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By Jennifer Lehr, on February 3rd, 2012 I had a session with one of my favorite healers, Ellen Kaufman Dosick (www.soulmemorydiscovery.com) the other day – mainly because I wanted to ‘drop’ an aspect of myself that was dragging me down and step into a more empowered place. I was finding myself getting upset about some events and situations that were obviously not about the thing itself, but represented both old hurts I needed to release and places where I needed to grow. Some old and I thought ‘retired’ voices reemerged.
When we get triggered ‘old voices’ can show up in our heads. Among other things, these voices may say things like:
- No matter what I do, it doesn’t matter.
- I’m not important.
- Nobody cares about me.
What are some of your ‘old voices?’
Sometimes the limitations or perceived limitations of others and ourselves hurt us. Often these voices are triggered by our disappointment and reflect our deep longing for love. Underneath those disappointments are our very real needs to feel that we matter:
- What I do makes a difference and is noticed.
- I matter.
- I am cared about.
Can you find what you long for that is under your ‘old voice?’
Personally, I don’t want to get stuck in the part of me that gets angry, frustrated, or afraid. I don’t enjoy those feelings. Remember the Charlie Brown character Pig-pen? Everywhere he went he was in a cloud of dirt. Or Joe Btfsplk with a small, dark rain cloud that perpetually hovered over his head.
That is how I feel when I am in a feeling state that is ‘negative.’ Not to put the negative down: we have to experience all of our feelings but sometimes sorting through them is confusing and we can get stuck. Living in these difficult feelings can leave us feeling ‘stained’ like Pig-pen.
Essentially what I worked on in that session was stepping out of my small self and into my bigger self. My small self is vulnerable. It sometimes gets upset, hurt, has trouble with acceptance and struggles. But if I were to be able to step into a bigger perspective, see all that I am, have been and will be, that new perspective would get me more space. As Ellen said to me, an elephant isn’t afraid of an ant. When you see the largeness of whom you are, those fears and hurts become smaller and more transient. They release their grip.
Self-acceptance and acceptance of other people and situations is an inside job. You cannot make it happen. It takes place when you finally ‘get’ that what is occurring is not anybody’s fault, but is instead the result of our limitations. Acceptance is the opposite of control. When we control – contra, meaning against – we are going against the flow of life, we are swimming upstream. When we accept, we have more space and room inside of ourselves.
Take a moment and ponder:
- Who have you been? What have you lived through, learned, accomplished? Can you see the vastness of your past?
- Who are you now? What are your talents, wisdoms and capacities? Where does your magnificence reside? Can you see it and feel it?
- Who are you becoming? How will you grow into the future? Can you trust that you only have to co-participate with life and that you don’t have to ‘make’ it happen? Can you see that your path will allow you to grow and dance forward into your life?
We are all more than we know. We are more than our conflicts and confusions, more than our struggles and pains.
One way out of the smaller perspective is through the practice of gratitude.
I have been meditating on gratitude – not just the thought of it, but the feeling and experience of it. I am doing this because I decided that gratitude is the feeling place I wish to reside in.
We can choose our attitude even if we cannot control much of what occurs in life. The point of choice is our point of power. This is what we do have control over. Even if we ‘fall’ out of it, we can re-choose it. This means that as we ‘practice,’ we choose it over and over.
To do a simple gratitude meditation, find 5 or 10 minutes alone. Sit down and close your eyes. Think of someone or something you feel grateful for. Focus on your heart. Bring that feeling into your heart. Allow yourself to experience whatever feelings come up for you around gratitude.
In what energy do you wish to reside?
Perhaps you too will make the energy of thank you – gratitude – a choice and guiding principle in your life.
By Jennifer Lehr, on December 31st, 2011 We are stepping forward into 2012. I know for me, right now I am acutely aware of all of my ‘flaws’ – all of the parts of me that I wish were more evolved, more capable of being completely unafraid, less neurotic, more generous and more able to experience gratitude and joy. It is as if I see my ‘old’ self with a newfound clarity, but I don’t yet fully see the self I am becoming.
Like everyone else, I have my own weaknesses and shortcomings. I know that I am self-protective and tend to trust slowly. I do not open up and share deeply quickly. I can fall into worry about what will be, instead of focusing on and being grateful for the miracle of each moment as it occurs. I know that I feel safer when I am in control than when I am not. These qualities do not serve me. They do not help me feel gratitude and joy. They act as iron bars – a prison actually – around a new self that is attempting to be born.
How does the old form give way to a new being that is being birthed? How do we create out of what was, the new, like a baby, with its nascent, tiny and perfect fingers and fingernails, heart and lungs, eyes and eyelashes?
Somehow I get caught between the person I was, and the person I want to be and am becoming. SometimesI feel I need help here, help releasing my old ways and fully embracing who I want to be. Sometimes I feel that I need help moving from the person I was, to the person I am becoming.
Each of us can choose to transition from the old world into the new one that awaits us, one that so depends on our intention: Our intention to be bigger than we have been, to do the right thing whether others are doing so or not, whether we are afraid or not. Our intention to be aware, to hold compassion and gratitude, and to live by the compass of what we want the world to be, not the compass of conforming to what it already is or the compass of our habits and fears.
With our intentions, each of us contributes to the creation of reality. If you believe that sharing is important, then you contribute to that world. If you always take the best for yourself, then you contribute to reinforcing that world. If you believe the lies of others, then you contribute to a world where you are disempowered and tricked. If you hold others accountable, then you contribute to a world where people are accountable.
The qualities we align ourselves with emanate outward, contributing to the creation of our reality. What intentions do you hold for yourself as you step forward as the creator of your life and one of the many co-creators of the world?
What qualities will you choose? Here are some to consider.
Compassion – I feel your pain and I care.
Truth – I have no need to hide.
Gratitude – This moment will never be again and I recognize and honor the sacredness of it.
Accountability – I am willing to look at myself and correct my shortcomings.
Courage – I do not take the safe and easy path. I take the right path.
Equality – I treat you as I would treat myself.
Generosity – I act out of what is for the greatest good for all, not just my own self-interest.
