I am pissed. I like to ride my bike solo sometimes. I like to have my coffee, noodle around the house and then when it pleases me I like to take my bike where it pleases me. Why do I need to make plans with other people just because there are jerks out there that don't care about another life?
I admit to being naive. I only started cycling a few months ago and it was only until recently that I avoided riding on main roads. It wasn't because of the fear of cars, it was because I was afraid of falling off my bike and not having the cardio and not being comfortable changing gears. And then recently I got the taste of riding on the real road. Oh boy, that was fun. No riding in circles. No riding the same 2 miles over and over. This was pure bliss; the early morning dewy smell, the sunrise, the changing landscape, the wildlife. It was all there as the group of us cycled quietly.... ok we were noisily chatting and yelling the things that group cyclists yell to one another in communication. I was learning group cycling etiquette.
I have begun to realize that metaphorically, cyclists are akin to herd animals such as horses, rather than predatory pack animals such as wolves and lions. Like herd animals, a group of cyclists move in the same direction. And the reason that the group exists is protection. The most important protective factor is risk dilution -- because even if a predator attacks, the risk for any individual is greatly reduced. Drivers are like predators because they are faster and more effective at getting away with pulling down a herd member if that cyclist is on their own or in a smaller herd.
That is why I am pissed. I was nearly mowed down on a solo ride. I was without my herd. I was out enjoying the leg burn, playing with cadence, enjoying the speed of the hill, when a car flew close by me at a million miles an hour. The crouching car didn't even inch over to the other lane. As a result, the Doppler effect of the predatory car nearly blew me and my bike over. I nearly peed my pants.
I am still not scared of riding on the roads but I am more conscious of what it means to ride solo. I have been scolded by friends for riding solo. And now they are furious with me and have banned me from riding solo. Why do I have to ride with the herd? I love riding with the herd, but there are times when I just want to ride solo. I guess the price is too high. The predator's need for speed is too high and their disregard for human life too low.
If I understand Darwin's theory of natural selection, I believe we are reproducing predators with unfavorable traits. I thought that we were supposed to be reproducing those with favorable traits. Depends on what you view as favorable I suppose. Funny, I thought the price of a human life as being high would be a favorable trait. Yet, according to Darwin's theory I am probably going to be attacked by a metallic predator. Something is amiss with this theory. And so I join a herd. Luckily we humans are smart and innovative. Because the next group ride gets to stop at a vineyard. My kind of herd!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Professional Guidance
Go hang yourself, you therapist
You cannot assess me to the fullest
Take your words and camera
You think I exist in a coma
I am passionate and private
I'm not paying you for a visit
I did not call you to be told
My issue is that I am too controlled
----------------
I have had a therapist for 2 years whom I love. She is eclectic. By this I mean that she is into Jung, shamanism, dreams, equine therapy, and whatever she finds to be helpful at the time. She is not tied to a particular psycho theory. I love the hills and valleys that we traverse. But occasionally I get a little restless that we are not addressing the "real" issue at hand and go in search of another therapist.
While keeping my current therapist in the background, I endeavored to seek a new therapist. My goal was to find a CB (cognitive behavioral) therapist. Why? In my late teens I was very fortunate to experience a gifted therapist who helped me tremendously in the area of cognitive behavioral therapy. I have always related to this form of therapy as it has a logical component to it. There is a problem and a solution. The solutions entail a different way of looking at things. It is logical and rational. The therapist that I am working with now is more creative; we analyze dreams, we talk about what it means to be an intuitive, and we talk about emotions and analyze how they are useful and not useful.
Cognitive behavioral stuff helps me get the day-to-day stuff under control. I love to live in the analysis world but sometimes that is my undoing. Creating stories about why this happened or how I know this person felt this way but why they acted totally incongruently is OK but tiring. Cognitive is more productive in the short-term and energy-saving in the long-term. I want both. I want to know how to be productive as well as creative/intuitive/empathic.
