I am feeling really light and buoyant today. Hung out with good friend last night for several hours, feeling grateful to her as I woke up deeply connected to my own heart and thus a very attuned parent. Sure tantrums erupted but rather than going to the place inside that says "things shouldn't be this way, they should be easier" I creatively, playfully and firmly handled them in a way that was useful for my kids.
Sadly, our connection and bond was going so well, neither wanted to go to daycare and in the moment, my heart aches for them. But, I get to study and sit here at the desk in my bedroom, looking out of the hillside in the distance as the sun shines and I feel calm and still. It is interesting to feel so well the morning before a second visit with a psychiatrist about taking some anti depressants. Hmmm. Just seems like I could use a little extra help regulating what I am unable to.
But I have sat with some wise others about this very question. Another mother who left he law career reflected back to me that when I had my second son and left my corporate life she saw me experience an identity crisis much like hers when she left her career to stay at home with her daughter. A close friend who is a therapist who works transpersonally sent me this lovely link to an Adyashanti talk about what happens when our identity shifts in this way - in short we freak out. (see bottom of post).
Spiritually this separate sense of self is an illusion. Everyone smart agrees; Einstein, The Dali Lama, The brain researches at UCLA studying mirror neurons, Ekhart Tolle...you know a longer list of scientists my husband would have to chime in here. But see, the thing is, we are biological creatures as well, wired to survive so need to believe in a separate self to eat. We lose our way at times bc we get caught up in it but don't have to. Meditation is the way to get uncaught.
What motherhood has challenged in me is the very "I" that was my self. And as that disintegrates I have been reading, brooding, freaking out, getting enraged, a host of feelings. It is more than an adjustment disorder to being a new mom and more than pathology or depressive disorder is going on. I do have some nervous system crap for sure but there is this other spiritual thing. What we face when we shift identity is death - death of the I. And it feels like drowning and we are absolutely clamoring to grab hold of something to pull us up and out of that pool that if we step into means we fundamentally, must surrender and realize we have gills for breathing underwater as a connected whole.
I won't write more. Here are some quotes from Mark Ian Barasch interview about his book Healing Dreams. I am reading his book the compassionate life. It isn't a self help book but rather a spiritual, intellectual, and poetic heavy lift but if you are in to people brilliant with the nuance of language and brilliant with integrating many many different schools of thought this is the book for you. He is questing in this book for the roots of compassion, scientifically, spiritually, communally etc. http://www.compassionatelife.com/
Quotes from Marc's interview:
"The way out is the way in." That's a koan worth contemplating. (he is talking about disease)
But if going in is too much for us, there's nothing wrong with stepping away. So often we're too harsh on ourselves. We expect ourselves to endure, achieve, overcome, and conquer. Being kind to ourselves in our weakness - which is really the only basis for healing - is not always the first thing we try in a crisis. Usually, we reach for the nearest blunt object and try to cudgel the problem into submission: the heroic ego to the rescue. And we usually wind up hitting ourselves in the head.
How do we suffer honestly? It can sometimes be extremely difficult to surrender to these situations, because we fear that if we do - if we even acknowledge what scares us - it is going to destroy us. So we are like the Little Engine That Could, puffing along with our positive thinking, always looking ahead, but afraid to look behind because something might be gaining on us. In fact, that something might not destroy but change us. The trouble is, the ego experiences change as death.
The question is: Are you going to cling in panic to some idealized self that no longer exists? Or are you going to cross the threshold and acknowledge that you're on a journey, though you don't know to where? You haven't chosen it, but now you're different in some way. This is one reason physical illness shows up as a turning point in so many spiritual biographies or as the catalyst of shamanic initiation. It's a profound shock to the system. It dislodges you.
Here is the Adyashanti Video:
No comments:
Post a Comment