Therapeutical Musings

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I mentioned in an earlier post that I've started going to a therapist.   I've now been to see Alan 3 times. Each time has been unique, and at any given moment my mind might have changed about how I feel about the endeavor overall.  But if you all would indulge me, I’d like to share some of my thoughts about it.

My first visit I had no idea what to expect.  The Bishop told me to go so that we could determine whether or not I have anxiety and, if so, get me some medication to fix the problem.  I was pretty sure I didn't have clinical anxiety, but why not check.  I then proceeded to have one of the worst, most anxious and stressed out weeks of my entire life just a little while before going in for my appointment.  It was really superlatively awful, but it sort of primed me to think that maybe I DO have prescription-level anxiety issues.  So I went in incredibly nervous about so many things.  Alan was very nice, but nevertheless, I left feeling absolutely emotionally disheveled.  I felt as though I'd just spent an hour having someone poke and pick at me and try to break me down into my constituent bits and I absolutely hated it.  Full disclosure: I sat in my car and cried for several minutes afterward, and spent the entire drive down to work fighting to regain my composure.

I tried to figure out what made that first visit so stressful and unpleasant and I came up with a few ideas.  I kept fixating on this one moment as I was leaving when Alan patted me on the shoulder and said “you did great”.  The sort of thing you say to someone who is clearly on the verge of melting down (which, annoyingly, was basically what I did as soon as I left his office).  He had said it because he could tell I was barely holding it together.  But why was I barely holding it together?  Why had I been so nervous?  I decided that I shouldn’t be nervous.  I decided that I should take charge on my next visit.  I wasn’t a person who struggles to hold it together.  I’m not a person who cries in my car.  He hadn’t really seen the real me.  So next time I was going to go in there and make it very very clear who the real me is, and let him know that I’m really a normal, well-adjusted human.  And that is exactly what I did.  I told him I was fine, things were fine, the world was fine, and his time would probably be much better used helping people with actual real problems.  And at the end of the visit he basically told me “If you actually want to work on anything then I’m more than willing.  But if you don’t then why come in again?” 

That was a very good question and I thought about it for the two weeks till my next appointment.  And the more I thought the less I knew.  On the one hand, I am by no means so arrogant as to think that I am the one person on earth who wouldn’t benefit from going to therapy.  And I certainly do have my fair share of issues I’d like to figure out.  On the other hand, I was having a really hard time understanding how talking to a random guy I’d met twice before in my life was going to help me.  What was he going to tell me that I hadn’t already thought of?  In spite of these doubts, I decided to go back for my third visit.  And in deciding I also decided to commit to opening myself up more like my first visit.  I just saw an episode of Blue Bloods where Frank goes to see a therapist and after several attempts the therapist says “Frank, you’re a very intelligent man and I have no doubt you’d be able to successfully evade my questions all day.”  In my case, it proved nothing to sidestep questions, and refusing to be at all vulnerable would shut me out from any kind of growth.  So I committed to letting myself be at least a little vulnerable. 

And I did.  I went back for my third visit this week.  I talked through many of my concerns and doubts about continuing to come.  Alan was able to explain to me more clearly the format he adopts in his sessions.  He believes that there is value in simply experiencing emotions with someone, and then understanding the whys and hows of those emotions and growing from them.  Very very foreign approach to me.  But I figured that if I was going to try then I had to trust him.  And perhaps his style, so very very different from mine, will be good for me. 

Alan’s format is, rather than to ask specific questions or address “assignments” from before, to have me simply tell him about my life and my concerns and what has been bothering me.  I was kind of shocked by how hard that ended up being for me.  Some of my friends, like Matt or Kara or Caleb, know that I can definitely vent when someone or something is annoying.  But to simply start talking to a relative stranger about all the negative things that I had thought and felt for the previous two weeks?  It was unexpectedly formidable.  And even though I’m trying to trust Alan and his system, I am still having a hard time reconciling myself to the idea.  To me, it feels like I am indulging in the worst aspects of my nature.  The parts of me that I should be working to change.  If I give voice to them then that is giving them that much more legitimacy. 

When I brought this up to Alan he had some explanation, but he also said that I don’t have to worry because he knows I’m a good person and nothing I say is going to make him think differently.  When he said it I had one of those uncomfortable moments of realization that yes, in fact, I am exactly like every single other human out there.  Everyone worries about making themselves look bad.  You don’t share your secrets with strangers because you don’t trust that stranger to judge you rightly.  So Alan was giving me the assurance that I didn’t need to have that worry; that he was going to judge me rightly.

