There’s a certain sense of familiarity that comes with covering the same ground again and again. You learn how to read the terrain – how to navigate by familiar stars, even when you can’t see them.
It’s comfortable, even though it can be excruciatingly difficult.
But those of us who’ve learned to step off the path for a bit, to rest a while on softer ground, to feel comfortable for a moment under the light of unfamiliar stars,
we’ve learned a few things…
I’m also reminded, in these things, of this path of emotional recovery – of how difficult it can often be.
And then, how some mornings, you can wake up, and you can feel that something’s changed.
You feel different.
You feel rested.
You feel strong.
You learn, as you go along, to really take comfort in these strong times — in these times where you feel healthy — because you know that there’s always more work to do. You know that you’re being prepared to go a little deeper, to walk a little further, to carry something that’s a little bit heavier…
Out of everything in your life, what are the things that feed you? That nurture you? That keep you healthy, and ultimately, promote life?
And out of all the things in your life, what are the ones that drain you? That take your energy? That keep you sick, and ultimately, promote death?
If you know the answer to that question, then here’s another one:
What are you getting out of hanging onto those things?
Carl Jung once said that “Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”
That, right there, seems to be the core of so much of the work that so many of us who come at the world from the perspective of adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional households are doing every single day.
When we grow up in an environment that’s unpredictable, chaotic, we learn certain survival skills. We learn how to read the terrain. We learn that we either have to keep ourselves low – to stay out of the range of fire – or we learn to lash out in anger in order to make ourselves bigger, stronger, and less vulnerable.
And until we start to explore these things – even later in life, because they’re rooted so deeply, we find ourselves involved in the same types of situations over and over again, the same dysfunctional relationships.
It’s like we walk into the same story again and again, only the names have changed, and the characters are slightly different…
I used to wrap up my life and the way I was living in a story kind of similar to the following:
“I am the way I am because my dad was a drunk.”
Or
“I am the way I am because my mom was a very frightened woman who raised me to be dependent on her and poured her fear into me.”
And I was good with that. I knew the way my world worked. I knew why I was the way I was, and that was it.
And that’s the thing about blame. It’s a very easy handle to grab onto. It gives you some security, when you think you’ve got your life all wired out.
You understand the way things are.
And you can move into that story, and you can feel safe there — even if it’s turbulent…
We need you out here…
Every single one of us that’s doing our work, that’s trying to get better, that’s trying to heal old wounds…
We’re keeping the lights on.
And we may not have any idea of where the hell we’re going – of what this is all going to look like when the healing finally settles in, but we don’t need to.
If we can just keep putting one foot in front of the other; just pick up the work that’s given to us, carry it until it’s done, set it down, and pick up the next bundle.
Just keep doing that…
At the beginning of my own emotional recovery, I was asked one simple question by a person with whom I am still working to this day. And the question was, “Can you just keep putting one foot in front of the other…can you just do that?”
It doesn’t matter what our recovery looks like. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. It’s going to move at its own pace.
And if we’re committed to it – deeply committed to it – we’re going to experience everything.
We’re going to feel everything…
One of the things I really love about these transitional seasons — like fall and spring — where things are busy dying and being born, is that it’s very easy to become aware of the fact that down deep, below all of it, there’s something larger, something much more powerful at work, pushing itself out into the world.
And so, on one level, we see the returning of the plants. We see the first flashes of greens and yellows and pinks and purples. We hear the birdsongs. We see the blossoms, like those in the ornamental Pear trees across the street, and that’s all just really spectacular.
But below that, way down deep, we’re also aware that that’s life… that untamable force pushing itself out into the world as these things, after all the stillness and death of winter…
When you’re a kid growing up, you have certain expectations of what your life – what your immediate surroundings – are going to look like. You expect to be safe. You expect to be loved unconditionally. You expect there to be food on the table, stability in your home, enough money to take care of the needs that come up, whatever they might be.
But for some of us, it didn’t always work out that way – in fact, most of the time, it didn’t.
And those of us who grew up in households like that, where there was dysfunctionality or addiction – maybe abuse of some kind – we learned to come at the world in a certain way. We learned that the love that we received was conditional, and that we were always trying to be good enough to earn that love. And so, we learned how to please other people and act the way that they wanted us to act in order to give us that love.
And because of all that, we never really felt safe…
Bonja the Bodger 