February 19th, 2018: Reflections after Dancing

No pictures for you on today's post.  Google has changed how I access images from the web - and I don't have the patience how to figure it out.  Maybe later.

Today is Monday - the day after a dance weekend.  I started reading my old blogs - backwards from the last entry.  I can see now that last September I began having questions about staying with this job.  September 6th, I think.  And then, several posts mentioned that I was seeing and experiencing things with which I was uncomfortable, surprise at some of the faculty, pressure coming from the dean's office, etc.  Rather than stop it then, I continued to push forward.  Things ebbed and flowed - but mostly the job seemed to become bigger - I questioned: do I really want to do this?  I identified several things I needed to do differently - and began to move on those issues.  Then, the program assistant left - and I was thrown into the everyday details again.  And now, I have been relieved of those duties as of July 1st.  I no longer have to question whether or not I want to continue to do this job.  That decision has been made.
I have been writing for about 2 hours now, and I have just hit the delete button again.  I will continue to hash and re-hash the details with friends in real conversations - but not here.  I need to process the reality of the situation and process through the ugliness - but not here.  The conversations that I have with friends aren't the stories that I want to "stick."  They are stories through which I want to move, not stories in which I want to dwell.   Acknowledging the reality of the ugliness, yet not becoming a permanent citizen therein will be my challenge.  So - the delete button is my "noble assistant" in writing and purging, writing and purging.

Not much else to say except that I am feeling a "dullness" which I would say is from overworking - being tired and burned out from working too hard.  There is something about trying so very hard to make things right - and being unable to do so. 

And I am somewhat freed when I understand that making things right according to someone else's vision is so very much harder when that vision is opposed to one's own.  And with that freedom, comes a knowledge that making things right with one's own vision carries strength, courage, and a sense of responsibility: I am bound to writing my own stories. 

"Anxiety?"  "Yes," she answered. 

"Angst?"  "That, too," she replied. 

"Yet freedom?"  "Oh, yes," she quietly stated.  "Freedom."   

February 11th, 2018: Eleven Days Post Being Blind-Sided

In order to get comfortable telling the story, I have to tell the story.  And it will be important for me to stick to the truth, to keep out any hint of defensiveness or ugliness on my own part.  Simply, tell the truth.

Let's try this on for size: On January 31st, my dean told me that I would be stepping down as Program Director.  I will be relieved of my duties as of

July 1st.  I was told that I could continue on as full time faculty, and I will most likely do so - although there are still some things to be worked out.  This was a good opportunity for me, and I am grateful to have had it.  My efforts now will be focused on making sure that all is in order for the new director, who has been hired and will begin this July.

This feels true.  It feels honest.  It does not feel defensive to me - but I ain't the best judge of that.  I sent it to an OT friend, stating, "Given my 'transparency deficit' I feel like I need stand-by assist and also clearance before publication.  Thoughts and feedback?"

I have finally acknowledged that this is ugly.  And I have to ask, "WTF is wrong with me that I couldn't admit that from

the get-go?  Why do I try to make nice with an ugly situation? WTF?

Part of it is that I can take a pretty hard objective, realistic look, and say this: the new person looks a lot more qualified on paper - and she looks like she would be a better fit for the Dean.  That is honest.  However - here's where it is shitty.  There is no documentation that I've done a poor job. There was not nor is there management by objectives - so there is no objective way for my work to be judged.  There was not - nor is there - any plan of correction.  There was not, nor is there support for me in developing the skills that I need. 

Nada.  Zilch.  Cipher.  As my mother would say, "Period.  end of report."  I was not given a fair chance, and was blind-sided.  Done.  Own THAT, Deborah - but don't sit in it for too long.   

And the ugliness is in the process.  I thought we were interviewing for an empty position.  It turns out, we were interviewing for a program director - or at least it seems that the dean may have been.  Giving the timing, and given the person's surprise that pediatric (rather than research) courses needed teaching, it does seem as if there were two parallel - but not entirely separate - agendas during the recruitment and search & screen process.  

Here's the other thing: this feels like right action to me. As I stated in the post preceding this one, "I thought I was led

here to teach at Mercy.  I'm finding out that I was mistaken."  While I am feeling led to stay here in NY now, my next steps are unclear. 

OK.  We all know what the standing operating procedures are when that happens: 

                                                    

      It is time to increase my practice.  I am moving forward, and some directions will be helpful.  

February 2nd: Plucked by Spirit and Led Back to My Own Story

On January 31st, I was told by my Dean that I would no longer be the Program Director as of August 1st, and that I would be paid through August 31st.  At that time, I am welcome to continue on as faculty, teaching the pediatric coursework.

