Dissociation

I'm pretty open about the fact that I am a childhood sexual abuse survivor. The effects of that abuse have permeated every facet of my life in ways I'm still figuring out. One notable way is that I historically have dissociated quite a bit. I was aware that I did this during extreme duress becuase it would be very obvious then; I would be almost watching myself from a distance. But dissociation is a weird experience because it's hard to even know when you're doing it. And when you do it for your entire life, it's just how you are-- and it's very subtle. It also robs you of the self-awareness needed to see that you are doing it.

Last year, I started a lovingkindness meditation practice that has changed my life profoundly in deep and far-reaching ways. I started doing it because I didn't like my own internal, negative reactions to other people in many situations and I was looking for a practical way to change that. Meditation certainly did that, but it has also done so much more-- some things even more profound than what I want to share here about how I stopped dissociating because of doing it. It simply stopped happening. It grounded me in my body, my breath. 

I'm not sure when exactly I stopped dissociating, but I first noticed it when I sat down and watched a movie with my daughter a few months ago. It was the first movie I had watched in awhile, and for the first time in my life, it was effortless to follow the plot. People have always made fun of how much of movies I forget. I would have to exert an extreme amount of effort to follow a movie plot before. It was something I always struggled with, and my way of dealing with it would be to tell myself (inside my head) the story of what was happening in the movie as I was watching it-- like a little plot summary-- and I would simultaneously be watching the movie and missing parts of it while I was summarizing in my head what had happened thus far. But if I didn't do that, I would have no idea what had happened. It was really a taxing exercise. 

I never realized that the reason I couldn't follow a movie plot was because I was dissociating while I was watching it. I WASN'T really watching it; I couldn't sit in my body long enough to watch it. It’s kind of like being on a telephone call with a bad connection, only the telephone is your body and you’re interfacing with reality and it keeps cutting out; you have to fill in the gaps the best you can. TV shows were ok because they are shorter, but even some longer or more plot-dense shows gave me issues. For whatever reason, books are totally different. I think it may be because reading basically IS dissociating. Your body is doing one thing and your mind is sunk into the other world created by the author. 

It totally blew my mind when I watched a whole movie effortlessly, followed the plot, and enjoyed it. Life is going to be so much easier this way. I can't wait to watch ALL THE MOVIES!

It also dawned on me that I learned to dissociate when I felt the most abandoned, and that dissociation is learned self-abandonment. And in the same moment, I realized that I don't ever have to abandon myself again, and I won't. Not for anything or anyone. 

Human

My notion of what it means to be human
Is expanding in time with the universe,
Each inhalation creating more space
To collect every prior version of Self
At the table of limitless knowing.

Around this table, we all join hands
And bow our heads to receive
The feast of the unfolding moment
We welcome in when we breathe.

no time

time is always on your mind
never your heart

words flow out of my hands
get stuck in my throat

there is no beginning
there is no end

there's no such thing as getting ahead
try as i might inside my head

there is no going back
to alter your past.

i'll meet you in the moment
when we both learn how to hold it

Inside the Web

When you live inside a web
The whole world trembles on a thread,
Which can be somewhat terrifying,
Until you turn around and realize
That you're the one who's spinning it. 
Then you know you are the web,
And the world ceases to exist.

The Wordless Council

Come walk with me down to the bench 
At the bend in the sidewalk
Where the river and the canal meet and talk--
One from the depths and one from the shallows--
One moving fast and one moving slowly--
So each flows into each,
So the wordless council meets.

You think you'll never be forgiven
For the things you didn't do,
And that's not true. The reason you can't be forgiven
Is that the blame never belonged to you.

So let it go to nameless tributaries
Reclaimed by the earth
And let these words be the quiet room
Where you remember your soul's worth.

Shadow

Lost in the woods, I sat down by a tree,
And I asked it which way I should go.
"Inward and upward," whispered its leaves,
And the roots said, "Follow your shadow."

Meanwhile the bark, where I rested my
Shoulders remarked, "I have always grown
Outward in every direction--
Or at least in the ones you can see."

So I asked what it is that I do not see,
And he said, "You're not separate from me."

Authenticity

There is currently a group of Buddhist monks walking 2,300 miles from Texas to Washington, D.C.  to spread a sorely needed message of peace and lovingkindness across the United States. While they do stop to greet people and give addresses at waypoints, most of their message is conveyed through action rather than words. When they do speak, their words align with their message, and they have spoken about the mindfulness with which they take each step. They are a walking meditation and they wear their mindfulness like beautiful garments.

Their concept of walking meditation and the mindfulness of each step deeply resonates with me. I've been running for decades, and for much of that time, I was dissociated, lost in my thoughts and totally disconnected from my body. I thought that my disocciation was a super power; it allowed me to endure miles with bloody blisters, chafing, sore muscles, and basically ignore the pain. But I remember in 2016, when my local running club did a mile race challenge, I realized how present I needed to be in my body in order to run that shorter distance well. (The shortest run I had done prior to that was a 5K). When I ran the mile, I learned that every single step counted; there was no space to zone out and slow down. It forced me into the moment. 

More recently, I've called on my memories of mile race strategy to help myself to become more fully present in the moment while I'm running, and I've realized that running outdoors, particularly when alone, can be a beautiful extended meditation. Every time one of your feet makes contact with the ground, you are grounded in your body. Each footfall is my body's response in the ongoing converesation my spirit is having with the earth.

As I've worked on this, I've realized that what I'm really striving for is authenticity. I want my inner and outer worlds to be one and the same. I used to dream so large and think of that world as separate from this one, but I've realized my own agency to bring those dreams into reality. That's why I'm here. That's why we are all here. We were born in this world in order to live in it, not to suffer our existence while dreaming of another life. Authenticity is becoming, fully, who you have always been, even if you have do it while shaking.