Forgetting Class Two

We had our second class on forgetting yesterday. The teachers, Ann Jacob and Stan Tomandl, are wise and gentle. They live and work and teach together in Victoria, BC, Canada. They describe their work as:

specializing in working, learning and teaching about
altered consciousness that comes during life’s joys, grief, 
creativity, dreams, illness, trauma, memory loss, remote states, 
delirium, coma and other tender and strong moments
in our living and dying   

I first spoke with them when my father was in a nursing home. He was nearing the end of his life and was physically very weak and was occasionally disoriented as he tried to recover from a stroke and a subsequent brain surgery. My step-mother and I set up an appointment to speak with them to get some tips on how to deal with his disorientation which had begun to include fits of anger and paranoia.

I remember sitting in a small institutional room in the facility with my step mother and Ann and Stan on speaker phone. Their support and kindness was palpable. They were also wonderfully curious. How was it for us? What were the challenges? What were we noticing? They affirmed everything we said.

I suppose this is the key to everything, isn’t it? To affirm what is here.

The way to connect with ourselves, with others and with the world around us is simply to say yes. We don’t have to object or correct or judge or even understand. Whatever presents itself is true. Of course it’s not the whole truth, but it certainly and definitely is one aspect of the truth. Why not be curious rather than suspicious? Why not explore what is here rather than trying to make it conform to how we think it should be?

The world so generously presents itself to us in a thousand different forms. Our everyday response is often to refuse what is offered in favor of some opinion of how we think it should be. It’s as if we were given a gem of immense beauty and rather than appreciating and marveling, we spend our time wondering if the color might be adjusted or the shape might be improved upon.

In the class yesterday Ann spoke of a time when she got a call from the care facility where her elderly mother lived. The facility was in Cleveland, but her mother was convinced that she was in Mexico, not Cleveland. When Ann talked with her mother, instead of trying to convince her that she was in Cleveland, Ann invited her to talk about Mexico. Ann said her mother was quite delighted to be in Mexico and gave vivid descriptions of the colorful goings on. Eventually, Ann’s mother noticed that she was sitting in her favorite chair and was curious how that got to Mexico. Then she noticed the familiar painting on the wall and other bits of her everyday life. Eventually she re-oriented to her agreed upon geographic status and the staff was reassured. But not before a delightful visit, for Ann and her mother, to Mexico.

Of course, when people are in altered states, it’s not always this sweet and easy. When my step-mother and I spoke to Ann and Stan about my father’s fits of anger and paranoia, they were equally affirming. When we mentioned that he was worried that the staff were talking about him, Stan laughed and said that he was probably right. When we talked about his anger, they encouraged us to appreciate the appropriateness of this emotion as a response to being forced to live in a strange place. They affirmed my father’s experience and offered us a new perspective to bring to our dealings with him.

During the class yesterday, I was struck by how applicable these teachings of how to connect with people in altered states are for our everyday life. What if we approached everyone as if they were in an altered state and needed special care to be with? Aren’t we all in Mexico in our heads? It may appear that we live in Cleveland, but we each live in the middle of our own universe. Many of us appear to be relatively normal, but our inner worlds are wild and mysterious. And we often long for the affirming attention that will allow us to lower our walls of defense—allow us to let someone else in, and perhaps even allow us to be curious about the universe that they live in.

Affirming someone else’s experience does not magically smooth out differences and make hard problems go away, but it does soften the painful divide of separation and judgment. With this softening of the boundaries, the possibility arises that we can be together to face into the challenges and opportunities that endlessly arise. And this, in itself, is a blessing beyond measure.