Serene?

I am currently in a very strange state of quiet happiness. There is some fear of losing this cool feeling soon, but mostly I am able to enjoy it. There is an absence of pain, an eagerness for things to come, a kind of vibrating inner peace.

I may or may not have written here about my longtime worry that in just one aspect of my life I was not satisfied the way I am in other important parts of it. Even though I may complain about my life just being too full and me not having enough time to live it, I am generally very much aware of what a lucky person I am: I have a truly good man by my side, a beautiful son, we live in a pretty village far away from everything but close enough to go to work without a car, there is our spiritually talented cat (who is also good looking and has a very high cuteness factor), my hardheaded horse, the stable just across the street and my stable mates who help me care for him. I also have very loyal family and friends, and since the subject of nonviolent communication came into our life, the quality of my relationships has improved in so many ways.

This list could go on for long, but for some time I knew that I was not truly happy about my work. I tried to change my mindset, knowing that my job was great and I was lucky to work with such a wonderful team and all that. But finally I had to accept that something was not right, that as much it might be the best job in the world for some people, it was not (or no longer) for me.

In spring 2011 I gave my notice 8 months in advance, and by the end of the year I quit. My family gave me the chance to take my time while looking for my dream job. There were some worries in the months to come, but mostly I enjoyed the freedom and the endless possibilities in front of me. We knew that the money would just keep us afloat till July – and look and behold: now it is July and I have found my destination in the best job in the world!

I know this will not keep, there will be times when my dream job will seem more like a nightmare to me. But right now I am blissfully unaware of what is to come, and just enjoying the feeling of having reached that moment, when everything clicks into place and the final piece of the puzzle fits.

The joy of riding

After a successful ride I sometimes have trouble containing myself. Riding has been “difficult” for me for so long, that I just can´t get enough of it, now that it has become such a joyful experience. Riding makes me feel so alive and full to the brim. And I have the need to share this pleasure. If I could, I would create a dance or a poem or a song to try and show what this means to me.

My need to share my riding experiences and the joy they bring me does sometimes irritate people around me. Why all the picture taking, facebook posting and so on? What is the big issue about it? You have a horse, you ride it, so what?

Well, luckily there are people who seem to get “it” and who do continue to give me their support, for example by “liking” my facebook entries or pictures, or by commenting on it. They know how hard it has been for me to conquer my fears, and they seem to take pleasure in my success.

My riding buddies also are very patient with my exhuberance. And they do profit some from my knew courage, in that we can go for longer and faster rides now, and I also take one of their horses along when there is a need for it. I am still learning how to properly handle two horses at once, but it is a challenge I relish. Also our horses are quite well behaved, so it is ok to not always be perfect.

My relationship to my horse has improved immeasurably through this way we now have found to be together. He has opened up and can finally be the horse he was meant to be. Since he is “allowed” to run his attitude has changed: he no longer walks at a snails pace but can easily keep pace with the other horses at our stable, and sometimes he leaves them behind in the dust. Also he is always wide awake now, and he reacts fluently and easily to my signals. We still have a lot of work to do in the riding arena, but on trail rides he is already the best possible horse.

For myself I am still not completly at ease in situations involving lots of traffic, and when he gets excited about other horses. Luckily in those situatons, I always have the option to jump off and handle him from the ground. Also I still mostly ride with someone else. But I am confident that there will come a time when I will just saddle up and go for a ride without a second thought about being alone or not.

Things that seem to come together

I was just re-reading some of my older posts and I was quite shocked about the negativity in at least the last two of them. Wow, was I down then. But then I know myself: I am like this about once a month – luckily it never stays like that for long. I am still working on my “taking responsibility” and “standing up for myself”-issues. I am still not the best possible mother, wife or horse owner. But I feel that I am, and that my family as a whole is, on a very good path now.

