The child who was beaten to death and the 18 year old who was disfigured and left for dead leave me questioning humanity.  My cat’s illness triggers for me, the grief of how painful life can be for all of us, despite our best efforts.  The issue with my boyfriend showed me how easy it can be to slip into old perceptions and wounds. Then I hear the two positive voices that stand with these painful events, “Can you be your best self?” “I have compassion for those who kill and torture others”.  I ponder a compassion so large that it can see into the darkness of those psyches and care for their limitations, for the state of being that they reside in.  And yet, I have my own constrictions.  I am not always my best self.

In that therapy session, I was talking about a fear I had and my boyfriend moved into his own fear of being trapped by someone else’s negativity. Because he expressed it through anger, I didn’t actually see his fear.  And he didn’t see mine.  That didn’t get figured out till later. He moved into frustration and panic that he would be trapped with someone who he could never please.  The ghost of his horrific father came up and got him.  And my sensation of feeling trapped was almost suffocating. My own internal voice of “there isn’t enough room for me to be me,” got triggered, which goes back to a childhood of living with a rage-aholic (among other things). My fear of not being considered was also very much about the past, and not really about the present.

Do these things all tie together?   For me they do.  They speak of finding a centered place in relation to the pain that continually confronts us, to the possibility of transcendence, of being part of the solution, despite where we may find ourselves. And they speak to the ability to respond to another being, not an “it”, not a receptacle of our fears or ideas.  A relationship is an ongoing dialogue. What kind of dialogues are we capable of, do we strive for?   If we defend, overpower, destroy, punish etc., we cannot respond to the other, instead we are reacting AT the other.  Respond-Ability means that we have the capacity to be responsive to and have a dialogue with another and ourselves.  The other is seen and treated as someone with integrity in his or her own right, not simply there to fulfill our needs (and vice versa).

My partner and I were able to recover fairly quickly and figure out what was hard for both of us.  We were able to help each other identify the wounds we triggered for each other and talk about them. We were able to stay connected in the process. When humans cannot do that, do not even know it is a possibility; we live in a constricted world of right and wrong, of punishment and blame, of me versus you.  There is no “we”.  When I imagine that reality, it feels hard and angular, not soft, loving and responsive.  It is not a state of being that anybody would chose if they had an experience of what is possible.

I use my own process continually to understand others and myself.  Everything I live is grist for the mill.  As I juxtapose those 2 higher voices against those more painful incidents, I ask myself, can I step out of my small limited self in the moment of a “trigger” and have compassion for his fear? This doesn’t mean that I don’t set boundaries or that I accept bad treatment, it means that I look for a place to stand, and a way to understand, so that I have compassion for the other, for the unending pain that we all experience.  It means that I don’t reside in the limited perspective of my own wounds.

When I work with individuals and couples, I help them find their wounds. These wounds must be articulated in order that we can transcend them.  I have to be able to say, “I grew up not being allowed any space and that was so painful that it is hard to re-experience it,” before I can step out of it and beyond it. I have to say to myself, I don’t want to get trapped in those feelings.  I don’t want to live from that old reality.  I don’t want to be on the continuum of those who see the other as an “it,” making it okay to react against them and thereby diminish them, and diminish myself.  Instead, I want to be able to stand in a place of compassion for myself, for the other.  That we will experience pain is guaranteed, but we can also learn to dialogue with ourselves, and with the other, finding compassion, healing and love to help soothe the pain.

Dreams are important for they guide us, and we have all kinds of dreams; who we are going to be “when we grow up,” dreams of saving the planet, rescuing the underprivileged, meeting our prince and raising our children, etc. But sometimes we embark upon the path of our dream and lose our way. We do not necessarily have to tools to make our dreams manifest.

What happens when we have a dream, but fail at it?  We become failed heroes, initiates who do not pass the test.  Culturally, marriage is one of those precarious paths that many embark upon, but not so many navigate successfully. And yet relationships and the experience of love are so important.

I attended a “Hold Me Tight” couples workshop run by Sue Johnson recently.  Sue talked of research that had been done around POW’s who got through their difficult circumstances psychologically intact, versus those who did not.  Those who survived had done so by holding onto an image of a beloved.  They had pulled into their experience, memories of people and times of love.  As they focused on those memories over and over, they used those memories to sustain them.  They brought the experience of being loved into their present and often horrific circumstances and it allowed them to survive.

