tamarjacobson

Sometimes I sit in front of the computer, open up the blog posting page and stare at the screen. I know I want to write, and feel a stirring within – a kind of turmoil in my stomach. There are things I want to say about my life, politics, memories, or relationships.

For example, how it feels to be a mother of a grown son, who has moved away and on with his life. Happy for him on the one hand, and, on the other, constantly negotiating with my sense of worthiness now that he no longer needs me. After all, as a single parent, I felt entirely responsible for his physical and emotional well-being for decades. And now, it seems that suddenly I can let down my guard and relax. Instead of feeling joy about it, I often feel empty and lonely. Until I realize that this is how it should be, and that my self-worth is not about being needed, but more about feeling fulfilled and productive in who I am and what I do. 

I stop and think about what I have just written, and still the stirring continues.

I have more to say …

Self preservation for me has always been about being silent and invisible, until I am no longer able to contain the discomfort and anxiety from repressed feelings. What a dilemma, for then my self-expression feels so volatile and dangerous to me, I have to quickly back down and go under again. I feel like a monkey swinging through the trees – between the branches of self preservation and danger. It is wired into the emotional templates of my brain since my earliest childhood. The challenge for me is to find a way to break the circuit. That creates further stirring within, because the image of becoming free of this dynamic is exhilarating, exciting, and empowering.

Now I see the monkey swinging joyously into a wall, which gently opens up a crevice, widely, welcomingly, allowing the little creature to plunge through to the other side and out into warm sunlight. Just like it feels sometimes on my morning walk, when I lift up my face to the wintry sun shining through the clouds to warm up my smiling face.

There are no right or wrong, or good or bad feelings.

I know this.

I have studied in depth about how young children develop emotionally.

And yet …

… I am learning that I monitor and judge the validity of my feelings to the extent that I numb them out in fear they are wrong, or even dangerous for my survival.

When I am in therapy, time and again I am amazed and grateful that my feelings are validated, and that I am encouraged to express them.

It has such an effect on me.

For days after therapy I wander around almost dazed in wonder that the world seems clearer and brighter, and I feel visible to me. 

What is even more amazing to me, though, is that I do not have to do anything about my feelings.

For example, if I experience anger, I do not have to act on it.

Just feel it – understand it – hold still with it.

I might want to act on my anger in some way later – even days or weeks later – in order to make a stand for me.

At that time, it will be measured, chosen, and good for me versus reactive, impulsive, and self-destructive or self-punitive.

Indeed, thanks to the patience and perseverance of an adept therapist, I am slowly beginning to shed my early childhood fear that somehow my feelings have the power to destroy others.

Well well, I realized yesterday that it is seven years since I started blogging … who would have thought I would keep at it for so long?

Certainly not me.

Over the years I considered giving it up, and there were times when I know my family wished I would! But lately, I feel good having the blog to accompany my thoughts and feelings as I continue to explore the emotional memory of my brain. I am not quite as prolific as I was back in the old days of the Tamarika: In and Out of Confidence blog, which helped me emotionally navigate the move from Buffalo to Philadelphia. And I certainly do not have the number of readers I once had a few years ago. But, still, I know there is a purpose to my continuing to post on this blog – I feel it deeply somewhere inside my writer's psyche.

I have reached some kind of writer's block. It is psychological (isn't it always?). Indeed, I feel as if I have come up against a wall of fear about self expression. I recognize when it started and why it has happened. Of course, it did not happen overnight. It has been gradual, and has taken about two to three years to build up. Right about now I stand shrinking and small smack up against the wall. I look high up at it, as it seems to reach the skies.

Insurmountable. 

"Will I have to climb up and over it?" I think to myself, "Or could I just crash through?"

I identified the wall clearly this past weekend early on Sunday morning, and cannot wait for my therapist to return from vacation. I have much to discuss and uncover about my discovery. 

And so …

… Happy Bloggaversary to me!

I must say that I am looking forward to mining a few nuggets of wisdom as I crash through the wall to the other side.

Just when I think I have changed radically from year to year, I read a post that I wrote on this blog about a year ago. I am always amazed at how similar the issues are that I am writing about. It might leave me discouraged, but then I notice a tiny difference, a tweak of a change in attitude or feeling that I experience now since then. So, there is movement albeit at a snail's pace. It is a type of progress I suppose.

