December Days 2022 #18: Reassuring
Dec. 18th, 2022 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradept[What's December Days this year? Taking a crowdsourced list of adjectives and seeing if I can turn them into saying good things about myself. Or at least good things to talk about.]
Reassuring is not an adjective I would normally attribute to myself. As best I remember, my approaches to situations that are problems are "we can fix this," "this could be a possible root cause," or "Shit, yep, that happens and it sucks." None of which are particularly the kind of thing where someone who is looking for reassurance or comfort is necessarily going to find reassuring or comforting. I don't claim to have zero EQ, but I feel much more that my strengths are in fixing things and being upset about bad things happening, rather than in having skill and practice at listening sensitively and offering reassurances. It is a failing of mine, and not one that I have much practice with just sitting with.
It turns out that I am sensitive to the sounds of other people in pain, especially people in the household, and even if my brain understands what kind of shit the health care system is, I have a great aggravation at "this person is in pain, and the earliest they can be seen, because of the shit health care system, is in the new year." Even though I also know that I can't pay for an uncovered urgent care visit without tripping my own insecurities about money. Which, in turn, adds a few more grains of salt against my ex, because the money that I am paying back to have gotten her gone could have been put to so many more beneficial purposes than fattening the assets of a financial institution. I know that I'm not supposed to still be salty about it, and to put it out of my head as something that's done, but it's a sliver that hasn't come out yet, and still has years to go. Not very reassuring at all, to know that I carry grudge and salt, even when it's likely counterproductive.
I may be more reassuring at work, in some aspects, with the ability to look at machines and people that are on the verge of freaking out and understand the situation sufficiently that I can give direction on where to click and what to fill in that the situation defuses. Even lost password situations, or succeeding at helping someone upload and set a banner picture on Facebook (a service I've never used) with all of the text in Hangul (which I don't read.) And that I try to be friendly and calm about things that don't rise to the level of needing a panic. (Even as I currently have situations where I'm having a panic over things that don't need it, almost certainly because of the echoes of trauma of the past.)
I had a sad thought about the passage of time. I've been in this location for a while now, and even with all of that time, I don't know where the cool places are to hang out. Or even the offbeat places where someone might do some axe throwing or an indoor batting cage or virtual golf course. Or which of the barbers are the ones that we'll charge you a lot, but provide as much beer to drink as you like and sports on their televisions. Or who are objectively the best barbers in town, so long as you're cool enough to be part of the barbershop. I tried to reframe it by pointing out the reality - I spent most of the time that I've lived here in the company of someone who would never have let me explore and find those places, and, barring a brief window, the rest of my time here has been spent in the pandemic era, where even if I found such a place, I might not be able to partake because I have to manage my risk and be responsible for the people who are around. In other times, I used event calendars and meetups and such to attend social things without necessarily having to do all the planning work for them. It meant a fairly robust social life at the level of planning and follow-through that I actually have the capacity for in my VAST multitudes. The good thing about those times was that people didn't seem to think of me as a terrible person, so that should be reassuring.
What I am told should be the most reassuring thing about me is the part I find least reassuring about others. I'm not sure who to praise, but I managed to navigate through most of my provincial upbringing such that when I arrived at a more cosmopolitan university setting, I didn't have to learn an entire new and different way of seeing the world or wrestle with a situation where all of the things I had taken for granted as universally true were proven to be very regional and provincial indeed. I'm sure the Internet helped that in some way, but I managed to avoid cliinging to the idea that I was a persecuted nerd at the mercy of celebrities with good looks and sportsball contract money (who were sold to me as the pinnacle of achievement, and their always attractive and heterosexual partners as one of the currencies of showing your status), that I was owed success, money, power, and conventionally attractive partners in my life due to my skin color and relatively privileged upbringing, or that people who are poorer, more woman, more queer, and more dark-skinned than me are my enemies looking to take what is mine in a zero-sum game. (It's almost inevitably white dudes inheriting money built on exploitation who are looking to continue that exploitation to build their fortunes more.) It would certainly be easier to blame and bias against the people that there are grooves of blame and bias against. It certainly would be easier to displace everything and proclaim myself the victim of shadowy forces who are yet easily identifiable because the conspiracy consists solely of an ethnic group I'm supposed to find scary and Other. It would certainly be easier to fall into a mentality that insists I should be the most powerful person in my household and everyone else around me should subordinate themselves to my inherent superiority, all on my assertion that God Himself choose me as the leader and the divinely inerrant one. These are all things that I could adopt, and there is certainly not shortage of media that will reinforce those beliefs, cater to them, and lead me into ever more bizarre iterations of them, asking only in return that I oppress others and vote for those who want to oppress everyone who isn't at least as rich, white, and male as they are. What is supposedly reassuring is that I don't do those things intentionally, and when I do them accidentally, someone can explain it to me and I'm willing to change to avoid doing them in the future, rather than dismissing the person who is trying to help out of hand as someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
It is, apparently, reassuring that I am able to change. And that I consider the bare minimum of acceptable behavior to be several stages above what many others have experienced as the bare minimum from others. It is naivete on my part, to expect that others believe in the same standards that I do. And I don't really know what to do with the understanding that I might be a breath of fresh air for people who are used to a more toxic miasma. Conventional wisdom says I should declare myself a wise person of some sort and amass a following that will financially enrich me and evangelize me to others on the promise that following my path will provide reassurance and the security of never having to think for themselves ever again. For however long I could keep the grift going, I could make any easy life for myself and those l took in as my inner circle. Never mind that doing that would be hypocritical and underneath the bar I set for myself. And would be a lot more work than what I actually want to do for myself. I suppose it's reassuring there, too, that I haven't decided to walk the path of self-aggrandizement.
