Father's Day, Grief, and Healing

Not all of us have dads who were our heroes, our protectors, our cuddly-human-jungle-gyms. Some of us have dads who left. Some of us have dads who stayed but were scary, dismissive, judgmental. Some of us have dads who were unable or unwilling to stand up to scary mothers on our behalf. Not everyone is qualified to be a parent. But there are no tests to pass, no licenses to apply for.

For those of us with abusive or absent fathers, a forced, Hallmark holiday like Father's Day can be torturous. At the least, it's a reminder of what we didn't have. At the worst, it's a reminder of what we did have that wasn't so great. And if your dad is still living, you might be in the terribly uncomfortable position of having to (or feeling like you have to) get the obligatory card, do the obligatory celebration, even though you know (and he knows) it's not really true. Year after year, I call my sister from the greeting card section of the drug store and lament that there is no card that says, "So That Happened."

For many years, I soldiered on, as though having a painful relationship with my dad was just part of the package. More recently though, I've been unpacking the memories - good and bad. My dad made the best scrambled eggs and wore the best smelling aftershave. But he was (and is) also a lifelong alcoholic who could fly into terrible and unpredictable rages. My dad was a great hugger and the best back-rubber. But he was a racist and a sexist who basically looked down on everyone. He was highly intelligent and spoke many languages. But he alienated people all the time. He would take me bowling or miniature golfing, but we always had to stop at my grandparents house where he would have a loud, angry fight with them in Yiddish, while I sat on plastic-covered furniture and waited.

My dad comes by his addiction and anger honestly - tons of childhood abuse and neglect. But I didn't know this as a kid. The depth of humiliation he suffered made it impossible to reveal himself to anyone, including himself. So therapy was out of the question. Yet he managed some level of self control. Just before I was born, he and my mom decided to stop spanking (as they had my sisters). And he stuck to that (which, given his impulsivity, is rather miraculous).

Knowing that my dad's odd and scary behavior comes from trauma, helps me in the ongoing process of my own healing. I know more details of his abuse now than I used to. I can imagine how frightened he was as a kid. I get that being tough, feeling superior, and cutting people loose before they hurt him was the only way he knew to feel safe in a very unsafe world. And these days I can hold that compassion without letting him hurt me. I keep a safe distance. I call early in the day, before he has a chance to get high, when he is mostly clear-headed. I keep our talks short, and hang up before he can spin into a spiral of negative thinking.

What helps even more is healing my own trauma. This means grieving the fathering I never got to have. And then out of that grief finding within me the protective, fun, mentoring, fathering energy that I needed. I hold the younger parts of me close and let them know that my adult self is here now, to give them what dad couldn't. I will keep them safe. I will always be kind and respectful. I will speak to them gently. I will celebrate their successes and comfort them when things go wrong. I will lay in the grass with them and marvel at the shapes of clouds. I will provide, protect, and cherish.

Recently I've found that I can do this for the little boy inside my dad too. And that has proved amazingly healing. He never deserved to be abused. Under all the anger and emotional armor, he's really a very vulnerable and lonely child. It sucks to be him. I can love that kid. And I can hold the whole truth. Parts were wonderful. Parts were awful. Even though there is no Father's Day card for that.

A Little Poem

Before I was a therapist, I was a writer. In my twenties, I wrote a lot of poetry. As I approach fifty, I find myself returning to that form. Here is one I think fits the mission of this blog…

I traveled to the future,

and found you there.

We had lunch, turkey sandwiches

with delicious Swiss cheese.

And you said to me, waving

half a sandwich in the air for emphasis,

“Tell myself, when you get back,

that everything turns out fine.

Tell me not to worry so much, or,” you said,

swallowing a sip of iced tea,

“Not to worry at all, ever.

And to be kind to myself,

especially when naked.

This,” you said, making a circle with your finger,

indicating the whole of your body,

“will not get younger, stronger, or better looking

through self-contempt. Smile into the mirror,”

you told me to tell you.

“Oh,” you said, finishing the last bite of turkey,

sipping the last sip of tea,

“and tell me to take care of my knees.”

