Lightening My Load

It's been a hard week for me.  Heavy, heavy lifting in so very many ways.

I still tire easily from surgery. 

And although the weather has warmed, the nights are chill which, generally, means waking up to a cold house. My wood stove is certain to burn down to embers by morning, especially as I am still limited in bending and lifting which makes stacking the overnight wood load a bit more challenging than usual. 

So it’s harder to assure a warm house in the morning. With that, I am inclined to spend a longer time, gazing out my bedroom window at the trees in the mornings, the sky and the clouds that are visible, as I lay cozy under my down comforter, giving the fire recently fanned a bit more time to heat the house.

This is often my best time of day, anyway; the time when I am seeking the pin hole in the universe that opens the gates to vaster wonders than here on the earth plane.  So I don’t much mind this slowed down morning pace. I use it well.

Along with my other challenges these days, what has been getting me down most is that I have had no word back yet from the Ethics Co-Chairs of the association, the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA), to whom I am making my ethics complaint.

Initially two men who are the co-chairs, apparently, sent an email that was forwarded to me from the organization official I contacted at the outset, to begin the process. I was troubled somewhat by that forwarded message. It seemed cold and calculating; not at all giving me a sense that I would be treated caringly ahead. 

Courtesy dreamstime.com

Did that mean I was opening a door, with my ethics complaint, that would bring me the kind of victim blaming, organization-minimizing women, especially, so often encountered in registering grievances of this nature? 

Of course, responses such as these on the part of businesses and organizations will result in sexual assault victims holding back truths that need to be shared, if healthy milieus are to be sustained. However, this time, in the current climate of sexual assault scandals and the #MeToo movement, I was certain I would not back down, again! What else I might do, I didn’t yet know. 

Nonetheless, the initial response to me by these officials, the ITAA Ethics Co-Chairs, put me on alert for a need to proceed with caution. I was stymied and scared by this, especially as the association representative , headquartered just outside San Francisco, who was my initial contact, was a very caring and compassionate woman. 

So after some serious contemplation on the matter, with much soul searching as to what to do next, and several professional consultations, I responded to the Ethics Co-Chairs, copied to my original contact, with a painstakingly careful email that I thought to be in a manner that would help us move forward, in spite of my initial discomfort.

It has now been over a week without my hearing further from these officials who, given my review of the ITAA Professional Practices and Ethics standards, I assumed would be working to support me through the process of my complaint.

How very odd and taken aback I am by this. 

However, I pledge to not become unduly reactive for my part of handling this process, unnerving as it is, already, at times, and, therefore, let my upset thoughts and feelings, on the matter, rest for a time. Thus allowing time for the ITAA Ethics Co-Chairs to exhibit their best intentions on my doorstep.

This is one way I am lightening my load. And, thankfully, circumstances around me are aiding this touch of emotional regeneration for which I am striving.

For example, in spite of both the emotional and physical exhaustion I am feeling at present, today I am especially uplifted by the courage, as well as vulnerability, I have been witnessing as I read about and, sometimes view, the victims of Larry Nassar present their impact statements in the court of his hearing.

Aly Raisman’s fierceness -- and – her clarity about, not only the abuses of Nassar, but those also of the organizations that enabled him, coupled with the pain, so visible in all these women and their family members in this case, is good medicine for me today.

When I wrote my piece a bit ago about Ms. Raisman’s book title, Fierce, suggesting that “Fierceness is not enough,” I was thinking that when the warrior is all that we display, without the balancing of the heart, we oftentimes can get ourselves off center. The Warrior generally has its energy base in the masculine. The vulnerable is more closely aligned with the feminine.  We need both; the feminine and the masculine aspects of each and everyone of us to make our way through our current challenges; be they social or political.

In this way we are best able to find that magical pin hole in the universe that opens the way to wonders, not so easily seen on this earth plane we inhabit. 

Today, therefore, I am also lightening my load by not being all about the fierceness of my inner warrior taking the lead in this complaint process, at least not today. But cutting myself some slack, by putting my serenity first, seeking the balance of both the male and the female in me, in what I hope will come out right for my next step.

Tomorrow I might shift to warrior mode. Then, again, I might not. To guide me, I think I am best off keeping my eye on that pin hole that opens my way to wonder, with a good dose of earth bound common sense for balance.

We'll see what happens. One thing, for sure, I need to avoid heavy lifting, at least for now.