Twelve years ago I skipped the family Christmas and did a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat instead. I joked that it was my present to everyone in my life. It was part self deprecating humor (I wouldn’t be around for Christmas), and part acknowledgement that practicing deep presence is indeed a gift to everyone I touch.
Christmas can represent the best and the worst –
Celebration and frustration. Hopes and disappointments. Memories both sweet and bitter. The ridiculous stress of trying hard to relax.
Through it all, you are either present to the people you love, or you are not.
It’s tempting to sacrifice our presence in the moment in order to pursue our ideas about perfection – the perfect meal, the perfect tree, the perfect holiday, the perfect photos, the perfect gift. The result is usually disappointing. In retrospect, I’ve found myself wishing I had done it the other way around; sacrificed my perfectionist ideals and been more present to the moment, to the people in the moment.
I thought I’d offer a few simple ideas here about what presence is…
Presence is giving your full attention without distractions. It’s eye contact (and may be physical contact too). It’s no phone or TV or work.
Presence is allowing the other to have the experience they are having, even as you notice your own experience.
Presence is your curiosity about this other person in this moment.
Presence is patience, allowing the other to express their self in their way in their time.
Presence is dropping your agenda and holding space for whatever wants to happen.
Presence is having an experience and noticing it at the same time.
Presence is also at the root of my new relationship book, The Re-connection Handbook for Couples. You’ll hear more about it in the new year, but you can have a peek now if you like. Read a sample or purchase your digital copy by clicking here. Let me know what you think.
May your holidays be bright, and if they are not bright, may they be dark in the richest possible ways.
I’m 21 and I’ve never been married. Reading your article “Why women leave men they love” and reading the comments just makes me never want to get married at all. I mean what’s the point anymore? It seems to me that in a modern day relationship we’re really just sexual objects for each other because once the passion dies everyone divorces and leaves each other for someone else who gives them this so called “passion.”
So riddle me this – I’ve read comments on here about how women don’t need men for this or that. Isn’t a relationship supposed to be something you can rely on each other for things? A marriage is also a cohabitation where people do what they can to help each other. I don’t see it as sexist if a man wants to work hard and provide for his family and the wife wants to be a stay at home mother and take care of the children. I feel this whole movement to have interchangeable “gender roles” is a major contributing factor in failed marriages in today’s time.
What’s the point of a marriage when you can do it all on your own and don’t need anyone right? I mean I don’t need you and you don’t need me so why even bother getting married or being together? So when I see people post these comments saying things along those lines, I feel as though it’s extremely arrogant and selfish because I believe that’s what a relationship is all about -relying on each other! And how people do this really doesn’t matter, but if you go into a relationship telling yourself you don’t need this person then you’re always going to treat the relationship as disposable. But what do I know I’m just young and naive.
Matthew
Dear Matthew,
I’m not sure that this polarization of needing/relying on each other in a marriage versus not needing/relying on each other actually exists in real life. Real relationships almost always contain elements of both, even if they are weighted more to one side or the other. I sometimes pose a question to my readers and clients, “Is it better to be needed or wanted in a relationship?” There isn’t a right or wrong answer. The question is meant to stimulate inquiry.
I’ll share something I’ve observed –
Spouses who don’t rely on each other economically or to fulfill religious, social, or gendered obligations stay together for an altogether different reason: They choose each other. This is an infinitely more complex arrangement, and in many ways it asks more of us.
This assumption of yours is interesting, and I’ve heard it echoed in one way or another many times, mostly from men who seem to be afraid or angry at the changing landscape of relationships “…if you go into a relationship telling yourself you don’t need this person then you’re always going to treat the relationship as disposable.”
Are you certain this is true? Are couples who are not bound together by necessity doomed to failure? Does being free to choose one another guarantee disregard?
Treating a relationship as “disposable” is only one of many possible outcomes in relationships where spouses actively choose each other more than they rely on each other. Consider – I have never once in my counselling practice encountered a person who treated their marriage or their spouse as disposable.
My position on the matter is this –
If disposability is the only imaginable outcome of relationships that are based more on choosing each other rather than needing each other, this is a call for more imagination, not for narrower relationship options.
As for passion, it comes and goes. Sex is one type of passion, and there are others. If dependence on your spouse is your guard against the inevitable ebb and flow of passion, sexual or otherwise, then you are probably in for trouble.
