Kate Wolfe-Jenson
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Thank you Dominic. Your gentle presence and willingness to listen and truly be there for others is a great gift to your students/clients. I join you and Karen in the imposters club. We just have to remind ourselves that what we now is valuable and rare. (Remember when Susan talked about how her view of meditation differs from the more common idea of meditation as self-improvement?) We can take confidence in being Susan’s students, carriers of lineage.
Thank you Karen. I think meditation instruction encourages you to slow down. My guess is you will not struggle with going too fast. Questions from students might fill the rest of the time. If not, Susan is a good model for smiling in silence while she waits.
Like every teacher, I am stronger in some areas than in others. My gifts relate to my experience with meditating and Dharma. My challenges center around physical limitations.
I’ve been listening to Susan for a dozen years. Her voice is “in my head” with many useful turns of phrase and examples. Susan converted me from a sometime meditator to someone who has a regular practice. That gives me confidence that I know what it’s like to meditate and I’ve had similar experiences to my potential students.
I took refuge eight years ago which means I’ve been paying close attention to Susan’s lessons as well as reading books by Dharma masters (Pema Chodron, Judy Leif, Chögyam Trungpa, Tulku Thondup and others). All of them talk about meditation and dharma. I know I stand on the shoulders of giants.
I am pretty good at recognizing everything as practice and I take joy in practicing. Those qualities will serve me well as I encourage others on their paths.
On the other hand, my voice is not strong. I must stop to breathe every few words. Both of those things make it challenging to give instruction. Sometimes if my wheelchair isn’t set right it changes tilt as I speak which is disconcerting to me and others. The tools I use are all gathered around my mouth, which makes me look a little strange. That may be off-putting to some people.
I am certainly a beginner and not confident as a meditation teacher. We’ll see what opportunities arise to give me practice in making mistakes and recovering from them. That way I will improve and gain confidence.Since this is the last essay, let me take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to my fellow students. I have enjoyed reading your essays and being in class with you. It has been an honor and a privilege to be on this journey with you. My email is Kate@Jensons.com. My website is http: journeydancing.com. I wish you well.
Oh Karen, thank you for sharing that tender time with us. ALS is terrible – such a long goodbye. My condolences on the loss of your brother. It must have been very difficult to set your own grief aside and strategize your announcement so it would be helpful to other mourners. You did a good job.
Kelly, thanks for your deep perspective on parenting. You reminded me of my young parenting days. (Parenting never ends, but it’s very different being a parent to a 27-year-old!) Maneuvering between playmate, guide, and role model while attending to your own emotions and needs is challenging and wonderful.
Gwen, what a difficult situation! I had not thought about the possibility of a leader having “secret” information, but of course it happens. How sensitive and sensible of you to make it an opportunity for building skills and valuable experience. As Kelly points out, every situation is one in which we can be present to others’ experience and needs while we attend to our own.
Long ago, I was director of a community children’s theater in the small Wisconsin town where I grew up. Our rehearsals and performances were in an amphitheater on the university campus. We rehearsed nearly every day in the summer for about six weeks and performed during the town festival. The amphitheater was beside a river so even though we were in a program, we got to be outside enjoying the green grass and birdsong.
During rehearsals, I needed to stay very present, attending to what was happening, taking notes on performances, and watching overall pacing and blocking. After the rehearsal (or if I needed to stop the action) I would talk to the actors, making clear but kind suggestions. Sometimes, I worked with one or two actors, championing the characters and helping the actors find and portray them. It was an intense and powerful experience.
I needed to balance being one of the troupe with maintaining the distance my role required. Most days, I was able to do that, but I remember one day when I lost it. The performance was coming soon and things weren’t going well. The storage area of the amphitheater had been broken into and the costumes were dumped in the river. We fished them out (I remember someone pulling a crawfish from a sleeve), but not only did we lose a day of rehearsal, I was going to have to take the costumes home and wash them. I was a teenager and needed to cry. My best friend was with me, and we took refuge behind a stand of trees along the river so I could have some privacy while I pulled myself together. Once I was composed, we returned to the stage, and I was able to rally cast and crew to get everything set for rehearsal the next day.
