Flying Into a Rage

"People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing." - Will Roger

I heard a story recently about a romance that ended because the woman, a psychiatrist ironically enough, had a tendency to fly into a rage--an activity I've always believed to be singularly useless. I can only remember actually doing it a couple of times, both of which I thoroughly regret. More often I detour around rage, prompted by numerous signs along the roadside:

Potential Rage Ahead
Warning! Rage May Ensue
Trucks Shift Into Lower Gear, Rage in 1.5 Miles
In Case of Rage, Climb to Higher Ground

Isn't there always higher ground to climb to, or is there a place for flying into a rage? I once deliberately geared myself up to fly into a vicious rage with somebody I loved very much, not to release pent up anger but more in hopes I might finally persuade him to change and choose a less self-destructive path. Here is a list of activities on that same level of futility:

* Banging your head against a stone wall
* Pissing in the wind, tilting at windmills, clutching at straws
* Changing practically anything but your own reactions
* Sewing a cambric shirt without seams or needlework
* Finding an acre of land between the salt water and the sea sand

See also Scarborough Fair with a shout out to folk singers everywhere.
"But everybody needs to vent," you say.

Venting is different--properly done, it's letting off steam with somebody who cares enough about you to be sympathetic just long enough and no longer, lest you find yourself in a rut.  Whereas indulging in full-on rage usually results in your saying hateful things you don't really mean in a nuclear escalation that often includes you subsequently hearing hateful things from the distant past and/or your misbegotten youth.

Instead, release the pressure a bit at a time with patience and direct communication, and nobody gets hurt. Clare Pinkola Estes tells the story of the faithful wife's long search for the tiger's eyelashes, a promised cure for her husband's debilitating post-traumatic stress. In the end, the patience that was required to obtain the tiger's eyelashes was itself the cure.  What her husband needed most was her patience and love.  Rage was just an unnecessary and stressful stop along the way.

All of that said, I am working on being more comfortable with anger, which is not the enemy, but a friend, a signpost pointing to situations demanding a closer look. It is okay to feel anger (and any other feeling), and nothing to fear. The key is what happens next.

Squint

The card from the Observation Deck says:  Squint

The idea is that squinting at a familiar scene lets you see it in new and less familiar ways by observing lighting, angles and nuances not previously perceived.

For me, it becomes a blurred and shimmering glimpse of a terrifying future in which one of my most precious senses, my sight, might be diminished.  I'm filled with intense gratitude right now that I still have my vision.

Both my mother and her mother had macular degeneration - an eye disease that, spot by spot, robs you of your central vision leaving you with some peripheral sight if you're lucky.  For years my mother brought Granny talking books from the library so she could continue enjoying one of her greatest pleasures, reading.  Famous actress Dame Judith Dench who has the disease and now has to have new scripts read to her, has said that the thing she misses most is being able to see the face of her dinner partner at a restaurant.

Recently my optometrist gave me a sheet of paper with a grid and two angry red dots at the edges to be used for self testing. She sees the first signs of the disease in my eyes.    The idea chills me to the bone; of course, fear of what the future might bring is one of the things I am constantly trying to resist.

There are preventative measures:  diligently wearing sunglasses in the Colorado sun, taking supplements like lutein, regular check ups.  How could I face not being able to see the forest in Spring, a beautiful sunset, a future grandchild's face, or words on a page?  If all prevention fails me, will I in fact perceive the world in new ways, hearing the birdsong in the forest at dusk more distinctly and the beloved voice of the grandchild more clearly?  Helen Keller, who surely knew, said, "When one door of happiness closes, another opens."

Need a new perspective?  Just squint.

Otherwise

Up on the Hill in Boulder across 13^th from Buchanan’s Coffee Pub is a small storefront papered over with poetry and a sign that promises “Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café, opening soon.”  The website also mentions an opening in early November, but previous signs have promised October—I am hoping for the best since I think the world has far too few Poetry Bookstore/Café combinations.  A few days ago this poem was posted in the window in large letters:

Otherwise

 Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed

on two strong legs.

It might have been

otherwise. I ate

cereal, sweet

milk, ripe, flawless

peach. It might

have been otherwise.

I took the dog uphill

to the birch wood.

All morning I did

the work I love.