A few months ago I found a CBT therapist. He seemed to be interested in what I was wearing and his wife's website. I fired him.
A few weeks ago I found a therapist at Duke. A big name is Duke. Yay!!!!! Whatever.... Anyway, I turn up for my first session and like all first sessions it is an assessment. Boring! I even recognized some of the forms -- the " Beck Depression Inventory" questionnaire. It measures three major aspects of hopelessness; feelings about the future, loss of motivation, and expectations. After 2 hours of assessment the Duke therapist assessed me as having a 'disorder'. Finally, a disorder! I was so relieved. That explained everything!!! "Which one?" I asked him. He looked a little confused. And then he told me. I can't say which one because if I decided to run for president in the future this information could affect my running.... Because his answer was open ended I asked him to clarify. He got a little a defensive and asked me, "Do you get angry with all therapists?" Hmmmmm. And I thought to myself, "Derbrain"...
And the conversation continued. He didn't want me to research the diagnosis because apparently there are many definitions and they are rife with intepreation. You have got to be kidding me. Which interpretation was he going by? I assured him that I would not be googling the diagnosis. He asked me how I felt about the diagnosis..... I loved this, how do I "feel". I knew exactly where he was going with this. I felt nothing about this diagnosis, because well, it was based on 2 hours of knowing me or on not knowing me and some of the questions were questionable. And I told him that. They could be interpreted differently. Touche..... Yes, I was smug. This was not going well. I am supposed to be there to cry, to trust, to work on my self, and here I was being smug. ,
Let's skip to the next week's session. I walked into the session and the therapist informed me that he may have been too judgmental in his assessment and he wanted to do a further assessment. Cripey!!! Thank the little people that I didn't take him seriously and go into the rabbit hole of being "disordered." I endured another hour of his probing. At the end of the "assessment" he declared that I did not have what he previously thought after all, but that I had issues. No f~~n shit....
I even gave him a third session, just to see what he would do and I was traveling hopefully. I hoped that after the assessment was over he would ease off and we could get going. I am not going to even talk about the third session. Needless to say that after the third session I told him that I was not coming back. And then get this; I received an email from him. He told me that he was "fascinated by my story" and he hoped that I would come back.
Now, I must say that the ego was stroked. But I am not fascinated by my story any more. I could go back and listen to me talk and talk but I would bore me. I just want to move on and learn skills. I am truly interested in the journey that I am on. Athletes spend so much energy on learning how their body responds to food, developing more efficient movements, responding to mental motivations. Likewise, I am interested in being efficient not only the body path but the mental, heart, emotional, spirit and soul path. And at times I need professional guidance. Whether you call them therapists or coaches, some are good and some are bad. The point is that I need to acknowledge when the guideance of a particular therapist has served a purpose and when I need the guideance of someone new. In the same way that I need to find guideance to learn how to run without injury so do I need to find gideance to learn how deal with my particular emotional, spiritual, and heartfelt world.
I am not so ego-based as to think that I can come up with answers. If I do that, it is like taking a walk where I think that the path is unique but then I find myself noticing that I have seen that tree before, and then I see it again, and again. The same pattern plays it self out over and over. Without learning a new skill to stop or even recognize the pattern, I will keep walking the same path in the woods. I will never get to walk another path. And another path is what I wish to see and experience.
You cannot assess me to the fullest
Take your words and camera
You think I exist in a coma
I am passionate and private
I'm not paying you for a visit
I did not call you to be told
My issue is that I am too controlled
----------------
I have had a therapist for 2 years whom I love. She is eclectic. By this I mean that she is into Jung, shamanism, dreams, equine therapy, and whatever she finds to be helpful at the time. She is not tied to a particular psycho theory. I love the hills and valleys that we traverse. But occasionally I get a little restless that we are not addressing the "real" issue at hand and go in search of another therapist.