If we understand passion as aliveness and engagement with life, then it takes on a new meaning and new importance. If it doesn’t breathe with aliveness and engagement with life, how can a marriage or relationship be anything but dead? (Unless it is sleeping or in deep coma, also possibilities.) Of course different people have different needs for passion (and different expressions of passion) at different times. A “good” marriage or relationship is perhaps one where these differences can be talked about, explored openly, respected, and not automatically used as evidence against each other or against the relationship. (We might even call this com-passion.)
At 21 years old, you’re asking good questions. See if you can keep an open mind even as you experience the inevitable relationship trials and tribulations ahead, marriage or no marriage.
A life crisis can be the thing that sends us on a spiritual journey. Through crisis we may realize that we have become attached to something – a relationship, an identity, even life itself.
Crisis gives us a taste of loss, and thus also a glimpse of liberation; off we go, seeking transcendence – from attachment, from ego, from the bonds of our old life. Up and away we soar, away from the dense matter of worldly stuff, up into the light of pure consciousness.
There is a particular flavour to the modern spiritual journey. It has its own ideology and its own language. It is secular, although tinged with eastern mysticism, and while practiced globally it is quintessentially American with its fierce individualism, emphasis on self-determination, and market-friendly accessorization.
The modern spiritual journey (MSJ) is built on self-empowerment, transformation, and perhaps above all, feeling good. Trouble may arise, but we’re told that it is always, ALWAYS, within our power to choose positive thoughts and transcend (if not transform) any circumstance.
The emphasis on feeling good is, interestingly, completely aligned with the desires of ego. It’s our ego that wants to feel good. And so here we encounter one of the fundamental contradictions that seems to run through the MSJ – we’re supposed to at once transcend the ego, AND use it as our compass.
We run into other problems on the MSJ. It simultaneously asks nothing of us – The universe made you absolutely perfectly. You deserve (and can manifest) anything and everything you desire. Everyone is responsible for their own feelings… And it asks everything of us – You and you alone are entirely responsible for everything you experience.
Consider this quote from a prominent leader of the MSJ –
Everything you do is based on the choices you make. It’s not your parents, your past relationships, your job, the economy, the weather, an argument or your age that is to blame. You and only you are responsible for every decision and choice you make. Period.
In this view complex family systems, political and social systems (and systems thinking altogether) are all neatly dismissed. Your relationships with people, over time, in various circumstances, your relationship with the world, trauma you have suffered – none of this has any bearing on your choices. None whatsoever. The absolutism is punctuated at the end for effect. “Period.” Discussion over.
Another quote, typical of the MSJ –
You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.
What an incredible ideal to promulgate! You can control what you feel? Emotions? Desires? Fears? The entire world of inner experience is under your control? And not sometimes. Always. This is zealotry and fundamentalism at its extreme. There’s no curiosity here, no exploration, no “Please experiment, test this statement yourself and discern its truth.” It would be one thing if these kinds of ultimatums were meant (and taken) in the context of metaphor, but they are not. They are, amazingly, pure literalisms.
I’m not arguing against the modern spiritual journey per se. I have practiced it extensively in my own life and supported it in the lives of clients and other people around me. We all have a variety of tasks to attend to throughout our lives, and when our tasks align with developing personal responsibility, dropping negative beliefs, simplifying, letting go, and lightening up in general, the modern spiritual journey can be a valuable path. But like every path it has its shortcomings.
The MSJ seems to ignore certain troubles that come with being a human being. It also creates its own share of troubles, troubles it is inadequate for attending to. Such as – What if you discover that you can’t always control what goes on inside? What then? What if what goes on inside has its own designs for you, beyond your control? This question is not the domain of the MSJ. This sort of question, if we dare ask it, leads us on a somewhat different journey.
The soul journey
We could talk about a soul journey as something distinct from the modern spiritual journey. The soul has its own designs. It’s different from spirit, and different from ego. The soul cares nothing for feeling good. It only insists that you FEEL. The soul isn’t interested in controlling what goes on inside. It’s interested in EXPERIENCING what goes on inside, showering you with it in all its colour and texture.
