On healing and the use of force

'There is nothing wrong with me'

Image credit: This piece is one of a series on befriending emotions from Melbourne based illustrator Eddy Sara, used with his kind permission. Learn more about his art here.

This morning, reading a note from a friend, I was reminded that our human life is a continual unfolding, a river that eddies, ebbs and flows - and not a mountain to climb.

For many years, in my journey of healing, I wanted to reach a place of completion - what I imagined was a place of rest. My experiences with depression, my relationship with food, and my relationship with my body were so fraught with tension, fear, and pain, that it felt like a giant hairball, a knot I couldn’t unravel. I pulled on one thread and it tugged on another.

I’ve spent many years parsing out the threads. When I first got to know these knots, they brought up so much shame that I wanted to work as hard as possible - even if the method was self compassion - to unravel them. My aversion and shame drove my healing, which meant this force lived inside my actions, coloring their effects - no matter how soft or gentle the map.

One of the gifts of healing - and one that’s not always obvious - is a deepened capacity to hold our unfixed selves, to be with what’s in a state of unfolding without rushing to make it different. I love the way Zen Buddhism describes this - ‘to be without anxiety about imperfection.’

I can feel this turn in myself - when I move from the frantic figuring out of a worried mind, the discomfort in my body, or analysis and move towards what hurts, inviting it to be here, and rest a while.

It’s a shift in my body that holds these tender, still healing places with respect and curiosity, rather than aversion or compulsive fixing.

Yolo Akili describes this process so beautifully: “Sometimes I wake up & have to remind myself: ‘There is nothing wrong with me. I have patterns to unlearn, new behaviors to embody and wounds to heal. But there is nothing wrong with the core of me and who I am. I am unlearning generations of harm and remembering love. It takes time.’

There are treasures to be found in these unknotting patterns - most especially those moments when our center of seeing shifts and we can see the bigger picture, the 10,000 factors that have come to create ‘me’ and ‘my life.’ Then our own struggles - while ours to care for - become less burdensome, less personal and less of a judgment against us. They’re part of the great web of life that we share.

In my own life, this shift means I can approach my pain with generosity, like caring for a rental house that has been lived in before by others, wanting to leave it in good shape for the next occupant. The house becomes less of something I, personally, own.

And then there are those moments when the veils drop, when we see ourselves anew, when our understanding deepens or when we see something we hadn’t seen before. We feel the a ha! and the brightness of clarity. In my life, these epiphanies feel like wonder, tenderness, relief, and bittersweetness, all at once. But their underlying note is forgiveness, mercy - and dare I say, love.

It’s an equally poignant honor to be with another as their veils drop - as they see something anew in themselves.

These openings in our lives are such sacred territory. I’m still learning how to trust these unfoldings and not rush in with my commentary or guidance, or even the well meaning, “ok, so here are the next steps,” but to be with them, as the newborn births that they are.

I’m reminded of my second son, how we called him ‘baby’ for a week as we hadn’t yet named him. While I was pregnant, I was so certain that he was a girl that we didn’t even look at any boys names.

So you can imagine my surprise when the midwife laid my son on my chest and I saw that he was definitely not a girl. Holding and being with my son for a week gave me the time to get to know him - to see what name was calling for him. This waiting revealed a name I had never imagined. But when his dad and I heard it, we knew - yes, that’s who he is.

The impulse to force our healing is a strong one in Western culture. But it never works. I think of what Woman Stands Shining, Pat McBride, says about the use of force - "‘that what’s done by force has to be redone later.”

I’ll close with a poem from May Sarton, who expresses this truth so poignantly. (If you want to look up another of her poems on this topic look for The Use of Force.) My wish for all of us is that we may trust the river, and ourselves, and the inner knowing that knows when to reveal or to uncover, and when to hold close, and to wait. And may we have the safety to welcome in the gentle flood - what opens our shells to the salt of healing.

Of Molluscs by May Sarton

As the tide rises, the closed mollusc
Opens a fraction to the ocean’s food,
Bathed in its riches. Do not ask
What force would do, or if force could.
A knife is of no use against a fortress.
You might break it to pieces as gulls do.
No, only the rising tide and its slow progress
Opens the shell. Lovers, I tell you true.
You who have held yourselves closed hard
Against warm sun and wind, shelled up in fears
And hostile to a touch or tender word –
The ocean rises, salt as unshed tears.
Now you are floated on this gentle flood
That cannot force or be forced, welcome food
Salt as your tears, the rich ocean’s blood,
Eat, rest, be nourished on the tide of love.

Join me for the next session of Gathering Ourselves

If you’re looking for a warm, supportive space to nurture wholeness, I want to invite you to join me and my co-facilitator, Tamara Neufeld Strijack, for the next session of Gathering Ourselves.

Gathering Ourselves is a creativity circle to connect more deeply with ourselves and each other. In these online gatherings, we use centering exercises, prompts, poems, and our own creative expression – whether it’s collage, journaling, writing, journal pages, drawing or more – to nurture a more generous, deeper, and restorative relationship with our inner world.

You don’t have to think of yourself as creative or a writer to come - merely a desire to show up and play.

We’ll couple our exploration with group sharing – a sacred space where we can listen to ourselves and listen to each other with ‘the ears of our hearts.’ By listening to ourselves and each other, we hope to become more vibrant, compassionate, tender and courageous.

We’ll be meeting on two Fridays a month from February to May from 10 am to 12 pm Pacific/11 am to 1 p m Mountain/12 to 2 pm Central/1 to 3 pm Eastern/6 to 8 pm London/7 to 9 pm Prague time.

Our gatherings will be recorded if you can’t make it. Tuition is $320 or four monthly payments of $80 (CAD or USD.) You can learn more and sign up below.

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May you hold your vulnerabilities with kindness.

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