Inquiring Deeply Newsletters

Wise Relationship Part IV: Irreconcilable Differences

Wise Relationship, Part IV

   Irreconcilable Differences

Generally speaking, we seek agreement with our significant others, but differences are inevitable.    In the interest of “wise relationship”, it behooves us to understand what constitutes  “irreconcilable differences” and how best to relate to them.

In simple terms, I define an “irreconcilable difference” as any interpersonal issue which puts the viability of the relationship in question– something which causes intractable conflict and for which no solution can be found.  But when we look closely at such situations, often we find that the issue is less about the substance of the difference than it is about how both people are reacting to one another.   Beyond the content of so-called irreconcilable differences, there is generally something about the other that each is unable to accept.  It is wise to look beyond the disagreement to the reactive process underneath.

In previous issues of this Newsletter, I unpacked some aspects of our reactions that are due to the complex web of psychological/emotional/relational conflicts that I call entanglements. Here I want to focus on the nature of differences in values, opinions, and beliefs; to differences in subjective “truth”.

Of course, how we relate to our differences is as much about our psychological and emotional patterns as it is about our points of view.  We have very different “windows of tolerance” for differences.   In one couple I worked with, for example, different tastes in music and preference for how loud music should be played in their home had become a domestic war.  Recently I have worked with several couples struggling to middle ground between troubling differences in political views. In seeking to help couples work through disagreements, I try to help them see clearly where they are stuck and what is at stake for each of them.

The crux of the matter often seems to boil down to a conflict over whose view is right and whose view is wrong.  All of us tend to assume (and prefer to think) that our views are correct, and we get very invested in our positions about things.   After all, our views construct the reality we live in, and the need for reality to be coherent is a primary psychological need.   In such situations, it is useful to see clearly what it is we are trying to be right about and why that is important to us. It is also useful to look for instances of black and white thinking.  Both/And is a much wiser frame than Either/Or!

Polarized disagreements often devolve into fights which involve negative judgment and blame– basic manifestations of anger.  In examining this relational pattern closely in many couples, what I have invariably found is that someone, or both someones,  are certain that they are right.  The attitude of moral superiority that creeps into such disagreements is one of the most common emotional stumbling blocks between significant others.

For me, as I think for many of us, an attitude of righteousness in others is one of the most difficult personality characteristics to be with.  There is value in inquiring deeply about this until we begin to discern clearly the shadow of the same righteousness within ourselves.  The need to be right is a basic aspect of the way we defend cherished views of ourselves; views that we are very identified with and invested in.

In considering how to respond wisely to disagreements with others, I have also found it valuable to reflect on a quote attributed to the film director Federico Fellini:  “happiness is being able to tell the truth without hurting anyone.”   What “truth” is it that we think we need to tell?

As a preliminary step, we are wise to understand that what we consider to be “the truth” is  subjectively determined and therefore necessarily subject to disagreement.   One of the basic things that I have learned in working with people in psychotherapy is that, regardless of its objective validity, subjective truth needs to be understood/validated.  If we look deeply enough, what we can find is that everyone has good and sufficient reasons for taking the positions that they do; for their behavior and for their beliefs.  Right vs. wrong is a very limiting frame.  However, that does not mean that we should regard all truths as equally valid.   There are outer limits to what points of view we can regard as sane, and our respect for the reality of others will necessarily be constrained by what we consider to be crazy (or even dangerous).   Nonetheless, communication is well served in any conflict by the sincere intention to see and empathize with the other’s point of view.

Another basic observation is that hearing our truth will feel uncomfortable to someone who doesn’t wish to accept it.  Beyond the need to be right, we all want to maintain a positive view of ourselves, and it can be painful to take in the negative view that someone else may hold.  But notwithstanding that criticism may be painful for someone to hear, it also provides an important opportunity.  (In the vernacular, an “AFGO” – another f-cking growth opportunity !)

Consider, moreover, that there is risk in not speaking my truth as well as in speaking it. For though it may hurt you for me to tell you my truth about you,  it may also be unwise for me to protect your feelings at the expense of abdicating my own.

