Seekers–Women who create new life stories day-by-day
Seekers are women who live in a world of frequent change. They live away from their families-of-origin, feeling confined by family expectations. They focus on the present, and search across age groups and cultural communities to find alternatives that strengthen their sense of independence.
Over the next few weeks I’ll tell the stories here of two Seekers: Joan, a long-time Californian, born into a family of wealth, who from the age two has faced the death of many family members, including her parents and Eva, a Yugoslavian immigrant who moved away from her family, friends, and country early in life and now living alone in California. Having known disruptions since childhood that have left them often on their own; these women tell stories that reveal their independence and curiosity about new possibilities. I will also tell how their survival stories have affected mine.
Joan–a woman who keeps walking on wobbly knees
I have known Joan for twenty years. A mutual friend, who thought that Joan’s experiences with loss would help me with my husband Ron’s illness, introduced us. Joan was a great comfort to me. She listened to me, witnessed my distress, and offered me respite in her home. I escaped from my misery by listening to her stories of adventures around the world. After Ron died, we traveled together, and I shared her excitement at discovering new places.
When Joan enters a room, it is hard to miss her strong features in a face tanned by the sun. Her intent, dark eyes are lined at the corners from laughter. She exudes simple elegance with well-cut grey hair and clothes made of light-colored cotton, usually accented with bold silver jewelry. When approached, her face opens into a broad smile. She listens and laughs easily, her short, wiry body vibrating with energy. At seventy-nine, she still moves quickly, if a bit more stiffly than before.
Since her early childhood, Joan has experienced deaths of close family members; in the wake of these deaths she has lost and found herself many times over. Like a plastic pop- up doll, when punched down, she bobs right back up again. As a horse trainer, public health administrator, mountain climber, traveler to remote places, psychotherapist and spiritual seeker, she has developed a life of intention. She is still planning the next trek, even as walking becomes more difficult.
Joan should have lived the comfortable life of a child born into a family of wealth, but her childhood was filled with loss and loneliness. When Joan was less than two years old, her parents, and brothers left her at home with a nurse and went on a luxury liner for what was supposed to be an extended tour of Europe. Joan looked young and sad as she remembered and told me this part of her story:
“I have few memories of that time, but I remember, or maybe I’ve just seen pictures of me, held up by my nurse. I see myself waving and crying at the station, as my parents leave for New York where they will board a ship for Europe. In my mind’s eye, I see their large trunks being loaded onto the train.
“I know my parents came back early from their trip because my mother was ill. She had stomach cancer, went right into the hospital, and died soon after they returned. Before she died, my mother was sent to a place called Dante’s Sanatorium, where people were supposed to go to rest. It was where I had been born. It’s odd that I was born in the same place where my mother went to die.
“In spite of all that happened, I think I was fine even after my mother died, as long as my nurse and my grandmother Banna lived with us. I was fine until Rose Bell moved in.”
When speaking to me about this Joan sat up straight in her chair shifting from reverie to agitation. I saw the anger on her face. She was far away from the present moment, back to a time when she had been young and alone.
“I remember the day my father told me that Rose Bell, his new wife, was coming to live with us. It was less than a year after my mother had died. We were sitting in the downstairs parlor. He told me that Rose Bell was moving in and Banna was leaving. I feel myself sitting there, saying nothing, knowing at three, that my world was changing. I don’t think I cried, or said anything. I just sat there.”
Joan’s voice trailed off. Almost as an aside, she added:
“I think I was a lost soul then. When hard things happened in my family, the rule was not to talk about them. Certainly, difficulties were not spoken of in front of me. If the grown-ups spoke of something important they spelled their words so that I wouldn’t understand. No one spoke about anything hard, and certainly not about my mother’s death. I just didn’t know what was going on.”
A photograph of Joan at three years old hangs on her bedroom wall today. The picture shows a beautiful child who looks terribly sad. Joan found this photograph in a box not long ago and decided to put it up so as not to forget about this little girl, a part of herself that she has neglected sometimes. As she becomes more vulnerable and dependent with age, this part of her needs care and attention. When she has failed to nurture herself in the past, Joan has become overwhelmed or depressed. She tries to remember to keep this little girl in mind.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Reflection on Keepers 2- Relying on Spiritual Connection
Finding spirit in many places
Florence and Janie (the Keepers’ whose stories I have already told on this blog) place their religious beliefs at the center of how they navigate life. I wished that I had had a religious path to follow, but my experience as a secular Jew didn’t lead me to traditional religion. My parents held few religious beliefs. I went to Jewish Sunday school, but my memories of it are playing with other children and going to parties, rather than religious or spiritual teaching. My great-aunt Fan was a member of the temple, and on high holidays I went to temple with her. I enjoyed the music, but I found little meaning in the services. I had assumed that I had no spiritual life to speak of and didn’t consider the possibility of finding solace in any religious practice. I had to string together a series of childhood and adult experiences with dreams to which I had paid little attention in order to develop my sense of a spiritual presence in my life that I might turn to when in need.
As a child, I was aware of a world beyond what I could see. I believed that this world was filled with angels who held it together. I spoke to no one of this world and both feared and cherished it. One morning, I awoke early and went into the living room on my way to my parents’ bedroom. I saw a group of transparent figures made of gauze. I believed that they were the angels preparing the day. Irritated by my intrusion, they shushed me back to my room. These images are still strong in my mind; they are perhaps only the magical thinking of childhood, but they are strangely connected to adult experiences of a world that I sense, but cannot know.
I have dreamed several times of entering a house with seven rooms. In each room a teacher who looks like one of my childhood angels teaches me a lesson of life. I go from room to room until in the last room I am asked to dance a dance of life. I must dance from my left, dance from my right and then dance from my center. As I dance this dance, I dissolve, not in fear, but in celebration.
