POLL: The Shadow Dance - Indigo Sun Magazine

[innergame]

This article, "The Shadow Dance - Understanding Repetitive Patterns in Relationship" based on the work of DR. CARL JUNG, might be of use to the members of the Board.

I've found it extremely valuable in understanding myself, how I am reflected in my relationships and generally how I relate to people. Rather than try to summarize the article, here's the header so you get an idea of what it's about:

"What is it that constitutes a good relationship? Is it getting along harmoniously, being loving, truthful, honest, supportive? These are certainly virtues and ideals that we all strive for. And yet despite our most valiant efforts, we continually come across problems and situations that puzzle us about our relationships.

A very interesting thing about life is that it all starts repeating at a certain point and those of us who are willing to live a reflective life, have to ask ourselves some very important questions. What is this about? Why did I attract him or her? And why is this repeating in my life?"

Hope you guys find it worthwhile. http://www.shadowdance.com/shadow/theshadow.html

Innergame

[Kenneth]

This is a nice article, Innergame.

I use Jung's concept of the Shadow a lot in my creative work (that is, I explore those parts of myself through sublimation) and, for anyone interested, there's a great book by Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow.

As to the behavior of my uBPex, I gave myself and her a little speech. "All of us have flirtations, stirrings towards others, and chances to begin new relationships, but, as adults, we can recognize a lot of these feelings as natural, can make wise decisions so we do not act impulsively and hurt others, and pay attention to the relationship we do have."

I'm still of the mind that what she did (cheating, lying, pledging undying love then bailing) I would not do. But perhaps I'm denying that part of myself that would do, could do, these very things happenstance I were in the fragile emotional chaos she herself feels due to the BPD. Really, in the end, we're all capable of doing horrible, horrible things to other people--but it takes a lot of work to recognize when we are projecting and when we are suffering from our very own strains of cognitive dissonance.

One of things I like about this site and these boards is the urging to let go of the anger and resentment part and parcel of abusive relationships. None of us wants to get stuck there. Right?

[innergame]

One of things I like about this site and these boards is the urging to let go of the anger and resentment part and parcel of abusive relationships. None of us wants to get stuck there. Right?

Thanks for the book tip Kenneth!

Always been a fan of Jung and anything that makes his ideas accessible is all the better for everyone. His 'Shadow' is my personal favorite archetype and definitely relevant on the Boards.

I think you've hit it there with the value of 'letting go'. It's holding on to the anger and resentment that keeps us in a lock and prevents us from focusing on ourselves and the way we interact with the world. That's what makes us prone to repeat behaviors -- we can't really know ourselves when we're in that state. As transitional states on the path to a more complete self awareness, or wholeness of being, such 'negative' emotions might be necessary and useful, but they can't sustain us or protect us indefinitely.

Thanks for your feedback, Kenneth,

Innergame

[Ghostgirl]

Innergame and Kenneth,


I'm also a long-time reader of Jung. I've also read much in alchemy, the inner alchemy more popularly refered to as depth psychology I believe in the modern world. The "as within so without, as above so below" quote from that discipline has haunted me a while. I was recovering from being raped when I discovered Alchemy. I read that quote and I had to look at the fact, much disallowed in rape recovery for the emphasis it places on the victim, "I brought this upon myself" and "I made this happen."

There's a difference in what I meant in those words from the usual victim self-blame, which I did not indulge. The guy was a monster. However, in seeing life as a journey of self-discovery wherein "all experience is an arch" through which we pass into deeper self-understanding, I had to stand under the arch of this event and ask what darkness lies in me that would manifest externally as this?

It was the soul's question, not the body's. And for the soul, life is a hall of mirrors persistently shining back on us what we can't shine our inner light upon within--until we have these moments of recognition.

