Opening My Eyes to Compassion Blind Spots

I have a blind spot in my compassion for others.

I have a difficult time tolerating people who are helpless. I know, it's not terribly helpful of me, is it? Don't get me wrong, I can have all the sympathy in the world for the mentally ill, the homeless, the poor, children, animals ... all manner of "helpless" beings who illicit great compassion and empathy in me.

But when I encounter everyday folks with the regular abilities to hold down a job, to have relationships, to generally function in the world, and yet remain seemingly helpless in the face of one particular aspect of their lives — my compassion goes out the window. 

I'm not proud of this.

My compassion completely ceases when anyone claims helplessness and then proceeds to blame someone else. Drives me batshit crazy, actually. I know, I know. I told you it was a blind spot in my ability to feel compassion for my fellow man. A grave one, if I were to be completely honest.

I have friends who claim helplessness in relationships. They can't change. They love him. Or her. They believe the other person will change and so they chain themselves to someone who is physically or emotionally abusive, in the hopes that the other will change. They stay with cheaters. They do all manner of things that make the rest of their friends grit their teeth and say, "Why?"

It doesn't matter how much you talk them up — pep-talking, tough-talking — no amount of offers to help, suggestions for therapists, books to read, examples of other people who have left only to find greater happiness — nothing can abate these folks from their self-destructive lives. 

"But I love him."

"I don't know what to do."

"I'm stuck."

And no matter how many escape routes you map out for them, they won't set foot on one of them. They are helpless to their own desires, their own fears, to their own blindness to their incredible power.

That's just it.

We are all so incredibly powerful. Each one of us, unto ourselves. No one but no one else has the power to free you the way you can free yourself. Perhaps this is the source of my frustration? So many friends and family blame other people for their predicament, or blame the economy, or the geography, or their psychology or whatever reason you want to drum up —my point is it doesn't matter.

Your mind is the most powerful thing of all.

The rest of it is nothing.

The Buddha said, "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." The way you feel, the way you think about your life and your situation, is made up primarily in your head. I'm not saying if you're starving or living in a dangerous environment that this wouldn't be a very real discomfort — of course it would be. But for the majority of my friends and family (and me), we are not living in a war zone. We have a roof over our heads, food in the refrigerator and it is safe to go outside.

So much suffering is created in our own minds.

So much resistance to ending that suffering resides in our own minds.

I recently listened to a friend uncork on how another friend's parents had ruined her life. These controlling parents had taken their adult daughter away from the city she loved, the job she loved, the girlfriend she'd loved ... all of this through the power of their religious guilt.

My friend argued that I didn't understand the power of parents' guilt, the power of religion, the power of having been raised in such an environment and the inability to stop that power and control.

She's right.

While I can see parents controlling their children, and I can even see parents controlling or trying to control their children as they emerge into young adults, I cannot see how once you are an adult, hell, if you are in your thirties, how you can blame your parents for ruining your life.

Do something about it.

Get therapy.

Read self-help books.

Move away.

Make friends.

Create your own life.

It is not your parents' fault if you choose to let them ruin your life. It is not your parents' fault if you choose to let them control you. Now of course I do understand the concept of learned helplessness, and I do realize it is very possible that abused and neglected children may have been raised to behave this way.

Hell, I was.

But at what point do you, as an adult, decide to re-train yourself?

If I have been conditioned to lay down and give up because I know any attempt to change my environment is useless, it is no wonder I may spend my adolescence and early adulthood just laying down.

I may let men abuse and neglect me.

I may abuse drugs and alcohol.

I may develop and eating disorder and stay victim to it.

I may have done all of the above.

But at what point do you realize that you, as a rational creature with the amazing powers of the human mind have the ability to ... change? At what point do you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and say, "I will no longer be a victim. I will save myself. I will blame no one for my current predicament. I take full ownership of the life I am leading right now, and I vow to use my powers as a free adult to change it."

My concern is this: Has my own ability to change ruined my ability to feel compassion for those who haven't?

