True Self

Maybe a year ago I had a dream of constructing some sort of flying vehicle. It was very beautiful, with a sort of bubble, like a helicopter cockpit where I sat. Its construction was finished, and I was receiving instruction in flying it. My instructor was not visible to me, but I heard her voice. I think I may have mastered the basics, of moving up and down and sideways. Now I was moving in a slightly more advanced realm. I was feeling how small subtle shifts affected my position, and how I could use those to gain skill. There was a feeling of a barrier that I was crossing, into, and out of, something. It was a boundary of sorts, and I was practicing negotiating it. I had an unease about whether or not I was trespassing, yet I felt that since I was not doing more than crossing the boundary, using it as a training tool, it was ok. I hoped that was true anyway.

Reading Scattered, by Gabor Mate´, I'm reminded of that dream.

He talks about the basic skill of self-regulation. The ability to maintain a stable inner environment despite fluctuations without. This is the foundation for being able to attend, and to learn. Perhaps self-soothing is another skill, which is even more basic than self-regulation. These are the first skills an infant learns, in the presence of an attuned adult. To learn this skill requires a caregiver who is self-regulated to the point where his/her self is stable despite stressors. This is not a person who is free of anxiety, but is able to tolerate his/her own anxiety.

In watching children operate, especially toddlers around desired objects, I've been sensitive to fluctuations of anxiety: the children's, and my own corresponding. Will my child get what his heart is so desiring right now? In the meantime I see the child who is in possession of the toy responding to the anxiety of the other children with anxiety of his own: will it be taken away? It's mine! The anxiety of the other children increases the desirability of the object many-fold. Some children can't tolerate the feeling: they cry, or they hit. Some children are able to relinquish their desire and move on. Others respond to distraction. Some absolutely can not.

The mother can soothe her child to the extent that she is able to maintain her calm center, her inner temperature despite the rising temperature outside. Adding to the heat are the thoughts: will my child get a turn with this toy? Look how many children are clamoring for it. My child wants it so much! Look how sad she is! What will the other moms do? How will they handle it? Are they judging my child for screaming? Are they judging me because he's screaming? What if he hits someone? I feel self-conscious responding when there are other parents around. Will this kid EVER give up the toy? Look at him hoard it. I HATE him! Look, I can see on the faces of the other moms that they're also concerned that THEIR child get a chance. How can I advocate for my child without being overbearing?

This was the kind of scenario I knew came with the parenting territory, knew was coming when I held my infant in my arms, and dreaded. Parenting-In-Public.

Fortunately, I found a group of moms who were able to hold their centers stable while negotiating these rough waters, and I learned from them. I also learned that children's heart's desires are often fickle, and even if they were heartbroken over something one moment, they were indifferent to it the next.

So the point is well taken that parents who can maintain a serene inner temperature when things are turbulent outside can best teach their children the same skill. This is the foundation of the child developing a stable Self, and the ability to regulate It.

From what Mate´writes it appears that this is essential for the child to develop the brain structures that will affect his ability to learn, to attend, to focus and direct that attention at will, in her future. These neural pathways are laid down in the presence of this safe, undisturbed-by-anxiety core. The agent is the attunement of the parent. These are the conditions that are required for optimum development of these structures.

The features of ADD, immaturity, hyperactivity, inattentiveness, are all normal stages of development that a child passes through. In the absence of the optimal conditions for development a normal stage becomes a state.

This resonates with an intuition I've had, that the tension between Gary and I has been counter-productive to the emotional well-being of our sons. I realize that considering this is flirting with a 'blame-the-parent' (particularly the mother) mentality. However, I do not read blame in Mate´'s writing. I don't feel defensive, because I've been feeling this is intuitively true all along. Perhaps also there is hope in Mate´'s message: development is not static. The human brain is always developing, well into old age.

As I read his description of a stable inner Self, and the skill of Self regulation, his analogy of the warm and cold blooded animals broke open a door and light shone in. There are adults in my life who are cold-blooded animals emotionally. It's not that they're cold people, it's that they require others around them to adjust the environment to their comfort level. Their sense of Self and their well-being are dependent on the conditions outside of them, and they can only tolerate a small level of fluctuation. And it seems perfectly natural to them to expect others around them to accommodate them.

My mother is one of these people. To a lesser extent, so is my father. Gary is, and to a much greater extent so is his mother. Their sense of Self is fragile, and vulnerable to collapse in the face of disagreement and disappointment. In fact, there's a way that my life has been in service to people like this, my objections felt like selfishness to me. I wonder if other people have had this experience?

Anyway, reading Scattered, I felt a place inside. Almost a physical place, It was like a space, perhaps a potential space that has always existed, but I didn't know was there. Now I feel a Presence inside there. Unconsciously, I've been breathing into It. I've found myself breathing into It in potential anxiety situations: driving on the freeway: will there be an opening when I need to take my exit?

And then I think of the dream. So perhaps this is my vehicle, my flying vehicle. I've been constructing It with Sharon, my mentor, and I'm learning how to fly. Learning the basics, and now ready to begin acquiring some skill.

