that he finds her fear draining. Her children have developed fears of their own. The youngest, however, seems to be a daredevil, requiring a lot of the family’s attention.
This woman found that writing vignettes about growing up helped her anxiety. The thought of each apartment would jog her memory. She wrote of her fears and how she both hid and faced them. Writing helped her see how resilient she was. She realized she did very well at facing a lot of change and saw her resiliency as a strength she hadn’t recognized before. She wrote out her courage and now reminds herself that fear is one feeling among many that she holds in her body’s memory. Writing helps her accept what is happening in present time without triggering the past.
“Writing a journal means that facing your ocean you are afraid to swim across it, so you attempt to drink it drop by drop.”
—George Sand
Many of us carry the sounds of the nights when we were cold and not cared for. In fear and anger, everything is caught; even the soul’s attention. We must write to the wise person within us and ask for help.
As Buddha said, “We are the lamp.” We are the source for our own light. No one can restrict us or make us feel a certain way, not for long anyway. We are either open to our spirit or we aren’t.
Clustering is a technique to use when we’re not sure what is triggering our feelings. It opens us to new possibilities. Sometimes we feel that something is holding us back and we can’t put our finger on the source of the discomfort but we sense it’s from our past. Clustering is useful because the free association method of the technique helps open the doors to our subconscious. Clustering may give you clues as to why your hatchet is swinging today. You may see what you are doing today in a different way and this insight may change your mood or actions. Here are the instructions for Clustering. We’ll be using it in the exercises that follow.
Clustering
Begin by choosing a word you want to write about. Write it in the center of the page, then write down every word that comes to mind even if they don’t make sense. Write down words that seem out of place or silly. You can work in a circular fashion. Keep concentrating on doing this and you’ll feel a change in your consciousness and words will just occur to you. Write them down quickly before the judge within censors them. Start with the word muse and write three words that muse brings to mind, such as writing, music, and nature. Write down an association for each of those words as they appear. Below is an example of a completed cluster.
Notice how one word leads to another. Sometimes your mind will jump to a more concrete word or one that is most unexpected. Do the clustering in whatever way works for you and you’ll seed your fertile soil. Start with the word muse and see where it takes you. Later you can do some streaming from the ideas or feelings that emerge from the cluster. You can take a “wing” of the cluster and do some streaming on that section and see what new insights arise.
Exercises
1. Remember a recent situation in which you didn’t like the way you reacted. What feeling was evoked by that situation? Sadness? Anger? Use the main feeling as the center of a cluster. Cluster for five minutes. Look at what you’ve written and select one word or section of the clustering and explore it further with the method of streaming; write for ten more minutes. Underline anything you’d like to return to later. Underline any insights. How does this exploration help you accept your feelings?
2. Look out your window and find two unrelated objects. Write what these two objects have to do with accepting yourself so you can better feel your spirit. Cluster for two minutes. Use streaming for five minutes. What did you find out about yourself? For instance, say you saw a fence and a chair. The fence may be about the way you hold yourself back, how “fenced in” you feel.
The chair could be the place for judgment, to have a time out and to sit so you can better develop spiritually.
3. Write about a miracle of acceptance that you would wish in your life.
Day 4: Differences Between Us
It’s quite a job to accept ourselves as we are. A lot of us get hung up thinking that acceptance means agreement. But to truly accept means to look upon different people with kind regard, whether we agree with them or not. Accepting the diversity within the human family means letting others be. When we do this, we can stop pushing the river and relax.
How can we be generous in spirit to those different from us? Sometimes it’s hardest to accept differences in the ones we love the most. We have been taught that we are safe when others agree with us and confirm our reality. In You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen talks of how “the ground on which we stand seems to tremble and our footing suddenly unsure” when those closest to us respond differently from us. We can explore in writing and ask our spirit to help us not feel threatened. We can ask what our fearful feelings are about and how they can be released. Were you hit when you differed from your family? Shamed? What feelings come up now when someone opposes your view?
“The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another.”
—Simone de Beauvoir
As we go along our spiritual path, we no longer want to automatically erase people from our lives because they say or do something that hurts us. We need to accept other people’s actions, and our own involvement with them, with more compassion.
As we learn the skills of speaking up and talking things through, our acceptance of the strengths and weaknesses of others grows because we can be honest and clear the air. We can learn to live beyond black and white, total rejection or total approval.
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In the past, Mara would have ended her friendship with Tim, her ex-boyfriend, because she was angry when he tried to date a friend of hers after their intimate relationship was over. Instead, she told him it felt too close for comfort and that she didn’t like it. With writing and prayer, she better understood how much she had hurt him when she ended their relationship. Writing helped her look at the whole picture and better accept that she and Tim had been going through the difficult process of breaking up, trying to be friends, and now regrouping in new partnerships. She needed to be kinder to him and accept that they would find their way with their friendship intact. She might not have felt comfortable with what he did, but she needed to hang in. She needed to ask her wise speaking voice how to be honest yet generous.
It is easier to accept differences if we become aware of the messages within us. These messages—possibly things said about other races or foreigners—may have been said to us or around us when we were children. The more we explore these internalized messages from our past, the easier it is to reject or accept them, and live according to chosen or newly thought-out values. Values that are sorted out are easier to live by even when challenged. It is when we feel conflicted that it is difficult to live in a world whose values are different from ours.
“Poor human nature, what crimes have been committed in thy name!”
—Emma Goldman
Once you have come to terms with the various voices within, you can choose your values without so much
