Month: Apr 2022

Small miracles

/ sarahlissyjenkins / 6 Comments

I went to see my son today, braced for another absolutely terrible time as that is how it’s been for the last few visits, but by the Grace of God or sheer luck, he was in an excellent mood – calm, relaxed and happy. I was able to enjoy my time with him and vice versa. He watched videos on his tablet and ate the chocolate I bought for him. There were no behavioural issues or stress. It was all exactly how it could have been if these issues weren’t even in the equation. For a short time I breathed easy and thanked God/the Universe for this unexpected miracle.

This is even more poignant since yesterday was a dreadful day. I spent hours on the phone trying to sort my son’s finances out only to be told he wasn’t entitled to anything (which isn’t true) and desperately trying to make sure the paperwork was being completed so that my son’s carers would be insured to drive a car to take him out. It’s all been frustratingly slow and horrendously stressful but will hopefully be sorted soon. At one point yesterday I was shaking and crying and livid with my son’s dad for the mess he has left in his absence and felt it was all simply too much for me. The last thing I felt like doing this morning was visiting my son and being punched in the arm (or worse). So to arrive and be greeted with a smiley, happy adult child, was like the greatest gift I could have been given.

I am so grateful for this and also for the care everyone is showing him. Despite his upcoming eviction notice, the professionals involved in my son’s care are pulling out all the stops to tackle his behaviour on all levels. I do feel a lot of it is being abandoned by his father who no longer visits him, as well as not being taken out in a car to a range of activities which is needed to keep him entertained and healthy. Due to his autism, my son can’t express his feelings in the way most people can. He can’t say he’s confused or sad or missing his dad. It’s got to come out in other ways and for him that’s destructive and violent behaviour. Knowing that doesn’t make it easier for the carers to deal with when they’ve got other residents to consider, but it’s certainly understandable.

Today’s miracle has given me hope. My son can still have happy, calm days. He may settle down yet and find his place in the world. Maybe everything the carers are doing will make a difference. And once he has access to his car again, he’ll be doing a lot more things that he loves. Maybe he’ll be okay. I’ll keep hoping and praying so. It’s a long hard road but today shows we may be heading in the right direction.

Keeping the faith

/ sarahlissyjenkins / 1 Comment

Not for the first time I feel like Job in the Bible asking ‘why’ in the midst of despair.

Some time ago I mentioned to a therapist that I often wondered ‘why me?’ during my painful struggles and she said that when she said the same many years ago people in her circle used to respond ‘why not you?’ There is a bitter truth in that. We cry out from the depths of our hearts. Our pain feels so deeply personal. So much so that God/the Universe must have done this to us. Like Job, we feel wronged. We know we’ve always tried our best, or even if we haven’t, we’ve made up for it somehow. So why did this terrible event/situation/tragedy occur? No one has or ever will have an answer to that beyond that suffering is a given and no one is spared. It’s just that some people seem destined to suffer much more or less and the only way forward is to somehow trust that it’s all unfolding how it’s meant to be because otherwise it would be different than it is.

Yesterday I heard that my son is being evicted from his residential home. I knew how much the staff were struggling with him but somehow I never thought this would actually be the outcome. I feel bone-crushingly sad. I have no idea where he will go now. It could have been such a lovely home for him. Those are the words I seem to constantly repeat in relation to my son: could have been. I pulled out all the stops to try and make things easier for him so that his behaviour may improve but it hasn’t worked. I know there is a lot of hurt in those words. I feel affronted that none of it made any difference. It’s a deep-seated wound that nothing I’ve done has made a difference to my son but I know that isn’t true. It springs from my sadness that I wish life had been different for both of us. And I know if I hadn’t become so sick/hospitalised and that if my ex wasn’t the way he is, things certainly would be very different now.

And therein lies my struggle. It drags me down like a lead weight until I feel I have no strength to fight. Giving in feels too much, too painful. So I frantically search for a way out, considering all the addictive tendencies I’ve had in the past as a way to escape unbearable feelings, but not able to bring myself to go there because I’m too aware, too conscious of my actions and their consequences now. I’m left with raw pain that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I can’t cry either so I’m just staring listlessly into space and waiting for someone to ring me – my son’s social worker, the home, a family member – so I don’t feel so desperately alone with it all. At the moment it seems the social worker will call tomorrow. I don’t yet know the way forward.

