Saturday, September 27, 2014
When making a journey of healing it is a wise practice to take a break and rest every so often much as you would do when making a long distance trip across the country. The fifteen month anniversary of the beginning of my blog will take place next week. I am going to take the occasion of that milestone to inspire some reassessment of where I am at now.
There is a persistent thread in the rich journey of my own healing that is a more recent feature of my life. I wish to elaborate on this thread today. Once a person in recovery from trauma achieves a certain degree of improved functionality I believe it only natural to begin asking the following question: 'What are the possibilities for my life?' I have been pondering this question a lot in the last three to five months. What can I do with the life I have yet to live?
In a recent blog piece from this last week I shared the wisdom of Richard Rohr. Rohr has made the exploration and embodiment of healthy masculine spirituality a central piece of his career. His use of the metaphor of two halves of life (a first half defined by constructing your ego container and focusing on defining who you are in the world and a second half defined by moving beyond what I would call the 'Project of the Self') has been especially compelling for me.
I feel I personally entered the second half of my own life last year when I reentered therapy and discovered how much more healing was possible as well as desirable. It is my opinion that a severe trauma can serve as an initiation (perhaps often desired but yet simultaneously also often feared and not consciously recognized) into the second half of life. We can experience an intense desire for healing and growth that will lead us to an immense realm of possibility previously unknown. And yet we can also find ourselves fearing that very growth. Why? I think there are a number of reasons we can feel such conflicting desires within ourselves. Here are some of my own reflections. Journeying into a new world can be scary because:
We may have few guides and minimal support
For some it might seem as if there is no real choice in choosing to journey in the direction of a better life. Some people reach a point of crisis where the choice to heal doesn't really seem to be a choice. The consequences of failing to change can be stark: Either deal with your problems or face persistent misery and even certain death. And it has been my impression that sometimes crisis is indeed the only way that individual and collective issues will finally be addressed. In less glowing terms this reality can be described in this way: Sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can begin to ascend.
Some individuals, despite their desire to heal, may hesitate due to a perceived lack of support. They may not know how to access quality resources. Or they may feel ashamed by how much their troubles consume their own lives and not want others to see them in their darkness, weakness, confusion and chaos. Those living in rural areas or developing nations may face the added burden of living in communities with few resources available to help them in a time of immense need.
A new life may seem inaccessible or scary
If you have suffered over a long period of time due to issues such as addiction, chronic unemployment or under-employment, unhealthy relationships and the like taking a journey to heal and create something better for yourself may seem a momentous and terrifying project. Why? For a person who has endured suffering for a protracted time it seems very possible, at least in my opinion, that the familiarity of the pattern takes on a comforting quality. If you grew up in a household that featured a persistent pattern of chaotic relationships it might seem that an adult life of functional, healthy, balanced relationships is a foreign, radical, almost completely inaccessible possibility. I would further venture that for some successfully transcending a family of origin filled with immense and systemic dysfunction may seem tantamount to betraying that family. When we become deeply invested in certain identities it can be very difficult to move beyond them.
A new life may make demands of us we don't even anticipate
Closely related to my previous point is this one. When we start moving in the direction of the Unknown it is wise to create a strategy for how to get there. Whether it is seeking out a new job, relocating to a different part of the world, returning to school or getting married big life decisions such as these require that we bring the very best of ourselves to the ventures we give our 'Yes' to.
If we are journeying in the direction of a new reality we have never really previously experienced it follows that some serious preparation would be advisable. Consider this: would you take a vacation to a foreign country you have never visited before without some minimal amount of preparation? You would be unwise to not do so. Just as taking such a trip requires any number of actions to prepare (getting or updating a passport, checking to ensure your immunization record is current, developing some basic skill in the language and customs of your destination if they are initially foreign to you, packing appropriate clothing, crafting a list of emergency contacts, etc) so does following through on a steadfast commitment to open up new vistas of possibility for yourself.
If you are reading this piece and just starting out in your own journey to recovery consider the points I have made above to be wisdom distilled from my own 'journey through the trenches' made possible by my own tenacity as well as the wisdom of teachers, mentors and guides who have made similar journeys before I chose to take my own.
