Understanding our own suffering

We need to go home to self and understand our own suffering , so we can understand the suffering of others...when we understand our own suffering, compassion begins to flow.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

Before I begin to discuss all those things we need to throw out I feel compelled to come back to the notion that in order to understand others, we need to understand ourselves; in order to have compassion for the suffering of others, we need to have compassion for ourselves in our own suffering; and in order to heal others, we need to heal ourselves.

Understanding My own Suffering

With my sincere desire to help others comes this awareness, sometimes not so sweetly and discreetly lol, of my own suffering.  I thought I dealt with my trauma pain...wrote some books about it, some poetry, talked about it etc...seemed to have it all wrapped up in a pretty box and bow.  I thought I was truly ready to step out into the world of helping others and then this realization hit me that I have only touched the surface.  So many more memories are coming from way below, so much more pain. It is like a tap that I can't quite turn off.  Menopause seems to be in control of the plumbing lol.

Writing Shame

Last night I awoke in the middle of a hot flash and right away my mind went to some writing experiences I had that caused  much shame that I had stuffed way down deep.  (Or so I thought.)I once wrote and self published  a little book of thoughts and photos  for my sister when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast cancer...just my way of saying I was there.  The grammar was atrocious because it was basically just a collection of old free verse poems where grammar was not the thing I was focusing on.  It was spiritual based (I was just beginning that journey) and could have been very offensive to some of the traditionally religious people in this community. I knew that. Still I did it for her in my attempt to offer compassion and comfort.  It really did not begin as an ego thing but it grew into one.

Someone else in my family said they  wanted a copy, and another person.  My ego started to get a little inflated. So I made a few others (these were not cheap to make) adding pages that I thought  might be supportive in recognizing the community agencies that could support the types of healing my sister needed over the years.  I thought the little books  were 'cute' but I was very, very aware of the imperfection in them. They were never meant to be sold or marketed.  Yet, as the requests kept coming  in I had to begin asking for payment because of the expense of publishing. My writer's ego did not want that but another ego that wanted some recognition maybe did?

Then I had someone, whose intention was to support my writer's ambition, suggest that I market them locally. My little girl ego, which was feeling stroked as lovingly as a prized show cat, agreed. My writer's ego, however,  stood on sideline tsk tsking the whole time, warning me not to.  This little girl in me or whatever ego that was...ignored it, the imperfections in the text and photos, and began to sell them.

Of course, it blew up in my face.  I lost a lot of money, became extremely over exposed when I was not ready to deal with it (for my sloppy writing, amateur photographs, poor grammar and my emerging views on spirituality that I was not ready to share.) It was like an outward expression of, "Who the hell does she think she is?"    That brought about a great deal of shame that I repressed successfully until last night.

The Spiral Begins

I woke up and boom...there was this shame and this memory. That memory instantly instigated a shame spiral related to another  previous publication experience  that backfired. It took me a layer deeper into memory and feeling.

It took  me back to the year I wrote for a press and for an editor who was 'forced' to take on as a correspondent from my area(me) when he did not feel it was necessary.  In order to prove that such a correspondent would be more detrimental to the paper than helpful, I was asked to send in my unedited work. I didn't have much time to write.  I had three children still in diapers and I was trying to work on the side. So my writing was sloppy. Still it was a writing gig.  I was hooked on the idea of being a writer.  Being so totally naive to what was happening and full of ego, I didn't question and assumed the grammar was not that important and my writing  would be edited by the editor. It  never was.  In fact, it was published again and again  with more grammatical errors than I myself had written. It was a set up.

It was a very, very challenging experience. I was shunned by the agencies I was suppose to get stories on, and literally told off by community officials  who swore oaths to be kind.  I was put on the hot seat and ridiculed and shamed in public more than once. I literally had people from the community calling me up to 'teach' me grammar and later had physicians I worked with telling me how they and their family got quite a kick out of reading my stories and counting all the errors.  Still...I was writing...so I kept going. When this blind little girl ego finally faded away for the reality of what was happening, I was completely humiliated. I had suppressed that experience and repressed the associated shame until last night.

