Getting away

I am always amused by the fact that when i am away on a holiday, i am awake bright and early, but in the daily grind, when i am required to do so, i toss and turn, and require an external ring to jolt me awake! I finished my stretches looking out at the sea, waiting for the sun to rise. All i can hear around me, when i am sitting at the balcony looking out at the sea in the distance is the chirping of the birds, the wind through the cashew trees. The bumble bee seemed to be very choosy, taking its time to settle on a flower, and i could also hear the buzzing of its wings, the absence of which was noticeable when it finally did so I never knew sounds could be so palpable; or was it so because i am so aware, so tuned in to all my senses, that i am able to experience everything going on around me ? In the daily humdrum of existence we are living parallel lives i guess. While we are up and running, we do not have time to listen to the subtle nuances of our lives, and we seem to need to tune in consciously before we can experience the calm stillness that i am doing so now. Yet i am not fully unwound. The stillness around me denoted a sense of calmness, while the noise of my thoughts was almost deafening. A result of habit i guess. They flit from one thought to the other, like the bumblebee. But the bee flitting seems to have a sense of purpose; it seemed to be its nature to do so. My thoughts seemed purposeless, and did not seem to offer any nectar when they did rest on one particular subject ! Living with the present moment awareness i guess is just that... Let your thoughts rest. The sound of swishing water made me look around... A little boy was clearing the dead leaves from the swimming pool, which had a quaint tree right in the centre of the pool! The birds sitting on the tree flew away, annoyed perhaps at someone having intruding into their morning litany. Much as i would have loved to sit around and gaze out of the balcony, the clearing of the pool denoted the fact that nature would have to step aside for the order of civilization, where we humans intrude on the privacy of the squirrels chasing each other on the branches and on the parapets and drown the sounds of birds, with the roars or vehicles, and the ringing of the telephone ordering for room service! Maybe that is also why the sun, which looked so beautiful and serene just a while ago, is now beating down my face even glaring at me.... The heat is on ! Mohana Narayanan May 5, 2012

Words,words,words...

How difficult it is to get your point of view across to someone who insists on personalizing everything you tell them as darts thrown at them? My client's daughter was due for her driving license renewal, and she was too close to the expiry date for her to go for the test. What started off as a discussion on the subject turned out to be quite an ugly debate on who is to take the blame for this delay. My client insisted on substituting the word blame with the word responsibility. When her daughter tearfully said that she felt nervous when her father sat near her when she was driving, he started a long-winded explanation of how he has always encouraged her and how could she accuse him of discouraging her. Her trying to tell him that feeling nervous and feeling nervous were two separate feelings, did not seem to get across. He kept insisting that he had no part to play in the situation that existed, while her exercise was to try and identify each one's contribution to the current state of affairs. There were two points she said she wanted to clarify. The first was that it was not an exercise at blame game. She stated she took the responsibility of not following up for getting enough practice classes for her. She also took the responsibility of not making sure she realized the importance of doing this at the right time so that she does not work on a crisis management system. She was also specific that her daughter owns up to her share of not doing what she had to : her taking onus of making sure she was ready for the test. Being a very responsible person, capable of being trusted to do her own thing, it was definitely a lapse on her part, especially since it was happening the second time. This was the learning for her, and the reason for this insistence was that she wanted to be sure the child understood that. It takes a lot to do that : own up to your shortcomings. My client was ready to label herself a nag, as she tends to continue reminding people to do something they are supposed to; She also apologized for not having followed up, as she could have, even at the cost of reinforcing that label, avoided this situation ; and ended the discussion by again apologizing for any hurts that may have been caused during the confrontation. But the father refused to be compliant. He insisted on believing that when she said she was nervous, he was discouraging her. He also insisted on believing that there was absolutely nothing he could have done to salvage the situation, and went off on a tangent of how he cannot do anything, without feeling he is being targeted. My client just gave up. And realized that when we are faced with any set of situation, rather than learning from what happened, all we do is resort to fault finding and digging into our deep boxes of revenge and start hurling the darts at each other. What kind of conflict resolution is that ? And then we blame the universe for sending us lessons again and again, when we do not learn the first time over! I guess that was my learning ! Mohana Narayanan May 17,2012

Coping by avoidance

Today a friend of mine told me that she would avoid all those discussions with me which would cause me to hurt from inside, meaning,reporting those incidents or episodes where she feels I have had an unfair deal and she would not have had the power to stop it happening. It set me thinking: is that the method I would employ to deal with my hurts ... Not talking about it? Was it not her way of coping with her hurt which stemmed from her feeling of being helpless in mending the situation? I would not like to be protected from hurts by well-meaning friends building a wall of protection, consciously not allowing me to be privy to any information which would cause hurt. I would rather have the brickbats and develop my resilience against them. Agreed, the process may be extremely painful, it may appear to some as being masochistic! But that is what life is all about I feel, growing from pain, either dulling yourself to it, or desensitizing yourself to it, or evolving a stronger person from it. How else do you explain evolution? I also feel certain amount of artificiality would creep into the relationship if we start this process of information filtration, simply because we doubt the person's ability or emotional quotient to deal with the information. I do not subscribe to the fact that what you do not know, does not hurt you. Facts have a strange way of getting to you, and I have found this happening once too many times in my life ! I'd rather have them from my friends, than them reaching me from the bulletin board! But again, these friends feel discomfort for being the bearer of unpleasant tidings, and so would like to avoid the topic altogether. I understand where they are coming from, and somewhere they may even hold themselves responsible for the pain they are causing me. Well, it would look like how in the olden times, some kings would behead the messenger who would bring bad news to court! That surely is not the case right? The bearer of badness not responsible for them... MOHANA NARAYANAN

Who is to take Blame?

