For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bail.
The little red pram is older than I am and leaks. Last summer we got it out and my daughter sailed and bailed with ease. She is on the racing team at Western Washington in Bellingham, racing FJs.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bail.
The little red pram is older than I am and leaks. Last summer we got it out and my daughter sailed and bailed with ease. She is on the racing team at Western Washington in Bellingham, racing FJs.
I am trying to wrap my mind around an aspect of Adverse Childhood Experience Scores. Ace scores.
Raised in war or chaos or an addiction household or a crazy household, kids do their best to survive and thrive. I acknowledge that first. “You survived your terrible and terrifying childhood. You are amazing. You have crisis wiring in your brain. You had to wire that way in order to survive.”
And what does that mean? High alert, high adrenaline, high cortisol, reactive. One veteran says that the military loved him being able to go from zero to 60 instantly.
“Yes, and how is that serving you now?” I ask. “Do you want to change it?”
“No.” he says.
“Why not?” I say.
“Because I know I can protect myself.”
He can protect himself, as I can too. But being on the alert for a crisis, being good in a crisis, being able to fire up like a volcano, is that what I want and is that what he wants? If not, how do we change it?
I think of it as being able to see monsters. Other people’s monsters. My crisis childhood wiring is to pay attention to the non-verbal communication: what people do not what people say. The body language, the tone of voice, what the person is not saying in words, when someone is being polite but the body language is a shut down, a rejection, a dismissal, posturing, aggressive, they don’t like me no matter what the words are, belittling. But if I or my high ACE score patients respond to the body language and emotional feeling, we have named the monster. And the person is being “polite” and will not admit to the monstrous feelings. Those feelings are unconscious or at least the person does not want to admit if they are at all conscious.
In clinic I have learned to dance with the monstrous feelings. I don’t always succeed, but I keep leveling up. It’s a matter of delicacy, inviting the person to admit the monstrous. Some do, some don’t, some don’t the first time or second or third, but the fourth time the monsters are brought out. And they aren’t monstrous feelings after all. They are normal. All I do then is listen and say that the feeling sounds normal for what is happening. It’s like letting off a steam valve.
So how do I and my high ACE score folks learn to do this in social settings as well? When someone is talking to me with a monstrous feeling, meanly, I challenge it. Because I am not afraid of that monstrous feeling. But I have then broken a social contract and the person will like me even less then they already did. And maybe that monstrous feeling is not really about me at all. It’s about their own current life events and the feelings that they try not to feel, are ashamed of, are afraid of. It’s not polite of me to challenge that feeling in a social setting, I am not this person’s doctor or therapist and they didn’t ask me. It’s hard because I feel so sorry for the monstrous feeling and for the person feeling it. I am moving to compassion and love for that feeling rather than taking it as directed at me, taking it personally.
That is my intention. We will see how well it goes.
A natuopath told me to have the intention to release old grief. It’s not old grief though. It’s ongoing grief. Grief for all of the monstrous feelings that swirl around daily and the monsters that are not loved. Most people try to ignore them. I don’t. I love them, because someone has to and because they are so lonely and sad. They are crying. Don’t you hear them? That’s what love is, when you can love your own monstrous feelings and other people’s too.
And our own are the hardest.
ACE study: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/index.html
I took the photograph in the Ape Caves, the lava tube at Mount St. Helen’s.
For Norm2.0’s Thursday doors on Friday.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt temperature.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/rdp-thursday-temperature/
For Norm2.0s Thursday doors.
I took this last weekend at the Rotary President Elect Training. Hotel doors are more functional than glamorous. I curled up in a chair in this hall when I needed a little quiet time between meetings. I like the carving over the hall and the abundance of windows.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: language.
I spent three days with the Rotary President Elect Training this past weekend. I am part of District 5020, which stretches from the end of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada down the Olympic Peninsula, WA, United States. There were people from ten districts.
The Rotary’s Polio Plus program is working hard to eradicate polio. This year the match from the Gates Foundation will be 2 dollars for every dollar the Rotary brings to end polio.
The flags from all the different countries and people working together: that speaks the language of peace and hope to me.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: rock.
One of my favorite early morning rocks, in Ontario, Canada.
The mergansers like it too.
Not pets, right? PETS here stands for President Elect Training Seminar. We are gathered to meet each other, exchange ideas and prepare for a year as president of our local club. Yesterday the president elect for Rotary International spoke to us, amazing. We also had a flag ceremony with the flags you see, from nearly 200 countries. How amazing!
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: canal.
Nope, not a canal. A pass: Deception Passage. Taken in December 2018. This is looking at the San Juan Islands from the top of the hills around the pass.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sage.
I took this in Arizona in 2015. I feel so lucky to be able to travel sometimes to such a different environment. Rather a contrast from here in the Pacific Northwest yesterday and today.
Daily haiku or senryu for fun
All about opioid addiction and its treatment with medication
explorations on the journey of living
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