot of things during our day trip there - I got to think about my future and what I really want to be in life.

To be honest, as of late the future - my future - has been a touchy subject for me. Even though my getting into my top-choice local college was met with elation (not only by me, but by my parents, as well), a part of me still longs to pursue my tertiary education abroad instead. While I’m grateful that I got into my desired college and the disappointment of not having applied abroad early on and working on my credentials has eased with time, there are moments when things get pretty difficult for my psyche, especially when I’m still receiving e-mails out of the blue from various international colleges I planned on applying to. (Not to mention that I still get pretty distressed whenever I think of my qualifications and how poor of an applicant I most probably am compared to others.)

It’s not that I don’t like the education here. It’s a matter of preference, I guess - a part of me just feels like going to another country is something that I should do; kind of like a calling of sorts. I’ve always wanted to see the world and study in prestigious universities. When I was younger, I used to imagine myself during White Coat Day in my dream medical school all the time. (No, that school isn’t here.) It consumed my whole being so much that sometimes my imagination would get so close to reality, it was like I wasn’t just dreaming up the feel of the white coat against my skin anymore.

If you asked me, if I were rich I’d probably fly to Europe or the States to study Philosophy or some other social science. In fact, if I hadn’t ended up getting into my current college, I would have ended up actually studying Philosophy anyways (and then shifting/transferring, as per my mother’s wishes). Then I’d study marine biology, snatch an MA and a PhD, then become a marine scientist with a degree in Philosophy and a sidejob as an animal rights activist. (Yes, my dreams are this far-fetched.)

I don’t know. Even I’m confused when it comes to what I wanna do in the future. I like the natural sciences and medicine, but I also like the humanities and social sciences. I want to be a doctor - a surgeon -, but I want to be a marine scientist-slash-animal rights activist-slash-Philosophy degree holder too.

Things would be a lot easier if I could just make my mind up, but alas - I’m nothing if not indecisive. It sucks. I’m so indecisive, instead of just splitting this post into two I decided on just writing everything as a whole and cramming it into a single write-up.

Maybe I’ll just take things day-by-day. Even if I’m a person who doesn’t like leaving things to circumstance, I guess at this point I can do nothing but just let things be since I don’t know what to do myself and just decide later, when I feel the time is right. Either way, if something is meant to happen, it’s going to happen regardless.

#life #june2018

[alovevigilante]

Job interview: by Kari Keillor

Interviewer: Hello, Mrs. Kailior is it?

Kari: No, it’s pronounced Keeler, like the elves but without the b.

Interviewer: yes, I see... ok. Well, I see here that you are interested in working for our fine establishment.

Kari: yes, please as I need the money.

Interviewer: ok then... why do you want to work here?

Kari: I need money.

Interviewer: (jots down notes) ok, yes... yes... hmmm, I see here that you only have your associates degree, is that correct?

Kari: yes. I’m also one class into my junior year of college at a four year college.

Interviewer: oh... I see. Well, I’m sorry, but in order to complete this interview we need our applicants to have a minimum of a four year bachelors degree to be able to do this very important job we need filled.

Kari: I’m not a bachelor.

Interviewer: yes, we see that here on this paper. That means you aren’t qualified to be what it is we’re looking for here.

Kari: you haven’t seen me. Your nose has been down in my resume the whole entire time.

Interviewer: um, yes, see we don’t quite know how you got in here to be seen, seeing that you aren’t up to our qualifying qualifications.

Kari: yes, well seeing that I’m unseen, and as long as I’m here, maybe we can discuss what I HAVE done in my life that can be an asset to your job requirements. Perhaps that will suffice and be of some value to your qualification team.

Interviewer: no.

Kari: ok. Well, it was nice not really meeting you.

Interviewer: yes. Thank you for fulfilling my requirements of having to see a certain amount of people to fill this very important position that we probably won’t fill for quite some time and leave empty, and make others in our company do the job in addition to the jobs we pay them to do, and won’t pay them any extra to do this extra work of this job we have left, unfulfilled. Also, we will all complain about it a lot, and the middle management, that’s me, will shrug and yell at the people below me, and we will tell our higher ups, but they won’t be available because they will be golfing, and eating croissants on a veranda in Paris, while everything below them goes to shit. And when their workers become disgruntled, they will blame me, and I will say that I am following their protocol of the very important and highly overrated way of how things have always been done in business.

Kari: yes. That sounds about right. Well, thank you for saving me all that time and grief.

Interviewer: no problem. Good luck to you, and it was great not giving you a chance.

Kari: yes, and thanks for not investing time or effort in me!

Interviewer: sure thing! Take care now!

Scene.

George Carlin: Kari?

Kari: yeah?

Carlin: feel that clamp on your ass?

Kari: yeah.

Carlin: that’s bitterness.

Kari: right. Well, what do you want from me? I’m going back to school.

Carlin: why?

Kari: to become what I already am now only accredited by society.

Carlin: do you want to do this?

Kari: not this way.

Carlin: then why don’t you just wait til you feel better about it.

Kari: George, I’m 46. By the time I get my masters I’ll be over 50 years old. Wait?! I don’t have time to wait anymore. I’m sick of not having a degree.

Carlin: why?

Kari: cause I can’t do shit without one! I have an associates degree. Do you know what that means when you’re looking for a job, George?

Carlin: yes, cause I’m you. But enlighten me anyway so we can feel worse than we already do now.

Kari: ok, well, it’s basically the equivalent of having a high school diploma. When you look for a job that’s above minimum wage the requirements are usually the minimum of a bachelors degree in whatever and a certain amount of years of “on the job” experience.

Carlin: so?

Kari: ok, well, DON’T have it, George!

Carlin: then don’t do it, Kar...

Kari: George, I’m tired of not doing, ok? It’s time for some success for Kari Keillor, ok? I’m tired of the glass ceiling of social norms.

Carlin: great. Then continue to write and yell and scream and that will create the momentum you need for success in your chosen field.

Kari: a graduate degree in Art therapy and counseling?

Carlin: no asshole! Writing comedy!

Kari: no.

Carlin: fine, ok? We’re all here waiting until you come to your senses.

Kari: George, unfortunately we need to collaborate for that to occur, and I got news, we don’t have that.

Carlin: you don’t have to collaborate to write, Kari.

Kari: George, maybe you have forgotten what it’s like here on planet earth in the 3D, since you are now NOT here in the physical, but in order to lead a decent life, it takes tangible money, accreditation, and collaboration with people. I have none of the above.

George: yeah, I see your point. Ok then, off to school we go.

Belushi, John: oh fuck, I gotta go back to school and do this shit with her?!

Richard Pryor: yes sasshole, because you are belligerent to people online with your shit!

Belushi, John: don’t blame all this on me, Hamis is all up in Murray’s grilled ass...

Richard: ok, look. Kari’s pissed, ok? So now, our ass is being enrolled as a psychology major. This is what you get for being a shit... and a dick!

Kari: guys, look, it’s what we have to do to be seen for what we are. If it costs another 100 grand to do it, then so be it.

Belushi, John: this suuuuuucks, ok?! I’m not into it, so I’m not goin!

Gilda Radner: (pulling John by the ear) oh, you’re goin! Kari will sew your asscheeks together and drag you by the extra thread if need be.

Kari: I decided not to go near his asscheeks fictitious or not.

Gilda: probably a good decision.(1) Ok, let’s put it like this, we’re back to class. And you need to apologize to bill Murray, Steve Martin, John Cleese, Eric idle for being idle-y, Frank oz, and Mandy patinkin!

Belushi, John: I didn’t do shit to those guys! They have a whole bunch of problems all on their own! They’ve all lost their will to laugh! So why are you blaming me?!

(Terri and graham snicker in the background)

Harold ramis (aka hamis): listen John, we all know you like to instigate, and now all of us are going to be forced to listen to lectures on the human psyche, and you are to blame! So just apologize to them, and get this shit over with! I’m not willing to go back and become a junior in college again! Well, actually come to think of it, it may be slightly interesting to see how the human brain relates to how we interact as a collective people. This could benefit our writing immensely! Ok, I’m in. But Kari, just mention meatballs to bill one more time... for old times sake...

Kari: Hamis, how many times can a person mention that ridiculous, old timey movie before people start asking themselves if you’re insane?!

Richard: 34.

Kari: I don’t think it’s that many, Richard...

Belushi, John: nooooooooo! God, no! Ok fine, I’ll apologize... anything’s better than talking theory with ole schezwan head over here...

Kari: oh great! Now I’m gonna be called racist again... and still...

Belushi, John: Ramis isn’t Asian... you’re ok...

Michael stuvic (meathead from “All in the family”): No! Ok?! That’s just WRONG! She is a racist, a bigot, a lunatic, and she needs to be stopped! Gloria and I will not raise our little Joey the way that she’s been raised! We need more people to revolt against her incompressible blather!

George: she was raised in a good parochial upbringing.

Meathead: “I just thank god I’m an atheist...” (2)

Kari: I AM NOT A RACIST OR AN ATHEIST! I believe in all people being equal, and in God!

Meathead: no one said you were an atheist... A racist? Yes, but not an atheist.

Kari: EVERYONE thinks I’m the worst!

Belushi, John: no they don’t! They just think you’re a devil worshiper!

George: Belushi, stop fucking with Kari, she basically has the balls but doesn’t literally like people may or may not think, to write what she thinks we want her to say. So, now she has to apologize for being a shit but not, cause we were kidding and what she said wasn’t that bad or even bad at all... and Mandy, Judas Priest isn’t satanic, nor are they an anti-Semitic heavy metal group. They sing a ridiculously high pitched, screaming bloody murder, very, very, very long song called, “painkiller” about a flying skeleton half robot man that is on fire riding a motorcycle, and killing evil in its path. That’s it.