The most powerful spiritual experience I had occurred on the day that my husband Ron turned off his ventilator and died. On that day Ron and I sat side-by-side in our living room still wondering what had happened to our life. We were closer than we had been in years. We held hands and listened to the music that Ron had selected for the day. We were surrounded by the yellow tulips he had requested. When the time came to turn off the ventilator, we were joined by our daughters, a close family friend, Ron’s nurse, and his doctor. Ron wanted to die naturally without tubes or drugs. The doctor, who after months of conversations with Ron had agreed to his decision to turn off the ventilator, first removed Ron’s gastrostomy tube and then the tube attached to the ventilator. As soon as the tubes were gone, Ron’s face changed. His strained, frozen look was replaced with his handsome face that I knew so well. I suddenly found myself breathing more deeply as if my life depended on it, or as if I was birthing Ron’s death. My daughters, my friend, and I held onto each other as we watched Ron die. His body didn’t move when he died, and yet we felt him leap out of the wheelchair in which he had been imprisoned. My daughter Sarah later told me that she had held us all down because she was afraid that the energy in the room would lift us away. She said she held me tightest because she thought that I might want to leave with her father. She wasn’t wrong. I felt as if I were there and not there and that part of me was taken up in the energy and light that was released when Ron died. From that day on, I knew that death was nearby. It is not a frightening thought, and I imagine that if I could look a bit further over my shoulder, or turn around more quickly, I could see Ron next to me.
I don’t need to understand or to explain these phenomena. I allow myself not to know, and yet to trust in something beyond what I know. Mostly I try to be in relationship to this world that I only sense. Surprisingly, I now find myself more interested in celebrating Jewish holidays and practicing Jewish meditation. When sitting quietly late at night, childhood Hebrew songs come to me, and I sing out loud. I believe that prayer takes many forms.
Florence’s and Janie’s family stories and religious beliefs gave them a compass that showed them where to look for relief and what to do to prepare for what was to come. Each of us can choose what we will take from the Keepers in our lives. Perhaps mapping three generations of our family might lead us to family stories that we have forgotten. The Keepers may remind us of times at the dinner table when we heard stories of family pride. They might encourage us to tell our family stories and to use them as our guides. Or, as Janie did with her Stella Maris group, the Keepers might encourage us to look outside of family to find others to stand with us when we are afraid. They also challenge us to seek a world of spirit, even if we do not have a traditional religious path to follow. They encourage us to trust our instincts and to reach for a sense of connection beyond ourselves.
If my reflections remind you of a story about yourself or someone else send it to me so that I can post it here and share it with others.
Florence and Janie (the Keepers’ whose stories I have already told on this blog) place their religious beliefs at the center of how they navigate life. I wished that I had had a religious path to follow, but my experience as a secular Jew didn’t lead me to traditional religion. My parents held few religious beliefs. I went to Jewish Sunday school, but my memories of it are playing with other children and going to parties, rather than religious or spiritual teaching. My great-aunt Fan was a member of the temple, and on high holidays I went to temple with her. I enjoyed the music, but I found little meaning in the services. I had assumed that I had no spiritual life to speak of and didn’t consider the possibility of finding solace in any religious practice. I had to string together a series of childhood and adult experiences with dreams to which I had paid little attention in order to develop my sense of a spiritual presence in my life that I might turn to when in need.
As a child, I was aware of a world beyond what I could see. I believed that this world was filled with angels who held it together. I spoke to no one of this world and both feared and cherished it. One morning, I awoke early and went into the living room on my way to my parents’ bedroom. I saw a group of transparent figures made of gauze. I believed that they were the angels preparing the day. Irritated by my intrusion, they shushed me back to my room. These images are still strong in my mind; they are perhaps only the magical thinking of childhood, but they are strangely connected to adult experiences of a world that I sense, but cannot know.
I have dreamed several times of entering a house with seven rooms. In each room a teacher who looks like one of my childhood angels teaches me a lesson of life. I go from room to room until in the last room I am asked to dance a dance of life. I must dance from my left, dance from my right and then dance from my center. As I dance this dance, I dissolve, not in fear, but in celebration.
The most powerful spiritual experience I had occurred on the day that my husband Ron turned off his ventilator and died. On that day Ron and I sat side-by-side in our living room still wondering what had happened to our life. We were closer than we had been in years. We held hands and listened to the music that Ron had selected for the day. We were surrounded by the yellow tulips he had requested. When the time came to turn off the ventilator, we were joined by our daughters, a close family friend, Ron’s nurse, and his doctor. Ron wanted to die naturally without tubes or drugs. The doctor, who after months of conversations with Ron had agreed to his decision to turn off the ventilator, first removed Ron’s gastrostomy tube and then the tube attached to the ventilator. As soon as the tubes were gone, Ron’s face changed. His strained, frozen look was replaced with his handsome face that I knew so well. I suddenly found myself breathing more deeply as if my life depended on it, or as if I was birthing Ron’s death. My daughters, my friend, and I held onto each other as we watched Ron die. His body didn’t move when he died, and yet we felt him leap out of the wheelchair in which he had been imprisoned. My daughter Sarah later told me that she had held us all down because she was afraid that the energy in the room would lift us away. She said she held me tightest because she thought that I might want to leave with her father. She wasn’t wrong. I felt as if I were there and not there and that part of me was taken up in the energy and light that was released when Ron died. From that day on, I knew that death was nearby. It is not a frightening thought, and I imagine that if I could look a bit further over my shoulder, or turn around more quickly, I could see Ron next to me.
I don’t need to understand or to explain these phenomena. I allow myself not to know, and yet to trust in something beyond what I know. Mostly I try to be in relationship to this world that I only sense. Surprisingly, I now find myself more interested in celebrating Jewish holidays and practicing Jewish meditation. When sitting quietly late at night, childhood Hebrew songs come to me, and I sing out loud. I believe that prayer takes many forms.
