Category: Emotions

There Is No Better Way

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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When I was still rather new in my profession of teaching I took a Myers Briggs test during one of the faculty meetings at my school. It turned out that I was an INFP which translates to someone who is introverted, intuitive, feeling and perceptive. I remember being a bit stunned by the tag of introversion because I assumed that it meant that I would not make a particularly strong educator. After all, a teacher is on view all day every day and to me being an introvert meant being someone unable to deal with other people. I soon learned that my homespun definition was totally inaccurate. Instead the idea describes how I unwind, come up with ideas, find peace. It seems that I am one of those individuals who finds inspiration and comfort on long solitary walks or inside the walls of my home. When I am feeling down I don’t want to go out on the town. Instead I need to recharge my soul quietly.

I have taken different versions of the same test many different times and get the same results again and again. I recently played a Facebook game for fun and ended up being described as a unicorn with my INFP characteristics. It seems that only four to five percent of the population earns that tag. I laughed as I realized why I have sometimes felt like a oddball in life, but it also helped me to realize why I seem to have a gift for understanding people, a talent that worked well with my teaching profession. In many ways I’m just one big gooey mix of emotions that from time to time drive my husband and other highly rational people insane. I greet the world with feelings and intuitions rather than a well thought out rational plan. I’m one of those people who quickly grows weary at planning meetings, which is ironic because a during my working years I frequently found myself guiding such events.

I had a dear friend who was impish and willing to go wherever the winds blew in a social setting, but when it came to more serious matters she planned with a vengeance. I soon learned that our relationship was glorious as long as it was all about fun. Whenever we worked together it went south. She was a person of outlines and scripts, while I preferred to quietly think for a bit and than go with the ideas brewing inside my head. I  corrected on the fly as needed and grew anxious with her need to plot and plan and fill notebooks with written descriptions. I suppose that we drove each other insane in our few collaborations, and so we ultimately abandoned all efforts and simply enjoyed each other informally.

We each have certain preferred ways of meeting the world. I’m not a psychologist so I don’t know if these are innate traits or learned or a combination of both. What I do realize as someone who has worked with thousands of people is that there is no one best way of doing things. We each learn and work and find joy in ways that feel the most comfortable. The person who is the life of a party may not necessarily be the most likely leader, but our styles may determine how those with whom we interact perceive us and how we see them. As a society we often place great value on particular traits thinking that they are the best way to do things. We often judge people by our own characteristics rather than understanding that each style of interaction has its merits.

When I begin ranting and my emotions are in high gear it makes those who are more attuned to rationality and structure feel uncomfortable. I learned over time that I had to curb some of my tendencies and provide more written documentation for my ideas than I might have been inclined to do. What few people knew is that I did not begin with outlines, but rather with ideas from which I worked backwards to create outlines and such. As I worked with my colleagues I found kindred spirits and those who needed more structure from me. I realized that some of my bosses needed little more than evidence that I was doing my job well and others wanted hard copy documentation. I had to learn how to comply with the needs and demands of everyone that I encountered even when it became irritating.

I used to assume that everyone hated meetings, and plans, and goal setting because those things were so abhorrent to me. I soon realized that for many people they are as necessary as breathing. My vague descriptions of the thoughts in my head were not enough for them, and so I found ways to comply in processes that I knew that I would never personally use. I taught my students in similar ways. I knew that some of my pupils were eager to simply jump from a cliff to test their wings and others wanted detailed instruction and practice before attempting trial runs. So too I worked with teachers whose lessons were crafted with the briefest of descriptions and others who wrote out their plans almost word for word. I allowed both versions of planning from members of my faculty as long as I saw good results.

We humans are far more complex and diverse than most of us imagine. It’s why we have liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. It’s the chief cause of our misunderstandings. We tend to see the world through our own lenses and feel confused when we observe someone who is so different from ourselves. Some of us are tidy and others are messy. In truth neither one or the other is necessarily best. The world is as exciting and productive as it is because of our differences, not our sameness. We learn from each person that we meet.

