In 2003 I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. My doctor put me through several different tests to rule out MS and other possible diagnoses. The pain that had crept over different parts of my body scared me deeply. I catastrophized that I would never again climb to the top of Smith Rock or do other things that I loved. I was desperate to do whatever it took to try to transform and heal from this debilitating illness.
I love my doctor. Peter Reagan is now retired, but had delivered my youngest son Matthew vaginally after two C-sections and 49 hours of labor when I was 36. A triumph and an amazing blessing for my baby boy and me! And our doctor had been there in so many ways for our family over the years. Gratefully, Pete also knew me well — my trauma history, my recent divorce after 31 years, my years in recovery, and more — when he was informing me that I had this illness called fibromyalgia, something which I hadn't heard of before. And then he looked me in the eyes with this warm but serious gaze, and I remember Pete's exact words — "Molly, people who get fibromyalgia tend to not have lives that have been a walk in the park. I don't want you to get stuck in your diagnosis, I want you to get alternative care." He prescribed no pain medication, but referred me to immediately begin treatment where I received acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic care three times a week. My acupuncturist also sent me to a five week course where I learned a seated qigong practice called One Thousand Hands Buddha. I was willing to do anything to alleviate my pain.
In my deepest self, I also knew that Dr. Pete was spot on. The outer pain I was experiencing, even many years into my recovery and healing journey, was a reflection of inner pain that needed attending to. I knew this to be true. And because I was able to recognize fibromyalgia as a symptom of something larger, and because of the treatment I received coupled with my commitment to ongoing shadow work and healing, within a couple of years I was symptom free. And I have remained symptom free ever since.
Here it was again, this huge lesson: go deeper and discover the gift held in this painful time that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Yet, my intuition told me that there was a larger picture and that I needed to explore more deeply what I carried in my heart that was manifesting in all this physical pain. I did not get stuck in my diagnosis. Instead I found a path through and out. And, ultimately, this was a continuation of that path I've been on for some time, one which empowers me to shed more and more of the obstacles I have built against love.
*****
There have been many other significant times in my life that I have needed to recognize and own, embrace and heal, and integrate and learn from different aspects of myself that were showing up in some form of pain. These have been experiences in which the Grace of God nourished and strengthened me with just enough courage, curiosity, commitment to pursuing the truth, and the support needed to move beyond my comfort zone and into frightening new territory. These were times in which my worldview was shattered, a shattering that was vital to the birth of greater consciousness, wholeness, wisdom, compassion, and love.
In the early days of my awakening, I identified as an "Al-Anon", a member of the 12 Step program for friends and family of alcoholics and other addicted people. A close friend had the courage to be honest and tell me that my first husband was an alcoholic, something I had been in deep denial about along with a host of other things. I then became obsessed with learning about alcoholism and addiction. And the alcoholics began coming out of the woodwork! As I learned more and more and began to shed layers of illusions, I came to realize that my parents, my brother, most of my friends, and my husband were all alcoholic! Wow, given that I did not believe that I knew any alcoholics, my worldview was indeed being shattered! And then, 16 months into trying to be the perfect Al-Anon, all those outward pointed fingers turned around and were pointed at me. I've been clean and sober since June 19th, 1984.
"Hi, I'm Molly and I'm an alcoholic" became my new identify. Of course, there was more. Added onto that became, "Hi, I'm Molly and an adult child of an alcoholic." And then, "I'm a trauma survivor." And on and on.
Everything is impermanent. Along the way, as the 12 Steps were gradually becoming more deeply integrated into my cells, doing a searching and fearless moral inventory (the 4th Step) became a way of life. One thread would lead to the next, and then to the next after that. Doorway after doorway was appearing and opening, inviting me to enter. And I began to learn to live with growing awareness, change and impermanence — with the sifting and sorting, with opening and resisting and ultimately embracing, with learning to see with new eyes and feel more deeply, and ultimately with increasingly dismantling and letting go of what had been harmful. My life inwardly and outwardly was radically changing.
In the beginning, however, there was a lot of hell. I hated change. I hated not being in control. I hated not being right. I hated needing others and being vulnerable. I hated thinking that I was the one with the "problem." I hated thawing out and feeling, and again and again being faced with moving outside of my comfort zone. And I hated what I was finding within myself and I wanted it all to go away! Just go away, stop, end! Opening my heart after years of disassociation, distractions, addictions, and other ways I tried to numb and cope with my broken heart felt like looking again and again into the torrent of a tsunami that might kill me.