But on the other hand, that didn’t feel like the whole problem.  I understand that this is Alan’s job and that he knows how to listen to people without judgment. 

But what about me?

If I start telling someone else all my struggles and all my emotions then how can I continue believing that I am a good person?

You know that feeling that they say we all get, that we are pretending in a world full of people who actually have it together?  That voice, telling you that you are a pretender, it is the voice I am so afraid of.  It is the constant conscience who will not be silenced.  The one who evaluates everything you are and finds it wanting.  The one that hears other people praising you and whispers “but they don’t really know…” 

All of the things that Alan wants me to share, they are the fodder for that voice.  If I keep them locked up and never allow them the life of another person’s hearing then I can keep the voice quiet enough to ignore most of the time.  I can go on believing myself to be strong and intelligent and sensible and together.  Yes, I have this endless litany in my head of all the ways that is not true, but I never speak them, I never let them out.  I never dignify them with acknowledgement.  I am terrified that if I do I won’t be able to ignore them anymore. 

I’m not worried that Alan will think I’m a bad person, I’m worried that I’ll finally believe that I am. 

No one wants to think that there is something wrong with them.  We all want to be well-adjusted, fully functioning human adults.  But ultimately I don’t think there is any person so normal and so happy and so sensible that if you look closely enough you won’t find that they are a little bit broken somewhere.  I know this.  So I guess talking to a therapist is supposed to reconcile me to it in myself.  They say the first step is admitting you have a problem…

Therapy session: Residence Upheaval Edition

According to my therapist (cause I have one of those now) I need to work on forming connections with people that involve more trust so that I can go to those people when I'm having all the anxiety because that is how you're supposed to deal with anxiety.

I respectfully disagree with my therapist.

See, I agree that I don't really talk to people when I'm in the midst of an anxiety-induced meltdown.  But that is because there is no point.  I mean, sure, talking to people about issues is probably a good thing, but only if you're in a state to use their added perspective and insight.  And mid-panic?  I'm not in a state to do or use anything.  Hence, as I told ye olde therapist, I will talk to people before a freak out, and after a freak out, and even when there are no freakouts in sight fore or aft, but not during.  During I just lay facedown on the bedroom floor and breathe deeply.

But because there's no point going to see a therapist if you just dismiss what he tells you, I am writing this blog post as an initial foray into the sharing my feelings mid (or rather, on the tail end of) a major stress out.  That said, this is likely to be superlatively boring, so feel free to move along.

Today's stress is brought to you by the letter M, for Moving.

Tomorrow I sign a contract on a new apartment.  A faux studio apartment (technically there is a separate kitchen and bedroom/livingroom).

First, let us establish the advantages of this decision.  The apartment is very cool, located in a historic building, with oodles of personality.  And it would be mine exclusively.  I would, for the first time ever, have a home that belonged to no one besides me.  My own bathroom.  My own fridge.  My own sink with no dishes in it but the ones I put there.  And speaking of dishes, the only person to break or lose them would be me.  Indeed, there would be no one to break, ruin, or damage ANY of my stuff besides myself.  I literally cannot express to you how amazing that sounds...

But now for other side of things.

This place is small.  I mean, seriously tiny.  My current bedroom might very well be bigger than the main room.  And there is no other additional storage space.  When I try and think about condensing all of my stuff down into one very tiny room my brain just blanks out.  I have a few vague ideas but ultimately I'm not actually sure it will be possible.  And while I can probably get rid of a lot of stuff, there is a lot of stuff I can't get rid of.  Like the boxes of stuff from my grandma.  Like my books.  I don't know what I'll do...

The rent, while incredibly reasonable for a one-person place, is still a significant increase from what I'm paying now.  My disposable income is basically going to be decimated.  This includes my food budget.  I'm going to have to make a major adjustment in my lifestyle...though honestly that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Just difficult.

The apartment will be available at the beginning of March, which means that I have less than a month to figure everything out and get all packed up and ready to go.  Which leads to to the final and most stressful of all the problems.  Thusfar, all my issues are things that ultimately I can figure out.  It might take some work, but I have the power to manage them.  The last problem is somewhat less under my control, and that is the problem of my current contract.  Just after I put in my application for the apartment I found out that my old roommate Callie was moving back to Provo through August and we both got really excited about her buying my contract.  But as it turns out, it probably will make a lot more sense for her not to buy it.  Which is awesome for her, but rather drops the floor out from under me.  I now have only 24 days to find someone to buy my contract and I am seriously stressed.