Being flexible and understanding of the people around us is a necessary aspect of our existence. Extroverts are not better than introverts, just different. Democrats are not better than Republicans, just different. Rational thinking is not better than being emotional, just different. When we put all of the various personalities together and truly value them we create a society capable of doing great things. We truly do need everyone because there is on one better way.

Thoughts and Prayers

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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Losing someone suddenly and unexpectedly shocks the entire system. One moment the world seems to be filled with promise and the next everything feels as though it has changed. That late night call announcing the accident that took the life of a friend or family member in many ways feels like death itself. The visit from the police to announce that a dear one has been killed by a stranger is a gut punch. Many of us have experienced such life changing events, so we know only too well how the specter of that horrific moment changes us, hovers over us, burrows into our souls.

For most of my life I have relived the moment when I first learned of my young father’s death. I went to sleep dreaming of the family gathering at the beach that lay ahead and awoke to learn that the gathering would take place behind a curtain of sadness and tears inside our living room. I was only eight, but even a child understands the horror of such things. My emotions ruled me for a very long time. I was afraid, angry, hopelessly confused and unhappy. The shock of my father’s death left a gaping wound inside me and the members of my family. I felt as though I was suddenly an entirely different person than the one I had been only hours before I received the horrific news.

I have always understood the deep seated emotions that bury the survivors of such tragedies. The process of healing is a long and difficult road, made even worse in instances when the cause of death is violent. Each time I hear of a mass shooting my heart becomes heavy for the survivors who must pick up the wounded pieces of their lives. I know how long their journeys will be and how different they will feel. I want to tell them that it will take much time for their emotions to feel normal again. I want to hug them, help them, do something for them, but what am I to do from so far away? My only recourse is to keep them in my thoughts, pray that they will find the comfort that came to me in my own time of need.

I have been reading about the tortured souls who lost friends or family members in school shootings. They once seemed happy, content, set for good things in life, but the horror of their situation ultimately overcame them. They were unable to cope with the feelings of depression, guilt, frustration that strangled the very life out of them. They may have covered the depth of their despair with smiles or perhaps they simply surrendered to the hopelessness that they felt. Each of us who hear of them wonder what we might have done to help them, even knowing that there was little that strangers such as ourselves have the power to accomplish. We fall back on the only positive thing that we have. We think of them and pray for them and for their families. We feel their pain and maybe donate to an organization dedicated to helping those stricken with grief. We may even write a letter to a Congress person suggesting changes that will make tragedies less likely. In the end, however, our thoughts and prayers seem to be the best that we have to offer, even as we sense that they may not suffice.

It was the thoughtfulness of the people in my community that ultimately saved me from the brooding and the desperation that I was feeling after my father’s death. My recovery was slow and the compassion of those around me was relentless. I was fully aware of the love that came my way and it ultimately healed me. Knowing that people cared enough to mention me and my family in their prayers meant everything to me, and over the years I have been calmed by the heavenly petitions of devoted individuals who sincerely asked that God watch over me. I have found great serenity in the kindness of prayers.

There are those who would spurn the very idea of thoughts and prayers, insisting that they are little more than worthless utterances that accomplish nothing. I would insist nonetheless that I know their power from personal experience. I truly believe that I might have been lost were it not for the loving support that came from thoughts and prayers directed at me. They told me that I was not alone, that people truly cared about my well-being. Thoughts and prayers are not to be mocked.

I am greatly saddened by the deaths of those left to survive the ashes of mass shootings. I pray for those who have endured the unimaginable horror of such events. I pray that we will find ways to make such occasions more and more unlikely in our country and throughout the world. I pray that we will have the wisdom to find solutions. I pray that we will all understand the complexities of the human spirit and that we will be open and honest in our communications with each other, especially our children. I think and I pray because it is important to do so.

I have a dear friend who keeps a prayer journal. She places the names of those whom she is remembering on Post It notes. Beside the name she writes a brief description of the needs of that person. When she prays she refers to those little slips of paper and personally thinks of them during her very busy days. She is a beautifully selfless and faith filled woman whose sincerity has helped many survive unspeakable ordeals. I believe that the real power of what she does is found in the love that she provides those who are wounded. There is something quite comforting in knowing that another person is taking the time to pray for us. It provides us with hope.

