Max,

It was a case of my strong identification with a killer.  I mean that 
seriously.  It is God's great gift, only, that separates us.

Your poem is necessary, and alternatives to repressed and then unbridled 
anger are also necessary.   Let me build to some alternatives.

Last night at a Dream Group (we help one another bring out salient features, 
emotion-tags and meanings to the symbols and patterns in one another's 
dreams), one man, a quite sociable man, said ours was the only group in 
which he felt safe and welcomed and "heard."  Our group consists of four 
people, two women, two men.  He loathes his job, his being unable to 
humanely and creatively help the students he works with because of the 
restraints by the "system," he despairs of his ability to communicate with 
women whom he wants to meet, and he feels lost.  He isn't one who wears his 
thoughts and feelings on his sleeve.  Last night was the first time he said 
those things, after months of our careful listening to his dreams and his 
equally careful listening to our responses and our own dreams.

Here are some alternatives to repressed and then exploding anger.

First, as always, is awareness.  If we cannot see our connection to the 
woman who killed her children, the most shocking kind of killer we can 
imagine---then we may want to ask whatever higher power for Good we believe 
in to allow us, safely, to see the connection.  And then we may find it 
useful to take babysteps, simple babysteps, to find out what makes us angry, 
what we resent.

Years ago, a friend of mine said that until she sees what she has done, she 
doesn't know how she feels.  I ditto that.  It also helps to know what you 
avoid doing.  Sometimes telling one other person, in a safe, caring setting 
can mean the difference between life and death.

A strong motivation to seek awareness and solutions still remains the 
necessary and sufficient condition to gaining awarenesses and solutions.

An awareness "exercise" that I recently experienced and am still trying to 
work, is called "The Four Chairs."  I have found it useful in showing me 
(and others who've used it and said the same thing) what an  inner conflict 
might be and, gradually, how it may be faced---though perhaps very 
emotionally---as if it were a bottle carefully opened as opposed to a shook 
soda bottle uncorked.  Here's how the exercise proceeds:

One person sits, in turn, in each of the four chairs.  A feeling of 
understanding and resolution may come after two or three or four "rounds" of 
occupying the chairs.

First Chair states concisely what she feels is her inner conflict.  "I'll 
die if I lose this job that I hate."  "I have to sell my house, but my 
children are all opposed to that decision."

In the Second Chair, the same person states concisely what she feels is the 
opposite of the statement she just made.  She might say, "But sometimes I 
like the work I do, and I could emphasize that instead of feeling I hate 
doing it."  Or "My children may be right, I should stay in the house."

In the Third Chair, the person "takes sides" with one of the views she gave. 
And she may give a reason or two for why she supports one view over the 
other:  "Yes, I could emphasize the good part of my job, that seems more 
positive than such extreme thoughts as "die" and "hate."
Or "Of course I have to sell my house, it's a matter of financial necessity, 
after all!"

In the Fourth Chair, the person states what she hears as a foundation, a 
commonality, maybe even a "hidden agenda" in the three previous voices.  "I 
hate most of what I do at work, but I must keep the job or I will for some 
reason perish."  Or "My children and I are trying to come up with a solution 
that makes me happy."

Beginning another "round" in the First Chair, the person usually has 
advanced in her realizations and conclusions.  She may now say:  "I want to 
leave my job because the most important parts of me will die if I stay in 
it."  And "I must sell the house, and the children must just try to 
understand the decision."

The rounds I observed continued a couple more times before the person felt 
as if she had found some important new way to understand her dilemma.  In 
the first example, the woman saw in her tenacity in the job a strength that 
might carry her through a job search.  In the second example, the mother 
happily acknowledged that her children wanted, truly, to help her, but that 
her commitment to helping herself might be the best "model" for their own 
lives that she could give them.  She also revealed that her children thought 
she often made bad decisions, but she began to see that she had made many 
excellent decisions---and that selling her home may be one of those.

Do you see what you have done, Max?  I hope, in some way, our two-step dance 
together has helped someone.

Peace and Power in Love,

Judy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "cooee" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 3:58 AM
Subject: Re: Judy on Max's 'Breaking News'


> on 14/9/05 8:54 PM, judy prince at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>> A necessary poem, Max---beyond the necessary "sorting out" that says they
>> are just like us, normal.  You've moved us further, p'raps with the 
>> sister's
>> refrain "I knew it," and with your hyper-normalizing, so that we can say
>> they were just like us bcuz that is the point, isn't it?
>>
>> Just like us.  We stifle anger, bury resentments, soldier on, stay in
>> control, play those roles.  The happy working Mom, a good nurse who 
>> heals;
>> the children who've learned to be good, to duck and hide from Mom's 
>> moods;
>> the husband, distracted by his distraught responses to a wife's 
>> impossible
>> needs, who cannot be strong bcuz he's become a fragment; the dog the only
>> creature who can protect the others, if only they hadn't spun out of all
>> protection zones, finally.
>>
>> Well, Max, you see the power you've brought in this reader's response, 
>> and I
>> thank you for it, for the compassionate warning.
>>
>> Judy
>
> Ah Judy , you're a creative reader!
> It is wonderful to read what you see in my attempt!
> If only I had the gift to get other readers to come up with such
> responses...
> I actually showed the piece to two out of three of my current 
> undergraduate
> poetry-writing classes - not the third because one young woman in it had
> showed me her slashed wrist the other morning - a first for me...
> The conversation prompted by my poem confirmed my feeling that it was
> written out of much confusion, and also out of complicity in the
> exploitation by the media of private tragedies.
>
> My wife the speech therapist sees a boy from the same school, who told her
> this week he was sad at losing his good friend.
> Marilyn feels young children are often insulated from the shock of death
> coming so close, whereas the boy's mother was still distraught ('how could 
> a
> mother...?' etc).
> Perhaps it has to do with an inability to imagine madness taking over a
> person.
> My own range has yet to reach that far, I know.
>
> Max
>
> Thanks Patrick for your response also.
>
>