August 1, 2023

 

 

"Our personalities are made up of what we learned how to do well early to get us out of trouble and we’re now afraid to give up. "—Michael Silverstone 7/22/23

This month (July 2023) I have had two very large chunks of experience that did a number on my personality--I think in a good way. Because they showed me new alternatives to what I learned to do to get out of overwhelming trouble as a child.  For two weeks, and after 5 years of apprenticeship, I found myself Helping Facilitate Adult Learners in Becoming Montessori Teachers-- a role that required me to be be much more grown-up, responsible, resourceful, reliable and stable than I've probably ever been previously been able to manage in anything else until now. 

Sandwiched in between those two weeks was a trip to Cleveland to help my mom get knee replacement surgery, and be the person to help her in the hospital and be go between between her and her doctor, the various nurses, case manager, her friends and all the people in her life who wanted to know what was happening. 

All this summer, I've been stepping into new situations that I don't historically know how to do well, to learn to better navigate this life I seem to be having. It seems to be going o.k. at the moment, partially because my circumstances continue to be blessedly fortunate, and partly because I haven't made them worse through panic, fear, anger or grievance, which is a constant temptation. I now believe the whole point of my life at this point boils down to two essential tasks:

1) Don't take the bait, freak out, cave in, or blame someone or something for what is not going my way in something I am able to be responsible for.

and 

2)  In a pinch, slow down, and feel for what matters in the long run--not what hooks you in immediate, blinding, "got to"-moment, choosing to seek signs of beauty, kindness, purpose and benevolence, somehow hearing past the yapping inner voices of impatience, fear, desire and resentment.

The skills I learned to get out of trouble when I was overwhelmed as a child were:

* Go off on your own and keep your own company when the people you might count on for connection were undependable.

* Think your way out of situations with language and distract yourself with reading, television watching, physical exercise, writing, music, and talking to yourself.

* Try to do impressive things so people don't think you're as inferior as you feel.

These are half-good magic tricks. They kept me away from harmful addictions, made me suited to success in graduate school, and gave me a way to constructively distract myself away from anxiety and depression.

At a certain point, though, I grew allergic to the stress and unnatural effort of trying to achieve things in order to prove I wasn't incompetent. I grew tired of thinking that overcoming disorder, procrastination, and accomplishing things at the last moment were a magic formula, because they had worked in the past. I lost the appetite for only being comfortable in isolation because "people can't be trusted". That now seems an oversimplification. When you are a child and adults are unpredictable, it's reasonable not to fully trust them. But when you are yourself an adult, you can give them more room to prove they are trustworthy, and that you know how to keep yourself safe either way.

Similarly, after you've had enough experience in life to realize that your achievement and good fortune will more often than not make others uncomfortable, you learn to be less enthusiastic about showing them off. (Which is why I sincerely stopped seeking notoriety. It's much better to be known for being dependable or helpful than spectacular or special in some irritating way--you can still strive for greatness but, only with the understanding that one is not to strive for recognition through it--especially if you are trying to mask a feeling of underlying unworthiness with it. It's a little like Public Displays of Affection--something that's almost always a bad idea.)

Thinking back on my July experiences, what I recall is moments of offering what I could without knowing 100 percent if what I was doing was going to be effective, but relaxing my grip on the need to know what was going to happen and instead having confidence that if I were just trying to be there, as helpfully and kindly as I could, that this was the best I could do anyway and I could rest in and take confidence from that knowledge.

It's like learning to drive at night with headlight beams off--knowing you can do it, especially if you aren't afraid. How does one  overcome the fear? It helps to be good and sick of the limits of being afraid. It also helps to have had smaller successes with similar challenges that allow you to climb the staircase to the really daunting ones. The July just ended was that for me.

 

The Video for August:

My Mom is a bass player in a community orchestra that plays jazz and big band songs. A few days before her surgery, we played some music together. Here is a recording from that afternoon, of the song I wrote for the 10th Anniversary celebration for METTC, the Montessori Elementary Teacher Training Collaborative that was my training center and where I now am a staff member: