I’m very slowly making my way through the book It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn about how family trauma is passed down through generations.
Did you know that when mice are given an electric shock (mean scientists, I know) every time they smell cherry blossoms, their descendants TWO generations later will jump at that smell – even though it was only their grandparents who experienced that trauma! Lots of other real life human examples too (but that one intrigued me.)
Then I think about the state of our world -and how maybe all the unresolved family and ancestral trauma everyone’s lugging around is reaching a boiling point.
Would the world be different if more of us took responsibility for healing the wounds of our own families? Connecting with the family spirits – living or dead, imagining what we know of their lives, offering compassion, acknowledging their grief, anger or regret that we blindly carry inside ourselves -and then doing the work of healing.
Not turning a blind eye to what we pass onto our own kids, pretending everything is fine or feeling victimized or holding grudges against certain relatives or projecting judgments onto other people’s families – or any of the other ways we sidestep the hard work of our own healing – but actually doing the inner work, facing the family demons buried within.
Warning – it’s really hard! Lots of tough stuff to face, our own shadows, deep grief and pain we don’t want to see. So much easier to just stay in our comfort zones with good enough.
Maybe that’s why there’s so much anger, anxiety, depression choking the air these days.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? – can you see how trauma has rolled down through your family?
Do you think personal healing affects the larger world? (whether or not you have kids, or they’re grown or not?)
(Throughout this post, I use different names for the conscious sacred energy that exists for many people: God, Higher Power, Spirit, Universe, Divine Love, Source. Notice those names that resonate, those that annoy or shut you down)
When I was asked to lead a weekend retreat on Gratitude last winter, I knew right away I wanted to focus on Suffering – and how we can retain a grateful heart even when horrible things happen to us or those we love.
After all, it’s not very challenging to feel gratitude when everything is swell.
Telling people Suffering was my intended approach to Gratitude was often met with a blank stare.
Oprah and self-help/personal growth writers have done a good job teaching how a grateful attitude can change lives and bringing gratitude practices (gratitude journals, etc) to the mainstream.
For people who believe in a conscious sacred energy, gratitude goes beyond an attitude and becomes a prayer, a conversation with Source. Contemplatives seek to be in this conversation continually, able to praise Source in every moment…..even the rotten ones.
Sounds ridiculous to some people, but let me explain the nature of a contemplative’s relationship with Spirit. Here’s a fancy spectrum I made to show different kinds of relationship:
On the left are those who believe that God is in control of everything that happens. The poster child for this belief is the guy who CNN interviews every hurricane season to ask why he stayed put during the mandatory evacuation. “Because if God decides my number is up today, then my number is up whether I follow the evacuation or not!” You may or may not think this way- but you surely have met those who do.
On the right are those who believe in God, but do not experience God as active or present in their daily lives. They might believe the Bible is the word of God, follow God’s rules and expect to meet God in the afterlife but they don’t experience God as a loving, active presence in the here and now.
In the center are those who believe that God is in a living, two-way relationship with them. How I think of this is that
God/the Universe is constantly luring us to be our most authentic self, giving us signs,
nudging us towards alignment with our deepest values and living our unique gifts in a way that increases love, beauty and healing in the world.
In another post, I can describe HOW Divine Love communicates with us, lures us, gives us signs, etc… but for now let’s just say I believe this communication is continual, and my “job” is to try to be present to it as often as possible.
Being open to this continual conversation can keep us afloat even as we seem to drown in a miserable situation.
It helps to first understand that Source is not to blame for the misery.
The Source that sparked the birth of the Universe communicates with us but does not control us or our circumstances. The Source is Pure Love and pure love never controls, coerces or manipulates. Therefore, Source “self-limits divine power.”
This explains how Spirit does not cause nor intervene when humans are cruel to each other. Spirit is there trying to lure each of us away from war, hatred, abuse and towards loving one another.
Spirit is there comforting us when we suffer at the hands of others or from our own poor choices. We can hold onto this thread of love and genuinely feel grateful for it, even as we suffer.
