Readiness to Change

I give my dad a lot of flack and some mild public flogging for the excessively rational manner in which he raised me.  My all time favorite thing to razz him about is the time he tried to coax a much younger me off the side of a mountain by telling me I could choose to stay there forever.  As an adult, I think back on this encounter and cannot believe someone would say something like that to a child.  However, it was so effective that I have since made it my goal to attempt this paradoxically supportive intervention.

Image found here

Several years ago I saw my first opportunity.  I was working with an oppositional 6 year old boy.  We had gone out to a special playground for the afternoon.  At some point in the day, he had managed to climb down into the middle of a cylindrical ladder and was pretending to be a caged prisoner.  When it was time to leave for the day, we cued all the children to line up.  After the chaos of transition, we counted all the little heads and determined we were one short. When I went to find him, he was claiming to be "stuck" inside the barred structure; citing fear to leave. I did what I could to support and encourage him, but it quickly became apparent that his "fear" was more related to a distaste for the end of play time.  So, I changed my tact.

"Look dude," I said. "The way I see it, you have two choices.  You could choose to stay out here forever, bu-"
"Fine," he cut me off.
Startled, I stammered "but, like, what if you have to go to the bathroom?"
"Okay," he said flatly. He was still fairly young and thus unconcerned with voiding outside a restroom.
"Um...who's going to feed you though?"
"I don't know," he said with a startling degree of ambivalence. The idea that someone might not was not a reality in his mind.

I attempted to persuade him into seeing that there were better choices available to him.  However, his developmental state did not allow for getting past the idea that he could choose to stay on the playground forever.  I had inadvertently given him permission to defy my expectations. We were screwed. Ultimately, I admitted defeat, and wound up calling my supervisor for back up. She came right out and began the slow but ominous count to three. Problem solved.

Lesson learned. The intervention is a particularly complex one that requires a significant degree of skill and the right kind of child to be able to hear the underlying message. So, I tucked it back into my memory and set it aside for refinement and later use.

Then the time came.

Not long ago, I found myself hanging out with a particularly anxious young woman who had recently learned of an upcoming transition. We sat together as she lamented the difficulty inherent in change.  I listened to her express fear of possible failure upon adjusting to something new.  I validated her feelings and praised her for past ability to manage herself; attempting to remind her this was not her first experience with change. She continued to evidence worries and concerns to the tune of "what if I can't do it?" "What if nobody likes me?" "What if it's hard?" "What if it's scary?" Allowing me to challenge her on all of these concerns but not yet feeling confidence in herself, she joking declared that she was going to wrap her arms around a nearby structural pillar and refuse to leave her present location.

"You could definitely try it," I smiled.
"Really?!" She looked at me with widened eyes, baffled by my response.
"In fact," I offered up. "let's do it together."  I stood up and started to walk towards the identified pillar.  My friend remained stationary; staring at me with a perplexed expression.
"But you know," I stopped and turned back toward her.  "What are we going to do when you get hungry?"
She shrugged.
"I mean, I guess we could probably arrange for someone to bring you food, but that's probably going to make you feel guilty.
No response, minus a slight smile.
"And, what about when you have to go to the bathroom?"
She knit her eyebrows and slumped her shoulders, an expression I had grown to recognize as irritation with a good point. So, I sat back down and continued in a playful manner.
"Even if we figure that out, eventually the paint on the building is going to chip. Then you're going to get paint chips in your hair, and the maintenance team is probably going to need to fix it, which will result in them trying to physically pry you off, and that sounds awkward."

Her affect started to brighten. Together we began to laugh and joke about the various different factors that would make her release her grip on the building.  As the conversation dwindled, I looked her in the eye and delivered the moment of insight I had come to after that cold day on the mountain so many years ago:

"My point is, no matter how bad you want to hang on, eventually something will happen and you will feel ready to let go. It may not be because you want to, and it may not be until after it happens, but eventually you're going to realize that you were ready for a change."

Scylla or Charybdis?

 I did a lot of skiing as a child. Every winter I followed my family up the mountain, and chased them back down.  Being the youngest and smallest, I often found myself at the top of a hill I wasn't quite ready for. Sometimes I'd refuse to do it, and we'd find an alternative. However, a startling number of times, I wound up debating my descent, while the rest of my family slipped right on down.  In these moments, I'd try to be brave and tackle the hill head on. 
That never lasted long.  I'd make a couple of really pathetic turns; get myself just far enough down that I couldn't go back up. Then I did what any logical human being would...

I froze. Bent over my pie-pointed tips like a gaper, I'd start to quiver. In most instances, my mother was near by.  She'd try to coax or encourage me, but it wouldn't work.  My early on-set neuroses had taken over.  This was it. The end was near. I was glued to those hills, and in my mind there was no successful way out.

After awhile, my dad would defy convention, and climb back up to me.  We'd find ourselves across from one another, my exceptionally small stature frozen in an awkward attempt to remain upright, and my dad casually resting with his poles propped under his armpits. Then he'd do what my father always did when I became emotional. He'd reason with me. He'd apply exaggerated logic to pull things into perspective and illustrate the simplicity of the situation. The most memorable and representative of these pep-talks went something like this:

"The way I see it you have two choices. You can stay up here forever.  It won't be very comfortable, and it's probably going to get really cold.  But, I guess we might be able to get someone to bring you food every now and then.  I'm not quite sure what you'll do about going to the bathroom though...  OR you can come with me, and we'll ski down to the bottom."

Oh! Of course! It was SO clear. How did I not see it before?!

There's no reason why a speech like that should ever convince a little girl to do something she didn't want to do! But here I am, miraculously not a mountainside resident. I was presented with choices. I weighed my options, and I rejected the one with the least desirable outcome.

