Anger and the Art of Healing

Acceptance begins with acceptance of the feelings of grief. That means letting them flow through you ~ finding the resolve to make your cross lighter to carry. ... Dig underneath. Go gently, but do go deeper. What's there? Where does it belong?

In response to a previous post on depression and healing, Blisschick commented, I think that it's important that we allow our anger, though, especially at the beginning of healing. Yes, we must acknowledge anger. But, we must take care what we do with this anger. Thoughts of revenge, restitution, or desires to spread the misery serve no purpose, and in fact poison our healing quest. Acting out of anger, making decisions rooted in anger, projecting your anger onto others all thwart the healing process, which aims at restoring equilibrium.

I struggled terribly against becoming my emotions. Anger, included. At the height of my anger, I would feel alomst possessed by it. Revenge became a form of emotional self-gratification for me. As though deliberately bring suffering unto someone else would reduce or eliminate my own! When I began accepting that the particular offense occured, and that stewing about it would not advance my emotional cause, anger no longer possessed me.

Providing no resistance to the feeling flowing through me ~ observing it, only ~ also made a huge difference. I find I get angry far less now, that I make a point of trying to consider the offending situation from all perspectives, ie beyond my own. This removes the inclination to judge or lay blame. It turns the focus back to me ~ What's there? Where does it belong?

Two internal actions that I engage in, to avoid becoming my intense anger or grief:
1. Acceptance of reality ~ ie the end of a relationship, death, abuse. Placing focus on responding to the new reality, as opposed to its existence.
2. Taking on only the emotional baggage that belongs to me ~ ie. if one family member chooses against attending a family gathering because of my presence, well, that's their problem, not mine.

Nothing but compassionate attention and time can alleviate the pain of anger. And humility ~ which enables us to accept, and remember that what we think we want does not always provide us what we need.

Depression and the Art of Healing

What does depression feel like? 
Years ago, when I asked my sister, who's suffered depression episodes that sent her to the crisis unit, what depression felt like to her, she answered, It feels like I'm in the pits of hell. To me, it doesn't feel like I'm in the pits of hell, it feels like I am the pits of hell. The grief demon possesses me, I become his prisoner. At some point, destroying myself seems like a way to survive the anguish. In a nutshell, that's my experience of depression.

Now, let's move on. Think about healing.

What does healing look and feel like? How do we achieve it?

Healing is not a process through which we seek validation or approval for our grief. It's not what we do to make ourselves feel better about feeling lousy. It's about attending to the grief and loss we feel ~ embracing it. Never mind if its right or wrong to feel what you feel. Just feel. And have compassion and patience with yourself as you stay present with your feelings.

Pain occurs to alert us to some sort of disequilibrium. It's meant to spur us to seek healing. Healing requires me to change my perspective, to engage. I'm not a shattered glass that requires piecing together. I am a walking wounded, in need of emotional and spiritual debridement. I must debride my wounds, the scar tissue of which, stifles and starves my growth and renewal. Things have happened to me to get me to this point, and so I must happen to things in order to forge ahead into the light.

Healing teaches us why we feel the way we do, and we learn healthy responses to those feelings that help us restore equilibrium. Resisting pain increases its intensity. Think of the skier tumbling down the slope ~ using muscle tension to resist the fall increases the severity of injuries sustained in said fall. Acceptance begins with acceptance of the feelings of grief. That means letting them flow through you ~ finding the resolve to make your cross lighter to carry.

At this point it has nothing to do with who or what gave you this cross, or with any notion of restitution for your suffering. It has only to do with self care ~ what must you do to remain present to your grief without feeling swallowed whole? Don't deny yourself. Be kind to yourself. Don't pity yourself. Feel. Be. Stay. You are your most crucial witness. Do not spread your misery around for self-gratification. Remember debridement ~ we must remove necrotic tissue from the wound, or the limb will eventually die from ischemia. Despair must never triumph! Find grace. Be grace.

Dig underneath. Go gently, but do go deeper. What's there? Where does it belong?

enigmatic? the human psyche

[~inspired by an email i wrote recently to a dear friend, currently suffering @ the hands of that dark shadows that crosses spirits - depression~]

... about the beast within ...

each of us resides in special, certain part of ourselves ... some of us live in our heads ... some, live in our guts ... and so, those of us that have this beast .... share that space with said beast. as for 'subtle genetic make-up that adversely affects behaviour/personality ...' i do think that we - i.e. our current human society/species - have little or no understanding of the human psyche ... society speaks of psychiatric imbalance as purely a physiologic phenomenon. i, however, (having had lifelong exposure to said psychiatric imbalance) choose to see it less definitively. i see it also as a spiritual phenomenon ... those of us frail of psyche, prone to channelling the despairs that surround us, etc ... i think we have special sensing capabilities that other humans do not yet recognize ... call me crazy if you like ... but i cannot view any psychiatric illness entirely devoid of considering one's spirit ... one's soul.