Richard: yes. It’s the age old story of skeleton half man half robot or machine, that gets pissed, and decides he’s going to take revenge and vengeance, so he flies in the air with metal and smoke and thunder and lightning and steel, and all that heavy metal good shit, and he crushes people’s dicks.

Gilda: sounds innocent enough to me...

Carlin: you like metal now, Richie?

Richard: well, I’m her, so I have to.

Belushi, John: THAT’S what the song is about?!

Kari: look, I don’t freaking know, alright?! All I know is that I only wanted to hear him sing it because he sings ungodly high for a man that hasn’t been kicked in the nut sack.

Hamis: we all want to hear that...

Belushi, John: .... but nooooooooo! She’s a fucking crazy woman! She’s insane! She’s telling me to sing a satanic song and I’m not ok with that!

Judas Priest: how many times do we have to say we’re not satan worshipers before someone believes us?!

Richard: 34.

Karl: ok, that’s it. I’ll apologize for all of you, because I do it all the time anyway. Ready?! Here goes: I’m sorry to everyone! I’m sorry I’m such an asshole and that everyone must be so insulted by me and my mere existence that no one in my life talks to me anymore. Ok?! There! I’m sorry you think I’m crazy because I’m a bored housewife who needs a destiny, and who hates to clean never, and cook sometimes but usually either orders out or ma comes over and cooks dinner for everyone at 6am, and I’m not even qualified to work as a person who talks poops on sesame street ok?! Cause I’ve most likely been banned from there in my head and maybe out, I’m not quite sure yet, because of being me! And I’m sorry, if that embarrasses you, or if I embarrass you by mere genetics or association! And yes, separation, isn’t cool with me, but it’s fine If you aren’t cool with me, cause I’m me, and if it’s a choice between you and me, I have to choose me, cause I’m all I got, ok? I wake up with me in the morning, and go throughout my day with me, and yes, close your ears people who don’t want to hear this part cause it can be construed as dirty like some of you believe me to be, I also bathe and sleep, with myself too! I do that! So, the opinions of you plural, make a marginal difference to me if I let them, which I usually do, because I’m human, and I have feelings and I care, but the scales have tipped now, and me, wins, cause I care about how I feel too now, ok?! And if you have a low opinion of me, and treat me that way, you, are out! Cause I’m not down with people who haven’t invested that much time or effort to get to know me talking smack about me like they’re experts on the subject of me, cause they’re not! So please enroll in the school of Kari keillor directly for the information, that’s ME, or shut your pie holes! It’s as simple as that!

Richard: God I love her....

Carlin: Kari?

Kari: yeah?

Carlin: to the school we go, unless we hear otherwise.

Kari: what otherwise?!

Carlin: exactly.

Scene.

Kari: no scene! Wtf are you talking about?

Carlin: you are now witnessing reality. The reality is, no one collaborates with you, so it’s time you make the executive decision to support you, and we’re down with that.

Karl: you have, no choice.

Carlin: I know, but it’s nice you bounce it off is anyway.

Kari: ok, who wants to end this extremely lengthy scene and/ or monologue?

Belushi, John: I will. I wanna know something...

Kari: oh man....

Belushi, John: no, really, I’ve always wanted to know something and it’s really important.

Kari: ok, what is it?

Belushi, John: when there’s so many amazing pizza places around the Chicagoland area, why would ANYONE eat at a chain pizza place?!

Kari: scene.

Belushi, John: no, fine... I apologize to Frank oz, my old time pal, for calling him an asshole. He’s not one. He’s a really nice, and forgiving person.

Big bird: yeah! Wait a minute... who’s he?

Kari: sigh... scene...

1. “I think that is a good decision.” Is a quote from my husband’s cousin Gary, and I don’t know where the hell he got it from, but it’s most likely from a very obscure movie, as it’s an obscure reference.

2. A direct quote from the show, “All in the family” said by the fictional character Michael Stivic created by Norman Lear.

[smallblanketfort]

do you have tips on taking notes?

yes!! i have many, so i tried to make it easier for you to navigate :)

L O N G post ahead of you, covering lecture notes and readings notes, from a college senior :)

lecture notes:

i suggest using a notebook and pen, physically writing down. it’s easier to study, and since it’s using your body, you have a much higher retention rate on your side than if you use a laptop.

i have used my laptop for taking notes before. it’s easier to take more notes, word for word, but that’s not always helpful. maybe that’s your style, especially if you enjoy rewriting your notes all pretty and more successfully when you get home. i am not that girl. 

more notes does not always equal better! it’s good for you to listen actively, selecting what is important and what is not. i take very thorough notes. i take a lot of notes. if you need notes for a missed class, i. am. your. girl. that doesn’t mean i write out everything word for word. selecting details, clauses, and images really helps me to not only keep up, but also to memorize later. plus, when you’re typing, it’s easier to type all the words out without really processing the whole meaning. remember that dense notes are harder to study

finally, when you write by hand, you can get more creative with your style. occasionally, i’ll web notes out from one, rather than a traditional outline, bc it makes more sense for the topic

it also helps my anxiety! so much! if i force myself to take great in depth notes, then my mind has to dedicate more brain space to the task at hand than to my anxieties.

stick to one of these though. it really sucks to get into a test and realize you didn’t study half of your notes bc you forgot half were on your laptop. it’s awful lol.

if you use a laptop, get used to how it works first. do u know how much i resent trying to switch from a bullet that is under other bullets (like this one, not filled in) to a main point bullet (the ones filled in). it can be so confusing. also make sure you use a program you like. you can take directly into documents, but i find that i really love evernote, as i can make notebooks for classes, stacks of notebooks for my college, and that i can tag notes with specific classes and topics.

if you’re on paper, for fuck’s sake, divide your notebook into sections for classes. keep it all together. those notebooks with handy dandy dividers are so helpful, and they keep you from carrying around 5 notebooks at once.

i wouldn’t worry too much about highlighters and such in class. there’s just so much going on then. save highlighting and color coding for later, and count it as studying.

don’t worry about traditional outlining styles, with roman numerals or whatever. i take notes very simply. bullets/dashes, subnotes under a broad note. 

do it how it makes sense to you! maybe that includes different bullet styles, different places for different types of information (on a simple level, i start writing chapter numbers and titles as far to the left as i can go, over the margins, in bold and capital letters. i also usually go over these later in a certain color marker)

in some classes it is helpful for me to write the topic along the top of the page in a highlighter (color coding is lovely) the main idea/topic for each page. the classes this was most obviously helpful in were astronomy (COMETS or BLACKHOLES etc) and shakespeare (MUCH ADO ACT 2 or ROMEO etc)

it’s easiest to just note page numbers of referenced complex diagrams, as they are usually in your reading or accessible online

your style might look different in each class. whatever works.

note everything (everything) your professor writes on the board. if it’s important enough for your professor to write it, it’s probably important enough for you to write it.

note examples only if it’s helpful for your memory. however, make light note of things like famous people and their science/psych experiments. but in math and such, note! the! examples! and! reasons! will help you so much.

examples that have emotion, imagery, or sound are going to be more helpful. applicable examples are most helpful. good professors will lecture you accordingly. lazy ones will not.

star anything that the professor stresses or hints will be tested. anything that they say is a major theme or whatever.

note main ideas/points/themes, definitions, conclusions, 

use your tests to help you figure out what you need to know. ask questions about the tests too. in every class i’ve taken, i’m totally shocked at how willingly people ask about exam format and how willingly the professor will tell us how it will work. they want you to succeed.

people learn differently! i suggest taking notes in class and later adding touches that help you. count it as study time too. a warm up, if you will. 

if you’re visual, this might include highlighting, color coding, drawing diagrams, etc.

 if you’re an auditory learner, reading the notes out loud and organizing them accordingly, as well as making up rhymes, rhythms and such, might help you. some auditory learners actually like to record lectures and listen to them later. 

if you learn best through movement, rewriting or making flashcards will be great for you.

sometimes professors go really. fuckin. fast. why. idk? but

dont be afraid to ask them to go back a slide bc i guarantee, you will be the class hero for asking

develop a little bit of shorthand. sometimes i end up using initials, arrows, abbreviations… this is where i got “bc” and “thru” and “u” and such. lol. also, list things vertically, rather than using commas and “and/&/+) it’ll be more clear later

some professors you literally cannot take notes on. it sucks. you’re going to need to do the readings and pick their brains on how the test will be to figure out how to prepare. take home tests are your best friend. thank god for them. seriously. get your butt to church and do some worshipping.

if your professor puts powerpoints online, save the powerpoints, ya never know.

look at inspiration if you want, but remember that notes on studyblr are usually copied from class notes. if you’re too focused on how pretty your notes are, good luck to you

finally, the day before an exam, i review my notes that i have (hopefully) been studying. i like to make a one page cheat sheet / study guide on everything i didn’t remember, leaving out everything i understand, memorized, or want to disregard. 

reading notes:

ima be real and tell you i hardly ever do reading unless i will be tested on it in class in multiple choice. and im an english student. ye i suck, i know. i dont condone shirking the system but u know what, reading shakespeare or 18th century lit literally makes me want to kill myself. so, im a senior in college, and have barely ever done the reading for a class. the thing is, if you do it right, anything is better than just reading the words on the page and not getting the meaning. dont be a reading zombie. read actively, even if it’s not the actual reading. doing this, i have a 3.9 gpa. so. there’s hope for us yet.

first of all, yall need to do your damn reading. idc how. but due to the fact that a test will be multiple choice, essay answer, a presentation, or a paper, you’re going to not love pulling nothing out of your ass. can be done tho. just be fake deep.

