Saturday, October 26, 2013
So it's a Saturday morning and I am listening to the wind buffeting the trees outside. Many of the trees now stand stark in their nakedness. The sky is virtually cloudless so at least there is copious sunshine to counteract the brisk wind that serves as a cutting reminder that the Winter Solstice is only nine weeks away. I feel a bit disoriented. It seems only natural I would feel disoriented considering that I stayed in a crisis shelter this past week. My stay in a foreign yet thankfully (relatively) comfortable place made for some great fodder to reflect on and share here.
One of the strangest aspects of my week long stay was the requirement that a staff member watch me while I shave. Obviously this policy existed to protect me and the safety of the other residents. This would also explain why it was not possible to find a single knife in the dining area when it was time for meals. I was able to leave the building for 'outside' events only after receiving permission to do so from the staff. If I had taken an extremely negative view of the environment typical of a crisis shelter I could have thought of it as a prison. Attitude is so important in the healing process as well as in life. Do the walls around you keep you safe from the outside world or keep you from being able to enjoy the outside world? It's all a matter of perspective.
It was only natural that I also think about my mother during this past week. My mother lives in a facility for those with mental illness whose condition is sufficiently treated and stable such that she and the other residents are allowed to go outside in the community with relatively little oversight. Not long into my recent stay in a shelter I had the thought that I was living a life quite similar to my mother. This was a sobering thought. I realize how challenging it has been for me to live a functional and healthy life considering the circumstances I endured for large portions of my childhood. Chaos and unpredictability (like what many experience on a daily basis in an active war zone) were common fare. It's no wonder I developed PTSD!
I have fought long and hard to become a healthy, kind, compassionate person. It has not been an easy road much of the time. Yet despite my difficult circumstances I completed high school, obtained an undergraduate degree and then went on to complete two different graduate degrees. I have been a productive member of society for much of my life. And I intend to continue to be such a person. But I realize now that I need to make some big changes; my old life no longer serves me. I am being invited to become a new person. A new phase of life is opening up before me.
A comment a new friend made yesterday remains with me now. As I parted ways yesterday she mentioned this expectation of relationships not lasting. I can see within myself that I have harbored this expectation as well. For a very long while this idea was something I was quite unconscious was within my psyche. But it makes sense that I would feel this way. When people enter and leave your life with such regularity that you are reminded of a revolving door it seems only natural that you will develop the belief that 'people do not stay in my life'. Thoughts that express this theme with different words would include 'People are unreliable', 'People think first and foremost of their own needs and don't think much of others' and 'People cannot be trusted to appreciate and value me enough to stick around'. These are very self-defeating thoughts. To hold them as true is to diminish the expansive possibilities of my own life.
Even now, four months after the PTSD diagnosis, I still marvel that I am at this 'place' in my life now. It somehow doesn't seem possible. It sometimes seems like I am still living in a bad dream that will not end. It's something like being trapped in an infinite loop. And yet I recognize clearly that I do indeed have the power to change the future course of my life. I must be open to taking risks and experiencing disappointment. I must be willing to open my heart again and again for if I close it permanently I essentially invite death to take me. There is nothing but risk in this world. There are infinite possibilities. Yet first we must be willing to take the leap and go exploring.
My insights into myself and what I need in this moment in time are continuing to clarify and deepen. I need to reorient my life around pleasure. Yet I don't mean to imply frivolity when I say that. No, I speak of the enjoyment of the rich texture of life. I need to find ways to feed that boy I was who felt he was virtually starving at times all the while wearing a smile on the outside. I need to create balance within my life once again. And to renew my balance I must address the impact of the trauma I experienced in my most formative years. I am doing that now. And I cannot clearly see where this path of self-exploration leads. The layers and complexity of the soul are greater than all the roads we might travel on this planet Earth. There are so many possibilities.
I need to find a way to honor the grief I carried for so long. Unexpressed grief is like the element of lead. Carrying grief is a burden that weighs upon the body, mind and spirit. Funny what just happened: I made a mistake in typing that last sentence. It first read: Carrying grief is a burden that weighs upon the boy. This was true for me.
Autumn seems to be the most appropriate time to exorcise grief. Grief is something like the chill, dry winds of autumn that dry out the landscape outside our windows and invite all life to enter dormancy. And lengthy immersion in grief is something not unlike exposure to those autumn winds for a protracted time. Eventually your spirit dries out and the juicy vitality of your being withers in the face of the onslaught. It was easy to find my way to this thought this morning; while walking outside I could feel the cold wind stripping the moisture from my face. It was not a painful sensation but it certainly was something like a sobering one.
Entering the darkest of our darkness can be so difficult. And yet to rediscover health, vitality and balance we must honor both the light and the darkness.
