Pain into Ritual—A Turning Point

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

More anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

Yeats, The Second Coming

The Bear and child are engaged in a ritual portrayal of a Turning Point, releasing Pain and Self-deception to replace Abnormal delusions with the Truth.

In learned helpless experiments, dogs who have suffered inescapable shock will not break free of their pen if a door is simply left ajar. They need to experience the escape, to stamp the release from captivity onto their physiology, and this requires being dragged out. Many times. Ritual requires repetitive action.

In a very real sense, inescapable shock is what we have all faced. Returning to “the moments” (when we had insufficient power to alter the outcome), we now have the possibility of changing fundamentally the helpless portrait and its tragic narrative. In some way, we will need to enact our liberation. And often we need assistance from others to be released, often a literal helping hand, or we can invoke a symbolic spirit like this Bear.

If you have no person like this in your life, then recognize that you have (you are) an Inspired Self.

Why this painting?

We must respond to the X-posing that has revealed a source for our mistaken understanding. “I’m at fault and weak.” I’m unlovable.” “The world is dangerous.” “Nothing is to be trusted.” Such lies have been “loosed” upon the world and have lived as an embodied unraveling of our security and significance. It is where our “innocence is drowned.” In the X-posing the energy forms of the Fallen World, we see that our adaptation (fight, flight, collapse, submit) was an attempt at a solution, but we were too limited (too small, powerless, without awareness, without support. Eventually, in this X-posing, some level of self-compassion has the potential to break through.

In the X-posing, the question we sought to answer is “In my exploration, does this seem like I have gotten to something?” If we can say, “yes,” then we can move forward. Now we can shift our attention. Now, what we seek to gain from Pain into Ritual is freedom from the past. The freedom to be more aligned with the Awakened Child, the Artist, Lover, and Visionary.

Of course we cannot change actual history, but that’s not the goal of the Turning Point, nor is it a reasonable intention. The focus is how to interrupt a mistaken story, to tell a different narrative, to alter the faulty wiring in the neuro-ception. By some act—an act of imagination that feels right—we express our  wish for possibilities to be opened. Jacob Mareno describes that as moving beyond our “creative neurosis” by a “novel and adequate” response. The pertinent question now is, “How do I want to change this narrative?”

Inside out:

Action arises out of the Pain. Feeling the old emotional excess, but not getting lost in it, we must endeavor to construct a creative response. The response is always Ritual. It’s not a behavioral program nor advice nor a group consensus nor necessarily the first thought we have. These are not thought exercises; we seek Inspired actions that arise on the stage of our imagination. Our mission is to affirm spontaneity and creativity, boldness, and clear assertion—the Loving-Playful-Powerful-Work—that opens a Turning Point in the story, letting something new arise out of the moment.

We may need to fight aggressively against the forces aligned against us. As a Ritual, we could allow ourselves to feel our rage, to feel the e-motion (to put the energy in motion), while we run on a treadmill or engage in other vigorous exercise. Or could use an expressive art process to feel our grief and let paint flow until the emotional basin is emptied enough that we can choose what to fill ourselves with. In the Tragic dramas, we may seek to find “rescuers” who can intervene and support us. Eventually, we understand that rescuers who help us out of the window from the rooms where we have been retrained are stand-ins for capacities that we have now within ourselves. But as a Ritual, we could gather a group of friends or just one friend or a therapist and tell what has happened, so we begin to release our Pain to people who would have been willing to fight for us. We may decide to bring our mindful adult wisdom to past events, as a visualization, giving hope and love to the lost child. Or we may want to interact with an “ideal” parent, taking their role and writing a letter from them to us, feeling the unconditional love denied us by the less-than-ideal parents we were born to.

As we imagine a different ending that can then be enacted and felt, we become both the director of our own rescue and the wounded Heart that’s released and pulled from the cage. In this, we regain a deep sense of personal agency. We seek until we feel assured it is time to ask the final questions, “Does this feel like an ending in this moment?”  “Does this feel complete for now?” The closing of any one drama happens whenever we can answer “yes.”

Upside down:

Experts will tell you what is wrong and will prescribe for you. Your family will tell you that it is better to stay the way you are because changes will disturb them. Old voices may tell you that healing in the way that you choose is disloyal, or histrionic, or selfish, and if you break the no-talk rule and speak out about what has been done to you, then you are not grateful enough. Your life coach may tell you that you just need to be “antifragile.” Suck it up, buttercup. The media will happily distract you from Pain and help you accept your addictions.

