family

Good for Me; Bad for Me VII: Good for Me; Bad for You

Ron Johnson emotional maturity, family, Feelings, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness, social esteem

My wife likes masks. I don’t. So what does this have to do with “good for me; bad for me”? Lots. Let me explain, but first let me review what I’ve been writing about in recent blogs.

I have proposed that there is a spectrum of things that are, quite simply, “good for me” or “bad for me.” Furthermore, the spectrum ranges from mildly good for to very good for me on one side and then mildly bad for me to significantly bad for me. The spectrum in its simplest form is:

Something that is good for me                               /                             Something that is bad for me

I further suggested that the “bad for me” and the “good for me” sides of the spectrum could be subcategorized as follows:

  • The bad for me spectrum ranges from mild to profound:

Uninteresting      Unpleasant      Aversive                /                      Dangerous      Toxic      Lethal

(mild)                                                                      to                                                     (profound)

  • The good for me spectrum also ranges from mild to profound:

Interesting      Pleasant      Exciting            /           Enlivening     Life-enhancing     Life-sustaining

(mild)                                                        to                                                                    (profound)

We most recently discussed “complexities” of such things, like when you don’t like something that is good for you, like green vegetables that my grandson hates, or working out that I hate. The present discussion is also complex but the complexities are different because they include times when something is:

  • Good for you but not good for someone else
  • Good for someone else but not good for you
  • Good for you and someone else
  • Bad for you and someone else

I want to help you find ways to deal with all these possibilities because this is the heart of the what makes a good relationship, where a brief encounter at the grocery store or  a long-term marital relationship. Furthermore, there are challenges that occur in relationships when there is agreement as well as when there is disparity in what is “good for you” and “bad for you.” In the following categories I am collapsing “liking” and “good for you” for purposes of brevity.

Good for me; Bad for you

This is the most common challenge in relationships, again noting that “relationships” can be intimate or brief. In this category we have at least the following:

  • I like Trump; you don’t; and vise versa
  • I enjoy green vegetables; you don’t
  • Alcohol is good for me; not for you
  • I need to talk; you need silence
  • I watch TV; you don’t
  • I like to read; you don’t
  • It’s good for me to wear a mask; it’s not good for you
  • I trust doctors; you don’t
  • I am a theist; you are an atheist
  • I like debates; you don’t
  • I favor the Black Lives Matter movement; you think it’s awful

Let’s consider one or two of these. The current health, political, and cultural matters so dominate America, whether it is Black Lives, wearing masks, or Trump. How difficult is it for you to go into a store where you “have to wear a mask”, or is it difficult for you to go into a store and see other people without masks? This is an example of the highly emotional element that is always involved in something that is “good for you” or “bad for you.” When emotion runs high, there is a danger of a certain kind of emotionally-caused blindness, superiority, or anger. Consider how you react to the mandate for masks or the lack of people following the mandate for masks, and you will find emotion. Now consider that this emotion erupts from your inner self or soul. Deb and I have just finished our final review of I Want to Tell You How I Feel in which we discuss how “feelings” erupt from a central core self and go sequentially through physical, emotional, cognitive, and active expressions. While we all have all four of these expressions, some people tend to recognize and express themselves in one of these expressions predominantly. Furthermore, emotion is the least developed feeling expression in America and hence the most dominant. So instead of simply noting that you feel sad because you are mandated to wear a mask, you get afraid and angry. Likewise, you do the same jump from sadness to anger and fear if you see other people failing to wear masks. I would propose that it would be helpful for all to recognize that masks are “good for you” and “bad for others” as a start. But this asks a lot of people: it asks them to be sad rather than angry. In my mind this is emotional maturity, i.e. staying with the disappointment, hurt, or sadness rather than letting allowing anger and fear to take over. This is the heart of what Deb and I wrote about in Good Grief.

Back to my original statement: Deb likes masks; I don’t. Well, it’s not true that I “don’t like masks.” What is true is that I choose to wear a mask in my office, which I deem as private, only when requested to do so by a patient. Deb, on the other hand, wears a mask with every patient and requires her patients to wear masks unless it is particularly inconvenient for them to do so. We have found some commonality in the mask-wearing matter but only as we have identified the “core self” matter, which I will discuss forthwith.