In order to transcend our flaws, we must be aware of them. In order to re-align to a new configuration of who we are, we must find our moral center. The question changes from ‘What about me,’ to ‘What can I do for the greater good of this situation.’ This question will reveal a new truth.
How do we go about this process?
As we begin a new year, the first step is willingness. We have to be willing to say that we want more, more of ourselves, more for our world.
Second, we have to be aware. We have to be able to see our self clearly and experience where we are weak. That includes the possibility of experiencing the pain and possibly the shame of how we have hidden or sold our self or others short.
Third, we have to communicate what it is that we want to change. This could be to another person, or simply be between ourselves and whatever our god or higher power is. This allows us to fully claim our desire to release the old and bring in a new way. As we do this, we are setting an intention. For example, we might say, ‘I intend to step out of allowing fear to influence my actions.’
Can you imagine what would happen if each and every one of us stepped out of our small self and embodied our larger and more actualized self? I know for me, that as I slowly untangle the smaller parts of myself and allow the ‘larger’ parts to emerge, I feel better about myself.
May 2012 lead us to a new connection to and gratitude for what is beautiful in each of us. May each of us release our ‘old’ and more crippled ways of being and find our generous and courageous selves, creating, as we step forward, a more beautiful and happier world for all.
By Jennifer Lehr, on November 30th, 2011  I remember years ago how my father and the four of us children would go walking up the hill into the woods to look for a Christmas tree. It was a somewhat magical time – one of those special times when we had fun with our father. The trees would be beautiful, brown branches, dark green pines and firs that were covered with snow. Dad would be in a good mood. We looked for a tree the right size, but one that was growing under another tree and so doomed to a stunted life or an early death. It felt kinder to take a tree that didn’t have the same potential as the others. It was fun running through the snow searching for the tree. After some deliberation a decision was made. The fated tree was chopped down and we dragged it to the house. Sometimes a bit of the top would have to be cut off so that it fit in the living room. The stunted side would be placed to face the back corner in the living room – hidden, leaving the rest of it to be celebrated with ornaments and lights.
Most of us tend to see ourselves as good and see others as more flawed. But like the tree with the stunted side because it grew under a bigger tree, we all have a stunted side. If we look closely, we all have aspects of ourselves that are beautiful and aspects that are less so. On the global scale these aspects are fairly easy to identify – philanthropy and acts of heroism as well as wars, murders, scandals, fraud, theft etc. But seeing our ‘stunted’ sides within ourselves is more difficult because we tend to hide them: our jealousies, insecurities, and our fears – even from ourselves. Like the Christmas tree, we show our better side.
Like everyone else, I too have parts of myself that developed in a weaker way. While this stunted side of myself reveals where I was overshadowed and how I survived, it is also where I have my own character issues.
What is meant by character? Character refers to qualities or traits, which determine a person’s response, regardless of circumstances, to the events of our lives. These qualities include: courage, trustworthiness, responsibility, benevolence, compassion, accountability, honesty, insight, integrity, patience etc. In reading the list, we recognize these qualities as important in our human development and our relationships. The absence of these same qualities will reveal ‘character issues’ – areas of greed, entitlement, fear, laziness, or some other way in which we are not fully in standing in our own power.
Obviously, we tend to look up to people who have developed these qualities of character and will be more wary of those who have not – because they can (and do) more easily cause us injury. And often people have uneven development of these qualities that make up character. For example, they may be generous, yet also unable to be accountable for their own actions.
Yet we often don’t ‘see’ the character of those loved ones closest to us clearly because of ‘attachment.’ Attachment means exactly what it sounds like – that we attach. I was very attached to the parts of my father that were beautiful – his intelligence, his talent, his uniqueness and his sense of humor, despite his flaws, his dark rages, his depressions, his selfishness. I was attached to him because I needed him and because I loved him. Attachment is part of being human, of being a mammal actually. We attach to our pets, our children, our friends, our partners, our teachers, our co-workers. And we generally attach quickly – often before we’ve had a chance to fully ‘see’ the entire spectrum of character of the person we attach to.
Over the years, I have at times been confronted by ‘run ins’ with character issues – both my own and others. It is not enjoyable to suddenly be confronted with one of our flaws. Yet there is an important challenge here. Abe Lincoln has been quoted as saying, ‘Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.’ In this he alludes to the importance of character. What kind of a tree will we be? What kind of shadow will we be casting on the world?
The wisdom of ‘know thyself’ is becoming more apparent. Will we look at ourselves and see our own flaws – those parts of ourselves that we have pushed aside and hidden away? And connected to this, when we have ‘messed up,’ can we make amends? Will we say that we are sorry and take the actions needed to strengthen the ‘weaker’ parts of ourselves? Will we be accountable to others and ourselves? Will we build our character?
When it is an other person’s failing that impacts us however, we are often left feeling angry, sad or betrayed. We may have to take our attachment and break it – because to stay attached would be a betrayal to ourselves. How do we then move through these feelings to a place of acceptance and compassion? How do we not get stuck in feeling victimized by what occurred?
It can be helpful to remind ourselves that everything that occurs to us has the potential to help us grow. Everything can be an initiation – meaning a way to trigger transformation to a higher way of seeing things, of relating to others and ourselves.
Lets look at some guidelines to help with this process of developing ourselves.
1. Witness yourself and your feelings. For example: I feel rejected because you aren’t treating me respectfully.
Write in your own:
2. Allow yourself to experience the feelings connected to this fully. For example: hurt, anger, shame.
Write in your own:
3. Look at what your part is – whether it is just naivety, or accepting too little, or fear, greed or entitlement.
Write in your own:
4. Look at what the other person’s part is. For example, ‘you took advantage of me and treated me badly.’
Write in your own:
5. Look at your choices in this moment – you may not have external choices, but you do have internal choices.
External– I cannot change this.
Write in your own:
Internal – I can choose to find another way to experience this. For example, I don’t want to hold onto anger or hurt so I decide that I want to hold an attitude of compassion and acceptance.
Write in your own:
6. Decide what shift you are going to make, for example, ‘I do not accept being treated badly.’ Put it in a statement of intention: ‘I will not allow myself to be mistreated.’