Everyone keeps telling me that it won't be a problem.  I'll be able to sell it so so easily.  But the fact is the one time I ever tried to sell a housing contract I ended up paying double rent for three or four months before I managed it.  I was fortunate to be able to manage it then, but there is literally no way I can do that this time.  And I have a lot less cushion before that becomes an issue this time, too.

In addition to all that general stress, I had the particular stress of trying to figure out how, by tomorrow, I was going to pay $360 of rent for my current place plus $450 of deposit for the new one, and I only had $273 in my checking account.  This problem swerved into a detour of hunting desperately for the checks I ordered last year that truly seem to have dissolved into their constituent atoms because I have literally searched every single place they could possibly exist.  Luckily, during my 2nd or 11th hour of searching, Blair informed me that I can go to the bank and pay them $1 per check to print them out for me right there.  I am not exaggerating when I say that this information brought tears to my eyes.  And with it, I am able to MacGyver my way through to Friday when, mercifully, I get paid.  Timing has not worked out for me this week...

And there you have it.  I am sharing my anxiety with others in the hope that doing so will somehow alleviate it.  And, score one for the therapist, I'll admit that on most of the points I do feel marginally better for laying them all out.  Selling my contract remains the aggressive gorrilla in the room, but the rest has diminished to conceivable proportions.

Or perhaps I've simply run out of energy to continue stressing tonight and will begin afresh tomorrow.  Only time will tell...

The philosophical ramifications of external versus internal perception

Tonight I was told, for about the zillionth time, that I am intimidating.  In this instance the description was used as a compliment, but that hasn't always been the case.  I have been told by a relatively large number of roommates that they found me intimidating, even to the point of frightening, for months of living together.  Bishops, friends, and people I hardly know have all described me this way.

This phenomenon is fascinating to me in a very weird way.  I do not feel intimidating.  I do not think of my self as even slightly scary.  On the contrary, I think of myself as the person being intimidated and the person who is afraid.  I spend my life oscillating gently between anxiety and awkward confusion.

My friend tonight tied my aura of intimidation to my utter lack of bothers given, my confidence in my self and my own decisions, and even the way I carry myself.  Bless his heart.  I guess that does imply that I'm not losing my eternal battle with my posture quite as badly as I thought I was.  But aside from that, the rest of his explanation is a pretty constant theme from others I've spoken to.  People tell me I brook no nonsense and put up with no bullshit.  They tell me I'm confident.  So many people tell me this.

I, on the other hand, feel like I am a person who will accept rather a lot of both nonsense and bullshit.  I mean, I like to say that I don't put up with it, but it is one of those "say it and maybe it will come true" situations.  And confident?  I question pretty much every decision I ever make.  Endlessly.  It is exhausting.

So who do I believe?

That I have these feelings is significant.  I create myself, and my thoughts and feelings are the molecules I use for that creation.  I can't exactly experience life any way but the way I experience it...if that statement wasn't so recursive as to implode on itself.  Basically, to see myself as a particular kind of person is to be that kind of person.  

But at the same time, I must distrust my own opinion of myself.  I've talked about my struggles with self-image and confidence and self-love.  I know that I am a sufferer of mental dysmorphic disorder (which is a thing I just made up) wherein the image I see in my mental mirror is not necessarily accurate to the truth.  I'd like to think that there is an intrinsic me that is independent of my awareness and opinion of it.  But are the opinions of the people around me the way to discover that immutable part?  Does the constancy of the feedback lend it credibility?  I suppose it must, at least to some extent.  

Do I want to be intimidating?  My friend told me it was a good thing, and I do strive to live my life accountable to no one but myself--successfully or not.  But shouldn't I be able to do that without frightening people?  

Another friend once told me that he would rather intimidate people than risk not being taken seriously.  I'll admit, there is a certain gratification in knowing that people so far from seeing your insecurities, see the reverse.  But I'm not sure that I agree with my friend.  That is, I certainly wish to be taken seriously, but I don't think that intimidation is the only or even the best way to achieve that goal.  And while I do like to believe in that immutable core of the self existing independently of the conscious and reasoning mind--which sometimes perceives inaccurately--somehow I also believe that that core is capable of change and growth.  Or at least, I can change the way I express it.  

We cannot change the world unless the world wants to change...

