Writing Exercise: Five Core Values

This comes from the book: Ensouling Language by Stephen Harrod Buhner.

Directions: Choose 5 deeply meaningful words, ones that approximate the center of who you are and evoke emotive content for you. Write them down. Any words will do--as long as they are meaningful to you.

Example. Earth, Stone, Green, Leaves, Plants.

Or another. Love, Happiness, Child, Wandering, Hope.

Here was my list: Soul, Compassion, Creativity, Healing, Intuition.

Do this part of the exercise now without reading the rest of the directions...

...........................................................................................................................................................


Next. "Write five poems, each of which uses all five of the words. You can use as many other words as you want, nevertheless each poem must contain all five of the words you have chosen. Take as much time as you need..."

When done, read the poems in sequence. You might be amazed by what comes out. Here are all five of mine in order...

One
the soul of healing
grabs intuition
and holds on
birthing compassion
creativity's apex.

Two
intuition speaks from soul
breathing with compassion
creating a healing force
magical enough
that few believe its existence.

Three
the real trick in life
is ferreting out compassion
from soul
when poured empty
and used up.
creativity wanders in
searching for healing intuition
that has sporified
in order to survive.

Four
living the soul's creativity
heals the parts of
intuition, wounded by those
that sacrifice
compassion on pain's altar.

Five
healing
pilgrimage of creativity
to soul's center.
seeking out
bits that keep us human.
splinters
most wanting of compassion.
the inward glance
pains.
but, in the stumbling dark
intuition
holds our hand.

the Gym

Eyes on the floor, headphones on the ears, I hide out in the open, protected by my walls of being focused, aloof. They know not of lies and narcissists and webs and gaslighting. They touch not the holes in walls or pocketbooks or hearts. They feel not the anguished face of my child. They see not the ugliness of it all.

They know me only by my routine and my outward appearances of being strong. They see my training rituals aimed at remaining in the camp of the sane. They see how my invisibility cloak pulls me skyward, over the bar and back again, masking my inner weaknesses.

Here, in this space, I am capable, maybe even strong.

only You

I am haunted by the twenty year old pictures. I’m smiling of all things. The sun setting behind makes artwork of the sky. Climbing harnesses say we topped out after three pitches at Table Rock. Oh, how times were different.

I ache in looking.

These pictures somehow tear my chest from my heart. I do not know how to hold the two emotions together in one space. Love. Confusion. Pure giving altruistic love, for you, the narcissist. And yet, your love was absent. Faked, perhaps. 

I do not know what to do with that, now. 

Was it always absent? Always faked, or did it somehow morph into this absenteeism--this wretchedness? 

How can my love, not have changed or influenced you, even ever so slightly? How can it be that you find it so easy to hate me? How can it not be difficult to hate? How can you not care, at all, after so much time of me trying to give to you?

No, I wasn’t perfect.

Nobody ever is.

But surely, the something—the all of myself that I gave, must have meant something? Surely it must have changed something, maybe just one thing for you? Surely, you must be ever so slightly different, for having known me for so many years?

But no, I was invisible. I didn’t exist. I guess that would mean, I didn’t influence you, at all. Cause it was always just you. Only you. 

Exhaustion

Dealing, breathing, living in proximity to a narcissist is tiring. Exhaustion sets in when leaving the extensive web. Today, I ground and bless myself with these words by John O'Donohue. May they bless you, as well, dear reader...

For One Who is Exhausted

When the Rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued before has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw along the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

-John O'Donohue

Red Pills and Spells

Several days ago, it occurred to me that things are not always as they seem. Well, No shit, Sherlock! You might say. Hear me out, nonetheless.

My perspective as of late has focused on getting out, unlocking, escaping—extricating myself from the spider’s web of my narcissist’s spun entanglements of falsities dominating the landscape of the old, red barn of my life. I've felt trapped. I've seen myself as being imprisoned, abused, and victimized. And while those things are true, they are more or less my experience of the past. Yes, the narcissist continues to wound, but as the GI Joe tagline advises, knowing is half the battle, or perhaps with the narcissist, knowing is the battle.

I suspect, ironically enough, this might be one of the most valuable lessons the narcissist can teach. The inherent value in seeing and knowing the fullness of reality--whilst balancing one's own perspective alongside the perspective of others.

His blindness teaches me of my own blindness. I so oft forget that my own experience is only partial reality--only one perspective. And whilst important aspects for me to see and acknowledge in order to escape the web, the enlightening parts and pieces can become my new entrapment, my new entanglement, if I so allow or become too identified with my own particular perspective. I can shape a new reality around indulging my own victimhood.

