"To call you ultra sensitive is an understatement"

These were the words given to me yesterday.  I had have always been called sensitive but to be told this by a remarkably sensitive holistic practitioner is a bit different.  To many of the practitioners I've seen, I have been quickly misread.  I am not a petite woman.  I am 5' 5" and my bone size is large.  My hour glass shape shows that I am not frail, weak, or delicate.  My weight, which I wear quite well, has always been used to ground me to a certain extent.  The practitioners who have not understood me have been those who assumed that because I am not a small woman, I am very insensitive on all levels and don't feel things deeply.  Those people are missing who I truly am.  It is my strong opinion that body size has nothing to do with the depth of sensitivity within someone.

I had a friend who told me many years ago that regardless of how small and thin she was, she felt fat.  When she lost weight, she felt more comfortable and was able to reach her goals for health.  Her view of herself and my view of myself were quite different.  I am obtaining vibrant health which for me is strength, flexibility, and endurance on all levels.  My sensitivities on the vestibular, visual, emotional, spiritual, and physical levels have led me to some harsh conclusions.  Regardless of how many people claim that they can tolerate amusement parks, malls, loud music, processed food, little sleep, and lots of stimulants, I can't.  My system needs lots of quiet, purposeful reflection, healthy lighting and food, gentle colors, and a very supportive environment.  There is a certain feeling of grief or guilt about not being able to take what the world has to give, yet I know that busyness is not good for me or who I am.

I find a lot exhausting which is not because I am weak but rather because I am sensitive.  The off gassing of furniture, be it at a store or a gym, is enough to kick my system into shut down.  The intensity of a group of people be it at the movies, restaurants, stores, or even while doing hobbies, can be totally overwhelming to me.  It has been a long time since I was able to have enough of the support I need to cope with the constant busyness of the world.  As I continue to explore what brings me peace and what disturbs me, I am finding that I am not alone.  Many of us just can't take the constant barrage of light, sound, movement, and expectations that today's modern pace demands.  This would certainly explain a lot of our health issues, exhaustion, and erratic sleep patterns.

Certainly my practitioner's words about my sensitivity does put me into a class that is not shared by many, yet I am not without my peers.  Many of us deeply enjoy and need a break from the intensity of the world.  I appreciate technology and understand that the world is changing rapidly as I write these words.  It's clear to me that the world is not meant to cater to my needs.  If I am to heal fully, I need to be the one to set limits and boundaries on what I do and where I go.  It's also my responsibility to understand to what degree I choose to push myself and then how much time I need to recover.

Being intuitive has its pros and cons.  Once an awareness becomes our own, we then accept the responsibility for implementing it in our lives.  Sometimes my sensitivities are a real drain to me and other times they give me perception and wisdom that I could never achieve without them.  For me, it's not about denying who I am.  It's about understanding and honoring who I am in the healthiest, most empowering means possible.

What we had and what we thought we had

When I first learned the meaning of the word grief, I thought it meant the feeling you get when something you loved went away.  It was a long time before I realized that we can grieve what we had and lost as well as what we were never able to have.  I can apply this concept to lots of things.  People who developed disabilities later in life have lots of grief and part of it can be about who they used to be and what they used to have.  In my case, I've grown up not having certain abilities and didn't realize until much later in life what I "should" or could have had.  I have always been very intuitive and I used to think most people functioned as I did when they made decisions and decided how they felt about someone or something.  Having discernment strictly based on logic is very foreign to me.

Because I was born to parents who were substantially older than many parents, I arrived into a family that caused me to be between the generations.  My closest cousins were close to 20 years my senior and even my siblings, who were from a previous marriage, were close to that age difference as well.  One of my paternal aunts, with whom I was very close, died when I was in my late 20's.  My grandmother and my first best friend died before I was in fourth grade.  As my uncles, cousins, other aunts, classmates, and friends have died, I have shifted in the way I relate to life.  I do my best to cherish moments because I know in a very deep way that nothing is promised and life, in this form anyway, is limited.  I miss a lot of biological family who have died.  Friends and acquaintances, many from another time and place, I miss and yet know our parting was meant to be.

