A relationship - a healthy one, at least - isn't merely a means to an end.

Tardy lesson?

I've figured out something important.  Now I just hope it isn't too late, but there's precious little I can do about it if it is.

Resilience Quotient

Okay, I'm continuing to tryout this recommended book, The Resilience Factor.  I've just finished the second chapter, which included a survey to evaluate various characteristics which affect one's resilience.  When I glanced over the list of sections, I was sure that I was going to score lowest on one particular factor: impulse control.  In fact, that was far and away my highest score, and one of only two in which I scored above the average range.  The other was optimism, which I would've expected a year ago but not so much of late.  There were a couple other areas in which I was at the very top edge of the average range.  And there was only one - emotional regulation - in which I was in the lower half of the average range.

I'm not concluding that this book will be useless for me.  But I am very close to concluding that I should look for another resource that better addresses my weak points.  Or maybe the things that I've been dealing with will be fairly easily addressed now that I'm getting some help in doing so.

Growing, a little, I hope

I'm amazed - again - at how going to work on one trouble area can open my eyes to recognize other things I need to be aware of.  So, first I begin to see that a problematic behavior is an emotional crutch.  Then I begin to find some tools to help keep from picking up that crutch.  That allows me to see more about the what underlies the emotions that I've been using it to manage.

But that wouldn't work on my own, because even though I recognized the behavior as a crutch, I lacked the tools to keep from grabbing for it.

Storm

The sky grows darker as noon approaches
The wind whips the fallen leaves down the wet street
and forces the rain through the fabric of my jeans.
I refuse to bow to it, to cower in the face of this storm.
It offers me no threat - to comfort, security or survival -
that I will fear.

Something new I'm learning

Self control is like a muscle.  You can't just keep using it forever.  It gets fatigued, and needs to rest and recover.

Self control is applied in 3 basic circumstances:

• To do things we know we should (chores, disciplines, etc.)
• To avoid things we know we should avoid (vices, unhealthy choices, etc.)
• To manage negative emotions (anger, depression, etc.)

The third of these will almost always trump the other two.  Someone who uses food to manage their emotional responses will not be able to exercise their will power to stay away from food when an emotional situation arises that they aren't otherwise equipped to deal with, no matter how well they may understand that it is best for them. 

I find this very helpful to understand.

The Resilience Factor

Well, I had this book recommended to me - pretty enthusiastically, actually - so I went ahead and ordered it from Amazon and have started reading it.  The introduction didn't especially resonate with me, but I figured I'd keep reading, and maybe things would start clicking as I got into the meat of the book.

Well, I've just finished the first chapter, and it seems like an excellent book for developing life skills that I mostly seem to already have . . . We'll see, I guess.  I'm not reaching any conclusions yet, nor setting the book aside.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to find skills in it that will be important for me to have.

Pride, humility

Wow.  I so see myself in both principals of today's gospel.

I'm every bit as vain as the Pharisee.
I'm as aware of my failings as the tax collector.

More arguing with lyrics

I never thought I could have it so good.
You were the song that my soul understood.
But time is a river that flows through the woods
and it led us to places we both understood
would be gone before too long . . . 


When we were young we thought life was a game,
but then somebody leaves you and your never the same.
All of places and people belong
to the puzzle, but one of the pieces is gone
And it's you . . . 


These verses from Phish's Happy could get me dwelling on all the people who aren't in my life anymore, through death or more evitable circumstances.  I could find myself lamenting their absence, pining for them.  It'd be an easy and timely thought process to embrace.  I think it'd be an example of filtering, of only looking at the negative, and I don't think it's the right way to reflect on the gifts of love that I've been so fortunate as to have flood my life on so many occasions.

Because the other side of the story is that those wonderful pieces of the puzzle of my life will never be gone. Dear friends and family members who have since moved on, in one way and another, still fill the parts of my life that would only be empty had I not known and loved them in the first place.

And perhaps that is the point of coming back to the refrain:

We want you to be happy
Don't live inside the gloom
We want you to be happy
Come step outside your room


I don't know if it's what they meant, but we can get caught up in building a shrine to our memories, longing for the beloved ones of our past to fill a place for us in our present that really isn't vacant in the same way anymore.  In doing so, we fail to step out into today, and become the greatest obstacle to our own happiness. And maybe, as we instead choose to live out in the daylight, we find them in the very place they're meant to occupy for us now.

Oh, there's one other thing that I need to "argue" with in this set of lyrics, though the metaphor is a little hard to express.  My bride is the song that my soul is to learn to understand.  Harmonizing with her may seem a challenge sometimes, yet training my soul and my skill to do so ever more perfectly is the joy of my life!

