Cindy called shortly after I wrote the post below. Cindy was the young woman I talked to at the New West Physician’s medical authorization department. That was on the telephone day, Wednesday.
Your CT’s were approved. She was pleased, I could tell. She had helped me. I felt cheated, though. Have they been scheduled, she asked. Yes, I said, my teeth together, they were scheduled for today. And felt bad. Thanks, Cindy, I appreciate your help. You’re welcome, have a great rest of your day.
It’s a fine line between aggression and assertiveness, a line I cross often, too often. Here’s a paragraph from Pema Chodron that’s given me a new tool for helping stay on my side of the line:
| Staying in the Middle |
| As a way of working with our aggressive tendencies, Dzigar Kongtrül teaches the nonviolent practice of simmering. He says that rather than “boil in our aggression like a piece of meat cooking in a soup,” we simmer in it. We allow ourselves to wait, to sit patiently with the urge to act or speak in our usual ways and feel the full force of that urge without turning away or giving in. Neither repressing nor rejecting, we stay in the middle between the two extremes, in the middle between yes and no, right and wrong, true and false. This is the journey of developing a kindhearted and courageous tolerance for our pain. Simmering is a way of gaining inner strength. It helps us develop trust in ourselves—trust that we can experience the edginess, the groundlessness, the fundamental uncertainty of life and work with our mind, without acting in ways that are harmful to ourselves or others. Pema Chodron. |