This might be the ultimate lesson I take away from the narcissist. 

Trapped by his own delusions, caught by his own lies, he thinks his own perspective, enough. He cannot see that the Fun House is mirrored. He cannot access the infinite in himself or others. His rigid holding of his own perspective bars and locks him in. Other perspectives, other people's experiences are invisible to him.

Recently, my ex informed me that he might have to move into an apartment of all things. Perish the thought. As he went on and on as to how terrible this will be for him, and how he will have to find a place, and how he will have to downsize, and how rough this will be on him, I was struck by his complete inability to see my experience for the past year--of living in a tiny apartment--of moving out under the gun without adequate savings without much time to find something. In hearing his antics go on and on about his plight, the invisibility of my own experience sparkled and glistened while bouncing off the Fun House mirror. Hyperbolic. Comical.

And so I remind myself to see. His blindness inspires me to relentlessly look at my own blindness. I vow to keep looking into the light of the fire, though my eyes burn, though I see pain. 

It occurred to me this week that things are not always as they seem, even inside my own head, inside my own perspective. I think I’ve been looking at this whole thing through the limited perspective of my own warped Fun House mirror. As much as I don't care to admit it, I have focused on the shadows on the cave wall cast by the glow of the fire.

In awakening and seeing a fuller perspective, I afford myself the gift of vision but vision has to keep opening to itself. It must continually take in more and adapt. It must pilgrim down different thought paths. How we think about where we are determines so much of what happens to us, in fact often determines where we are.

Why am I still staring at the wall of Plato's Cave?

I am no longer invisibly tethered. I am awake. I swallowed the Red Pill.

And so, I begin to learn a new way of being in the world, a new way of thinking. “The old barriers no longer confine me, the old wounds no longer name me, and the old fears no longer claim me.” (John O’Donohue). I choose transformation—shape-shifting—metamorphosis—growth and expansion of soul. I choose to journey onward and remodel the entirety of myself. I choose to slip out of this old skin and become who I am meant to be.

The web—the matrix no longer has to hold its spell over me. I took the red pill, dammit. And while there is certainly power in coming to this realization, perhaps even greater power lies in realizing that the matrix, itself, is often of one's own making. So, more red pill, please. 

Beauty from Wounded Space, One Day

Sometimes, oh-so-unrealistically, I think that I could handle the narcissist and all his shit, if it weren't for the havoc he disseminates like some sort of metastasizing cancer to my entire world. Especially, now, I need support. I need friends. And there he is dropping poison into the waters of my friendships. He means to destroy me. Punish me. Teach me, a lesson. And of course, there is always abuse by proxy. Getting my own friends to pressure me to do whatever-the-hell-it-is-that-he-wants-me to do--for whatever ridiculous purpose he might dream up--so that he can ultimately, control me.

Lately, the dark pessimist in me measures time in terms of which friends, I lost at which point in time. As in, oh August--that's when I realized the estrangement betwixt Michelle and I. Oh, September. That's when he got to my friend, Jenn.  

Somehow, right now, I don't seem to have the energy to counter the narcissistic propaganda they all seem to choke down like cough syrup.

I know I'll bounce back, eventually--just now I need time to devote energy elsewhere.

Nonetheless, it is a shame. I could use the support of my friends now, especially. But, I know eventually, the true ones will come back around. The truth will come out. And it is important for me to let go of my feelings of betrayal by them. They don't know better. They are manipulated--the exact same place I was for 20 years or so. How can I expect them to see through stuff any sooner? I certainly, didn't.

And so, I do my best, to let go. Forgive. Not take it, personally. They don't get it, really. 

Instead, I cling to hope in the words of John O'Donohue about said friends. I cling to the idea of beauty emerging from the wounded space, one day.

For Lost Friends

As twilight makes a rainbow robe
From the concealed colors of day
In order for time to stay alive
Within the dark weight of night,
May we lose no one we love
From the shelter of our hearts.

When we love another heart
And allow it to love us,
We journey deep below time
Into that eternal weave
Where nothing unravels.

May we have the grace to see
Despite the hurt of rupture,
The searing of anger,
And the empty disappointment,
That whoever we have loved,
Such love can never quench.

Though a door may have closed,
Closed between us,
May we be able to view
Our lost friends with eyes
Wise with calming grace;
Forgive them the damage
We were left to inherit;

Free ourselves from the chains
Of forlorn resentment;
Bring warmth again to
Where the heart has frozen
In order that beyond the walls
Of our cherished hurt
And chosen distance
We may be able to
Celebrate the gifts they brought,
Learn and grow from the pain,
And prosper into difference,
Wishing them the peace
Where spirit can summon
Beauty from wounded space.