Problematic thought patterns

So I have this list of different ways of thinking that can change our understanding of reality and interfere with our ability to simply live a fulfilling life.  The idea is to look over them and see which ones I might be prone to.  Here are the ones I think might fit me, to varying degrees.

• Filtering - the tendency to focus only on the negative aspects of a situation and overlook the positive (or vice versa).  Personal example: I'm invited to minister in music with the parish youth group.  I focus on why I can't support them, rather than the positive of what it means for me to even consider the question in its proper light.
• Overgeneralization - the tendency to draw conclusions that are way beyond the known facts of a situation.  Personal example:  If my cycling buddies haven't e-mailed about a ride in a while, it must be because they've gotten tired of me falling behind because of being out of form, etc.
• Catastrophizing - the tendency to look at things as much worse than they are.  Personal example: Panicking over not being able to find the problematic thought patterns sheet because of the impression it would leave if I lost my first "assignment."
• Mind reading - the tendency to believe you know what other people are thinking or feeling, and to act accordingly without checking out your hunches.  (For me, it's more a matter of thinking that I know what people are likely to think or feel, or of assuming that others think or feel the same way I do.)  Personal example: At my worst moments, I assume people who learn about my past will despise me.  (At my best moments, I merely don't assume one way or the other.)  I couple this with catastrophizing.
• Emotional Reasoning - the tendency to believe that what you feel must be true, automatically.  Personal example:  When Teri stays up late to watch TV regularly, I tend to assume that it's because these shows are more important to her than I am.
• Personalization - The tendency to believe the everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you.  Personal example: See emotional reasoning example.

I think those are probably the ones that are most a part of my thought patterns.

Robert Frost

Criminal Minds just quoted Robert Frost.  I memorized this poem in grade school:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are, I think I know.
His house is in the village, though.
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
to stop without a farmhouse near,
between the woods and frozen lake,
the darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
to ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.

Oops.  I had to correct three words: see was mind, the darkest was this darkest, and easy was gentle.  Not too bad, I guess.  I'm not remembering from that long ago, though: my grandkids had a great picture book of this poem.

I, too, have miles to go before I sleep.  Probably good for me to remember that.

Rubber Ducky

Rubber Ducky, you're the one, 

You make bathtime so much fun, 

Rubber Ducky, I'm awfully fond of you! 

(woh woh, bee doh!) 

Rubber Ducky, joy of joys, 

When I squeeze you, you make noise! 

Rubber Ducky, you're my very best friend, it's true! 

(doo doo doo doooo, doo doo) 

Every day 

when I make my way 

to the tubby 

I find a little fella 

who's cute and yella 

and chubby 

(rub-a-dub-a-dubby!)

 

Rubber Ducky, you're so fine 

And I'm lucky that you're mine 

Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you. 

Rubber Ducky, you're so fine 

And I'm lucky that you're mine 

Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of - 

Rubber ducky, I'd like a whole pond of - 

Rubber ducky I'm awfully fond of you! 

(doo doo, be doo.)

Irresponsible impression

Great: one session with the new therapist, and I already can't find my homework assignment.  Nice first impression.

Saturday's annoyance

Okay, I was in the doghouse already, I suppose for making Sunday's meal before Saturday's was figured out.  But the thing was, there was good reason: I've already lost out on my tomato sauce by not making that a priority, so now I no longer have good tomatoes from the garden to make it with.  Now that we'd spent money on the apples, I wasn't going to throw those away, too, because of not making that a priority, either.  And the bread from market was only going to be good for about another day for the drip beef sandwiches.

And here's the other thing: I'd told the mrs. really early in the day that I was planning to go to 5:00 Mass, and we'd worked out what her schedule of events for the day was, which didn't include Mass. Now, it wasn't that I expected her to cook dinner while I was at Mass.  Quite the opposite.  I'd've bet a pretty big chunk of money that I was going to have to cook when I got home.  But I cooked the steak, and she did the mac and cheese when she got home from seeing her young friend off to homecoming.  I had to run to the store while dinner was being served, as we didn't have the blueberries for the applesauce as of yet, and when I got home I was displaced from my usual position at the table.

But I took the responsibility for dinner dishes and then sat down to dialogue.  After about 5 minutes of yapping at me, she did the same.

