Words that sing

Sometimes life just strips you bare
With cruel words or thoughtless actions
The barren ache of a lover’s “don’t care” 
The flaying words of heightened passions.

Sometimes life just leaves you huddling
Turning your back on life and light
Hugging to yourself the sorely troubling
Anguish of your lonely plight.

Sometimes life sends you nights spent alone
Fighting the nightmares with hands cut raw
Staring into darkness as blank as bone
As your thoughts obsessively worsen the sore.

Sometimes life, like some mystic rite
Demands that you strip yourself totally bare
And face the darkness of your inner night
To discover the limits of what you can bear.

Sometimes life, through suffering, shows you
That nude can be both strong and frail 
As, through exposure, your courage grows, you
Learn naked warriors can still prevail.

This was inspired by the monday mural at poefusion - the evocative image above uploaded to photobucket by ncajayon4.

Strand by strand
the tangled threads that
(once upon a dream)
bound us tightly together
were pulled apart.

Like kites we soared
until our confused lines
limited our flight
brought us down
to earth and the sad work
of disentanglement.

Some threads ripped out violently
By our sudden, painful fall.
Some that starved for lack
of even the simplest interaction.
Some simply faded with time.

And so there is no pain any more
for the confused tangle
that once bound my heart
like fishing line in a swan’s throat
is untangled. Gone.

The fears, the little dependencies,
The habits and insecurities
All stripped away.

And all that is left
is the single thread,
straight and pure
(uncorrupted by
any self interest)
of my love for you.

Now when I receive no benefit,
not even interaction,
now alone I can be sure
that no more self interest
is tangled in my love -
and that even among the tangles
that caused us both fear and pain
I truly loved you.

Stretching into the distance
towards the place where you vanished
I don’t know if that simple thread
of my love can reach you
in the distance you fled to.

But down it my heart freely pours
kind wishes and compassion
with no expectation of return.

Thread of life - tangled up, originally uploaded by ♥ up the faraway tree ♥.

I’ve been thinking a lot about respect and liking at the moment (an inevitable consequence of having to say no to what people want on such a regular basis as part of my job!)

Needing to be liked is often given a bad name - and I can see that when taken to extremes it is deeply off-putting. But on another level - perhaps it would be better to say “wanting” to be liked - I think it is a legitimate part of being human. For me one of the interesting aspects of my desire for respect and liking is that it’s reciprocal - it’s not that I want everyone to like and respect me, but I do want the people I like to like me, and the people I respect to respect me. For me, the opposite of insecurity isn’t an insensitive not-giving-a-damn-what-other-people-think, but a confident ability to be open to what other people think. It’s not about rejecting others’ critical opinions automatically, but being able to consider their merits and decide whether their opinions are fair and unfair. Why should it bother me if someone whose judgements are poorly founded makes negative judgements about me?

My break-up with my ex gave me a very dramatic illustration of this principle in action. While we were going out, my trust and respect for him made me very open to his opinions, and very hurt when he said negative things. With hindsight I should have realised more quickly that much of what he was saying was wrong, but because I took him seriously, I took what he said seriously. And I wanted to believe that he was still the person that I had fallen in love with, so I wanted to believe what he said. But - far too slowly - doubts started to creep in.

He criticised me a lot for needing approval - indeed he seemed to view our last conversation as a desperate attempt on my part to get his approval and get him back. But for me it was much more about trying to understand what was really going on, and what had gone wrong. The more I examined what had happened between us, the less I saw anything about what I was, or what I had done, which might have justified his rejection and hurtful comments. I wanted to know why someone I liked and respected didn’t return those feelings. Something had to give.

As it happened, that conversation was a vital part of my recovery, not because he gave his approval, but because his reactions showed me how little he deserved the respect and trust that I had placed in him. It was very clear that the judgements he was making were based on extremely dodgy ground (”energy reading” shaped by fear and projection) and had almost nothing to do with me. Even gentle questioning of his judgments about my behaviour was met with defensiveness and ill-founded accusations.

