Posted on Jul 16, 2016
Tragedy. It’s everywhere these days. What’s happening with our world? Where is all this global violence coming from? How have we progressed as a society in some ways, and yet regressed in others?
I don’t even know how to process all that’s going on in the world: from mass murdering people celebrating in France on Bastille Day, to the “gun slinging” in the States, to the murder of an innocent five-year-old child here in Alberta—just to name a few current events. The violence seems to be escalating along with climate change and natural disasters. How to make sense of it all?
For starters, suffering is “simply” part of life. There is no reason for it. It just is. Healing from tragedy requires us to make meaning of our personal suffering; but first we have to accept it as part of life. Suffering need not be taken as a personal agenda against us to teach us a lesson or test us—in fact that perspective can be very harmful. We can definitely learn lessons from or find meaning in what we experience, but that is not necessarily the reason for the suffering. Life happens to everyone. Everyone handles it differently. Some better than others. We can all learn from each other as we suffer commonly as a human race. Suffering can bring us together or draw us apart. Lately it seems to be more divisive than unifying.
Another basic human experience is that life is unfair. There are no guarantees or true talismans. At this thought, we can get sucked into despondency and depression. Or we can be motivated to love more, help more, share more, be more compassionate, be agents of change, be kind, be better humans. Live up to human potential rather than succumb to human baseness. Quit blaming and take ownership/responsibility. Set boundaries. Address disrespectful and harmful behaviour. Attend to each other. Appreciate. Make a difference. Expend positive energy. Contribute. Participate. Embrace. Promote healing and well being. The list is endless of the constructive ways we can effect change.
I really appreciate this quote by Dr. Sue Johnson, therapist and author:
Love has an immense ability to help heal the devastating wounds that life sometimes deals us. Love also enhances our sense of connection to the larger world. Loving responsiveness is the foundation of a truly compassionate, civilized society.
Somehow our world (and dare I say institutionalized religion) has lost touch with our fundamental need to love and be loved. I agree with A. Bertoli that our very purpose to be on this planet is to master loving each other. To take care of each other. We have failed miserably as a species to promote our very survival through compassionate care of one another and our world.
As overwhelming as it seems to correct this shift towards destruction of this planet and its occupants, we must grab onto hope that love will win in the end. We must reclaim our power to effect change through love and caring. We must redouble our efforts to be there for each other in all the suffering and tragedy that occurs all around us—even when we perpetrate the suffering and tragedy against ourselves as a global community. It’s heartbreaking to consider how we can be so cruel to each other. Let’s counter cruelty with connection and not division or separation.
How about this for a new twist on an old slogan: Keep Calm and Care On!
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Posted on Jun 28, 2016
Having recently returned from a two-week holiday, I’m finding it difficult to readjust to routine. It’s like I’ve lived in an alternate universe for those two weeks; and now I’m thrust back into the reality of life. In a way, the ‘fit’ feels off. Something’s been tweaked, and the system runs differently now. How do I fit back into the old routine when adjustments or fine tuning has taken place?
It’s not as if any life shattering event occurred. My holiday started with a few days in a cabin in the amazing Riding Mountain National Park (a true gem to discover). This was followed by a two-day conference focused on compassion (love unleashed). I also reconnected with two counselling instructors which was very meaningful.
Hot on the heels of that event came a family gathering. My aunt kept my arrival a secret, so there were a few shocked faces—but at least I was recognized after so many years since the last visit! For some of my extended family, it had been decades since they had last laid eyes on me.
Then came Father’s Day. Followed by a trip across the province to connect with a maternal second cousin once removed, and to learn more about my maternal grandfather’s parents and grandparents. I also got acquainted with where the family name of Barbara comes from. Apparently, I have a Great Great Grandmother Barbara. Over the years, there have been allusions to an enigmatic Aunt Barbara. Now I know she was the sister of my great grandmother (daughters of Great Great Grandma Barbara). And there is a distant family FULL of Barbara’s. And this elusive Aunt Barbara lived to 105! All this time she was alive and well in this country until 2002. Why I never met her, I will never know; but I am sad that I never had the opportunity to meet this remarkable namesake.
It was also an emotionally powerful experience to stand upon the same ground my birth mother would have stood upon as a young girl and adolescent (at her grandparents’ farm). I saw where my grandfather attended school (just up the road from his childhood home). As well, I took in the majesty of the tall poplar still standing on my great-great grandmother Barbara’s farm (one poplar had split in two and fallen, but was still there). My great-great grandfather never got to see the farm he purchased as he died en route. His body was shipped by train and is buried in the family cemetery on the farm.