I’m remembering a scene from the movie ‘The Shack’ (wonderful movie, btw) where the guy is in a boat which is breaking up, a metaphor for his terrible pain and struggle over the abduction and murder of his young daughter, and Jesus walks up to the boat, on the water, telling him to ‘have faith’ and ‘look at me’ because each time the guy focused on his suffering, the boat broke apart more and water poured in. Eventually, the guy found his faith and climbed out of the boat onto the water with Jesus, finding himself able to walk back to the shore. This is a natural re-telling of the Bible story where Jesus told his disciples to have faith. I don’t believe the walking on water was literal, although who knows it may have been, but a metaphor for our ability to overcome our emotional pain when we keep the faith in something bigger than ourselves, whether that’s God, the Universe, or our own soul/higher/Christ self.

The Bible is all about faith in the midst of terrible suffering, as well as the human need to cry out and ask ‘why’ when we are hurting. Whilst there’s never any clear answers to why we suffer, what’s certain is no one is alone, and while life is desperately hard sometimes, with faith we find the strength to keep moving forward.

Acceptance in the midst of it all

/ sarahlissyjenkins / 3 Comments

I was talking to someone about acceptance. She asked how I was doing with accepting my son the way he is.

I replied that maybe I was a little further along, but that in all honesty, I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop wishing things were different.

This was the same day I found out that my son had punched a carer in the ribs, forcing her to go to A+E due to swelling.

On reflection, there are many layers of acceptance. If I can’t accept my son the way he is without sadness and longing for things to be different, THAT is where acceptance lies: in my longing, in my heartbreak, in the sitting with my son feeling helpless that there’s no way to reach him, in the knowing that even as his mother I am so very limited. Acceptance happens through each moment. It might look and feel different on any given day. It’s not somewhere in the illusionary future, but right here, in the midst of it all -the entire diabolical mess.

Reflections on childhood and God

/ sarahlissyjenkins / 2 Comments

Over this Easter I have been thinking a lot about my childhood and realising while it was painful in many ways (very dysfunctional, disjointed family and chronic bullying at school) I have a lot to be grateful for. I spent a lot of time in nature, whether it was picking blackberries down the field over the fence that backed onto the bottom of our council estate, or hiding in a makeshift ‘den’ which consisted of a tree stump surrounded by overhanging hedgerow over the fence that ran alongside our house. I spent a lot of time in nature and had freedom that many kids these days can’t even imagine.

Most of all, though, I found comfort in the Bible. I took my Good News Bible down to my den and read it there. No one forced me to read it; on the contrary, I grew interested in it myself being an avid reader of Enid Blyton books where, being the 1950’s, every child went to church and Sunday school. I decided I wanted to go and my mum, being drawn to religion herself, took me every week. It was there I bought my Bible, some workbooks, and several wonderful books by Patricia St John about children of my age who were troubled in some way before finding God and becoming Christian.

My view of God was very simple. I could talk to him daily and did through the Bible workbooks I completed in my den. He was all powerful but loving and good. I wanted to be good to please God. That was massively important to me, so much so that I completed many notebook entries simply asking God to help me to be good. My childhood inevitably tapped into this need to be good because I was the ‘good child’ for my mum whilst my sister had severe mental disturbances and caused my mum a lot of pain. I wasn’t told to be good, however, and I certainly wasn’t threatened with God’s wrath if I wasn’t. The desire to find God and do right by him belonged to me alone.

In some ways I miss the simplicity of those years. I had no doubt that God had my back. I saw him as a loving parent, someone who cared for me. Someone who was always THERE. My view of God is now much more complicated. When I pray, I no longer feel just as though I’m praying to someone outside of me, but affirming something inside. God isn’t a personal being sitting on a cloud, but an energy that exists in each one of us and the entire universe. This means the power lies within and always has done. My childhood dreams of God enabled me to tap into that power and transform myself through my faith.

What I’m missing is that certainty, that focus, that point of power. I’ve lost that innocence and now my mind questions and critics everything. It’s no longer straightforward. I have purchased a few of the Patricia St John books that I used to read to help me tap into that energy again and the part of me that knew the truth no matter what form it took. I didn’t even consider any other forms. I didn’t question it. It just was. I’m finding my way back there through meditation and – yes- prayer, but I need to be mindful that I don’t get side-tracked by critical thoughts such as ‘but God doesn’t exist outside of you.’ Says who? God is everywhere, inside and out. It doesn’t matter what term we give it – God, Divine, Energy, Source – we are all part of it. But the point of power has always been within. The difference between the child and the adult is that the former didn’t know this, but the latter does.