-John O'Donohue

Shell

I keep telling myself that he has to actually live with himself. And really—that is massive burden enough. Don't crack the egg. When I back away and reflect upon what that means, I’m relieved to finally be extricating myself—painful though it be—and I see the curse and Herculean strength it might take to gaze at who you’ve become if you're a narcissist and it sure ain’t pretty.

But the narcissist avoids this at all costs--even the cost of one’s significant other, one’s soul, one’s own offspring.

On some levels, narcissism is quite complicated. On other levels, narcissism is quite simple.

Take the almighty Atlas-like projected image of power, strength, and control holding up the world—in all actuality--just a crumpled over Nymph, chained to the reflected image in a lake, held by the hypnotically beholding power of the mirror, unable to wander away from the source confirming his existence—eternally dependent upon the manipulated, reflections of others. Ironically, as much mirror staring occurs—it is a staring without seeing—a staring at the spinning-armed Giant one needs to slay without the feel of the wind startling one into the reality of the shape of a Windmill. The empty staring never yields the gift of insight into one’s self.

For he will not see his true self—he cannot even see bits of his own horcruxed soul—all scattered around like Voldemort, initially in order to survive, to stay alive.

As strange as it sounds, his hatred of me isn’t really about me, per se, but rather an intolerable, displaced, self-hatred. His weakness—that he cannot handle any small bit of challenge to the delusional, projected, fragile view of self—that the following masses must worship and reconfirm over and over and over. All hail the king.

I am merely the small, peasant child on the side of the road, crying out as the Emperor passes, He has no clothes on.  I am the Christine who pulls back the Phantom’s mask. And in leaving I am refusing to continue to exist as the side-kick knight errant who eventually takes up Quixote’s delusions in his stead.

It really is quite simple and ironic.

He exquisitely hurts when I call him on his fake, new clothes. And yet, the narcissistic injury I induce itself is one rare opportunity for healing the deeply seated narcissistic wound that tethers him to the lake. A rare chance to wake up, after all these years.

And thus he hates.

He hates the truth about himself that he cannot face—that he cannot control—that he cannot manipulate—that for the most part, he cannot even see.

And thus the ultimate manipulator, ironically enough, lacks the smallest, most human ability—self autonomy to control himself without controlling others. He has to manipulate others, in order to manipulate himself. For his true self is too far off and too unknown to manage without the insulation and coating of the admiration of others. His true self that he walled off from, pushed outward, has shriveled up and died behind his own protective wall and most likely doesn’t exist anymore. Instead, the ornate eggshell stands in with the center blown out—ridiculously fragile, void of anything other than the decorated outside, mere hardened, glitzy, expensive Faberge for all to admire until it cracks.  

Hold on

The temptation is to ditch your compassion altogether. Become jaded—cynical—anything but empathic. Cause that is the tit the narcissist sucked on for so many years.

In my case, he played my compassion like a fiddle—the haunting Fiddler-On-the-Roof type character—as in always in the backdrop, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt—but always there. His own life story—so sad, so profusely unjust. And the fact that He stood so tall in the face of all the injustice for so many years, rendered my compassion a no-brainer. The long ago farce that caught his father figure in a nasty spider’s web—entangled in such ridiculousness that my heart wanted to do any and everything to bust him out of the slammer for such ridiculousness—I couldn’t believe that the system could be so unjust.

Perhaps, it wasn’t all that unjust.

Perhaps, things went down, as they damn well should have.

The night we told our kids that we were getting divorced, I saw the truth of what happened so many years ago. The eyes can communicate so much. Some things are obvious. Some things hit you hard. And it was there staring me in the face—the hatred. The I-would-kill-you look. I have never seen that look before and hope to never see it again. But in an instant I knew a lot. I knew truth that told me that self-preservation was in my own best interest. I knew danger. And it was there in one look staring through me as if I wasn't really there. 

There was no empathy or kindness looking out of those eyes. It was almost as if the absence of emotion was the only thing present. A vacant sort of look except for the presence of dark, pure, uncontained hatred and rage that had percolated up from somewhere deep. The rage was almost palpable, making the hair on my arms stand at attention.

It was an instant where I intuitively saw with my other eye as the past, present, and future met each other. 

The past where this happened before. Those empty eyes had been present before staring out of a different body. In that inherited look, things crystallized for me.  

