Wednesday, July 31, 2013

And Now For Some Physical Therapy

Wednesday, July 31, 2013


I truly feel like a warrior many days lately.  It's amazing how much I have on my metaphorical plate to deal with.  It is also amazing how much discipline I am calling forth from within myself to create a structure that will facilitate my own healing process.  And it is still even more amazing that I am doing so well considering how little family support I have to go through this process.  Healing should ideally never be a solitary process.  Thankfully I have created a good team of people from numerous fields to help me restore my health.  They will effectively substitute, to some degree, for my blood family that simply doesn't seem capable of showing up and bearing witness to what is unfolding in any real substantial way.

I went for a physical therapy appointment today after work.  I now plan to incorporate a variety of exercises into my daily routine to help improve my health.  I have been experiencing issues with my low back, hip and neck.  Yes indeed the PTSD is not challenging enough to deal with alone!  I am confronted with additional challenges at the same time.  I might sound as if I am wallowing in self-pity. I do not believe I am.  I simply am marveling at how much hard work I am doing on myself.  I firmly believe one day this immensely transformational time will be behind me.  That will indeed be a time of celebration!

Lately I have also been thinking about my diagnosis and have found myself repeatedly wondering how it is that mental health professionals I have seen earlier in my life never detected PTSD within me.  Given that some of the traumatic experiences in my life history occurred very, very early it seems perfectly reasonable to infer that I likely had some degree of PTSD when I was a younger man and even a child.  I have been debating the merits of contacting the individuals I previously worked with to inquire how it is that they missed this diagnosis.  I believe mental health and diagnosing related issues can be a very complex endeavor and thus do not believe it should necessarily be easy to make a diagnosis of PTSD.  Yet at the same time the people I previously worked with were quite skilled; it baffles me that something like this could go unnoticed for so long.

I have set a goal to be complete with the therapy I am doing with my therapist by September of 2014.  I feel this is a very reasonable goal to have made.  I have made the commitment to go to therapy twice a week for the next year.  Hopefully that will be enough time for me to deconstruct the issues that were never resolved and find a way to move forward as a man finally and truly unencumbered by the past.

Tomorrow I will make a visit to my primary care physician to discuss my current medication, a potential referral to another local doctor whose background might prove very helpful to me as well as some of my thoughts about the process I am now going through.

I find it very difficult to follow the local or national news here in the United States.  So much of it consists of stories of trauma and human suffering.  I have plenty of my own to deal with these days.
The challenge is to find that fine balance between contemplation and seclusion.

Every step I take is a step forward.  I remind myself of that frequently these days.  I feel I am building good momentum now.





Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Healing Way

Tuesday, July 30, 2013


I must be really committed to writing in my blog every day.  Here it is shortly past 11 PM and I need to be up at 6 AM already.  I just took a very long bus ride home from my therapist's office.  The good news is that my work schedule will change soon and should allow me to pick times to see my therapist when one of my friends can drive me there.  I so appreciate supportive friends as I continue this process of healing.

Tonight my therapist and I used the EMDR technique to work on yet more unpleasant memories that were still lodged in my brain.  I must say it really is an amazing process considering how I feel afterwards.  I specifically honed in on a very unpleasant experience with my second stepmother in which I was essentially treated like a five year old when I was about fifteen years old.  It's amazing to me how inappropriate so much of the parenting was that I received.  It's also often amazing to me how I  persevered through the challenges I did without suffering more harm.  Resilience is a wondrous quality to have.

I am trying to think of some amazing wisdom to share tonight from the process I am undergoing.  I suppose what is most timely to share is my sentiment that healing does in fact come when you remain loyal to the process.  I most likely have a lot of work ahead of me still but I can feel my very brain changing as the EMDR begins to repattern my way of thinking and seeing the world.  I even notice that my muscles are able to relax in a way I am not familiar with.  Trauma truly does stay in body memory until dealt with in an appropriate way.  As my brain releases the memory of various traumas I am confident that my body will begin to function better as well.  I look forward to those days coming in the future!

What a month July has been!  I've only been writing in this blog a month and already it feels like I have been writing for a long while.  I enjoy the challenge of sitting down each and every day to share my thoughts of my journey.  I suppose I could call July the month of Riding the Emotional Rapids.  Or perhaps Walking Through the Wreckage of My Old Life is an even more appropriate title.  August promises to be equally interesting it would seem.  I have so many medical appointments in August it truly confounds my mind.  But this is due partly to the fact that I am a very proactive individual and will be a true warrior to reclaim my health.  Sometimes it is necessary to employ such discipline to reclaim something you deeply value.  I hope that by the time August ends I will really feel I am settling into a rhythm and making great strides in my healing process.  I feel confident this will happen.  It is only a matter of time.  It is a question of when rather than if.

It is nonetheless amazing how long the imprint of trauma can hold on.  Even now I am aware of those echoes of the old fears that once captivated my mind more.  When a person is deeply traumatized it can be very easy to fear or expect additional trauma.  I can recall having those thoughts more frequently when I first began therapy at the beginning of this month.  But that voice of fear and anxiety is fading gradually.  The volume on the worry dial is growing lower and lower with each week.

Tomorrow I go in for a physical therapy appointment.  It will be the first of several.  Thursday I see my primary care physician to talk with him about my current health.  And then Friday evening I will once again happily subject myself to the wonders of Pilates!  Oh what an interesting journey it is when we commit to a healthy life!

You can indeed heal your life.  It won't likely happen overnight.  But make the commitment and you will quite likely see miraculous developments in due time.

Good night!



Monday, July 29, 2013

Moving Forward

Monday, July 29, 2013


Sometimes I feel like I am literally facing the challenge of climbing up a piece of thread so incredibly thin and weak.  The climb symbolizes the journey upwards out of the abyss and into the light and fresh air of freedom from the pain of the past.  The thin thread represents how tenuous the journey is.  Gentleness and mindfulness are required to climb up the thread that seems completely incapable of bearing my weight.

I feel quite overwhelmed (again) at the moment because it seems that my whole life has now become focused on "fixing" me.  I have physical therapy beginning this week.  I continue to loyally follow my daily practice of getting outside and enjoying the fresh air of summer mornings.  In those moments when I feel hesitant to do so I remind myself that summer will not always be here.  Change is a constant in life and eventually it will be autumn.  I try not to think too much about that either at the moment.  I do not feel at all ready for the changing colors of autumn that, though quite beautiful, presage the coming of the next season of winter.

I also feel overwhelmed because the response I have been garnering from my family as I disclose my diagnosis is not what I have been hoping for.  It is, sadly, what I have been expecting.  My feelings of being overwhelmed were so immense today that I had to step away from my job repeatedly to go outside.  On one occasion I went outside and cried.  I believe I will survive and be able to move forward but I feel immensely weary by the continued slog.  Each step forward feels so agonizingly slow.  So in an effort to encourage myself I am going to enumerate below the positive changes that have occurred since June 1st as a way to encourage myself.  Sometimes it seems necessary to literally write out what is good in my life so that my eyes can see it and I can understand that I still have a lot to be thankful for even now.