I no longer believe in "can't" change. 

I just don't.

I believe in "won't" change.

How to find compassion in that outlook? I suppose the Buddha or the Dalai Lama would feel great empathy for those who are stuck in dukkha (suffering). How awful to be a prison of your own mind.

I do remember that feeling.

I remember how helpless I felt.

I remember being weak with tears, sobbing on the cold tile of the bathroom floor because I couldn't get out of the vicious cycle of an eating disorder.

I felt helpless.

I felt I couldn't change.

Yet I still needed compassion.

Deserved it, actually, just as every soft animal does. I believe that.

But oh Buddha, how I struggle to give it. I do see the irony of my own helplessness here. Here I am, claiming that I can't change my reaction to the stubbornly helpless. A victim of my own recovery, unable to extend sympathy to those I've left behind.

That's unacceptable, of course.

I often think of Maya Angelou who once said, "When I knew better, I did better." If I go there, I find myself better able to let go of my anger at my friends and family's self-victimization. When they know better, they'll do better.

When they figure out that they themselves hold the keys to their own freedom, they will open the door. They will take advice. They will make phone calls. They will do something about it. In the meantime, I can continue to point out that there is a way to change if they ask me. I can sympathize with their suffering. I can fervently hope they find a way to change.

To believe they can change.

To find it in their own beautiful minds, brave minds, minds that are so much stronger than they realize. If only they would just risk it. Risk the unknown. Risk the fear. Risk change. Take the leap.

But who am I to push them?

*Sigh*

Who am I to judge?

If I am human, the only thing I can do is sympathize. Lend my compassion. Be kind. I must find my way back to the place where I suffered, and there I will find the ability to connect. The ability to see, and to not turn a blind eye to my friends' suffering.

Namaste.

The Sheet of Secrecy and Other Vaginal Mysteries

My five-year-old son's curiosity about sex and babies has continued unabated. 

Now that I've scientifically answered "Where do babies come from?" the boy wants to know "How do the babies get out?"

"The birth canal," is not cutting it as an explanation anymore.

"Where is the birth canal?" is the new refrain. "Is it here?" He waves his hand over his belly-area. "Is it here?" He waves his hand over his pelvic area. "Do babies come out of the mama's toes?"

Oh lord.

"How about we buy a book?" I suggested. I don't know why it took me so long to think of this. I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes.

"Where's the Sex Ed for Preschoolers section?" I asked the Borders lady. She took me to the Sex Ed section (they actually have one!) and showed me three titles that were appropriate for the preschool/kindergarten set.

After previewing them (and snickering at the pencil-drawn naked man and woman, with their hairy gender-specific parts) I couldn't decide which Cracky would prefer. I decided to turn it over to him.

"Which book do you like best?"

"Let me see," he said, all business. He grabbed the three books, sat on the floor of Borders and started flipping through the pages. He studied each drawing, nodding his head here and there, asking me, "What's that?" and approving my answers ("Those are sperm, that's the vas deferens") as he scoured the books like a doctoral candidate.

When he got to the page with the baby pictured in its mother's uterus, I could feel his excitement build. He flipped the page and at long last beheld the birthing room. There stood the doctor, poised between the mother's legs. The nurses and father were standing by. Mother pushed and did her lamaze breathing behind a modest sheet draped across her legs.

"What?" he said, confused, bordering on outrage.

He quickly flipped the page back, then forward, then to the next page. He flipped through several times, frantically looking for the birthing scene.

"I think a page is missing!"

"What do you mean?" I said, feeling like a fraud.

"Here's the baby inside the mother's tummy," he explained, clearly exasperated. "Here's the doctor and the mother with the sheet over her tummy. Why's that sheet there? And then here's the baby." 

"Yep, that looks right to me!" I chirped.

"But HOW does the baby come out? Where's the HOLE?"

Crap.

"The baby comes out of the mother's vagina," I said, at long last.

"There's a hole in the vagina?"

"Yes, and it stretches so the baby can get out."