You will get confused and injured if you listen to a society that is Upside-down.  At the Turning Point, only you can decide and direct the drama. The way out must be in harmony with your central beliefs. No one can drag you from this pen through an opening that they think is best. You must find your escape and imprint it anew in your Heart, mind, and body. For this to be an “adequate and novel” response to the barriers, whatever you do must be congruent with their identity.

It’s not uncommon for those who love you to think you would benefit from openly confronting an abuser, but that’s too far out of the comfort zone for many and can even be retraumatizing. More important than any clever and creative notions anyone else offers, you will heal and grow by selecting your own path. I think it is true that you will heal faster and more completely in the arms of another but only in the arms of someone who is willing to walk beside you. Repeat and refine and play with your Rituals until the body knows that it is free.

Rituals

To make this more specific, if not more reasonable, I will list several actions that could be used to creatively respond to Barriers.

When the Heart-drama exposes how you have been robbed of your own inner life:

Honor Loving Playfulness

Soothe yourself when upset:

• Learn some techniques to calm oneself. Try relaxing your arms and legs. Take a bath. Watch a calming TV show. Try drawing or playing with a pet develop a practice that is loving toward yourself. See physical support such as chia and use mantras, and positive self-talk or try saying, “This too will pass.”

• Learn to fight gently, master fair-fighting rules, take breaks and then return to the discussion. practice disagreeing without devaluing others.

• Try visualizing practices or meditation or focusing activities. Try opening your body intentionally, making movements if you start numbing.

• Practice yoga, martial arts, engage in any safe activity that supports self-control.

• Join a support group or find a counselor who allows you to fully express your feelings.

• Be evaluated for pharmacological agents (meds).

Express yourself through different creative channels.

• Create artistic expressions about self, place, family.

• Use magazines to create a collage that portrays your Inside-Out and/or your Outside-in.

• Start a journal that you fill you fill with thoughts and drawings or write song lyrics or poetry.

• Paint an emotion that dominates your life or draw sketches or your family and self.

• Create a symbol of your core identity.

• Write letters of love and unconditional support to yourself from an idealized father or mother.

Be open to love and friendship and emotional support.

• Identify several people who are loving and share with them or write a gratitude letter or call them and tell them how much their friendship has meant to you.

• Practice listening to positive messages or videos that are affirming.

• Gain emotional catharsis through expression of your most painful experiences with one person you trust.

• Use role play to speak to people who have hurt you or speak to yourself at the age when you were hurt.

• Seek counseling and explore other community resources.

Develop a perception that you’re a good person.

• Compose a story about your history that emphasizes strengths or abilities.

• Practice weighing the value of critical feedback, and practice blocking anyone who gives you uninvited criticisms or tries to mislead you.

• Use self-hypnosis practices or self-affirmations to challenge the negative stories about yourself.

• Keep a journal of ways you have been loving or effective helping others.

• Find Cognitive Behavioral resources to help reprogram yourself with more rational and affirming statements and to recognize irrational self-talk.

• Role-play, becoming someone who loves you unconditionally. Role-play someone who treats you poorly, and respond to them in a way that is completely honest, allowing yourself to feel your own anger or other emotions you typically invalidate.

Understand emotions and practice self-discipline.

• Learn to dance or join a theater group or a therapy group or find a coach.

• Read self-help books or listen to audio lectures on ways to cope with difficult emotions.

• Work to observe rather than react, focusing on the outside rather than the inner turmoil.

• Use stress management techniques to lower overall stress, take deep slow breathes, tensing your muscles, then intentionally relaxing, or sighing intentionally to release physical tension.

• Use focusing techniques. Learn yoga or join a martial arts studio.

• Join a theatre group or an improv class.

• Join a skill building group: assertiveness, anger-management, parenting, couples skills etc.

Develop an interest in life-long learning.

• Explore one interest that you’ve not pursued before

• Find a mentor for the projects that gets stalled.

• Examine options for your career or take a career interest inventory.

• Become a student by joining a class, sign up for a workshop or a book club.

