Epiphany

Posted on January 6, 2011 by jenny

The dictionary defines “Epiphany” as a “revelatory manifestation of a divine being.” An event in which the essence of something is revealed to someone “as in a sudden flash of recognition.” The Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, celebrates the arrival of the three kings at the stable in Bethlehem, confirming the divine status of the infant Jesus. As an archeo-astronomer, I have always thought of January 6 as the time when it becomes really obvious that the sun has turned around and the days are getting longer. At the time of the Winter Solstice the sunrise stays close to the same place on the horizon for a number of days. In order to tell which day is the actual solstice (before modern technology) people needed a long tunnel (like the passage at Newgrange) or an alignment of two stones that are fairly far apart as in many of the megalithic circles. Another possibility is something like what the Sunwatchers of the Anasazi used — a place to sit, and an eastern horizon distant, clear, and marked by the edges of mesas and buttes that would calibrate the sun’s position.
In my own life, in my struggle with depression, I have been reassured by the fact that, to turn something around, it has to slow down & stop & then start moving the other way. So sometimes, when I feel absolutely stuck, which is very scary when the state you are stuck in is hopelessness and helplessness, I remind myself that sometimes there is a delay between taking acting (e.g. raising medication) and being able to see that it’s working.

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Book About “Katie”

Posted on January 5, 2011 by jenny

(Written in August 2009)
I started reading a book Lynelle got on interlibrary loan: Daniel Hughes “Building the Bonds of Attachment.” It’s a fictional account of “Katie” who was abused and neglected in her family of origin, and was so angry and manipulative that three sets of foster parents sent her back because she was impossible to live with. Finally she gets connected with a therapist and foster mother who’ve done some special training in a kind of “tough love”. They restrain Katie, and insist that she accept the consequences of her actions, but it’s done with real understanding and love. They also reflect back to her “You are really MAD because I wouldn’t give you a cookie,” and articulate her underlying feelings and sadness. I had a lot of feelings come up and trouble identifying them. I also was reading compulsively. I finally went to say something to Lynelle, knowing she had to leave soon. To her I managed to say I’m really jealous of how much effort the two adults make to try to understand Katie. “I was so GOOD! and nobody ever rescued me. Or made the effort to find out and validate what I was feeling inside.” Lynelle recommended I stop reading and she was right — it really was upsetting me. It reminds me of Agatha Christie’s story of her mother understanding her upset and inability to talk about it because of conflicting feelings. It also reminded me of the Montessori teacher and how she worked with children who were disruptive and destructive. At some point a therapist asked me if I could be the Montessori teacher to myself, and I knew just what to say to the destructive part of me “You don’t want to hurt other kids, you just want to be allowed to make a mess!”

Writing this, I’m feeling better. I’m aware of Little Jenny who is angry “You’ve been ignoring me!” and I say I’m so sorry, Sweetie, and she comes for a hug. Now I feel all warm inside.

I also feel as though I don’t have any connection to my adult self or to my wider life. I was thinking about the amount of pain Katie was in when she had only partly got that Jackie was a good mom — it was OK when she was in her presence, but she hadn’t internalized her yet. I feel a little like that. Just talked to Lynelle who said that book would bring up lots of feelings, and the weekend would be difficult anyway, I will be expected to be an adult and socialize—

When I got to Karen I cried, angry helpless crying. She gave me the boffer and I hit the chair opposite, saying things like “You wrecked my life!” But it didn’t feel very satisfying and I got tired and stopped. I felt the impulse to hurt myself. I told her about the story of Katie, and how self-abuse happened when she began to attach to Jackie, and she could self-regulate while in Jackie’s presence but not when she wasn’t there. I told her how it made me furious that Katie had two people willing to work hard to help her, and I had been so GOOD and nobody did that for me. I said I didn’t feel safe anywhere. Karen made the nest with pillows, she sat behind me and held me. That helped, I was able to relax. She said she thought I had been retraumatized by the book about Katie. I think it’s quite possible. When we had been in the nest for a while, she began making motions like time was up, and I said “What if I refuse to move? What if I’m bad like Katie?” and I wiggled around so I was solidly on her lap. She said “I’d love you” and I burst into tears.