After a full day of family research on my birth-mother’s side, the next day I spent a few special moments with my 98-year-old (step)grandmother who was thrilled to see me. Glad her mind was still capable of recognizing me even if conversation was disjointed and repetitive.
My father also provided more information about his grandparents from an old family book newly in his possession. So much information to take in! How will it affect how I see myself and tell my story? Will I remember all the stories told to me? Can I absorb the stories of the places I visited? Not just the family connections, but also the stories buried within the Riding Mountain National Park or the many people I met at the conference?
Connections. Some have huge impact, others are strictly “in the moment.” Some small connections have great significance and other significant connections have little impact. I do know that I feel fuller and more connected after my holiday. A subtle inner shift has occurred. Things are not the same. My framework is different. It had to be adjusted to accommodate all the new information. It changed how I see myself. I am a person who counts and matters. I’m part of a bigger story—not just family wise, but other connections as well.
I am a person with a story within a story. I am person of many stories interwoven with the innumerable stories of all the other connections. I am a connected and storied person.
What about you? What keeps you connected to the stories and the people?
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Posted on May 28, 2016
The fire was followed by a period of grieving and then by an incredible lightness, freedom, and mobility.
~Martin Puryear
May has been a strange month thus far and doesn’t appear to be changing as the end approaches. It’s been busy and chaotic with one of this month’s themes being fire. Principally wildfires that have devastated parts of Northern Alberta and British Columbia. It is overwhelming to think of the long recovery process, in all its aspects, from basic physical needs to the more complex trauma-related ones.
I also learned this month that my former residence in a neighbouring town had been destroyed by fire and replaced with a new unit. I lived several years in that original mobile home. Practiced my fledgling interior decorator skills on numerous projects. That home was kind of a ‘baby’ to me as well as a created and creative haven.
Many memorable moments happened there as well as personal and professional stepping stones. We had moved to the region so that I could start my Masters studies in counselling. It was the first community my husband and I lived in without nearby family connections. We built up our lives from scratch so-to-speak. Lasting friendships were made, new skills learned, careers evolved.
Now that the home is gone, it is like a symbolic marker of my life has disappeared. There are photos and stories that attest the moments did occur; but somehow there is something missing without the physical structure there anymore.
The irony of the home’s destruction by fire is not lost on me, either, as that has been a primary fear of mine for a long time. The entire time I lived there, I worried about losing everything to fire each time I left the house. In retrospect, it was a very unhealthy, obsessive fear which I no longer suffer from. Not that fire ceases to be a concern, but it no longer consumes me or contributes to obsessive-compulsive thoughts and behaviours. Now that is a relief and source of freedom!
I have never lost anything to fire before, so my fear was not based on experience. It was quite irrational. Loss by fire is so absolute. Not unlike loss by death. As a young child, losing my mother was very absolute and all-encompassing. I lost many tangible and intangible ‘things’ with her death. To lose to fire the life (and its symbolic shell) that I had built was similar to me. It was like losing my anchor.
I have since learned to be more grounded in my sense of self than in things or people. I know I could survive the loss of home, or person, or pet. Experience has taught me it is incredibly difficult, but do-able. As the above quote says, there is a period of grieving followed by release. The grieving is intense. The recovery, fruitful. Growth does follow tragedy.
Fire represents so much. Destruction as well as healing and re-growth. The old is burned away so that new can develop and blossom. Fire is seen as a purification and restoration process. Above all, it is incredibly dangerous and must be respected—whether it be literal or figurative.
How are you handling the fires in your life?
May you experience growth and renewal whatever fires life brings your way.
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Posted on Apr 17, 2016
I read an article this morning about a different way to approach life with nondualism—judging things as neither good nor bad, but just “is.” The article began with an Asian parable about a farmer who lived in rural China hundreds of years ago.
[The farmer] had a son who was the apple of his eye and owned a prize stallion that he treasured. At the end of a long day, the farmer noticed that the gate to his pasture was open and that his stately horse was nowhere to be seen. When the villagers found out that his stallion was missing, they came over one by one and announced their condolences. They said, “Your valuable stallion is gone. Oh, it is so bad!” The farmer answered, “Who knows? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.” The people returned to their homes.