Our fairytales and stories present the dream of the happily ever after relationship.  Yet the tools we have are about as adequate as taking a 5-day hike with no food or water.  We follow our dreams blindly, with inadequate resources to make the journey successfully.  Recently, I saw a TV personality, “The Bachelor” being interviewed with his fiancée, except he was yelling, “Stop interrupting me!” and she crying bitterly, stood up and raced away.  Their blissful union fell apart so quickly.  What were they thinking? They believed the dream with no understanding of what it would take to make it work.

We need different maps with different tools for different journeys.  The journey of a successful relationship requires more than just a dream; it requires a multitude of abilities and skills, as well as an understanding of what will sabotage us.  Do you have the map you need to successfully navigate a relationship?  I recommend, “Hold Me Tight,” by Sue Johnson, to start with, although there are also other good books and workshops available.

Here are some questions to ask yourself: When I was young, how did I sooth myself when I was upset?  Did I go to anybody to talk?  Did I fight for what I wanted?  Did I retreat?  How does that tendency still occur? What did my partner do when he or she was young? Now look at those two tendencies.  How do they interact?  What pattern emerges out of them?  Can you and your partner talk about the pattern, or do you get stuck in blaming each other?  If you can’t talk about the pattern that you both get caught in, you will need to learn to do this, whether by seeing a therapist, attending a workshop or reading a book. Good relationships don’t just happen: they are made.  We live in a world filled with endless information. Educate yourself wherever you wish to have mastery.  There is no reason anybody should not achieve his or her dreams.

What is enlightenment? Why would we want it? Is it not to gain deep revelation or insight into the meaning and purpose of things, to be removed from our everyday perspectives that cause us so much angst and pain?

I not only work with many people who are struggling with the parts of their lives and relationships that are painful, but have my own struggles as well.  Nobody wants pain or heartache.  If my world flows out of who I am – out of my perspective, then if I am sour, my world is sour.  If I am scared, I cling.  I would much prefer to find a way to be in relationship to others, the world and myself that has perspective, balance and an open heart.

How does a radical change in perspective occur?  What is the work we must do to move from an unclear and difficult place to one that is more open, even enlightened?

I think of the couples’ work I do, of our wounds and raw spots that emerge to be tended to in our relationships.  Our wounds are where we do NOT have perspective. It is where we have reactive behaviors and unproductive thoughts.  It is where we shut down, or carry resentment or judgment.  It is where we do not love and where we need love the most.

When does your heart shut?

What happens?

Will you be curious about the qualities in another that cause you to reject them?

What would be different for you, if they were different?

What are they keeping you from?

If you dig down deep enough, you will probably find that you are rejecting the aspects of another that actually cost you or seem to cost  you love, peace or safety.  In relational work where we grow by being in contact with another, it is important to find how we blame each other, how we protect ourselves, how our defenses, which seemly make sense, can be outgrown and cause others and ourselves pain.  For love to really work, we have to untangle this part of ourselves from and sometimes with the other.  Unlike the blessing of an enlightened flash, this is the slow steady work leading to a radical change in perspective, and a radical new self, and world.

How often do we think about the big picture?

How often do we trust that we are doing enough, living our lives well enough?

How often do we have people in our lives that support us in this way?

What we believe has a profound impact on how we live our lives and how we relate to others.

Do you have a good perspective on what is a fear and needs to be discarded, and what is accurate information that you need to allow to influence your choices?

Do you trust the unfolding of your life (and are you working with it or against it)?

Do the people in your life support you by helping you to see yourself more clearly?

“I was reading Gloria Steinem and realized something about my life which I’ve known but have never been able to name clearly: that I could not be an artist because I wasn’t strong enough as a person and because I was raised without developing the ability to take care of myself emotionally.  My energy kept being diverted into the areas of my weakness, mainly relating to others, and until I reformed this part of myself, there was nothing I could have said that would have meant anything. It would only be play on paper because it did not deal with the part of me that was crippled.  And I was always meant to heal that part. For me, there could be no art without my acknowledging where I came from, how crippled I was and how that prevented me from reaching anything with any real kind of power. The thing I wanted most, to be an artist, could not be reached directly, but only through my becoming a more whole person. Otherwise I kept tripping up on what I was not. The events of my life have forced me to see how weak and trapped I was and that repairing this was my responsibility and task. Thus I have turned an enormous amount of focus on rebuilding myself, doing 12-step work, therapy and other forms of self-education.  As a result, my view of creativity has completely changed.  People who speak to others, stirring their imaginations are creating as much as somebody who is painting a picture.  They are creating in the world of interaction between people and stimulating new ideas in people.  They are creating in the open and fluid world of the mind.”