The animals I have loved so dearly who have left my care have also changed me.  Some have died due to old age, illness, by assistance of a veterinarian, or gone on to another home through adoption or foster care.  When I think of the animals that have touched my life, I think of my father's bassets and my mother and her  beautiful collies.  The lovely gray and white tabby cats, wonderful potbelly pigs, regal Old English Sheepdogs and many more who have influenced my life in powerful ways have helped to mold who I have become.

Suffering upsets me quite a bit.  It disturbs me far more to see suffering than to see death.  I'm not afraid to die.  I would miss those I love at this point in my life but I truly don't think it would devastate me.  I honor the life and death cycle.  I deeply believe that we are meant to live only as long as we are given, whatever time period that is.  I've known people and animals who've died early in life and then those who have had long, vibrant lives.  I don't feel cheated by their transitions.  I don't feel like they have left me.  I am grateful for their time in my life.

The deaths that have disturbed me the most are of those whose suffering has been long or those who have died suddenly by their own hand.  I still struggle to understand suffering and its purpose in life.  For now, I choose to honor the path that is unfolding in my life which ultimately I believe will have a balance of all things good and bad.

Anger, the power and passion of it

One of the things I really like about myself is that I get angry about certain things consistently.  I'm not one to get enraged over what I would consider minor things:  last minute changes, losing something, getting lost, or lots of traffic on the road.  My anger tends to be about intentional malicious behavior or people believing they understand when obviously they do not.  I'm usually not one to ask several people what they think on an issue.  If there is a spiritual or philosophical question I have, then I may ask people in my life but I don't live my life based on others' thoughts about issues.

I do not have a quick temper.  It takes a lot for me to go from frustrated to downright anger.  I have a very slow burn and a very long memory.  I can forgive people for their choices in behavior.  Once someone engages in something that feels very painful to me, I have a real challenge forgetting the incident.  I can move on but often what happens is that I distance myself from the situation and the person.

I respect people that I can honorably disagree with and still hold a connection.  I understand that we all see life and circumstances differently.  One of my latest irritants is the pattern of some people with disabilities believing that know what it's like for others with disabilities.  One disability does not equate to another.  Just like there are various forms of learning disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, and neurological conditions among others, there are a plethora of ways of adapting to them.  When someone takes a limited viewpoint and assumes others feel the same way, this can create a myriad of problems.

Perhaps I should not be surprised.  After all, those without disabilities disagree on what's right and wrong and how life should be lived so why would those with disabilities be any different?  Looking at life choices from a stance of fear, in my opinion, only leads to more fear, resentment and anger.  I understand that we don't all need to agree.  What pushes my anger button is the arrogance and ignorance that some have in assessing what is best for those of us with challenges.  It's easy to become so short sighted that you believe your way is the only way.

There is definitely a line between standing up for yourself and finding compassion for others.  Even very kind hearted people can miss the point of being helpful.  I once knew a woman who insisted upon setting the brakes on a patient's wheelchair.  The patient had her good days and bad and wanted to be more independent.  When I suggested that perhaps the patient would like to do what she could, I was told:  "I will help her.  She needs me."

I want to be as independent as I can be.  Some days that's more, some days that's less.  Personally, I don't appreciate another's evaluation of what is best for me especially when it is based on opinions rather than quantitative facts.

Anger, I believe, is a fire that can be used to channel energy and motivation.  It can also be destructive and destroy the one who holds it.  For me, anger can be both.  I'm still working on finding the balance between entitlement and empowerment.

Who were you?

For many people, the person that holds the title "father" is a very loving and supportive soul.  That was not the case for me.  I had no stepfather or substitute dad, I had only one biological father.  My father was named after the Jewish prophet, Saadiah Goen.  My grandfather, Benjamin, was a great student of literature and Jewish history and he felt his youngest son best fit the passion of this leader.  Intensity was not something my father lacked.  He was a man who was a mixture of intellect, rigidity, kindness, stubbornness, pride, sadness and anger.

