Month: September 2016

by

Who Am I? The Threat Of Exploring!

“Talking about me, I sometimes feel like it is scary to know more about me. I’ve found out who I am through very difficult situations so I have an association.”

My hunch is Ericka had many times when information and experiences came to her in her life on gentler carriers than those with this kind of emotional trauma. But she didn’t notice. The coming of kindly delivered insights are easily absorbed and drop from consciousness.

“I feel I overlook those and pay more attention to the bad things.”

It’s like gratitude, a muscle that grows when deliberately developed. That is why we call it the exercise of gratitude. When we deliberately practice noticing, (flex,) recognizing, (now we apply a little fragrant oil to the lovely bulge,) one more rep, (Oh yes! Look out Venice beach!) practicing gratitude, indeed, increases self insight. 

Ericka and I had this discussion in context of discussing her career. The starting point of exploring career choices brought us to look at the different paradigms that may be used to understand our identity, as well as it’s strengths and weaknesses. Poor Ericka felt that using the paradigm of “Personality Typologies” to be like inviting a bully into her living room. One that confined her, boxed her, took away her windows and doors.  However the paradigm of personality typologies is just a paradigm, useful or not, with the power or lack of power that we allow it. It is not a concrete cell, that defines us. It is one more way of increasing self insight, among others.

image

“Footsie” by Carl D’Agostino, at, “I know I Made You Smile.”

How to Approach the Myers-Briggs:

Take Three times. Each time, read the descriptors to hone accuracy. (It’s a biased test. Taking it multiple times, as well as reading the descriptions helps eliminate the bias.)

The fourth time, the test is to be taken by someone who knows you the best in the world, answering the questions as if they were answering in your stead, with you standing by. Then read descriptors together.

This approach helps diminish the inherent test-bias in the Myers-Briggs personality test.

Example of free online test, (there are several,  http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

We don’t have have to give it more power than you are comfortable with

2. Read, Please Understand Me, vol II

-Keirsy

3. Go have fun and…

Keep on!

by

Live Imperfectly, Dad is dying, and I Have no Power.

wilted flower

Living with someone like tomorrow might be their last is much harder to do when it is actually the case.

My dad told me, after my nine-year old niece died, that a parent should never outlive their child.  When I look at my own children, I know that is true. But with my parents aging process, my dad’s long and difficult past twenty years, and now near end of life condition, I just don’t know how I’d order things, if I could, between us.

When God, (Morgan Freedman,) told the complaining Bruce Nolan, (Jim Carey,) that he could have all of his powers, the audience of “Bruce Almighty” projected both a positive transference and a schadenfreude. Bringing the viewer into the character’s identity is every actor’s aspiration. And we went there. Up. “Yay! Bruce can answer everyone’s prayers with a ‘yes’!” And then down, down, down. The multidimensional disaster’s created by misplaced power, power without wisdom, love, or altruism, was just painful to watch. Power does not God make.

My Dad is dying. Not likely from cancer. Not likely from a failed liver, floppy heart, or baggy lungs. He is just dying.  He’s confused on and off. His spine is failing so he can barely walk. He has repeated blood clots. And he’s recently risen out of a deep depression. Rison right into a confused grandiosity, full awkward, awkward like pants ripping when you bend over type of awkward, and inter-galactic soaring thought content.

The first “word” Dad played in Scrabble last week was “vl.” He explained, “vl, like vowel.” …Okay? For thirty minutes Dad played without playing one actual word. I started crying when he finally stopped connecting letters. The letters floated on the board like California will look after the “big earthquake” finally hits and it falls into the ocean. (We’ve all been waiting.) Now he tells me he called and spoke to Obama and Magic Johnson. Reference point. This is bizarre and out of his character.  He’s been delirious with waxing and waning level of consciousness for a month and a half. He’s dying. Sheez.

Living well while Dad dies is not easy. Would I use power to restore him to his healthy twelve-year old self, like Elli’s seventy-year old grandfather did, in “The Fourteenth Goldfish,” by Jennifer L. Holm? Would I use power to change the order of death? Would I do anything more or less or different, while my dad is dying?

Power does not God make. I am not God. (Ta-da! It’s out of the box now.) But both of us are watching Dad die. I trust that She, with the power, wisdom, love, and altruism, is living with him well, during this time.

In Life and Other Near-Death Experiences, by Camille Pagán, Libby Miller decides to live, just live, rather than die perfectly.  And maybe that’s my answer to this unasked question. Living with someone dying will not be perfect for me.

Self-Care Tip: Live imperfectly to live well, like this is your, his, or her last day.

Question: How do you “live well?”

Keep on!