So here is what is wonderful in my life that has appeared since June 1st:

I now have affordable health insurance
I now have a good therapist to work with whose skills I trust
I have a primary care physician whose judgment I also trust
I have a team of people to work with for my upcoming physical therapy
In the last week I have begun to sleep better
I now have lowered my anxiety level because I have had all my major systems within my body screened
I now have the beginnings of a job doing something I enjoy that is causes me little stress and is compatible with my current needs
I now have clarity about what I would like to do in the longer term in regards to my career (this is a big win for me!)
I follow a regular daily practice that helps me to enhance my ability to remain calm and positive (this has actually been true for quite some time now)
I have supportive local friends who know what I am going through and are providing me much needed assistance
I now have a renewed sense of connection to my family in Germany


Seeing these positive developments written out before my eyes gives me some consolation.  I am hopeful that the quality of my life will continue to ascend from here.

The EMDR therapy I am doing in sessions with my therapist seems to be working.  Whenever I leave his office I feel quite different.  I realize I am processing my daily sensory experiences in a different way.  I do not recognize that person which I am becoming.  The invitation to let go is continuously before me.

After initially preparing to log off my computer for the night I had another powerful metaphor come into my thoughts.  My life right now is much like a tree in desperate need of extensive pruning.  Like me the tree needs time to repair itself.  It thus needs the skillful attention of people who can prune and care for it to effectively redirect its energy so that it may thrive in the future.

Have a blessed night everyone!




Sunday, July 28, 2013

House of Lies: The Emperor Has No Clothes

Sunday, July 28, 2013


I did something yesterday that I did previously in early 2012.  I confronted my father on his inappropriate conduct.  I brought up the subject of his past pattern of lying.

In early 2012 I had thought it would be fun to throw a surprise birthday party for my father who was turning 70 years old in May of 2012.  I began discussing the idea with relatives including my stepmother.  Some time later my father called me.  In a very disrespectful tone of voice he told me to cease any and all efforts I was making to throw a party for him.  Somehow he found out.  I later ascertained it was my stepmother who had shared the information with him.  This incident in combination with other unexpected developments at the time so infuriated me that I decided it was in my best interests to cut my father out of my life.  I wrote him a lengthy letter and informed him the only way I would allow him into my life again would be in a secure room with an objective third party mediator that would allow us to work through our respective differences.  I had forgiven him for his past lies that deeply damaged my capacity to trust.

In the autumn of last year I allowed myself to renege on the boundary I had established earlier that year.  I let my father back into my life.  I opened a birthday card he sent me in September.  I began talking with him again.  I allowed myself to trust him.  I allowed myself to believe that he would not continue to lie to me or lie to others on my behalf.  I now feel I was wrong to do so.

Yesterday I decided to disclose my PTSD diagnosis to my father.  I had been weighing the merits of making such a disclosure since I myself learned of the diagnosis in late June.  I was hoping for a positive and supportive response.  Some might even interpret his response as being supportive.  And it technically was supportive.  And yet his terse two sentence reply was not, in my opinion, a reply commensurate with the nature of the information I had disclosed to him.  Considering the detail with which I described what I was going through the last few months his reply was indeed very terse.  And yet there is more to the story.  There is so much more to this particular story of my relationship with my father.

Earlier this year my father had provided me some financial support at a time when I was between jobs.  My father has been generous in this way before.  And looking back I realize I had come to depend on him too often in this regard.  I had long had mixed feelings about this aspect of our relationship.  By taking money from him I felt I was perhaps obligating myself to him in some way now or in the future. For example, I sometimes felt accepting such help would indicate I was tacitly condoning aspects of his behavior I have never cared for and believe are truly unethical.  The main pattern I can point out is his tendency to lie which I have already highlighted.

When my father provided me this help earlier this year he admitted to something that made me extremely uncomfortable.  He admitted that he had thought about lying to my stepmother about how the money was to be used.  When he told me this over the phone I could feel my own skin crawl just a bit.  I needed help but I didn't want to accept money that was bound up in a lie.  I did so anyway.


Between my father's terse reply yesterday and his past pattern of lying I finally came to a painful decision.  I made the decision I made in early 2012.  I decided to cut my father out of my life again.  Only this time I must stand firm and maintain my boundaries with him.  The price I pay for having him in my life in any way whatsoever is greater than the value of what I get by allowing him to be in my life.  I see that so clearly now.

As I have continued to work to develop a longer term strategy for the treatment of my PTSD I have looked at the various aspects of my life and made an assessment of what is working for me and what is not working for me.  If reducing unneeded stress is indeed one of many particular choices I need to make to effectively heal then I obviously need to look at the relationships in my life and determine which are serving me and which are not.  Which relationships are worth the energy I put into them and which are not?  And it is clear the time came (long ago actually) for me to say the emperor has no clothes.  The time came for me to no longer accept my father's tendency to lie as an acceptable behavior.  As I noted above the damage his behavior caused to my capacity to trust has been significant.

I would not be surprised if my father has a genuine (something that could be truly diagnosed) character disorder.  What do you call someone who has a pathological tendency to lie?  From what I have just read browsing around online I would say such a person is a compulsive liar.  I do not understand the genesis of this trait within my father.  Yet I do know what I must do for myself now.  I must no longer expose myself to the possibility of becoming emotionally involved with him.  I must cut him out of my life regardless of how painful it is.  The short term pain of what I am going through now will be worth the long term freedom I will gain through excising him from my life.  I just have to find a way to get through this time in my life.

I have often felt I have had to live the life of a hero at many times in my life.  By that I mean I have often felt I have needed to live in a very fearless way each and every day.  It has been so difficult so often because some of the earliest modeling I witnessed regarding mature adult behavior was not mature and not healthy.  When you grow up with a father who acts like a compulsive liar would it can so easily distort your view of how the world functions and what you can expect to experience.

During my morning walk today I was reflecting on the events of yesterday.  Looking within myself I noticed that one of the feelings I now have after making the choice I did yesterday is relief.  If there was no feeling of relief in me I would feel concerned today that I had made a bad choice.  Yet I do indeed feel immense relief.  Removing someone from my life who is so comfortable with lying is necessary for me to restore my own health.  By cutting my father out of my life I can reduce my anxiety level.  I won't have the thought running through my mind all too often questioning whether he is being honest with me.  I do not need that sort of anxiety.  My present life is stressful enough.  I often feel it is a miracle that I survived what I have gone through without feeling more hurt and betrayed than I did.

There is still a deeper reason for my choice to cut my father out of my life.  It is my opinion that what we choose to allow in our lives can sow karma and lay down a course for our future years of life that can later prove even more difficult to break out of.  By allowing people in my life who lie (or tacitly condone such lies by not challenging such behavior) I feel I am essentially saying to the Cosmos at large the following:  I accept and agree that lying is a permissible and acceptable form of behavior.  I welcome people to lie to me because I tolerate it in the people who already are in my life.  And yet I do not want to make such an invitation.  I want and ask the Cosmos to fill my life with trustworthy, kind and generous people who live lives of integrity each and every day.

