Safety is a Lie

You may have read my recent blog about letting go of my canine BFF, Shannon. She was in the category Big Black Barky Dog and she was fierce in her protection of me. Anyone outside my door was intimidated by what they thought they heard on the other side...sort of 1/2 guard dog and 1/2 ravening beast. Now that she's gone, I sometimes feel just a bit more vulnerable to the random crazy that lives in the world.

Last night I found myself sharing with a dear friend about another kind of safety:  the safety to be myself in relationships. I heard myself say that feeling safe to be myself is all about whether I can Trust others' authenticity and humanity. As we talked, I recognized that I invest you--every one of you--with the powerful role of Editor of my Expression. In response to your actual or perceived capacity and openness, I limit how much I let you in, but also how much of myself I let "out."

Of course, I do the actual editing. Nobody can stop my self-expression without my permission and acquiescence. No, I edit myself down for you--without you even asking--and my first lie is that I do it to protect you. It hasn't been a conscious lie; it seems reasonable enough, given my history. I learned early in life that I can't trust others to "stand up" in the face of my power; I have been told I am "too much" for people:  too loud, too fast, too intense, too smart...just entirely too much to take! Right behind this lie that I edit myself to protect others, came the truth. I heard myself speaking these words to my friend, "And...if I live full-hearted and fully-open, expressing my completely amazing self, others will take advantage of me; I will be hurt."

Wow. Now there is a limiting belief of heroic proportions! I don't need to have any other beliefs that limit my life choices; this one covers the territory. "If I am truly and fully me, I get hurt." This single arrow in my quiver of self-deception impales me through my heart, lodging solidly in the mass of the past, and pins me there. Silenced. And Safe.

Listening...without judgment

What do you do when hurt manifests in your life? Maybe someone is currently and actively hating on you. Or maybe your thoughts are of past or recent slights, deep wounds, and traumas. Maybe your hurt arises from your feelings of fear, anger, or hate. However hurt manifests in your life, what do you do?

Do you depress the feelings; anesthetize your mind? Maybe your anesthetic is drugs or alcohol, ice cream, shopping, gambling, exercise or…just name your addictive behavior of choice.

Do you let your feelings capture the real estate of your mind, while you run over and over your strategies for how to manage the hurt, get revenge for it, stop it? Do you lose sleep while your thoughts circle and circle the drain of your pain?

Do you act out your feelings on innocent bystanders in your family or workplace? Yell at your partner or kids or co-workers? Take out your hurt on the grocery story clerk?

Do you turn your anger upon yourself, mentally berating yourself; or maltreating your body by over-feeding or starving it, or with self-injury (sometimes also known as having “an accident”)? 

Or do you become still and listen to the wisdom from within that tells you how to heal the pain? 

Many of you—friends and those who have attended my workshops—already know that, as a child, I was a victim of incest, sexual assaults by my father. Well, now you all know. I will not write about what happened; rest assured you can safely read on without finding any details of what that experience was like for the child I once was. 

Instead, I want to write about healing from the effects of that experience, which has included development of the 7 Childhood Treasures framework and deepening my understanding of their influence in my own life. I started my healing journey just over 30 years ago and recently entered a new phase of it.

Rescue Me

My best friend has been by my side--or, at least, at my feet--for just a little less than a decade. Shannon, a beautiful Black Labrador-mix, adopted me in the summer of 2006 at a dog rescue where I volunteered. Terrified of literally everything new she encountered, Shannon had what is known as fear aggression. After virtually no human interaction for the first 18 months of her life, tied up in some Ozark backyard, she was almost wild. She bit the dog trainer. She bit me. No trust; no sense of relationship bond between dog and human; no faith in love, certainly, nor even in compassion or pity.

We were a perfect match because I suffer from the human form of fear

Shannon, Whitefish Bay, WI,
September 2014

aggression. Shannon's deep-chested bark, snarling and snapping snout, and deadly-silent run at a daily world of terrifying monsters (e.g., a scrawny, gentle granny-cat) were echoed in my defensive snap, scowling brow, and quietly narrowed eyes whenever I felt in danger from a world that still, too often, seems full of the monsters of my childhood.

The modern objects of our respective fears carry no real threat, 90% of the time, but that didn't stop either of us from the very real emotion of terror...or the swift reflex of defensive aggression. As I have worked to continue mining, refining, and polishing my Childhood Treasures of Trust, Independence, and Faith, Shannon has worked right along with me. Each of us has benefited from the growth and progress of her best friend. Each of us has been the other's teacher.

