May 27th

Awareness of process

He was teaching me something about flow, about choosing the right moment for everything, about enjoying the present.

Robyn Davidson


Sometimes our teachers appear in the most unlikely forms. Robyn Davidson is speaking of an old Aborigine who traveled with her for a while. Although their cultures were vastly different, he taught her some elemental wisdom that needed to be acknowledged and experienced in her culture.
We all need to know about flow. Nothing gets done at once even when we demand it. Work and living flow in a series of nonlinear events.
Timing is also very important. We cannot correct and edit a report until it is written. When our boss is having a bad day, it is not a good idea to bring up an interpersonal problem that happened last week. We cannot control another's reaction by choosing "the right moment", and we can choose the time that is best for us. And we always have the choice to stop and enjoy the present.


When I stay in my present, I have the opportunity to experience the flow of my life.

Anne Wilson Schaef

My daughter watches some Spanish language TV.

I don't subscribe to the RAI Italian cable TV station...our cable bill is already so high. Sometimes I watch Italian TV on the computer. Online International TV or: Beeline TV

I find it facinating how you can interchange your languages and have different things you do in either one. Did you start learning English as a child? Did your parents speak it? Most of the people where you live speak Spanish so are your skills very different from the average person? I remember you've lived in Canada for, what, a couple of years during college?

I was born here (spanish speaking country) and at 3 we moved to USA, for 4 years and then England for another 4. My parents didn't speak english (my father tried to learn but my mother never made much of an effort) so we would go to school etc in english but spoke spanish to my parents. The five eldest spoke english among ourselves but spanish to the 2 youngest who were 3 and 1 1/2 when my father died and we returned. The last year of his life we had lived in Russia and the 3 eldest of us went to a FRENCH school! So I also speak and understand french.

For many years the situation where the five eldest spoke to each other in english, and in spanish to the youngest and my mother continued, but eventually my brothers quit speaking english even though all 3 (eldest) moved to or lived in USA. Only my sister and I continue speaking english between ourselves. She also lives in USA.

So it is quite complicated. I wouldn't recommend it. It sometimes gets quite confusing. Some words cannot be translated or have the same meaning ... Lately I'm reading the Bible and I get the Gospel of the day by e mail. At first I got it in spanish but eventually I decided that I wasn't getting the right meaning, for me, so now I get it in spanish and english and I read both and they seem to say different things!<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

One of the most important relevant words which doesn't seem to have a good translation into spanish is "joy". Nor does "evil" nor "affair" and many others.

It's very strange. When I go to USA in august I will buy myself a Bible in english.

Wow, you sure did have an international childhood! That is very interesting.

In the California elementary school I attended, Spanish was a compulsory 2nd language until 6th grade when we could chose which 2nd langauge. I switched to French and continued for all four years of high school. I went on a 6 week AIFS trip in high school along with my sister. We had French classes for 4 weeks while in Grenoble. I understand French more than Spanish but I really can't speak either anymore. Lack of opportunity.

My Dad remarried 6 months after my mom passed away just before I was to start high school. He brought a wife back from Sicily. She spoke no English. It was much easier for my sister and I to speak Sicilian to her than for her to learn English. That delayed her learning English and very long time and she really never learned to speak it well.

Prior to that we were always spoken to in English but understood their speaking Sicilian as they spoke with each other and our relatives so it was a matter of just opening our mouths and speaking. I took Italian at night school during high school but didn't learn very well and still make tons of mistakes in verb tenses/grammer.

My sister used her Italian and French for many years as she was a marketing manager for French and Italian wines. When she was young she was an au-pair in Italy then lived in Geneva, Switzerland for 7 yrs. working for a couple of international companies. She is still fairly fluent in both languages.

If my daughter marries and has children with her Panamanian-American boyfriend and they continue living in Panama (that is their current plan), then they plan to speak English at home with their children (or at least she will). I hope that works for them.

Are your kids fluent in English too?

I had my girls go to a bilingual school where english was given a lot of importance so although they speak it as a second language they are quite fluent. They even read books in english!

My sister always spoke to her american daughter in spanish, so my niece spoke well but funnily enough with an accent! When she was young she used to answer in english, but now she sometimes speaks spanish.

It's funny how different people react differently to the same situations!

You should find someone who speaks whatever language you want to practice and have them come and chat with you!

I signed up at an Italian Meetup site. There seems to be lots of interest but no one has actually formed a group. We would need at least one or two fluent members. I hope a group forms soon.

Several years ago, I joined a local Italian American Women's club and attended was a language class that grew out of that. The teacher became ill, the class continued for a only few more months being led by one of the more proficient students.

When people were posting to Piojito's wife in Spanish I could read and get the general gist of what was being said.

May 28th

Busyness/exhaustion/sleep
I am so keyed up I can't go to sleep at night. I just can't relax. I'm lucky if I get five hours of sleep a night.