Write in your own:
7. Accept that everyone is doing his or her best – if they could have done it better, they would have. This means that I accept my response and I accept the other person’s position or limitations. For example, ‘this person is doing their best, but it is not good enough for me. They have limitations that effectively remove them from my life.’
Write in your own:
8. Release – for example, ‘I release this person from my life with compassion. There is no place for them, given whom we both are.’
If you can shift to this attitude of acceptance and release, you will feel lighter. You will be able to release the emotional turmoil that this event caused. You will feel more peace and move into a place that holds more wisdom.
Write in your own:
9. Trust – I trust that this event was part of a natural process of my own growth. ‘As I grow, things that I no longer need fall away, like a snake shedding it’s too tight skin. As I grow, I will look more closely at the parts of me that are limited and continue to refine who I am.’
Write in your own:
Tend the stunted side of your tree – let it have light and love. As you love that part of yourself, you will fill out and grow.
The character trait of accountability is a good way to guide yourself through this process. Are you being accountable? To what part of yourself? To your truth, your integrity etc, or to your fears? Is the other person willing to be accountable and to look at himself or herself?
Accountability is an essential ingredient of a relationship. Accountability allows a person to do relational work because it means that they are willing to look at and deal with their flaws. If only one person is being accountable, then the relationship will be lopsided. With accountability, two people can accomplish anything in their relationship.
By Jennifer Lehr, on October 28th, 2011 One of the memories that has been indelibly etched within me is a fight I had with my father. I had come home from college and found our old family cat Sissy with a huge abscess on her stomach. She was clearly very sick and going down hill fast. I talked my mom into taking her to the vet. As we got ready to leave, my father walked into the house and asked what was going on. I told him. All of a sudden he was screaming at the top of his lungs. How dare I do this without asking him first? How dare I not consider him? I screamed back (unusual for me), calling him a murderer. He stormed out of the house. We went to the vet anyway.
What I most take away from this event is how wronged both of us felt. My father had been horribly abused as a child. He had a chip on his shoulder that was huge. He absolutely could not see anything except that he wasn’t considered. He couldn’t see that I was trying to care for our cat. He couldn’t see what Sissy needed. He could only see the huge gaping wound of not having been considered. His internal reality was completely different than mine. And at the time, I didn’t have the skill (who knows if it would even have been possible) to talk to him and help him see the bigger picture, help him not feel so unconsidered.
One of the things that I have always been good at is seeing both sides of a situation and being able to step into somebody else’s shoes. This has been invaluable in my career as a therapist. It has made my life incredibly difficult in other ways. In the past, I have often been unable to hold onto my own point of view. I step into someone else’s vision of reality so easily and mine slips away. As a result of this, and the volatility that I grew up with, my history is such that have I bent too far for the other person’s needs and tried to make mine small or even go away. I have been a master of self-sacrifice. I am not that person anymore. And I am thankful for this.
I’ve recently parted with a good friend: a friend with whom I have shared a lot, somebody who I’ve at times spent nights up worrying about, someone who I have always wished the best for. That hasn’t changed. The underlying feelings are the same. It is just the outer connection that has been released. It is like a death where you carry the person in your heart, but no longer see them in your life, because they don’t work in your life anymore.
I’ve parted with an occasional friend over the years. It is never easy and always brings up both self-questioning and grief for me. It is hard to leave behind someone you love – or be left behind. Sometimes the split occurred because my actions hurt the other person – even though my actions were unintentional and I was unaware. In those situations those friends ended the friendship rather than discuss what had occurred to hurt them. They waited too long before they found their voice. Unspoken, too many hurt feelings built up and without the ability or understanding of how to work through these differences, it cost the friendship. Other times I did my best to let the other person know what I was struggling with, and the changes I needed made if I were to be able to continue. They were unable to address my needs.
How is it that we cannot speak our truth or hear another’s? Why is it that we cannot tell those we love what we are experiencing or listen to each other? If my father had only been able to talk about his feelings instead of screaming, his 200 lb 6’4” frame looming over me, we might have come to some kind of understanding.
We aren’t used to working out the hard stuff. We aren’t use to looking at ourselves and finding our own flaws. Doing so is a type of emotional courage that has not been well developed in our culture. We don’t want to look at our failings. Instead, the other person’s difficulty with us is perceived as a judgment.
As I think back, I can see that these friends felt entirely right in their position and so there was no way to bridge the gap, or to have my needs responded to. And for me, their actions were causing debris to spill into my life. While I did care about them, I also care about myself and so will step far enough back that I not impacted.
The problems I have in this relationship I cannot talk about with my now ex-friend. There is no place for that dialogue. There is no place for me to speak. If I see a pattern going on, actions that are impacting me, and there is no place for me to speak about it, then I will have to leave. This isn’t about right and wrong. This isn’t about judgment. This is about my need to have a voice, to be considered, to be part of a living breathing connection that honors who I am, my experience and what I see.
Sometimes each of us has to walk our own path. My path at this time is about honoring what I need. Perhaps for this friend, she too has to walk her own path – to answer the questions of her life by the process of living it. Somehow what I need and what she needs clash. Each of us sees the situation from our own perspective, in line with our own evolution. Each of us is doing what is necessary for ourselves. So the break is organic and part of the path we are both on. I can trust that and I do.
I find it important to be able to talk about how I feel. I find it important to listen to how the other feels. I find it important to be able to speak honestly how he or she is impacting me, in both the negative and the positive and vice versa. And having the space to do this is necessary in any long-term relationship. It takes the eyes of others, of our friends, to see our own failings. Isn’t that part of why we are here, to take the rough diamond of ourselves and cooperate with the polishing of life, increasing our beauty and our brilliance?
My life’s work is about dialogue. It is about creating the space between two different vantage points and bridging that. It is about allowing space for feelings to be expressed and seeing if there is a way to honor both of us or even both aspects of oneself.
By Jennifer Lehr, on September 19th, 2011 I have a good friend who I deeply admire. She is kind, thoughtful, considerate and sensitive. She cares about the world and is involved in her community. She is the kind of person any of us would want for a parent, a friend or a partner. She had one of the few long-term marriages that I considered to be really good – or so I thought.