A good general strategy when we find ourselves in intractable conflict with another is to back off as much as necessary to restore (or find anew) the “highest common ground”.   At the intersection of our differences,  it is also helpful to practice what I have called elsewhere the “intimate dance of speaking and listening”[i].   Beyond cultivating communication skills,  deep listening is a way to deepen the intimacy of our interaction and invite the unfolding of a mutual experience of being known.  Beneath the surface of conflict, there is a lot we can learn about the common humanity of our vulnerability; of our wishes and fears to be seen and heard and to connect deeply with others.

If, as Fellini suggests, happiness is being able to tell the truth, we also need to recognize that wise relationship entails not just speaking but living your subjective truth.    “Should I leave?” is an important question, and living in the question of whether our differences are irreconcilable is a complex challenge.  ‘Irreconcilable differences’ are a way-station that may arise on the path that people sometimes travel when they are seeking to emancipate themselves from bonds with others which they find to be shackling.  However, as Buddhist teacher and psychologist Jack Kornfield reminds us, while it may feel necessary to distance ourselves from another person for awhile or forever, it is never necessary to put anyone out of our hearts.  In other words, we don’t need to use irreconcilable differences to justify our need to separate.

Instead, wise relationship invites us to speak, act, and live our lives, not from reactive patterns, but from the “wisdom inside the growing capacity to pause, reflect, and connect with choice” [ii].  While we may not be able to resolve a disagreement, we can usually find a way to reconcile by appropriately adjusting our boundaries and interpersonal distance. The quality of our relationships rests upon the foundation of our wise understanding and the kindness of our  intentions.

[i] Schuman (2018)    Speaking and Listening: The Intimate Dance of Speaking and Communicating.   Wise Brain Bulletin, 12(5).

[ii] Redding, K. (2022)   Ten Qualities of a Wise Heart.  Creative Press, Anaheim, CA

Resolving Entanglements With Inquiry

Emotional pain is truth knocking on a door that has been closed too long”…..(anonymous)

As described in the previous issue, entanglements are repetitive issues or conflicts that arise in close relationships, causing emotional upset – “relational turbulence”.   Though the focus in the previous discussion was on dynamics between intimate partners,  entanglements also occur in relationships between family members, friends, and co-workers —  in many (if not all ) of our connections with others.   They are the source of much of the psychological distress in life.

Entanglements arise as a function of the emotional baggage we carry.   We experience relationship in a context which includes our memories of similar situations in the past where we were hurt, disappointed,  invalidated, rejected, or even abused.  Because of these reactions, as the writer William Faulkner famously said,  “The past is never dead.  It’s not even past.”     This basic fact of psychological life readily gives rise to blurring in our minds (and in our experience) about relational turbulence.  In that state of mind, emotional chaos may make it hard to be clear about what happened then vs. what is happening now, and about who is doing what to whom.

Entanglements are made worse when the personal boundaries of the participants are undifferentiated, permeable, or unclear.  Each person may then become liable to psychological enmeshment with the other, unproductively involved with the other’s emotional reactions.  Each one is triggered by the other.   In this state of mutual reactivity, both people will tend to feel on the receiving end of something unpleasant, trapped in a familiar relational box.   This reciprocal entanglement in repetitive painful patterns of interaction forecloses the possibility that something new will occur.

Unfortunately, there is no simple formula for resolving these kinds of situations.  The process of resolving entanglements is just that: a process.   Relationship is a path we are travelling with another, and difficulties on the path are best approached with the mindset of being aware and looking for what may be constructive in going forward.   I liken this process to the way we might travel through fog:  by slowing down and feeling our way forward step by step.  When I am in this situation, I try to wrap my mind around surrendering to the situation with the intention to find an opening.  But everyone needs to find their own way.  The basic aspiration is simply to bring kind attention to the surfaces with others that are painful or difficult for us.

