Sunday, November 21, 2010

Collateral Damage

I am in awe at the power we possess to alter our reality with our minds. Let us talk about the power of denial. To me the word ‘denial’ has a very negative connotation, as if we willfully and wantonly exercise our power of denial to rid ourselves of something that is plainly obvious to us, something that is right in front of our noses that we simply choose, consciously (there’s the kicker) to ignore for some selfish, self-serving (read ‘evil’) purpose.

But our power of denial is in many instances a tool for survival and it enables us to actually alter our reality to such an extent that we can truly forget things as if they had never happened.

This is an amazing and useful tool of adaptation that we possess. The power to make ourselves forget something as if it never happened, to fragment our minds, split off that part of memory that we do not want and simply make it go away.

Problem solved.

Well, not really. For it is an amazingly useful power and at the same time an enormously destructive power. The power we have over our own minds. This ability we possess to simply make part of ourselves go away, oftentimes never to be heard from again. Amazing and tragic all at the same time. Amazing that we can do this in order to save ourselves and tragic that we find ourselves in situations that it must be done in order to save ourselves and even more tragic in that this power to slice off and away parts of ourselves closes us off to vital parts without even knowing it. It is not possible to slice off and do away with parts and pieces, e.g. painful memories without also slicing off and doing away with some of the good stuff too.

I sort of think of it as chemotherapy for treating cancer. While it is necessary to run this toxic medicine through the body to kill off the cancerous cells, there is no way it can be done without taking with it many of the good cells. There is no discernment.

We could call this ‘collateral damage’. We got the bad guys but unfortunately we had to kill numerous innocent civilians in the process. But the good news is we got the bad guys. But the bad news is…

More and more I am convinced that we are separated from God in that we are separated from ourselves. He isn’t gone, we just cannot see Him because the place where we can find Him is inaccessible to us.

I read Jungian psychology and I read it because it has become plain to me that Dr. Jung was on to something very vital and central to his psychology is the idea of circumambulation of the Self. We are looking for the center, for the Self, for OUR Self. I absolutely and positively would not dispute because it is right on the money for me. However there are questions as to whether he considered the Self to be that one thing for which we are searching, i.e. the Self as God.

I finished a book recently, The Living God and Our Living Psyche, What Christians Can Learn from Carl Jung by Ann Belford Ulanov. And I do believe that this very smart lady hit the crux of the matter when she states that the Self is not God but that part of us that knows God.

I just love it when I stumble across the words for that which I have to that point been unable to put into words.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

It Makes No Sense

You wait for Heaven as if it’s some far off place yet to come,
Yet the Kingdom of God is within you.

You deny what you are as a person,
You call your humanity sinfulness,
Yet you are made in the image of God.

You present God as a lover of rules and regulations,
Demanding that we stay within His boundaries, laws and restrictions,
Yet in the same breath you say that the ‘truth’ will set me free.

Which is it?
Do I live under a set of laws?
Exist only within the boundaries?
Or do I allow myself to be free?








Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Dear Linda McMahon

I realize that you are running for governor senator in the great state of Connecticut and I understand that in order to win the office you have to have your name out there and you have to spend a lot of money, energy and time in order to persuade people to vote. However Ned Lamont Linda McMahon you do not have to call my house EVERY DAY FOR TWO WEEKS to ask for my vote when I already told your campaign worker that I would certainly consider voting for you on election day. Seriously Ned Lamont Linda McMahon once I have spoken to your volunteer (ok I'll give you two phone calls) kindly check my name off your list and move on to the next person.


I do not need a phone call every day to have you remind me that election day is Tuesday and that Richard Blumenthal is the devil himself and that I should vote for you because you are better than ALL OF THE OTHER CANDIDATES OUT THERE. You're the only one with integrity, you're the only one that isn't motivated by greed, you're the only one who wants to see the great state of Connecticut be the best state EVER!!

Not only that Ned Lamont Linda McMahon but your phone calls do not identify you on my caller ID, which tells me Ned Lamont Linda McMahon that you don't want me to know it's you calling because then I might be inclined to ignore the phone call.

I guess what I'm trying to say Ned Lamont Linda McMahon is that because you have crossed over the line into harrassment YOU CANNOT COUNT ON MY VOTE THIS COMING ELECTION DAY NED LAMONT  LINDA MCMAHON

Take that Ned Lamont  Linda McMahon.

Additionally Linda McMahon and Ned Lamont and all of you other politicians out there who actually think that your robocalls are a good idea and that I would actually stand there and listen to your ten minute recorded phone message THEY ARE NOT A GOOD IDEA AND I WILL NOT STAND THERE AND LISTEN TO YOUR TEN MINUTE RECORDED MESSAGE AND UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL I VOTE FOR YOU IF I RECEIVE A RECORDED MESSAGE FROM YOU.

In closing Linda McMahon you have guaranteed that I will cast my vote for the Devil Himself Richard Blumenthal.  Thanks for helping me make my decision.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Bible

as depiction of humanity's search for self.

And in this perspective it is indeed the Word of God...

Just one among many.

The Purpose In Life

I cannot say for sure however if there is just one purpose in life for each of us then I would say right now that “to become who I really am” is my one purpose in life.

Of course becoming who I really am encompasses all those things that we speak of as our purpose in life, inclusive of the external actions to be taken that are the result of what we believe to be our purpose in life, or at least one of our purposes in life.

More importantly however is that finding our purpose encompasses all of our inner world. It means getting to know our interior selves, our feelings, our thoughts, our dreams and fantasies. It means expressing our inner selves which of course means expressing our own innate and individual creativity.

What comes out of my heart and soul, what comes from my mind is the creative expression of who I am in whatever form it takes. What I say, what I do, what I think, what I like, what I dislike, all of these phenomena are part and parcel of that which is really me.

It is not possible to dispose of the mask that we wear. It is not possible to dissolve the persona that we carry around, that “me” that I show to the world at large. It is not possible for me to dispose of my mask unless everyone with whom I come into contact disposes of theirs also... and we know that ain’t going to happen anytime soon. I do not think we are capable of doing this simply because I do not think we’re even aware of where we end and our mask begins. In our conscious minds the two have become one and it takes a significant bit of work and courage to investigate and dismantle that mask. So many people aren’t even aware of the possibility of doing this.

Dismantling the mask to the greatest degree possible – this is a challenge, because it means first finding the courage and this is the true definition of courage. Finding the courage to first weed through the garbage, the emotional garbage in order to get to what is really there and then to allow what is really there to emerge even though it makes us uncomfortable, even though we don’t like certain aspects of ourselves, even though what we may find flies in the face of everything we ever thought was right and true and especially in the presence and pressure of all those other masks out there now THAT is courage.

Funny thing is that even though those of us who sense that there is a purpose to our lives tend to look right past this really rather simple idea. In Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” it was his suggestion, or rather observation that those individuals who survived the horrors of Auschwitz were those that attached a purpose to their lives, not necessarily a definitive purpose but they knew that there was something out there, somewhere, perhaps in some future time and place for which they needed to stay alive in order to ultimately achieve. God wants me to accomplish “something” in this life yet that “something” is defined I think as something very specific. Something very specific that is as yet down the road, not yet realized.

But here’s the kicker: that “something” happens every minute of our lives. That “something” happens moment by moment when we exercise our ability to think and feel and do that which we can. That “something” is exercised when we stretch ourselves, when we reach for yet more of our potential, when we grasp for more, when we put ourselves to the test, when we seek for more or different from ourselves or… OR when we simply allow to emerge what we already know to be within.

Sometimes that “something” means nothing more than experiencing what is within us in that moment. That too is part of what it means to be me and is that not our purpose? To learn how to be Me? Sometimes that purpose, that “something” means trying to hang on to life because in that moment and for whatever reason life has become harder than we might have imagined. And so in that moment, and perhaps for moments yet to come the “something” is merely to try and hang on to life.

We are here for something that much most of us would agree to be true but what we seldom consider is how that purpose changes from moment to moment and encompasses not just some unseen, future event or activity, some cause that the twists and turns in our life force us to consider and oftentimes embrace as our “purpose” but that which is happening right now, in that very moment. That cause in which we are currently engaged, sometimes joyful, sometimes a painful struggle but either way an integral piece of our purpose in life.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

This Is My Truth. Here I Take My Stand.

Why is it so hard for us to find that place? Or perhaps the better question would be why is it so hard to take our stand once we find that place. I think perhaps if we are paying attention we find that place of truth for ourselves many times throughout our lives. If only we recognize it definitively when we arrive at a place of our truth it then must take all of our courage to say “here I take my stand”. The influence of others is so strong that we are rendered almost incapable of making that final statement.