At noon I lay down

with my mate. It might

have been otherwise.

We ate dinner together

at a table with silver

candlesticks. It might

have been otherwise.

I slept in a bed

in a room with paintings

on the walls, and

planned another day

just like this day.

But one day, I know,

it will be otherwise.

Some might say this poem is bleak or ominous – but I choose to see it more in terms of a reminder to be grateful and joyous about the present.  The poem represents a feeling that haunts me, but at the same time is the key that will set me free, because the choice is always either fear of losing all you hold dear or love and gratitude for all you have right now.  Every morning I wake up and choose one way or the other--and that choice makes a big difference in my frame of mind for the day.

This is an idea that I didn’t think about in my 20s that I can remember, and also an idea that may be foreign to many 20-somethings today.  But after much loss and challenge in my life, this idea is now at the forefront of my mind.  The most important point is that this is a choice, each moment of each day. 

Untethered

My office is moving to a new location.  So we all packed our stuff Thursday night and worked from home Friday—on Monday morning we’ll show up at our new home ten miles away and settle in.  I had often envisioned the scenarios in which I might pack up my little cardboard box with the photographs, mementos, plaques, coffee cups and pathetic spider plant that has somehow managed to stay alive all this time, not due to my own benign neglect but rather due to the efforts of our admin who has a kind heart.  The scenarios I usually imagined were of the pink slip and the take this job and shove it variety.  But in the end I packed my box in a much less dramatic exit, simply to move to a new town.

Still, it brought back some memories of the time I was laid off in November 1989, when I packed my little box in a shocked daze when I was booted out of my high tech job after 9 years.  Back then I hadn’t yet learned the signs and portents of impending layoff and so even though we’d had multiple painful rounds at my company and co-workers were dropping like flies all around me, I was still pretty stunned when it finally happened to me.  I was in good company—a large crowd of us headed over to the Outback Saloon and drank heavily, then I drove myself home, weeping all the way.  It was almost Christmas time, I was the sole support for my little family which consisted of one Mr. Mom and two kids aged 1 and 3, and I was driving home bearing the holiday tidings that I was out of work.

In the days that followed I made looking for work my job—spending 8 or more hours a day networking, fine-tuning various versions of my resume, writing cover letters, poring over want ads (we had want ads then—which were published in the newspaper), going to support group meetings, making cold calls, worrying.  Each morning I would walk the kids over to the pre-school a few blocks away and linger for the excellent coffee brewed by Laurie the pre-school teacher, delaying as long as possible the time when I would have to hunker down for the day to bang my head against the wall of unemployment.  One morning Laurie gently informed me that she had a job teaching pre-school and that it was really not okay for me to hang out trying to have conversation and cadging coffee refills while she was trying to teach the kids their colors and shapes.

After that cruel but necessary rejection I went straight to it at my computer each morning, doing everything in my imagination and power to find work, striving to quell my rising panic and endless fears:  we wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage we would end up penniless in the street my children would be dressed in rags we would wait in soup lines for our supper we would end up sleeping in the car.

After about 7 weeks, just as the severance was drying up like a Colorado creek in August and the paltry unemployment benefits were about to kick in, I was lucky enough to land an unadvertised job through a connection, and oh what a gigantic relief that was.  I remember those days often when I hear about the unemployment rates now, and I’m filled with a deep empathy for all those who are desperately seeking work.  Here’s hoping the economy turns around soon.  Meanwhile I am so lucky to remain employed, and so grateful.

How I Stay Sane, Part IV: Awake at Work

Recently I’ve seen a lot of change at work.

“What else is new?” you might ask. “Haven’t you learned by now in your lengthy career that change is the only constant?” Well, these particular changes are larger than usual, resulting in my managing totally different people and product groups, and with a new angle focusing on quality assurance rather than product development.

The opportunity for learning and growth is huge. And I have much to learn, which can be very stressful.

To stay sane and strong, I’m using a number of tried and true coping mechanisms, one of which is to re-read a marvelous book by Michael Carroll, “Awake at Work: 35 Practical Buddhist Principles for Discovering Clarity and Balance in the Midst of Work’s Chaos.”