(From a Christian trinitarian perspective, Source gave completely to us by embodying human form (serving as a living example of how to love while also experiencing human pain so that we know we are not alone in our human suffering) and the form of Holy Spirit (which continues to inspire, comfort, counsel and lure us into Love.)
What about suffering that stems not from the free will of humans, but from natural causes? Diseases, disasters, fatal mishaps…. how can Pure Love allow the cruelty of nature?
Pure Love is also the Creator, the spark that ignites the unfolding of the cosmos and sets evolution into motion. Divine creation has endless diversity – and one thing we can know for sure if we believe Creation reveals the mind of the Creator is that diversity is key to life.
Infinite diversity unfolding through creation (and perhaps all creativity) requires something important: chance.
“Biology wants a wild mix” is what a doctor explained to Heather Kirn Lanier in this powerfully profound essay. Lanier’s daughter was born with a debilitating chromosomal syndrome.
Chromosomes come together then pull apart in a process where a lot can go wrong – but this process is also what allows for the most random mix of ancestral chromosome pairs. In other words, chromosomal syndromes happen because of the same chance that allows for the greatest diversity between humans. (Lanier beautifully describes how she loves her daughter for being her unique self – syndrome and all, even though the syndrome causes suffering.)
No two people are the same. Even identical twins are born with different fingerprints because of random variations in how amniotic fluid swirls around them. Chance allows the biodiversity in our oceans and rainforests. It also allows cancers and hurricanes and lightening strikes.
The price we pay for the chance that creates our own uniqueness and the immense beauty of our wildly diverse planet and cosmos – is that we suffer.
(Lanier asks if we really want to be perfect, non-suffering robots and suggests what a soulless world that would be.)
In sum, suffering happens because of 1) free will which is necessary in love and 2) chance which is necessary for diversity.
Of course, I am not grateful for the pain of an excruciating migraine, or for my child’s sobbing grief or for a dear friend’s premature death. I am not grateful for terrible things happening, but I am grateful for Pure Love being alongside me as they happen.
At the very least, I am grateful for my present breath, and the one after that.
But we die! Why do we have to die?
Well, as a hardcore procrastinator, I wonder how much I would accomplish, create, do for others, if I knew I had infinity to do it. Seriously! I kind of appreciate having a dead- line (ha!) in which to add some love, beauty and healing to the world.
And to make me even more grateful for the breaths I still have.
Acknowledgements: This post owes much to the brilliant theological discussion about free will, chance and suffering in Sidney Callahan’s Women Who Hear Voices: The Challenge of Religious Experience as well as the above mentioned essay Superbabies Don’t Cry by Heather Kirn Lanier. There is also a nod to Richard Rohr’s writings on the divine unfolding of evolution.
During the breaking newscast of the Notre Dame fire, the words
“They were creating a giant prayer…” in reference to the creation of the cathedral caught my attention.
I cried.
I cried again later during another news report which said, “Firefighters directed much of their efforts towards saving the artwork stored at the back of the cathedral.”
It moves me deeply to know that my fellow humans value art, beauty and history to the point of risking their lives.
Years ago, I cried while watching a documentary about Afghan professors rescuing art from the taliban. And while reading about US soldiers rescuing art from the nazis.
These acts of heroism speak volumes to me about what it means to be human and what it means to care about the legacy we offer future generations.
But
the people who cried on 4/15/19 and put their resources and power towards saving Notre Dame,
my people – the ones of European Christian ancestry,
allow corporate greed to destroy God’s art.
Indigenous peoples go to court to save the Amazon from oil company greed. Image Credit: Mitch Anderson/Amazon Frontlines
Imagine the state of our planet today if
those who claim to believe that God created the forests, valued natural Creation as much as the Creation of our greatest human artists.
Imagine too the state of the world if we recognized the Sacred in every culture.
What if we saw God in the history and traditions of every race and continent? What if those saving Notre Dame did all they could to stop the destruction of the Sacred in all its expressions around the globe?
During yesterday’s fire, I was privileged to know that the wealthy and powerful shared in my grief, and were doing all they could to stop the destruction of the Sacred art and history of my own spiritual ancestors.
Today I ask what if the wealthy and powerful did all they could to stop the destruction of the Earth and of all peoples?
I have quite a few spiritual direction clients in their 20s and that has me imagining what life might have been like if I had a spiritual director (or even knew they existed!) when I was that age.
How vividly I remember the energy and angst of launching after college! On fire to make a big splash in the world, while paralyzed with uncertainty about how to do it.
(It did not help that I had much less self-awareness than my
current millennial and post-millennial clients.)
I imagine Kay, Joanne, Liz, Joan – lovingly wise women I
know now were spiritual directors back then – entering my life, deeply
listening to my jumble of contradictory thoughts and telling me:
I see you for the beautiful soul you are.
I see the Sacred in your journey, in all of its crazy twists and turns.
Being the cornball that I am, I tear up imagining my young
self receiving that message.
By my 20s, I had built sturdy walls around myself – walls I now realize make perfect sense given the inherited and personal trauma I carried – but at the time I barely noticed the walls were there, and when I did I made them into evidence of a personal failing. I thought I WAS the walls.
Now I imagine someone peeking through to the scared, radiant soul veiled within –
not a therapist looking to fix (although therapy helps too,
yay therapists! Unless they subtly or unsubtly feel living in awareness of the
transcendent is a symptom, a problem – boo those therapists!)
a spiritual director peeking through and focused on seeing the Sacred within me and around me and connecting me to all that is.
Wow, imagine that!
Me at 23
So when I was 23, I had a life-altering mystical experience.
Fortunately, even without a spiritual director I never doubted
what happened, but how joyous it would have been to talk with someone who
understood I had received an incredible gift.
And how impactful to have been asked questions by someone who
understood the gravity of that gift and how it can become a burden.
That same year, I had an incredible nighttime dream – I died
and God asked me a question that would determine my eternal existence. I didn’t
have anyone to help me explore that Divine question and so I explored it myself
– leaping off in one wild direction and then another…
and that’s okay, it was my journey –
not having a spiritual director in my 20s was of course okay,
AND also it brings me a warm peace now as I imagine my younger
self having a spiritual companion.
When I was in my 20s, I was deeply aware of my connection to
Divine Love. I meditated, journaled, explored various spiritual paths and traditions
(there were also years, starting in my late 20s, when I went
off the rails, severing my attention to the Sacred, my authentic self….)
before ultimately discovering all wisdom paths lead to the same Spirit.
THAT was a fantastic discovery!
So, it all worked out, even without a spiritual director.
But lately my imagination has been gifting my younger self
with one and it feels wonderful.
If you would like a spiritual companion, email Carolyn (at) SpiritFullDirection (dot) com to set up a free introductory session – either on-line or in person in St. Paul, MN. I meet with people of all ages, all spiritual backgrounds and beliefs.
My daughter was nearly 8 years old when I adopted her, and she came to me understandably furious with the world, heartbroken by the cruel forces of fate. While most new moms must focus on attending to their child’s physical needs, I had to hit the ground running focused on her emotional and spiritual well-being.
I began with the simple practice of pointing out something beautiful whenever we went outside. “What a beautiful cardinal!” “I love how the snow outlines every limb of that tree.” At first she was resistant, refusing to even look, but then she did look and she smiled and she started to point out beauty to me. “That sunset is pink and purple!”
This is how I shared with my daughter the core of my spirituality. Gratitude, stillness, wonder and awe for creation and the Mystery which surrounds us were all modeled in this simple practice. These are also key ingredients for our children’s mental health, not to mention counter-cultural values in a time when many are focused on acquiring material things, looking attractive, spending hours either staring at screens or frantically busy.
