Neva Daniel: never to old to go back to school

I accidentally brought up, on my computer today, a digitized page from a 30-year-old diary that had a timely message for me on it. From my grandmother.

It's an excerpt from which showcases my mom's mom's personality. As a college professor, she supported my own graduate studies. She was one class away from getting a PhD herself, choosing not to take statistics (what a shame!). Her self-designed thesis was on using Korzybski's semantics to study Shakespeare. "I've always been a bit of a nerd," she would say proudly.

 

Neva Daniel, my grandmother

This excerpt from one of my ancient diaries caught my eye for a few reasons. I remembered how Neva was always getting into the next exciting thing, regardless of her age. Lately I have been wondering if I should go back to grad school, and feeling too old at 58.

Neva was always into something new. Ira Progoff's intensive journaling. A Course in Miracles. Anything by Angeles Arrien. She insisted on getting aquainted with this "interesting young Indian fellow" who turned out to be Deepak Choprah, before he got famous.

And when Neva was 80, according to my mother, she became enamored of Eugene Gendlin's Focusing technique .  My mom was impressed that Neva flew from Colorado to Chicago to learn from Gendlin himself.

At age 80.

She then went on to teach these techniques (as you can see from my excerpt below).

So maybe my coming across this is a message to me that 58 is not too old to go back to school. I want to stay in my lovely rural community and support it, but I miss being part of a university so much, after having that as the background of most of my life. The nearest university is a two hour drive from me.

Now, online opportunities are popping up, including one in pharmaceutical research, my background. I did not think that was possible.

I also remember this time period, because grad school was so hard, and it was made harder by my brief, one-year marriage to husband V dot 1. Chris was an unstable version of husband who became verbally abusive to me and filled with contempt for me. You can see below that I was in counseling. All I can say is get out, if you are in such a situation. Get out if you can. Now.

Neva supported me through this. I highlighted the section on Neva. I like how she talks about how when she teaches, she believes can save the world. A good attitude to have.

 

Aug 26, (1992)
It's late-I'm tired- though I want so much to write - sleep overwhelmed me. I stayed up past one last night studying.

My talk on solid state NMR spectroscopy went well I think, I talked and answered questions for an hour.
I wasn't really that nervous. Thats because I was prepared. I gave me notes out for everybody to follow (nobody else who talked so far has done that.) Aaron said, “you're giving us your NOTES?" like he didn’t believe it.

Dr Davis teased, "Yeah, shell probably get a better grade for that.” (We aren’t being
graded on this.) Afterwards Dr Davis said, “Good Job!” emphatically, and he is not the type inclined to give compliments, either. At first I was really nervous and my heart pounded uncontrollably, But I quickly relaxed as I got into the subject. If only I weren't so shy.

Grandma called on Saturday. I thanked her for the book she sent me, which was actually a Dr. Suess book titled "Oh, the places You’ll Go!” and grandma had put dollar bills inside the book. She is rather playful. She is 80 years old.

She is a professor at a Colorado college, and related a triumph in that the college has allowed her teach a class on something called Focusing. and then she talked about reflective listening."Oh! " said, “my counselor has told me about that!”

Grandma said, “It’s wonderful. I want to teach it to everybody. I do well, teaching, because I always believe I am going to save the world.”

And here she laughed at herself. She said, “In reflective listening, you take turns listening and just reflecting back what the other says. First I can be sort of large and open, and you can be kind of small and complaining. Then it will be my turn to be sort of small and complaining," and then she paused to laugh at herself again.

She really is delightful to talk to.

 

Comments

[Lisa Dancing-Light]

Thank you for posting these wonderful articles and memories of Neva. She was my teacher in the early 90's when I sought to study A Course in Miracles with her. As luck would have it I not only studied the Progoff Journal Method with her but went on to study FOCUSING and was trained by a woman named Janet from the FOCUSING INSTITUTE. I honor her today and all the inspiration I received from her wisdom when I speak at St. Peter's of the Valley in Basalt to a Roaring Fork Insight Mediation group. Thank you Neva!❤️

[Holly Phaneuf Erskine]

Hi Lisa,
I recognize your name. It's popped up a lot in Neva's files, and I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to connect. I am so grateful you reached out. I was too busy with my career to take Neva's workshops! But somehow I inherited her passion for therapeutic journaling. My husband just marveled that one of my digitized diaries had, according to my computer, over a million words in it. That's nothing, I say. I've been journaling every day for decades. We write to keep people alive, as Natalie Goldberg said.
Neva was asked for her "dying words of advice" and she said "make connections." As an introvert with sensory issues, that's extra tricky, but I love throwing out these threads and seeing what sticks and what I might uncover. Maybe a gem will pop up, like you did!
I would love to know, also, if you met my mother, Neva's daughter Judy, who would have been living with Neva in the 90's at Dulce Domum. She might have been struggling at the time with the Alzheimers that claimed her life in 2021. Anyway, I'll contact you and we'll see how we can connect further. Just following Neva's instructions.