Maturity is a complex process indeed. A constant negotiation with my inner child of yester-year. The challenge is mostly because I can never predict when the early childhood Tamarika will jump up into my adult Tamar's brain. Half the fun is working out why emotional buttons get pushed when they do, or catching them before they strike! I wish it was like with a cold. After all, I can feel a cold coming on. There are all sorts of symptoms and warning signs: fatigue, burning eyes, scratchy throat, sniffling, or little aches and pains in the bones. When my emotional buttons get pushed it seems as if there are no warning signs. Suddenly there I am, feeling like a six to ten year old child just as I am sitting in an important meeting surrounded by all kinds of academic and intellectual people staring at me waiting for a response. If only I could grab a mirror at that moment to remind me that I look like a life-experienced, educated woman in her sixties, instead of feeling like a fumbling, terrified, fragile little girl. I wish there was some warning sign like burning eyes and a scratchy throat – even a sneeze or two would help. It is so sudden and immediate that there is no time to negotiate with the little person I have emotionally regressed to. I am on the spot, all eyes on me, and I stumble and stutter, forgetting how to speak the English language, and garble some incoherent sentence so softly that people strain to hear me.

Lately, I sense a movement or a slight shift in my inner response to these situations. In the past, when that would happen to me, I would become angry after these incidents occurred, silently scolding myself and feeling badly about what an idiot I must have sounded like. This type of denigration would go on for what seemed like hours.

These days I am more compassionate with me, and am able to shrug it off with an understanding sigh. Sometimes, I even become aware of what is happening to me as it occurs. And then I am able to breathe deeply and find my way back to the me of now, sending the little, inner Tamarika back to rest quietly, safely in the recesses of my mind.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: The good mother

Quote of the day:

“This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait.” Natalie Goldberg

Write for ten minutes … go …

Nothing left to say. I've said it all. Passion is depleted. Paradoxical to write about burn out when I feel burnt out. Writing is all about self expression, inspiration and passion. How does one write passionately about burn out? It is a little like taking a horse to water and then forcing her to drink. Pushing the head down into the bucket and holding it there. The horse does not fight it. Just lays there and opens her mouth slowly lapping the water softly at first, aimlessly, mainly to please the owner. Which reminds me that I awoke out of a dream where the "powers that be" had thrown away all my clothes and left instead a number of garments that looked exactly the same. Like a uniform. I thought to myself, in the dream, I am in prison. At first I thought it doesn't matter really because I am old. But what about the young people with me? It wasn't fair to force them to wear a uniform. I started to shout at the authority figures in the dream. "You can't do this!" … and then I awoke. I lay in the bed trying to experience the atmosphere of the dream through my senses, and slowly rose to drink coffee, play Internet Scrabble and water the plants. There was an aimless, resigned feel to my actions until I sat at the computer and found myself writing this post.

About burn out.

Of course … suddenly I discover what all this is about. Yesterday I pitched my idea for a new book. I had been excited about it for days – felt alive and alert and looking forward to the writing of it. But, oh well – someone had just recently done a book very similar to what I was proposing. These things happen, and of course I can still write it – perhaps for a different publisher. Because, write it I will – write it I must. It feels like a legacy sort of thing and something I want to do for teachers of young children out there. And as I write this piece now, I realize that at some level I struggle with the feeling that I am entitled to leave a legacy. I mean, who am I after all? Just some teacher educator somewhere. So, where do I get off thinking my legacy is worth anything. 

And now I see that I am not writing about burn out at all. Because even if my captors throw away all my beautiful, new clothes, and force me into a uniform of my old-ways-of-thinking-about-myself-mind, I can shout out to them, "You can't do this!" 

Because I deserve to leave a legacy of my life's work as an early childhood educator, and feel my worth in this way.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Last looks

I do not know how many times have I heard a teacher or parent say: "Oh, she/he is just doing it for attention." Indeed, it is way too many times to count on all my fingers and toes of both hands and feet. And, I am sure that if I have not actually used that expression myself, I have certainly thought it – about others, and about myself. And, it is not usually in a positive way.

From the very earliest years, we silence children, trivialize and humiliate them. We scold them for wanting our attention, and shush them at every chance we get. We think that good children are silent, who do not take up too much of our time, energy … or … attention.

Children need our attention to survive – to feel loved and worthwhile. They would die without our attention – some do. They want to know what we think about them. They desire our validation, acknowledgement and support. And when they do not receive it, they compensate in all kinds of ways: repressing their needs and wants, shouting and becoming aggressive or violent, going underground and harboring resentment alone, or seeking it from anyone who will give it to them. Children feel invisible when they are unnoticed. 

Don't we all want attention? Don't we all want to have our feelings, ideas, and self expression validated, acknowledged, supported, or related to in some way? I think about blogging, Twitter, or Facebook. We love the attention! Posting our thoughts, photographs, birthday dates just so that others out there in the Universe will see, hear, and respond to us – immediately, if not sooner. I often find myself thinking or even saying out loud to myself – "Am I just doing this [whatever it is] for attention?" I feel shame when I seek it, and I constantly hear people judging others for being attention-getter's.

