ALAN BUTTON: THERAPIST/SHAMAN

For eight weeks, one hour per week, I walked around Alan Button's psychologist office, sharing my sorrows, sadness, and "what to do's." Alan sat on a plush leather couch with a notebook and pen in his hand, appearing to take notes. Therapy was a new experience for me. I was desperate for someone to talk to that didn't have opinions, suggestions, or need to take sides.

An unexpected divorce was happening in my life with two small innocent children feeling the pain, scare and hurt of it all. I was emotionally desperate, lost to explain why this was happening, and feeling no control over the events as they rapidly unfolded daily.

I reached out to a college psychology instructor who was also in private practice as a psychologist. I entered his comfortable office, and when asked to sit down, I chose to stand and walk around. Each week, I paced the room sharing stories, feeling things, and somehow, without knowing it, coming up with answers and sometimes seeing the absurdity of what people, including me, do to each other. in relationships. Alan, (Dr. Button), sat silently, never speaking or asking a question.

When the hour ended, Alan stood and we hugged. "See you next week Bruce," he would say, and I would walk away relieved and more peaceful. This same process went on for eight weeks - each time, I would walk around the spacious room talking and feeling, while Alan sat quietly on the couch taking notes . . . I think.

I could feel his presence all the time. I did'nt have words for what he offered, I just felt the emotional space in the room, his warmth and deep listening. At the end of week eight, I stopped moving around, and without hesitation, I unexpectedly said, "You know Alan, I'm done. I don't need to come back again." He put down his pen and notebook, stood and walked over to me. He looked into my eyes and said, "Bruce, you are the most self-actualized person I have ever met." I didn't know what self-actualized meant, but by his tone of voice, I could feel it was a compliment.

In later weeks, I realized that he knew that what I needed was silent space, to discover and explore internally. I did not know that. He knew that. That is why his only words over eight weeks were hello, goodbye, and his final comment. Had he attempted to diagnose, or ask probing questions, we both would have missed the point.

His relationship with me, demonstrated in later years, how I could be with others when I am seen as the therapist or healer person. I could simply "hold space" for others, and only sometimes, ask more questions.

Thirty years later, I called Alan Button at his home to acknowledge the impact he had on my life. He was now 82 years old. When I shared how he changed my life, he cried. I later learned that he had written a book in the 1960's entitled: The Authentic Child. His exquisite sensitivity, I later decided, was more of a Shaman's way - able to "see" clearly what people needed behind the story.

FROM PAIN TO COMPASSION

I was inspired to write this story and share it. I often find myself writing, not knowing why, but trusting that what is coming through is not only important for me, but may be for others too.

I was a six-year old boy, living in New York, and heading to my first day of school.
I had my little Superman metal lunch box swinging by my side as I skipped innocently and playfully along the cold morning sidewalk. My attention was abruptly drawn to a loud sound to my right, where a squeeky screen door had just slammed shut on an old porch of a house about 30 feet away. Startled, I looked over and saw another young boy running down the wooden stairs of this older two story house. He was running right towards me. I saw, what I soon learned, was hatred in his face, something I had not seen in my six years of life. "Get out of our neighborhood, you dirty Jew. Get out of our neighborhood. I hate you. I hate you, you dirty Jew."

Without thinking, I burst into tears as I turned around to run home two blocks away. As I ran, I cried and cried, trying to catch my breath between sobs. I ran faster than I could. I pushed open the front door, ran into my room, threw myself on the bed, and buried my head in my favorite pillow, sobbing. I didn't even know what a Jew was. I only felt that boy's hatred. Later, when I told my parents, they told me what a Jew was, and that I was one.

Within weeks, my parents and my brother and I, drove across country, moving to Glendale in Southern California. We found a tree lined street with Spanish style stucco homes, only a block from my new elementary school. My brother Carl, four years older, and I, walked to school each day. On the third day, once again attempting to get to my first grade class, a young boy about seven, whom I did not know, picked up some dog poop from his lawn and threw it at me, screaming, "Jew, Jew, Jew." This time, although feeling hurt and afraid, I ran on to school, which was closer than running home.