- reassuring (comparative more reassuring, superlative most reassuring)
- That reassures; causing comfort or confidence.
Reassuring is not an adjective I would normally attribute to myself. As best I remember, my approaches to situations that are problems are "we can fix this," "this could be a possible root cause," or "Shit, yep, that happens and it sucks." None of which are particularly the kind of thing where someone who is looking for reassurance or comfort is necessarily going to find reassuring or comforting. I don't claim to have zero EQ, but I feel much more that my strengths are in fixing things and being upset about bad things happening, rather than in having skill and practice at listening sensitively and offering reassurances. It is a failing of mine, and not one that I have much practice with just sitting with.
It turns out that I am sensitive to the sounds of other people in pain, especially people in the household, and even if my brain understands what kind of shit the health care system is, I have a great aggravation at "this person is in pain, and the earliest they can be seen, because of the shit health care system, is in the new year." Even though I also know that I can't pay for an uncovered urgent care visit without tripping my own insecurities about money. Which, in turn, adds a few more grains of salt against my ex, because the money that I am paying back to have gotten her gone could have been put to so many more beneficial purposes than fattening the assets of a financial institution. I know that I'm not supposed to still be salty about it, and to put it out of my head as something that's done, but it's a sliver that hasn't come out yet, and still has years to go. Not very reassuring at all, to know that I carry grudge and salt, even when it's likely counterproductive.
I may be more reassuring at work, in some aspects, with the ability to look at machines and people that are on the verge of freaking out and understand the situation sufficiently that I can give direction on where to click and what to fill in that the situation defuses. Even lost password situations, or succeeding at helping someone upload and set a banner picture on Facebook (a service I've never used) with all of the text in Hangul (which I don't read.) And that I try to be friendly and calm about things that don't rise to the level of needing a panic. (Even as I currently have situations where I'm having a panic over things that don't need it, almost certainly because of the echoes of trauma of the past.)
I had a sad thought about the passage of time. I've been in this location for a while now, and even with all of that time, I don't know where the cool places are to hang out. Or even the offbeat places where someone might do some axe throwing or an indoor batting cage or virtual golf course. Or which of the barbers are the ones that we'll charge you a lot, but provide as much beer to drink as you like and sports on their televisions. Or who are objectively the best barbers in town, so long as you're cool enough to be part of the barbershop. I tried to reframe it by pointing out the reality - I spent most of the time that I've lived here in the company of someone who would never have let me explore and find those places, and, barring a brief window, the rest of my time here has been spent in the pandemic era, where even if I found such a place, I might not be able to partake because I have to manage my risk and be responsible for the people who are around. In other times, I used event calendars and meetups and such to attend social things without necessarily having to do all the planning work for them. It meant a fairly robust social life at the level of planning and follow-through that I actually have the capacity for in my VAST multitudes. The good thing about those times was that people didn't seem to think of me as a terrible person, so that should be reassuring.