Having recognized that we are caught up in an entanglement with someone,  the experiential priority is to pause:  to stop and feel.  What is this experience like for you?  What might it be like for the Other?  Inquire deeply.   This is a moment when there is something for you to discover; something that needs to be known.

Simply recognizing that we are caught in an entanglement is the essential first step.   In that recognition,  we move into the position of witness — analogous to what in Zen is called a “backward step.”   Such moments provide the beginning of insight into the true nature of an entanglement:  In order to accept the other person, we must first see more clearly what it is that their actions trigger in us.   We need to ask ourselves “what feeling within myself am I having trouble being with?”   To the extent that we get caught up in a reaction to someone else, we become blind to the part of the difficulty that lies within ourselves.  

The relational field is an important mirror in which we have the opportunity to deeply encounter ourselves and others.    Such moments are important stepping stones on each person’s path of spiritual and psychological growth.   They hold the promise of all that is not yet known.

Wise Relationship Part II: Entanglements–Who Is Doing What To Whom?

photo Farshad Sanaee

Wise Relationship, Part II           Entanglement:  Who Is Doing What To Whom?

The Calm at the Center of the Storm

Human beings are relational beings.  We spend the majority of our lives conversing and interacting with others, continually mixing minds with others (including in cyberspace).  It is not an exaggeration to say that we are made of relationship.

Because relationship is so foundational, it is an important topic for meditative exploration and contemplation.    In general,  bringing Presence to the intimate edge of our connection with others can be revealing, and it holds the potential to transform how we relate.

Relational inquiry is broad in scope. For example, we can explore who we like/dislike, and why.  (And what exactly is entailed in “liking someone”?)   We can notice what parts of ourselves show up in particular situations;   what feelings and psychological needs come up;  what is it that wants/needs to be known or spoken.   Following the guidelines of Buddhist practice, we can investigate the surface of our connection with others both externally (what is occurring between us) and internally (how we are holding the relationship in mind).

Here I want to focus on a particular set of relational difficulties in close relationships that we may call entanglement.  I am not using this term as a euphemism for a dysfunctional connection with someone,  but rather to point to repetitive painful ‘knots’ of entangled emotion (often in the form of fights) which are determined by the emotional baggage of both parties.  This can become especially problematic when both people in the relationship have similar psychological issues – which is often the case because such vulnerabilities are part of what attracts us to particular others in the first place.

A very common entanglement is that which occurs when both people feel wounded and/or angry at the same time and each blames the other for having started it.  (A pervasive dynamic in couples!)   This is by its very nature a reactive situation, and the anger and/or pain that arises can be emotionally destabilizing.

What are skillful means for dealing with entanglements such as this?   In the usual application of mindfulness practice to the situation, the general “prescription” goes by the acronym  R.A.I.N.  :  recognition, acceptance, investigation, and non-identification.[i]    In order to see the truth of what is happening, it is recommended that we pause the reactive pattern and drop the story in order to go beneath the surface level of the moment which is clouded with emotions and habitual thinking.

But finding our way past the cul de sac of entanglement is also helped by deepening our emotional understanding of how each person’s patterns of attachment are challenged by the partner’s.  More than simple awareness, and beyond cognitive understanding of the situation,  we need to feel our way into the upset.  I often liken this to feeling for a splinter at the center of an area of inflammation on the skin.  True transformation of entanglements depends on our ability to truly meet the emotional challenge on its own terms.

Inquiring deeply into the question who is doing what to whom?  can begin to detangle the situation.   Our initial idea of what is happening needs to include, for example, the recognition that whatever is happening is a co-arising event.  To see the relational difficulty in terms of we instead of you vs. me is itself an important step forward.

Often the best place to begin to see more deeply into who is doing what to whom? is in contemplation after the fact.  Once the upset has passed and we have recovered our self-reflective function, we can step back and try to gain some perspective on the reactive pattern that each of us reciprocally triggers in the other.  A period of open-awareness sitting meditation provides a good opportunity to see more clearly what is going on for us.  What comes up in awareness helps to reveal what we are defending, what we need to be right about, and what is at stake.