Barbie


On of the side effects of our lives as women who do too much is that we get ourselves do keyed up that we cannot get the rest and sleep we so desperately need. We are constantly on the run. Even when are bodies are ready to drop from exhaustion, we cannot relax and let them experience the soothing regeneration of deep sleep. Sometimes, even when we try to let down, it is too painful to let go, and we find we cannot. We are deprived of the healing that occurs in the alpha phase of sleep. We travel on nerves worn ragged like socks that have not been mended by caring hands. We have deprived ourselves of the unconcious experience of pulling together the tattered and torn threads of our souls and reweaving the holes gouged out by the civility of daily skirmishes. We need our rest.

Sleep is one of the regenerative gifts of life. I only miss it when I don't have it.


May 29th Rushing/frantic/ unworthy

My pattern is go, go, go... collapse

Rosie

When we are addicted to working, being busy, rushing around, and taking care of other people, the only way that we can give ourselves permission to rest is by collapsing.

It has been said that workaholism is the addiction of choice for those who feel unworthy. We are so driven to prove ourselves and to make a place for ourselves that we can never do quite enough, no matter how much we do. If we just do enough, maybe we can justify our existence. We have trouble accepting that just our being may be enough.
We all need solitude, and those of us who do too much can only justify taking it when we are near collapse.
Rushing and then collapsing is not only exhausting to me, it wears everyone around me out too.


Rushing and collapsing is cruel and inhuman behaviour. Practicing it on myself is cruel and inhuman.

Anne Wilson Schaef


SS, in case you read this, I do not suffer from sleeplessness (never have) and I no longer collapse from exhaustion! That's progress!

May 30th

Shame

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleonor Roosevelt


Shame is a learned response. There is a lot of interest in shame these days in relation to addiction and recovery from addiction. When we start feeling shameful, we leave ourselves and operate much like someone on drugs or alcohol. Nothing clear can get in. Nothing clear can come out.
It is important to remember that shame is learned and that anything that is learned can be unlearned. Shame was used to control us when we were younger, and now we often use it to control others. When we start feeling ashamed no new information can come in, we cannot process information clearly, and we cannot communicate clearly. We are in our addictive disease.



It is important to see the role shame has played in out lives. It is also important not to stay stuck in it.

Anne Wilson Schaef

May 31st

Acceptance

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living

Simone de Beauvoir

What a beautiful expression of the profundity of acceptance of our lives! Sometimes we are so busy rushing around that we do not take the time simply to accept who we are and what we have. Paradoxically, it is in full acceptance that our lives then move on.
Our lives do have meaning... just as they are. It is our illusions that rob us of meaning, not our reality. When I accept my reality, I claim my strength and reasons for living.

My life is what it is. It may change, and right now it is what it is.


June 1st

Freedom
We have not owned our freedom long enough to know exactly how it should be used.

Phyllis McGinley

As we women have struggled to become free, we have tried out various forms of freedom. We used to think we were free when we were the kind of women men wanted us to be. Then we thought we were free when we could be like men. We thought we were free when we could treat men the way we had been treated.
We thought we were free when we had access to jobs where we could reduce our life span through stress-related diseases. We thought we were free when we had made the team and were allowed to play games in which we had no interest. We thought we were free when we had money, power and influence.

It takes time to grow into freedom. We have time yet.


Anne Wilson Schaef

June 2nd

Busyness/housework

There are days when housework seems the only outlet.

Adrienne Rich


One of the comforting qualities about housework is that it is always there. When we feel at a loss for something to feed our need for busyness, we can always plunge in to housework. For soem of us that means we have to be pretty desperate. In this regard the workaholic is comparable to the alcoholic who prefers a good scothch and will settle for a beer in a pinch.
It is hard for us to admit how addicted we have become to keeping busy. Our busyness affords the same numbed-out state that others get on drugs. Some of us go for the adrenalines high just as a drug addict goes for a drug high. Let's face it: we are hooked.




What a relief to admit I am addicted to my busyness! NowI know recovery is possible!


June 3rd

Exhaustion

You white people are so strange. We think it is very primitive for a child to have only two parents.
Australian Aboriginal Elder


Past generations had the luxury and support of extended families. Grandparents were around and often found mening in sharing stories about their life and times. As children sat listening, their parents felt the warm glow of recognition and familiarity and chuckled inwardly as old tales were told and retold.
But now many of us are isolated from extended family, or we don't have the time for family. We are it for our childen. We have to be past, present and guides to teh future. This is exhausting.



In Hawaii, people always take time to "talk story". We can learn something from them.

Anne Wilson Schaef

Sorry, I'd lost the book!


