This following is a slight edit of a post made on May 11th of 2021:
This morning, my feelings of gratitude started mingling with new insights into integrity and familial legacies. I will explain what I mean in a minute, but I feel a little context is in order.
I was in the process of completing a wave of thank you messages, to the folks who have donated to my son Liam's fundraiser. He had created it on my behalf. My thoughts about needing that level of help arrived with an unexpected pot luck of emotions today. Metaphorical casseroles of embarrassment, shame, fear, and frustrations were followed by the more simple fare of sadness and grief. It took awhile to locate compassion. But when I did, I sprinkled some on everything that was on my plate, so to speak. And that is when I found I could let myself rest within the process. Again. Prayerfully. I followed this with a gentle meditation to reconnect to the present. Perhaps my dessert for the day was the action of getting back to gratitude. I wanted to express it sincerely --- to those who have responded to my son's eyewitness account of the more recent medical trajectory.
Isn't it interesting how asking for help can feel so damning? I mean this in relation to cultural expectations of getting back in the proverbial saddle --- as if nothing had happened. Or being in a hurry to be totally self-sufficient and dependent on no one. Where does this come from? And what does it mean, honestly? This unrealistic pressure to speed up healing so that everything looks, at least outwardly, like others expect it to? And, if it never gets to normal, which is likely in my case, then what? The more integration I gain from the crash and ICU events of 2019, the stronger I feel about my current progress in body, mind, and spirit.
There have been days in which I felt rather dragged along. A strong woman with one foot caught in the stirrup of a beloved horse that took off before I was fully seated. With my body upside down, almost tragically unable to gain my handhold on the saddle horn and haul myself back up --- with an all encompassing umph! of effort. Before the crash, my thoughts were sometimes riddled with if only --- when reminders of my perceived personal failures caught me in a moment of doubt. These tended to queue-up before becoming compressed into a kind of wall of undifferentiated forgetting. My examples would be thus: forgetting that I have been a home owner and run my own businesses; or, that I am the first female on my mother's side to have earned a degree of any kind, let alone being within a year of achieving my doctorate! Even "forgetting" that the pain I have in my body every day was actually caused by someone else's driving negligence (a person I have never met, by the way), and not by any self-sabotage. Mostly, I have a forgetful recycle over the fact that I am still recovering from a near-fatal crash, which could have left my now twenty-something kids without their mother --- either by death or paralysis. And, not to be missed, leaving me without the earthly prospect of loving any future grandchildren.
Differing levels of vulnerability and understanding continue to emerge. I'm a complete failure at pretending to be invulnerable. But what does this have to do with integrity? Well, it doesn't feel like being invulnerable is very useful or honest. Especially in a society that is still dealing with pandemic related issues. I'm human --- not superwoman, dammit!
The gradual slide toward becoming the archetypal crone (wise woman I hope!) has speeded up. A lifelong impulse to seek out a new teacher or teaching, might now be a diversion, or maybe just another arrow into my heart. Nonetheless, I seem to be drawing meaningful parallels with earlier healing journeys. Instead of looking for something entirely new, I'm panning for gold within my journals and personal library. There, my lessons of self-accountability and full-on integrity seeking are embedded in these life-long progress notes.
Let me anchor my post with a quote from the late John O'Donohue, known by those who loved him as a "priest, poet, prophet, philosopher, mystic and...peasant of this valley" (1). O'Donohue identified most with the idea of being a peasant, despite his massive education and life of service. Without using the word integrity, here is his profound recognition of it:
“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.”(2)
I've been at that point of no going back that O'Donohue speaks of. Not once. Not twice. At least half-a-dozen times in my sixty-plus years. At this moment, I still catch my breath on the phrase "the eternal makes you urgent." This is exactly the present-life-tense I came back with, from my near death experience (NDE): that the eternal is HOME. A state of being we all long for, even as if in a half-forgotten dream or distant divine memory, rather than a literal place. How does one begin to describe the expansiveness and cohesive complexity of space, possibly akin to parallel dimensions of experience?