But it didn't.
And over time I began to grow more comfortable with the understanding of the limitations of my knowing. I grew less judgmental and more compassionate and tender. I came to humbly and wisely recognize that there was always another vista beyond the one I was seeing now — always more layers to lift, more obstacles to dismantle, more grieving and more integrating to do, and greater love, peace, joy, and intimacy to experience. And I began to accept this as part of being human rather than something to be feared, resisted, and rejected. Eventually it happened — I experienced that I don't have to do this soulful heart work. I get to do this work. I get to grow and heal and evolve. And this is a profound gift!
And the terrified, addicted, starving little girl I once was has gradually been evolving and expanding and growing more and more into the beauty and strength and truth of who I really am. Wow. Everything is wow.
And with that has come the consciousness of the beauty and love that I believe is the essence of the true nature of who we all are. We are so much greater than the smaller parts of ourselves that we may identify with. I do not believe that we are born with sin. It is my experience that our very being is seeded with the Sacred.
This amazing journey of recognizing, embracing, and integrating these different split off parts of myself — which I had once felt such shame, rejection, denial, and hatred for — has paradoxically ended up gifting me beyond my wildest imaginings. What my journey over the past nearly 37 years has taught me is that the wound is indeed where the Light enters us. Deep, deep bow of gratitude to God, Grace, and Love.
*****
In light of all the darkness in the world, this may seem not all that important to be talking about, this business of "becoming who we are" and letting go of our smaller identities. And it's also hard to do because our human tendency is often to cling to what we think we know, to what is familiar, to what we perceive is the truth. I am one who certainly knows what it's like to live in denial, to be blind to what's right in front of me, and to be a stranger to what I carry in my own heart. It's painful way to live. Being "comfortably numb" is actually just an illusion, one which increases rather than alleviates our suffering.
And everything is impermanent. What may seem like reality one day can be completely transformed into something much deeper and more expansive than we can imagine. This is true, that is, when we seek to know what we do not know. At least this has certainly been my experience.
Today I can smile compassionately and with some humor when I think back to June of 1984 when I went for an evaluation at an alcohol treatment center and the counselor asked me point blank, "Molly, what does an alcoholic look like?" And before I could stop myself, what came blurting out of my mouth with great conviction was, "Well, sure as hell NOT LIKE ME!" Wrong.
At some point I just surrendered, got sober and stayed ever more deeply rooted in my journey of waking up, and I put a bumper sticker up on my kitchen cupboard as a daily reminder: DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK.
I imagine a world where that bumper sticker is up on many of our kitchen cupboards and on our cars and maybe even billboards and, most importantly, is becoming embedded in our minds. Just imagine...
Just imagine that bumper sticker being embraced and integrated by millions along with another one which I've long had on my car for many years, and now on our camping trailer, too: NON-JUDGMENT DAY IS NEAR.
Then maybe we could be reminded that there's more to open to and learn, more to heal and integrate, more to awaken to, more to hold with compassion and tenderness rather than judgment. Maybe we could be shaken loose from our smaller identities that lock us into limiting narratives and belief systems — ones that have us looking primarily through the lens of our addiction, our depression, our fibromyalgia, our political party or religion, our fear or shame, our anger and judgments, our traumas and losses, our media which sees us as "consumers" and tells us to go shopping, and all the ways that we absorb the cultural messages which divide us all up into in-groups and out-groups, propagate limiting and black/white perspectives, and fuel disrespect for ourselves and dehumanization of those who are different from us.
I imagine a world where my other bumper sticker — a quote from the Dalai Lama — would also be embraced and integrated by vast numbers of us: COMPASSION IS THE RADICALISM OF OUR TIME. What a lovely act of random kindness simply to affirm the beauty and power and value of compassion. Certainly this is the antidote to our judging minds and what nourishes empathy, wisdom, kindness, and love.
And I'm reminded of the time recently when I was stopped at a light where I could sense that someone a couple lanes over was trying to get my attention. I looked and there were two young men, maybe around 30, looking at me and trying to say something. I rolled down my window. The driver asked me in his perhaps Middle Eastern accent, "What does this mean about compassion and radicalism?" I smiled and warmly responded, "It means that we need more compassion in our world and that too often it is a radical thing to be compassionate. But compassion is such a wonderful thing." They smiled back. "Cool. Thanks." And the driver flashed me a very enthusiastic peace sign.