The inquiry question who is doing what to whom?  may show us the relational roots of the reactive pattern we are caught in.  Associations to earlier similar experiences in family of origin or in other relationships may be explored.  Which actual others did what to you (or someone else) ?  And/or,  is this something you have ever done to someone else?   It is helpful to learn to notice more clearly when we engage psychological defenses in order to avoid experiencing, admitting to, or dealing with unwanted feelings.   Ideally, by examining the pattern and its network of associations in the mind, we can come to an empathic understanding of the entanglement that is inclusive of the pain of both partners and free of blame.

The question of who is doing what to whom? is a good inquiry practice.   In the heat of difficult interactions with others, simply engaging with the question who is doing what to whom?  may sometimes help us to get free from whatever relational box we have gotten trapped in.   There is calm at the center of every relational storm where we can remind ourselves to look for what it is we love in this person we are upset with and where we can remember our relational aspirations.

At a deeper level, inquiring deeply into who is doing what to whom can help to free us from the ego identifications  that keep us stuck.  Relational entanglements can show us the living reality that we are intersubjective beings in a constant and fluid process of relational exchange with others.  Experiential awareness of this “interbeing” holds the key to transformation of entanglement.

[i] A newer version of this teaching uses the directives to “Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture”.

Wise Relationship (Part I): Ninth Step on the Eightfold Noble Path

Relational angst is one of the primary sources of pain in this human life.  While personal stresses derive principally from our interactions with family members, coworkers, and friends, our psychological dysfunctions also seem increasingly to be permeating the larger socio-cultural whole.  Indeed, in my view our collective mental health seems generally to have been in a state of decline in recent years, accelerating in its downward trajectory during the pandemic and with the stressors of our recent national political climate.

Psychological, interpersonal, and social suffering are deeply interwoven.  In Buddhist terms, it is all dukkha:  part of our universal and essential human dissatisfaction with the terms of human existence. Consistent with what the Buddha taught, it is quite obviously true that greed, hatred, and ignorance are at the root of our relational dukkha.  Equally obvious, our individual well-being is interconnected with the well-being of all.   For these reasons,  I believe that it behooves each of us to inquire deeply about the true meaning of “wise relationship” In doing so, not only can we relieve our own suffering, but in some small way, perhaps, we may also mitigate the suffering of the greater whole.

Although wise relationship is implicit in all limbs of the eightfold noble path (for example, in the applications of right view, intention, action, and speech),  Buddhist psychology does not explicitly address the nature of the relational entanglements that give rise to most of our difficulties.   If anything, Buddhism tends to point us towards not getting entangled in such things, warning of how readily we can get lost in them.   There is merit in taking this caution to heart: personal relationships present formidable challenges.   We should all be chastened by the conspicuous examples of otherwise wise teachers who have gotten caught up in very unwise relationships!

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So, a good preliminary inquiry is:         What Is a “Wise Relationship”?

Contemplating this question can go in many different directions all at once.   It may include ideas about what is virtuous and wholesome, such as those elaborated in Buddhist teachings, but it is also meant to elicit a deeper understanding of what  wise relationship is and how we recognize when it is present.

In a very general sense, if we aspire to engage wise relationship,  it is helpful to begin from inside:  reflecting on your own experience of wise relationship.

Set your mind to recall times that you have felt like you were in the presence of relating wisely with others:   either some way that you felt wise, or some way that you have been on the receiving end of someone else’s wisdom.

Recall any parables, teaching stories, or similar that evoke wise relationship for you.

For me, the quintessence of  “wise relationship” seems to go to the subjective quality of being with someone; a felt sense.  What we can notice is that sometimes it simply feels clear that we are in the presence of wisdom and compassion.  When we are interacting with others, there is a deeply felt sense of intimacy and presence.

Sometimes we may feel a sense of channeling wisdom, compassion, or both, which feels very enlivening.

The very same relationship may feel very wise in some moments and very fraught in others. [But then, is that really the same relationship?    Can you really step in the same river twice?]