I have a lot of ideas for how to share spiritual values with young people. I created a model that puts opportunities for living/sharing our spiritual values into a concrete visual diagram that I teach in my Spiritual Grandparenting workshops. These ideas come from not only my experience as an adoptive parent (and now grandparent!) but also my 15 years of experience working with tweens and teens.
It is common today for parents of young children to no longer practice the spiritual faith they were raised in. This leaves both parents and grandparents unsure how to mentor their children in using their spiritual imaginations and connecting to the transcendent.
Register for my Feb 23 rd Spiritual Grandparenting Workshop or have me come to your group. The workshop is not only for grandparents, but parents, mentors, youth professionals too.
My 2018 was a bit of scamp: mischievous and harmlessly naughty. There were delightful surprises (I became a grandma!) and annoying disappointments (50th birthday week in bed with the plague) There were feverish bouts of creative inspiration, oncoming disasters averted at the last second and angels of mercy lighting my way through darkness and melancholy. Yep, a rascally year.
Want to know what helps me make sense of the lessons in my life? For the past 28 years, I’ve been reading tarot cards. I do readings at the end of every year, at my July birthday and whenever I’m craving clarity with a particular challenge.
(I sometimes do readings for friends too – I’m pretty good at helping them create a cohesive story from the cards that are drawn in the context of what is going on in their life.)
We can see our situation more clearly through the tarot’s fascinating combination of :
1) Ambiguity (like Rorschach’s ink blots, we project themes from our deepest thoughts & feelings)
2) Archetypes (universal patterns that give us a broader view of the patterns in our own lives) and
3) Synchronicity (Is there a reason I drew this specific card at this specific time?)
From my readings this week, I can more clearly see the creative, personal and professional seeds I planted in 2018, the constrictive mindset I inadvertently developed (whoops!) and the focused action steps I want to take in the new year.
I’m glad I have this decades-long practice of reflection in my life, because at 50, time accelerates at a dizzying speed! If we’re not careful a whole year can whiz by without aligning our daily lives with what is most important to us and the legacies we hope to create.
BTW, I’m leading a Moving Forward in Sync with Your Soul workshop at Loyola on January 19. We will not use tarot cards but there will be plenty of other reflective tools for you to enter your new year with intention. Join me!
Note: I most often use Motherpeace Round Tarot Deck by Karen Vogel and Vicki Noble and the Wheel of Change Tarot by Alexandra Genetti.
When I was a little girl, my December ritual was to sit alone in our living room beside the twinkling tree lights and imagine myself into the coffee table manger scene. I visualized myself with the shepherds underneath a Bethlehem sky full of angels. I sat there until the angels and the tiny God lying among the ox and cows felt real, became real to me. I wasn’t spiritually advanced, I had a similar ritual with the Santa’s Workshop pop-up scene that sprang to life when I opened our Ronco Christmas album. Both these imaginings were how I made myself feel “The Christmas Spirit”
When I grew up, I experienced some heartbreaks that made the Christmas Season feel too painful and I avoided much of it. Becoming a mother and getting to play Santa for the first time dissolved those pains. That first year, I allowed myself to turn on the Christmas radio station. I listened to O Holy Night in the car and cried through the whole song. I understood myself as part of the weary world who at long last was given a thrill of hope.
photo credit below
I resumed visualizations with the same manger scene from my childhood, but this time the rich metaphors of the annunciation, nativity and epiphany stories unveiled truths from my own life. These Christmas stories – together with long winter nights and longing for the sun – are a powerful gateway into a deeper part of my psyche. The part that holds my most painful wounds, my most naked need to be seen, valued and loved as well as my deepest capacity to fully love those closest to me.
This Christmas I go deeper still, as I am a brand-new grandma with a precious baby, a daughter and a son-in-spirit to love until my heart explodes. I recently held my newborn grandson fresh from the womb and angels singing at the Bethlehem birth became real for me in a whole new way, as did the desperate love of the parents and onlookers at that manger. My wounds still hurt, my needs still poke me with longing, my capacity for love keeps expanding – and the stories of Christmas and the returning sun still offer me new ways of exploring these truest elements of being human.