There are times when one’s place of truth is a place of pain that lies just below the surface and one avoids taking one’s stand by not so much in denying the truth of the pain but in a reluctance to let it flow freely to the surface. When all of one’s efforts are employed in keeping that pain at bay, hiding it from the world and projecting an image of self-control, competence and (what we have come to know as) “strength”.

Is it obvious that I am referring to myself in that paragraph? There… I took a little bit of my stand by admitting that I am talking about me while at the same time avoiding that same stand by speaking impersonally of a figurative “one”.

Sometimes our “truth” does not manifest itself in an outward display of what we would define as a position of strength. Sometimes what we define as a position of strength is in fact the means by which we deny the current truth of ourselves and it is in fact the act of allowing our “weakness” to show and our vulnerability to flow that has us taking our stand in our truth.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

False Existence

From Thomas Merton’s No Man Is An Island:

“… the loss of faith has involved at the same time a complete loss of all sense of reality. Being means nothing to those who hate and fear what they themselves are. Therefore they cannot have peace in their own reality (which reflects the reality of God). They must struggle to escape their true being, and verify a false existence by constantly viewing what they themselves do. They have to keep looking in the mirror for reassurance… They are hoping for some sign that they have become the god they hope to become by means of their own frantic activity – invulnerable, all powerful, infinitely wise, unbearably beautiful, unable to die!”

I would not dispute the truth of this statement. In fact with just some cursory effort and a little insight it is plainly evident in our so progressive western world. However what I cannot get onboard with is his sort of accusatory tone, as if all of us are completely aware of our choice between valuing who and what we really are vs. what we think is valuable which is to say power and invulnerability or that which we think makes us powerful and invulnerable. Money is power, owning things, a big house, a fancy car is to be admired. Power and prestige in our social and professional circles make us invulnerable. I out rank you therefore I have power over you therefore I am invulnerable to you. This is what we think, this is what we are taught, whether by word or deed that these are the truths of life.

Most of us are not aware of the other option, plain and simple. We are taught from the beginning of life to strive for power and avoid vulnerability from other people who were taught right from the beginning of life to strive for power and avoid vulnerability. It is all we know, it is all we ever knew so how could we know any other way and why does he make it sound so downright morally reprehensible? This of course is easy to do when we come to a place of feeling morally superior when we think we have ‘found’ God. I know that feeling, that attitude because I had a bit of it not all that long ago. You start to figure a few things out, you get to thinking you’re on the right track to the secret that’s hidden from everyone else, you start to thinking that you’ve got it all worked out and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. And so it becomes easy to point out how others are completely missing the point. They don’t get it those silly, ignorant, spiritually bereft people. Look at them with their big cars and their big, important jobs and their high-falutin social life. But I know those things means nothing, I just don’t understand why they don’t get it.

I do believe that those people that Mr. Merton speaks of above are indeed struggling to escape their true being and quite possibly verify a false existence but I would venture to guess that very few of them are really, truly looking in the mirror at themselves and you see there’s the rub; they’re not necessarily aware that there is a mirror that needs looking into.

I am coming to believe – most certainly it is true for me and I would venture to guess for every other individual who spends their days struggling to escape their true being that the denial, the struggle for power, the quest for invulnerability, the striving for external rewards to validate their lives is not only the product of the education handed down to us via our environment but more importantly and far more tragically it is the result of our instinct for self-preservation.

Our need for power and invulnerability is a response to a position whereby we were completely powerless and totally vulnerable, oftentimes to those who chose to abuse their position of power and authority, who chose to stomp on our vulnerability instead of treating it with kindness and gentleness and respect. It has to happen, loved ones get sick, they die, they develop addictions or simply become mean and bitter.  People we love hurt us in their efforts to tackle and subdue their own demons.  It cannot be helped.  Our need for power and invulnerability is a normal, human response to a version of life that includes disappointment and pain and suffering, these things cannot be avoided in any life.

If I continue directing all my energy towards striving for power and invulnerability, material things, all that is characteristic of our external world then I don’t have to notice myself. I don’t have to notice my feelings. I don’t have to notice my vulnerability and I don’t have to notice any pain that might still linger long after the stomping has occurred. This is what we fear, laying our hearts open and running the risk of having it stomped on yet again. And if I stop striving long enough to realize that there is an inner world to go along with that outer world than I am faced with the realization that I might have to look into that world and see what’s there.. and feel what’s there.  Who in their right mind wouldn’t choose a sports car and a big fancy house over that?

And all I can think to say is I never knew.  I never, ever knew I was doing this.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Dear Ned Lamont

I realize that you are running for governor of the great state of Connecticut and I understand that in order to win the office you have to have your name out there and you have to spend a lot of money, energy and time in order to persuade people to vote.  However Ned Lamont you do not have to call my house EVERY DAY FOR TWO WEEKS to ask for my vote when I already told your campaign worker that I would certainly consider voting for you on election day.  Seriously Ned Lamont, once I have spoken to your volunteer (ok I'll give you two phone calls) kindly check my name off your list and move on to the next person.

I do not need a phone call every day to have you remind me that election day is Tuesday and that I should vote for you because you are better than ALL OF THE OTHER CANDIDATES OUT THERE.  You're the only one with integrity, you're the only one that isn't motivated by greed, you're the only one who wants to see the great state of Connecticut be the best state EVER!!

Not only that Ned Lamont but your phone calls do not identify you on my caller ID, which tells me Ned Lamont that you don't want me to know it's you calling because then I might be inclined to ignore the phone call.

I guess what I'm trying to say Ned Lamont is that because you have crossed over the line into harrassment YOU CANNOT COUNT ON MY VOTE THIS COMING TUESDAY NED LAMONT.

Not only that Ned Lamont but because of all of your phone calls I am seriously considering un-registering myself as a Democrat.

Take that Ned Lamont.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

That Old Familiar Feeling

There are those of us who are referred to in the clinical literature as Adult Children of Alcoholics, ACOA for short.  So many of us exist in a daily state of busyness. Our lives are full of things to do, tasks to complete, responsibilities to be met. We must always be doing something. There is generally no free time to be had because there is so much to do. When we get a free hour we’re looking around for an activity to fill that empty space. Got a free ten minutes where’s the vacuum cleaner?

We work extremely well under pressure, in fact we thrive under just the right amount of pressure. We seek out professional responsibilities that allow us to make use of our confidence and competence under pressure. Our employers love us, glowing reviews, pay raises, promotions. We are people who get it done and we’re not afraid to mix it up, in fact we welcome the opportunity to mix it up. It’s a challenge yes?

We’re probably high-achievers and to some degree perfectionists, at least that is how others undoubtedly see us. Those same others might also envy us our high energy level, our high degree of competence, “how do you do it?” they ask. “Oh I don’t know, I just do it, it’s just the way I am” I might respond. I don’t even think about it. It is what makes me go.

*****

There are those people out there with advanced degrees in psychology who do not necessarily envy those of us who exist in a daily state of busyness and achievement. In fact they probably have an entirely different perspective of that propensity to seek out busyness, pressure, too much work. I suspect in many cases that these people with advanced degrees might suggest that perhaps we are running from something. Running from our feelings. Running from our pain. Running from our memories. They may be right, at this moment I cannot say.

Life is not either/or.

I would like to posit an alternative theory and my theory goes like this:

Those competent, high-achieving, perfectionists are not running from something but rather running to something. They are running to an old familiar feeling. The old familiar feeling that is a fluttering, a nervousness, a feeling of always being on edge. This is what they know because this is what they had growing up. This feeling of edginess, or rather of always being on edge is where they are comfortable. It is what they have always known… and when it goes away they notice. They might not know exactly what it is that's missing but they know something vital is no longer there. And so they go searching. For that old familiar feeling.

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Failure of My Mother

A young woman grows up in a family, one of four children of two parents, Mom and Dad – second generation Italian Americans - parents who love them and worked hard for them. Two parents who modeled good, strong American values, hard work, loyalty and responsibility to family and country. European immigrant values coming to the land of the free and the home of the brave. The country where hard work, strong ethics and for the women the ability to cook a fabulous spaghetti sauce and stand by their men are paramount.

This young woman feels different, feels that she is missing something, some vital piece or part of the normal human machine, the normal ‘girl’ mechanism that dictates her desire to date boys, to talk about boys, to be with boys, to LIKE boys. The desire for a home and a family of her own one day where she cooks for thirty family members at Christmas.

“What am I missing?” she asks of herself every day. Her younger sister, her brothers, they all got the ‘gene’. The “I want a home and children of my own someday” gene. What line did she miss getting in when they were handing out that vital part?

She wanders through adolescence, graduates high school, goes to college and the whole time she feels different, she knows she is different. And that difference is shameful. Oh she goes through the dating motions, it’s what girls are supposed to do yes? But her heart isn’t in it, she’s just doing it because she thinks this is what she’s supposed to be doing, this is what she’s supposed to like and want. She becomes isolated, she keeps her thoughts and her fears to herself. Nobody wants to hear this, nobody EXPECTS to hear this from her, least of all her mother. This is not the way she was raised… to be like this.

