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Volume
4, Number 3 May/June 2003 |
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 WelcomeGreetings dear Parents and Friends, Threat, disappointment, concern, inconvenience, challenge, discomfort, outrage, any of these feelings can work in us to bring about a perception of trouble. But understand that these feelings do not bring about trouble until the feelings themselves pierce us and elicit in us a sense of fear with or against the external event – be it a person or situation – around which the original feelings developed. From trouble can come the destruction of hope, the painting of darkness and the trampling of love. In trouble can come every sort of anger and all kinds of aggressive action in our seeking to overcome the enemies deemed responsible for our fear. But who or what is the enemy that causes trouble for us to be? In actuality that enemy is we ourselves. Each of us works to conceive and grow trouble by what we expect or will accept against the reality of what is. And trouble becomes most alive with us and able to drive us to forceful action when we consider the external event, and not ourselves, to be the source of the trouble. Still even trouble is itself only a symptom and not the real problem. In fact some sense of trouble is necessary to help keep us in check and safe. The real problems are again those hidden fears and passions within us that lead us to see trouble and blind us to the fact that, even in trouble, we still have personal choices and responsibility for what we will see and how we will act. These lessons have been so hard for me to learn because the real actions to overcoming trouble are so opposite to what I have been taught. I invite you to read below of my take on and battle with trouble and to view another way of handling trouble as submitted to Larry Evans by the mother of ninth-grader Jason Klock. I hope you will find it of value. Enjoy! – John
Borland –
By the dim light of his tiny table lamp I look upon Joshua’s covered form lying in his bed appearing to be asleep. I speak quietly to him asking Joshua what is the matter. Josh rouses from his apparent rest with a wince of pain showing on his young face. “My leg hurts,” he groans. There is nothing really new in his announcement. From an early age Josh has followed the pattern of members on Judy’s side of the family suffering from juvenile leg pains. I had no exposure with this ailment prior to meeting Judy, but through experiences with Troy and now Joshua I have come slowly to understand and to live with it. I wrap Joshua’s left leg in a bandage wrap that we have found to be effective. This time, however, Josh is not satisfied and continues to twist in pain. I offer to get him some Tylenol, but for a change he is not interested. Looking for an answer to the pain in his leg, I work with Joshua on a technique that I first used as a child in coping with the pain of surgeries. I ask Josh to put his mind on something other than his leg. “Think about hockey or football,” I prompt. Though this method has sometimes worked in the past, Joshua this time is having none of it and, still half asleep, he begins to cry. “It hurts,” he whimpers through the tears. Since the usual remedies aren’t working I decide to try something new. Our conversation goes something like this:
“Yes!” he responds empathically. “Why,” I query, “does the pain trouble you so much?” “What do you mean?” Josh questions back impatiently. I’m pretty sure that Joshua is bracing for a well-known Daddy lecture and so I proceed slowly. “Is the pain in your leg supposed to be there?” I ask carefully. “No,” Joshua responds cautiously waiting for my other shoe to drop. I open quietly now, “Joshua, do you know what it means to accept?” “What you mean?” Josh answers tersely. I explain with a question. “Is the pain in your leg troubling because it hurts so much or because you believe the pain isn’t suppose to be there, that the pain is somehow unfair?” Josh gives no response. “Can you accept the pain by accepting that the pain is meant to be there, that the pain isn’t fair or unfair, that it just is?”
“Accepting,” I say, “Isn’t about fighting against the pain or suffering to endure it, it is about knowing that pain is a part of you and that is allowed to be.” “But I don’t like the pain,” he whimpers. “And nobody does,” I say. “But a wise person understands that, just like the good things, trouble is a part of our world and of us. Pain and trouble sometimes come to us in this life. It is a natural thing that we can benefit from by working to accept.” The wince that
originally contorted Josh’s face is largely gone now.
We are talking quietly together as I gently rub his back
and leg. He has become softer and much more at ease. I know that the physical pain isn’t necessarily gone from Joshua’s leg; it is rather that his mind has shifted from its focused battle against the pain – the sense of it as trouble – and his body has relaxed. We lie on his bed in this peaceful way for a while longer before Josh decides to roll over and go back to sleep. I step back to the bathroom and my routine, but in thought now for what has just happened. Part of me wants
to be proud that I have handled this small crisis in such
an effective manner. It seldom goes like this. But more I am looking at myself and realizing, with a certain note of irony, how little I myself really follow, or at times even believe, the message I have just taught. Boy, is that the truth. For so much of my life I have seen trouble as nothing but trouble, and I have railed against it obsessively as a charging crusader. But what is trouble and where does it come from? With all my years of fighting trouble – and with help from my faith and the Parent Seminar – I believe I have learned a little about it. What I have come slowly to see is that trouble is not an independent reality as much as it is an individual perception. I have found that the events and happenings in my life are, of themselves, neutral. It is rather my judgment of these events that colors them for me as trouble or not. Trouble comes from me; it arises in me and by me. Joshua chose to experience his leg pains as trouble though in actuality they are themselves nothing more than a natural stimulation of his nervous system in response to the physical condition in his leg. The value Joshua placed on this sensation – as trouble – was of his own choosing. The types of judgments we attach to the happenings in our lives – these neutral events – are very much associated with how well the consequences coming from these events match with our expectations.
