Beyond Broken

Attachment

Expecting Disappointment

The holidays seem an apt time to write about disappointment.  How many of us struggle during December and January to create meaningful experiences that end up falling short in comparison to some magic we remember as children?  There is a “big D” of Disappointment.  COVID is still here and we cannot see family and friends without feeling anxious and in danger and there is the “little d” of disappointment; the gift that was not quite right, the lack of attunement of a friend or family member.  All disappointing.  There is the FOMO and being excluded during holiday events and there is the overwhelm of too many activities and burn out.  More disappointment.

However we have an odd coping mechanism to avoid disappointment. WE EXPECT IT!

What sense does that possibly make?  Because expecting something is a setup for having it actually happen!  Ways that we try to avoid disappointment include perfectionism, pessimism, vigilance and a kind of living on the edge of life….

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The You AND Me Universe

Join me in an exploration of the Me AND You Universe, a concept introduced to me eight years ago by Diane Poole Heller.  She described an interpersonal Me AND You universe; I have found that idea applies also to our intra-personal and transpersonal experience.

In one of her modules of her DARe Training, Diane teaches about how the Me AND You Universe contrasts with the Me OR You Universe.  She calls each state of mind a universe because they are a lived reality that is exclusive of other realities in a person’s experience.  Most of us live in the You OR Me Universe.  Unfortunately, our early attachment experiences lead us to the conclusion that we can have either ourselves or the other, me or you. In Pathwork terms we might call this a Main Image.  It’s a belief that “if I have you, then I lose myself, and if I have me, I lose you.”  This is a duality of consciousness or psychological splitting which is very painful.  The way this often shows up for me is that I am loving being with you, but also can’t wait for some “quiet time”.  Then when I am alone and have this “quiet time” I am missing being with you.  Either way there is a tinge of dissatisfaction and a lack of wholeness.

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A Japanese Lesson In Sorrow and Joy

切ない (Setsunai): When You Need a Word to Hold Both Sorrow and Joy

My last blog post was back in March. Tom and I had begun an intensive teaching assignment with the Pathwork In Japan. On July 2nd we completed our last teaching module.  It was very rewarding and also challenging,  always wondering what might be lost in translation.

I am now back to writing and it seems fitting that I would begin a new blog with a uniquely Japanese concept discussed in the New York Times and passed along to me by a dear friend. It is one of those wonderful words in another language with no counterpart in English. The word is Setsunai.

Setsunai implies something once bright, now faded. It is the painful twinge at the edge of a memory, the joy in the knowledge that everything is temporary. Perhaps, then implicit in setsunai is the way the passage of time eventually draws a thin line of blood, of pain, across even the roundest, fullest happiness.

I have noticed lately that most people I work with hate sadness. They will do anything rather than feel it.  I honor this fear.  Sadness can be a bellwether for depression and depression is scary.  But sadness is not depression. Sadness is a feeling and depression is a numbness.  When I invite myself and others into sadness it always holds a warmth that expands and begins to actually feel quite good!

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The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Yesterday we took a trip to the old Crozet Tunnel.  This tunnel in Afton was built through the Blue Ridge Mountains for trains in the mid 1800’s. It closed in 1944, but it was recently opened to bikers and pedestrians.  In this photo I am standing on the east end of the tunnel pointing to a spec of light which is a mile away at the west end.  Walking through the tunnel is beautiful and eerie.  You need a flashlight because it is completely dark.

The light at the end of a tunnel is such a powerful metaphor as we all wait patiently for the grip of the Pandemic to loosen and end.

In my life I have known two different ways to hold this metaphor.  The first one is waiting for the light at the end of a tunnel to finally appear or arrive—the hope that salvation is out there somewhere in the distance

The other is an on-going sense of hope and purposefulness that we might call faith. We all need a sense that things will get better, that we will arrive somewhere better. It can be a companion to us as we are progressing towards the light.

I have experienced my share of looking for the light at the end of a long tunnel through coping with chronic pain. When it began fifteen years ago, doctors were mystified and there was a lot of treatment that was driven by guesswork.  I was on multiple medications and I had to give up a lot of things I had been enjoying in life.  There were days when I was not sure I could keep on living.  But I kept hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel.

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The Magic Of Second Chances

This time of year we all experience endings and we hope for new beginnings.  We ambitiously make New Years resolutions but do we really believe in second chances?

Perhaps all of us have at least one precious item that we revisit at this time of year.  For me it is a book I was given when I was four years old. Each year I try to gather children around on Christmas Eve and I read it to them.  This year the reading took place with hot apple cider, safely spread around an outdoor fire.

The story is about a little old fashion (even for 62 years ago) doll named Miss Flora McFlimsey who was once loved by a little girl on Christmas morning but has long since been forgotten in the toy cupboard of the attic.  She is very lonely and has only one visitor, Timothy Mouse.

One night Timothy Mouse is very excited because there are so many more crumbs than usual for him to eat and he tells her there is a tree growing right out of the living room floor. “Ah, it must be Christmas Eve” Miss Flora McFlimsey muses.  And her inanimate body begins to creak and move.  She feels like she would give anything to see one more beautiful Christmas tree.

Miraculously (there are lots of miracles) she makes her way down to the living room just as Santa is arriving.  He is muttering under his breath, “Dear, dear, dear, I seem to have lost the doll for Diana in the snow storm on way here.”  And then Flora McFlimsey steps out of the shadows and Santa says, “Well now my dear, it seems that I have seen you before. Oh my gosh you will be just the doll for Diana.”  And he sets Ms Flora McFlimsey under the Christmas tree next to the doll in the stylish red dress and the bride doll and heads back up the chimney.  Immediately the bride doll and doll in the red dress begin to make fun of Flora.  After all she is quite shabby and worn and out of style.  She feels so ashamed she wants to head back up to the attic where she belongs but all her joints have stiffened again and she cannot move.

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