Earlier today I was listening to music, experiencing its loveliness and thinking about how we can make our lives a place of beauty, with the same grace and flow as a beautiful piece of music.  It is from here that I stand as a therapist.  It is my belief in our power to change who we are and our experience of our lives, becoming beings who can live a life of grace, that guides my vision as a therapist.  As I work with individuals and couples, I see where each is trapped or weak, where each is his or her own worst enemy.  I see what is possible for them.  This brings me to where I am now.  I am in the business of creating for myself as well as helping others create enlightened graceful lives.  Whatever truth leads to that, is the truth I follow.  In other words, if a belief will help us to evolve into a better place, then I will hold that belief, with or without scientific proof of it’s validity.  Because the proof is in it’s impact on our lives.  One of my main beliefs is that we are here on earth not only to heal ourselves, but to bring joy, peace, grace and love to ourselves, this planet and the beings of this planet in whatever way is most appropriate for each of us.

If we see ourselves as an act of creation, then we will look at our limitations and pain, and work to release ourselves from them by healing them, rather than try to navigate around them.  As we interact with our families, friends and partners, we can bring this healing into our relationships as well.  I believe that as a group, we have the power to assist and heal each other.  Because of this, I’ve changed my healing tips articles to a blog.  As I post blog entries to aid in this process, I am hoping that as each is inspired, those who wish to contribute to this process, voice their thoughts and feelings by responding with a comment.

Jane and Steve have hit a roadblock.  In this case, one of the party feels that they MUST express their feelings and what they see, and the other party feels that they MUST get away because they feel so hurt or trapped as a result. There is no space to talk. Both parties are caught in intense feelings and fears.  Neither can move in any direction without a reaction, without bumping into a ghost from their past, or their partner’s.When a couple finds themselves in this dynamic, stuffing feelings doesn’t work and isn’t the answer, nor does pushing the agenda.There is only one way out that works. The answer is this:

Jane says to Steve (or vice versa), “We are really struggling talking about this.  Lets talk about why this discussion is so hard for us and what it is bringing up for us.”  Jane and Steve are no longer talking about the issue itself.  Now they are talking about the minefield within which the issue resides.  Jane says further, “I grew up watching my parents behave in ways that was really painful for me.  My mom never confronted my dad on how he ignored me. She babied him instead. She took care of him instead of me. I couldn’t stand it.  There was nothing I could do.  I felt helpless and it hurt. So when I watch you behave in certain ways, taking care of others instead of yourself (and therefore us), I am terrified. I feel turned off.  I don’t know what to do.  I am afraid you aren’t taking care of your health and I will lose you eventually. Then when I can’t talk to you about what I see, I feel stuck. It also scares me because I want to be with you, but what if I get trapped?  Trapped the way I felt as a kid with my parents. I don’t know how to talk to you and get you to understand me in a way that feels safe to you and I really want to.  I don’t know how to be there for you and myself at the same time in this area.”  Steve thinks about this for a minute. He replies, “I need to know that you are not trying to change me, that you care about me the way I am.  I have plenty of history around not being accepted, being put down, and being controlled so when we get into this area, I feel so hurt that I just want to run away.  I feel unloved. I feel not good enough for you, or even for myself.  It is such an awful feeling.  How can I talk when it feels like you are criticizing me and I feel so horrible about myself?”

Steve and Jane are not talking about the issue of “You don’t take care of yourself.”  Instead, they are talking about the issue of, “It is really hard to talk to you when I love you, but what I have to say will hurt you. I am scared of you reacting and being hurt and leaving.” And they are talking about, “It’s really hard to talk when I love you and am scared of losing you but I feel criticized,  not good enough, and think I am disgusting to you.”  Steve and Jane need to talk about how difficult it is to talk about this, rather than the issue itself of Steve’s caretaking of others.  That is how they will eventually get to that issue.

The conversation continues.  Jane says, “When I try to talk about this with you, you get hurt and I get really scared.  I don’t want to hurt you. I want you to know how much I care about you and how much I want us to be able to talk.”  Steve says, “When you try to talk about this with me, I feel hurt and want to leave and I don’t want to leave you.” They talk more about their fear of both losing each other and of being trapped in something that is not good for them.  They talk about how this issue is so “hot” for both of them that they cannot talk about it. They talk about their histories and where these intense feelings are coming from. As Steve and Jane talk, they are opening up space around their wounds and fears.  They are bringing in some fresh air and getting to know and understand each other better.  They are learning new things about each other and themselves.  Steve doesn’t take care of himself because he doesn’t fully value himself.  He’s learned to value his ability to give to others instead.  Jane pushes to be seen, because she was so unseen as a child.