Removing myself from the house of lies has been an immensely difficult task.  Now that I have done so I can begin the necessary process of grieving and move on.  It may prove to be a Herculean task but the alternative is simply not tenable.  My life at this time is requiring me to become a warrior.  The training of a warrior is not necessarily an easy task.  But I will take it up with the faith that one day I will be a better man for it.


NOTE:

To those of you who have become my fans I am closing out my entry today by informing you that I will no longer write on Sundays.  Writing in my blog six days a week is more than enough.  Eventually I might change the settings of my blog to allow for comments.  Until then I welcome you to continue to follow me and thank you for your attention and interest.  The fact that people throughout the world are indeed reading from my blog is very consoling for me.  And consolation is one thing I need a lot of right now!







Saturday, July 27, 2013

Parents of Murdered Children


Saturday, July 27, 2013


Parents of Murdered Children.  Not exactly a light topic for a Saturday morning is it?  I do promise that eventually some of my postings will have a lighter feel to them.  Those will probably come later as I continue to walk my healing path.

A confluence of events on Thursday somehow led me to recall an organization I discovered when I was living on the West Coast.  That organization is Parents of Murdered Children.  This organization exists to support those who have lost a loved one through the horror of murder.  More information can be found on the organization's website located here.  The vision of POMC is to "provide support and assistance to all survivors of homicide victims while working to create a world free of murder".  This is a lofty mission and one I feel a deep resonance with.

I thought of Parents of Murdered Children this past Thursday evening.  The confluence of events on this day involved the anniversary of my grandmother's death, the last session I had with a counselor I first began seeing in the spring (not the same person as my current therapist) and my discovery of the disappearance of two trees from the park across the street from where I live.

In late June we had a powerful storm blow through the Minneapolis area where I live.  According to a person I overheard on the bus one day thereafter the city of Minneapolis apparently lost some 3,000 trees to the storm.  Two of those three-thousand once stood in Phelps Park across from my home.  I have grown to love that park in the time I have lived in this part of Minneapolis.  I was saddened to discover the two trees blown over shortly after the storm had passed.  And then these two trees remained tilted over in the park for some five weeks.  Each day I would marvel at how these two trees remained alive despite the damage they had sustained.  Enough of their root systems had remained within the ground that they could continue to live.  As the weeks passed I had begun to wonder when the City of Minneapolis would come to address these two trees.  Given that the trees did not die I had naively hoped that perhaps the trees could somehow be made to stand upright again such that they could be restored to their former glory.  But alas I was disappointed.  On Thursday evening I went out to walk and discovered the trees were gone.  All that remained were the trunks of the two trees.

I had already been thinking of loss and endings that day due to the anniversary of my grandmother's death and the end of my work with a counselor.  When I saw the trees had been removed my heart ached a bit and my appreciation for the ephemeral nature of life was heightened all the more.  I found myself meditating on the gift of each and everything we have in this world.  I thought of the people in my life.  I thought of the sunshine, clouds, rain, birds, wind.  I thought of the taste of chocolate, of laughter and of so many other countless small delights.  And then I thought of Parents of Murdered Children.  I suppose it was only natural my mind drift to this memory considering I was meditating on loss and death.

It sometimes amazes me when I think that my own father could have perhaps become a member of this organization had it been me who had died when he was still in his second marriage.  Instead it was my father who nearly died.  Though I have worked through this trauma in talk therapy it seems I might need to do EMDR or some other alternative technique.  On some level I suppose the events of this time still haunt me.

On that Thursday night my mind ultimately drifted to the awareness I have long had of the amazing potential each human being has inside and how tragic it is when that potential is never realized due to something as horrible as murder.  I have come to realize how, in a related way, I need to alter the course of my career to acknowledge and honor the deep feelings I have about the power of human potential.  I need to do something that honors this potential in a very tangible way.  This has now become part of my journey.  I am now meditating on what to do with my life from this day forward.  As cliche as it may sound I had this thought this morning "Today is the first day of the rest of your life".  Indeed it is.  Now what exactly will I do with it?

I know what I am going to do with this day.  I am going to get outside and enjoy it somehow once I have finished my appointment with my therapist early this afternoon.  Days like today are not to be ignored for their beauty.

Aloha!

Friday, July 26, 2013

Creating Stability in an Unstable World

Friday July 26, 2013


One of the most difficult aspects of healing from my diagnosis of PTSD is the challenge of creating sufficient stability in my life to nurture my healing process.  As I have already noted in previous posts a person can develop PTSD in response to a variety of events.  My particular case of PTSD is due largely to childhood trauma that itself was a result of dysfunction within my family of origin.  I did not have the best models of stability during my earliest years of life.  This lack of healthy modeling still seems to affect me to some degree many years later.  I suppose one hallmark indicator of when my therapeutic process is complete will be an enhanced capacity to create a stable life for myself.

And yet it would be ridiculous to believe that the broader milieu in which I live doesn't exert some degree of influence upon my efforts to create a stable life.  As I have also noted in a previous post everything in the world is interconnected.  And I have to say I cannot remember ever feeling so disenchanted with the state of affairs here in the United States of America.  How can I and the millions of Americans who have PTSD heal properly when our very nation is beset by the host of issues it is consumed by now?  I don't know about you but it seems to me that job security here in this country is now a thing of the past.  I remember reading an article recently focused on the rise of temporary labor here in the United States.  It certainly suits the needs of diverse companies to hire temporary employees when they don't want to invest in their employees long term.  And yet when you fail to invest in the people you employ why should they show any loyalty in return?  Corporate greed, economic efficiency and other factors have synergistically worked together to send jobs overseas.  And in the process American prosperity is now a luxury of the wealthy.  Our nation has not been so economically polarized in generations.

It seems to me that it is in my best interests to leave this nation in the not too distant future.  I'd like to find work in Germany where I traveled earlier this year.  Yes indeed I am all too familiar with the Euro crisis and the suffering economies in the south of Europe.  Many parts of the world are suffering immensely now and have been for several years.  But some of those European economies (like Germany and France) at least have one thing right according to my way of thinking.  There they have something more of a social conscience.  A larger portion of the population actually sees it as problematic and even immoral when their fellow citizens die in the streets due to lack of healthcare or exorbitant costs that force people to use emergency rooms as their primary care.

I still vividly recall feeling absolutely appalled when I witnessed some of the thinking from the right wing in this country regarding healthcare as exposed in the last few years as the American healthcare system came into focus due to President Obama's efforts to reform the system.  I found it utterly revolting when I realized how certain people on the right fringe find it perfectly ethical and reasonable to consign their fellow citizens to the streets and sewers when they are suffering serious health problems.  A citizenry that willfully and even gleefully allows its poorest and most vulnerable to suffer horribly and die due to their inability to afford healthcare is a citizenry I do not feel proud to count myself a member of.  How can you create stability when your neighbor is all too happy to disown you?  And what is all the more revolting is that these hard hearts beat within people who profess themselves to be Christians!

