I stand today in that precarious position between a relationship that has been failing to be of use to either participant, and a tidy divorce, with emotional closure, legal and physical separation.

The month we started fighting – once ‘divorce’ was a threat used by both sides in every argument – was a far harder time for me than now. And I’ll need to go back to describe that time. Right now I’m living with a friend with many shared interests, enjoying the attention of several women, biking and running daily, taking care of myself physically and in my job – it would seem I have it all together.  I do have it pretty together. I have learned to not let the foundation of life be unsettled, to value myself. Nonetheless..

This phase is marked by contradiction.. I’m together vs. I’m sad. I want to create a divorce settlement that will not keep my ex from being my friend vs. I need to stand up for my own interests. I want my (ex) not to hate me, vs. I can get my needs met elsewhere, and don’t have to spend time with her. I want this over quickly vs. I don’t care if it takes forever.

One of the last comments she said that I felt accused by was that I was always changing my mind. I want a divorce vs. I don’t want a divorce. Of course, she ‘s guilty of the same, but this does not invalidate her being hurt by ‘mind changes’. It does point out the uselessness of calling someone a ‘hypocrite’, especially in emotionally trying times. The same goes for the accusation ‘selfish’. Someone may feel their needs are hurt by anothers selfishness, and this is usually what is implied by that attack. But as the reciever of such an attack, I’m under no obligation to engage, nor to help the communicator say what they mean. I can walk away, or counterstrike as needed. But I will never answer a charge like that again, not with a straight face

I’ve recieved alot of emails from her (my ex) asking to do this or that – to tell her this or that. My own habits try and tell me to respond. A real desire not to disappoint, or disrespect – to be agreeable – you name the identity issue that comes up for me, I’ve felt it.  And yet to accede to these demands is to train a person that I am controllable through demands. I’ve stopped responding to them. It breaks my heart. But it’s time to engage my brain to keep me safe.

I hope it’s much simpler than Im making it. As long as no incoming communications are piling up, I don’t feel bad. And I have time – time with my friend, time with those who I call/who call me/who I want to see/who show genuine concern for me or excitement to be with me. It’s so good to have support, to feel in control of my relationships again. I dont’ have to apologize or justify or try to ‘win’ an argument. I’ve learned I can walk away from a fight, if the fight is not one that can produce gain for both parties. I can walk away from any fight. And if forced to engage, I can engage knowing that I exhausted all measures.

Every time I try to enumerate our assets, I stop, emotionally overwhelmed. I have a real block at this. It’s so backward-looking, which I hate in this start-my-new-life phase. On the other hand, when the court date comes, I need to know what I’m claiming I’m entitled to from our marital assets. It may not be 50/50 – it may be less which in some ways would be more fair due to incomes – but it will be more than the slap in the face amount I was a few pen strokes away from settling on, when a stupid comment caused a blow up, resulting in us both obtaining lawyers.  Calling bullshit on the settlement that was at hand that night may become the most costly argument my ex ever started. It certainly is the last I was to fully engage in with her.

It’s hard acknowledging that even my siging away most of my stake in our marital assets was unable to make a fight go away. I really had, and have, little control over whether I will be fought or not. But I don’t have to live in fear of it, and I can rely on my team to do most of my fighting for me. I have a new life to be building.

And I feel pretty good about doing it. There are so many adventures to engage in, self discovery to be done, and challenges to develop myself with. And this is one of them. And I do pretty well when faced with hard challenges, so BRING EM ON !

To help keep myself on the growth path I began early this year, a few summaries are in order.

I wrote (with my non-dominant hand) several things I like about myself. They are:

• I am a leader in software/engineering
• I maintain an athletic body
• I am smart, and enjoy puzzling problems
• I am good with people and make friends readily
• I am creative and musically motivated

What I love:

• Playing drums
• Practicing karate
• Doing it (to music especially)
• Solving a difficult problem
• Finding the words for something
• Making people’s day
• Getting carried away with someone
• Beginning new journeys

My limiting, mistaken beliefs:

• That I’m insufficient to relate to people
• That I’m doomed to repeat parental cycles
• That nobody will like me if I’m who I am (an only child)
• That intelligence puts me on an island by myself

If coming up with these lists took a weekend – of tears, of being closer to my emotions than I ever was for a long time before, how can I get that back ? Should I go through another weekend April 1 ? Can I find a way to reinforce myself without these weekends ? Am I afraid of something if I only rely on myself ? Am I afraid the insights will be less potent, or I’ll use them as a crutch to not truly feel them if I get to the point where I can recite them by memory ? I think the last one has a point. Which is why, for now, I want to remind myself by looking at my notes, and eventually get to the point where I can simply recite all these hard-won statements about myself in under 2 minutes.