I talked to her recently to see how she was doing, after not talking to her for several months. She told me that her life was hell. Her husband had recently told her that he had been having an affair for a number of years. She was blindsided. She hadn’t seen it coming. Nor had I.
What? Wow. I had liked her husband a lot. Yet he had been living a lie for years – to his wife, his children, his friends and family – to the world. How did this happen?
As I pondered on this very disturbing news, memories of past conversations came back. I remembered things she had told me over the years where her husband had said no to some requests that she had made and had gotten defensive in a way that hadn’t really made sense. We talked about a few of these situations and she told me that she had been reviewing many interactions between herself and her husband over the years, and a lot of situations now looked different to her. She now saw many situations where he had pushed her away and acted defensively towards her – in a way that wasn’t okay.
Her husband had gone through a work change and what now appeared to be an identity crisis a number of years ago. But he didn’t reach for his wife. He reached for someone else instead. And then began his double life.
How does this happen to our long-term bonds and between people who love each other? Why is it sometimes easier to push our partner aside rather than work towards reconnecting? What are we pushing away in ourselves in the moment we make that choice? And then, rather than rocking the boat and dealing with what is happening, how can somebody lie year after year to the person who they have made a commitment to, whom they love and have a family and life with?
We have two choices to look at here:
- My friend’s choice to give her husband the space she thought he needed, rather then challenge him on situations that felt off, allowing him to in a sense, ‘hide.’
- Her husband’s choice to find comfort elsewhere and to lead a secret life.
From her perspective, it made sense to give him the benefit of the doubt because she thought that they had a trusting relationship. She really did believe that he was an honest man who loved her and had good values. She trusted him. She didn’t want to pounce every time his tone seemed off. She chose to be kind rather than question him. She made the choice to be loving and give him the space she thought he needed. She didn’t realize that the space she gave him would be so dangerous to their relationship. My friend can now see how she had accepted his reasons and behavior instead of demanding more, or challenging him more. Had she understood her husband’s flaws better, she would have done it differently.
Now looking back and understanding who he is differently, she wished that she had given herself some more space to wonder about why he was reacting and to talk to him about this. Her trust and goodness got in the way. It prevented her from wondering and perhaps questioning him more deeply. Had she done so, it probably would have created more tension between them, but there is no guarantee that it would have changed the ultimate outcome.
Perhaps it would have shortened the length of his lie and they would have crashed and burned sooner. Perhaps he would have chosen to look within. Only if he was willing to be curious about his own issues and look within could the outcome have been different. Relational work requires that both members of a couple be willing to look at themselves deeply. It is by taking responsibility for your own internal struggles that we have have the capacity to be there for someone else.
Trust is important. But it is also important to listen to the little part of us that notices when someone isn’t fully there. Sometimes we have to challenge the people we love or hold them accountable. We have to trust that we have the right to do that, because that means we are taking care of ourselves. Maybe we have to push our point, stand our ground, be a pain in the ass, or bring something up that we know will make our partners mad or upset – because if we don’t do it, we may be betraying ourselves. There is a delicate line between letting go and allowing someone space, and talking about what doesn’t feel right to us.
My friend was a loving and responsive partner. Her fault wasn’t in being a bad partner. If anything, it was that she was too trusting and too accommodating.
In the case of her husband, it is one thing to make a mistake and stray, admit it and make a correction, or even realize we have to move on and end our marriage. It is another entirely to lie to someone who trusts us, take advantage of that trust and lead a secret life. His own issues caused him to look for someone else to tell him how great he was. His mistress got to be the one to make him feel special, as he betrayed and diminished his wife.
My friend’s husband was unwilling to look at the cause of his dissatisfaction – his inability to feel okay about himself without the accolades of others, his sense of emptiness – issues that demanded to be explored if he was to mature into a solid human being. Instead, unexamined, they caused him to reject his wife by making her mundane and finding someone else to make into ‘the answer.’ It was easier to love his wife when she was young and beautiful, and made him look good. But after a few kids and a few years the ego boost just wasn’t the same. And this man didn’t have the self-awareness or the ability to look inside and see that what he was looking for couldn’t come from the outside – and maybe he didn’t want to. Instead, when it wasn’t happening in his career, he fell into his narcissistic need to be applauded and he went for the quick fix – that turned into the very long fix that broke up his marriage.
What does this say about someone who does this?
- It means that we need something (because of our undeveloped areas or wounds) and that we can’t get it any other way – so we break our word, our promise, and our commitment.
- It means we are so hungry to take care of our own needs that we are unable to treat our partner with honor, respect and as someone with value.
- It means we rationalize what we do in order to act badly.
- It means we aren’t truly capable of committing to a relationship, because our own individual needs are too big.
- It means we will betray someone else to take care of ourselves – making us untrustworthy.
This marriage is over. The breach of trust was too great. And of course, over time ‘the other woman’ also became a real person who brought up conflicts and issues – the work that every relationship requires. So that too ended.
What about you?
Will you step forward and listen to the small voice of your intuition when your partner acts in a way that doesn’t seem right or that doesn’t honor you? Will you give them the space they need because you trust them or want to give them the room to work it out? Will you be able to find that delicate line between those two places? This is a line I have found challenging at times in my own life.
If you make a mistake and stray, will you quickly make it right? Or will you go the way of corruption and lying so you can get what you want – but at the expense of your integrity, your relationship and your partner? Why? What are you afraid of that causes you to be less than your full self?
Being a good partner is tricky. It requires taking care of yourself, as well as fully showing up and being there for your partner. It means that you don’t hide, but talk about the hard stuff, the disappointments; the things that make you feel distant or push you away. If you always take the easy way out, looking for the thing that makes you feel better, instead of looking deep into your self, then how can you be trustworthy? If you aren’t trustworthy to your partner, can anybody really trust you? Or will you sell them down the river too, the next time the going gets tough?
By Jennifer Lehr, on July 31st, 2011  At approximately 4 PM on July 28th, my cat Hank was put to sleep. Over the next two days, I was at a wedding with two ceremonies. The first was a ritualized Hindu wedding for the groom’s family and the second was the traditional American white wedding for the bride’s family. To go from death to a wedding so quickly was jarring.