You don’t have to be a practicing Buddhist (I am not--I am more of a dabbler) for these principles to be useful. The main point is that clarity can be gained by slowing down just long enough to become present and mindful of what’s going on in the present moment—by being “who we are, where we are right now,” as Carroll puts it.

This mindfulness allows curiosity to replace fear and hope (both of which can cause painful and futile resistance to the reality of the present moment). A calm curiosity can bring unexpected insights about what’s really going on at work and how to better deal with it.

Here are three principles that particularly ring true for me in my reading of the book this time around--although there are many others I find just as helpful:

“Work is a mess.”

“Power is unnerving.”

“First to pacify, last to destroy.”

First, “work is a mess.” Accept that unpredictable surprises and messes are inevitable. Instead of panicing, blaming, or regretting, seize these opportunities to find creative solutions. As Sun Tzu said, victory is achieved not through the execution of previously laid out plans but by being relaxed, open and awake at that moment when surprise strikes—and then trusting your natural intelligence and instincts to know what to do in these crazy moments.

Secondly, “power is unnerving.” As I become accustomed to working with new figures of authority, many of whom seem absolutely certain at all times that they are correct, and at the same time become the new boss for other people who are meeting me for the first time, it is good to remember that authority, either ours or someone else’s, can cause great stress and discomfort. But these very sensations are a signal to be ever more mindful, alert, precise--and to focus on the moment, allowing it to be okay if we’re uncertain, heeding that very uncertainty as a signal to remain fully mindful. (Another principle related to this one is to “welcome the tyrant. ” A bully at work may be just the thing to wake you up and focus you on being right here, right now—allowing revelations you never would have had otherwise).

“First to pacify, last to destroy” is the third concept. Four methods for dealing with conflict are presented, and I find that these are so much a part of my natural instincts that is it great to see them written down and validated. The first is to begin by “pacifying”—being curious rather than resistant to the conflict and listening to discover the other person’s viewpoint. The second is “enriching”-- looking for ways to support another person rather than focusing more narrowly on our own objectives alone--looking for the win/win, the higher level common goal. The third approach Carroll calls “magnetizing”—focusing on compromise, gaining agreement and support, which can only be done by having first addressed the previous two concepts and understanding where the other person is coming from and how you can support that other person’s goals as part of the solution.

The final method for dealing with conflict is “destroying.” This is the hardest one for me—the ability to say no during conflict and walk away if necessary. The point here is that by exercising the previous methods first (pacifying, enriching, magnetizing), there’s a foundation for finding the strength to walk away—not in anger or hate, but as a last resort after all else has failed, knowing you did your best. And, as I’ve always believed, this measure should only be taken as the last resort. Not all people in business believe this; some hold the view that “tough” management can only be demonstrated with an easy willingness to destroy first. But I agree with the idea that being “first to pacify, last to destroy” is the true hallmark of wisdom and courage. Even so, you’ve got to be ready to confidently take this measure when the situation calls for it.

If you are seeking new ways to look at work, get this book--and let me know what you think.

Letter to Falcon

Dear Falcon (what a cool name),

For some reason I had the rare urge at work on Thursday morning to check the 9news.com website, and so I caught the breaking story about a 6-year-old boy on board an experimental aircraft drifting higher and higher into the air and away from his family’s Fort Collins home, with news and military helicopters in hot pursuit.

I kept an eye on the story throughout the next several hours, hoping desperately that you were okay and safe, and fearing the worst when I heard the news that the craft had landed, with no sign of you inside or nearby. Later in the day we all learned that you were alive and well and had been hiding in the garage attic of your house for the previous five hours, fearing your father’s anger about the escape of the untethered silver balloon.

Now we have what we call a media frenzy and you’re getting your “fifteen minutes of fame.” Some people are very angry with you and your family.

And Falcon, let me tell you right now that despite whatever crazy complications may end up being revealed about you and your family (and all families are complicated, by the way), my main response on hearing the truth continues to be great happiness and relief that you are safe and sound.

Questions are being raised—was this whole thing a hoax? Did your Mom and Dad talk you into it? I heard your father’s voice when he said, “he scared the heck out of us,” and I don’t think so. I think you were scared and you hid.

