Week 9 -’Tween test times July 7, 2010
Posted by Liz Mead in : TESOL , 1 comment so farCaptain’s Log: Midshipman Suprasegmental shot an albatross yesterday. The feeling of fear in the crew is palpable.
It’s the lead up to a TESOL test
A quiz, a trial that needs my best
But all I’ve got is mild distress.
The time invested studying
Has only worked at muddying
This addled brain of mine.
My skin in the game isn’t Wall Street inflated
It’s more like a ball of potential deflated.
So now when my rubber
is hitting the road,
Assessment is stymied
by mind-bending loads.
I’d decided to write upon my sleeve
when lo –there came a day’s reprieve.
so….
As English is stress-timed
and meaning is made
with focus on key words
once rhythm is laid.
A rhyming verse
Would do me well
To practice my phonemes
And suprasegme’ls.
Alas this mess of homophones
Is surely not a verse
But crafting it ‘tween test times
Has hardly made it worse!
The art of projection March 30, 2010
Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a commentI have a work mate who reflects back with precision the issues I need to deal with at any one time.
For instance today she reflected my need NOT to look outside for answers. She reflected my need for patience and she reflected my pursuit of perfection – in what I contribute to the world. And she led me to think about my own thought patterns.
Now there, right there , is a no-win no brainer. We’re not meant to be perfect. The whole struggle is to cope with imperfection and change. Our thought processes change accordingly.
I’ve been depressed lately – which is a habit and a neurological reality. The co-joining of low seratonin levels, palpable fear over change were mixed in with a propensity to brace for shame. In short – a recipe for misery.
My depression manifests in tears, a great weight of grey grief and a romantic desire to end it all. So many people take that fateful step without needing to journal about it, around it or into it. They simply get on with the gig. You’ve got to admire that focus.
I’m one of those “thinkers”, “waiters” or “watchers” a procrastinator waiting for external validation or a “fix”. Wondering if I can weather the storm without the medication. Wondering whether my triggered anxiety versus free-floating anxiety equates with a certain category of depresssion (aka not so bad, realy bad, suicidal etc etc).
Paint, they tell me. Put it all out on a canvas – objectify it, look at it, as if it’s a bug you can spit up and out. Of course if you paint, you’ll realise that all you see is not a remedy but a reminder; a permanent stain to perpetuate the misery because the painting is most likely to be badly executed. So not only miserable but also a bad painter.
Last week painters competing in the Archibald prize (a prize in OZ’s artworld for portraits) put themselves in such a situation.
Visitors get to guess the portrait the judges will pick. Walking around the gallery that night, despite sculling appropriate amounts of plonk, I felt detached with absolutely no idea of what I liked.
I picked one because it was a portrait of a star gazer, light tipped glasses, childish joy against a black canvas, peppered with colourful stars. Was it good – how would I know? It was the only one that “spoke” to me. Plus the character looked quirky. He was happy and hopeful.
When the winner was announced it wasn’t the one I’d chosen. An editorial about the judging process mentioned my choice as one the judges had considered. It also mentioned that their choices exampled how these judges could either get it “really right” or “really wrong”.
Gasp! degrees of right and wrong. Sigh was mine right or wrong? And why did I care? I’d come so far away from what I liked and wanted, I couldn’t even relax in my own choice. I was looking to a random stranger (probably a rejected portrait painter) to tell me. All the stars went out right there and then!
The feelings (whatever they are) had become so externalised and externalising I didn’t even know whether they were mine or just a random guess which, alas I got “right” or “wrong”.
In hindsight guessing is as valid as any other process. The feelings, the thoughts, the choices and the activities we are in charge of (ie our own), can and should be whatever they need to be. If, for neurological reasons they don’t feel like they’re standing on solid ground then settle for sand. Likewise accept that they will or can be right, wrong, black, white, shifting, paranoid, blue, black, depressed, resolved, resilient or blank.
What they are however is ours. Not much else to claim, might as well claim those. We’re all looking at stars, some of us are seeing them from the gutter (with apologies to Oscar).
All the world’s a stage…… December 15, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , add a commentI attended a workshop on the weekend called “Play of Life”
The training program is run by my very dear friend and her husband who designed and created it. For information on the program – you can visit their website.