A dream of numbers, speech therapy and Buddhism

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exoticindia.com

Numbers were the main theme of last night’s dream and hugely symbolic. I dreamed that I visited a speech therapist at a place many miles from here. It was such a long way that I’d gone on the sleeper train but I was completely drawn to seeing this speech therapist. She recommended that I see her every week and drew up a price plan. Each week would cost £100 with the total amount I’d have to spend being £969. As I looked at these figures my heart sank. I realised that the cost – combined with the time and energy spent travelling up on the sleeper train each time – would be massive and I wasn’t sure I could commit. By the same token, I felt the speech therapist could really help. The dream ended before a decision was made one way or the other.

This dream relates strongly to a book I was reading yesterday by a spiritual teacher called Adyashanti on the subject of thoughts/ thinking and how our minds create suffering. The mind is a tool, to be used lightly in the dance of life, not something to get attached to or identify with or else suffering ensures. I was thinking (ironically) about this a lot yesterday and can understand the truth in it, but I also think it’s necessary to develop a healthy ego before it’s possible to understand and utilise this spiritual truth. In this way I totally agree with Carl Jung who stated: “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.” If one has not developed a healthy ego, such as in the case of trauma, it’s probably not going to be possible to let go of identification with the mind or else risk major disintegration and psychosis. We are Divine AND human. We need to tell our stories until we don’t need them anymore. Until they are no longer freeing us but entrapping us. Forming a healthy ego is all part of the journey. I don’t see the ego is a bad thing – albeit it has its shadow side, like most things- but an inevitable part of the human experience until we wake from the dream. But as Adyashanti says, it’s all thoughts and opinions and these are mine.

Last night’s dream was, therefore, a representation of all those thoughts. I believe the number 100 is symbolic of the individual self within the whole/Oneness – not rejecting the healthy ego but embracing it as part of everything. I arrived on the sleeper train, meaning that until seeing the therapist I had been asleep, lost in ego. The number 969 is very interesting. I didn’t realise this until I looked it up but it represents the three virtues of the Buddha, with the first 9 symbolising the Buddha himself, the 6 represents his teachings, and the 9 represents the Sangha, or community. It’s actually called the 969 Movement (found on wikipedia). The speech therapist probably symbolises the expression of mind as n awakened tool – how do I communicate with myself and others? How do I use my mind in the right way? In Buddhist terms this is right speech/right action which points to the state of peace where we no longer attach to our thoughts but live more fully in the present moment. It means our suffering is minimalised as we are no longer investing in a sense of a personal ‘me’ which is separated from life, or focusing on what happened in the past or what will happen in the future. Instead, we live a more peaceful, embodied, simple, awakened existence.

My dream is really highlighting the difficulty of this choice. Do I want to truly awaken or stay asleep? Can I maintain this level of awareness without being sucked into identification with my mind? How much should I invest in the personal me? Maybe none of these questions really matter. What matters is being aware moment by moment of my thoughts and feelings and knowing the point of power is always now.

Learning what love REALLY is

/ sarahlissyjenkins / 4 Comments

After a full night of dreams I woke up with the well-known song ‘I want to know what love is’ by Foreigner playing in my mind (lyrics after text). As is often the case when this happens, I can’t think of more apt words to describe my situation right now.

I went to see my son yesterday. As much as I tried to tell myself not to push anything on him, not even in my attempt to connect with him, I did just that: I tried to show him a photo on my phone and asked him who it was. He refused to look and chucked any name back at me. I insisted that he looked properly and he flipped out and punched me on the arm.

It’s a familiar story: I try to connect with him in any possible way, he doesn’t want to, he gets upset, I retreat. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. The difference is that now I’m really trying to put him first and not force on him my desire to connect with him. I’m trying to stay in a place of unconditional love and think of his needs, not my own.

It was never going to be easy. I look at him and long to reach him in some way. Maybe I do, just not in the way I wanted. Life has brought me to a place where I have to set aside my own grief, abandonment, unmet expectations, and think about what is right for him. Some parents seem to do this automatically but I never have; it’s something I have to learn, over and over again. And I admit, I don’t really know how.

That’s where the song comes in: I want to know what love is. Yes, I truly want to know. How do I love my son in the way HE needs, not in the way I want to love him? How do I let go of everything I wished for – all the unfulfilled pain of my upbringing and need for a family – and be in the moment with my son, having no expectations?

It’s a sacred journey. It really is. It’s a stripping bare of everything I thought I was, wanted to be, longed to have. I don’t know how to do it. Maybe the love is surrendering to not knowing. For all my spiritual knowledge, my son is my greatest teacher.