Although my particular life situations were all different in their external manifestations, each of the dark-night-of-the-soul events I encountered possessed the same intensive, internal element: a decision that would cost me either my personal integrity or adherence to a set of cultural expectations and the people associated with them. Not to belabor the intensive part, but those dark-night-of-the-soul experiences can last longer than one night --- they last until the essential, pivotal decision is made, in fact. Then, and only then, do we glimpse how the universe tilts in our direction. And yes, the fear of what you do want to be true can be as powerful as the fear of what you don't want becoming your destiny. Your reference point and metaphors will likely be different than mine, but I hope you will claim them when they come to teach you. I believe such personal metaphors and dark-nights-of-the-soul are direct influences from our divine soul essence. There is probably a more beautiful way of articulating this, but I'm standing in the puddle all the same.
Cultural expectations are not necessarily bad. They can be the source of obstacles or the loss of support, which proves very challenging to dismantle. Only you can know which aspects of culture provide the nemesis that prompts you to doubt yourself, just as only I know the ones that have nailed me. Each of the pivotal moments of decision-making that I have faced brought me to a belief that the impulse to live must be grounded in a sense of personal purpose --- and that living toward that purpose is the individual's process of attunement with their own integrity and God's will. Yes. I did just say attunement. Alignment works, too. Like resonating as our own tuning fork with what is our higher-level knowing. When the frequencies match, the better seasoned we become for attending to life's adventures and misadventures. I'm depending on the fact that, the more authentically we respond to the co-creative aspects of the path we find ourselves on, we become happier and more whole.
If you are experiencing a pivotal choice point in your life, take heart: you are in good company. O'Donohue "risked everything to walk a different path and live passionately the integrity of his own truth" (1). He certainly wasn't the only one who has written about it. In fact, the quest for the holy grail of Arthurian legends, and Dante's Divine Comedy are excellent examples of the metaphorical hero's journey: to the "summit of fulfillment" which is our "own truth"--- rather than a literal object from antiquity.
I personally think it's the quest for the soul-directed path of integrity. Something that is designed by the soul to be lived by the personality and character of the individual, when embodied. In different words, "the journey is the destination" (attributed to a photojournalist named Dan Eldon, who died quite young). From within such a perspective, every moment in time matters, not just the end result. After all, everyone knows they will someday cease to breathe life into their earthly body. Even very young children understand this (see the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, if you feel skeptical). Is the death moment the goal of everyone's life? If that were seen as true, we would have a lot more education around it! Or, is one's truth contained in the consciousness with which we have lived and lost, learned and loved? The former seems to instill fear while the latter embraces the diversity of time and the influences of our lived life.
As I write this, I feel like one of those Russian nesting dolls, called Matryoshka (meaning: little matron or mother). You might know what that is. For those who are unfamiliar, it describes a set of culturally significant wooden dolls handcrafted in incremental sizes, so that they fit perfectly --- one inside the other. Each doll can be removed, like a shell casing, to reveal a smaller doll inside. Until you get to the smallest doll. At the deepest core, this is the only doll that is intact or whole. It doesn't split open. It isn't hollow, like all the others. According to the oldest Germanic traditions I could find, the smallest doll represents the youngest female within a matrilineal line. She carries the legacy of all her genetic mothers before her. The chain of fertility of a specific motherhood, and inherited traits of spirituality and courage, extend far beyond the physical conception and birth aspects. At least it does in my perspective.
I share a love of history with an aunt, several siblings, and some friends. Little did I know how important genealogical research would become in my life as it is now. In early October of 2019, while still wearing the cervical collar brace (from the crash injuries), I turned my doctoral level research skills into a search and rescue effort --- for a legacy of familial meaning to pass on to my kids. What began as a lightweight hobby at 30 minutes every other day, has evolved into a full day at least once, if not twice, a month.
Because of that research commitment, I've since discovered chasms of misinformation, misunderstandings, and unclaimed historical influences predating and including our British colonial roots. Surprisingly, those discoveries have provided as much insight into the present as they do about the past. And not just regarding my direct lineage, either, but collaterally, as waves of cultural paradigms and transitions. Even more surprising to me, is that the subject of my dissertation research can be seen to have its roots in what I needed to learn to become a reasonably whole person. Intact. Integrated. Connected. A daughter of integrity looking for the universal mother of integrity!