Self-knowledge is one of those things where the destination is less important than the journey. But surely the nuggets of truth found along that way can be saved, cherished, shared, kept in the forefront of the brain, and not buried, left to be discovered anew with the same amount of effort. Letting them sink below the sand is a disservice – I can build castles to show that I value who I have found myself to be.

People will see that I am living a righteous, courageous, striving and balanced life. I have not yet made an impact on the national, let alone world-wide scale, and I would like to. Yet I can be honing myself in my current environs and owe it to myself to prove my ability to effect change in the circles I frequent. Work is a great example where I can be boring job-getting-done engineer or I can be exciting leader, and curious learner. I can connect with people outside their default, guarded  ways of being. I can be someone exciting and creative. And I can troll my nets widely to catch people who ‘get it’ and create my own dream team.

It didn’t take the Wright to bring me to this. But the Wright did serve to shake up the box and allow me to resort this stuff out. Sometimes you have to allow entropy to break it all down, so that you can do the meaningful work of putting things back together, to include only what you really need. Peace and love and growth, Dean

The night after my promotion exam for 7th kyu (advanced blue belt), I had no idea I would be faced with a self defense challenge, with a knife held 2 inches in front of my face by a former boss of mine. He’d just tried to humiliate me, and drew the knife when I resisted crumbling to him. This was in a dream, thankfully, after I fell asleep on the couch after the exam. The emotional part of the dream was entirely real, and I believe the confrontation was the final aspect of my promotion test, which I’m glad to say I passed.

I was looking forward to the promotion exam, but as I was asked to demonstrate some of the weaker parts of my training, I nervously looked at senpai who I did not want to disappoint, and I grew increasingly nervous. Kyoshi’s reminder to be less tense in order to generate speed was well taken, but I was unable to fully act on it. I was sweating heavily, as I figured I should have been, but it was only when I got to take a break that I was allowed to understand my true inner state. Senpai Sarah Kranz – who I think has the emotional and physical intelligence to lead a voyage to Mars – looked in my eyes and asked if I was ok. I said “Yeah, sure”, and she persisted to assess me, and asked me to go splash some water on my face and arms.

What I saw when I went into the bathroom was my pale, pale face, with cold sweat and reddish eyes. I looked unwell. What emotion causes blood to leave the extremeties and pool in the core ? Fear. What was i afraid of ? I was afraid that I was not doing my training justice. I was afraid I’d not have earned my belt. After addressing the physical manifestation of fear with cooling water and deep breath, what did I do ? I gave myself a pep talk, and thought about what Senpai Kate told me – how I’m not being judged, and that feedback is meant to help, that all the senpai have made mistakes before, and that I should be proud that I am doing my best. Being afraid was holding me back. So I decided I would not be afraid, I’d embrace my mistakes if they came, and I’d continue the exam..

Fast forward to the dream. My former boss was in my dream, he had just tried to humiliate me in front of a lunchroom full of people. When I challenged him on the nature of his grievances, he cleared the room, save for a sycophant or two of his. I was alone and outnumbered. I was afraid, as in the exam. Then, he escalated. He started “You know – ” and during the next few words drew a large kitchen knife from a table and shoved it squarely between my eyes one inch away from the bridge of my nose. I froze and went pale momentarily. Then the worst thing happened – I woke up !

How did this end, I thought ?! How could I have let myself freeze ? At that point, I realized I’m still in the dream ! I was physically awake, but I could see the situation frozen in time in front of me. Remembering Shihan’s counsel, I started moving back and raised my voice – “OH MY GOD **** (boss’ name) WHY ARE YOU PULLING DOWN YOUR PANTS THATS RIDICULOUS” I was reaching out to potential onlookers. I also started recalling my physical defense options – getting inside the knife – taking one hit on an arm in order to deliver a disabling strike to the eyes or throat or groin with the other hand. Throwing books, chairs, running away. A knife pointed at the face is intended to cause somebody to shrink or freeze. I would refuse to freeze, from the moment I felt that fear, I would refuse to let it paralyze me. As I realized I was fully awake now, I knew I had met the challenge, and I could proudly approach my day – a tremendous contrast to the helplessness I felt when I first ‘woke up’.

