09 Jan January 2011: Cycles of Healing
Turning the calendar tends to push us to reflect, both on the years that have past and what comes ahead.
For many the reflection turns to loss: what hasn’t happened, how life hasn’t brought the fulfillment wished for. When those thoughts arise it’s hard to believe the wheel of life can change for the better.
We find ample evidence of people, situation being stuck for years so why would it be different for us? We terrify ourselves with hopelessness and despair.
In the last few days I’ve had numerous conversations with friends that I know are going through this place of painful hopelessness and fear. Lucky for them, it’s not their first encounter with this despair.
Lucky? You ask? Why lucky?
As odd as it may sound it’s easier to have gone through this cycle before. When we have we have body memories and evidence of emerging from that horrid place. Over time we become aware of that cycle, emerging with a bit more ease, a bit more self compassion.
Since I’ve been back in the office after the holidays I’ve had conversations with people going through other sorts of difficulties which I posted on the blog. [to read more, click here]
Our world leads us to think everything should be easy, that suffering is abnormal. We know that’s not true. Certainly my life has been a lot of suffering before I found my way through to greater ease and satisfaction.
If you’re like many of us, you look at the contrast in your life and wonder, “What’s wrong with me? My life isn’t that (fill in the blank – we all have our version….)”
Having moved through these cycles of life for many years I’ve learned how to swim in the dark, treacherous waters where I can’t see the light and doubt my ability to stay afloat. There were often times I sank under, despairing, wishing not to ever awaken again.
Those times are tough. Moving through them takes dedication and training of the body, mind, and heart to move in the direction you want to go instead of where the patterned rip tides of our life push us.
Cycles of Healing
These cycles propel us to new ground.
‘Course that’s not how it feels in the moment. When we’re in the middle of a “cycle” it feels like we’re in the middle of a …… what shall we call it? Hell hole? *storm?
At these times, the most basic hope of our life gets altered. You know what it’s like. We hope that the answer will come from “out there” and whatever is “out there” will make it all better.
That is usually the place of wrenching distress.
To hold on to ourselves we have to be engaged in a larger conversation, one that’s large enough to transform the grief buried in our hearts. Navigating this wrenching developmental shift involves staying grounded in side our Self in the face of disruption.
Let’s face it. Disruption always comes when we shift patterns. It happened when we were small, it happens now. It is the only way transformation occurs.
Life comes through to help us let go of the patterns that no longer serve us. None of us want to let go of the patterns that have kept us safe. We say we do but to be without them we are absolutely lost. We don’t know how to operate.
There seems to be a general ebb and flow to these cycles we go through. See if any of this resonates with you – and provides some possibilities for what’s ahead. I hope that it does.
1. Lost in the depths: At these times we don’t know where we are going. We’re flooded, overwhelmed, pummeled by life. We feel the deep riptides of life pull us under — over and over agin. We barely have time to breathe before we are sunk down again.
2. Past Intrudes into the Present:
We know we’re here in this moment — but our inner world doesn’t know we’re here. Inside we feel completely suffused by the past. When we’re in “it” we don’t know that the past is intruding. It’s utterly confusing, We feel like we’re here — here in this moment. So, why do we feel so bad?
This is the process of learning about our parallel lives – of how the past intrudes into this present moment.
3. Pattern Breaking: We get a sense of what patterns are dominating our lives yet we don’t have any idea of what to do. This new way is so outside the way we’ve learned to survive that we literally don’t know what to do, how to do it.
The strategies that got us through our lives had it possible for us to survive. We look askance at letting go of these strategies. What will we do? Who will we be?
4. Reauthoring Your Life: Each time we cycle through these healing crises/events we emerge with a bit more information on ways to navigate. Each time we do, each moment of awareness we gather brings us more internal security.
We find we can gain more calm more quickly. We begin to learn we don’t get hooked by the cycle of suffering for as long. We learn we are caught by the riptides yet we’re stronger now, we don’t get taken down to the depths as much, we don’t stay down as long. We find we are spending more time enjoying life, looking forward.
Today as I write this I am immeasurably grateful for all the many times when I chose to explore my inner world and integrate the parallel life that lived deeply in the recesses of my mind. I’m grateful for the awareness I’ve developed which helps me be there for my friends and my clients and for you.
May this New Year bring you more freedom and more ways to expand into your life.