We could take any of the other examples noted above and examine them from the perspective of how some things make me sad, a sadness that I might tend to race right by preferring to be self-righteously angry or unduly afraid. There is more to the story but allow me to delay this discussion for a moment and examine the case when something is…

Good for you; Bad for me

We could consider all the political and cultural themes noted above. Let’s look at the Black Lives Matter discussion. This is a very good example of how many people feel deeply passionate about this movement, whereas as other people feel terribly offended. Supporters of Black Lives suggest that Blacks have been disenfranchised in America and feel deeply that there should be some political and cultural change to rectify this inequality. People who are not in favor of this movement speak of “what lives matter also” speaking of Caucasians, or “blue lives matter” speaking of police. On both sides of this discussion, however, lies a tremendous amount of passion with an even stronger element of anger. We have good people who are passionately demonstrating for equality sometimes becoming so engrossed in their emotions that they throw rocks into windows out of anger. We have equally good people who value “land order” and see window-breaking as “wrong”, so they fight back at people who are seeing that America’s cultural state is “not good for them” while their opponents see the movement as “not good for them.”

Let’s consider a somewhat more benign situation that is not so hotly emotional, like it being “good for you” to believe in God compared to people who find such belief “bad for them.” How can this happen? How can people feel that believing in God is bad for them? Being a theist myself, I have to stretch on this one, but I conjecture that atheists find so much wrong with religion that to even speak of a god is to speak a kind of evil. And it is important to note that both theists and atheists talk about “facts” and “science” and “logic” in defending their positions, which are more accurately feeling-based. So what is “feeling-based” mean? How do things become good for me or bad for me out of my “feelings”?

Feeling-based convictions

Since I have just finished the final review of the feeling book that Deb and I have written, this matter is very much on my mind, and it gives me a perspective of this “good for me” and “bad for me” matter. Feelings, as I see them, are an eruption out of our core selves, but I must quickly note that “feelings” and “core selves” are terms that are not defined, nor more so, by the way than time, distance, and mass are defined in physics, life is not defined in biology, or love is not defined in the human condition. To say something is “feeling-based” is tantamount to say that this something erupts from my core self, which in my mind is perfect, or perhaps the better word is pure. Hence, I would contend that the core self of someone who loves Trump is speaking of this purity/perfection just as the Trump hater is speaking of this purity-perfection. Then these two people express their core selves in a way we call “feeling.” So far, so good, as we then have two people speaking from the purity of core self expressing their core selves in feelings. But this is where things go array because people tend to race right through the physical manifestation of feelings and the emotional element of feelings right into the cognitive expression not knowing that they have missed the point. The point is that they have a core self value that is pure but this core value is not easily communicated in words and action without first recognizing the emotional element along the way. If we could agree that the core self always is love-based, we would know that any expression of feeling is love-based. Then we might be able to talk about what we love rather than what we hate; we could talk about what is important to us rather what is anathema; we could talk about what is good for us rather than what is bad for us. This is a tough task and not many people do it.

Good for you; Good for me

This is rather simple category what simply suggests that something, whether Trump or masks, we can find some commonality with something being good for both you and me. Hence, we have political parties, athletic teams, musical themes, and academic pursuits that are good for you as they are good for me. There are actually a lot of them, and it behooves us to remember how many of these things there are.

By the way, something that seem good for me and good for you might not, actually be so good. It might not be ultimately good for Black Lives protesters to feel good about throwing rocks, and it might not be good for the folks on the other side to throw rocks at the demonstrators.

Obviously, the same goes for something that seems bad for you and bad for me. It takes an emotionally mature person to realize that when something seems bad for me, it might also be ultimately good for me. All of this suggests that it important to note the “good for me” and “bad for me” first, then the same for other people before trying to find the common ground, the common ground always being the purity of core self. Oh, that we could communicate our core selves to one another.

The challenge

The challenge is to actually see that our surface “good for me” or “bad for me” erupts from our core selves, which are as close to God (or godliness for you atheists) that we can get. Starting with this we can see that love is at the basis of all good and all that seem bad. Would that our cultural, religious, and political leaders could have this kind of conversation.

In the meantime it will be necessary to simply note, “this is good for me” or “this is bad for me” before we enter into any kind of discussion.

Life of Ryan III: Family

Ron Johnson Connection, family, Feelings, mindfulness, relationships, Self-Awareness

(This is the third in a series of “Ryan,” a patient of mine who has MS. I serve as his amanuensis.)

I love my family. That is for sure. There is nothing that is more important to me than my family. I think of them daily, if not hourly. I think of my wife. I think of my daughters and their husbands. I think of my many grandchildren, some of whom are now adults or soon to be. Family: what a wonderful part of life: you love them, you enjoy them, you look forward to seeing them. You laugh with them and cry with them. Can anything be so wonderful as loving people who have your heart, and most of them have your blood.

There are lots of things that go along with family, lots of statements that are often made in regards to family, like”

  • Family first
  • Family is never wrong
  • Family will never leave you
  • Family will always accept you
  • Family forgives you
  • Family is right even when they are wrong
  • Always support your family.

