Posts Tagged ‘trust’

pricking the crusty scab over the wound in my heart…letting it bleed

I must…there is no alternative if I want to be an alive, pliable, feeling human being

a moment’s courage to stick the needle of my consciousness in

please, hold my hand, Greater Self

and it’s done.  see, it only hurt for a moment

~

ahhh, the relief of letting it flow

the cleansing tears, the exorcizing of little demons in the dark corners of my psyche

the ones that have held court, whispering lies into my ears,

stringing nets and springing traps

grabbed up by the rush of cleansing waters from the genuine soul

lifted by the torrent of feeling, they are exposed and expunged through the grand golden portal of my heart

poured out onto the stones at my feet where they flip and writhe

I feel awe and compassion as I watch them dissolve in the light of the sun

“When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”  -Adrienne Rich

free bird

There is something about having an audience that provokes an artist (of any kind, whether writer, musician, visual artist, actor, etc.) to rise to the occasion and express themselves.  I find this to be what will cause me to sit down and write, sometimes more than the need to express, itself.  But the need to express today is strong.

When I was a little girl, I had a vivid imagination.  I imagined worlds and dramas and tragedies and great tales of heroism.  I sometimes told these stories during show and tell in 1st grade, interweaving the facts of my life with the fictions in my mind.  These acts of creativity were unappreciated for what they were, however.  The era, the lack of knowledge or understanding in the family I grew up in, and the location of backwoods North Carolina where I grew up had little appreciation of normal child development, and so I was labeled a Liar.

That label followed me around for many years….again, doing what normal children do to sometimes cover up their mistakes, to try to look good in the eyes of those who have the power, to try to minimize the punishments for falling down, I sometimes did not tell the truth.  No, I did not take a cookie.  No, I don’t know anything about the candy in Grandmom’s drawer being gone.  No, I did not take the few coins on my father’s dresser.  It is absolutely true that I did those things.

Later in life, as I understood some of the crazier events that happened to me in my family, I began to see that labeling me as a “Liar” was a brilliant, if unconscious, strategy.  No matter what excellent grades I brought home, no matter what awards and accolades, my identity at home would be one of not being trusted to tell the truth.  And so, when I did understand the importance of speaking out about my early life and dealing with it head on, I would have an inner conflict set up even before I started.

I wonder now if there is a different standard for boys and girls when they do the inevitable and make up a reality, or lie.  Are boys expected to be “naughty” and therefore not stigmatized about lying?  Are girls expected to be pure and chaste and innocent, and so if they act out in ways that children do, they bear the brunt of unfair discrimination?

I remember a particular day when I was 11 years old, when I was caught in a lie (I cannot remember what it was, perhaps the stealing the change on the dresser thing), when I was sent to my room.  I lay on my bed and cried for a long time, feeling a sense of injustice and not being understood.  My parents did not give me an allowance, so I did not have money to buy myself little things like candy or toys.  At the time, I didn’t intellectualize the fact that children need to feel a sense of power and control over their lives in some aspects as they begin to enter adolescence, a healthy, normal development, and that my taking the change from my father’s dresser was an attempt to have some power.  I just knew I felt zero support and understanding in my world.

My father came up and sat on the bed with me for a long time, speaking the importance of telling the truth and how all we have in this world is our reputation.  It may surprise some of you to know that this was one of the most beautiful gifts my father gave to me in our twisted, convoluted history together.  While he raged and sexually preyed on me as a drunk at night, when sober, he became the kind of man my inner masculine wanted to model myself after.  His sharing of his concept of honor made such a deep impression on me at that age that I am touched by his teaching to this day, and part of my moral code and devotion to truth I attribute to this conversation.  How interesting and ironic that my dear father, whom I love and hold in my heart despite everything, would coach and prepare me to reveal what he did to me.