Yesterday I spoke to my mom.  It did not go well.  Which is ironic, because I was so excited; I thought I'd come up with a Christmas present to rival the year I gave her Mr. Darcy on DVD.  Well, I say excited but that's not entirely accurate.  I also knew that brilliant as this idea was, my mom almost certainly wasn't going to want it.

With so much build up you're probably expecting something really amazing.  It's not.  I just wanted to buy my mom a dress.  Just a dress.

But the thing is if you know my mom you know that buying her a dress isn't as simple as it sounds.  I have already talked about my mom here.  I've talked about the way she sees herself and how that affects me.  Succinctly, my mother's life is an eternal struggle to conquer an adversarial body.

Nowhere is this more manifest than in my mom's wardrobe.  For the last 15 years my mom has carefully curated a collection of one dress.  The sack.  Not unlike the travesty that is Molly Ringwald's "dress" at the end of Pretty in Pink.

yes, this one, only with shoulders and without lace

To her, "clothing I like" means clothing in colors she likes.  Because styles she likes are non-existent...no, strike that.  There are actually quite a few styles my mom likes.  She actually has a really lovely and distinctive (if rather old fashioned) sense of style.  But you'd never know it to look at her because she wears none of it.  Why?  She's too fat!  It isn't comfortable!  She's too old!  All clothing beyond the shift is off limits to her!

except this pattern is definitely too busy for her...

So this Christmas I thought "Hey!  I happen to know of a great website that will custom build dresses to your exact measurements!  Wouldn't it be great if I were to get my mom a new dress, customized specifically to her that wasn't another of those wretched shifts?!"  It seemed brilliant.  If I could show her that even "fat" people can look good; that the world of pretty clothes that make you feel attractive wasn't forever beyond her; that she can wear whatever she wants!  If I could, with this one dress, open that door even just a crack, then what a magnificent gift I could give her!  So much more than just a dress!

from here, where there are several other cute outfits

But there was a problem.  I couldn't figure out how I could get her measurements any other way but to ask her.  And I knew that if I asked her she would need to know why.  See, I knew that this had to be a surprise because if I were to tell her she would instantly shut me down.  After 60 years, truly she has come to love her prison, if that's not too melodramatic a spin to put on it.  But it is the truth.  She has reasons, she has excuses, she has justifications, but the fact is that my mother is comfortable within her rigid world of body hate.  She knows the rules there (how could she not, she made them herself).  So I knew that at the slightest hint that I was thinking about breaking them she would close ranks and lock down.

But I couldn't figure out how to get those damn measurements.

So I convinced myself I was wrong and maybe she'd see what a great thing this was and suddenly change her personality.  After all, wasn't it smarter to supervise her picking out her own dress rather than risk getting one she hated?

No.  The answer to that question is no.

I called her yesterday morning and told her my plan and exactly what I knew would happen happened.  She shut me down.  She did let me show her the website (after I harassed her) and she managed to find the one sack dress they had.  But I couldn't handle listening to all her justifications for why she wouldn't even try something new.  Not when I had been so excited about this.  I got mad at her and ultimately had to get off the phone.

Because I am angry.

As a person who considers it a fundamental element of my identity that I almost never get really angry, this is important for me to say.

I am angry.

I am angry at my grandfather, whose obsession with arbitrary definitions of physical beauty warped his children's perspectives of themselves for their entire lives.  Every one of them has fought against and hated their bodies from childhood.  I'm angry at a society that both gave my grandfather that arbitrary definition and then told him it was okay to pursue and teach it the way he did.  The society that reinforced his beliefs in my mother's mind and proved to her he was right.  Right or wrong, I'm mad at my mom.  I'm angry that she cannot see through all of this stupidity and just let it all go.  I'm angry she can't see that "this is just who I am" only because she has decided it is.  And I'm angry at myself because I am still fighting the same battle myself.  Because I just had the exact same experience of feeling like I couldn't wear something because my body shape forbids it.  (Side note: I bought the dress anyway and wore it to church today and looked damn good, if I say so myself).  All of these "rules" are the purist form of bullshit and I'm angry that it still exists in the world.

And in the end, I'm angry I couldn't buy a dress and fix my mom's issues with her body.  It's an overly simple idea that obviously would never work, but I wanted it to so badly.

I think this is what I would have gotten her.
Nothing crazy.

The Benefits of Debate

Guys, today was an exhausting day for me on facebook.

I expressed opinions.