that being said, i’m writing a lot below, but the reality is that if it’s lit, your notes dont have to be longer than a sentence. if it’s a textbook, more.

the same formatting question comes into play here, except it’s should you take notes in your book or in a notebook?

listen i’m always going to be pro notebook, pro physically writing it out as it helps me really get the information into my head, rather than more passively highlighting

i tend to do both, if im willing to mark up a book. i underline and highlight things that stick out to me, and i write them down as well. sometimes when reading literature/essays, if i know the contextual/meaning notes will be interesting to me later, i will copy notes both into my notebook and also less in depth onto post it notes (which also make sweet little flashcards btw), which i will stick into the passage. this is so helpful when a) im reading it again later and b) when we are discussing a passage in class

buy used books. it’s cheaper. until it happens to u, u do NOT UNDERSTAND how EXCITING it is to get a book that has highlights and underlines in it ALREADY. DUDE. my work is basically DONE for me. now take that lightly, bc often different ppl will highlight different pieces of information. however, it is helpful.

look up summaries. do not simply rely on cliffsnotes and sparknotes, esp since professors are very aware of these. google “title of book, summary, chapter notes, whatever youre looking for” and use the blog posts, the book reviews, the papers that come up. does this method probably take a bit longer? maybe? but it’s easier on my tired brain.

if you don’t have time to read your textbook one day and really want to, read the introduction and the conclusion to the chapter, or the first and last sentences to the paragraphs. it’s not great, but it’s something.

like your lectures, note definitions, conclusions, and helpful examples, as well as people and dates. if i’m reading literature and i’m deciding to be a smart student i will keep several logs as well. these logs will make it so. easy. to study for your exam:

updated character lists, including name, relationships, and anything defining and important

scene/chapter summaries, just a sentence summarizing what happened where

any quotes or themes that stand out

i highly highly highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of the well educated mind for note taking on a range of genres. this is what i had to use through high school and while it’s involved, it’s incredibly helpful.

if you’re going to have to cite your notes, note the page number in the margin every time you flip the page

the biggest issue i have with reading is when and where to do it. before or after class? always ask your professor if they do not tell you. where in your notebooks? i always do it on the next blank page bc leaving space stresses me the fuck out. make notes on the top of your pages of corresponding lectures/readings. 

for both lectures and readings i really really really suggest either having something to drink or something to snack on (think fruit, loose nuts, m&ms. small loose things rather than things u bite? idk they just last longer?)

okay i hope this was somewhat helpful even tho it’s an incredibly longwinded post. it seems like a lot, but the reality is that while i take a lot of notes, i don’t make them complicated, i don’t have rules, i just do what feels right in the moment. they’re not at all stressful. just take it easy and do whatever works for you :) 

if anyone has other tips, feel free to reply :)

#school

[chellann-nicollares]

Exam Survival Guide

As September is coming to an end, I realized that a lot of you MB kids out there are probably stressing out about midterm exams. I did too as a college freshman. In fact, I almost failed my very first midterm. But I’ve learned to work harder and smarter and eventually graduated cum laude. I’ve put everything that works well for exam prep into a step by step attack plan that you can follow (yes, massive nerd=me). I really hope y’all find this helpful. I just want you kids to do well, ya know? ;) Let’s get into it!

Step 1: Categorize Your Exams.

This means determining what kind of skill your upcoming exam is testing you on. I’ve found that the vast majority of exams fall into the following three categories:

- Category I: memorization test. These are your survey classes of an entire field such as intro psychology or intro astronomy, your social sciences such as American politics, and your second language requirement courses on the intro level--beginner French/Spanish, etc., even some upper level science classes such as neuroscience. If your course introduces a vast amount of information and don’t delve too deep into it, or is very heavily reliant on teaching you vocabulary and concepts of the field, your exam is very likely memorization-focused. You will be asked to do IDs--look at a concept and define them from memory, talk about important people or discoveries in this field, fill in the blank with the correct conjugation, listen to a segment of music and write down who composed it, etc. You will be pulling things from memory and putting them on paper.

- Category II: skill application test. These are those classes where you are taught formulas and algorithms and expected to know how to use them in new situations. These are your calculus and statistics and other maths classes, your hard sciences, your engineering. This is the type of classes where your assignments are problem sets instead of readings. Your exam will come as a set of problems where you need to use principles and formulas, show you work, and reach the correctly calculated result. 

- Category III: writing test. These classes are based in deep reading--reading large quantities of text and developing deeper understandings and perspectives on them. That would be your philosophy and literature classes, your film theory, your seminar classes. This is the type of classes where you need to express your perspective on the topics to show both understanding and originality. Your exam will come in a small number of essay questions where the professor will give you questions that ask you to talk smartly, e.g. how do the perspectives of Big Shot A interact with that of Big Shot B on this particular topic? What is your take on Big Shot C’s use of [insert archaic art theory] in the oh-so-famous-piece-of-work?

Granted, your will have exams that are a combination or two or more of these categories. Economics is a good example: you may be ask to both define what the federal reserve is and demonstrate how they calculate their rates. But overall, think of your exams in terms of what they want from you. Now that we’ve named the beasts you’re fighting, let’s look at the weapons.

Step 2: List Your Review Tasks for Each Exam by Category.

- Category I: your exam is testing memory, and what you need to do is--memorize!! You need to figure out what it is that works best for you to remember the important stuff. Your tasks here would be to 1) review your notes and skim or even re-read your assigned readings, 2) put your IDs and other things that will likely be tested into one document or list, 3) read them out loud, make flash cards, get into study groups with your friends and test each other, whatever you need to help you memorize (*cough* flash cards *cough*).

- Category II: now you got problems, and I do think you can solve them. You also start from your notes and 1) review what theories/principles you’ve learned, 2) review and possibly rework your assigned problem sets, 3) pay special attention to questions you got wrong--make sure you read the correct calculation process and perform it yourself. 4) This is also the type of exams where if you have something that you don’t understand, ask for help immediately. Go to office hours, email your TA, make sure you comb through the confusion because the course is likely to build week by week upon the previous knowledge you’ve acquired. If you don’t know how to calculate exponentials in writing, you’ll be in a big world of hurt when you are expected to graph them. Put asking the professor/TA into your task list to give yourself an extra push.

- Category III: for this category, your notes and your readings are the most important. 1) you gotta re-read your notes carefully--what topics of discussion did your professor specifically raise in class? Were there particular points made that she really liked? What kind of comments did she keep giving? This will help you gauge how the professor thinks about the subject and how they might test on them. 2) If you have time, and especially if you haven’t done this during the semester, read your assigned texts carefully and annotate them. Annotation can be as simple as summarizing what a paragraph is trying to say, pulling out a key concept that helps you sound really smart, or jotting down your personal thoughts inspired by the reading. All of these will help you write a smarter response. 3) Consider practicing writing a few paragraphs of reflection on your readings. This will help you work out the kinks in how to establish a position and elaborate upon it in a coherent flow. This is basically what you’re asked to do in a Category III exam. 4) If you have time, also talk to your professors and TAs on things you don’t understand and gauge their perspectives.

Step 3: Figure out How Much Time You Have.

This step is the easiest. Mark all of your exams on the calendar and look at how many days you have in between. Which days do you have classes? How many hours do you have in between classes and is that enough time to go to the library and make some flash cards? How many hours at the end of the day and during the weekend are you willing to devote to studying? I would mark the time intervals that you can use to study on your calendar as well.

Step 4: Figure out How Much Time You Need.

How many sessions have you had for the course? Sit down, put your timer on and do everything on your task list to review the material of one session, see how long it took you and multiply by the number of sessions you had. That’s your rough estimate. Now do this for all your courses. 

Step 5: Make Your Day by Day Attack Plan.

This is the last step of your planning. Now you pull out your calendar, and fit your tasks into your available time slots. Do this with the following considerations:

1) Do you need to choose your battles or make more time? If you’ve figured out that you only have 30 hours in the next two weeks, you have three exams and they require 35 hours in total, for example, then you may need to cut a few tasks. Is there one class that you really don’t need to re-read every single thing and instead skim the important sections? Is you poli-sci midterm worth 30% of your grade while the film theory one is only 15%? Should you put off that movie you wanna see until after exams and get 2 extra hours in? It’s better to know whether you’re going to run out of time before you start. Trust me. This is also why you should start early. If you give yourself two weeks instead of one, you won’t feet pressured to rush through the review. 

2) Alternate your subjects and review activities. Don’t plan to sit in the same spot and read art theory papers for four hours unless that’s just how you roll. Make some flash cards from 2-3pm, read your notes from a different class from 3-4, and look over questions you got wrong in your problem sets after dinner. You would have had a very productive study day without murderous impulsive thoughts. 

3) Put it all in writing and stick to it. You want specific hours in each day and what to do during those hours, and put satisfying little check marks on what you’ve completed. You can do this in a planner book, in your E-calendar, or even print out a calendar on a piece of paper and write your tasks in the boxes. I’ll give you a fictional example:

9/28 Thurs

2-3 pm: read intro psych section 1 notes and make flash cards

6-7:30 pm: re-work wrong questions in statistics problem set 1

9/30 Sat

10-11:30: re-read poli-sci book chapter and assigned articles from session 2 and compile ID list document

2-4:30: re-read film theory Mulvey writing, annotate, and write a three-paragraph reflection on her theories

5 pm: grab coffee with #$^%&^% person and go through some poli-sci IDs.

As you can see, if you know exactly what your exams want from you, make to-do lists accordingly and fit them into specific time intervals of each day, your exam review is very manageable. You know exactly what to do and don’t need to feel like you need to chain yourself to your desk all day. You would also know exactly what you already achieved and feel wonderful about it. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask me! Now go and crush your exams.     

