Relationship – Grow Mindfulness

A Journey Into Sobriety

Seana Smith in her memoir, Going Under, graphically describes her journey into sobriety – a state achieved for four years at the time of publishing her book. Her memoir tracks her early childhood, addiction to alcohol and multiple attempts to escape both physically and mentally. For each step forward, there was always a backward step until she found the solution to her addiction. Her insightful, inspiring and humorous account traces the ups and downs of a life burdened by alcohol addiction.

Early childhood

Seana had adverse childhood experiences as a result of her father being a violent alcoholic and the inability of her mother to cope with his addiction and the physical and mental abuse against her. The verbal abuse by her father extended to Seana and her siblings, especially to Callum who had a serious mental health issue. Seana’s home environment lacked consistency and warmth and was constantly unpredictable, despite some happy childhood moments with her parents individually or together.

Year of sobriety

Seana was able to achieve a year of sobriety when her twins were seven years old. The catalyst was a period of heavy drinking that resulted in her trying to pick a fight with her husband, Paul. She was mean to him but fortunately he did not react to her” sarcasm and barbs”. The twins had started school and Seana had a strong sense that her drinking was undermining “her urge to feel healthy and bright and well”. She joined AA and took up ocean swimming which gave her challenge , excitement and a modicum of fear.

Despite this outstanding sobriety effort, Seana dropped back into her old ways, moving from drinking once a week to drinking a bottle a day. Alcohol provided an escape from the mind-numbing routine of motherhood and the associated domesticity. This led her to her endless cycle of “thinking and thinking and thinking about drinking”. She described herself as “white knuckling” as she fought to regain control and overcome the very real physical and mental urge to drink…and drink to excess.

The ever-present opportunity for free drinks from social events added to her pain and temptation, and ultimately resulted in her submission to the impulse to lose control over her drinking habit. While Seana did not consider herself to be an alcoholic, she acknowledged that she engaged in “gray area” drinking, leading to morning hangovers and severe headaches impacting her ability to function fully. She often alternated between moderate drinking and risky drinking.

Trauma and addiction

Gabor Maté contends that addictions, in multiple cases, originate from the pain of adverse childhood events. The addiction, in whatever form it takes, is often an ineffective attempt to remove the trauma-induced pain. The experience of trauma evokes negative self-stories and Seana’s book is replete with continuous self-deprecation. Seana was in the grip of the “need to please” and believed that if she did not drink with others in social settings, she would not be “accepted”. She also acknowledged that in her twenties, she was addicted to sex – another form of failed attempt to escape from trauma pain.

As part of her journey to sobriety, Seana discovered that her father’s “drinking story” continued through her. It impacted her need to “keep moving and moving”. She sought help from a therapist to assist her in “letting go of old trauma”. The therapist employed EMDR therapy to great effect. Seana was able to progressively move beyond the past, focus on the present, express gratitude for the “positive gifts my family and upbringing have given me” and to remember “all the good parts of Dad and Mum” and the adventures they took her and her siblings on.

The journey to sobriety

There are many perspectives on, and paths for, recovering from trauma and its muti-dimensional impacts. The road to sobriety is complicated by trauma-induced beliefs and behaviour. Seana like many others who have achieved sobriety found that it was a very long journey with many setbacks to recovery. She also recognised that recovering from alcohol addiction required multiple pathways which served to positively reinforce each other.

She took up pool swimming that, along with the social encounters and new friends, provided her with release from the physical tension of trying to overcome her alcohol addiction. She also bought a dog, “a wee black poodle called Maisie” – which reduced her urges to escape and travel.

A key to her recovery was listening to sobriety podcasts constantly. From Janey Lee Grace’s podcast, Alcohol Free Life, Seana discovered a solution, “keep the ritual – change the ingredients”, that she was able to implement by substituting “alcohol-free wines, cocktails spirits and mixers” for alcoholic drinks whenever she had a ritual of drinking, e.g. at 5pm. She listened to multiple sobriety podcasts including Annie Grace’s podcast, This Naked Mind. Seana also devoured Annie’s book, This Naked Mind: Find Freedom, Discover Happiness and Change Your Life.

A key factor for Seana in her journey to sobriety and freedom was the use of the affirmation, “My life will be better if I never drink again”. This mindset shift refocused her belief and energy because she had always valued health, fitness and happiness but had pursued these goals in the wrong areas such as social drinking.

Reflection

Going Under is a courageous memoir recording a history of childhood trauma and the constant physical and mental battle to overcome alcohol addiction. It makes you realise what is happening “on the inside” when someone is struggling with such addiction. Seana approaches her story with incredible insight and resilience. Her humour adds character to her insightful tale.

As I read her book, I found that some parts triggered the memory of my father who was an aggressive alcoholic, physically abusing my mother and creating fear for myself and my siblings. Seana’s book helped me to appreciate his internal struggle and the inability of my mother to cope with his alcoholism, sometimes aggravating the situation by berating him when he was drunk. Seana recounts how her own mother learnt a little too late how to relate to an alcoholic partner.

There are multiple social support groups such as The Sober Club developed by Janey Lee Grace which Seana refers to. I have found that the Creative Meetup group hosted by the Health Story Collaborative is a strong support for me while I experience chronic illness and deal with my adverse early childhood experiences as a result of my alcoholic father.

Following one such Creative Meetup on Zoom, I reflected on my father’s war experience and resultant PTSD. It helped me to better understand what he was going through and his daily challenge of just coping with life and family. I wrote a blog post and a reflective poem titled, Paternal Forgiveness, to express my thoughts and feelings at the time.

I found that meditation and prayer helped me immensely to deal with my adverse childhood experiences and gave me the strength to overcome the tendency to addiction. As we grow in mindfulness, we can unearth our negative self-stories, express gratitude for the positive aspects of our life and progressively build courage and resilience.

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Image by Alicia from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

On Being Deaf

Jessica Kirkness in her memoir, The House With All the Lights On, lets us see and hear what it is like to live with grandparents who are Deaf. Her story covers her experience of living under the one roof with her parents and grandparents and coming to understand the “language of light”. In the process, Jessica enlightens us about what it means to be deaf and how to interact with adults who are deaf.

Jessica’s grandfather spent a lot of time in and out of hospital. She highlighted the problem of a lack of understanding on the part of hospital staff despite being told of her grandfather’s deafness. She maintained that his hospital care was often compromised because “staff had no clue how to interact with him”. This was despite explicit instructions to get his attention before speaking to him, use pen and pad to enable him to understand their message and respond and ensure they actually looked at him when talking.