This was not something I could respect, and certainly someone who was so confused was not someone I could trust. And as my respect for him faded, the pain of being rejected faded too. I still felt - still feel - love and affection for him, because I know the difficult past and present cultish manipulation that made him behave as he did. But without trust and respect, affection and compassion are not sufficient as a basis for a friendship, still less a romantic relationship.

Of course it’s important not to have a “sour grapes” approach, and decide that we don’t respect people purely because they don’t respect us. But at the same time, if someone has negative opinions about us, how seriously we take that surely has to depend on whether those opinions are justified.

It strikes me that, when it comes to others’ opinions, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Suspecting that other people have negative views about me will never be comfortable, and the natural response is to shy away. But I am coming to the conclusion that trying to really understand their opinion of me will be easier to deal with, even if that opinion is negative. Because if I understand why they think the way they do, I can either accept it as real and work on it, or reject it as wrong. I’ve always been open to other people’s thinking, and this has been a source of positive personal growth for me. But I’ve sometimes been too open, and been hurt by unjustified opinions.

Having confidence in myself, and a clear knowledge of who I am, is vital both for daring to enter into that process and surviving it. The sense I have developed, over the last year, that who I am is fundamentally acceptable, including my flaws, is a vital part of that confidence and knowledge.

Because I have learnt to accept who I am, I can be open to experiences and opinions that will show me where the gaps may be.

Because I have a sense of what I am like, I can filter what I hear, and reject opinions that don’t deserve consideration before they can damage me.

I’m getting quite a bit of practice at the moment in dealing with a situation where I have to do things that people don’t like, and accept the likelihood that they won’t like me as a result. And it’s not easy to deal with - I keep feeling that there must be some way to do what has to be done and still be liked. But I am in a difficult situation, and being fundamentally likable and worthy of respect does not mean that everyone will always see that.

I am holding to several different things at this point. Perhaps most importantly this sense of being a fundamentally acceptable and likable person. But also a recognition of my own limitations - that there are some aspects of the situation that no ingenuity or good will can change. A recognition that people’s perception of me will be coloured by many of these things that are beyond my control. And an attempt to be consistent and principled in those aspects that I can control - above all, keeping my word, even if that means being discouraging until I’m sure that encouragement is justified.

It’s not always easy to protect myself from being affected by this difficult situation, and I’m devoting quite a lot of time to internal maintenance and care. But mostly it’s working - and a large part of that my success is being able to build on the lessons I’ve learnt from the break-up. Yet another example of how much stronger I have become as a result of something that seemed so destructive at the time…

Often recently I’ve found myself experiencing moments of unexplained happiness.

They don’t seem to have much to do with my life circumstances in any obvious way.

It’s just every now and again I feel so glad to be alive, and to be me. Riding up to my apartment in the lift this evening I suddenly just felt like dancing.

It’s a bit like those moments when you’re in the early stages of falling in love and you get those intense flashes of feeling great about yourself and where you are in your life.

Except I’m not in love. And life is certainly no bed of roses at present - full of challenges.

But perhaps that’s why I have these flashes of feeling good about myself - when I feel I’ve dealt well with a challenge, had a productive day, turned a rock into a rose.

I think it’s also got a lot to do with resting comfortably in a sense of who I am, and the value of the person I am. The deep confidence that I won from the teeth of a painful rejection. It’s definitely part of me now, but I tend to forget it quite easily, so I’ve been consciously trying to strengthen that feeling, sometimes doing something close to a meditation practice, othertimes just trying to remember that feeling when things aren’t going well. It seems to be bearing fruit.

I sincerely wish that you, much-appreciated reader, may also experience sunbursts of inexplicable happiness in your life.

I’m getting back to doing real singing practice again after a fairly long hiatus, and it’s throwing up some interesting challenges.

I recently commented on a poll over at readwritepoem, comparing the pleasure and naturalness of my experience of singing and of writing poetry:

The difference is the expectations I place on myself. Poetry I write for myself, principally, and thus it gives me great pleasure. Singing had become something I did for others and so it became an effort. Hard to judge whether my poetry gives others as much pleasure as my singing - but I feel it certainly achieves more pleasure in others at a cost of much less pain to me - that’s what I mean by it coming easily.