I earned my belt in the examination, but I earned something greater when I faced my enemy down and found my voice and power to remain fluid and unstuck. Thank you Senpai for contributing to my growth – it literally was with your words in my mind that I found the tools to do what I had to do.

I went to the Wright Institute’s More Life Training weekend this weekend, at the invite of an awesome FOAF I’m getting to know. I won’t summarize what happened – I’ll describe my first day back, and from it I want you to understand that I think it can be a transformative weekend for you as it was for me, if you take a chance. I have no regrets about having went, and a lot of gratitude for those there – who I am now going to incorporate into my ‘Dream Team’ – for unlocking doors in myself that have long since been shut.

My karate class – I felt good, physically present – and when it came to partner exercises I felt more able to send energy to my partner, and watched as they literally did more, faster, or stronger strikes on the target pad I was holding, with barely any vocal encouragement from me at all. At the end when we did a supposedly closed eyed meditation circle, I discovered later that another person was cheating- a young person I don’t know the name of and haven’t had more than a few words with, and we made lasting, meaningful eye contact for nearly a minute until we both returned to our eyes being closed.

After returning home later than I thought, my wife had gone to bed, and I put my karate uniform in the wash, and chose to play some Pac Man as a diversion, since I’d been pretty much working all day since I woke up. I said I’d keep it to one game – I sometimes use a game of Pac Man to measure my state of mind. I got 19,900 that game, dying with only one dot left on the 2nd board, and getting a couple of 4 ghost runs. A usual first game score for me is from 9 to 11,000. I decided to push myself to another game, not just to beat my score (I was sure I’d beat it) but to work on an intriguing aspect of the game I discovered in the first game, and thought I wanted to expand upon in the second game (the ‘inside’ game). I made it mostly through the 4th board – got around 27,000 (my record is 33,000 and the 6th board), was not surprirsed that I beat my score, and then turned off the game as I promised I would.

The washing machine is still going, and I’m almost done with this post..

My conversation with my mom between karate and pacman was good – I won’t go into detail, but I felt very present. With Maria the night before, and during our lunchtime conversation, I won’t say it was without tension, but it was a tension around very honest topics we both wanted to work through.

When the phone rang today, I picked it up (not usual), if I was busy I told the person that, and then asked them why they called anyway and had a few good words. I checked my email twice, responding only to the 2 most important ones.

I have a good degree of focus, and I really believe in myself, and that I will have good conversations and progress at work tomorrow.

The story I want to sum things up with is this – Roger Bannister was the first man to run a 4-minute mile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile. The year after he achieved this (1954/55), 15 other men broke through that record as well. They believed it was possible. If seeing is the only way you believe something, you certainly will not be the first person to go somewhere new. But the point is not that skepticism is bad, but that the difference between thinking “I’m doing my best” and actually doing your best, the level which you don’t know is within you, is both in believing that a higher level is possible, and believing that you deserve it and can do it. Sometimes, cynics, belief does make all of the difference, and if you haven’t had that experience yet, please talk to me or somebody to seek out somebody who can help you.

There’s the laundry clicker. Gonna sleep long, deep and hard tonight. Peace,

Dean

Pose and barefoot have influenced my running to great effect – but the premise that landing on a heel by itself creates a problem is flawed. Check out Usain Bolt here http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/10/the-keyboard-cult.html – He’s landing heel down, in front of his body. Contrary to the triangle-stability metaphor, the pole vaulter’s metaphor is more fitting. Your forward momentum will slow down, as you change -> kinetic into ^ potential, which you release in your next step. You can’t fall forever, and energy is always conserved (less friction aka heat). When I was running on ice last night it occurred to me that one thing Pose is good for is just that – you won’t slip on (non-wet) ice if your feet are mainly pogosticking up and down, pushing -> only as much as needed to restore intrastep losses. And if you get up near 180 steps / minute, that’s not much ! So I’m grateful for my lessons, but want to keep the mental model clean and shiny.