#exam tips

[showingthroughtome]

out of our hands

“a five part study on the effects of eye contact on perceived closeness”

Or the one where Harry is a psychology grad student who is running a study, and Adalyn is the girl who signs up for it.

a one shot i wrote for ash last summer that i didnt post on tumblr for some odd reason

read below

Harry had been in school for a long time. A very long time. Years and years and years, is what he'd say if anyone asked.

He did thirteen years of school before he started college and then six since - four years of undergraduate where he got his bachelor's degree in psychology, and for the last two years he'd been working on his master's degree.

He was supposed to be almost done. He was supposed to have seven more weeks until he was out of the collegiate atmosphere. But the forces of nature, or magnetic energies, or maybe even God himself wasn't ready for that. Because somehow, his final research article had been skewed. So much so, that if he couldn't fix it, have it sent for review, and approved before the deadline, he'd have to stay around another semester and conduct his research study all over again.

One of his peer reviewers, this asshole Brennan, noted on his article that his findings could have been altered due to "unaccounted for manipulation". When the board saw that and questioned Harry, he knew right away Brennan was correct. His results wouldn't be significant enough to grant him a well-written article, and Harry wouldn't get his master’s degree.

Thankfully, he had enough time to conduct his study one last time, on one completely new participant. All he had to do was find someone he had never once met before, someone he had no chance of knowing. He went to a friend and asked them to spread the word. After only three days, he heard back, hearing about some other psych major who was always participating in studies - it was her thing, her love.

So here he was, with six weeks to do an entire study, get together a write up, and send it off. And all he had was a name.

Adalyn.

 session one

 Adalyn was ecstatic about life as of late. She was halfway through her sixth semester of college - only having seven weeks before summer break and having just turned 21 right before spring break. That meant she didn't have to sneak in bars with a fake ID anymore, or pretend to be sneaking when in reality the people just let her stay because her hair was pink and her eyelashes fluttered. She didn't mind having guys look at her in awe, but it did make her feel dirty, slightly sleazy, for using her looks to get her what she wanted.

Other than legal alcohol consumption, age came with a sense of assuredness for Adalyn. She was finally feeling confident in declaring her major, thinking psychology was the right path for her, especially after volunteering for all those research studies over the last two years - any that she qualified for, she would readily go to. It was probably because her freshman year Research Methods class taught her the value of a good sample size and how helpful it is to the experimenter when people actually participate in their study instead of ignoring it completely. (Life tip #1: always fill out a survey honestly and carefully. People work hard at developing those, and sometimes base their whole career on responses.)

Not only did she find the studies to be fun, but they also looked good for grad school applications. Her grades were looking excellent so far, not getting anything but A's since she took English 300 her sophomore year. (Life tip #2: don't take a 300-level class until junior year - not that it's actually that much harder, but they normally suck horribly, so just save yourself the heartache for one more year.)

That's why when her best friend heard from her friend that his friend was conducting a study that called for a new participant as soon as possible, she jumped on the opportunity, figuring it could only do everyone some good.

She had to be in the research building by 10am, not too early and not too late, but still, she found herself rushing there. Her first class of the day got out at 9:30, and the buildings weren't far from each other, but of course she spilt the last little bit of her coffee on her chest when she went to put her notebook in her backpack. She had to run back to her dorm and change into something else.

Originally she was dressed nice, wearing light-wash jeans, a polka dotted blouse, and her favorite pair of oxfords - classy chic was her goal. With the quick change though, she didn't have enough time to find a non-wrinkly shirt so she picked the first folded t-shirt she had in her dresser - a grungy old Nirvana one her older brother let her have (or she stole, who knows, really?).

To say the least, she was out of breath swinging the door open to room 3068 on the third floor of the psychology department's low-tech research wing. She was shocked to find no one in, first assuming she was early. Looking at her phone, it read 10:04, so nope, it wasn't a miracle, she wasn't early. It just happened the experimenter also had bad time management skills.

All that the room held was a table and two chairs placed on either side of it - reminiscent of interrogation rooms. Adalyn could've sworn she saw an exact replica of the room on one of those A&E shows where they recount the violent crimes of various criminals.

Staring at the empty room, she didn't know what to do with herself. Like any sane person would, she plopped her butt down on one of the cold metal chairs and waited. But not for too long, because after just a few scrolls through Instagram, the door was once again swung open and a man walked through - or more so rushed in.

Adalyn first noticed his height, his tall, lanky legs and arms. Then she noticed his age. He was younger than she expected - most people who ran studies were nearly greying or at least old enough to be rocking a wedding band on their finger. This guy, though, looked to be just a few years older than Adalyn.

“Hi!” She popped out of the chair, going in for a professional, strong handshake. The man reacted accordingly, shaking hers for just a second before going about the room, dropping his books off and picking up a clipboard.

“Running a bit late.” Were the first words he breathed. Turning back to Adalyn, he held out the clipboard to her. “These are the consent forms, pretty standard stuff. Just take a look through and sign please.”

“Of course!” Adalyn responded cheerily, not letting one ounce of her day’s misfortune carry into her interaction with this man. Still, he raked his hand through his hair and turned to gather materials.

She sat down and read over the paper. She could've just skimmed and signed it, but what can she say? She's a nerd for this kind of thing. She thought maybe research procedures and release forms could totally be her future. Or maybe after she spent a decade testing the effects of ambiguity on helping behaviors.

The paper had all kinds of fun information though. Not just procedures but researcher information - hypothesis, thesis, compensation. From it, Ashlyn learned the name of the man in front of her, the one who had taken a seat on the opposite side of the table and began fiddling with a timer: Harry Styles, a graduate student looking to explore eye contact in association with perceived closeness.

She signed the form and slid it to the side, waiting further instruction, but without looking up, Harry reached for another form and slid it across the table.

“This is just a self-report survey about any feelings you may have. Please answer as truthfully as possible. My colleagues will be gathering the data so I won't know who said what.” He still didn't look up, just spoke like a machine.

Adalyn nodded, not that it mattered or anything. It was just – well, she just hadn't felt that unnoticed in a long time. Harry didn't have to bask in all her beauty or anything, but maybe a little bit of acknowledgment would've been nice.

She went along with it anyway, because the guy clearly needed it and she was already this far into it. All of the 10 questions on the survey pertained to either how she felt at the moment or how she felt in accordance to the experimenter. It was on a 5 point Likert Scale. 1 being negatively, 3 being no feelings at all, 5 being positively.

Half were 5’s. Half were 2’s.

By the time she completed the survey, Harry was finally done setting up whatever he was doing.

“Alright, thanks.” He said, adding her survey to the pile of papers. “You're Adalyn, correct?”

She nodded. “Harry?”

“Yes. Nice to meet you.” He gave his first half-assed, tight-lipped smile.

It was better than nothing.

“Okay, well in this study,” Harry began reading from a sheet of paper. It was standard protocol for a research study. The conductor of the experiment would read from a sheet of paper detailing what the participant would be doing in the study. It was a way to account for variables across participants, making sure that outside factors, such as experimenter delivery, didn't have an effect on the outcome. “You, the participant, will hold eye contact to the best of your ability with the experimenter for five minutes over five sessions. After each session, you will fill out a survey containing the same questions as the one you did previously. Changes in answers will show an effect of eye contact, the dependent variable, on perceived closeness, the independent variable.”

Adalyn listened closely to the formality of it all. The obsessive compulsion of studies always delighted her in some strange way.

“You may blink, and if you need to stop at any time, feel free to tell the experimenter. Your participation is greatly appreciated.” Harry finished up the short paragraph, lifting his eyes. “Any questions?”

“Nope. Five minutes of eye contact. Got it.” Adalyn ran through.

“Okay, then we will begin when I start the clock.” Harry grabbed the small stopwatch, set it for five minutes. “Now.” He said, initiating eye contact and laying the small device on the table.

There was no way around it, it was fucking weird. Eye contact for a long period of time was just unnatural, anyone would agree. But she couldn’t really do anything about it, except for stare into the eyes of this man who would barely look at her a few moments before – not even other parts of his face, just his green eyes.

It felt like forever, like time was standing still and all she'd ever be able to see when she looked away was that shade of emerald. Or maybe they were more forest-y? Perhaps jade? Adalyn wasn't sure, though she was sure it had to have been five minutes already. The timer must not have gone off.

Right as she was about to drop her eyes, unable to do it any longer, it kind of got nice. Tension felt to have faded, and the awkwardness that is one human being staring into the eyes of a complete stranger fizzled. But before she could be sure that actually happened and she wasn't just imagining it, the timer did go off and Harry sunk back in his chair.

Quick enough, he handed her the second survey, and with just a short goodbye she was out of the door, blinking repeatedly to try to erase the one color was stuck in her mind.

---

Harry sat back in his chair for a long while after Adalyn had left the room. It was weird doing that again, after so many months of not. But even still, it never quite felt as intense with the past participants. Something about Adalyn, with the pink hair and icy blue eyes, had him shaken. Right from the start, he noted how beautiful she was, how happy she seemed, and the eye contact only added to it.

As he tried to gather himself, he couldn't help think of how Brennan would be kicking his own ass for the conclusive findings Harry was sure to get with this rarity of a girl.

That is, as long as he didn’t let the data skew.

 session two

 Adalyn saw Harry again after that, in between session one and two, when she was in the cafeteria with a group of her loud, obnoxious, lovable, freaky friends. They were quite an eclectic group, varying in race and status and major. They were breaking the rules of homogony on every front which is probably what thrilled them the most - knowing that just by being friends, they were defying societal pressures.