Florence’s and Janie’s family stories and religious beliefs gave them a compass that showed them where to look for relief and what to do to prepare for what was to come. Each of us can choose what we will take from the Keepers in our lives. Perhaps mapping three generations of our family might lead us to family stories that we have forgotten. The Keepers may remind us of times at the dinner table when we heard stories of family pride. They might encourage us to tell our family stories and to use them as our guides. Or, as Janie did with her Stella Maris group, the Keepers might encourage us to look outside of family to find others to stand with us when we are afraid. They also challenge us to seek a world of spirit, even if we do not have a traditional religious path to follow. They encourage us to trust our instincts and to reach for a sense of connection beyond ourselves.
If my reflections remind you of a story about yourself or someone else send it to me so that I can post it here and share it with others.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Readers' Questions -Ellen's Responses
Reader’s question
Anonymous said...
Will you please explain Keepers, Seekers and Teachers? I feel I am missing something important, capitalized, that others understand.
1/16/2007 2:12 AM
Ellen’s answer
Keepers, Seekers and Teachers
As I listened closely and recorded women’s stories, hoping not to freeze in fear the next time I was dealt an overwhelming blow by fate, I discovered that in order to learn from their stories, I discovered that the element of time—past, present, and future—was important to my understanding of where they found the resources that they relied upon when most distressed. I remembered being impressed by Margaret Mead’s book, Culture and Commitment,[1] in college. She described different cultural groups according to their reliance on past knowledge of elders, the experience of peer groups in the present, or the vision of youth looking toward the future. The women I interviewed also seemed to fit these categories. Influenced by Mead, I named the women that I interviewed as Keepers, Seekers, and Teachers, depending where in time they sought resources when most distressed.
Keepers reach back into family history when they need to reset their course. Family traditions guide them as they provide a nurturing presence for three or more family generations. These women find their center in family life. Through their stories, and memories, they deepen and maintain family connections. When recounting hard times they retell family stories and report on present day family life, even including family members from whom they are estranged.
Seekers are women who live in a world of frequent change. They live away from their families-of-origin, feeling confined by family expectations. They focus on the present, and search across age groups and cultural communities to find alternatives that strengthen their sense of independence.
So far on the blog I have told the stories of two Keepers, Florence, and Janie. Next come the stories of two Seekers and then two Teachers. I am hoping that others send me their stories of Keepers, Seekers, and Teachers.
[1] Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment. New York: Doubleday, 1970.
Joe from Japan asked:
Are there men who are Keepers, Seekers and Teachers?
Ellen's Response:
I am sure that there are. I have not yert collected their stories, but I am interested in any that you know.
Anonymous said...
Will you please explain Keepers, Seekers and Teachers? I feel I am missing something important, capitalized, that others understand.
1/16/2007 2:12 AM
Ellen’s answer
Keepers, Seekers and Teachers
As I listened closely and recorded women’s stories, hoping not to freeze in fear the next time I was dealt an overwhelming blow by fate, I discovered that in order to learn from their stories, I discovered that the element of time—past, present, and future—was important to my understanding of where they found the resources that they relied upon when most distressed. I remembered being impressed by Margaret Mead’s book, Culture and Commitment,[1] in college. She described different cultural groups according to their reliance on past knowledge of elders, the experience of peer groups in the present, or the vision of youth looking toward the future. The women I interviewed also seemed to fit these categories. Influenced by Mead, I named the women that I interviewed as Keepers, Seekers, and Teachers, depending where in time they sought resources when most distressed.
Keepers reach back into family history when they need to reset their course. Family traditions guide them as they provide a nurturing presence for three or more family generations. These women find their center in family life. Through their stories, and memories, they deepen and maintain family connections. When recounting hard times they retell family stories and report on present day family life, even including family members from whom they are estranged.
Seekers are women who live in a world of frequent change. They live away from their families-of-origin, feeling confined by family expectations. They focus on the present, and search across age groups and cultural communities to find alternatives that strengthen their sense of independence.
So far on the blog I have told the stories of two Keepers, Florence, and Janie. Next come the stories of two Seekers and then two Teachers. I am hoping that others send me their stories of Keepers, Seekers, and Teachers.
[1] Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment. New York: Doubleday, 1970.
Joe from Japan asked:
Are there men who are Keepers, Seekers and Teachers?
Ellen's Response:
I am sure that there are. I have not yert collected their stories, but I am interested in any that you know.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Reflection on Keepers - Family Legacies
Are you a Keeper?
Florence and Janie the Keepers on this blog placed themselves and their children in a coherent story of family and community history. In telling and retelling family stories, they remind themselves and everyone who listens of the past that they treasure. When they or someone they love falls away from the family, or from what they see as a good life, they weave these periods of distress into an ever widening family story. Their capacity to hold onto good and bad stories arises from their belief that life naturally is made up of the good and the bad. Their stories combine difficult experiences with hope for a better future.
Revisiting ideas of family
Florence and Janie told stories remarkably different from my own, and I wondered how I could build on their stories of the past, but they convinced me that writing a new survival story meant that I had to revisit my ideas of family, something that we all must do if we want to gather wisdom from the Keepers.
Some questions we might ask about our ideas of family could include: Have we chosen to live near to or far away from our family? Have we resolved family conflicts so that our relationships remain open and loving, or do we distance ourselves and close the door to our future closeness? Do we have the option to call upon family members when we need them? Which past stories of family can we call upon in strengthening connections to our family history? If we do not find useful family stories, what stories from other cultural histories give us stories for survival? If our families-of-origin are not available to us, do we have families of our own choosing to whom we can turn when we are in need?
