A different kind of holiday

I woke up to the sounds of peacocks calling out to each other. Sturdy, comforting hills beyond a range of coconut trees greeted my view as i parted the curtains and gazed out of the window. My friend had kept calling me to visit her in the retirement home she had shifted to recently. I decided to take her up on her invitation over a weekend. I came, expecting to be greeted by a staid run of the mill boarding atmosphere, surrounded by senior citizens who would seem to be dull, lost and desolate. What greeted me is something I am still registering. The place looked no less than a well developed resort, with laid out green lawns, cobbled pathways with lush green plants at regular intervals. There was a clubhouse for lectures and extra curricular activities, a dining hall, a temple all interspersed with benches to sit around, and patches of green.

But all this was what was provided by the developers. What caught me and left me pleasantly surprised was the contribution to the atmosphere by the inmates of the place. I could only see smiling faces greet each other. I was not a stranger but a part in of the place. Everyone had a word of greeting for me, a nod of recognition, though I did not even know them. People were using walkers, some were being helped by the assistants employed by the place, others were just sitting, too tired or old to walk around. But all this simply did not deter them from being warm and exchanging social greetings.

Were they here out of choice? Or compulsion? Were they living up to the stigma attached to the idea of children not taking care of their parents in their old age and resorting to an old age home? It did not seem so. It seemed more like community living, following a regular schedule of meal times and exercises, attending lectures and religious functions, exchanging notes with each other about their families. The living quarters were tastefully done, but at the same time functional.

We all have such fixed notions about things, and I was no different. This visit opened my eyes to the sheer practical angle of such a beautiful shared life, in a serene environment. At a time in your life when you certainly don't want to worry about bill payments, house maintenance, leaking roofs and garbage disposal, such a living seemed god sent. Then why do we look at such community living with such a negative opinion, and in such a judgemental view? Why can't we accept that "The old order changeth giving place to new", with grace?

A Responsible Healer

In my practice as a counsellor and family therapist, I do a lot of training work and supervision with upcoming counsellors. While most of them show great promise and I am hopeful that the future of counselling is in safe hands, there is still a lot that needs to be done. And I mean personal work, intense inner work.

Counselling is very serious work. We are dealing with people’s minds and feelings. We cannot afford to go wrong here. And unless we are sorted out within ourselves to a large extent, I don’t think it is fair that we hand out platitudes to our clients. The responsibility of self-care and self-growth is tremendous in our line of work. But unfortunately, a large population of the mental health professionals do not seem to understand this aspect or if they do, choose to undermine its importance.

 
I met a young graduate who was raring to go, and one of the first doubts she asked me was nothing to do with the subject or training. It was: how much do you think we can charge as our fees?
Was being a counsellor just that to her? A source of income? Though no doubt it is a profession and she was going to make a career of it, the focus seemed to be skewed to me. When I gently reminded her that she needed to hone her skills before she even contemplated employment, I am sure it did not sit well with her.

Yet another enthusiast had closed her mind to the kind of population she would not work with, which happened to be children. She said she would not feel comfortable working with them..
I wonder what history went behind her shutting herself off from children... The way the society is moving, I think children need the maximum emotional support in the coming years. What was it in her life that made her uncomfortable handling cases involving children?

Still another candidate who fitted in the above category would be so casual and easy-going, it seemed to be a defence of a quiet storm underneath. She was anxious to be seen as one who was in control at all times. Though this would be a strength in her, it would only be so, if she had worked on the deeper underlying issues, and resolved them. It is not possible that one has no problems to resolve; but according to her, there was nothing wrong in her life. Which seemed to be a total blind spot in her personal Johari Window.

And finally the kind who feel they have the power to change the world: and that the responsibility for the client being healed rested solely on their young shoulders. These people are the most dangerous ones. The sense of omnipotence they exude is frightening. They believe they have the power to correct a lot of wrongs, which has the danger of making them extremely judgemental and opinionated, two of the greatest faults in a counsellor.