"But where is it?" he flipped through the other books, only to confront the same draped sheet of modesty. "Why do they have the sheet over her? I can't see!"

"I think they put it over the mother so she has some privacy," I said.

"Oh. But I want to see the baby come out."

"I might have to buy you a DVD for that," I said, recalling a Miracle of Life video on PBS or the Discovery Channel.

"Yeah, let's get that!" the future doctor said.

As I sat there and thought about my son's thwarted curiosity, and how matter-of-fact he was about the w(hole) thing, I realized that it was my fear of revealing that a baby comes out of a mother's vagina, my discomfort. Five-year-old Cracky is not shocked or surprised by anything. It's all new to him, so nothing is a surprise. If I say a baby comes out of its mother's vagina, and that the vagina stretches so the baby can get out, it is no more shocking to him than the fact that the stars are planets or that a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

He finally relented and picked the least disappointing of the sex books, the one with the picture of the baby happily floating in his mother's tummy. He decided he could live with the SHEET OF SECRECY in the birthing room, and we went home to read it three more times before bed.

When I closed the book for the last time that night, Cracky put his finger in the air and raised his eyebrows. 

"I have a great idea!" he said and reached around to grab the throw blanket from the back of the couch. "You go lay down on the floor. I'll put this over your legs and we can pretend to have a baby! I'll be the doctor!"

He busily started unfolding the blanket and was just heading towards the floor when I finally managed to speak.

"Noooooooo way!" I said.

"What?" he looked up, honestly confused by my reaction. "Why not?"

"I already went through this once! For real. I'm certainly not going to act it out again." I was laughing and kind of shocked all-at-once.

"Oh. Okay," he said, and scrunched up his eyebrows. But I knew what he was thinking. 

He was totally thinking of the girls at school. And I totally knew I'd be getting a call from his teacher the next day.

Oh well.

I'll let the school know I have a video they can borrow.

Nuts.

"Mom, where do babies come from?" my son asked as we were enjoying a summer evening on The Boyfriend's deck.

"I've told you, they come from their mothers' tummies," I said, somewhat surprised at this out-of-the-blue question.

"I  mean, how do babies get out of their mothers' tummies?"

"Through the birth canal, didn't I tell you this already?" I asked and smiled at his sweet little choir-boy face.

"Yeah, but I think I know how babies really come out of their mama's tummies."

Ruh roh.

"Okay. Tell me." I was careful to remain light and calm, though I figured this would be good.

"You'll get mad." 

"No I won't. Just tell me and if you have it wrong, I'll correct you. But I won't be mad."

"Well Ben at school told me that babies come from their mother's nuts." 

Pause.

The sweet cherubic face stared at me, waiting for my response. Braced for anger, perhaps. The Boyfriend and I stared at each other, each caught in a stunned moment of silence. I fully expected him to laugh first, but the bastard kept his shit together. I, on the other hand, collapsed into a fit of laughter.

"What? What's so funny, Mom?" My son was smiling nervously, confused.

"Oh baby, girls don't have nuts," I managed to choke out, just to assuage any fear of his mother's wrath for saying a word he obviously knew was loaded.

"They don't?"

"No, only have boys have nuts." I heard The Boyfriend finally start to snicker across the table. But I stumbled through. "Do you know what nuts are?"

He nodded.

"Where are they?" I asked.

He pointed at his nuts.

"Okay, so you know boys have nuts and a penis. Well, actually 'nuts' isn't really the polite way of referring to them. You really should call them 'testicles.'"

"Testicles?" 

"Yes, that's more polite. Calling them nuts or 'balls' is considered rude. Anyway, boys have testicles and penises, and girls don't. Girls have a vagina."

"You mean that flat thing?" He scrunched up his face and made his hand flat.

"Yes, where you have a penis and testicles that stick out, girls have a vagina, which is flat, relatively speaking."

He nodded his head soberly.

"What are the other names for 'vagina?'" he asked, rather shrewdly, I thought.