I started out by reflecting on how my ideas about family were influenced by the Keepers who navigated the ups and downs of family life with family members nearby. I had always believed that success in a family should be measured by each person’s capacity to live independently. I now embrace an idea of family developed by Lee Combrinck Graham, a colleague of mine[1] who describes family development as a spiral that moves family members apart and together depending on their needs.
As young adults, my husband Ron and I thought nothing of moving far away from our families. We never questioned our ability to manage on our own. We left first to live in Lagos, Nigeria and then moved to California, many miles from where we had grown up and where our parents still lived. We visited them when we could, but we didn’t depend on them. We celebrated our independence and felt only a little guilty when one of our mother’s told us how much she missed us. I assumed that they would always be there if I needed them. We measured our success as adults in terms of our independence.
When Ron became ill, the physical distance from our families troubled us. We wished that our parents and siblings lived closer, and they wished the same. Our notion that we didn’t need our families turned out to be another delusion of good fortune. Part of our reason for living far from our parents had been our complex and troubling relationships with them. I needed distance because I was too dependent on my parents. Ron needed distance because he was too estranged from his.
The Keepers led me back to my relationships with our parents during Ron’s illness. Their reactions to our painful situation surprised us. My parents, especially my mother, were devastated. As soon as they heard about Ron’s diagnosis they came to the Netherlands to be with us. My mother’s grief at what we were facing left her in tears. She wanted reassurance from us or wanted to make our suffering disappear. I had to ask her to leave a few days early because her upset was too much for me to handle. I understood her distress, but I realized that I couldn’t depend on her. My parents visited only a few times once we returned to the U.S. before my mother had a stroke, perhaps brought on by her distress about us. I was wrong to have assumed that they would always be there when I needed them.
On the other hand we were able to repair our broken relationship with Ron’s parents. When Ron had told his Methodist mid-western parents that he was planning to marry Jewish me, his father had said that if he went through with the marriage he would disown Ron. We got through those early days, and Ron’s parents finally came to the wedding, but our relationship with them was always distant. They couldn’t understand why Ron had married a woman so different from anyone they knew. Ron’s illness brought them into the center of our lives. They immediately offered financial help when they realized the extent of home care that Ron needed. They also visited regularly. When they came they pitched in, doing simple household jobs and not asking much from us. Ron’s dependence allowed them to hug him again and feel close to him as they had when he was a boy. During those years, they returned to their relationship with him and developed a caring relationship with me.
The Keepers also remind us to look to our elders especially our grandmothers. But others besides grandmothers can become guides for when we are most pressed. I believe that each of us knows someone in our family or in our history upon whom we might call when we are afraid. I now ask beleaguered clients to choose a guide to travel with them. Each of us can find a guide to imagine when we need someone by our side. Who might you choose as your guide?
I am about to become a grandmother. My youngest daughter and her husband have chosen to live near us, so that we can be part of the life of their new son. Their willingness to invite us allows me to enter fully into being a grandmother, an opportunity that I denied my own mother. Like Janie and Florence, I imagine that I will tell stories of family history to my grandchild and that the growing stories will include him in our family tapestry. The Keepers will be my models for how to grandmother.
[1] Lee Combrinck Graham, Children in the Family Context. New York: Guilford press, 1989.
Florence and Janie the Keepers on this blog placed themselves and their children in a coherent story of family and community history. In telling and retelling family stories, they remind themselves and everyone who listens of the past that they treasure. When they or someone they love falls away from the family, or from what they see as a good life, they weave these periods of distress into an ever widening family story. Their capacity to hold onto good and bad stories arises from their belief that life naturally is made up of the good and the bad. Their stories combine difficult experiences with hope for a better future.
Revisiting ideas of family
Florence and Janie told stories remarkably different from my own, and I wondered how I could build on their stories of the past, but they convinced me that writing a new survival story meant that I had to revisit my ideas of family, something that we all must do if we want to gather wisdom from the Keepers.
Some questions we might ask about our ideas of family could include: Have we chosen to live near to or far away from our family? Have we resolved family conflicts so that our relationships remain open and loving, or do we distance ourselves and close the door to our future closeness? Do we have the option to call upon family members when we need them? Which past stories of family can we call upon in strengthening connections to our family history? If we do not find useful family stories, what stories from other cultural histories give us stories for survival? If our families-of-origin are not available to us, do we have families of our own choosing to whom we can turn when we are in need?
I started out by reflecting on how my ideas about family were influenced by the Keepers who navigated the ups and downs of family life with family members nearby. I had always believed that success in a family should be measured by each person’s capacity to live independently. I now embrace an idea of family developed by Lee Combrinck Graham, a colleague of mine[1] who describes family development as a spiral that moves family members apart and together depending on their needs.
As young adults, my husband Ron and I thought nothing of moving far away from our families. We never questioned our ability to manage on our own. We left first to live in Lagos, Nigeria and then moved to California, many miles from where we had grown up and where our parents still lived. We visited them when we could, but we didn’t depend on them. We celebrated our independence and felt only a little guilty when one of our mother’s told us how much she missed us. I assumed that they would always be there if I needed them. We measured our success as adults in terms of our independence.
When Ron became ill, the physical distance from our families troubled us. We wished that our parents and siblings lived closer, and they wished the same. Our notion that we didn’t need our families turned out to be another delusion of good fortune. Part of our reason for living far from our parents had been our complex and troubling relationships with them. I needed distance because I was too dependent on my parents. Ron needed distance because he was too estranged from his.
