Today is one of those days when I feel the deepest possible sense of gratitude for my life--my wonderful long time partner, his family which consists of his brother, his nephew and his wife and their two daughters. My small circle of friends composed of people that are kind, gentle, loving, and working hard at facing life with as much guidance, courage, discernment, and wonder that they can muster, day by day. My yoga community. What can I say? They are a huge part of my life, of who I am, who I want to be. They are a diverse crew of sadhakas (aspirants). I cannot imagine a more wondrous group of people to associate with. So many of us are traveling on the same road, reaching out for similar goals, doing our best to be real and authentic, working hard at finding answers. We are students of life with voracious appetites. We want to do and be our very best to ourselves and to others, we want to always be evolving and growing in ways that are of as much benefit to ourselves and others as we are capable of. We try to live from the center of our hearts. I am so often in awe at the accomplishments I regularly witness, the wisdom I see imparted and shared, the courage to move into those places of vulnerability for the sake of growth and learning. It is truly amazing and I am wonder struck.
The protagonist in Wally Lamb's novel "I Know This Much is True," has a recurring fantasy that begins in his early childhood and continues throughout his adulthood. Because he doesn't know who his real father is, and his mother takes this secret to her grave with little to no chance he will ever find out, he fills this void imagining who his father might be--his stepfather, the priest, the neighbor next door, a long lost uncle, a school teacher, possibly even his own grandfather. Although the main character, Domenick, does have a step-father who is present throughout most of his life, including his childhood, there is much lacking in the father to son relationship in terms of love, nurturing, caring, understanding. The step-father is quite the brute and makes life, at times, a living hell. All of this got me thinking about a recurring fantasy I've had for much of my life, since earliest childhood. It is a fantasy that serves to fill a void, to compensate for those wants and needs and desires that didn't get met when, ideally, they should have. There can be within us a deep longing that we may not fully understand, and during reveries or certain quiet moments (or even chaotic ones) we give free reign to our imaginations to help us feed this desire within us, this craving inside that just won't go away. But I think such fantasies tell us more about ourselves and who we are than we may realize, perhaps not a lot different from the way our subconscious mind integrates, assimilates, and resolves the conflicts, confusions, and paradoxes of daily life through the dreaming process. Granted, much of this is mind chatter and doesn't accomplish much at all unless we pay close attention and study ourselves astutely. My recurring fantasy was composed of several aspects: I wanted to be rich, I wanted a horse, and I wanted a brother. These fantasies filled my voids, my places of emptiness, my places of deep inner longing. I think I created these myths because I was an extremely withdrawn, lonely child. I'm not sure why, but I hated being lower middle class and thought that if I had been born into a wealthy family things would be perfect. I now know that is definitely not true. When I was a teenager I got a horse from my step-father who let me keep him for a 2 year period before he was taken away. I still love horses but something within was deeply satisfied in having that relationship with that horse. My half-brother was born when I was 16 years old. I changed his diapers, spent a great of time with him, worked especially hard at giving him plenty of space to talk when an early sign of stuttering first appeared, then subsequently disappeared. I have many fond memories of him. I was out living on my own by the time he started first grade so I was absent for much of his formative years. I know things were very difficult for him. For the past couple of decades or so, my relationship with my brother has been strained and constricted, and seems only to grow worse. He is an angry man, filled with bitterness and resentment, he is mean-spirited and downright hateful and sarcastic to me nearly every time I have an encounter with him. His anger is never based on anything that I can identify as being remotely real or germane to the situation at hand, but rather the residual pain of countless issues he has never faced or dealt with in a healthy, productive manner. Out of the blue, it seems, I'll get a call from him and the next thing I know he is ranting and raving about something he thinks I've done that he finds deeply offensive which I can only attribute to a paranoid mind that I simply cannot identify with. By the time he gets finished, I feel as though someone has shot me with a gun. Verbal attacks can really cut to the quick when they come from someone you are related to, someone who is a member of your family, the brother I always wanted and longed for. I find myself pulling on every fiber of my being to stay calm, to stay non-reactive, to try to bring the conversation back to the "business at hand". It is extraordinarily disruptive and hurtful. I am left feeling stunned. Where does this nonsensical hostility come from? It is very sad to witness such anger, such bitterness, such combativeness--and it is aimed at me just as surely as one would aim a gun at someone to shoot them dead. Yes, it is pretty scary. It certainly lets me know that I have work to do in learning to not let such confrontations linger too long with me, and I need to learn to not replay them over and over in my mind. What does work is this: listen to my heart and know what is truth and what is not. Be compassionate and understanding. Stand my ground and put into practice everything I have learned about assertiveness, appropriateness, truthfulness. It is very difficult. My heart races and the retaliatory impulse wants to rear up and strike back, but I do not allow that. Everything I have ever learned tells me that not only does my brother's behavior have nothing to do with me, but I am helpless to do anything about it. Life can be messy, and we are asked over and over again to deal with it, like it or not.