There.  That is the truth of the matter.  That was the first thing she said to me when I went to meet with her last

Wednesday.  When I asked her if she wanted to chat about

the questions I had brought with me, her answer was "If you want to."  Very non-committal.  She evaded answers, replying that the answers to some of the questions I was asking would depend on what I was going to do. Her answers to other questions I asked leads me to believe that there is little support for me there - and, as I reflect, there probably has never been.

Let's be honest.  Let's be candid.  When I review my most recent posts, I began questioning whether or not I could do this job last summer.  In October, there was a shift.  I have have openly stated, "since October, I have felt like someone was 'gunning' for me."

Because I am who I am, i.e., someone who is very reflective and perhaps who indulges herself with taking more responsibility than what is actually her own, my first 

strategy was to work harder.  As I slowly came to realize that there was not going to be a "win" for me in this situation, I started wondering if it was wise for me to continue in this position - asking myself, "Do you really want to keep doing this job?"  I wasn't so sure.  My plan was to give it six months, and I told the Dean as much last December. The Dean "called time" 5 months early this past Wednesday.  

Since the incident, I have been sitting with the multitude of feelings that come with something like this - you know the

biggies: feelings of being a failure; wondering what people would think; anger that I could not move forward with changes I was beginning; and more.  What is interesting, though, is that I don't seem to be sitting with "those" feelings very long.  As I look back over my 2 years here, I realize how very little support I have been given.  In some ways, I was set up and used - perhaps unwittingly - but set up, none-the-less. Saying that there was no way I was going to "win" is a "kind way" to say that I was "set up to fail."  This realization has been coming for several months - and it seems doubly evident (can something be "doubly" evident?) as I read over my last few entries.  

I am also realizing that I'm not feeling afraid....well, a little nervous...anxious...but it's not all fear.  I now have

permission to ask this question: Deborah, what do you want to do for the next three years?  What are your goals?  What do you want to be doing? And while I am asking that question, I am going to get paid. :-)  Not so shabby.

Let's be honest - again.  This job has been good to me and for me.  It got me here to NY.  It allowed me to pay off the nastiest educational loans my daughter had to take out, and has

helped me support my son in purchasing a vehicle.  It brought me to a place that fits with my active "hiker/camper" lifestyle,  yet is still "chock-full" of art, music, and intellectual discussions.  I have been happy here, and, even in the midst of this, remain happy.  Currently, this job is giving my daughter free tuition for this semester and the summer - and, if I choose to continue as a faculty for pediatric courses, my daughter will continue to have free tuition.  There is so much for which to be grateful.  I am such a Lucky duck!!!

The Dean actually used words that I have used very often:  "The match is not good."  I believe that this is true.  I am a

good match for Mercy, and I am a good match for the students - but the match between my dean and myself is poor, and the match between the program and how I work is also poor.  It is an "ill-fit" at best.  And it does neither of us any good to move forward without that

acknowledgement.  Now, as I reflect, I wonder if she needs someone she can mentor in her likeness.  That is not me - nor will it ever be.  She needs someone younger than me - or perhaps someone with fewer of his/her own ideas - or perhaps someone more moldable. Again - not me.  Ill-matched, she and me.  

And, if I am honest, I am not truly being of service to anyone or anything except the students.  The rest of what I do fills the needs of a somewhat ill-functioning program that requires way too much from its faculty for it to be sustainable.  I came to Mercy, and then became and am doing what the "system" required of me.  I am not feeling like I am being of service in the fullest sense of the word.  This job, right here and now, is not my calling.  That feels clear.  My dean's story is not my story, and it's almost as if I have been "plucked by Spirit" from a situation where I could easily become a player in a story that is not my own.

And speaking of callings, it is a hard choice for me on Sundays - going to worship or going hiking.  I have need of the movement, and I have need of the stillness.  And although I have not been regularly sitting, I am still very clear that Spirit led me here.  Now I find myself saying to Spirit, "Ok.  You got me here. Now - what was it you are leading me to do?  It is obviously not Mercy....the joke's on me!  You got me!  I'm listening!"  

Already, I am feeling the lightness of being able to open myself up to what might be around the bend, and to

explore how I might be of service with my skills and these few years I have left on this planet.  My friend last night said, "Deborah - you need to change all your passwords to "What do I want?  What are my goals for 2018?" so that every time I type in a password, I focus on what is needed.  I don't know about the "password thing," but I do know that she is right.  This is now my focus: not my job; rather, my next destination.