The Keepers led me back to my relationships with our parents during Ron’s illness. Their reactions to our painful situation surprised us. My parents, especially my mother, were devastated. As soon as they heard about Ron’s diagnosis they came to the Netherlands to be with us. My mother’s grief at what we were facing left her in tears. She wanted reassurance from us or wanted to make our suffering disappear. I had to ask her to leave a few days early because her upset was too much for me to handle. I understood her distress, but I realized that I couldn’t depend on her. My parents visited only a few times once we returned to the U.S. before my mother had a stroke, perhaps brought on by her distress about us. I was wrong to have assumed that they would always be there when I needed them.
On the other hand we were able to repair our broken relationship with Ron’s parents. When Ron had told his Methodist mid-western parents that he was planning to marry Jewish me, his father had said that if he went through with the marriage he would disown Ron. We got through those early days, and Ron’s parents finally came to the wedding, but our relationship with them was always distant. They couldn’t understand why Ron had married a woman so different from anyone they knew. Ron’s illness brought them into the center of our lives. They immediately offered financial help when they realized the extent of home care that Ron needed. They also visited regularly. When they came they pitched in, doing simple household jobs and not asking much from us. Ron’s dependence allowed them to hug him again and feel close to him as they had when he was a boy. During those years, they returned to their relationship with him and developed a caring relationship with me.
The Keepers also remind us to look to our elders especially our grandmothers. But others besides grandmothers can become guides for when we are most pressed. I believe that each of us knows someone in our family or in our history upon whom we might call when we are afraid. I now ask beleaguered clients to choose a guide to travel with them. Each of us can find a guide to imagine when we need someone by our side. Who might you choose as your guide?
I am about to become a grandmother. My youngest daughter and her husband have chosen to live near us, so that we can be part of the life of their new son. Their willingness to invite us allows me to enter fully into being a grandmother, an opportunity that I denied my own mother. Like Janie and Florence, I imagine that I will tell stories of family history to my grandchild and that the growing stories will include him in our family tapestry. The Keepers will be my models for how to grandmother.
[1] Lee Combrinck Graham, Children in the Family Context. New York: Guilford press, 1989.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Reader's Comment from Japan
Not the lunatic fringe.
Dear Dr. Ellen,
I went to your blog and the first thing I thought, -and I apologize in advance now!- "oh no! Another lunatic fringe self-help Berkeley Doctor."
But wait!
I began to read, just a touch here and snip there...and I went back to your title page;
"Learn with them to write your own survival story for hard times."
It makes perfect sense. It is brilliant. Don't I know the power of writing as a tool for self-healing! Self-growth, and for bringing dis-harmonious thoughts, people and situations into balance.
Writing brings focus, and Dr. Ellen, we all need a lot of that!
I write a lot. It is one thing I enjoy, next to exploring wilderness trails, finding deer-sleeping hallows or wild pig-wallows! It is what I look forward to on rainy days.
I never questioned the...what do I call it? Concept? Application? Seeing your blog, the concept, the question was asked and answered in a split second. I see the connection between therapy and writing, even though many years I have been writing, and I fully understand that it helped me focus and develop a stronger human philosophy. But un-noticed it is like Chinese medicine, a preventive philosophy of mental health!
Oh, I like it.
I book-marked and will return to read it all, if you don't mind? Not confidential?
"What I had to learn was that for life’s survival, we are all interdependent. When our resources are plentiful, we need to share with others, and when our resources are stretched, we need to ask others more fortunate to provide for us."
yes!.
Dear Dr. Ellen,
I went to your blog and the first thing I thought, -and I apologize in advance now!- "oh no! Another lunatic fringe self-help Berkeley Doctor."
But wait!
I began to read, just a touch here and snip there...and I went back to your title page;
"Learn with them to write your own survival story for hard times."
It makes perfect sense. It is brilliant. Don't I know the power of writing as a tool for self-healing! Self-growth, and for bringing dis-harmonious thoughts, people and situations into balance.
Writing brings focus, and Dr. Ellen, we all need a lot of that!
I write a lot. It is one thing I enjoy, next to exploring wilderness trails, finding deer-sleeping hallows or wild pig-wallows! It is what I look forward to on rainy days.
I never questioned the...what do I call it? Concept? Application? Seeing your blog, the concept, the question was asked and answered in a split second. I see the connection between therapy and writing, even though many years I have been writing, and I fully understand that it helped me focus and develop a stronger human philosophy. But un-noticed it is like Chinese medicine, a preventive philosophy of mental health!
Oh, I like it.
I book-marked and will return to read it all, if you don't mind? Not confidential?
"What I had to learn was that for life’s survival, we are all interdependent. When our resources are plentiful, we need to share with others, and when our resources are stretched, we need to ask others more fortunate to provide for us."
yes!.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Returning to what matters
Janie #5
Janie connects her resourcefulness now with the one moment in her life when she faced what could have been a disaster, and made a choice that convinced her that she was capable of asserting herself when she was afraid. This choice led her down a pathway of prayer that gives her confidence in any situation. She told me the story this way:
“Before the terrible times around the deaths of my boys, I had been drinking like I had learned to drink in my family. But after the boys died, if I started drinking, I couldn’t stop. I’d use the occasion of drinking as a release from my grief, and in addition, my doctor gave me Librium, and I started mixing the two. From the family that I grew up in and from what I already knew, I knew that I was in trouble, but I couldn’t stop myself. Then there was an incident at school that made me realize just how bad things had become.
“The principal at my school had been after me for a while. Now you call it sexual harassment, but I didn’t know about sexual harassment back then. He must have been after a lot of young women because men like him are usually after everyone. It all came to a head with him one night after we had moved from one school to another, and I was at school after-hours getting the library ready.
“The principal was in his office. He called me in and I knew he wanted to have sex with me, but I went in anyway. He gave me a drink, and I took the drink, maybe two drinks. I had never done anything like that before. I thought, ‘Oh my God. I’ve got to get out of here,’ and at the same time, I thought, ‘I’ve gone as far as I can go.’ I can’t remember exactly what I did or said, but I got out of there. Before that moment I didn’t know that I had the strength to stand up for myself.
