Feelings

Life of Ryan II: Legacy

Ron Johnson Feelings, mindfulness, Self-Awareness, Spiritual

(NB: this is the second of a series of blogs written by “Ryan” (not his real name), someone who has become quite important in my life. He has a bit of trouble writing, as you will have note in Life of Ryan I, so some of the words are mine, but the feelings and the thoughts are his. You might take advantage of writing to Ryan through me: ron.johnson@midlandspsychological.com. Rj)

This is the second in a series of “The Life of Ryan,” which came out of a conversation with my psychologist some time ago. Ron and I have been meeting pretty regularly for many years…well, not always regularly. You see, he has what I call the “Smith gene,” which is a reference to a tendency certain Smiths have of being tardy…or not present at all, or coming a week late or a day early. I just have to put up with it. Ron tells me that he has inherited this tardy-inclined gene from his parents, but they were Johnsons, not Smiths. Maybe the names got mixed up on the boat from Europe. At any rate, we have conversation every week, or two weeks, or three weeks, depending on how Ron’s Smith/Johnson gene seems to be acting up.

Ron’s malfunctioning gene isn’t the topic of this discussion. I want to talk and write about my “legacy,” or perhaps lack thereof. By the way my “writing” is sort of figurative because the idea for this writing came during one of our recent meetings. The “writing” I do is a bit of a misnomer because Ron actually does the writing. I just sit back and dictate, well…sort of dictate. It is a bit difficult for me to write these days. I have this small malady called multiple sclerosis, which has caused me a bit of limitation in what I can actually write. My hands don’t work real well. Actually, they don’t work at all. In fact, not much of anything works in my body except my heart pumping blood into my cardiac system and my lungs pumping air into my breathing system. My doctor tells me that I am healthy as a horse…aside from the MS. So given that my hands don’t work real well…well, not at all actually…and my arms don’t work at all…and my legs don’t work…, I’ll have to depend on Ron’s words. It sounds like I’m complaining so I will give up on this line of thought because I don’t want to bemoan my current state. I want to bemoan my previous state. Hence, the current discussion on my “legacy.”

In one of our recent meetings I told Ron that I had been thinking of my legacy, meaning the legacy I will be leaving behind. I have been thinking such things since I raced past age 70 not long ago and I remember the Bible says that the “number of man is three score and 10.” That’s me plus some. So this thought about my legacy, or perhaps more accurately, my thoughts about legacy has been on my mind for some time. You tend to do that when you get past 50, more at 60, and then 70 really hits you. Most of the people my age (which would include Ron, by the way), had grandparents who were 70, and they always looked “old.” I can’t say that I feel “70” but that is what my birth certificate apparently says, so I have to believe it. Whether it is “legacy” or some other phrase that describes the same thing like, “what I have left behind” or “what I have done in life” or “what the world might remember about me” these all mean the same thing. And these thoughts lead to the big question: did I do anything of significance in life that could actually be said to be a legacy? I told Ron that I didn’t think I have any sort of legacy.

That word, and the feelings and thoughts behind the term legacy led to this writing that I’m doing. Ron thought the idea of legacy, or lack thereof, was somehow important. So he said he would try to put together some sort of statement, or page, or blog, or something that might be a way I could communicate my thoughts and feelings down on paper. So I sort of dictate these words to Ron and then he goes back to his office and re-writes what he thinks I said. Then he sends it back to me, and I go over it and trash it because he isn’t always as good at saying what I think and feel as I am. It is a joint effort. In my first “Life of Brian” I mentioned that he is my amanuensis, a word I had never heard of before Ron used it. Amanuensis sounds like some kind of disease, but it apparently means ghost writer. I will have to use my amanuensis because it would take me an hour to write this very paragraph, and Ron tells me he learned to type 110 words a minute, evidently with 100 errors or something. I’ll just have to trust him on that one.

Back to the legacy idea. Yes, I told Ron I didn’t see that I have a legacy to leave the world. Now, if anybody ever reads this monologue, you might say that I had children and now have a flock of grandchildren and the like, and this is my legacy. Perhaps, but it doesn’t feel that way. I told Ron that my wife did most of the raising of our kids, at least that’s the way it seems to me as I look back. And I can’t do much more than look back. Unfortunately, when I look back, I am not too pleased with myself. I just didn’t do much. Let me try to fill you in on how I see the past…or we might say the lack of a past…or the lack of a meaningful past. It starts with opportunities ignored. It leads into being lazy. It ends with regrets. Opportunities, laziness, and regrets. That’s about how I see it when I look back at my life.

In many ways I had a good life. I did a lot of the right things. I always went to work, usually early, since I don’t have the Smith gene noted above. I always paid my bills. I always cut the lawn. I even did a bit of housework from time to time. But I never got around to fixing that front door handle that kept falling off. Have you ever seen that token with the words “round two-it” on it? I have a trunk load of those things. Just lots of things that I couldn’t seem to “get around to” doing. Hence, the “lazy” word that I found myself using with Ron. He didn’t like the word, but he didn’t see me sitting in my easy chair watching TV and drinking a beer when I could have fixed the front door. Or the back door. Or the garage door. To say nothing about re-wiring the kitchen so you didn’t have to turn the light on in order to get the toaster to work. Or fixing the plumbing so we had hot water going into the laundry room. Lots of “round two-its”.

But there are more important things that I didn’t really do. I didn’t finish college. Well, more accurately, I hardly went to college at all. A semester with barely passing grades and another part of a semester that got tangled up with playing a lot of pool and drinking a lot of beer. So I went to the Navy, thinking that the Navy could be a way of getting rid of those round two-its. Didn’t do too badly, but for those of you who know what the military is like, there were a lot of times that I just needed to look busy, not be busy. Did my stint, but got out early. Maybe a mistake, maybe not, but certainly I didn’t put my whole heart into the Navy any more than I did with college. Ron tells me that things came a bit too easy for me. I don’t know if I am as smart as he seems to think I am, but I admit that I could get the “gentleman’s C or B” without much effort. Never seemed to have the drive to study and perform. A’s just didn’t seem important. Lazy? I don’t know. Sure looks that way. I have lots of regrets.

Regrets. Lots of them. College for sure. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to college at all. Maybe I should have gone right into the Navy, or into the workforce, or into some kind of trade school. Yet at 70, I don’t know what I might have done. Nothing seemed to draw me. Nothing seemed interesting. Nothing that I wanted to put real effort into. But I didn’t put real effort into anything aside from working faithfully, and a fair bit of bowling. Got a 297 once. Damn. Just did what I needed to do in order to get by. So I have these regrets about not having established a life that would now look like some kind of legacy. I’m still looking.

Ron thinks that this writing might be a way to find a legacy. Maybe. I don’t know. All I know as I sit here reading what Ron has transcribed out of my ramblings is that I feel disappointed in my life. Not the people in my life; not my wife, kids, and family. Just me. Just disappointed in me.

Stay tuned. The more I talk, the more it seems I have to say. I’m particularly interested in family, with all that it means.

Further Reading

Life of Ryan 1: The Easy Life

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.