To the Compassion Fatigued

The Three Monks are doing a Spread the Love Now! Group Writing Project. For the rules for submitting an article go to one of their websites.

http://www.urbanmonk.net/233/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project/
http://kentonwhitman.com/blog/2007/12/21/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project/
http://themiddleway.net/2007/12/21/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project

To the Compassion Fatigued

I have a knack for grabbing a newspaper, flipping to some random page, and with less than conscious intention landing my eyes on a narrative laced in brutality, drenched in suffering, and devoid of hope.

There are those of us who lap up this consistent feed of suffering, immersing ourselves in collective despair much like gnats drowned in a half-drunken pint of warm Pilsner. Others swipe this reality away with a voracity reserved for those who simply cannot bear one more kernel of fear. There are those who, in the face of a seemingly never-ending torrent of injustice, get angry, find their voice, and take action. Still others, in a grind for the restoration of control, dish it out onto someone else.

I could go on, as there are countless styles that members of the human race employ in coming to terms with the unthinkable, the unbearable, and the unconscionable. My own style is in transition, and this is where an important lesson in compassion emerges.

Historically, my strategy has been to put myself in the eye of the storm so that I may assume a helper role. Like most people, my proclivities stem from my own rearing, which in my case crafted an empathetic, intuitive, compassionate, and sensitive constitution. I am driven by a need to be engaged with the complexities of the human condition, as well as to contribute to the growth and healing of the collective consciousness. These are gifts, and as such I’m thankful for the lived experiences, both sweet and wrenching, that I owe this learning to.

As there is light, there is a shadow side: vulnerability to merging with the emotional states of others, over-identification with suffering, hyper-vigilance, assuming responsibility that simply is not mine, layers upon layers of guilt, self-neglect, martyrdom, and burnout.

I experienced the onset of Compassion Fatigue, or vicarious trauma, during my first year out of graduate school while working as a therapist at a rape crisis center that was poorly run. The intense clinical work combined with the chaotic, unhealthy work environment left me emotionally drained. I began to see the world as a terribly dangerous place. I was hyper-vigilant of my surroundings. My soma became physically ill with colds and infections I couldn’t shake off. White hairs began to sprout, and my sleep morphed into a dreamscape of nightmares. Close friends commented that I didn’t look well and asked if I was o.k.

The film of denial coated onto the relationship between my job and my well being eroded, and in its place were the assumptions I held regarding compassion. I realized that I’d relegated myself to an unconscious and psychologically young paradigm that limited my ability to simultaneously hold compassion for others and myself. In this paradigm, there was an unspoken rule, which is this: Only one person gets to have their needs met. From which I derived a related belief: Taking care of myself comes at the cost of someone else, which I cannot bear.

With eyes wide shut, I subscribed to the deeply engrained belief that my worth was based on my ability to meet the needs of others. Psychology labels this as codependency. I reframe this as an issue of the soul and, ultimately, love.

Rather than junk the idea of becoming a therapist all together or continue in my victimhood/martyrdom, I took responsibility, listened deeply to my inner voice, and made choices that I felt were in my best interest. I left that job with a deeper understanding of my limits and the intention to renegotiate my relationship to compassion.

What began as a mini-crisis in the realm of work deepened into a spiritual inquiry of love. The external motion of delivering compassion was out of sync with the internal process of replenishing love to the Self. I believe this can also become inverted as self-involvement hinders the capacity to extend love beyond the Self.

Today, I find value in small, everyday acts of compassion, such as helping a blind person across the street, acknowledging the dwindling life force of our Christmas tree, being gentle with myself after a tough day, or paying mind the energy I take in and put out into the world. Today, I strive to balance love and compassion with limit-setting and respite. Today, I try my best to remain open to both the light and shadow intrinsic to the human condition.

Moon in Indigo

It’s late or early, depending on how you look at it.
I'm tired, too tired to utter brilliant nothings.
Too tired to write of witty observations
or conjure calculated conjectures.

It’s late or early, depending on how you look at it.
Twilight sings crescendos and decrescendos
to stitch the dusk to dawn.
The moon sits ripe in indigo,
so crisp and lucid that enamored spectators
reach with worn fingers
to pluck her from her cosmic perch
as one might a tempting persimmon.

It’s late or early, as it always has and always will.
Still, the moon sits ripe in indigo.

Winter Solstice and Cancer Full Moon 2007 Info

http://www.wisdom-of-astrology.com/wintersolstice%26cancerfullmoon2007

Tracing the Fatherline

I was not raised in a home where open discussion about religion transpired. All I knew was that my father was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school, and as an adult reflected upon his alter boy youth with a deep-seated resentment earmarked most fervidly for the nuns – nuns of the 1950’s and early 1960’s who, from my father’s reports, fancied a nice ruler smack-down from time to time. On the few occasions when he openly speaks of his experience, he assumes a wry smile as long held sentiments bathed in disillusionment and sarcasm catapult off his tongue and into the reality shared between he and his captivated audience (usually me).

