Kudos

Yesterday I received not one, but two really nice notes from other therapists I've worked with recently. Sometimes it's really easy for me to disregard the kudos I receive, instead choosing to stay focused on my "problem areas" or weak spots. So I'm just going to take a minute here to soak in these kind words, at the risk of bragging a little bit in the process.

The first is from a therapist that I met in massage therapy school. She and I used to do a weekly trade of bodywork, but she went out of state for a few months at the end of last year. We just reinstated our weekly trade as of this past Monday.

Yesterday morning I went out the front door of my apartment to discover this lovely note from her, written in a beautiful little embossed card, wedged into the door jamb. She must have dropped it by late the night before, or early that morning.

It finally came "full circle" for me yesterday. After receiving such fabulous, yet relieving work from you-- I felt I provided the same for my client/friend that evening and it was such a sense of finally crossing that Bridge of Knowing*!*

The thing is, I know exactly what she's talking about. Receiving bodywork on a regular basis is a really important part of my learning process as well. Getting onto the table as a client reminds me of just how good any massage therapy feels, and receiving neuromuscular therapy in particular, I am reminded of how simple yet effective this kind of therapy really is for the body and mind. Being reminded of that on a regular basis, I have found, really boosts my confidence. It serves as a reminder to "just do the work" and to trust that it will be powerful and effective.

I tend to be an overly analytical person, so I can fall into the trap of overthinking what I am doing. I can get in the way of the work itself if I'm not careful to just stay present, trust my instincts and keep it simple. I'm really gratified that I could be that catalyst for another therapist's remembering. But more than that, I'm just so grateful for this particular friend and her willingness to share her feedback with me. She sets a really good example and serves as a reminder to me never to hold back on praise. I'm so pleased we'll be trading every week once again!

The second note came in the form of an email, from a therapist I've been studying with for the past nine months or so. She runs a non-profit organization that brings massage therapy to people in or with a history of cancer treatment. She has quickly become one of my heroes. She is professional, knowledgeable, and incredibly technically skilled as a therapist. At the same time, she is loving, open, generous of spirit, and incredibly kind-hearted. She is also a wonderful example to me of self-care and setting boundaries. I just all-around admire her deeply.

Technically, I finished my oncology massage practicum in December of last year. But I loved the experience of working with the chemo patients within the infusion center setting, so I let the founder know that I'd be interested in staying involved, and ultimately, finding a regular weekly volunteer placement. She offered me the opportunity to go into an IC for a 2-hour session on Tuesday by myself, followed by a debriefing with her. I was nervous but I wanted to have the experience of going in alone. I figured I had to have my first solo run sooner or later, so I might as well go for it.

This is what she had to say the following day:

Lovely seeing you onsite yesterday!

You have a lovely grace, and a special skill at bringing harmony into a space,
and no doubt those who receive your touch benefit tremendously from that.

[...]

It may take some searching to find exactly what you want,
but have no doubt, you will find it.

It may seem like a small thing, but I really appreciated those words of encouragement. This particular profession can feel a bit lonely and isolated at times. There is no corporate "parent" whose apron I can hide beneath anymore. There is no entity or individual who will be there to lend legitimacy to what I do, or to validate the quality or efficacy of my work. For the first time in my professional life, I will really have to learn the art of marketing my skills and my self. It can feel quite daunting at times, but notes like this one really help a lot. Again, I find myself just feeling grateful for this individual, the work that she does, and her willingness to be so inclusive, encouraging, and generous with her time and energy. I learn a lot by observing experienced, successful therapists-- how they present themselves, and how they interact with others. I can't think about my own success too hard without feeling quickly overwhelmed with the anxiety of potential failure. So instead, I just go into each day as open as I possibly can be, putting one foot in front of the other and trusting the work itself. If I take my "self" out of the equation as much as possible, and make it about the work, I find my anxiety quickly begins to subside.

How To Tell The Truth

Something that a friend wrote recently on the subject of telling the truth and being direct has reminded me of an article I stumbled across years ago... when I was trying to figure out, quite literally, how to tell the truth. It had recently become unavoidably clear to me that I was not a particularly honest person. A dear friend put it as kindly as he possibly could, and in hindsight-- 13 years on-- I see that he really nailed it. He said, "I think you're as honest with others are you are with yourself." (Which was to say, at the time, very dishonest indeed.)