He had great respect for his parents, both first generation immigrants.  To him, their sacrifices and wisdom were to be honored.  Although my father, Sid, was not in any way a religious man, he did identify his ethnicity as Jewish.  He was not quite the atheists my grandparents were, but he definitely questioned the spirituality of life.  Ironic that my grandparents and my father were quite intuitive.

My father was 48 years old when I was born.  My mother was his only wife who he married two years prior.  He was a good provider and treated my mother's children from a previous marriage in a respectful manner.  My father was a kind man.  He often helped to care for the pets of friends and neighbors.  Frequently, he would offer a ride to a stranger or be particularly helpful to the family of friends.

There was however another side to this man.  After the years of neighborhood baseball and pick up football games, jobs in canning factories, and being a hired hand at local farms, he took to being in the Navy for a year and then two decades in the Merchant Marines.  His service time encompassed World War II and his love of travel and anthropology took him to many countries around the world.  There were many things my father never talked about.  He rarely spoke of fellow servicemen, battles, or casualties.  His sentiment about the war was remarkable in some ways.  Despite my aunt, his older sister, being very negative towards Germany after the war my father actually felt a great deal of compassion.  He believed strongly that Germany had suffered a great deal during and after the war and that much of the cruelty that occurred was strongly guided by Russian rather than German forces.

He was a man who had very, very rigid beliefs about right and wrong.  Although he had compassion for those who were struggling many times, there were several occasions where his sentiment was nothing short of ruthless and he displayed the violence to show it.  For many years he was a very athletic man and even wrestled professionally before the antics of today's wrestlers.  He believed strongly in defending what he believed was important and nothing, human or animal, could easily stop his force once initiated.

His temper, which he often described as causing him to see red, was something we all understood.  There were certain things that were never said or done around him.  It was just the way it was.  He was adamant about being strong and weakness in most forms was completely and utterly unacceptable.  I remember he was once in the hospital and had received a spinal block.  As he was laying flat upon his bed, he demanded that my mother and I leave so we should not see him in a weakened state.  Although he had some kindness towards those with certain illnesses, he was ruthlessly unforgiving for those who would choose to be weak.  Strength was a most valuable virtue in his eyes.

I never heard the words:  "I love you" or "I'm proud of you" ever leave my father's mouth though I would think on some level both were true.  He made certain sacrifices for others:  not playing football in high school so he wouldn't upset his mother, graduating high school so he would not disappoint his parents, leaving the house so my mother could meet with people he didn't like, and taking his daughter to dog shows so she could showcase her prized pup in a community quite a ways from home.

In retrospect, I can see some signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in my father.  He didn't like crowds, going out, most loud noises, or close interaction.  Because he was away at sea early in my life, I never bonded with him enough to call him by anything other than his first name and even that wasn't until much later in my life.  I never had a daddy and quite honestly I don't really think I had a dad either.  I had a man, a stranger in many ways, who was my male biological parent.

Since living in the desert I have discovered a cactus called a cholla.  Affectionately it's called a teddy bear cactus which I believe is a cruel joke.  The barbs for this cactus can get in the skin and must be removed with pliers, a less than pleasant activity.  These plants make the briars from back East look positively harmless.  My father reminds me of a cholla in some ways.  He could cause a violent impression and yet at times appear quite harmless.

I don't hate the memory of my father or even the man himself.  I feel sad, jipped you might say.  In the 7 years since his death at the age of 91, I still wonder about who this man really was.  What thoughts and feelings did he have that none of us ever knew?  Who was he really?  I would like to believe that I have taken on the best of what this man offered me.  He did teach me things and his love of childhood stories, mysteries, and diversity have left a huge impression upon me.  The effects of having an emotionally distant, perhaps some would say broken, man as a mentor is something from which I am still recovering.  Although the adult in me knows, he truly did do the best he could,  the child in me wonders why I was not enough for him to be warm, loving, and gentle.

Recovery and spirituality have overlapped a lot for me.  Recognizing that the behavior of others has little to nothing to do with me has been a real challenge for me to accept.  Realizing that we all come from backgrounds that are less than what we wished they were is very real for most of us.  My father, Sid, was in some ways a man among men.  In other ways, he was a very fearful little boy afraid to give and receive love at the most basic of levels.