The next day the farmer sent his son to search far and wide for the stallion. He found it grazing in a field several miles away with another majestic steed and was able to guide them both back to the farm. The villagers came round again and declared, “You have reclaimed your noble stallion and acquired another beautiful horse to boot! Oh, it is so good!” The farmer answered, “Who knows? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.” The people returned to their homes.
The following day when his son was attempting to break in the new horse, it bucked him off and he crashed to the ground, breaking his leg. All the villagers came over and asserted, “That foul beast has broken your son’s leg! Oh, it is so bad!” The farmer answered, “Who knows? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.” The people returned to their homes.
As it happens, the emperor’s army entered the village the next day announcing that a war was starting and all of the young men were required to enlist. The farmer’s son could not go because he had a broken leg. The villagers congregated at the farmer’s home once again and proclaimed, “Your son’s leg is broken, so he cannot go to war! Oh, it is so good!” The farmer answered, “Who knows? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.” The people returned to their homes. And so it goes…[1]
We have a tendency to label experiences and people as good or bad depending on our levels of pleasure or pain. We reject the one but embrace the other, trying to force the good to stay and the bad to go, putting a lot of energy into manipulating life’s experiences towards only those labelled good. To quote the author,
The truth is that no event or person is inherently good or bad, but rather everything just is; and in this “isness,” there is an opportunity to love. People and events are neutral. The experiences of pleasure and pain do not define the inherent value of events; and the choices that people make do not define their worth…Dualistic thinking sees the world as either/or, setting things in opposition to one another.
Nondualism, on the other hand, allows for experiences and people to be “both/and.” Instead of dividing into groups or categories, unity is possible. Experiences and people can be both good and bad. There is possibility for love and for growth no matter what the label might be of a person or experience. Good can come out of negative situations as seen by the above parable.
However, if we are constantly rejecting “bad” experiences and people while straining to hang onto the “good,” we thwart living fully and completely. We miss out on the “isness” of life. All experiences and people have the potential for good and for bad. It is up to us to alter our perspective so as to embrace unity and neutrality—living with the “both/and” perspective rather than segregating with “either/or.”
This is something for me to think about: how I label experiences and people which only shortchanges me. This is not to say we condone injustice or wrongdoing; but it certainly affects how we approach righting the wrongs of this world. Do we welcome or reject? Do we include or exclude? Do we show love or hatred or apathy? Is there opportunity for growth or risk of stagnation?
May you find love, growth, and fullness by embracing the “isness” of life.
[1] Excerpts from article entitled “Who knows?: On Nondualism and Spiritual Direction” by Andrea “Ani” Vidrine as published in Presence, Vol. 21, No. 3, p. 43-44.
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Posted on Mar 20, 2016
May the blessing of light be on you—
light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you
and warm your heart
till it glows like a great peat fire.
~An Old Celtic Blessing
Today, March 20th, is the Spring Equinox or First Day of Spring of 2016. It is also just a few days past St. Patrick’s Day. So the above Celtic Blessing seemed appropriate to me. Celebrating spring with a touch of the Irish.
Spring is oft perceived as the season of new beginnings, new birth, and new growth. Spirits rise with the balmy weather and increased daylight. We are more motivated to make changes this time of year than any other. Some argue that this is the season for making resolutions as opposed to the dead of winter when the New Year rings in. Others consider autumn a new year of sorts with the return to routines of school and work after summer holidays and activities.
For whatever reason, spring has an air of anticipation to it. We look forward to warmer, sunnier days; planting gardens; planning trips; being outside more. All contribute to a closeness with nature and growth. Are we pondering to try new things this spring? To stretch ourselves out of our winter slumber? To improve our quality of life in some way?
Last month I wrote about the death of my maternal grandmother that got me thinking about family and our places within it, connection and a sense of belonging, understanding ourselves in the context of families. I have sorted through some of my childhood experiences and deep-rooted beliefs. Treasuring some, discarding others. Not unlike cleaning out our closets with the changing seasons.
When we change our wardrobes, we welcome back outfits that give us pleasure and still fit! We also have to let go of those items that no longer fit, serve a purpose, or please us. We make decisions to sculpt our ideal body with diet and exercise—often thinking back to a previous size or hoping for a different size and shape in the future. Sometimes we succumb to discouragement in our desires for the perfect wardrobe, body, life.