What a concept, yes?  To think that I had reached a destiny, and then find out that I was mistaken - that there is potential for things to get even better - that I can live here and do work that shares an equal exchange of energy, rather than doing work that is sucking me dry.  What a concept!!!  

QUACK!!  QUACK!!

January 3, 2018: Moments of Realization and Discernment

I have been burning the candle at both ends in the last few months, and I am unsure how to stop.  

Grading nearly put me under at the end of the fall trimester - way too many papers and not enough time to get them completed given that I was filling in for my administrative assistant and given that only having 5 days to grade 70 hours worth of papers is not a good match.  Oh - we were granted a reprieve - but I still ended up only having 5 days to get it done, given that the 5 days I was supposed to have for grading was spent with administrative tasks and fires.  

I have a vastly different approach and style to management than those above me.  I'm not so sure that their style and my style are a healthy match, given that stress trickles down rather than up.  

I cannot continue to work this hard.  This much I know.  On some level, I feel that I took on an impossible task without knowing that it was going to be impossible when I took it on.  I knew that it would be a challenge - but I didn't know it would be this much of a challenge. 

I may have bitten off more than I can chew.  However, I need to be kind to myself and allow this:  when I took my first bite, I had no idea how complicated simple tasks would be. Everything takes much more work than what seems necessary.  Very little is easily accomplished.

There is a piece of me that is burned out.  I know this because I no longer feel the warmth of several passions I had when I started: my research has gone by the wayside; I doubt my clinical skills at this point; the desire to help students become confident evidence builders seems like a distant dream. I am disillusioned with what I thought I might be able to do as a program director, and I seem bound by past systems that have been set in place and move forward because changing them is not even considered.  

I am also bound by my own inability to manage the things that need to be done - yet, if I am kind to and honest with myself, I would say that there are way too many things to be managed.  I am only human. And that may be some of the root of the problem.  I have come to embrace my human-ness - and no longer expect the super-human things of myself that I once did.  

So - I will need some help to find my path through this.   I have to believe that Spirit will lead.  Making a stronger more consistent effort at disciplined listening with help.  I do believe that my ancestors are with me, and I will need to depend on them as I step forward.

Wish me luck.  I do believe that all will be well in the end.  

In the meantime time, I could use just a little bit of sleep. 

Melatonin, here I come.

November 16, 2017: Swimming as Fast as I Can...

I have had meetings with several friends and colleagues as I try to figure out how to do this new job.  As I have stated

before, I am now at the part where I understand more of what is expected of me and I better understand what I am missing.  I also understand much better what a difficult situation I am in.  As some of my more "black humor" friends might say, this is the "chaos before the storm."  I am in that middle part of "group development" where all hell breaks loose - the "storming" - before there is a smooth running "mean machine" - i.e., the "performing" part. 

In my phone interview, the associate dean said, "I don't want you to think that you are going to be the substitute teacher, and that we will be standing in the back of the room watching you teach.  We've got plenty of things to be doing in the Dean's Office." 

I don't think this is true anymore - not because the associate dean doesn't want it that way - but because the associate dean is not the dean.  And as I speak with other program directors, all of them validate the difficult position I am in.  After all, I am now the director of the program that the dean led for over 20 years.  She is standing in the back of my classroom - not with malintent - but with anxiety that I - and the program - will fail.  She wants me to do well - and the only frame of reference she has is how she did it for 20 years.  


So I think back to the associate dean's remark.  I hear myself say to myself, "There you go, Deborah, taking people at their word - again."  And even as I suffer through this next AFGO, I still marvel that this
position is probably the right thing for me at this time.  As much as I hate how much work it is right now, and as painful as things are, it is remarkable how this job has ferreted out and exposed those things which I need to improve and more finely hone.

Well, friends, the above paragraph is a Pollyanna version of "OH FUCK!  I AM IN OVER MY HEAD!"  It's going to take some digging to get out of this one. 

However, I do believe that if I set some goals (a weaker skill) and develop some work-back plans (another weaker skill) that I will be able to better delegate to others (another weaker skill) so that our team can get done what needs to be done.

 

My strength?  I do have vision.  And I have an uncanny sense when we are veering off course, along with the words to set

us straight.  I'm good with the vision and with the spirit.  I believe that I have the skills to be a better leader than I do a manager, if that makes any sense.  So, the trick will be to delegate the managing parts so that I can keep an eye on things, but can spend more time doing the things I am good at, i.e., the leading part.

