Persistent memory

Why is it that now, of all times, I find my mind constantly drawn back to thinking about my ex? Now, many months since we split up and almost as long since we last communicated? Now, when I’m starting a new life in a new city and a new country. Now when so much is happening? For weeks I’ve barely thought about him at all, and then, during the last few days before leaving the UK, the thoughts started to resurface. Not distressing, not even particularly strong. Just a constant low grade wondering how he’s doing and whether he’s reached a point where we could talk about things.

Perhaps it’s that, having started a new life myself, it nags me to have these little bits of the past left unresolved because of his unwillingness to talk. Perhaps because of the anger still inside me that I have never expressed to him. Perhaps because, having come so far in my own healing and personal growth, I have an irrational hope that maybe he has made a little progress himself, and might be open to a real discussion. Or is it just that, in transit, I have had a lot of time to think and my mind just drifts back into the worn old tracks?

In my memory he is two people – one that was open, affectionate and vividly alive, and as I thought at the time, honest and committed to truth and personal growth and communication. That person I would love to hear from again because I truly loved him. But he was suddenly replaced by someone very different, someone arrogant and driven by fear. Someone who, despite his claims, was unable to face up to the truth, and who took out so much of his pain on me at a time when I was utterly open and vulnerable to him. That person I would also like to speak to again – but with a very different purpose. I want to tell him clearly what he did and how he hurt me. I want to express the anger that I started to feel only after he had closed off communication between us. I want to make him see, not that I was perfect, because I wasn’t, but how unrealistically negative a picture of me he constructed in his mind towards the end.

These two versions of him are very different - but either way, I find myself wanting to speak to him.

But it’s fairly academic. Given our last conversation, I don’t see how anything good will come out of a conversation that I initiate. And with each day that has gone past, it seems less and less likely that he will ever have the maturity and courage to face up to the way he behaved towards me and initiate contact from his side. So communication remains as unlikely as ever.

Part of learning to let go is learning to live with the incompleteness and the messiness, the words unsaid. I have come a very long way in doing that, and rebuilding what really matters to me. And tomorrow I start my new job, which will give me more than enough to occupy heart and mind. I suspect that this period of wistful memory will soon vanish in the rush of new things to do.

But sometimes those loose ends still itch.

Masks and fears – part 3

A strange thing happened the other day. A very close friend, who knew that I was planning some blog posts on masks, sent me a poem, which she’d sent me years ago and which had meant a lot to us at the time. And she suggested that it would be worth sharing on the blog. Here’s the link – Please hear what I’m not saying.But the poem didn’t have any resonance for me any more. A few years ago I’d not have said anything to her, but thanked her without telling her what I thought, because I don’t like criticising things that mean a lot to other people. But I’ve made some progress in my own removal of masks, so I told her honestly that the poem didn’t mean much to me any more.

I quoted this passage:

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope, and I know it.
That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It’s the only thing that will assure me
of what I can’t assure myself, that I’m really worth something

And I said:

“In a way, what has happened to me has been the very opposite – I opened myself to a glance that I thought was knowing and received neither acceptance nor love. And although it hurt me terribly, at the same time it has set me free in a way I never dreamed possible. Because it forced me to assure myself of what I’m worth, to be my own salvation, and my own strength. It’s quite an amazing feeling.”

Far from being bothered by the fact that I didn’t like the poem she’d sent, my friend replied:

“To tell you the truth, it had been ages since I’d last read it too… In fact, I didn’t even read it again before sending it to you. So your comments on the passage you selected rang far truer to me than what was said in the poem. You are perfectly right: no point us waiting around for someone else to give us an approving glance. In fact, that is often enough the root of many of our problems. We have to convince ourselves of our own worth and certainly NOT be dependent on anyone else’s approval – or it becomes hell!”

It struck me that this was a rather powerful illustration that it is possible to remove masks, and that if we have courage to be open to what life brings, we will learn what we need to learn, without hurting ourselves and others through unfortunate short-cuts, or being dependent on the approval of others.