This recent discovery of BP-ness and its proliferation back through my life answers so many questions I have had about that other violent experience. Why I did not fight. Why I caught that person's attention. There were events that led up which, in memory, seem to have been orchestrated from without--sudden changes in the evening's flow which left me without my intended escort for the evening and with this particular person not once but three times, the last being the context for attack (the first two being context for it to become "aquaintance rape," much more difficult (read: impossible) to prosecute.) I can read the story/ tell the story very much on two levels, the material and the mythological. On the former, it is unspeakable. On the latter, it was voluble and continues to speak. On the material level, it is the worst night of my life. On the mythological, and I mean this, dangerously, it is the most important night of my life.

On a rooftop in Manhattan I came face to face with the darkest thing within me. Danced with it even. Literally. Even the day after, I attended a garden party  (we were both in a wedding, another profound mythological context--ghostgirl "marries" her shadow) seated between it and a high ranking FBI agent and could not tell one about the other.

I see this recent relationship, though on the surface everything the opposite of "that night" it is a long re-living of it, a slow motion replay, and my physiological responses following its end are perfect echoes. It is stunning to me how much more I had yet to learn. A therapist friend taught me a quote from a shamanic elder, "Life is dream lived backward." In the soul's vision, it is. Every next step a journey deeper into our past. (doesn't The Great Gatsby end with something like that--"and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." I looked it up: yes.  I think Look Homeward, Angel ends with a similar statement but I won't turn this into a google-fest).

I am, at this point, in awe of the geometry of it, even more than I am bothered by the pain (among other effects) it has caused. I am humbled by life's poetry. These days, I feel so much like a baby bird or the most fragile of butterflies fresh from a chrysalis. I've lessened my social engagements nearly to nothing, I've shrunken my life to the size of a handkerchief, and at the exact same time, I feel this mythological self entirely expanding in order to make room for all this new information and understanding. And I sense that in the same way something external "arranged" that dark night in New York, that same external thing is oddly protecting me from distractions (the other day I received only two emails and was certain there was a glitch someplace, normally I'll get around twenty or thirty, much of it ridiculous) and also sending me what Wallace Stevens would call Necessary Angels.

I know I've spoken of fighting a lot--a battle with a demon that allowed this one last BP into my life. But it isn't really a battle. The battle is with my tendency to focus on one external being, or on my father, or on my attacker. But they're all projections of me, and I don't hate any part of myself. So what is it? If they are emotionless, soul-less (for it does look like a disconnection from a soul) objectifying, self-obsessed, violent, detached abominations of beings (there, I said it) then drop by drop I can fill that emptiness within from which they grew. To continue the thought is impossible, I don't know how. But I will.

Being able to name is the greatest gift we have. In the Bible it's what Adam is told to do. But it takes so long to get the words for everything. But once we have the word, we are given the tool or weapon (depending how you hold it--thanks, Ani DiFranco) we need to set ourselves free. I feel that happening. I can honestly tell myself "the monsters are gone now" and begin to tidy up the devastated city.

Thanks for the meditation, Innergame.

Ghostgirl

[innerspirit]

Hi everyone -- I attended a workshop by Linda Schierse Leonard, sponsored by the local Jung association.  Got a copy of her wonderful book, THE CALL TO CREATE: CELEBRATING ACTS OF IMAGINATION (Random House, 2000.)

From the flyleaf:
"Many people do not think of themselves as creative.  Yet their everyday discoveries ... and personal lives are creative acts... Leonard helps us identify the characters and archtypal patterns that rise up inside us as we go about imagining a better life.  These characters can be hinderers -- such as the Perfectionist, the Cynic, or the Escape Artist -- or helpers, such as the Sower, the Adventurer, or the Celebrant.
Leonard encourages readers by showing that the obstacles preventing them from creating a better life are like those that artists confront, and that imagination can be born of frustration... We can develop and appreciate creativity in everything from our search for meaning to family and relationships, from communcations and business ventures to artistic endeavors."

[innergame]

Ghostgirl,

You're welcome.

Innergame

[innerspirit]

Thanks Innergame for bringing this up.
For so much of the time with X and since, I've tried to find myself in books.  I've gone thru so many of them, about walking on eggshells, about verbal abuse, etc., needing to find passages that spoke to me and confirmed that I wasn't alone in this. 