• Volunteer somewhere that feels purposeful or fun or where you might learn something new.

• Take a personality inventory to learn something about yourself.

Feel competent and capable of mastering situations and activities.

• Join an activity where you are not expected to be an expert.

• Make a commitment to join a adventure group or a sport-focused or a team for a season.

• Try a new hobby that you have wanted to try or join a class at a community college.

• Use visualization to reduce anxiety or build skills.

• Problem-solve obstacles with a person you trust.

Explore what can contribute to the greater good.

• Discuss ethical issues in a safe forum online.

• Read novels and philosophy and find a discussion group.

• Engage in a dialogue with others about significant issues.

• Choose an important value and advocate for it.

• Increase stewardship of the environment (recycle/reuse)

When the Heart-drama reveals that you have been conned into working to please others or you have lost interest in how you spend your time, feeling distracted, burned out or disillusioned.

Honor Loving Work

Build the skills to discuss ideas and choices.

• Learn communication skills such as anger management or assertiveness.

• Locate some opportunities to debate your work and be open to listening.

• Practice responding skills, mirroring what others say or practicing staying present when others speak. Notice where you go in your mind when you do drift away.

• Xplore what is funny in life via a creative vehicle or method. Create a stand-up routine or a joke or two that you can try on playfully in conversations.

Pursue a career or increase education.

• Problem-solve obstacles to new opportunities.

• Find student or collegial support or mentors.

• Research training opportunities or volunteer opportunities.

• Post resumes on job related websites and go on interviews just to understand new jobs or to ask questions.

• Take a test to identify interests and try something new that seems aligned with your interests.

Demonstrate high expectations.

• Make a list of your strengths and a list of opportunities.

• Make a plan and initiate steps. Notice any fear that arises and investigate it.

• Identify good models of behavior.

• Develop a support group that can hold you accountable in a way that you can tolerate.

Pursue social opportunities and pleasurable leisure activities.

• Join a volunteer group or be involved in a new interest with others.

• Teach a skill to someone less skilled.

• Be active in sports, creative activities, social groups, and religious groups.

• Go for walks and focus on sensations, take in what is around you, invite flow.

• Do something physically active that requires concentration but not much thinking: puzzles, games, gardening, cooking, painting.

Become physically fit.

• Join a health club.

• Begin a sport activity.

• Practice aerobic activity, 20 minutes three times per week.

• Buy and eat nutritious food.

• Weight train.

• Indulge in a massage.

• Commit to an aerobic exercise.

• Take nutritional supplements.

• Develop one healthy habit.

Work on your art.

• Commit to a regular practice and invite flow experiences. Notice what interferes.

• Notice what you say about your art that diminishes it.

• Create a place for your art to occur.

• Practice resisting Inside-out or Upside-down distractions.

• Notice who disrespects your art. Notice who seems to respond authentically and without bullshit.

• Notice what you are feeling a tug to do that is different, out of your comfort zone.

• Create something that you believe has no marketable value but could be beautiful or truthful.

When the drama reveals that you are armoring in the company of others. You are mistrustful or hypervigilant with muscle tension, urges to take control and be self-protective. Or you are avoidant or submissive.

Honor Powerful Work

Become an integral part of a relationship by taking on responsibilities.

• Delineate chores or discuss expectations clearly.

• Have regular times to meet with someone you feel connected to and discuss issues that are often avoided. Make a list of important issues and prioritize them and raise one that feels risky.

• Exchange roles or try some role reversals. Take on a task or experiment with an attitude that you typically avoid.

• Encourage another. Tell someone how they have positively impacted you.

• Learn communication skills-especially listening and speaking directly to the deeper concerns.

• Practice respectful assertiveness.

Have a positive influence on others.

• Create pleasurable activities with loved ones.

• Stop any escalating conflicts immediately. Consider disagreeing without resentment. Visualize what it would it be like if you stopped taking things personally. Are there any fears about what would happen?

• Schedule times to talk that are mutually agreeable.

• Don’t avoid; raise important concerns respectfully.

• Don’t harass; learn to self-soothe.

• Find ways to enjoy life by yourself.

• Attend a church.

• Join a team sport.

• Find others who share your interests.

• Attend to destructive patterns—take them seriously, notice the consequences.

Be involved in intimate and caring relationships.

