Sequel To A Death

I was raised in a strictly Atheist, intolerant-to-anything-spiritual family. My parents prided themselves on their brilliant scientific minds, and without saying it directly, on being above other peoples’ childish need for religious comforts. When my father was dying in 2011, he made us promise that he would not be subjected to a funeral where people would make ludicrous pronouncements about a pretend God welcoming him “home”. He wasn’t going to be an unwitting accomplice to such a farce if his frail, cancer-ravaged being could avoid it. Averse to any ceremonial pomp-and-circumstance, my sister and I granted his wishes without difficulty.

Interestingly, at the very same time, throughout his last few days at home in bed receiving hospice care, still firm in his anti-God convictions, he acknowledged that he was witnessing relatives and people whom he had known gathering all around him in a circle. None of us had any idea what this was about at the time. His mind was perfectly lucid, his intellect was intact. Prior to this happening to him, my father would have deemed someone’s deathbed visions as a cut and dry case of delusions caused by cerebral hypoxia. Yet he was not experiencing any issues with brain function. He also reported viewing his own body from an elevated vantage in a high corner of the room- a concept known as “astral travel”. (My father would shudder to read such “woo-woo” sounding words associated with him- I’m sorry Dad!)

My sister Lisa and I were both by his side at the end, and I felt so lucky to be there holding his hand. I was surprised later to discover that our togetherness had failed to create a shared experience, however. Lisa told me later that in his last moment, she registered fear in my father’s eyes.

Not me. No way.

Without question, I saw Awe.

This experience was the first time I had considered that there might actually be more to life than what we can account for with a materialistic view of reality. I didn’t know what to think but it kicked the door of my metaphysical mind open just a bit.

When my mother died in June 2020, Aunt Marjory reached out expressing condolences and the sentiment, “Grief can be complicated.” It prickled me considering the relationship I’d had with my mother. I resented pressure to jump on the grief-bandwagon with the rest of normal society who hailed from healthy, loving families- and were thus disqualified from commenting in any way on my existence. Inwardly I scoffed, “Don’t assume I’m grieving. I never said I was and I’m not. I’m glad my mother isn’t suffering anymore. I hope she has peace, but I am fine. Trust me.” I had my experience with her at the end, she’s gone, and that’s that.

Or so I thought.

2 months later:

August of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic- as a single parent and psychotherapist with a full caseload of clients, some having survived the most devastating early childhood traumas, I was highly stressed, but as usual just pushing through. I was overwhelmed by spending so much of my life at the office. I was struggling to let myself take a break and explore my desire to offer a more spiritual approach to serving clients. I finally took a much-needed trip to visit my best friend Alisa in Chicago- and after talking to her about my workaholism, the pressure I was feeling, and my lack of clarity about what to do next, she breezily made a suggestion that would change my entire life:

“You should ask your mom for help.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, legitimately baffled. (She knew damn well my mom was dead.)

• Crazy “coincident”: Alisa’s mother died on the exact same night as my mother:

  June 8th, 2020. (Someone please tell me what that means…)

Alisa then informed me that her mom was assisting with her very successful interior design firm.

WHAAT?!?

Her demeanor was so matter-of-fact that I wondered how I’d never known she had this kind of (suspect) belief system where you can (and should) be asking for support from dead people. I’d never fathomed asking my mom for help- even when she was alive. I rarely ask for anything from living people… But Alisa was serious and I am intrigued by strange experiences, so I thought, “Why not?”

So one day, after my morning meditation, I made a quick, unassuming little request: “Mom, I don’t know if you’re out there hearing things, but if you are, maybe you could send me a sign…?” and I trailed off awkwardly because I felt like a complete idiot doing this- even in the absolute privacy of my own 99.9% skeptical mind. And I had no clue what that “sign” might even look like.

But then, the most peculiar thing started to happen. All the lights in my home, my garage and even my office started to blink off and on throughout the day, every day- for 2.5 months. And, even more baffling, they blinked most insistently when I played Julio Iglesias- my mom’s all time favorite artist.

All the light bulbs in my life suddenly going nuts all at once was certainly interesting, considering the timing. My boys and I laughed and kind of marveled about it, but none of us knew what to think. It felt like there was an intense message trying to come through, but I had no way of interpreting it. Friends suggested I sage my home- another thing I couldn’t quite reconcile my mind to at that point. But these blinking lights were over the top and I was tired of having to replace bulbs, schedule electricians and still be left wondering what it all meant. So I thought, “What the hell, I’ll do my own little voodoo science experiment and purchase some sage.”

On an early October evening, I lit the sage, inwardly questioning my sanity as I roamed around my home like some reluctant paranormal priestess and sent out a thought message:

“Mom, if this has been you with the lights etc., thank you for responding. I really appreciate it and it’s been cool to see. But at this point, I want you to be free to go and just enjoy your existence now. I forgive you for everything and just want you to be happy. I send you love.”

And then.

It all stopped. All at once.

The lights never blinked again after that night. For months, there was no strange activity happening any more at all. It was like it had never happened.

UNTIL

January 2021.

My friend Malia posted on FB about watching the Netflix show, “Surviving Death”. This piqued my interest so I binged it that Sunday January 17th- watched all the episodes back to back- uncharacteristic of me who can barely watch one episode of anything. Some of it was compelling, other parts exposed charlatans who make the whole prospect of connecting to souls beyond the veil just feel like a seedy exploitation of vulnerable, grieving people. But overall, the scammers couldn’t spoil it for me. This show, coupled with my own unusual experiences, was opening my eyes in ways they had never been opened before.

At that time, I was also working through the book, The Artist’s Way. In one of the journal prompts, the author Julia Cameron suggested writing about my favorite childhood toy- a little stuffed Tiger I named Tigger who made me incredibly happy. I used to wash his fur with neon green “Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific” shampoo and then sniff him all day long, feeling proud of my loving devotion and grateful to have his cute little self in my life.

This was present in my mind when some After-Death expert on the show suggested that if you really want to receive contact from a deceased person, you have to reach out with intention and ask them for a specific sign. Part of me felt the lights were significant- and it was compelling that all activity stopped when I let my mother know I’d received her blinking lights as a message of connection and that she could stop now. But this was a mind-blowing implication to a person like me who’d been raised to think that there is absolutely nothing beyond the physical life we lead on earth, and that when we die, we simply become a banquet for maggots. That is it. End of story. To think anything else was blasphemous.

So, I had to reach out one more time to see what in the world would transpire next. Without considering how easy or difficult various signs might be to send, I sat down to meditate that Monday January 18th, and at the end added, “Well mom, I don’t know if all those blinking lights was you, but if it was, and you’re still around, maybe you can send me a Tiger.” I wasn’t attached because I honestly didn’t believe anything would happen. It was just a fun little experiment with life.

I left for work, saw a few clients and then took my lunch break. Instead of going out to eat as I normally would, I decided to stay at my office and watch a NARM training video. I clicked it on and sat back to soak in the wisdom. Then, as I took in the scene in front of me, I stopped short. My arms tingled and my eyes narrowed as I leaned close to the frame to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. In between the clinician and the client sat a little stuffed tiger. My head tilted. I looked closer. Yes. That is a tiger. “Ok. That’s crazy,” I thought as I smiled suspiciously. “But is it really?” I followed. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Even though I don’t actually believe in coincidences... But then, what would this mean…?”

Back home that evening, I told my kids about requesting my mom send me a tiger and how one showed up within a few hours. They were intrigued but getting used to these strange synchronicities. That evening, I was rushing to finish preparing dinner while my boys hung out together, laughing, baiting, and roasting each other at the table. Spotify began playing a song I love but is kind of a downer for kids, so I skipped it. The next song that came on “randomly” was one by my mom’s favorite artist, Julio Iglesias: “Me Va, Me Va”, a super fun and up-tempo number, and my boys and I all started singing and dancing enthusiastically. It was quite a shift in energy and it made us all really joyful. Then, at the exact moment the song ended, the lightbulb in the kitchen directly above the music went out- for good. The boys and I looked at each other like, “Can you believe this sh**?”

Later that evening, I went downstairs to spend some time with my little beloved Rainer., my favorite time in any day. He was lamenting about his adorable, thick-ish build, so I innocently remarked, “Well, I think you’re perfect, but if you want to change your body, you have to devote some energy to that. Why don’t you do some push-ups right now?”

He politely declined.

I became annoyed and delivered a “Don’t complain about things you’re not willing to change” sermon. (The kind everyone enjoys.) The night turned dark from there as he accused me of being too hard on him, pointing out that his father has a superior way of motivating him, and finished by saying I make him feel “small”.

Something about that word “small” hit me like a sledgehammer. The horrific pain I felt in hearing it rerouted me to a whole new timeline at that moment. Knowing that my life revolves around trying to elevate my kids to feel so loved, adored, admired, precious, irreplaceable…I could not compute how this torrent of deep love could be experienced as something so demoralizing instead.

I became lost in a labyrinth of my own inner time-travel. Disbelief about what I was hearing made me think about my own mother and what her experience must have been like. I thought, “Here I am utterly devoted to these kids, sacrificing so much of what I want for myself in order to do what I know is best, most comfortable and enjoyable for them and yet Rainer is telling me that he just feels hurt.” Somehow, I had never heard something so devastating. I broke down entirely.

And in that moment, I finally saw my own mother as an actual, vulnerable, not-invincible HUMAN. I saw her as a real person, struggling just as we all do to understand life and get things right without ever really knowing how. I had never understood that before, never felt the truth of it until this exact second. My eviscerating pain was the only thing that allowed me to connect to what must have been hers as well.

I felt helpless, bereft, and defeated. Here I was guiding clients each day in how to be effective and loving with the people in their lives- and receiving praise about how wise, brilliant, and healing I am as a person- and hearing about how their relationships were vastly improving- and my own son, who I love more than anything in the world, was telling me I was a failure in what mattered to me the most. I wanted to disappear from society/adulthood/parenthood and all its endless, thankless demands. The stress of that bizarre and oppressive pandemic era combined with the upending of my belief in my success as a parent caused a total inner collapse. I buried my face in my hands and just began to sob.

In time, I gazed up and saw a look of frozen, open-mouthed alarm had taken over Rainer’s face. Again, my adoring clients flashed through my mind and I shuddered at my sickening personal failure. I composed myself and said, “Rainer, you don’t have to help me or fix me in this. You aren’t wrong to have said what you said. You have every right to feel what you feel and say what you need to say. I’m just in shock. I finally realize that something I made my whole life about- being a wonderful loving mother to you (and proving unconsciously to my parents how easy it could have been if they had only done things differently- the way I will do things with my own kids…) is not something I have succeeded in, despite everything.”

I finally understood something about parenthood and about my own mother that I had never known before. If I loved my kids as much as I did and they still could feel so hurt- so wounded, perhaps even at times unloved, my God- I have NO IDEA what I’m doing as a parent or as a person- and, even crazier yet, maybe I had been loved after all- by a very damaged mother of my own who felt equally lost about how to “do it right”.

I had lived all my life with a narrative that because of the way my parents had treated me, clearly they hadn’t loved me. And it became so clear in that moment that it wasn’t ever about not being loved. I felt a surge of compassion for my mother- as tough as she had been. I now totally related to her sense of hopelessness to ever be understood and how she responded to that by lashing out and cutting me off. When we feel misunderstood and we’ve never developed tools to properly communicate or manage, sometimes we just give up. I knew all about that. I’d spent my entire life severing relationships at the faintest glimmer of feeling hurt or undervalued. It was the only way I knew to feel safe, restored again to my all-powerful island of one.