Ok so there is some new trouble with our stable, as one of the three women in our “cooperation” can no longer do as much work as before. But this has not thrown me into desperation. I am worried, I am looking for solutions, I am discussing it with my husband and so on. But I believe that we WILL go on, that there WILL be a way – because this is the best solution I ever had for keeping my horse, and I want to go on this way. The horses have been together for a year this autumn, and they are a lovely herd and feel safe with each other. The stable is very protected from outside influences, we three women and our menfolk are the only people taking care of the horses, with some well chosen exceptions in times when one of us was away. This protection is very important for my horse, as he takes up bad vibes from people and gets sick.

My own riding issues made him ill last winter, so I could not ride him for a while. But I got over at least part of my fears and am now able to ride him much more easily and lots faster. I even took along another horse two or three times, which could not have been thought of a year back. This change last summer made the year 2010 my best riding year ever. Trail riding still holds lots of challenges for me, but I have gained so much courage, that I now sincerly believe that one day, I will be completely at ease riding him by myself in the countryside.

As for work I had a very bad phase in autumn, after my last “appraisal inverview” with my boss. She told me about my shifting between professional and inapproprate behaviour, and that she did not see much improvement in my behavior patterns. I was really crushed and – like every two years or so – was thinking about having me checked out for ADHS. I don´t have a diagnosis, but when I was a kid my parents used to tell my teachers that I had ADHS. Since I learned that this can still be an issue when you are an adult I am from time to time thinking about doing something about it. But then I find myself wondering about the sense of it, as I am not willing to have myself medicated or anything like that. And would it not just be an excuse to hide behind, or even a kind of mental prison? Does ADHS even exist? Are not just all people different, and some more that others.? I just don´t know.

I have now decided to leave my job by the end of 2011. This decision made me so happy: I have now a perspective and I can start dreaming again. It took me such a long time to take this decision as many things spoke against it: it is a great job with many opportunities, my boss is capable and fair, I love my work mates, it gets never boring, and the pay is very good. For a long time this was the best place for me to be. But it no longer is. When I moved from bookselling to information management it was the right decision. But leaving now, maybe going back to the books in some way, feels absolutly right, too. It helps that our financial situation is pretty stable right now, so it wont destroy us when I earn less.

2011 will also be another year for nonviolent communication training. Last years family camp was such a wonderful experience for all of us that we decided on the spot to go again. I wish it was summer already I also want to start a year long advanced training course, but this may or may not be in the budget. Sometimes it feels like nothing has changed since my husband and I took up nonviolent communication. We still feel like absolute beginners. But when I look closer and with a more positive outlook I can see the change. There is a new awareness, discussiones tend to go deeper, and we are capable of changing track faster than before. We are both very sure that this is a good thing for us and absolutly want to go on.

The funny thing happening in my life right now is that everything starts to seem connected. For example I am currently reading a book by Mary Ann Simonds: Was Pferde wirklich brauchen. The way she talks about horses needs and how we can communicate with animals in a completly different way, is very closly related to what my riding teacher tries to explain to me for ages now. It also is pretty similar to some ot the stuff I read in the blog Equine Insanity. The writer of this blog apparently just read a book on nonviolent communication. And of course the empathy taught by nonviolent communication trainers is very close to the way of communication with animals that Simonds talks about or the way we try to communicate with our children at our sons un-school arco.

Maybe it is just me holding a hammer that makes everything look like a nail to me. But there sure seem a lot of things in different parts of my life (work, horse, family, school) to come together and lead into a similar direction… I am really curious about where this all will lead us!

Frustrations of a horse owner

I am so sad and frustrated. Everything seemed to go so nicely! My gelding and his older friend were alone for some weeks, and today the two mares are coming home. I went trail riding twice last week and it went very well. Also the owner of the other horse took mine along for a fast ride once. Now the weather is very bad and I thought I could easily leave him alone for the weekend.

But now the stable owners are back from their holiday and tell me my horse hurt one of the trees. I did not see it, but they are right: one of the trees has huge parts of its skin eaten off. The protection is gone. This certainly is bad enough by itself, but then she went into telling me exactly how bad a horse owner I am:

that I should work him more, that he is bored and will start to develop bad habits (she is a vet). With her accusations she hits me where it hurts most: I KNOW I don´t work him enough! I know I am not the best possible horse owner! But I TRY so very hard! And I thought we were making  progress.