Do not underestimate the power of thoughts and prayers. They have moved mountains and seemingly prompted miracles. We need them.

The Pause

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I’ve had to develop patience over the years. My instinct is to react to situations without thinking, allowing my emotions  to guide what I say and do. I had to learn to curb such tendencies when I became a wife, a mother, an educator. Letting my emotions range free without any filters was dangerous to the well being of those with whom I lived. Brutal honesty can hurt as much as a blow to gut. I had to practice using the art of the the pause which is why I recently kept a quote that found it’s way to my Facebook wall. It went something like this, “Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you’ll avoiding saying things and doing things you’ll later regret.”

The advice is not particularly unique but it is certainly profound. If only we took the time to think before reacting we would avoid a world of pain and hurt and guilt. Who among us hasn’t made that comment that stung someone we loved or respected to the point of creating a wedge between us? How often have mental or physical harm been inflicted in the heat of a moment? Undoing such damage is almost always more difficult that taking that little breath, counting to ten, waiting until our anger subsides to deal more rationally with a  situation.

The biggest regrets that I have are all centered on hurtful utterances that I made in the heat of a moment, or accusations that I hurled without evidence. I have judged and assumed like everyone and even though I was sometimes perfectly justified, in most cases I would have been saved great misunderstandings if only I had stopped to get information before jumping to conclusions.

The worlds of social media tempt us to strike out against people and ideas that offend us without pausing to consider whether voicing our opinions is of any positive use. There is more than enough ugliness and bullying without contributing more. What does it really matter if someone has an opinion different from our own? Why do we feel compelled to insert our own feelings? Do we really believe that we are going to change minds?

I have to admit that I often lose control and type in responses that I know are meaningless to the people who will read them. They will stick to their ideas and mine will have no impact other than to anger them. I do damage to our relationship which in most cases is far more important than the differences that we have. I have had to remind myself again and again to stop before pressing the keys to my computer in a fit of anger. I’ve learned to use more discretion with my instinctual tendencies.

As a teacher I learned the importance of presuming innocence until guilt was proven. It was easy to think that a difficult child was the perpetrator of a classroom crime based simply on past infractions, but all too often quick judgement lead to conviction of an innocent. I was always happy when I gathered all of the facts before coming to a final judgement. It saved both me and my students many times over. I was sometimes accused of being too soft, too lenient, but in the end I was always fair.

My mother once described her bipolar disorder as a disease which caused her to say ugly things that she did not mean, but felt compelled to utter. I find it interesting that she saw her mental illness as the lack of an ability to pause before reacting. Perhaps her definition says something about our human tendency to let lose with our feelings without stopping to reign them in. Maybe when we forget to pause we are exhibiting a kind of irrationality that we should be able to curb unless we are afflicted with a disease of the brain.

Children naturally have outbursts until they eventually learn how to control themselves. We need to be as aware of our own thoughtless behaviors as my mother was. We have learned the niceties of human interaction and we need to practice using them more. If we were all to follow the simple advice of the quote that so resonated with me we might have far fewer misunderstandings. Curbing our anger is a worthy cause.

There are surely times when truth must be told and no feelings spared. There are causes worthy of our indignation, but we must learn to differentiate between occasions when our input may bring about positive change and when we are simply wasting our breaths on trivial matters. Learning when to react quickly and strongly and when to slow things down is a powerful lesson that we might all want to review. 

Comedy of Tragedy

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I’m a creature of habit. I still tune in to Saturday Night Live whenever I happen to be home on a Saturday night. I have to admit that the writers seem to have run out of original ideas. In the golden days there were so many great comedians and hilarious skits that I would laugh my head off. Now I’m lucky to find one segment that makes me chuckle. Still I watch in the hopes that new talent will bring more genius  and hilarity to the program, but on most nights I leave disappointed, wanting more than the show appears capable of providing.

