So good.

The other day, I woke up feeling... ok... and it was so... weird!

Last week was a little bit difficult, quite trippy, and very much a time for turtling. My Osteopath, bless her soul, has started to work on my brain. When I saw Dr. Nathan in California, he had mentioned the blood flow to my brain causing swelling of some sort likely being an issue, and that there was a possibility that the Osteopath would be able to do something about it. If she could not (and he did say then and there that he is not able to do it himself through osteopathic treatment), he could do it using a big fancy SPECT machine.

At the end of our last session, she said that she had started working on it. Apparently, there is torsion (quite literally - a twisting compression) in my brain stem, occipital lobe and part of my temporal lobe, which has been there for a very long time. This explains so very very much. I mean really! The brain stem is responsible for heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and so forth. It also has to do with motor control and sensory analysis, and - oh, get this! - sleep and levels of consciousness. Hmmmm. The occipital lobe is all about visual processing, and the temporal lobe  - well - it is responsible for hearing, memory, meaning, and language, plays a role in emotion and learning, and interpreting and processing auditory stimuli. Yeah. Explain some of my symptoms much?

Graduations

This time of year is always emotional at every school. I, being an emotional kind of person, have always wanted to make the most of it, and help my students see how moments like these, of endings, beginnings and in-between moments are so very ripe with opportunity for growth and self-exploration. But this year I have no students. So I guess I'll have to do it for myself.

The 4 boys who started the Middle School adventure with me are, however, on their way out of our cocoon of a school, and about to learn how to fly.  My son is moving from the Lower Elementary to the Upper Elementary, and my nephew is moving from the Casa to the Lower El. I may have no students, but I still have plenty of transitions to feel my way through.

The furthest from my daily life are the Middle School boys. At this point, it has been one and a half years since I was their teacher. And yet. And yet I've been involved in every major decision, and several smaller ones regarding their education during that time. I've been apprised of their progress, and kept abreast of their development. I still feel a very strong emotional attachment, and I probably always will. One of the things which makes a Montessori Middle School, and especially ours, unique is the intense focus we place on two things: self-reflection for both students and teachers, and the mentoring relationship. When these are in place, a bond will develop. And since I am personally so intensely self-reflective anyway, and so highly empathetic, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I formed very deep bonds with these students, even though I had them to myself for only a few months. I was their music teacher for several years before that, and music, when taught Andy-style, well, yeah, it tended to lean towards self-expression and (dare I say it?) self-reflection, so over the years they came to trust me, and when we opened the Middle School, we were ready to open our hearts.

Overly Sensitized Day

I am having a rough day today. And the last little while, I've been feeling rather resilient, so I'm hoping this does not last.

Last weekend was crazy busy for a healthy person, never mind me, and yet, I managed to get enough rest periods in there, and had a really good week, too. It was pretty productive, and restful and peaceful, and I felt really good, about what I did and didn't do. I made huge strides in terms of my sensitivity towards other people's feelings, and was able to tune into my own when I needed to. Very cool stuff. I spent the week in a very balanced way, and it was gooood.

It's even cooler, because there were emotionally critical situations both at school, in my online community, and in my support group this week. I managed to not take ownership of them, though, and keep focused on how to help others while still helping myself and not overextending. All the energy I previously would have directed to trying to fix it all and to keep anybody from feeling any pain was instead able to go into healing, which is exactly where I need it.

But yesterday, the weather in Toronto went crazy. It's as if it saved up all the rain that we did not get all through spring so far, and threw it all at us in one big huge stormy go. Traffic lights were out, there was quite a bit of flooding, and the roads were slippery and the wind was really strong.

So of course, I went for a nice loooong drive!