Thursday, November 14, 2013
So as fate would have it I am riding another wave of upset while simultaneously preparing for the Mr. Minneapolis Eagle contest this weekend. Timing can sometimes be a real nightmare...and this current moment most definitely feels like one of those. I would prefer not to have such sadness and anger simmering inside while I focus on what might be the most fun weekend of my life. Somehow I have to find a way to maintain my balance and move forward in the midst of feeling such incredibly contrary emotions. It feels something like floating out at sea and dealing with waves coming at me from opposite directions.
I have decided to "throw in the towel" and completely give up on my association with a local chorus I joined at the beginning of this year. The unfortunate truth as I have experienced it is that this chorus is by far one of the most dysfunctional organizations I have ever had the eventual displeasure of associating myself with. I joined it back in January and had looked forward to the opportunity to sing with a group of men and have an outlet for my playful and trickster-ish sense of humor. And yet what began as a source of joy ended as a source of pain. I am going to do my best to learn from this experience though. And one pattern within myself I clearly see more than ever before is that I allow people into my life too fast. I am going to find a new way to relate to the world at large such that I can create and maintain healthy boundaries.
The seminal issue that the recent chorus problem has re-energized is the pain I have carried around due to experiencing so many people throughout my life history who are so preoccupied with themselves that they cannot see very well beyond themselves and actually bear witness to and be available to me in times of pain. And so in a sense the pain I already am feeling due to loneliness, fear, frustration and so on simply becomes magnified all the more when I find myself surrounded by self-absorbed people. And therein lies one of the greatest tragedies that we can find ourselves caught in: living in a world in which people are so distracted, preoccupied or in pain that they cannot see beyond themselves to the world at large and actually engage with it in a healthy way.
This landscape of atomized selves is one I am intimately all too familiar with. I inhabited it as a child and had no means of escape. I could not look to my mother for love and support in the earliest years of my life because she was collapsing into her schizophrenia. And I could not look to my father to be present because he was so consumed with dealing with my mother. And I have never really been able to go to my father with my own pain or grief in all the years since my early childhood because he has what I would call a pathological fear of confronting the darker side of human life. He cannot acknowledge or own his shadow in which reside his self-destructive and self-negating tendencies. He would rather not look into his shadow. And therein lies his greatest failing. He lives in his shadow and yet he does not see it. Nearly dying did not "cure" him of this pathology. I don't know that there is anything that could supposedly "cure" him. It's so incredibly sad. And it is also so incredibly clear that I now need to let him go and drop any and all expectations or hopes or fantasies that he will one day be a more functional person. Perhaps something will change one day. But I doubt it. I will no longer nurture false hope. It is time for me to grieve and then move on.
The chorus I previously sang in appears (in my estimation) to be just another landscape of dysfunctional, atomized selves. Yes, there were indeed good people I found in the organization. I am still friends with some of them. But there is also the unfortunate dark side. And like my own father some of these men simply cannot be present to me and my legitimate pain. They have their own lives, their own stories and their histories. And I can respect that. What I cannot respect is an organization in which the leadership is so blind and incapable of objectively addressing issues that it disenchants and upsets members to the point that they decide to leave the organization. This is sad and most unfortunate.
I could tell how upset I still feel regarding the ending of my affiliation with the chorus when I first began to wake up this morning. I could feel within myself the anger and sadness churning around. And there were moments when I felt a strong desire to jump out of my body. I simply did not want to fully feel what I was aware of. I felt my body very subtly tightening when I allowed my awareness to focus on the grief and anger. I would then do my best to breathe and allow myself (as much as I could) to be present to the anger and pain. I do not want to push it away and bury it nor do I want to embrace it to the point of unhealthy wallowing. I need to find the middle path.
I have finally awoken to the sad reality that so many of the men of this nation's culture are quite inept at feeling and expressing their "darker" feelings. Perhaps there is a genuine epidemic of self-loathing, confusion and pain among men. It would not surprise me. I myself need to find healthy people to associate with. Anything less is less than I need.
These last four months have been such a difficult time for me. I feel the need to be very cautious about the associations I create in the future. I am going to make a commitment to myself to honor my own needs and intuition as much as I humanly can. Such a way of living takes skill, intention and practice.