As parents, we work 24/7, even when we are not with our kids. We can never ever stop considering these little humans above ourselves. It’s exhausting and painful at times, despite the deep, inherent beauty and joy. We give so much- endlessly, and all the while, we can feel so lost, alone and unacknowledged. So many things began to occur to me and all of them were unbearable. I finally recognized my own inhumanity, lack of compassion and grace towards my mother. I finally understood that she too deserved so much better than what she got.

At this point in my reverie, Ellis joined us to see if we were ok. In his wise, measured way, he shared that while he knew that I loved them very much, he could understand how Rainer feels and agreed that I am too hard on them. In my mind, I protested- “My God- I ask nothing of you- and if anything, I struggle with the fear that you have no challenges to face in life. How will you develop grit? How will you be ok if I don’t show you how to survive the real world with real demands?” All that I’ve accomplished has been a response to feeling brutalized, constrained, and abandoned. I had to fight so hard to even become a functional person- and my kids seem to have it so easy.

And reflecting on my family of origin- with three older siblings of my own who continued to live with my parents throughout adulthood, never held down jobs or been able to function in society because my parents never asked anything of us- I just had no idea what a healthy balance might be. My fiery and independent ways caused my parents to leave me to my own devices- not speaking to me for years on end- while continuing to coddle my siblings in every way. Holding myself to a higher standard and pushing myself hard helped me to create an adult life that my siblings never did. The idea of letting my children falter in this way terrified me.

But it was dawning on me that I have no idea how to love in a way that lets people feel totally accepted. I could see that now. I didn’t receive that lesson and it remains a mystery. I never had a soft place to land, and I thought I was strong because of that challenge rather than in spite of it. I feel the need to push my loved ones when it looks as though they are accepting defeat, even though I was never pushed- simply deserted. I was suddenly aware that this was my mother’s history as well. She became materially successful because her intellect and drive made it possible. But she never had a chance to develop her softer emotional capacities. It never felt safe to do so- and the same had been true of me. 

Life as I understood it had come to a screeching halt and I was strangely more connected to my mother than ever before. A vast illusion had been lifted and I was struggling to cope with this blinding new vision. I asked my beautiful boys if they would prefer to live with their dads. Both said no. I felt grateful but still lost and emotionally smashed to pieces. I admitted aloud, “I have no map. I have no understanding. I don’t know what to do.” And I just cried and cried.

They crawled towards me, sat in my lap, and wrapped their loving arms around me. We sat there all huddled together for a few minutes in silence. Then Rainer separated himself, scooted across the floor, reached into his toy bin and pulled out the first stuffed animal that he touched- a tiger that I didn’t even know he owned.

He smiled sweetly at me and with so much loving-tenderness said,

“Look mom- it’s your sign.”

~This was just the beginning.

Stay tuned for Part II: “Electric Violet Lights and Higher Realms”

Finally Writing My Memoir

Hello Lovely Reader,

I’m always touched when clients tell me they’ve checked to see if I have written any more blogs lately.

Actually, I’m in the beginning stages of writing my memoir/ spiritual-paranormal exploration book.

If this happens to be why you’re here- thank you!

Every person I encounter in life is teaching me so much. If you are on this page, please know that in a very deep and meaningful way, you are a part of my story- and my heart.

Much love,

Jenny

Letting Life Change Us

My sister Lisa messaged me on a beautiful, blue-sky Sunday in June that it wouldn’t be long before my mother was gone according to the hospice nurse, so I cancelled my plans and drove directly over. But let me be clear, this wasn’t inspired by a loving dedication to my mother. As my ex-husband (and now close friend) David once noted, “You’re not the long-suffering type.” When something is destructive, unhealthy, or simply not working, I generally stop doing it. It had been many years since I’d ceased engaging in any way with my mother, or honestly even caring. And as challenging as my relationship with my sister had become, I still love her and feel grateful for her. She saved me actually, just by sharing this life with me. Growing up, she had her own room but always stayed with me in mine. Lying in bed together as teenagers- “sleeping off the hunger” (How do y’all stay so skinny??) so we wouldn’t have to go into the kitchen/face anyone else in our family, fantasizing about burning our own house down… (Ah, fond memories…)

I wanted to show up just so that Lisa wouldn’t be alone in this process.

Upon arrival, I walked dispassionately into the room where my mother lay dying, sat down, positioned myself with impeccable posture on the uncomfortable bedside chair and watched Lisa perform a long list of tasks, doting on my previously savagely-mean mother like she was a delightful and beloved 3 year-old child, kissing her head, stroking her arms. Confusion morphed into disbelief as I continued to watch the scene unfold. How in the world was Lisa doing all this? How could our experiences with this woman be so divergent as to create this lavish love display that I could not remotely connect to? As I observed the various horrors of encroaching death overtake my mother’s body- the gargley-wet breathing, the jarring, involuntary movement of her one working arm, the far-away gaze- I willed myself to find some measure of tenderness.

After completing her latest round of medical and emotional duties, Lisa asked me to be in charge of my mother’s morphine while she took a break. So I sat like a professional next to my dying mother. I was there to help my sister, not be some bitter, foreboding entity in the corner. So I got practical with myself, philosophical. “Let’s think about this. How would you treat this woman if you had never met her before?” I squeezed my eyes into a half-mast position, studying my mother’s face, tilting my head to the right, trying literally to gain a different perspective and feel some kind of love. But I couldn’t trick myself, couldn’t force myself to feel or to act differently from what was inside of me.

This hurtles me back to being 14. I had just ventured out of my bedroom door into the hallway- something I tried to do infrequently- and my mother had materialized out of nowhere like a sniper- screaming violently, accusing me of God-knows-what. Well aware of the risk, I screamed back because I was sick to death of everything. I even displayed the audacity to put up my arms up to shield myself as she ferociously slapped and smashed at my face and tried to pull my hair out- so she lost it even more, grabbing my forearms, yelling, “Put your goddamn arms down!!”

That was it. In one furious motion, I twisted free, and somehow remaining conscious enough to not strike- I shoved her back, roaring, “Get the fuck away from me! Never touch me again!!”

Then, in that slowed moment after, something unfathomable took over her face, a look I never dreamed of seeing which has mystified and chilled me since… a smile of both hatred and wild-eyed, ferocious pride, in me, for being the fighter she needed me to be. Her mission had been a success. She’d pushed me to the edge- and now she knew- I could survive in a world where nobody cared and nobody would.

In the aftermath, my sister who is so much like my peace-at-any-cost father, greeted me in my room with one simple question because she truly didn’t understand:

“Why don’t you ever just say ‘ok’?”

This was how my father and sister managed my mother's machine-gun persona. Hands symbolically up, with steadying words of appeasement and supplication, always.

"Ok Rebeca."

"Ok mom."

No matter the occasion, regardless of how far from “ok” anything was.

This was not my way.

And now, in my adult body, I scoured the recesses of my consciousness for something to help me extend grace towards my mother. Around and around, my mind circled my life circumstances and all I emerged with were episodes of vitriol, darkness, abandonment, abuse, my mother’s unmitigated, nearly ever-present rage. Savage attacks I was culturally forbidden to defend myself from weren’t the worst part; it was her showcasing, in signature flare, the laughable pointlessness of my existence.

Long before cell-phones and Uber, I was a 19 year-old undergrad- rushing from British Literature and Abnormal Psychology classes at UT to get to my job at Child’s Day where I wrangled a gaggle of sweet, adorable, and brutally hilarious 2.5 year-olds, “the Turtles”. But my car was not in its assigned space- or anywhere else. Freaked out and confused, I sprinted back up 3 concrete flights of stairs and dialed my parents to see if they’d spoken to Lisa or knew where the car that we shared might be.

My mother answered in her thick Colombian accent, calm and imperious.

“Lisa is here with us in Houston. I told her to just take the car.”

“What?! Why?? I’m scheduled to work right now and I don’t have any other way to get there- she knows that! You know that too!”

My face contracted in disbelief as my heart registered the familiar stab of abandonment. Fiery hell-filled lava threatened to explode from the epicenter of my being- or perhaps I would just die on the spot from yet one more (nearly-hilarious in its predictability) insult to my spirit.

“Why are you ‘working’ anyway?” she sneered.

“Because I want to make my own money- and I love these kids- why wouldn’t I?!”

She laughed, called me low-class, and summed up her disgusted distain saying,“Only poor people make their kids work.”

Then she hung up.

More humiliating still, the phone clanged sloppily against the receiver a few times before the final click of disconnection, like she’d already looked away and was on to something worthwhile.

Snapping myself back from this reverie, I looked at my mother, now in this horrific helplessness- this person who made much of my life hell- who was now as soft and defenseless as a blind little baby bird. My mind cycled- unstoppable- through memory after horrible memory with nowhere gracious to land. And as I gazed at her, suddenly I heard inside my mind- so sharp, so clear, the words,

“How fucking dare you.”

Even I was a shocked by the extremity of this mental outburst, disappointed that my tremendous will could not create a feeling of benevolence even in this final, exceptional time. The thought almost felt like it belonged to someone else, like I was there, separate- just witnessing it. Fortunately, my knowledge about the impact of trauma- the natural biological fury it creates, helped me understand and not judge it.

The following moment brought something else: the sadness of all that my mother and I never got to have and the gravity of that. “Not even on her deathbed can you think of something positive about your life with her. How heartbreaking.” And right then I was flooded by the next words I heard in my mind.

“I’m so sorry.”

My real Self was suddenly accessing the compassion my mother’s inner-child deserved for the life she had endured.

In graduate school I was asked to interview my mother about her early years. If it weren’t for that obligatory conversation, I would never have found out that at 7 years-old, my mom had learned one day that her father was taking her on a long boat ride to Cartagena to give her an opportunity for an education- something unavailable in their small town of Lorica. What he didn’t tell proud little Rebeca that morning as she gathered her courage to walk into a new school in an unknown city was that when she emerged that afternoon, he would be gone. No explanation, no good-bye. She moved in with distant relatives, strangers essentially, that her father promised to pay for her care but didn’t. They resented her and made her pay for the burden her little self imposed upon their already dirt-poor existence. After her father left, she said, “I felt abandoned by life.”

Amidst this jarring succession of thoughts and memory, Lisa walked back into the room and asked if we wanted to hear some music. Of course we do. So she turned the station to my mom’s favorite artist- Julio Iglesias. The first song that came on was “Moonlight Lady”, and it made every system in my body freeze. Then, some unidentified emotion, some inexplicable warmth pushed through me, starting in my heart and moving out into each cell in galloping waves.

I was transported to being my 10-year-old self, listening to this song in our Houston living room with my mom and dad: hearing beautiful, sophisticated Julio singing with his gorgeous, singular voice, this cheesy-romantic, somehow transcendent song and how much it all meant to me as a kid without ever understanding why. Looking at it now, he was like a breath of life itself- a respite from all that was wretched and unchangeable in my world. Through our mutual adoration of Julio- I could connect to my mom. I loved him so much, loved his music, felt captivated by all he seemed to be: so open, passionate, ecstatic- totally alive. She probably loved all this about him too. The infatuation my mother and I shared for this man, (creepy as it sounds, I get it) this business-suited, all-smiles, sexy, middle-aged pop singer gave me the hope that something somewhere was actually ok. Listening to his music, my mom was happy. She wasn’t raging. She wasn’t acting crazy. In these times, when my dad would turn on the record player and my mom would translate Julio’s Spanish lyrics for my greedy little heart- (I wanted to know his every thought and word) she was as close as she would ever be to a normal human being that I could relate to and enjoy. 

Through the years, in conversations I have had with women, they share presumed-basic little “truths” about mothers. They assume I’ll understand.