Which was my biggest fear and one that X capitalized on -- to "justify" his privilege of trashing me.

When looking at it directly was too painful, metaphors and symbols have made it easier -- has it been that way for you too? 
The first one I thought of was a crazy version of the Emperor's New Clothes  --- he was indeed naked, I tried to blow the whistle but the whole town was convinced he was fully clothed.

Wow, SHADOW DANCE is a brilliant title isn't it?  Shadows of past relationships, dances that take on a life of their own.  Makes me think of all the arguments at the kitchen table (where I was ordered to sit still!) with these big distorted projections on the wall, intimidating, parrying, thrusting, then trying to do a civil minuet.

[Kenneth]

Thanks, Ghostgirl, for such a thoughtful and brave post.

[innergame]

Hi Innerspirit,

It’s safe to say I’ve done my share of book reading on BPD and related topics. After a while it can become a blur but while the information is necessary and useful it’s the metaphors and symbols and even the humour that stick out in the memory more than anything else when I’m trying to make sense of it all.

Jungian archetypes like the ‘Shadow’, totems like Christine Lawson’s Waif, Queen, Hermit, and Witch, spring to mind more readily and imprint on the psyche more powerfully than an armchair comprehension of the DSM-IV. 

Your humour, the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ (classic), disarms these aberrant BPs quite literally divesting them of their power. Even ‘Stop Walking On Eggshells’, at once a goal, but it speaks so loudly of our discomfort, I mean really, just imagine walking on friggin’ eggshells all the friggin’ time people. You’ll give yourself a heart attack just thinking about it.

Then there’s the gruelling alchemy of physical and metaphysical undeniably present in Ghostgirl’s struggle with her shadow self. She puts a knife to its throat and renders it insubstantial, nothing lofty or proud in her story, but unflinching honesty; self acceptance liberates from bondage to the Shadow.

For me, humor deflects the parries and thrusts in that shadow dance on the wall, but the metaphors give me something to sink my teeth into and chew like hell. Once I’ve had my fill I’ll dispense with it in the usual fashion.

The shadow tastes awful by the way, needs more salt.

Innergame

[innerspirit]

...I’ve done my share of book reading on BPD and related topics. After a while it can become a blur but while the information is necessary and useful it’s the metaphors and symbols and even the humour that stick out in the memory more than anything else when I’m trying to make sense of it all.

Jungian archetypes like the ‘Shadow’, totems like Christine Lawson’s Waif, Queen, Hermit, and Witch, spring to mind more readily and imprint on the psyche more powerfully than an armchair comprehension of the DSM-IV. 

Your humour, the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ (classic), disarms these aberrant BPs quite literally divesting them of their power. Even ‘Stop Walking On Eggshells’, at once a goal, but it speaks so loudly of our discomfort...
Then there’s the gruelling alchemy of physical and metaphysical undeniably present in Ghostgirl’s struggle with her shadow self... self acceptance liberates from bondage to the Shadow.

For me, humor deflects the parries and thrusts in that shadow dance on the wall, but the metaphors give me something to sink my teeth into and chew like hell. Once I’ve had my fill I’ll dispense with it in the usual fashion.
The shadow tastes awful by the way, needs more salt.

Thank you for this beautiful, articulate, cogent writing.
I've had the same experience with the Big Blur -- voraciously hungry for info to validate what's so covertly going on.  For me it was armchair stuff bordering way too close to what I might slip and use in conversation with X.  Walking on eggshells to avoid being accused as pseudotherapist  -- the ensuing craziness wasn't worth it.

So thankful for this life-changing website -- at last a place for all that has been stored up for so long.  And feedback to support it.  Hands to hold in the dark.
 
Wry humor affirms for me some insight that's more detached, I guess, but without a lot of emotional comfort.  I'll check out Lawson's work -- I'm there too with deeper effect of metaphor, symbols. 
(Have you thought of Plato's Cave too?)

[Ghostgirl]

Hi, fellow cave dwellers--

Innergame's notion of eating the shadow has floored me, and, yes, I'm thinking of Plato, too, Innerspirit. And thank you, kindly, Kenneth, for being here on this journey too.