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Somatic Experiencing

Posted on January 4, 2011 by jenny

(Written in July 2009)
The session with Caryn was very low key. I cried, and had a little discharge. I told her about the difficulty with my right shoulder. She had me walk around with 3lb weights so I could feel the weight keeping my shoulder down. She had me imagine the weight was growing lighter so I could raise it without hunching my shoulders. She asked me to walk around without the weights, feeling my “fish body”. I sat down again and there was considerable subtle discharge in my shoulders. I slid down more toward the floor and worked with the image of mud flats. When I told Caryn how sad I felt looking at my garden that was full of weeds, she asked “what is growing in it?” Daisies and black-eyed susans and lupin and some other pretty wild flowers. She said the garden was a metaphor for my life: what comes up when you stop making/forcing things to happen? That shifted me a little, and I enjoyed the “meadow tapestries” on the way home. So I’m looking at the garden a little differently, and asking the question “what comes up when I stop forcing?” While I was sitting in my corner with Caryn, at one point I was sitting with my legs bent in front of me, holding on to them with my hands. I wondered what would happen if I let go — my legs fell apart and then down so I was sitting with right leg straight and left bent. Then I put my left arm along the cushion on the wall to my left, and suddenly felt different — impossible to find words — there was a sense of dignity, or outward focus from a very grounded and centered position. Paying attention to how my body felt, I realized this resembled Kuan Yin in the “Royal Ease” pose. I took my left arm down and everything felt completely different. Exploring the two postures I discovered that the arm up straightens my back and shifts the focus to outward, the arm down collapses my torso and shift the focus inward. Caryn also said that this time of low energy, of “doing nothing” is a time when healing is going on deep inside. It’s not on a conscious level, so I’m not aware of it, but it is taking energy — that’s why I’m so tired.

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Conversation About Inner Work

Posted on January 3, 2011 by jenny

(Written in July 2009)
Good talk with Elizabeth. We talked about inner work and how it affected the human energy field. She was in doubt about whether inner work really made a difference if you didn’t take outer action. I said I thought if you were really doing the inner work it would naturally result in some kind of outer action, even if it was only recycling or calling your congresspeople. I said I also thought that inner work affected the whole human energy field, and we talked a little about the hundred monkeys, and studies showing that prayer is effective. We talked about Sheldrake and morphogenetic fields, and the idea that the soul is not in the body, the body is in the soul. I told her about the book by Rupert Sheldrake and Matthew Fox, Natural Grace. I told her about mourning for the 14 years lost to the plane phobia, and all the different things I tried. I also told her about my plans for a celebration of my life, and how doing part of it for Caryn expanded me too much and I had to contract afterward. Elizabeth validated the need to contract. She also said the things I want to do are “powerful.” Always a surprise for me, I think of them as ordinary.

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Map of my Life

Posted on January 1, 2011 by jenny

(Written in July 2009)
The session with Caryn really helped a lot. We made a map of my life in which sadness had a part but was not the whole thing. It clarified and filled out the sense I had with Karen of being in a neutral place, where it was OK to do nothing, and looking at all the things I might do, but didn’t have to do. There was: the Jizo statue and shrine, the celebration of my life, the Forest Path, Dancing and Decorating Neskaya, allowing positive feedback to reach me, the energy of healthy anger, creating deeper connections with community, and NVC. There was also a place for sadness and grief work, and a place for resting. Caryn said I might have to rest for months to recover from pushing myself unmercifully for most of my life.
I told her about the Board meeting and how wonderful it was to hear what Neskaya meant to all those people. I said I had hoped it would be a resource, meaning that when I thought about it I would feel that complete warming and relaxing that I used to get when bringing to mind Mama Greene or the Ocean of Compassion. Caryn said what do you feel in your body as you tell me? I noticed that I was sitting straighter and feeling more solid. She reminded me that it’s OK to build the resource incrementally. Ah yes. And when I imagined the excitement and energy of the board and tried to take it in I could feel the familiar conflict. “Don’t think you’re so great!” Caryn reminded me to use venetian blinds. Then I could take in a little, and could feel warmth in the middle of me. Sometimes, when I was discharging, my hands would make gestures. One time it reminded me of pushing along the rope of misery. Another time it was anger and I shook my fist at the ceiling and said “Look what you did to my life! Look how you crippled me! I hope you’re ashamed.” When I was talking about being able to do grief work with certain people, Caryn reframed it as “finding people you can be real with.”