From a near-wild dog who could not be touched, she became a dog who loved to be stroked and could, with enough patience in the human hand, relax with her belly open to the sky. From being terrorized by my tired, 19-year-old cat, and by the swoosh of a propane ring's lighting, she became a dog who could walk down city streets on a leash, past bikers and skaters and joggers, sprinklers wacka-wack-ing, and children squealing. We traveled together; she walked in the Smoky Mountains and on the beaches of Door County. Sometimes she stayed home when I traveled, and learned to trust pet-sitters. She bit no one else ever again.

"I did it my way"

Famous line, famous song; often repeated but little examined. What would it mean if, at the end of my life, I were to say, proud to the point of tears, that I did it "my way"?

Does it mean that I bullied and steamrolled my way over everyone else, ignoring their ways...to always get mine? Does it mean that I never compromised, never negotiated a win-win solution? Does it mean that I never listened to other ideas or to critical thinking about my ideas, or that I never sought input from a higher power?

If you're a parent reading this, you may be thinking, "That's not how I'm teaching (or how I want to be teaching) my child to behave." Or you may be remembering how your family taught you. Was their direct message ever that you should think only of yourself and act only for your own gratification, to always live "your way"?

Some of the final words of this song, "My Way," make

it clear that living "my way" is not being defined in these egotistical terms. I can hear Frank Sinatra's voice ringing in my inner ear:

"For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels."

From these words, I know that doing it "my way" is really about living, not from ego-driven irresponsibility, but from whole-hearted, all-in, fully-connected living, which requires all of the 7 Childhood Treasures, abundant and shimmering in the treasure chest of your spirit. To live in ownership of yourself, to say the things you truly feel, to never make yourself a victim to anyone else, requires all of these Treasures: Trust, Independence, Faith, Negotiation skills, the capacity for Vision, the ability to Compromise, and last but not least, the power of Acceptance.

Why Your Story Matters

I’ve been thinking about stories. Not the kind in books but the ones we tell ourselves. I’ve been thinking about the stories we tell ourselves to explain the social world in which we move. Each of us has her own stories that give meaning to the behavior of others, or that explain our reactions to that behavior. Mostly, we don’t think of them as, or call them, stories. For us, they are simply the truth, a set of facts that we accept without question. “She is so controlling.” “He’s a momma’s boy.” “She acts like everything is about her.” “I had to suck it up and be the bigger person.” “He’s a drama queen.” “She ruined my life.”

I know it can be difficult—truly challenging, even—to accept that our interpretations of experience are not objective fact. It can be hard to let go of them, as our capital-R Reality. But they are, actually, little, local realities, unique to each of us. Perhaps this idea is new for you, but I assure you there is nothing new about understanding reality as individual, as unique, rather than shared. Many psychologists and spiritual leaders, alike, both historical and modern, write and speak about how we each interpret the activity around us through our individual filters. Law enforcement professionals cope with the reality that every eye witness to a crime has an individual and unique description of events. There is even a prominent child development and education model, known as Constructivism, founded on the premise that each child constructs a large proportion of his knowledge, particularly his social knowledge.

Good Enough?

I saw the movie Boyhood not long ago. Made across 12 years, the film chronicles some of the life events of a fictional boy as he ages from about 8 years of age to about 20 at the end. From 3^rd grade to college, we literally watch this boy grow up during

the 3-hour movie. As fiction – this movie is not a documentary – the film is an outstanding story, full of the kind of gritty realism that touches my soul. As a treatise on child development and the impact of adults’ interactions with kids, this movie is nothing short of brilliant.

Since then, I have been pondering the messages of the movie, as they relate to the 7 Childhood Treasures. We start our view of this child’s world after he has moved through those first seven years of his life. Is there any way to tell how well he did, gathering his trove of Treasures? Can we see evidence of how well his parents supported him in these crucial early years?

Taking Care of God's Little Spaceship

Have you ever decided to adopt a new daily practice of self-care, whether physical, mental, or emotional/spiritual? From the goal to meditate or pray every day; to the intention to brush your hair 100 strokes, floss after every meal, or walk 10,000 steps every day; to signing-up for online brain training, have you ever decided to adopt a new routine or ritual? How did that go for you? 

Did you achieve your goal from day one, never missing a day of your new daily practice? That experience has never been mine. If it’s ever been yours, I hope you will tell me about it in a comment and I hope I get to meet you one day, for you are a hero to me! You’re definitely a person with all your 7 Childhood Treasures gleaming abundantly in your treasure chest!

The title for this blog post came into my mind this morning, as I did yoga and meditated. This longtime practice is one I’ve always hoped and intended would be daily. Honestly, though, I’ve been doing it for decades as an episodic practice—a spate of days here, a flurry there. Only very recently has it become, truly, nearly daily. It hasn’t been long—just a little over a week—but 8 out of 10 consecutive days is a new record for me.