“The next day I called in sick and immediately went and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. From then until now many spiritual things have happened for me. When I joined AA, which is another way of looking at yourself with truthful eyes, I became a person of prayer. I slowly returned to the dedication my mother made of me to Mary. I guess that was when I went back to wearing only blue and white. I found the Cenacle Sisters and studied and worked with them in the community. The Cenacle refers to the upper room where Mary, the Apostles, and their families waited after the resurrection for the Holy Spirit to come down and give them wisdom, grace and inspiration.
“In 1990, I began to study more seriously with the Cenacle Sisters so that I could take vows as a lay nun. Ten years later in 2000, I took my definitive vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The vow of poverty meant that I wouldn’t be dependent on anyone for my upkeep. The vow of chastity didn’t change anything about my life, but freed me from all concerns in this regard. Now my name is on a list in Rome that says I am living this vow. I don’t really care about the list in Rome, but it just is what it is. It puts things to rest. The obedience just means that you hope that you are doing God’s will most of the time.
“If you are what you are and if it is recognized by the people you hold most dear in your community, not in a big way, but in a little way, it is comforting to be acknowledged for what you have chosen. Suffering gets you to the point where you can choose the one thing that matters which for me was my spiritual life. I could have just holed up or never seen anyone or drank myself to death, but this choice freed me. It gave me the power of a skyrocket if I wanted to be shot off, figuratively speaking.
“In 1999, the same year I moved here, I had a total hip replacement, and that grounded me for a while and helped me with my spiritual work. I was always running around, and this got me grounded and taught me to have an hour of prayer a day, which I learned keeps me ready for whatever happens next. Something I won’t do without now. To me, prayer means reading the scriptures for each day. I have a prayer book, which gives the Morning Prayer, the mass for the day, and the evening prayer. It gives information about the saint of the day and sometimes includes obscure saints of the day who bring something special. Really prayer is a quiet time, a period of meditation for an hour each morning. It prepares you for the day, and no matter what happens these readings from the scripture fit your life. I don’t go to daily mass, but I say all the prayers. I feel light, like; you know the lightness of being.”
I could almost see light around Janie as she said this. We sat quietly for a few minutes before she went on:
“I’m cutting back on the goings out. So I choose what I do carefully, but I hold onto all my important relationships, although I see everyone a little less often. I see my friends from the Stella Maris group every Sunday, and the Sisters of the Cenacle. Here in St. Louis there are only four of us from the Cenacle group left.
Janie stopped for a moment and then went on:
“Suffering can open a door. You have to know that you are going to encounter suffering, and it is not what it does to you, but what you do with it. Some people think that they are going to get by without it, but we know that none of us do. When others suffer I can empathize and sympathize like this year with my granddaughter Callie. She went away from home for the first time, her other grandmother died, and she was in an automobile accident. When she still got all A’s at the end of the year, I just told her how much I admired her.”
“When I think about the next ten years, I look forward to being a little more quiet, a little less going-out. I love to write letters to friends that live out of town. There are always the Christmas cards that I haven’t opened yet, and I don’t like to be in that spot, but that will of course whittle down in the next ten years.
“It’s the three “Fs” -- family, faith, and friends that matter to me most. If I can just stick with those it will be a good ten years. I want to spend more time with my family, and my daughter Mary is good about that, but I don’t bother them. When I was helping at the Cenacle learning about affirmations, I learned to say, ‘I am completely self- determined, and I allow others the same right’. That kind of keeps me out of everyone’s hair. I see them every other week or every three weeks, but I follow all their goings-on, and keep track of all of them. In the summertime, my granddaughters, Callie and Jessie, and I go to lunch. I will probably ask them next Wednesday to go for an Irish lunch to celebrate James Joyce’s Bloomsday. It’s an occasion we would hate to miss.”
.
The day I interviewed Janie was the first extended time that we had spent together. We laughed and cried, and by the end of the day neither one of us wanted to stop talking. I was deeply affected by Janie’s ability to acknowledge her grief and her limitations while still living by the values she treasures, and still laughing at herself and with others. The excruciating things that had happened didn’t paralyze her, or remove her from the people that she loved.
Before we parted Janie asked me questions about my life, my children, and the stories from before I met my second husband who is her nephew by marriage. She listened with interest, and I imagined that she now included my stories in her family tapestry. I was pleased to be part of the cloth.
Janie connects her resourcefulness now with the one moment in her life when she faced what could have been a disaster, and made a choice that convinced her that she was capable of asserting herself when she was afraid. This choice led her down a pathway of prayer that gives her confidence in any situation. She told me the story this way:
“Before the terrible times around the deaths of my boys, I had been drinking like I had learned to drink in my family. But after the boys died, if I started drinking, I couldn’t stop. I’d use the occasion of drinking as a release from my grief, and in addition, my doctor gave me Librium, and I started mixing the two. From the family that I grew up in and from what I already knew, I knew that I was in trouble, but I couldn’t stop myself. Then there was an incident at school that made me realize just how bad things had become.
“The principal at my school had been after me for a while. Now you call it sexual harassment, but I didn’t know about sexual harassment back then. He must have been after a lot of young women because men like him are usually after everyone. It all came to a head with him one night after we had moved from one school to another, and I was at school after-hours getting the library ready.
“The principal was in his office. He called me in and I knew he wanted to have sex with me, but I went in anyway. He gave me a drink, and I took the drink, maybe two drinks. I had never done anything like that before. I thought, ‘Oh my God. I’ve got to get out of here,’ and at the same time, I thought, ‘I’ve gone as far as I can go.’ I can’t remember exactly what I did or said, but I got out of there. Before that moment I didn’t know that I had the strength to stand up for myself.