Ironically, what I'm left thinking about is not at all the original opinion, but how I feel about the experience of hosting internet debate on my internet words.

you know what I like to do? Express my opinions on hot button topics, inciting endless debate, and then completely disengage. At least I attempt to moderate and have pretty dependably civil friends....

but very secretly deep down I fantasize about a world where just once I can say "this is what I think" on facebook and have everyone say "huh, that's interesting" and NOTHING else. Just once. 

That's the last thing I posted on facebook, and it is very very true.

But it was also so untrue that here I am writing this blog post at midnight when I really really ought to be going to sleep.

This is how I tried to explain it to Matt a little while ago:

 Matt:  Facebook should make a way for you do disable comments on a status

kind of like how some articles can do that

 me:  I think that very often

but on the other hand

once I think that

I then judge myself viciously for being one of those people who wants to simply exist in a vacuum where the only words you hear are people saying "oh yes!  you're so right!" and no one ever challenges your beliefs on anything

deep-down-core-beliefs-me thinks that it is really superlatively awesome that I have so many people with contrasting opinions in my life because that way I get to hear both sides. but superfluous-lazy-me sits on top of deep-down-core-me and says "but debates are harrrrrrdddddd!"

And really that's it.  I get exhausted by these things.  But then when I complain in my head about all the feedback I'm getting (when all I wanted to do was spit my opinion out into the void with no repercussions) I remember how I need this feedback because I don't want to be one of those dogmatic blindered people who can only hear what they want to hear.

So...thank you all.  Thanks for helping me to be more deep-down-core-beliefs-me instead of superfluous-lazy-me.

A Woman of a Certain Age...

So today was my 28th birthday.

All my life birthdays have been a big deal.  When we were little my mom would go all out.  You would wake up on your birthday and find the dining room decorated with streamers and balloons and a preliminary present waiting for you at the kitchen table.  Because mom wanted to make sure that we were always excited for our sibling's birthday, she would make sure that whoever's birthday it wasn't also had a small gift at their place setting (this remains to this day one of my mother's most brilliant parenting ideas).  She made us these intricate, amazing cakes that were works of art.  One year she constructed a whole clock tower for me, complete with columns.  I could not tell you a single birthday present I ever received but I still remember those cakes.  Of course we have no pictures.  We were the anti-hipsters before anti-hipsters were a thing...

I'm not even joking when I say that my first birthday at college was a bit of a blow.  Nothing quite made the point that I'd left home like waking up to a sad empty dorm room with no streamers in sight.  To be fair, I'm having a vague memory of a possible party thrown for me later that evening by the girls on my floor.  Maybe combined with other September birthdays?  Idk.  But still, that "first thing in the morning surprise that wasn't actually a surprise" hadn't been there and I'll be honest: I still wake up on the morning of my birthday with a teeny tiny hope that somehow there will be balloons and streamers, and every year that there isn't I am a very small, reasonable adult level of sad about it.

The early college years all were rather underwhelming like that.  It wasn't till I came back to school after my study abroad that birthdays began to regain their former glory.  It's amazing what happens when you start having friends...

When you have friends birthdays become a big deal again, even in the absence of breakfast streamers and balloons.

Fun fact: my first ever blues dance happened to be on my birthday.  I had no idea what a "birthday jam" was and I was terrified; when they announced it I kept quiet and thus missed out on one of the best parts of being a dancer.  Had to wait an entire year for my chance to roll back around.  Tragic.

I was the happy recipient of one not-so-surprise party, and another party that was such a surprise that I didn't even show up till I was called and frantically begged to come to Slab "because".  Both experiences were delightful.

I think it was at 25 that I started planning my own birthday party.  That year I asked everyone to bring me something wrapped.  I didn't care what it was, I just wanted to unwrap things.

that is me about to unwrap a sled and my own butcher knife

enjoying a birthday dance which I have never been so foolish as
to pass up ever again after that first poor decision

The next year I asked for flowers.  Fresh, paper, plastic...I would accept anything but those nasty craft store fabric ones.  I got some really silly ones and some really lovely ones and it was absolutely perfect.

Last year Anneke volunteered to throw my party.  She did such a good job!  All my friends stopped by and even though I hadn't asked for anything at all that year, several of them brought gifts (some less "serious" than others).  After the party we went to Red Robin.  Again, amazing.