Sometimes the sarcastic remarks and dry humor spill into a ephemeral expression of anger. Anger towards the Church, the nuns, the priests, the repression, the guilt. Every once in a blue moon for a very, very brief moment, the displacement of anger crumbles into ruins, from which arises the grief of an 8 year-old boy who tragically lost his father in the Fall of 1960. An 8 year-old boy who asked his grandfather why is young father had to die.

“Because God wanted your Daddy with him.”

To which my father defiantly replied, “But we need him here!”

My father shared this memory with me on one of those rare days when we connect over the pieces of his life story he’s willing to leave with me, his daughter. My father shared this memory, and suddenly his frustration and general rejection of dogma and religious authorities translated into an incredibly painful test of faith. I’m sure my great-grandfather meant to comfort his grandson and likely leaned on his own words during this dark time. My great-grandfather’s words, dredged from the silty shore of his own hard-wired belief system, were intended to console the inconsolable, explain the unexplainable, frame the unthinkable.

Instead, my father heard this rendering of the message: God selfishly betrayed you.

I write about this, because time is passing. Time is passing and one of these days we will confront loss. Time is passing and my father’s life is over the half-way mark. He speaks of death as the end-all-be-all.

“Someday I’ll die and be six feet under. That’s that.”

As my father’s daughter, it disturbs me to hear this, though I accept his views – for all I know, he could be absolutely right. Perhaps there is nothing else beyond this one lifetime. I can bear that, and still I wonder how his outlook towards death, the Divine, and one’s place in the world might’ve unfolded had his early years panned out differently. How is it that one child might lean into religious explanations of loss whereas another’s trust is forever fragmented.

Like my father, I have difficulty devoting my faith to an all-powerful being whose attributes are ascribed by people afflicted by the human condition. This co-exists with the primal wish that indeed some omniscient being is out there, somewhere, looking out for me. The desire to assuage the existential human dilemma of isolation (via an externalized representation of the ever-present, omniscient Father or Mother) runs side-by-side with the existential givens of freedom and responsibility (I desire freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility and agency – which again lead to a fundamental isolation).

In reading and investigating spiritual traditions, I find myself repeatedly running into this question of a spiritual path that may or may not be bound in religion. One could practice meditation or magic without an attachment to an ultimate Creator. One could also engage with such practices through an attunement to God(s)/Goddess(es). One could interpret a God or Goddess in a literal sense – a Divine puppet master, a very real being with whom one can commune with. Or the God or Goddess can be interpreted as symbolic representations of Universal energy…or as projections of the human psyche.

I’m at a standstill right now, as I’m not sure exactly where I fall. For now, I sit, reflect, self-educate, and remain open.

The Peripherally Engaged Armchairist's Guide to Shift Points

I offer this first tale of a neophyte's search for spiritual (re)discovery, derived from the bowels of the Peripherally Engaged Armchairist's psyche. By "peripherally engaged," I mean holding a curious though somewhat passive or tentative interaction with, say, spiritual inquiry. Per Wikipedia, the term "armchair" can refer to "a person who experiences something vicariously rather than first hand, or to a causal critic who lacks practical experience, such as armchair revolutionary, armchair general, armchair architect and so on." Add to the list armchair magician, armchair witch, armchair shaman, armchair Buddhist, etc. Tack on an "ist" and - voila! - a person who embodies the armchair stance.

I start here with the "Peripherally Engaged Armchairist," as this serves as a potential shift point. Transforming any point into a shift point requires first naming the current dynamic. In this case I'm naming the fact that, despite the moderate pleasure I derive from amassing a small spiritual library and like-minded blogroll, spiritual growth is both an intellectual and embodied, experiential pursuit to which I’ve erred on the side of intellect. Throw me a book or URL and I’ll devour it, but ask me to meditate, create art, perform ritual, or practice an astrological system and I hesitate.

Not that I don’t meditate or create or perform ritual or consider my astrological influences. I do, and when I do there’s this feeling of “Ahhh, now I remember.” My breathing and voice tend to deepen, my senses intensify, and I somehow become vividly aware of the energy flowing throughout my soma.

But there’s something to that moment of hesitation, that funny, paradoxical pause that precedes a course of action. On one hand, there is an expansive, spirited, quixotic element, which lends me to assume a gung-ho posture to finding It. It - that system of ideas to which I would undoubtedly respond to with a resounding “Yes, sign me up!” My eyes glint with the shine of possibilities, of doors yet to be open. I heave with the fantasy bordering on delusion of what could be - if only I found It.

Then there’s the space within that pause that’s steeped with reticence. Reticent to move from head to heart to spirit. Reticent to trust in gurus, dogma, and belief systems created by others. Reticent to trust in my ability to be supported by my own inner guidance.

The overwhelm of frenetic searching settles in. The resistance emerges. The distraction commences, thinly veiled by the External Gaze that fuels the obsessive search out there in books, on websites, in café’s, in metaphysical stores.

It’s not so extreme as this. For the sake of story, I exaggerate the polarities to communicate an experience, my experience, which is this. There is a Universe out there, within, and all around. The art is in weaving together the threads, threads that flow in lovely shades of gray to counterbalance the harsh contrast of black and white.

This blog, this exploration and direct engagement with my own thoughts, feelings and intuitions, is but just one part of the mechanism that transforms a point into a shift point.