On bitter medicine

My little boat, Take care. There is no Land in sight.

The Wind Has Died by Charles Simic

This past week I've been reflecting on how candid truth telling, when delivered with attunement and right timing can be a profoundly loving and healing thing to offer someone. Charles Simic's little poem, while brief, cut deeply for me.

He sets it up. "My little boat, take care." Tender. Warm. Gentle. "There is no Land in sight." Cutting. Bitter. Candid. What makes something that tastes bitter on the tongue poison versus medicine? I believe our bodies –– our guts, and our hearts –– know the difference. In my experience, bitterness that turns into poison feels misattuned, indigestible, refutable, and mean. Even if it's true, it feels violent to receive. Violent in robbing me of the opportunity to discover this truth in my own way, which for me, ultimately offers deeper learning. Some years ago, I felt it was important for me to chase and attempt to mend a romantic relationship that was causing me a lot of pain. I was caught in a repetition compulsion (Freudian term) –– the psyche's innocent way of continuing to pursue relationships that mimic those of early attachment figures in hopes of experiencing and receiving something that was missing in those early relationships. For me that meant seeking intimacy with someone who could never be fully present or emotionally available to me. At that time, I knew my therapist could see what was happening. I believe he knew that this person could never offer me what I wanted. And while I believe our work together was one of the main sources of support for me eventually arriving at that reality, he never said such to me explicitly. In a way that felt truly nonviolent, he honored the part of me that still felt desperate to keep knocking on that door –– a door that he knew would never open. While in some situations you could see this as enabling, attunement and timing is everything. In this case, my therapist telling me what he believed wouldn't have relieved me or stopped me from feeling the need to pursue what I felt I needed to pursue. I wasn't ripe for receiving that information. I needed to arrive at that truth on my own, however hard of a lesson it ultimately felt to learn, and however much I lost in the wake of that process. Alternatively, I do believe there are times when explicit sharing of something difficult to hear can be medicinal. Again, attunement and timing is everything. In graduate school, I remember watching a demo video of Ron Kurtz, the founder of the Hakomi method (a mindfulness based therapeutic modality I'm now training in) work with a middle-aged woman on the chronic pain she felt in her shoulder. In the process of bringing mindfulness to her pain, the woman recalled a memory from when she was seven years old and lost her mother. When her mom died, all the adults around her were vague with her about what happened. Without a real understanding yet of what death meant, they tried to comfort her by telling her she didn't need to be sad because "her mommy is in heaven now." In what felt like the most gentle, loving, and attuned way, I watched Ron say to the woman, "I'm going to tell you something now that may be hard to hear. Your mom is dead which means she's never coming back." What followed was the near instant eruption of a childlike shriek of sorrow and agony from the woman. Rocking like a child, the woman cried, as Ron sat close beside her, holding her hand and saying "I know, I know. I'm so sorry." Ron in that moment offered the woman what Hakomi calls a "missing experience". In this case, the missing experience for this woman was receiving clear information from a loving, attuned adult –– information that would allow her to feel the grief of losing her mom. In the confusion of not understanding what the adults around her were telling her, her heart never got to fully break over her loss. I think our hearts and our bodies are designed to be resilient to heartbreak. What feels more toxic to the body, and perpetuates the feeling of separation from wholeness are feelings that are left unfelt. How can offering someone a difficult truth in an attuned and compassionate way help stuck, undigested feelings find their home? What are the bitter truths, shared lovingly, that parts of me need to hear to be free? "You will never be as close as you once were." "Your [parent, sibling, friend, partner] may never get better." "You can't save people from making choices that aren't good for them" "Things will never be the same." "You may never feel this connected to someone again." Just spitballing some "hypotheticals" here. If you've come this far in reading, what have these statements evoked in you?. Resistance? Sadness? Anger? Relief? While writing them down, I was reminded of the way the first noble truth of Buddhism is written. It says "Life is suffering." There was a time as an early student of Buddhism where I felt slightly turned off by the wording of this statement. Isn't that such a pessimistic way of perceiving life? However, I feel more in touch these days with the loving and liberating nature of this statement. If I really allow myself to accept that suffering is just a part of life, I don't feel the need to try as hard to avoid it. All the parts of me that work so hard trying this and that to mitigate my pain get to relax. There can be freedom, relief, peace, love, and a weird kind of joy that comes from an honest confrontation with the truth, however bitter it may taste.

#bittermedicine #truth