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I find it useful to think of wise relationship as a kind of three-legged race.   When there is cooperation, resonance, and synchrony between us,  things move along well.   When there is not – when instead we encounter a reaction which impedes us — an “entanglement”–  we need to examine the disruption and find a wise path forwards towards repair.   To invoke Phillip Moffitt’s evocative phrase, we need to practice “dancing with life”, and, as the saying goes, when you stumble, make it part of the dance.

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Entanglements, and the problems that result from them, ultimately stem from our interpersonal reactivity and its emotional roots.   Such human difficulties are not optional!  Most of us have little or no education about, nor modelling of, how to understand the dynamics between people in relationship nor how to wisely engage the difficulties.

Deep investigation and inquiry can help to illuminate the nature of the entanglements we find ourselves in, and by our willingness to engage with our problems in this way, the path of wise relationship reveals itself.    This kind of inquiry is well suited to psychological problems, and some of what we learn is applicable to the understanding of sociocultural conflict as well.

In this and the next series of Inquiring Deeply Newsletters,  my intention is to describe a path of contemplative inquiry about Wise Relationship in the form of some questions that can be useful to practice with.  I regard such inquiry less as a formal practice than as creative process; a way of practicing with psychological problems.  Simply put, in the process of inquiring deeply I pose questions (for myself or to others) as a means of feeling my way into the emotional core of the entanglement.

Asking basic questions of ourselves or others in the face of relational turbulence helps to illuminate what is occurring: what expectations have been disappointed, what psychological needs have been thwarted,  or what other difficulty is present.

Fundamentally, deep inquiry is less about the particular questions that we ask than about the way that we listen for the answers.  As Albert Einstein wisely said, we cannot solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.  We inquire deeply as a way of shifting the way that we relate to our process of relating with others.  Questions are a chrysalis in which solutions to our relational problems slowly develop and emerge.

Some Reflections On Pace of Life

Reflections on Introversion & Social Distancing in the Time of COVID

The psychological and mental health consequences of the COVID pandemic have been a popular focus of many recent television interviews, magazine articles, and dharma talks.   In my previous newsletter, I described one aspect of the emotional impact which I termed “existential shock”:  a kind of radical and fundamental wave of turbulence in the collective psyche.   Existential shock happens when we have been confronted with the truth that Reality is always and irrevocably tenuous and uncertain.  The “normal” we return to may or may not be very similar to the one that was left behind.

Apart from existential threats of illness, death, and loss (including financial insecurities),  quarantine provides its own set of emotional challenges.   While the particular obstacles vary with individual circumstances, what we can notice is that sheltering at home is far more disruptive for some people than others.   We depend on the quality of our interaction with others in order to be able to effectively manage our feelings.   Being too alone and deprived of ordinary channels of social support can be difficult, to say the least.   And, conversely, being cooped up with others who may themselves be emotionally off-balance can be triggering.    For these reasons,  quarantine can push us into the deep water of ourselves.

What I notice in my psychotherapeutic work with others is the truth of the aphorism that wherever you go, there you are.   Our experience of quarantine— of any experience—depends not only on our circumstances but also upon both our temperaments as well as our different histories and experiences of  “home” and “family ”.   As depicted in the cartoon, what is an imprisoning isolation for one person may feel like a cozy cocoon to another.

For those of us who are introverts and/or homebodies,  the experience of quarantine may feel congruent with a preferred way of being.   For example, sheltering in place can provide permission to “hang out” in the rhythm of the day;  a slower pace of life that is more stay-cation than isolation.  But we can also notice that aloneness does not always feel the same.   It can feel very full at times, empty or lonely at others.    [What is the felt sense of a companionable aloneness with yourself?  In what ways do you tend to get lost in distractions, avoidance, or spacing out?  ] .

The other major dimension of quarantine, “social distancing”, gives us an opportunity to investigate the surface of our connection with others.   What internal experience spurs the impulse to connect?   What are we hoping to get? (Comfort?  Validation? Stimulation?  Distraction from an unpleasant internal state? )  What defines the difference between a satisfactory and an unsatisfactory contact with someone else?  Do we get energy from connection, or does it drain us?