Just imagine if we were to actively seek in an ongoing way to not believe everything we think and to stay open, to notice and intervene compassionately on our judgments, and to make consistent choices again and again to bring the radicalism of compassion to ourselves and to all those whose paths we cross and who are near and far. Just imagine...
*****
The heart of the matter is that we live in dire times and hopeful times. And it is my experience that these times ask of us to not see things in isolation, to seek conscious awareness again and again of the larger picture beyond our current understanding, and to not get stuck in the dangerous waters of seeing the symptom as The Problem.
Just as taking that first drink did not turn me into an alcoholic, there was a vulnerability to addiction that resided within me. Yes, there was alcoholism that ran in my family. But my vulnerability arose from something much deeper than genetics.
Which brings me to the core of what gave rise to my many addictions — a soul deep broken-heartedness rooted in my sense of separation from my own heart and soul and that of all others. This experience of separateness has been carried and unknowingly passed on through generations of my family. My mother would not have been alcoholic, psychotic, and severely narcissistic, my twin brother would not have committed suicide 41 years ago, and my father would not have had a compromised immune system that played a significant role in his sudden death at age 60 if we had all lived in a healthy partnership-oriented society which nurtures connection, empathy, consciousness, compassion, kindness, and love.
This sense of separateness and domination-oriented narratives and belief systems permeates our culture and much of our beautiful hurting world. There would not be such an epidemic of addiction, depression, violence, cruelty, child abuse and neglect, homelessness and crushing poverty, and on and on in America if this were not true. And we would also not be in the midst of the sixth major extinction and the climate and ecological crises which threaten life on Earth if there were not a vast collective experience of separation from ourselves and all that weaves and connects us together with the Sacred.
There are so many lessons which I believe are yearning to be recognized, absorbed, and acted upon in these challenging times. Viewing symptoms in isolation, while struggling to maintain the status quo and resist the need for dramatic change, keeps us stuck and perpetuates the downward spiral of our individual and collective suffering. A parallel is like the alcoholic who may try switching from hard liquor to beer or wine, who may not drink until 5:00, who may look at others and think now there's somebody with a real problem, who may only drink on weekends, who may switch to marijuana, etc., etc. Yet, treating symptoms alone never works. The primary illness remains.
It is time, I believe, to face the deeper truths of where we're at, the many layers of how we got here, and how we can work individually and together to heal, awaken, and transform ourselves, our families, our communities, our political and economic systems, our nation, and all that has brought us to this place of national and planetary peril.
It is important to know that we did not arrive here overnight. We have been on a path heading towards our own extinction, while taking most of life on Earth with us, for decades. Trump also did not emerge in a vacuum. He is a symptom of the long, long road that got us here to this place of late stage addictions and denials, ignorance and greed, enabling and complicity. Our addictions to fossil fuels, our justifications for violence, our looking to others and what they are doing that is harmful while not also looking at ourselves, our ignorance and resistance to deep change, and all that has long been destroying our nation and the Earth did not arise over the course of a few years.
Yet, this is not our human nature to be stuck in this violence. We are capable of evolving. Riane Eisler brilliantly researches and writes about this in-depth in The Chalice and the Blade and in her latest book, Nurturing Our Humanity. I also wrote about this in my recent blog post, RIANE EISLER: A MORE PEACEFUL, EQUITABLE, AND TRULY ADVANCED HUMANE SOCIETY IS ATTAINABLE: https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2019/10/riane-eisler-more-peaceful-equitable.html. Naomi Klein also explores in-depth in her latest book, On Fire, where we are, how we got here, and how we humans can evolve beyond this tragic violent death spiral that we're now in. This post provides a glimpse into Naomi Klein's latest book — NAOMI KLEIN: WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ARE WE GOING TO BE?: https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-kind-of-people-are-we-going-to-be.html.
Through seeking the wisdom of many visionary teachers, and through the process of discernment and connecting more deeply with our own sacred wisdom, I believe that we can gradually come to recognize more and more of the many layers that have propelled us to the brink of our own extinction. To absorb deeper truths, to expand our consciousness, to evolve by lifting the veils of our ignorance and illusions, for most of us this will involve some degree of allowing a shattering of our worldview and the stories that we have absorbed which, unknowingly, have been causing harm to ourselves and others.