I worked on pottery for the map — I’ve started a bulb but I don’t think it’s going to work, I’ll have to try something different. The bulb is because, in the map of my life, the resting piece carries the reminder of how the bulb gathers energy most of the year, and then produces one spectacular flower at the right time. I already have the “Tough Little Drip” and I also want to do a figure in the “Fold” which is what Caryn calls the Child Pose, a pose of self-nurturing.

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The Hardest Work There Is

Posted on December 31, 2010 by jenny

(Written in June 2009)
I read the passage to Karen about how I hadn’t done as much with my life as I might have. She said the obvious things: that there’s no way I can know that, that it’s a mistake to compare myself to others, that I had done a lot of good with the life I was given. At first I was resistant, but then I began to accept and remember — that if I hadn’t been traumatized I might have become an academic, all the negative messages of the culture would still have been operative (I think of Sue Monk Kidd’s journey), and I have helped some people, changed some lives. I think of Meaghan, and Lee Ann, and Pat saying I’d helped her understand Michael better. Unfortunately, the only people who can tell whether I’ve done the best I could, are the ones who really know what I’m up against. Caryn says it’s the hardest work there is and I’m doing it, that a lot of people quit, won’t go to this deep place. Karen said “You’ve done the hero’s journey!” At that point I could take it in, and believe that it was true. We also talked about how hard it is if you are one of the pioneers of this work, of course there are a lot of people who don’t understand. I left the session able to accept that I’ve actually done well with the life I was given. I’ve healed a lot, and I have managed to give some expression to my creativity.

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Guidance

Posted on December 30, 2010 by jenny

Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I’ve been doing better lately. I feel a little scared and sad right now. Can you help me?
Dear Jenny, we love you very much. You have been working as hard as you can, but what you really need is to relax more, accept more, stop trying so hard. It would be good if you could treat yourself as a person who is convalescing from a long serious illness. Even tho you have been feeling better, do not have any expectations of yourself, beyond three meals a day, walking the dog, and therapy appointments. It is perfectly fine to do puzzles, solitaire, light reading, writing and typing journal. And be sure to keep connecting with your support team. A healing process is in motion, you have set it in motion by your intention, and by your work in therapy. It continues, at great depth, when you are not paying attention. This is why it is good to engage your conscious mind with activities like puzzles, solitaire, etc. Remember that we love and support you, and we are with you even when you can’t feel our presence.

