When LIFE Wins
When life wins, we get creative. We write.
Warning: this essay contains references to suicide, death and stunningly beautiful writing.
In the wider spectrum of things, it's a lame example. But it’s fresh and personal, so I’ll use it:
Last week’s realization that I Wanna Dance was born after I caught a life-damning, internal diatribe red-handed and stopped it in it's tracks. It planned to snuff joy out of my life, pushing me to do something publicly that I wasn't ready to do, nor did I want to. Had I succumbed to its motives, I'd be involved right now in a life-draining project, driven by a pattern that was wired into me during my years of being a subtle, and not so subtle, recruiter.
The idealism that drew me into a cult for 18 years is wired into me, too - but in a different way. I believe that being an idealistic, socially oriented, romantic, optimist was stitched into my heart as it formed in my mother’s womb. It’s part of my Nature - for better and for worse.My idealism and fierce loyalty to what I believe in, was hijacked by my ex-teacher for his benefit. It was recently hijacked again, but for a much shorter period. And I nearly turned it against myself by hosting a public event instead of a private dance party.
The wife of my ex-teacher (cult leader #2) used to tell us to, “Leap before you are ready.” Working with dreams, we were often encouraged to jump from a cliff into the unknown. Maybe there's a time and a place for this approach. But NOT when we are healing.
When processing trauma after spiritual abuse, isn’t it best to hold ourselves in gentle self-respect? And we can stretch where and when we’re supported by the quiet inside knowing that we are safe. We can explore new territories with a nervous systems that's regulated.
Sometimes, however, the stakes are much, much higher than catching oneself from doing a life-draining event.
The lived experiences of individuals healing from cultic abuse includes devastation and annihilation of body, mind, and psyche. Writer's reckon with suicidal ideation, familial estrangement, and assault. There is a darkness that descends when people are dehumanized to the degree that death becomes an appealing option.
Beyond that darkness however, is a field for those who turned towards life instead. There, resilience and creativity turn the tide of darkness and life wins.
Life wins when the shot not fired cracks open love for a child. Hope sprouts unexpected tendrils of new connections. These tendrils become love letters.
Life wins when the death of one parent opens the cage of oppression by the other one. And in the desire to live, nine poems are born.
Life wins when mysterious bruises propel an exit from danger, returning to the safety of true home. Resilience breathes into broken spaces, bathing in gratitude for life. A powerful essay is penned.
Life wins every time we catch the patterns that seek to destroy life’s pulse and we say STOP. Sometimes it’s like turning a barge. Other times like flipping a dime. The more we do it, the greater the return. Stories shared and heard, heals writer and listener alike.
One of my cult buddies shared a screenshot of a paragraph from a new book titled The Trauma Mantras. In it, the author sits with a refugee who fled from torture. She pictures the arduous ordeal he endured and language being a barrier, drops a stone into his hand as a symbol. No No, he gestures, smiles and points to the sky. Sems pa chen po:
“Resilience was fluid, not solid, spacious, humble, flowing like water over rocks, a gentle expanding compassion, rather than a stiff bouncing back, or a thickening of the borders of the self… Resilience was not a Marlboro Man with a stern jaw, but a vast and spacious mind that did not individualize suffering."*
I am learning through the writers of Writing to Reckon that when they write and their words are shared in a safe and understanding vessel, personalized attachment to our suffering can be eased. Perhaps we can become like the smiling refugee from Tibet... or dancers swirling and laughing together, celebrating freedom.
