Hold That Thought in Everyday Ramblings

I took this yoga teacher training on Sunday that was supposed to be about “Teaching From the Heart” and one of the exercises we had to do was put our shoes on and go out and wander around the neighborhood for 10 minutes, pick something from nature up and bring it back. While I was out there I took this picture in the low stormy light.

That was the best part of the workshop. The rest of it was about this sort of pseudo science that is popular in alternative lifestyle type circles and while I am open-minded generally I found this annoying.

There was one exercise where we had to stare into the eyes of a random person for a minute. Someone we didn’t know. The woman I was matched with is just learning to be a teacher and she was so uncomfortable! I felt bad.

The teacher was very soft spoken and she played this music that I guess was supposed to get us in a particular zone. I didn’t wear my hearing aids because I thought it was going to be a much more active experience and there was a whole long meditation with us on our backs on the floor and I could not hear a word she said.

She told me afterwards that she could tell I had experience fluffing auras. This is true. I learned this in my 30’s when I went to what was basically a school for psychics to learn a particular embodied meditation technique.

Oh well, I enjoyed the roses and the adorable happy puppy I met on my walk.

So I filed the formal complaint at work on Monday. I was very nervous about it. The young attorney was lovely. But later in the day the director of the department emailed to say that she did not believe my complaint merited a qualification of discrimination and she downgraded it and sent it to our department’s HR representative who is apparently on vacation.

Nothing is going to happen with this.

It is kind of like, oh never mind.

But yesterday afternoon one of my team members, someone I don’t know very well, asked if she could speak to me privately. We decamped a bit later to an unused conference room and she poured out for 20 minutes her bafflement and stress, headaches and sleepless nights over the way Mr. On the Spectrum was treating her. She went to HR first and they did nothing and then went to the senior female manager of our department and she also did nothing.

She is really close to quitting. She is much younger than me and has two kids in grade school but at least she has a degree in Accounting.

In a way I feel a sense of relief. I have done what I can at this point based on the available options. There will be a written record of this and maybe more than one if she also files a discrimination complaint.

I am waiting for my Cardiology referral appointment. I did the calcs on my retirement benefit and if I can hold out and not have to take a lot of medical leave it will be much better in terms of my payout. It is the way the plan I am in works. Of course if I need the angiogram and stent then I will need to take some time off. Apparently you can’t lift anything for a week or so.

One of my students had the procedure and was most insightful in describing the process.

It feels like it has all been this crazy whirlwind. I need to not let the assholes at work get me down.

I talked with my young coworker yesterday about how important it is for us to be angry and not turn this situation in on ourselves. I hope in sharing with her we can both hold that thought until we can get out of this situation.

And we have a holiday weekend coming up! Yeah.
And no more aura fluffing in my near future. :)