Hank’s life had been interwoven with mine for over 14 years. He greeted me at the door when I came home, insisted on drinking running water out of faucets, and loved to ride on my right shoulder only, among a myriad of other things. I went shopping for him thoughtfully, deciding which types and flavors of cat food would please him. The last few months of his life, I got up about 4 times a night to feed him, because he was sick and I was willing to do whatever he needed. There were a zillion different ways and moments that we interacted over the years. There are countless memories and thoughts of him that are moving through me.
The Hindu wedding was long and steeped in tradition with the recognition of marriage as a threshold into a new world – the entrance of a new person into a family, and the understanding that this was a significant event. I wasn’t raised with ritual: just the regular birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions. But these were not given the weight of markers of a new and changed world.
Birth, death, marriage, divorce and children leaving home are all markers of big transitions. Life isn’t the same or may be radically different after these occurrences. Our moment-to-moment reality is forever altered. Someone who was part of the fabric of our life is no longer there, leaving big open gaps, or someone new steps in causing our life to reorganize.
I grew up in a family without the recognitions of this. I do not believe that a true understanding of relationship – the sacredness of the meeting of two souls, was recognized or honored. Events came and went, pets came and went. Transitions occurred with no reverence of the significance of them. My family was simply not tuned into the bigger cycles of life. We lived in a small day-to-day world of survival and getting the tasks of the day done. The significance of what it really meant to be connected to someone else, to share our life with others in a holy way was not part our consciousness. I believe that our family missed the significance of the spirituality of connection and love. Not until my father died in 1998 was there any real recognition of this due to the impact this event had on all of us in my family.
I cannot explain my connection with Hank; I was simply closer to him than to any other being on the planet. I think of the specialness of our relationship and the many moments that can never be again. I think of the beauty of his soft grey striped fur and his speckled belly. I believe that my relationship with Hank is a metaphor for all of our relationships with each other. They are each unique and whether they are filled with a big love (as with Hank), compassion, irritation, resentment, or something else, they take up a specific time and place. They fill the space of our psyche and are the threads of the fabric of our lives.
Our lives are embedded in relationship – relationships that come and go, as our lives come and go. Who will know the story of Hank when I am gone? Our story will be in the rustling of the dry autumn leaves, part of the echo of the universe, a beautiful note among many other notes.
For me, relationships reveal an awesome responsibility; the responsibility to truly see another and grapple with what that connection means to us and does to us – the feelings it triggers in us, whether grief or anger, resentment or guilt, love or adoration – and how we choose to deal with these experiences and feelings. Because this process actually is our life. And the opportunities and experiences of today, will not necessarily be here tomorrow.
By Jennifer Lehr, on July 2nd, 2011 The other night I was in pieces. Waves of intense grief and emotional pain were coursing through me. For the past week or so, my 14-year-old cat Hank has not been feeling well, and not eating much. Hank is a small grey tabby that I got from the pound when he was 6 weeks old. As soon as he was taken out of the cage, he grabbed at me with every one of his tiny claws and would not let go. He had decided that he was going to go home with us. Hank is like my child. His fur smells dusty, pleasant and comforting when I hold him to my face and breath in. He has been with me through the many ups and downs of the last 14 years. He is a being who I deeply love.
Hank had not been feeling well. I took Hank to the vet for a check up and a blood test. The blood test revealed abnormalities. It appears that his feline inflammatory bowel disease has progressed and that he has ulcers somewhere in his digestive track. We increased his current medication and added some others. Tomorrow he will get an ultrasound.
As life would have it, I was leaving on vacation several days after the vet appointment and was worried about the best thing for Hank. I was stressed. Yesterday, the day before my trip, Hank had a particularly bad day. He threw up the appetite stimulant and I had to give it to him again. He hardly ate. His tail twitched with discomfort and he wouldn’t purr. He wandered around the yard and house restlessly. I felt powerless and boxed into a corner as I became more and more upset.
As I lay in bed in misery that night, a memory emerged. I was maybe 11 or 12. I had grown up in the country, and we had horses, goats and other animals. Our pony Dusty had a baby named Nickel. We found him with Dusty up the hill in the horse pasture shortly after he was born and had to get him down to the barn as it was starting to snow. It was a long slow trip coaxing mommy and newborn down to the barn.
Nickel was a small and fluffy grey being. I loved him instantly. Throughout that spring I would come home every day after school and run out to be with Nickel. I spent the summer brushing him and teaching him things – how to lift his feet for them to be cleaned, how to pull a small cart, how to be led with his halter. I was a shy child and veered away from people. My father was often explosively violent and my family was not a safe place for me. Nor was the surrounding area of people who hunted and killed for sport. Animals felt safe to me. I could count on them for love. Nickel was my friend and companion.
One day, that fall, the school bus dropped me off in front of our house. I ran out to the pasture to find Nickel. I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere. Finally I asked my father if he had seen Nickel. He said, ‘we sold him.’ My mind screamed, no, no, no. ‘Can we go I can say goodbye to him?’ I asked. ‘We didn’t’ get their number or address. They came by and put him in the back of their station wagon and drove away.’ I was numb. I didn’t know if he was safe, or being taken care of properly. I would never see him again.
I don’t know what happened to my heart that day. I fell into a depression. Somehow I pushed that event away. I didn’t remember it again for 20 years; I was at a workshop and that memory exploded into my consciousness. But the other night, yet another 20 years later – 40 or so years after the initial event, the pain that ripped through me was almost unbearable. I related to all the enslaved peoples of the world who have had their babies and children taken away from them. I thought of all of the loss and pain that exists in this world. I felt like I was dying, like I was being ripped apart. Enormous pain was running through my body. Eventually I realized what was happening. I was in the process of emotional release.
That old event was intensifying my current pain about Hank. And through that memory and the re-experiencing of that pain (perhaps more completely than what I was able to feel at the time) I began releasing a very old experience that I don’t need any more. Yes, Hank is not well; I feel sad and it is painful, but this time period also feels so intense because I am carrying in my body the residue of that earlier wound. In that earlier event the pain, grief, helplessness and hopelessness I felt were almost unbearable. That old event imprinted my consciousness and affects my current experiences. That imprint needed to be released. Releasing this degree of pain to alter an old pattern is an intense process. Ultimately the pain softens and I am left with a clearer perspective in the now. Those two events – the past and the current – become ‘unlinked.
