appreciation

Life of Ryan I: The Easy Life

Ron Johnson appreciation, emotional maturity, grief, mindfulness, Self-Awareness

(NB: this and following Life of Ryan blogs are coming under my personal blog rather than from him directly. The reason for that will become obvious to readers. “Ryan” (not his real name) has given me permission to post these blogs. Read and consider your thoughts and feelings. If you choose to respond, do so on the blog or directly to me: ron.johnson@midlandspsychological.com. I will pass it along to Ryan.)

My name is Ryan. I’m writing to you from my home, a home where I have lived for the last 20 years, longer than I lived in any other home. It is good home, and it serves me well, but I often hate it.

It’s not the brick or mortar that I hate. The physical structure is fine. There is nothing wrong with how the walls and ceilings have been built, seemingly by very good tradesmen. I never have to worry about the electric or plumbing needing repair, or the roof needing redone. In fact, a person couldn’t ask for a more solid structure. In fact, it’s a rare time that anything goes wrong with the structure. Home owners should be so lucky.

It’s not the people in my home that I hate. The people are quite nice, at least for the most part. They do a fine job taking care of me. In fact, they do more for me than most people get from their co-inhabitants. I never have to do laundry or the vacuuming. I never have to do the dishes. I don’t even have to fix meals. The other people in my “home” do all that stuff. What other man is so lucky to be treated like a king of his castle?

You should be as lucky as me. I just sit back and enjoy all these privileges: house repaired as necessary; household duties taken care of; meals prepared regularly. People stop by to see me and chat from time to time. I’m even given in-house entertainment, like games and parties. I just sit back and watch all this work being done. Just sit back and watch TV, play video games, and keep up with my Facebook friends. Well, that doesn’t always work because my computer goes down from time to time and I have to wait for the IT guy to show up and fix it. But this is not so bad because all the other things in my home are taken care of. And get this: I have two people in my household who actually give me a bath. For the most part I have nothing to do but hang out while I watch all these things being taken care of. You should be so lucky. Living the good life, yes?

It sure seems like to the good life, doesn’t it? There is a slight problem with my being the king of my castle with all these privileges. What could possibly be missing from this scenario where all the necessary things of life are being taken care of for me? What could possibly be wrong with my just sitting back and watching TV while everyone else in my home goes about doing household duties? What’s wrong is this: the only thing I can do is “sit back and watch TV while everyone else in my home goes about doing household duties.”

I am not able to do the dishes and repair the roof. I am not able to fix the plumbing and re-wire the kitchen. I am not able to shovel the snow in the winter and cut the grass in the summer. I am not even able to change the channel on my TV. In fact, it is quite an effort for me to actually play video games and get on Facebook and do email. It actually takes my breath away to get on Facebook and check my emails on my computer. It literally takes my breath away to do these things. I huff and puff to do this small task. Well, not exactly huff and puff; more accurately I sip and puff when I’m trying to navigate my way around the computer.

Puffing and sipping is the only way I can operate my computer because I have multiple sclerosis. I can’t move. I can’t move at all. All I can do is sip and puff. I can’t move my arms. I can’t move my legs. So I can’t scratch that itch on my leg. I used to have a little use of one of my arms and hands, which helped me greatly because I could change the TV channel, migrate the mouse on my computer, and use my electric wheel chair. All that disappeared several years ago, and I am left with speech as my only means of communication with the world around me. But even that is waning, something that tends to happen with MS patients as the muscles surrounding speech began to deteriorate. I can go from speaking normally to whispering to moving my lips without any sound at all depending on how these speech-based muscles want to cooperate.

It must sound odd to hear someone say that he wishes he could fix the drain in the bathroom, shovel the snow, cut the lawn, repair the kitchen electric, or climb on the roof to repair the leak. But that is exactly what I wish I could do. Even more so, I wish I could get on the floor and wrestle with my grandchildren. I so wish for lots more, like kissing these grandchildren, and my own children, and my wife, but even this is a huge effort that is rarely made. Besides, who wants to kiss such a bump on the log when the guy can’t simultaneously wrap his arms around you?

All of this sound like so much complaining. I suppose it is. I try real hard not to complain. Yes, sometimes it is a challenge to puff on the mechanism that alerts the staff of some need I might have, and even more of a challenge to wait for an hour to have someone respond to my call. But for the most part, I am not inclined to complaining. In fact, my psychologist has asked me to “feel bad for myself” every day. He says that it would be good for me to “just feel bad” for a while. I don’t see the point. In my mind, it’s going to be the same thing today as it was yesterday and the same thing tomorrow. So what’s the point of feeling bad for myself? It just seems like so much complaining.

