Undone, Unspoken and often Untrue

What is it about short-term highs that make us forget longer-term goals? Exactly the same principle applies to short-term lows. How many a young man has chosen death because the love of his life dumped him? With the benefit of hindsight, he might have been able to see that this wonderful love-filled intoxicating relationship could with time gradually morph into a loveless tryst.  That everything that once drew him to her could become, with decades, the most annoying habits in the universe. With the benefit of that hindsight, he would choose life, not death.

There is a line in the book ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ where one married character comes home to bed while his spouse heads out to work. By this stage he hates her so much he carefully reverses the sheets on their shared bed so that his skin does not touch fabric hers might have besmirched. There is something about that gesture that denotes hatred much deeper than even a verbal or physical attack. In the midst of fresh love, it is impossible for that suicidal young man to contemplate this other reality or even its very possibility.

But can I say to all the young, bereft and heartbroken at lost love that the heart is by nature a muscle. It, like all muscles, requires exercising to strengthen. Perhaps your first love was a family pet. Your heart learned to attach itself to another entity and your ability to love grew. Your friends during childhood provided bonds that illustrated what could be gained in all relationships within the family and without. And so the habits of love were nurtured and friends perhaps helped to reinforce the joy of closeness and companionship with all its ups and downs.  Losses were encountered, pets died, friends left, even family loyalties during the tempestuous adolescent years can be strained. Love and pain can ever seem to be opposite sides of the same coin!

Your ability to feel pain is almost proportional to how deeply you loved.  All of this is a journey of learning. Along the way, however, fiction has fabricated a great lie. That there is only one soulmate for you in this world. You have got but one chance and if you lose that precious one, life has lost any purpose it might have had.  This is just not so. There are definitely more fish in the sea. Some depressingly worse than the one you have just lost but many are infinitely better than you can possibly imagine right now.

There is an expression in Ireland that comes from the old hiring fairs where in those days the unemployed turned up with their tools of trade in hand waiting to be picked by an employer. As the day wore on many an eager worker’s head would sink in despair as those around him were chosen but not he.  He would often hear, from a friend, the encouraging cry of,

“Look up, look up, there is money paid for you yet!”

Meaning someone would yet make an offer and save the day. How does one find the words to convey how precious life is? To those who have decided to throw it away. How full of possibilities life is, even when flooded by pain. The young especially feel the immediacy of their own despair. They have not the same ability to think long term. Their own emotional misery blocks the sight of any positive outcome in the future. Too often are young men left with no one to excise this pain. They cannot like many girls run crying to good friends and share their loss. Discuss the hurtful details and achieve a kind of catharsis with time.  Instead, distress can slide into despair. From there it is a small slippery slope to total defeat and failure. Life becomes a game totally lost. Pointless and dreary, a mockery not worth pursuing.

Well, it isn't and you are worth so much more than this minute. Whatever has happened, whatever you have done, whatever has been done to you, you are much more than that. The pain is real, the loss is immense but you are more than even this. Don't pretend you are not unhappy but recognise you are much more than your state of mind at this moment, good or bad. It hurts to love but it's still important to love despite the pain. And if no one loves you this moment and I mean no one, then test the power of love and love anyway.

This great fiction of love and death, like Romeo and Juliet or Anthony and Cleopatra, all urge young despairing lovers to throw away the most precious gift of all - their lives. Life and love is worth a great deal. It shapes our lives for good or bad but like despair, the long dark night will yield to the dawn. Never let these lies about love untie your reason from you.

There are many journeys ahead. Rough storms will come and you may well in the future feel even greater fear, loneliness and despair than you can possibly imagine right now. But you will find days kissed by sunshine and quiet moments of love that will make all of what has been done to you and taken from you seem just a difficult path that helped you find this pristine joy. 

“Look up look up there is money bid for you yet!”

The Inner Critic just has to go!

I have a voice inside my head. A vicious critic who has only negative comments to contribute. In every situation it considers only the worst possible overcome. I used to tell myself this voice had a role. It prepared one for the unseen or unexpected. When or if a disaster happened at least I'd had a ‘heads up’ in advance. Then, this last trip to Northern Ireland I talked with a loved one and came to the conclusion this voice needs excised. Part of that process incorporates understanding where this voice came from. 