The most senior of therapists come up with issues they are not able to resolve within themselves. The dangers of transference and countertransference is forever lurking in the background. Unless the person is emotionally sorted out to a large extent from within, she would at best be doing what a compounder does in the absence of a duty doctor in a hospital. And with physical wounds that may work. But with emotions, you can never say you know… you can mar a life for a lifetime if you don't know what you are doing…

Let us become strangers once again...

The hardest part in letting go is not the fact that you need to let go.  It is the fact that you are not ready to do so without knowing the reason why.  And I guess this is true of any relationship.  A friend of mine I met the other day for coffee was talking to me about how she is unable to understand why suddenly another friend just dropped out of her life without any warning.  They used to meet up every weekend, go out together as a family and share a lot of personal stories. It suddenly came to pass that the friend had her sister visiting her, and the calls tapered off.  She put it down to the visit of her sister, and she went to visit them too. But she came away feeling very cold about the whole visit, for reasons she could not explain.  The sister left, she messaged a couple of times, the response was perfunctory … As far as she was concerned, it ended here.

She also spoke about another friend, who used to practically live in her house, but of late was hardly to be seen. Of course, her new job kept her busy, but then she was not talking about meeting- even the usual phone connect had dimmed. However, she openly confronted this friend about this fact, and told her how much she felt the absence.  Though the friend did agree that she was not around as much as she was before, and she too felt the lacuna, what hurt was that there were no attempts to even minimise the distance between them, even after this talk. I guess this hurt her more.

Realigning an existing relationship is extremely difficult.  In the case of the earlier friend, she could honestly say she did not feel like even wanting to find out what went wrong; in the case of the second friend, she tried and there were no results.  What I could observe in both these cases were that the relationship had shifted gears.  The connect was totally missing, because of which the score for count, the feeling that she mattered enough in the other person’s life, was very low.

She had the option of picking up the phone and confronting them with this fact: to tell them she was nursing a bruised feeling, a hurt.  But she was too tired.  And though she was still coming to terms with the whole new dynamics of the relationships, she believed in : “If you cannot bring the story to a happy ending, then it is better to give it a beautiful turn and then forget the story... Let us become strangers once again…” Lines from an old Bollywood song!

What is in a flower...

"Each day is a credit to my knowledge bank" had been my status message for a while on one of social media sites.  It still is, I think, I am not sure. I am not much of a social media person.  In fact, come to think of it, I don’t even think I am much of a social person right now.  I seem to have a list of things I expect that are not lived up to by others.  I seem to be on this constant watch mode, where I am able to pick out stuff that no longer works with people.  And then I start wondering where it all starts to go wrong.

Take the case of this friend, for instance. We had been pretty close, or so I would like to think, till a couple of months back.  To be candid, I had figured in a large part of her life, and I felt wanted, needed.  One does not really start to count pennies, unless one is down to the last bit of it… In the same way, when I find the relationship wanting, I am going back and counting all the inputs that I had put in into the relationship, I find I am a pauper now. 

She just stopped talking… just like that.  She initially had practical reasons with work, visitors at home and the like, but then once all that settled down, it was still not on comfort level. An uneasy quiet so to speak.  My overtures at conversations were met with stilted answers.  That is when I started questioning the efficacy of the relationship and for once I did not question where I went wrong;   I was so tired of this question all the time.  I just gave up.  

I was not longer bothered about doing post-mortem.  I just gathered enough evidences to prove it has all been coming a while, only I was blind to it all and moved on.  But the shoulder felt a wee bit heavier…

Today was another friend’s birthday. She too has suddenly found a lot more to engage her in life, and there is suddenly empty space here.  She too cited work as a reason for the sudden disconnect and I took her at her word, though I did not feel listened to, I did not feel she understood what I meant when I said the connect was missing. And today, when I went to wish her, I took her some yellow roses.  Yellow roses are supposed to be a symbol of friendship.  I said so when I gave them to her.  And she left them back in the restaurant. Just like that.