“You know how when you went shopping with your mom and…” No.

“You know how you could just tell your mom anything?” No.

“You know how it is with moms and daughters- you may fight, but at the end of the day you still know how much you love each other?” No.

“You know how moms do X or Y or Z or any other fucking normal thing?” No.

Nothing in my life with her had been normal, almost nothing even bearable. At 8 years old- after yet another physical/emotional beat-down, I unleashed a scream onto her from the depths of my pain-ravaged soul, “I hate you!!!!”

She replied, casually, “I hate you too.”

So as Lisa pressed play and, “Moonlight Lady” began:

“There were beggars and kings in a magical sky

There were wings in the air and I learned how to fly

There was me

There was you in a world made for two

Then you were gone”

For reasons unknown even to myself, I began to cry.

A minute or two into the song, the background singers began cooing, “Sexy, sexy lady, you just drive me crazy…” And as I let the words of this most bizarre and unlikely elegy wash over me, I wept at the beauty, the devastation, and the surreal strangeness of life. I’m sitting with my dying mother- who at countless points in time, I despised and vowed never to see again, who is definitely not at her most sexy, and I’m trying so hard to love her despite everything, and all of these crazy processes are happening inside me while this song fills the air with so much sweet, raw emotion that doesn’t line up appropriately with the moment we’re actually in- yet somehow does…., I recognize that this is the whole nature of life, encapsulated. It’s everything, all at once. And none of it makes sense. Amidst this reckoning, I remember suddenly that, however fleeting or rare, I had experienced goodness and connection with my mother.

My first memory: I’m 2 years old in Montreal sitting, wordless, on my mother’s stomach as she lays on the couch studying medical journals. I’m gazing intently at her while her focus remains steady upon the material. In a moment of characteristic impatience and demanding-ness, I grabbed her journal and hurled it forcefully across the room and then resumed looking at her. Caught off-guard but laughing with appreciation, she paused- really taking me in, and said,

“Jenny, you have such an interesting look in your eyes…What does it mean??”

As chaotic as life became with her, moments like this of genuine interest, tolerance, and affection in these very young years- how could I ever meaningfully calculate what that gave me?

But as Julio sang and the tears flowed down, I knew I wasn’t grieving my mom. I mourned something else- never getting to know what a healthy, loving relationship with a mother might feel like. I told myself countless times throughout my youth, “At least I’ll never have to grieve these people.” Sadly, that turned out to be true. My tears were not about losing her- they were about never really having had her, except in glimpses.

Friends tell me they really liked my mom. In fact, most people who lived at a comfortable distance from her did. What people say they most appreciated, beyond her no-bullshit ways, was how “loving” she was. Though she was in near-constant fights with each of her 7 siblings, she unflinchingly paid for all of them, and all of their children, to complete school to become doctors, lawyers and architects. If someone was hungry, she dropped everything to cook them a meal. If she liked a person, she loved them: focusing entirely on a them- solid and powerfully capable of seeing only their best (if only for a time). She was generous. And though she bought almost nothing for herself besides plants of every description, if you complimented her on a ring or anything else she happened to have acquired, she gave it to you on the spot. She did this not to validate her own worth, not to manipulate and make you owe something later- just to make what she had worked so hard for, (sledge-hammering her way out of abject poverty where “dinner” was garlic with water), mean something real.

One of the final questions I was charged with asking my mother for my “Aging Interview” graduate project was, “What in life are you most proud of?” Her answer stunned me, though it shouldn’t have. “I’m most proud of that fact that I never changed.” It explained so much about my relationship with her and highlighted our most essential disparity. Though I had been so emotionally troubled as a young person, I was determined to learn everything that I could about life so that I might have a chance to conquer at least some of the patterns and unconscious fears that ruled me. I wanted more than anything else I could imagine- to change myself and my life. I can only surmise that my mother desired to prove she was infallible, indestructible, and subject to no one- not even her own potential acknowledgment that she had ever been wrong about anything.

Reflecting on the confounding paradox of her character, and still at times, of mine, I mourn the parts of ourselves that we humans hold inside, beyond the reach of those closest to us- all the loving capacity that is us- at the heart of us- that we hide, that we waste, that we deny to the people who need and deserve to feel it most.  

When I went to visit her about a year ago, after years away, someone in the nursing home who I’d never seen before called out from one hall over, brimming with enthusiasm: “Are you Dr. Dawson’s daughter?!” Bracing slightly, I answered, “…yes…?” The stranger called back-

“Oh wow- you look just like her!!”

Not what I was aiming to hear from her nursing home attendants at this late stage, honestly, but ok. As much as there are strong parallels between us, somehow I managed to value personal growth more than anything- evolution that is as terrifying as it is rewarding- an arduous process that lasts an mf lifetime.

My 11 year-old, Rainer honored me this Mother’s Day with the highest complement possible. In addition to saying how much he loves me, and writing me a precious little poem about how cool and funny I am, and that I take great care of him, he said he notices that I’m always working on improving, and he appreciates it. It means a lot to know he recognizes this dedication in me. For so long, I was ashamed of my family, my life, myself. But as I sat there with my mom, I had the strong visceral awareness that whatever we went through, ultimately, I’m proud of who I am now. I’m happy to be myself and appreciative of all the strength she infused me with, however it happened. Part of that was the real energy of love she was able to step out of her own suffering long enough to offer me- and part is my own fierce tenacity (that I inherited from her) to just keep fucking working- in my case- tooth and nail, to continue becoming someone my wounded younger self could only vaguely imagine.

My biggest pleasure these days is spending time with my two beautiful sons, and music is a huge part of our enjoyment of life. Last Tuesday, we were in the pool and I was trying so hard to remember an Elton John song that Ellis used to sing as a young kid, which I thought was so cute. Finally it hit me, so we all began belting out the words to “I’m Still Standing”- Rainer, who’s almost as big as me, on my hip- Ellis beaming and water-dancing beside me, suggesting we start a family band… (Oy.) All of us just loving life. My neighbor Christena remarked later that she loves to see how close I am with my boys, “Not all parents are like that.” she added.

I hadn’t shown up for my mother on that day in June, and perhaps that sounds like a pitiful fact I shouldn’t readily admit. But I showed up. And as I let myself move through the reality of my experience and keep reaching for a more open place within myself, my feelings towards her, towards being there, changed. There was a moment where I thought she might be thirsty (she was no longer communicating verbally and spent most of her time staring off towards the right side of the room with a deeply pained expression on her face) so I took a lollipop-shaped sponge full of water and squeezed it slowly into her open mouth. She then said some of the few words I’d heard since she screamed at me years ago that I was dead to her.

She shifted her gaze directly into my eyes- her eyes that look just like mine- and said, “sank you”.

Then she reached for my hand, and I held it. 

Love, From the Ashes

Life is beautiful, but let’s be honest, it can feel like a real shit-show sometimes. (Even Buddha acknowledged that.) Amid pandemics, treacherous news headlines and uncertainty of all kinds, good relationships can remind us that although there is suffering, there is also meaning and joy- some kind of purpose to what we’re all f****** doing here. :) Loving one another is part of what makes the difficulty of existence worth enduring.

But what if our relationships don’t provide that kind of comfort and assurance? And instead of being something we can count on, they stir up trouble and end in disaster. Many of us, having grown up in dysfunctional families, never learned healthy ways of relating to ourselves or anyone else. It’s like we were dropped in the middle of nowhere with no compass, a gravely distorted map, zero guidance- and expected to make a fantastic journey of this life with one another. We fumble around in confusion, get completely lost, and somehow manage to recreate the same familiar heartache for ourselves over and over again. Fortunately, the struggles we face can become the impetus to reach for what we’re meant to do and how we’re really meant to love.

My “wild-animal” (as my sister and I called her) mother has become an unexpected inspiration for so much of what has mattered and brought purpose to my life. When she wasn’t out being a respected MD or reading medical journals, she was collapsed on the couch, eyes glued to screaming, hair pulling, Jerry Springer-type Spanish “talk” shows where dysfunctional families went to nearly kill each-other in front of a live, jeering audience. If I somehow activated her ticking time-bomb mind, she’d snarl her demand that I deliver a high-heel to the sofa and receive my beating there where it wouldn’t interfere with her programming. Unsurprisingly, I’ve had a lifelong aversion to television- with the slightly embarrassing exception of reality shows about love. Even as a child, one of the only programs I could tolerate was the ‘80’s hit, “Love Connection.” I held a deep, abiding wish to make sense of why my father would never divorce my mother and free us to live in some kind of peace. I needed to understand this insane experience called “love” that could seriously ruin your life.

At 8, with freckles that merged from never knowing sunscreen and long, uncombed hair, I stood in the kitchen with my ever-Zen father as he peacefully surveyed the refrigerator looking for options of what he could bring my mother to accompany her evening tea that was most likely to please her- while I begged him to leave her. “Please dad, please…. ” Under constant stress with splitting headaches I thought were a brain tumor, ulcers, depression… the hollow dread of having no one to protect me from my mother’s violence, I started to unravel and break. He just laughed good-naturedly and said, “Oh Jen, you just don’t understand her.”

My parent’s love was intense and hard to stomach. Their bizarre emotional fusion had a huge impact on me. From their example, I surmised that relationships are passionate, shamelessly imbalanced, full of intellectual stimulation- and brutal. (And note to self… “If you’re wise, don’t promise to stay with anyone in particular for any length of time- just in case.”) As I moved through life and began observing connections all around me, the contrast between couples was compelling. My best friend’s parents were so polite and dignified with each other it was shocking. “Is this real life? Is this how people are meant to live? Is this how other people are living??” On some level I envied their decorum, but I also got the feeling they just gave no shits. This felt even more dismal than the madness my parents had going on. I knew not one single thing about how healthy “normal” couples might interact, communicate, or experience life together, but over time, I decided I wanted to figure it out.

Here’s what I’ve discovered:

Until we find a way to honor our own experience (while still caring about the other)- and express ourselves honestly and directly, our relationships are never going to work. And when I say “work”, I don’t just mean “last”. We all know people whose relationship endures, but we wouldn’t wish it on anyone. That’s not what we’re after here people. I’m talking about a connection that feels like something we might dream of.

Clients sometimes bring up frustrations about the people in their lives. When I inquire if these clients have shared their feelings and needs directly with the individual in question, almost inevitably the answer is a slowly rendered “…no…” along with palpable discomfort which morphs into an, “I’m no longer present” faraway gaze. (*This process of dissociation is the mind’s way of coping with anything that feels too threatening/overwhelming.) Trust me, I understand the anxiety of open expression. When we’ve come from families that didn’t care how we felt or just weren’t able to show up for us appropriately, we haven’t had a chance to experience how well emotional honesty can work. It makes sense that we cut that process off in environments where it didn’t help us. But we’re not little kids anymore. We have choices now that didn’t exist for us before.

If you are struggling in a relationship currently, you are likely engaging in at least one of these approaches:

1.     Making someone else responsible for how you feel (We certainly influence each other, but how we feel ultimately is the product of inner storylines and perspectives- an inside job.)

2.     Not letting them know how you’re impacted by what’s happening and what you’d prefer

3.     Sticking around after you’ve spoken up about what you need and nothing changes

4.     Resenting them

5.     Feeling stuck while continuing to do what hasn’t worked in the past

I get it though. When we find a person who lights us up, it can feel daunting to say what we imagine they might not appreciate. We can struggle to determine what’s ok to even ask for because we see partners through the childhood lens of primal need. We tolerate ongoing dissatisfaction, make excuses, and rationalize that what we want must be unreasonable. Yet healthy connections of any kind require clear boundaries and expectations. And while it’s true that in voicing our experience, we take a legitimate risk of losing certain relationships- could it ever be worth sacrificing our Self to keep one going? If we don’t have healthy self-expression, we don’t actually have a relationship at all.