June 19th Acceptance of self

Do nothing because it s righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do and which you cannot so in any other way.
Ursula K. Le Guin


We are so accustomed to doing what others want us to do, or doing what is right, or doing that which earns us praise, that LeGuin's words urging us to do only that which we must do and cannot do it any other way seem unrealistic. We think: That's fine for her to say, she's a writer - she schedule's her own time.
Yet, what truth is there for us sin her words? We certainly can admit that we have done many things for the wrong reasons, and the pain of our righteousness, "nobility," or praise-seeking is often bitter in our hearts. Often when we do something because it seems good to do so, we waste everyone's time, including our own.
What a relief to believe that we are enough just as we are and that our unique way of accomplishing a task is just what is needed.



I will sit with these ideas. After all, who else could make my contribution!
Anne Wilson Schaef

I hope you don't mind a comment -

I have trained myself to spend some of my time doing things because it is the right thing to do. Helping others in my neighboorhood is one of those things.

At first it is difficult, and I do it because I know I should. Later it becomes easier, and I do it becasue I identify with the people and understand how much it means to them. Much later I am friends with them, and I help because I love them.

I think we start where we can, and let it become part of us.
So, I think I disagree with that one - one has to start somewhere, and we usually are not where we would like to be when something needs doing.

Kind of like this: Pretend you are better than you are, and over time you will become that better person.

I need all the help I can get, and that's one of the ways I improve myself.

SS

Actually I didn't agree with this one at first either!!

But then I thought, you shouldn't do things that OTHERS think are right. You should do those things that YOU feel are the right thing to do. And then it makes more sense.

It has happened to me that when I do something I think someone else thinks I should, I am frequently wrong and they never thought that whatever was what had to be done. In thst sense it is like a disrespectful and frustrating way of living: according to what YOU think others think you should be.

That's my meditation on this meditation...

Ah - that helps.

Some days I care what others think, and other days they can all jump in a lake.

As I have said before, you are a very thoughtful person. It's only when you were in the middle of the A problem that you had a difficult time with your thoughts.


I sincerely hope you find joy in your life.
See you after we come back from our trip.

SS

Have a great trip! Maybe next year I can go...

june 20th

Expectations

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expext.

Margaret Mitchell


Expectations are real killers! They are setups for disappointment. Often because of our expectations, we are completely oblivious to what is really going on in a situation. Because we are so wedded to what we think should be happening, or what we want to happen, we don't see what is happening.
Many a possible relationship has been aborted because we were too determined to turn it into a relationship.
Expectations also keepus in illusion. We set up our expectations for someone, we project them onto the other person, and then we start reacting to our expectations as if they were real. Expectations and the illusion of control are intimately linked.

When we are tied to our expectations we usually miss what's happening...life, that is.

June 21st

Beauty/comparison

I am as my Creator made me, and since He[sic] is satisfied, so am I.

Minnie Smith

How beautiful and how simple it is to just accept ourselves the way we are. Women, especially have difficulty simply seeing the beauty in who we are. We are always comparing ourselves top others:no matter what we have or who we are, it never quite seems to be enough. We are always too much or too little, too fat or too skinny, too intelligent or not intelligent enough, too aggressive or not assertive enough. Whenever we compare ourselves to others, we lose.
The very act of comparison is part of the problem. Comparison is one of the processes of addiction. In that process, we leave ourselves and lose ourselves. There are other options.

Imagine a day - today for example- of just being satisfied with who I am.


June 22nd

Awareness of process

Life comes in clusters, clusters of solitude, then clusters when there is hardly time to breathe

May Sarton

We workaholics, busyaholics, and rushaholics feelmuch more familiar with and comfortable with times when we hardly have time to breathe. We know how to function under pressure and with deadlines hovering over us. These times are when we shine.
Unfortunately, it is the time of calm and potential solitude after the project is finished that scares us. To be without a project or a deadlines strikes terror in our bones. Fortunately, we rarely have to deal with that terror because we have arranged our lives in such a way as to rarely have a "breather".
If we take time to notice, this ebb and flow in life has a reason. We need breathers. Our bodies need to rest from our constant adrenaline push or they blow up.
As we let ourselves get healthier, we begin to experience and treasure the "clusters" of our lives and welcome them as examples of infinite wisdom.

The ocean never tires of the ebb and flow of the tides. I have something to learn from the ocean.


June 23rd
Awareness

In contemporary America people are again discovering how to drink from their own wells

Lynn R. Laurence


Part of our disease is looking outside ourselves for someone who will fix our lives for us. We sometimes even believe that God or a power greater than ourselves can make everything all right- that we just have to sit back and let it happen. Not so.

When we recognize that the force we believed to be outside of ourselves is indeed within us - then we begin to heal. Healing is the experience of the oneness of all things and our ability to take our place in that oneness.

As a society, our "other-directedness" has been destructive. Changing to "me-ness" and self centeredness has not helped much either. Recognizing that we are one with all things and accepting our place in that oneness moves us into and beyond ourselves.


My thirst can only be quenched from my own well and my awareness that this well is mine and is shared by all.