By the way, this same psychologist has taught me a new word that is relevant to this discussion: amanuensis. I understand this is a sophisticated word that means ghost writer. He has initiated this current monologue and may be willing to help me with others. He is my amanuensis: he writes what I tell him to write. Well, he is a bit more of a writer than I am, so the words are largely his. But the ideas and the feelings are mine. I tell him what I am thinking or feeling and then he goes home and writes up some kind of monologue like the present one.

I plan to do more of these. The idea came up during one of the conversations that I had with my psychologist. I told him that I was disappointed in my “legacy.” But that is the next edition of Ryan.

 

Feelings IX: Joy From Intuition

Ron Johnson appreciation, Feelings, happiness, mindfulness, Positive psychology, Self-Awareness, Spiritual

This is the ninth in a series of “feelings”. Our most recent addition, Feelings VIII had to do with the feeling of joy, specifically related to the joy that one experiences in one’s five physical senses. Here we would like to explore joy that comes from what we might call our sixth sense, which I am calling intuition. This joy from intuition is something like when you say, “I don’t know why, but I just feel good (or joyful, or happy, or content).” Let’s consider together how we might understand, value, and express this intuitive joy.

What is intuition?

This word “intuition” is sometimes used too much and sometimes not used at all, so I want to be careful in how I suggest we use it for the feeling of joy. Importantly, I subsume this word intuition under the heading of the word feelings that we have been studying these recent weeks. Recall that the word “feelings” as I am using the term is very important but does not lend itself to any exact definition. Succinctly put, feeling is first a physical feeling, secondly an emotional feeling, thirdly a thinking feeling, and fourthly an activity-based feeling. People tend to express their feelings in one of these arenas. For instance there are people who express their feelings primarily with their body experiences, others with their emotion, others with their thoughts, and others with their activities. I think feelings encompasses all four of these phenomena in life, and that emotional maturity requires us to become more fluent in all of these ways of expressing feelings.

Some people call intuition a “gut level feeling,” and such people profess that they experience these sixth sense feelings during dreams, whether awake or asleep. Some people consider such intuitive feelings spiritual. And while some people would use the term “spiritual” to explain this experience, but certainly this sixth sense is not limited to religious experiences however profound they might be. When we talk about a sixth sense, we might even be talking about one of the five senses operating at a level beyond our awareness. Neuropsychologists might be able to see what part of the brain is firing when we have this intuitive experience, but we will defer that discussion to folks who are more skilled than we are in matters neurological. We can say that times of joy come with people and without people. Consider the following.

Times of joy with people

People of some personality types have their greatest times of joy with people, while others find joy in other avenues. People-based joy can come in many forms including:

  • In depth conversation
  • Simple weather-related brief interaction
  • Sharing an experience with someone
  • Being in a familiar group of friends or family
  • Being in a lecture where everyone is intent on learning the same thing
  • Caring for a child or playing with a child
  • Planning or thinking about a future event with people

Times of joy without people

Consider the many times you have found joy being alone, perhaps when you were:

  • Reading a new book or a favorite poem
  • Appreciating some special aspect of nature
  • Remembering a very special time you had when you were alone
  • Writing something, like this blog
  • Playing by yourself, whatever that might be
  • Working alone on a project without any interruption
  • Praying or meditating

If you acknowledge that you have this feeling, this “sense of something,” you will then be able to consider whether it is a simple thought or emotion that has passed through your head, or a profound understanding of something important to you. If this sixth sense feeling stays with you beyond a few seconds, you need to take a moment and allow it to run its course. If this feeling comes and goes within a few seconds, you don’t have to spend time trying to bring it into consciousness, but if this feeling stays with you, your next task is to give it some room.

Giving intuition room

Giving intuition “room” means allowing yourself the freedom to experience intuition time to unfold. Again: you might notice something physical, emotional, intellectual, or action oriented. This is easier for some people than it is for others, probably due to personality type and temperament. If you do this easily, you may be predominantly an intuitive person, but if giving intuition room is difficult, you may be a person who is more practical, rational, or analytical. It is possible to give intuition room by allowing yourself to feel something that has no exact cause, which again, is easier for some people than it is for others. Everyone is intuitive in some way, but not all people acknowledge this intuition, even to themselves.