I have personally experienced and discovered this journey to run parallel with what it is that leads to late stage addiction of any kind — denial and minimization, adhering to the Don't Talk and Don't Trust and Don't Feel rules, enabling through distractions and projections, black and white thinking and clinging to the world as we believe it to be, fear and resisting going outside of our comfort zones, distancing ourselves from the pain in our deepest hearts and the Heart of the world, rejection of vulnerability and humility and the need to befriend our grief and that of others, and turning away from the need for deep support and connection to get ourselves unstuck from that which harms life and instead grow in our capacity to embrace that which blesses and nourishes life.
We have been a long, long time getting here. Riane Eisler, Naomi Klein, and Joanna Macy are among many other visionaries who have written and spoken extensively about where we are, how we got here, AND what is needed to free ourselves from that which is causing so much suffering, death, and destruction. Because even for those who are disassociated from how we are all woven together, and even if we are unaware of our deepest pain and its origin, as I once was, we still suffer nonetheless. Either we are embracing and healing and transforming what separates us from ourselves and life, or we are projecting that pain of separation outward onto others, and/or we are manifesting a range of symptoms from addictions, to autoimmune disorders, to depression and anxiety, and on and on.
In following the wisdom of 12 Step programs, it is my belief that one path towards the radical internal and external changes that are so urgently needed is to individually and collectively engage in some form of an ongoing searching and fearless moral inventory. This is just one way of framing it. Another way is to be rooted in a process of deepening our capacity for mindfulness, self-reflection, compassion, and non-judging awareness and accountability. However we frame it, at its core this process of our human evolution is a deeply courageous, sacred, spiritual and Grace-filled journey.
Over these many years, I have recognized in myself and others that, other than for a few exceptions of deeply evolved human beings, for the vast majority of us there is more work to be done, more opening to new awarenesses, more embracing our purpose and why we are here, more letting go of what causes suffering for ourselves and others, and more nurturing of that which empowers us to grow spiritually and expand our capacity for wisdom, compassion, consciousness, creativity, and Love.
Exploring where I fall on the continuum of being more or less conscious — more or less compassionate, more or less open and seeking, more or less kind and connected with my heart and the hearts of others — keeps me grounded in a continuous process of a searching and fearless moral inventory, of mindfulness, of evolving and growing more into the wholeness of my sacred being. This is the path that I have discovered which helps me to live less and less in the illusion of separation and instead with greater presence and rootedness in truth, compassion, love, and what my part is in alleviating the suffering in the world.
*****
It may seem presumptuous, perhaps like I am taking the inventory of others, to state my perspective that our world is likely to benefit if increasing numbers of us commit to an ongoing searching and fearless moral inventory — or however one wants to frame the process that will nourish the evolution of us individually and as a species. In illuminating this need and potential for our human evolution, I am affirming my belief in the value and need — for all of us who are able — to explore more deeply where we may be limiting ourselves and buying into narratives that keep us focused on symptoms rather than the whole of what is needing our attention, healing, and transformation.
I am also shining light on the greater truth that we will either choose to seize this moment in time to pursue dramatic changes within ourselves — our worldviews, our level of consciousness, the values we live by and practice, the stories and narratives we believe in, the passion with which we are committed to seeking the truth — or we will continue to be blindly complicit with maintaining the status quo that resists the profound changes that are needed to save ourselves and maintain a livable planet.
Cultivating ever deepening discernment, healing our injured instincts, allowing the shattering of our worldviews, lifting the veils of our illusions, recognizing and learning from and letting go of our smaller identities (such as that of being a Democrat or a Republican and all the ways that we create and perpetuate that polarities of in-groups versus out-groups), understanding Trump as a symptom and that getting rid of Trump without addressing how we got here will not get us off our suicidal path, etc., etc., takes great courage, support, and commitment.
Being in the world with our eyes and hearts open is truly that path of the Heart Warrior. And, as Riane Eisler so wisely affirms,
❤❤❤
May we be at peace.
May our hearts remain open.
May we know that beauty of our own true nature.
May we be healed.
❤❤
Bless us all on our individual and collective journeys.
May courage and consciousness be contagious!
And caring, kindness, wisdom, and love.
May we all be Heart Warriors!
Molly
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