The whole thing made me remember a story from my own childhood when I was about your age. My Dad was well known in our small Indiana town for his eccentric hobbies, one of which was kite making. He handmade beautiful multi-colored box kites from tissue paper and balsa wood, and entered them in contests. Sometimes he also made gigantic kites, taller than he was. When he flew these very large kites they had quite a strong pull, and even a grown man had trouble hanging onto them sometimes. Dad would fly the kites for many days at a time and sometimes he even attached a small light before sending one up, and the kite would emit a mysterious, UFO-like glow after dark.

One windy day some neighborhood kids and I were curious, playing around the way kids do, testing the cord strength of the latest large kite which had been up in the air a record number of days. We were pulling on the line just a little and then letting it go to hear a certain very satisfactory twanging sound. But then, right before my horrified eyes, the nylon tether broke, and the kite fluttered loosely to the earth.

I knew my Dad would be very angry when he found out—so I climbed a ladder in the garage and hid up in the attic for a few hours. Unlike your own experience, no one really noticed my absence at all (back then kids were a lot less supervised than they are nowadays). Later, when my Dad came home and I got hungry for dinner I had to climb back down the ladder, get yelled at and face the music. And it’s hard to get yelled at by your Dad—anger and disappointment can be scary. Even when he was yelling, though, I pretty much knew my Dad loved me very much, and I’m hoping that’s true in your case too. Somehow, like the son of a guy from mythology called Icarus, you flew a little too close to the hot sun, the waxed wings your Dad made for you melted, and you fell to the earth—all from your dark little hiding place in the attic.

But this too shall pass, Falcon. Hang in there.

If All Else Fails, At Least I Can Serve As a Horrible Example

My father worked at the RCA plant in Bloomington, Indiana for many years where they built television sets for a grateful nation. I am still not quite sure what my Dad did there, but it had something to do with parts inventory and quality control. When I was in my early teens he would sit at our dining room table poring over computer printouts listing part numbers, cross-checking them against other lists he had neatly hand-printed on separate sheets of paper. I would sometimes help him with this cross-checking task, and he taught me how to read out the part numbers in just the right way to make his part of the job easier. After a hard night’s work we would turn to Scrabble to take our minds off anxieties about the day to come.

Although he rarely showed it directly, he was frustrated by his work, and often felt that managers above him were not listening, or not intelligent enough to understand his ideas about how to proactively prevent one of the most catastrophic things that can happen on a moving electronics assembly line—unexpectedly running out of a part. Although computers were clearly used in this operation, it seems somehow that they weren’t used effectively, and parts shortages or shipments of poor quality unusable parts happened frequently enough to cause a good degree of heartburn. It was only later when over a couple of summers I actually worked the assembly lines to earn money for college that I got a fuller sense of the direct impact of parts outages on operations (as well as a clear object lesson in why a college education was essential if I didn't want to continue in a similar line of work). Imagine Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory when the line goes out of control and substitute circuit boards and silvery hot solder baths.

I think my Dad suffered from the same curse I suffer from at work today, likely an inherited trait—strong fear of inadequacy and failure. One of his coping techniques was to utter the following ironic mantra: “If all else fails, at least I can serve as a horrible example.” He actually spoke these words sardonically to his management at times--using the horrible example phrase when all other methods of selling his ideas had failed. In so doing he revealed himself as far more of a rebel than I ever had the guts to be. The searing need to bring high value to your work every day can overwhelm to the point where no accomplishment is ever good enough. Like any other overpowering need, it can be crippling. Demanding perfection from yourself can set you up for constant failure in your own mind.

But hell—at the end of the day if all else fails, at least I can serve as a horrible example.

The Slackline of Life

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.
It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:
When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

"Sisters of Mercy" - Leonard Cohen

In any relationship, there can be such a precarious, hovering balance between feeling trapped and feeling abandoned. Walking life’s slackline and holding onto love for a lifetime, one must somehow be independent of the person who is loved, and yet remain connected. And the idea that you can control what happens to you is an illusion—all you can control is how you respond. So it boils down to a series of choices between love and fear—fear that the one I love will turn away from me or trap me; abandon me or take away my freedom.

You can only choose love over fear if you can find it in yourself to believe in love, and love can seem so ephemeral (“if you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you’ve sinned”). I remember once many years ago a co-worker and friend of mine tried to talk to me about the “L” word--the central importance of love in all our lives. It was as if she spoke another language—I wasn’t ready to hear those ideas yet.