Jessica herself had studied Auslan (Australian Sign Language) to communicate with her grandparents, particularly with her Grandfather who refused to learn how to speak. She even had to use sign language to communicate to him in hospital that he was dying after a cardiac arrest. Jessica provides an enlightening insight into sign language and its accompanying “visual and spatial tactics” generated by the hands and body movement. She explains that movement serves to direct the viewer’s attention.

Being deaf

Jessica makes the point that, contrary to the general opinion in the community, her grandparents viewed their deafness as a “way of being in the world”, not a deficit (the focus on something missing). They were able to recognise nuances in facial expressions and insisted that everyone faced them directly when they talked to them. This enabled them to expertly read faces and attempt to lip read.

Jessica points out at one stage in her book about the lipreading traps inherent in the English language. She explains that this is the result of what is called “homophemes” – “words that sound different but involve identical movements of the speaker’s lips”. The words themselves have different meanings, leading to confusion and stress for the lip reader.

Discrimination

Jessica quotes Rachel Kolb’s TED Talk, Navigating Deafness in a Hearing World, when she discusses the “primacy of voice” in our hearing world and the fact that “mouths are not a prerequisite for speech”. Rachel makes the salient point that if you can’t hear, how can you learn to speak? She was born profoundly deaf and has become a Rhodes Scholar, writer and disability advocate.

Rachel knew that her speech was defective and had to come to terms with her difference. She spent 18 years in speech therapy to be able to talk, spending a lot of time learning speech through feeling the vibrations in the throat of her speech therapist. Still people thought that her difference in speech was due to a foreign accent.

Jessica highlights the discrimination experienced by her grandparents in what is a “hearing world”. People expect to be understood when they speak (“being heard”, “being listened to”). The distortions in the speech of many deaf people lead to misunderstandings and assumptions about “lack of intelligence” or dumbness. Jessica states that “deafness is the thing that we cannot look away from but cannot bear to face”.

The disruption and disorientation of deafness in a hearing world is not understood and sometimes feared. People lack an appreciation that a deaf person can have a heightened sense of sight and an enhanced peripheral vision (so that actions “behind their back” can sometimes be detected and seen as derogatory). People who are deaf often have a strong sense of touch and vibration. As Jessica remarks, “sound is received in the body in all sorts of ways” and people who are deaf can “hear” music through vibrations in the floor. I had personal experience of this in Melbourne when a group of us visited a school for deaf children and watched them dancing enthusiastically to music by sensing floor vibrations.

The language of light

Jessica’s Grandmother insisted that ‘the entire self is required for conversation”. She could not tolerate people turning away from her when listening to what she had to say. Jessica does point out, however, that the exception to this “whole-self rule” was when she was driving. She notes too that “touch and sight were always interwoven” for her grandparents. The world for them was “experienced through the interplay of the eyes and body”.

Consciousness of light was important because being in front of windows when communicating could create shadows that distort the images of hands and faces. The world of deaf people is “driven by sight” where looking is equivalent to knowing. Gerald Shea titled his book The Language of Light to express the role of light in sign language and the centrality of the visual for the deaf. When the lights go out there is no dialogue.

Reflection

Jesscia’s book helped me to understand how easy it is to unconsciously exclude a person who is fully or partially deaf. It reminded me that I have a friend in her eighties who is hard of hearing and I often overlook the need to face her when I talk. She points out that being able to speak multiple languages, she has developed a propensity for lipreading – something I deprive her of when I am not facing her. She often notes too that I “mumble”, failing to properly articulate my words which increases her sense of isolation.

By gaining an understanding of what it is like being deaf, we can learn to better include deaf people by more conscious speech and actions. As we grow in mindfulness, we can increase our awareness of people’s differences, our own limitations and biases and be more compassionate in our interactions with others.

Having been considerably moved by Jessica’s book, I wrote the following poem from the perspective of someone who is deaf:

Being Deaf

Being deaf is not a deficit
It’s a way of being in the world.
With refined senses of sight and touch
A reliance on light for meaning.

Face me so I can read your lips
Be in the light so I see the nuances in your facial expressions.
I am not dumb, I am deaf
I sense sound through vibrations.

While I can’t hear
I can see and feel things that you don’t notice.
My vision is not narrow
I can see my periphery clearly.

Don’t avoid me out of fear
Approach me out of curiosity.
Don’t judge me for my voice distortions
Listen intently for my message.

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Image by Ivana Tomášková from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Finding Strength in Vulnerability

Kylie Orr in her novel, The Eleventh Floor, has her lead character, Gracie, comment after experiencing the impact of deceit in a relationship, “I was committed to loving up close, to being open, vulnerable”. While Gracie acknowledged that “there is danger in that”, she was willing to take the risk inherent in vulnerability because “a life held together by lies fell apart so easily”. Being vulnerable exposes us to the possibility of being harmed by someone else emotionally, intellectually or physically – it involves showing our true self with our emotional weaknesses, character faults and physical defects.

Vulnerability, however, is a source of strength. It underpins perseverance and resilience, facilitates sustainable relationships, enriches our contribution to community, and enables the writing of an entertaining and enlightening memoir. To access the strength in vulnerability we have to face up to being vulnerable – we need to name our feelings (e.g., fear of rejection) so that we can tame them.

Perseverance and resilience

Contrary to the Alpha Male depiction of power, dominance and the trappings of success, Lance Alfred (legally deaf NBA player) contends that perseverance and resilience in the face of adversity require a totally different orientation. He maintains that there is real strength in vulnerability – owning up to our feelings, being authentic, having self-awareness and self-intimacy (acknowledging our own thoughts, actions and consequences), forgiving others, moving beyond other people’s expectations to be our true self, accepting our inadequacies and mistakes and overcoming the fear of failure.

When we fear failure we can be trapped by inertia – unable to move forward beyond the current challenge. In her novel The Brightest Star, Gail Tsukiyama describes a time when Chinese-American actress, Anna May Wong, was making her stage debut In The Circle of Chalk and was terrified that her speaking voice and singing were not up to the expected standard (after spending so much time acting in silent movies). The critics were having a field day about her voice but she acknowledged this weakness and “went on the offensive”, hiring a voice coach. Despite the criticisms of the critics, the show had a “successful run”.

Sustainable intimate relationships

We can hide our fear of being vulnerable in a relationship in multiple ways including excessive criticism of the other person, aggression (anger), withdrawal (silent treatment), overcontrolling or projecting our own weaknesses or fears onto the other person. These defence mechanisms only serve to push the other person away, to wound them and disable them. While they provide protection for our ego and self-concept, they create a barrier to a sustainable intimate relationship.

