Looking back over the past eight months or so, I realized yesterday how much work I have done cutting the cords of unhealthy attachments in my life. I wrestled last January with letting go of my beloved Riverwind. Although I have not let go of the place physically I have emotionally. I am ready to sever ties with that land if there is no other solution but to do so. I never, ever thought it possible to be in this place. And yet, it is a place of such tremendous peace. I can truly say, “Whatever happens to Riverwind, it is well with my soul.”
A few months after that, I cut an unhealthy cord tying me to a family member. Years of hurt has caused me to respond with intense anger, judgment, and fear. To cut this cord has given me not only peace but an ability to deal more objectively and lovingly in situations involving this person. Though this person may not feel it, ironically the bond is stronger when the unhealthy cord is broken, because responses and decisions made in the relationship are now being made with the healthier cords of love. I am in a much better place now.
And recently it was necessary to look at cutting the thickest cord of the three; a parental cord. Having learned from this parent certain unhealthy ways to view and negotiate life issues, I had been traveling life’s roads carrying burdens far heavier than necessary. I unloaded some of these burdens. It will take time to navigate all aspects of my life without these well-learned and familiar patterns but already I feel lighter.
I am being purposefully evasive about details. But I can say that in all three cases cutting cords has been life-giving. It is as though I can breathe more deeply. I am freer to respond to life issues in more peaceful, thoughtful and loving ways rather than with my usual knee-jerk reactions. I took a very honest look at the places in my life where I have felt pinched by fear, squeezed by anger, and manipulated by illusions. These places have been telling me something and have been trying to get my attention for years. Why has my first reaction been anger or fear or grief or jealousy every time some specific thing happened? And why did I not see that these raw emotions themselves were red flags? I guess we just don’t see the patterns most familiar to us, either the “good” ones or the “bad”. But when I did take an honest look at these fears and angers, I realized what they were, where they came from, and the illusions they bore. I felt the grief, the fear, the anger involved in each of these three cases. And after I had spewed out all the dark, raw emotion I could feel, I awoke the next day knowing something had changed inside me.
It is difficult to move freely in life when we are tethered. A horse hasn’t much freedom when it is encased in tack. The animal is at the mercy of the driver or rider. I was at the mercy of the cords binding me. I responded to the demands of the emotional responses I have always had in certain family situations. I was no more than a horse being driven. Now I am free of tack and bridal. I have my own head. I am free to respond consciously. And can now take full responsibility for my actions.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Cycle of Suffering
Ideas offered by Don Riso and Russ Hudson in a recent article in “Radical Grace” periodical left me pondering. They talk about suffering as being a product of our attachments. Personally, I am attached to the idea that my spouse “should” know how to be a perfect active-listener for me, giving perfect feed back as to what I have said so that I know he has truly heard me. I constantly hit the wall of this attachment when he fails to hear what I mean and instead hears what he thinks I mean or what he needs to hear based on his own illusions and attachments. It hurts when I hit this wall and feel unheard. And I suffer. My natural inclination is to withdraw and rehash the painful situation. I hash and rehash the “rightness” of my perspective and the “wrongness” of his. I am a pro at this sort of circular, ineffective mental activity. Rehashing the situation is the mind’s futile attempt to be “right” when there is no clear “right” or “wrong” in any situation. Where there are two people, there are always two “rights” and two “wrongs”. To insist on being entirely “right” in any altercation will only cause more suffering.
But there is another way to deal with suffering. Unhook from the attachment and suffering vanishes or at least diminishes. Riso and Hudson say that in order to be successful at detaching so as not to suffer, we have to learn to consciously suffer! This is a strange dichotomy. To be conscious of anything means to turn toward that thing and pay conscious attention to it. Turning toward suffering, seeing it for what it is, and feeling it intentionally, can illuminate the causal situation so as to be able to see the problem from a more open perspective. Often we can see the belief or illusion that we are attached to. And often this belief is an illusion that is narrow and self-serving. For instance, in my personal example above, if, instead of rehashing the “rights” and “wrongs”, I turn deliberately toward the pain I feel and stay with it, not judging it, but allowing it to speak to me, I am often able to see things from my husband’s perspective enough to see that there are two distinct personalities and opinions at work and that neither is “right”. If I can see that there is no “right” or “wrong”, and detach from the illusion that both of us have to see the issue from my “right” perspective, these expectations and my suffering end.