"I don't know," I paused and looked at The Boyfriend. "Do you care to fill Cracky in on the other names for vagina?" I smirked.

The Boyfriend just shook his head, mouth clamped shut. I have never known the man to miss an opportunity to talk about vaginas and nuts, but now Mr. Prolific was suddenly at a loss for words.

"I think we should stick with 'vagina,'" I explained to the boy. "It's more polite."

Just then The Boyfriend caught my eye and mouthed the word Poontang, which I studiously ignored.

Though that'd be quite a word  for Cracky to teach Ben. It'd be a nice little tit-for-tat for Ben's parents at their dinner table, I think. 

"Mom, Cracky told me babies come from their mamas' poontangs."

What?

At least it'd be anatomically correct.

Dancing With TamiGuru

One of my co-workers just wanted to throw down with me.

That's right.

She stepped up to Blondzilla and wanted to dance. I let her know immediately that I've been taking cardio kickboxing classes.

She threw her head back and laughed.

The gall of that woman!

So I grapevined over to her and gave her three quick air punches, to tempo, right in front of her face.

"Did you just grapevine me?" she said, visibly frightened.

"That's right, bitch," I replied, while doing the boxer shuffle and air punching a bag.

She was so intimidated she bent over in fear and covered her face to muffle her sobs.

I don't think TamiGuru will be messing with me again anytime soon.

Fists of Flurry: Kickboxing on Amphetamines

I was on my way to my kickboxing class the other night, when some spazzy woman ran past me and the other people walking up the stairs at the gym. She weaved her way through the crowd, rushing up and squeezing past the other patrons. She didn't say "Excuse me" or "Pardon me" as she hustled by us. It irritated me a little, because we were all in a hurry, and the rest of us didn't see the need to make our hurry more important than everyone else's.

I arrived to the class right on time, which means the room was packed and I had to wedge myself into a non-row somewhere in the middle towards the back. I wondered if anyone would kick me in the face in the crowded room, what with me not in a real row and all. Oh well. I was taller than the other women, so they'd better watch their faces with these 34-inch inseam legs shooting around me like a death star of kicks.

Then I noticed the spazzy woman from the stairs hustle herself up to the raised stage for the instructor and I realized it was my ADHD kickboxing instructor. The woman is thin and wiry, with thin and wiry muscles. She is also a spazz the likes of which I've never seen. Not only does she play fast music, she turns up the rpm so all of the songs sound as though they're being performed by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I haven't been doing cardio kickboxing long, so I still haven't got all the choreography down right. Plus, it's an advanced class which means it's more choreography at a super-high rate of speed. When I watch the instructor throwing punches "up to tempo" her arms whirl so fast it is a blur. 

Then I start to snicker.

Cardio kickboxing is one of the most ridiculous activities I've ever witnessed. How did anybody come up with it? It's like the bastard child of boxing and aerobics. Did anyone ever really want or need to see boxing, only faster? As I try to keep up with jabs and uppercuts on speed, double-double, double-up, single, upper-cut, jab, roundhouse, repeat, threepeat — I can't help but laugh at what an oddity we are.  If you were watching a YouTube video without the sound you would immediately post it on your Facebook to LOLZ with your friends.

We look like a bunch of insane ladies amped-up on amphetamines, doing some sort of psycho speed boxing dance routine. 

And what is this training us for, anyway? 

What a useless activity, if you think about it. I'm not getting any applicable skills from the class. I won't be able to kick anyone's ass in the real world because I can do a choreography of kicks and punches to the tempo of Alvin and the Chipmunks singing "It's Raining Men."

If I encounter a thief in my house, what am I going to do? Run up to him and turbo rabbit-punch him in the shoulder?

"Hey!" he might say. "Quit it! What are you doing?" as he holds up his hands and looks at me wide-eyed, a flurry of soft-thudded baby punches landing on his shoulder, followed by some rapid-fire soft thuds in his hip from my not-so-high kicks.

Fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap!

"Don't mess with these fists of flurry!" I might say as I air pummeled him.