She was eating with them, or rather stealing celery and apple slices off of her best friend’s plate, and looked around to catch the set of eyes that shouldn’t have been as familiar as they were. She shouldn't have been able to look at a guy she spent maybe ten minutes with in total and know every variation of green his irises shifted from. But she did, so she waved, just like any normal person would, any self-respecting friendly human being would.

Harry seemed to snap out of a trance when Adalyn raised her hand, turning away without an ounce of acknowledgement, nodding to whatever his small group of friends were saying. They all kind of looked alike, but just a tiny bit. All but one had tattoos littering their arms. They all wore skinny jeans and easy smiles and joked with each other. Harry looked the most serious.

It was the cold vegetable hitting Adalyn lightly on the face that snapped her out of her examining of the table across the room. She turned towards the one person she knew as the vegetable thrower, her best friend, and gave her best death stare. As it turned out, Adalyn wasn't good at evil so her friend just ended up laughing.

She sat there for the rest of the meal wondering why the fuck she was so obviously ignored.

That was almost a week ago, and even remembering that couldn't throw her off her mood, because she had just gotten an A on a paper from one of the hardest classes she was taking that semester: Abnormal Psychology in Children. It had her bouncing with every step and cheeks aching from an unrelenting grin when she walked in room 3068.

Harry was already there this time, doing something on his phone, possibly texting those friends of his about how to properly blow off someone.

He didn't look up when Adalyn stepped in the room and the door closed behind her.

A, she thought, I got an A.

“Hello!” She chirped as she pulled her chair out. Even if he completely ignored her again, she wouldn't care, she wouldn't let it bother her. I got an A.

“Hello, are you ready to start?” Harry was nothing but business, hitting the lock button on his phone and throwing it into his open bag he had on the floor.

The thing was, he didn't look like a dick who ignored pretty girls or who never wanted to say hello. His face could be soft, in the second before he put a stern look on. The moment she saw him staring, before he realized it, he looked incredibly soft, like if she were to touch him it would be a euphoric experience. Then the fucker would open his mouth and was robotic.

“Yup!” She smiled. I got an A.

Harry nodded once, maybe let half his lips turn upward just a smidge, and then they were off. Adalyn did her survey – marking nearly all fives on this day – and then Harry got out his stopwatch.

This eye contact was like it was before, kind of awkward, mostly uncomfortable, but then about two minutes in (or what Adalyn guessed was two minutes because again, time was weird when you had no way of marking it) she remembered she was supposed to be in a good mood. She kept her eyes locked with this grumpy man and thought of how she could call her parents later and brag about how well she did, about how grad schools would want her, and those student loans would one day be paid off.

Without even realizing it, she felt her lips turning into a grin, how could they not with such positive vibes running rampant inside. It was awkward to sit in silence, stare at a guy, and smile for no apparent reason. She really tried to contain it, to tuck her lips together and keep them solid like Harry's.

It was an ongoing effort that she was certain would last the whole five minutes when suddenly, out of nowhere, it was like she stepped into an alternate universe where Harry could show emotion. Just barely, the corners of his eyes crinkled, and the green of his irises may have lightened just a little. If she were allowed to look away, Adalyn would’ve checked to see if he were actually smiling and that she wasn't just making assumptions due to her learnings in Social Psych about facial expressions.

It was pretty clear that they both were smiling though, so she didn't try to conceal hers anymore and sat – surely looking ridiculous – until the timer went off. And as soon as it did, Harry slid the second survey in her direction.

She filled it out without a problem. She had to remain objective, had to remember the survey was how she felt about the experimenter and not about life in general. Even then, for every question, the score increased by one point.

Finishing the survey, Adalyn thought what the hell and decided she might as well at least see why Harry totally ignored her the other day.

“So I saw you the other day?” It came out like a question when she could've sworn it was a statement.

Harry didn't show any indication that he actually heard her, not moving his focus from some stack of papers. What did he even have to read right in that moment that couldn't wait?

“Yeah,” she continued. “You completely ignored me even though I know you saw me so I didn't figure you'd say anything today.”

A lot can be said about Adalyn, probably just as much good as bad. But no one could never say that she didn't speak her mind. Adalyn would let people decide if that fell under the good or bad category themselves.

In that moment, it got Harry to look up even if his face was back to its cold, distant normality. She didn't falter under the heavy gaze of someone clearly unamused by her, instead sat like she had the entire time, trying her best at unamused as well.

“Listen, Adalyn,” Harry started, then shook his head back and forth, something about it made her feel like he would rather be a million places other than sitting across from her. And that's fair enough, but she wouldn't just let him make her feel invisible without an explanation. “It's best that we don't talk to each other except for the study.”

“Oh yeah?” She challenged, breathing in.

“Yes. It's best not to skew data. This is a study on human interaction at its very core. If we start chatting it up in the cafeteria, then who's to say why you fill out the surveys the way you do. I need to know it's because of the eye contact.”

“You know that's being fucked right now?”

“Then all I can do is ask you to forget about this and leave. If I see you on campus and don't go out of my way to be friendly, or if I seem cold any other time, please forget about it when you're filling out that survey.” He pointed to the paper Adalyn hadn't yet handed back.

Adalyn got the importance of validity to a research study, she took a whole damn class on the subject, so she couldn't really argue, nor did she want to. Not when Harry seemed like a good guy just trying to publish his findings.

Adalyn nodded her head, grabbed her book bag from the ground and swung it over her shoulder, leaving the survey on the table as she exited the barren study lab.

---

Harry didn't mean to be a dick, not really, not ever. Not to a nice girl he hardly knew.

He just couldn't have the study under question again. If he had to find someone else to fill in for Adalyn, then that was even more time and resources down the drain. All he really wanted was to finish his study, and the many many years he's spent learning the ins and outs of human behavior – at least from the psychological standpoint.

Though, something about Adalyn already had him questioning what was supposed to be - what he had learned years ago in Psych 330: Human and Animal Behavior. People weren't supposed to call you on your shit like she did, so upfront and uncaring. People normally don't go straight for the kill, without even properly knowing each other.

That's why, when Adalyn left session two, he went to his old Social Psychology professor and had a nonspecific talk about confrontation theories. And when his professor laughed at him due to his “clear girl trouble”, Harry snorted and cracked a joke instead.

 session three

 Harry was different at their third session – less grumpy, more easy going. And it wasn't even like he was smiling or making jokes, it just felt like he was less angry when Adalyn met him in that same room. Which was pretty fucking weird, if she did say so. Out of nowhere, he wasn't ignoring her when she showed up, or when she tripped just a tiny bit while sliding into the metal chair. He even smirked at her clumsiness, raised an eyebrow in question of how she could possibly do what she just had. Adalyn was in such shock at his acknowledgement that she couldn't make a sound.

She filled out the survey and all the while felt his eyes on her. It was beginning to make her feel like she had something on her face, or maybe she had forgotten a few buttons on her blouse, showing off her lace bralette that left little to the imagination. After subtlety feeling around her face and looking down at her own chest, she knew neither of those were the reason why.

“Okay, you ready?” Harry accepted the survey she passed to him, almost sounding happy and excited to be doing this.

The shock wasn't wearing off so a confused Adalyn nodded and pulled her seat closer to the table, getting ready.

She couldn't stop herself from watching every movement Harry made, trying to find the exact difference in him, as if it could be seen on his flesh why he was acting decent. It couldn't really, not by the way he reached over for his stopwatch then ran his hand through his long brown locks, tossing it so it fell just in place. That just seemed kind of… Well… Hot.

It was most likely due to his acknowledgement in addition to his obvious attractiveness that had Adalyn noticing how Harry did everything just slow enough to make it seem like a tease, like he was doing it so people would watch him, wait for him, to keep their attention to see what the end result would be.

“Alright.” He broke her out of her head with the word, bringing her to the task at hand. He moved his head in such a way that she knew he was going to start the timer.

Staring in the eyes of someone who could barely say hi to you was a lot different than someone who might possibly think you're alright, Adalyn learned. Because that time, it didn't take the constant reminder of a good grade, or a stroke of magic to make the situation less awkward. It just was.

The tension was still palpable, the air still thick, but it wasn't the same as before. It was easier. She just sat and stared at that same pair of green eyes - even though they might've seemed more vibrant.

Whatever was different about Harry, whatever was making him laugh at her tripping and smirking a hello, also had him bringing so much intensity into the room. Yeah, it was easy to stare at him when he was that way, and yeah, she liked it better, but also, it made her body feel stiff. Like she had to move just to shake off his gaze or else he'd figure out everything about her – every mannerism and quirk, every secret she had kept and lies she had told.

It was both a good and a bad feeling.

Her body was almost aching to move, when for the third time, she was saved by the bell in the form of four little beeps from a stopwatch.

At the sound, both fell back into their chairs, almost in complete sync with one another. A moment went by when the room stood still, and Adalyn felt like what they had just experienced was a moment, a spark in some weird way.

The sliding of a survey in her direction had her forgetting those thoughts. It was the experiment. Not a moment. Not a spark. Harry wasn't light or happy, he was angry. He was just having an off day. Maybe he had gotten a good grade back too, skewing his usual demeanor.

Adalyn stuck to answering the questions as truthfully as possible, getting out of her head about what it felt like to be looked at by Harry and instead only thinking of how she felt towards the experimenter - the random guy who held eye contact with her.

Each question raised one point.

---

Whatever was up with Adalyn that day wouldn't bother Harry, he wouldn't let it. She barely said anything, just nodded the whole time, and still, he wasn't going to let himself think about it as he put SPSS data into the program. He'd run his t-tests, check the p-value, and decide if the results were significant.