Fear and love aren’t opposites, but I think of them together; one is the answer to the other. Stuffing fear doesn’t work, it just creates a smoldering volcano of feelings. I do know that when I’m feeling emotional pain and I stop to focus on the present moment, accepting whatever I find in that moment, I am immediately more peaceful.

An interesting twist is that sometimes strong feelings of love generate fear in me—fear of losing what makes me most happy. My life partner creates beautiful flower gardens, and I’m torn between enjoying the beauty he’s created, and fearing a day when he may no longer be able to do it. In fact, when he was not well for awhile last year and the flowers went unplanted and untended, that was one of my greatest sorrows and my fear was reinforced.

When I struggle against the truth that nothing lasts forever and all things must pass, I feel fear and a terrible grief; I lose the present and the chance to enjoy what I do have. Remembering to be right here, right now and love the moment helps – “nothing that is real can be destroyed”—do I understand that idea finally?

For myself, the fear of abandonment is the greatest—I mould myself to fit the desires of the person I’m with “because it is easier,” I tell myself, but really because I am secretly afraid they’ll turn away from me given half a chance. In truth, even strong (and quite uncharacteristic) outbursts of rage on my part have resulted in shockingly few changes in other people. People change only when they are ready, not as a result of anything I do.

Love does have indirect influence—the presence of love, asking nothing in return, can bring peace and comfort to those around you—I remember this from parenting challenges with teenagers a few years ago. I have a feeling the biggest influence was my love for them, keeping the lines of communication open so that whatever else happened they knew I loved them.

The lessons all seem to weave together to make the pattern. The path is much more spacious each time I choose love, not fear.

Be Not Afraid

Over the past many weeks I’ve had a severe case of blogger’s block which I am now working to overcome One Word at a Time. During this period I’ve been immobilized by an emotion that actually kept me from eating it was so bad (hardly anything can keep me from eating, more’s the pity). I even was losing weight for awhile. The emotion causing the loss of appetite was creating quite a hellish situation for me, with constant stomach twinges, depression, and more.

I got some time off from work over the Christmas break, and was able to gain enough perspective to realize that the emotion freezing me in my tracks was fear. Fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of the death of my loved ones, fear that people I respect will not respect me back, fear that am not worthy, fear of writing a blog that was boring or full of bullsh*t.

I’ve since been spending a lot of time analyzing this fear, how it lessened with a change of scene and routine, how focusing on the present moment can reduce fear, and how amazing it is to be trapped in your mind without the ability to step back and see how it is churning in unhealthy ways. Fear can keep you from enjoying life, from taking risks, from loving, from blogging. (My rule about my blog, for better or for worse, is that it cannot be personal day-to-day drivel and whining, but instead has to share something that might actually be useful or interesting to multiple other people. Normally this rule has not kept me silent, but clearly recently it has.)

Winston Churchill said: “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”

So, here are my top 10 ways to stop being afraid:

10. Recognize that it is fear you’re feeling, and then try to articulate what it is that you fear.
9. Delve into the fear; take it to its ridiculous extreme. See the distortions and exaggerations in the fear.
8. Exposure yourself at every opportunity to the thing or activity you fear. Immersion in the fear will cause it eventually to lessen (especially good with things like fear of flying, fear of spiders, fear of public speaking).
7. Focus on what is happening right now this minute; be here and now. Look around - is there anything here and now that you fear?
6. Help somebody else with something. It is harder to be afraid when you are focused on helping somebody else.
5. Breathe.
4. Talk to somebody about your fear. When you start saying things out loud sometimes they are less scary.
3. If you have a cat, see if the cat will sit in your lap (they are finicky little things so good luck) and then pet the cat. It is hard to be as afraid when you are petting a cat. Full disclosure: Emily the cat is in my lap right now.
2. Get moving. Take a walk in the sunshine. Work out the fear.
1. Draw on spirit, if you have a spiritual focus. Consider the connectedness of all humans and how many of them are feeling much worse fear and anguish right now than you could possibly be feeling. Be grateful for everything you do have, as you breathe in the fear of all humans, and breathe out the hope that all may experience inner peace.

Do you have fear-bashing techniques I haven’t listed? Feel free to comment.