It is from this experience with the stories of Christmas and Winter Solstice that I am creating the Spiritual Imagination and the Nativity Advent Retreat at Loyola Spirituality Center in St Paul on Dec 1st, 2018. My intention is to carve out a time and space for participants to explore their own Christmas imaginings this season. Click the link for more info and to register.
If you’re not in the Twin Cities, I invite you to spend some quiet time with the sacred stories of the season exploring the rich metaphors they offer.
Today is the feast day of Teresa of Avila, the extraordinary writer, mystic and nun of 16th century Spain. Her book The Interior Castle continues to influence my spiritual thinking and I refer to it often when clients see me for spiritual counseling.
Teresa describes a castle with seven rooms leading from the exterior to the interior as a metaphor for the soul and our movement towards the center where Source resides.
I find that Source can refer to a universal guiding force (God) and/or our own sacred essence (who we can be when fully living aligned with our values and gifts)
We move through the rooms by evolving from active prayer (conversation with Source / our sacred essence) to passive prayer (in the flow or in communion with Source /our sacred essence)
Teresa did not specify how to pray, other than to stress that we begin by talking with Source, not reciting learned prayers – but speaking to Love. Her lack of detail enables us to create our own methods. We can personify Source as a person – Father/ Mother or Jesus, for example – or we can imagine offering all of our thoughts, hopes and fears to the Universe. Seeing a beautiful tree, we can offer gratitude for such beauty. This conversation can progress until eventually we are in a constant state of experiencing Love. Teresa wrote, “Pray as you can, for prayer doesn’t consist of thinking a great deal, but of loving a great deal.”
The sequential nature of the castle’s rooms is important, for Teresa said, “If the foundation is on sand, the whole building will fall to the ground.” Those who try to rush ahead or skip steps in order to more quickly experience the ecstasy of communion with Source are deluding themselves with selfish desires and headed down a dark path. (I think about Teresa when I hear about motivational / spiritual events where people are enclosed together for long hours with lots of yelling or intense evoking of hidden shames so as to orchestrate quick, sudden “breakthroughs.”)
Self-knowledge is the first virtue of our journey as spiritual seekers. This is the awareness of the beauty of our own soul and of our capacity for union with Source. Experiencing this union creates a level of ecstasy so profound, Teresa believed that if we all knew this, we would all seek to reach it.
See what I mean? Montage of Teresa’s blissed out face in Gianlorenzo Bernini sculpture The Ecstasy of St Teresa of Avila.
Humility follows self-knowledge. As our conversation with Source progresses, our deficiency in loving-kindness becomes apparent. In fact, to think that we are sufficiently spiritually evolved is fatal to our spiritual life. Teresa wrote “While we are on this earth nothing is more important to us than humility.” Aligning our will with our sacred essence is a life long process that humans can never perfect, but that we can continually move towards. When we feel prideful or smug in our goodness, we are overlooking opportunities to be more genuine. Worse, we are more likely to judge the weaknesses of others. Teresa specifically warns of how a lack of humility leads us to judge and gossip about those around us. Anytime we start to think we are sufficiently aligned with our values it is time to be more honest with ourselves.
Likewise, forgiving ourselves for our shortcomings is also important and leads towards greater acceptance and forgiveness of the imperfections of others. It is a balancing act – recognizing we always have room for growth while accepting who we are in the moment. According to Teresa, having a spiritual counselor is an important part of this process. (Need one? Email me)
This is just a hint of the many wise gems of Teresa’s writing. If you read her books, it’s important to know that she wrote during The Inquisition when many thousands of women were tortured and burned at the stake for professing spiritual knowledge. This is why Teresa’s books are peppered with apologies for being a stupid woman and pleas to forgive her if she is wrong. This strategy worked – although briefly imprisoned she was spared persecution. Centuries after her death she was made a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church – meaning in part that her writings are considered to have had great influence on the spirituality of Catholicism. There is good reason to deeply distrust the institution of the Catholic Church – that is obvious to many. There are also spiritual riches buried throughout its long history –Teresa of Avila’s writings among them – that I encourage you to discover.