It is also beneficial to clear out our minds. A mental spring cleaning. Do we make time for quiet reflection to accomplish this goal? Do we pay attention to the internal clutter? Allow ourselves to sense the inner shifting and bring it forward into daily life? Or do we rush around, distracting ourselves with busy-ness, ignoring our interior world?
Maybe the mental spring cleaning is too scary. We fear bringing our innermost thoughts and feelings into the light. We don’t want to face what doesn’t fit anymore. There is comfort in the familiar after all. But just as the spring weather warms the earth generating new life from the sleeping ground, so too we must cast light upon our inner world to encourage growth or we risk rot and stagnation.
We must face the thoughts that help us and those that hinder us. And make adjustments as necessary. It certainly is a long process, not accomplished over night. It requires persistence, patience, and courage. For me, it also requires stepping into the light: embracing all that I am and want to be. Looking closely at what needs to change, what needs to grow, what needs to be let go, what needs acceptance. Risk leaving my comfort zone.
What about you? Are you ready for spring? For growth and renewal?
May the Light be upon you as you trust the process and boldly go forth into this new season.
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Posted on Feb 25, 2016
My maternal grandmother passed away in the wee hours of this morning. And I’m not sure how I feel about it—if anything at all! It seems horrible to admit that I feel nothing. I have at times wondered what it would be like when she died. Especially during my years of bitterness and resentment towards my grandparents for the roles they played in the development of my mother’s mental illness (and subsequently mine). The illness that eventually took her from me.
I was never close to the mother of my birth mother. In fact I found her intimidating. We had a relationship of sorts until I moved across the country. We kept in touch via letters and the occasional visit. It was more a relationship of obligation or duty than of true connection—for both of us I think.
I have always felt like an outsider in that extended family. Strange to look back upon it now. It was a very complicated family dynamic. And I was a very vivid reminder of my deceased mother—someone I sensed they wanted to forget.
As I type this, I do feel sadness welling up within me—but not for the loss of my grandmother. It is for the family brokenness, for the loss of my mother, and my lost sense of self. My life is forever impacted by generations of abuse and disconnection. I came to terms with the ancestral patterns at an earlier juncture on my healing journey. This keeps my current sadness at tolerable levels. It does not overwhelm me as any death used to do. As well, I did a lot of painful grief work after my dog, Gracie, died in 2012. Some of that journey is recorded in this blog.
And I am quite aware that my perception of the extended family is very different from those who lived and breathed it on a regular basis—either those living close by or just feeling “this” was their family. That sense of inclusion. I never felt I belonged for some reason. Some may even be surprised if they read this. Most would likely tell me not to ‘go there.’ Don’t dig up the past, rock the boat. Leave well enough alone.
Family secrets. My story is laden with them. I have begun to tell bits of my story to various trusted people. It takes a lot of courage to open up and share what is buried, yet at the same time lies just beneath the surface. It is my personal and professional experience that storytelling is in fact very healing.
Confrontation is another matter entirely. And something I fear by even writing this blog. I wonder why I am doing even this amount of sharing. What’s in it for me? Will any of my readers benefit? Is there healing to be found for me or anyone else? Do I dare say aloud what “no one” wants to hear? What would my family think?
I likely won’t know the answer to any of those questions besides my own healing. And the more I ponder, the more questions arise. I have never known my “place” in the extended family (I realize that is the third reference). And now that Grandma is gone, what will happen? Will even tenuous connections be lost? I remain connected by blood. And they say blood is thicker than water. But is it enough to keep families connected? With Grandma gone, is my tether to the family frayed or severed? Strange questions, I know.
Obviously I remain part of the family tree. Grandma’s death doesn’t change that. She lived to 95, by the way. And it wasn’t the easiest of lives. Her story begins in Mennonite Russia (Ukraine) and is filled with trauma. Grandma has a good deal to be venerated for. She kindled my love of reading and was an exceptional cook, baker, and seamstress. I have much from her that I treasure, as well as what I deplore. Holding these in tandem is part of life and love—and telling the story.
The “middle” of the story is that I had a complicated relationship with my maternal grandmother. There is much that went on before and much more that will continue after. Thankfully the story doesn’t stop here. It may be the end of an era, but it is not the end of the story—my story.
The journey of healing and growth—part of my story—will continue. I am sure it will take some time for me to fully process what my grandmother’s death means to me. I sense there is something shifting deep within. It will be interesting to discover what surfaces.
May you find the courage to tell your story to someone you trust as you continue on your journey of healing and growth.
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