If you think about it, this is really what life is all about. It's a series of choices. Some days you'll be picking between bunny runs and a green circles. Other times it will be a rope-tow or blue square afternoon. But, you will also have days that aren't so great.  Days when the snow snakes are abundant, the hills are steep, and the choices seem low.

When this happens you will try to get through it. You'll slow down to think through every turn. But regardless of your preparations, the storm clouds will gather, and fog-up your goggles. Before you know it you will be caught between a double black diamond and a "no way out" sign.

You will feel like you're out of options, but remember that you're not. Despite how it may seem, there is always a choice to make.

My Own Personal Undertoad

There's something that happens to young skiers as they learn to descend a mountainside on the planks attached to their feet.

They fall down.

A lot.

Sometimes they fall because they are new to the sport, and they have yet to master it. Sometimes they fall because they are relatively new to the world, and are still rather clumsy.  Other times the snow is sticky, or hard, or the hill is uncharacteristically bumpy.  Then, there's the inexplicable fall.  This occurs when everything is going great.  You're on your skis. You're making all the right turns. Conditions are good. You feel like a pro. When all of a sudden....Bam! Yard sale. You're ear deep in a mound of powder, one of your skis is twisted beneath your legs, and the other one is 2 feet up the hill between you and your poles.

As a child, I found this type of fall especially troubling. See, I hate falling. I hate it so much, that I rarely took risks on the hill.  Sure, I could get up a good speed, and do relatively well on the more advanced runs. However, if I perceived even the slightest loss of control, I'd pull back.

So, as you can imagine, it was particularly hard for me to cope with falling when I felt that I was completely in control. "I don't know what happened?" I'd cry. I didn't understand, and that was aggravating.

However, my parents, in their infinite wisdom, always had the answer: It was snow snakes.

According to them, snow snakes were just that: snakes, that live in the snow.  They lived where it was cold. Slithering around within ice patches, and freshly frosted hillsides. I couldn't see them because they were white, and dwell within the snow. But nevertheless, snow snakes were there.  They were mischievous little creatures that found amusement in gliding beneath the skis of inexperienced humans. As my parents explained, snow snakes liked to trip people.

I can't even explain to you how much I latched on to this explanation. In my youthful eyes, snow snakes were real.  They had to be! Why else would I fall over?  I went so far as to look for them when I rode the chair lift, or sat at the bottom of the hill contemplating the next run.  I never saw any, but I always knew they were out there. Waiting to get me when I least expected it.

As an adult, I reflect on this memory and I'm not amused by my innocent acceptance of this inane theory. I'm blown away at how unknowingly accurate I was.

Snow snakes are absolutely real. They are out there, invisible to the human eye, and waiting for the perfect moment to trip you when you least expect it.  However, my parents were misinformed about one thing. Snow snakes live in every climate.

Is This What Carole King Meant?

Location: Home
Mood: sad

On Friday, the world population had a game-changing experience. Our planet moved, and reminded us just how precariously placed our existence is.

For those of you who are completely oblivious, I'm talking about the 8.9 earthquake, and subsequent 20 ft tsunami in Japan. I've had a number of reactions to it. Initially my reaction was one of "holey-shit" proportions.  I then clutched the news with all my might, and used it to help ease my own anxieties about a Grad School interview.  Hearing about this event helped me to put things into perspective. Yes, getting my masters is important, but, in the grand scheme of things, a failure to achieve acceptance is less than that. Surprisingly, listening to the radio talk about the frighteningly massive waves that were headed for my state, helped me to relax. Instead of thinking that botching this experience would be the worst thing ever, I thought "this isn't so bad."

Later, I breathed a sigh of relief as most of Oregon classified the experience as "a drill." As my own stress eased, I took a less egotistical look at the catastrophe. I turned my gaze on the news (or lack thereof) coming from Japan. I found images of a real life whirlpool, and heard news of missing trains that undoubtedly carried the hundreds of geographic sight-seers to the bottom of the ocean in a suffocatingly sealed metal box. The death toll numbers being reported continue to be terrifying.  Surely, no one event could wipe out that many lives?  But it has, and entire cities have lost contact with the rest of the planet. Then I learned of the nuclear reactors that are posing a new threat to society.  Now, I can't not think about it.

Historically, I've had my battles with anxiety and overly-worrisome thought processes. Things like this don't help. Sure, it puts my normal every day concerns into perspective, but it also reminds me just how much there is to be terrified of.

All my life I've heard about how the Pacific Northwest is overdue for "the big one." This has just been something I've heard and known about.  I've never given it too much thought, because to really consider it is overwhelming.  I always knew it would be bad, but watching the Japanese quake and the fallout from afar, has been alarming. I can't help but feel like I'm walking on a tight-rope that could at any moment give way. The earth has become this menacing demon looming over us.  I place Us on a metaphorical web with a starving carnivorous spider nearing. I look around at all the potentially awful ways to be destroyed, and my heart pounds faster.

I have always loved the scenery of my home, and spent a day this weekend reveling in an experience that brings me back to my childhood. I ventured up my mountain, and quietly rode the chair lift through enormous and beautiful evergreens.  I peacefully skied down hills covered in thick and calming snow the day following an avalanche in a nearby area. I was overcome with how wonderfully pleasing the experience was, but also how potentially catastrophic it could be. At any moment, Nature, could take a turn. The wind could knock loose an avalanche, and pull me down with it. A tree could reach it's lifespan, and fall across the chords that pull me further up the active volcano. The earth could open up and cover us all in molten hot magma.

I know I'm being a bit dramatic. However, I can't help but acknowledge how truly unsafe this world is, and how frighteningly it could come to an end at any moment.