This is the story of how shutting down the magic inspired me to rise above loss and grief; how Mom Ranae’s choices affected my life; and why I love RET and the Skills for Life.
I believe that Life often provides exactly what we need to complete our Soul’s Purpose. This is from the Book of GAL (Gospel According to Lynell). Thank you, Mom Ranae, for instilling in me enough self-esteem that I always believed I had and have something worthwhile to say. I believe people need this bit of ego to help them achieve their goals and go for their dreams! (Again, from the Book of GAL).
So, let’s get to what I don’t want to share. That is always where the growth and the gold reside. Let’s start by introducing you to a weird fact. I had a dream as a small child—I know I hadn’t started school yet, so I must have been about 4 years old. In this dream, an old woman told me I was a mystic. I had no idea what a mystic was and whoever I asked told me it was someone weird with a beard, which worried me immensely. I was always quite literal and still have this dream about once a year.
The Search for Normal
I made a conscious choice to “fit in,” and it was a lot of work. Mom Ranae’s journey with Kelton was ever around me. I think he got stuck in the middle of our family system and never moved out. It seemed to me the answer was out there to help him. I felt it was just around the next corner and our jobs were to find “IT.”
During this time, I noticed less magic and more turmoil. I quit talking about the colors I saw around people, ignored the unusual around me, and became more fearful and insecure. I observed the ways people talked to each other – how they moved their bodies during emotions – and held unconscious agreements that were never spoken out loud.
Judgments
As I grew older, I think I made judgments of people – like how the choices they made brought less than desired results. I watched the people around me and tried to do the “normal” things like making small talk, saying, “I’m fine” no matter how I actually felt, and the like. This feeling of insecurity and incongruent behavior continued to grow in me.
As a child, I hung out a lot with my Dad, Jack. Although I bonded to both my parents, I gravitated to my dad. He adored me, and I often skipped school to go to work with him. I sat on the ground handing him tools as he rebuilt a Volkswagon Bug, for example. A smart man, he knew calculus and I felt safe with him. Mom Ranae seemed nervous and upset and I felt I should somehow make this better for her, yet this goal seemed to elude me. I can look back now from my adult perspective and realize that Dad Jack did not know how to help Kelton – his way of helping was to work more, like a lot. This probably left my mom feeling alone sometimes. Life seemed very confusing to me.
Shutting Down – the Loss of Dad Jack
At the confusing age of 13, in the month of June, Dad Jack drowned in the Spokane River. It was one of those defining moments in life that we look back on and say, “That’s when everything changed.” I was devastated. So was Mom Ranae. I’m sure all my siblings were too, though I was not very connected to them.
I did not understand my older siblings, who were grown and moved out. I didn’t relate to my younger siblings because they were so much younger and needed care rather than understanding. My closest sibling, Kelton, was, well, in his own world of autism. I felt alone – the odd one out in my family system. When Dad Jack died—everything went dark in my world.
Before his death, I had all these ideas in my head like, “I’ll be able to make it in college, because Dad Jack will help me with math,” and, “I can run all my major choices by Dad Jack and I’ll always know the right thing to do.” After he died, I felt my possibilities floated away in the river with him. I got busy focusing all my thoughts on the present moment. I felt like I played a role-a reversal with Mom Ranae in which I felt driven to work hard and take care of her and my brothers.
Then came my mother’s quick remarriage. I retreated into my head and logic for safety, which was hard on Mom Ranae. I didn’t care for her choice of partner – yet truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have given anyone a chance. A know-it-all teenager, I’ve apologized since for my judgments and paid that terrible price of having to learn through my own bad choices and judgments later in my life.
On the Upside – Skills for Life
It was during these hard years that Mom Ranae began teaching what would become the RET Skills for Life. I would sit on the stairs and listen to her teaching. People came from all over to hear her. The church put her in charge of their singles program and I saw neighbors, others, and even my friends come to listen.
I must say that the seven principles she taught gave me hope and offered relief to many. I know we teach what we want to learn, so I’m sure this renewed her hope in life. To know that my thoughts could change my feelings and results was AMAZING. Knowing that two or more people could experience the same event and have totally different perceptions and experiences offered me hope. It taught me I could see things differently and get better results. I could pause and choose my reactions!
I could just go on about Mom Ranae’s teaching. At that time, I saw her Skills for Living as a light in what seemed the dark box of my life.
To Gratitude
To make a long story short, by high school, we were living in Corvallis, Oregon. Mom Ranae was single again and dating Joseph Johnson, a good man—and I recall I gave them both a hard time, too. They married in my senior year – just before I graduated. Thank goodness for Dad Joseph and the stable energy he brought to our family and the next chapter that began…
–Lynell