See?

Ridiculous.

I really should be taking a real kickboxing class where I can kick and punch someone or something for real. At least that wouldn't feel quite so silly. Honestly. A bunch of women pantomiming boxing moves to frenetic high-pitched music?

Who thought of this?

I will say this, however. I do leave the class covered in sweat. I won't work out this hard for 60 minutes by myself. I hate cardio. I find it boring. I love to lift weights and pump iron, to do push-ups or pull-ups, but jumping around for an hour by myself on a treadmill or elliptical machine bores me to tears.

And despite all my mockery, I do enjoy air punching the shit out of all my mortal enemies. So don't mess with me. I will hyper-punch you one hundred times, and though my fists are not accustomed to hitting actual flesh, I'll have the endurance to hit you softly for a very, very long time.

Which may start to hurt. 

Eventually.

Huevos

My son just announced, "I'm going to do something funny."

Then he scooped up all his plastic Easter eggs and shoved them under his legs.

"I'm going to hatch you, babies!" he said, and hunched over like a mother hen and made a goofy face. Okay, the face was alarmingly like my own goofy, intentionally dorky face. You know the face, when you force out your bottom lip and jaw in an exaggerated underbite and smile with narrowed eyes.

What have I created?

Yesterday I tried to teach him about his balls. Or "huevos" as they call them in Spanish. My boyfriend grew up in Fresno, California. He tells me it's the armpit of California and he has regaled me with a number of tales of the Mexican gangsters who used to threaten him on his way to and from school. One of the many cultural lessons he learned from them was how to say filthy disgusting things in Spanish. Calling the balls, "eggs" is actually more accurate, I think. They are more egg-shaped than ball or nut-shaped.

They are also delicate.

Anyway, I tried to teach my son Cracky about his huevos yesterday because I've been concerned about his total indifference towards his own ballsack. He doesn't even fumble around with his penis either. I guess he's just not in the "genital" stage yet. Although he knows his penis is called his penis, he's never asked me what the heck that ballsack is hanging beneath it.

Weird.

So yesterday Cracky was digging away at his groinal area and I asked him, "Is something bothering you?"

"Yes, it itches!"

"Do you want me to take a look?"

"Yes, please!" So he came over and pulled his shorts over to the side and showed me the little crevice next to his ballsack, sort of in the crease of his leg, and it was red and dry. I had a little bit of eczema or dermatitis or some such thing when I was a kid, so I went upstairs to get some hydrocortisone.

"This will make it stop itching," I told him and squeezed out some of the ointment.

"Can you warm it up first?" he asked.

*Laugh*

"Do you know what this is called?" I asked, pointing at his testicular-region.

"No."

"Well you know what your penis is called, right?"

"Yes," he giggled.

"Well, these are your testicles."

"Testicles?"

"You have like, uh, balls inside that sack. Those testicles make babies," I said, trying to make it scientific.

"I have balls that make babies?" he looked at me as though I'd lost my mind.

"Well, yes. It takes a man and a woman to make babies. They each contribute half of the genetic material to make a baby. Men have testicles that make sperm, and women have ovaries that make eggs. When you mix the sperm with the egg, you make a baby."

"Sperm?" Again he made a scrunched up face, and looked like he was about to laugh.

"Yes, to make babies."

"Boys make babies? I thought girls made babies?"

"The girls need boys to make the babies. Like I said, a boy contributes the sperm, and the girl contributes the eggs, and together they make the baby."

"I have a baby inside my testicles?" He bent over and peered at his sack.

"No. When you are grown up, and you get married, you'll be able to make babies if you want to. With your wife." I figured I'd better add a dash of morality to this play.

"But I already have a wife."

"Well, that's just your pretend wife. You're not making babies until you're an adult."

"We pretend to make babies at school."

*Pause*

"Kayla pretends to be our baby," he explained.

"Okay, that's fine. Pretending is fine."

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"How does the boy give the girl the sperm?" He made a handing-over gesture with pinched fingers, as though handing me some jelly beans.