How could she possibly tell anyone when they don’t expect to hear this from her? She cannot stand to think about the response that she would get from family and friends. How could she be like this? They won’t understand and she cannot find a way to explain. She doesn’t know how to explain, nobody ever talked about such things in her family. Why would they? There is no precedence and besides this is so ABNORMAL.

She begins to distance herself from her mother. If she cannot talk to her mother about the most vital part of herself, the most personal, the core of her being what have they got to talk about? Her mother speaks of the life she knows, what it means to be a woman, where her family is everything, the very center of her life. She loves them, she cooks for them, she cleans for them, she wants what’s best for them which is of course a home and a family. That's what it's all about right girls?

And so in her isolation, alone with her feelings of defectiveness, of shame, of abnormality she knows the disappointment her mother would feel in her oldest daughter.  In her isolation alone with her feelings of defectiveness and shame and abnormality she comes to realize that she is the failure of her mother.  How could she possibly ever find the words to tell her?

Friday, July 30, 2010

There's Something About Bob

There is a man, I will call him Bob, he is a star football player in the NFL. Super Bowl winning quarterback. Every American guy’s dream right? Grabs the headlines every week. Plays at a high level in the extremely competitive world of professional football. Takes hit after hit weekly from 300 lb. defensive ends and bounces right back up to throw a 50 yard touchdown pass on the very next play. A real star and the envy of every high school and college football player in the nation and every couch-potato, internet sports-site trolling wannabe who never realized his dreams of athletic stardom. He epitomizes what they had hoped to be.

Lately Bob has hit some rough patches. Turns out that he apparently thinks that his status of Super Bowl winning quarterback brings with it certain entitlements not available to the average person on the street, you and me for example.

He likes to party, he likes to spend money, he likes the attention from the young ladies who like professional athletes. Of course he does, he’s a young guy, 28 years old, at the height of his athletic ability, at the height of his stardom, everybody wants to be with him and get a chance to share in his good fortune.

He likes to party, he likes to spend money, he likes the attention from the young ladies and, as it turns out (allegedly I would specify) he likes to sexually assault the young ladies. Being a football star comes with its entitlements does it not?

Well the newspapers can only report on the alleged ‘facts’ of the assaults and they're running out of new material and facts are still under investigation, nothing has yet been proven and it's time that the story expanded a little.  Gotta fill up the empty space on the page, gotta keep the advertisers coming and spending their money.  So eventually the sportswriters they turn to something else, a new angle on the story. So they turn to his college and high school and boyhood friends. “Tell me what Bob was like ten, fifteen, twenty years ago” they say. “Well… Bob was a really athletically gifted person and exceptionally driven to succeed.”. We find out that Bob was always in the weight room, first one in and the last one leave. Bob tirelessly and relentlessly worked on his football skills. A real committed guy, even at such a young age. It was all about making the NFL for Bob and he deserves his success. Nobody has worked harder than Bob to get where he is today.

Driven, single-minded, strong-willed, focused. That’s Bob.

We find out a little about Bob’s family. Parents divorced and Dad remarried - nothing new there.  Half the kids in the country have divorced parents. Nice home in a regular community. Money wasn’t abundant but it wasn’t scarce either. Basically Bob grew up with all the creature comforts a small-town boy could want or need.  We find out that Bob’s mother was killed in a car accident when he was just eight years old. She was on her way to see him.

There's something about Bob that nobody can quite put their finger on.  He was such a great kid, so much talent, such a nice guy, generous.  What the hell is going on with Bob these days?  We just don't get it, why this is all happening.

I wonder if it's possible that maybe Bob doesn't bounce back quite so easily from every hit he's ever taken.

The Story of Our Lives Part II

There is a woman who likes to drive fast. She likes fast cars that handle the curves, she likes fast cars that go from 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds.  She likes cars that respond instantly when she hits that gas pedal... and she hits that gas pedal hard and frequent. When she drives on the highway she hits speeds upwards of eighty-five mph. On this day she is heading home on the highway, as usual she is driving way too fast. But there is a certain kind of thrill in speed for her. A feeling of freedom? A little sense of danger perhaps? Hard to say.

On this day driving home she is lost in thought as she flies down the highway and she snaps back to attention just as she realizes she is about to pass right by her exit. So she veers right, never dropping her speed and gets on the exit ramp that leads to another highway that will eventually bring her home. But the second she hits this exit ramp she is in the middle of a crazy snowstorm. From sunny, dry conditions to blizzard conditions in the span of twenty yards. Road is covered in snow and she likes fast cars and she is driving fast and she hits that snow-covered road and realizes in an instant that she is driving way too fast for the road conditions. Problem is that her love of fast cars means that her tires do not grip well in slippery conditions and the second she hits the breaks she’s going into spin. The second she tries to slow down it’s over. She’ll lose control and God knows where she’ll end up.

She wants to slow down, she knows she has to slow down but she also knows that the instant that she tries to slow down control of that car is no longer hers.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Story of Our Lives

Is not this...



Or even this...



And it ain't this as I had once suggested...



It's this...



Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Therapists and Friendship

So I'm reading this blog post about friendship and professional boundaries in the therapist/client relationship and basically the question is would I want to be friends with my therapist after the therapy has ended.  In the myriad books about therapy that I've read I've seen this question raised many times both among therapists and patients.  Seems that while there are rules which appear to be 'not until two years after the therapy has ended' there is much debate over the question.  Whatever and not for me to decide since I'm not a therapist and I would not be the one breaching any ethical boundaries.

However I gave it some thought and here's what I think;  I like my therapist.  I like her a lot.  She's smart and she's funny and I can tell her patients matter to her and I can tell that her job matters to her and I have never once felt like she wasn't completely focused and in that room with me. I like my therapist as my therapist.  I like that she is my therapist.  I like that I have a therapist that I can count on to be there every week, week in and week out.  I like that I have a person that I can go to every week, week in and week out and talk about what's on my mind.

I'm totally good with the fact that she's my therapist.  Could we be friends in a different time and place?  I have no idea but we're not in a different time and place and I feel very fortunate to have found somebody that it seems I can count on to do her job.  She is just what I need in a therapist and if we became friends I'd lose that.  I have lots of friends and frankly there aren't a lot of them that I can talk to without them getting their own s**t in the way (and vice versa no doubt)  so why would I trade my therapist in for a friend and take on her s**t?

No thanks.  I like her right where she is.


As an aside I have also heard it said numerous times that people get a bit freaked out when they hear of (or see) their therapist at a party or some other public place and the therapist has somehow decided to be themselves, let their hair down, act like a regular person, and I don't get it.  Do people think their therapists aren't real people?  I'd crack up if I saw my therapist in say the grocery store and overheard her telling someone about a party she went to and had one too many and started telling off-color jokes.

I don't know... something about me wanting my therapist to be a real person I guess.  Who can say?

Monday, July 26, 2010

I've Got Nuthin Part Deux

I am in a place right now, a little frustration, a little confusion. I sense a movement towards a place of greater understanding or rather a place of being able to formulate a bit more competently some kind of cohesive theory of human existence and our relation to God. Or at least I hope so because this inability to gather my half-thoughts into some kind of cohesiveness is pretty darn frustrating.


I have times, right now for example where I feel on the verge of a break-through… but of what? New knowledge? New understanding? I cannot even find a word for what ‘it’ is so I use the word ‘it’. A word about as nondescript as one can get but I have nothing better. I am forced to use the word ‘it’ a lot because I don’t know another word to use to describe something that is circulating in my mind but is not yet even close to being in full view and so I cannot make out what ‘it’ is. ‘It’ is just a blob right now, not even a blob, no form, no color, no properties of which to be spoken. Very frustrating.

Take for example the whole religion thing. I will speak specifically of the Christian theology or let me be slightly more general and use the Bible as my example. Here’s the thing; I know these writings point to the ‘truth’, I’ll call it ‘reality’. I like that word better. The biblical writings point to something that really is, I just cannot come up with an organized and cohesive theory of what that something, or what that story is. Jesus for example; real or myth? Actual person as God in the flesh, living model, living archetype of what really is, sent so we could actually see and speak to the actual THING of which we all have built-in knowledge, living proof of our pre-existing knowledge or was Jesus simply a man turned into a myth that represents the reality of the knowledge implanted by God. Our projection of innate knowledge.

How’s that for convoluted?

Interesting that Carl Jung indicated that one of the errors of human beings is in our habit of looking to ourselves in an effort to get some kind of picture of God when in fact I think that the very place we should be starting in our efforts to gain an understanding of God is ourselves. Of course I suspect that he was referring to behavior and I am referring to construct.