......
This past summer I attended a writing workshop offered through a collaboration between a local group called LGBT in recovery and All God's Children Metropolitan Community Church located at Park Avenue and E. 31st Street. During the workshop we spent some time exploring experiences often common to those in recovery from any number of challenges. Below are some jewels of wisdom I noted down:
"More often than not, fear doesn't emerge as nail-biting, cold-feet terror, but surfaces instead as anger, perfectionism, pessimism, low-level anxiety, depression and feelings of isolation. In these many disguises, fear can permeate life, leaving room for little else. It morphs from one pseudo-emotion to another, rarely declaring itself, poisoning each moment it touches."
"People stuck in fear fixate on destructive language."
"Happiness is a way of life - it is nothing less than cherishing every day."
"Optimism gives you power over fear of the future and over regret from the past."
Of all the jewels of wisdom that were shared that day I thought the following positive affirmation was the most poignant:
"I deserve to give myself the chance to try"
If you are starting out in your own recovery ask yourself this question: Do you believe you deserve to give yourself the chance to try? If you do not then you would be wise to ask yourself why you feel that way. If you do wish to try ask yourself what might stop you from trying. Or what might you blame as the supposed cause of your failure to even attempt to make the journey?
It has been my observation that we do not fail to try new things because we do not want to. We often fail to try because we do not perceive there to be sufficient value in the potential outcomes of our effort to inspire us to try.
I am going to close my writing for today by providing a link to a wonderful website full of resources. Earlier this year I remotely befriended Michele Rosenthal. Michele is a passionate advocate for healing PTSD. I have not (yet) met her in person but I hope to do so one day. Visit a page of her website here for answers to questions often asked by those in recovery from trauma.
Have a wonderful Saturday...and be good to yourself!
Post Script
Fifty Day Challenge, Day #2
These are the healthy actions I am taking today
When making a journey of healing it is a wise practice to take a break and rest every so often much as you would do when making a long distance trip across the country. The fifteen month anniversary of the beginning of my blog will take place next week. I am going to take the occasion of that milestone to inspire some reassessment of where I am at now.
There is a persistent thread in the rich journey of my own healing that is a more recent feature of my life. I wish to elaborate on this thread today. Once a person in recovery from trauma achieves a certain degree of improved functionality I believe it only natural to begin asking the following question: 'What are the possibilities for my life?' I have been pondering this question a lot in the last three to five months. What can I do with the life I have yet to live?
In a recent blog piece from this last week I shared the wisdom of Richard Rohr. Rohr has made the exploration and embodiment of healthy masculine spirituality a central piece of his career. His use of the metaphor of two halves of life (a first half defined by constructing your ego container and focusing on defining who you are in the world and a second half defined by moving beyond what I would call the 'Project of the Self') has been especially compelling for me.
I feel I personally entered the second half of my own life last year when I reentered therapy and discovered how much more healing was possible as well as desirable. It is my opinion that a severe trauma can serve as an initiation (perhaps often desired but yet simultaneously also often feared and not consciously recognized) into the second half of life. We can experience an intense desire for healing and growth that will lead us to an immense realm of possibility previously unknown. And yet we can also find ourselves fearing that very growth. Why? I think there are a number of reasons we can feel such conflicting desires within ourselves. Here are some of my own reflections. Journeying into a new world can be scary because:
We may have few guides and minimal support
For some it might seem as if there is no real choice in choosing to journey in the direction of a better life. Some people reach a point of crisis where the choice to heal doesn't really seem to be a choice. The consequences of failing to change can be stark: Either deal with your problems or face persistent misery and even certain death. And it has been my impression that sometimes crisis is indeed the only way that individual and collective issues will finally be addressed. In less glowing terms this reality can be described in this way: Sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can begin to ascend.
Some individuals, despite their desire to heal, may hesitate due to a perceived lack of support. They may not know how to access quality resources. Or they may feel ashamed by how much their troubles consume their own lives and not want others to see them in their darkness, weakness, confusion and chaos. Those living in rural areas or developing nations may face the added burden of living in communities with few resources available to help them in a time of immense need.