What I am told should be the most reassuring thing about me is the part I find least reassuring about others. I'm not sure who to praise, but I managed to navigate through most of my provincial upbringing such that when I arrived at a more cosmopolitan university setting, I didn't have to learn an entire new and different way of seeing the world or wrestle with a situation where all of the things I had taken for granted as universally true were proven to be very regional and provincial indeed. I'm sure the Internet helped that in some way, but I managed to avoid cliinging to the idea that I was a persecuted nerd at the mercy of celebrities with good looks and sportsball contract money (who were sold to me as the pinnacle of achievement, and their always attractive and heterosexual partners as one of the currencies of showing your status), that I was owed success, money, power, and conventionally attractive partners in my life due to my skin color and relatively privileged upbringing, or that people who are poorer, more woman, more queer, and more dark-skinned than me are my enemies looking to take what is mine in a zero-sum game. (It's almost inevitably white dudes inheriting money built on exploitation who are looking to continue that exploitation to build their fortunes more.) It would certainly be easier to blame and bias against the people that there are grooves of blame and bias against. It certainly would be easier to displace everything and proclaim myself the victim of shadowy forces who are yet easily identifiable because the conspiracy consists solely of an ethnic group I'm supposed to find scary and Other. It would certainly be easier to fall into a mentality that insists I should be the most powerful person in my household and everyone else around me should subordinate themselves to my inherent superiority, all on my assertion that God Himself choose me as the leader and the divinely inerrant one. These are all things that I could adopt, and there is certainly not shortage of media that will reinforce those beliefs, cater to them, and lead me into ever more bizarre iterations of them, asking only in return that I oppress others and vote for those who want to oppress everyone who isn't at least as rich, white, and male as they are. What is supposedly reassuring is that I don't do those things intentionally, and when I do them accidentally, someone can explain it to me and I'm willing to change to avoid doing them in the future, rather than dismissing the person who is trying to help out of hand as someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
It is, apparently, reassuring that I am able to change. And that I consider the bare minimum of acceptable behavior to be several stages above what many others have experienced as the bare minimum from others. It is naivete on my part, to expect that others believe in the same standards that I do. And I don't really know what to do with the understanding that I might be a breath of fresh air for people who are used to a more toxic miasma. Conventional wisdom says I should declare myself a wise person of some sort and amass a following that will financially enrich me and evangelize me to others on the promise that following my path will provide reassurance and the security of never having to think for themselves ever again. For however long I could keep the grift going, I could make any easy life for myself and those l took in as my inner circle. Never mind that doing that would be hypocritical and underneath the bar I set for myself. And would be a lot more work than what I actually want to do for myself. I suppose it's reassuring there, too, that I haven't decided to walk the path of self-aggrandizement.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-20 08:11 am (UTC)Interesting for what it omits.
Reassurance is one of the fundamental sources of fulfillment in a loving relationship, it's the deep sense we can give a partner of I trust you and, even more than that, a mutual communication of:
You make me feel safe.
...And there is no reassurance, just empty assurances, in a workplace or community or relationship where you don't feel safe.
I have had long experience of that, and I fear that I will never lose the bitterness that comes of finding-out, in better life, that the damage done to people by such failures of reassurance is both lasting and unnecessary.
So where did I learn to do better?
I will bow-out of a training group or pair in an unfamiliar dojo if I do not feel that a particular student is safe in their practice: that's a big deal, and something of a rebuke to the Sensei in the room, because our school holds it to be an absolute that the senior student makes an unconditional assurance of safety to the junior student in any practice and there are very few students senior to me and...
I make an unconditional assurance of your safety when we bow. If I can't offer safety, I bow out.
There is no reassurance if this is not true, and understood to be unconditionally true.
...And it is a very satisfying thing, when a beginner from another school steps on our tatami, and bows-in, and is nervous or even terrified of the Black Belt, to explain, and to build trust in practice, and reassure in what we do in a way that's far more than what we say.
The tatami stretches out, far, far beyond the walls of the dojo into daily life, and reassurance rooted in what we do becomes reassurance rooted in what we are by practice of the Art and Discipline in life.
Which is to say: learning to make people safe in small things that you do, and practicing it daily in life, is what makes you a reassuring person.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-20 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-21 08:45 am (UTC)I just explain a lot by divine right and the ineffable serenity granted unto We by a Y-Chromosome.
Sometimes, the explanation sticks.
Occasionally, it remains more prominent in the audience's memory, than all the other stuff accompanying the traits of a compulsive Explainer.
Nevertheless: reassurance.
It is a fundamentally satisfying thing to do, to have, and to be.
Especially for people who are a little bit different, which is intrinsically disquieting and needs a bit of extra work that all too often turns into 'masking' the self.