The best I can do right now is to merely define that at which I am grasping; a cohesive theory of the basic structure of human life and it’s relation to God.

That’s all I’ve got.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Ignorance of Choice

The choices we make are made in ignorance (and we’re ignorant of even that much), and as a result of our choices made in ignorance things happen, some that we never expected, some for which we are completely unprepared. And when they happen we’re lost, we flounder around looking for answers and we expend all of our energy trying to find the solution only to ultimately come to the conclusion that there is no solution, or rather no solution over which we ourselves have any control.

Unfortunately we oftentimes empty our tank in the process of trying to find solutions to problems that presented themselves in response to our choices made in ignorance and so we’re left to somehow make it through the rest of our lives running on empty.

What a dilemma.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Checks and Balances

We have been given free will however we do not generally exercise that free will. The concept of free will dictates that everything we do is a conscious decision, a conscious choice to act in a certain manner given the situation at hand. We fool ourselves into believing that the actions we take upon that situation are fully powered by our own free will.

Not so.

Most of us do not at any given moment exercise nearly the full power of our own free will because our actions are motivated by forces in our psyches of which we are completely unaware. And the really sad part is that we are unaware that we are unaware. Talk about your sticky wickets huh?

Carl Jung set forth the idea that our dreams act in a compensatory manner to our waking or conscious lives. If my conscious self is behaving in a particular manner, for example I fancy myself a strong and intelligent individual, a real Type A, driven, determined, a perfectionist, always in control chances are pretty good that my dreams will present images to the contrary.

I would have to agree with that assessment although I do not believe that our dreams serve ONLY as compensatory. I think there’s a whole lot more to them but that’s not what this post is about.

I believe that our whole being is compensatory. That the whole human machine has innately a system of checks and balances that are there and if we’re paying attention (and sometimes even if we’re not) we will know when we’re stepping outside of our own healthy zone. If after many years of living in a manner that is inconsistent with what and who I truly am, with what and whom I am truly meant to be than my systems will inevitably start to break down; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually to the point – if I ignore it long enough – that I will be brought to a screeching halt. It has to happen.

My built-in system of checks and balances kicks in and if I ignorantly insist on pushing back against it year after year I will ultimately lose the battle. I cannot win, I am constructed in such a way that my defeat is inevitable… it is only a matter of time.

Checks and balances.

Another interesting thought occurs to me.  This system of checks and balances is something that we, 'we' being society use 'out there' in the external world.  For example our government here in the good old U.S of A has in place a form of government that is made of the three branches; the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial branches.  And these three branches were put in place this way so that there would be a system of checks and balances.  In other words our founding fathers were quite aware of certain human frailties and had the foresight to do their best to ensure that one guy didn't grab the all the power.  While the system is clearly not perfect it does manage to 'work' to a degree.

What I am getting at here is that every idea, every concept, every system that is put in place 'out there' in the world at large is an expression of something that is already a part of our human machine.  These ideas are an external manifestation of knowledge that we already possess within ourselves.

I am becoming quite convinced that every human being knows a hell of a lot more than we think we know.  In fact I am coming to believe that we already know EVERYTHING we need to know, which is a hell of a lot.

We just don't we know it and we haven't got the first clue how to get to it.

And so the key becomes about getting to what we already know in it's purest form possible and learning how to make use of it.

Checks and balances.

Somebody tell me that God does not exist.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The World According to Dr. Knowitall

One day you’re going about your business, tending to your life and all of a sudden someone comes along and grabs you, takes all your clothes, all your money, puts you on an airplane and flies you into the middle of a foreign country where nobody speaks your language, nothing is familiar and a raging battle is taking place and that someone kicks you out of the cabin smack into the center of the battle. Bullets whizzing by your head, bombs exploding all around, debris flying and you’re in the middle of it stark naked with absolutely no protection and no way out. So what happens? Well your choices are minimal and let’s face it, in the chaos that ensues all around there’s not a whole hell of a lot of time to sit down and think about your options and reason out which is the best. You’ve had no training in warfare, you’ve had no training in self-preservation in the heat of a battle, you haven’t got the first clue what to do. The one and only thing you know is the drive to get out of there alive.

You look around and in your state of panic and high anxiety all you see is rocks. Rocks.  Choices do not abound – in fact the only choice you can see is the rock at your feet. You grab the rock. It’s a crude and unsophisticated weapon in the middle of high-powered rifles and bombs but it’s all you’ve got. So you use it and somehow it works, somehow you manage to – with incredible effort and energy use the damn rocks to defend yourself. And so you keep grabbing rocks. What else are you going to do?

Fast forward to six months later.  You wake up in a hospital bed in a quiet town far from the battle. You’re bandaged from head to toe because you were beaten and bloodied in a hundred places. Bones have been broken, eyes have been gouged, limbs may have been severed, internal organs have collapsed.

But you’re alive.

In walks Dr. Knowitall, Harvard Medical School, Chief of Trauma Surgery, credentials up the wazoo, drives a Mercedes, clean hands, clean fingernails, hair cut and coiffed, the envy of all his peers. Born and raised into money, had parents who put him through medical school and paid his bills while he studied and graduated top of his class, the dude knows his trade.  But war-zones? Yeah… not a clue.  Oh he's had to stitch up plenty of people that have been there but personally he never had the pleasure.

And as he inspects your wounds he says to you “oh my poor dear such a mess you are but you went about it all wrong. What you should have done was this, this and that and if you had only done this, this and that well then you wouldn’t be lying here in this sorry state you're in with all of these gaping wounds and facing years of difficult recovery. It’s so simple and you really ought to have known better.”

I'm such a mess.  Why didn't I know better?

Such a simple solution.  Why... Didn't... I... Know... Better?

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Deep Calls to Deep

I keep a journal and I write in it pretty much every morning. I have noticed that sometimes I become focused on the need to write something deep and profound in this journal every day. But I’m thinking about this and I’ve realized that deep and profound has nothing to do with it. Actually what I am trying to do is to write something that is satisfying every day. When I have written something that allows me to get to the core of what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling what I am left with is a very satisfied feeling.

Having the opportunity to express ourselves to someone else, being able to say to someone what we really think, what we really feel, that is the path to fulfillment. Now I do realize that this idea may change over the coming years but even that is not necessarily an indication of my self-doubt about this particular idea but more the knowledge that anything and everything we come to know about ourselves, about others, about human life in particular is subject to evolution which encompasses change in the form of expansion, in the form of deeper clarity. How cool is that?

Right now the only person with whom I am fairly comfortable disclosing my feelings is my therapist. A shout-out to her for allowing me to get to that point.  It has not been easy for her this I know. And in that opportunity I have realized that the way I feel sometimes walking out of her office and for the rest of the day after having been able to express something that I truly feel touches that place of satisfaction. And what that satisfaction is I do believe is just the tiniest bit of that elusive thing we’ve come to know as fulfillment.

This is a harbinger of things to come…

To this point I thought that being able to talk about my emotions was just a matter of relieving the pressure I have felt building for so long due to the fact that I’ve held them in for so long. Years and years of pent-up emotions that never had a chance to be outed. I have a picture in my mind’s eye of a well that is filled to the top with garbage and if I could find a way to empty that well of the garbage little by little until I finally reached the bottom well then I would feel better. Totally cleaned out and starting from scratch. And while that may be partly true it isn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

This feeling of satisfaction that I get when I can talk to her in a way that is completely honest and in a way that gets to the core of my real feelings might just be the spark, a tiny little hint of how it feels to live my life as my true self. I have been fake for so long that I have lost – or I should say I never had -the knowledge of what it is to live as me, to recognize what it feels like to BE me, as I really and truly am and I am quite sure that these brief times of satisfaction that I feel in the expression of what I know to be true for me is a glimpse into the experience that is available to me if I live as me, the real me.

Now I know.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Disconnection of Thoughts about Connection

I’ve just started a new book entitled In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky. Ouspensky was a student of a gentleman by the name of G.I. Gurdjieff. Gurdieff was an Armenian born teacher and mystic. The following from the site www.gurdieff.org presents a brief synopsis of the basic tenets of his teachings:


Mr. Gurdjieff was an extraordinary man, a master in the truest sense. His teachings speak to our most essential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life, and of human life in particular? As a young man, Gurdjieff relentlessly pursued these questions and became convinced that practical answers lay within ancient traditions. Through many years of searching and practice he discovered answers and then set about putting what he had learned into a form understandable to the Western world. Gurdjieff maintained that, owing to the abnormal conditions of modern life, we no longer function in a harmonious way. He taught that in order to become harmonious, we must develop new faculties—or actualize latent potentialities—through “work on oneself.” He presented his teachings and ideas in three forms: writings, music, and movements which correspond to our intellect, emotions, and physical body.