Now here's the deal: technically, daily dialogue is a "10-and-10": ten minutes of writing, ten minutes of sharing.  Now, we're not legalistic about that.  Sometimes we'll write for less time than that; especially she will, because she's not fond of writing.  That's okay with me.  But after she'd been writing for at most a couple minutes, the text alarm on her phone goes off, and she starts replying on it.  I'm still writing, mind you.  I was really into what I was sharing with her, and just getting into the feelings part of it that usually concludes the question. (How do I feel about that, HDIF telling you that, etc.)  Well, now I'm feeling mad, and it has nothing to do with what I've just shared.  It's that she's interrupted our dialogue time with text messaging.  So when we get ready to exchange, I calmly tell her I'm feeling angry right now.  So she gets up in a huff and storms off.  When I tell her what I'm upset about, she tells me that she was finished anyway.  So now I don't know whether to be upset that she interrupted her writing time to text or that she shortchanged it so much - by more than half, in fact.

We did share before bed.  But I was still pissed, and of course she still doesn't think she did anything for me to be hurt over.  She clearly didn't feel like dialoguing in the first place, still ticked off over the events of earlier.  And she felt defensive, indicating she was cognizant that she was at least partly in the wrong.

Evening Contrails

The beautiful reds and purples span the horizon,
carry the last trace of the sun's glory, an echo
of a magnificent autumn day now completed.
Wending my way on this evening's errand, I notice
more evidence of air traffic, carrying trav'lers
to their destinations, or perhaps delivering
cargo - gifts and purchases -  to glad recipients.
Again their tails reflect what I can no longer see.
As they evidence that wondrous source of light and warmth,
the vista illustrates how a glorious beauty,
diminishing, reveals another, which it obscured.

Therapy II begins

So, is it possible to encapsulate one's entire life history in a one-hour initial therapy session, and do it in a way that keeps it in the context of my current issues, and not omit anything major?  If it's possible, I did it yesterday.

For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with being in therapy.  I realize that The American Way is to stand on one's own two feet and not need any help from anybody, dammit.  But I think it'd be stupid to keep being miserable and making the same mistakes on your own, without taking advantage of the resources available to you.

More lyrics

Words to live by:

God Alone
John Keating


God alone!
God alone!
In Your courts, O my Lord, is my home.
You are my treasure, my portion, delight of my soul!
My life, my salvation, my fortress, my God and my all!

O, my soul, claim nothing as your own.
For you there is God, and God alone.

© 1989 Word of God Music

More lyrics

So trying to figure out another song on my wife's Lady A album, I ran across these lyrics.  I completely stopped paying attention to the song when I heard the lyric from programming 101: 


"Well hello world
How you been
Good to see you, my old friend
Sometimes I feel as cold as steel
And broken like I’m never gonna heal
And I see a light, a little grace, a little faith unfurls
Well hello world"

Fortunately I feel as if I'm turning this corner.

Don't let a couple seemingly negative posts in a row worry you.  Going back to therapy is the right solution for what ails me . . .

Love This Pain

It's amazing how a song that I don't especially agree with can still contain a line, a thought, that resonates within me.  Yesterday while driving, my wife had a Lady A CD in.  I'm not especially a fan of theirs, but the song Love This Pain grabbed my attention.  It seems to be about an unhealthy relationship, so as a whole it doesn't apply to me, but there were a couple lines that really struck me:

"It's like I love this life

When nothing's right, yeah something's wrong
It's like I'm just not me

If I can't be a sad, sad song
 . . . 

"It's like I love this pain a little too much
Love my heart all busted up
 . . . It's like I love this pain."

Yes, this describes why I need to reenter therapy.

Contrails

The car hurtles eastward on a clear, early morning.
On the periphery of my vision, the fields along the highway
have seemed shadowy, ephemeral.
The light beginning to spill over the distant horizon
reveals the nocturnal fog, which obscures

the details of the still blanketed landscape,

its tendrils extending their way overhead.
Bit by gradual bit, the sky grows slightly brighter.
Before long I'll need to protect my vision from the
glare of the morning sun's full glory.
For now, the vapor trails of a half-dozen jetliners
are the brightest spots in my field of view,
reflecting the sun's light from beyond the horizon,
giving testimony to its presence and power
more boldly than any solid object in sight.
These gleaming commas in the sky
encourage me to wait upon the promised day to come.
They overpoweringly pierce through the wisps above me,
like a promise of hope that eludes me,
enshrouded in my fog of doubt and self-judgment.

Staying the course

Overall, I've really so enjoying my daily dedicated time with the mrs., but periodically it kicks me in the head.

Yesterday's question about how we felt about our grades just naturally led me to put that in the context of the rest of my life.  I can't help but feel that the word that would be best served by having my picture next to it in the dictionary is "underachiever."  I dunno, maybe I think too much of myself and that label isn't as appropriate as it seems, or maybe I'm just not cutting myself some slack again (seriously).  