WHO IS TO TAKE THE BLAME.?

My telephone chat was rudely interrupted by a flash on the TV screen which said a boy had brutally killed his teacher. Cutting the call, I surfed various channels, trying to get more information. Everywhere, the information focused on how the dastardly act had been committed, a life cut short, the experts being contacted, who would give the same reasons over and over again... Every time a murder happens, we go through this drama : a child is aggressive, or the child decides to indulge in self-harm. So we start a frantic discussion, there are knee-jerk reactions and government sends out further policies how how education needs to be handled by the teachers.My question is, why don't we take proactive steps to make the society a better place to live in? Yes, the stress levels are high, parents, teachers, schools, all play a part in shaping a child's future and emotional health. Why are we not able to understand the priorities, and instead focus on what is important for us, from our perspective?

For high achieving parents, their child is a show piece, a trophy. He has to listen to what the parents have decided for him. Now this is conveyed either through authoritative parenting style with rewards and punishments thrown in, or through permissive styles, indulging the child all the time. The product of the former style of parenting grows up resentful, a victim of power, and at the slightest opportunity, he rebels against authority. Displaced aggression, we call it. These parents fail to see warning signals in the deterioration of the child's emotional health. He would either withdraw into himself, become a loner and not have any hobbies or interests to de stress himself. Alternatively, he may become very violent in another environment, a typical bully. Perhaps parents fail to notice all this because they are caught up in the many other roles they play, and the issues involved therein.


This pressure cooker environment in the child gives way at some slight trigger and the next moment we see a wasted life! Now does that mean the child should never be chastised? Certainly not. But we need to teach a child how to handle criticism, and failure; and to do this we need to start in the first school of life called home. It is a preparatory ground for the larger world outside. When we sit down, play board games and other unstructured games with the child (read spend meaningful times), we need to teach them how winning is not the important thing, but playing together, having fun is. We need to teach them healthy conflict resolution so that when they go up to be self-thinking individuals, they learn to handle intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships well.

They need to be taught that they need to take responsibility for their lives; let us do away with parenting which begs children to get up early go to school on time, get their own stuff to school and do their own studying, without the parents or the maids waiting on them hands and foot. When i see parents telling me they do all this for their adolescent children too, i wonder for whom the child is attending school! These children grow up with the "the world owes me syndrome" and cannot take anybody telling them off. As Midrash said, "If you dont teach the ox to plow when he is young, it is difficult to teach him when he is old ".

At the other end of the spectrum of parenting are those parents who think nothing of whacking their children or using abusive language at them, to get them to do what they want, resulting in children with a broken spirit. When these children decide to act, we have the juvenile homes filling up.

We can resort to blame games; schools can blame the parents, parents threaten to sue schools for not taking care of the children. Where is the primary responsibility? How can schools shape character when the parents refuse to cooperate, and thus you have two teams playing throw ball here with the child. Neither of the team want the ball in their court! Wouldn't it be easier and healthier if the parents understand that they need to be on the same side of the fence to bring up their child?

Every time a school sends for the parent to discuss a child, or refer to the school counselor, it is a tug of war. Getting them to come for the meeting is a herculean job; getting them to meet the counselor is even worse. And if and when the meeting does take place, very few parents accept responsibility for their share of the problem. Most counselors i am sure will agree with me when i say dealing with the parents is a greater challenge, than dealing with the children! Of course, in today's difficult and fast changing society set-up, healthy parenting is one of the greatest challenges, and i empathize with the parents.... However how does just empathy help? How do you help people who are not willing to be helped?

Explore the parenting, and you have most unhealthy styles surfacing. One parent would be permissive, the other authoritative. One parent would use the child to get back at the partner the child learns manipulation techniques. The partners do not have a healthy marriage and the child is caught in the cross fire. The list could go on.
Eric Berne said " Mothers give sons permission to be a prince, but the father must show him how. Fathers give permission to their daughters to be princesses but the mothers must show her how. Otherwise, both boys and girls will grow up and always see themselves as frogs". I am sure nobody could put across the importance of shared parenting better !