And each day seems to bring me more examples of how this can be a beneficial process for me and those around me.

I’ve written about the dangers of trying to take a shortcuts to masklessness. But in some ways I suppose what happened to me was in effect a short cut. Several of my worst interpersonal fears came true at once, but I survived, and suddenly those fears no longer have any power to trouble me.  It’s not a journey that I’d wish on anyone, but it has helped me immeasurably.

I’m not all the way there yet, and there are still many fears and masks that I haven’t yet dealt with. But looking back I can see just how far I’ve come, and how much easier and more interesting life becomes!

Unfortunately that poem still speaks for the experience of so many people. And despite his claims I’m sadly fairly sure that my ex is still one of them.

I hope that he, and they, find a sustainable and authentic way to take off their masks and heal their fears.

Masks and fears – part 2

There is an art to being authentically ourselves without disregarding the needs of others.

The “express route” to being maskless that my ex was taking (see my earlier post masks and fears) seemed to be about two principles. Firstly being spontaneous and selfish about doing what he wanted – on the grounds that much of our kindness to others comes from fear of what they will do/say if we are not kind. (I think the idea was that once you got over your fear you’d start being genuinely kind, but it was never very clear to me how this was supposed to happen). And secondly, saying the first thing that came into his mind – presumably on the grounds that not saying it would reflect some form of self-censorship.

Writing about this makes me realise just how bizarre an approach to authenticity and masklessness this was!

It’s certainly important to be aware of your wants and your initial reactions. But we’re complicated creatures, and what comes out first isn’t necessarily the reaction that is most true to us. And if we’re not careful about how we express ourselves, there’s huge scope for misunderstanding. There’s also a huge difference between honesty and bluntness. We’re social creatures, and some degree of filtering and consideration for others is vital for oiling social wheels.

(Of course there are times when we need to take care of ourselves, and sometimes that means gently telling others that we can’t help them. But there are ways of setting boundaries in a compassionate and sensitive way – explaining why we can’t do something without blaming the other person for wanting it.)

I can’t be sure that these were the approaches he was taking – but going by some of the comments he made about my behaviour or his, I’m fairly confident that they at least featured in his thinking. I also don’t know whether these approaches to masklessness came directly from the course or were his interpretation of what they were teaching.

Either way, his approach to being maskless seems to have been painful for both of us.

From his side, he was putting huge effort into being “maskless”, and was probably genuinely hurt by my reaction to what he thought was his real self. But what I was hearing from him was unfiltered fear, defensiveness and later annoyance, and I had almost no time to get used to the transition from masked to “maskless”.

I never rejected him, but I would not and could not hide my distress (which was probably more difficult for him to cope with than rejection would have been!) And I didn’t, until it was too late, challenge the idea that what he was showing was genuinely his maskless higher self.

His approach to honesty caused other problems too. When he asked me a serious question, I dug down deep into myself to work out what I was really thinking and feeling, and then took more time to find the right words to communicate my thoughts with minimum scope for misunderstanding. Unfortunately he seemed to interpret the time it took me to reply as me being dishonest and defensive, editing my reactions and words to manipulate or please him! I eventually realised that there was nothing I could do that could restart communication between us.

In the end he cut off from seeing me and his other friends, apparently only able to be “authentic” with other people from the same course. (in itself a very disturbing sign).

So I don’t know whether his attempts at being maskless became more successful. I rather doubt it, given the weird and counterproductive way he was going about it.

What is the point of taking your masks off so quickly that you are unable to cope with interacting with people? Or, put another way, what does honesty mean if you’re not communicating?

I still think that it’s good to try to remove the masks and fears that stop you interacting openly and honestly with others – but shortcuts like these are dangerous. If you deal with the fear, the mask will fall away on its own; but if you just try to take off the mask without dealing with the fear, your “authentic” reactions will be defensive and fearful. And, as I have learnt to my cost, very hurtful to those close to you.