While keeping my current therapist in the background, I endeavored to seek a new therapist. My goal was to find a CB (cognitive behavioral) therapist. Why? In my late teens I was very fortunate to experience a gifted therapist who helped me tremendously in the area of cognitive behavioral therapy. I have always related to this form of therapy as it has a logical component to it. There is a problem and a solution. The solutions entail a different way of looking at things. It is logical and rational. The therapist that I am working with now is more creative; we analyze dreams, we talk about what it means to be an intuitive, and we talk about emotions and analyze how they are useful and not useful.
Cognitive behavioral stuff helps me get the day-to-day stuff under control. I love to live in the analysis world but sometimes that is my undoing. Creating stories about why this happened or how I know this person felt this way but why they acted totally incongruently is OK but tiring. Cognitive is more productive in the short-term and energy-saving in the long-term. I want both. I want to know how to be productive as well as creative/intuitive/empathic.
A few months ago I found a CBT therapist. He seemed to be interested in what I was wearing and his wife's website. I fired him.
A few weeks ago I found a therapist at Duke. A big name is Duke. Yay!!!!! Whatever.... Anyway, I turn up for my first session and like all first sessions it is an assessment. Boring! I even recognized some of the forms -- the " Beck Depression Inventory" questionnaire. It measures three major aspects of hopelessness; feelings about the future, loss of motivation, and expectations. After 2 hours of assessment the Duke therapist assessed me as having a 'disorder'. Finally, a disorder! I was so relieved. That explained everything!!! "Which one?" I asked him. He looked a little confused. And then he told me. I can't say which one because if I decided to run for president in the future this information could affect my running.... Because his answer was open ended I asked him to clarify. He got a little a defensive and asked me, "Do you get angry with all therapists?" Hmmmmm. And I thought to myself, "Derbrain"...
And the conversation continued. He didn't want me to research the diagnosis because apparently there are many definitions and they are rife with intepreation. You have got to be kidding me. Which interpretation was he going by? I assured him that I would not be googling the diagnosis. He asked me how I felt about the diagnosis..... I loved this, how do I "feel". I knew exactly where he was going with this. I felt nothing about this diagnosis, because well, it was based on 2 hours of knowing me or on not knowing me and some of the questions were questionable. And I told him that. They could be interpreted differently. Touche..... Yes, I was smug. This was not going well. I am supposed to be there to cry, to trust, to work on my self, and here I was being smug. ,
Let's skip to the next week's session. I walked into the session and the therapist informed me that he may have been too judgmental in his assessment and he wanted to do a further assessment. Cripey!!! Thank the little people that I didn't take him seriously and go into the rabbit hole of being "disordered." I endured another hour of his probing. At the end of the "assessment" he declared that I did not have what he previously thought after all, but that I had issues. No f~~n shit....
I even gave him a third session, just to see what he would do and I was traveling hopefully. I hoped that after the assessment was over he would ease off and we could get going. I am not going to even talk about the third session. Needless to say that after the third session I told him that I was not coming back. And then get this; I received an email from him. He told me that he was "fascinated by my story" and he hoped that I would come back.
Now, I must say that the ego was stroked. But I am not fascinated by my story any more. I could go back and listen to me talk and talk but I would bore me. I just want to move on and learn skills. I am truly interested in the journey that I am on. Athletes spend so much energy on learning how their body responds to food, developing more efficient movements, responding to mental motivations. Likewise, I am interested in being efficient not only the body path but the mental, heart, emotional, spirit and soul path. And at times I need professional guidance. Whether you call them therapists or coaches, some are good and some are bad. The point is that I need to acknowledge when the guideance of a particular therapist has served a purpose and when I need the guideance of someone new. In the same way that I need to find guideance to learn how to run without injury so do I need to find gideance to learn how deal with my particular emotional, spiritual, and heartfelt world.