Perhaps I was at the age that I began to understand the difference between truth in the consensual reality and the truth of my imagination.  Perhaps at age 11-12 the child’s brain is capable of conceiving what that means.  Already a prolific writer and winning competitions for my essays in school, I had some sense of the worlds that I had access to through my artistic ability.  I began to learn that I was intelligent, and that the way I put words together had an impact and inspired people.  But add the complexity of what had been done to me in the name of satisfying sexual greed in the dark of night, and the desperate need to keep the secrets in an alcoholic family, and you will see how the telling of the truth has become a very loaded topic.  The gravity of the truth began to shine clear, and the heavy weight to burden me.

What is the truth?  Is something true if we don’t want to look at it?  Is it true despite our attempts to deny it?  What are the ramifications of pretending something isn’t true when it is?  These are all questions that I have wrestled with in endless cycles since I began to wake up.

To this day, I have an obsession with truth.  To the point that if I try an experiment and say something that is NOT true, such as “My name is Beth”, I will start coughing.  I can’t do it.  My inner barometer won’t let me speak or write something that I don’t personally experience as true. 

I have examined many spiritual traditions as well as modern physics and understand now that there are as many realities as there are perspectives, and all are valid.  I also know (and experience) that if a reality is unobserved it may as well not have happened. 

Additionally, I understand that there is some modicum of truth that we can all agree to, if we are willing to acknowledge it.  While my family has given slight, grudging acknowledgment of the sexual abuse and no acknowledgement of the alcoholism I encountered as a child, there is great resistance to me talking about it.  Does this make it untrue?

In my desire to be a loyal daughter, I have censored myself for many years, even though the truth has leaked out in ways through my writing and art and conversations.  Even in therapy I have protected my family as a “good daughter should”, revealing only parts of the story, perhaps the parts that I could handle revealing to myself.  I love my family, as people and as having been the sieve through which I arrived in this world.  I would not be who I am without them.  I have even attempted over the 21 years that I have been in conscious recovery and healing work to actually heal my family, out of my love for them and desire that they, too, be free from the sickness that bound us.  They have been unresponsive, however.

Now, the bird that has lived caged in my throat must be freed, and I am going to talk about my life openly and unapologetically.  I will censor no more.  I choose not to become a raging fanatic for a cause, because that would be out of balance.  Yes, I am a survivor of sexual abuse and an adult child of alcoholics, but that is not my identity or the sum total of who I am.  Not by a long shot. 

My desire is to tell the truth in a measured, grounded way, honoring myself, with the intention and purpose to heal and to give permission to others to acknowledge the truth within themselves, no matter how heinous it may be to see.  I know from my own life journey of looking at these truths that therein lays the path to integration and Wholeness.  And an even deeper appreciation of The Truth.

 “He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”   Friedrich Nietzsche  

Like most babies, I learned how to walk the first time by the age of 11 months.  I crawled successfully at 8 months (seems a little late, but I’ve always been on my own timing), pulled up to standing at 8 ½ months, then the world was my oyster before one year old.

I say that I learned to walk the first time by 11 months because I am learning to walk a second time at the age of 44 years.  Yep, you read right; after 44 years on this earth, this girl is learning how to walk again.

Due to a violent and (pretty gross) compound fracture and severe dislocation of my right ankle in February, I experienced surgery, metal plates and screws, and 8 weeks of weightlessness; for me, a new meaning to the word “stillness”, and the sudden and complete absence of forward motion in my life.

Well, not entirely; the movement that I have been experiencing since my injury has been on the inside, and lots of it.  What I’m noticing is that the movement on the outer world can sometimes be a distraction from the movement in the inner world.  I discovered that I sometimes used physical movement to help me run from feelings that I didn’t want to feel.  Feeling powerless or afraid?  Go for a run or a bike ride.  Feeling angry?  Go clean something.  Feeling anything uncomfortable?  Go MOVE, do anything, but don’t sit still or else it might catch up with me.