When we recognize our adult imperative to create an enjoyable life for ourselves (and our children if we have them), we understand that whatever we want is reasonable to ask for. That doesn’t mean others will be able or willing to grant our wishes, but it makes sense to give them (and us) a fighting chance, doesn’t it?

Here’s how:

1.     Value yourself enough to express what you need. What would a balanced, reciprocal relationship look and feel like to you? Don’t assume anyone else knows what’s inside of you. If you haven’t told them, they don’t.

2.     Pay attention to your partner’s response. Do they hear you? Do they care? Or are they defensive, distancing, angry, unreachable...? Don’t take it personally, but notice and care how that feels to you.

3.     If needed, make your request even more clear and emphatic. Help them understand why this particular gesture or way of relating means so much to you. Be honest, open, loving and direct. (Resist the urge to beg, pout, judge, demand or deliver silent-treatments. If you want to create something wonderful, contribute your own mature responses. We get what we give.)

4.     Pay attention to what they do with this deeper insight. People who love you, are invested in you, and are capable of mutual adult relationships will be grateful to have a chance to understand you, add to your happiness, and keep you satisfied. (Yes really.)

If they aren’t, what compels you to stay? Words are cheap. Behavior is all that conveys a person’s dedication to us or to anything else. And, we don’t have to condemn others for having personal limitations. We all have them. In fact, we’re here to grow specifically from these personal challenges. That’s what makes life interesting, beautifully complex and expansive. We’re individuals, here to construct our own realities. If the dream you have doesn’t match some one else’s, accept that, accept them, and let them go with love. It takes lots of living, growing, and intentional evolving to show up in conscious ways for each other when we’ve not grown up with models for that. Not everyone is there yet. It’s a lifelong process, and some people never choose to begin.

If you decide it’s worth giving up some of what you want in order to keep someone in your life, that’s your prerogative- and can be part of the necessary give-and-take of partnership since none of us is perfect. Just do it consciously. Every friend you have may want you to leave a relationship, but that’s irrelevant. If you haven’t, it’s either because it feels right to you (which is exclusively your business unless you complain about it)- or you just haven’t yet learned and integrated what the experience has been meant to teach you. Start there. If you stay, let go of resentment. If you don’t, it’ll eat you alive. Remember: resentment is something we create when we don’t take care of ourselves and then make someone else responsible for our misery.

My father’s capacity to leave an insane marriage, defend his kids, or even live a normal life for himself were all obliterated by his singular devotion to my mother. That’s fascinating when looked at objectively from this vantage. But at the time, I didn’t know better than to take those circumstances (his co-dependent savior complex, her unresolved-trauma-induced narcissism) personally and to construct a self-limiting identity and avoidant attachment pattern to manage it. That’s all we can do as kids. But, what was once so crushing put me on the path to discover that as adults, we get to decide what we live with- and whether or not it destroys us. Like you, everything that’s happened in my life has guided me to this moment where I can choose to create meaning and substance out of the ashes of what’s been.

Other People

Bracing myself to eat in a packed and lively Whole Foods, my seat at the bar carefully chosen to avoid the dreaded inquiry, “May I join you?” I notice a woman out of the corner of my eye, looking in my direction. I look away- polite, but you know- very busy with this food here in front of me. A familiar apprehension creeps in as I sense people all around, their possible desire to approach, and my wish to get away.

Strangely, after all these years of giving and receiving therapy, it remains a struggle-not in my role as therapist- just in the more complex character lived outside of that room, as “me”. In my work, I set personal struggles aside and attend to the person in front of me- focusing on them, seeking to understand them, appreciating them. It’s easy, so natural and rewarding- one of my greatest passions in life. Every day I think, “God I love what I do.” But outside my office, instead of relishing contact, luxuriating in the preciousness of our fascinating, ephemeral lives alongside one another, I prefer my distance. In fact, I’d like the woman in question and any interested others, to drop (safely) into a hole in the middle of the earth right now. I feel badly about this, though, the way I’m compelled to avoid others for no logical, discernible reason. It’s nothing personal. I’m sure this woman is a very nice person. Still, I long for an enormous hook to emerge from stage left and whisk her away.

No such deliverance. I see her advancing like a cheetah, past the throngs towards me. My gut drops. I look down. Please don’t come over…. Please don’t come over….

She’s standing in front of me now as I lift my buried, guilty gaze. Smiling at me, her head tilted slightly, she says, “You have really pretty hair.”

“Oh!” I say brightly (big painful smile) “Thanks so much!”

She stands there for a moment longer, nodding. Then with a vague, wistful grin, and no further encouragement from me, she wishes me a good night and walks back out into the crowd. A light, sickening mist of self-reproach washes over me. Ugh. This lovely human is out here, trying her best like the rest of us to get through life in one piece- just wanting to share a moment. What is UP with me? Why??

But I know why. I understand implicit memory, unconscious drives, survival strategies, fight/flight/freeze/(not much “tend and befriend” where I came from…). I know that part of my adaptation to the life I lived as a kid was to stay safe within myself, to feel much better on my own. I just imagined that over time, and with enough healing, that would change. But I’m realizing that instead of reaching a point someday where I’ll morph into some saintly maternal beacon of magnanimous warmth for others, a welcomer of all people, at all times, I just am who I am, however evolving. My choice at this point is to realize when I’m lost energetically in time- not truly present, and make an effort to come back. Instead of being stuck feeling that others pose some nameless threat, I can have compassion for my terrified little reptilian mind that is just trying to protect me and make efforts to balance my course.

I’ve been lucky since leaving my childhood home. Though people have felt scary, most have been pretty wonderful to me. As much as I’ve guarded against them, strangers have shown up like angels- stepping in at points where I thought it made more sense to just give up. Some will never know how much they impacted me, helped me see that I somehow mattered, that people can be a source of kindness and comfort, that I wasn’t as infinitely alone as I felt.

A lush, warm wind flows through the UT campus- summer of ‘94. It’s unusually placid on the streets as I drive from my marble-clad condo on 26th to the grungy Player’s drive-through at 2am. Tears fall unceremoniously down my face as they’ve done all day, all year, and years before that. I don’t bother to hide them. It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing else to show anyway. I order my burger, tired of myself, my “pathetic” endless sadness juxtaposed against how good I have it- all the privilege, money, time and freedom to have whatever I want- and all I want is to fade away. I steep myself in intolerance, my far-off gaze fixed on nothing. When it’s my turn, I pull up to the window, offer a quiet hello and reach out to pay for food to feed a body that feels quite done with living. The middle-aged, African-American man with luminous brown eyes like grace itself takes my cash and then pauses, holding us together, suspended in time.

He hands me my order. And with more true compassion than my 19-year-old self has ever dreamed of experiencing, he adds, “I hope that whatever’s making you sad right now gets better real soon.”

His kindness hits me- touching and intolerable. My eyes sting and close; tears pour even faster, like I’m a machine and they are my only program, all that exists inside of me. Feeling unworthy of so much love, I summon a “thank you”, drive away, and never forget him.

Though I’ve healed a lot, that deeply hurt and disconnected young girl is still evident at times. But this raw and so cherished memory of human exaltedness also lives on, urging me to stay more open to others than I naturally would, to remember the impact we can have as even minor players in someone else’s life. I’m not religious, but a quote that I love is: “We are each God’s hands for one another.” The decency, generosity and humanity I’ve been shown, that we all can show, is why we’re here. Our willingness to see and care about another person can provide the hope that life might actually be worth living. We all have that power.

We don’t have to be perfect; we can just remember to try.

This New Year: Resolve to Dream, Express, Allow

New Year’s resolutions are popular for a reason. Despite the bleak and widely accepted notion that nothing in life is guaranteed beyond death and taxes, part of us knows there is more. We long for meaning, fun, success, and happiness- whatever that looks like to us. So each January, we imagine there’s hope for all kinds of inspiring personal changes, positive new habits, and exciting opportunities. Nothing a little yoga, green juice and lavender bath salts can’t accomplish, right? Those practices are certainly lovely and valuable, but buried beneath behavioral effort, goals, and conceptual aspirations for a wonderful life, unconscious forces act as invisible barriers to our fulfillment.

At the deepest level, we humans need to be seen, understood and connected. That sounds simple enough. Most of us have friends, partners… at least one or two tolerable family members… a handful of people who genuinely care about us- so what’s the problem? The challenge is that despite the proximity we may have to loving, caring others, many of us have no idea how to allow good things to land and remain in our lives, whether they are resolutions, relationships or basic positive regard for ourselves. We don’t see that this incapacity is part of what drives chronic depression, emptiness, loneliness, and a sense that life is irreconcilably painful.

Without knowing it, we engage in strategies that sabotage our ability to be seen, understood, and connected- to have what we want. Not everyone struggles to the same degree, of course. Some of us were fortunate to have received “good enough” parenting that helped create a sense of basic worthiness and deserve-ability. But to the extent that joy is elusive and we continue to bump up against dread-inducing internal and interpersonal struggles, these distortions are impacting us deeply.

One of the most important skills I hope to encourage in clients is the ability to know and express themselves authentically- whether it’s in a literal, verbal way or just in how they engage with the world. Yet this basic capacity is curiously difficult. Why? How is it that what we most need in order to be happy is what proves hardest for us? This is because underneath our desire for connection, love, and satisfaction, a primitive drive compels us instead to stay safe at any cost.

Here are five strategies we employ to create the illusion of safety, that actually fuel our gnawing discontent:

1.     Leave, withdraw, get away from others

2.     Give up our selves to connect to others

3.     Tolerate & endure (but inwardly resist) the will of others, self-sabotage

4.     Fight and dominate

5.     Tighten up, feel less, be perfect

We experience all of these tendencies to some degree but specialize in one or two. As children, we mistook these strategies for who we are and felt we had no choice- because we didn’t. So now, when we blindly go along with our default operating systems, we remain prisoners of the past, disconnected from our present-moment power and self-agency.

How does this happen?

Imperfect humans raise us all. Despite the good intentions some have, parents fail us in basic and crucial ways. Their unresolved issues are enacted upon us and force us to give up our real Selves in favor of false (more pleasing and palatable) selves. As kids, we sacrifice our authenticity to be who our caregivers or society need us to be. This is not about “attachment”- it’s about survival. We continue to live as if we are still under the same crushing oppression we once survived- and we don’t realize that now, we’re doing it to ourselves.

We know intellectually that in order to create lives we love, we have to express our desires, believe in them, move towards them- but the child consciousness inside is terrified of that prospect, deeply threatened by what was once forbidden. We believe we “can’t”, “shouldn’t”, “have no right to” our biggest dreams because they are aspects of our disavowed and largely unknown authentic selves. As such, each of us lives in a personal world that is gravely distorted. Our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and interactions are all poisoned by these dynamics, and we are totally unaware. We can engage in as many resolutions-inspired activities as we like, but living a fantastic life can’t happen until we address the outworn strategies that obscure reality.