I’ve always enjoyed political satire. I laughed at the antics of comedians who impersonated the Kennedy family. I had no trouble finding the humor in jokes like The Vatican Rag with it’s chorus of “genuflect, genuflect.” I’m a great fan of satire, and don’t generally feel indignant when my own sacred cows become the butt of jokes. I truly believe that laughing at ourselves and our idiosyncrasies is a healthy exercise. Still, it seems as though Saturday Night Live has taken a one note approach to laughter. I weary of the continuous digs about President Trump, republicans, and religion. Surely there are other topics that are more interesting and worthy of exploring. What happened to great schticks like candy gram, Bill and Ted, Samurai chef? Why are the present day offerings so predictable and actually a bit unfunny?

On a recent episode of Saturday Night Live one of the comedians indicated that listening to the music of Michael Jackson given his supposed predilection to pedophilia is akin to continuing to go to a Catholic church after learning of the grievous offenses of some of the priests. The goof ball who made the comment is the same fool who poked fun at a Texas congressional candidate who wore an eye patch without learning that the man was a war hero who lost an eye while fighting in the Middle East. The so called jokes come across as more akin to insults than clever ways of poking fun at institutions. The constant beating of such drums feels like propaganda rather than entertainment.

I serve as a Eucharistic Minister at my Catholic church which is a humbling task because it has shown me exactly why my fellow parishioners continue to hold fast to their faith in spite of grave anger about the handling of wayward priests. As I present the chalice to each person the notion behind the word “communion” comes clearly into focus. What I see is a community of good but imperfect souls who come together in a spirit of faith and love to be better versions of themselves. The fact that some among us have sinned is not the point of our devotion, rather we are searching for a source of serenity in our lives that we find in the gospels and promises of Jesus. We know from them that we will always be loved. Why indeed would we want to abandon something that powerful?

I’ve learned that there are bad people everywhere. I’ve seen teachers harm students, bankers steal, doctors take advantage of patients, coaches cheat, engineers build unsafe structures. The fact that any profession or organization is found to have evil in its midst is not an indictment of an entire group. It is simply an indication of our human weaknesses.

When I worked in a school where a man was accused of sexually abusing his daughter the rest of us were shocked, saddened, and even angry. We had no thoughts of indicting the entire faculty based on one man’s transgressions. Our students did not leave the school in droves for fear of being in a nest of evil. So it is with the Catholic church. As the faithful we are filled with so many emotions. We grieve and seethe with anger while also understanding that our own faith and the ideals of our church are bigger than the harm that has been done.

We are a family, and just as with any family we are shocked and hurt when one of our own proves to be a traitor to our group. A breach of trust is difficult to handle, but we do not break apart the entire structure because of the sins of the few. So it is with those of us who remain members of the Catholic church. My own parish is a loving and inviting place that brings me comfort, and so I eagerly go to mass each Sunday. I do not ignore or forget the sins of some of the men who were supposed to be our shepherds. They have smeared our reputation as Catholics in a horrendous way, and we want assurances that things will change. I also understand that we will never reach a state of perfection as long as humans are part of our group.

If the comedian who posed such a silly question were to come to my church with a sincere desire to become a member of our community I am certain that he would be welcomed with the spirit of love that Jesus taught us to convey to all of our fellow humans. Knowing that we are one in the spirit of our religion is what keeps us coming each week, not some blind allegiance to strange beliefs. In reality our continued support of the Catholic church is more of a pledge to the teachings of Jesus than a testimony of ignorance. It is indeed a beautiful thing.

El Meson

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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He sat by the window sipping on his beer, slowly and methodically eating the Palomilla that he ordered each week. He was a regular at El Meson, a Cuban restaurant in Rice Village. He came at precisely four thirty on Thursday afternoons and chose the same table every time. Invariably the other patrons who came and went while he leisurely enjoyed his fare were somewhat startled to see him because at first glance he appeared to be the image of Ernest Hemingway come back to life. His white hair curled down the back of his neck and met his trimmed white beard at his chin. He always wore a straw hat and casual clothing that was stylish, but a bit rumpled as though he was on permanent vacation on some Caribbean Island. He fit right in to the quirkiness of the area and the restaurant itself.