   

Not that I am not busy.  Not that I don’t have other people in my life.  But I need all of them, and I would hate to be guilty of making one of them feel they don’t matter enough to me.  It is not a nice feeling.  And of late, I seem to be feeling that feeling a lot. In reverse…  That I don’t really matter much anymore.

The roses of course will wither and wilt away in a couple of days.  But what I felt when I discovered she had left them behind will take a long time to fade away I guess.  Unless amends are made sincerely, thoughtfully and deliberately.  I guess that is too much to ask. 

Once we enter into a relationship, we are no longer the same.  The relationship may end, but it does not cease to exist.  In some way or the other the dent is made and it is there for life.   Another friend of mine commented once about how I give all of myself and I expect the same and that is where I get hurt.  Maybe.  I am not sure.  But this is not about my giving more.  It is about how the other person no longer wants anymore…

Lessons from Relationships

I read a book which was titled Inner war and peace: lessons from the Gita.  I searched for the sequel which was titled Conflict Resolutions: relationship lessons from the Gita.  This book was not available on the stands!

I wondered whether it was because people are finding it more difficult to handle relationships than themselves.  I have been seeing relationship dynamics at various levels, and I am reflecting on the various handles and triggers that sets off an ordinary discussion spiraling into a conflict. What can be a simple conversation over a cup of tea becomes a convoluted issue where everyone is sucked in, and each one has a hidden agenda, their own stakes in the matter, and finally a whole lot of hurts for the garbage bin, in addition to uneaten biscuits and cold cups of tea. The one left with the unresolved issue finally starts wondering at the futility of the whole exercise and needs help to gather the broken pieces.

Helping such a person, you are in danger of getting sucked in into the issue if you are not careful to be in the problem-solving mode. The person continues to hold on to hurts, feeling unsupported and challenged. If we are able to equip the person with seeing the problem from a solution-focused instead of a problem-focused viewpoint, the person is able to start acting on making small changes, redefining expectations, and the scenario starts to look brighter.

Let me illustrate. I know someone who is on this project of getting her children settled...   But she feels very challenged as she feels the whole process of vetting the proposals, getting information etc. is all very technology-based, and she feels inadequate to cope as she is not very savvy in this field.  Her dependency on others because of this limitation is a block in her getting things done, and when she reaches the end of her tether, all hell breaks loose, and while there is confrontation there is no conflict resolution: both within herself and around her.

Now, she has two options: she can either just give up on her project, and nurse the feeling of guilt in not being a responsible adult, or she can break down the problem into smaller problems and find effective solutions... I don't claim to be a Microsoft geek, but I was able to help her resolve some of her practical issues regarding the workings of the processes involved... When one feels he or she is doing something towards resolving an issue, that itself makes one feel more in command of the situation... It is the feeling of being helpless, dependent or trapped that is debilitating!

The War Within...

There is a war raging within and rains pouring without.  The rain outside is very welcome ; it brings with it cool weather and beauty in nature after it abates.  The plants look green and smiling, and the squirrel on my window sill is back, demanding his share of my evening snack, while keeping an eye out for the wily crow. 

But what about the war within me, which is causing me to cry without a break?  How do I explain to this tender feeling in me, that I get when I speak to my father, who keeps saying, "its been a long time since I have seen you"...?  During a twenty-minute conversation, he asks the same question ten times.  For, he is 87 years old, confined to the house, with only the idiot box for company.  He misses people to talk to; so he starts to have conversations in his mind. He spins yarns which become reality for him, and they become his world.  A world when he was young, agile, in control of his life and dreams.  Today, when he plaintively told me, his knee no longer troubles him, he is feeling much healthier, I could not stop the tears that burst forth, forming a lump in my throat.  He keeps forgetting our names, but makes a brave attempt to substitute them with generic words, hoping the other person will not notice.  I play this game with him;  i urge him to say the names of people and places, and then pretend I have also forgotten; it makes him feel so much better, he consoles me saying, "it's ok if you have forgotten; I do it all the time. You are young and active, and you will remember by and by."