(continues in masks and fears part 3, here)

Evidence and expectations

I saw a fascinating film recently about a young boy with quadroplegic cerebral palsy. Because of his severe physical disabilities it was incredibly difficult to establish any method of communication with him. His mother devised all sorts of ingenious techniques for overcoming the physical blocks to communication, but was often met with scepticism from professionals who were not convinced of her son’s intelligence. Part of the challenge was that he was only able to communicate with physical assistance.

The film was powerfully put together, and I was very moved by the way his mother had to struggle against a system that seemed very rigid and unresponsive.

But I also watched with some doubt in my mind. (It’s not pleasant to doubt things that other people with so much more knowledge of a situation clearly believe so strongly, but sometimes holding back on asking difficult questions is a fake respect, implying that you don’t think they’ve considered the issue. So while I try to be polite and open minded, I am trying to have the confidence of my own doubts, and not worry overmuch about what people will think about me for asking.)

Anyway, I have recently (for example, here) been looking into new-age claims for dowsing and similar, and in particular the ideomotor effect. (There’s a good article on this at: http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/). Essentially, the movement of the pendulum or other device is influenced imperceptibly by the dowser’s state of mind, even though they are not aware of this and do not intend it. The effect is very misleading, so people dowsing are often sincerely convinced that the pendulum is reflecting something in the outside world, because they have no conscious intention of influencing its movement. Nevertheless, under double blind testing dowsing performs no better than chance as a measure of what is going on outside the mind of the dowser.

So in watching the video, I was worried to what extent this effect might be intervening in assisted communication. I sympathised deeply with the mother, but also with the professionals whose scientific training trained them to doubt, to demand consistency and exclude all possibility of experimenter bias. The ideomotor effect is so insidious – with someone who has to be physically supported for communication, how it is possible to be absolutely sure that the assistance isn’t affecting the message? How is it possible to design a test that would prove beyond reasonable doubt that this was not taking place? To what extent did the professionals have cause to be doubtful?

The film addressed this difficult question of how to be sure directly. Some of the people most closely involved with the boy spoke of their moments of doubt. But they felt that the real problem was that those who were assessing his intelligence were unwilling to challenge their preconceptions about what people with such severe communication barriers were capable of mentally.

Someone asked an interesting question at the meeting – is there training that could be given to professionals to suppor them to design their own ways of testing in these unusual circumstances? I like that idea – looking for tests that are as innovative as a loving mother, whilst still rigorous enough to give real certainty by excluding any potential for bias or randomness.

Our expectations will inevitably colour the way we interpret what we see in the world around us. And people with differing expectations will see the world differently. So the challenge is to set aside our attachment to our expectations and design tests that will bring us closer to the truth, whatever that is. It’s hard to do, but I can’t help feeling it’s crucial.

Of course it’s not always possible to reach that level of certainty, so sometimes we do have to deal with situations that really are ambiguous. In which case the only way to proceed seems to be to choose the viewpoint which is least likely to do harm if untrue.

When it comes to assessing intelligence, there seems to be a lot more harm in a false negative than a false positive. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to be an intelligent human being for whom communication with others is such a struggle. Making that struggle unnecessarily worse through preconceptions and overzealous scepticism is abhorrent. So it seems far safer to work on the basis that the person is intelligent, and draw on the experience of those who know the person best to understand what they wish to communicate.

One final thought – the woman who made the film was herself severely disabled and could only communicate with assistance. And her distinctive voice could be heard in the clear structure and strong message of the film. Which for me is a very powerful testament to the fact that difficulty in communication may obscure intelligence, but should never be assumed to mean that it’s not there.

With the best will in the world, our preconceptions about what is unfamiliar to us can easily get the better of us. So I am deeply grateful to her, and to those who participated in her film, for the way in which they have opened my mind.