Life-Denying practices we employ without knowing it:

1.     Disconnect from ourselves (and thus have no clue what we want)

2.     Doubt our worthiness

3.     Suppress our authentic voice and expression

4.     Conjure endless, unconscious ways of blocking what we want from arriving and/or staying in our experience

Life-Enhancing Alternatives we can practice Now:

1. Cultivate self-awareness

2. Know ourselves enough to determine what we desire

3. Develop our sense of worthiness to receive

4. Ask for what we want, acknowledge & express it honestly to ourselves and others

5. Allow it into our lives (…by noticing when we engage in the self-defeating habits we’ve enacted since childhood- and realize that now, as adults, we have other options)

Someone newly close to me recently remarked, “Your mind thinks in terms of possibilities.” My internal response amounted to a shrug, an un-self-impressed “Yea.” But it’s profound. The ability to think in terms of possibilities forms the foundation for acquiring anything that we want. And in reviewing my life, nothing could have been further from the truth for most of it.

A memory:

Six years old, at an Easter egg hunt where I knew no one. I could feel the energy and excitement of kids all around me searching for candy, running wild, full of appropriate, joy-filled enthusiasm. As usual, I didn’t relate. Cautious and guarded, I took it slow. A stranger saw me, tiny and on my own, and beckoned me towards him. I didn’t want to go, but I acquiesced, figuring he was unlikely to kill me in this crowd of people. With kind intentions, however, and without saying a word, the man lifted me carefully up to view a hanging flowerpot that held a giant bag of candy & chocolate eggs. That thing was impressive. I saw the bag. I registered it fully. Like the others, I was definitely into the idea of an enormous stash of candy, but my arms gave no indication- they just hung pointlessly at my sides as I stared. Time stood still as my confused little self dangled in space, waiting for what should happen next. Incredulous as it sounds, I had no clue what I was intended to do up there. My mini-time warp was soon interrupted by a large boy who was in no way confounded by the moment. Without any reservations, he flew past the flowerpot, snatched the loot, and strode confidently on towards his next series of effortless acquisitions.

The scene was unremarkable. You snooze you lose- basic concept. Yup that’s life. Yet looking back, I remember it blew my childhood mind that someone’s default was the pure self-deserving entitlement to grab an entire huge bag of candy for himself, like it was nothing. Stupefied, I kept asking myself in the moments and years that followed, “Is that what was supposed to happen??” My young self might seem like not the sharpest tool in the shed to you right now, but the problem was one we all impose on ourselves. In our own often hidden and characteristic ways, each of us fails to see the world as it is- full of possibility. We’re caught in false, absurdly self-limiting preconceptions just like this one.

For those of us raised in environments of aggression, abuse, invalidation, neglect- or the more subtle, but no less damaging horrors of parental disinterest or disregard… our default is to freeze in the face of life’s offerings, constrict our desires, resist dreaming, take no risks- never imagine that we can have things we want, so easily. I have thought back to this unsettling memory throughout my life- the sad fact that simply reaching out towards something I desired, what was being offered directly and unequivocally to me, never even occurred to me. Life experience had shown me that I wasn’t part of a warm, welcoming world where people want to help you just out of human kindness. I had been on my own emotionally and adapted by keeping to myself, being self-sufficient, and not expecting much.

Fortunately, my ability to let wonderful things into my life has evolved radically since then. This seismic shift in perspective is actually the most valuable gift I’ve received from all of the work I have done “on”/ for myself through the years. It will continue to unfold this way for all of us who begin taking real care of ourselves and don’t give up.

So, if you haven’t written a New Year’s Resolution list yet, may I suggest including the following:

1.     Be kind and loving towards yourself, always

2.     Let yourself identify your dreams

3.     Accept that you can have what you want

4.     Ask for it, express yourself, let yourself & your desires be known, reach for it

5.     Allow it in

6.     Repeat

You are the only one who can allow yourself to be seen, understood, connected and gratified- this year, this day, this moment. I wish you the best, and I know you can have it.

Happy New Year!  <3

Being Cool with Judgment: The Perk of Being Raised by A Possible Sociopath

I was not raised to care about other people. Like, not by a long shot.

My biggest influence was a woman who looked like a raven-haired Comanche and saw life as a battleground of enemies to be silenced, dominated, and conquered by brute force. My mother’s survival strategy was to be smarter, tougher, energetically larger and scarier than anyone around- and she achieved it. Besides her demand that I look a certain way, she didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about anything.

Once on a flight to her native Colombia, with my tiny grade-school self beside her, she turned around and vigorously beat an unknown child on the head with a rolled up newspaper after he bravely ignored her request to stop kicking her seat. She did whatever her animal instincts instructed and apologized never. That dynamic was interesting to grow up with to say the least, but lately I’m compelled to give her a bit of credit. Due to her zero interest/zero tolerance policy for anyone else’s feelings or needs, I have avoided the near-epidemic western condition of being preoccupied by the judgment of others. I care about people, but I don’t worry about what they think. I listen to myself above all and make choices based on my own integrity and desires.

For example, at a dingy psychiatric hospital where I worked just out of grad school, management forced salaried therapists to spend their time completing huge amounts of useless paperwork and, in my opinion, neglecting patients who were very much in need of our care. One frantic Monday, management requested one of us to complete yet more of this busywork (to make the hospital more almighty dollars) and a fellow therapist asked if I would do it. My answer was no. I was on my way to provide trauma therapy to abuse survivors because that’s what I was there for. I’ll always remember Kate’s response. She looked at me with consideration as I gathered my clipboard and purse to walk out the door and remarked, “You know, you’re really good at saying no to things.”

At first I thought she was making some kind of joke (she was usually making us all laugh) but then it dawned on me that she was serious. I hadn't yet encountered the "people-pleasing" dynamic I would later learn so much about from clients. So at that moment, all I knew was that her statement was a fair, if obvious, appraisal.

Despite my mother’s globally damaging influence on me, she offered one statement in my youth that has helped me every day since, without my even realizing it. I was 10 years old, and I’ll never forget the scene: I was eating toast and drinking orange juice- she was sitting across from me at our ‘70’s décor wicker kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading with her trademark lioness focus and seriousness. Pausing for a moment to lowered her ever-present JAMA journal, she gazed at me, and without context or elaboration said,

“Don’t ever let anyone waste your time.”

Since she had never offered me a shred of advice before, (and only 2 pieces since):

"Read everything you can.”

And later,"You're short, so you need to wear heels."

I held onto it. So in spite of her rage benders, yelling that I was a “goddamn idiot” and a “waste of a person”, etc., this one line served as evidence that despite her emotional savagery, my time and, by proxy, I myself, actually mattered.

This is the part that I understand only now, as an adult: I actually mattered whether she believed I did or not. In the times she couldn’t see past her own screaming face, I still mattered. And this is the case for all of us, regardless of where we came from. And if we don’t yet know our worth, if we have internalized the shame inherent to a toxic or abusive early developmental environment, it will matter an inordinate amount what other people think of us.

This is something I see every day, nearly every hour, in my clinical practice: clients expressing a debilitating preoccupation with other people’s judgment.

In light of this, I want to offer 5 important reminders:

1. Even if no one has ever told you: You matter.

2. Acknowledging and expressing your feelings, needs and boundaries are vital to your mental health and happiness, even if others don’t like it and choose to judge you.

3. Healthy friends and partners will appreciate you sharing your real self with them and will not judge you. This is the only way people can get to know and love the Real You.

4. Some people will judge you. Yes. People who judge themselves will judge you too. And if that’s the case, is that really someone you want in your life? I hope not. Life is too precious to waste on people who are so full of unprocessed pain and self-hatred that it leaks out onto you (and everyone else, eventually). Send them love and healing from a safe distance.

Also important to keep in mind- all people are entitled to their feelings. No one is obligated to like us or think everything we do is great. Our feelings and current adult circumstances are our own creations, no matter what transpires inside other people’s minds.

5. When you realize that whatever anyone sees in you is just a reflection of their own state of consciousness, it will be a lot easier to let go of your preoccupation with what they think.

In reality, I wish “5 Simple Steps” were all it would take for you to make yourself a priority and let go of worrying about other people’s judgment. But it’s likely not. Still, they remain useful guideposts and affirmations to help your brain re-wire to a healthier reality. Our most deeply held beliefs are just thoughts we keep thinking. Begin now refusing to accept old thoughts that harm you. Health is about balance. If you were raised in an environment like mine, your work will be to let other people matter more. If you were raised to put others above you, the imperative will be reclaiming your own sense of value and your right to live as you decide.

In the NARM approach, we work to help you understand that if you find yourself polarized on either side of the continuum, there are reasons for this. Be kind to yourself about the particular dynamic that helped you survive. Recognize that, as adults, we can now heal the implicit and explicit messages we received as kids and begin living lives of inner freedom.

Free Yourself of Unhealthy Guilt

“Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilt and I’ll show you a man.” Anonymous

According to Harriet Lerner, women are socialized to suppress anger and “cultivate guilt like a little flower garden.” But in truth, this survival strategy shows up in every gender expression. Society may encourage women to take on stereotypical care-taking roles, but the inner-drive to abandon the self comes from our families of origin- and can impact any of us, deeply.

When our feelings as children aren’t honored, we adapt by losing our ability to sense them. This shields us from the anguish of not having a safe, invested parent to care about and contain our experience. By necessity, we lose connection to our physical bodies- the aspect of us that registers feeling and needs. In order to sustain the exaggerated helper role, we suppress anger even more dutifully, as it’s the emotion that clarifies our legitimate boundaries. These conditions contribute to a downward spiral of personal uncertainty:

“If I can’t tell how I feel, how do I know what’s right for me? And if I don’t have access to anger, how would I know what I will or won’t accept from others? If I don’t know what my limits are, how can I create balanced relationships and enjoy my life?”

These are vital questions.

When we’re forced to give up our needs early in life, we compensate by care-taking others and derive a sense of personal value from this role. Because these adaptive behaviors bolster our sense of self, it makes sense that we become “co-dependent” and overly responsible, doing for others what they could do for themselves. And as I likely don’t have to tell you, being unable to say “no” attracts people into your life who are more than willing to take as much as they can get from you.

Here’s how to let go of unhealthy guilt:

1. Realize you have a right to your own thoughts, feelings, interests, needs, attractions, desires, compatibilities with others (or not), etc. As the beautifully distinct individual that you are, you will have your own personal preferences and feelings. Thank God! Our differences are what make life interesting and expansive. How lame would relationships be if we all thought and felt the same?

(A client recently described the surge in energy and vitality she is experiencing lately, and when I inquired as to its origin, she replied, “I think it’s because you gave me permission to be myself.” When clients say things like this, it’s touching. My #1 goal is to point people back to their own hearts, but it’s up to each individual whether or not they choose to go. I don’t take credit for that.)

2. When you know that you have this right, just as everyone else does, you can stop making yourself wrong for simply being who you are, feeling how you feel and wanting what you want.

3. Notice guilt arise when you listen to your own needs. Recognize this is just old conditioning/childhood consciousness and continue the practice of honoring your real feelings. It gets easier in time.

• There is, of course, an important distinction to make here:

We experience healthy guilt when we disregard our personal integrity, behave dishonestly, shirk responsibility, and otherwise act incongruent with our own values. Healthy guilt is an inner safeguard that helps us stay true to our higher selves. The problem is that those of us who had to give up ourselves to please others now feel guilty for even considering our own boundaries.

 So how can we distinguish what is healthy guilt vs. an unhealthy distortion?

 1. By taking time to get to know ourselves and getting clear on our personal values: not the values of our parents, friends, partners or society- just our own.

 2. Remember that you have this magnificent body that was designed to keep you alive and thriving. Train yourself to go inside and find answers based on how your physical body responds. When we are inspired to do something from a healthy place, that action will feel enlivening and expansive. (When we act out of guilt and obligation, we will feel drained, contracted, resentful and depressed.)

“We convince ourselves of a lot of things in our minds, but when we know something, we feel it.” Laurence Heller, founder of NARM

 3. Acknowledge that nobody inhabits your body, mind and heart but you. If you are not willing to check inside, see what feels right to you, and speak up for yourself, you will be overwhelmed and miserable on a regular basis. You deserve better.