• Develop friendships. Show mercy and being generous.

• When you feel personal distress, try turning to help others. Use daily affirmation and prayers to stay grateful.

• Take 15 minutes a day to create a drawing, a mandala, a poem.

• Remind yourself that life is not all about production. Consider something active but totally meaningless just because you haven’t done it in a long time or ever.

• Challenge confining roles and be more varied.

• Avoid destructive social games.

• Find people who are capable of intimacy.

• Embrace novelty and growth experiences.

• Be accountable, really ask for assistance in the plan you have for change.

• Practice going to someone and ask for help.

• Love and express love openly to the degree that you can. Then push the boundary.

Express and receive clear messages regarding rules, norms, and boundaries.

• Express your thoughts directly to yourself and then to one other person.

• Express your thoughts to the person you need to (so change can occur).

• Express feelings with the appropriate level of intensity.

• Work toward a win-win solution in a conflict. Roleplay saying, “No.” Roleplay saying, “Yes.” Practice slowing your respond to a request, wait for your heart to give you an answer

• Seek input from objective sources. Seek input from subjective sources.

• Experiment with different rules and roles.

• Empathize.

• Establish a list of things that you will not accept (final straws or bottom lines)

Be involved in mentoring relationships.

• Join sports or creative activities.

• Reexamine the people in your life, looking for positive forces and influences.

• Journal about possible role models from anywhere and everywhere.

• Mentor others.

• Wait with an open mind for someone who will benefit from and ask for your experience and understanding.

Have one-to-one relationships with extended family members.

• Talk with older relatives directly.

• Create a family tree and look for patterns.

• Attend weddings and funerals.

• Write letters or telephone relatives.

• Arrange a family gathering.

When the dramas reveal that you are painfully self-contained, narrow in your awareness of anything outside your small concerns, or acting without regard for life.

Honor the Landscape of Powerful Play

Define truth and reality based on your own experiences.

• Describe your beliefs in detail, journal. Develop a manifesto.

• Find a counselor or spiritual mentor you can trust,

• Debate your beliefs often but with compassion and listen.

• Consider alternative views. Find a view that is opposite of your own and learn about the genealogy of that belief.

• Read poetry and great literature from different traditions.

• Reflect on your experiences, asking, “What do I really know?”

• Find a church or community that brings diverse people together.

Embrace exceptions to the tales others tell of you.

• Identify the times you acted differently than “the tale” expects

• Talk to people who know your history and get their impressions

• Develop a relationship with your extended family, especially those who are distant

• Creatively express your memories and history

• Write down a list of strengths and personal resources

• Ask friends for their impressions of your strengths and resources

• Develop an interest that runs counter to “the tale” others tell of you

• Imagine yourself as a superhero with one of your talents exaggerated

Embrace a story about life that’s liberating and soul nourishing.

• List inspiring goals-make them exceptional

• Write down beliefs that are affirming and that pull people together

• Write down beliefs that are demeaning and that pull people apart

• Become a mentor

• Read transcendental and motivating writers

• Become socially active

• Become politically active

• Develop diverse friendships

• Develop diverse interests

• Limit contact with people who are destructive and negative

Refuse to frame stories of others based on external sources.

• Identify your restraining and discouraging beliefs.

• Identify people you associate with who share these beliefs,

• Identify your more encouraging beliefs.

• Identify places and people that promote these affirming beliefs.

• Make clear decisions about who to associate with.

• Become a coach or mentor.

• Be involved in some form of community service.

• Notice when you are being invited into hating another or gossiping.

Be creative in ways that run counter to expectations.

• Develop a new interest.

• Find a creative-expressive outlet.

• Join a group that offers a way to grow (12 step group or synagogue group or a therapy group.

• Find a support group where you can feel safe enough to discuss your hopes and dreams.

• Challenge negative stories about yourself.

Demonstrate commitment to others over time.

• Specify your commitment.

• Develop rituals of affirmation that express commitment.

• Celebrate success in your relationship.

• Verbally affirm important people in your life regularly

• Buy small gifts that express love and give it to someone who least expects it.

• Create ceremonies or activities that reaffirm.

Develop a sense of universal coherence, a more spiritual path.

• Discuss spiritual beliefs with someone who might share your vision.

• Identify daily practices that promote spiritual development or appreciation and awe.