I think I've tracked it back to childhood. The moment I arrived in the in the isolated Sperrin mountains of Northern Ireland fresh from Sydney, Australia. It didn't help having a distinctly Australian accent. Nor did being introduced to a fifth year primary class who had been together since kindergarten. Cliques had already formed and alliances and friendships were cemented. There was I, as odd as you please. By the end of my first day at school blood had been drawn. I felt different in almost every way from the children around me and the voice articulated clearly that I was an outsider. Every time I failed to make a friend, join a game in the playground or sat alone at lunchtime, I heard it's rancid observations. “You'll never fit in”. “They don't like you.” “Don't you get it?” “They don't want you here!” ”Stupid, stupid why did you think you could fit in?” Even when things went okay the voice prepared me. “Okay, sure, it's fine this morning, just you wait until break time then things are going to really kick off.” 

Was it really how I thought about myself? Or some defensive reaction to cope with the new challenging environment? I'm not sure but even now in my 50s when someone compliments me in any shape or form I look at them to see if they are joking. Searching for the truth not this false missive. It is as if believing something nice about yourself would be the biggest flaw. Why do I need to excise this longtime companion in my thoughts? 

When we let such a negative voices  dominate we damage not only ourselves but those closest to us. They learn our habits and it's a fact of life the very worst characteristics to cope with are your own unique flaws. We can stand all kind of idiosyncrasies in others but not our own. Secondly, the negative backdrop to life drains energy. When we are happy our strengths come to the fore. Negativity does the opposite. Hard things become harder. And even simple tasks become draining. I've reached that age where I can no longer afford this brutal observer. They have to go! Ageing makes even mundane tasks trickier  so I certainly have no need of this disabling critic. Thirdly, I'm tired of the struggle. There is an growing awareness that other positive forces will come into play if I can only disentangle this intruder of mine. I know when it made an appearance. Understand why it felt protective in some ways but now I recognise its toxic influence and want change. How does one change the habit of a lifetime? Like how you change any other habit. One day at a time, with determination and the knowledge that one has been stuck in this harmful mode too long. When I re-read my writing so much of it is riddled with my inner critic. So I'm not sure if when excised totally, I will even be able to put pen to paper! In any event I shall need to find a new voice. One hopefully that is a good deal kinder and more gentle.  Watch this space!

Perhaps our negative voices act as really dark sunglasses changing the actual landscape around us. Instead of vibrant colours we see a poor shadowy image. This ultimately affects our brain which quickly and efficiently recalibrates the world into darker tones. We even forget that it could be different. We gradually own this darkened world and navigate within its limited hues.  Missing out on the kaleidoscope of colours we are bemused by those who see things differently. Their descriptions bewilder us and cause us to question their grasp on reality. When a pessimist listens to an optimist they can feel annoyance at the naïveté displayed. Their mindset repels at this alternative slant on reality. I'm beginning to suspect having a negative voice inside your head, like the sunglasses changes our view of everything within this world. The resulting impact on the brain restricts the actual wavelengths that should be picked up but aren't. Seeing is believing after a certain time. For example, if we wear glasses that invert our vision after a number of days the brain will recalibrate what we see and make the appropriate correction. In other words it turns everything the right way up again. 

Just as our eyesight deteriorates with age so does our ability to hear. In a study on Malta, one of my students science projects involved playing beats of increasing frequency. I was most perturbed when all the 17-year-old went on nodding that they could hear beats when all I heard was silence. We lose so many frequencies every year of our lives. Perhaps this parallels a spiritual truth. The young see and hear better. They have the capacity like young plants to adapt the environment quickly when older branches need the fire of test to alter them. If, as we age we become increasingly incapable of seeing and likewise restricted in our hearing then no wonder changing patterns of ingrained behaviour becomes much harder! But with focus and reflection we can make changes.  It is comforting to know this effect has a name, Perceptual adaptation.

Here’s an exercise to show how powerful it is. Click on the link. First you will see lilac circles moving but then focus on the cross in the middle you should be able to then see the green shape!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_adaptation#/media/File:Lilac-Chaser.gif

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” 

― Rumi