I’m working my way back to singing naturally and easily too - but it’s a slow process once you’ve lost that sense of freedom and ease.

I think I’ve done less singing in the last six months than any other time in my life. Which was partly a combination of emotional fallout from the breakup and the challenges of moving to a new job and a new country. But I think more importantly it’s been to do with the pressure I put on my singing in an attempt to become a professional singer. The high standards I set myself. And the blows to my confidence of receiving a succession of rejections - including rejections from courses and companies working at an amateur level. Anyway, with all of this I lost the confidence in my own ability to sing.

For a while, I just floundered, feeling I was betraying myself by not pursuing this dream that had been part of me, yet finally realising that there was no way I could pursue that dream at that time. I had to give myself space. At the same time, I was rediscovering writing, which felt like a far more natural and personal way of expressing myself, without the pressures of singing. I even started writing my own songs, which is a fascinating and satisfying process.

Now I think it’s time I started reclaiming my voice, and my singing. Recovering the joy and the naturalness - while at the same time not being lazy about technique. I have learnt a lot over recent years about finding my natural voice and trusting it to sing. My expectations got in the way there - I kept trying to produce the sound a particular way, rather than doing some basic things that free the voice to express its full resonance and communicative potential.

But it’s hard. Expectations get in the way of everything, but without expectations you don’t get anywhere. It’s a zen-like paradox! Somehow I must find the middle way in my singing. Wish me luck!

I walk in sunshine, yet clouds still dog my feet
My hopes are still tinged by the residue of old pain.
Endlessly in my mind fantasies of healing repeat.
How can I clear this debris from my brain?

This shadowy flotsam of broken dreams,
Of half-healed wounds and unspoken words…
I seek to escape these wistful themes
Yet they circle in my mind, like scavenging birds.

What nourishes this sullen, persistent cloud?
It feeds on my wishes for wholeness and healing.
My fantasies of speaking my truth aloud;
Of tying off the strands of our love’s unravelling.

I have scoured the darkness for wisdom’s rain
And healed my wounds as I sifted old tears.
But now there is nothing left for me to glean.
The searching is a habit, but nothing new appears.

The clouds are more a nuisance than a source of pain
And cold truth tells me there is nothing I can do
Scratching the scar just makes it hurt again.
Only refusing to look backwards will clear my skies anew.

I know this, yet my heart yearns to give its all,
To reach out and try to heal those shadows again,
Pouring the energy of my hopes into the pall -
Yet knowing there is nothing left at all for me to gain.

Soon now, I must leave those clouds to roam,
Let them drift unheeded until they erode.
But oh, the sadness of seeing clouds drifting alone
In a mist of old tears, at the end of that love’s road.

“Part of letting go is learning to live with the misunderstanding, the incompleteness and the messiness of it all” - Paul McKenna

I think I understand, now, why I’ve recently been experiencing a bit more sadness about my ex than I’ve been used to in recent months.

It’s very simple - I feel lonely just now. It’s a loneliness that is an inevitable part of starting a new life in a new place. I am isolated in the office because of the nature of the job, which will not really change. And I’m isolated in my personal life because it takes time to meet people when you’ve just arrived. This will change, indeed is already changing, and I’m familiar enough with this process of relocating myself that I can wait patiently and proactively to make new friends.

But what I hadn’t expected was that feeling lonely in my life in general would make me feel lonely for a partner. Not my ex, but the person I thought he was when we first met - or someone with some of the same qualities.

I miss that feeling of having someone on your side, who’s there for you when you need them as you’re there for them when they need you. Someone who’s there to do things with - making it safer and more fun to explore a new country. Yes, I miss that. And the stab of pain at the weekend was the memory of how it felt to have those hopes so cruelly and suddenly betrayed - the pain of finding that someone who I thought was on my side didn’t respect or trust me. That he was damaging rather than strengthening my confidence and happiness. That he couldn’t bear to be in my company, and any contact with me was increasing the intensity of his distress and fear.

The wound left by that betrayal has largely healed now, which is why I was surprised to feel that pain again. The loneliness of starting a new life just brought it all a bit closer to the surface than I expected.