We act in this way because we choose to see the event as trouble. This is likely, first of all, because of the threat, difficulty or inconvenience the consequence of the event places on us – in this case to restore the condition of the car – and secondly, because our expectation for how other people should treat our property says that this particular outcome should not be. This last point is to me very important because of the deep sense of need we seem to have for interpreting events by what “should be” and “should not be“ and the potentially dangerous ramifications that can come from so automatically or blindly doing so. To illustrate, when my stepson Troy was experiencing the same leg pains early in his life his reactions to them tended to be very emotional and pronounced. My action in turn was to become agitated, vocal and very confrontational towards Troy.
Two things came about in me to form my reaction. The first was that my expectation for how a person should react to these kinds of pains did not at all square with Troy’s real reaction. The episodes with leg pains were not at all the only events between us. Troy very often in times of stress acted in ways that were highly agitated and, to my mind, excessive. After a while I came to see many if not most of Troy’s difficulties as trouble. I had never known anyone like him before. He seemed so high-strung and touchy. I could find no good way to approach him. So saying, I sought finally and forcefully to change the external event of his reactions.
My only thought in the face of these intense and continuing affronts was that Troy's grossly inappropriate behavior should not and could not be. I had to stop him. I told myself that it was for Troy's sake and in many ways it was. I wanted deeply for Troy to be well adjusted and balanced. But in truth stopping these occurrences was also very much for me. From where I was psychologically – with poor self-esteem and a low level of personal security – and with what I wanted I simply couldn't handle these events. Secondly, and even more significant, I came to view this trouble coming from Troy and Troy himself as being one and the same. Because I felt maligned by his outbursts I assumed Troy to be malicious. Because his actions seemed evil I made Troy out to be evil. There was for me no separation between external action and internal motive. The important, and I feel dangerous, point here is that, in so closely associating Troy with his actions, I didn't objectively ask the question, why is Troy acting malicious, or evil? The other important question I did not ask was why did I see maliciousness and evil in the first place? I simply reacted out of my judgment of evil in the face of perceived trouble. If I could have separated Troy from his actions I might have been better able to see that Troy himself is not malicious or evil.
Likewise, if I could have seen that it was my own expectations that were coloring Troy’s actions as trouble, and if I could have focused instead on handling my reactions to the invitations being generated by these intrinsically neutral events I might better have been better able to adjust my own actions to address Troy the person in his real needs. And it wasn't just Troy. Though he has tended more to stand out, it was really all the members of my family as well as friends and others who were in varying ways impacted by my actions against my observations of trouble. With prayer, education and a lot of time and effort I have now begun to see all this, and I am changing. Still though it doesn’t change at all what happened by me and to my family, my neighbors, and myself, through this dangerous process of transference and personal judgment relating to the perception of trouble. I know I can't change the past, but I also cannot forget it and there isn't a day goes by that I do not feel some regret.
This is in part because I realize that during all the time before I also was not inherently bad or evil. I had good and loving intentions in my heart, but my actions were very poor – and I must say very evil – because of this all too human mental process I became entangled with surrounding trouble. I work hard now against these still too present feelings to value and forgive my family and all the people around me. I do this because to do otherwise – to continue blindly in this way to condemn them – means that I do also and actively condemn myself. This is true
because my family and all these others are really no
different than me. My son, my stepson, my wife, my
friends, my co-workers, all of us everywhere to one
extent or another shares in this process of perceiving
and placing trouble. All that is really different between
us are the perceptions we work from and the standards by
which we judge. I have no studies or statistics to back this up, but I believe and submit that there are few if any truly evil people in the world and no real trouble. There are only people perceiving trouble and too often acting badly in it all based on their real or supposed fears of loss. Loss. This is yet another subject and an in-depth study of loss is writing for another time. But I do invite you my friends, look closely and honestly at yourselves and at the people and events you consider to be trouble. Ask yourself how much of what they deliver to you and what you see and take from them as trouble revolves around a sense of real or potential loss? How much do your
perceptions of trouble hinge on your personal concerns
with losing – either for yourself or for another
– with such things as money, possessions, status,
reputation, security, comfort, health, well being, moral
outcome, etc.? Ask yourself, and look at your troubles
anew. Am I saying that we should not at all gauge what should be and should not be? No. Without this discernment we would become permissive, without values and, thereby, lost. I am not at all saying that inappropriate actions or events should be ignored or simply excused. But, at the same time, I feel that, in order to be better, we must strive in our hearts to understand that the people perpetrating these actions leading to the events are themselves blind to or being overwhelmed by the trouble they perceive. The real questions then do not concern the trouble itself, but rather how we personally will handle trouble – and the people in it – when it comes to us, especially when we know what trouble is. I am coming now to see some things that, heretofore, have been largely alien to my working understanding:
This then is my take on trouble. The ideas and opinions expressed are my own. I have not sought to verify or substantiate them, but have formed them through long hours of observation. And they continue to hold true as I apply them in the everyday world.