J. Levin 5/14

Works for Me

If you're an emotional eater, you may turn to food to stuff down some very important words - words that need saying, but feel scary or wrong to say. Words like "No" and "I don't want to."

One of the most important communication skills I've ever learned comes from my beloved mentor and therapist, Robyn Posin. From Robyn I learned these magic words:

"It just doesn't work for me."

This is all the reason any of us needs to say "no" or set a boundary.  What I love about this phrase is that it eliminates the good-bad, right-wrong, win-lose nature of many boundary setting conversations. It makes it okay for people to ask for what they need, and it makes it okay to say or be told "no." This fundamental okay-ness, creates safety. No one get's judged, criticized, or otherwise bashed. It also eliminates resentment. No one says yes out of fear of negative consequences.

This is not to say that it's always easy to use this skill. There are those who will never be able to hear "no" in any form and take it well. Again, the good news is that if they can't even handle hearing "no," then there is no point in trying to convince or explain. You can save your breath and your energy and walk away.

Many of us feel afraid to set such clear and clean boundaries. We fear losing the people in our lives or hurting them. If you lose someone for honoring your true needs, your life may be better without them. If someone is hurt by your honesty, especially when phrased in a non-critical, non-shaming way, then they were already hurting before you got there. It's their job to heal whatever is injured in them, not yours.

Who is Your Body FOR? (a little saturday morning rant)

Guess what? Your body is for you. Your life is for you too. If the word, "selfish" is flashing in your mind? Brush it away. Don't let it distract you from what I'm about to say.

My friend and fellow therapist, Valerie Torres, posted this article on Facebook today:

Waxing: Damned if you Do an Damned if you Don't: How Pubic Hair Became Political

Which then launched us into a conversation about how sad it is that teenagers are still being indoctrinated into self-mutilation in one form or another to conform to an artificial standard of beauty that is neither healthy nor in their best interest.

This is true of a host of culturally encouraged behaviors from crazy diets, to walking in torturous shoes, to plastic surgery, to hair removal (which often results in cuts, ingrown hairs, and weirdly unattractive 5pm shadow - akin to plucked chicken skin). Pain is not sexy. Neither are sexual partners that objectify us or our body parts.

What I find most painful about this ongoing historical and multi-cultural phenomenon is how sad it is that anyone has to choose between feeling valued, wanted, included, etc. and feeling like who they are is just fine without one iota of alteration.

When one person is deemed "less than" based on appearance, taste, beliefs, choices, etc., we all suffer. We could be next. And the mammalian drive to be part of a pair, a family, a group is powerful. It's evolved over millions of years to ensure our safety. So we will betray ourselves to be part of the larger social structure - especially to be sexy, and pass our genes down to the next generation.

Yet, changing your appearance (or really anything about you) to please other people is a betrayal of your very own self. Do you really want to live inside the body of someone who will sell you out to fit in? It's a crazy making thing. I'm sure there's a German word to describe the dilemma. If anyone knows what it is, please post it in the comments.

Our only recourse is to commit to each others' safety by practicing acceptance and teaching acceptance. Don't get all hyperbolic and ask if this means we have to accept axe murderers. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we all need to be loved and accepted, hairy or smooth, tall or short, fat or thin.

Your body is for YOU. Your life is for YOU. If the people in your circles need you to be different from who you are, please find new people.

Helpless Humiliation and Wondrous Healing

So in my last post I mentioned that out of my year of difficulty, I gained some wonderful wisdom that I might not have been open to had I not been in serious emotional pain. So here's one of the most important things I've learned.

First, the world is not always a safe place. Neither is it always a dangerous place. For me it has been mostly safe physically, and often times, not so safe emotionally. Anger, sadness, pain, loneliness and fear were not welcomed in my family. My mother regularly let me know I was "too sensitive." My father loved to provoke me to anger and then laugh, leaving me feeling helpless and humiliated.  I stayed small, quiet, and ate away my feelings and needs, since neither of my parents had the capacity to provide safety or soothing.