Giving intuition room is quite simply allowing yourself to experience this feeling, this gut-level, analytical, emotional, or physical thing without knowing what “it” is. Just feeling it. True intuition can lead to amazing scientific discoveries to which many scientists attest, or to insights about oneself or the universe at large. “Just feeling” an intuition means allowing yourself to experience intuition in the way that is most natural to you: physical, emotional, intellectual, or activity-based. There are times when you feel an intuition about potential danger, but most intuitions are quite apart from danger and the fear that accompanies danger. Once you have given intuition room, you often will discover that you have a feeling of joy. Let’s consider how that might happen:

  • For people who are primarily physical in their experience of intuition, they might experience a very pleasant physical experience, perhaps a physical calm, a physical strength, or better yet a feeling of general body pleasure
  • For people who are emotional, they will most likely feel inclined to cry, crying being an expression of joy (and of course of sorrow), but joy that is born of love
  • For people who are intellectual, they may experience this intuition in a sense of knowing something or understanding something
  • For people who are activity-based, they might experience intuition while doing something, very often having success in some physical endeavor.

Consider the joys in your life. Consider writing them down. Consider putting them into a poem…or a project. Consider sharing them with someone. Trust your intuition

Further Reading

Feelings 1-VIII blogs

Pillard, N. (2015). Jung and intuition. London: Karnac

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row.

Schutz, W. (1967). Joy: expanding human awareness. New York: Grove Press

Freedman, J. (1978). Happy people: what happiness is, who has it, and why. New York: Harcourt Brace.

The “we” of me

Deb Brock appreciation, Connection, emotional maturity, family, Feelings, grief, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness, Spiritual

2:37 AM; September 20, 2018

I haven’t been sleeping well. Not since I booked Portugal.  By day I am excited and mindful of my internal excitement of a new space, a new trail, a new breath in my senses, especially sight and sounds while I hike.

At night however, when I lie beside my beloved Ron, I think what in the hell am I am doing? Driving off alone to the Canyons is one thing, because I can, and often do, drive home early for want of him. But flying across the Atlantic without him?  By day, fine. By night not so. But, I am an independent soul as well as a private person and going off is good for my spiritual calming.  Ron knows this and so we have this thing where every once in a while, I “just go”. I always come back and it is always good that I have gone because the individual of me gets restored.

Then came the Middleton shooting this week.

Tracking the temps in Portugal, still in the 90s, I wanted to pick up a fresh hiking shirt. I had found one at the East Madison Marshalls and picked it up even though it was a bit too large. I knew I would have time on Wednesday to check Marshalls at Greenway Station and If they had a smaller size, fine, if not I would make do with the larger one. Sure enough Greenway had what I needed. I checked out, went to the car and then grabbed the bag that I had purchased previously. I went back in the store, walked up to the into the queue for the return.  I was next in line so I was ready to walk to the front register.  If you know the store you know at that position you are in clear view of the entry.

Just standing with my return bag, I saw a man run in and within a flash I heard shouting, “secure the doors, there is a shooting outside”.   He shouted again. The lady behind me pushed through a rolling display and ran towards the back of the store. Another lady near by fumbled asking what to do. I suggested she go behind the half wall at the end of the register line which would be invisible to anyone approaching from the front. I went there myself half hidden and half peeking out to grasp what might really be going on. Then the manager announced for all customers to immediately go to the back of the store…lock down by order of police.  While joining the others scrambling to the back I called Cheri and interrupted her pleasantries: “Cheri, I am in west side Marshalls there is a shooting outside. We are in lock down. Inform Ron”. I hung up.

The guy who ran in the store, I learned in a short time by his own report, was the owner of the structure in which the shooting occurred. He heard the shots. He heard people say by name to the shooter” What are you doing? Don’t do this” …bam, bam, bam.  As he told this report from the back of the store, he shouted again that the doors be barred.  Of course, they already were. At first, I thought he was going to be a problem, over-panicked, a hysteric who could cause more alarm than necessary.  I considered that I might need to calm him down. That wasn’t the case, though.

We were in lock down for a bit over two hours. I never felt endangered. I thought it though and considered eminent danger unlikely given we were a couple of structures down from the shooting location and that (via the media reports), nearly the entire Madison Patrol was within a two-block radius.

When they opened the doors and I walked outside there were a couple of helicopters circling overhead and patrol cars everywhere, rows of cars headed west blocked on the road. I turned East away from the commotion and headed for Starbucks (don’t laugh at me). They were still closed given the entirety of Greenway Station was apparently on lock down. I drove to Target to pick up a camera card for my trip. Walking from my car to the door I noticed a wee shake in my system. I was beginning to feel it: I wanted to get home. Even so, I made a couple of other quick stops that were on my list of “to do”. I found the drive home time consuming. I hoped I would have enough tie to get home, unload the few groceries I picked up, make myself an espresso and with fingers crossed, get a glimpse of Ron before I began to see clients.

