(Written in January 2009)
\nI\u2019ve been typing up from the retreat at Kripalu.\u00a0 Jack Kornfield asked \u201cCan we touch our broken places with tenderness?\u201d and that helped me soften.\u00a0 Looking at poor wounded Jenny and seeing how very difficult her life is.\u00a0 I wrote then about the difficult stony frozen feeling that isn\u2019t really fear or terror \u2014 it\u2019s that nameless dread \u2014 some invisible doom is rolling toward me and I am helpless to stop it.\u00a0 I saw very clearly that this is how a baby would feel: a helpless infant whose survival is dependent on a caretaker who can\u2019t be trusted.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been angry at myself for not being able to DO anything to right the situation, but the baby is truly powerless, and I\u2019ve been triggered into the baby state.\u00a0 There\u2019s no energy for fighting or fleeing because that mechanism hasn\u2019t come on line yet.\u00a0 Being angry at myself for not being able to do anything seems really cruel.\u00a0 What I really need is for some larger, wiser, stronger, bigger, older being to scoop me up, hold me with gentle firmness, and reassure me that everything\u2019s going to be all right.\u00a0 I can\u2019t do this for myself, partly because I\u2019m in the helpless baby state \u2014 where things are very clearly not all right, and when my adult looks out around her she sees a crumbling civilization, and finds it impossible to say \u201cEverything\u2019s going to be all right.\u201d Most of my friends are also scared and worried, and unable to give me that deep reassurance that I long for.\u00a0 I think the only people who can help me are those who are so strongly rooted in a spiritual practice that they can speak from that place, can say \u201cEverything\u2019s going to be all right,\u201d with conviction.\u00a0 Sometimes I\u2019m able to get to that place and reassure myself, but it\u2019s not happening very often.<\/p>\n
And yet.\u00a0 There is some solid stern place inside me that insists that life is meaningful, even though I don\u2019t know what the meaning is, that insists that the Universe is benevolent, even though I can\u2019t feel it right now, and can\u2019t understand how a benevolent universe can result in so much confusion and pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Written in January 2009) I\u2019ve been typing up from the retreat at Kripalu.\u00a0 Jack Kornfield asked \u201cCan we touch our broken places with tenderness?\u201d and that helped me soften.\u00a0 Looking at poor wounded Jenny and seeing how very difficult her … Continue reading