Tara Brach provides a meditation which enables us to explore the ways that we create separation or distance in a relationship by resorting to defence mechanisms to ward off vulnerability. In the meditation, we are asked how we are impacting our relationships(s) by avoiding vulnerability. The challenging questions relate to self-protection, projection, judging, withholding, distrusting or engaging in “superior conceit”. Tara points out the power of being vulnerable (overcoming our natural defence mechanisms) in terms of building closeness and sustainable relationships.

Enriching our contribution to community

Tara tells a number of stories where being vulnerable led to someone else finding strength to manage a disturbing or embarrassing circumstance. One of the features of the Creative Meetups hosted by The Health Story Collaborative is the vulnerability shared by participants in the monthly, online meetings. Participants are people experiencing chronic illness or disability or are in a caring role. They willingly share their pain, difficulties in coping, inability to think clearly, physical weaknesses, anxiety or depression or lack of energy.

The level of openness and trust enables individuals to express their vulnerability without fear of being taken advantage of, or being consciously harmed by anyone else present. Vulnerability, enhanced by the culture of sharing and collaboration, builds closeness and healing. There is the implicit recognition that being vulnerable is integral to the human condition.

Developing a memorable memoir

In the Art of Memoir, Mary Karr, stresses the need for authenticity – revealing our real self, not the projected self or the deemed “virtuous self”. She highlights the importance of being vulnerable rather than self-protective. She sees the memoir as a personal unfolding that is sometimes painful – an honest exploration of our “inner landscape”, not just a recording of external events. Mary suggests that as we are developing our draft memoir with recalled stories “what burbles up onto the page is what is exclusively yours, both as a writer and a human being”. She maintains that we have to trust the power of truth enough to “keep unveiling yourself”, despite the shame in the revelations, and, in the process, the memoir will structure itself and you will show up ”warts and all” – leaving a memorable impression that highlights your contribution to relationships and community.

Reflection

Being vulnerable is difficult as self-protection is our natural fall-back position. As we grow in mindfulness through writing, reflection and meditation, we can begin to draw back the veil that hides our imperfections and inadequacies. With the inherent growth in self-awareness and self-intimacy, we can become more real and more invested in telling the truth about ourselves. This is a progressive inner journey – a slow unveiling of our true inner self. By letting go of shame and expectations (our own and that of others), we can develop authentic connections, friendships and intimate relationships.

I wrote the following poem as a reflection on the negative impact of defensiveness on relationships and the power of vulnerability to create intimacy by removing our constructed barriers.

Sustaining a Relationship

Deceit destroys a relationship.
Closeness is beyond us, as we retreat behind the wall.
Facing up to who we are can be painful.

Without vulnerability, our relationships are shallow.
We hide behind our self-projected mask.
We engage our defence mechanisms.
We fence off our inner landscape.

Sustainability lies in vulnerability.
Openness to ourselves and others.
No longer the frightened child.
Now exposed to risk and reward.
Intimacy is in our hands, if we reveal who we truly are.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

The Healing Power of Social Support

Social support can take the form of having friends, family or other people who can be a source of support in difficult times, such as chronic illness, death of a loved one or ongoing disability. They can provide emotional, companionship or resource support and enhance our self-image while offering different perspectives on what we are encountering.

Social support can be provided through a formal social network where people with common interests come together to achieve specific outcomes such as fitness, charitable work or a hobby (as with the Australian Men’s Shed). Alternatively, they can be informal where a number of people come together on a regular basis to share a coffee and have a chat.

The benefits of social support

Julia Baird, author of Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything, highlights the mental health benefits of social support and points to the research that shows the “poor mental health” that results from isolation and loneliness. She refers to a homeless support group organised by St. Vincent de Paul Society that she joined and noted that there was “no pretence”, people “just being who they are”. The healing power of this transparency and normality was evident in the homeless participants developing a positive self-image and contributing from their perspective and reality.

Social support is one of the three components for sustainable recovery from trauma, along with appreciating the complex nature of trauma and its impacts and adopting a holistic approach. Research and clinical practice have demonstrated that social support builds resilience in trauma sufferers – they realise they are not alone, are encouraged to pursue their healing process, are reinforced in their healing efforts and learn vicariously from others who are experiencing difficult emotions and challenging situations. The resultant sense of connectedness contributes to positive mental health.

The GROW organisation over many years has demonstrated that mutual social support has contributed to recovery from many forms of mental illness for hundreds of people (as documented in testimonial stories by participants). The peer-to-peer support process facilitated by a nominated leader within the “lived experience” group, promotes personal development and ongoing recovery – a process that may take a number of years.

Reflection

Social support helps participants to develop a sense of being cared for as well as feeling that they can seek assistance from others in understanding and managing their challenging situation. People gain a strong sense of belonging and connectedness through sharing their personal challenges, their success strategies and their progress towards healing. They grow in mindfulness as they share their stories and write about their insights, gaining increased self-awareness and heightened self-esteem.

Creative Meetups, provided by the Health Story Collaborative, is a powerful social support system in that it combines the healing power of social support with the healing power of storytelling. Participants feel fully supported by others engaged in compassionate listening or sharing their stories of challenging situations resulting from chronic illness, disability or their carer role. The following poem expresses the sense of social support that can be gained through the Creative Meetups:

Social Support

When we share our stories of personal challenges, we realise that we are not alone.
We draw strength from others experiencing and managing more difficult circumstances.
We sense that we belong and feel connected to something outside of ourselves and our pain.
We can be ourselves, free of pretence, unencumbered by the need to be “better than”.
We build trust, savour our relationships and look forward to the next encounter.
There is something magical and disarming about the process that leads to changing perspectives and healing.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Paternal Forgiveness – A Reflective Poem

Since I started participating in the Creative Meetups organised by the Health Story Collaborative I have been writing poems. It’s as if there are feelings inside me that need to get out. It reminds me of my PhD supervisor who told me at one stage of my extended procrastination, “You have a doctorate inside you, unless you let it out, it will undermine whatever you are doing.” Once I wrote the PhD, it released a whole new world of opportunity.

Over time, our disposition to forgive and our capacity to offer forgiveness to others and ourself will develop almost invisibly if we grow in mindfulness through appropriate practices, such as forgiveness meditations. The following poem grew out of my mindfulness practices and Meetup reflections:

Paternal Forgiveness

I didn’t forgive you while you were alive.
I didn’t even forgive myself.
Now I don’t know how to say sorry to someone who has passed.

You served in the army during World War 2 before I was born.
You spent four years in Changi and worked on the Burma Railway.
Shortly after your army discharge, you reenlisted.

When I was four, you left to work in Sydney and Woomera.
And served 18 months with the Occupation Forces in Japan.
There you were an “enemy stranger” in a foreign land.