And while I do believe the words that I wrote in the last paragraph, I still believe that in this very moment?  This place and time? -  I am in a helluva pickle.

  

November 4: Back to Basics

One of my favorite "go to" books is "Anatomy of the Spirit: The 7 Stages of Power and Healing" by Caroline Myss.  She has synthesized three different spiritual traditions

(Catholicism,  Judaism, and the Chakra system) and synthesized their concepts to identify connections between spiritual energy and our health.  Over the years it has helped me grow - helping me pinpoint some areas I needed to address in order to move forward.  I discovered how my lymphoma diagnosis was connected to first chakra issues - and how some of my present health issues seem to be connected to the same.  And there are others...

Today I began reading to learn more about a diagnosis faced by a dear friend.  And - as things usually go when I "let go" - I have been led back to how we are all connected, and how praying for her needs to take place conjointly with my own efforts at being the best I can be.  By healing my "piece" of the "larger body," I can support the whole - and, in turn, support her.

Myss used the chakra system to organize her thoughts, and I had a bookmark in the 4th chakra, around the heart, which mediates between the physical and the spiritual world.  Yes - interesting - since that is where some of my lessons seem to currently be.  I looked again and found that my osteoporosis is connected to 1st chakra - as is the lymphoma.  

And then I found this gem: Even though we come into this world with powerful connections to a "tribe," we still have a "relentless congenital desire" to explore our own potential.  "This desire is the impetus behind our striving to become conscious.  The universal human journey is one of becoming conscious of our power and how to use that power.  Becoming conscious of the responsibility inherent in the power of choice represents the core of this journey."

So - becoming conscious, becoming aware.  Then, understanding that there is power in that awareness, and in the choices that we make as part of that awareness. 

For me, becoming aware of how that consciousness and spirituality manifests in moi - and how I use it's power truly is my human journey.  Understanding how each and every choice I make (without judgement!) has its own results (not good or bad, but merely movement one way or another). Being conscious of and understanding my own power within and in relation to Spirit, and the responsibility inherent in my power of choice every single moment truly does represent the core of my own journey.  

Perhaps, then, the "devil" truly is in the details.  There are so many choices I make in every waking moment.  Some of them are very conscious ones - and others are made even before I've had time to think or be aware.  Perhaps it's the latter that deserves more of my concern.  And, goddammit, that comes back - once again - to a daily (or more frequent) spiritual practice.  

 Sigh (choice).  Eat (another choice). Hike (another choice).  

May I be fully present in the midst of all of the choices - now and more. 
 

November 2, 2017: What Did I Do Today?

I need to get going this morning.  I believe that it is an exercise morning - yet I have taken a little bit of time to "gather" myself.  I don't think that I will have the time to exercise.

Last week - or was it two weeks ago - I told my dean that I would try to reflect on what has happened daily, keep a list of what was accomplished, and then let her know.   I would try to keep a list of what was being planned, and ask her advice on that.

I have not done that.  I was getting ready for conference - and then I was catching up from conference - and though I've stayed late a couple of nights, I'm not sure what exactly happened each day.  

Yesterday was a blur - many people coming in and out, fires that needed addressing - issues that seemed to rise up from nowhere...the student whose doctor is telling her that her vaccinations are up to date, but the college is telling her that they are not, and that she needs more and will not let her register until she gets more.  Crazy-making things.  Time-sucking things - yet things that allow for connection with others.  And it's not that I begrudge them - I enjoy them.  However, once they done I'm onto the next thing before I can fully acknowledge what I have done, i.e., built a relationship with an incoming student, shown some kindness, attempted, at least, to make something right.  That's only one example.

I just read a short item on how our unconscious controls more of our brain than we think it does.  This means getting to know our unconscious is a good thing.  This points to the idea that "waiting it out," - sitting, meditating, listening in prayer - is a good thing.

Does doing things more intentionally mean that I need to schedule myself daily?  Perhaps not all of my activities - but perhaps sitting quietly - would be the most fruitful thing to do intentionally and to schedule daily and regularly.  

I am thinking of the song "Woodstock" - the line about trying to "get ourselves back to the garden."  That's what I am trying to do right now.  I was in the garden when I moved out here and began this job - and I want to get myself back to it. 

I need a picture of a banyan tree - that's what is coming to mind....those wonderful trees that spread out, root down, grow up toward the light, yet provide shade and shelter. That's what I am thinking right now. Banyan tree.

 

Namaste.

 And one last thing...

prayers, prayers, prayers 

for a dear cousin and friend - and her family.