But last year also felt a bit like an ending, at least in retrospect.  Between 27 and 28 the last of my closest dance friends moved away.  Other friends graduated and moved, or got married or made babies, or got adult-type jobs.  At 25 I had literally a crowd of people I loved and who loved me and bringing them all together was simply delightful.  I must confess that at 28 the crowd has, with all reasonableness, dwindled.  The currents of life have swept a great number of that crowd down different paths to different places.

So this year I didn't throw a party. It just didn't feel right, as idiotic as that sounds.

Instead I dressed up for work, makeup included. I clocked out early. Kara and I ordered pizza and watched some Gilmore Girls and then went to institute.  I ordered a slice of cake from The Chocolate, ate the cake and left the frosting, and questioned who I even am anymore.

And now here I sit at 12:30 am feeling apparently incurably contemplative and wondering if this is what people mean when they talk about "feeling old".  I've never dreaded old age.  My personality is, in fact, far better suited to an old woman than to a young adult.  No one tells grandmothers that they're wasting their lives because they prefer hot chocolate and a good book to an afternoon's hike.  But "28" keeps running around in my head knocking into the bookshelves and disturbing the cats.  "28" tells me I don't want a party this year because it will just remind me of how few friends I have left and how many I haven't made to replenish the pool.  "28" says that I should have, if not a solid plan for my life, at least a definite direction.  "28" says I should stop talking about being an adult and just go ahead and be one.  "28" says that old age might be something I'll enjoy when it gets here, but that the middle bit that I thought was annoyingly long is perhaps not nearly as long as I thought.

When you're little you experience finite eternity, measured in endless summer days.  I suppose "getting old" is the realization that school will come eventually, and each day, no matter how glorious, is NOT endless, but rather one day less before the end.  And 28 is the year that I am realizing that summer cannot last forever.  The day I thought would never come.

The day when I worry "I'm getting old"

Arithmetical Theologic Pedagogy

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong.  No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it. -Terry Pratchett

Tonight I went to institute.  First time probably this year.  The lesson was essentially about getting your priorities sorted.  It was based on this conference talk about refocusing on the spiritual rather than the temporal.  The teacher took the idea a different direction, focusing instead on media consumption.

Overall the lesson was fine.  But I had a problem with one of her final statements.  She said she hoped that we all felt a little chastised by the lesson.  She referenced some quote about how if we aren't repenting every day then we aren't doing our best so we should all remember that and bring our A-game.  Aside from her use of the phrase "bring your A-game" pretty certainly placing her forever beyond my social circle, I was more annoyed with her stated hope that her lesson had made us all feel chastised.

Contrast that sentiment with the lesson I got on Sunday.  Relief Society was mercifully changed into a combined special meeting with our Stake President, who had been invited by our bishop to share with us a compressed version of his bishop training program.  Fun fact:  in real life our stake president works as an addiction counselor.  I really really appreciated everything he had to say, but what is relevant to this post is when he said that the best and, indeed, only way to fight darkness is not to try to remove the darkness, but to add light.  Though he is not the first person to characterize things in such a way, he still struck a chord with me.  I realized that darkness is an absence and you cannot remove an absence.  All you can do is fill it.

Which brings me back to what bothered me about our institute teacher's chastisement comment.  At first I thought I was annoyed because she was telling me I need to repent.  But that wasn't quite right, because she's right, I DO need to repent of many things. I am all too aware of that fact.  Rather, it was her blatant negative angle.  She hoped, not that her lesson had inspired me to do better, but that it had chastised me for not doing well enough.  It felt to me that she was attempting to remove the darkness rather than add light.

I have had this debate with some of my friends and I understand that some people respond well to negative motivation.  So I suppose what she said was a perfectly legitimate sentiment to express because it was effective for some members of the class.  But I have to wonder...while negative motivation works for some people, I would imagine that positive motivation works for all people.  Is that incorrect?

Telling me that I should feel bad for not "bringing my A-game" implies that my failure with whatever principle you're talking about is based on complaisance and laziness.  For every simple principle that one person writes off as a theological gimme, there is another person for whom it stands as an insurmountable obstacle.  For that person it is at best insulting and at worst actively damaging to tell them that their failures are due to laziness.  We all have our darkness, even if it isn't all in the same place for each of us.  That is, after all, the entire point of our lives.  The darkness may have got there first, but we strive to bring in the light to overcome it.  To fill it up.

So this is my friendly reminder to myself and to you and to that institute teacher who will never read this blog post.  This is me reminding us all to use positive motivation.

Let's add more light.