In your absence, Mum was seriously ill following the birth of Michael.
You returned for two weeks to take Mum and my two brothers to Brisbane.
While baby Michael spent time with your sister before getting ill himself.

My younger sister and I were separated and left with different relatives in Melbourne.
Three month old Michael was eventually placed in a Founding Home.
When Mum returned a month later to collect the three of us, you told her that Michael had died while she was in transit.

I spent 18 months in an orphanage at the age of four while you were away.
Those were the months of my imprisonment and harsh treatment, shared by my younger sister.
Though we were separated from each other by the Institution.

Mum was only allowed by the Institution to visit us monthly.
It was only then that I saw my brothers and my sister, despite her being in the same Orphanage.
I felt isolated and alone.

When you returned from Japan, you became an aggressive alcoholic.
As a young child, I would freeze and dissociate when your rage flared.
As I got older, I would take flight by riding my push bike into the night as fast as I could.

I didn’t understand PTSD – no one did at that time.
I had not been where you had been or seen what you saw.
I didn’t see the triggered images that tormented you.

The war, the explosion, hospitalisation, capture and prison life.
You suffered the loss of mates killed in action or dying from cruelty or malnutrition while you were in Changi or working on the Burma railway.
You experienced unimaginable horrors.

I understand now that alcohol was your way to drown your pain and sorrows.
To block out the horrific images.
I forgive you and forgive myself for my harsh judgments – I didn’t understand.

It was easy to take sides when you were drunk and wasting our income.
While Mum slaved away at the local Woolies to keep us afloat.
And vented her anger and frustration at night.

As an adult, I had to take Mum away from your violence for her survival.
I was fearful at the time that you would try to find us.
As we took shelter in the small rooms at the back of a General Store.

The separation proved to be a godsend.
You both improved your lives.
With new partners eventually and a healthier way of life.

You even gave up alcohol and walked an hour every day.
On Sundays you took Mum to Church.
But we were not able to reconnect.

You had been a professional boxer, winning 20 of 22 fights.
You won trophies for tennis and athletics.
You became Player Coach of a Reserve Grade AFL team in Brisbane.

I am truly grateful that I inherited your genes.
The fighting spirit, resilience, determination and fast reflexes.
All of which have helped me in my tennis and my work and life.

I am sorry that I did not know what you were going through.
That I saw myself, instead of you, as the victim.
That I did not acknowledge your unbearable pain and unbelievable courage and tenacity.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Forgiveness: Forgiving Others and Ourselves

Forgiveness is hard to do, whether we are trying to forgive others or ourself. It’s not a one-off event but is an evolving process which is why experts in the area suggest that we start off small – with a minor incident or hurt. Forgiveness engages our feelings as well as our mind and body. It is something that we have to work at consciously if we are to achieve our goal of “letting go”.

Forgiving others

Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discover What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, suggests that one of the lessons from the dying is, “Don’t Wait to Forgive”. In his extensive hospice experience he found that too many people were consumed by anger and rage on their death bed because they were unable to forgive others. He argues that we should not wait until we are dying to forgive others and ourself. Frank maintains that there is a natural resistance to forgiveness because we have a need to maintain our self-image (of goodness/perfection) and find it difficult to acknowledge that we are carrying challenging emotions such as anger, resentment and regret. However, there is a real cost to ourselves and our relationships when we hold onto these emotions.

Danette May in her memoir, The Rise: An Unforgettable Journey of Self-Love, Forgiveness and Transformation, argues that we need to “cut the rope”, or as Frank puts it, “letting go”. These difficult emotions can hold us back, causing self-absorption and “emotional stunting”. There is a real challenge involved in acknowledging our part in an interaction (or multiple interactions) that was hurtful. We need to be able to see things from the other person’s perspective and understand what was driving their behaviour. Frank suggests that in the final analysis, we need to be able to honestly face up to “what we don’t like in ourselves”.

Fred Luskin contends that there are three elements of a grievance that contribute to our “maintaining the rage” and sustaining the hurt:

Preoccupation with the ”offence” and exaggerating its negative impact on us
Insisting that others are to blame for our negative/difficult feelings
Developing and perpetuating a “grievance story”.

Fred argues that the real costs of not letting go are extensive. Not only do we lose our personal power because we are “controlled by emotions”, but also we lose the ability to focus and achieve peace and wellness. If we are consumed by anger, hatred, resentment or envy we can’t see past our hurt and we use all our energy in sharing our story and maintaining our sense of hurt.

Forgiving ourselves

The starting point for self-forgiveness is acknowledging our part in the hurtful interaction. It is incredibly difficult to forgive ourselves for the hurt we cause to others – it can be a lifelong process. Part of the challenge is dealing with strong feelings of guilt and shame – feelings that go against the grain and undermine our sense of who we are. We can blind ourselves to our negative impact on others because it is too hurtful to ourselves to own up to our part in hurtful interactions.

Jack Kornfield in the Power of Awareness Course argues that there are three myths that underpin our reluctance to engage in self-forgiveness:

Self-forgiveness is a sign of weakness – the reality is that it takes a lot of strength and courage to face up to our hurtful words and actions
We can forgive ourselves through a “quick fix”, e.g., a short meditation or exercise
Forgiving ourselves is condoning our hurtful behaviour.

Elisha Goldstein cites Lily Tomlin when discussing forgiveness of others, Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past. This insight can as readily apply to self-forgiveness as to forgiving others. In self-forgiveness, we have to give up our “grievance story”, let go of wishing that we had behaved better and dismantle our defenses that prevent us from acknowledging our part in a hurtful interaction.

Mindfulness – a path to forgiveness

When we develop a mindful disposition by observing our inner landscape – our thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations – we can reduce our negative thoughts and increase our ability to forgive. Mindfulness can develop our “disposition to forgive” – it can unearth grievance stories, clarify our part in any interaction, help us to take the other person’s perspective, increase our awareness of negative emotions and related bodily sensations and cultivate compassion. Ultimately mindfulness can help us to develop self-awareness and emotional regulation so that we are not captive to our strong, challenging emotions and can live in the present rather than the hurtful past.

Forgiveness meditation

There are multiple forms of forgiveness meditation. Loving kindness meditation, for example, has been shown to cultivate compassion towards others as well as self-compassion. Sharon Salzberg, experienced mindfulness trainer, offers a three-part forgiveness meditation encompassing:

Seeking forgiveness from someone you have hurt or harmed
Offer forgiveness to those who have hurt or harmed you
Self-forgiveness for the times you have harmed yourself through being judgmental.