I am not so ego-based as to think that I can come up with answers. If I do that, it is like taking a walk where I think that the path is unique but then I find myself noticing that I have seen that tree before, and then I see it again, and again. The same pattern plays it self out over and over. Without learning a new skill to stop or even recognize the pattern, I will keep walking the same path in the woods. I will never get to walk another path. And another path is what I wish to see and experience.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Water Tattoos
I watched Il Postino and fell in love with it. I then decided to watch it again but with the commentary by the director Michael Radford turned on. In a number of key scenes, Radford explains that he used a handheld camera to shoot a long master shot and then did not edit it. To the audience a shot like this seems very simple. Imagine two characters, framed beautifully by pinkish, white washed walls, an overbearing volcano in the distance, the blue ocean in the background, and a conversation that goes on for 2 minutes without a cut. How simple does that seem? According to Radford it is not. It is very difficult to time two actors talking that long, to entertain an audience that long, to setup the lighting with gauzes and filters, and to shoot the long shot with a handheld camera. So many intricate details! This is great cinema.
Yesterday, I had my first experience learning how to dive off a springboard. Watching my friend perform acrobatic, gymnastics in the air before cutting into the water was simplicity in motion. People at the pool stopped and watched him perform. It looked effortless. When I stepped up to the front of the board (nope, no-one was watching me perform), I was trying to remember all the instructions as I attempted my first dive: 3 step-approach, arms back, right knee up, point toes, tighten the glutes, and so on. As I made dive after dive, I was awkward; I received water tattoos as I hit the water in less than elegant ways; there was water in places... well let's just say I was water logged!! It was a challenge to work so many muscles and time the moves, just like there are so many things to set up for and then film a master shot.
As Radford explains, the more the actors worked together, the more the lighting and the cameraman worked with the set, the more mastery they had. The same with diving. The more I practiced each part the less complex it seemed. It became more fluid.
Diving off a spring board is something that I have feared. I remember as a kid stepping onto the board and being so scared of high it appeared from the water. I was pushed off, hit the water painfully, swallowed a tonne of water, and I never went back. This is amazing considering how I love the water. So now I get to master my fear. I had made my fear more complex than it was. And the simplicity of the fear was that I didn't dive. How simple is that? Fear is so simple really. And while it is complex to face fear, it is in the practice of mastering that fear that it becomes simple and effortless. Oh, I'll get water tattoos and feel awkward, but the reward is in the mastery of the complexity that simplicity is born.
Yesterday, I had my first experience learning how to dive off a springboard. Watching my friend perform acrobatic, gymnastics in the air before cutting into the water was simplicity in motion. People at the pool stopped and watched him perform. It looked effortless. When I stepped up to the front of the board (nope, no-one was watching me perform), I was trying to remember all the instructions as I attempted my first dive: 3 step-approach, arms back, right knee up, point toes, tighten the glutes, and so on. As I made dive after dive, I was awkward; I received water tattoos as I hit the water in less than elegant ways; there was water in places... well let's just say I was water logged!! It was a challenge to work so many muscles and time the moves, just like there are so many things to set up for and then film a master shot.
As Radford explains, the more the actors worked together, the more the lighting and the cameraman worked with the set, the more mastery they had. The same with diving. The more I practiced each part the less complex it seemed. It became more fluid.
Diving off a spring board is something that I have feared. I remember as a kid stepping onto the board and being so scared of high it appeared from the water. I was pushed off, hit the water painfully, swallowed a tonne of water, and I never went back. This is amazing considering how I love the water. So now I get to master my fear. I had made my fear more complex than it was. And the simplicity of the fear was that I didn't dive. How simple is that? Fear is so simple really. And while it is complex to face fear, it is in the practice of mastering that fear that it becomes simple and effortless. Oh, I'll get water tattoos and feel awkward, but the reward is in the mastery of the complexity that simplicity is born.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
The Girl Who Mowed Too Little
I know , I couldn't resist the title considering the topic of my story.