But the kicker was hearing my concerns and feelings virtually dismissed as "silly."

The thing about it was, that didn't really bother me as much as it might've in the past.  When she explained where she was coming from, it didn't feel nearly as dismissive as it did at first hearing.  

I think I'm alone now

"Sometimes you act as if you think you're alone . . . ," she said.

Yes, well, when I pour out my heart to you and receive the touching invitation to come watch Undercover Boss with you, I kind of feel that way.

The return of a Great Epic Writer

Lying in bed this morning, I was remembering our old high school group.  In our sophomore year, we used to write lengthy letters to one another, priding ourselves on both our verbosity and our emotional forthrightness.  It seems to me that the whole practice started off with the idea of writing "suicide" letters.  It wasn't that we were suicidal - at least, I don't think any of us were.  To a degree we were outcasts, misfits, who grouped together because we didn't really feel that we belonged in any of the cliques around us, but we weren't really depressed.  Rather, in the morbid fascination that so often characterizes teenagers even as we rush through that stage of life in utter incomprehension of our mortality, we decided to make sure we expressed the things that we wouldn't want to leave unsaid in the event that we died.  I think we had a sense that such expression was probably good for us emotionally.  I remember writing letters that were pages and pages long, filled with all of the concerns and anxiety that consume a teenager's consciousness, and receiving the same in return from my friends.  We were soon referring to ourselves as The Great Epic Writers.  Most of us were in a fairly unstructured, experimental, somewhat self-directed educational program, which usually left us with time during the school day to talk about some of the things we'd expressed to one another.

(It occurs me that we owe a huge apology to Maris St. Cyr, Sr. Jean Furr, Sr. Margaret Mary, Mr. Sakowicz, and Diana Kidd, the teachers whose educational vision maybe shouldn't have been entrusted to a bunch of adolescents.  I suppose this was basically a Montessori type program, or at least that it borrowed heavily from Montessori's concepts as they might apply at the high school level.  I don't know how much longer after our graduation the Beta program lasted at Spalding, but I'm pretty sure I didn't end up being a very good steward of such a great experiment.)

I wonder if my life might have turned out differently if we'd still been engaged in that letter writing exercise the following calendar year when - unbeknownst to my friends and not fully understood by me - my young, dark life turned black, but I guess there's no point in going there.

Anyway, I think that part of the reason I enjoy dialoguing so much hearkens back to these angsty high school days, which trained me for a future I never knew was coming.  It occurs to me now that writing those letters - sometimes a dozen or more pages long, pouring out our deepest fears and anxieties, joys and hopes - and then discussing them with one another, was exactly the model that Marriage Encounter uses to nurture the marital relationship on a daily basis.  Of course, we don't now have the kind of time available to us that we did as teenagers to simply feel and think and express - the "carefree timelessness" that Matthew Kelly identifies as the key to making our relationships thrive.  We have lives and responsibilities to attend to.  But carving out some time each day with my bride of (almost) thirty years, to again express our dreams and our worries - and most of all our put them in the context of our love for one another - is probably more important than everything else that we do, and this experience among my friends in high school has prepared me to recognize this communication mode as familiar and comfortable.

These days I find my mind filled with so many things that I could use my old friends' compassion and reassurance about.

The thing is, I know that not even my dear old friends could convince me of what I cannot seem to believe for myself.  I have plenty of affirmation in my life, from good friends old and new who have walked with me through the dark woods of my life, as well as from my loving wife and family.  Why would more input, from my friends from high school or earlier in my adulthood, make any more of a difference for me?  And so I believe that my current determination to reenter therapy is probably a far better course of action for me.

But I find I have something left that I'd want to say to my fellow Great Epic Writers: I'm sorry that I didn't make better use of the love and support you shared with me, to become someone whose actions are more deserving of respect than mine have been.  Should any of you ever read these words, it will likely be without knowing the depths to which I sank, and though that has been so long ago now, I still feel as if I owed you something better, along with myself and everyone who loves me, really.  I don't feel full of despair over it, but don't know that I will ever overcome my disappointment in myself if I haven't managed it over the last 15 years.  I can't change my past, and strive daily to be a person who lives rightly and loves better than I managed in my worst moments.  But you gave me better than I've ever managed to make of it.

Yet I'm determined to make the most of each day now, to be an instrument of healing and love and support for those around me and to continue to grow into the person I can yet become.  And I pray the same for each of you.  Will you pray for me, too?