Halloween is more than a month away, and already the stores are cluttering our minds with Christmas merchandise. Dread of the imminent Holiday muzak is starting to make us sweat. But…what if Christmas 2018 was different? What if this year you reimagined the spiritual essence of the season?
What if……every time you saw a nativity scene, you visualized the baby as a metaphor for the mysterious, beautiful Spirit that is constantly birthing itself into the world?
…every time you heard a song with lyrics such as ‘O Come Let Us Adore Him’ you remembered to honor the Spirit that is already alive within you and within everyone you meet?
…every time you encountered any version of the Christmas story, you allowed it to serve as a reminder that although the Spirit is “forever being born in the human soul,” we must constantly make room in our awareness for it – emptying our minds of the clutter, opening to the reality of the present – because otherwise “there is no room in the inn for such a mystery?”
Using art, music, storytelling and guided visualization, we will:
reconsider the Nativity story – angels singing in the sky, refugee woman giving birth in stranger’s shed, lowly field men approaching in awe – as a metaphor for the moment when suddenly the Universe stops and loudly announces “The Spirit of love is here! Alive in the world! Incarnate!”
and
reflect on ways we can be like the wise men who followed their intuition and outsmarted evil so the Spirit could flourish.
What if the point of the Christmas story has always been that:
1) this mysterious, beautiful Spirit is already present “hidden inside of everything”
2) yet we’re still always waiting (longing!) to see it revealed in the world because we’re so clouded from the reality that Spirit is everywhere and already birthed inside of us?
After much imagining, planning and dreaming, my 50th birthday did not go as hoped.
I had been feeling under the weather for a few days, then woke up on the big 5-0 to a great intestinal purging – the likes of which I never before experienced. My mind, body and spirit were so preoccupied with expelling all contents that even the most pitiful of birthday excursions – going downstairs to watch tv – was more than I could muster.
I did have one birthday perk to lift my spirits however – dozens of sweet messages from friends near and far reminding me of 50 years well lived.
If I am going to spend time languishing from the plague – I am happy to do it on a day when so many loved ones think to reach out and send me some love.
Lesson 1: You can train yourself to view the Pepto-Bismol bottle as half full instead of half empty. The payoff is that crap will still happen but it won’t crush your spirit.
What does it mean that my second half of life began with a dramatic purging, purifying and detoxing?
Several friends turned 50 with me this summer, and we talked about each coming up with a theme to make the whole year special. I created a list of things I’d like to do while 50, but couldn’t think of a theme until the Universe hit me upside the head with this one:
Purging, purifying, detoxing
Hmmm. I don’t think it’s about purging physical items because I’ve never cared much about material stuff. I could certainly lose weight, but I’m a pretty clean eater and being fat doesn’t really bother me.
Something does resonate with me though when I think about purging old perspectives and thought patterns. A fresh perspective for the second half! I like that.
I’ll have to think about this some more after the plague’s residual brain fog and lethargy has lifted. Or maybe I’ll forget.
Lesson 2: Some people view unforeseen events as happenstance, and some view everything as happening for a reason. Either way, why not use these events as opportunities to uncover spiritual lessons in the metaphors presenting themselves? (Of course, if you can’t figure it out, that’s okay too.)
Last summer, I gave a eulogy for my friend Lisa who died after spending most of age 50 in hospice. My 49th birthday was filled with love, joy and gratitude for the gift of my friend and the gift of being alive.
This summer however, I approached my birthday feeling sad and a little hopeless.
Then I got sick. So sick I couldn’t get out of bed my whole birthday, and the next day I could only make it downstairs to the couch and then
the third day I could step outside into the fresh night air.
What a thrill it was to be outside after so many days indoors! I breathed the fresh air, listened to the crickets, looked up at the moon and felt Lisa smiling on me in a way that filled up my whole body.
Lesson 3: It is a great beautiful blessing to be alive.