Learning to be disciplined and create a stable life can be challenging under the best of conditions.  We have not had stable conditions here in the United States for several years.  Instead we have a Congress with some of the lowest approval ratings in history.  We have Republicans in the House of Representatives so determined to make President Obama look bad that they will willfully obstruct any and all legislation that is remotely decent and progressive.  These so called representatives of the people are willing to undermine the security of millions of American citizens because they are hell bent on securing only the interests of those they care about.  They are happy to leave the rest of us jobless, homeless and eventually hopeless.  How we reached this precipice is indeed a sad tale.  Such long term insecurity leaves me scratching my head wondering how we reached this sad impasse.

Please do not misunderstand my perspective.  I am no great fan of the Democrats either.  It is my opinion that there is plenty of blame to go around if you want to be childish and play the blame game.  It galls me that so many of our so called elected representatives act like a bunch of spoiled five year olds who expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter.  It's sad, pathetic and deeply troubling.  How we as a nation can find our way back from the brink is a mysterious question.  I love my country even now but I have little confidence we as a nation will turn back from the brink until we are already collectively going off the cliff.  Perhaps my PTSD is partially to blame for my less than optimistic view.  I cannot be entirely sure at this point.

I would like to see compromise reenter the lexicon as an important principle of conduct.  Right now the very idea is anathema to so many.  It is my deeply held conviction that we as a species are going to fare very poorly in this century if we do not spiritually evolve.  Greed, hatred, ignorance and apathy still hold such power in the human heart and mind.  It's time we all grow up.  And our Congress is a shining example of why we need to grow up.  Gridlock is no way to run a nation.

I want to heal my PTSD and move forward with my life.  I am sadly not convinced that living in the United States is the best place to do it.  I pray for the strength to make the journey forward.  I empathize with the millions of Americans who are currently suffering through circumstances as challenging as mine.  We all deserve better.  We need more open hearts, more integrity, more generosity, more kindness.  We need more love in the world!

Good night.










Thursday, July 25, 2013

Remembering My Grandmother

Thursday July 25, 2013


Today has not been an easy day though it would appear it was from the outside looking in.  I can tell how I am very much consumed with the memories of a different day because I nearly typed that day as I began this entry.  The day I nearly typed was July 25, 1993...twenty years ago.  My father's mother passed away on this day twenty years ago.  It doesn't seem possible that it has been so long since she passed away.  It seems like only yesterday.  And yet it was twenty years ago.

I can still vividly recall how I walked out the front door of the house I had always known as grandma and grandpa's house.  Several of my relatives were there at the house that day.  I delivered the news to them that grandma had just died.  And then I began crying.  I wanted to cry today.  I wanted to cry today for many reasons actually.

Twenty years have passed since that day and it doesn't seem possible how little I have to show for those twenty years.  Yes I have an amazing amount of formal education but I have little to show for it recently.  I have not had a job worthy of my skill set in several years.  Twenty years ago I had never imagined I would live through the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.  My grandmother was a young woman at the time of the Great Depression.  Somehow she lived through it and raised a family of seven children.  I wish she were still alive today so I could hear some of her wisdom.  I really need the love and encouragement of a grandmotherly type these days.  Twenty years may have passed but it seems like she died just yesterday.

One of my favorite memories from my childhood were the times I helped my grandmother pick strawberries in the plot of land behind the house where she and my grandfather had a garden for many, many years.  My grandfather was not quite as diligent as my grandmother was in regards to strawberry picking; he would leave the strawberries he could not easily see behind.  My grandmother could often find a veritable harvest of berries on the underside of the many strawberry plants in the garden.  In some small way I can honor her memory by recalling that memory to mind on this day.

My father's mother was the grandmother I knew.  My mother's mother passed away when I was a mere infant.  I have no conscious memory of her.  Grandmothers hold a special place in our hearts.  Once they are gone there is not a single person who can replace them.

I wish my grandmother were still alive today.  I really need a hug right now.  I also need a piece of her amazing apple pie.

I love you grandmother.  Wherever you are now I will never forget you.


Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Disintegration and the Ego

Wednesday, July 24, 2013


I went to the local YMCA today and did a brief boxing session with a trainer.  I cannot recall the last time that I have actually boxed with anyone.  It's just another example of my commitment to refashioning my life in a very new form.  I cannot clearly see the person I will become when this process of healing is over but I do have a strong feeling I will be a very different person from the one I am now.  As I continue to overhaul my identity in ways large and small I realize how vital it is to allow my ego to have a light grip on my sense of self.

My calendar for the month of August is quickly filling up as I make a variety of appointments to build momentum as I continue to move in the direction of restoring my health.  I have scheduled visits to my therapist twice a week for much of August.  And I will be seeing my acupuncturist frequently as well.  Much of my waking time outside of work is now filling up with my commitment to myself.  One day I hope to find my life in a state of balance.  I still feel far removed from such a state of equilibrium now.  But at least I am moving in the direction of renewed balance.

I try to remain grateful for all the good in my life.  Some days this proves very difficult to do.  Other days it is much easier.  On occasion I will try to motivate myself by reminding myself that there are many people who are never able to completely restore their health because the incident that harms them either permanently disables them or kills them.  I am fortunate in that my particular health challenge is not something that is terminal; it can indeed be overcome.  For all the hardship I have experienced in my own life I am still quite fortunate.  When I focus on that which is wonderful in my life it is easier to breathe each and every day.

I keep praying for more guidance to come to me in my dreams during my hours of sleep.  I trust it will come to me in good time.  I simply wish the nightmarish imagery would cease and desist.  I have experienced my fair share of nightmares throughout my life.  And enough of those have occurred during waking hours!  Perhaps I will recount more of my dreams here in this blog as I continue to write.

I do truly feel as if my identity is in a process of disintegration.  Something new will emerge in time.  As for now one of my many challenges is to allow and accept the process to unfold with minimal ability to see the outcome on the other side of the process.  This letting go is not an easy process but it is the most timely lesson that I am being reminded of again and again.

Another challenge I find myself confronted with on a daily basis is what I allow myself to be exposed to.  Whether it is the media, people on the bus or my own thoughts I find myself much more circumspect and cautious in what I allow myself to absorb.  There is so much trauma and sadness in the world.  But there is also an incredible amount of beauty, kindness and generosity.  It is good to focus only on the latter.  And the greatest of all is love.

Let me focus on love as I fall asleep tonight.


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

A Can of Worms

Tuesday, July 23, 2013


It is quite late as I compose this.  Today was my first day at my new job.  My life is becoming very full now as I work to heal myself and return from the brink.  I do not savor what stands before me but it is necessary to do the work I am embarking upon.

I saw my therapist again today.  I had a lot to share given how much has unfolded in the last ten days or so.  I shared a dream I recently had to illustrate how upset I have been feeling as of late.  In my recent dream I dreamt that I had heartworms.  I had long been convinced that heartworms is only something that dogs and cats can develop.  However, upon waking from this unpleasant dream, I decided to briefly research the condition anyhow just to make sure.  I was relieved to confirm that humans cannot get heartworms.  Yet the metaphor from the dream stayed with me.