Yet over the years I have discovered that in the presence of people who are kind and respectful, I thrive. I am resilient. Even in the midst of a stinker of a year, I can lift up my head and feel awe watching bees drinking from flowers (especially knowing that bees are struggling to stay alive these days). I still believe in miracles like butter, redwood trees, sweat pants, and being held close by someone who loves me.

I am deeply aware that I am not alone. There is no way to get through this life unscathed. The trick is to remain open hearted or "whole-hearted" as Brené Brown likes to say. For me, keeping an open heart requires feeling safe in the company of other people. In this past year, I have been battered by people who, I'm sure, have been battered themselves.

The insurance rep, who I mentioned last time, was like a stern school principal, certain that every client is going to attempt insurance fraud. The contractor who was fond of bending the truth, I'm sure feels tossed around by the whims of the economy, trying to make as much money as possible while there is work available. With these pressures, it's easy to lose integrity and become untrustworthy.

For me, dealing with these personalities daily felt like I was being ground into fine dust - an apt metaphor since most of my house was covered in plaster dust. What was being ground away was my civility, my politeness, my calm. The raw nerves underneath were angry. And not just any kind of anger, but the most poisonous type: helpless rage.

At the time I didn't know that my armor (civility, politeness and calm) was about to be cracked open so I would have to heal that old wound inside - humiliation.

I've long understood that the pairing of anger and fear in me was connected to how my anger was treated when I was little. I didn't fully understand that it was a fear of being humiliated. I didn't know yet that the brain registers humiliation as a traumatic experience. As social creatures, humiliation, which separates us from the safety of others, is a threat. It turns out that sticks, stones AND words can all hurt us.

So enter insurance guy who treats me like a naughty child. Slightly humiliating. Enter contractor who keeps "forgetting" that he needed another day's work for this and another list of supplies for that. Mix in a husband who is worried that we won't be able to find anyone else to do the work (another long story of how difficult it was to find this guy in the first place). And I don't feel like I have any power - like the power to fire the guy - in our negotiations. Mix in a few personal attacks from a family member who has his own abuse history and tends toward abusive behavior when he's stressed out. And it's the perfect storm.

I lose my composure. I lose my cool. I lose my shit.
And it's about time.

At first my anger comes mixed in with the humiliation and the fear. I hate this kind of anger - hard to feel strong when your voice is shaking and you're sweaty and half your thoughts disappear in a fine, red mist before you can say them aloud. This is the vagus nerve, shutting down the body in the expectation that you're about to be eaten. Sucks when you're trying to stand up for yourself.

But over the next few weeks, through an amazing process called Somatic Experiencing, I start to embrace my healthy, strong, no-one-can-mess-with-me, anger. I like to call this Big Cat anger. The image in my mind is of a lioness, lying in tall grass, peaceful and alert. Muscles relaxed but also ready, if needed, at any moment. This calm is so different from the suffocating armor of being small and quiet and eating instead of biting in anger. It's a peace that comes from knowing that with one roar, one swipe of my claws, I can take down any of life's hyenas. And in that knowing, not needing to take anyone down. Just raising an eyebrow when someone is being a jerk, as if to say, "Really? Do you know who I am?"

In this state of empowerment, the world looks brighter, sharper, clearer. My body feels stronger, more agile, and my mind feels awake, open. My heart is open too. Safe to love even more deeply.

This is how healing from attachment trauma goes. We use the best and only defenses available as kids to keep ourselves safe and connected to family that should, but can't, protect and cherish us. For most of us, the defense involves being what our families needed us to be - the good one, the bad one, the skinny one, the fat one. And then those defenses fail. At first it can be terrifying. But moving through the process consciously, with the help of someone who gets it and cares allows for transformation - new strengths, new awareness and a deepening feeling of grounding, and centering. We become our Big Cat selves.

So, that was a year

It's more than a year since my last post. And honestly there is a tiny twinge of guilt from the Should committee in my head. But it's tiny, and it's being hugged and loved by the Breathe committee and the Everything's Okay committee.

