Psychological Surgery & More Tender Mercies

Personal strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts are tender mercies. They are tender because they come in sweet and soft ways--a tap, a brief thought, a presence (David Bednar). This is not to say that they are weak. No, they are powerful, sometimes fierce in their capabilities, but the lesson of them I suppose (at least one lesson) is that a slight shift is still a miracle. Now that I think of it, I'd like to add that another lesson from the tender mercies is that a slight shift can be life=changing.

I read recently--unfortunately, the author is unknown to me--something along this line: if you didn't want to be portrayed as a jerk in my memoirs, you shouldn't have acted like a jerk in my life.

I will use tender mercies and this paraphrased quote to set the tone for this post today. I don't know how they relate yet, but let's find out. When I was about 6 months into my retirement from a psychotherapy practice. I had traveled some to Maine and Texas and the Outer Banks. I had written a lot. I had relaxed. My skin had cleared. My sense of humor returned and I was reading more. I made collages, drawings and paintings. I socialized regularly. I'd organized my kitchen and my closets. 

At one point early on in the retirement process, I worked in meditation about what I needed to do to heal more and to detox spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. I was inspired a little while after that to do energy medicine and some shamanic practices... that sort of thing. 

I had worked remotely with 3 shamans over the years that helped me a great deal. One was from the Apache tradition, another from a mixed tradition in the KY mountains, and the third from the Peruvian practice.  Prior to that, and many years ago, I had worked with a crystal healer and various other energy and body workers (breath, Reiki, Polarity Therapy). 

All of that helped me, if nothing more (as I always tell the skeptics) it helped frame my experiences as spiritual ones and that is always valuable to me. I like the big picture where things aren't personal and I can see the world and the heavens as more important than I am. There is something about being small and devout that is comforting to me. Also being just an atom--if that--feels nestled in, safe and secure and belonging.

My work to recover from work was largely spontaneous. It was that sort of thing that happens when you get out of the way and allow the natural balancing of what it means to be human to take place. The sleep regulated itself--swinging from side to side with long hours and shorter intervals and then opening up on the other end of the spectrum causing me to stay up sometimes 24 hours at a time. When i had a reservoir of long and good rest, feeling my body's needs more directly, I slept just as my body told me to. I evened out at about 6 hour 'nights'--typically 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. with occasional naps up to 2-3 hours every few days or so. Finally, I was on my body's schedule, not someone else's.

Food had an interesting place in my recovery period, too. At first, I felt I could eat and eat and still metabolize it all pretty well. I realized that the extra weight I picked up in the last 18 months of work was falling away slowly. Old pants began to fit, for example, and I was more comfortable than I had ever been at my top 'OK'  weight, which was what i considered to be about 20 lbs overweight. 

Hydration also took center stage after retirement. I consciously drank water all day long and felt the effects immediately of any dip in my intake.

On more elevated levels, many things occurred washing water under the transmutational bridge. For example, my dreams cleared--from anxiety dreams to ones of archetypal and 'big dream' valences... enjoyable and entertaining dreams... the dreams I had years ago and loved. They made sleeping a pleasure.

Also, in terms of spontaneous happenings, I had somehow 'pulled' a bitter, elderly woman into my personal life in a odd way. She had been a skilled colleague, peripheral and occasional social contact, and unfortunately, an episodic and heavy drinker.  I still don't know what triggered this. I had left work and she had been a cotherapist in 2 groups. I thought we worked well together and were on good terms. Was it a reaction to me 'abandoning' her?  

After my retirement, she began to send me what seemed like emails and letters written when drunk.  She appeared to believe I had harmed her somehow, though she didn't say specifically how, and I had no recollection of such issues. She sent multiple messages that I would call 'hate mail'. In them, she expressed dislike for me and gave examples of my 'character flaws' such as I didn't show empathy or compassion to anyone. She would pop in and out of the blue in emails and snail mail at intervals of a month or 2 between each episode of 'reaching out'. This went on for about a year. I wondered if this schedule correlated to her drinking binge schedule.

One day, unfortunately, I needed to relay some professional information to her about a former client of mine she had assumed care for. The ex client had found me on Facebook and sent a disturbing message. In hindsight, I could have informed her supervisor.