I want to leave you with one final thought:

You can never do what’s truly right for you and harm anyone else. What is in the best interest of the Self is always in the best interest of others, even when they can’t yet see it. We are here to expand and evolve eternally, and we are all co-creators in this awesome life with each other.

Let your contributions be authentic and from the heart.

The Case for Direct Communication or How to Not Fuck up Your Relationships Needlessly

How many times have you felt upset with someone, and instead of letting them know that you’re hurt, angry, sad or disappointed, you shoved your feelings down, moped around, perhaps channeled your mother’s famous silent treatment/martyr act, or in some other passive-aggressive way, made them pay?

And how enjoyable was (is) that relationship?

Correct. It’s misery for both of you. Unless your partner is an expert at ignoring bad behavior or is an ascended Zen Master. And in these cases, the gnawing resentment is yours to suffer alone. That’s no fun.

I want to offer you some basic facts and tools to help you navigate your relationships in more mature and rewarding ways. But first I want to help you understand that you’re not a bad person for trying to get your needs met in childish, indirect ways. It’s simply a function of old conditioning. When we have not had proper role models for healthy communication and/or when expressing our needs did not go well throughout our development- that impacts us. It teaches us to employ the same dysfunctional dynamics that we saw in our caregivers and sends the implicit message that expressing need is __________________  (shut down by others, shamed, ignored, dangerous, etc...)

When we were little, we required adequate mirroring and reflection of our feelings in order to develop a strong and secure sense of selfhood and boundaries. Without this, boundaries just don’t come on line. And part of what is happening for us now when we don’t just say what we need is that we are challenged by one of two basic boundary issues.

1. Rigid boundaries are like walls without doors: we simply shut everyone out. We don’t share thoughts or feelings with others because we assume (from actual childhood experience) that others won’t help, and it’s just easier to keep everything to ourselves.

2. The other possibility is that our overly-open, “diffuse”, boundaries prevent us from knowing that we are distinct individuals with a right to our own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, etc. This is called “differentiation”. When we are not differentiated, we are missing a sense of our own distinct individual selfhood. We feel merged with others and believe they are responsible for our feelings and/or we are responsible for theirs. Consequently, we entertain distorted thoughts like, “If they love me, they should just know what I need.”

No. They really don’t. There is no way they could. If I can avail you of just one false belief right now- this is it:

If you don’t tell people how you feel and what you need, they will not know.

In fact, I need to share a statement I heard years ago which changed my understanding of the world. Here it is:

“You will never really know what anyone else is thinking.”

Holy shit, right? I consider myself to be a sensitive, introspective, intuitive person- so hearing this was jarring. I was always fairly certain I could imagine what others were thinking. (This is a side-effect of trauma, actually. When our childhood homes are unsafe, it’s adaptive to become highly attuned to others and to the environment. This keeps the species alive.)

To suddenly realize that I didn’t really know what other people were thinking at all was a blow to my notion that I was “kind of a big deal” with in my mind-reading abilities. ;) To make matters worse, I realized that even if I asked someone a direct question- I might not get an honest answer. WHAAT? This was hard to accept. My history created a mind that is literal, logical, straight-forward- definitely not interested in the added burden and stress that obscuring reality generates. So I’ve always just spoken my mind. Except, of course, when it mattered the most, like in long-term love relationships. In those, I too went the child consciousness route- not stating needs from a calm, resourced adult place, and instead stonewalling, criticizing, or just leaving a person in one final blinding flash… Until I realized this was not actually getting me what I wanted.

So here we have it. Relationships are tough. We are all difficult. Other people are total mysteries. The only recourse we have if we want to understand and be understood by anyone else is to practice these skills:

1. Be willing to share what’s really on your heart and mind.

2. Be the kind of person with whom others feel safe and comfortable sharing their hearts and minds.

 This brings me to our next challenge:

What if the people we are communicating with are not the kind of people who make that process safe and comfortable?

Here again, you have choices. Adults always have choices.

Two options:

1. Express your feelings to them anyway (respectfully and without attacking or blaming) and let go of the mistaken notion that they have to respond in a particular way. Their job is not to change to please you. Their work is not to receive your every thought and feeling with total love and equanimity so that you can be happy. Of course that would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? (If you have people like that in your life, know you are very lucky and do what you can to keep them.) But the truth is, most people simply don’t have these capacities. They have not done enough of their own work to be able to receive your feelings without becoming triggered, defensive, reactive, etc. And, I repeat, they are entitled to be who they are and have their unique responses. Your only job is to express yourself clearly, directly and with integrity. Never let your happiness be contingent on anyone responding the way you think they should. You can’t change anyone. Thinking that you could or should is evidence of a boundary issue.

(Note that I did NOT say you have to keep everyone in your life that you have ever known or been born into a family with. That is up to you. Boundaries also help you understand that if you express what you need to someone and they refuse to take your feelings into consideration or tell you straight-out that they never plan to change what doesn’t feel ok to you, that is useful information that you’d be wise to consider.)

2. Decide consciously that you won’t share your feelings with the person because you have learned through honest adult effort that doing so will only cause you more frustration. Fair enough. In this case, do what you need to process the feelings on your own, in therapy, with a friend, through journaling… whatever works. Express and move through the emotion so it doesn’t fester and begin manifesting as a physical illness, which is what happens to unacknowledged/unexpressed emotions. Then decide if you want people who don’t respect your feelings to be a part of your life.

In the beginning, stating needs directly will feel difficult. In time it will be a breeze, and you will wonder why the hell you waited so long. Be nice to yourself about it. <3

Letting Go of the False Self

My profession is fascinating. What’s better than dropping small talk, triviality, and social masks and getting to be totally present with another’s soul? Seeing a side of someone that is rarely, if ever, shown to anyone else is such a privilege, the experience can be quite transcendent.

But sometimes it’s not.

This happens in all parts of life. We can be so engaged with someone- and then, without knowing why, we register that something between us is suddenly less compelling. Any of us can become triggered and begin playing a compensatory role (trying to entertain, to please, to sound impressive, filling the space with rapid-fire story-telling, avoiding feelings through intellectualization or laughter)- all this in place of surrendering into the moment with basic, thrilling realness.

And I get it. As a child who was hit, scrutinized, insulted and screamed at, I didn’t have much of a chance to embody my real Self. For many years, I wasn’t even clear about who that might be. If I exposed anything besides toughness, I was laughed at and called a “candy-ass American”. Feelings were unacceptable and looking good was the only thing that mattered. As a teen, if I was acknowledged by my mother, it centered around just two options: how gorgeous and impressive I looked- or how physically disgusting and thus totally unacceptable I was. Her opinion (and my worth) shifted wildly from one minute to the next. “I can’t believe how beautiful you are! I can’t believe I made someone this absolutely incredible! Look at this golden hair! Look at these blue eyes! Mi princesa rubia- que divina que es!!”

Then, one moment later, “Wait- what did you do to your eyebrows??! And oh my god-you are so skinny- you look like a sick cat! I can’t even look at you- get out of my sight!” And she would shield her eyes from the monstrosity of me, tell me to get out of her room, and not talk to me for days.

When I had to give presentations in grad school, the anxiety was so great that I would almost black out. Instead, I willed myself to collect all my insecurities, lock them deep down inside- step into the role of “impervious, disaffected expert” and get through it. A frozen look would creep onto my fellow-students’ faces. I had no idea what that was about- I was just trying to live through the experience. As I think back on those times, I realize I was employing an unconscious strategy of being untouchable: “Don’t care what anyone thinks. Don’t let them in.” It was a self-protective force-field of intensity- one that shut down connection before it ever had a chance. When I think of this now, it makes me sad. This is not who I am- it’s just unconscious terror of something that no longer even exists. When softness is ridiculed, feelings are beaten out of you, and vulnerability is forbidden, you adjust.

My work now is noticing when those old patterns rear their fearful little heads. And trust me, they do! But I try my best to risk being human, to be open and show the tenderness that is still so much a part of the real me. Needing others is another story though. I haven’t quite discovered how to do that yet, but I’m working on it. Fortunately I have learned how to be gentle with myself about my shortcomings.

They say that if you’re not doing things every day that scare you, you’re not really living. So how do we change deeply held, largely unconscious patterns in order to distinguish our True Selves from false, fear-driven, life deadening patterns? First, we need to get clear on what habitual roles we play. To determine this, ask yourself who you had to be for your more difficult parent- and how you react when you feel anxious or threatened.

5 Types and What Distorts Our Ability to Be Real:

* Most people are a combination of two patterns, primary and secondary.

1. Leaving Pattern- Distinguished by a loss of connection to one’s own body and a strong impulse to get away. Often looks away from others. The original feeling was of not being welcomed into the world. This type intellectualizes or spiritualizes when feeling overwhelmed.

*Notice when this takes you over and make an effort to bring yourself back into your physical body. Remind yourself that you are loved by life. Feel your feet connecting you to the floor and imagine you could send roots down into the core of the earth. Know that going into your head and needing to “understand everything” is a strategy. Tolerate the discomfort of just being here or simply being with another person, without needing to explain or analyze things in your mind. Open to the expanse of enlivening possibilities in this moment. You are welcome and valuable, just as you are.

2. Merging Pattern- Desires to please others to get needs met. This type overrides what is wanted for the self in order to take care of others. It results in a fixation on others being the key to one’s happiness. “If I can just help this person, save this person, make this person need me/love me, then I can feel worthy.” The truth is, nothing outside of you can prove your worth because it is a given. When you believe it rests in the hands of another to determine, you will put this person above you. A healthy partner or friend will be uncomfortable in this dynamic. An unhealthy person may relish this position of power and allow you to undermine yourself as long as you’re willing to do so.

*Notice when you feel compelled to be overly “helpful” or put on a bright, happy social mask that you believe will please others. Be aware of your impulse to flatter, serve or manipulate in ways that will ingratiate you to others. Find your core, explore what is right for you and take care of your Self. You are enough.

 3. Enduring Pattern- Distinguished by a need to resist and feeling stuck and numb. The strong and silent type- can handle anything by bearing down and tolerating it all. “You may get my body but you won’t get my soul.” This type battles self-sabotage and lack of motivation.

*Notice when the impulse to do the opposite of what is right for you arises. Passive aggression is common. Recognize this stems from not having had enough space to be your true Self in childhood and that no one has that power over you now. You are entitled to your feelings and personal wishes. They are not something to fear. Focus on strengthening your core. Practice expressing your true self with others, claim your space and take action. The right people will be honored to know the real you and support your self-expression. You are worthy and deserve great things.

 4. Aggressive Pattern- This type feels life is a fight for survival and no one is on their side. Trusting and needing others is shut down. Power, control and manipulative charm feel like the only path to safety. Your energy is big and your will is formidable.

*In order to overcome this pattern, you must notice when you are intimidating others. Soften your approach and show more of your vulnerability- the quality that feels the most threatening. Feel yourself being held by the Earth. Learn to value others as well as yourself. Be willing to depend on others, ask for help. Let others in. Remember that you are not alone. Your protection was once in closing your heart. Know that it’s safe now, and essential, to trust and be open to others.

 5. Rigid Pattern- This type had to be impressive for their parents- the cheerleader or football hero. They believe they are their performance or appearance- and so are you. “Unless you’re perfect, you’re worthless.” Overly-responsible, organized, respectful of rules, policies and authority.

