Bear With Care

 

Dare to Bear With Care

Brother Freedom

My eye is sore today.  The flashing is getting worse. It has been bothering me for a while and I know I need to re-access the system in order to do that.  The thought of doing this leads to an "unpleasant feeling" and a well established aversion tendency in me. 

I mean...the reality of what needs to be done is so simple. I only have to access the system on the periphery of allopathic medicine, not dive right in. All I have to do is call another optometrist somewhere and say..." having issues with an eye and just need a second opinion,  do you mind having a look at my retina?" I am going to have to pay for it...That's okay....vision  health is something one can find money somewhere for...you know? It is really no sweat off the optometrist's  backs either. They are going to get paid directly  for their service. They just have to look...tell me that it is nothing more than  a bit of astigmatism and dry eye...and I am on my way. Or...maybe, they will tell me it is a retinal issue, possibly a slow detaching...and they refer me to ophthalmology and  we get it fixed.  My brother had the procedure done twice without any visual loss. No big deal.

An Unpleasant Story

What is the big deal for me, is the story my mind creates around the accessing of this system.  This story is a collection of past memories and experiences that are stuck within me. I try to keep them down but with the mere thought of having to "go back in" they resurface. 

I have never been overly worried about anything my body ever did or refused to do. I may have known because of my nursing background  that something probably should be done about this or that...that I should at least get this or that checked...but I never really worried about my health as much as it is believed I did.  I have  always been more concerned about being believed so this assumption  about me....  being a "hypochondriac" or "overly nervous and worried about my health" or a "depressed or mentally ill"  person who was having a "conversion" type of response....or  someone with "Fat Folder syndrome" ...or an "attention seeker" or a "liar",(Man I heard it all)...would not stand in the way of me getting treatment for what I (or my family) was presenting with.  I perceived a problem in the  having to deal with the knowing something abnormal was happening with my body that needed some form of treatment, as minor as it may have been,   but instead of just getting a straight out diagnosis and treatment I much, much too often, got lectures, and waits, and shaming, and more waits, and dismissals, and more waits, and passed on from one person to the next ( with this assumption attached to my chart  like a label on my forehead.)  and told on several different occasions that I was 'lying"...and costing the system money with my health seeking. It was very, very unpleasant!  So unpleasant...that the pleasant experiences of dealing with  the many people who could see past the assumption compassionately and supportively...were overshadowed by the negative. And now ...here I am ...wanting to get a second opinion(well more like a first opinion..the other didn't think it was necessary to look in my retina. In all fairness to this professional, I didn't have the flashing then ...just the pressure)...that requires a bit more than reentering...that requires stepping on the toes that do the assuming. 

A Stuffed Pain Experience Resurfacing From the Basement

Wow!  I wasn't going to write about this today...not at all.  This whole idea of "having to health seek' is something I just want to avoid. I want to continue to push down the memories of these experiences so deep inside me I don't feel the pain, the shame, the fear. Just thinking about having to make a call triggers such a great amount of the "unpleasant" in me  leading to intense resisting and aversion.  My belly is in knots right now just because I wrote..."I know I need to re-access the system..." 

I guess, though this topic does, in some indirect way, go with what I intended to write about today...more on dealing with our attachments and aversions.

Face Don't Run

In a talk by Brother Freedom, we are reminded that  we need to face our suffering, to look deeply within at those  unpleasant things we may wish to run  or avoid dealing with.  When we look out at the external world we may experience something that brings, or as in this case, triggers unpleasant feelings and therefore leads to the habitual tendency of aversion. Even though we think we are avoiding or running from this feeling when we resist it, we are actually just storing it in our psyches.  It doesn't go away...we just hid it in the basement and we do our best to pretend it is not there by distracting with something that creates a pleasant feeling. 

What I need to keep reminding  myself is that I only live half a life when I find myself attached to the pleasant and resisting the unpleasant.  They go together.  We cannot have light without casting a shadow.  These shadows are just as worthy of our attention, our compassion and our care as the light is. . . 

The Neutral Parent

Brother Freedom tells us to look at the unpleasant and the pleasant as two toddlers we are holding.  Pleasant, is in one hand and unpleasant is in the other.  As a mother of twins, I actually know what that feels like to be walking along with a child in one hand wanting to go up there to something pleasant and another child in the other retreating back because to her it is unpleasant. As a mom, I had to hear and meet the needs of both of these children...I had to find a neutral space. But we do not tend to treat our experiences in this neutral space, do we? What we tend to do, as we move through life, is neglect, push away, ignore and avoid the so called  negative ...that which we deem as unpleasant.  We stuff our shame, our fear, our anger, our despair etc because we judge  these as unpleasant.. Would you do that with one of your children? 

Allowing the Pain to Surface

We need to call the unpleasant emotions and experiences out of the basement and ask them to sit beside us. We bring them from the shadows and into the light. We need to put our arm around them and say, "Hey fear and shame related to my health seeking...I know I tried to stuff you in the basement...to ignore you and pretend you didn't exist because thinking of you was so painful.  Even when you temper tantrumed or screamed at me to get my attention I would still try my best to pretend you were not there.  That is not fair... you deserve to be up here with me, just as much as peace and joy do.  We are all in this together. What would you like to say?  " 

This is daring to bare pain with care. 

And until we do that we will be going around in circles between attachment and aversion and these feelings will not do what they were meant to do...arise and then dissolve. Pain feelings  just gets stuffed inside, when we repress and suppress. They will keep getting poked whenever we are faced with the triggers the external environment is sure to provide.  I don't want to feel this way every time my body does something that may require attention from an expert.  Man...I am getting older...things are going to be breaking down more and more.  I need to sit with these feelings...allow them to speak and be heard (as was just have done on this page) .  I need to treat them with the same concern and care as I would  my happy child and wait for them to mature enough to want to leave my home on their own accord. 

Hmm! All is well! 

Excuse my citation...cannot seem to find the link for that  video

Brother Freedom at Deer Park. December 12, 2021.  Being Peace