Right after I sent her the business related information, she amped up her noxious messaging again.  I received more 'out of the blue' expressions of her disdain. Weirdly, I found myself having a spontaneous and strange reaction... I laughed. And laughed. And laughed. It was spontaneous and very unexpected! It was definitely a tender mercy for my mental health.

I told the story of my strange reaction to trusted friends and laughed some more. It was as involuntary as crying when you don't want to cry, and as physical as sobbing. I still am both surprised and pleased with that reaction. It signaled to me another deep transformation that had occurred in my career related healing process.

After this bizarre hilarity, I realized that she had seeped back into my daily awareness, and I certainly didn't want to give her any more room in my thoughts. I asked an attorney friend for advice. Subsequently, I sent my ex-colleague the few sentences recommended to me by my friend. They amounted to the first round of a cease and desist notice. 

Setting that boundary released me more. In response to the last ranting correspondence I received,  I replied by email that if there is further such contact, I would forward it and all other such correspondences to the attorney. I said she and the attorney could discuss whatever she wanted to tell me between themselves. I included the attorney's name, number and address and said if she must send any more communication, please send it to the attorney. for her review and I would be informed of the correspondence content by the attorney.  She stopped. 

I saw her one time after that at a wedding and she left when I arrived.

Circling back around to the beginning of this post, what's all that got to do with tender mercies? Those bouts of laughter seem like grace that fell on me... like a gentle much needed rain. I have more ideas, but I will let it digest before more rattling on. The concept of petty tyrants and their place in ones spiritual life comes to mind. I will have to revisit Carlos Castaneda's magical writings on the topic and get back to you.

On Being the Prey of an Old and Impotent Man

Months had passed after making the transition to retirement...well, the retirement of that previous business I was involved in--therapy for the traumatized. It took a great deal of rest and machinations to make the transition. I knew I was worn out, but I did not know how much so. For about 6 weeks I slept odd hours, on my body's own schedule and deeply. I did remember my dreams, however. Mostly I dreamed--or rather, woke up thinking--about my last job.

For example, I would wake up seeing the thermostat that the lifeless male colleague would crank up to 85 and sometimes 87 degrees. This would broil me and my clients while not controlling his ambient temp at all. It comes as a trauma memory: a frozen snapshot of the thermostat reading itself. That one photo memory carried a great deal of emotion for me. It was the feeling of being the prey of a relentless predator day after day, but a predator with no real substance; simply a toxicity and irritation that wouldn't relent. It reminded me of what it mist be like living with with an aged and debilitated sexual predator--like a grandparent--who could no longer physically offend, but still spoke and was a daily presence, verbally oozing his toxins at every opportunity.

I began to think about the deeper story of the predator at my workplace, and had some pretty good gestalt sessions about it.

I have a lot of information about this man and his history. It seems he had gone down this road before which isn't unusual and was fired because of targeting a female colleague there too.You don't become that lifeless, predatory, obsessed, or petty overnight. You have to work up to it. Someone who noticed his acting out shared some background with me.

One morning, while still working alongside him,  I woke up to discover I had an opportunity to have and display mercy. The deeper information I was given about him was so sad that my felt need for revenge evaporated. He was already suffering far more than me although he may not have realized it. This occurred to me when I watched him race in and out of a therapy session multiple times one day. It's something that just isn't done. Finally I followed him and saw him standing in a hallway taking deep breaths, obviously in distress. He was having a panic attack. Another day I saw him typing and having palsied hand movements. Together with what I knew about his life, these scenes diminished him in importance and awakened my desire to have compassion despite his behavior toward me.

It was odd to me to have these thoughts, but it freed me. Whenever he acted out after that, I remembered his daughter was an opiate addict that he would chase around town, manhandle into his car, and take her home from a night out Meanwhile, he and his wife raised her young son, while their addicted daughter and her child lived with them. He and his wife hid money, credit cards and valuables from her. Another revelation about him was that his targeting of me intensified when I could not intervene in his daughter's addiction. I had a well known history of addiction work, and a known close friend on the medical staff of an addiction inpatient facility. He asked me to 'pull some strings' to get her off the short waiting list and into rehab quicker. I could not. I discussed it with my friend just to be in integrity about it, but we both agreed it couldn't be done in good conscience.