He keeps asking for my daughter and wonders why she did not fight a case he has fought  and won.  He promises to hand over the case file to her when we visit him next.  This is when I know he has never seen the inside of a court room all his life.  But I don’t shatter his world; he is so happy there. Happy that someone is listening to his fables. For a few brief moments, I visit his world with him.  He talks about the time he played tennis at a club close to home (which is true!). And we share happy moments. All the while, I am weeping away. Because of this distance that I am perhaps talking to him for the last time, or perhaps I may not see him or hear his voice: for a while; or perhaps ever.

And all this is over the phone;  not because I am staying too far away to visit him. Not because I don’t want to go and look him up. It’s just over the phone because I am too cowardly to make the trip and put myself through the discomfort of the unpleasantness I face everytime from the environment, where I am judged, made to feel I am living an unapproved-of life by the rest of the family.  I choose to stay away because I am choosing to not get more hurt when I have barbs like I don’t belong because the family is scared of me, they do not feel comfortable talking to me, and such other one-liners hurled at me.  So I compromise by not spending time with the  first man in my life.  I wonder whether I will ever be able to forgive my family for this...

The cost of an innocent olive branch...

You know what they say about the need to understand that sometimes there is no mending a fence. How can you, when you mistake a wall for a fence?  I remember Robert Forst’s poem where he says: there is something that doesn’t love a wall,  that wants it down.  I tried, too hard at times, to mend walls, to just have fences, as, he says, good fences make good neighbors.  I too have tried to break down the walls, but I have only had boulders come crashing down my side. 

Take the case of my neighbor who lives in the flat above mine.  I was facing a very serious problem with a leak in all my rooms, the cause of which was a faulty bathroom in their flat.  No amount of polite conversations or attempts to make her see reason helped.  I only got derogatory remarks and finally it boiled down to screaming matches, and I was reaching the end of my tether. 

 

Aren't buckets meant for the bathroom and utility areas? I had them out in the living room and bedrooms to catch the dripping waste water from her toilet! And then I was pouring it out every time the buckets filled, and yanking my bed sheets out and throwing them away because there were drops on my bed from the ceiling. 

 

There ensued a great battle of wills, and verbal duels, during which the issue reached hysterical proportions on her side. To stop her ranting, we put a recorder in front of her, hoping she would stop the screaming, but she seemed oblivious to it. I had to finally resort to legal threats in order to gain entry into their flat, and had to spend my money to repair their bathroom. I tried to see the lighter side of the situation by telling myself, "technically, I own a flat and a bathroom in this apartment complex!" Anyway, I got back the ownership of my rooms after an agonizing two weeks, along with my peace of mind.  Or so I thought.

The leak stopped, though it left stains on my newly painted walls; and a lot of unpleasant feelings, I bet, even on their side, and not to mention, a sprain on my ankle as I had slipped on the disgusting puddle in my bedroom one day.  I had also developed a bad back as I had been forced to resort to makeshift beds for two weeks, and mounting medical bills. But I fervently hoped it was the end of the matter.

After a month of this episode, one morning, I saw the sister of this lady,  greeted her and enquired if she would accept some prasadam  from a temple I had visited a couple of days ago.  She looked surprised but gracefully accepted the same. I mentioned to her how we need to put the past behind us and move on. She agreed and also said that her sister too needs all the prayers.  I  then sent some prasadam for her sister in a cup.  

A day later, I get an obnoxious message from this lady, accusing me of playing games, calling me a goonda, bad mouthing my daughter, and instructing me to be ethical.  The entire message reeked of absolute venom and it sent shivers up my spine all over again.  I wondered then whether I did the right thing by extending the olive branch.  And if I happen to have a recurrence of any such problem, whether I would be able to resolve it in a neighborly fashion. For my neighbor does not want fences; she only wants high walls.  And I hope the walls do not develop more leaks and bring the building crashing down...

Is it wrong then that I doubt the triumph of being good?  And is it wrong to want to mend fences? If not, should I continue to try? At what cost?