When I faced death and chose to live, not by scrambling after the hope of not dying but reaching, rather, for something intrinsic to my soul --- that's when the game really changed for me. My NDE in 2019 did not land me in an unrealized fantasy of butterflies, rainbows, and unicorns. Imagine the backlash of trying to get that kind of experience into print and still living outside of the confines of a psychiatric facility! No. The journey can be infused with a sacred mysticism and still be deeply grounded in evidence. Bear with me here. This post is not as random as it might seem in this moment.
What kind of evidence would indicate the strength of someone's NDE or other life transforming event? How important is it to be believed if the story that needs to be told is a mixed bag of graces and griefs? In this paragraph, the griefs I refer to are the losses we experience when we make a choice. We either pretend to go along with our cultural environment or we trust our innate integrity. Whichever decision we make we will grieve something. There's the loss of what we thought was right and true or the loss of ourselves --- what we know to be true. More subtle perhaps but just as real is the loss of that which is not to be chosen or experienced (3). A setting aside of certain potentials, so that the one we did choose has our full attention.
After getting this far in my writing session, I needed a stretching break. Made some tea. Cut up some watermelon. Let the dogs I'm pet-sitting have a romp out-of-doors. But my thoughts were still in the flow of this meandering about integrity and where it's leading me. So, when I settled back into the chair, put my laptop back on my lap, I reached for my cup of tea. I couldn't help but notice the quote on the Yogi tea bag: "Live by your inner knowledge and strength." How's that for synchronicity?
Here's the working title of my dissertation: Resiliency in Survivors of Human Trafficking and Forced Marriage; A Qualitative Study. My intention is to gain, from survivors themselves, insights into supporting resiliency from such horrific traumas --- and provide some protocols that people who work with survivors and their families can use. You may have the impression that I'm accustomed to rather intensive topics. This is not new. I've been working toward this particular focus since I entered my first session of therapy (at 30 years of age), added in vocational rehabilitation (at 32), and continue to invest in my educational journey. Before I get much further on this particular trajectory of my life's work, I want to make two things clear: I believe am alive by God's grace and, I feel called to present a coherent, well thought out and legitimate reality check on the phenomenon of human trafficking and child marriage. Because I'm a survivor. Because I wanted to know things and have access to education, when that was denied me by my family and the religious culture I was reared in.
There will be details that leak into future posts. I want to be sensitive to how my heart needs to tell my story and to how my readership may receive it. I also have siblings who were not raised with me who have become cherished. And the siblings I was raised with are still in a certain amount of resistance to going as deep as I have to heal. My version of the truth doesn't necessarily align with the secrets they still feel a need to keep. My near-fatal car crash and NDE event forced me to reexamine the entire process of healing. From what I went through in my 30's, in the realm of revelation and recovery and normalizing my life, to the more recent reflective inquiry.
In the midst of it all, I am continuing on task with a purposeful life. Including the scope of my research project is about much more than a research topic.
In the dissertation process, which I will no doubt refer to from time to time, I will not be permitted to tell my own story directly. But it enables me to attend to certain issues and address specific inquiries that other researchers, without a similar history, commonly avoid. One of the benefits of my research focus, however, is that, after earning my doctorate, it will enable me to thoughtfully share parts of my story through other venues. And this goes full circle with my earlier intention: to anchor my true story in its own legitimacy, with an intention of wellness for others. It's another kind of legacy I'd like to leave behind when I die.
In 2015, I went public about the fact that I had survived being trafficked and being in an arranged child marriage. A publication with a capsule of my story can be located from the list below (4). If you've read my other posts then you have seen my photo. I am a white woman of European descent, which includes Germanic English, Albanian, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, French, East Indian, Chinese, Ashkenazi Jew, and a host of other DNA markers that make me a Heinz 57 varieties sort of human mutt. I was born in Iowa but raised in association with several cult-oriented communities within the U.S. I am no longer a stranger to confronting this difficult terrain of both psychological and spiritual transformation. In simpler terms, this means taking the hard pain of unmitigated trauma and helping it become the softer pain of recovery and restoration.