Steve and Jane discover that they have a way to talk that they did not use to have. They both understand why they are reacting so strongly to the other.  They understand what they are afraid of.  This is what they need to talk about first, before they can ever get to the actual “issue,” because the issue is embedded in their wounds. Both come to understand and have empathy for the other.  Both become more able to see themselves and talk about who they are and how they impact each other.

Jason had picked up his wife Mattie and they were driving to an event together. Mattie asked Jason if he had put the cats in for the night. Jason replied, “Well I got Fluffy in but not Whisper.” Mattie froze. “Did you shut the cat door?” she asked. “Yes, of course,” Jason said, not seeing what was coming. Mattie started to tear up. “What do you mean? Are you kidding?” she said. “No,” Jason said, feeling confused. “You locked Whisper out?” she asked again, incredulous. “I called and called and he didn’t come home.” Jason explained. “But there are coyotes,” she said. “What if he is chased and runs to the door and it is shut and he gets caught and eaten?” “That won’t happen,” Jason replied. “I’ve never seen a coyote around here and he is a smart cat. He can get on the roof or climb a tree.” Mattie is sitting stiffly. She feels alone and trapped. She knows he could be right, but she also knows that if something happened, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. She is imagining Whisper running for the door and feeling terrified as a coyote runs after him. “Do you want me to turn around and ruin this evening?” Jason asked, his voice cutting through the air angrily. “No,” Mattie mumbled. She is silent and upset. She doesn’t know what to say. Jason also feels confused. He starts sinking into an overwhelming feeling of despair and hopelessness. “Why she is being so irrational? What just happened? How could my perfectly sane woman lose her mind?”

When they came home later that night, Whisper was at the front door waiting for them. Later they talked. Mattie said maybe it would have been better to have asked to turn around and have him be mad rather than to be unable to forgive herself if something had happened to Whisper. Jason said that if she had insisted that they turn around, he wouldn’t just be mad. He would be struggling with a lot of doubt about being in a relationship with someone who was irrational. He said that not turning around was a big deal for him. It had given him hope that she wasn’t crazy like all the others. Although they could talk about the incident, they were at an impasse.

What is going on here?

Mattie had grown up on a farm. She had many pets as a child, and these pets were very important to her. There were many tragedies over the years; pet ducklings brutally decapitated by a raccoon in the middle of the night, shrieks filling the air, a pheasant chick that was accidentally stepped on and died in front of her, the family dog shot by a hunter. With each of these tragedies and many more, Mattie had wished she had been able to foresee and prevent it. Instead, whenever one of her pets died, she felt responsible, scared and alone. For her, the idea of her beloved Whisper being locked out and perhaps unsafe, was intolerable. And the thought that Jason would get angry instead of have empathy and understand her, brought her right back to some of the feelings and events of her childhood.

Jason had grown up in with a violently alcoholic father who would taunt him and his siblings. He watched this wildly illogical man harm his family, watched as he beat them, and tormented them. He had watched his mother’s helplessness, the pain on his mother’s face and her early death due to stress. He had no tolerance for anything illogical. For him it was also a matter of life and death. Mattie’s seeming illogical thinking made him feel completely unsafe and scared him to death.

As Mattie and Jason continued to talk, they came to see that their wounds were very much alive for them. They realized that they both had a lot of fear around these areas that needed to be attended to. They also realized that they could be friends and talk despite the feelings that were being triggered in each of them.

“When Wounds Collide,” is a common dynamic and painful aspect in many relationships. For this scenario to resolve, both parties have to look at how fear is coloring their perceptions and gain some perspective. Mattie needs to bring in some sense of reason. Yes, it could happen, a coyote could eat Whisper, but it wasn’t likely. Jason needs to realize that 1% craziness in somebody is not the same as 100% as in his father. Both parties need to understand and communicate their wounds. They need to see how their wounds keep them limited and that their wounds are calling to be tended to, healed, and transcended. Each needs to see that the other is not their mortal enemy, but another injured person. Each needs to develop empathy for the other, and be able to step out of his or her own perspective. As we share our wounds, affirm both ours and our partner’s, we are starting a healing process. We are no longer completely alone with our fear.

Is there a place in your relationship where this dynamic occurs, where your wounds collide?

Describe this dynamic in your relationship and the wounds that get activated.

Can you describe your wound?

Can you describe your partners?

Are you willing to and able to talk about this with your partner?

Are you exploring how to heal this wound?

How can I help? Therapy is actually an ongoing and repetitive process. It is the process of learning the language of self, an understanding of who we are, both in a felt sense, as well as our inner story. It is also a process of being attended to by another – in a different way, in a way that allows the brain to rewire, rebuild, rewrite, so that we can experience the world differently and thereby step into a different world.