I’m exaggerating a bit here; for the last 10 years, I have been working consciously on myself to wake up, and much of that has been about getting more still and paying attention to my feelings.  In my house, I am the one who is most vocal about her feelings, and the one who is most actively reflecting on what I am feeling.  But I live with three guys (one husband and two sons) and a cat.  Well, okay….maybe the cat wins the most vocal about how she feels award…

But all the work I’ve done had taken me only so far; then my ankle met with a series of metal stairs on a rainy day in California, and my knowing of being still so I could feel my feelings got a whole lot deeper.  That’s how it works in process, doesn’t it?  We go so far with something, then find stasis and equilibrium, then a new expansion experience is introduced and we get to grow again (oh goody!)

I am happy to say that I chose to go for it with this experience; I know that when things happen, there is the opportunity to relate to it as a victim or as a choice maker.  I wanted to harvest all of the AHAs and lessons and insights that I could from this experience.  I sure never want it to happen again!  And I haven’t been disappointed; the amazing healing and awarenesses have been profound and bountiful during my weeks of convalescence.  I can look back on it with just a little perspective now, and it feels like a precious gift to be allowed to be so vulnerable. 

I was given the okay to bear weight on April 27, “letting pain be my guide”.  I took off my “Darth Boot” (my affectionate name for my big, black, kick-ass removable cast) and started learning to walk with the aid of my crutches.  Within a couple of days, I noticed that I started to forget where I left them; that’s a good sign!  By the end of that week, I was hobbling around without any help from my rickety metal friends.

But the hobbling is a little troublesome; I look like Frankenstein, arms flailing out in my attempt to keep balance.  All that’s missing is the metal bolts in my neck and the mantra, “FIRE BAD!”  The scars are not pretty, my ankle gets swollen quickly when I am up on it, and it does hurt a bit when I come down on it.  But it’s a good pain, or so I think.  It is the pain of learning to use something in a new way.

Amongst my reflections and ruminations during this time of forced stillness, I have wondered if I was walking in a way that was not good for me.  Maybe not the physical way I walked, but from a symbolic standpoint, where was I leading myself?  How was I getting there?  Was I being forceful or was I being discerning?  Was I afraid of moving forward, or was I walking in balance and ease? 

And now that I have the opportunity to walk again, I also have the opportunity to learn to walk in a different way, perhaps a way that serves me and the world community better.  How do I want to walk in this world?  Confidently, in balance, knowing that I am supported…at ease in my own power, looking forward to my future, knowing I am part of this world and that I have something to offer…with grace, strength, discernment, wisdom, and love. 

I can’t help but reflect on what it must have been like to learn to walk the first time; I can’t remember, although I wish I could.  What would it feel like to feel the inner impulse to move, to get up on one’s feet and take a first step forward?  What kind of innate trust is there in all children as they fly through their developmental stages?  What kind of crazy motor drives the impulse to get off your knees and start walking?!  How amazing is it that we go from being born helpless to moving around at light speed in under a year’s time?  I seriously doubt that we could handle that kind of rapid growth as adults…if I picture me trying to assimilate so many changes in one year as a new baby does, I think I would explode!

I say this because I am a grown woman, in her mid forties, and I have learned to be afraid.  Life has taught me about people and things and events that hurt, and that I must be protective and watchful and wary, lest something bad happen to me.  Even when I am all of those things, sometimes bad things still happen.  That innate trust we are born with can slowly erode over time, to the point that it seems quite unbelievable we ever possessed this gift.

However, I am hopeful.  When I put my injured foot to the floor, I am in essence saying, “I trust that this leg will hold me up”.  When I choose to engage my body with the earth by walking, I am saying I WANT to trust again.  I WANT to be part of the earth walk again, I WANT to move and run and dance and play.   

As I learn to put my foot down and do the careful dance of rolling my heel and pushing off with my toes, I wonder what kind of a little girl I was when I took that first step.  Was it a joyful and exciting adventure?  Was it a feeling of complete trust and knowing that I was supported?  Can I harness that level of trust again as I learn to walk this time?  I pray that I can.   

About two weeks ago, the sun shone through after several days of rain.  The soft sea air buoyed us as we left the RV for a bike ride, the first in several days.  The boys and I had been stir crazy with the weather, and the RV gets tight in the best of times.  Our bike ride took us to the Pismo State Park, right on the coast; as we rode the monarch butterflies, which winter over here due to the mild climate, flitted across our paths, their wings infused with the light of the sun. 