“The next day I called in sick and immediately went and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. From then until now many spiritual things have happened for me. When I joined AA, which is another way of looking at yourself with truthful eyes, I became a person of prayer. I slowly returned to the dedication my mother made of me to Mary. I guess that was when I went back to wearing only blue and white. I found the Cenacle Sisters and studied and worked with them in the community. The Cenacle refers to the upper room where Mary, the Apostles, and their families waited after the resurrection for the Holy Spirit to come down and give them wisdom, grace and inspiration.
“In 1990, I began to study more seriously with the Cenacle Sisters so that I could take vows as a lay nun. Ten years later in 2000, I took my definitive vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The vow of poverty meant that I wouldn’t be dependent on anyone for my upkeep. The vow of chastity didn’t change anything about my life, but freed me from all concerns in this regard. Now my name is on a list in Rome that says I am living this vow. I don’t really care about the list in Rome, but it just is what it is. It puts things to rest. The obedience just means that you hope that you are doing God’s will most of the time.
“If you are what you are and if it is recognized by the people you hold most dear in your community, not in a big way, but in a little way, it is comforting to be acknowledged for what you have chosen. Suffering gets you to the point where you can choose the one thing that matters which for me was my spiritual life. I could have just holed up or never seen anyone or drank myself to death, but this choice freed me. It gave me the power of a skyrocket if I wanted to be shot off, figuratively speaking.
“In 1999, the same year I moved here, I had a total hip replacement, and that grounded me for a while and helped me with my spiritual work. I was always running around, and this got me grounded and taught me to have an hour of prayer a day, which I learned keeps me ready for whatever happens next. Something I won’t do without now. To me, prayer means reading the scriptures for each day. I have a prayer book, which gives the Morning Prayer, the mass for the day, and the evening prayer. It gives information about the saint of the day and sometimes includes obscure saints of the day who bring something special. Really prayer is a quiet time, a period of meditation for an hour each morning. It prepares you for the day, and no matter what happens these readings from the scripture fit your life. I don’t go to daily mass, but I say all the prayers. I feel light, like; you know the lightness of being.”
I could almost see light around Janie as she said this. We sat quietly for a few minutes before she went on:
“I’m cutting back on the goings out. So I choose what I do carefully, but I hold onto all my important relationships, although I see everyone a little less often. I see my friends from the Stella Maris group every Sunday, and the Sisters of the Cenacle. Here in St. Louis there are only four of us from the Cenacle group left.
Janie stopped for a moment and then went on:
“Suffering can open a door. You have to know that you are going to encounter suffering, and it is not what it does to you, but what you do with it. Some people think that they are going to get by without it, but we know that none of us do. When others suffer I can empathize and sympathize like this year with my granddaughter Callie. She went away from home for the first time, her other grandmother died, and she was in an automobile accident. When she still got all A’s at the end of the year, I just told her how much I admired her.”
“When I think about the next ten years, I look forward to being a little more quiet, a little less going-out. I love to write letters to friends that live out of town. There are always the Christmas cards that I haven’t opened yet, and I don’t like to be in that spot, but that will of course whittle down in the next ten years.
“It’s the three “Fs” -- family, faith, and friends that matter to me most. If I can just stick with those it will be a good ten years. I want to spend more time with my family, and my daughter Mary is good about that, but I don’t bother them. When I was helping at the Cenacle learning about affirmations, I learned to say, ‘I am completely self- determined, and I allow others the same right’. That kind of keeps me out of everyone’s hair. I see them every other week or every three weeks, but I follow all their goings-on, and keep track of all of them. In the summertime, my granddaughters, Callie and Jessie, and I go to lunch. I will probably ask them next Wednesday to go for an Irish lunch to celebrate James Joyce’s Bloomsday. It’s an occasion we would hate to miss.”
.
The day I interviewed Janie was the first extended time that we had spent together. We laughed and cried, and by the end of the day neither one of us wanted to stop talking. I was deeply affected by Janie’s ability to acknowledge her grief and her limitations while still living by the values she treasures, and still laughing at herself and with others. The excruciating things that had happened didn’t paralyze her, or remove her from the people that she loved.
Before we parted Janie asked me questions about my life, my children, and the stories from before I met my second husband who is her nephew by marriage. She listened with interest, and I imagined that she now included my stories in her family tapestry. I was pleased to be part of the cloth.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Vulnerability and Shame
From Ellen,
Before I go on with Janie's story I want to respond to another question from Joe. He asked me why I don't write more of my story and I said that I still find it hard to tell my story and yet I get so much from the stories of others. I thought again about why sometimes some of us find it hard to let others know when we are vulnerable. I remembered what this was like me expecially when my husband Ron was so ill.
When Ron became ill, I found it difficult to count on others, although it took an army of friends, family, nurses, social workers, lawyers, and psychotherapists to keep Ron at home and to keep our family functioning. Crises with the ventilator regularly left Ron gasping for breath. Insurance companies refused to pay for his care. Much of our energy was spent fighting for Ron’s physical and emotional needs. Each of us went in and out of depression, and our family splintered and reconfigured itself many times. In spite of our struggles I believed that we should not have to depend on others.
Before Ron’s illness, I had witnessed families whom I counseled feel shame when their difficulties overwhelmed them. Illness, which no one blamed them for, produced profound humiliation. They believed that illness was a private matter, not to be inflicted upon others. When working with these families, I challenged their desire for isolation and encouraged them to reach out and to create a wider circle of support. After Ron became ill, I was surprised at how much I shared their desire for isolation and shame for needing help. I had been influenced by a culture that over-valued independence.