It’s a program that grew out of the disciplines and philosophy of psychodrama wher
e the client can “show” rather than “tell” issues and life situations they need to deal with. By “showing” their current and ideal situation utilising a 3-D stage/play of small figures and props, they see for themselves the role, relationships, dynamic and often the first step to making it better.
It reminds me of the old fashioned sand-play, but taken to the next level. The program involves various techniques. One of my favourites was a technique to envision the ideal solution to a problem then envision what helps you move towards it and what enables you to move away from it. You strengthen one, and lessen the other. By using a series of well structured investigative, diagnostic questions a person can glean greater insight into their own patterns, roles and limiting behaviour.
We spend so much time creating our stories and narratives. And part of that creative work includes filling in the untenable gaps in life and our ideals. We plug up the holes with addictions, defence patterns, and often unrealistic mental constructs. For me, drinking my way through grief was better than facing the black hole of loss.
With this program I could “show” myself and another (witness) what was really going on. I could get out of the area of talking/telling /language and go straight to where the emotions and memories live. That’s why it’s so powerful – one can’t lie (that is if you’re serious about fixing the problem.)
For me, the wealth of the program can be encapsulated into the 2 main insights I took away:
1. That we can only change our own behaviour and we can often begin that change with a small step.
2. That we play roles in life -some helpful, others not so helpful. Once we are able to describe that role and see it for what it is – we can change it, just as one assumes and drops a role on a stage.
I love workshops that enable learning – specifically if that learning is going to make my life more loving and expansive. With my love and background in theatre I loved this sort of learning especially. I’d also done psychodrama before with very helpful results and so I was surely in my element.
The group was comprised of insightful, humble, loving individuals. These learning groups always are. People that want to grow are invariably interesting. The group were a microcosm of society and a rich mix of types, some introverted and extraverted. Some were willing and able to externalise their insights in the feedback sessions – no matter how painful. Others were able to witness someone else’s work, without having an opinion – not interpreting, just reading the signals and signs. We all loved it.
Mainly because the 2 days were facilitated by a delightful individual – a friend to many of the group. He is a young man – committed to caring and enabling the growth of others. A man who’d found a great vehicle for insights into his own process, the meaning of why we do what we do, and a way he can help. He was getting his trainer “P” plates, and he passed with flying colours – and well deserved.
The first night of the weekend, I was so exhausted I virtually collapsed asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. And I dreamt.
I dreamt of a stingray threatening the safety of my twin sister and myself. We were swimming in unclear, opaque 
water, and I warned her of this hidden threat To avoid contact with Stingray, I urged her to scramble onto a pier out of the water. My sister, though, remained in the water and was touched as the Ray nudged past and around her. Instead of dying, or being stung, my sister rode on the back of this huge magnificent beast – as if were a flying carpet. And as she did, the Stingray morphed into something less ominous and more graceful. It grew a neck and head of a swan, which my sister caressed.
I took the memory and elements of that dream into the 2nd day of the workshop. On this day I set up my ideal future – including the chance to love someone again, and to live in a fuller way. My intention, in this play of life, was to shed the role of fearful resigned loner and assume a new role of courageous giver and lover.
For me the Stingray’s beautiful transformation was testament to this desire. Change and growth were possible, if we stay immersed in the emotional water – despite the lack of vision and clarity and fear of being hurt.
Now totems in dreams are a big part of my psychic library. And both the Stingray and Swan evoke stronger intuition, protection and discernment. My own more pedestrian associations link it to the sudden and surprising attack on a well known Australian naturalist who was fatally pierced in the heart by a Stingray. No guesses there about my own lesson.
Later that night, when I returned home I spoke with my sister Gab over the phone. In tandem, we romped through the events of our respective weekends. She told me of her delightful stay with dear friends at Noraville, on the Central Coast of NSW; I told her of my weekend – the people I’d met, the insights I’d gleaned. Just as we were about to phone off.. she said,
“Oh yes, I forgot to tell you. The group went snorkelling today over the rocks at the end of the beach, as the tide was low and one of the blokes saw biggest stingray he’d ever seen. And even though it scared the life out of him, there was something extraordinarily beautiful about it.”
When the student is ready August 20, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , 2commentsI was side-swiped this month by a talk with one of my acquaintances.
I work with this person. She and I have similar interests and insights. We’ve read the same books and have similar approaches to the importance of spirit in our life.