Sharon includes an affirmation related to the last point, For all the ways I have hurt or harmed myself, knowingly or unknowingly, I offer forgiveness. Other meditation trainers, such as Mitra Manesh, focus the self-forgiveness on the harm that we have caused to others, rather than to ourself. Mitra, in her forgiveness meditation podcast, places a lot of emphasis on becoming aware of our bodily sensations as we deal with the “heavy energies” involved in holding onto grudges, anger or rage. She also suggests a mantra for seeking forgiveness from others, For all the ways that I have caused you pain and suffering, I ask your forgiveness.

In reflecting on a number of forgiveness meditations, I identified four common principles underpinning the meditation process:

Stay grounded, relaxed and focused
Manage distractions through an anchor such as your breath or sounds
Start small with something that is manageable and recent (limited history or replaying)
Adopt a healing perspective – show loving kindness to others and yourself.

We can develop a mindful disposition in multiple ways , not just through meditation. As we grow in mindfulness we can more readily adopt the perspective of others and understand their hurt. We can own up to and name our own feelings, however negative or challenging. Over time, our disposition to forgive and our capacity to offer forgiveness to others and ourself will grow almost invisibly.

Reflection

Forgiving ourself can be a lifetime pursuit as I have found in trying to forgive myself for my part in my marriage breakup which occurred more than 40 years ago. This is something I am working towards. I find that forgiving others and forgiving ourself are interwoven activities – not discrete, independent steps.

I have also been reflecting on my long-standing anger towards my Father for his alcoholism and its major impact on my childhood and my family. I recently started crafting a poem called Paternal Forgiveness which I will publish soon in this blog. In the poem, I offer forgiveness to my father, seek to forgive myself for my harsh judgments and express my sorrow for the hurt that I had caused him when he was alive. In writing the poem, I have drawn inspiration from Kim Rosen’s book, Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words. In the book, Kim describes how poetry has helped people to deal with challenging situations, including the need to forgive others and themselves, and provides insight into the transformative elements of a poem.

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Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Joni Mitchell: An Inspiration for People with Chronic Illness

Legendary singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell has been an inspiration to millions of people and particularly those who suffer from chronic illness or experience long-term disability. You only have to look at comments on YouTube about her Blue Album to see how Joni has impacted the lives of so many people – people suffering from loss, grief, pain and stress and recalling the joyful moments and the feelings of hope when they heard her sing. She has the ability to positively touch the lives of people of all ages, as evidenced by her triumphant performance of Both Sides Now at the 2024 Grammy Awards. The recognition of her stellar career was reflected in her 10^th Grammy Award that night and her earlier (2002) Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Joni’s health challenges and courage

The story of Joni’s health challenges and her positive approach to overcoming them is a source of inspiration in itself. She had to learn to walk again after being diagnosed with polio in 1952 when she was 9 years old. She suffered the painful and crippling effects of polio for 40 years, initially overcoming the disease in 1995, only to then experience “post-polio syndrome”. If Joni had accepted the mantra of many medical practitioners about aging, she could have taken their advice “to lie down and die”, accepting one of the myths of aging. Instead, she chose to seek alternative medicine options and to fight on.

On a number of occasions, Joni spoke about her experience of Morgellons disease which she described in 2010 as a “weird, incurable disease”. The Mayo Clinic describes the disease as creating “a belief that parasites or fibers are emerging from the skin” and involving an “intense itching and sores”. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in their 2012 report stated that the “skin lesions and/or disturbing skin sensations” along with “multi-system complaints” can result in a “significantly reduced health-related quality of life”. Health problems reported by respondents to the research included chronic fatigue, overall poor health and cognitive deficits.

Joni herself reported in 2014 that her immune system was severely taxed by the Morgellons disease which restricted her ability to fly and made touring impossible. Her response to this debilitating disease was to say that she was not regretful about her condition but was enjoying the creative process away from singing – “painting, revisiting her music, prepping a four-act ballet or an upcoming collection of stories”. This clearly reflects her indomitable spirit and her ability to focus on what she did have, not what she had lost.

Her resilience was again severely tested in 2015 when she suffered a brain aneurysm. In an interview with Cameron Crowe in 2020, Joni stated that the aneurysm took more away from her than her polio – it “took away my speech and my ability to walk”. Her ability to talk returned relatively quickly, but even at the time of this interview she still struggled to walk. Doctors had advised her that she would “never walk again” but she stated categorically that she would walk again. She indicated at the time, “I’m a fighter” (with Irish blood) and told herself, “Here I go again, another battle”.

The aneurysm appeared to rob Joni of her singing voice, but in 2018 when some musical friends, including Elton John, turned up at her house for what had been famously called a “Joni Jam”, everyone was surprised and delighted when Joni joined in the singing with her “warm and familiar voice”. Joni indicated that she was moved by the spirit of the group and stated that “I forgave myself for my lack of talent” (having “lost her soprano voice” and only being able to sing “a low alto”).

Joni continued her fight against her chronic illnesses and, in 2023, made a triumphant return to concert singing in a three-hour Joni Jam organised by American singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile and involving friends such as Annie Lennox and Sarah McLachlan. Joni’s life journey can be revisited through BBC Radio 4 Legend’s Podcast – seven episodes of the Joni Mitchell story. Her journey into singing and songwriting can be reviewed through the Joni Jams Podcast which “goes album by album through Joni Mitchell’s entire discography”.

Reflection

During the most recent Creative Meetup, participants engaged in healing storytelling (in writing and orally) partly stimulated by Joni Mitchell’s song, Both Sides Now. Joni’s emphasis on “I really don’t know clouds [music, love, life] at all” resonated with participants who shared their experiences of unintentional exclusion by others.

For some, the metaphors that we commonly used can exclude others whose experience differs, e.g., for people who are extremely “light sensitive”, metaphors such as “silver lining” or “let the bright side in” can contribute to their sense of isolation and exclusion. For people who experience food sensitivity or allergies, metaphors such as “sweet as a mango” can be alienating. For others, established traditions or practices such as enforced prayers as a child or Australia Day Celebrations can trigger memories of terror and/or loss. As one participant noted, “Unless you are in my shoes, you don’t really know”.

The Creative Meetup hosted by the Health Story Collaborative provided ample evidence of the healing power of storytelling and the energy and insight generated by compassionate listening. Jennifer Harris, the facilitator of the Meetup session on Zoom, introduced Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Hope” is the thing with feathers, and this led to a participant’s comment that “hope emerges from dark places” – sometimes, when there appears to be “no hope”. As all participants in the HSC Meetup are people who are living with illness or disability or are carers, they were able to draw comfort, support and inspiration from Joni Mitchell’s struggle with ill-health.