The soul is not into transformation, transcendence, or the light at the end of the tunnel. It is content in darkness if that is where it finds itself. In fact, if the soul is hanging out in darkness and it feels that you are avoiding it because you don’t want to enter its realm, guess where you might find yourself? You then face a choice. Will you look for affirmations to get you into the light as quickly as possible? Or will you risk exploring the darkness on its own terms? This is what the soul asks, and, I believe, what poet Robert Bly alludes to when he writes “The candle is not lit / To give light, but to testify to the night”. Thomas Moore puts it in clearer terms, “It is precisely because we resist the darkness in ourselves that we miss the depths of the loveliness, beauty, brilliance, creativity, and joy that lie at our core.”
If spirit is lightness, soul is weighty.
If spirit is airy and fresh, soul is earthy and musty.
The spiritual journey asks you to pack lightly; soul collects steamer trunks.
Soul runs deep and is not afraid of getting dirty. If spirit loves a clear and empty mind, soul is a collector of images and meaning. If spirit’s interests are oneness and connection, soul’s interests are in the particulars of what defines you as an individual different from everyone else. If spirit seeks liberation from attachment, soul seeks a deeper exploration of all that we are attached to.
Why does this matter?
The modern spiritual journey is clean-cut and friendly. You can take it to work. As I’ve pointed out above, the modern spiritual journey is aligned in many ways with conventional American culture (positive thinking, self-determination, meritocracy, individualism, sound-bites and meme-length philosophy). The MSJ has also been commodified through books, television, yoga apparel, tea boutiques, sacred vacations, spiritual breakfast cereal, one-minute power meditations and zen everything.
Followed too far, the modern spiritual journey provides a customizable life alternative for those who can afford it. I know people who are so far on the modern spiritual journey that they can not tolerate the slightest conflict or discomfort. Their spirituality has become a kind of compulsion. Everything must be organic. The feng shui must be flawless. Their aura must not be darkened by any negativity… “It’s not bathed in white light, get it away from me!”
The soul journey contradicts the modern spiritual journey, at least in appearance. It can also be the antidote for the MSJ that has reached far enough and become blind obsession. But if we have internalized the ideology of the MSJ, we we may not recognize the soul journey when it comes calling. We may dismiss and resist it as non-spiritual (which it is, sort of). We may starve ourselves of soul in order to be faithful to spirit.
Soul does not care to lift you up, it wants to take you deep
Contrary to popular belief, the soul doesn’t want chicken soup (it doesn’t care about feeling good, it just wants to FEEL). The soul journey may steer you in the opposite direction of the modern spiritual journey. This can be disorienting. The soul is often inappropriate for work. You dress it up nice and it gets drunk and throws up on itself. You tell it I’m in charge of what goes on inside! and it responds with a heart attack and six months of depression.
While the MSJ lets you pick up and leave, soul nails you to the spot. It doesn’t let you go. The soul can be cumbersome and contrary. Passive aggressive. The soul is not “in the moment”. It has TONS of baggage – crates of dusty old family photos that it insists on showing you. No escape. Remember, it cares not for transformation. It knows who you are and holds you to it. This can be really annoying at times – frightening, embarrassing, or deeply fulfilling at others. But again, soul doesn’t exist to make you feel good, or to control or transcend feeling. Soul does not care to lift you up, it wants to take you deep.
In session, I work with clients who are immersed in either their modern spiritual journey of ascension, or their soul journey of deepening, or both. Or neither. It isn’t the terminology that matters. What’s important is feeding the parts of ourselves that are hungry. A hungry soul and a hungry spirit want different nourishment. If we listen, we may get to know the difference.
A client came to counselling bracing themselves for what they expected would be a terrifying and awful experience. I was the fourth counsellor she had seen over the period of a few months.
This client was a woman who had been suffering from depression and anxiety following an extended period of abuse. In my office she fidgeted, avoided eye contact and appeared anxious and distressed. She told me she was tormented by something that had happened a few years ago. She had finally sought help, but after one session with her first counsellor she couldn’t bear to go back for a second.
She’d tried other counsellors too but it always ended up more or less the same. They would ask her about the event that was troubling her, she would tell part of the story, the session would end, and she would go home feeling like a wreck. Now she found herself in an impossible bind; her symptoms were getting worse but she was increasingly afraid to get help.
Being with this woman in my office, I could practically feel her nervous system reaching out and clawing at me in desperation. I focused on moderating my own nervous system as we began our first session. (Our human nervous systems, like those of other mammals, are constantly, silently communicating with each other.) I explained that I would not be pushing her for any details around painful life events. In fact, I assured her that I didn’t need to hear the story of her abuse to help her.