After he found out that he got that job at his Social Psychology professors research lab, the stress slid right off his shoulders, just like the bad mood he had been carrying around for weeks. And he wouldn't let some random participant in his study mess that up. No matter how much he enjoyed her hair that matched the color of her lips, or her eyes that could wear down anyone's resolve. She wouldn't ruin his good day. Not one bit.

 session four

 The weather outside was hot, people were sweaty, hair was frizzing. In psychology, you learn that crime rates go up during the summer for various reasons, one major reason being the fact that heat makes people angry. Adalyn wasn't one of those people, and apparently neither was Harry.

When Adalyn found him in the lab, he was relaxing in his chair, nearly giggling as he typed out some kind of message on his phone. The sight alone had Adalyn checking the sign outside of the door so she was sure she hadn't walked into the wrong room and found Harry's happy twin brother.

3068 the door read. She was in the right place.

Cautiously, and mainly uncertain, she stepped through the doorway, pulling Harry out of his own little world. Almost immediately she felt under pressure. Not only was it so hot outside that she had to wear a tank top and her favorite pair of jean shorts, but now Harry was gazing off at her like he liked what he saw. She could feel the sweat gather at her hairline.

Harry wasn't dressed that much different than normal – black jeans and a button up shirt. Except this time, his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing a scattering of tattoos, and the first few buttons were undone, showing a bit of his collarbone and possibly more ink.

“Hi.” Adalyn greeted, because she wasn't sure what else to do, what else would get Harry to move and hand her the survey.

“Hi.” He snapped back, but not like he was angry like before, but more so like he was caught doing something and needed to distract from it.

Adalyn, of course, didn't miss his eyes move away from her body slowly, almost hesitantly.

She took a seat in the chair – her chair – and for once, she thanked God for the seats being metal due to them cooling her exponentially. She let every part of her body slouch into the cool metal, feeling no shame when Harry eyed her like she was insane.

Adalyn just wanted this to go as quick as possible so she could get back to her Arctic room and ice cream she had waiting for her. Without much thought at all, she filled out the survey as honestly as possible.

She handed it back to Harry with him asking if she were ready. Like always, she was and he set the timer.

Adalyn pretty much knew what was going to happen by the fourth time she locked eyes with the ex-grumpy man who sat across from her for five minutes. It would be slightly awkward, but with Harry's new found cheer and can do attitude, it wouldn't be so bad.

She tried not to overthink why, out of nowhere, he didn't scowl when she entered the room or why he started greeting her with a smile on his face. She didn't need to know really. It was just a better scenery she'd gladly accept.

They were halfway through the process and the chair Adalyn was sitting in wasn't so cool anymore, it wasn't hot exactly, but all that relief she got from it had worn away. Now she was getting hot again. The room was feeling stuffy, and she felt like she just had to move. So, she did. She inched forward in the chair, leaning her elbows on the table and shaking her hair off of her shoulder, being sure to keep eye contact at all times.

Even that didn't do much to make the heat feel less, causing her to question if maybe the room wasn't actually as warm as she thought it was. Maybe it was just the intent Harry had in his eyes that had her skin feeling on fire and shining from the tiniest bit of sweat.

Adalyn kind of liked that idea.

The idea of Harry looking into her eyes so hungrily that her body had a physical reaction. It had her tingling in that good way she never got enough of, so much so that she'd often egg it on.

So basically, she couldn't help that she leaned forward that little bit more, enough to make her small tank top cover even less skin.

It was like she could feel it in his green eyes – how irritating she was being to his study. Nothing else about Harry gave her any indication that he was enjoying her little show, but all it took was the eyes.

And if he let his slip down her neck for just a split second before they met hers once again, she pretended not to notice.

She pretended not to notice while she was filling out the survey, while she was grabbing her things and smiling a good bye to him.

She walked out proud of herself, thinking that the next session would be fun – the last session.

 session five

 They were staring into each other's eyes for the last time. And it finally felt completely normal, not even awkward at all. Just like two friends. Which Adalyn knew they weren't, she had no delusion of that. But now she thought maybe the next time she waved at him,he'd return a small one at the very least.

Or possibly a big one.

Because Harry was staring at her again, like he wouldn't be able to look away even if this wasn't all for a study, and Adalyn couldn't help but tease him. She couldn't help but slide off the light cardigan she wore in and move her hair to one shoulder - the weather had dropped again, just like usual for this part of the US. Now Harry had a perfect view of an expansive amount of skin, from the V-neck of her t-shirt all the way up her neck.

He was good though, not playing into her efforts, locking even more ferociously with her eyes. That was enough to get Adalyn to lose some of the upper hand, because one can't just stare at someone like that – so kind and wanting – without having the recipient feel something.

This time, Adalyn needed to shift, not because she was feeling stiff or pressure, but because she just had to. Warmth was wrapping around her again but this time it had to be because of Harry and Harry alone. It was on her neck and up her legs and she just had to.

Once she did, momentarily she was feeling a lot better, like she could contain herself and keep her eyes looking into those green fiery ones.

Harry, though, then moved himself, scooting to the edge of his chair and extending his legs under the table enough to bump into Adalyn's. She moved hers out of the way just barely, not so much that they weren’t still nearly touching.

And then the beeps went off, just four small ones. They should've been louder for the moment that it was – the end of the study. But they weren't, they were the same as all the other times.

Adalyn and Harry didn't react much to the noise, fixed on each other. Until Adalyn was moving, surging forward across the table to connect her mouth with Harry's. Harry had no problems responding to that, standing up so the effort wasn't solely left on her, and wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Whoa.” Harry backed up, breaking the kiss and all body contact they had with each other. “Fuck!” He exclaimed, wiping all the evidence of the kiss from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What?” Adalyn wasn't sure what was so wrong with what she had just done. It was clear that Harry wanted her, he kissed her back so fully that there was no mistaking it. And she waited until the end of the sessions instead of doing it sooner even though she knew she could've. His reaction seemed a bit too much to her.

Instead of replying right away, Harry began pacing the small room, going back and forth in a single line.

“What did I do wrong?” Adalyn repeated. If she were someone different, this would've done a lot to hurt her ego �� to see someone react so horribly to a kiss – and even though her ego wasn't hurt, her voice was.

Harry stopped his pacing at once, rushing to the stack of papers on the table. And that's when it hit her. She forgot the last survey – the last survey that could pretty much define his entire research study.

“Fuck!” She stomped her foot, mad at herself for letting desire do something so idiotic.

“Just fill it out truthfully and it'll be okay.” Harry spoke like he was convincing himself, like he needed to hear it so he didn't have to worry.

“Of course I will.” She grabbed the paper from his hands.

Obviously she would fill it out with as much honesty as all the others, because in all honesty, it was a no brainier. Clearly the eye contact had worked. Clearly her perceived closeness was at a five in every way – especially in the way where Harry's mouth tasted like the sweetest honey against hers and his big hand warmed her body.

It took her maybe seconds to fill out the form before handing it back to him. And somehow, in the time she looked away, Harry had appeared on her side of the table. They were closer than they had ever been before, Adalyn noted to herself.

“Good.” Harry looked at her answers for the first time, not putting them straight into an envelope like he normally did. “Where were we?” He asked in one breathe as he slammed the sheet down on the table and brought Adalyn back to his mouth, those hands back on her like they hadn't left. It was all enough to have her giggling while simultaneously trying to keep the room full of that lust.

Before she could even stop herself, she had her hands running down the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one. As more skin was revealed, so was more ink, and the need for her to run her tongue along every line. And she would've, too, if Harry hadn’t reconnected their lips as soon as she had disconnected them.

He was acting like he couldn't get enough of the taste of her, which she really didn't mind, not when he swung her around and had her sitting on the table that had kept them separated for the last five weeks.

It was then, with the cold against her legs, that she realized just what was going on and muttered the words, “This is so fucked.”

“What is?” Harry pulled back to look into her eyes. The two sets of eyes knew each other pretty well by then so if anything were wrong, he'd have known just by that.

Adalyn shook her head and laughed. “Your study.”

“Don't say that, it'll kill the mood.” He went back to kissing along the line of her neck.

“No seriously. I mean, you really proved something here.”

“What's that?”

“Stare at someone long enough and they'll want to have sex with you.”

“I've done this with a few other people, and Adalyn, you're the only person who I've ended the study with this way.”

“Damn, Harry. You have such a way with words.”

“Don't I?” Harry was playful it turned out, smiling against her neck. She had no way of knowing that before, but here he stood, slightly undressed and cracking a few jokes.

And his smirk? Well that was enough to drive anyone crazy, and have Adalyn undoing his belt buckle without a second thought – just knowing she wanted him so viscerally right then was enough for her.

Harry had her shirt off nearly as quick. Then, without warning, he slowed down, taking his time to touch every part of her skin, to kiss where he felt like she deserved and to slip her bottoms off gently.

Adalyn would've done well with a quick fuck, a onetime thing from a hot psych student, but she was finding the slowness pretty okay too. Because when he wrapped her legs around his hips, and slid into her like she was something special, her whole world went fuzzy.

She lulled her head back in pure ecstasy as Harry took his time with her, biting marks into her neck that were sure to show sooner rather than later. She felt herself being useless in his arms, and still she couldn't stop being completely wrecked by him – with every forward motion of his hips, pushing her closer to her end.

It was when she finally decided to look up again, to check that Harry was getting as much out of it as she was, that she met his eyes and reached her climax. It came with a mutter of Harry and then a slump of her body even closer to his. Like any respectable man, Harry followed with a little more coaxing of her mouth on his neck – she was determined to leave a few love bites of her own – and a swirl of her hips.

They were both getting dressed again when the first post-sex words were spoken. And from Harry no less.

“That was fun, huh?” He smiled lightly, testing the waters with his offhand question.

Adalyn pulled on her shirt, surveying the room to see no noticeable differences about it.