What went wrong? Many of us can benefit from a new understanding of ourselves. What happened (or did not happen) and continues to occur that keeps us from functioning fully or reaching our potential?

Historically, through repeated experiences with our caretakers, or other significant relationships, our minds have created models, or ‘lenses’ that affect our view of both others and ourselves. These lenses color our experience. Everything that we have lived and experienced is wired into us. “Our brains are constructed to be directly influenced by their interactions with other brains.” (Siegel & Hartzell) For example: lets suppose that you had a father who wasn’t very interested in you as a child or teenager. Later in life, if you are ignored, or in a relationship with someone who withdraws, the same feelings of abandonment, desperation, pain or anger can be triggered which you then respond or react to – without knowing where it came from. This is how our past continues to live inside of us and recreates our experiences.

Although we can’t change our histories, we can “make sense” of our childhood experiences, positive and negative. We can untangle our wounds, our disconnections, and our defensive ways of relating to others. We can allow this understanding into our ongoing life story, which enables us to change the way we think about those events, and means we can modify their impact on us.

Human beings, among other things, are energetic and evolutionary systems. As both our world and we evolve, we gain new information, new abilities to change our experience and ourselves. For example, a metaphor for this could be as follows. Once upon a time, the people in a village noticed that whenever it rained, the banks of a river flooded and their houses were ruined. They decided to study what was occurring, to see if they could make sense of it and save their houses. Having studied the water patterns, they decided to change the path of the flow – barriers and channels that diverted the water, so that when it rained, the excess water has somewhere else to go. Their houses no longer flooded. They had to understand what was occurring before they could change it. However, we are dealing with emotion, not water. It is the flow of emotions that we get lost in, that flood us, or dry up and leave us disconnected. In therapy we learn how to understand and reprocess our emotions, especially our feelings. There are several elements to this:

* Understanding our ‘story’ by reflecting on our childhood experiences, the feelings that we had about those experiences and how they are affecting our behavior now. Making sense of our life enables us to understand others and ourselves more fully. This allows us to have more choices in our behaviors and how we interpret and even choose our experiences. This also allows us to know where we stand, where we are vulnerable and is a step towards knowing what we need, deserve and can ask for.

* Noticing what happens to us moment-to-moment. In-the-moment awareness reveals the links between trigger, feeling and behavior. We come to learn why a trigger, (my partner visits his friend instead of spending time with me) causes a feeling (anger/fear), a thought (he doesn’t put me first) and a behavior (I scream at him or withdraw). This flow of emotion and energy is set in motion for a reason (perhaps our father never had time for us).

Over time the larger story, and the moment-to-moment narrative interact and we come to understand ourselves more fully.

So often I have someone tell me that they had a “good” childhood. And they believe that they did. But as we talk, something else emerges. Feelings. Feelings that they had pushed away such as shame, embarrassment or hurt. Instead of recognizing these feelings, that person lives in a narrative that it is all “okay”. It is like living in an empty shell of an idea, but underneath, there is a lot more going on.

As stories emerge the feelings come into view. This person may not want to know that part of themselves, but if they able to allow it, we can then see how they felt alone, or scared, or upset and how that impacted their sense of self. Until we reprocess our feelings, we don’t know who we really are. Sooner or later, a relationship doesn’t work, or we find ourselves anxious or depressed. There is a story with feelings connected to the symptoms. The symptoms allow for an opportunity to explore the deeper story, the feelings and moment-to-moment shifts in awareness.

As we de-link the current trigger from the past, we can begin to make sense of why we react so strongly to something that actually may not seem like such a big deal logically. This is also where we can begin to understand what we need, why we are vulnerable, and how having this vulnerability attended to is healing. It is here where we step out from being people whom are shaped strictly by our DNA and experiences, and begin to step into the role of creators of our life experience, and nurturers and healers of those we love as we move forward.

Never before in history have we had this knowledge about the plasticity of the brain, about the impact of our experiences with our caretakers on our sense of self and the creation of our lives, our partner’s and children’s lives and our world.

Where are you struggling in your life? What have you historically been triggered by? How does it connect to relational issues, especially around nurturing? Write about what you struggle with, and where you think it may come from. Write a story about what it was like to be you at that time, and how that pain is impacting you now.

If you are interested in learning more about the brain and psychological health, MindSight by Daniel J. Siegel, MD is a good read. If you are interested in parenting, Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel J. Siegel MD and Mary Hartzell M.Ed is also very good.