The performance went well, with the usual missed lines that no one in the audience notices. I learned a lot about theater, about myself, and about working together while remaining alone.
Thanks, Ann. You summed it up simply and completely. I appreciate your pointing out that sometimes compassion means saying nothing at all, but just being there.
I had a hard time with the concept of idiot compassion, but I think I’m starting to understand.
When compassion is more about the giver than the receiver, that’s idiot compassion.
Sometimes when I call a friend who is in distress, I listen for five minutes and then I’m ready to end the call. After all, I have important things to do. I’m uncomfortable with their suffering because I can’t fix it. I have called so that I appear to care, but I am more concerned with looking good than being with my friend in pain.
I heard a story yesterday about a woman with Crohn’s disease who felt abandoned by a friend. Her disease was serious and incurable. The friend couldn’t accept that. She gave the woman a list of positive affirmations and insisted that if the woman used them enough, she would recover from her disease. They are no longer friends. Each found being with the other too difficult. Their relationship was torn apart by idiot compassion.
Another example is when I should speak an uncomfortable truth but am too cowardly. Suppose I have a friend who drinks too much too often. The compassionate thing would be to say so and set limits on when I am willing to be around them. I’m afraid they will be mad if they’re challenged, so I keep quiet. Not calling them on their behavior is enabling their drinking and enlarging their suffering.
True compassion is about being with someone who is suffering, traveling with them through their experience without denying their pain or insisting it be different. True compassion is listening until the suffering person has said what they need to stay. True compassion is maintaining relationships even amid incurable illness. True compassion is saying “I won’t be around you when you’re drunk.”
True compassion puts the focus on the person in pain, not the one who is seeking to be of benefit.
Thanks, Betsy. As I said at yesterday’s check in session, I found your comments and link very helpful to me as I grapple with a concept I find difficult. That’s one of the powers of sangha – we can help each other understand the mysteries of Dharma.
Ginny, thank you for your honesty. I appreciate the idea that we want to maintain people’s agency. That gives me something to listen for – both in what I say and what I hear from students. I want to remind people to be kind to themselves and listen to their bodies, even while I teach them in the way Susan’s teaching us.
David, thank you for taking good care of your students. Being heard and valued is what we all want! In addition to learning to speak up, your students get an opportunity to listen to each other and process their own experience. What a gift you are to those children and their parents.
Karen, thank you for reminding us to pay attention to bodies – ours and others. Noticing and responding to micro-expressions strikes me as being very skillful. You summarized the 4R’s in a a few sentences in helpful way. Learning to befriend ourselves and our experience, rather than making life a self-improvement project is a gentle way forward.
Realize
I’ve lived a privileged, relatively trauma-free life, so I appreciate this week’s topic. It let me know what I don’t know. After watching the video, I did some reading. I want to be sensitive to students who may have experienced trauma. I’m no expert, but I know more now than I did and I want to continue learning.
trauma-informed mindfulness: a guide at PsychCentral points out that 61% of people experience trauma, which it defines as “an emotional or physical response to one or more harmful or life-threatening events or circumstances with lasting adverse effects on your mental and physical well-being.”
Recognize
I wasn’t sure that I could recognize the signs of trauma. I got some help from How to Recognize The Signs of Emotional Trauma in Others. I understand why it’s tricky. Both mood swings and being emotionally numb are signs of trauma. I would have to know students well over time to recognize things like increases or decreases in appetite or weight. I’m remembering how Susan sometimes mentions “except for trauma…” in her explanations of things. I would like to do that too, when it’s appropriate.
Right now, I teach Creative Journaling classes online at a center for people with significant health challenges. I’m imagining adding meditation to my journaling classes. Those are single classes, though I often see the same students over time. Diagnosis and treatment may be traumatic experiences for some people. I want to treat people gently.
Respond
I read about using the senses for grounding exercises. That’s fits with journaling exercises I often do: writing about the sights, sounds, fragrances, flavors, and textures of an experience.
Avoid re-traumatizing
I want to encourage students to be safe, to be kind to themselves, and to back off when they feel like they need to do so. I want to remember to keep lines of communication open, so students can let me know how things are going for them.
I am remembering the words of pioneering psychotherapist Carl Jung, who said “learn your theories well, but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul.”