Tonight, after describing this dream to my therapist, I later used the expression "open up a can of worms".  My therapist made me pause after I made this statement and drew my attention to what I had just said.  It was an informative moment.  I now have some greater insight into what I am feeling and thinking lately.

Put bluntly I feel a certain amount of fear that the work I do in this therapeutic journey is somehow going to "open up a can of worms" that will significantly alter the course of my life.  And when I speak of significantly altering my life I mean to suggest such a profound change that it will somehow feel like much of my past life has been invalidated.  When our egos have a tenacious hold on our sense of selves  it can be difficult to allow such immense change to take place.  But take place it must.  And it's obviously especially vital that it take place in my case.  I feel like an old identity is actively disintegrating right now.  I would do well to let it go even if it is very painful to do so.

The worms in the heart can perhaps be interpreted as a symbol of the many turbulent feelings I have within myself.  My heart is troubled as I come to recognize how my life needs to fundamentally change.  As I open my heart to this process of change it becomes clear I need to honor all the threads of feeling therein.

It wasn't easy for me to go to see my therapist tonight.  I do not mean that in a logistical sense.  Thankfully I have a friend who helped me to get to my appointment today.  Instead I speak in a psychological sense.  The parking lot was virtually empty when I arrived.  The journey to self realization can be a long and lonely one on occasion.  The emptiness of that parking lot felt like another metaphor.  It was a symbol of those wide open spaces that sometimes yawn vast and desolate within our interior lives.  I pray that all good things necessary for me to move forward fill my life so that I may have the courage and endurance to move forward and heal.


Monday, July 22, 2013

When Restoring Your Health Becomes A Full Time Job

Monday July 22, 2013


The sun is about to set now.  I have spent another day of my life continuing to work on issues from the recent and distant past.  Reclaiming your own personal freedom can be an all consuming task.

My relatively unscheduled last day before my new job ultimately became a very full day as a result of my morning appointment to the Institute for Low Back and Neck Care.  I was quickly referred for an MRI and X-rays of my low back and neck.  In addition to the PTSD I am dealing with I also have some other health issues to address.  This afternoon I followed up and made an initial visit for physical therapy.  I was given an order for physical therapy as a result of my first appointment this morning.

More and more of my waking hours are being filled up with my efforts to restore my health.  And as more of my life becomes consumed with my "Restore Me" project I find myself feeling a whole range of feelings.  I am quite excited that I am finally being as aggressive as I apparently need to be in order to restore my health.  I have no intention of allowing anyone or anything to stand in the way of my full recovery.  And yet I also feel very sad and annoyed as well.  I feel sad because the impact of my earliest years of life is still affecting me now so many years later.  And I feel annoyed because it feels like my life keeps getting postponed further and further into the future.  I was not planning on having my life be like this at my particular age.  I had imagined something quite different.  And yet here I am.

I do take some consolation in the fact that many, many people throughout the world are living through the year of 2013 in ways they never likely imagined.  Despite the economic recovery supposedly in progress there are so many people throughout the world still suffering the effects of the economic implosion of 2008.  I know I am not alone.  It's amazing what the greed and self-absorption of a select few helped to unleash upon the world.

We humans sure can be excellent at royally screwing our own affairs up...as well as those of people we don't even know.  Don't get me wrong: I have no desire to be pessimistic.  But there are days when I just want to throw my hands up in the air and just give up.  I've felt caught between a rock and a hard place for so long that it has become incredibly old.  You know you are perhaps really struggling to maintain a positive outlook when your thoughts include something like "Well at least I don't have a terminal illness."  I indeed do not have a terminal illness and I am quite grateful for what I do have in my life.  My health is still quite good in comparison to many, many people throughout the world.

Among the many ideas I am being asked to let go of now is one that my life should have looked different than it ultimately will when I celebrate a milestone birthday in September.  Given how my waking hours are becoming consumed with my efforts to restore my health it is also looking increasingly likely that I will need to ask for more time to complete the project that took me to Germany in May.  This was not my plan.  But healing requires an immense amount of flexibility!

I pray I can enjoy each day and be grateful for the gifts that come to me.




Sunday, July 21, 2013

My German Mother and Aunt Jemima

Sunday, July 21, 2013



I struggled a bit to decide what I would write about today.  In the future I may very well make Sunday a day of rest for myself as many do throughout the world.  But as for this particular Sunday I will once again offer my thoughts.

I made pancakes this morning and drizzled them with Aunt Jemima syrup.  As I sat eating I thought about my mother who lives in Germany.  My mother turned 65 years old today.  It doesn’t seem possible that she is already that age.  As I ate breakfast and reflected on my mother’s life my thoughts turned to my own life.  I found it a strange exercise to ponder my own life due in part to the many influences that have shaped me.  I have a German mother, an American upbringing, enjoy pancakes and occasionally use Aunt Jemima syrup on them.  I still recall when the Aunt Jemima label portrayed her with a white kerchief that evoked the history of slavery in the American South.  Years later (I don’t recall exactly when it happened) I saw Aunt Jemima in the grocery store again and marveled at her makeover.  She looked ‘liberated’ yet had the same smile.  Life seemed much better for her.

I have enjoyed the great privilege of traveling to diverse destinations throughout the world including Hawaii, Norway, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.  I have been exposed to a variety of cultures and have witnessed their manifold beauty.  Looking back it seems odd that I have become the person I am now.  Before completing my undergraduate degree I never had planned to live on a Native American reservation.  At that time I did not plan on living in California for a number of years.  I have an adventurous spirit and have allowed it to guide me throughout my life.  Exposure to such a diversity of cultures and worldviews has been an enriching experience.  It helps me to find the humor in being an American citizen of a German mother as I live in the Midwest and contemplate the marketing technique of a well-known syrup.

You may ask what relevance my reflections offered today have to the particular issue of PTSD.  That is a good question.  I suppose I would say that just as there is no one culture that is superior to any other there is likewise no one particular best way to heal.  Each and every culture alive in the world today has some basic seed of wisdom that has allowed it to thrive through the centuries.  In a similar way there are many effective methods one may employ to restore health.  A mind open to many possibilities is key to living a rich and rewarding life.  I am still puzzling out the best techniques to use in my own particular journey.

Now I think it is time to go see Aunt Jemima again.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

The Amazing Power of Human Touch


Saturday, July 20, 2013


I suppose it is no accident that I have been thinking of my birthmother today.  Her birthday is tomorrow.  She will be 65 years old.  Had she stayed married to my father and remained in America she would perhaps be retiring now.  But that is one possible reality that never came to be.

I made a new friend today.  In making this new friend I was reminded of the power of human touch.  I am convinced that the pain I have been carrying around regarding my mother’s illness and her disappearance from my life at such a young age awoke within me recently due to my recent visit to Germany in which I took the opportunity to see her.  I still remember the feeling of walking with her after lunch and how I held her arm to guide her.  The touch between a mother and her child is very powerful.  Human touch is so vital to healthy human development.  Studies have shown that children deprived of nurturing touch often do not thrive in the way that children who received such care do.

