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happiness
June 2009 
When have you been the most happy?
Posted on Dec 18th, 2008
by 
tinkonthebrink
tinkonthebrink
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for December 18, 2008:
I mostly default to happy and every day find places to put that. Sometimes they're odd places. One odd happiness moment from today:
I think the reason I can work well with her is that although I care very much about her and about seeing her be able to control her own behaviors, I don't care about the behaviors in themselves. I've never gotten worked up about her getting worked up. When I first started working with her she hurled herself down on her back on the floor of a store, hand palm up on forehead wailing "leave me alone!" and honestly, it almost cracked me up it was so melodramatic. And I just sat down and made sure she didn't flail herself into anyone and told her to let me know when she was done. She never did that with me again although she continued to use the technique with others for quite a while. She responds really well to my particular streak of selective apathy.
I love that this work is the perfect place for me to put my odd combination of caring a lot while being somewhat disconnected and separate, and the also odd quality of getting more calm when people around me get upset. I love figuring out how this little girl thinks about things, how that filter of autism changes how she sees the world, and I love love love getting paid to play with her. I've helped to decide what her goals are and what we work on, so we have a good framework for what we do together - I've worked with people who had absurd goals obviously written by someone who just had to come up with something and couldn't really think of anything and the plan was due next week and oh hell, let's just throw this in...never a delightful situation. But we work on nice goals that give us reasons to go hiking and walking and playing and drawing and painting and jumping rope and trying out games and reading books and blowing bubbles when it's raining and oh my god, I get paid for this. I'm the luckiest person in the world. And sometimes, on a really good day, I get to demonstrate why I'm good at this and that it actually is a job and I love that, even while I'm sorry to see this little person that I adore acting out.
And tomorrow she and I will be having some negotiations...
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Blessings to you sister. Your beautiful in your own rank. I pray that there are many like yourself in the field, that holds such an attribute.
“V” and love to your many challenges that you hold so dear to your heart.
I second mum’s the word. Sounds like you have the best job in the world for you. Not everyone would be able to have that patience and love. This is so inspiring.
I too tend to get calmer the more others freak out. I think it’s half from wanting to shield myself from that energy, half from shock at the way some people will behave. You’d think at 41 I wouldn’t be quite so naive at the way some people behave, and yet I am still constantly taken aback. Maybe in my next life … : )
I do think I have the best job in the world for me!
Lil, I think people behave in ways that they’ve learned work for them. And they don’t have any experience of better ways that might work, even if their choices don’t really work all that well, even if their only proof is that they’re still alive using their methods.
And I guess in a kind of perverse way I learned to get calmer because it isn’t the anticipated response, so I’m not giving someone what they want from a tantrum, but I don’t even think about it in the moment. This very analytical part of me kicks in and I become an observer even if I have to participate in the situation, if that makes any sense. It’s a quality that can be like gasoline on a fire in personal relationships but for the kind of work I do it’s perfect.