And then, WOW! I have a Breathe and Everything's okay committee!!!! I didn't always. So it feels kind of miraculous that they are here, so very present and available when I need them. Ahhhh.

It's been quite a year. My mom, now 80-something, has had some form of dementia - memory problems, concentration problems, and her anxiety has finally caught up to her now that she can't escape it through busy-ness, self-distraction and overwork. My dad had a little cancer - really a little, thank goodness. But still enough for some surgery which is hard on any body, but especially one that is 85.

My sisters fortunately handled the bulk of the care-giving duties, but they got soooo burned out. In the easiest of families, aging is hard. In my very dysfunctional family, it's mayhem. Several trips to Los Angeles, many phone calls, lots of conversations with doctors and hand-holding at various appointments, and everything I've ever learned as a therapist and a therapy client was tested to the limits.

In late July, a water hose in my kitchen failed while I was at work, and the whole first floor of my house flooded. The contents of the first floor - furniture, dishes, appliances, rugs - basically everything - was relocated to the upstairs bedrooms and garage. Kitchen cabinets were removed. Portions of the walls cut out or studded with drill-holes so that giant dryers could dry the walls and insulation, avoiding future mold problems. The insurance representative was more like a stern school principal (certain that everyone is committing insurance fraud) than a helpful partner. The contractor (as I've learned is common) was painfully slow, expensive, and a bit of lying liar.

I had an immediate trauma response - shock, followed by intense anxiety and then a near-complete shut-down of my emotional-relational system.

Miraculously, I was able to work, compartmentalizing my personal trauma somehow. Work was a kind of life-line. I knew that if I could show up and be present for my clients, parts of me were still resilient enough to come back on-line when the time was right. I am still in the process of thawing out. My parents are mostly stable. My house is functional and in many ways, much nicer and newer than before. And the Breathe and Everything's Okay committees are here with lots of hugs, walks in the woods and mugs of hot cocoa and tea.

I would not wish this year on anyone. Yet, I have come out of it with precious, delicious and soul-feeding wisdom I may not have otherwise been open to receiving. In my next posts I will share more of this. Today I just wanted to say Hi again. It's been so long.

This book will change your life

Have you ever wondered, how did that Julie Levin get to be so skilled in the ways of self care? The answer is my therapist, consultant, teacher, and mentor for many years, Robyn Posin. Robyn is the person who provided me with a detailed map to give myself the love and gentleness that I always needed, but never received. As a therapist I have, in turn, had the honor of sharing Robyn's wisdom with my clients and seeing over and over how learning to give ourselves loving care, self-acceptance, and protection from anything that feels "not right" leads to profound healing and freedom.

If you want to go straight to her book, here's the link:
Go Only As Fast As Your Slowest Part Feels Safe To Go: Tales To Kindle Gentleness and Compassion For Our Exhausted Selves

Robyn's writings are a treasure trove of "how to love yourself" stories. And what works so well for me is that Robyn's stories are never written in "you should do it this way" form. Instead, she writes about times in her life when she has struggled with a problem, a person or her own inner critic. Then she shares how her own "inner mommy" helped her through those struggles with love, acceptance, patience, and tenderness. Reading her stories, I've found my inner voices saying, "Me too, me too, me too!" seeing myself in the painful moments and then finding solace, hope and a new way of being with myself as she shares a profound learning that came through the pain.

With a feminist lens, Robyn is able to articulate with clarity, humor and kindness, how we are socialized to go against ourselves, dismissing and denying our physical and emotional needs.

Maybe we don't need more energy drinks. Maybe we need our own permission to take naps when we're tired! Maybe that sinking feeling in our belies is a signal that we've just said "yes" when we really wanted to say "NO!" Maybe we don't need another diet book, but instead a way of listening inward to our true hungers and then honoring them.

If you've been wanting the guidebook through the land of your truest self, you will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book,
Go Only As Fast As Your Slowest Part Feels Safe To Go: Tales To Kindle Gentleness and Compassion For Our Exhausted Selves