Nudging Karl

We all bury the truth about ourselves and we have no idea we are doing it. This is normal. It is also painful. We can learn to access our truth if we take action to reveal one or more of the multitude of stories we have created that serve to conceal from us our true selves. To understand what I am talking about, let me use the example of a friend who just recently discovered a truth about himself that he had been denying for years.
Karl acts “fiercely” independent. I say “fiercely” because he acted this way on everything in his life and it brought him no joy whatsoever. He did not ask for help at work or at home. On occasion he would ask close friends for help, but only if he had helped that person several times prior to his request for assistance. He did not want to be a burden or a bother to anyone. He did not like that about himself nor did he like it in others. He shunned friends who were “too needy.”
I had told Karl that I had always seen myself as being married until a few years ago when I realized I needed to give myself more attention so I could fulfill most of my needs all by myself. I told him that I was now so much better in relationships since I could fulfill most of my needs and looked to have a few important ones fulfilled in relationships.
Karl started to question his approach to relationships and then honed in on himself. I nudged him to notice how afraid he was and how his ego was dragging him through crises. Karl noticed that he, too, was needy. Then something hit him strongly. He realized that, since childhood, he had lived with a dream that someone would take care of him and life would be great thereafter. It was painful for him to acknowledge this dream existed within him because it wasn’t at all the image he portrayed to others and himself. He was shaken by this realization for many days.
I told him, based upon my experience, that when he was a child, dependent upon others, he wanted someone (most likely his parents) to help him and they did not. It could have been inadvertent on his parent’s part or it could have been the way they were. It likely happened several times at an early age so his desire to be helped went unheeded. For him it was a serious loss then and turned into an unconscious yearning for help now. Consciously, he learned to fend for himself because others did not or perhaps he was encouraged to take care of himself by pre-occupied parents. He learned to be independent. The message he carried with him was “I am not loved because my needs aren’t being met and no will meet them so I must do it for myself, damn them all.” So he carried into adulthood two different images of himself: the independent actor and the helpless child. Both of them are false and unlovable.
I needed to nudge him again. It's what I do (see http://www.thecenterformarriage.com/). I told him that he could go into therapy to try to come to grips with the lacking in his childhood or he could mourn the loss of what appears to be a desperate need for help and love when he was young. I told him he didn’t get it then and would not get what it was he wanted then as an adult. So it was necessary to mourn the loss as completely as possible. To be clear, it is the mourning of that child-like intense desire for missing love that needs to be mourned as not ever coming to fruition. It cannot be given now because it was only needed then.
As he listened to my nudge, he seemed to lighten a little. He was stunned to realize that he only acted at being independent when he was not free to be that way at all. He fought hard to be separate from others, but he sensed he was really a [art of the whole. I told him separateness was a source of conflict that affected him and all of his relationships. He looked down on dependent, clinging, needy people because he did not like that about himself. Even though he developed a mask of independence, the deep down yearning had a different source. Something in him was lacking because he didn’t get the love and attention he needed as a child. Children see things as their fault. It is the blaming that must go away with the mourning.
Mourning takes time. Once the loss has been brought into the light, it can be mourned. The loss of a dream is not easy to shake. It recurs and each time it must be mourned as lost. At the same time, there is an unraveling of the image of fierce independence. It is a complex, layered protection device the ego has been erecting for years. It has touched every part of your being. The ego reacts to losses by creating a whole set of beliefs, assumptions and expectations about how life must proceed. The mourning is a start, but it is the least of the work Karl must do.
Because of the loss and the images and stories the ego has erected, Karl has not been in touch with what actually is happening in each moment. He has been experiencing only those things that comport with his beliefs and his feeling of loss. He has been elsewhere, meaning he does not see the reality of his life clearly as it happens.
In addition to the mourning (the definite loss and not “maybe” a loss) he has to also start seeing what actually is in a curious way. Observing life without active judgment, expectations, beliefs, prejudices, goals, plans, assumptions and the like must be practiced along with the mourning activity.
The only way I have experienced to get to what actually is going on in life is to be aware of what pops up as I go from one thing to the other. Typically some sort of ego-driven machination will show up (judgment, expectation, belief, etc.) that will put me in reactive mode. To get back into life, Karl needs to notice what comes up, consciously ask it to abide his experiment with something new and give life a new shot. It is quite amazing to me to see that each new chance to open into awareness must be followed by a practice of getting into the moment in order to make a change in who I am becoming.

Where Neglect Comes From

I ain’t got no book learnin’ about psychology and emotional stuff. I only can relate my own experiences, the experiences of friends, the experiences of those who I have worked with and the people I observe from day-to-day. In my own experience of a failed marriage, I can clearly say, “I didn’t see it coming.” In watching other marriages fail, I sensed that these failures, as well as mine, were due to neglect.
I have been “listening” for a few years for neglect in relationships. I had accumulated a jumble of observations that did not reveal to me the nature of neglect and how it works. The pieces came together for me during an Episcopal Church service. The service had a script – God’s Word – and there was no deviation from it. The Word extolled a single system of belief in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Father.
As I listened to the service, I became aware of my own past penchant to treat the world as deterministic – understandable and predictable, really. I sense that this belief kept me in a trance, listening only for things that I could make understandable and were predictable from a logical thought pattern I had developed.
I developed this way of thinking so I could get to where I was going – a financially successful person, a good parent, with a home, a wife and a stable, calm existence. I was constantly striving to attain this success, I guess because it was so elusive or because I wanted to maintain the appearance of having it all.
As a result of being elsewhere with my thoughts, I was not aware of the things that were happening around me. I was also not open to making changes or even to recognize change as it occurred around me. By focusing on attaining something not in my grasp (yet sure it was within my reach), I was not in touch with others or with myself.
We don’t choose neglect directly. It happens when we are pre-occupied with being something other than what we are. I now have faith that I am, at my core, a perfectly formed person (in God’s image). I can be anywhere and listen to this part of me that was unavailable when I was in a trance. Awakening from trance is a vital part of the work we do at http://www.thecenterformarriage.com/.
I enjoy the uncertainty of life now because I know I don’t know as yet who I am in my fullness and richness. I am more cognizant of the emotional quality of my life as I take action in the various aspects of it. I am learning about my self in relationship with others and in a special, intimate relationship where my fullness of spirit is readily accessed and revealed to me.
Yet, I can back lapse into the trance – as we all can. Life is about remembering and forgetting. When I start listening again, I can notice neglect and be open to all that might be there right in front of my nose whether understandable or not. It brings me to a place of freedom where I get in touch to that God within. It ends when I forget by tricking myself into believing things are predictable. Then I remember to listen.
As I age, the periods of forgetting diminish in length until I see the beauty in life again.