All true, and I believe all these things. I can think of nothing that is more important to me, not ideas, not things, not beliefs, not things, and certainly not money. Blood is thicker than water, right? Am I missing anything here? Perhaps one thing: family, and all that goes with it, is…difficult.

We don’t have to look far to see that family problems are all over the place. It seems that the more money and fame you have, the more likely you will be divorced. How many times was Elizabeth Taylor divorced? Nine times, I think. And all those other actors whose faces you see in the grocery store, and all those millionaire baseball players. The lot seems to have trouble, at least with their marital relationships, and often with their children. How many “tell all” books have been written about these famous actors and actresses who seem to have been less than model parents. But I am not so concerned about these rich folks as I am about us normal folks who just may struggle with various family difficulties. Does every kid have ADHD and every parent suffer from bi-polar disorder?

Forgive me, but I was born in 1946 at a time when we didn’t have all these diagnoses. I might have been diagnosed ADHD had that diagnosis been around in the 1950’s when I was a kid, or any number of other diagnoses that are now around for everyone to choose from.  I may not have been the best parent with my girls but I can’t say that I ever thought of them as having some kind of “disorder.” There were times they didn’t like me, and I must admit there were times that I didn’t like them very much. But we stuck it out and they have done pretty well in life despite my flawed parenting. Thank goodness for my wife who did the bulk of the “parenting.” I don’t even think that the word parenting was ever in my vocabulary. Most of my vocabulary with regards to the girls was “no” when they wanted those $45 jeans when you could buy a pair for $12 at Walmart. When they used to ask my wife for something, she would say, “Ask your father.” But then they would respond with, “You know what he’s going to say: no.” I did my best, but it might not have been good enough. Glad they have turned out so well. Things are not so well in the present, however.

If you’ve been bored enough to read my previous Life of Brian series, you know that I have this minor medical difficulty that has kept me somewhat limited in what I can do. I have multiple sclerosis. I can’t do much of anything but sit around like a bump on a log, and I can’t even do that. I am more like the bump or the log, just sitting there. But I don’t want to go over my physical state. I want to talk about family as it relates to my physical state. The most important thing is still this: I love my family. Love them to death. And…they’re difficult.

They’re not difficult because they are difficult. They’re difficult because I’m difficult. All those things I said about family, like loving them to death and valuing them above all else: all of this is true even though I can’t lift a finger to help them out. I can’t actually lift a finger. Wish I could. But I can’t. No way to change that save some kind of miracle by God’s hands or some remarkable scientific discovery that can cure MS. Not likely to happen. In the mean time I have my family: love them and all the rest…but can’t seem to find a way to be a family man. God, what I’d give to be able to lift a finger, or lift a grandchild. Or lift anything. No such luck. So, family is difficult, or rather I am difficult when I am relating to family. And I expect that they feel the difficulty of my being difficult.

Can’t blame them. I have to admit that I am difficult. I think about being “difficult” a lot, especially about my family. Who would want to see a father, grandfather, or husband who is the bump on the log that I talked about. Can’t stand up when they come in the room. Can’t get down on the floor. Can’t go to the grandkid’s graduation. Can’t hug. Very often I can’t even speak when this damned MS attacks my voice box only letting me whisper. And lots more “can’t’s.” So, I get it. I’m difficult. And this makes “family” difficult for me. Still love them to death. Still would do anything I can do, which isn’t much. Still hold them all in high esteem. But it is difficult being me with my family.

I think I have it better than many other residents here in the nursing home. Some of these people never see any of their family members for one reason or another. Some don’t have any family and they’re just…I don’t know, waiting to die? Some have someone who visits from the state of Oregon once a year. Some have family members who come to visit them, but obviously they don’t really want to visit; they just put their time in. So, I know that I’m not the only guy in this “difficult to be me” situation. But it still sucks. Certainly, would be nice to have this situation be less than difficult, but this is what I have. The whole situation leaves me in a bit of a quandary: I don’t like it, don’t like this lonely thing not seeing my family very much, but I understand it. I just don’t like it. Yeah, I can live with it. I have been living with it for years, now decades really. And the difficulty of who I am (now) and the condition that I am in has only become more difficult.

I hope this doesn’t sound like so much bitching. I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you how I feel. It’s not about what’s wrong with people. It’s not what’s wrong with my family. It’s not even what’s wrong with me. It’s not what’s wrong with anything. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love things to be different. I’d love to be walking and talking like a normal person. And I’d love to have family and friends visit me. But for now, I’m just feeling that life is difficult. Ron tells me that there was some very popular book written 25 years ago called The Road Less Traveled that began with the statement, Life is difficult.

Further Reading

Life of Ryan I and II

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.