Learning to Stay in the Room: Unconditional Love and Bravery

I dedicate this post to my "Big Three": Michael Schwass for taking me to the cemetary and sticking with me on the long road to get there, Erin for never ever making me regret hitting "Send", and to my absolutely astonishing and smokin' hot husband, Scotty "Melvin Depp-Robert Wagner-Sweet Potato-Costume Boy" Johnson who has never once stood in the way of my own growth, no matter how challenging its been. I continue to stand by my assessment that this is a perfect marriage.

Loving what is.

It’s the title of a book, of course, by Byron Katie. It’s also the bravest thing I’ve ever done.

When I posed the question to you for this edition of the Carnival of Courage, I didn’t give much consideration to the fact that it wouldn’t be fair to ignore the question myself. For those of you who opted to pass on this, believe me, I understand! It’s a tough question. I think we’ve all gone through the laundry list of heroic and daring feats. Was it the time I dove back into the river to pull out my neighbor who had fallen through the ice and saved her life? Was it asking for a divorce and leaving with all my worldly possessions (mostly clothes, a futon and my dog) with no plan for the future and no clear way of supporting myself? Was it launching my own business? Was it sharing some of my less than glowing personal history with you in the Adventures of an Unlikely Superhero series? Was it, as Isabella Mori wrote in her contribution to the Carnival, sitting in the room as a therapist, listening to countless stories of incest, rape, abuse, abandonment, shattered lives due to injuries or medical conditions and not turning away from the pain?

That last one gets close. Michael and I were reminiscing recently about my work on the spinal cord unit during my internship back in 1990. That was how Michael and I met and he was recalling the passion I had for my work. If the position had been open on that service, I would have jumped at the chance to work there, even braving working for the Greek medical director. (There is a saying, when two Greeks meet each other, they either end up fighting or opening a restaurant together. The restaurant choice didn’t seem like an option.) Our reflecting on my internship called to mind my first spinal cord injured patient while I was in graduate school doing my first community based training to be a psychologist.

The young man was in his 20’s and was quadriplegic as a result of a gunshot wound to the neck in a drug deal gone bad. The medical staff were weaning him from a ventilator which is a highly anxiety producing process. The profound state of physical dependency is psychologically devastating and for high level quadriplegics (those with injuries on the cord closest to the skull end) often includes mechanically assisted breathing. We are all familiar with Christopher Reeve’s tracheotomy, for example. Some quadriplegics fall into a border zone where independent respiration may become possible after a period of recovery. It appeared that this young man might be in that camp. Since I was going to be his psychotherapist when he arrived on the rehab unit I was sent to help keep him calm during he weaning process. The last thing he would need when trying to overcome a fear of suffocation would be to have a panic attack.

“How did you know where to start?”

Michael, of course, has intimate knowledge of the hospital scene I had entered.

“I didn’t know. I figured the first thing I had to do was just stay in the room. That was where I started. I stayed in the room.”

I was 26 years old when I did that.

So today, as I turn 44, I realize that staying continues to be the bravest thing I do. Now, the rooms are relationships, true relationships, and once I commit I stay, no matter how painful, or frightening or angering it is for me. I stay and I dive because I know, as David Whyte would say, that gold coins exist at the bottom of the well.

Those of you who have been my readers for a while have witnessed this first hand. In the last two years especially, I have dedicated myself to exploring whether I truly believe such a thing as unconditional love exists. With so many references to this ideal coming forth from so many spiritual traditions, and so little evidence of it in my observation of the real behaviors of actual people, I found myself unable to reconcile the two. While I can’t answer the question for humanity as a whole, I thought I could at least follow Buckminster Fuller’s lead and run an experiment with Guinea Pig “L”.

I put the question to myself this past year: Am I capable of unconditional love? If not, what are the conditions under which I am incapable of loving? And for bonus points, am I capable of believing myself worthy of receiving unconditional love? Yeah, I know,  being worthy of something unconditional…you see the dilemma built right in.

I am here to tell you that I am, without any doubt, capable of giving unconditional love. No, not for all of humanity yet, but for a growing number of individuals including several people who are reading this right now. I have even found myself to be capable of it in that notoriously difficult relationship: with my mother. While the concept of unconditional love sounds lovely and warm and fuzzy, (it IS the most amazing state to be in), getting here was not easy and required fighting dragon after dragon after dragon. And, yes, the dragons keep on coming.

How did I get here? What were the dragons? Those tales will be woven through this blog from here on out. For now, let me share with you what I learned this past year.  It's been remarkable, and I've felt every single day of it. My goal had been integration this year.  I did it.  Absolutely feel it to my core. It's been the most powerful year of my life. Can't wait to see what happens on the road to 45.

This year I learned:

• to give up control
• to give up the future
• to face the fact of my own mortality and the mortality of those I love and rely on
• to learn everything I can from anger when it arises and then let it go
• the difference between fighting for and fighting with
• that you have to practice every single day what you preach if you want to be integrated
• to be totally honest with myself, even when I didn’t like what I saw
• to give up the concrete for the abstract, and to realize that the abstract (love) is far more real than money and possessions will ever be
• to accept the things I could not change and "stay in the room" anyway
• to admit to myself that I can’t fix everything and learn how to find peace even though I felt helpless
• to accept that there has been no shred of evidence that I am the reincarnation of King Midas and that love is sometimes the only thing I have available to give
• that love is an inexhaustible resource and hearts expand to make room
• meditation works best before you act on your feelings, not after
• I don't need any more gurus.  Soaking up wisdom wherever I can find it, yes.  Thinking I'm going to find anyone who has walked this exact path?  Not so much. It's okay.
• to accept that I have been loved continually  and unconditionally by several people in my life, no matter how many jams I have gotten myself into
• to shut up, be thankful and accept love, no questions asked
• to pull my strength down from a higher place and not lean on others for what I need to be finding within myself

Can't wait to see what learnings you have to share as we continue with out carnivals.  Speaking of here is Issue #2!

Comments

[Kate]

Thanks for showing up, yet again. It might even be one of the most valuable things you teach. I like the list, too. Through it, you've provided a little short-cut that is helping me take a look at how my year has gone and what my own lessons have been.
Thanks and love

[Laura Young]

Thank you, Darlin'. And thanks for singing Happy Birthday on my voicemail! Put a huge smile on my face!
Yes, it has been quite a year. Quite a year.

[Randy Yniguez]

Staying...yes, much harder than running away. Facing your fears because you made a committment to follow through is brave. Whenever I am able to "stay in the room" I usually find that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

-RY

[Laura Young]

I hear you, Randy. And honestly, I've found that sometimes staying is worse, but that I'm also stronger than I realized. So the worse is better in some paradoxical sense. When in doubt, remain conscious! Hard to do that if you are running away.