P.D. Ouspensky was an author and student of Gurdjieff. The book is a reflection of Ouspensky’s spent with Gurdjieff as well as a discussion of his teachings.

I agree with much, if not all of that brief synopsis although I have yet to get far enough into the book to know the details of his teachings. I just finished chapter one.

Anyway… as I’m reading this morning I got to thinking about a few things. I got to thinking about all of the books on spirituality, theology, psychology and philosophy that I’ve read over the past few years, which include both some eastern and western philosophies about spirituality, psychodynamic and Jungian psychology, Christian theology, admittedly for much of this time I’ve read mostly what could be classified as Christian spirituality, theology and philosophy however for the past year I’ve started to open my sphere of investigation. I am starting to dabble in more mystical writings, Buddhist and the like.

And I had a thought and it goes like this…

It is interesting to me that in all of these spiritual, mystical, philosophical (call them what you will) books we are presented with what appear to present deep, dark and profound thoughts about the nature of human beings, the nature of the universe, the different levels of being right down to the concept of ‘being’ itself. I have to say that these ideas are exciting to me, always something new to consider, always something new to confound and investigate and drive me forward for new levels of insight, understanding, wisdom and so on. These ideas, they spark a flame in us, a flame that points to a place within us that allows us to think that there just might be something else ‘out’ there or ‘in’ here or around it all SOMEWHERE that can fill the gigantic hole that exists in us. A void that so many of us cannot seem to touch no matter what we do, no matter what we buy, no matter how many churches we go to, books we read, trees we hug or yoga positions we assume.

We read, we listen, we practice yoga, we meditate, we worship in church, we volunteer at soup kitchens, we fight for our causes and we write checks to charities but still that hole remains. We are always listening to somebody else’s ideas, practicing somebody else’s instructions of movement or non-movement, hanging on somebody else’s words for the ANSWER. Somebody to tell us THE meaning, THE way, somebody to point us the way to that thing which we cannot even define. We are asking somebody to show us the way to a place that remains a mystery to us. It’s like going up to police officer on the street to ask for directions and saying “I’m going to a place, I don’t know what country it’s in, I don’t know the name of it and I don’t know anything about what it looks like but I need you to tell me how to get there.”.

I have noticed a similarity however among all of the teachings; they all talk about ‘connectedness’. They all infer knowledge of creation, a way to a ‘better’ place, a ‘higher’ plane, an elusive way of existence or a feeling or a state of mind that only a fortunate few might ever attain to.

But where is God in all of this? Where is God in all of these deep and profound explanations of the universe, of the talk of suffering and the connectedness of everything. Where is God in the talk of ‘higher’ states of being?

I cannot shake the feeling that all of these concepts exclude the personal. That is our deep connectedness to each other, the NEED of a person for other persons. I could be wrong but in my brief forays into Buddhist thought I’m pretty sure I’m detecting the suggestion that God is superfluous to the whole thing. I get a sense that this Buddhist idea of enlightenment does not require God. It’s all presented so… impersonally.

I am a human being and I must be connected to other human beings if I am to survive. This is a fact, pretty much everyone knows it. And so this necessity of connectedness to other people, this requirement of being human must dictate somehow that the ‘thing’ that I am searching for, the ‘higher’ plane of being is a different level of connectedness, in fact the ultimate level of personal connectedness and interaction which would be our connectedness to God.

How is it possible that a method (a path, a teaching, call it what you will) of being and living that purports to attain enlightenment or espouses a different (higher) level of existence could possibly exclude that THING from which everyone comes, runs through, exists in moment to moment? Given our connectedness to one another and everything then how can any “answer” to life exclude God?

You might say because God does not exist and we must find ourselves within ourselves. Hmm…

Then explain the connectedness. How is it possible that everything that IS is connected to everything else that IS? Random chance?

Unlikely.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Lay Down Your Arms

I knew what was going to have to be done. I would try to push it from my mind and a thought would spring to mind; maybe I can do this without going there, maybe I can find a way to do this and still avoid that, ‘this’ being psychotherapy and ‘that’ being the places of pain. The places of real pain.

But in my heart I knew. In my heart I knew that I carried around some exceptionally well-constructed defenses. Everything I ever did that I was truly motivated to do I did extremely well. I’ll have an order of control freak with a large side of perfectionist please. That would be under the heading of Adult Child of Alcoholic (among other things) on the menu.

My whole life was a defense. My entire personality was built on rock hard defenses. A great and quick wit and sense of humor, albeit at times cutting and dark and sarcastic, spilling over into caustic on frequent occasion. Uber-competent, fairly intelligent (although I have been forced to re-think my level of intelligence in recent months) and intense… always intense. I have an intimidating posture that I wield like a weapon and I have fine-tuned this ability as a well-trained artisan. I am so good at it I don’t even have to think about it anymore. I turn it on like flipping a switch.

Everything about the way I conducted myself was done in the service of keeping people at arm’s length. And I did it by issuing from moment to moment a warning, an unspoken warning to anyone who came within a twelve foot radius. I am reminded of movies about World War II when there were scenes of barbed wire and those criss-crossing poles to which the wire was attached with a big sign hanging front and center and a warning to those who dared to come near:

ACHTUNG! KEIN EINTRAG!

WARNING! DO NOT ENTER!

But no words were needed. I did not need to provide reasons, I did not need to explain why. Once people got a taste of my approach they rarely had the guts to ask why anyway.

This might sound a bit extreme, it was although truthfully I never gave it any thought. It simply was the way I had become. It became part and parcel of who I was. The extremity does not show it’s face until one starts to put it into words, which I have recently done in my own therapy. Sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cringe. Sometimes it amuses me that I could wield such power over others without even a word and at other times I am ashamed that I have perpetrated this sort of behavior on those that I call my friends and acquaintances.

I am equal parts relieved and repelled in putting this into words on a public forum. Sometimes the benefits of a very small readership are many however

those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not grow weary;
they shall walk and not grow faint.
(Isaiah 40:13)

*****

I do not want to have to give up this sword because I do not want to do what I know I’m going to have to do to make that passage a reality in my life. I know that I’m going to have to lay down my defenses and walk through so much of the pain that has been intrinsic to my life for so many years. A person as well-defended as I am is loath to even SAY the word pain let alone admit to any of it. And yet the rewards will be, I think, beyond anything I could have ever imagined for myself. You see I believe those words in that passage above. I believe, no, in fact I know there are aspects of myself that if tapped into will enable me to exceed anything that I could have imagined for myself, for my life. And I know that there is a way of living that frees up the massive levels of energy that have been necessary to maintain those defenses all these years. And I know that I am about to trade the expenditure of so much negative energy for the incredible lightness of being that is the positive and free-flowing energy of a life lived in service of who I really am.

And I am so excited about the possibilities and oh man I cannot begin to express how much I DO NOT want to do this.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Lion Lays Down with the Lamb

A world where pain and sadness, grief and struggle, all manner of suffering cease to exist. A world where we will see face to face rather than into the dim mirror into which we gaze now. We will gaze directly, we will see clearly the face of God.

The search for self, the search for answers, the search for the meaning of life, what am I doing here? What is all this for? No more questions.

The search for God ends…

Now what?

*****

I do believe that in the midst of our pain and difficulties, in the midst of the pervasive feeling that we are engaged in, that our day to day is pointless, dull, a road to nowhere, we want something or someone to sweep in and give us a point, show us the exact path, give us all the answers that will alleviate our pain, provide excitement and purpose and satisfy the unexplainable longing that burns like a low-grade flame somewhere deep within.

We want someone or something to sweep in, grab us by the hand, whisk us away from our daily drudgery, our dreary, boring existence and bring us to a place of sunshine and blue skies and clear water. Pink drinks with umbrellas in them and reggae music playing in the background (always too loud). No cares, no stress, no pain, no worries.  Wasting away in Margueritaville with all the answers.

But here’s my question: How long can a girl sit on a barstool in the middle of paradise before she gets bored?

In other words what do we do when the search comes to an end?

Eternity is a long time…

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Vignettes of Thought

The Book of Genesis: I am confused by the story of Adam and Eve. Seems to me that the opening of the eyes to their nakedness (Gen 3:6-7), the knowledge of good and evil is a metaphor for the dawning of consciousness. How does this become cause for being tossed by God from the Garden of Eden? Banishment from Eden is representative of our separation from God. Somehow our consciousness is the vehicle by which we lose touch with God. That the story has been framed in such a way that presents God as the heavy is interesting, it is however a story written by a human being. I keep that in mind.

There is a strong element of punishment and yet I read and re-read this story and wonder why? There’s that Tree of Life right smack-dab in the middle of the garden and Adam and Eve are told not to touch it. Why? So they will know good and evil and “become like one of us”? Seems to me that this is a little like putting candy in the middle of a young child’s playpen and telling them not to touch it. And when they do – and let’s face it the parent knows full well the child won’t be able to deny himself and his natural desires – the poor kid is punished for it.

