Kate Wolfe-Jenson
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
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.”
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.”
Thanks, David, for your helpful description of your inner voice. It’s wonderful that we all (I think it’s all) have that inner wise self. Maybe it’s our basic goodness speaking? I like that you note sometimes we listen and sometimes not. Meditation helps us be aware of it. It helps us make space between thought and action.
Thank you for your elegant, eloquent language. I want to read it again and capture some of your phrasing so I can think about it more. You help me understand my process at a deeper level. My emotional undertow gets stormy too. Practicing meditation, practicing meeting things as they are without judgment, I am able to stay present. Turmoil softens.
Meditation helps me work with difficult emotions. It does this in at least three ways. First, I feel emotions more deeply and completely than I did before. Sitting there breathing in, breathing out, my mind thrums away producing thoughts, which give rise to emotions. Watch them come; watch them go; it’s no problem. Label the whole tangled mess “thinking.” No need to judge. No need to engage. Just let it go. John Muir said, “the grand show is always eternal.” He was talking about the natural world, but the same is true of our internal worlds. Especially when I sit in sangha, I marvel at the gathering of body-minds – each of us sitting, breathing, thinking. What a species!
I’ve learned from Pema Chodron to “feel the feelings and drop the story.” My chest tightens and feels weighty, my face flushes and my heart beats faster as my mind reviews what she said about that and the tone of voice she used. Hello anger. Feel the tight weight, the rush of heat, the speedy breath, then watch as it arises, abides, and dissolves. Things that used to seem so sure and solid turn out to be wobbly Jell-O molds. Take a bite and it turns into sweet life-juice.
One of the fancy dessert salads I sometimes bring to the potluck is the notion that my story and suffering are separate and special. It turns out that you suffer too, and your drama is just as meaningful and gripping as mine. My heart breaks open into compassion for both of us. In fact, let’s just toss away the Idea of you and me as separate selves and realize the gorgeous emptiness of it all. That’s when things get gloriously numinous.
For example, at a recent meeting I presented my carefully crafted description of a group and the work we are doing and plan to do. In mere minutes, two people stood up to explain why we were going about it all wrong. I could feel the internal urges to freeze, flee, and fight arrive simultaneously. I felt cold and hot, shame, embarrassment, and anger. I breathed and listened. I did not tell myself I was stupid. I did not apologize. I did not burst into tears, lash out or shut down. Discussion continued. We’ll rethink, retool, and try again next month. This is very different from how things would have gone 10 years ago before I was a regular meditator.
I feel like I have a new set of tools, but really, it’s one simple process. Breathing out, breathing in, relaxing, and giving myself unlimited fresh starts. It’s important because I am more mindful and have more choices. I am kinder (inside and outside) and easier to be around. Meanwhile, the grand show continues.
Thanks, Betsy, for describing your experience. There is so much there that sounds familiar. Feeling more in touch with “you,” (thank you for being you out loud in sangha meetings. You are brave and delightful.) It’s so much nicer to meditate when “relaxed and not hurried,” but I find it so important to meditate when I am triggered and rushed! I appreciate your language of “there has been a shift” and “ride the waves.” Thank you for giving voice to those experiences.
Thanks, Helene, for the story about Thich Nhat Hanh and telling us about the Buddha on your glove compartment. Both teachings will stay in my mind and be present with me on the road. Thanks also for introducing me to Kaira Jewel Lingo. I am enjoying reading more from and about her.
Thanks, Karen, for delving into the symbolism of ego as Brussels sprout. You added a new level of richness. Your story of the conversation with the Phillipina is instructive. These days, I find myself asking (internally) “are you saying this to connect with the other person or are you proving that you’re right?” My ego is on a quest to make itself solid and eternal when, as you point out, it is better soft and digestible.
A few days ago, my friend Doug called me panicked about the upcoming US election.
“If the wrong person wins,” he said, “we have to mobilize. No matter what, there’s going to be violence. What will we do?”
His voice was high and tense. He was remembering what things were like here in Minneapolis after George Floyd was murdered. Those were scary times, with demonstrations, riots, fires, and looting.
Before his call, I was deciding what to eat for supper and what to watch on TV – totally focused on my own comfort and entertainment.
But Doug was really worked up. It was easy to put my needs and wants aside and be there for him. We – along with a handful of other people – are working with the book The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning. It’s predictions of political violence may have been contributing to his panic, but it also offered some words of wisdom.
“These are times of great peril and great possibility,” I told him, paraphrasing the book. “We do not and cannot know what will happen. As the future unfolds, we can act from the best parts of ourselves.”
We breathed together for a bit, calming down. We talked about what “acting from the best parts of ourselves” might be like. (It’s unknowable, which makes it a good subject for conversation.)
It was easy to let go of my “personal territory” when I heard the distress in Doug’s voice. Before the call, I was an individual seeking my individual little goals but, on the phone, we were together in warmth and sympathy.
The “I” who writes this is less solid than I pretend she is. When I remember that – even for a few minutes – my heart opens.
Now, what’s for supper?David, thanks for describing your experience so poetically. It seems almost impossible to live without expectations, but perhaps we can hold them more loosely and make more room for curiosity. Susan once described it as “entering life unguarded… No preconceived notions, no expectations.” I’m practicing…
Karen, ouch and yuck. Your descriptions of your distress really landed with me. How painful to pour so much love and effort into an organization and then have it snatched away. One of the first steps of self-compassion is to find the common humanity in our experiences. All that despair and rage is – as you point out – perfectly human.
Please continue to be passionate and invest your time and talent. The world needs people who live with their hearts open even when it’s risky.