“Oh, I definitely have no complaints.” She spoke honestly and freely, living high off her orgasm.

That truth seemed to shock Harry. Probably not that she was satisfied but that she wasn't playing games about it.

“None?” He questioned.

“Nah.” She pretended to think on it, then continued. “And I'm not one for lying.”

“Good to know.”

“Yeah. I figure it might be nice for you to know something about me.” Adalyn stepped closer to Harry, who was fully dressed and grinning contentedly at her from the edge of the table he perched himself on.

“I think so too.” He nodded in agreement, checking his watch. “And so in that case, would you want to have lunch with me?”

#1dff #oooh #dusting off an oldie #im sure people who would read this already have but i wanted it here anyway lol #im posting lm tomorrow!

[pens-and-parchment]

I’m a bit late with this wrap-up post, but then again, I’ve been late with everything this month. I’d like to say this is one of those wrap-ups that’s happy and positive and all “Look how much I got done!” but I’m afraid August was quite the opposite for me. But before I launch into my rant about life, I’ll fill you in on my (pitiful) reading stats.

Books I Read

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But wait Mia, wasn’t this supposed to be the month for #ARCAugust? HAHAHAHA yes. Yes it was. Did I basically completely fail? Yes. Have I probably given up on #ARCAugust for life? Also yes. I’ve reached the conclusion that any form of monthly TBRs or reading goals doesn’t work for me.

A Thousand Splendid Suns – 4 stars

This was my summer required reading for AP Lit, but unlike my experience with most assigned books, this story actually made me feel so much. Like, too much at times. This book has some gorgeous prose and a very important message, but if I ever recommended this to someone I would have to mention about 30 different trigger warnings. Occasionally, it got to be too much for me and I just kept wondering when things would get better.

2. Girls Made of Snow and Glass – 2 stars

I definitely must be the odd person out with this book. I didn’t care for it in the slightest. While the characters are interesting enough and I liked the twists put on the original Snow White tale, this whole book was just so slow and achingly dull. I was very bored most of the time, and didn’t particularly care what happened. The length definitely could’ve been cut in half. Since my opinion is a bit unique on this book, I’m going to attempt to put out a full review soon, so keep an eye out!

Books I Hauled

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Well, at least if I couldn’t read a lot, I didn’t buy a lot. August was virtually dead for me in terms of the reading world.

Wonder Woman: Warbringer – I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS BEAUTIFUL BOOK IS FINALLY IN MY HANDS I ACTUALLY ALMOST CRIED WHEN I SAW IT!!! Okay but you guys know that Leigh is my Queen and I’ve been waiting a year for this book and I’m just completely psyched that it’s real and here and in my hands. Of course, the universe is cruel and I can’t currently catch a break from school reading and Netgalley ARCs, but once I do you bet I will be consuming this book like it’s air.

Americanah – Speaking of school reading, I had to get a copy of this for, you guessed it, AP Lit. The class that is slowly becoming the bane of my existence. That aside though, I’m already halfway through Americanah and it’s actually a very enticing read with beautiful writing.

Around the Interwebs

The title of this next section actually made me chuckle because where have I been around the interwebs?? Not here, or on bookstagram, that’s for sure. I did manage to squeeze in a few random blog posts, but not nearly as many as I wanted to. I haven’t even been able to read all your guys’ beautiful posts! And I think I posted twice on bookstagram all month? It’s quite depressing. But, for reasons I will explain next, I have had precious time to do anything for myself these last few weeks. Hopefully, during September I will finally find a good routine and be able to pace my blogging and photo shoots out. I’m thinking that I’ll drop down to two blog posts per week instead of the three I was doing over the summer. Let’s pray I can stick with even that.

Non-Bookish Happenings

Alright, buckle up kids cause I have some ranting to do. Some of you may be aware, but I’m a senior in high school, and the year recently started up on Aug. 10th. So this past week was our third full week of school. You might be thinking, “Oh I bet you’re just starting to get in the swing of assignments and tests and school activities.” Well my friends, this past week I had two quizzes, three unit tests, one assigned reading book, one after school club meeting, and about 15 million other very stressful things that I can’t even remember. Oh, and I was also really sick!! With like the flu!! But with my life, I still went to school 3 out of the 5 days and felt like utter crap. I honestly think the last two weeks have been some of the most stressful of my life. Maybe it’s just cause I’m experiencing senior burn out, or my immune system was compromised by all the contact with new kids. But I’m getting the feeling that senior year is not gonna be easy. It breaks my heart a little, since so many people have said “This year will be the best of your life!” With college applications and scholarship searching, on top of my five AP courses, I don’t see how that can be true. So, short story made long, that’s why I’ve been very inactive recently. I’m really gonna try my hardest to make September a better month!

Challenges

Goodreads

This month: 2 books read towards my goal of 40

Total: 26/40

Beat-the-Backlist

This month: none book read towards my goal of 12

Total: 5/12

Posts

Review: Little Monsters

Myths from YA High

WWW Wednesday

Review: Nyxia

*sigh* I guess this list could be worse.

What books did you read in August? Are there any other teen bloggers struggling with their back-to-school transition? What September releases are you looking forward to (THERE’S SO MANY)?!

Find me on: Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads | Bloglovin

August Wrap-Up I'm a bit late with this wrap-up post, but then again, I've been late with everything this month.

#bibliophile #book blog #books #bookworm #reading

[my-nameless-bliss]

I've got an interview at an accounting firm as an office assistant friday and im so nervous. its a small firm so there are only eight other employees and that freaks me out for some reason? im still in college and this would be my first job so i don't know what to expect. im so anxious!

Hi, anon! The bad news here is that I’ve only been on one job interview in six years. The good news is that it was less than a year ago, so I remember it pretty well! The even better news is that I’m an accountant assistant for a small company, and that last interview was for an audit position, so everything I do know is very topical!

I’ve spent five and a half years in a small company now, and while I understand why it would be a little nerve-wracking, I’ve always enjoyed it. It was less overwhelming when I first got there, and it was easy to figure out who to go to when I had a particular type of question, and it means I have less people to deal with on a day-to-day basis (there are around 50 employees total at the company, but only a dozen in the offices, and since I sit at the front desk, there are only three people I actually see regularly). In my experience, working at a small place means they’re a bit more casual or informal than a giant company would be. I think it was a great environment for my first job. So please try not to psyche yourself out because of that!

As far as the actual interview goes - particularly because it’s a small firm - I think one of the most important things to remember is that they’re actually going to care about who you are, beyond just your credentials. At my last interview, I was thrown way off-guard by questions that theoretically should have been simple, like ‘What do you like to do in your free time?’ ‘Outside of work, what are some things you like about yourself as a person?’ or the one that really got me, ‘What would your friends say about you?’ Of course, it’s all designed to feed back into the business-side of the interview, but be prepared to talk a bit about yourself, not just your resume and experience. 

Also, while the ‘What are your biggest strengths/weaknesses?’ questions might seem like stereotypes, in my experience they definitely come up, even if not in those exact words. No matter how disingenuous it may feel, you should be prepared to talk about why you’re a good person. Since you’re in school, I’d definitely start thinking through your biggest strengths and weaknesses as a student too, they’ll probably be pretty applicable! 

This next bit doesn’t come from my experience with job interviews in particular, but it’s something that actors get told all the time about auditions, and it’s helped me immensely, and it’s definitely still applied to my interview experiences: Even if your mind is telling you otherwise, the person interviewing you wants you to do well. They want you to walk in and be the absolute perfect person for the job, because that means their search is over and they have a great person to fill the job! They’re not going to assume that you’re shitty or wrong for the job because they want you to be great enough to end their search. They want you to be amazing, because their job is to find an amazing person. So your goal is to go in there with the attitude that you’ve done it! You’re here to answer all their prayers and end their search because the perfect person has just shown up! They want you to be right for the job, so if you can convince yourself that you are, then you’re already halfway there. 

And, last but not least, remember that job interviews are nerve-wracking. You’ll probably still feel anxious, no matter what. And that’s okay! It’s perfectly normal to feel anxious about an interview! The people interviewing you have all been there, and they know that you’re in a situation that is pretty much universally understood to be stressful. Do your best to psyche yourself up, and feel comfortable with discussing things like your resume, your education, and a bit about who you are as a person, but if you’re still nervous, just accept it! You are allowed to be nervous! In my experience, when I accept my nerves instead of constantly trying to fight off any trace of them, I actually feel more relaxed. After all, it’s not helpful to be stressed about being stressed.

I hope it all goes super well for you! And no matter how things work out, you’ll always have the interview experience, and you’ll be even more prepared for the next one. You are amazing, and I fully believe that you’ll be able to have an amazing interview! 💜😊💜

#don't be afraid to actually think of how you want to answer the questions either #not everything needs to be a prepared speech #this isn't public speaking #it's a conversation with a specific person #it's okay to trip over your words or need to go back to rephrase something #you're a person #they know that #break a leg! #nykeigh answers #anon

[smithbysmithies]

Hi! I just got an early acceptance to smith as an RD applicant and I'm super psyched! I'd like to make huge use of the resources of the other four schools since there are so many - I'm looking to major in environmental science/studies, and I noticed there are 5 college certificates possible in sustainability. How do those work and how do you go about earning them? Thank you so much!