I will do whatever I can to make the rest of Hank’s life as good as possible. He is going to leave me, as we all leave each other at some point in time. But the feelings that are coming up needed to be released.
Emotional release is not well understood. When somebody is releasing their emotions, it may seem as if they have gone off that deep end. We can judge ourselves or be afraid that we are ‘broken.’ Generally that is not what is occurring. Instead, what is happening is that feelings are being discharged from experiences that are locked deep within our selves for a long time. These structures of pain are dense and we don’t need them anymore. We don’t need their influence on our current experience.
If we allow ourselves to experience the depths of our feelings, they actually release them and we become lighter. We move into the world with less heaviness and more understanding. Our current difficulties become more manageable and we become less reactive. That old lens we were experiencing though dismantles. We trust what is happening in our lives more, and look for the themes we need to recognize and let go of, the feelings and experiences we need to release so that we can continue on, less encumbered.
Look at the events that are occurring in your life that are intense. Don’t be afraid to let your feelings emerge. Allow yourself to experience your deep feelings in relationship to them. Your feelings may need to be felt and be released. Memories may need to surface. Ask the universe to help you understand what you are releasing. If you understand what is happening, this process will be easier. Eventually you will move to a place where the pain is less and the dramas that trigger you dissolve and disperse.
By Jennifer Lehr, on May 9th, 2011 A friend once told me that she was not creative. I remember the moment clearly, because I did a double take and started to try to convince her of her error in perception immediately. How could she believe that about herself? And recently, with a client, I had some ‘soul collage cards’ that I had made that we were using in a session. This person drifted away in thought for a moment and when I asked him where he had gone, he said that he was thinking ‘I should be more creative.’ This particular person is highly creative and is also in the process of rebuilding his identity and re-wiring himself, which is perhaps the most creative act, any human can do. But he wasn’t recognizing this. Instead he was seeing that he wasn’t ‘making’ something tangible, like my cards.
There is a common error in thinking that if we cannot render – meaning draw something ‘realistically,’ like drawing an apple, to look like an apple – that we are then not creative. Or that if we are not making an object that exists in the external world that we are not creating. I can only say ‘wow.’ Who misled you? Who told you that you aren’t creative? Don’t you know who you are and what is possible?
Life is creative and creativity. Creativity is how bacteria adapt to antibiotics. It is how sea animals evolved into land animals. It is how somebody came up with the idea of sending a man to the moon and how Einstein imagined E=mc². We are being creative when we explore new attitudes or new ways of thinking or behaving. Creativity is how we engage with our world so that we can adapt, make sense of, improve ourselves etc. It is much bigger than being able to draw or make a piece of art.
We grow our lives. We do this with our attitudes and perceptions. We use our minds to transform our beings. For me, this may be the most creative act possible. We look at what we have chosen to believe. And we get to see the results of our creativity and then make another choice, have another outcome. For example, as a species, we believed that we could ‘use’ the earth and all would be okay. We have found out differently. As we explore other beliefs, for example the belief that we are part of the earth and both her caretaker as well as being supported by her, our actions change, and the outcome changes. Or for example, if I am in a difficult relationship and I believe that I don’t deserve more, then things probably won’t get better. But if I choose to believe that I do deserve more, that relationship will undoubtedly change or end.
We grow our lives. Using our beliefs and attitudes, as well as using or cultivating qualities such as patience, persistence, courage, wisdom, joy etc., we take where we are, and build a future that has the potential to be different.
This concept can be a bit tricky. Do you tell yourself that you are ‘bad” because of how your life is? Like it is 100% up to you? That creative act probably isn’t going to work for you in the long run. Nor is the creative act of telling yourself that none of it is your fault, that somebody else messed things up for you. (Of course if you are in that category, you may not have any idea that you are creating your life.) Luckily, if you want, you can look at yourself (another highly creative act) and find a new belief.
Some of us grew up in households where we survived by trusting only ourselves. We may not trust life. If something happens that we don’t like, or are disappointed by, we may make it our fault. We forget that life is bigger than us – a web of interaction. This is a paradox that we must hold. We are both the creators of our own lives yet we are not 100% in charge. For example, if you are trying to get a job, you can do your best, but ultimately, the person looking through the stack of resumes has to say to him or herself, “I like that one.” That is not your decision and not in your power.
Our control resides in our attitudes and perceptions. Regardless of how we were raised, we can revise our beliefs or our attitudes. So when I don’t get that job, do I say, “Why does this always happen to me? What’s wrong with me? Or how long do I have to deal with this shit?” Either way, our attitude is off. Our use of our creativity is not serving our own empowerment.
How do we not take disappointment personally? If you looked at yourself as a little kid cleaning their room, would you want to say, “I hate this, I always have to clean my room” (not very empowering). Or “This won’t take that long and its not that bad and this is just what kids have to do.” Can you hear the difference in self-support?
People, who hold more positive and self-supportive attitudes, tend to have doors open for them more quickly. They are the ones who find the parking space right in front of the store when nobody else can find one. How does that happen? Read or Google Masaru Emoto’s book, ‘Messages from Water,’ if you want to see the physical response of matter to thought.
Our attitudes impact our world. This also applies to our relationships. What are you doing in your relationship that doesn’t work? Hiding? Controlling? Assuming? How we treat others and our selves is paramount. It is part of what makes up the fabric of who we are and our lives. Are you treating yourself with an open heart? Your partner? Your friends? If not, what are you doing instead, and why? Our histories have a lot to do with how we act in the present. If you start unraveling why you do what you do, you will find the answer in looking at how you coped previously with difficult situations. Every ‘issue’ is a strategy to avoid a wound or get a need met.
Exploring wounds and traumas allows us to understand ourselves better and allows us more choices in the present. Instead of being on cruise control, we have more space to make a choice, more room to be creative.
Can you send yourself gratitude instead of dissatisfaction? Can you send your world gratitude instead of dissatisfaction? Can you send your partner gratitude instead of dissatisfaction? This creative act alone will change your life. It doesn’t feel good to be generating criticism.