In the Koran, one of my favorite hadith's speaks "now that you have completed the work of the outer jihad, it is time for you to complete the more difficult work, that of the inner jihad."

This opened a major door for me when I was reading these books for what they teach of the inner work. (Your names aren't lost on me in this, believe me.) The inner jihad is this process of engaging the shadow, of ceasing to allow victimhood to color our thinking and to name all that has happened as a part of us, caused by our soul's need to be found under all the illusions, in short to come out of the cave.

When this past break up happened and I was, the morning at the end of a whole night of BP madness, just standing fully clothed in a river unable to even think, I went under the water as a sort of self-baptism. I understood that I was on the brink of a discovery--because nothing else could hurt so much. This was no "my boyfriend and I broke up 17 magazine advice column break-up." This was a spirit shattering and made little sense. I knew I needed help. It was dawn so I couldn't call the T so I called another number.

During the recovery from the night in new york I'd come to know some power within me to guide me through the roughness, that it had an intelligence superior to mine (here is where schizophrenia and wisdom can easily flip flop and I was terrified, committed to reading as many books as I could in order to "balance" out my psyche). Because it led me through the first recovery so well, I put my faith in it a second time. I said, "Whatever I need to learn from this, let me learn it well." When I surfaced, I said the terrifying words: Show me.

We want to know the truth about ourselves. It is our soul's necessity. And this meant, to me, asking myself the most difficult question: Have I had absolutely no agency in my life, ever? I so hated that question. I so hated the answer. Finding the path through my patterns is the labyrinth, I believe, so honored in ancient traditions. Living my life backwards, I discover all the twists and turns of how I lgot buried.

To name all that I have loved as something other than love has been, for me, the process of disallowing myself my own memories as I've told them. It is violent! It is like taking a giant sword and cutting away the frosting from the cake. All the pretty stories, all the lies that made it bearable.

This is the alchemy of becoming--the separation of parts, the hand from the shadow of the rabbit cast by the hand onto the wall. There was no rabbit. There never was a rabbit. There were no rabbits in the cave.

Joseph Campbell writes that the hero finds before him the journey he is ready for. He may not think he is prepared, but the journey wouldn't appear (even the landscape, he observes, alters) if we weren't. I know that feeling. "You must be mad to think I can take this on," I've said, out loud, on the floor, to something listening. But armed with Campbell's quote I can't help but inwardly smile and say, "I'm flattered that you do so I will honor your confidence and do my best."

It is our destiny to emerge from the cave. I know many choose to remain inside, weeping on shoulders in the dark, speaking of all the horrible things that happened to them. I remember, though, seeing a Sudanese woman on Oprah who was raped seven times (at least) and who carried her children many many miles to a refugee camp, and she looked great, spoke beautifully of life and spirit and strength. Sitting on my couch feeling sorry for myself really isn't an option if she's out there "doing it." If one human being has that sort of strength, all of us do. I have to every day find mine. This is the inner jihad, the exodus from the cave, my destiny I am seizing by reaching as far inward as I can. But the most beautiful part of it is how gentle the soul is with me. It reveals only what I am prepared to see. So, if I find myself here in this place, it is an honor. It is a handing to me of the sword I need to defeat the next illusion, fire breathing dragon or my father I said I love you to and found again in the form of every "loved" one since.

And it is an honor to be here among you other warriors of the soul, all of us finding our way out of something that shouldn't be held us in the first place but did.

Ghostgirl



 

[innerspirit]

Hi again -- I like that, "fellow cave-dwellers."
Thanks for seeing the inner aspect of this -- sometimes the name feels a little presumptuous to see it in print, but for me it was to reassure myself of the intangible as I heal.
You're so right that an advice column in a teen magazine would have nothing to offer here.  This is soul robbery, as a friend has worded it.
Thank you, Ghostgirl, for your resourcefulness, your hunger for spiritual knowledge, and your commitment -- you're an example to follow.  May you continue to find healthy self-love, may you find the real love of others.
I.S.