My reflection on our Meetup is captured in the following Compassionate Listening poem that I wrote after our meeting:

Compassionate Listening

What you see is not what I see.

What you hear is not what I hear.

Your world is not my world.

Your feelings are your own.

I can’t know your reality.

I can only listen with compassion

… and openness to what is different for you.

I can learn to adopt a “don’t know” mindset.

As we grow in mindfulness through compassionate listening, reflection and sharing our story, we can deepen our self-awareness, cultivate openness and build resilience.

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Image by xiSerge from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Recovering from the Shock of a Relationship Breakup

Dr. Michael Acton, psychologist and relationship expert, spoke about the shock of a relationship breakup at the 2023 Mental Health Super Summit. He suggested that a relationship breakup is like a car wreck – there is not only shock but also confusion.

The natural and common reaction is to leap into another relationship for comfort and support. Loss of a relationship can be very disorientating and incredibly disturbing. People lose a sense of who they are while others in their relationship circle no longer know how to relate to them (particularly when they only knew the individual as part of a couple). Some people in the circle choose avoidance, a few offer emotional support.

Michael likens the impact of a relationship breakup to being “lost in a dark tunnel”. He suggests that disorientating shock occurs even for a person initiating a breakup. The initiator can be frozen by indecision, alternating between “staying’ and “leaving”. Indecision can then permeate every aspect of their life and especially their work environment and work tasks.

Michael provides specific advice for people in a toxic and narcissistic relationship in his book, Learning How to Leave: A Practical Guide. The book is designed to empower sufferers of abuse from toxic relationships whether they are in an intimate relationship, a business relationship or in a family where domestic violence or coercive control exists.

Michael also maintains that grief models such as that of Elisabeth Kubler Ross are not adequate to describe the shock of a relationship breakup. Unlike the loss of a loved one through death, a relationship breakup means that the other party still retains “agency” and can continue or initiate abuse physically, emotionally and/or financially.

Physical violence can be threatened by well-meaning relatives of the separated partner. The separated partner can also control mutual funds, or “take them (their former partner) to the cleaners”. One of the more emotionally exacting and potentially damaging action the separated partner can take is to withhold access to their jointly conceived children.

Michael is currently working on a book with a new model to address relationship breakups, Fork in the Road (available in 2024).

Jelena Dokic’s relationship breakup

In a previous post, I discussed the physical abuse Jelena suffered at the hands of her father and the coercive control he exercised over her and her mother. What was the greatest shock for Jelena was the sudden breakup of her relationship with her partner of 19 years, Tin Bilic. In 2021, Tin, who was with his father in Croatia at the time, announced by a FaceTime call just before Christmas Day that, “We are done”. Jelena describes the shock, pain and hurt she suffered as a result in her second memoir, Fearless: Finding the Power to Thrive.

The shock of the breakup with Tin left Jelena in disbelief – she could not comprehend why the breakup occurred (no explanation was given). There were no precursor major fights. The shock of the relationship breakup was intensified because Tin had been “her rock” since 2002 – he stood by her at her lowest point in 2005 when she was “overweight, depressed, bankrupt and on the verge of ending her life”.

Jelena described Tin as the kindest person she had ever known (taking after his mother who had been a real support for Jelena with her kindness, respect, belief and model behaviour). The permanent separation occurred after five months of temporary separation occasioned by Tin having to support his father who was in grief following the death of his wife Slavia in 2019. The uncertainty and trauma being experienced by Jelena at the time were compounded by the extended COVID lockdown in Melbourne..

Recovery from trauma: Jelena Dokic

Jelena acknowledges that she is still a “work-in-progress” following the multiple traumatic events she experienced in her life. However, she has been able to overcome the disabling effects of trauma and has established herself in a new career as an international Tennis Commentator, author and public speaker.

Jelena has been proactive in dealing with her trauma. Following her relationship breakup with Tin, she sought therapy from a psychologist and he has proven to be a “lifesaver”. Additionally, she identified a range of factors that helped her on her healing journey:

Supportive people – In Jelena’s early years as a junior tennis player, Lesley Bowrey was a tremendous support showing her kindness, belief and respect (while sharing a strong “work ethic”). Tin himself and his mother, Slavia, were kindness personified and helped Jelena restore her self-belief. Tom Woodbridge provided tireless support for her transition to author and Commentator and provided emotional support following her breakup with Tin. Jelena frequently acknowledges the positive influence on her healing of the supportive people in her life.
Daily morning routine – Jelena described the “mindful pause” that she takes for 45 minutes each morning. This routine involves stopping, savouring a cup of coffee, and admiring nature, especially the sunrises. She learnt from Slavia to savour the “simple things in life”.
Expressing gratitude – Jelena is very conscious of the research that demonstrates the healing effects of gratitude. She writes in her gratitude journal on a weekly basis about the things in her life that she is grateful for (and re-reads the journal daily to remind herself of these blessings). She also writes on a post-it note each week identifying three things that she is grateful for (and displays the note on her fridge as a reminder). Jelena maintains that “practising gratitude brings calmness and joy to my mind and my life”.
Writing and public speaking – Jelena reiterates the healing power of storytelling and credits her storytelling in her memoirs as a major factor in her trauma recovery. She notes in her memoirs that her storytelling in her public talks and presentations is not only healing for her but also for others who are experiencing trauma. This vicarious benefit is reinforced every time she meets people in public who have read her memoirs or listened to her talks.
Practising kindness – Jelena has a whole section in her Fearless memoir on “happiness, healing and kindness”. She emphasises the power of kindness to “change lives and the world”. Jelena acknowledges that she has had to teach herself how to be kind to others and to herself (given the family violence she experienced and the devastating impact on her self-esteem and self-love).
Empathy – Jelena in her generosity has used her resources and contacts to advocate for sufferers-survivors who have experienced what she has gone through – child abuse, body-shaming, family violence, social media trolling, eating disorders, and mental health issues.
Meditation and mindfulness – Jelena indicated that she practices meditation to achieve calmness and overcome anxiety. Her other practices such as her “morning pause”, walking in nature, connecting to animals in a sanctuary, all contribute to her capacity to grow in mindfulness. In many ways, Jelena puts into practice the principles for happiness and resilience promulgated by Hugh Van Cuylenburg in The Resilience Project: Finding Happiness Through Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness (G.E.M.).

Reflection

Jelena provides a source of inspiration for many people through her storytelling and her courage to work on her healing from trauma. She demonstrates that as we grow in mindfulness we can shed our negative self-image, develop compassion and overcome life’s challenges. We can learn to overcome our maladaptive responses and restore our self-image.