I cannot now remember when I first heard of a particular study that really fascinated me.  I believe it must have been when I was in high school.  I managed to find the background story of this study by looking on Google today.  Here is the link.  The most important section of the story’s content follows:

Harlow’s most famous experiment involved giving young rhesus monkeys a choice between two different "mothers." One was made of soft terrycloth, but provided no food. The other was made of wire, but provided food from an attached baby bottle.
Harlow removed young monkeys from their natural mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be "raised" by these mother surrogates. The experiment demonstrated that the baby monkeys spent significantly more time with their cloth mother than with their wire mother. "These data make it obvious that contact comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance in the development of affectional response, whereas lactation is a variable of negligible importance," Harlow explained (1958).

It is truly amazing that these monkeys would prefer the contact comfort over the offerings the wire “mother” provided.  I find the results fascinating and completely believable.  Yes, naturally human beings are not the same as monkeys but the discoveries made in this study (and many others) demonstrate the significance of touch in healthy development.  I have heard stories of how children who spend long periods of time in orphanages often stop crying.  From what I have read this change in behavior is attributed to the lack of sufficient individualized nurturing; eventually the children stop crying out because their cries are simply not answered to sufficiently meet their needs.

I attended massage school several years ago.  I recall the power of human touch.  During and after my training I came to conclude that America is a very touch deprived culture.  People are very busy watching television, walking down the sidewalk looking at their “smart” phone, listening to their headphones and so on.  The art of being present to your actual surroundings has become a lost art.  When was the last time you had an actual conversation with someone on a bus or train?  And by conversation I mean an interchange that includes more than a few three to five word sentences.

Despite the challenge that stands before me I am nonetheless optimistic that I will completely heal in due time.  I am resilient; if I survived the anxiety and stress I initially experienced at the age of two I can certainly process the impact of it now as a grown man.  It might not be easy but I can certainly do it.

I leave you today with this question: What is the role of human touch in your life?  Where do you find such support?  Do you have enough of it?  What could you do to bring more of it into your life?

Friday, July 19, 2013

What is a Miracle? Everything is a Miracle

Friday, July 19, 2013



I dropped by my chiropractor’s office today to pick up the x-rays that were taken over two years ago in the wake of my car accident in March, 2011.  I picked them up for an appointment I have scheduled next Monday with a local institute focused on back and neck health.

As I made my way home after meeting with a friend I reflected on all the obstacles and challenges I have faced in my life.  I believe it is truly a miracle I am alive today.  I do not exaggerate.  I survived a childhood that featured my mother suffering a schizophrenic breakdown, stepsisters who verbally abused me and a stepmother who made multiple attempts on my father’s life.  I also survived the impact of the corruption that allowed my stepmother to go free with no conviction for her crime.

In addition, I survived the homophobia and ignorance all too common in the state I grew up in.  That state is Texas.  Texas has been in the news recently because of its efforts to restrict abortion.  This is nothing new.  Texas politics is often dominated by hypocritical people who call themselves Christians while they busily work to oppress any number of minorities.  Jesus was not a prophet who advocated the oppression of people; he advocated love, forgiveness and inclusivity.  It’s amazing how much his message has been warped over the centuries.  Christians who advocate the oppression of others are not Christians.

As I noted in a previous posting I once lived and worked on a Native American reservation.  I have seen deep despair and pain in the lives of many, many marginalized people.  I have survived two car accidents.  And I narrowly escaped being in a car accident as a very young man; I did not see a stop sign (because it was essentially concealed by foliage) and drove into an intersection.  Had I done that about seven seconds later I would have been broadsided by an oncoming car.  Yes indeed I think it miraculous I am alive today.


I have been reflecting on the idea of miracles lately.  Formal institutions like the Catholic Church have their own definitions for phenomena like miracles.  I believe their definition is not correct.  The Catholic Church has been wrong many a time before; it is thus clear it is capable of significant error.

In my opinion miracles are everywhere and can be seen each and every day.  What is the amazing process of photosynthesis if not a miracle?  Could the most brilliant human being have dreamed up the intricate process by which plants fix sunlight and convert that energy for their own use?  How could we dream up such an amazing process?  And such is also true of the many aspects of our planet.  Consider rain, lightning, dew and wind.  These are all amazing forces that have been present on the planet for countless millennia.  But I believe there are many more miracles than what you see in the flora and fauna of the planet.

Each living human being is a unique and miraculous creation.  Each of us is composed of so many cells that developed special qualities while we were still in the womb.  Our bodies perform countless functions without our conscious awareness.  We sleep, eat, walk, think, exercise and dream.  And our bodies heal without needing us to direct that healing process with deliberate thought.  Have you ever had to order blood cells to rush to a cut in your finger?

Do you even know how amazing it is that you exist at all?  An amazing collection of events had to take place for you to come into this world.  For you to be born your parents had to meet somehow.  And they had to be born.  And your parents only came to be because four originally unrelated people came together and later became the people you would eventually know as your grandparents.  The further back in your ancestral history you travel the more astonishing the story becomes because more and more people were involved in ultimately joining together to later produce you.  The odds were stacked against all of us.  The chances were remote.  And yet here we are.

I do believe it is possible to heal.  I do believe it is possible to overcome the meanest, harshest, most painful of circumstances.  It certainly might not be easy but I believe it can be done.  I survived many tragic and painful experiences when they actually came to pass.  I believe I can work through the impact they had on me now.  It might not be easy but I believe I can do it.

The greatest healer in this world is Love.  I ask love to find me and hold me in its tender and eternal embrace.




Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Wounded Healer

Thursday, July 18, 2013


I visited my chiropractor today.  I have had more chiropractors in the last few years than I would care to count.  This is partially due to the fact that I have relocated more than once whilst I was in pursuit of that dream job I was hoping to land after completing graduate school.  I have found it a challenging and frustrating experience to maintain my health in recent years.  I would appreciate it if I could gain greater insight into why I continue to have pain issues in various parts of my anatomy.  Given how mindful I generally am regarding my health it puzzles me that I feel as "off" as I do.  My working theory is that my pain can be partially explained as being related to the PTSD diagnosis.

My appointment today was a bit of a sobering experience.  My chiropractor reviewed some x-rays taken over two years ago shortly after I was in a car accident.  I was rear-ended in that accident; my car was totaled and I received a minor whiplash.  My chiropractor interpreted the x-ray imagery such that I might gain some greater insight into what is happening with my neck now as well as what measures I might need to take to maintain my health in the future.

I was in a car accident while still living at home as a teenager.  In that particular accident the roles were reversed; I was the one who rear-ended the driver in front of me.  It's long been my theory that it was this accident which perhaps set my cervical spine into the slightly reversed curvature that has appeared in x-rays ever since.  Or perhaps it was the time I flew chin first into a mailbox as a much younger boy after losing control of my bicycle on a steep street in my neighborhood.  Whatever the cause of what I see now in my cervical spine anatomy the long term impact is probably at least as clear and also disheartening.  Given the condition of my cervical spine it is very possible I will be prone to bouts of neck pain for the remainder of my life.  Dealing with this issue is just another challenge to my effort to maintain a positive attitude.