In "I Know This Much is True," the protagonist has a twin brother who suffers from disabling schizophrenia and for much of his life Domenick feels the need to take care of his deeply troubled brother. In the end, there is really nothing he can do to change his brother. In some ways his twin is another aspect of himself and he is forced to deal with some of life's most difficult issues. I understand this.
It is now time for me to allow my reactive anger to dissipate, to acknowledge all my emotional responses, feel them, and let them pass. Sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do, but also the thing that serves us best.
The protagonist in Wally Lamb's novel "I Know This Much is True," has a recurring fantasy that begins in his early childhood and continues throughout his adulthood. Because he doesn't know who his real father is, and his mother takes this secret to her grave with little to no chance he will ever find out, he fills this void imagining who his father might be--his stepfather, the priest, the neighbor next door, a long lost uncle, a school teacher, possibly even his own grandfather. Although the main character, Domenick, does have a step-father who is present throughout most of his life, including his childhood, there is much lacking in the father to son relationship in terms of love, nurturing, caring, understanding. The step-father is quite the brute and makes life, at times, a living hell. All of this got me thinking about a recurring fantasy I've had for much of my life, since earliest childhood. It is a fantasy that serves to fill a void, to compensate for those wants and needs and desires that didn't get met when, ideally, they should have. There can be within us a deep longing that we may not fully understand, and during reveries or certain quiet moments (or even chaotic ones) we give free reign to our imaginations to help us feed this desire within us, this craving inside that just won't go away. But I think such fantasies tell us more about ourselves and who we are than we may realize, perhaps not a lot different from the way our subconscious mind integrates, assimilates, and resolves the conflicts, confusions, and paradoxes of daily life through the dreaming process. Granted, much of this is mind chatter and doesn't accomplish much at all unless we pay close attention and study ourselves astutely. My recurring fantasy was composed of several aspects: I wanted to be rich, I wanted a horse, and I wanted a brother. These fantasies filled my voids, my places of emptiness, my places of deep inner longing. I think I created these myths because I was an extremely withdrawn, lonely child. I'm not sure why, but I hated being lower middle class and thought that if I had been born into a wealthy family things would be perfect. I now know that is definitely not true. When I was a teenager I got a horse from my step-father who let me keep him for a 2 year period before he was taken away. I still love horses but something within was deeply satisfied in having that relationship with that horse. My half-brother was born when I was 16 years old. I changed his diapers, spent a great of time with him, worked especially hard at giving him plenty of space to talk when an early sign of stuttering first appeared, then subsequently disappeared. I have many fond memories of him. I was out living on my own by the time he started first grade so I was absent for much of his formative years. I know things were very difficult for him. For the past couple of decades or so, my relationship with my brother has been strained and constricted, and seems only to grow worse. He is an angry man, filled with bitterness and resentment, he is mean-spirited and downright hateful and sarcastic to me nearly every time I have an encounter with him. His anger is never based on anything that I can identify as being remotely real or germane to the situation at hand, but rather the residual pain of countless issues he has never faced or dealt with in a healthy, productive manner. Out of the blue, it seems, I'll get a call from him and the next thing I know he is ranting and raving about something he thinks I've done that he finds deeply offensive which I can only attribute to a paranoid mind that I simply cannot identify with. By the time he gets finished, I feel as though someone has shot me with a gun. Verbal attacks can really cut to the quick when they come from someone you are related to, someone who is a member of your family, the brother I always wanted and longed for. I find myself pulling on every fiber of my being to stay calm, to stay non-reactive, to try to bring the conversation back to the "business at hand". It is extraordinarily disruptive and hurtful. I am left feeling stunned. Where does this nonsensical hostility come from? It is very sad to witness such anger, such bitterness, such combativeness--and it is aimed at me just as surely as one would aim a gun at someone to shoot them dead. Yes, it is pretty scary. It certainly lets me know that I have work to do in learning to not let such confrontations linger too long with me, and I need to learn to not replay them over and over in my mind. What does work is this: listen to my heart and know what is truth and what is not. Be compassionate and understanding. Stand my ground and put into practice everything I have learned about assertiveness, appropriateness, truthfulness. It is very difficult. My heart races and the retaliatory impulse wants to rear up and strike back, but I do not allow that. Everything I have ever learned tells me that not only does my brother's behavior have nothing to do with me, but I am helpless to do anything about it. Life can be messy, and we are asked over and over again to deal with it, like it or not.
In "I Know This Much is True," the protagonist has a twin brother who suffers from disabling schizophrenia and for much of his life Domenick feels the need to take care of his deeply troubled brother. In the end, there is really nothing he can do to change his brother. In some ways his twin is another aspect of himself and he is forced to deal with some of life's most difficult issues. I understand this.
It is now time for me to allow my reactive anger to dissipate, to acknowledge all my emotional responses, feel them, and let them pass. Sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do, but also the thing that serves us best.
