In the fellowship of AA we talk of being restored to sanity. At times the wording in the rooms seemed a little harsh to me and not deeply nuanced and yet our attachment wounding and other early psychic injuries that lead to addiction, our inability to learn while growing up how to regulate and express emotions skillfully, our desperation to have something or someone to depend on that we had to bury, our preoccupation with self will at the expense of others, or our inability to even have a healthy, balanced and grounded sense of ego Self along with so many other so called ‘defects of character’ are perhaps a form of what Carolyn Myss calls ‘divine madness’, or insanity.. (never the less insanity does carry a bit of a demeaning connotation, should have known better, done better, acted better which we can and may do with recovery.)
This sanity to me is lately being revealed through contemplating upon other qualities spoken of ‘in the rooms’ : humility, honesty, willingness, open mindedness (and open heartedness), serenity, joy, wisdom, peace and acceptance…These qualities, however, are often the outcome of so much suffering and struggle for so many of us with our complex family and personal histories. And as we also say in AA : religion is for people who do not want to go to hell, where as recovery and spirituality are for those who have been there (hell) and do not want to go back, do not want to live a single day more in that hell. And yet is that so called hell that the Nun’s and priests put the fear of God into us about not just a place of personal burning the enduring of which and opening of our full beings too, can actually birth a truer, clearer, cleaner, more deeply nuanced ‘Self’ or soul? Some of is only get to be more fully rounded humans by making a hell of a lot of so called ‘sins’, errors or mistakes.
The words of astrologer Liz Greene about Saturn Pluto are also on my mind a lot this week as Mars begins to oppose my own Saturn Pluto Moon Mars and Chiron configuration in Virgo, Aquarius and Pisces :
wisdom through suffering and purification through the ordeal by fire.
Jesus often said ‘he who is close to me is close to the fire’. So I am sure Jesus knew this burning and can love us completely in the midst of ours.
When I was undergoing my radiotherapy treatment for breast cancer back in May 2016 I would often look at the little red light on the radiation machine and imagine it to be the Sacred Heart of Jesus burning away the negative cells. These days I wish I did not have that treatment, I wish I had just sought a meditation approach but who knows if that would have been as effective, nevertheless being able to try to turn this thing I did not like and feared into something imbued with healing and love may have helped my peace of mind at that time to be more ‘sane’, peaceful and calm.
This week the pain and bodily consequences of facing all of that anger towards my father and yes even my living sister, too, who could be so cruel with her words and actions at times has been really difficult on a bodily level. I do not feel very safe expressing anger, it was never allowed and it was shamed for me growing up. You could say there was a non existent ‘window of tolerance’ for it in my school and home life and yet it was there under the compulsive cleaning binges of Mum and her outbursts of frustration as well as the flared nostrils accompanied by looks of contempt and severe distaste given to us when things or we were not in order, that got our own young hearts racing.
My ongoing work now seems to be related to this.. Knowing a healthy ego is not a sin but necessary, that anger has a place, that we can learn new ways to harness and express anger and self assertion for good and that I can also use it to set boundaries around my own windows of tolerance at the same time as I may need to expand some and shrink others.
Last night I made some lentil and vegetable soup.. I texted that sister a while ago to see if I could drop some around because she is having her ECT on Thursdays.. I make a decision to still keep loving my family even though they hurt me.. I will not always put their needs first any more because that is not good for me, but the cost of holding onto the anger as well as non forgiveness would be just too huge. What is past is passed and my sister does not treat me with this level of hate. contempt or disrespect as she used to.
Even though I know I needed every single element of that burning rage I felt earlier this week to make known to myself just how much I did suffer and how innocent I was I also know to keep fueling it through holding ongoing fury, resentment, intolerance, impatience and bitterness and being unable to forgive and let go of what is past would impact on me in a very negative way.. Still I need all to see thung with total, painful clarity. I needed those anger lessons to know what really are my values, wants, wishes and needs at the same time as I know in a human world they may not always be met, may often be frustrated.
A reading from recovery writer Tian Dayton came to me this morning in the bath. In it she speaks of the fact that recovery or restoration to sanity teaches us that others and situations do not have to be perfect for us to love them. Yes people can hurt us and injure us, we are not bullet proof and their words and actions may wound and scar us.. Others can have their own wounds, they can ennact them upon us unconsciously, and yes, we may choose not to have much to do with them, but we can also take the attitude that all of this pain, misery or meanness may have something to teach us..for how would we know what light was if we did not have the shadow and darkness to compare it too? And some light often casts a shadow. How would be know how sweet joy can taste if we had not known the pain of loss, grief, heartache or betrayal? And yes we may learn through hard experience that in this life some people choose and continue to choose a path of action that to our mind seems wrong, hurtful, sinful or evil.
Restoration to sanity means I get to choose more than be overcome my unconscious compulsions or reactions and yet I needed those to learn.. So for me lately it just seems to be getting a little harder to judge others at the same time as I beginning to realize that there are some people it is best to exercise a great deal of discrimination with.. There are some people I may prefer to have limited or only protected and protective contact with.
Emerging From The Dark Night 