“Introversion” is not a one-size fits all personality trait nor even a particular relational style.   It is not simply the preference for spending time alone, the tendency to be quiet, nor social reserve.  It is a complex mixture of our experiences of being alone and our ways of being with others.  It is possible to feel quite connected socially even when we spending time by ourselves.   And conversely, it is also possible to feel more alone, or even lonely,  when we are in the presence of others.

What we can discover when we inquire deeply about our experiences of introversion and social distancing is that our connection with ourselves and the interconnection between ourselves and the world are two sides of a single coin.

Some Reflections on Existential Shock

                                                    Some Reflections on Existential Shock

It is commonplace in recent days for people to express astonishment at how COVID could have so completely upended the world, causing everything to change so suddenly and all at once.   This is a kind of situation for which the term “existential shock” seems both apt and descriptive.

Existential shock can result from many different kinds of trauma that befall human beings –both personal and global cataclysmic events.   Its defining characteristic is an experience of intense personal upheaval in which it is felt that “the world” itself seems called into question.   The philosopher Martin Heidegger describes such moments as the darkness which can break out at any point in the struggle of human existence.

Grappling with the existential shock of COVID has invited me to ponder the question “what IS ‘the world,’ anyway?”   This is a deep inquiry with many layers, but where I looked first was to what the German language designates by the word “weltanschauung”:  the fundamental cognitive orientation which encompasses the whole of the individual’s or society’s knowledge and presumptions about the nature of things.  

Bottom line,  “the world” is generated by a collective and socially constructed experience which corresponds to what we come to expect about “the way life is” at a particular time and place.     On one level,  “the world” includes all of the mundane features of the modern Western cultural lifestyle, inclusive of things such as running water, electricity, grocery stores,  and the internet.   At another level, “the world” includes planet earth and all of its denizens, and presupposes all of the things that we take to be eternal, including planetary events such as seasons, climate, weather patterns, etc.   

But existential shock shows us the Zen truth of “not always so”[1]. Our expectations about the world rest on the common metaphysical illusions of human life:  the presumed nature of things which is communicated and sustained through the medium of words and reified pictures.   As the philosopher Wittgenstein expressed it, we humans are “bewitched by language”; our shared illusions replace the tragic finitude and transience of existence with a picture of a permanent and eternally changeless reality[2].   

When we encounter the fact that life is otherwise — transient and context-dependent – this can be shocking.   ( In the effort to remind myself to be mindful of this existential truth, for many years I kept a refrigerator magnet which said on it “SUDDENLY!”)

As I reflect on it, I see that existential shock arises as a consequence of being dislodged from the ongoing-ness of life.  We are psychologically reliant on what feels ordinary and routine,  on the structures of meaning that define our lived experience.  When this structure suddenly changes, our felt sense of the continuity of being is disrupted.   And because, as the famed psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott was the first to emphasize, going-on-being is the subjective center of our human world,  interruptions in our experience of going-on-being are traumatic.

Many circumstances and crises have this tendency to disrupt the experience of continuity of being, but none more than the experience of being seriously ill or attending someone who is dying.   When we are very sick – even from causes which are not life threatening – it can feel that the world has gone on without us.  The existential impact of such an experience can be profound.   As indicated in the Chinese book of divination, the  i ching,  crisis contains both danger and opportunity.   Crisis can be an important threshold experience and a portal to personal transformation.  It poses an existential challenge: will we be broken down and defeated by our reactivity and resistance to change, or broken open and transformed?[3]

The value of existential shock is well conveyed in the story of the Buddha’s life.   Leaving the protected enclave of the kingdom of his birth and youth, it is told that the young Buddha encountered the realities of old age, sickness, and death,  and he was so struck by these “heavenly messengers” that he vowed to find the path to enlightenment.  Existential shock can be profound in a way which can initiate deep transformation in us, awakening our consciousness.  