Our family soon learned, that at that time, Glendale was the home of the American Nazi party. In an attempt to scare our family to leave Glendale, my father's business was "set up" so the police could put him in jail for one month to force us to move. It worked. We moved 10 miles away to Los Angeles, finding a small two-bedroom home on a palm-tree-lined street, only minutes from the beach. I discovered kind friends, girls and boys, and, once again, my new school was only two blocks from our house.

The really good part of all the city and neighborhood changes we were forced to make, brought us closer to the ocean. I could now ride my bike to Venice beach or Marina Del Rey in 15 minutes. My father changed our last name from Simon to Scott, thus freeing us from being readily identified as Jewish people, and freeing my brother from being beat up anymore. We could safely hide who we were behind a name change. And it worked. I ended up going to a Los Angeles high school, the only one that was occupied by a blend of Whites, African Americans, Hispanic, Asians, and some disabled students. Everyone simply got along really well. Our high school was truly a working melting pot.

My childhood experience of being excluded, ostracized and hated, opened me up to feel compassion for other minority and marginalized groups, including women, African Americans, Asians, Native people, children, disabled, and Gay and Lesbians - all groups I got to work with, and be around over the years. My childhood hurt and pain was a blessing, helping me to deeply feel what many other people in the world live with daily, and cannot escape or find a hiding place behind a name change.

As I look at my life experiences, many of them included losing jobs while standing up for other people - yet feeling good about it. My natural instinct was, to support and stand with others who were marginalized - to become an advocate. I didn't have to take time to think about what was right. Instinct took over. I have been able to appear in court dozens of times for Native people who were wrongly accused and, because I am White, the courts more often than not, would free the Native people. I got to work in Black communities, with Hispanic farm workers in the Central valley, and simply get to know "others." And ultimately see others as me.

Our son, now 16, came to me in a dream before he was born. He said many things that I recorded. One of his statements was, "I am coming here to dissolve the artificial barriers between people." And he does that. Together, we easily and automatically find ways to connect with others. Those little boys of my childhood that caused so much emotional hurt and pain in my early years, also handed me the gift of greater compassion. I was disturbed by them, and now feel only gratitude.

THE BOY AND A QUARTER

I was sitting in my favorite Peet's coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. I like it here because the employees like people, and make contact with kindness and humor. Yesterday, a little boy about five-years-old, was sitting at the table next to me when his father, standing and hovering over the boy, admonished and blamed the boy in an angry tone of voice. Why didn't matter. The impact on the boy, and me, did.

The boy, sitting only a few feet away, with his back to me, put his head down on the table, seemingly scared and hurt, while his father stepped away to order a coffee..

I leaned over to the boy, a couple of feet away, and quietly asked if he would like to guess which closed hand I held a quarter. I put both hands out, wanting to reach into his sweet soul. He turned slightly in his chair, his one shoulder facing me, and silently nodded towards one of my hands. I opened the hand and there was the quarter. "Do it again," I said. This time, he turned his chair completely towards me. His face was lighter and had a faint smile. I put my hands out with the quarter in one of them. He guessed right again. He started to giggle. My heart softened. I simply loved him. We were allies.

His father returned with his coffee. "Can I give your son this quarter that he guessed right with?" I asked. "Uh, yeah, sure," he replied, somewhat puzzled and relieved. His son was all smile and energy. The father, holding his coffee, reached for his son's hand, and they walked out the door talking softly.

DO YOU GET IT YET BRUCE?

I awoke from a dream where all the significant perceived enemies and loving friends in my life, since I was 16 years old, stood shoulder to shoulder, side by side, in a long line. All were leaning forward slightly so I could see their facial expressions. I was on my knees at the end of the line, able to see all their faces at the same time. I recognized them all as friends that had "betrayed" me, people who had "hurt" and been mean to me. Some in the line were close friends that brought a smile. There was a mix of women and men, that over the years, had either been mean, perceived enemies or kind and loving.

The one thing in common, as they stood there looking at me, was an expression of, "Do you get it yet Bruce?" I knew in the dream, and when I awoke, what that meant.

I sat up in bed with a smile, knowing that all the events and people in my life that I've reacted to, or believed I had been emotionally abused, or taken advantage of, or even "betrayed," happened for me, not to me. It wasn't even a belief stretch to realize that my reaction to anything or anyone is always mine, and within my total control. I knew that disturbing events, and people, are a projection of sorts, giving me another chance to be free of having to make anyone wrong, or bad. I still do but now I become aware pretty quick, like in seconds, and can simply let them be. Or at least respond from a non-reactive, hurt or angry place. Thus, I am free.