Look within your families, your communities, your workplaces, your social interactions, with national and global affairs and recognize the increasing rush among us to find or create evil from our personal and collective perceptions of trouble. Our lives – truly our very selves – are predicated in and defined by our personal relationships. For our relationships, and thereby ourselves, to be genuine and of quality depends on our ability to assess and act appropriately with others within the common events of our lives. By its nature then our understandings and actions with trouble are central to this formula and, therefore, to us. Do I believe that
we can ever be completely free from trouble? Not really. But I am becoming convinced that the more we become hardened to accepting and achieving only our own expected outcomes, the more we believe that by our own powers and strategies we can overcome all that opposes us towards those outcomes and the more we look outside of ourselves for sources of fault and blame the more trouble we will find and the less we will be able to see and come to what should be. If you really understand these ideas as I am coming to, then the only possible questions amid the daily temptations to trouble become: “What do I responsibly choose to see?” and “What do I
respectfully choose to do?” One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and
the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't
worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his
neighbors to come over and help him. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!
Remember the five simple rules to be happy: 1. Free your heart from hatred. Because schedules are still somewhat hectic the plan is to conduct a PEG meeting in mid-June. Currently (subject to possible change) we are looking to meet on Monday, June 16, 2003 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm in the DCTS auditorium. This location is familiar to everyone, including our 2003 Parent Seminar attendees, and so is a good physical point from which to get things rolling. We will provide more specific details as we come closer to the meeting. For those of you who haven’t
been to a PEG meeting our gatherings (for that is
what they truly are) are pretty informal and the agendas
are rather open. I usually attempt to develop some item
of information or inspiration to share with the group,
but otherwise we run the meeting around all of you and
what you desire to do and talk about. Sometimes topics
are personal, sometimes family related, sometimes with
community or world events and sometimes just about life
in general. The PEG meeting summaries at: http://www.affectiveskill.com/Peg.htm will give you a good idea of how PEG
operates. Stay tuned. We welcome you warmly and hope you
will be able to attend. YOU MAKE THE DIFFERENCE IN WHAT WE CAN DO TOGETHER! Thank you so much for your interest in and support for Words of Caring. Please e-mail AffectiveSkill@aol.com with your questions, comments, submissions or suggestions. |
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It’s
4:45 AM on a Tuesday. While preparing for the day I hear
my then ten-year-old son, Joshua, softly cry out. I leave
the bathroom and enter slowly into Joshua’s small
bedroom.
“Joshua,
tell me something. Is the pain you’re feeling a
problem? Is it trouble to you?”
Joshua
doesn’t exactly answer my question, but is calmer
now and is listening to me.
For
example, if a vandal damages our car (as happened to me
last year) our reaction very often might be one of
irritation, frustration or anger.
As
with Joshua above, there are so many ways I could have
responded to Troy – with compassion, patience,
redirection, comfort, reassurance – why, I ask
myself, did I choose anxiousness and anger? In fact, it
is because I chose to see trouble in these events with
Troy and so reacted in kind.
My
overriding feelings were of being personally threatened.
Troy’s actions significantly violated my personal
sense of well being through their challenge to my
passionate and rigid expectations for what should be.
I wanted my rather idealized concept of how a family
should act and this wasn’t it.
Troy
is still even now excitable and difficult for me to deal
with and he can act maliciously. But I have
come to believe it is really because Troy the person is
and has been acting out a somewhat confused and
conflicting call for someone to fulfill his need
for security and comfort.
I work
very, very hard now to see in my family and everyone the
real persons behind their actions and to form my
reactions from that light.
I ask
you please to look around you both closely at hand and
with events in the wider world and recognize with open
eyes how truly, continually and pervasively this process
to trouble is operating.
They
all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the
well.
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all
kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to
shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is
a stepping-stone. We can get out of the deepest wells
just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and
take a step up!