So it's a Saturday morning and I am listening to the wind buffeting the trees outside. Many of the trees now stand stark in their nakedness. The sky is virtually cloudless so at least there is copious sunshine to counteract the brisk wind that serves as a cutting reminder that the Winter Solstice is only nine weeks away. I feel a bit disoriented. It seems only natural I would feel disoriented considering that I stayed in a crisis shelter this past week. My stay in a foreign yet thankfully (relatively) comfortable place made for some great fodder to reflect on and share here.
One of the strangest aspects of my week long stay was the requirement that a staff member watch me while I shave. Obviously this policy existed to protect me and the safety of the other residents. This would also explain why it was not possible to find a single knife in the dining area when it was time for meals. I was able to leave the building for 'outside' events only after receiving permission to do so from the staff. If I had taken an extremely negative view of the environment typical of a crisis shelter I could have thought of it as a prison. Attitude is so important in the healing process as well as in life. Do the walls around you keep you safe from the outside world or keep you from being able to enjoy the outside world? It's all a matter of perspective.
It was only natural that I also think about my mother during this past week. My mother lives in a facility for those with mental illness whose condition is sufficiently treated and stable such that she and the other residents are allowed to go outside in the community with relatively little oversight. Not long into my recent stay in a shelter I had the thought that I was living a life quite similar to my mother. This was a sobering thought. I realize how challenging it has been for me to live a functional and healthy life considering the circumstances I endured for large portions of my childhood. Chaos and unpredictability (like what many experience on a daily basis in an active war zone) were common fare. It's no wonder I developed PTSD!
I have fought long and hard to become a healthy, kind, compassionate person. It has not been an easy road much of the time. Yet despite my difficult circumstances I completed high school, obtained an undergraduate degree and then went on to complete two different graduate degrees. I have been a productive member of society for much of my life. And I intend to continue to be such a person. But I realize now that I need to make some big changes; my old life no longer serves me. I am being invited to become a new person. A new phase of life is opening up before me.
A comment a new friend made yesterday remains with me now. As I parted ways yesterday she mentioned this expectation of relationships not lasting. I can see within myself that I have harbored this expectation as well. For a very long while this idea was something I was quite unconscious was within my psyche. But it makes sense that I would feel this way. When people enter and leave your life with such regularity that you are reminded of a revolving door it seems only natural that you will develop the belief that 'people do not stay in my life'. Thoughts that express this theme with different words would include 'People are unreliable', 'People think first and foremost of their own needs and don't think much of others' and 'People cannot be trusted to appreciate and value me enough to stick around'. These are very self-defeating thoughts. To hold them as true is to diminish the expansive possibilities of my own life.
Even now, four months after the PTSD diagnosis, I still marvel that I am at this 'place' in my life now. It somehow doesn't seem possible. It sometimes seems like I am still living in a bad dream that will not end. It's something like being trapped in an infinite loop. And yet I recognize clearly that I do indeed have the power to change the future course of my life. I must be open to taking risks and experiencing disappointment. I must be willing to open my heart again and again for if I close it permanently I essentially invite death to take me. There is nothing but risk in this world. There are infinite possibilities. Yet first we must be willing to take the leap and go exploring.
My insights into myself and what I need in this moment in time are continuing to clarify and deepen. I need to reorient my life around pleasure. Yet I don't mean to imply frivolity when I say that. No, I speak of the enjoyment of the rich texture of life. I need to find ways to feed that boy I was who felt he was virtually starving at times all the while wearing a smile on the outside. I need to create balance within my life once again. And to renew my balance I must address the impact of the trauma I experienced in my most formative years. I am doing that now. And I cannot clearly see where this path of self-exploration leads. The layers and complexity of the soul are greater than all the roads we might travel on this planet Earth. There are so many possibilities.
I need to find a way to honor the grief I carried for so long. Unexpressed grief is like the element of lead. Carrying grief is a burden that weighs upon the body, mind and spirit. Funny what just happened: I made a mistake in typing that last sentence. It first read: Carrying grief is a burden that weighs upon the boy. This was true for me.
Autumn seems to be the most appropriate time to exorcise grief. Grief is something like the chill, dry winds of autumn that dry out the landscape outside our windows and invite all life to enter dormancy. And lengthy immersion in grief is something not unlike exposure to those autumn winds for a protracted time. Eventually your spirit dries out and the juicy vitality of your being withers in the face of the onslaught. It was easy to find my way to this thought this morning; while walking outside I could feel the cold wind stripping the moisture from my face. It was not a painful sensation but it certainly was something like a sobering one.
Entering the darkest of our darkness can be so difficult. And yet to rediscover health, vitality and balance we must honor both the light and the darkness.
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