I could see one future where harm greeted me as it had her and ushered me behind the veil. I could see another where I lost everything, surrendered it all as the bargaining chip for my own life--for the chance to keep breathing.

Yes.

I want to keep breathing. That is the one I choose.

And so my intuition began speaking. Back away from this. Get out. Survive. It doesn’t matter if you lose the house. It doesn’t really matter if you lose everything. Just survive. Start over. You've got this. Hold on.

And hold onto your compassion—it is your strength, really. Hold on. You'll be tempted not to but hold on.

And so I shall. I shall.

Watch your step

I got my family back for Christmas. That was the greatest gift of all.

I don't think my narcissist knows what to do with that. Not too many plays in the narcissist play-book about what to do when her family finally sees through all the pedantic dancing around with words and sees the light and you are finally pegged the liar that you are, as her dad puts it. 

Apparently, they are a little pissed at the deception.
Apparently, they don't like being lied to for something like 20 years or so...
Apparently, the silliness of pathologically lying over dumb shit has seeped in.

And you disgust them accordingly.

So, I guess, you better watch your step, Mr. Narcissist.

Unfriended

Unfriended on FB, I found myself this week. Yes, FB, that tell-all world--that world where you are friended sometimes with people, you don't even know--that world where you have hundreds or even thousands of "friends." Yes, unfriended by someone married to for 17 + yrs--and technically not yet divorced from. Unfriended status, as in unable to "access" pictures of my own children. Why would someone want to do that? I have no idea. There is so much. There is all of this. And yet, he will not admit that he wants a divorce. No, the entire blame rests on my shoulders. This is the world inhabited when abandoning the narcissist.

Your pain does not exist. Only His does, for all the world to see--oozing openly--so they can coddle and rescue and feel sorry for the narcissist. And yet behind the scenes, he will strive to wield more pain at you, in any way possible. Twisting the knife, in any way possible.

Dumb things like, no ride to the airport, something he would offer to a stranger, if and only if it served some grandiose narcissistic purpose. Perhaps, only if the stranger could broadcast his oh-so-lovingkindness on FB. Which apparently, I have never quite done to narcissistic satisfaction.

He continues to herald news to the family of all the wonderful things he does for me, in spite of my breaking his heart in leaving. Wait a minute, I broke his heart when he had an affair?

Let me get this straight. The cheater's heart gets broken when his wife is faithful to him and then decides to leave in the aftermath?

I'm sorry, I'm confused. WTF?

Yes, you read that right.

He is the victim, after all.

She is leaving me and.

And.

I, Mr Narcissist, want to make it work.

In spite of my being the one and only to inflict knife wounds every chance I get. 

Oh, and wounds by proxy? Oh, my friends are just so angry. They can't even be civil, I'm sorry. Cause you--you are to blame--evil woman that I cheated on. 

And so I am the evil villain leaving the cheating narcissist who likes to conjure words to mean any and everything under the sun. He likes to "brick wall" it when communication is attempted. I am the evil villain who says, NO. Enough is enough, I will not suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, anymore. I will not put up with this dehumanizing treatment. I will not put up with your wordcycles.

Some day, some people will be sharp enough to put all the pieces together. I await that day.

Alien Planet

I wonder at the ability of my life to reproduce the same parallel universe over and over.

What does this mean you might ask?

This is what I struggle to answer.

Why is it that my narcissistic relationship mirrors my experience in the rest of my life in critical ways? What is the Universe trying to teach me?

In my relationship, I was invisible. For the most part—nothing I said, mattered. I could not say, This hanging out with the 22 yr old girl matters to me and I'm hurt by it, and it be taken seriously. It was as if I was not a reference point in my own significant relationship. 

After all, what argument do you have for why I shouldn't be an engaging, cerebral influence on the 22 yr old? I am exemplifying what it means to be a fantastic teacher. 

In essence, I could not appeal to what I thought about my own relationship and it matter to my significant other—the narcissist. Because there was always a fact or an argument or a logical strategy that could overwrite what I thought or felt about my own relationship or why this boundary problem was in my best interest such as--don't you want me to be a devoted faculty member that has a job? 

I'm not sure why I allowed myself to be written out of my own relationship. It sounds so over the top--so preposterous that it is almost unbelievable. 

No one would do that--you must be exaggerating.

As things continue to unwind, I feel like ET on some alien planet. I spit words out. I point a long finger at the sky and garble out ET Phone Home... Mostly, no one gets the words I belch out or believes the words make sense. I utter them all the same looking for some sort of Elliot to keep me alive and away from the scientists in tents.