We all were children once, and, as adults, probably carry within us different ways of dealing with repressing our need for attention. Half the battle to understanding this very basic need, would be to acknowledge it as important in the first place, and then give ourselves permission for desiring it. It might be helpful to try and remember what we did as children to gain attention, be noticed, and feel important to the significant people in our young lives. 

I think I tried to gain attention by serving others and putting my needs last. And then, if I was noticed for my "goodness," I felt worthwhile. I have dragged that style with me right up until now! The trouble with this method is that I have to serve and sacrifice for a long time before I am noticed for my "goodness." By then, I am exhausted, frustrated, angry and resentful, and after briefly feeling worthwhile, I lash out much to the amazement of everyone around. Then I feel ashamed and guilty for my outburst, and immediately return to serving and sacrificing. A full cycle of attention-getting behavior that might have helped me survive as a child, but is quite unproductive or, even, destructive for me now.

So, let's go into this New Year more aware of our own emotional development … and give support, validation, acknowledgement, and loads of loving attention to all those youngest children out there – starting from the day they are born. Let's relate intelligently to what they say and do, and help them feel worthwhile and accepted through meaningful and authentic relationships.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Focus

Update:

Recently I received an email as a comment on this piece from one of my blog readers. Of course, I was deeply moved by this reader's kind words to me, but more than that I very much appreciated the sharing of a personal story.

I was given permission to post it here:

… today I had to write to you. And It couldn't be a simple post or comment. Today you struck a nerve with your post about children wanting attention. You pulled something from deep in my soul and I felt I had to write to you to tell you this. 

I am a mother of six children. At this point half of them are nearly grown. But I also grew up in a large family and so many things I experienced as a child have stayed with me in much the same way I see that you have retained your childhood impressions. One thing in particular made an impression on me. The lack of attention from my parents. My parents, and many of their generation, did not pay attention to children. It was considered a weakness I think. I remember many nights being afraid of the dark or other nightly terrors that only can be conjured up by a 4-year old imagination. I would tiptoe to my parent's room. Their room was locked carefully each night to keep us out. I would curl up on the cold, hardwood floor outside their room and listen hopefully to their murmurs or the soft sound of their slumbered breathing. But I would be cold and scared still, curled in a tight ball outside their door on the floor. When I finally grew too cold I'd creep back to my bed to slowly allow exhaustion to come and then…. sleep. 

Today I have had all my children in bed from birth. Many frown on this I know. But the crowning glory is when I hear my now 21 year old daughter say that she wishes she could crawl in bed with me at night during a hard time in college. Or when I wake up and see my now 19 year old daughter standing at the side of my bed, ready to snuggle after a bad dream. Can this be real? This is the stuff of better dreams. This is what parenting can be if we attend to the needs of our children at a young age. They will still seek us out as adults, secure in the knowledge that love can be attainable and that the mutual attention we give to each other is a blessing and not a curse. 

You really get kids. You really get adults. Don't you? If you don't know this… let me tell you…. you do. 

I wish you had been my parent growing up. I know the lessons I have learned have been hard earned on the heels of my parent's upbringing. I should probably say I wouldn't trade it for the world. But the truth is I had a cold and scary upbringing. I wish you'd been my mother. I bet I'd be sharing tea with you now. You're a good person Tamar. I'm glad to know you through your blog. Blessings in this new year! Thanks for letting me write to you!

Looking ahead to the New Year starting this weekend, I realize after some self reflection, that I'd like to continue to work on at least three issues I have clearly identified about myself in therapy these past couple of years.

They are:

• caring less about what  people think of me – as a mother, wife, daughter, friend, sister, teacher educator, etc.
• continuing to strengthen the healthy way I have been trying to eat this past year
• feeling more entitled – more deserving 

These are things I dream about accomplishing. Caring less about what people think of me means changing a way of being that I learned from my earliest childhood. For, in order to survive, as a young child, it was crucial for me to please the significant adults in my life, so that they would love and be nice to me. Strengthening the healthy way I eat means no longer needing to fill the hole in my soul with child-like foods that bring me temporary comfort or numb any uncomfortable feelings I might be experiencing – like anger, for example.

And, all of the goals in my list are mostly dependent on the last one – feeling more entitled, more deserving. This is probably the most challenging issue of all, and the one my therapist helps me with the most. Each session, we chisel away at one small piece of this wall that blocks my progress toward self actualization. More than that, though. It is an obstacle that I stumble over time and again when I want to do anything, including things as simple as making a choice about which restaurant I want to eat at, or more complex issues that occur in my relationships with life partner, family members or friends. For example, I have discovered that I am superb at making a stand for anyone I care about. However, when it comes to making a stand for myself, I become afraid, back down, giving in quickly, and while feeling like a really bad person within, I regret deeply any step I tried to take in the first place.

