The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

by Carla Royal on June 9, 2010

DSC00560 The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The problem with steeling myself to the pain in the world, like the gulf oil spill or a difficult relationship, is that I then steel myself to the beauty in life.  I simply can’t steel myself in one area and not be affected in all other areas…not really.  Sure, I get to have boundaries, like a fence with a gate, but shutting down affects all.  If I do it enough, I become like the statute overlooking the beautiful pond, unable to feel, and unable to have a real response to the world.

I must look at the pain.  I must let it move through me.  I must see the suffering in the world.  I must understand my responsibility there.  I am not separate.

And I must spend time with the beauty in the world.  I must slow down and notice.  I must take it in.  I am not separate.

Separateness is an illusion.

Yet I find that I do shut down.  I do steel myself, in many ways.  I may do it a little here, and a little there.  If I continue then it spreads, and before long I am cut off from the world and myself.

This tendency to steel myself, to shut down, has been a long standing coping mechanism.  I’ve used this mechanism for as long as I can remember.  It is familiar but it leaves me feeling numb and detached.  I’ve spent 25 years working to open myself, and will continue for the rest of my life.

I don’t want to walk around in foggy detachment.  I want to connect and experience all of life.  I believe it takes tremendous courage to live a truly connected life.  Jesus did it, and Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and maybe a social worker or your neighbor, too.  They look the good, the bad, and the ugly right in the face.  I bet they flinch, but they do it anyway.  And I bet they experience the deepest joy and beauty life has to offer, too.

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Tagged as: Beauty, boundaries, coping mechanism, Courage, detachment, gandhi, gulf oil, illusion, jesus, mother theresa, oil spill, pain in the world, Relationship, responsibility, suffering

  • Vivienne Whale Grace

    I am in one of those steeled places now Carla. W hen I’m in it, it is so hard to see across the chasm to connectedness but I know it is there and I can almost touch what it feels like, the joy, the beauty but I can’t because I’m disconnected. I am learning to be gentle with myself, when I fall into this but it’s hard to be as I know I’m capable of so much more. Funny thing is when I’m in the beauty place I can’t imagine what this feels like, worlds apart.

  • Karyn

    Oh, sweet friend, I can tell that you’re moving in and out of connectivity. I agree with you that we can’t be separate from things around us. But, I also don’t think we’re meant to take on the whole world’s pain all at once. When we have a deep pain that is facing us on a personal level, I think we are better off focusing energy there and not letting all of our energy spread out to all the world’s pain. . . we just can’t do it all and remain whole. But, I can certainly feel the pull myself of negativity and deep pain globally when my personal pains are the strongest. It leaves me hopeless, though, and not in a place where I can even begin to feel the greater peace the world also offers.

  • Patricia

    I do believe we feel what we most need to express and release – otherwise we would experience a kind of compassionate detachment while being fully connected to the present, knowing all is well, regardless of how it appears. I hope you can give yourself the space to go into those feelings and let them express, which is sacred work, serving us all. Thank you again for naming one of the many ways we all avoid this sacred work.

  • http://scintillatingspeck.wordpress.com Jen

    I have often been told, throughout my life, that I need a thicker skin. This always struck me as not very useful advice. My own foggy detachment has not served me well. I understand it, but I also want to find a different path. I think you’re right, that it takes great courage to stay open to pain and joy. I also think there needs to be some kind of reservoir of resilience, or stillness, or acceptance– I’m not sure what to call it– something to help keep my head above water, so that I’m not drowning in the pain. Some sort of faith that the pain won’t destroy me if I allow myself to feel it.

  • Joan Bright

    Beautiful metaphor, the metal statue, for “steeling” ourselves. As always, your topic is so timely for me personally and perhaps, for people in general. I wrote a not e (as an entry in a contest to win a paid-for treatment visit at my Network Spinal Analysis Chiropractor’s office) about feeling the armor I’ve been building up over me falling away, and me losing the absolute need to have it on – and the corresponding freedom of movement in my body. Ah, but it’s not just about the way my body feels!!! As that has improved, the changes are all about allowing the flow of all feelings, physical and emotional. The more I am able to move formerly painful or rigid body parts, the more I feel – sadness from long ago, fear, emotional pains. They also move through me, and I through them, faster than ever before. You hit it right on the nail, there. I said that like medieval knights, if I fell off my horse, while wearing such immovable, rigid, metal protection, I was unable to get back on the horse, or even to rise from the ground, if there was no one around to help me to do so. If I fell in the water with that heavy armor on, I would drown. I felt like I was drowning, when I started this latest healing process. I felt as though it was time to step up and help myself and try something else. Everything that had helped, for a while, wasn’t helping very much anymore. Things like regular chiropractic saw me actually getting worse, with each successive extra traditional adjustment.
    I have hope based on experience, today, that human beings can learn to respond without it being an extreme crisis, first, to pull together, as one organism, or as one people, one world, to get the flow and the feelings back, to notice and to care about what is important, for each and for all.
    Thank you for the reminder and the confirmation that the world is NOT “too much with us”, if we choose to be “with” it! All of it, in it’s perfection.

  • Linda Corbin

    I am new to your site and I love it already, the whole 10 minutes I’ve been here via a friend’s heads up, the one up above Joan, friend of 20+ yrs. We’re thousand + miles apart and still stay connected. Used to be roommates! She knew my son who died 8 yrs. ago at age 23, fell asleep behind the wheel. I donated organs & tissues, helped 77 people. I am sad but proud. I can relate to the isolation and separateness, I still do this. My spirit is battered and bruised still and I am just beginning to come up for air. But I know without pain I wouldn’t know joy, in every area of my life. How do I know I’m going forward if I haven’t fallen down and picked myself up? My concerns aren’t for the people of this planet, I am centered on the animals and environment that are going extinct and on man’s greed and ignorance!
    I know my Creator has some plan for me, I’m trying to just get a head’s up as to what it is so I can figure out where to go from here as my heart heals. I am facing double hip replacements and I can’t wait to “get it on” and to get my camera out again in the woods and the hills. Thank Goddess for my dogs and cats, they give me a reason to get up everyday! Best to you and your relocation to Georgia, I don’t think I could do the East again with all the humidity, unless I’m on the beach…… then I’d live in the ocean! I don’t do much media I don’t think. I watch a little tv, some good show and alot of pbs, I read a bunch, I can do w/o Facebook, it’s very frustrating. After the hips I hope it’s bicycle time again….. and drive my own car, no more asking for rides everyplace.

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