The Centre of the Confusion

Some people, like myself, because of some early trauma in life, have developed what Winnicott called a "false self;" one which was constructed to please Mom and other significant people as a way to seemingly guarantee getting one's required care and attention through an attunement to Mom's moods and needs (to the detriment of the normal connection to one's own needs) and the development of pleasing and helpful behaviours. Pleasing Mom or any other significant person like a teacher, spouse, etc., was such a person's way of ensuring their own needs would be met. Such a person, when answering the call to leave all and follow Jesus, to live for others, to live from the heart out of which flows the healing and transforming grace we all need, such a person requires healing and transformation: this includes the unmaking of old patterns, habits, assumptions, motivations, etc., the death of the old self, and the regeneration of a new way of being and doing in the world.

There is however a significant confusion at the centre of the required transformation: I have been blessed enough to have a question put to me three times in the last week or so (twice in the last two days) a question that leaves me both further enlightened and quite confused. Let me explain. The question is a simple one, the first time it was asked it was, "Why do you want to go to Africa so much." The related question that hit the same point was asked in the face of a number of interesting and potentially rewarding opportunities: and it was, "What does your heart say." This simple question is incredibly important, because our Creator, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, the reality that supports our existence in ways we cannot even imagine, inspired Solomon, Israel's wisest king, to say:

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37.4)

Now I've been delighting myself in our Divine Lover, my Abba (Dadda in Aramaic) for some time now, but when it comes to the desires of my heart, I realize that I am so powerfully drawn to meeting other people's needs, that beyond meeting their needs, I have no idea. What is confusing of course is that I am called into loving service, but if this service is from a "false self" constructed to mitigate trauma and ensure I get what I need, then my drive to serve can be operating from the wrong motivation. Meanwhile my constructed sense of self, the identity that I project to the world, is quite satisfying as I am a humble servant, dedicated to serving others, but in the words of a friend of mine, perhaps also a professional codependent. The key is the motivation.

Now I've been going through a deconstruction of this ego or sense of self, and have therefore been becoming more and more aware of this need to be needed that has driven much of my walk with others over the last year or so: I was never so at peace and so satisfied as when I was helping or supporting others. But as I've become aware of these interior dynamics I have been both ceasing and desisting from reaching for these satisfactions as well as holding my younger self more and more. (Winnicott believed that the provision of a reliable holding environment gave the afflicted person the conditions in which to grow past the false self constructs into a more authentic being: holding simply means being warmly present to.) At the same time I have have also stopped describing with certainty the "inevitable" results of my business activities, developing a certain detachment to my activities, as I continue to simply walk with the ONE and those I'm given.

Now as for the realization that has finally come to rest today as I continue to allow this question to work away at me: "What does my heart say?" You see, as one who is detaching from the need to be needed, I've realized that I really don't know what my heart wants! I am however comfortable with not knowing but holding the experience as I unfold. Now I realize that what makes the many options opening in front of me attractive is what other people see in me: the meeting of their needs, the fulfillment of their desires: there is no stronger tonic for a false self constructed person such as myself. But now I'm not attached to the outcome of any of these potential opportunities, but rather I'm simply walking with the people involved as we find our way to what God has in mind for me, and perhaps for each of them. I know that a key to this will be my discovery of my own "heart's desires," for not only do I delight in Abba, but I am surrendered so that S/He is able to remake my heart according to her/his purposes. My task is simply to BE ME, the loving and beloved child I was created to be, the gift of light and life to those who are seeking.

To say the same thing in a language accessible to those who do not do the divine object thing, say my Buddhist or psychoanalytic friends, what I am doing is taking apart the delusional ego constructs that were developed in response to a traumatic situation. In so doing, I am becoming more aware of who I actually am in the fullest sense of those words. Self-realization must include such a transformational journey, before and/or after the moment of one's awakening. There is every bit the need to drop the old habits and ways of being and doing on these transformation paths as there is on the path of being a disciple of Jesus. In fact, Buddhists, Hindus, followers of Jesus and psychoanalysts all have in common the master/disciple or teacher/student relationship which is often provides the context and support for such self-transformation.

So I say to all who have realized their disenchantment with the world, who have committed themselves to some vision of transforming the world, and have realized to some degree this transformation in themselves, I say, "Walk on sisters and brothers" for we have the grace and power of the universe co-operating with us, supporting us in our unfolding as we become lights on the way for those who are searching for a better way. We recognize each other not so much from the verbal and conceptual constructs we use to frame our self-understanding, our theology, our pictures of the Divine, but rather we recognize in each other people on the path having the same experiences, being transformed in the same manner. I am so blessed to have sisters and brothers from so many different religious and spiritual traditions who are on this path of suffering, renunciation and liberation, surrendered to the greatest horizon of their experience! J