The Health Story Collaborative provides the resources, encouragement and support to help you to write and share your health story. I have found the free, monthly Creative Meetups (Writing for Expression and Healing) to be a very supportive and inspiring group who are proactive in oral and written storytelling to improve their health and overall wellbeing. The group is non-hierarchical involving people with different levels of writing ability and a variety of health issues (including trauma-related illnesses and Long-COVID induced disabilities).

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Image by Avi Chomotovski from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

The Demeaning Power of Coercive Control

During the recent 2023 Mental Health Super Summit Dr. Richard Hill explained the concept of “coercive control”, how it manifests and its devastating effects on children and adults. This is a form of insidious, creeping control over another by a perpetrator (usually a parent or partner) that Richard describes as “a slow whittle”. He drew on the definition of Dr. Emma Katz, a world authority in the area, to explain that coercive control involves the progressive “controlling of somebody else’s whole life”. It takes away their normal autonomy and sense of freedom. The control that is exercised is “wide-ranging and persistent”. If the controlled person resists or refuses to conform they are punished. The net result is that the controlled person lives a constrained way of life to avoid punishment.

In her book, Coercive Control in Children’s and Mother’s Lives, Emma explains that children and adult survivors even after they are able to break free from the perpetrator must engage in a “sustained battle for safety and recovery”. Through her research with many victims-survivors, she has become convinced that support and “professional Interventions” are needed to facilitate healing and recovery.

Richard explained that the perpetrator of coercive control keeps the controlled person “off balance”, continuously confuses them and progressively isolates them from others (in part, so that they can’t tell others what is happening to them). He argues that the controlled person can begin to question their own sanity (because of “gaslighting”) and loses both self-esteem and self-determination. Even when they are able to flee, they may fear for their safety because of stalking by the perpetrator who may continue to engage in “post-separation abuse”.

Even seeking assistance from the law is fraught with risk and difficulty for victims-survivors of perpetrators of coercive control. In her book, Women, Intimate Partner Violence and the Law, Heather Douglas (drawing on case studies) explains that perpetrators often use the law against their victims, and that victims-survivors require very high levels of “endurance, tenacity and patience” to obtain help and protection through the law. She highlights “the failure of the legal system to provide safety for women and children” on many occasions.

Jess Hill, Richard’s daughter, in her well-researched book, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Violence, supports the view that “abuse is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them” as victims-of domestic violence. She suggests that instead of questioning why a woman didn’t leave her abusive partner, we should be asking, “Why did he do it?”. She offers ways forward to reduce the abuse and fear resulting from domestic violence that is so prevalent in Australian homes.

Jelena Dokic’s experience – a classic example of coercive control by a parent

In a previous post, I spoke of the physical abuse suffered by Jelena Dokic at the hands of her father, Damir Dokic. Jelena, in her second memoir, Fearless: Finding the Power to Survive, also details what amounts to coercive control by her father – “wide-ranging and persistent control”. Her father used physical punishment to control her behaviour (e.g. punishing her for not winning). He restricted her access to people and attempted to isolate her. He continuously called her demeaning names such as “cow” and “whore” and took control of her money, demanding she sign over her winnings and savings. Her father also took all her trophies and sold them. On one occasion, he publicly smashed a crystal runners-up trophy because Jelena did not win the tennis competition.

Jelena escaped from her family in 2002 (aged 19 years). Despite this break away, she suffered post-separation abuse of her freedom. She was effectively stalked by her father and mother. They would turn up unannounced at WTA events she was competing in and try to coax her to “return home”. WTA security protected Jelena and refused entry to her father. However, during the US Open in 2003, her mother turned up at her hotel and insisted that she sign over the family home in Florida to her father.

In the previous post, I also described how Jelena was coached and supported by Australian tennis great Lesley Bowrey in her younger years, achieving outstanding success as a junior on the global stage. Lesley believed in Jelena and what she could achieve and showed her respect and kindness – a stark contrast to the behaviour of her father. However, eventually, her father insisted that she sack Lesley as her coach which shattered Jelena’s “happy world” and left her devastated.

The continuous belittling, dismissing her achievements and pervasive control took its toll on Jelena’s mental health and she suffered from a loss of self-esteem and a feeling of “not being good enough”. She felt trapped by her father despite being physically separated from him. She experienced “thoughts of suicide” because she could see no way out of her traumatic situation (her “entrapment”).

Coercive Control of Jelena’s mother

Jelena and her mother, Ljiljana Dokic, were estranged because her daughter felt that her mother had failed to help and protect her against her father’s physical abuse and coercive control and the trauma she experienced. However, in her Fearless memoir, Jelena explained that they had restored their relationship after she found it in herself to forgive her mother for her lack of protection. She came to understand that her mother too suffered at the hands of her father. She was also beaten into submission and suffered coercive control.

Jelena’s father made all the key decisions impacting her mother. He determined where they lived, controlled all the money (mainly Jelena’s winnings) and forced her to undertake unpleasant tasks against her will. Jelena’s mother was forced to work to provide herself with some independent income.

Reflection

In her memoir, Jelena acknowledged that she had not forgiven her father for his physical abuse and coercive control. She had come to realise that her mother too was controlled by him and Jelena was able to find a level of forgiveness towards her mother following this realisation.

In an earlier post, I provided a reflection process for dealing with resentment and anger. It facilitates looking at what was happening for the other person in a conflict/abuse situation. Among other things, it asks you to think about what was happening for the other person in terms of self-esteem and identity. It also requires you to think about the pressures and stresses experienced by the other person, including their life experiences and familial influences. As Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey suggest, an important question is, “What Happened to You?”.

By adopting the other person’s perspective, you are better able to be empathetic and find forgiveness. Jelena was able to do this in relation to her mother, but not her father. Understanding and forgiveness may come with an appreciation of the influences that shaped her father’s life, including poverty and living in war-torn Croatia as a parent and partner, becoming a refugee in Australia and being beaten by his parents as a child. Jelena’s hurt and pain at the hands (and mind) of her father are deep and will take a lifetime to heal.

As we grow in mindfulness, through reflection on our own life and significant formative events, we can appreciate the positive people and events in our life that helped to shape who we are and what we have achieved. Jelena’s story, recorded in her memoirs, is a great source of inspiration for overcoming life’s challenges and appreciating what we do have.

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Image by Myléne from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Living at the Edge: Empathy

Joan Halifax author, Buddhist teacher, anthropologist and Zen priest has written a profound book on what she calls the “Edge States” – “five internal and interpersonal states” that she maintains are the foundation of compassionate action and living a courageous life. They are described by her as “Edge States” because they can lead to positive living and constructive social contribution or become harmful and cause damage to others. Joan describes the Edge States in her book, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet. Her book covers each of the five edge states in detail – altruism, respect, integrity, engagement and empathy. In this blog post, I will address Joan’s views on empathy as an Edge State.