(I'm concerned that you mentioned schizophrenia -- literally?  A spiritually heightened state?  Are you doing OK?)

[Ghostgirl]

Innerspirit--

I mention schizophrenia as part of the mindfulness. Basically, when we are tuning into a higher power and listening inwardly, we have to be ruthless with attention. Psychosis and the inner journey are compared in Jung and Campbell, so I compare them, too, ever watchful that I remain healthy.

I have a lot to heal from so I use a lot of inner resources in order to heal.

I allow dreams and intuition to affect my process, showing me where to look next, which rock to lift and see under. But I never hand over reason while engaging the irrational. I know many who do, particularly in the New Age movement. One woman wears a tinfoil hat and is certain we all should do so. Not wanting to wear a tinfoil hat, I stay brutally humble and go through each door of awakening incredibly slowly.

I'd be crazy (sorry) not to constantly be watching myself to make sure I am not crazy while I do this work. There's a reason the church outlawed alchemy (Jung's work is in this vein) in the third century. This looking inward business is not for the impulsive or anyone prone to thinking they hear God every time her intuition tells her something. There are entire wings of mental hospitals for people like that, one in Jerusalem entirely for people certain they are the Christ.

The key for me in walking the line between inner and outer worlds is watching my ego. I don't attach to the hints and vagaries. I listen and then write it out to a logical conclusion, drawing on research and experience, and yes, the occasional book that magically falls off a shelf in the bookshop which I buy because I trust something bigger than reason is guiding this. That trust is not the surrender. I don't surrender to the spiritual. I surrender to BOTH the rational and the spiritual. I'm given a whole mind. My job is to learn how to wield its entirety.

The spiritual and schizoid similarity follows:
Our intuition (subconscious memory) knows stuff we don't and is offering a path of awareness we are meant to follow.
Schizophrenics hear voices that tell them things, offer them paths they are "meant" to follow.

This is a valuable thing to bear in mind. The inner journey is dangerous because of it. But we learn how to "tune" in skillfully, using our powers of discernment, logic and reason. A complete willingness to be at times uncertain until we are certain also comes in useful. This is all depth psychology. My T, a Jungian, once said, at a time when I was experiencing a remarkable scope of (what I called) intuitive draw, "if I hadn't been working with you for nearly a decade I might think you were in danger, but I'm confident you're capable of rationally moving through." And I did.

We live in a culture that on one hand is attached only to rationality. On the other we have countless people who've let all reason fly all the way out the window. Neither strategy gets us through healthily to wholeness. We have to open ourselves. And we have to be watchful of what comes in and up. I stay grounded in the real. The zen masters teach: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.  That's the trick--keeping the material a priority, but allowing it its spiritual, darker evidences is necessary. To go entirely into the latter, is to be mad. To stay entirely in the former, is to be, as they call it in the sacred texts, dead. 

Thanks for asking, Innerspirit.
Time to go chop wood and carry water.

Ghostgirl

[innergame]

Cave Dwellers (awesomely so),

For anyone out there reading who isn't familiar with Plato's Cave, just think of the Matrix as the Cave and Morpheus as a philosopher and you'll pretty much have the gist of it. What is experienced in The Cave has many parallels with FOG as well.

Yes innerspirit, I took my first journey into Plato's cave many years ago. It was all academic back then. I didn't know at the time I would find myself amongst fellow NONs years later sharing shadows for thought in that cave once again.

Wry humor affirms for me some insight that's more detached, I guess, but without a lot of emotional comfort.

There is truth in humor, to be sure, and it can protect the psyche from some horrible traumas until it's ready to heal, but I have no illusions that it's based on anything but anger. I don't always need it, don't always use it, but like you I take no warmth from it and I know when I go there I'm a long way off where I want to be.