She had her own table set at a ninety degree angle several feet away from his. She too came to El Meson each Thursday, usually arriving just before he did. She tried different things on the menu, one day eating tapas and drinking wine, another enjoying only flan and coffee. She was elegantly prim and proper and confident. Her white hair was smooth and carefully coiffed as if she had just come from a comb out with her hairdresser. She was dressed in a pair of black slacks with a sharp crease and a soft pink blouse that accentuated her slender build. She too looked like somebody, but not in the same sense as the man. She had the appearance of someone important, someone who wielded power in the city. She might have known the Bush family when they were still alive. She undoubtedly traveled in the same circles as the rich and powerful.

He always left first in a slow kind of hurry, making a bit of a scene about the cost of valet parking. His ritual complete he went home to his books of which there were hundreds crammed into the townhouse that had been his refuge for years. He had once been a distinguished professor of history at Rice University, but now he was mostly retired. Sometimes he offered a course at the Glasscock School of Continuing Education and enjoyed the same kind of admiration from the adults that his graduate students had once showered on him. He had lost interest in his career when his wife was diagnosed with stage four cancer. For months his days and nights had been dedicated to her recovery, only the miracle for which he had prayed never came. She left him bereft and unanchored, filled with a longing for his world to just stop. His life became a series of routines that gave him just enough purpose to stay alive. Going to El Meson each Thursday was part of his therapy. Sitting at the same table and eating the same thing provided him with a small touch of meaning.

The woman who sat across from him always tarried at her table, taking tiny bites and sips so small that her food and drink seemed without end. She was in no hurry to leave. Going home meant being in that grand home that she and her husband had built together. He had been a doctor and she was a lawyer. They had worked hard and realized a dream to have a fine home in West University Place, one of the premier neighborhoods of Houston. They had beautiful children who succeeded at everything that they tried, including careers that took them to locales far away. Their’s had once been a gathering place of great minds. Now she was lonely in her little mansion, in no mood for empty conversations and grand parties. Without the laughter of her children and the presence of her husband she felt empty in her house. She coped by finding excuses to stay away as late as possible. There was nothing there for her anymore, at least not since her husband and died suddenly from a heart attack. El Meson was reassuring and warm for her. There she took comfort in the comical boar’s head that hung above the bar and the sameness of the place.

The seasons came and went and both of them arrived without fail at their self appointed times each Thursday. The waiters came to know them without speaking to them because they made it clear that they did not wish to talk. They were Thursday afternoon fixtures, expected guests with unofficially reserved tables, two lonely people sitting near one another never exchanging glances or greetings. They performed their rituals as though they had been carefully choreographed and rehearsed, and then went their individual ways until Thursday came again.

She arrived that Thursday like clockwork and the waiter dutifully showed her to the table that had become hers by right of routine. She ordered a glass of iced tea and said that she needed more time to decide what to eat. She sat patiently sipping on her drink showing no emotion as four thirty came and went. He had not arrived and the clock kept ticking away. A slight touch of worry showed on her face, but she said nothing other than letting the waiter know that she was still not ready to order her dinner. As the hands of the clock neared five she did her best to hide the panic that was rising in her chest. “Where was he?” she wondered.

A commotion at the door caused her to turn in her chair. There he was groomed and looking dapper in a suit. The hat that he always wore was missing and his hair was trimmed and groomed. She saw that he was quite handsome, an observation that had not escaped her notice even when he was in a somewhat disheveled state. She was relieved that he had finally arrived but also a bit uncharacteristically nervous. She turned back in her chair and did her best to resume her usual state of composure. She laughed inside at how ridiculous it had been for her to worry about him for he was, after all, a complete stranger.

As she lifted her glass of tea to take another sip he stopped at her table and pointed to the chair that sat across from her. “May I?” he cautiously inquired as he began to slowly lower himself into the seat. “Of course!” she smiled and her face lit up the room.

(Indulge me in this bit of fiction. I heard about a local author who just published a book of short stories featuring different areas of Houston. I thought of how much I would enjoy doing something similar and then I encountered two incredibly interesting looking individuals as I ate dinner at El Meson in the Rice Village. I was not able to get them out of my mind and had to create a little story for them before returning to my usual style of writing. I hope you enjoyed this little journey into my imagination as much as I did.)