*To get out of this pattern, notice your drive to critique, advise, or improve others or put everything you experience into neat little categories. Practice trusting your own feelings instead of outside authority. Explore pleasure and fun. Feel your inner life force and know that you are much more than your accomplishments. Let go of “being right”. You are worthy just in your being.

In my personal life, I adore people who take their most mortifying “failures” and personal embarrassments and spin them into hysterical stories for my gluttonous delight. My ex-husband Roy didn’t realize the extent to which he was charming me when he told me one of the most paralyzingly humiliating stories I can fathom. He was in high school and home sick that day with a stomach virus. A cheerleader he was into, Vickie, told him she was planning to drive to his house after school to visit. He was so exuberant that despite feeling horrible, upon seeing her pull into his driveway, he bound out his front door, charged powerfully across the front lawn and executed a combination Superman/InvisiblePole-Vault/Excessive-Testosterone-Leap over a low-lying shrub, setting off a soul-obliterating explosion of watery diarrhea down his legs, mid-air. I’m breathless with laughter as I type this because it just doesn’t get more horrific. Plus, who on Earth shares this kind of story after the fact? If this had been me, I would quickly pack a bag and disappear into the nearest, densest forest, never to be seen or heard from again. But Roy capitalized on the authentic delight of vulnerability and hooked me solidly into an even deeper love.

This happens in therapy too. I can’t tell you what a jolt of aliveness, respect, and appreciation I feel when people share about feelings and experiences they don’t lay bare to anyone else. Maybe that’s part of what appeals to me so much about this work. Clients are doing something that is still hard for me. Rather than acknowledge challenges, I’m driven to keep my mouth shut, manage my image, and keep people at a safe, comfortable distance. And yet the irony is, when someone is honest in a way that could make them look wretched, it never makes them look wretched to me. It’s a beautiful thing- being privy to that kind of openness, to know that someone trusts me and is courageous enough to say what is true.

And I always like them more.

The Meaning We Make

Welcoming a new client into my office for our second appointment, he smiled at me brightly and then shot out, “What’s with your handshake?”

“I’m sorry- what??”

“Last time you shook my hand it was very strange. I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Really- what does that mean?” I respond, slightly alarmed.

“It was so weak.” he says, incredulous.

“Wow. That’s surprising. I’m sorry. I’m not sure what I did,” I stammer as I find my way to my chair. Weak is not a word I’ve heard or thought to use describing me, so I was a bit rattled. But this time wasn’t about me, so I shifted my focus back to him and asked what he wanted from our time together.

We abandoned the handshake- spent the next 50 minutes exploring other concerns and completed our session. On the way out, he reached for my hand again and immediately belted out, “You’re doing it again!” I was very confused, so he proceeded to deconstruct what I was doing with my hand. Apparently, I was shaking his hand the way one might pick up a small piece of ice, with fingers perched, offering only the slightest skin-to skin contact. In the past I’ve been aware of nearly crushing people’s hands when shaking. I was aware of not wanting to do that anymore but was unaware of the new adaptation. He instructed me on what a handshake is supposed to be and I’m shocked by the intimacy of it- his entire hand pressed into mine. Yikes- this is what other people do with strangers all day long? I’m truly shaking my head about this.

You might be thinking this was just another “nothing-moment”, but I don’t look a it that way. In my life, there are no nothing moments. Every second is ripe with energy and information that, if interested, we can learn and grow so much from. This client had taken that brief gesture and spent his personal time away from our session in his own life, thinking about it. What makes us humans do that? What did he make it mean- about me, about him? Fortunately, in the therapy setting, it’s appropriate and possible to explore these previously unexamined inner storylines- and in future sessions, we may return to it. But in the rest of life, we don’t spend much time finding out what words and gestures actually mean inside ourselves or others. We filter events through the familiar lens with which we habitually view the world, and we believe our own minds, regardless of how painful and untrue those stories may be.

As a person who is always looking for broader meaning in life, I asked myself just now, “What makes me shake hands like I’m bracing to transfer ice?” What makes me prioritize my separateness, my inter-personal boundary with such rigidness it shocks people?

When I think about it, I know. My whole life, I’ve needed to rely exclusively on myself. It was my only way to stay safe. Having money, my parents provided for me adequately, perhaps even excessively, in a material way. But in terms of emotional needs, I was on my own. My mother, a psychiatrist whose unspoken motto was, “Fuck your feelings.”- she was not there for that.  And even though she was usually scary- verbally, emotionally and physically abusive, I still remember the last moment I let myself need her, or anyone. I was a young kid with the flu- in bed, feeling horrible. My mom burst into my room looking for empty glasses to take to the kitchen, and in a moment of weakness, I asked her if I could have a hug because I felt so sick and sad. Her response was, “Oh Jennifer, you’re regressing.” In disgusted exasperation she added, “You know where the medicine box is.”, and walked out.

I remember the emptiness I felt and the burning humiliation of asking for something as pathetic as a hug from this person I normally hated but also really needed. It was probably then that my handshake was cellularly constructed. I will either crush your hand so that you know I don’t need you and you can’t hurt me- or I will be so distant, you can’t even begin to touch me.

These days, there’s no room in my life for sickness. I have not had a cold in years because I avoid that possibility obsessively. I wash my hands constantly, touch no public surfaces, and avoid breathing anywhere someone could possibly be sick. Hearing those practices, one might think I’m suffering from some type of OCD behavioral compulsion, but what it actually represents is just my survival strategy of needing no one. If I were sick, I would be vulnerable. And so I’m wary of hands.

Our lives are constructed from the countless experiences we’ve had which color our present in ways we cannot even fathom. But when we’re open and willing to look at our patterns with curiosity and compassion, we are no longer slaves to those habitually unacknowledged fears. We can take the stories of our difficult pasts and create new, empowering narratives that reflect a bigger picture, a deeper truth. And every circumstance, every person we meet affords an opportunity to reframe the meaning we assign to life’s “nothing moments”.

What makes boundaries So Damn Sexy?

Boundaries are guidelines that each person establishes for themselves which determine the treatment, behavior, circumstances etc. that one will or won’t tolerate. Sounds simple enough. But what makes them so important (and sexy)?

Because without them, you could have every single other thing going for you and life would still be painful, confusing and unfulfilling. You would still feel like a victim- only you wouldn’t realize you were victimizing yourself.

Let me take a moment and soften that last pronouncement because of course none of us would consciously choose to do this to ourselves. Many of us were not given enough kindness, understanding, love, and acceptance as children. We may have grown up in addicted or violent homes, we may have been raised by people who themselves did not have boundaries, did not love themselves, did not take personal responsibility, perhaps were mentally ill… and in many unconscious ways, they made us responsible for their feelings. They may have overwhelmed us, abused us, ignored us, conveyed that our value was in performing or presenting a certain image to others- there are endless possibilities. But what it amounts to is that we were not held in unconditional love. Our feelings were not validated, and our incipient Self-hood (required for boundaries) was not acknowledged or respected.

In order to survive an environment where our feelings were not honored, the miraculous human system adapts and engineers out this inner sense of Self. (The true Self is always there, but we don’t yet have conscious access to it.) We had to give up that capacity and instead focus on pleasing others in order to get our own needs met. And so, as we moved through the years and various developmental stages, our identity was built to reference- not what is right for us, but what is pleasing to “them”. We missed opportunities to slowly and gradually strengthen our understanding of what feels good to us and how we know that.

So, the first step towards boundaries is developing a basic awareness of our bodies. This represents a willingness to do the very thing that was most dangerous in childhood, so it will understandably bring up resistance inside. It is a radical reclaiming of our physical (and thus emotional, energetic, mental, spiritual…) systems. No one outside of you- no matter how brilliant, educated, impressive, evolved, could ever tell you what is best for you besides you yourself. Most people spend their entire lives searching for the person, relationship, religion, or entity that will finally tell them how to “find happiness”. Yet happiness is truly who you are at your core when you let go of all the mind-stuff and false-beliefs that keep you from recognizing it. Eckhart Tolle says, “The physical body is the greatest portal to presence.” And presence puts us in contact with the Self- inherent to all humans- that had to be exiled so early by a young system in chaos.

How to get out of the co-dependent, boundary-less, merging pattern:

1. Cultivate relationships with people who are supportive and encourage you to make choices about your life from your own wisdom rather than in service of them. People with poor boundaries will call you selfish for taking care of yourself. Don’t fall for it.

2. Learn to self-reference. Pay attention to your core, the seat of the will, and let it guide your choices. Try Yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonics, Tai Chi, or any other practices with a mind/body component.

3. Practice noticing sensation. What is it like when someone is really sweet to you? What happens in your body? What happens to the flow of energy inside? What temperatures are associated with this? And what happens when someone is rude? Develop a habit of tuning in to your physical experience, and then do what feels right to you. Notice what happens next. (This helps re-organize the system, and through neuro-plasticity, creates neural pathways devoted to making this new, self-affirming practice your default.)

4. Practice exercising your will. Tolerate the initial emptiness you feel when tuning into your own core. This will get easier. You are worth the time and effort.

5. Notice the urge to rescue others- and let it go. Recognize this pattern is an old remnant of what you had to do in childhood, and this is no longer true for you as an adult. Furthermore, if you would like a healthy relationship, realize this must be created with another healthy adult who understands you couldn’t save them (or anyone else) no matter how hard you tried. And it’s not your responsibility.

Awareness + New Action= Change

By this time you may be wondering why I would use the word sexy to describe all this challenging, possibly even dreadful-sounding work… Because the old cliché is true: there could never be a better you. You are the one and only incarnation of all the mysterious, fascinating, unique aspects that comprise the totality of you. So when you give up your Self to conform to the mold of what others want you to be (or simply what you THINK they want you to be), you lose what makes you attractive to healthy people. You lose any possibility of being sexy and captivating to people who could co-create a beautiful, delicious, fun, and exciting life with you. Healthy people want to know your real thoughts and feelings instead of wanting to control you. Healthy people want you to have deep, passionate desires that you pursue for your own enjoyment of life. They don’t want you reducing yourself to yes-person to their every whim.

Please remember as you embark on this journey of reclaiming your Self: this is a process. It took years and years of your system seeking safety through external validation to create the person you are now. And it will take time to learn more empowering thoughts-patterns and behaviors. Practice being as compassionate and loving towards yourself as you would be to a brand-new beautiful baby, just starting out in the world- totally open, totally vulnerable, totally deserving. The reality is, you still have that brand-new, beautiful baby that you once were inside of you. And the ONLY person who can heal that perfect little baby at this point is you. Remind yourself always, “It’s not my job to rescue anyone.” “I am free to be who I really am.” and “I can do this.”

Getting What You Want

That’s a fun idea, right?! At the heart of all therapy, and life, this is the goal.

So why does it feel so damn hard sometimes?

The reason is because most traditional talk therapy, and people’s minds, are focused upon the past and the negative aspect of what is. And what is is simply a recreation of all that has been as a result of your focus upon it in this moment. The truth is, as confirmed by quantum physics, everything is happening all at once. There are countless realities co-occurring in every second. The problem is that most of us have been conditioned to focus on, regurgitate old stories about, and give our undivided attention to precisely what is not pleasing us. This takes the unlimited power of this one moment in time and reduces it to a replay of what has been instead of what is wanted. We drag all the stories about our past into the now. We argue for our limitations. We describe in detail why we can’t have what we truly want because of what someone else has done, what other people will think, or because we don’t believe we are worthy of our desires. And then we wonder why nothing changes, why life feels constrictive, dull, difficult, uninspired- even when we’re “working so hard” in therapy.

If you focus on the past, you will simply continue re-creating that past. If you focus on other people not doing what you wish they were doing (and how that’s ruining your happiness), you give yourself no alternative but to continue re-living that very experience. Take that in.