And so Adam and Eve are thrown out of paradise because they are being punished by God for doing what comes natural and yet God spends the rest of the span of scripture trying to get them back. Well, why the hell did he throw them out in the first place?

Have we taken a story that represents an explanation of the progression of natural human development of consciousness in order that we can have an awareness of the experience of life and turned it into some kind of punishment by God? Are we that rigid and limited in our ability to live freely, to take responsibility for our own actions, to deny our own culpability in a life not lived that we have to blame God for these restrictions that we have, in reality placed on ourselves?

*****

Trusting God: What exactly am I trusting God for… or with? Am I trusting that he will never allow me to be hurt? I’d say that ship has sailed for each and every one of us. The world is a place of pain and clearly part of our experience cannot help but be one of pain.

Really a question could be “is trust part of the equation at all”? And that might be key, rather not “the” question but “a” question, implying that life is an ever-changing, constantly moving flow where the questions keep coming and a lot of answers keep coming but answers oftentimes stop the questions don’t they? And one experience is not the last experience or the best experience or the worst experience. It is just one experience in a string of millions upon millions of experiences. They keep coming one right after the other, a never-ending flow of changing experience.

There is no “one answer”, there is no “one reason” why I am here, why any of us is here. There is no “one thing” for me to learn while I’m here. Life is an open-ended process, an open source of things to learn, stuff to experience. Every choice we make or don’t make resolves in yet another experience. Even doing nothing resolves to something. And the coolest thing of all – we so often forget this – the coolest thing of all is that in every respect we get to make some decision, we get to make some choice, we are empowered with some measure of control in the experience.

The only thing I can come up with is that “trusting God” means let life unfold. Live your life, exercise your personal choice, take your personal responsibility, accept that it is both joy and pain – nobody is immune to either – and trust that ultimately God stands with us, in us as part of us – a guide so subtle, too easy to miss.

Or maybe it means something else...

*****

My book on Mindfulness: I read something funny in the book this morning. The discussion is of chronic back pain and the widely held belief that it is caused by degeneration in the discs of the spine:

… Our capacity for symbolic, anticipatory thought, while extraordinarily adaptive in allowing us to construct complex civilizations, is ill suited to coexist with our mammalian fight-or-flight system. Rather than our transition to walking upright, it appears that this evolutionary accident is responsible for the epidemic of chronic back pain.

Why do I think this is funny? Well, it’s the term “evolutionary accident” that gets me. Seems to me that if evolution, and I speak of the term evolution to mean the spontaneous accident that happened somewhere, at sometime, in some place that nobody can ever define, were actually THE explanation for why everything is here than everything that is here should be defined as an ‘evolutionary accident’ because the very concept of evolution - at least as far as I can tell generally and scientifically speaking refers to ‘without God’. Therefore if there is no thought and no intent behind the existence of everything that is then the entire thing is an evolutionary accident.

And I’m wondering why the PhD who wrote this book can’t see the joke in his statement.

Just for the record, and I’m sure it must be clear by my use of dripping sarcasm in that last statement that I do not for one minute believe that everything that is here is the result of ‘evolution’. Again, I refer you to my definition above. That the best and brightest of our scientists could think that something could come from nothing – well forgive me and I know I don’t have PhD’s up the wazoo but any fool in the street or on the hill knows you cannot get something from nothing. How is it that our best and brightest PhD’s somehow manage to look right past this little inconvenience to their theories? It reminds me of a passage in the Bible, Romans 1:22 Professing to be wise they became fools…

Some day I’m going to go up to one of those best and brightest, I’m going to hand him an empty hat, nothing in my hand, nothing up my sleeve, and I’m going to tell him to pull me a rabbit out of that empty hat. Or a lizard, or a rock or a newspaper or any old damn thing he wants.

Do I believe that the idea of evolution is possible? Most certainly. In a world where God exists I absolutely believe that man could evolve. Evolution is absolutely possible. We all evolve mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually throughout the course of our lives. Evolution is a fact of life. It is the ‘scientific’ definition of evolution that is lacking… or should I say laughable.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Mindfully Aware of Impatience

This whole mindfulness thing intrigues me, I feel strongly that there is something very significant to it. Well of course there’s something significant to it – it brings us in touch with ourselves, and there is a hell of a lot going on in ourselves. Mostly we go through our days not paying the least bit of attention to ourselves. All day long we respond to the external world. Sights, sounds, commands mostly, come to us from without and we spend our days reacting to all of those things that come to us from without and we rarely give a moment’s notice, ten seconds of consideration to that which is coming to us from within. What comes from within requires just as much attention, if not more than that which comes from without.

My, myself and I have ignored everything – for the entire span of my life – that comes from within. Actively ignored I should say. I have spent my whole life responding only to that which has come to me externally. Any time a thought or a feeling arose from within, especially a thought or a feeling that was in confrontation to that from without the internal lost out to the external. Each and every time. I have never stopped during the course of my day for five minute to ask myself “what is it that I want?”, “how is it that I feel?”.

I’ve been thinking this morning about the practice of meditation. For the past few days I have forgotten to set aside those fifteen minutes each day to spend in mindfulness practice. Of course I remember the next day and I resolve to remember in the coming day to set aside that time and then life happens and I remember the next day that I forgot the previous day.

Not only that but in those few days that I did manage to set aside the time the feeling that prevails as I sit with myself in quiet is impatience. To think that the idea and practice of setting aside fifteen minutes out of a twenty-four hour day in mindfulness meditation, fifteen minutes to turn our focus to ourselves causes impatience is very sad. It’s sad because that time spent in meditation is an opportunity to focus on myself, focusing on my inner world, my thoughts and my feelings and why is that not something that I would welcome in my day? Why would I not be intrigued by me? Why would I not really look forward each and every day to find out what’s going on with me?

I spend all day, every day responding the needs of others. My family, my job and now my dog. I watch TV, I listen to the radio, I read the newspaper, I read a book… I am responding to the external stimuli in my environment and I don’t give it a second thought. These things don’t make me impatient. Well… ok sometimes but I do them… generally without a second thought. Somebody needs something? Do it. Go to the store, clean up a mess, take the dog for a walk, answer the phone and solve the problem, make dinner, turn on the TV, do this, do that and the other thing. Reacting and responding all day long to everything that comes at me from without. And all I can do when I manage to even REMEMBER to give myself fifteen minutes of quiet, reflective time all I can do is be impatient. This is un-natural. THAT is natural, that responding to the external. THIS is un-natural, reflecting on the internal.

How did I ever come to this?

This cannot be and now that I know it I will do my best that it will not be so. What I think and feel is most important to me and I want to spend time each day to investigate me, find out what’s going on with me. What do I want? I want to know me, that’s what I want.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Mindfulness Happens


Yesterday I took my new puppy for a hike at a park in an adjoining town. This park is about 250 acres of dedicated public open space that offers a small beach on a lake, hiking trails and a little fenced in doggie park that borders the lake on one side.

We start out by hiking about two miles of trails up and down hills, around the lake and through the woods and we always end up (by her choice) in the dog park where she is allowed off her leash. Freedom to roam and chase blowing leaves untethered. In that little span of park she experiences the only freedom that a six-month old puppy gets in the course of a day… and she makes the most of it.

I sit on a bench in the shade. Funny thing about a hot, still day in New England, no matter how hot or humid or still the air the breeze still blows off the lake. There can be absolutely no movement of air in the other 249 acres of space but at that lake the breeze is always blowing.

Here is what I did: I felt the breeze and heard the leaves rustle. I watched the ripples in the water. I listened to the voices of the swimmers across the lake at the beach. I listened to the footsteps and chatter of people walking by on the trails. I watched the dog sit in wait for just the right moment to pounce on the next blowing leaf that had the misfortune of crossing her path. I heard birds, I heard dogs, I saw fish jumping out of the water and some sort of water animal (otter?) cutting a path through the lake. I chatted with people who walked by – my dog is a real conversation piece. I don’t mean to brag but she’s a real looker.

Here is what I did not do: Think about anything that happened the day before or even that morning. Think about anything that I had to do the next day or even that evening. I didn’t think about the mortgage or what I needed to stop by the grocery store to buy. I didn’t think about work or any other responsibility that falls to me during the normal course of any given day.

And I only realized later that for that ninety minutes that I spent in that park this was my experience. Mindfulness… being aware of where you are and what is going on in the moment. If you’re fortunate enough to get as much pleasure in the experience as I did yesterday so much the better. That ladies and gentleman is mindfulness.

And it happens… sometimes without even trying.


Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Fear of Being Alone

Connection by detachment. We live under the delusion (albeit a delusion that we come by naturally and honestly) that physical proximity defines ‘not being alone’. But physical proximity does not necessarily cure loneliness. Psychological proximity, emotional proximity is that which ultimately connects us with others. It is the internal - call it mental, emotional, spiritual – aspects of our humanness that provide us with basic human sustenance, the food that produces growth.


It is a sad paradox in life that our fear of being alone is ultimately the catalyst that leads us into isolation and loneliness.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Genesis

I have been reading a book about a little thing called mindfulness meditation. I must segue into the rest of this post by saying that I have over the past almost two years of therapy frequently been blown away by the dawning realization of how little the average person knows about what it is that makes them tick. Most of us are so out of touch with our own inner world that we don’t have the first clue about what motivates us to do the things we do, like the things we like, fear the things we fear. It is equal parts amazing and scary and tragic because the ramifications of this ignorance for each and every single life is so profound. We close ourselves off to who and what we really are all in the interests of maintaining connection with the important people in our lives and we have absolutely no idea that we’re doing it.

Insert end of segue here.

Mindfulness meditation – the concept is laughably simple. Everything that comes into your awareness for the length of time that you are meditating is noted (i.e. you become consciously aware of it) and you accept it without judgment. For example I have taken to spending fifteen minutes each day in mindfulness meditation. I find a quiet place, I close my eyes, I turn my attention to my breathing. As each thought comes into my mind I am to become aware of it and then gently turn my attention back to my breathing.

Did I say the concept was laughably simple? I believe I did. And it is… laughably simple IF… you are the type of person who thinks your thoughts are acceptable. Which is to say not me. If you are me you spent your formative years learning and then fearing that every thought you had, every opinion, every idea was subject to somebody else’s idea of what was wrong with your thought, opinion, idea. So you learn a few things. You learn that your own ideas are subject to criticism, stinging criticism, you learn to dismiss your thoughts as invalid, you learn that your ideas aren’t worth anything, creativity flies out the window and from there you pretty much learn to keep your real thoughts to yourself. Oh you’ll discuss the weather, sports and maybe even politics but real honest to goodness deep conversations? No way. Feelings? Forget it. Creativity? You lose it.

There is an interesting bent to this kind of learning. It isn’t like intellectual learning, you know the kind that says two plus two makes four and Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety two. Those are facts. This is burned into your soul learning, not unlike being branded much as cattle are branded. You don’t just scrape that brand off, it is burned in there.

Laughably simple and very difficult for me. Funny thing though, you start to realize after doing this a few times that even the thought that your thought is bad or wrong or somehow unacceptable, even that is ok. Everything is ok.

Right now I have no concept of what it would be like to live a life that accepts what I think without judgment. I suppose it comes as no surprise that I am my own harshest critic. Funny how that happens, one day you start to believe the hype and turn against yourself. I have no concept that my ideas might be worth pursuing, that my thoughts, my feelings do matter to someone, they matter to me and they are what make up my subjective world which is what makes up my experience which is what makes up my life. Acceptance of my own thoughts no matter what they are.

There is of course still much to be undone. The discovery of that brand on my behind has only just happened but where else does one start no? The world of possibilities that have just opened up before me, I see no end in sight.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Hollywood Fairytales

Last week there was a movie on TV. I don’t know the name of it and I could bother to find out except I don’t really care however it was apparently the story of the wife of the founder of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement who also happened to be the founder of the Al-Anon movement which as many of us know is the support group for the ‘victims’ of the alcoholic. Perhaps victims is the wrong word, although I suspect many of those victims would agree with me, however I cannot come up with a better word to describe it.

Anyway, I digress. Through the years I have never been one to watch movies about alcoholics, read books about alcoholics, go to seminars about alcoholics, etc. I was well-versed in the subject matter and I didn’t care to re-hash any of it. I had put it behind me, didn’t need to remind myself.

So they tell me that’s denial. Hmm. Well maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, either way I felt no need, I had no desire to walk that road again even if it was only in memories and theories and statistics born of studies. I was done with it.

And they tell me that’s denial. So be it.

This time I decided to watch the movie. Stop the denial, face it head-on, make myself watch the movie and so I did.

I managed to get about fifteen minutes of watching time out of what was I assume a two hour running time. It wasn’t because it brought back painful memories that I didn’t want to bother with it was because what I saw in that fifteen minutes of viewing time had no relation to my experience and certainly while I cannot know for sure my educated guess is that it had no relation to the experience of the movie’s main subject, the founder of the Al-Anon movement.

Here is what I saw in those fifteen minutes: a woman, dressed neatly in her expensive clothing sitting prim and proper in a chair quietly weeping with her face in her hands (as if nobody can see that) over the pain of it all, never losing her self-control, she was the brave and stoic victim of her husband’s alcoholism, accepting quietly and in a dignified manner the hand which God had dealt her. That’s what ladies do right? Accept the flaws of their man stoically. Now I will say that at one point her father did lose control a little and gave Mr. Alcoholic a good tongue-lashing when our heroine was lying stoically in her hospital bed after (I think) losing a baby, or maybe discovering she was pregnant or whatever it was. That was irrelevant. What was relevant is that gosh-darn, good tongue-lashing her father gave his drunk son-in-law. A good tongue-lashing albeit well controlled and diplomatic.

I have no basis for comparison for that picture because I can emphatically say that was not my experience. That was Hollywood’s presentation of what it is like to live in a home with substance abuse. Neat and tidy, everyone has on their make-up, nobody loses control, there is no yelling or screaming, it’s all so… presentable.

So I got to wondering what it would be like if somebody made a movie that depicted what it’s REALLY like to live in a home where there is a substance abuser. First of all the director would have to have first-hand experience, there is no other way. You cannot depict accurately the dysfunction, and when I say dysfunction I mean out and out CRAZINESS of an alcoholic home without having done it yourself. There is simply no other way. Then, in order to find actors to play the parts you would have to scour the country for Al-Anon meetings attended by trained actors because you simply cannot play the part accurately if you haven’t been there yourself. I would suggest excluding any actor that is classically trained in Shakespeare because that’s just too damned civilized for something like this.

Ok we have our director, we have our actors now it’s time for the screenplay and again and of course the screenwriter must him/herself have come from, well need I say it?

So what’s the screenplay look like? This was a tough one but I don’t think there’s any real, organized story-line, in other words we’re not moving towards any denouement. There are no heroes only people depicted as f**g NUTS and there is quite possibly no happy ending, on the contrary although the potential for an ugly and tragic Hollywood ending is great. I think the movie would be nothing but a string of scenes with people yelling and screaming, things being throw, fights being had, various sorts of abuses being perpetrated, you know what I’m talking about, that real and raw fear and anger and anguish that actual human beings exhibit in times of high stress. People would get hurt in the making of this movie, cameras would be broken, scenery would be destroyed, insurance rates would be exorbitant. You know what I’m talking about, the kind of behavior that the censors would never allow on TV. The kind of behavior that makes you cringe when you see it and causes you deep shame when you think about how you engaged in it.

There would be no Academy Award nominations for this film because we like our Oscars to go actors who can reach deep within themselves and pull out understated and poignant performances but there is nothing understated and poignant about this.  It is ugly and violent and destructive in the truest sense of those words and we seldom if ever hand out awards for ugliness and violence and destruction.

And then I thought nah, nobody would ever pay to see something like that. I know I wouldn’t.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Unsayable

Why is anything unsayable?

Because of the secrets we keep, that’s why.

We learn right from the get-go to keep secrets. Secret keeping is pervasive among human beings. It is pervasive in our largest institutions - think governments and (need I mention) the Catholic Church. Secrets are pervasive in our work environments, think high-profile, long-term employees leaving the company. We’ve all seen this happen. Never thought he’d leave wow I wonder what’s going on. He sneaks out the door one day, an email is sent out from the high-ups telling us that he’s left and using some stock language to thank him for his years of service and how much we have enjoyed working with him and then he’s gone, never to be heard from again. And the rest of us employees who apparently do not warrant an honest explanation are left to speculate and rumors are left to fly and people are left with an un-easy feeling about their own job security. Secrets.

Secrets are pervasive in our homes. As children we learn from a very young age that we aren’t privy to the secrets our parents keep but we know they are there. Our parents keep their secrets, sometimes between themselves and away from the kids and sometimes they keep them from each other and (worse yet) secrets are sometimes kept between one parent and a child and away from the other parent. When I was growing up my house was constant secrets. My mother has always been a staunch keeper of secrets. Still is.

It is through this phenomenon of secret keeping that so much of our personal experience becomes unsayable.

Unsayable in that we have learned to keep it wordless. Unsayable in that the effect of learned secret keeping causes us to detached internally, psychically from the things that need saying and therefore we lose the connection to those things that need saying simply because we have gotten the message from every direction and however subtly that we are to keep our secrets.

