September 2020 - Compassion Group Notes
Leaving Group
There are many reasons for doing a stretch of work and then taking a break and leaving the group.
For many of you the work you are doing in your Compassion Groups is deepening and intensifying quite dramatically. This is a testimony to the inner work, the deep commitment and the devotion to which you are doing your practices of self-observation and self-enquiry. Over-all most of you have done a great deal of work around victimization and dysfunction in childhood that left you traumatized to one degree or another. Let’s look at stages of the process of development in the victim/perpetrator realm. Every stage is one in which one can get stuck for life, without persevering on self-examination.
Entering the Realm of Paradox
“II asked him what he thought it meant for our lives, for how we spend them, for what they mean. He said our lives mean nothing except as a cycle of regeneration, that we are incomprehensibly brief sparks, just as the animals are, that we are no more important than they are, no more worthy of life than any living creature. That in our self-importance, in our search for meaning, we have forgotten how to share the planet that gave us life. Tonight I write him a letter telling him I think he was right. But that also I think there is meaning, and it lives in nurturing, in making life sweeter for ourselves, and for those around us. ~Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations: A Novel (Flatiron Books, August 4, 2020)
Projection - Defense against the Undesirable
We have a little mutt called Beannie. (As in Beannie Baby). She half rat terrier, half chihuahua. As she approaches old age we are seeing more and more personality, more and more defense and a definite evolution in her consciousness!
She has recently developed the habit of going to the mirror and glaring at herself and then tentatively starting to bark. As that damn dog in the mirror barks back at her, she becomes more and more animated and mad - barking more furiously and energetically. It is absolutely hilarious to watch. She just cannot figure it out and stays fixated until we physically remove her from the mirror image of her mad self.
Flip-Flopping
“You will know when you are working from shame, because you will be flip-flopping instead of being able to make a decision.” ~Charisse Lyons
Does a fish know it swims in water? Zen riddle
When we find ourselves flip-flopping on the beach, instead of swimming with ease, it is because we have somehow lost touch with the element of love within which we swim. Our nature is love and cannever be anything else, so when we find ourselves gasping to breathe, tense, agitated and in two minds, restless and in pain, then we know we are out of the water that is our natural home. We can only know we are swimming in water and that it is our natural home, once we know the contrast of the flip-flopping helplessly on the shore of life between two seeming opposites.
One of the common flip-flops I see people doing is, on the one side, making excuses for other people’s bad behavior and feeling sorry for them or alternatively flopping to the other side and getting angry, punitive and rejecting of people because of their bad behavior. They do this flip-flop within themselves about their own behavior and they project this on to others as well.
Read the fable by the late Erwin Friedman called “The Bridge.” You will find many sites that have it available. It is a story worth deep contemplation and study to see where you are in your life.
Confrontation and Interpretation
One of the pre-requisites of any real relationship is that you can allow yourself to be confronted or challenged by another person. This is one aspect of loving and growth inducing relationship and the demand of any long-term relationship. Sacramental relationship is relationship that is used as a catalyst to becoming aware, individuated and whole. This is the promise made at a wedding service, even if it is not understood by the young couple. The vow is that we will develop an internal relationship of love (internal marriage), so that we can have a sacramental marriage one day. This can only happen through examining all the projections that a relationship can reveal. A relationship in which you do not speak the truth, pussy foot around issues, deny yourself, couch everything carefully, walk on egg-shells and caretake the other’s feelings and needs, while building resentment that you are doing it, and then gossiping about it behind that person’s back, is not a relationship. It is not friendship, it is not marriage, it is not a therapeutic relationship …. it is nothing.
Money
“All aspects of our life; our self-worth, our family dynamics, political choices and even our love lives are touched by the money wound.” ~Jane Monica-Jones, The Billionaire Buddha
It has come to my notice that the feelings expressed around paying for therapy and group are revealing a much deeper inner dynamic in people that is probably being played out in your lives in many different ways. As such, it is a rich area of investigation around your judgements, feelings and needs about the policies around paying for therapy and group.
Money - the symbol of external success, status and value OR the means to meet basic needs and share generously from the heart. One is living in the ego and the other the Soul. The one is all about me and the other considers the both/and of me and you.