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Somatic Experiencing

Posted on December 28, 2010 by jenny

(Written in May 2009)
Session with Caryn. Seated in my corner, I immediately started to cry, and writhe, and rage. I had such a desire to push it all through and be done with it. Caryn stopped me after a while and said I had a choice. “You have expressed lots of feelings — grief, frustration, rage — and you have been witnessed. You can choose to modulate the feelings, to break off a manageable portion and work with that.” She reminded me more than once that she was not asking me to stop the feelings. Put on the pause button, slow everything down, work with the pre-movement impulse. My fingers became claws wanting to rend and tear my stomach. Vision of bloody meat. Then I was rending and tearing something in front of me. I am a lioness and this is my kill and I will feed it to my cubs. So I stayed with the lioness for a while, feeling smooth, sinuous, strong, graceful. Then I wanted to rip off pieces of myself. Moving slowly I peeled off pieces of my legs and my stomach and threw them away. It was more like pulling off layers of mud than actually rending flesh. It felt good, like I was tearing off stuff that didn’t belong to me. Can’t remember exactly how it went on. I lay back and discharged very subtle shakes for a long time. At one point we walked around the room. Caryn said I had opened my eyes while working, that this was new, that I had “turned a corner,” that I was beginning to integrate the energy of the trauma with the present moment. Looking at her closet full of magical objects I said I had to use my venetian blinds so as not to be overwhelmed. She really liked the image. When we returned to the corner, we talked about ways that adult Jenny could better take care of Baby Jenny when she is feeling fragile and vulnerable. I told her I would not do things that were too scary for her, and that if something absolutely had to be done, then I would sit with her afterward. O yes, we had a dialogue about how I had forgotten the baby when I saw Caryn’s closet — but in fact I had remembered to use the venetian blinds to keep her from overwhelm. Ended the session feeling very good about the development in my relationship with Baby Jenny. And the fear I started with has pretty much faded as I write.
The wind is blowing outside and I’m feeling more exhilarated than scared! Hurray!

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God Image

Posted on December 27, 2010 by jenny

When I was a child I believed in God pretty much pictured as an old white man, sitting in a throne “up there” in heaven. This god was judgmental and punitive, and sometimes I was afraid he was overhearing and judging my thoughts. Some time in adolescence, when I spent a lot of time roaming the woods, I decided that god was not to be found in church, but out in nature. By the time I was majoring in Astronomy at Wellesley I no longer believed in god. I did Buddhist practice for a while, found it very helpful when I was struggling with my first round of severe depression. The universe described by Buddhism was the only one big enough to hold the universe I learned about in Astronomy.

One day, I don’t remember how I framed the question, I was thinking that I didn’t believe in god, I believed in the universe. And what was the universe like? The words that came were “capricious, malicious, and willful.” I was stunned. Did I REALLY believe that of the universe that had created stars and galaxies, daffodils and pine trees, raccoons and human beings? Of course not. So who WAS “capricious, malicious and willful”? A pair of alcoholic parents, that’s who.

So, when the gates of heaven were flung wide by that welcoming god, I was really pleased that my image of God had changed so much. I still can’t say that I “believe in God.” I generally use the word “Spirit” for the being that created and became the universe. I believe spirit penetrates every bit of matter, that we are all spirit. When I pray, I tend to pray to lesser spirits, my own “Guides & Guardians”, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and Jesus. Or I use the buddhist lovingkindness prayer: May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you live with ease. I do that prayer for my friends, my dancers, and my family, almost every day.

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Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2010 by jenny

My favorite Christmas story is one about a school pageant. One of the students was a little slow, so they gave him the part of the innkeeper. All he had to say was “There’s no room in the inn,” and “No.” He did just fine in rehearsals. Came the night and Mary and Joseph approached the inn. “Can we stay here?” asked Joseph. “There’s no room in the inn,” said Bruce, looking troubled. “Please,” said Joseph, “my wife is pregnant.” Bruce had been looking more and more uncomfortable. After a short silence he threw the door open and said “Come on in!” Some of the audience thought the pageant had been ruined, but the rest thought it the best one they’d ever seen.
I’ve never connected this story with an experience of my own, but the door flung open and the huge welcome provided a template for me. I was in one of my periodic bad times, feeling like I hadn’t accomplished much that was worthwhile in my life. I thought “What will god think of this meager harvest?” and I saw myself climbing up the clouds toward a pearly gate carrying a couple of stalks of wheat. Suddenly the gate flew open, and this enormous being (looking more like Caspar the ghost than anything) with a huge smile, opened his/her/its/their arms wide and enfolded me saying “WELCOME! Whatever you have done or not done, welcome.” Remembering this can still warm my heart.
Also at this time I think about the homeless, not just the real ones in our cities and towns, but the parts of me that I have disowned, the depressed and discouraged and helpless ones, and I fling open the door to my heart and say “Welcome! Whatever you have done or not done, welcome!”

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