Shame Likes to Be in Control

  That is really not traumatic, right? Why make it a such a big deal?  Shame does that. We wear shame  like a pair of black pants...picking up every hair of shame that is in the subconscious environment until we are embarrassingly covered with it. So the shame of the little book experience spiralled into remembering the shame of writing for that press. That then spiralled off into other shame memories last night. 

I remembered the experience of working with this physician who enjoyed critiquing my grammar and other 'critical' physicians  when I was my most vulnerable. I remember other nursing experiences where anxiety reared up its ugly head and  the shaming that led to.  I remembered the fear I had related to hurting others that was intense enough for me to lose my ability to nurse effectively. That led to remembering my experience as a patient under the care of those who witnessed my anxiety as a nurse. That led to remembering the trauma of dealing with my youngest sister's diagnosis and the loss of another sister so tragically to what I believed was a family condition that I was presenting with.  That led to the shame of my health seeking over the course of two decades and the deep penetrating shame related to that.  That led me back to my time  caring for my mother when she was dying.  She called me her little nurse but I was only 14 and so terrified of doing the nursing procedures on her that I was not trained or emotionally ready to do.  That led me to remembering saying the  rosary night after night around her bed and how hard it was not to laugh simply to relieve the tension. Then remembering being called a sinner for doing so brought me back to my religious upbringing....and that led me to earlier ages of my childhood where the true trauma began.

It was like boom...boom...boom as I fell from layer into the next and all in less than a couple of minutes. That's how quick our minds are and how determined shame is to get control. The thing that connects  all these memories to my deeper trauma...is the shame.  Shame and trauma go hand and hand as far as I am concerned. So remembering that little book shame brings up what my mind is allowing me to remember of the real trauma. I kept going down deeper, one layer at a time never quite touching the intensity of the real trauma. My trauma goes a lot deeper than those writing experiences and has many, many layers to it but by unraveling one little layer at a time, I will heal.

The Root

Of course, my first reaction is to try to resist, to dismiss, to repress those nasty feelings of shame that are exposed as each layer is removed. Last night I was aware of me doing that. I caught myself reciting this mantra out loud that represents my resistance to experiencing my memories fully with their associated emotions, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned." 

I realized how that is something I recite whenever I feel shame regardless if it comes in a fleeting moment of embarrassment or in a sustained recognition for something I have done to hurt another.  It doesn't matter.  When I feel shame for being less than perfect, I catch myself reciting this mantra from my catholic upbringing as if penance will make me worthy somehow or that it would at least take away my shame.  Ironically, I can now see the association my catholic upbringing had in relation to these writing experiences and in my deeper trauma. The root of my suffering is that, in my human imperfection, I see myself as sinful and unworthy.  I have not earned the right to  make mistakes, to seek recognition in a positive  light.   If I try to redeem myself I will be sinning and I will then experience more shame as a result.


The moral of this big long spiel

I know that was a long one...whew! There is a moral to all this .

The point I am trying to make is that I have to heal; you have to heal before we can heal others.  We need to look into our own suffering and understand its roots.  This faulty view I  have of self that was generated over years of experiencing trauma rests at the core of me.  When I feel shame I know that that belief is being poked.  Shame is the chief emotion I feel when it gets poked and at the same time shame is the poker. 

So if it is this way with me, could it be this way with a lot of people?  I can't be alone in this experience, can I? 

By understanding the source of my own suffering I can understand the suffering of others better. I can therefore  be more compassionate to my fellow humans, with beings in general.  My compassion can help  allow the seed of understanding to grow in others and in myself .  Can it not?

Let's go home to recognize, sit with , understand and gently release our own suffering so that we have more to give as human beings.

All is well in my world.