In a dream last night I was saying ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again like a mantra. I can’t remember the context but it felt deeply spiritual. I think it was coming from the part of me who knows as a human being I’ll never get it exactly right. Psychoanalyst Winnicott described the ‘good enough mother’ and that is important for me to remember. Love and compassion starts with myself. I’m not perfect and I’m doing my best. Maybe the willingness to love my son unconditionally despite the difficulties is enough.

I want to know what love is by Foreigner

I’ve gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I’m older

This mountain, I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
Through the clouds, I see love shine
Keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life, there’s been heartache and pain
I don’t know if I can face it again
Can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me (hey)

Gotta take a little time
Little time to look around me
I’ve got nowhere left to hide
Looks like love has finally found me

In my life, there’s been heartache and pain
I don’t know if I can face it again
Can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me

I wanna know what love is (I wanna know)
I want you to show me (I wanna feel)
I wanna feel what love is (I know, I know, and I know)
I know you can show me
Let’s talk about love

I wanna know what love is
(Love that you feel inside)
I want you to show me
(I’m feeling so much love)
I wanna feel what love is
(And you know, you just can’t hide)
I know you can show me

Oh, I wanna know what love is
(Let’s talk about love)
I know you can show me
(I wanna feel)
I wanna feel what love is
(And you know you just can’t hide)
I know you can show me
I wanna feel what love is (oh, I wanna know)
I want you to show me

Songwriters: Jones Lesly, Jones Michael Leslie
For non-commercial use only.
Data From: Musixmatch

Fear, love, guilt: Tomorrow’s visit

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I’m visiting my son again tomorrow and my anxiety about it is through the roof. I’m not scared of him, I’m scared of his suffering. I’m scared of seeing him hurting because he’s missing his dad, and not understanding the practical issues that his dad has not taken care of. He doesn’t know the details, all his knows is that his dad has not visited and that he is unable to do certain things that he used to. He doesn’t know his dad has failed him. In some ways that feels even more heartbreaking.

I’m no stranger to suffering. I watched my father die of cancer and all I felt was love. I had no fear because in that moment I allowed everything to be as it was. I felt great empathy for his pain but I was not afraid. I knew what was coming and so did he. I sat with him until the very end and surrendered to the love that was guiding his journey home.

My son’s suffering frightens me. I feel a raw, primal instinct to protect him from hurt, but I know that’s impossible. His vulnerability and lack of comprehension increases my desire to keep him safe always. I also know that my fear of his suffering is probably tied up in a large amount of guilt. It’s displaced because I’ve never let him down – I’ve always done my best for him under difficult circumstances – again, always. But somehow the guilt is still there, probably linked to my grief around parenthood in general, that I was sick and unable to be the kind of parent I wanted, and that my son, due to his needs, wasn’t able to be the child I wanted either. My self-image is clouded in guilt and sadness and a sense that I have failed.

Maybe the fear of my son’s suffering is not only because I fear the pain that comes with knowing he is hurt, but fear that it will break me as a mother because I didn’t have the relationship I wanted with him and his pain presses on that wound. His pain will force me to come face to face with myself as his parent without running from those feelings. I will have to sit with them and learn. Relationships are our greatest spiritual teachers after all. They are our mirrors, showing us where love is most needed.

Unconditional love goes beyond images and labels but leaves out nothing. It embraces fear, pain and grief. This isn’t about trying not to feel scared or pretending I don’t feel guilty. It’s allowing all those feelings to be there and giving them to the light. It’s being with the reality of the situation, which is that it is hard, and all sorts of issues are activated, including my own abandonment wounds. I can only do my best in any given moment and leave the rest to the Divine light/the universe to take care of. That’s what I’ve always done for my son and will continue to do, no matter how scared I am.

The Divine within

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My life has been far from easy. But I’ve never felt truly alone, not even during the isolation of my childhood, and then, into adulthood when my health deteriorated dramatically and my son was diagnosed with severe autism, I felt more and more that life was pushing me to realise something that was lurking in the depths of my unconscious: I am part of the Divine. I am Life itself. I am not the fragmented, unworthy, rejected, broken human being that those around me led me to believe over and over again.