Congrats! I think it’s wonderful that you’re looking to use the resources of the 5 colleges. While I do not know specifically about the 5 college certificate in sustainability, I am also working on a 5 college certificate (in international relations). Check out this page for more specific information on what it takes to earn the sustainability certificate. For mine, when I declared my major (sophomore year) I also declared the certificate on the same form. Before doing so, I had to find an advisor for the certificate. This shouldn’t be difficult if you’ve taken an environmental science course by that point, you may be able to request the professor you will have had, or they can help point you towards the right person. As for the requirements for completing the certificate, mine is list of different areas of study I have to complete through taking a number of courses. In order to figure out what courses would fill the requirements, I took the certificate information to my advisor and we figured it out together. When you get to this point, that is likely what you will have to do. Also, since I’m majoring in government, many of the courses I had already taken counted towards the certificate; it is very possible the same could happen with you if you decide to continue pursuing environmental science!

-Madeleine ‘19

#asks #five college consortium #five college certificate #5 colleges #sustainability #environmental science

[thecrapshoot]

THE GLASS FLOWERS AT HARVARD

So, there I was in Boston again this past February.  I was there just for a night in order to catch my flight to Madrid the following day. The first time I was ever in Boston was to watch a Harvard versus Boston College hockey game and to look at the campus.  I was only 12 or 13 at the time.  I remember sitting in an arena and taking in a hockey game.  I was in the Big Sibling program in my hometown and my “Big Brother” invited me to his hometown in Connecticut and we did a number of things during that visit.  This hockey game was one of them.  His big brother was a graduate student at Harvard then, so I also got a chance to look around the Harvard campus just to see what it was like there.  Part of my childhood was spent secretly emulating what Harvard was and had to offer.

When I was growing up, there was always that elite Harvard that I knew and heard about.  Harvard had the greatest of all the intellectual reputations associated with college life that I had known.  I was a couple of years from high school then and my childhood was what it was, in turn making me what I was then.  I didn’t grow up in my dad’s household so I was always looking for ways to find my security in things I was good at, and this trip was full of firsts for me.  It involved my first trip in an airplane and the first time I was away from my mother for more than a week without it being with my father at his house. This was Harvard so I quickly latched on to the idea that I maybe would be attending college there one day in the future, when the time was right.

The only people who got into Harvard were kids with straight A’s or who scored more than 1500 on the SAT. I knew Harvard was in Boston, but I rarely thought about the word or state of Massachusetts when I thought about Harvard.  I only thought Boston or Harvard.  I also reckoned that Cambridge had something to do with Harvard, as well, but I never could have articulated it then, and I never thought of the two as contemporaries in any sense.  People in my family rarely went to college.  My father never went to college, nor did his father ever go.  I knew that there was an aura of intellectual prestige, to which I more than likely would not be invited, associated with both Harvard and Cambridge and I sensed a division between them.  I had heard, too, that Ivy League schools were legacy schools, meaning that it was a plus if your father, mother, or your grandfather or uncle went to an Ivy League school.  Because they went, the chances were greater that you would be accepted, as opposed to applicants who had no legacy there.

I suppose another division was the fact that Cambridge was named for the University of Cambridge in England and C.S. Lewis taught at the University of Cambridge in England.  I was a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis when I was growing up and C.S.  Lewis is also a noted theologian and Christian apologist with a number of books written for adults.  I am a Christian and it is very rare these days to find universities that openly and assertively identify with being Christian for fear they will offend Muslims or some other group. 

The minds that attended Harvard were the gears inside multi-million dollar companies and bestsellers.  I was pretty clever for my age, but despite my being there that one time so long ago, I never really felt anyone in the admissions office would ever trust me enough to invite me.  I was no valedictorian but I was learning where I came from had a lot to do with where I would supposedly, as in statistically, end up in terms of my adult life.  Everything told me that the odds were stacked against me, but the steps that I taken in and outside of school up until then were significantly increasing my chances of achieving that role of being a productive member in society.   Boston represents a critical religious versus civic divide for me and visiting it again, even for just a day, was something that brought back some critical memories. My faith has been tested in so many different ways and it has taken some time to realize that people have different gifts for different things in life.  What you want is not always what you get because the world is so diverse, but there are more than enough ways to use the talents you have.

I had some sense of Harvard’s magnitude in the global world then, but there was always a faint sense of discouragement that my brain ultimately deemed insurmountable, and I always just accepted that I was pretty smart, but not that smart, if you know what I mean.  I admired it from afar.  The world seemed so satisfactory to me then, and the same world seemed satisfied with letting me bask in higher education being the challenge of achievement. So much time was spent on emphasizing that education was the way to avoid the excessive demands of hard, physical labor reserved for those in society who were not “gifted” or who showed more of an aptitude for, or taking to, the vocational side of life.  The classes I took in school were preparing me for some door to written scholarship and not the vocational side of life that included factory work, cafeteria work, or labor with other agricultural or textile machinery.  

That was a big trip for me then, and being around that history of intellectual achievement and, just as valuable, intellectual curiosity was something that I could actually see and hear somewhere else other than my hometown and what I knew as normal or standard.  It still was a pretty profound trip for someone like me at that time in my life and I won’t ever forget it.  At around 12 or 13 years old, after my visit there, Harvard took a backseat in my psyche, it hopped into my head and has been riding around ever since.  It is twice symbolic to me about being exceptional as a student, and being lucky enough to warrant consideration and/or entrance, from a human perspective.

I wanted more to do with Harvard than what actually ever materialized between us.  Years after that first trip, I read one of Henry Louis Gates’ admission essays to Harvard where he basically called out “whitey”.  I laughed at how he bold he was, and that odds were that there would never be anything so pleasantly cynical ever written like it again.  He actually got into Harvard by calling out “whitey”.  It was somewhat of a remote possibility for me to get accepted, but I figured it would never happen.  But, this was before I was ever mature enough to actively engineer the “happening”.  My elementary critical thinking skills were so black and boring then, and I really saw nothing upwardly mobile about my perspective or experience in life.  Back then, my anointing was not to call out “whitey”.  I had plenty of white friends and as far as I was concerned, I was as smart as them, if not smarter.  I did not grow up during the Civil Rights Movement so there was no writing on the wall for me, nothing kept telling me that I was not worthy or deserving.  

I did not grow up with my dad, so my sense of pride in myself was rather warped, but not completely irreparable.  I was just along for society’s ride and I was in some advanced classes and noteworthy extracurricular activities back then, but not enough.  I did, however, often wonder about what it was that kept me from being in all the advanced classes and even more extracurricular activities. I was a “good boy” in school but I neither really figured myself out in time nor figured myself distinguished enough to ever be accepted.  I was a withdrawn student from a pretty meager socioeconomic situation, but I did identify with that “one-in-a-million” or “once-in-a-blue-moon” success story that I always heard could happen if I worked hard enough.  I had already learned that I was actually part of a dying breed just for being a little clever and from a one-parent household.  Visiting Harvard and Boston again brought back the old Field of Dreams motif and Archie “Moonlight” Graham getting his chance to play in a real baseball game with all of the brash, savvy professionals.

Harvard was the best school in the country and everyone knew that.  When a person got into Harvard, it was a special thing that would have a profoundly positive impact on the rest of that person’s life.  If you didn’t get into Harvard, don’t worry because it was Harvard and not everyone got in.  About as quietly and delicately as those replicas in the Glass Museum, I never applied to Harvard because I didn’t think my grades were good enough and I did not understand then that I might have just been worth it.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.    

One of the dudes at the desk recommended that I check out a rack filled with published info about what there was to do in Boston that was along the wall of the hostel that I stayed at for the night.  I was looking for things to do for the evening like find a bar or a club to go to. I immediately saw a section about Harvard and I got all extra nostalgic and decided to ditch the bar/club plan and to go and walk around the campus again for old time’s sake.  It had been about 25 years since I last strolled around the place.  25 years of achievements and disappointments, 25 years filled with so many ups and downs.

Even though it was a cold and slushy day in Boston, I figured I could still make a decent afternoon out of things now that I was settled in at the hostel.  My bus had arrived there that morning so it did not make sense to sleep very long, so I just went upstairs after check-in, dropped my things off and sat for a minute to get my head together, and I headed out.  I can’t ever really sleep on buses, but I knew I would be able to get a good night’s sleep later on.  If you can, always get a good night’s sleep before a long flight. It sucks when you don’t or can’t.

I walked in and felt right at home in the delicateness and the detail of all the glass flowers. Everything was so very dainty and precise.  All of the collection took about fifty years to complete.  It was done by a father and son from Dresden, Germany.  The room was very quiet and dim as I made my entrance into the collection and I was amazed by how precise and exact all of the anatomy was on each and every plant species that was represented.  Looking closely at all of the detail, there were corresponding captions on each piece of the exhibit.  Meanwhile outside in the city, the New England Patriots were celebrating their dramatic comeback victory in the Superbowl with a loud and huge parade processional that contrasted the quiet solace of the exhibit in the Peabody Museum.  

I remember my first visit to Boston and Harvard having a ���stone that the builder refused” theme as I was a young person and historic inequalities and racial division synonymous with the South did not seem to follow me north.  That week I felt free from the burden.  This exhibit in the Peabody Museum demands a special sort of reverence when perusing its contents.  I kept quiet the whole time and struck up no conversation with anyone, nor did anyone attempt any communication with me while I was there.

It was nice to be there with my memories of Boston and my previous visit to Harvard so long ago under such different circumstances.  It makes me feel like I have survived since then.  I am certainly not perfect but I am certainly not delicate either.  I am not as outwardly sensitive as I once was, but I am happy with what I notice about the world and about how I was raised having prepared me for it.  People and places take time to mature and refine.   I feel like I have a relevant and developing perspective that is maturing with age and time. This is exhibit was here during my first visit to Boston and who knows how long it would have taken for me to learn about it and find it had I not started traveling back and forth to Europe?  In life, always remember to always stop and smell the flowers. This exhibit is pretty amazing, and when I factor in the heat involved with blowing glass, it must have been a pretty tedious undertaking.  Go and visit it if you are ever in Boston.