Your willingness to Wrestle with your Demons Will make your Angels sing! -August Wilson It seems to be part of human nature to avoid "wrestling with your demons." People tend to avoid the demons below the surface that may be troubling or haunting them, keeping them stuck, stagnant or unhappy. Who would want to wrestle with something that feels so big, scary and overwhelming? Yet ignoring these demons, is not a useful or growthful defense or strategy. Turning away from them, refusing to face the demons within, simply gives them more power to control your life.
Often you may not even be aware of the demons, simply feeling a malaise, a lack of energy, fear, nightmares, anxiety. You may find yourself turning to food, sex, substances, the internet or work, obsessively or compulsively. Maybe it is time to question what is beneath the ways you distract yourself from your inner life ( and from living a richer outer life).It takes courage to look deep within and face the demons, the ghosts from the past, and the pain that unconsciously motivate many of the feelings, thoughts and actions in your current life. A common theme in nightmares is running away from someone who is perceived as dangerous, feeling terror as the person draws near, waking up before s/he reaches you. Yet rarely does anyone turn and face their pursuer in the dream ( when they do, it shows that something has shifted within, that they are ready to face their demons). What might it be like within the dream, or in waking life to turn and face what is most feared, to confront and wrestle with your demons? Clearly the fear of annihilation often cuts off this possibility. What might it be like to remember, even in the moments of terror, that there is growth, light, peace, self-mastery, living your life more fully, that can emerge from having the courage to wrestle with your demons? Would you take that risk, would you be more likely to plunge in if you could trust that this effort would truly "make your angels sing?"
0 Comments
I will always have fears, but I need not be any of my fears, for I have other places within myself from which to speak and act. -Parker j. Palmer Fear is often an overwhelming experience. It may feel like being possessed by something outside (or inside) yourself, paralyzing your ability to think, act or feel anything else. When this level of fear is present, it's hard to remember that any other experience may be possible, hard to imagine feeling anything else, hard to find the path out of this particularly dark and treacherous forest. To paraphrase a concept of Carl Jung, the problem is not when you have fear, but when it has you.
Fear is part of being human; it's your relationship to it that determines how much it runs (or doesn't) your life. The work lies in finding ways to acknowledge and feel the fear as it arises, without allowing it to swallow you up. Or when it has taken over, as it often may do, finding ways out of the thicket and brambles that obscure the path back to yourself (meditation and mindfulness are excellent tools for that!). As the quote above states, you have places (and feelings) other than fear within you, from which to speak and act. What are those places? How familiar are you with them? There may be memories of other times when you have been fearful and then the fear has passed; simply the memory that it DOES pass can give you the strength to endure the fear and finally set it aside. There are probably many other places within such as strength, determination, curiosity, enthusiasm, intention, connection ( to yourself, others and spirituality however you experience it), passion, and love to name just a few. Which of your inner places have I named and what other ones can you add to my list? Your task is to not deny or suppress fear, but to find ways to tap into any/many of those other places within yourself that can guide you in your next step, and the one after that, and the one after that. Can you have the fear yet not identify with it, setting it aside, putting it in brackets or parentheses, allowing other places within you to guide your actions, at whatever pace you need to go? It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to. ~ Marilyn Ferguson Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants a life that is satisfying, however each person defines satisfaction and happiness. You may be ready, or more than ready, to let go of old ways of being that are unsatisfying, stagnant or suffocating. You may be able to imagine the life you desire, be able to describe it in outline form or in great detail.
Yet the process of getting from here to there often is overwhelming. It may feel like jumping over a huge abyss without a safety net. Or like leting go of one trapeze bar, hovering in mid-air, trusting the other bar will appear at the just right moment for you to grab it; if not, you fear facing a horrifying fall. Or you may feel like Linus without his blanket, absolutely terrified of life without the comfort of the old and familiar, though completely worn out, ways of coping. The familiar is so comforting even when it is painful, or stultifying or completely unsatisfying. It feels SAFE. Nothing to hold onto doesn't feel safe, in fact usually feels perilous. And yet sometimes it's time to let go, time to risk, time to stop holding on so tight. Time to believe and trust that there is a way to get to what you desire for your life. That's a lot of what is involved in the process of therapy. Therapy itself, and the relationship with your therapist, are there when you let go, are there to help face that transition. Let's not become the armor we put on when we are afraid. -Salman Rushdie. Defenses or armor are an important part of who we are. Our intuition and our brain chemistry tell us when we are in a dangerous situation and need to protect ourselves either through our "fright or flight" response or by emotionally shutting down. This is an evolutionary and biological imperative for physical survival.
However, many of us have been in situations that were not necessarily threatening physically (though in some cases were that as well) but were devastating emotionally. We learned, often at a very early age, to protect ourselves with a variety of armor- being tough, spacing out, distracting ourselves, addictions or compulsions, lashing out, pushing others away, to name simply a few. This often means we end up lonely and disconnected from others. Our fear ends up isolating us from the healthy connections that would be life-affirming and healing.. I like to think of the ideal defenses and armor as being light enough to put on quickly when needed and easy enough to take off when no longer needed. Or made of a material so permeable that it can keep out what is harmful and let in what is helpful. What images come to mind for you, both of your defenses as they exist now and what a lighter, less permanent armor might look and feel like? How might your life be different if your armor wasn't permanent or too heavy to remove easily? How would life feel if you weren't identified with your armor? |
AuthorPeggy Handler, MFT, is a psychotherapist in San Francisco's Noe Valley Archives
December 2020
Categories
All
|