As a child I felt I had the potential to be something great, whether it was an actress, journalist, writer, it didn’t matter. I just knew with a untarnished certainty that my destiny was something special. I knew it despite the pain of my external environment. I wrote it into stories, poems, prayers. Many times as an adult I lamented over those young dreams, thinking how silly they were, how crazy I was to believe I could ever be somebody in this world. When I got sick and my life closed in around me as I entered survival mode trying to cope with my severely disabled son, I despaired at ever believing it. Instead I was totally ruined. I couldn’t even manage parenthood. My son was out of control. I was so unwell that I couldn’t walk up the stairs. I fell into such a deep depression that I don’t know how I ever found my way out.

But here’s the thing: life never gave up on me. That Divine spark kept the truth safe like a precious jewel, knowing that the time would come when I could allow myself to remember and allow it to shine. Even when I was engaging in self-destructive thoughts and activities, which has been often, it’s been there, gently pushing me to realise what I always knew. It wouldn’t let me go. Even when I actively wanted it to go away, preferring to close my eyes and sleep my way through existence as it felt the safest, easiest option, it wouldn’t. It acted like a nagging parent, constantly saying ‘you know you are more. You know.’

And I do know. I’ve known it logically for a long time. Allowing the truth into my heart has been a harder process. It takes acceptance and surrender, both of which aren’t easy when it involves facing grief over what life could have been, indeed should have been (according to my ego). It’s keeping my heart open to not only my own truth, but that of the Divine in others, ALL others, even my extremely difficult ex who is like my nemesis on this path. None of it is easy. It requires intensive healing work, courage and most of all faith to keep going and surrendering to the Divine force which has always had my back.

The little girl was right. I am destined to be something special – we all are. We already ARE. Our destiny is realising it, or re-realising it, over and over again.

The problem of suffering

/ sarahlissyjenkins / 3 Comments

It’s the hardest thing when your child is suffering and there is no real way to help them. I don’t know how anyone can possibly make peace with that. I feel guilty for even wanting to feel at peace when I can’t help my child. Even worse is knowing my child is suffering as a result of the actions of his narcissistic father. I don’t use that word lightly. I’ve spent a good part of my life coming up against my ex husband’s self-absorption, his controlling behaviour, and total lack of empathy, and realised a long time ago that it was pointless getting frustrated and angry – he isn’t going to change because he can’t see the problem. I had to make some terrible sacrifices as a result of the situation I was in. It wasn’t easy but I did the best I could for my son and myself.

Now the staff at my son’s assisted living accommodation are experiencing what I did for years with my ex – a complete lack of responsibility and integrity, even a tendency to outright lie when it suits him. My ex is free to live the life he chooses – and he certainly does – but when it hurts our son and threatens the security of his new home environment, well that’s a whole different thing.

The staff and myself are doing all we can on a practical level to improve the situation. Unfortunately when so much depends on one person’s willingness to communicate and getting nothing, there are real limits to be faced. I have taken some action which I feel terrible about and may not even change things, but I simply could not just sit and face the helplessness.

On a spiritual level, how does one deal with situations like these? Meditate, pray? Surely the real test of any spiritual practice is when we are facing helplessness in our lives. Unfortunately when I’m distressed the very last thing I feel like doing is sitting on a meditation cushion to find peace. I’m sure I’m not the only one. My mind is thrashing around, distressed, heartbroken, angry, clawing for a solution….but there is none. Maybe the only answer is surrender. But that doesn’t help my son either. My ability to accept what IS doesn’t change his suffering. Accepting his suffering feels like the ultimate NO. But what else can be done? Seriously?

Intellectually my mind starts making a story out of this. It has to be happening for a reason. The way life turned out. The way my son is. The way my ex is. I want to create some meaning and purpose out of all of it because it’s so devastating and unbearable and not in the least bit fair. How can I make it okay somehow? The answer is I can’t. It truly is awful….and no spiritual explanation will change that, whether or not there really IS a purpose to it (which I believe there is, on some level).

I really am back to acceptance. It’s all I have. But how does one accept the unacceptable – that my child suffers at the hands of a narcissist father and that life will continue to be painful for all of us? Indeed, how does anyone accept suffering? The Ukrainians are no doubt asking the same thing. People who have lost children through war and murder and suicide. Those who have suffered in other unspeakable ways. How do we find the will to accept and move forward?

It is said that love is the only answer. I don’t love the situation of course. Not at all. But I love my son and I hope on some level that will help him. Even if doesn’t, it may help me connect to the fabric of the Universe and see the reality, which is that the Universe is bigger than all this suffering. The Divine is in the midst of it – in me, in my son, even in my ex – and thus the journey will always return us to love, and none of us are alone in what we face.