When I feel like Plato's philosopher, freed from bondage in this cave, I return all excited to tell everyone the great news of what it's really like out there, and for a time I know what I'm talking about and the world is a beating heart full of compassion. At this stage in my development, all that means is I've had a good day. Pretty soon I'm back in the cave, in chains, staring at shadows on the wall cast by the fire and wondering aloud 'is this really all there is'? That's when I thank my lucky stars there's always someone else from down here in the cave who's had a good day too. They just came back from the outside to remind me that what I saw on my good day was real and if I can find the energy and courage, I can break the chains and be free again.

The more often I break free, the less I rely on the Cave (Matrix) to feed, clothe and define me. Thanks to the people on this Board, it happens more often than not these days.

Innergame's notion of eating the shadow has floored me...

I think of that scene from Phenomenon, where a dying John Travolta tells this kid that an apple cast aside will rot and decay, but if you take a bite out of it, it will become a part of you forever. By eating my shadow, I allow myself to digest and transform it in the way my body and mind was designed to do, but if I ignore the shadow or pretend it doesn't exist, it remains a part of me but rots and decays. It only takes one rotten apple to spoil the rest. Eating my shadow is logical.

Thanks Ghostgirl and innerspirit, you helped move me away from cold comfort toward something more nourishing.


Innergame

 

[innerspirit]

Hi again Cave Dwellers -- hey we've a new abbreviation here.  CD's.
Some thoughts that you have inspired:
Looked up definitions of humor -- one that sticks out is "the experience of incongruity".  Well that would be life with a BP wouldn't it.

It's said that humor is when someone else slips on the banana peel, tragedy is when I do.  I guess it must run in the family -- when in Florida, my brother called me up to say he had just seen a Chiquita banana truck flipped over on its side.

The Monty Python Argument Clinic sketch is funny when viewed from the outside.  It's infuriating when in therapy with my X.   I don't know how many times I told a marriage counselor "I couldn't make this sh*t up."

For me during this recovery, humor and flashes of more heady clarity (like the Plato's cave thing) have felt similar.  A sense that things have clicked in my head but with such detachment that feels like I'm watching someone else go thru it all.  The protective, numbing layers peel back afterwards as they can so more tender things can be felt.

When I feel like Plato's philosopher, freed from bondage in this cave, I return all excited to tell everyone the great news of what it's really like out there, and for a time I know what I'm talking about and the world is a beating heart full of compassion. At this stage in my development, all that means is I've had a good day. Pretty soon I'm back in the cave, in chains, staring at shadows on the wall cast by the fire and wondering aloud 'is this really all there is'? That's when I thank my lucky stars there's always someone else from down here in the cave who's had a good day too. They just came back from the outside to remind me that what I saw on my good day was real and if I can find the energy and courage, I can break the chains and be free again. The more often I break free, the less I rely on the Cave (Matrix) to feed, clothe and define me. Thanks to the people on this Board, it happens more often than not these days.

This brings tears to my eyes, thank you.  When I was asked to be an Ambassador here, I didn't think I was ready -- either inside myself or as a helper to others coming along.  Thank you for writing a mission statement -- loving, compassionate and patient.

The key for me in walking the line between inner and outer worlds is watching my ego... I surrender to BOTH the rational and the spiritual. I'm given a whole mind. My job is to learn how to wield its entirety...
This is a valuable thing to bear in mind. The inner journey is dangerous because of it. But we learn how to "tune" in skillfully, using our powers of discernment, logic and reason. A complete willingness to be at times uncertain until we are certain also comes in useful. This is all depth psychology. My T, a Jungian, once said, at a time when I was experiencing a remarkable scope of (what I called) intuitive draw, "if I hadn't been working with you for nearly a decade I might think you were in danger, but I'm confident you're capable of rationally moving through." And I did.

Thanks for writing this.  Intuitive draw -- so well said.  I have a healer-friend who calls it ordinary vs. non-ordinary reality.

We live in a culture that on one hand is attached only to rationality. On the other we have countless people who've let all reason fly all the way out the window. Neither strategy gets us through healthily to wholeness. We have to open ourselves. And we have to be watchful of what comes in and up. I stay grounded in the real. The zen masters teach: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.  That's the trick--keeping the material a priority, but allowing it its spiritual, darker evidences is necessary. To go entirely into the latter, is to be mad. To stay entirely in the former, is to be, as they call it in the sacred texts, dead. 
Time to go chop wood and carry water.