After arriving home I reflected on the story of the wounded healer as embodied in the story of Chiron.  Chiron is a comet discovered in 1977 within our own solar system.  Its orbit carries it between the planets Saturn and Uranus.  In astrology Chiron is considered the Planet of Healing.  In Greek mythology Chiron was half man and half horse.  His father was a Titan named Kronos.  His mother was a nymph named Philyra.  It is his accidental injury with a venom coated arrow and the incurable wound that resulted for which Chiron is well known.  Our bodies possess amazing abilities to heal themselves.  Even more amazing is the fact that we do not have to consciously tell our bodies what to do when we accidentally cut or bruise ourselves.  Our bodies have an innate wisdom that responds immediately.  But then there are the wounds that do not seem to heal.  These are the wounds like what Chiron suffered.

I sometimes feel I should have been able to overcome the many obstacles, disappointments and traumas of my early life history more easily.  I have found myself wishing my life were different.  I have felt the reality of my life ought to appear better and feature more love, comfort and prosperity than it currently does.  And I have felt this way because I have worked diligently throughout my life to create a good life for myself.  I have a good work ethic.  I expected I would find more reward than I have.  Perhaps I still will.  To be confronted with a health issue that may be a lifelong concern was not in my plans.

Luckily I do have the power to choose the attitude I will bring to my circumstances.  This truth is contained in the wisdom of the Chiron story.  One approach to health and healing is to diagnose a condition, label it as bad and then seek to obliterate it with all manner of treatments including medication, chemotherapy, surgery and so on.  A different perspective, a perspective offered by Chiron, is to see the wound as containing a gift.  In this perspective the wound will ironically heal when we no longer resist its existence but instead accept it as well as the gift it contains.  Chiron teaches that healing may begin the moment we embrace our wound and allow ourselves to believe that light can be found in our darkness.  Sometimes it is our deepest suffering that allows us to forge our greatest strength.

Embracing a deep wound is not necessarily an easy process no matter how wondrous may be the gift you receive on the other side.  I want to find a way to embrace my own wounds.  In embracing them with love and compassion I feel I may discover the fullness of my power.  In embracing them I believe I can find peace and a strength of character I would not otherwise know.







Wednesday, July 17, 2013

On Trauma...Part III

Wednesday, July 17, 2013


In a previous post I promised that I would eventually give more attention to the nature of trauma itself.  Events that can precipitate the development of PTSD can come in many forms including attempted murder, abduction, traffic accidents and ongoing physical, verbal and sexual abuse.  Then there are events that can cause harm to whole populations including natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods and earthquakes.  And then there are the massive traumas that humans have perpetuated upon each other throughout history.  I had the unique experience of developing an appreciation of this particular form of trauma when I was a mere twenty-three years old.  At that time in my life I was sent to live and work on the Rosebud reservation, a reservation of the Lakota people located in south central South Dakota.  It was a memorable time that left a lasting impression upon me.

There is a specialized body of literature you can lose yourself in for hours, days, months and even years that focuses specifically on the history of colonial conquest and the consequences such history ultimately produced for the world's many cultures.  Throughout my diverse academic education I have taken coursework that spanned a large number of disciplines including philosophy, theology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, cultural studies, history and environmental policy.  This variety has given me the capacity to appreciate many aspects of our world according to a number of perspectives.  And yet no book learning could easily substitute for that which I learned by living on a reservation for nearly four months.

To understand more fully what it is like to be a member of a culture that was on the losing end of history it is indeed vital to leave the books behind and complement your learning with tangible, fleshy, in-your-face experience.  Before I proceed further let me be clear with my language.  There is a saying that history is written by the winners.  I agree.  Only those who have the power, namely the winners, will ultimately be able to tell the stories on a sufficiently large scale and with such efficiency and conviction that the history they present will be accepted as Truth.  The "losing side" may also share its version of history but because it was disempowered, minimized, relocated, etc. its capacity to effectively disseminate an objective version of history that will reach the world at large will be small in comparison.

While living in South Dakota and working amidst the Lakota people I witnessed firsthand the legacy of what happens when two cultures clash and one overpowers the other.  The hybrid cultures that arise from the clash of previously distinct ones is truly fascinating (and often mortifying) to behold.  I can still recall living on the reservation and being able to watch American television sitcoms that were frequently based in New York City.  And I can recall what began to happen after I had lived on the reservation long enough to ultimately begin seeing American mainstream culture from the outside looking in.  It was a very disorienting feeling as my perception began to shift.  More than once when I saw such television programs I would ask myself "What self-respecting Lakota person would find this interesting or of any relevance to his own culture?"  And the answer I often came up with was that few would find it relevant.  Cultural imperialism comes to us through many media; television is but one means of dissemination.

I ultimately lived on the Rosebud reservation a total of approximately fourteen weeks.  In that time I witnessed both the hardship and the beauty the Lakota people know each and every day of their lives.  I saw the ravages of alcoholism, obscenely high unemployment, cultural appropriation and despair.  I still vividly recall the night I stood on the single major road leading south out of St. Francis (one of the main communities on the reservation) and read through a funeral announcement for a young Lakota boy who was killed when his inebriated father crashed his car.  I recall how the beauty of the sunset on that day evoked feelings in me that stood in such stark contrast to the sadness I felt that this boy's life had been cut short by the burden of alcoholism as manifest in his father's poor judgment.

And yet for all the darkness I was also impressed by the resilience and beauty of many of the Lakota I met.  Several of the people I worked with as a tutor were very kind to me.  The local masses held on Sundays offered an interesting hybrid blend of Catholicism and Lakota spirituality; in the lightest and best moments the beauty of both acted in a synergy such that the fusion of the two was more beautiful than either standing alone.  I can also recall feeling awe as spring came and the hills became carpeted in green.


I often think of this particular time in my life when I have the displeasure of hearing some of my fellow American citizens (and even elected officials) opine with copious amounts of intolerance (and even hatred) about the impacts of immigration upon this nation.  All too often I sense in their words and actions a person who has never been able (or wanted to) to stand outside of his own culture and look inwards.  Your own family may have lived on this continent for many generations but unless you have native blood in your heritage you are no more indigenous to North America than the immigrants who move here now.  And it is for this reason that I often laugh (and moan) when I hear people who portray minimal if any awareness of their own familial history wax on about the evils of all these immigrants coming to 'steal' all those low paying jobs that Americans supposedly want and yet for some reason don't actually universally apply to.

I believe it also important to state here that I nurse no nostalgia for times long ago when most everyone on the planet lived in a way similar to how some of the last tribal peoples live now.  Never in human history have there been so many people and never have we possessed so much knowledge about ourselves and our planet.  Some of the overarching questions must then be: What do we do with all this knowledge?  How can we respect the beauty, vibrancy and contribution that each culture offers to the human family as a whole?