This all seems so useless now: I can give my best but it will never be enough. She also told me that when she had a horse, she worked him much more. I am sure that´s true: but it was before she had a family, and the horse was certrainly kept in a closed stable. My horse is kept in an open paddock with stables, and they go to the pasture for several hours a day. I know I only work him about three times a week, but then I try to do different things with him, to keep him motivated. And my two fellow horse owners at the stable do try and support me where they can, by taking him along or even riding him from time to time.

I wish that the stable owner could aknowledge my effort, and not just hit me over the head with accusations. It is not that I believe she knows all that well, but she lives in the house next to the stable and I have to get along. I also feel that she is very lucky to have us as tenants, as we always payour rent on time, we keep the paddock, the stables and the pastures very clean, we try to keep to the agreed hours, we always listen to her and her husband…

The rent is high and we don´t get any service, we do it all ourselves: buy the feed, the hay, the straw, repare what is broken, organize the transport of the manure, talk to the farmers who own the pastures and so on. But from the beginning it was clear that they don´t respect me and see me as some idiot who does not know a thing about horses. They knew from the beginning that we had different opinions on horse care and still did agree to the contract.

Most of the time they seemed happy enough: they told us themselves that the horses are quiet and friendly and a pleasure to watch. But I knew of course that in their heads they did continue to judge me stupid. I was glad we did not meet too often. It´s a lovely family, but we are just too different to mix. But the confrontation today (if you can call something a confrontation, where on person accuses and the other listens)  hurt me lots.

Too bad there isn´t really any alternative to this stable in our village. And even it there was: it is ideal to have the horse right across the street, especially in my case, without a car and a drivers licence. Last night I did dream about moving to another stable and it was just plain horrible.

How to be an adult person

I do have some issues with standing up for myself. It is not all that obvious, as I can be very opinionated and also do love a good conflict – but only at home. Away from home and family I flinch from personal conflicts.

When it gets personal, meaning someone is critisizing me, I am a complete whimp. People do tend to critisize me a lot, I do make a good punching bag. Because I just laugh if off. It is not easy to see that I am hurt, because I react like it is ok with me. And in a way it is. 

When I was a young girl my reaction to people hurting me was to cry. It was very difficult for me to learn to control that. Then I taught myself to outwardly ignore hurtful actions, to play the clown. It worked much better than crying, as no one likes a cry-baby, but a clown can be entertaining. There even was a kind of freedom with being a clown. A clown can sometimes tell the truth when others can’t.

Today I have two situations in my life that I really don’t like and where I think I should unlearn my way of dealing with personal critisism. I do tend to either accept the blame completely or to give excuses. I do take mistakes very seriously, and I had to learn the hard way that people rarely want to know why I did something wrong.

So I tried to learn how to take responsibility, but it kind of backfired. Because I myself don’t critisize others (or only in very minor, inpersonal matters, like a form not filled out correctly). To the contrary, I even do make excuses for others when they fail!

This is so bad that it was mentioned several times by my boss. I tried to stop this, but it did not work. I don’t do it on purpose and most times I don’t even realise when it happens. I guess I am doing it in some misguided hope that this will make others excuse my mistakes, too. But that never happens.

What does not help me deal with personal conflicts is my cursed ability to ALWAYS see the others point of view. How can I fight back when I am perfecly aware of the other persons reasons and feelings? To me it is impossible.

The best example for this is my riding teacher. I do deeply respect her for her ability and also she has been a very good friend to me. But she has a way to rake me down and critisize me in the most hurtful way.

When I made the decision to have my chronialy ill pony put down, she wondered aloud if I had not done it because of my financial situation. Or when I asked one of her other pupils if she wanted to move into my stable, she got angry because I was stealing her stable help. She made it sound like I was a traitor. Both accusations hurt me very deeply, and I could not fight back, because I could see how it might look like that to her.