A new life may seem inaccessible or scary
If you have suffered over a long period of time due to issues such as addiction, chronic unemployment or under-employment, unhealthy relationships and the like taking a journey to heal and create something better for yourself may seem a momentous and terrifying project. Why? For a person who has endured suffering for a protracted time it seems very possible, at least in my opinion, that the familiarity of the pattern takes on a comforting quality. If you grew up in a household that featured a persistent pattern of chaotic relationships it might seem that an adult life of functional, healthy, balanced relationships is a foreign, radical, almost completely inaccessible possibility. I would further venture that for some successfully transcending a family of origin filled with immense and systemic dysfunction may seem tantamount to betraying that family. When we become deeply invested in certain identities it can be very difficult to move beyond them.
A new life may make demands of us we don't even anticipate
Closely related to my previous point is this one. When we start moving in the direction of the Unknown it is wise to create a strategy for how to get there. Whether it is seeking out a new job, relocating to a different part of the world, returning to school or getting married big life decisions such as these require that we bring the very best of ourselves to the ventures we give our 'Yes' to.
If we are journeying in the direction of a new reality we have never really previously experienced it follows that some serious preparation would be advisable. Consider this: would you take a vacation to a foreign country you have never visited before without some minimal amount of preparation? You would be unwise to not do so. Just as taking such a trip requires any number of actions to prepare (getting or updating a passport, checking to ensure your immunization record is current, developing some basic skill in the language and customs of your destination if they are initially foreign to you, packing appropriate clothing, crafting a list of emergency contacts, etc) so does following through on a steadfast commitment to open up new vistas of possibility for yourself.
If you are reading this piece and just starting out in your own journey to recovery consider the points I have made above to be wisdom distilled from my own 'journey through the trenches' made possible by my own tenacity as well as the wisdom of teachers, mentors and guides who have made similar journeys before I chose to take my own.
......
This past summer I attended a writing workshop offered through a collaboration between a local group called LGBT in recovery and All God's Children Metropolitan Community Church located at Park Avenue and E. 31st Street. During the workshop we spent some time exploring experiences often common to those in recovery from any number of challenges. Below are some jewels of wisdom I noted down:
"More often than not, fear doesn't emerge as nail-biting, cold-feet terror, but surfaces instead as anger, perfectionism, pessimism, low-level anxiety, depression and feelings of isolation. In these many disguises, fear can permeate life, leaving room for little else. It morphs from one pseudo-emotion to another, rarely declaring itself, poisoning each moment it touches."
"People stuck in fear fixate on destructive language."
"Happiness is a way of life - it is nothing less than cherishing every day."
"Optimism gives you power over fear of the future and over regret from the past."
Of all the jewels of wisdom that were shared that day I thought the following positive affirmation was the most poignant:
"I deserve to give myself the chance to try"
If you are starting out in your own recovery ask yourself this question: Do you believe you deserve to give yourself the chance to try? If you do not then you would be wise to ask yourself why you feel that way. If you do wish to try ask yourself what might stop you from trying. Or what might you blame as the supposed cause of your failure to even attempt to make the journey?
It has been my observation that we do not fail to try new things because we do not want to. We often fail to try because we do not perceive there to be sufficient value in the potential outcomes of our effort to inspire us to try.
I am going to close my writing for today by providing a link to a wonderful website full of resources. Earlier this year I remotely befriended Michele Rosenthal. Michele is a passionate advocate for healing PTSD. I have not (yet) met her in person but I hope to do so one day. Visit a page of her website here for answers to questions often asked by those in recovery from trauma.
Have a wonderful Saturday...and be good to yourself!
Post Script
Fifty Day Challenge, Day #2
These are the healthy actions I am taking today
- Writing my blog
- Reaching out to friends via social media
- Not going to the gym. Yes, some days we need to rest!
- Pondering the beautiful memories from my professional life history to inspire my future vision
- Noting my eating choices in my dietary journal
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I invite you to accompany me as I document my own journey of healing. My blog is designed to offer inspiration and solace to others. If you find it of value I welcome you to share it with others. Aloha!