STOP TALKING AND FEEL

I was in a large gymnasium-size room with 400 women, men, children and babies, all from different countries and cultures. Different colors. Different languages. Some had paid their own way to this Howard University site in Washington, D.C. Others were flown here by the generosity of others who had donated money so all economic groups could be represented. People fresh from war-torn countries, still angry and terrified, came together with others that lived in violence, terror-free areas of the world.

We were all here for this ten-day World Work event to provide a safe space and time for people angry, divided, and who may have perceived each other as enemies, to find a common ground to hear each other, and potentially come together beyond rage and
so-called justified hatred.

For ten days, people, sometimes chaotically, screamed, cried and yelled at each other. For many an involved observer, the experience was chilling and emotionally disturbing. By the tenth day, last hour, with anger still filling the air, a young tall African American man from California - a man prior to this day, simply an observer, took an instinctive action. Hearing the loud voices of anger and the ongoing "talking" debates for so many days, he did something unexpected, and spontaneous, not only to others, but to himself as well. This man, Michael Jones, had always been exquisitely sensitive to how people in the world are treated. Fairness and justice seemed to drive him. On this day, his heart took charge, overriding any self-doubt, hesitation or need to impress anyone.

Michael swiftly and intentionally walked into the center of the 400 people, some seated, other standing in emotionally heated positions. Once in the center, he stood tall and screamed with great emotion and feeling, "Stop talking and feel! Stop talking and feel!!" His voice filled the gymnasium. At that moment, his voice, wherever it came from, was bigger than God, bigger than my perception of the universe.

The room dissolved into silence. A minute passed. A sobbing sound came from the back of the room. Soon, more and more people began to sob, cry and wail. Women, men and children began to slowly move towards the center of the room, tears flowing, the sound of raw, real feelings filling the room. Now hundreds of people were huddled together, most of them unknown to each other, arms around each other, crying together. No more talk. No more anger.

Michael joined them. Later, as he sat in the hallway by himself, people came to huddle around Michael to know him, to thank him. All he could do is say thank you and shed tears.

EVERYTHING IS ABOUT RELATIONSHIP

When I was in my early twenties, and a first year high school teacher, I discovered the principal of our school was placing all the Hispanic and African American students in a special class for so-called "mentally disabled." He did this, I found out, so the school district would receive more money from the state.

I was new, not only as a teacher, but in the world of politics and racism in school systems. Innocent yet clear, I called for a State investigation of the principal and his treatment of minority students. After the investigation, the principal remained, and my contract was terminated. Of the twenty-two other teachers on the staff, all of who agreed to speak up at the investigation, none did.

This event was my official introduction to getting involved with the world of justice and fairness. I had to. With a family of two young children and a wife, I soon found a job working with Native Americans, a group of people I knew nothing about except from cowboy and Indian movies. My job was to provide "counseling" to Native people representing almost every tribe in the United States, some being off the reservation for the first time. After dissolving my initial fears of being around a people that looked so different from me, I found what "family" can really mean when the word "sacred" is lived out daily, when humor is about oneself, rather than aimed at another, and when everything in life is about relationship.

Everything in life is about relationship. I found myself talking less with what I called "empty talk." I learned to speak only when I had something to say. I laughed more. I dissolved my belief in ambition in exchange for being of service to others -- whatever that might look like.

FREEDOM FROM ANGER

Our eight-year old son was taking a shower. For some reason, I do not remember, I walked into the bathroom with a tone of voice that carried frustration and was directed at my favorite person in the world, our kind and sensitive little boy. My frustrated tone didn't have lots of volume, and to me, wasn't very scary. It was the kind of admonishing voice that so freely floats around relationships without much awareness.

As I stood there for a moment, expecting a verbal reaction, I heard the shower water stop. It had been turned off. Suddenly, the shower curtain was thrown open, and there stood my son, tears in his eyes, beginning to cry. He looked directly into my eyes and said, "I thought I cured you of all your anger."

I sat on the edge of the tub as he fell into my arms crying - crying tears of disappointment. I simply held him close and whispered, "I am learning." He looked up and smiled.