On the other hand I really want to start dealing with her in an adult way. But knowing that I won’t be able to fight back if she attacks me again makes me retreat into myself, showing immature behaviour, acting childlike, asking for permission, moving hesitatingly – which annoys her no end and the circle starts again.

I really have no idea how to bring a major change into this pattern of mine. It is not limited to my riding teacher, I have a very similar relationship to my boss. She too is a very capable woman and I admire her. But she has a way of putting me down, of making me feel small and incapable, that makes me sick inside. I once tried to bring it up in our annual qualification meeting. And she told me to just fight back once in a while. But I can’t. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. Because the situation is never black and white, I DO see the other point of view, I KNOW there is some truth in the critisim – so how can I fight against it?

I was putting all my hope on learning about  Nonviolent Communication (NVC) – but sadly for the third year in a row there was not enough money in the family vault for us to go to NVC family camp like I wanted. Sniff. But I have not given up hope yet.

Everything happens at once

On January the 18th my husband and I spent a long and weary day making our budget for the year 2009. It was very difficult, because of my earning quite a bit less than the year before. But our quest was succesful, and while there was no money left for going on a vacation, we found a way to make the numbers meet. Uff.

But then things started to fall appart:

First we learnt that the school our son is going to (it is a school that was funded by us and other parents, based on the insights of great pedagogues like Maria Montessori and Rebeca Wild) is in financial trouble, that other parents are leaving the sinking ship, and that we are supposed to pay 40% more per month to bridge the troubled waters. Of course there is no way we can do that inside of the already rather tight budget we planned on only days before.

Then I was informed that the new owners of my horses stable would ask much more money for the stable rent than I had payed before, and my stable mate (the former owner of the stable, with whom I had the contract) reacted by finding another place for her ponies. She can leave any day she wants. I am so not ready for another stable odysee with my horse, and I am used now to have him close by (the stable is right across the road from where I live). But I can’t keep him alone, because he is a social animal, because of the stable work, and because of the money. So what to do?

Next I got a phone call from the place where my chronicaly ill shetland pony is taken care of – he has gotten worse and we will have to put him down tomorrow, the day of my sons 9th birthday.

Hello? What’s the matter? Why does all of this happen at the same time?

I know all this crises are minor in that they don’t threaten the health and lives of my close family. But they are still having a large impact on my life.

Should we leave our beloved school project behind and look for another school for our son? Or should we dig in and try to make it against all odds?

Should I risk to rent the stable by myself and try to find other people to share it with – even though I know it would be hard to find people that I would be comfortable with? Or should I just give up and let my perfect horse dreams go – by either moving him to a stable far away where I can only visit him twice a week, or even by giving him away to someone who can take better care of him than I do?

And what changes in my life with my pony gone?

SuisseToy und Schulsystem

Samstag war ich mit meinem Sohn (8) an der SuisseToy. Wir lieben diese Messe und gehen da jedes Jahr hin, seit wir davon wissen. Ich war sehr stolz zu sehen, wie gut er mit dem ganzen Kommerz-Ueberschwang zurecht kommt. Und wie besonnen er mit seinem Geld umgegangen ist. Das kann er jetzt schon besser als ich. Er hat dieses Geld selbst zusammengespart und verdient (mit Spielzeug-Verkauf am letzten Dorf-Märit). Sehr enttäuscht war er, als wir erfuhren, dass Lego auch von dem Brand in der einen Halle betroffen gewesen und abgereist war. Weil er hatte eigtl. geplant, sein Geld bei Lego liegen zu lassen. So musste er sich dann mit Playmobil zufrieden geben. Aber zuerst haben wir uns natürlich möglichst viel von der Messe angeschaut, sämtliche Wettbewerbe mitgemacht, uns mit Kostproben bestechen lassen und neue Gesellschaftsspiele gelernt.