Still, I am already making progress in filling my new life with interesting people, and so I know this sensitivity will soon fade again. This process goes in phases of pain and learning - they’re much gentler now, and don’t distress me even a fraction as much as they used to. But still there is a lot to learn from each new period of sensitivity.

… a sudden pain like a stab to the heart. Why? I caught a glimpse of a photo of my ex on facebook. After all this time, sometimes there are moments when the hurt springs out of nowhere and spills over into my new life like some sludge of polluted dreams. It’s so rare these days for anything to do with him to hurt, indeed the last time must be well over a month ago, but somehow it hurts all the worse for that.

It’s strange too - it has nothing to do with wanting to see him again, or wishing we hadn’t split up. It’s just simply a flashback to the pain of breaking up… heartbreak reflux?

I feel a strange tranquillity at the moment.

My job is really very challenging, with a lot to learn and a lot to manage. Because of my role I’m also quite isolated within my team, though they are a friendly lot. And I’m in that stage of not really being settled into my new life here - it always takes time to establish new friends and new social activities, and I’ve only been here less than 3 weeks. And though I brought quite a lot of books out with me I’ve read and re-read them until I’m fed up with them, and the rest of my library hasn’t caught up with me yet! On one level I should be feeling stressed and demoralised and lonely and bored.

And yet I feel this strange feeling of relaxation, of sufficiency. A feeling that the waves may be big but I’m a tough little boat navigating the best course I can.

Perhaps this is another bonus of the heartbreak and turbulence of last year, and the enormously strengthened self-confidence with which I have emerged. Some of my worst interpersonal nightmares came true in an intense period of self-doubt made almost unbearable by the strangely physical agony of heartbreak. And yet I survived, and not only survived but came out strengthened.

I can’t imagine anything at work that would approach that level of deeply personal pain and stress, so it seems silly to worry about what this job will be like. And I am doing my best to keep to the advice I gave myself on my first day, which is basically about having realistic expectations of myself. Yes, it will be difficult, but I have confidence in my own ability to not only survive difficulties but learn and grow in the process.

Photo by merlineden at flickr

As I said in an earlier post, my close friends (you know who you are!) were absolutely vital for me in dealing with the break-up. As one of them said, sometimes it’s utterly crucial to have people whom you can turn to and ask for an outside opinion:

“I know I’d get really lost without outside neutral (insofar as friends can be) witnesses if I were in your position. Sometimes it all sounds so crazy you wonder if you’re the one who’s the nutter. But let me reassure you, you are not a nutter!”

When you lose your own anchoring self-esteem in the face of a storm of personal criticism, it is so useful to be able to raft up with someone who knows you well enough to be able to say with confidence that the criticism is wrong. For example, my ex said that I was too dependent on him - he seemed to take the view that any reliance on other people was a weakness. And for a while I almost believed this was true. So it was an incredible comfort to read this:

“From having been your friend for the last 14 years (!) I would say the biggest change I have noticed in you is the development of your ability to rely on others, and to talk to others when you have problems, rather than keep it all inside as you did.  I see that as a sign of huge strength, to be able to talk to others, to hear what they say and to make yourself vulnerable by opening up to the possibility of rejection. 

As the months have passed I have regained my strength, my confidence, and enough anger to protect myself and define my own boundaries. But there were a few months where I really did need support, and I am profoundly grateful to my friends for the way they helped me through that time.

So for them, I have written this - another text for the series “Songs to heal a broken heart” (see earlier posts here).

The hugs, the tea, the sympathy
The warmth, the anger for me,
The insights and the confidence
These gifts my friends give to me.

I long to see my lover
And my heart is slow to mend -
But my life is far from empty
While I have the love of my friends

The certainty of long familiarity
A faith that is not blind,
The tissues, the food, the company -
My friends are wise and kind

I long to see my lover…

The comfort and the distractions
The patience and the time
The wisdom and the sharing
I receive from these friends of mine

I long to see my lover…

Photo: friendship can never be measured…, originally uploaded by rAmmoRRison.