• Attend religious services.

• Join reading/discussion groups.

• Pray

• Meditate

• Read affirming and inspirational writing.

More Rituals

Assertions

Saying Yes. What have you put off doing that will serve you? Consider why you have procrastinated. Does it need to fit in your life? Then schedule a time, now. What is this about? Are you not important enough? Do you allow too many distractions? If you commit to a yes, reaffirm that daily. Practice saying yes. This is important.

Saying No.  Is there something that you have agreed to do that is no longer in your best interest? Is that a pattern? Pay attention to what your heart and gut are saying. Consider what this is about for you. When did it start? How did it seem to serve you then? What is the payoff now? Practice “no.”

Saying I will. Removing “maybe” from your vocabulary or I’m sorry or I’m trying or any other phrase that suggests that you are not capable enough to make something happen. And deliberately using an “I statement,” to reflect your power.

Boundaries and Limitations

List your limitations on a piece of paper. To avoid exhaustion and burn-out, make some decisions since you are human and cannot do all things or anything perfectly, even if that is uncomfortable to admit. Identify someone or place or things that demand more than you can give, or that deplete you, or unbalance you to the point that you cannot be your best. Practice saying, “That is more than I will do.”

List your boundaries. What do you need to keep out (or limit) that depletes you? Give yourself permission to say out loud and directly what you will not allow. Practice, “That will be a problem for me.”

Restraints

“What do I have to get rid of?” A belief that has become outworn? Is there a belief that you want to replace it with. Is there a fear that is keeping you from letting go or keeping you from your potential? If something impedes you, consider ways to be released.

Try this: Tie a rope around you. After reflecting, feel the pressure, tension. Visually see how the rope can represent the burden that restrains you. Then untie the rope. What comes up for you?

What do you need to face? Journal about it. What areas of your life have you been avoiding? Is there something that you want to commit to?  Baby steps to address what you have put out of mind? Decide specifically what, where, when, and/or how you will do this. Specific plans will provide you with a way to determine if you are following through. And do not dismiss or minimize missing a few days here and there—Resistance is telling you something important so bring it on stage and get to know it.

Anchoring

“What do I need to shift?” Sit is a chair and allow yourself to fully feel in your body what has been difficult. Imagine it as a color or a texture or a sensation or an image that can slowly seep from the top of your head into the chair. Let it fully empty out of you.

Next move to a different chair, and invite better energy, something loving towards yourself, that rises up from your feet. Feel it within your body.

Consider what you are grateful for or look forward to.

Consider something you can do with your body to support this new state. Take a walk. Call a friend. Plan an excursion.

 A Harm Soliloquy

“Who do I need to confront?” It is not always clear if to confront or who to confront. For example, if you have been injured as a child by a parent, they may have changed over time and may no longer be that person. They may be better or worse. I would encourage speaking about the harm first by writing a letter that you will not send. This provides both a chance to express yourself fully, without reservations, and it also has a safeguard because you know you will not send it.

If you decide to do this, then do not hold back. Curse as much as you want. Say everything and anything in any way. Tell them to burn in Hell and give details if that feels overpowering.

But also limit the time you will spend on this. An hour at most. Then put it away.

Afterwards do something physical. Go to a gym if you can and feel the energy release. As you have probably heard, emotion is E-motion which means it is energy that you need to set into motion. Exercise is probably the best for this.

If you sit with this for a time and still feel a need to remind the offender how you were injured, be clear about what you want to accomplish. Talk to someone you trust first. Listen to their response but it is your decision of course. You might ask yourself, “Can I handle the worse that might come of this?” There is likely to be a reaction so consider the consequences. “Am I able to accept what comes from this?” Maybe it is best first to speak to an empty chair where you can imagine the offender is sitting?

Or enlist a friend or counselor to practice this on.

If you do decide on a confrontation, speak directly (one-to-one) with the person who hurt you. Avoid pulling in others to punish the offender. Avoid speaking to groups of people (both parents at the same time for instance).

Do not allow yourself to be gas-lit. Do not defend yourself. Defending yourself can make you more vulnerable to attack. Decide ahead of time if it is safe to provide any details about how this has impacted you. Keep your message clear and to the point. “This is what you did, and this is how it has been a problem for me.” End the communication if it starts to escalate.