Sit down and see if you can FEEL gratitude for the many aspects of your life, your pet, friends, the color of the sky, your job, whatever. Put your hand on your heart. Let yourself feel. Gratitude is an uplifting emotion. Remember, you are a creative being and you are growing your life.
For help growing your relationship, check out www.weconcile.com. It will be launched later this year.
By Jennifer Lehr, on March 20th, 2011 Architecting Your Own Intimacy – Repairing, Rebuilding & Creating Love
I have been deep in writing a new web-based and interactive program to help couples (or any two people) connect more fully and resolve conflicts, bringing harmony and peace to their relationship. This is something that I have been working on for nearly two years (and with some months to go before it is complete).
How I make my own life meaningful, and what inspires me, is the process of focusing on and stepping into the dark parts of myself, my relationships and my world in order to bring light, peace, beauty and love into those areas that are un-enlightened, fearful, suffering or in pain. As I look at the trauma and darkness in the world around me, this feels especially pertinent at this time. For me, life is a metaphor of bringing light into our own darkness, whether it is external in the outer world, or internal, in my own self and process. Consequently, bringing harmony, peace and love into our lives and relationships is a process that I am deeply involved in.
Because I grew up in an environment with emotional trauma, conflict and disconnection, and have spent years not only undoing the damage caused by that, transforming my own negative parts, and expanding and developing myself, this mission is close to my heart. I believe that we can all learn to engage in the ‘underground’ processes of healing, and collaborate and support each other in this endeavor.
Over the years of working both as a therapist and a couples’ therapist I have come to believe that something more is needed to help all of us with our relationships. Many of us just don’t have the skills we need. Therapy has limitations due to its cost, and many therapists, though effective with individuals, don’t have the specialized training needed to be effective when working with couples. The time constraints of people’s busy lives, and the stigma that therapy has for some also inhibit people seeking help. Additionally, I have wanted to expand out of working one-to-one to a place where I could do more writing and impact a larger group.
I began to think about a low cost way to ‘teach’ people while overcoming these obstacles. I began to wonder if I could make experiential relationship help available to the many who cannot afford couples counseling – a place where they could learn, while collaborating and supporting each other. I found the idea exciting, although scary. Am I wasting my time? Can this actually be done and can I do it? Couples therapy is hard enough with a therapist in the room. How could it possibly work on the web?
One day, a web programmer friend was visiting. As he talked about his web-based product, a light bulb went off. ‘This can be done,’ I thought. At the time, I was continuing in advanced training in couple’s therapy. So along with my knowledge of self-growth and healing and my ability to write, all the pieces were there. Thus began the birth of WeConcile™.
Let me present some broad ideas about what needs to happen in any ‘self growth’ endeavor by starting with some observations and analogies.
I was watching TV the other night and a dancer/choreographer whose name I don’t remember was talking on a panel. The other 4 people on the panel were not dancers. I was very aware of how evolved this man’s body and being appeared, how he moved his arms and gestured when he talked, how he carried himself, how his body and self seemed much more alive than the others. It was clear that as a dancer, he had developed a relationship to his body, lets call it his mind/body, extensively, and in a way the others had not. In comparison, they appeared almost unintelligent.
In contrast to those who are highly developed, are those of us who are ‘regular,’ with more typical levels of skill and ability.
And then there are those of us who have been deprived, neglected or even abused in some way while we were developing. Our development has actually been suppressed, leaving us with gaps in our skill set, or perhaps having to adapt, almost the way a tree that is growing under a large object has to bend and twist and turn to find its way to the sun, or how one that is growing in bad soil or a harsh environment may end up smaller.
This is the spectrum, ranging from the full development of one’s capacity, even beyond what most people do, through the realm of normal, all the way to a place where there are scars or underdevelopment caused by abuse or limitations.
Lets apply these ideas to relationships. Successful relationships often require all three things:
- The correcting of places where our development had been hindered (which we are often unaware of, but our partners will be feeling the consequence of.)
- The healing of actual emotional wounds that cause reactivity and pain.
- The further development of our potential in ways that surpass the current norm, as the ‘normal’ level of relationship skills alone often isn’t sufficient to have a truly satisfying relationship at this time in history.
In overcoming a deficit or injury, we may actually have to overcompensate and develop capacities that are generally greater than what the ‘regular’ person has.
Given that relationships often bring up anything that is undeveloped or unhealed in ourselves, how do you get a relationship that is more peaceful, harmonious and loving? Lets switch contexts for just a moment and look at a similar but different question.
How do you get a healthier body? You have to look at what you are feeding the body, how you are using it and taking care of it. We can put it in a list:
- Learn and apply over time the guidelines of nutrition
- Learn and apply over time appropriate exercise
- Learn and apply over time the reduction of stress
- Attend to and heal any injuries
- Build up and support any areas of weakness
- Utilize a community of people who continue to develop these ideas and/or provide support.
That was easy. We all know how to create a healthier body, whether we have the support to do it or not. But we don’t all know how to create healthier relationships. In fact, creating a healthier relationship can be incredibly difficult – just look at the divorce statistics. But the same principles apply. Lets look at what it will take:
- Education – feeding your body new guidelines of ‘relational nutrition.’
- Exercise – experiential exercises to help you ‘rewire’ and develop aspects of your brain to improve your ‘relation-ability.’
- Communication exercises, tools and guidelines to help you and your partner learn to communicate in a different and more supportive way.
- Questions and exercises to identify and attend to old wounds.
- Questions and exercises to identify and attend to areas needing development.
- A community of others who are involved in the same process and willing to talk about it and support each other.
So like changing your body, changing yourself or your relationship requires education and knowledge over time. It requires the application of that education and knowledge allowing for new habits to build, and support, whether from a therapist, a friend, or a community of like-minded others.
The first question I ask a couple or family unit who is coming to see me is, “What do you want?” Or “What do the two of you want?” Generally the answer I get is: “We want to get along, we want to stop fighting, we want a peaceful, harmonious and loving relationship.”
This is what WeConcile™ will help you do. It should be out by the end of the year.
