I need some advice.  Yeah, I know.  The Internet is a lousy place to ask for advice. Advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.  Opinions are like assholes…everyone has one.  (Insert favorite cliché about advice here.) Still, I need to hear from people who aren’t me (which would include everyone who isn’t me…IOW, you. )  I’m too emotionally involved to make a logical decision.

Recently I had a falling out with my voice teacher.  It’s easier for me to copy and paste from another post, so here’s what happened:

Once again the religious beliefs of someone in my life have led to strife. This time it was my Zen Buddhist voice teacher and it came completely from left field. 

She has always called me her "star student"...the only student who actually practices and is concerned about improving.  I’ve always paid her on time despite limited funds and she has always assured me she is willing to “work with me” if funds run low.  I’m really not comfortable with that.  I don’t like the feeling of “owing” anything. 

I'm leery of the Abrahamic religions, especially fundy Christianity.  I thought maybe Buddhists weren’t so nucking futs when it came to judging others, but it seems I may have been wrong about that.

For the past couple of months I've had a nasty case of sinusitis.  A CAT scan showed a deviated septum, a chronic infection in my right maxillary sinus and a huge-ass polyp in my left maxillary sinus.  I've been feverish and sick: completely unable to attend my weekly private voice lesson.  All through this my teacher has told me not to worry about it…just get better.

Last week when I called to cancel again, my teacher went ballistic.  She contended I wasn't doing all I could to take care of my health.  Apparently, I am not thinking positively enough because positive thinking equals health.  She started telling me about her husband and that he survived cancer longer because of his positive thinking. (Um…he still died, didn’t he?)  She also believes he was reincarnated, but that don’t make it so.

I’m not denying there is a mind / body connection.  The mind is a part of the body, a physical thing, after all.  Still, I really don’t think I can shrink that polyp and correct the deviated septum with my mind any more than she and her deceased husband could will away the cancer.

When I tried to speak, she interrupted me.  There were veiled threats about others wanting my time slot.

She had never acted like this, so I was completely taken aback.  I hung up on her.

After thinking about it a few days, I have come to the conclusion this is mostly about money (with a side order of self-righteousness).  The money issue does bother her, even though she kept telling me to take my time and get well.  To make it OK to grouse about the money, she had to tell herself I was doing something to make myself sick.  The Buddhist idea of mind over matter fit that niche nicely.  It’s awfully convenient to have religion when you need justification for doing something nasty.

By Monday, I wasn’t any better physically, so I cancelled my personal voice class as well as any scholarship monies headed my way.  I really didn’t have a choice.  I wasn’t getting better and it didn’t sound like the teacher was willing to work with me.

Later that evening I left a message on her machine, telling her she could fill my slot at any time.  She called me later, saying she didn’t want it to end this way.  What choice do I have?  I can’t sing and according to my doctor, this is going to take a long time to fix. 

Also, taking voice from someone requires a certain level of trust.  What my voice teacher did was unprofessional and I’m almost certain she has passed the information on to others who will of course agree with her because she is the teacher.  I got a note from a fellow student telling me to think positively.  That’s all it said.  Gee, I wonder where he got that idea?

She’s behaved very unprofessionally.  Me?  I’m flabbergasted.  I would never have believed her capable of blaming someone for an infection.

Religion...it makes people nucking futs!  

Being raised fundamentalist Christian may have given me poor interpersonal skills.  Now that I’m an out-of-the-closet atheist, I’m even more confused.  I never know whether someone else is acting out of prejudice against atheists or if I somehow fucked something up.  When you’re in the middle of a conflict it’s hard to be objective.

Music is very important to me.  This teacher is probably the only one in the county qualified to teach me. It’s a small county and I’m sufficiently advanced that I’m working on advanced technique…well, I was until a few months ago.  I haven’t practiced since July.

A few nights ago, my ex-voice teacher called me and we talked like nothing had happened, which bothered me immensely.  She spoke of something called a Quantum Xrroid (QXCI) machine and my bullshit detector clanged so loudly the neighbors probably heard.  She claims it has helped her.  I bet it has.  Placebos work for believers.

I tried to tell her I was a skeptic.  She said, “I am, too.”  Um, excuse me…but no one who believes in Quantum Xrroid machines, Reiki and reincarnation is a skeptic.  While my bullshit-o-meter rang and my mind called her claim to skepticism bullshit, I found myself going into “people pleasing” mode.  I listened patiently, Googled the QXCI machine, pretended I was actually lending credence to her ideas, actually tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.

When I hung up, I realized that boundaries in our relationship have been blurred.  Before she went ballistic I had a lot of respect for her and actually solicited advice, even for health care.  Bad move.  When she would go on about Reiki and other woo-woo nonsense I’d just discard whatever she said and go on respecting her and acting on the bits and pieces I agreed with.  Now I distrust almost everything she says…shades of my “black or white” religious training, no doubt.  I’m wondering if she was leveling with me even on musical issues.

When I began lessons with her, I told her up front that my health was poor and that I periodically became so sick I couldn’t function for weeks on end.  She said that anticipating another illness would bring it on.  I should have seen that as a warning sign, but instead I took it to heart and decided this time I wouldn’t get sick.  I’ve decided that before.  Instead of helping, it hurts me because when I do get sick it leads to great disappointment and depression.  For awhile now I’ve known that my attitude needs to change.  Instead of thinking "this time I won't get sick," I should anticipate illness and have a plan of action: rest, Zicam, vitamins…maybe even meditation (although Ms. Zen Buddhist has dampened my interest in that particular activity). 

Last year my voice teacher said, “Music is so good for your health.  By this time next year you’ll have so much energy, you won’t know what to do with it.”  That sort of didn’t happen (understatement).  She made up some interesting stories to explain my waning and waxing health issues, saying I seemed to get well for performances.  Um…actually I got well for a performance because the antibiotics temporarily cleared up the infection.  When I came off the antibiotics, I relapsed. 

I actually asked for her input when I was at my sickest.  She listed several home remedies for sinusitis, most of which I was already using.  They weren’t helping.  At one point, I said, “I should probably write this down.”  Later I found out she saw this as an affront, that I wasn’t taking her seriously.  Actually at that point, I was taking her seriously.  It’s just I was already trying many of her ideas without effect, so there was no need to write them down.  I could remember the few I hadn’t tried.  Also, I was so sick I didn’t want to bother with a pen and paper.

NOW I don’t take her seriously.

If I do take lessons from her, two things need to change.  The first is my income level.  I'm way too poor to pay someone I don't trust $40 a lesson.  The second is my relationship with the voice teacher.  It needs to stay on a purely professional level.  I have to tell her in no uncertain terms that I do not buy into her personal beliefs and that she needs to keep them to herself and stick to teaching voice. 

The boundaries became blurred because I let them become blurred.   I was hoping for a friendship, I think, but due to trust issues, friendship is now out of the question. Still, I might be able to salvage my musical education. 

So how do I establish boundaries that never existed?  It reminds me a bit of my mother's battle to keep the deer out of her garden.  They were used to having access to that part of our property, so nothing short of an 8' tall fence was going to stop them.  I watched and laughed as my mother tried everything from metallic streamers to mountain lion piss.   Flowers and veggies disappeared every day until the fence was erected.  I think it took three or four years for my mother to get it right.

 How can I get it right the first time?