DEFINITIONS

Things I'm thinking about just now:

Endurance - the strength and determination to withstand whatever life brings.

Perseverance - to keep trying despite reversals, disappointments and difficulties.

Resilience - the ability to recover from the above: reversals, disappointments and difficulties.

The desire for hope - a willingness to search for a connection to a higher power, to a source of energy that can move me forward.

Memory - a conscious cultivation of what has helped me in the past, to call up the times in the past when doors have opened for me.

Courage - the willingness, the determination to move beyond old habits and ways of thinking, onto a road I can barely see, heading for a destination hidden in the unknown.

Gratitude - the elegant cousin of acceptance, the way to open up to the universe.

GRATITUDE, AGAIN

I've been feeling gratitude all day for how far away I've come from fear, what I call my terminal self-consciousness, second guessing my choices, being on my case so much more than off it, and many other things that were keeping me from feeling equanimity - at least from time to time. Fear made me a block of ice, unable to melt enough to learn something new. I didn't know it, but I was looking for faith, some hope that there was a benevolent force in the universe that wanted me, would help me, to be all right.
     My fear was an unchanging oppression but faith was not. Faith grew and for every inch it gained, fear lost an inch as well. Slowly, growing faith brought my fear down to size, until I was able to find the courage to soften, to become receptive, to take the risk of surrendering so that something else, aside from me, could come in and help me change. I began to experience for myself the power of spiritual principles - powerlessness and surrender, faith and courage, belief in something beyond myself, that benevolent power for change. 
     No wonder I'm often flooded with gratitude. I've found the path to peace and acceptance even though sometimes it takes me a while to get there. When I feel gratitude, I'm thinking about all I have, not what I don't have. Gratitude comes out of the deepest part of me and fills me with love for the world. It has the expansiveness, the grandeur of deep connection to the world. I call it the aristocrat of emotions.   

RAGE

I've always been angry at my parents, at my mother for her neglect, inability to see me and the anxiety she transferred into me. At my father, for being weak and unwilling or unable to make up for her. As a child, I didn't understand any of that but I think now it shut me down, and that I made myself numb, convincing myself that I didn't need anyone or anything. As I got older, I knew they didn't see who I was and what I valued - it was good I got As in school but a girl is only to get married to a rich man, have children and live two doors from them. But I was rebellious and went my own way. At least I did on the surface; underneath I carried all those childhood hurts with me and they were the source of more than a little self-sabotage and self-destruction.
     Along the way I was told that I needed to forgive my parents, that "they did the best they could." I understood that kind of thinking in my head - isn't it noble to forgive? Isn't it time to move past the anger?
     But you can't pay lip service to rage and even now all this time later much of that rage still lies buried inside me. No amount of analyzing or meditation or turning it over to the mystery of the universe  has helped me get it out. In fact, I'm afraid to let it out; I'm reminded again of the Wicked Witch - felt rage, that overpowering emotion, will annihilate me and I'll melt away. And my fear is tied up with shame, that I still am driven by what's hidden inside, that I haven't found a way to transcend it.
     What then am I to do? How do I create a space safe enough to feel it, to know that I'm justified in feeling it, that I can let it out because I don't have to protect them, above all that I don't have to feel shame that I was damaged and a big part of me has never healed?
     Well, there is also another part of me. It has worked to survive and be resilient, and has never stopped trying to understand myself and to get as free as I can. It's the part of me that feels compassion for the world and sometimes even for myself. It's as much me as the part that feels rage. And it's in that part that I can clear a space, a safe space, to feel all the hurt and anger that's still inside. I believe that my spirit is deeper and wider than any emotion my body can experience, that my spirit can absorb it all. This belief can help me over the obstacles to that space, the voices that tell me I'm too weak, there's no point, nothing will make a difference, it's too late to change.
     Those voices are the blanket of despair I've clung to, to keep myself from feeling the truth inside, though saying that is one more version of blaming myself. Courage is going forward, not from the absence of fear, but despite the fear. I'm going to focus on gathering that courage until, with faith, I'm brave enough to make the leap into truth.
     

     

MY MOTHER'S GAZE

Sometimes, when I'm out and about, in the market or on the street, I see a mother and child who bring me to a stop.  The mother is gazing directly into the eyes of her child and smiling, the child is doing the same and they're both happy. It's a completely ordinary moment, a mother and child sharing an intimate gaze, the look of security and mutual pleasure.
     I don't remember my mother ever looking at me like that - gazing directly at me with pleasure and encouragement, making me for a moment the focus of her gaze. Maybe there were times when she did look at me that way, but I'll never know that objective truth.  What I know is the truth I feel inside me, the image I have of her distracted by anxiety, always worried something is wrong and something bad will happen. 
      Years ago, I saw a documentary about a clinic in Toronto that works with mothers and babies who have attachment problems. They showed the first session of a mother and her toddler; during the whole session the mother ignored the child who didn't stop climbing all over her trying to get her attention. Over the course of a few sessions, the therapists very gently pointed out certain behaviors to the mother and suggested different ways for her to act. In a surprisingly short time, at the last session, the mother was paying close attention to the child, and the child was calm, resting contentedly next to her. It made me cry, that such a small consistent change in behavior could make such an enormous difference to the child. Why hadn't there been someone to show my mother how to make a difference for me? 
     In the coming days, I was as low as I've ever been.  I was bereft, desolate, feeling the knife of despair for what I had never had - the sense that someone loved me unconditionally, acknowledged me, took delight in my existence. Added to that was not only the abyss of loss but also a great shame, as if the lack of my mother's gaze was my fault. It was classic, the way I had taken in the blame - and was still feeling it - even though I knew the problem was my mother's and not mine.
     I saw very clearly what the absence of that gaze had done to the many aspects of my life, and I realized how my shame had imprisoned me in the very sense of loss I wanted so much to transcend. I had no part in my mother's inability to see me completely but I did very much have a part in the blame and shame I had laid upon myself. As long as they controlled me, I wouldn't be able to leave that very early wound behind.  I wouldn't be able to heal.
     I wish I could say that the realization of my imprisoning shame turned on the light and brought the changes I sought. But in fact, the hard work was all ahead. I had to find a way to accept the loss of what every child needs, and to neutralize my shame at being the one who wasn't loved. The search for psychological insight was useful but ultimately words and concepts only kept me at a distance. I needed to find the courage to feel what was under all my ideas, to let go and feel the whole constellation of rage, despair, shame and hopelessness that was always flowing like lava beneath the surface. I needed to find faith that if I let all of that out, I wouldn't be annihilated, wouldn't melt away like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz until there was nothing left but my hat of shame.
     Staying on the path to courage and faith has become the main commitment in my life. To go on when progress is minute and slow, to keep on in the face of fear - to feel the certainty of a refuge inside me and the belief that I'm not walking this path alone - that is at once the source and the result of any change I've found. I'm freer than I've ever been and knowing what more freedom feels like, I want to keep walking, to find even more.