I have shared these thoughts about what could be called "collective trauma" as a means of giving you a greater understanding of my own perspective.  Hopefully this additional insight will help you to better appreciate what informs my own perspective as I continue to write in this blog.  I believe each and every one of us are special creations with a purpose completely unique to our own life journey.  In a similar way all the cultures of our planet offer unique value that enriches all of us.  I believe we could create a better world if we could cultivate such an appreciation of what each and every one of us has to offer.






Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The Weight of Grief


Tuesday, July 16, 2013


Trauma can exert a powerful influence upon our perspective on the world.  When we lose someone or something we deeply treasure (a parent, a partner, a beloved friend, the ability to pursue our career or a special hobby) it is completely healthy to feel sad about it.  It is normal to grieve the loss.  When we do not grieve in a way appropriate to our needs the grief can become stuck inside us.  Unexpressed grief has a way of making a person sick.

Since my return from my visit to Germany in May of this year I realize that I was carrying a deep layer of grief related to my earliest years of life.  I suppose you could say that I never properly mourned when my mother left my life after she became deeply ill.  I believe it can take conscious and consistent attention to our interior lives to really be aware of these deepest of feelings such as grief.  It has been my observation that many adults have difficulty with grieving.  I attribute some of this difficulty to the families they are raised in.  And also one must consider the broader culture.  It is my opinion that America is a nation simultaneously fascinated with and terrified by death.  I think this is but one hallmark indicator of a troubled society.

I personally feel I could benefit from learning better how to grieve.  I find it amazing that this most natural human experience should be so difficult for us.  There are many ways to honor that which we have lost which causes us grief.  We can do rituals.  We can create altars, light candles and make offerings in honor of our beloved dead.  We can honor that which has been lost by vowing to carry the best of ourselves forward into each new day.  There are indeed many ways to grieve and to ultimately transmute our pain into something of beauty later on.  That doesn’t mean the process is easy.  But the process is most certainly necessary.

I realize that I presently feel grief in part due to the fact that my mother now has a degree of dementia.  She is now firmly on that path that ultimately manifests as decline over some period of time.  I feel grief for the mother I never knew and the relationship I could never have.  I further realize I must find some way to transmute the grief, to alchemically transform the leaden feeling of grief into something else, so that I may go on and live a full life.

Grief has an insidious way of subtly undermining the vibrancy of our own health and lives when we don’t consciously acknowledge it.  I see this has been true for me.  I have seen this in the lives of good friends. 

I leave you today with these questions: Do you have unresolved grief?  If so, what have you not fully grieved?  What commitment could you make today to move forward and release your grief?

Monday, July 15, 2013

Shame, Secrecy and Manhood


Monday, July 15, 2013


In case you have not surmised by now I am not the type of person to hesitate to give my opinion when asked for it.  In my opinion there are no golden calves, no untouchables, no castles in the sky high above me (and you) whose existence and value are immune to thorough critique.  If you truly want to be a free person able to realize your greatest potential then you will, at least in my opinion, think for yourself and allow yourself to thoughtfully question not just the choices you make in your own life but also the broader society of which you are an integral part.  Nothing exists in isolation from anything else in this world.  Even a lone tree on an expansive plain (seemingly far removed from a biome of which it might be a natural member) is still soaking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen which will ultimately swirl through the atmosphere of the entire planet.  Everything in our world is connected to everything else.

Some of our deepest connections are those we have with our blood relations.  We learn how to be good (or not so good) human beings through the modeling of behavior we witness in those closest to us.  For good, bad or indifferent our parents can leave a particularly profound imprint upon us.  And this brings me to the topic of my commentary today. 

I believe the United States is in a period of profound crisis today.  And one symptom and simultaneous cause of said crisis is the crisis of what authentic manhood is constructed to be.  Many people in this nation espouse a concept of manhood I personally find to be warped and self-destructive.  You may think it only fair to expect me to quote a volume of sources to substantiate my position.  And I feel such an expectation is quite reasonable.  Perhaps later, once I have been writing this blog for a longer period of time, I will take the time to find supportive sources for my commentary.  At this time, because I do this for free and am quite busy with my own life outside of this blog, I will not be quoting extensive sources.  But you can rest assured I am a talented researcher.  If you want proof ask to see my resume.  Anyhow, I am digressing a bit.

One of the primary shortcomings in the way that manhood is constructed in this nation has to do with expression of emotion.  The tough guy archetype (as embodied in cowboys, aloof warriors, etc) insists that ‘legitimate’ manhood is embodied by men who show minimal if any emotion.  A man is not allowed to express sadness, fear, confusion and pain when one defines manhood in this way.  The expression of such feelings is construed to indicate weakness.  It is also not uncommon for this conception of manhood to be expressed through a fetishism for weaponry, an aloofness that is somehow interpreted to be quiet strength and a coldness that is the antithesis of compassion.  I categorically reject this rendering of manhood.  In my opinion it is outdated conceptions of gender such as this negative male archetype that are partially responsible for leading us to face a number of unprecedented challenges at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

I have been wrangling with personal pain and how men are taught to address their own pain not just since my diagnosis last month but throughout my life.  And I must admit I feel I need to further develop my skill in this arena.  I do not feel I received adequate healthy mentoring from my father in this regard.  Like so many men I stand across a chasm from my father in regards to our ideas of what makes an authentic man.

An inability to confront pain in a healthy way almost automatically feeds a type of behavior that often proves dysfunctional, personally destructive and even dangerous to others.  What is this behavior?  It’s the practice of keeping secrets.  Pain, the shaming of men into disowning their own pain and secrecy are intimately interconnected like the twisted children of one single monster.

I have been witness to the destructive power of virtually blind adherence to a policy of secrecy.  My father used this approach to deal with the fallout from his second marriage in which my stepmother attempted to murder him.  The deceit he practiced led me to feel alienated; my own father could not address his pain in a healthy way at a moment in time in which it was so critical that he do so.  The pain of the past never heals if not adequately confronted.  It will instead in all likelihood fester like a wound never given enough light and fresh air to heal.

Despite some of my earliest life experience with my own biological father I have nonetheless enjoyed the fortune of finding male mentors throughout my adult life on multiple occasions.  These mentors have provided me a positive image of what a healthy man can be.  Among those who have proven most influential in my own life are theologian and creation spirituality advocate Matthew Fox, Aleut elder Ilarion Merculieff, breathworker Christian de la Huerta, Chester Mainard (who once taught classes on behalf of the Body Electric School of Massage) and James Gillon, SJ (my former novice master).   I believe I know these men well enough to confidently say that none of them would have agreed with the conception of manhood as is commonly articulated in mainstream American culture.  Warmaking, greed, deceit and cowardice do not make for authentic men.

As I continue to explore my own interior life and rework my perspective on the world as well as what I shall subsequently do with the remainder of my life it is clear to me how destructive secrecy and the veiling of genuine feeling can be.  I have lived that experience.  We fail the future men of our society when we teach them to feel shame when they express sadness, pain or anger.  As I have already noted these false prophets of maleness are easy to find here in the United States.  To heal ourselves and restore the vibrancy of this nation and its original promise we must address our ideas, both those that are healthy as well as those that are pathological, of what it is to be a man.