 “So how do I create something different- particularly when my past has been really challenging?”

1. Realize that if you really want something- whatever it is, it’s meant for you.

2. Know that despite the messages you may have received to the contrary, you deserve to have exactly what you want.

3. Only you can let it in.

4. This is done through a focus on what you want, why you want it, and a visceral feeling of your own empowerment in the now to choose.

5. Give up arguing for your limitations. Stop talking about why you can’t have what you want and recognize your life is for YOU. No one else is responsible for you not getting what you want. No one else is holding you down. The only person who can keep you from what you want is you. This is not an indictment but an invitation. Realizing we are the only ones currently in our own way can be an exciting and scary acknowledgment, but it is the only path to freedom and fulfillment.

I’ll leave you with an adage from the recovery movement that I have always loved, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.”

If relational trauma keeps your physiology and thought patterns stuck in the disempowered past, find a Somatic Trauma Therapist and reclaim your NOW.

If you want something, have the courage to dream of it, reach for it, and receive it.

5 Steps to Reclaim Your Life (Part 3)

I’ve outlined the 5 basic personality patterns that we run when distressed.

But how does this translate into information we can use? Here’s how:

1. Realize we and everyone else we know are just trying to feel safe.

2. Take ownership of your patterns and recognize that no person or circumstance can “make you” respond in a particular way. We are always responsible for our words and actions as adults, no matter what.

3. Forgive yourself. Over and over. None of us would consciously choose to enact patterns that disrupt our own happiness, and yet most of us live this way- making other people responsible for our feelings and reactions and feeling like a victim. If we lived through abuse as kids, we truly were victims at that time, and so the nervous system (until healed through somatic psychotherapy) holds on to the energy and information of that victimhood and we drag that distorted perception via our physical body, thought patterns, spirit and physiology into the present moment where it does not belong or serve us. We must make a conscious decision to heal our emotional wounds and live fully in the present moment as adults.

4. How do we do that?? And what does it mean to be an adult?

Simply, it means taking full responsibility for our selves in the present moment and blaming no one, ever again. And please remember- responsibility is distinct from blame. If you, like the rest of us, have been caught in patterns that rob you of your own empowerment, you are not to blame for that. It is simply a habit of going into child consciousness when threatened. But when you finally understand this life-changing reality, you must completely let go of blame, let go of fixating on anything or anyone who, in your mind, has wronged you. You will never live an actualized life if you put your attention on that which you have no control over and can NEVER change- other people.

5. Once you have identified your own patterns:

a.) Recognize when you’re caught in them.

b.) Be grateful you are aware enough to notice the distress you are causing yourself. Thank yourself for your awareness and dedication to making a change.

c.) Return to the present moment through calm, deep breathing and focused attention on the physical body.

d.) Take specific steps to shift out of the pattern. (more on this in the next post)

The cool thing is, when we really develop compassion for ourselves, we easily feel it for others. Sometimes we think that if we’re very hard on ourselves, this will shame us into changing. This will never happen and will only work against us, forever. The single most important shift you can make is in developing self-compassion and self-forgiveness. If this is currently difficult for you, make this your absolute first intention. Work with affirmations like, “I release the need to blame anyone. I forgive myself, love myself and everyone else.”

Our beliefs are just the thoughts we keep thinking. Changing our thoughts changes the actual neural circuitry, structure and function of our brains, which controls every aspect of our existence: feelings, perceptions, chemical make-up, energetic vibration…. everything. If relationships feel painful or challenging, make a commitment to be unconditionally friendly and loving with yourself, know that change is possible and that you deserve it.

The 5 Personality Patterns: Understanding Ourselves and Others (Part 2)

There are 5 basic personality patterns that humans develop in response to early childhood wounds. They are unique ways of seeing the world, experiencing our bodies, containing and expressing our energy, responding to threat, etc. They each represent adaptive strategies to surviving environmental failure. Most of us employ two- a primary and a default strategy when feeling unsafe.

Here is a synopsis of each pattern. This information is taken directly from the book The 5 Personality Patterns by Steven Kessler, which I recommend highly to anyone who wants to develop self-understanding, self-compassion and gain control of their lives & relationships.

Leaving Pattern:

Seeks safety through: Leaving

Age of wounding: utero to 6 months

Typical parent: frightened or angry, insufficiently grounded

Typical wound: hostility shattered attention of the incoming spirit

Effect of wound: self is left fragmented and fragile

Difficulty with: embodiment

Defensive action: limits contact and incoming energy, leaves body, leaves situation

Result of defensive action: self is unable to anchor in body

Flow of energy: away from others

Fears: living in a physical body and going crazy

Orients to: the psychic realm

Default emotion: fear

Values: safety, alone time

Patterned thought: “I don’t matter. No one cares.”

Patterned behavior: freeze, dissociate, leave

Human need: to individuate, to decide to live in a human body

Spiritual need: to experience individuated essence

Gifts: awareness of energy, creativity, playfulness, sensitivity

Complimenting the pattern: use a light touch, be soft and warm, note their beauty, fun, originality, creativity

Getting yourself out of pattern: re-enter your body, reference your core, ground and reassemble yourself

 Merging pattern:

Seeks safety through: Merging

Age of wounding- 6 months- 2.5 yrs

Typical parent: depriving, ill, absent

Typical wound: unable to take in enough nurturance and love

Effect of wound: can’t get full, feels needy and empty, fears deprivation

Difficulty with: needs, receiving, holding, digesting

Defensive action: looks to others to fill own needs or compensates by filling others’ needs

Result of defensive action: unable to source, hold and metabolize own energy, collapses easily

Flow of energy: toward others

Fears: abandonment, rejection, depravation, not enough of anything

Orients to: connection

Default emotion: shame

Values: relationship, love, being needed

Patterned thought: “I’m not enough. I can’t.” or “I’ll help you.”

Patterned behavior: manipulate, cling, collapse, play victim or rescuer

Human need: to nurture self, to know self is enough

Spiritual need: to experience the infinite source within

Gifts: caring, nurturing, loving, generous, giving

Complimenting the pattern: make it personal and emotional, speak to their heart, tell them you love what they did

How to get yourself out of pattern: find your core and reference it, act from there

Enduring Pattern:

Seeks safety through: hiding self, resisting others

Age of wounding: 1.5-3 yrs

Typical parent: intrusive, dominating, authoritarian,

Typical wound: invaded, humiliated, punished for expressing autonomy

Effect of wound: can’t control own body, space, fears self-expression and action

Difficulty with: expressing self, taking action, claiming own space

Defensive action: resists others, turns will against own self, pulls in and hides self deep inside

Result of defensive action: resists everything, can’t express self or take own action, self-sabotage

Flow of energy: in and down, stops

Fears: invasion, exposure, humiliation, being controlled

Orients to: space

Default emotion: resentment, guilt

Values: private space

Patterned thought: “I have to hold it all.”

Patterned behavior: hunker down, resist, endure, complain

Human need: to claim own space and safety to express self

Spiritual need: to recognize individual essence as valid and divine

Gifts: grounding, stamina, steady, patient, diplomatic

Complimenting the pattern: don’t invade their space, softly leave your compliment at the edge of their space

How to get yourself out of pattern: move your body, claim your space and fill it

Aggressive Pattern:

Seeks safety through: power

Age of wounding: 2.5-4

Typical parent: one parent seductive, one authoritarian

Typical wound: during survival fear, no one was there for them, willed self to survive

Effect of wound: feels powerful, but alone, fears own needs, fears betrayal

Difficulty with: trusting others, containing self

Defensive action: rejects needs, idealizes power, dominates and controls others

Result of defensive action: must guard self, unable to need others, trust others, or ask for help

Flow of energy: up and out, inflates

Fears: weakness, domination, betrayal, trusting and letting go

Orients to: truth

Default emotion: anger

Values: control of situations

Patterned thought: “I can and I will.” “You’re not enough.”

Patterned behavior: challenge, fight, intimidate, dominate

Human need: to trust others, to have needs and still be safe

Spiritual need: to feel held by a bigger, stronger, loving presence

Gifts: big energy, will, charisma, strong, competent, resourceful

Complimenting the pattern: speak from your core to their core, note their competence and achievements

How to get yourself out of pattern: ground yourself, allow something good and bigger than you to contain you

 Rigid Pattern:

Seeks safety through: containing and correcting self

Age of wounding: 3.5-5

Typical parent: rule-bound

Typical wound: taught to ignore or distrust inner experience and trust only outer rules and forms

Effect of wound: fears own inner experience and loss of control

Difficulty with: feeling self, trusting self

Defensive action: controls experience, references rules instead of self, acts appropriately

Result of defensive action: unable to feel self and trust inner guidance

Flow of energy: flow is constricted

Fears: chaos and disorder

Orients to: rules and words

Default emotion: criticism, blame, resentment

Values: forms, rules, facts, competence

Patterned thought: “Something is wrong. Someone is to blame.”

Patterned behavior: get busy, work hard, clean, organize

Human need: to feel real self, trust it and act from it

Spiritual need: to experience both unitive and individuated essence within

Gifts: order, form, structure, highly functional and high achiever

Complimenting the pattern: put it in words, make it factual, specific and verifiable

How to get yourself out of pattern: focus on feelings and sensations as your guidance

Childhood Trauma and Adaptive Strategies (Part 1)

In my practice, I work many people who, as a result of childhood trauma, have lost connection to their bodies and their ability to know what they feel or need at a basic level. Recently while listening to a podcast on complex trauma and reflecting upon the difference between these adaptations and my own, I had an epiphany.

I have always had a strong, if not overwhelming, sense of my own body, needs and feelings. And while this has not always been pleasant, it has been useful. As I recognized this, I experienced gratitude towards my estranged, abusive mother for having provided this capacity. In the next moment, it dawned on me that she never intended to provide this to me at a conscious level, it was simply that she had managed to get through her own difficult childhood with these faculties intact, and in that way, was able to pass them on. Conversely, all the relational abilities that she had “ruined” in me were also simply a result of what had been “ruined” in her. Whatever we have been shamed out of in childhood (our feelings, healthy dependency, anger, etc.), we will have a difficult time experiencing in ourselves and tolerating in others.

Often we believe people could have done so much better than they did with us, treated us better, understood us more... Yet the truth is, we can only give to others what we have access to inside. We can only understand about others what we understand and have compassion for in ourselves. Everyone has been hurt and has had to adapt to pain and loss of various types and degrees. This is true of our parents, partners, children… everyone. These emotional heartbreaks, depending upon their timing in our development, have enormous impact upon the way we see, feel and experience life. They create a particular lens through which we view the world, and often, we mistakenly assume others share our perspective. Early childhood trauma and the interpersonal dynamics they create impact our ability to relate to others from a place of present moment awareness and adult consciousness. 

There are 5 basic adaptations, and most of us develop a combination of two primary styles that drive us. It’s critical to recognize that these patterns are not “who we are”. They are merely strategies that helped us survive particular environments. We had to foreclose aspects of ourselves that were not welcomed by our caretakers and now act from these unconscious childhood patterns when we feel threatened. It is also important to understand that no strategy is superior to another. There are benefits and gifts to each style, just as there are challenges.

In the next post, I will provide a brief framework these 5 basic survival patterns.

· This information is the synthesis of insights from several therapeutic models from Psychoanalysis and Bioenergetics, to a cutting-edge and powerful body/mind approach that I use in my clinical practice, called the Neuro-Affective Relational Model, or NARM

· Recommended reading: The 5 Personality Patterns by Steven Kessler and Healing Developmental Trauma by Laurence Heller, PhD