Through my online travels into archival documents and narratives, I have learned that over the last 21 generations, just tracing my mother's lineage, there have been more child marriages that there were marriages starting with an adult female. Four generations of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), with plural marriages, precedes my maternal grandfather's birth. It is unclear if my mother ever knew of this history directly but one influence can be seen in the fact that she became a child bride at 16, followed by her younger sister, Pauline.
I was not raised as a Mormon but as a Jehovah's Witness (JW). I walked away from that gradually in my late twenties, but made the total break when I started college, at the age of 33. One effect of discovering the significant and mundane histories of my ancestors is that I no longer blame my mother entirely for her lack of affection or protection of my siblings and I. She couldn't have intervened because she had no education or therapeutic alliances, nor even a personal, spiritual imperative to question what she believed she knew. Once she began self-medicating with alcohol and pharmaceuticals, at only 23 years of age (I was 4 years old by then), there was little consciousness in her to reach for anything else.
If I say my mother was out of integrity I would have to say what that meant to her. I never knew her true feelings and thoughts. She was a beautiful but lost, insecure, unhealed and suffering person. My mother had been too enculturated to silence and avoidance by the time I was ready to ask the essential questions of my youth. She was already imprisoned in her suffering, unable to transform anything except through her death in 2013. Perhaps one of her greatest gifts to me was that she lived the painful folly of never risking anything or everything, in order to preserve some integrity for herself and her children. Where would she have learned this if she never confided in anyone or had the wherewithal to educate herself out of the family patterns?
I am no longer the inner core doll of the Matryoska that represents my maternal heritage. That is for my two daughters to hold sacred and work with in their own way. In order to conceive and give birth, a woman has to surrender physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Because I had my children later in life, and I had been a recipient of some amazingly powerful and productive therapy, I was able to interrupt the multi-generational abuse patterns, including the misogynistic tendencies that can be traced back at lease the 21 generations I have researched thus far. When I became a mother, I chose to love and parent differently. Motherhood is full of contradictions and cannot be perfectly implemented. However, I must acknowledge that I did so much better than what had been passed down to me. I look at the strength of voice my daughters have, compared to where I was at their current ages, and I feel a powerful grace that I was a part of their process of staying solid in their self-identity and physical integrity.
I rarely feel angst at my mother for her failures. I have been freed up by the evidence that what I went through was the end of a very long-standing multigenerational pattern. It seems more in alignment with my integrity to keep changing the pattern I inherited. Rather than bellyache about how hard it was or how invisible I felt, I believe I have been granted 30+ years of breakthrough awareness: to rebuild my own core. And my four children, 26, 24, 24, and 21 at this writing, have blessed me with their trust, curiosity, and love, which helps me to keep progressing. Their presence in my life has taught me what childhood and young adulthood can be, in the midst of mutual challenges. They might not fully comprehend what I worked through to become a conscious and present mother. Nor appreciate the integrity of learning to do it things much differently than how I had experienced them. While i once had no choice and no voice, they are keenly aware that they do. I wasn't abandoned to the choiceness/voiceless state by God and destiny. I was brought out from it because I asked the Creator of all life to lift me up. And then I respected the knowledge that emerged, even when it contradicted everything I had been led to believe about life, the universe, and me.
I'm sensing today that integrity is a movable spiritual feast we carry with us into whatever we do and wherever it takes us. It isn't a doctrinal creed but a soul connection. And who doesn't need that kind of connection in this earthly school of time, talent, trauma and treasure.
Reference Footnotes
1. Poet and author John O'Donohue laid to rest. (2008) Huff Post
2. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. (1996). John O'Donohue.
3. The Way of Integrity. (2021). Martha Beck.
4. Child Marriage in the U.S., Survivor Story Compilation. (2020). Tahirih Justice Center
No comments:
Post a Comment