Some days it feels overwhelming -- may it cease to feel that way.  Time to just do it, as the Nike ads would say.  And I'll reward myself with the pleasant thought of the three of us enjoying each other's company (and book collections, certainly.)

 xoxox  xoxox
I.S.

[Kenneth]

One of the quotes I carry around with me is from James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time:

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."

It's no small step here to see how our relationships with our BPs have given us yet another conundrum to confront, whether it be the cave we were stuck inside during those relationships and their aftermaths or the shadows we now must eat.

I do think, however, that the new truths we each discover as we move through the healing process, the truths we'll no doubt take apart and reassemble again and again, will be truths wildly different than the truths our exes uncover, no matter if they move toward healing or not. These experiences--even though we've lived through them together--are set apart by our respective types of suffering.

When Baldwin asks us to "earn our deaths," he's asking us to look into the abyss--and, to some degree, the relationships we've endured have been a glimpse into an abyss not far from death: a loss of Self into another and the subsequent heaving back into the Self when the relationships so suddenly snapped. Although the losses of the ones we loved is a "tearing away," it's also a reopening of our own selves as we reemerge from the cave and into a newer, different light.

Nietzsche speaks of the figure of "the noon" when our shadows are the shortest, when there's a unity of all things, and how there's a split from the "one" into "two" after the noon has passed (or before). I thought of this when Ghostgirl mentioned that split between rationality and emotion and trying to find that balance.

Alenka Zupancic, in a book about Nietzsche, writes about emotional upheaval thusly: "Discomfort is soothed (or silenced) by crisis and states of emergency in which a subject feels alive. But this 'alive' is nothing more than 'undeadness,' the petrifying grip of surplus excitation and agitation." That is, if we were to apply this to our BP relationships, the passions we felt, perhaps because there was so much imbalance in our BP relationships, can qualify as a sort of "undeadness" as well--a painful "alive" too terrifying close to death.

It's unfortunate that in our BP relationships the passion Baldwin refers to becomes a different sort of passion, one gripped inside, or "imprisioned" within, a loss of Self and energy expended into the other. Yet I do believe we've retained our "good" passion--and it might be even stronger because of what we went through in these torn relationships.

[innerspirit]

Hello CD's -- posting again here in the midst of a dark night, one of the darkest in recent memory for me.    I guess the timing is serving me well, the cave discussions, the reading of Nietzchean deaths helping to unblock a lot of tears and grief here.
While away on the recent concert tour, September 3 went by, not exactly unnoticed but rarified in a whole other world thousands of miles away.  With a collaborator who seems to have it all.  Now that I'm back home, it's the let-down back in the house, yeah, it would have been X's and my 20th anniversary, and it's hitting me hard tonight.  My soul feels like it's crying out.
Death of a relationship, death of an era, wondering what personal/professional possibilities are in front of me now -- all feeling pretty overwhelming in a dark cave here where I have tended to isolate myself.

"Discomfort is soothed (or silenced) by crisis and states of emergency in which a subject feels alive. But this 'alive' is nothing more than 'undeadness,' the petrifying grip of surplus excitation and agitation." That is, if we were to apply this to our BP relationships, the passions we felt, perhaps because there was so much imbalance in our BP relationships, can qualify as a sort of "undeadness" as well--a painful "alive" too terrifying close to death.  It's unfortunate that in our BP relationships the passion Baldwin refers to becomes a different sort of passion, one gripped inside, or "imprisioned" within, a loss of Self and energy expended into the other.

