On the way home from a visit with my mother I felt myself roiling like molten lava. She began talking about money she had recently lent me to help with the expense of a remodeling project. As she talked decades of anger began to ignite and I told her I needed to end this conversation or leave if she could not give it a rest.
Fortunately it takes me a few hours to drive home from where she lives. I was able to contact a friend on the drive and debrief the experience I had with her and how it had summoned decades of anger. Years ago, when our kids were young and before I had done any of my own therapy, had something like this happened I would have walked into the house and this residue from the past would have spilled over the family and evening like hot tar on a fine linen tablecloth. Such awareness has led me to tell clients of my belief that the second most difficult challenge we humans have is a healthy, intimate, committed relationship with another person. For it is in this context we are touched, poked, caressed and connected in ways that bring all of our history to some level of consciousness. My wife or one of the kids could have said anything and this lava would have spilled out on them. Many people do not have the skills to deal with this in healthy, constructive ways. So feelings such as my anger invade the relationship, tar the tablecloth. Alternatively a person may develop a shell so they do not get affected by others, we may suppress our hurt and anger. Some people seem to go through life and find a way to be content with simply dealing with the world around them and rarely, if ever, examine their interior, intrapersonal life. In an intimate relationship such as marriage, partners build a degree of safety sufficient to uncover vulnerable, private, tender parts of themselves. This happens in a multiple dimensional way. It’s readily apparent how this happens physically. Less consciously though we also open the deep desires of our tender heart and wounded soul. In The Forgiving Self, by Robert Karen, and in Growing up Again, by Jean Clark and Connie Dawson this process is described eloquently. As time passes the joy and bliss that may have shown brightly in the beginning of the relationship may be augmented by the discoveries of similarities and meeting of minds and hearts. But this train is composed of much more than two new, shinny, grand locomotives. Each person comes with a train of numerous cars. Each car holds features of the person’s past. So marriage is an intersection of these two trains. Even with the strongest of intentions to the contrary, train wrecks will happen. Avoidance, distractions, addictions, defenses, fear, naiveté and even unrecognized or misguided good intentions can, over time, leave the early joy and bliss mangled, discarded and far off the track. So how do all of me and all of you come together without this devastation? If there were a radio playing old songs we might hear “All of me, why not take all of me…†sung by Frank Sinatra followed by the Bee Gees singing “How do you mend a broken heart?†Hurt happens. It is part of the human experience just as legitimately and certainly as a twinkle in the eye, a laugh or the burn in the throat when you step from a warm room outside into frigid temperatures. The greatest challenge a person has is a healthy relationship with him/herself. If I attend to that pot of boiling tar I am less likely to spill it on the tablecloth and experience more twinkling eyes and laughs.
"If I am I because you are you, And if you are you because of me, Then I am not I and you are not you. But, if I am I because I am and you are you because you are you then I am and you are." ~Rabbi Heschel
Hence lies what I believe to be the greatest challenge. Who am I? Who is the me that got so angry with my mother? Who is the you that got so scared when I didn’t come home at the agreed upon time? Who is the me that got so hurt when you turned aside my interest in sex last night? Who is the you that was not interested in my affection and warmth and unaware of the words I could not speak for my need for inclusion and to be valued? Developing such a curiosity, the compassion to witness, the skills to reveal and listen and the wisdom to hear can begin in therapy and is honed on the wet stone of life. We are simultaneously alone and together. I am I, you are you and we are. We both dance a warm and wonderful dance and we get off track and sometimes wreck so many lives. I believe we can learn, we can heal, we can love more and again. In following postings here on GoodTherapy I will address this intriguing, demanding , heart mending, soul soothing, and exciting process. Please feel welcome to read these postings and if you wish to do so, email me your related thoughts and feelings. Depending on the volume I will respond to you in email, a future posting or prayer and meditation.
About the Author
Dennis Thoennes, Ph.D., ABPP, is therapist who practices in Redmond who will listen, care and help you learn about you and what will help you find meaning, effectiveness, and peace. Dennis can be reached through her profile page at GoodTherapy or Therapist Vancouver
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