I believed that we should be able to manage on our own -- not because others weren’t ready to help, but because of my desire not to need help. At first I resisted the efforts of others. When I eventually forced myself to accept spontaneous acts of kindness, I had to admit that these were not enough. We needed consistent help in making difficult decisions, managing our home care system, and raising money to pay for Ron’s nurses. We needed the help of a wider community to manage our emotions and the tasks at hand.
I was part of a generation of women who believed that we were equals with our partners, who believed that we could have careers and be good mothers too. What I didn’t understand was that my capacity to do these things was based on good fortune and that with Ron’s illness I would have to rethink what I could do and be as wife, mother, and psychologist.
As a helper to others, I had not appreciated how hard it would be to reach out to a wide circle of supporters. I even had to let my clients know that sometimes I would have to cancel psychotherapy sessions if there was an emergency at home. This went against my years of professional training, in which I was taught that the life of the therapist should be kept out of the therapy room. To my surprise, my vulnerability led to more open connections with my clients. They were able to feel concern for me and allow us to continue our work together. Reaching out beyond my comfort level with others led me to let go of a false sense of independence and to discover interdependence.
A year after Ron went on the ventilator, in desperation I called together a group of friends and asked them to meet with me regularly. We created a group mind for problem-solving. This group convinced me that nuclear families survive on their own in circumstances of privilege. When life is filled with difficulties community is not an option, but a necessity.
My friends rallied around me. One friend said that by offering help she felt relief about our situation. At last, she could do something. It reassured her to think that if she ever needed help, others would be there. At our monthly meetings, I spoke about what was happening in our family. I raised issues about the nurses, the children, Ron’s care, and my relationship with Ron. My friends gave me the gift of their time and made suggestions that I had overlooked.
Sometimes it was awkward shifting the balance of these friendships. As friends, we had exchanged the stories of our lives equally. During Ron’s illness, I asked them to give me extra time and attention when I had little time for them. They were more than generous, but we often had to sacrifice the easy flow of friendship to work as a problem-solving group. What I had to learn was that for life’s survival, we are all interdependent. When our resources are plentiful, we need to share with others, and when our resources are stretched, we need to ask others more fortunate to provide for us. In different ways, the women I am writing about on this blog live by this principle. I seem to have to learn it over and over again.
What about the rest of you? Is that why you are reluctant to send in your stories?
Before I go on with Janie's story I want to respond to another question from Joe. He asked me why I don't write more of my story and I said that I still find it hard to tell my story and yet I get so much from the stories of others. I thought again about why sometimes some of us find it hard to let others know when we are vulnerable. I remembered what this was like me expecially when my husband Ron was so ill.
When Ron became ill, I found it difficult to count on others, although it took an army of friends, family, nurses, social workers, lawyers, and psychotherapists to keep Ron at home and to keep our family functioning. Crises with the ventilator regularly left Ron gasping for breath. Insurance companies refused to pay for his care. Much of our energy was spent fighting for Ron’s physical and emotional needs. Each of us went in and out of depression, and our family splintered and reconfigured itself many times. In spite of our struggles I believed that we should not have to depend on others.
Before Ron’s illness, I had witnessed families whom I counseled feel shame when their difficulties overwhelmed them. Illness, which no one blamed them for, produced profound humiliation. They believed that illness was a private matter, not to be inflicted upon others. When working with these families, I challenged their desire for isolation and encouraged them to reach out and to create a wider circle of support. After Ron became ill, I was surprised at how much I shared their desire for isolation and shame for needing help. I had been influenced by a culture that over-valued independence.
I believed that we should be able to manage on our own -- not because others weren’t ready to help, but because of my desire not to need help. At first I resisted the efforts of others. When I eventually forced myself to accept spontaneous acts of kindness, I had to admit that these were not enough. We needed consistent help in making difficult decisions, managing our home care system, and raising money to pay for Ron’s nurses. We needed the help of a wider community to manage our emotions and the tasks at hand.
I was part of a generation of women who believed that we were equals with our partners, who believed that we could have careers and be good mothers too. What I didn’t understand was that my capacity to do these things was based on good fortune and that with Ron’s illness I would have to rethink what I could do and be as wife, mother, and psychologist.
As a helper to others, I had not appreciated how hard it would be to reach out to a wide circle of supporters. I even had to let my clients know that sometimes I would have to cancel psychotherapy sessions if there was an emergency at home. This went against my years of professional training, in which I was taught that the life of the therapist should be kept out of the therapy room. To my surprise, my vulnerability led to more open connections with my clients. They were able to feel concern for me and allow us to continue our work together. Reaching out beyond my comfort level with others led me to let go of a false sense of independence and to discover interdependence.
A year after Ron went on the ventilator, in desperation I called together a group of friends and asked them to meet with me regularly. We created a group mind for problem-solving. This group convinced me that nuclear families survive on their own in circumstances of privilege. When life is filled with difficulties community is not an option, but a necessity.
My friends rallied around me. One friend said that by offering help she felt relief about our situation. At last, she could do something. It reassured her to think that if she ever needed help, others would be there. At our monthly meetings, I spoke about what was happening in our family. I raised issues about the nurses, the children, Ron’s care, and my relationship with Ron. My friends gave me the gift of their time and made suggestions that I had overlooked.
Sometimes it was awkward shifting the balance of these friendships. As friends, we had exchanged the stories of our lives equally. During Ron’s illness, I asked them to give me extra time and attention when I had little time for them. They were more than generous, but we often had to sacrifice the easy flow of friendship to work as a problem-solving group. What I had to learn was that for life’s survival, we are all interdependent. When our resources are plentiful, we need to share with others, and when our resources are stretched, we need to ask others more fortunate to provide for us. In different ways, the women I am writing about on this blog live by this principle. I seem to have to learn it over and over again.
What about the rest of you? Is that why you are reluctant to send in your stories?
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