What a description of a NON/BP relationship.  Better to have something going on rather than the devastating calm that masks everything that is stuck and unresolved. This is taking some bravery to write tonight -- am trying to stay with the feelings, resisting the powerful temptation to use heady intellect or wit to cover over.  Now that the rollercoaster ride is over (at least with X physically present), the alternating distant numbness and entangled crises aren't protecting me anymore.  The Stepford role never did, except on the outside to fend off some crazy tantrums.  I'm not keeping the peace that I was conditioned to, and that's both a relief and a learned fear -- letting some toxins and pent-up tears out but it's like he'll walk into the bedroom and I'll catch hell for it.  I'm feeling the voids in my life and that's scary.  And the fear of more pain has paralyzed me.  Chopping wood, carrying water, walking thru the dark -- all things I need to DO in one way or the other.  However well-intentioned, my recovery if mainly here on the website creates in itself an unbalance, a kind of cave with virtual walls to separate me from a new, real life in the outside world.

Yet I do believe we've retained our "good" passion--and it might be even stronger because of what we went through in these torn relationships... it's also a reopening of our own selves as we reemerge from the cave and into a newer, different light. 

May it be so and may I find the bravery in this dark night to seek it.
Thanks, my friends -- I know you're there for me as I am for you.

[Kenneth]

Better to have something going on rather than the devastating calm that masks everything that is stuck and unresolved.

Now that the rollercoaster ride is over (at least with X physically present), the alternating distant numbness and entangled crises aren't protecting me anymore. 

However well-intentioned, my recovery if mainly here on the website creates in itself an unbalance, a kind of cave with virtual walls to separate me from a new, real life in the outside world.

So insightful, Innerspirit--both the calm and the crises mask the trouble. The passions brought out through reunion also veil our conflict. In our relationships, because we were enmeshed and acting (however misguidedly) to "save" or keep peace, we adopted new ways of "protecting" ourselves, harming ourselves and our partners just the same.

I wonder, too, about our work on this forum, whether it separates us from fully healing. I'm going to the Batcave to meditate on this provocative question.

Meanwhile, stay strong.

[innergame]

Greetings Ambassador ‘Spirit,

Earplugs in place *nudge nudge* I finally get the chance to hear you.

There’s not much one person can say to another whose “soul feels like it’s crying out”. Platitudes abound and I’m sure there’s the perfect line somewhere that’ll strike just the right chord and set everything to rights. I have nothing so pithy in my repertoire today, but if you’d like to share a beverage with me, name your drink, my shout.

What to celebrate then?  You spoke of the “death of a relationship, death of an era” and Kenneth alluded to an idea that “one ought to rejoice in the fact of death”. Seems like a good idea thanks Kenneth. Traditionally we celebrate death with a funeral, right?

I often talk with my kids about what we want said and done at our funerals. Nothing morbid in that, it’s just when you’re dead, it’s so final that there’s no room for the stages of grief. I mean, that part's over, you’re dead, so what are you gonna do but be dead?

I’m in no way meaning to trivialize what you’re feeling. Even though I feel there was truth in what I said about the way we use humor to deflect pain and manage anger, I still love a clean healthy laugh. Having said that, I commend you for “trying to stay with the feelings, resisting the powerful temptation to use heady intellect or wit to cover over”. I know I find that challenge enormous (when I think of some of my postings, the sarcasm is scathing) and that’s the extent to which I can imagine what you must be experiencing right now.

So if you visualize the funeral for the death of this relationship, what plans come to mind? What songs will be played and sung? What quotes seem apt? What words of your own would you draft? What truths would they reveal? What food would you serve? You don’t have to answer or post on the Board if it’s making you feel unbalanced. Maybe just something to think about on the quiet. Hell, I don’t really know if this means a great deal, but I’ve had what could almost resemble a ‘good day’ and there seems something synchronous in the way this idea came to mind, so it’s what I have to offer.

Maybe what you visualize isn’t something you can realize yet or set a date for, but in the imagining lies the potential. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll all get a chance to celebrate the deaths of our relationships.

Go with the feeling Innerspirit and be at ease with yourself as best you can,


Innergame

[innerspirit]

Thanks guys.  Lots to think on this morning.
Just wrote to thank you in a post ("Eureka").
 xoxox
I.S.

And thanks for the nudge, IG, looking forward to more feedback.   I don't typically drink alcohol -- since I operate heavy machinery after all -- but if it's virtual, what the Hell, make it a double, straight up.