My
mother’s cat literally dropped dead at her home a week ago Thursday, leaving my
84 year old mother sitting holding her dead cat in a deluge of tears in the
Vet’s office - understandably. Unspoken
wells of emotion came from deep caverns within, flooding the room. I’m sure it was also years of the hidden
emotional pain of life and loss. Loss
can do that. It brings up a lot of
hidden issues we didn’t know were there. My teary eyed sister and I tried to console
her. But what can you do when a woman
does not want to be consoled, when she pulls away in bitterness, and uses the
opportunity to zing you with her words.
Anger and pain are closely related.
While cradling her dead cat like a newborn, she said: “I know *other
people* didn’t like you but *I* loved you – indirectly pointed at the two of us
– purposely shrugging each one of our hands off her shoulder – pulling away. Ouch…
My
mother’s cat was not a cuddly, loving cat.
You had to keep your distance, and pass by him carefully undergoing a
gauntlet of hisses and swats. No, we
didn’t warm up to him. But we each have
lost a cat and know the deep pain and grief of losing a beloved pet. And we were being rebuffed for our offering. I could only step back in wonder at how deep
my mother’s pain must go to use this opportunity to bite back – unconsciously,
I know. This hasn’t been the first time
either. As my sister and I stepped away
and moved across the room I became aware of an internal hurt to the zing, and a
reaction arose. Instead of love, an
incredible awkwardness filled the room – and the ride home from the Vet. The remnants of unclaimed baggage…
How does
one express love and compassion to a woman who obviously can’t receive it,
whose emotional baggage is so heavy she has no free hands to receive any offer
of consolation. Whose wounds are so deep
they won’t allow her to authentically love – or be loved. This is the dynamic in my family vortex, and
I imagine in many other families as well.
We all have them – the baggage, the wounds, the denial, the blaming, the
deep bitterness of not feeling loved and nurtured enough that poisons
relationships and gets carried from generation to generation.
Over the
years we all have had our own ways of wounding each other with our hidden pain
- with sharp tongues, with sarcasm and criticism, with anger - revealing our
inability to hold our hearts open. Unable to speak of our wounds with each
other in mature, authentic ways that heal, we default instead to the
dysfunction, reverting to the passive-aggressive hurtful behavior of our prickly personalities – with little digs that get expressed to relieve the hidden
suffering, to bite back, to be right – to try to control our pain.
Many
years ago I became aware of my own pain and dysfunction – my shadow side - and
began to get some much needed professional help. I also took up the so-called
“spiritual path” to find a “better way”, to become more conscious of my own
deeply hidden wounds – and – to
“awaken” to who I really am at the Heart of Being beyond the pain. This does not make me special, or more
evolved, or “better than.” I just wanted
to move past the pain, and to know the Truth. I thought I had gotten past the pains of the
past, but last week I could feel the heart ache flood to the surface
again. I was a bit surprised actually. The difference was, I could just let it be
there, just notice it rise (and after a couple of days dissipate.) No longer willing to lash out from hurt in
anger, I was just aware – aware of my own woundedness and everyone else’s, still
trying to be present - from a safe distance emotionally – allowing some space
as the thunder rolled through everyone.
It became
clear that the cat’s death had become a catalyst for the emergence of unspoken
family pain again… But what can one do
when other family members don’t want to *see* their pain, to face the 500 pound
elephant in the room, refuse to get help while drowning in a sea of dysfunction
– threatened by the mere exposure of the deep, open family wound that makes my
heart ache to write about it...
“Accepting
life as it is” sometimes gets bandied about in non-dual circles like a cliché,
but the pain of “life as it is” needs to be addressed at times… At some point
there has to be a willingness to *see* - our own and each other’s wounds - a willingness to
get to the root of the wound: the *belief* in separation from our Eternal
Beingness/True Nature.
Non-dual
awareness, teachings, practices, methods, and techniques are not a “spiritual
bypass” for our pain. Nothing is left behind. Everything is allowed as part
of the fabric of Reality – the suffering, the wounds, the shadows, the tears in
the fabric of living. And there needs to
be a willingness to open to those wounds through awareness, tenderness and
compassion *for* the woundings. And through
that, a different path emerges, so that we are not unconsciously defaulting to
the path of hidden pain and suffering, again and again…
But - are
we willing to expose and unwind the wounds of the Heart? Are we willing to wake up and see the Truth
of who we really are and not *live* in our wounds… Obviously I’m still facing mine :)
~
Photos
The pictures are from a scrapbook
I did many years ago when I was addressing the wounds of the Heart.
They are individual collage pages dealing with some aspect of “the wound” as I
understood it back then.
What I didn’t understand at the time was the deep wound of separation
that is at the root of our sense of woundedness and suffering -
the not *knowing* of who we really are…
It was only when I began to be
aware of our inherent True Nature/Beingness
that the wounds began to be faced and embraced – over time…
May we all wake up from “the wound.”