Being the geek that I am, I actually did an internet search for any insights I might find. This article, and the decisions and actions that followed from it, started a process that has been ongoing ever since.

I had thought that figuring out how to tell the truth was the starting point; was I ever wrong.

Truth: How and Why To Tell It

Here's an excerpt:

Knowing one's own truth.
We are all on our journey toward knowing ourselves better, becoming more aware and more connected to the truth of who we really are.
It is only through our relationships with others that we discover deeper truths about ourselves.
I can never know the truth about another's journey towards truth.

I am on my own unique journey and can never know about another's journey.
Every person's journey is unique to themselves. Though someone else may not allow themselves to know much about their journey, but it is certain that I cannot know about it. So I will stop trying to figure out the truth of another's journey.
If I am looking to others to decide what to do, think, or feel, I am lost in their journey. I feel unease. When I let go of trying to figure out the other person's journey, their intention, their goal or motivation, I feel ease.

I can always know the truth about myself.
The journey towards my truth exists only for me. It is unique to me and for me.
My truth does not have to be substantiated with facts. It does not have to be proven. It does not have to be confirmed.
With mindfulness, I can be well connected to my truth.

Read the rest of the article here

One of the many things I've always loved about that article, and this particular type of truth-telling, is that it makes very clear that figuring out one's own truth is a full-time job. I'm on my journey, you're on yours. I'm writing the script to my life; I can't write yours and you can't fill in the blanks of mine. The most we can do is compare notes, and maybe give a tiny bit of insight in the places where we've had similar experiences.

Coincidentally, I stumbled across a couple of quotes earlier today, on Rob Brezny's site, that are relevant here. Specifically, they deal with the concept of truth-telling as it relates to political and social life, service, and activism.

"The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others."
--Carl Jung

"Political activism is seductive because it seems to offer the possibility that one can improve society, make things better, without going through the personal ordeal of rearranging one's perceptions and transforming one's self."
--Tom Robbins

Something in me had always been drawn to extremely direct people. Something in me still is. I have many direct people in my life, and I'm always looking for more. I'm definitely in the You Can't Have Too Many Friends camp.

But these days, I especially value those who can deliver honesty with directness, yes, but with love and compassion as well. Truth-telling, being direct, calling bullshit... there's a form of this that is actually, at heart, quite dishonest. When it becomes sanctimonious, anger-laden, cruel... there's invariably something else going on. At that point, the "truths" that are being delivered really aren't useful; something else is in the way.

Truth is always ultimately built on a foundation of love. It's just sometimes quite difficult and scary to get underneath the surface of things and figure out what's really going on, and to understand what, or who, really needs to change. It's easy to get comfortable with our own Official Story, and to cling to it come hell or high water. But it's also easy to suss out the blind spots: they'll always be right where we're afraid to look, right around the most ominous-looking corner. They'll always be protecting the parts of ourselves and others we're failing to really, deeply love.

I am resolved to take these guidelines to heart, once again, as I step into the new year.

An Open Letter to My Conservative and Christian Friends

Parts of this were taken from a letter I recently wrote to a dear friend of 22 years. I awoke one morning last week to discover that this person I deeply respect, admire, and love had "de-friended" me on Facebook. Immediately I knew why. The day before, I had posted an article about Rick Warren on my FB profile, with an added comment about Warren being a "bigoted fundie asshat". While it is very true that I am no fan of Warren, and that I do believe his stance on homosexuality to be deeply bigoted and antipathetic, I made two mistakes when I did what I did.

First, I posted the article and incendiary comment on Facebook, knowing full well that I have many politically and religiously conservative friends who would see what I had posted and written the next time they logged in. I've been expressing myself in the wrong forum. (Hence the creation of this blog as an alternative.) I would have never gone to the trouble of forwarding that same article and comment to my conservative friends' personal e-mail addresses; the obvious rudeness of doing such a thing would have prevented me from doing so.