She loves and teaches stories, she is a writer and an editor, a seeker, committed to re
lationship building and a Libran. She also has a Catholic background and recently lost her father whom she cared for deeply.
Like me, she believes that the path of the heart is all encompassing and when all is said and done, it is love that resounds and remains at the end of life. I believe, though that she is farther along the path than me and a little clearer on what that tenet actually means in day-to-day life. She is courteous and gentle; a great listener and very thoughtful in her care of others.
When she told me yesterday that she followed a guru in her spiritual practice I had a puzzling and negative reaction. And that worries me.
Despite the fact that we shared so many other interests I didn’t want to hear that she had handed over personal power to another. I find the choice of a guru akin to deifying another and this has never sat well. As I’ve done in the past, I dismissed the path as a possible method to find meaning and enlightenment.
What worries me is that I have no realistic alternative and no real reason for rejecting the path she’s chosen other than fear and confusion. Don’t get me wrong, I want to reach enlightenment along with the next person. Her path however, is dependent on trust and love – and that scares me.
When I went to India 10 years ago I sought the spiritual home I thought I needed. I was on a quest to find meaning and resonance. I had dreamt of gurus, met practitioners, read books, prayed and received confirming indicators that indeed this place and its spiritual practices would provide a place of rich sustaining support. Alas it provided noise, dirt, stress and crowds. I couldn’t see past the smells and confusion. As for inner sight I was lucky to maintain my sanity keeping an eye out for fast moving traffic and bullocks in the middle of the road. I was deeply disappointed and decided I had no spiritual bone in my body.
Besides, I had my darling husband as an alternative ‘religion’. He was my path to the heart. He was my divine other. It was enough. It was real and trustworthy. But it ended. Now without him I am rudderless and back to square one. Still sightless and a little the worse for wear; love might be the thing that matters in life, but it gets stripped away in the surety of death.
The sustaining truth from all of this, though, is that change is the other great constant in life; change in death; change in jobs; change in friends. And that the harbingers of change in my life invariably arrive with a baton – passing on a new curriculum of learning just before its time to move. This new friend brings with her the next list of subjects I am to study. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. In this case with she comes with a lesson plan: advising me to attend to the moment, to stay awake and to remember that for a seeker, the path doesn’t end.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time, T S Eliot
Changing habits March 13, 2008
Posted by Liz Mead in : Coming Back , 2comments
Right at this very moment two of my girlfriends are changing.
One is head over heels in love and planning to get married in her garden. And the other has just resigned, rented out her home, and has booked a flight to Kathmandu to work on a community project.
It’s not the first time either of them has done such a thing.
What is it about our lives? We repeat things until we get it right, or hope to get it right, or get it almost right. In any event, who says what’s right except our own in-built moral compass. What interests me is that we keep repeating things.
Just this morning I was talking with friends about this process. How do we stay true to our path? How do we change the direction of that path if it reaches a dead end? And will we know the dead end when it appears? And what about those forks that lead you in circles back on the same path. The forks I call habit.
I’m aware that when we change one part of a puzzle other parts of the puzzle adjust, sometimes with resistance and other times to strengthen the new configuration.
Right now I am changing the way I live and work. I change the way I live in my house by decorating and moving things around. I change the way I work by linking to new media that enables me to operate from home in a far more global way than ever before. All fine because it’s just about me. Where it gets tricky is when other people come into the equation.
This darling soon-to-be-wed friend has had to change arrangements for the overseas trip we were going to take together. The sudden change raised a question of paying more money or losing money to adjust for that change.
My first reaction to the travel change was a default reaction to rescue the situation, to ensure someone else was made happy. To pick up the extra cost so she could be happy. But it didn’t sit right. Something tweaked in this newly-renovated-self. Something made me put my needs out there.
And here’s where the stress arose. If I told her what I wanted and needed, would this friend be angry? Would my needs outweigh hers? Would I lose her as a friend? Whose fault was it anyway? Why rock the boat!?
No need to worry, of course. Once all the information was laid on the table and because she’s a friend, her reaction was of course perfect acquiescence and love. I needn’t have worried.
But I did. Not that I worried for nothing. Rather I worried just enough for the lesson to be remembered well, and the dead-end behaviour to stop.
So I dare say we will keep doing the same things again and again. We’ll repeat the same lesson many times before we’re through. It’s how we do it, each time it comes up, that make the difference, not getting it right.