I will remember this joyous bike ride with my boys for a long time, as it will be my last for several months. 

We returned to the RV to get more school work done, and as the boys worked, Peter said he was going on a ride.  I asked if I could go, too….more rather than less exercise is a good rule for me.  He welcomed me; I threw my shoes on and, a smile on my face, stepped out the door, placing my left foot on the top outer step of the RV.

Apparently, I put my heel down on the edge of what turned out to be a sandy step…before I knew what happened, I was flying.  I felt pain, but more shock of having fallen down the stairs, as I am not one who hurts myself much.  When I got to the bottom, I felt that something was wrong; besides the heart pounding from the surprise, I looked down and saw that my right foot was turned the wrong way, and the end of my tibia, the strong inner leg bone that we see as our shin, poking unnaturally through the left side of my ankle. 

I will spare you the details of my strange calm as I gave orders to my family members, the transfer to the hospital ER, the relocation of the ankle and the immediate surgery, all of which I am in the process of writing in great detail as therapeutic work.  More of note is the inner process that has been accelerated due to the whirlwind destruction of my bodily innocence and the surrender required to allow other people to help you when you are accustomed to surviving on your own. 

I have always been a very strong and healthy person, having very few accidental injuries in my life, relegated to the occasional burn or cut. Even in my rash of car accidents in my barely-present early twenties, I walked away without even a bruise.  Never having broken a bone or been to the hospital except for birthing Jess and a small cut that required stitches when I was 11, this accident ‘broke’ my vision of myself as invulnerable.  The healing at physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels that is unfolding inside me through this event is profound.  To me, that’s the juicy stuff; to me, this is where the magic is.

My rigidity in my life has held me up when there was no one else to do it; my parents were actively abusive alcoholics, and there was no safe place for me to be vulnerable.  I had to get tough to make it through my childhood, and I took that toughness with me into my growing life, perceiving through my filters of experience that the world was not a safe place.  Of course, as a result of that filter being in place, I helped create more of that belief, which reinforced my toughness.  Over time, my heart has closed except to those who have proven that I can trust them.  My tests, although unconscious, are rigorous and thorough…my tests weed out those who might make a passing grade from the die-hards.  Only those who truly and passionately love me unconditionally make it through my inner gauntlet.  I am civil to the others, but they will never know the real me, as I don’t trust them to treat me with respect and safety.

And I put myself on the line in these tests; I share myself and make myself vulnerable, then watch what they do with what I have given to them.  Some show me their trustworthiness right away by not being able to hear what I am sharing, or rejecting it outright.  Others are a little “craftier”…they listen and appear to treat my sharing with tenderness and care, but later use it against me.  I give the gift of myself to those who do not deserve my trust to prove to myself that they aren’t trustworthy.  It is a back-asswards pattern of behavior learned when a child cannot trust the two people she depends on to keep her safe in the world.  This event has brought this pattern into clear light, for which I am grateful. 

I now have a bionic ankle, complete with “golden” plate and six “golden” screws (the golden is in my mental picture so that I can accept and make friends with the foreign objects in my body).  I must remain “no weight bearing” for 8 weeks, at which point I will begin to learn to walk again.  In the mean time, I hobble around on crutches and spend a lot of time with my foot up on the couch.  Well, I was complaining about not finding the time to write…now I am writing more than ever.  The insights are coming so thick and fast I can scarcely write them all down. 

And so, in moments of extreme grace and clarity, I am actually grateful that this has happened.  Oh, I have my moments of feeling like a victim, feeling sorry for myself, feeling angry and sad….but all of those are indications of a deeper healing in myself that can occur, if I am just willing to follow the pointers to the place inside where acceptance and insight abound.   

Thank you, my right ankle, for making this sacrifice in service to the whole of me, my inner and outer community.  Like our indigenous ancestors did in holy ceremony, you offered flesh to show how willing you were to put yourself on the line in order for healing to occur on the larger level.  I humbly choose to make the most of this offering!