So as fate would have it I am riding another wave of upset while simultaneously preparing for the Mr. Minneapolis Eagle contest this weekend. Timing can sometimes be a real nightmare...and this current moment most definitely feels like one of those. I would prefer not to have such sadness and anger simmering inside while I focus on what might be the most fun weekend of my life. Somehow I have to find a way to maintain my balance and move forward in the midst of feeling such incredibly contrary emotions. It feels something like floating out at sea and dealing with waves coming at me from opposite directions.
I have decided to "throw in the towel" and completely give up on my association with a local chorus I joined at the beginning of this year. The unfortunate truth as I have experienced it is that this chorus is by far one of the most dysfunctional organizations I have ever had the eventual displeasure of associating myself with. I joined it back in January and had looked forward to the opportunity to sing with a group of men and have an outlet for my playful and trickster-ish sense of humor. And yet what began as a source of joy ended as a source of pain. I am going to do my best to learn from this experience though. And one pattern within myself I clearly see more than ever before is that I allow people into my life too fast. I am going to find a new way to relate to the world at large such that I can create and maintain healthy boundaries.
The seminal issue that the recent chorus problem has re-energized is the pain I have carried around due to experiencing so many people throughout my life history who are so preoccupied with themselves that they cannot see very well beyond themselves and actually bear witness to and be available to me in times of pain. And so in a sense the pain I already am feeling due to loneliness, fear, frustration and so on simply becomes magnified all the more when I find myself surrounded by self-absorbed people. And therein lies one of the greatest tragedies that we can find ourselves caught in: living in a world in which people are so distracted, preoccupied or in pain that they cannot see beyond themselves to the world at large and actually engage with it in a healthy way.
This landscape of atomized selves is one I am intimately all too familiar with. I inhabited it as a child and had no means of escape. I could not look to my mother for love and support in the earliest years of my life because she was collapsing into her schizophrenia. And I could not look to my father to be present because he was so consumed with dealing with my mother. And I have never really been able to go to my father with my own pain or grief in all the years since my early childhood because he has what I would call a pathological fear of confronting the darker side of human life. He cannot acknowledge or own his shadow in which reside his self-destructive and self-negating tendencies. He would rather not look into his shadow. And therein lies his greatest failing. He lives in his shadow and yet he does not see it. Nearly dying did not "cure" him of this pathology. I don't know that there is anything that could supposedly "cure" him. It's so incredibly sad. And it is also so incredibly clear that I now need to let him go and drop any and all expectations or hopes or fantasies that he will one day be a more functional person. Perhaps something will change one day. But I doubt it. I will no longer nurture false hope. It is time for me to grieve and then move on.
The chorus I previously sang in appears (in my estimation) to be just another landscape of dysfunctional, atomized selves. Yes, there were indeed good people I found in the organization. I am still friends with some of them. But there is also the unfortunate dark side. And like my own father some of these men simply cannot be present to me and my legitimate pain. They have their own lives, their own stories and their histories. And I can respect that. What I cannot respect is an organization in which the leadership is so blind and incapable of objectively addressing issues that it disenchants and upsets members to the point that they decide to leave the organization. This is sad and most unfortunate.
I could tell how upset I still feel regarding the ending of my affiliation with the chorus when I first began to wake up this morning. I could feel within myself the anger and sadness churning around. And there were moments when I felt a strong desire to jump out of my body. I simply did not want to fully feel what I was aware of. I felt my body very subtly tightening when I allowed my awareness to focus on the grief and anger. I would then do my best to breathe and allow myself (as much as I could) to be present to the anger and pain. I do not want to push it away and bury it nor do I want to embrace it to the point of unhealthy wallowing. I need to find the middle path.
I have finally awoken to the sad reality that so many of the men of this nation's culture are quite inept at feeling and expressing their "darker" feelings. Perhaps there is a genuine epidemic of self-loathing, confusion and pain among men. It would not surprise me. I myself need to find healthy people to associate with. Anything less is less than I need.
These last four months have been such a difficult time for me. I feel the need to be very cautious about the associations I create in the future. I am going to make a commitment to myself to honor my own needs and intuition as much as I humanly can. Such a way of living takes skill, intention and practice.
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