Second, and perhaps more to the point: I chose a hateful way of expressing my sentiments, one that many would find completely off-putting, and rightly so.

I spent the rest of the day crying, hard, at the idea that a thoughtless comment on Facebook may have cost me a friendship that I have held so dear for so long. That I was literally driving my old friends away because of how I chose to express myself. Just how screwed up had my priorities become?

The truth of the matter is that I would not choose to continue a connection to any person who used the word n----r, or who expressed antisemitic views, or who made a habit of writing things I found deeply offensive to my own sensibilities. In fact, I have de-friended people myself in the past, for precisely those reasons. They were always people with whom I had never shared a close friendship to begin with, and I was not sorry to see them go.

Reflecting on this, I realized that I had to apply my own yardstick from my friend's point of view. Again, I shuddered at the thought that I was, to him, what these others had been to me: an annoyance, a lout, an asshat. A left-wing Ann Coulter, if you will. Sure... insulting people can be satisfying, if your goal is to score points. But again, it comes down to intention. What's the goal?

As the Dude said to his friend, "You're not wrong, Walter. You're just an asshole!" I had become Walter Sobchak, without even realizing it. Not everything is about 'Nam.

With some of my conservative friends, I enjoy lively and respectful debates on the subjects of religion, politics, culture, sex, and many other supposedly verboten subjects, or what I like to call, the good stuff. We can rib each other, agree to disagree, sometimes persuade each other on certain points, and then go about our day. I often come away from these conversations the better informed for having had them-- my assumptions challenged, my horizons broadened in some way. I suppose the idealistic side of me is prone to living in a fantasy world where I can enjoy such exchanges with everyone I call a friend.

But that is never going to be reality... especially not if I choose to open up with an insult, which is pretty universally off-putting. A friend recently asked me, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be heard?" The same friend also lovingly cautioned me to take care not to become that which I claim to abhor. Finally, she teased that I seem to want to ram my opinion down other people's throats, but I want them to like me while I do it. Did she ever hit the nail on the head!

So, in the process of mulling all of this over, I drafted a letter to my dear childhood friend, and I also decided to post here an Open Letter To My Conservative Friends that holds true in general. Here it is:

Recent events in my life have prompted me to take a hard look at how I express my point of view, and I can only say that I was shocked and ashamed at what I found when I did.

They say that when somebody makes you really angry, it's because there's something in them that you recognize in yourself, and that this recognition makes you really, really uncomfortable. In short, those who push our buttons the most are those who mirror back to us the traits that we most deeply dislike within ourselves. One view even holds that these people are precisely the ones for whom we should be the most grateful in our lives, because they are our greatest teachers.

Too often, I forget that, and instead I adapt the most facile, us-vs-them habits of thought.

I am afraid that, without realizing it, of late I have been turning into exactly the kind of left-wing "fundamentalist" that I claim to abhor: sanctimonious, self-righteous, obnoxious.

My political and spiritual convictions may have shifted radically over the years, but in this sense, I haven't changed a bit. It is always a shock to look in the mirror and to realize that, despite all efforts to convince yourself you've "grown", you really are, to quote Kurt Vonnegut, exactly who you were in high school. Imagine my dismay upon discovering how very true this is. The ego is a tricksy little bugger, and mine too often runs the show, I'm afraid.

I have a sharp tongue, a quick temper, and an often profane and sarcastic sense of humour. I tend to use these dubious gifts in the service of alleviating my own sadness, frustration, and dismay... that is to say, when I feel vulnerable. And then I'm always shocked at the consequences. While my intentions are never to offend you or anybody else, that is too often exactly what I end up doing.

I am as deeply convicted in my beliefs as you, my conservative and Christian friends, are in yours, and because of my tempermental challenges, my passion regarding certain matters gets the best of me at times. When I react in the heat of frustration, disappointment or anger, my filter goes missing and I say things that I regret, sometimes alienating people that I care about in the process.

All I can say is that I'm aware of it and I'm working on it. If I have offended you or hurt you, I am truly sorry and I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me. I would rather you call me on this where you see it, than to go. But I understand that it really isn't your job; I am a grown-up and responsible for my own words and actions.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to stick around, please know that I wish you nothing but the best, now and always.