Leider hat die Messe auch ihre Schattenseiten. Viele Kinder waren von den vielen Eindrücken schlicht überfordert. Kombiniert mit dem ganzen Zuckerzeug führte das dann zu sehr unschönen Szenen: schlagende Mütter, wild drohende Väter… Ich glaube wenn man den Umgangston, den diese Eltern hier mit ihren eigenen Kindern zeigten auf Tonband aufgenommen und ihnen später vorgespielt hätte, die wären aus allen Wolken gefallen. Wirklich sehr grob und ja, gewalttägig. Wenn ich die Nerven mit meinem Sohn verliere, behaupte ich danach wenigstens nicht, es sei nur seine Schuld und eine angemessene Reaktion gewesen! Und das waren meist sehr kleine Kinder, denen man nun wirklich noch nicht sie Veranwortung übergeben kann für ihre Reaktion auf diese anspruchsvolle Situation.

Sonntag war Hausarbeit angesagt – aber zwischendurch fand ich doch noch die Zeit, das aktuelle Magazin zu lesen. Es hatte einige sehr gute Artikel drin (wenn sie nicht gerade über das Impfen schreiben, finde ich das meistens ein sehr gutes Heftli), z.B. über Frauen, die behinderte Kinder abgetrieben haben oder erwägen, dies zu tun. Für mich am wichtigsten war der Artikel über einen Lehrer, der am System gescheitert ist und jetzt was anderes macht: Warum ich nicht mehr Lehrer bin

In beiden von ihm beschriebenen Schulen, sowohl an der öffentlichen wie an der privaten Sek, fundierte (von mir aus gesehen) das “Problem” in der Leistungsorientierung. Während am einen Ort die Schulleitung die Kinder beliebig herumverschiebt, sind es am andern Ort die Eltern, die ausschliesslich in Noten denken – als ob davon das zukünftige Glück ihrer Kinder abhinge. Bin ich froh, gibt es die arco und können wir es uns im Moment leisten, unseren Sohn dahin zu schicken!!! Mein Kind soll nicht glauben, dass ihn eine Zahl definiert.

Verrückt eigtl. wie sehr sich gerade auch die Lehrerschaft dagegen wehrt, das System Schule von Grund auf umzukrempeln. Klar sind sie Reform-müde, aber das waren ja bloss immer nur Versuche, am alten System herumzudoktorn. Dabei basiert das alte System auf einem von mir aus gesehen veralteten Menschenbild und sollte völlig abgelöst werden. Kinder braucht man nicht zu irgendwas zu erZIEHEN – die WOLLEN ja lernen. Nur allzuoft hindert sie aber die Schule mehr daran als sonstwas. Aber dazu haben andere mehr und besser geschrieben, als ich es kann. Für Lehrer/innen empfehle ich als Einstieg “Das kompetente Kind” von Jesper Juul.

Kürzlich wurde ich in einer Mailing-Liste in der es eigtl. um Homeschooling ging auf einen Blogeintrag von einem Jungen aus Alaska verwiesen, dessen Familie etwas betreibt, was dort offenbar Unschooling heisst. D.h. die Kinder gehen nicht zur Schule, und werden auch nicht unterrichtet, sondern leben und lernen im eigenen Rythmus. Eigtl. ganz ähnlich, wie wir uns das in der arco vorstellen, bloss sprechen wir dann auch noch von der “gestalteten Umgebung” (siehe Rebeca und Maricio Wild). In gewisser Weise ist natürlich auch in dieser Familie eine gestaltete Umgebung vorhanden, indem die Mutter durch ihre Präsenz einen sehr warmen, liebevollen Rahmen bietet. Lustig sind dann auch die Widersprüche zu “uns” (damit meine ich das Schulumfeld unseres Sohnes): während wir mehr oder weniger Medien-kritisch sind und zumindest einige von uns den Medienkonsum der Kinder stark einschränken (unser Sohn darf wöchentlich eine halbe Stunde PC oder TV nutzen, mit Ausnahmen), ist in dieser Familie der PC eins der Hauptlernmittel der Kinder, und wird das abendliche gemeinsame Fernsehen zelebriert. Hier der Link zum Blog der Mutter.