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor points out in her book, My Stroke of Insight, that physiologically the body needs only 90 seconds for the chemical component of any emotional feeling to run its course and dissipate from the blood. After that, a feeling stays with us because we choose to allow it to. She says, “The healthiest way I know how to move through an emotion effectively is to surrender completely to that emotion when its loop of physiology comes over me. I simply resign to the loop and let it run its course for 90 seconds. Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated.” In other words, I can choose to allow the suffering to remain with me indefinitely or I can choose to consciously feel the pain, become aware of the illusion behind the pain and detach from the illusion.
Of course, a huge component in learning to detach from attachments is cultivating a very real knowledge of the unconditional love of God, Presence, Creator. Love is what makes any of this possible at all and as I become detached from illusion I need to become attached or reattached to this Ever Present Love. With this knowledge and awareness of Love comes compassion. And with compassion comes the willingness and desire to re-enter into suffering from a different perspective. We become available to another’s suffering or even Universal Suffering because we no longer need to take center stage with our own personal suffering. I cannot be available to productively help another if my real agenda is (the deep truth be known) to be recognized and placated for my own suffering.
Hence, the cycle: suffering, awareness of and detachment from illusion, compassion, reenter suffering.
But there is another way to deal with suffering. Unhook from the attachment and suffering vanishes or at least diminishes. Riso and Hudson say that in order to be successful at detaching so as not to suffer, we have to learn to consciously suffer! This is a strange dichotomy. To be conscious of anything means to turn toward that thing and pay conscious attention to it. Turning toward suffering, seeing it for what it is, and feeling it intentionally, can illuminate the causal situation so as to be able to see the problem from a more open perspective. Often we can see the belief or illusion that we are attached to. And often this belief is an illusion that is narrow and self-serving. For instance, in my personal example above, if, instead of rehashing the “rights” and “wrongs”, I turn deliberately toward the pain I feel and stay with it, not judging it, but allowing it to speak to me, I am often able to see things from my husband’s perspective enough to see that there are two distinct personalities and opinions at work and that neither is “right”. If I can see that there is no “right” or “wrong”, and detach from the illusion that both of us have to see the issue from my “right” perspective, these expectations and my suffering end.
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor points out in her book, My Stroke of Insight, that physiologically the body needs only 90 seconds for the chemical component of any emotional feeling to run its course and dissipate from the blood. After that, a feeling stays with us because we choose to allow it to. She says, “The healthiest way I know how to move through an emotion effectively is to surrender completely to that emotion when its loop of physiology comes over me. I simply resign to the loop and let it run its course for 90 seconds. Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated.” In other words, I can choose to allow the suffering to remain with me indefinitely or I can choose to consciously feel the pain, become aware of the illusion behind the pain and detach from the illusion.
Of course, a huge component in learning to detach from attachments is cultivating a very real knowledge of the unconditional love of God, Presence, Creator. Love is what makes any of this possible at all and as I become detached from illusion I need to become attached or reattached to this Ever Present Love. With this knowledge and awareness of Love comes compassion. And with compassion comes the willingness and desire to re-enter into suffering from a different perspective. We become available to another’s suffering or even Universal Suffering because we no longer need to take center stage with our own personal suffering. I cannot be available to productively help another if my real agenda is (the deep truth be known) to be recognized and placated for my own suffering.
Hence, the cycle: suffering, awareness of and detachment from illusion, compassion, reenter suffering.
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