In early evening when Ron and I both finished with clients we had a glass of wine at our desks finishing up notes. We made dinner and Ron asked me about the deal in town, how I was. I told him I was okay, noting that once it was over and I was driving home, I felt a little shaky but it wasn’t long in duration. We took a walk, talked about the grievous condition of our society, that we at large have a lot of maturing to do.  We watched a bit of “Barnaby” and went to bed.

Ron can verify that I often am asleep within a minute of hitting the pillow, literally. So these recent restless nights are quite rare for me and I chalk it up to “advance missing of him”. This morning however, I woke up about 1:00.  I heard the rain on our metal roof and just listened. The longer I listened to the rain, the more I could remember what the people in Marshalls looked like. I thought this odd in a way, but I’m a visual person, so perhaps not so odd. I could clearly see the man who got us to lock the doors; mid aged, young looking, casual shirt, styled hair but by then hand ruffled quite a bit. I saw a younger middle-aged woman, about the age of our girls who was leaving later that day for Vegas with four friends. She had pretty blond straight hair, clear skin, calm eyes.   She had told me how the previous night her husband couldn’t find the clothes basket that was within an arm’s reach of himself. We both laughed and just cocked our heads. Even more clearly, I saw a young, petite mother to be, her belly all smoothed and egged. She wore a head scarf that ovaled her face and seemed to balance the oval of her full belly.  She was truly lovely in her symmetry. She was with her lover no doubt, given his constant hand on her and his quiet voice.  I saw a younger woman, sitting alone staring out into the store. She looked so hearty and healthy and poised in her solitude…Interestingly, in my reflection, she was the one person I wished I had engaged and inquired of how she was holding up despite my instinct that she was independent, okay, and just waiting the time out. I saw that large man, keeping his arm around his woman emanating safety and control.  He had been nearby when I was still in the front of the store and he called to his wife and said “we must get out now”.  I can still see many of the other faces as well. I noticed there were no children, but of course why would there be it was a school day.

As I lay listening to the rain, seeing these people over and over I realized that I was more disturbed by this experience than I had yet allowed myself to feel. I let myself go into some eye movements to process the ordeal.  My eyes were eager to shift laterally, a sure sign I needed to do so. My self-induced REMs were steady and consistent, a good sign, I thought. Then I began to feel a surge, a quick breath and my reactive thought was “god damn guns!”  I saw the little pregnant woman again and the beautiful girl going off with her friends for a fun time in Vegas and thought of our beautiful Jenny and Krissie. “God Damn the god damn guns!” Then in one instant I began to cry.  My crying spontaneously out loud is about as rare as my not sleeping. Yet in the very moment of hearing my own cry, I felt a safety in the cry welcomed further subs.  I noticed that within the first audible sob, Ron’s hand was immediately on me. Bless him. He is always there for me.  I cried a bit more letting my body finish up this needed release.  I began then to think of more familiar faces…thought of how hard this last year in particular has been for my friends Holly and Bud.  I thought about our friend Elaine in Newfoundland, who really would take care of me. I thought about Tim, our best friend in CO and how important he is to us given that he knows Ron and I collectively better than anyone else. I thought about Jenny and James planning their wedding and Krissie and Gavin and Alexis and the entwining of their lives. I thought about the clients I see day by day, name by name…even clients from years ago.  They all kept showing up in my mind. I thought about the wonderful neighbors on all sides of our little house in Lodi. I thought about Ron, his hand still on me and mine on him. I thought about everyone I know close and dear near and far. It was an explosion of connection with everyone on the planet, so it felt.  I felt the “we” of those I am closest to and the “we” of those I have only known for two hours. I felt the “we” of America and Portugal.   I felt the “we” of those dear people two building down from Marshalls.

Like the one gal that I wished I had engaged, I am a very independent person and I would just as well sit alone in a crisis than be in the collective. That is just my way. It is a gift. Yet even so, in this brief encounter of potential danger, I experienced the necessity of the “we”.

Crying and breathing this “we” was good for me. How holy to love, to live, to “we”. This night’s interruption wasn’t about just me selfishly missing Ron and Ron missing me for a few days away. It was about potentially missing neighbors, family, best friends, clients and strangers in a lock down. This night was about the “we” that we all are. The “we” that we each must be.