Original Sin, or Turning Away From True Self

The real story about last week which kind of gets lost in the Christmas whine is some new insights from Sharon.

Once upon a time there was a little girl, who was around 5 or 6. One afternoon she was playing in a field behind the houses where all the neighborhood's children played. Her mother and a neighbor woman approached. They asked if she had taken a puppet toy that the neighbor woman's daughter had received as a gift. (It was wooden, and pulling a string above and below made the 'legs' jump). The girl was confused by the question and the nuances of meaning: did they mean had she stolen it? Did they mean had she held it in her hands? Did they mean had she taken it from the girl, played with it briefly, and given it back? They seemed to want an admission that she HAD taken it. She tried to remember, but all she could think of was having 'taken' the toy from the neighbor girl, playing with it a moment. She couldn't remember if she had given it back or not, but these women seemed sure that she hadn't. So perhaps it was true, and so she did what was a point of honor for her: she 'told the truth'. (Truth in a 6 year old's world is not the Truth as adults comprehend it. The contexts before for 'telling the truth' generally meant admitting to something even if the consequences were unpleasant. This situation seemed to match those prior contexts, so she admitted to something she hadn't done.) She then waited for praise for having done the right thing.

Instead, the women grew angrier and began to demand that she produce the toy. The girl's mother began to swat her and it hurt so much to be hit like that. The little girl began to try to guess where the toy might be, and wandered aimlessly around the field, saying, "Maybe I put it here. Maybe over here." In the meantime her mother followed swatting her and she tried to stay ahead of her mother's reach, and tried to protect her bottom with her hands. It grew dark.

Then the girl was home. Apparently the adults had given up for the night. The mother kept demanding to know where the toy was. At one point she threatened to call the police to take her to jail, and even took the phone off the hook as if to dial.

*************************************************************************************************************



There are several points of Truth in the story. One was the child's inability to understand what the parents had been asking her for in the first place. Another basic Truth was that she had not stolen the toy, though she'd held it briefly and couldn't remember anything else. She turned from the Truth when she admitted to having taken the toy, because it seemed the field was tipped strongly toward her doing so. The next Truth was that her mother, whose job it was to protect her and advocate for her instead was joining the accusing voice and indeed hitting her as if she deserved punishment. On some level the child realized that she could not count on her mother to protect her. She could not count on the one upon who she depended for life itself. And, the Truth was that her mother was trying to torture the 'truth' out of her by frightening, threatening, and hitting her; and therefore was punishing her for something before knowing the facts, and was punishing her for something she hadn't done.

So was this truth too painful to comprehend or acknowledge? To protect herself from the truth that she could not rely on her mother she had to turn from the Truth and live in a world of doubt, where it was *plausible* that she had done it: maybe she had taken the toy and just didn't remember. The two women seemed so positive she'd done it. She was given a choice, to turn from the Truth to placate this Adult on whose good will her life depended, or to stay with her own Truth which felt so very harsh. Living with that Truth and the feelings it would engender was so painful she chose instead to turn from It; however to completely embrace the lie was also intolerable. She chose a middle ground--living in the realm where it was *possible* she'd done it.

In some ways it's too easy to view this episode as a 'root cause' in the formation of one's personality and foundation of Being. It seems easy to scorn the notion of a child bumbling along in her child-paradise and BOOM--an incident like this changes the course she's on forever. It does seem plausible though to consider that this was one event that stands out of a climate from which events like that can happen. (A climate that believes that a mother's self-worth is dependent on the behavior of her child, or where an accusation is equivalent to guilt and punishable, where it is assumed that a child's conception of reality is equivalent to an adult's, a climate that says another's point of view--"your child stole my child's toy"-- takes precedence over one's protective impulse toward her own child, a climate that believes that children aren't entitled to the same respect that would be accorded to an adult, a climate that believes that violence can result in solutions.)

******************************************************************************************************************************


An interesting analogy. Years ago my father and I were watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation". In this episode Captain Jean-luc Picard was being tortured. It went this way: he was asked how many fingers the interrogator was holding up. When he said the truth he was punished and it was demanded that he say a different number. And he refused and was punished again.

My father was very interested in this episode and we talked some during commercials and afterward. He said that as part of his training for combat the possibility of capture and torture was covered. He said that many would think it intuitively obvious that the tortured should lie, lie right away and say whatever it was the torturer wanted to hear. There was a reason against this that was counter-intuitive. I can't even remember it now, but it was compelling. I'm going to e-mail him and ask, to see if he remembers that conversation and what the reason was to endure torture instead of giving the tormenter what he wants to hear.

It would appear that as a child I 'broke' pretty quickly and started telling the adults what they wanted to hear in order to stop or prevent physical violence. And the consequence of that is that I've lived in the half-world where I *might* be wrong and at fault, but it wasn't certain. And the consequences of THAT are demonstrated throughout my earlier diaries. I have an idea about posting them: demonstration of the consequences of turning away from the Truth. A demonstration on what a decision to turn away from one's True Self means to the most intimate moments of one's life.

I guess this is enough for now.