about me and this website (Hope you will read!)
I am a 71 year old retired college professor. On my pathway to this time in my life, I have also been a social worker for the VA health care system for 34 years, have taught at various college and universities for 43 years, and been on a 45 year journey of recovering from two distinct trauma episodes early in life which left me with a perception of threat regarding just about everything.
I no longer practice college teaching or professional social work. I am not a therapist anymore. I am simply retired Bill to my friends and Grandpa Grumps to my family. In my shadow self, I am always recovering from those trauma episodes every day I wake up, and I suppose I always will be. That recovery has become a normal part of my life, and it is partly why I established this website.
In normalizing those incidents and the suffering that I have experienced because of them, I eventually came to understand that everyone hurts inside. We all have our own issues, damage, and betrayals. It is based on our perceptions, choices, and behavior that we either let these things define us or, slowly, like the tortoise in the race against the hare, learn step by step how to normalize our suffering into a joyful and fulfilling life.
It is not easy, though we want it to be. It does not happen quickly, though we wish it would. It requires patience and persistence, qualities which often elude us. Most of us do not want to be shaped by the dripping of water on a stone year by year, but this is how things work in the growth of our souls and selves.
My favority life lesson, quote, or saying for many years has been from M. Scott Peck. "Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly know and accept that life is difficult, then life becomes easy."
At the end of my life, I want to be remembered simply as a kind and positive person who did his best to walk a pathway of life joy, once he was able to see its light through all of his many shadows. Ulltimately, I suppose that is what this website is about. Thanks for visiting it.
Bill J
I no longer practice college teaching or professional social work. I am not a therapist anymore. I am simply retired Bill to my friends and Grandpa Grumps to my family. In my shadow self, I am always recovering from those trauma episodes every day I wake up, and I suppose I always will be. That recovery has become a normal part of my life, and it is partly why I established this website.
In normalizing those incidents and the suffering that I have experienced because of them, I eventually came to understand that everyone hurts inside. We all have our own issues, damage, and betrayals. It is based on our perceptions, choices, and behavior that we either let these things define us or, slowly, like the tortoise in the race against the hare, learn step by step how to normalize our suffering into a joyful and fulfilling life.
It is not easy, though we want it to be. It does not happen quickly, though we wish it would. It requires patience and persistence, qualities which often elude us. Most of us do not want to be shaped by the dripping of water on a stone year by year, but this is how things work in the growth of our souls and selves.
My favority life lesson, quote, or saying for many years has been from M. Scott Peck. "Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly know and accept that life is difficult, then life becomes easy."
At the end of my life, I want to be remembered simply as a kind and positive person who did his best to walk a pathway of life joy, once he was able to see its light through all of his many shadows. Ulltimately, I suppose that is what this website is about. Thanks for visiting it.
Bill J