As has been observed by many, the COVID pandemic presents us with opportunity as well as crisis.  Thanks to the necessity to stay at home, the enforced busyness and pressures of life are stripped away, giving many of us a taste of what is available on meditation retreat.  For all of the danger it presents, COVID shows us what is available when we slow down enough to be present and open to a more spacious awareness of being.   We have the opportunity to lean into the uncertainty which seems to be the center from which everything begins.

At the level of “the world”, the opportunity inherent in this pandemic is nowhere expressed more beautifully than in the following poem:

“LOCKDOWN” 

from Richard Hendrick (Brother Richard) in Ireland, March 13, 2020

Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
 
But,
 
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise, you can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet, the sky is no longer thick with fumes, but blue and grey and clear.
 
They say that in the streets of Assisi, people are singing to each other across the empty squares.
Keeping their windows open so that those who are alone may hear the sounds of family around them.
 
They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman is busy spreading fliers with her number through the neighborhood, So that the elders may have someone to call on.
 
Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples are preparing to welcome and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary.
 
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting.
All over the world people are looking at their neighbors in a new way, with empathy and compassion.
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality — To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To love.
 
So we pray and we remember that –
Yes there is fear. But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation. But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying. But there does not have to be selfishness.
Yes there is sickness. But there does not have to be disease of the soul.
Yes there is even death. But there can always be a rebirth of love.
 
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic.
 
The birds are singing again, the sky is clearing, spring is coming, And we are always encompassed by love.
 
Open the windows of your soul.
And though you may not be able to touch across the empty square, Sing.

References:

[1] Suzuki, S.   (2002)   Not Always So.   Harper Collins Books

[2] Stolorow, R.   (2020)  Planet earth: crumbing metaphysical illusion. American Imago, Vol. 77 (1): 105–107.

[3] Lesser, E.  (2005)   Broken Open:  How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.    Villard Books, Random House

The Human Condition: Freeing The Spirit From Its Cell

THE HUMAN CONDITION:  FREEING THE SPIRIT FROM ITS CELL*

March, 2020

This cartoon beautifully illustrates a central predicament of the human condition:     each of us is painfully constrained by underlying assumptions that we do not see.   What we do not recognize, we also cannot question or change.

What we are blind to in ourselves is the limiting boundary of our freedom.

The cartoon cage may be interpreted as representing the carapace of “ego identity”:  our concepts of who we think we are; who we are afraid we are; what we are invested in having, doing, and being; and who we think we are supposed to be and/or are striving to become.  The limiting personal enclosure for each of us is constructed from these autobiographical themes,  which derive from how we were related to by family and others during our early development.

In psychological terms, we can further see this bird as trapped in the prison of its own defenses:  its need to cling to what is familiar in order to preserve some experience of safety within a familiar world.    Though in some sense a cage is safe – think of the crates used for puppy training—  this strategy precludes us from discovering the world beyond the cage: the universe of other possibilities.

That people cling to things that make them unhappy may be the source of all of our troubles, but this tendency can be – unfortunately – difficult to change.  As I have explained and unpacked elsewhere,  problems live in the matrix of our relationships with others**.   This is where we can look most effectively if we want to disentangle the knots of feelings, personality, and core beliefs that keep us trapped.

While it may be true, as the title of the Buddhist book says, “No Self, No Problem”***,  trying to “let go” in order is seldom of lasting help.  “Let it be” is better advice, but this too is easier said than done.  Nonetheless, it is useful to recognize that the freedom we seek is actually not outside our actual experience.

In the words of the 20th century mystic and philosopher G.I. Gurjieff,

The more clearly you can see the situation
Feel your way into the situation
Articulate what you feel
Put words to your experience
The more real it becomes
The more real YOU become

*title adapted from paper by Brandschaft, B. et.al. (2010) in Towards an Emancipatory Psychoanalysis, Routledge Press NY**

Schuman, M. (2017)  Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Inquiring Deeply. Routledge Press, NY

***Thubten, A.   (2009)  No Self No Problem   Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, NY.