Empathy vs Compassion

Joan contends that empathy is not compassion. In her words, empathy is “feeling into” another – experiencing their pain and suffering. Compassion, on the other hand, is not only “feeling for” another but aspiring to take some form of action that will be of benefit to the person you are feeling for – this can be any form of compassionate action. Empathy underpins compassion and is a necessary internal state if we are to avoid becoming totally self-absorbed, small-minded or even narcissistic.

Three forms of empathy – somatic, emotional and cognitive

Joan describes three forms of empathy and illustrates them from her own life experience. The first of these is somatic empathy – where resonance with another’s suffering or pain is felt in some form of bodily manifestation. It can take the form of a strong physical sensation such as feeling punched in the stomach, feeling faint or being unsteady. Joan mentions that somatic empathy can occur on a regular basis between people who are close or in frequent contact. She mentions, for example, the uncanny ability of her mountain guide/minder in the Himalayas who became so “physically attuned” to her that he could sense if she was about to fall over and catch her to prevent it happening. Joan indicated that some people are hypersensitive to the somatic experience of others and she mentioned Dr. Joel Salinas who has what is called “mirror-touch synesthesia” – an extreme form of somatic identification that he has to consciously manage for his own preservation and the benefit of his patients.

Emotional empathy, the second form of empathy described by Joan, involves sharing the emotions being experienced by another person – becoming “inhabited by another’s feelings”. When emotional empathy is at a healthy level, it can help us to be more caring, more conscious of connectedness to others and more willing to take compassionate action. However, if we become too closely identified with the emotions of others we can tip over the edge into personal distress, burnout and “blunting” (a state where we no longer “feel for” others as a way to protect ourselves).

The third form of empathy described by Joan is cognitive empathy. This is explained in terms of “perspective taking” – in other words inhabiting the mindset or mind view of another, often described as “standing in another’s shoes”. Again this form of empathy can be enabling for ourselves as well as others or lead to our being captured by another’s way of seeing the world (as in cults or the experience of the German people at the time of Hitler). People’s propensity to adopt another’s world view can be used as a form of manipulation. However, when employed positively it involves attunement to another leading to a form of resonance. Joan illustrates this in describing an experience of being confronted by an angry Algerian soldier at the Algeria-Mali border when she was on an archaeological trip by herself. Her ability to take on his perspective, instead of “othering” him and viewing herself as a victim, enabled her to gain safe passage. Joan also recounts the story of Lieutenant Colonel Hughes and his instructions to his troops in Iraq near the holy Imam Ali Mosque to “take a knee” (and point their rifles to the ground) as a form of successful perspective taking that saved many lives when the troops were confronted by an angry crowd (who misunderstood the American’s intentions).

Over the edge – empathic distress

Empathic distress occurs when we become too identified – somatically, emotionally and/or cognitively – with another person’s suffering or pain. We lose the capacity to separate ourselves from the other person’s experience and in the process become disoriented and unbalanced. Joan describes a number of situations where she was on the edge of empathic distress but was able to recognise her response for what it was and pull back from the edge.

In one situation, involving a young girl with severe burns who had been carried by her father to the Upaya Nomads Medical Clinic in Nepal, Joan found that her own heart rate was racing and dropping, her breath was “shallow and rapid” and her skin became “cold and clammy”. She was momentarily overwhelmed with her perception of the little girl’s suffering and pain. Joan indicated that at the time her “hyper-attunement ” with the child was causing her to spiral out of control and into deep distress physically (almost fainting) and emotionally. Fortunately, through her social engagement activities (including being with the dying), she was able to draw on a process to help her restore her balance and control.

Moving away from the empathic edge – overcoming empathic distress

Joan was able to draw on a process she had developed to help people move from empathy to compassion, to move away from the edge represented by empathic distress. Her process involves the mnemonic, GRACE. This stands for:

G – gathering our attention by refocusing on our breath or our feet on the ground (restoring our groundedness)
R – recalling (bringing to mind again) our intention for being with the other person in their situation
A – attuning to ourself and the other – being fully aware of our own bodily sensations and what the other person is demonstrating (in the case of the little girl, this was resilience).
C – considering how we can serve in the situation without taking control over others or pursuing our own needs
E – engagement and disengagement –adopting an appropriate means of engagement (e.g. engaging in a loving-kindness meditation focused on the other’s wellbeing) and being able to end the interaction when desirable to do so.

Joan makes the point that if we learn to identify empathic distress, we will be better able to manage our responses and restore our balance instead of experiencing burnout, with its physical, emotional and moral degradation. She likens empathic distress to vicarious suffering and highlights the fact that people in the helping professions and caregivers are prone to experiencing this depleted state.

Developing empathy

Joan describes four practices that support the development of empathy – attuning to our bodily sensations, (e.g., body scan), deep listening, stewarding empathy and “rehumanization”. Her description of deep listening is especially insightful and demonstrates her willingness to be with another person fully. She maintains that “really hearing another person requires us to listen with body, heart and mind” while being aware of how our personal experiences and recollections can act as filters, thus distorting the message of the other person. By stewarding empathy, Joan means that we have to be able to cope with the dilemma of our life – that we are both connected to everyone and, at the same time, separate – we cannot become totally identified with the other or we lose ourselves in the process. This requires practice and the GRACE approach is one way to develop this capacity. Lastly, rehumanization according to the work of John Paul Lederach, involves adopting a moral stance “to see the other as a person first, to see ourselves in others, and to recognise our common humanity”.

Reflection

I have experienced empathic distress on a number of occasions. In one particular instance, I was driving across the Story Bridge in Brisbane when I heard a woman on the radio talking about her suffering and grief. I can’t recall the detail of the story but I became more and more strongly identified with her emotions. I can clearly recall my somatic empathy in the form of a sense of dizziness and disorientation while driving. Fortunately, I intuitively knew to turn off the radio and refocus my attention on the act of driving the car and paying attention to the road and traffic.

On other occasions, I have experienced hyper-attunement to someone who is suffering extreme stress from working for a narcissistic manager. Because I have been involved in directly helping a manager and their unit in such a situation, I have great difficulty stopping myself from taking on another’s distress and suffering when they are in a similar situation.

Joan’s GRACE model will be particularly helpful for me in the future. As I grow in mindfulness through mindfulness meditation, reflection and mantra meditations, I can increase my self-awareness of when I am experiencing empathic distress and have the insight and courage to adopt the GRACE model so that I do not fall over the empathic edge.

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Image by Mirosław i Joanna Bucholc from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.