I spent some time last week being totally freaked out about global warming. Through some synchronicities (see previous post) I was helped to understand how it related to my childhood trauma of being abandoned by my mother. The panic subsided, but my sense that the earth was being destroyed didn’t change.
From my journal for Saturday, August 24
I wish I could live my life more lightly — enjoying the good things when they come, not get bent out of shape by the difficult. Not ask for things to be different. Accept that I have to spend most of my energy now on things that aren’t very satisfying, but just keep me going.
3rd cup. Took Mocha out, decided I would let her lead. We started the usual way, then up toward Rte 10, on and out to the bus stop. Of course today, unlike the last few days when she refused, she trotted right out. I thought about “what I can do with what I have left.” We went across the grass to the entrance to Rivercrest loop and back to Kendal. Met a friend on the way back. Good to have company. No meaningful conversation. I’ve given up wanting to have “meaningful conversation.”
Sunday, August 25
I’m doing pretty well with my practice of accepting things. I’ve even, to some extent, accepted the reality of climate change, the death of all I love. I carry it as a weight in my heart. The arctic is burning, the Amazon is burning. I do my best to surround the earth with love, as I did with Mocha when there was a chance that she’d die. I periodically watch AOC’s vision of the Green New Deal, and affirm we can do it.
Mocha had her teeth cleaned on Thursday, and dogs have to be put under anesthetic. The technician said there was a 2% chance that she’d die. Not trusting the Universe, I kept experiencing fear. I replaced it with feeling love for her, holding her in my love, so that if she died, she would be held by my love. I found this surprisingly effective in being able to stay positive.
Although I’m convinced that we can reverse global warming to some extent, not set off a self-reinforcing cycle, I’m not at all sure that we will.
I still wonder, as I type up long journal passages, why I’m doing it. I do it because I can’t not do it. I don’t do it for the future, I don’t believe there is a future. But it’s all I’ve got to offer, my three stalks of wheat that I’m carrying as I climb up the clouds toward the Pearly Gates. I do still think I should send that email to some trauma experts. My record of my experience still might be useful for someone.
“Can’t not do it” is used by either Parker Palmer or Stephen Cope to describe vocation in their books on vocation.
My other reason is that I’m working to integrate myself. I want to go back and read everything I’ve written and offer compassion and love and understanding. To answer those cries from the heart with witnessing and caring. To understand all that early pain in the light of Developmental Trauma. Also perhaps to read the messages from my younger self to my older self.
At the moment I have no sense of Love in the universe. No sense of a Presence that loves the planet, that loves all of us despite our destructiveness, that loves me, holds me in loving embrace.
This quote from van der Kolk explains my difficulty. “When caregivers are emotionally absent, inconsistent, frustrating, violent, intrusive, or neglectful, children are … unlikely to develop a sense that the external environment is able to provide relief. Thus, children with insecure attachment patterns have trouble relying on others to help them, while unable to regulate their emotional states by themselves.” Developmental Trauma p5
Dear Guides & Guardians, I really need some help.
Dear Jenny, we love you. Remember the kind Spirit that sat next to you when your heart was stony, and was patient and affectionate. That Spirit is one of us, and we love you and have enormous compassion for you when you are stuck in a dark place. You have fought sinking into that dark place forever, you have fought with strength and persistence against a very ugly and extremely powerful force. The fact that you have not been conquered is tremendous evidence of your strength. You may not complete the task, but that is not important. What you are doing, what you have given your life to, is helping a lot of people you don’t even know. We have no fear that you will quit. Sometimes you give up and then you are present to the despair of someone who has really given up. Your persistence even helps your parents. We love you so so much, and are so heartened and inspired by your work. Do not fear, the Earth will not die. Many people will die and there will be great suffering, but those who survive, and all the Spirits who are part of the earth, will aid in the healing. Yes, the Earth will die some day, but it will be a quiet peaceful death, a yielding to the invisible.
Thank You. My heart is softly expanding and contracting.
I think this guidance really helped a lot, even though as usual I was unable to believe all of it.