One ordinary evening I was on the phone, having a great conversation and a glass of red wine, when I heard the loud noise of a lawn mower. Now ordinarily this would not be strange, however it around 8:30 pm and dark and considering the length of my grass it was a sound that I was not accustomed to. I moved into my new house two months ago and have been pondering the problem of lawn maintenance. Do I mow my own lawn? Do I hire someone to do it? Let's revise those questions. I don't mow lawns. Yes, I have mowed lawns in the past so I am not some hapless female who cannot work a lawnmower. Do I want to mow the lawn? Hell no!! It is hot and humid here in North Carolina and I can afford to have someone come in and take care of the lawn. I wash my own car; that is good enough!!! So back to the questions. Who do I get to take of the lawn? This question crosses my mind as I pull into the house, and then the question leaves my mind as I close the door. The question arises again when I see the lawn, growing so lush and tall, and then I forget the question and the problem when I close the door. The true problem is not the lawn it is me remembering to make the phone call.
So when I heard the sound of the lawn mower so close I peeked out my back window not really expecting to see any machinery cutting my lawn. But I did. There was a man in a yellow shirt, waving at me with one hand and mowing the lawn with the other. The first thing I thought was, "Thank God I am dressed," and then, "Who the hell is that mowing my lawn?" and then "Was my grass THAT long?".
Staying on the phone, I stepped outside and introduced myself to this mysterious, yet very benevolent character. I hoped benevolent, and not malevolent, otherwise my friend on the other end of the phone would be making a different kind of phone call. The mystery man turned off the mower and I, with a curious but somewhat friendly manner, asked, " Ummm. Hi, and you are....?" He, still with the big grin and hand on his prized mower, said that he was the next door neighbor. Apparently, he had been negligent mowing his own lawn as well and while he was at it had decided to do mine. His wife brings me food and now he mows my lawn. I am still struck by their kindness.
Now my lawn is mowed!!!! I am now wondering how I can make this a regular thing!!! Is that selfish? I have another month's reprieve to figure out what I want to do with the lawn. Maybe I'll forget to phone as I close the door.
One ordinary evening I was on the phone, having a great conversation and a glass of red wine, when I heard the loud noise of a lawn mower. Now ordinarily this would not be strange, however it around 8:30 pm and dark and considering the length of my grass it was a sound that I was not accustomed to. I moved into my new house two months ago and have been pondering the problem of lawn maintenance. Do I mow my own lawn? Do I hire someone to do it? Let's revise those questions. I don't mow lawns. Yes, I have mowed lawns in the past so I am not some hapless female who cannot work a lawnmower. Do I want to mow the lawn? Hell no!! It is hot and humid here in North Carolina and I can afford to have someone come in and take care of the lawn. I wash my own car; that is good enough!!! So back to the questions. Who do I get to take of the lawn? This question crosses my mind as I pull into the house, and then the question leaves my mind as I close the door. The question arises again when I see the lawn, growing so lush and tall, and then I forget the question and the problem when I close the door. The true problem is not the lawn it is me remembering to make the phone call.
So when I heard the sound of the lawn mower so close I peeked out my back window not really expecting to see any machinery cutting my lawn. But I did. There was a man in a yellow shirt, waving at me with one hand and mowing the lawn with the other. The first thing I thought was, "Thank God I am dressed," and then, "Who the hell is that mowing my lawn?" and then "Was my grass THAT long?".
Staying on the phone, I stepped outside and introduced myself to this mysterious, yet very benevolent character. I hoped benevolent, and not malevolent, otherwise my friend on the other end of the phone would be making a different kind of phone call. The mystery man turned off the mower and I, with a curious but somewhat friendly manner, asked, " Ummm. Hi, and you are....?" He, still with the big grin and hand on his prized mower, said that he was the next door neighbor. Apparently, he had been negligent mowing his own lawn as well and while he was at it had decided to do mine. His wife brings me food and now he mows my lawn. I am still struck by their kindness.
Now my lawn is mowed!!!! I am now wondering how I can make this a regular thing!!! Is that selfish? I have another month's reprieve to figure out what I want to do with the lawn. Maybe I'll forget to phone as I close the door.
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