Making resolutions is complicated. For, I have dragged all these ways of being like an old sack of bricks on my back for the past fifty to sixty years or so. Putting down the bag and just walking away is not so easy.

Instead, as I become more and more aware of the weight I am carrying – the load that I really do not need to schlep around any longer, now that I am a mature … ahem … senior adult – perhaps I could just try and work at tossing out one brick at a time as I journey through 2012.

2011 – make a list – write – go …

The year of the nieces, when three of them visited me for the very first time. One is a Great-niece, which reminds me …

I turned 62 in 2011. This means that I am now officially considered a Senior on Amtrak, which is most useful for travel to New York City for my delicious haircuts with Olivier, or to have lunch with my son.

I was voted in as Chair of our Department for another three-year term, and all year long I have spent brooding on, and brewing up a new book – brewing, brooding …

We created a garden of my dreams – or should I say Laurel Hill Gardens landscaped it, while I worked in it, sometimes weeping with joy at having my own beautiful garden after years and years of longing for one.

This past year I traveled back and forth from Israel to visit with family especially because my mother became very ill. But then, she became well again and even managed to knit me a beautiful woolen blanket, which warmed our visitors' laps this Christmas and Hanukkah Season as we curled up together on the couch to watch Christmas movies like The Family Stone.

2011 was the year of the iPad for me, in a number of different ways. Acquiring one – traveling with it all over the country and even across the Pond – using it for writing and presenting, emailing and playing my Scrabble games. Finally, acquiring a number of them for our faculty, which earned me, Goodnight IPad, a haiku and a limerick of appreciation – moments that become memories for a lifetime.

Therapy this year has been mind, brain and heart blasting. It almost feels as if I am confronting my ancient wounds and feelings for the first time. My therapist probes in the gentlest but most direct way – like an artist of the mind – bringing me face to face with a different reality of my Self. Indeed, it seems as if I am allowing myself to experience feelings authentically for the very first time.

This year was the first time I ever made Kutia and Uzvar. Yes indeed, on Christmas Eve, we celebrated Sviata Vechera for the first time.

And, without divulging too much information, suffice it to say it was one of the greatest gifts I have received in a very long time.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Still here …

Quote of the day:

Now let the music keep our spirits high 
And let the buildings keep our children dry 
Let creation reveal it's secrets by and by 
By and by– 
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

Jackson Browne's, Before the Deluge 

Remembering Kris Kringle …

Because it is that time of the year, and also because I am still, each Christmas season, drinking from the same Kris Kringle mug …

And, therefore, remembering old friends.

Ada looks at me while I write. I stroke her little, furry head and she purrs softly. Dawn has not yet broken.

If I can change, then anyone can. And change I did. Recently, as I was looking at old photographs of when I was young, I recognized the pictures, but the Self that I was then seems a hundred years away. For, about twenty five years ago I was trapped in a prison in my mind. Limited by believing a distorted reality of myself that I had learned from those closest to me. Naturally, I till struggle with those beliefs because they are so deeply ingrained into my early childhood, emotional memory – and I needed them then – to survive. But it is becoming easier and easier to peel the old fears away. Indeed, I am beginning to recognize my Self in the mirror lately – with acceptance, and, I might add, sometimes even a little fondness. 

In fact, lately, finally, I am beginning to recognize the courage I had to undertake the changes I made in the physical as well as my psychological life these past twenty five years. Taking on different cultures, academia, shakily learning to believe in my intellectual abilities, and finding my voice through writing and presenting was not easy. At times I was overwhelmed with fear and pain as I drifted in and out of confidence.

Even more challenging is breaking down the barriers of the prison in my mind. Confronting the way I feel and think about myself is excruciating at times, until I allow the light of awareness to shift those ancient shadows in my soul … to recognize the reality of who I am, and how I came to be the me of now.

About twenty five years ago, I participated in a women's support group. I had been offered the opportunity to come to America to study at the University at Buffalo, and I was thinking about the challenge of picking up my son and traveling across the oceans to a new continent. One day the facilitator gave us oil pastels and large sheets of paper. She invited us to draw anything we liked. I doodled away for awhile not knowing what I was going to draw, and not feeling particularly confident about my artistic abilities. Before I knew it I was lost in the swirling of the crayons and richness of the colors as I drew and drew and drew. At the end, we all displayed our work. When it came to my picture there was a silence from everyone. I stared at it. I had drawn a huge colorful bird flying out of a golden cage with its gate wide open. Our therapist said quietly, "So … you have decided to leave …" 

Of course, flying out of prison is not as easy as it sounds. As I stumble out of the darkness of my old paradigms and habits, sometimes I have to blink and blink, and even screw up my eyes, or take a very deep breath. Because the light is so bright and brilliant it can be blinding, and the feeling of freedom is so exhilarating, it can take my breath away.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Universal Child