By Jennifer Lehr, on January 15th, 2011 Recently I have had both clients and friends asking the question: “How do you know when it is time to leave a relationship?” It’s a great question, but one that is hard to answer. It is one that I have struggled to answer at various points in my own life for both friends and myself. To complicate it more, as a therapist, generally you do what you can to help the couple gain the skills to stay together – rather than helping them split up. This is in part because it is rare when a couple comes in and says, “Help us split up.” Often they both want it to work, or if not, only one really wants to leave. Helping a couple stay together is a valid goal if both parties want to stay in the relationship, but is more problematic when this isn’t so clear. Then it is more useful to ask the question, “What is the higher purpose of this relationship?” “What will enable both parties to empower themselves, to grow, learn new skills, and understand themselves better?” While sometimes the answer to this is an event, like making the decision to leave a relationship that is too constricting – many times it is the process of learning to support each other, of learning new ways of being, that enable the couple to behave in ways that are more ‘enlightened.’ The staying together as a couple becomes secondary to the more primary goal of growth. This is in harmony with the 12-step slogan, “Take the action, let go of the results” – meaning, take the high road, live with integrity, learn, and see where you are led. So often our own egos don’t know what is best for us. It is only through the act of living, of making mistakes, staying too long, leaving too early, that we learn who we are and what matters to us.
As I look back on my own relationship history, initially in my twenties, I left relationships too soon. Once the romance died down and the conflicts took off, I found that I didn’t have the ability to ‘work it through.’ So due to my own lacks, and perhaps also because it simply wasn’t time for me to ‘settle down,’ as well as due to the lacks of my partner, I moved on without fully resolving what was happening in that relationship. I didn’t know how, and was both uninterested in being stuck, and too hungry to be nurtured, to stay put. Because I became aware that I would ‘jump ship’ into a new romantic situation too easily (at least in my mind), I made a decision (over 20 years ago) that I would not do that again. And I didn’t. I closed the relational back door that I had always left open before and faced some parts of myself that I could not have conquered any other way.
While on one hand, because I didn’t know that I could say, “This isn’t enough, I need more,” I accepted behavior that I would never put up with now, on the other, I learned about letting go, patience, picking battles, talking about my feelings and a multitude of other skills. I learned that I was okay without the new bloom of infatuation. I learned that no matter how perfect the other seemed, there were things I needed that were absolutely not negotiable. Ultimately I learned both relational skills and I learned about my own value. Had I not done the work of those relationships, I would not know what I know today. It is because of what I have lived through that I know the difference between love as learning without the ‘forever after’ and love as a sustainable and continuous life enhancing process. I developed the relational qualities in myself that I needed, and know what qualities the other must have to make it worthwhile for me. So for anybody who is on the edge of ‘do I stay or do I go,’ this is what I would ask.
If you want to continue, the first question is: Is your partner accountable? Meaning do they recognize that they have issues that have an impact on you and do they have a willingness to look at and deal with those issues? If not, you’ll be doing all the work to keep this relationship going. Of course the converse is also true if your relationship is going to function.
Next, are you learning as a result of this relationship? If so, what? There are many different things to learn. There is learning that involves some level of disappointment or deprivation, like perseverance and being happy without always getting what you need emotionally. There are empowerment lessons like learning to take care of ourselves instead of sacrificing our needs to our partner’s, or getting to the point where you can say, “I want more, this isn’t working for me.” There is learning how to put someone else first, like putting our partner’s needs ahead of our own, our parents’ or friends’. Or we might have to learn to be bigger, to conquer our fears or jealousies – to trust. If the relationship is to be satisfying long term, often what we are learning is to be vulnerable and communicate with more honesty.
There are many possibilities. Trying to figure it out can become a morass that you can quickly get lost in. Ask yourself what your life has been teaching you. Are you learning how to be with somebody, to get quiet and hear another point of view? Are you learning to ask for more out of your life – to not hold yourself back? And is what you are learning in your life in alignment with what you are doing in your relationship? If you are on a big self-empowerment path and your relationship keeps you small, what is going on? If you are in a relationship that you cannot leave, that is an entirely different lesson. What we are learning in relationships is often complex and not easily known without a great deal of self-knowledge, soul searching or perhaps help from someone else.
If you are ‘hooked’ and think you want to leave, but can’t, what is the hook? If you think you want to stay, but keep ‘running away’ what is the fear? Are you somebody who makes too many sacrifices? Or not enough? Are you somebody who thinks it is all the other person, or do you see your part? A big thing I frequently run into is people not really understanding how they get triggered by their partners and how they behave when they get triggered. For example, if I get upset with you, do I get mean or act as if only my side of the story is accurate? Or can I have empathy for both my own vulnerabilities and yours? After all, life and relationships are often not easy. If we are struggling, the other person is too. Can we recognize this and behave with as much love as possible?
For me, much earlier in my life, I had a significant amount of depression and anxiety. I had to learn to become more self sufficient and empowered, as well as learn how to stay in and work with a relationship when the ‘easy in love’ stage was gone. I had to learn what my triggers were and what baggage I had to let go of because it was mine and getting in the way. I had to learn when to hold the other person accountable, because what he was doing wasn’t okay. Ultimately, you want to be in a relationship where you can be loving and kind towards your partner’s wounds without diminishing yourself. It is a problem if you have to diminish yourself to make the relationship work. Can you put each other first, because your relationship is a priority? Can you can be open and vulnerable with each other, because without that kind of intimacy, sooner or later the whole thing will crash and burn or get distant and die. Eventually, that early bloom of love changes into something less exciting, but with great richness and nourishment.
It helps to understand what you are learning, to be able to decide if it is time to leave or not. I knew in one of my last relationships, that I had stopped learning and because my partner wasn’t interested in making any more changes, and because I needed someone more responsive to me, it was simply time to end it. That didn’t make the ending of it any easier, but it meant that it made sense. I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it. Isn’t that what we all really want – to know that we are making the right choice? To know that we are leaving not because we didn’t try hard enough, but because we did? To know that we aren’t missing something big, that it isn’t our fault, and we aren’t making a mistake? And if we stay, don’t we need to know that it is worth it? That our partner values us, and we value them? That doing what it takes to make this relationship work is exactly what we want to be doing and a reward in and of itself?
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