The saddest part is when it comes to academics. An under-performing child is a cause of concern for a school. When singled out, and after possible exploration, it could surface that the child needs special help. Intervention at the right time and in the right manner would help the child get back on line,and he would not manifest other issues of self esteem and self confidence which would have taken a beating because of consistent non-performance. But it is practically impossible to make the parents understand this, and these individuals in denial resort to the convenient law framed by the government which does not allow detention of any child till class VIII. So these children get promoted to the succeeding classes till they are faced with the terrible stress of board exams. Help when reached out for comes too late, and desperate situations call for desperate measures.

When we talk of taking onus for a situation, who is to do that in this case? Let us be practical. With the teeming numbers in classes, it is not humanly possible for teachers to give individual attention to each child. Even in cases where the teacher seeks the parents' help in understanding the kind of help the child needs, the latter by and large refuse to take the necessary steps and go to the extent of telling them school or the teacher they are not doing their jobs.

Schools on their part need to set up resource rooms where these children can be sent for remediation. If finance is an issue, then let them get together with the parent and reach a consensus about helping the child.
Let us educate the teachers and parents about the schools not being factories where the finished goods are either damaged, rejected or passed by quality controls set by the society.

Let us treat children for what they are: as Khalil Gibran says....
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.

Mohana narayanan
February 12,2012

Validation....

We have read of master psychologists who have come up with various theories of different levels of consciousness. I have found this fact very intriguing, that what we actually is in reality, just a tip of the ice berg. A large chunk of us is the unconscious and the subconscious. The tip jutting out of the sea of existence is apparently the rational, judgmental part of ourselves, the self which maintains order in society, which convinces us to do the proper, right thing. Conflicts arise within us because we are governed by this aspect of ourselves and in this process, we tend to neglect the submerged parts. No wonder then, that there is so much conflict, both within ourselves and around us!

When we are faced with a conflict, two things happen: our feelings rush in demanding acknowledgement: raw, unprocessed feelings, which cannot be right or wrong; they are just that - feelings. Then, because we are programmed to be acting, thinking and feeling the right thoughts all the time, the conscious, rational mind tries to take charge of the situation. But then, what happens to these emotions which have been given birth to? They need to be attended to, and certified to existence. We call this process validation. Because feelings are not right or wrong, they just ARE. When we allow ourselves to experience these feelings, they are processed and during this time of processing, they are accorded the validation that is so important for the energy arising out of these emotions.
However, failing to understand the fact that this process bridges the gap between our conscious, right-minded thinking and our subconscious emotive reactions, the latter is side-stepped in our hurry to resolve issues, take stock of a critical situation, and move on in life.

Try it. The next time we are experiencing raw, volatile emotions, let us not become judgmental. Let us not try to rationalize either our feelings or the actions of anyone else. Just let us be with the feeling, allow ourselves the experience, however unpleasant or illogical or irrational it is. Then, once a certain time period has passed, there would be a closure, and we could move on to listening to our conscious, rational mind.

The next time also that we are called in to resolve any issue between two people, less us not become judgmental or interact with your rational, conscious mind. Let us try to be at the same wavelength as the other undergoing the pain, without jumping to a defense mode. This validation period would allow both of us to come to a balance when the boat would stead itself, and then the communication would be easier; simply because both of us would have been at the subconscious level, acknowledging the feelings, and then the conscious mind would be allowed to communicate effectively.

THE HOUNDED COUNSELOR !

THE HOUNDED COUNSELOR !

Being in the helping profession brings with it so many travails that i have started feeling that unless you have the heart of a soldier, one will be sapped of all energy and you would become a client for counselling!
Being a practicing counsellor, i have come across people with very many kinds of problems, those that i have sometimes wondered whether they would qualify to be labelled at all as problems, and also those kinds where the issue would be so serious so as to call for medical intervention. But that is easier said than done. Clients refuse to accept the fact that their problems are pathological, and no amount of basic assessments showing them the scores which are statistically proved to be cause for concern are good enough to seek chemical intervention. Believe me, this denial is more difficult to treat than the actual problem!

I was approached by an elderly gentleman who was quite pushy when it came to meeting me as soon as possible, and i should have had my alarm bells ringing even then! But handling the call more as a counsellor than a person who felt coerced, i agreed to see him after adjusting my appointment diary. The session was an intake session, and it was followed by a couple of more sessions. For personal reasons, i was unable to follow up with more sessions immediately as he demanded, and i explained to him about the required intervels, and i agreed to take more sessions the following week.

This is where all the problems started. The client insisted i take continous sessions, and refused to listen to any logical explanations either about my unavailability or the necessity. Nothing i said seemed to get past him, and the messages on my phone started getting nasty. I bore it as long as i could; and then i just stopped responding when he demanded that i refund the fee for the sessions taken! Though i knew i was dealing with a client who had pathology and hence was giving him a long rope, i realised i had to stop being a counselor and become a person who was being a victim of cyber crime! I stopped responding to the messages, but there was only a lull before it started again, now in the form of emails.
I am still handling the issue, in the best way i can, without resorting to it becoming ugly. I know i only need to talk to a few people in his field of social circle, armed as i am with his diagnosis, for people to look down on him. But professional ethics do not allow me to do that. However, i am not very sure my basic survival instincts will not overtake my dedication to my profession very soon !