*Pause*

"He just gives it to her. Um, er, when you love someone, you get to share your sperm." Christ almighty, this wasn't going how I intended at all. "Well, if you want to make a baby with your wife, you and your wife can decided to share your eggs and sperm and make a baby..." I was flailing.

"You mean to make a family?"

"Yes," I sighed. "To make a family."

Thank you Cracky. Thank you for saving me. You're one good egg.

Zombie Chicken Blog Awards

My friend and fellow blogger Char was kind enough to give me a Zombie Chicken Blog Award:

"The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all..."

Char also commented that I was the least likely to tag five of my favorite bloggers. Well, I take that as a challenge! A direct slap to the cheek with her lambskin glove. Prithee, dear Char, I will tag, and I will tag five bloggers with impunity.

First and foremost, I nominate my newest and most favoritist blogger, Becky at Steam Me Up, Kid. I actually spent my evening last night reading through each and every one of her blogs since 2006. That's a rarity for me. It's been a while since I read a blogger who took me by surprise, who grabbed me and shook me by the shoulders and said, "Engage, woman!" Several times as I read her blogs last night, I sat with my eyes closed, my entire body shaking with laughter, as I read her words and recognized myself in them. She wrote a blog about her father a few days ago that left had me laughing in the beginning, and literally weeping by the end.

I forwarded it to the boyfriend, so he could read it.

God damn, I have to take my hat off to a writer who can make me laugh and cry within the span of an internet blog. If she wrote a book, I would read it cover to cover and keep it in my bookshelf to read again. I want to steal her from her real life and keep her in my pocket to whisper my secret thoughts to and giggle with over a coffee. I wish she were a tiny little gnome and portable like that.


My second Zombie Chicken Award goes to Gilmore, at Pretty on the Outside. He is so wickedly funny, I can't believe the turns of phrase he spins on his favorite reality television shows. I have to admit, you have to be a reality television whore to appreciate his blogs, and his blogs on The Real Housewives series are his most inspired work. Gilmore is unusual in that he is not only a hilarious writing talent, he is also a gifted artist. Each Pretty on the Outside blog is accompanied by Gilmore's pen and ink drawings of the characters on the show, penned under the influence of a glass of cabernet.





The third Zombie Chicken goes to Prosy on Toast. She's really captured me this week with her tales of working in a religious hair salon. Upper lip waxing and holy sperm is a win-win proposition in a blog, if you ask me. She also recently wrote about a college roommate whom all her readers suspect was a bit of a sociopath. I enjoy reading about roommates who give out free blowjobs to visitors and weigh themselves naked in the living room for all to see. That's the real life information I'm looking for in a blog.


My fourth choice goes to a relatively new voice to me on Blogspot, Just Kate at Dear Buddha, and she's another blogger who has really captured my attention this week. In fact, this morning she wrote a blog that was so honest and real, it stood out because the rest of us seem to be on a "Look How Funny I Am!" kick (I know I have been). Kate reminds me that the good stuff is the real and raw stuff. I have to admit I've been keeping those real blogs as drafts lately because the Trolls have gotten the best of me. I've withdrawn my soft underbelly from the public and have gone back to the safe land of humor. Perhaps Kate can coax me back out by example.




My last choice is not last in my heart, but actually first. Julie at Sweet Herald is a long-time friend and blogger, the artist formerly known as Tits McGee from Myspace. She first caught my attention for her over-the-top, laugh-out-loud, cover-your-mouth in shock sense of humor. She writes what we all think, what we all wish we could say, and there is such a joyous freedom in her writing that it'll make you spit your morning coffee out. I miss the days when we would practically goad each other in our blogs to out-crass and out-perv one another in our writing.



So check out my writers and friends. You won't be disappointed. I'm only sorry there weren't ten Zombie Chicken Awards, or twenty. As you can see my blogroll there to the right is pretty lengthy. Go ahead and click through them if you're looking for a surprising new voice.


XXOO (don't touch me),

Mandy