Everything I was sensing from this person, from her story to her body language, hinted at trauma. Here’s a useful definition of psychological trauma –
Psychological trauma is the unique individual experience of an event or enduring conditions, in which the individual’s ability to integrate his/her emotional experience is overwhelmed, or the individual experiences (subjectively) a threat to life, bodily integrity, or sanity.
(source sidran.org)
My trauma counselling approach is in some ways different from my other treatment methods. Without a suitable map for working with trauma, it’s easy to inadvertently re-trigger a traumatic response in someone and cause harm. This is true for counsellors and therapists, but also for doctors and medical professionals, teachers and educators, even parents and spouses.
This woman in my office had been repeatedly re-traumatized by helping professionals who either didn’t recognize trauma, or didn’t have a sufficient map for working with it.
Traumatic life events are generally experienced in one of two ways –
The event is experienced and then integrated over time until it takes an appropriate place in our memories, or
The event is experienced but then continues to haunt us with a variety of persistent mental, emotional and physiological symptoms.
In the first case, when we talk about a traumatic event from the past it feels like it happened in the past. It has taken its rightful place in the past and although it may trigger painful memories we do not feel our safety threatened in the present moment.
In the second case, talking about a traumatic event from the past may trigger extreme distress in the present moment. We may feel, against all rationality, that the event is happening again or may happen any moment. We may understand logically that this is not true but our nervous system is in fight or flight (or freeze) mode.
When past traumatic experiences get triggered, we might become panicked. We might perspire, tremble, clench. We might feel rage or despair. We might freeze, go numb or dissociate.
As you can see, trauma can trigger a lot of different symptoms. What they have in common is immediacy and a sense of disproportion. We might be confused to see someone get so triggered or so shut down by just a few words or a sound or some other small cue.
It’s important to understand that the post-traumatic response is much more visceral than it is logical. It’s a body experience more than a head experience. Feeling more than thinking. When someone is panicked or dissociated it is very hard to get through to them with reason. Trauma therapy that works directly with the body rather than entirely cognitively, or that engages reason in slow, small steps can be effective.
By instructing someone to tell the story of their traumatic event we may be setting them up for re-traumatization, as happened with the client mentioned above. If we understand something of the nature of trauma, and learn to recognize its signs, we can better support people who are struggling with its lingering effects.
Pacing is critically important when working with trauma. There is a window of tolerance that must be carefully observed. Go too fast, push too hard, and a traumatized person can quickly go into hyper-arousal or dissociative states. Nothing useful happens in these states.
Here are some signs that a trauma response may be activated in a person –
Trembling, clenching, flushing of skin
Darting or wide eyes
Swallowing, fidgeting
Shallow breathing, minimal movement, “freezing”
Far away sounding voice, avoidance, sense of not being present
Rage, aggression or terror
If you suspect that a trauma response is activated, it’s best to slow down whatever process you’re engaged in. Back off the hot topic. De-escalate any conflict or stress. Simplify your language. Show support and caring with words and body language. Attend directly to the nervous system activation that is happening in the moment. This is vitally important.
As my sessions with this particular client continued, she slowly revealed details of her ordeal. It isn’t that she didn’t want to tell her story – on some level she wanted desperately to talk about what happened. But every time she did it made matters worse. By parsing out the details at a pace that was manageable for her, and by attending to her nervous system directly at every step, and by working relationally and building trust, I was able to help this woman get some relief from her symptoms.
Telling her story – to me and to key people in her life – was actually an important step for regaining perspective, moderating nervous system arousal, and healing the sense of alienation she experienced. But she had to build up to it slowly. Only by understanding the effects of trauma and having a map to navigate it in therapy could I work with her in a truly helpful way.
Understanding and treating trauma requires training, study and practice. I use somatic processing rooted in mindfulness and Hakomi principles. This allows me to gently work with the trauma that is locked in the body, without forcing clients into potential overwhelm or retraumatization.
Twelve years ago I skipped the family Christmas and did a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat instead. I joked that it was my present to everyone in my life. It was part self deprecating humor (I wouldn’t be around for Christmas), and part acknowledgement that practicing deep presence is indeed a gift to everyone I touch.
Trying to grow, fix, change, understand or save your marriage? I provide couples therapy, marriage counselling, coaching and mentoring to individuals and couples on the issues that make or break relationships – Sessions by telephone/skype worldwide. Email justice@justiceschanfarber.com to request a client info package. www.JusticeSchanfarber.com