i believe environmental manipulation - i.e. engaging in some spiritual ritual (in the case of johnny cash, this would mean appealing to his god in prayer, etc etc) - has proven helpful for some. and perhaps this reinforces my view of psychiatric imbalance as having partially spiritual origins. ... can the spirit/soul and the channels that it finds itself 'surfing' - can such activity manifest itself in brain chemistry activity? no doubt - i believe that's how our primitive medical community attempts to understand the psyche.

i see illicit drug use as intimately intertwined with this phenomenon - as in so many, many humans see and feel the need to self medicate. everyone does, somehow - through pursuit of power ... trifling, shiny and completely unnecessary material goods ... speed ... or just plain old trying to get as 'high' (i.e. 'stoned') as possible - comfortably numb, as the band Pink Floyd called it. we all have heard of that movie The Matrix. i believe its a wonderful, gothic-ly surreal (in a modern way) metaphoric interpretation of humanity and perception. in particular the choice Neo must make to take the blue pill or the red pill. does this not constitute the choice one's spirit makes regarding perception of one's world? one's truth?

... about the concept we call masochism ....
and ... that nebulous concept called 'balance,' or sanity ...

i wonder about myself sometimes. in a subtle way, though. like ... in the times when the shadow of darkness falls upon my spirit ... the feeling of despair reminds me i feel anything at all. and sometimes the purging sensation that courses through my very wise blood feels oh-so-much sweeter than does that often numbing sensation of 'happiness.' does that constitute masochism? or ... could one man's sorrow become another man's joy? and who decides ....? how can anyone determine whether any of us have psychiatric balance ...? considering our Selves all reside @ different calibration points (and in different parts of our own biologic microcosm) - what makes one one individual, with several years of university, qualified to judge something so raw ... so mystical ... so enigmatic? just thinking out loud, here.

martin has old, old scars along his arms from his youth/early adulthood - when he used to press the glowing tip of the cigarette against his skin ... just to feel something. masochistic, perhaps? to appeal to physical pain in order to dull that gnawing, aching, searing wound that makes one's spirit throb? i have had analogous experiences ... albeit with food/appetite ... in times of deepest depression ... it strangely, sickly lifts my spirit ... to feel the physical sensation of hunger. it gives my Self a physical focus ... draws it away from that which lies inside. does this constitute masochism? who's to judge?

naked beginnings

welcome, me, to myself. i had a blog. the blog had followers. it seemed nice. only, i forgot somewhere along the way that the followers belonged to the blog. and not to me. egos seem steely and savage, even, when faced with the piquish sensation of external scrutiny. but when subjected to the sudden impact of rejection's brute force? egos shatter. into miniscule shards of seething loneliness. and these shards crumble. into nothingness. the nothingness of me.

and then followers bandy words like 'friend' about. it starts to feel exhilarating. and frightening. 'friend.' that's a threatening word. because it rarely lives up to itself. sort of like santa claus and the tooth fairy. and that god concept. does anyone really know 'friend' ... i mean, really? i wonder, y'know? and so ... the followers encroach. encroach. and it feels good. and it feels hurtful. and it puts me in a box. in a way. as followers seek to define me. label me. judge my moral certitude. while completely ignoring the message embedded in my carefully crafted posts.

ignore. ignore my message. ignore. ignore what i say. and then judge how i say it. ignore. and leave me feeling so desperately, nakedly invisible. ignore my message. and plump droplets of despair crash into my heart. with such a force of anguish. stunning anguish. it travels the circuitry of my bruised heart like some posionous spark. and the spark. its intensity grows as my body absorbs it. swallows it. dissolves it. my spirit feels dirty ... ugly ... infected. stained. in comparison. to yours. i feel. the old stains. mine. rising. to the surface. of my emotions. and, in that radiant shaft of glinting sunlight, i behold. myself. boldly. i behold myself.

myself. alone. alive. aberrant. a blinding helix of inherent instability. breathtaking to behold. noxious to inhale. corrosive to touch. myself. so many times crumpled up and tossed away. now, flinching from touch. refusing to surrender self. to trusting. anything. or anyone. cold to, but longing for, connection. some sort of outside connection. struggling to demystify this deep-seated need to belong. belonging drowns me. traps me. defines me. strangles me. rejects me. belonging rejects me. me - reject.

if i belong then i am vulnerable. if i belong i have surrendered my trust. bared the softest portion of my soul. to such undeserving creatures - homosapiens. i know you smell the weakness there. the blood, which boils and shrinks simultaneously around its lesions and disfiguring bruises. you smell it. you feel it. you taste it, as sheets of my hyperbolic anguish sweep across the battered pages of my soul. i know you. like all the rest. homosapien. just lusting for the blood of another weak soul. my soul. raped. by rejection.

image originally uploaded by melanie photo art