You mean to say that this magnificent, heroic man is emotionally abusive? But he has done so much for you? How can what you say be true? He is so polished, so perfect, so intelligent, so giving.

I am alien. People believe the more familiar, romantic, cozy, smoke and mirrors world of my narcissistic ex. I have been written out of the coding of my own relationship where other people’s FaceBook opinions or my ex’s spectacularly timed texts to my own relatives mean more. Even now, as I escape I exist on an alien planet--my own relationship a rather different species when lived upon, but far away—it is a sort of fairy tale looking place. No one else gets the nightmare unless they visit and kick up the red dirt with their moon boots. Most cannot see through the sophisticated ploys and dancing words of the charming, extroverted, philosopher, word-smith, and pathological liar.  

And somehow, I ended up in a profession where the alien planet phenomenon catches me in a similar situation. I live in a world where I help people out of situations that no one else can seemingly help them out of. I restore hope to scenarios where hope has dried up. I help people heal that are supposedly beyond healing. Most people don’t get it. Those I help get it and step onto an alien planet where things are not as they seem from across the galaxy. They wonder at how outside perceptions and insider actual experiences upon this planet could swim so far away from one another--seemingly, the gap of a galaxy betwixt.

And the universe repeats. My own experience in my relationship being the opposite of what the world seems to think--what my narcissist projects. My experience in my profession being the opposite of what the world seems to think--what conventional, cultural bias projects. 

I ask myself, what is the lesson? Am I here to learn to how to perpetually swim against the current? Am I here to learn to bridge the gap from the language of the alien planet into words others will understand? Or am I here to let go and just embrace being alien? 

You Do Not Matter

I'm not so cynical or jaded in life that I think it odd to care for another human being. In fact, some non-caring harsh things, I cannot do. Offensive psychology and street smarts be damned. Perhaps, I am the lesser for it. Or not.

But, I cannot say to just anyone, You Do Not Matter, no matter what they do. Somehow, that is a threshold, I cannot cross. Even when I imagine truly evil people from the past or present, I don't think I can say such. In fact, I don't know many people at all, even enemies--people I hate--my own ex-narcissist, that I could say that to. I'm not sure I could say that to the parents--of some of the people I help--whose awfulness has most obviously contributed to some of the awfulness of the trauma I am treating. These the same people I've heard terrible tales of. In fact, I'm not sure I could say that with certainty to anyone on the planet. I just cannot imagine scenarios where I could say such intense words.

And recently, someone typed those words to me in an email.

This person knows some of my intimate secrets, in fact they were supposedly acting in a helper role. They know some of my most vulnerable points, including the fact that I have often felt like I do not matter. And this was a particular point we were working on. Perhaps, this is a common theme in being intimately connected to a narcissist--feeling as if you don't matter--feeling invisible. Whatever the case, someone I thought I trusted slung those particular words back at me.

It seems my treated wound became the weapon to harm. How does someone, anyone think that is ok? How does someone supposedly seeking to help hurl those words? Ever?

I have been trying to get my head around it. And I can't.

Shock effect? I don't really know. I'll probably never know.

But somehow the over-reacting slinging swing was too much. It backfired. Perhaps, the principle of like curing like really does mean something. Cause the words seemed to almost have the opposite effect of what I suspect was intended--to inflict pain or abuse? I found myself easily disconnecting, discounting, writing off the words. After all, the words sounded way too exaggerated, too hyperbolic, too over-the-top, too out there, too much of a fantasy to be taken seriously. And so, I was able to separate from them.

You do not matter. 

Yes, I do. As all human beings, do in fact, matter.

Somehow, this you-do-not-matter sounded so intensely ridiculous, that I was able to see it, for what it was. For the first time, I was able to relate to the silliness of it completely outside myself.

And the irony is that this is not something I could see through when uttered to myself inside my own brain, for years. But when someone you trust, someone who once seemingly cared about helping you, says such, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, almost straight out of some sort of Ripley's-believe-it-or-not-warped-mirrored-fun-house, as in most obviously, distorted. And the over-the-topness of it struck me. And I was able to separate from it like never before. Strangely healing.

Yes, I do matter. No, I'm not perfect. In fact, I'm kinda fucked up. And somehow, I matter all the same. Being a part of the human race, we all matter. Even truly awful people, actually matter. And truly incredible people like Mother Theresa also matter, though they have passed on. And I guess the point is all human beings do, in fact, matter. Even fucked up therapists, working out their own shit, do in fact, matter. Well, ok.