I don’t get it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

I've Got Nuthin

Funny thing about blogs, they don’t really lend themselves to your blogging amigos just dropping by to say hello. Generally comments from those that are good enough to bother to read your thoughts are spurred only by a new post. I think that blogs should have a ‘just stopped by to say hey and wondering why we haven’t heard from you lately’ section.

I have often wanted to say something similar to bloggers with whom I’ve become somewhat familiar when I notice they sort of disappear after having built a reputation as regular posters but haven’t quite figured out what’s the politically correct way to do so without being invited by a new post.

It is one of those bits of phenomena that is always a reminder to me of how utterly impersonal is the internet. People write so beautifully and poignantly about some of the most personal aspects of their lives and I follow and I comment and I frequently recognize similarities to my own personal experiences but in the end I don’t know any of these undoubtedly excellent people. Strange.

I am oftentimes saddened by that aspect of e-connection with people because certainly in some of the blogs I follow I recognize people I would most definitely like to meet and talk with. Unfortunately that is unlikely to ever happen. The internet can bring people so close in proximity by virtue of disclosure of shared experience and yet we are all so far away in terms of geography, in that nobody knows what anyone looks like, in that mostly we don’t know of families and friends and pets and home decorating styles and so on. In the end we all have the sense to guard ourselves from too much internet exposure because, well there are predators out there right and ultimately we’re not entirely sure we want anyone to know it’s us (or maybe that’s just my hang-up).

I have run into a bumpy road recently and I’ve been somewhat caught off guard by it. It’s one of those things that kind of slaps you in the face – actually it was more like somebody walked up to me and gently removed the bag over my head and the blindfold over my eyes but not without first asking for my permission to do so (shout-out to my therapist here)  - and forces you to re-examine every bit of image you ever had about yourself. Freaking therapy man. It’s like a car wreck sometimes. You drive by, you know it’s ugly, you don’t want to look but you just can’t help yourself. Afterward you might not necessarily be sorry you looked but it sure takes awhile to wrap your mind around what you saw.

And I have to admit that I’m left a bit befuddled and unable to write much lately… and I was having so damn much fun just throwing down on paper any old thing that came into my mind. And now bupkus, nothing.  Go figure.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Evolution of a Tough Exterior

Back in the day racing bikes, and by ‘bikes’ I mean bicycles, were made of steel. Shock-repellent, built to withstand the elements, the rocks that were inevitably to strike, the falls, the crashes and collisions. Steel is strong, rigid and unbending. Built to take a blow.

But steel is heavy and hard to maneuver. Due to its weight it takes effort to move it. It will take a lickin and keep on tickin but at the cost of a lot of expended energy to move it.

Subsequent designs brought to us aluminum. Much lighter and more maneuverable, still a bit rigid but definitely getting better. Certainly it will not take a blow like steel but it is getting lighter. Perhaps a period of sacrificing a bit of 'strength' as a trade for offloading some of the weight and therefore requiring less energy to drag it up those hills.

With the advent of carbon fiber the construction really starts to change, little by little. The concept of what is strong, what is tough begins to evolve. We are moving from heavy and rigid construction designed to repel that which hits it (imagine if you will bullets bouncing off Superman’s chest) to construction that is built to absorb the blows and protect the posterior area of the rider (think crumple zones in cars).

Carbon Fiber and Titanium. Light and maneuverable. Shock absorbing rather than shock repelling. Built to absorb the blows and protect the rider. Very light so it requires much less energy to operate.

A new, different and more gentle concept of what it means to be tough.

Friday, March 5, 2010

The Glue that Binds the Family Together

I need to know, I need to understand how it is that this phenomenon exists that tells us that it is acceptable to need help, to be hospitalized for physical illness but it is shameful, unacceptable, weak to need help, to be hospitalized for mental and emotional illness.

We readily accept that we cannot cure by sheer force of our will a broken bone, diabetes, cancer, and so we seek out medical help, we talk to our friends to get referrals to doctors, we do our research, we involve our families, at least we have no problem telling them. When we walk into the hospital to have our broken bone x-rayed and set we walk in with our head held high, we are not embarrassed, we accept, hell we don’t give it a moments thought that we cannot fix this ourselves and that we need medical intervention or it’s not going to get better. Broke my arm, go to the doctor and get it fixed.

I know, I know, I am asking that age-old question. And yet this strain of thought persists. We don’t readily admit it. If a friend tells us of their own mental anguish we don’t think twice about instructing them to get help. But when we’re feeling our own mental and emotional anguish, when it is our child, our spouse who is dealing with depression, with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse then somehow it becomes shameful. We cannot accept this version of ourselves or this version of our child, a person who is attached to us, who is an extension of ourselves, a version of a person who cannot ‘handle’ life, who is somehow not ‘strong’ enough to tackle what life throws at them.

And so when we walk into that psychiatric and substance abuse facility it is under cover of darkness, under a cloud of shame. We do not walk in with our posture ramrod straight and our head held high but we shuffle in quietly, not wanting anyone to know. Nobody calls all their friends and family prior to entering a 30 day rehab stint to tell them that they’re going into rehab and “hey I’ll see you in month, please come visit me if you can” and when we get out our friends and family are not lining up eager to ask us about the experience. “So… tell me all about it, who’d you meet, how was the food, any eligible men, women there?”.

*****

I come from a family where substance abuse has tunneled its way into the very deepest core, it has become one of the threads, that connects, that defines this family and I’m not just talking about my immediate family which is to say my husband and son and my brothers and sisters. My father had a terrible problem with alcohol, his father had a terrible problem with alcohol, some of his brothers had a problem with alcohol, some of his sisters married alcoholics, some of my cousins on my father’s side are alcoholics and I know that at one time or another in their lives a couple of my brothers had a problem with addiction and one of my sisters had a long relationship with a man who had an alcohol problem. Alcoholism has become the glue that sticks to, that binds, that joins all branches of this family together and it keeps attaching itself to members generation after generation after generation.

Substance dependency has attached itself to my son.

There is no doubt in my mind that the glue has found its way onto him through me. I cannot speak to genes, this may or may not be true although I will say that I have found nothing, no piece of literature that convinces me that this so-called ‘alcoholic’ gene is a scientific fact. It is a theory. I only know that somewhere along the line I rubbed up against him and left traces of the glue on his skin. But it isn’t really like that.

Somewhere along the line my psyche rubbed against his psyche and left traces of the glue in his mind, in his soul. The mental and emotional ‘stuff’ that was injected into me as the result of my having an alcoholic parent rubbed up against him, was transferred to his mental and emotional control center by his simply being with me, by simply living in, being raised in an environment by a person who was raised in a house with an alcoholic.

It is not necessary for the X- factor (that’s me) to be an alcoholic themselves to pass the glue on. The X-factor merely has to have had the experience and not bothered to get the help they needed before having their own children and passing on, however unwittingly, the glue.

I never got the help I needed because I was ashamed and I would not accept that first of all I could have an emotional problem. The shame ran deep in my house growing up as it does in so many homes where substance abuse has taken over. I would not accept that I needed help, although frankly if I had managed to figure it out years ago I would have had to figure it out all on my own because again, denial runs deep and strong in these homes. But slowly through the years it became somewhat apparent even to me that it might be just the tiniest bit possible that I was suffering the effects of living with an alcoholic. But I could fix it myself. Through sheer will-power I believed that I could fix it myself, or rather through sheer force of will I believed that I could control my oftentimes volatile behavior and I did, for a number of years I pulled it together, got it under control and got to thinking that I was ok.

Funny thing happened on the way to the forum. What is controlled through sheer force of will on one side of the room will manage to find its way out through the cracks in some other wall in that same room. If it throws itself against the wall on the left side of the room and cannot penetrate it figures this out immediately and simply goes to the wall on the right side of the room. No big deal. Can’t get out this door? I’ll try that door.

Problem is and unbeknownst to me at the time my son who was in his formative years of physical, intellectual and emotional maturity was caught up in all the wall-banging and he was getting thrown around the room with me, by watching and hearing and feeling what was emanating from me.

The sins of the father (and oftentimes the mother).

Don’t let anybody ever tell you it’s a gene. It is NOT just a gene.

He is ashamed of himself. Ashamed that he needs help, ashamed that rehab is probably on his very imminent horizon, ashamed that he cannot, through sheer force of his own will beat this addiction. And I cannot convince him that it is not he who should be ashamed but all of us who came before who refused to look, who refused to acknowledge, who continue to willfully and wantonly refuse to look this demon of our family in the eye and say “Enough! It ends here.” There is no shame to be felt in finally deciding to exercise by sheer force of our own will the choice to exorcise the demon that has to this point been welcome in our home.