How open are you?
I adore this sculpture by Juginder Lamba.
Its name "The Word Killeth"
This speaks to me in all sorts of ways - what does it say to you?
I took this photo way back in August 2008 on the day that Dad's diagnosis was confirmed as pancreatic cancer.
Literally feeling frozen within a liminal world where my mind could hold dad's new reality and yet I, me, couldn't properly hold my own which was now dramatically shifting with no edges to hold or contain this erupting movement.
On that day, I desperately needed to get some sort of reality check, so I instinctively headed to one of my childhood anchors - BMAG - otherwise known as the famous Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. It is such a beautiful place - in its architecture and presence. As a child, this was my pretend palace where dad would bring me and my two sisters to look - simply, to look.
And now I was back in that same museum, this time desperate in my search looking for answers, meaning, anything that would relieve me of this awful pain of confusion and powerlessness. This was our dad we were talking about now . . . . . as being a patient? Dad, who was permanent, always there, a fixture, a reference - OUR DAD.
What the hell did this news now mean? . . . . .
I remember standing in front of this very sculpture, tears uncontrollably running down my face and I didn't them want to stop. At least they were moving, in such contrast to my numbed frozen state.
Somehow, this figure spoke volumes to me and held the presence of my current experience. Now I didn't feel so alone.
The weight of knowledge and information on one's head. Simply recognising that the weight of 'knowing' comes at a cost - and that cost felt too high for me in this moment. I just didn't want to know.
I was facing the prospect of a new reality - preparing for the loss of my father. I was also facing the reality of my own impotence and powerlessness to make any difference to his diagnosis.
Carl Rogers talks much about the value of openness to experience and how important this is to contributing towards being a fully functioning person. A state of being where there is reduced reliance on the need to use self-protecting defence mechanisms in response to troubling stimuli. I hold his wisdom with the greatest respect and now I was being challenged big time in this very moment.
OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE? . . . NO CHANCE
I could feel every defence mechanism within me growing bigger and bigger in their attempt to protect me from my immediate troubling stimuli. Without any prompting, the one defence to step forwards was the helpful rescuing daughter, who desperately wanted to make her dad's life better, wanting to make him survive . . . to be here.
My willingness to remain open was totally blighted by my overwhelming fear that was now impacting at such a g-force rate. Swinging between 'It's not really happening, dad looks fine so he can't be that bad - everyone says how well he looks' to 'Oh my God . . . don't mention the word cancer'.
It's amazing how the mind copes and the conversations that play out in the face of adversity. On reflection now, I surely experienced one of my most amazing creative processes, with an emerging dialogue that would now make a brilliant radio drama.
My resistance to accepting the reality was so strong and in those early days of receiving dad's news, all I wanted was to believe that it was a dreadful teasing nightmare. It was so hard. Somehow, by accepting what was happening was like giving in to this reality that now had power over all of us involved.
Yet in the quiet of the dark early morning hours, during those repeated liminal moments of waking from very little sleep, in my heart I knew what this reality meant. Listening to that wise ol' voice of Rogers, I realised I did have some power in all this flux, and that lay in my ability to exercise choice. Choice that sat within my whole attitude towards being with what was now happening.
After summoning up enough courage and using the energy of my pain to face this reality, I managed to reach my own place of being open to this very experience.
I realised that this was dad's process, not mine. I had no power to change the ending and neither was it my place to interfere.
From that moment on, tiny steps of change began to happen.
I began to develop a very different relationship with dad which I will be sharing more about in posts to come.
During the next 6 months, I was to learn a lot more than I could ever have known or realised at the time of standing in front of this sculpture. The following Rogers' quote really helped me to navigate through the waters I would have to traverse, so rich and honest in its offering:
"This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. (Rogers 1961)
So I come back to my original question - my willingness to learn? You'll have to wait and see !
Until next time . . .
Its name "The Word Killeth"
This speaks to me in all sorts of ways - what does it say to you?
I took this photo way back in August 2008 on the day that Dad's diagnosis was confirmed as pancreatic cancer.
Literally feeling frozen within a liminal world where my mind could hold dad's new reality and yet I, me, couldn't properly hold my own which was now dramatically shifting with no edges to hold or contain this erupting movement.
On that day, I desperately needed to get some sort of reality check, so I instinctively headed to one of my childhood anchors - BMAG - otherwise known as the famous Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. It is such a beautiful place - in its architecture and presence. As a child, this was my pretend palace where dad would bring me and my two sisters to look - simply, to look.
And now I was back in that same museum, this time desperate in my search looking for answers, meaning, anything that would relieve me of this awful pain of confusion and powerlessness. This was our dad we were talking about now . . . . . as being a patient? Dad, who was permanent, always there, a fixture, a reference - OUR DAD.
What the hell did this news now mean? . . . . .
I remember standing in front of this very sculpture, tears uncontrollably running down my face and I didn't them want to stop. At least they were moving, in such contrast to my numbed frozen state.
Somehow, this figure spoke volumes to me and held the presence of my current experience. Now I didn't feel so alone.
The weight of knowledge and information on one's head. Simply recognising that the weight of 'knowing' comes at a cost - and that cost felt too high for me in this moment. I just didn't want to know.
I was facing the prospect of a new reality - preparing for the loss of my father. I was also facing the reality of my own impotence and powerlessness to make any difference to his diagnosis.
Carl Rogers talks much about the value of openness to experience and how important this is to contributing towards being a fully functioning person. A state of being where there is reduced reliance on the need to use self-protecting defence mechanisms in response to troubling stimuli. I hold his wisdom with the greatest respect and now I was being challenged big time in this very moment.
OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE? . . . NO CHANCE
I could feel every defence mechanism within me growing bigger and bigger in their attempt to protect me from my immediate troubling stimuli. Without any prompting, the one defence to step forwards was the helpful rescuing daughter, who desperately wanted to make her dad's life better, wanting to make him survive . . . to be here.
My willingness to remain open was totally blighted by my overwhelming fear that was now impacting at such a g-force rate. Swinging between 'It's not really happening, dad looks fine so he can't be that bad - everyone says how well he looks' to 'Oh my God . . . don't mention the word cancer'.
It's amazing how the mind copes and the conversations that play out in the face of adversity. On reflection now, I surely experienced one of my most amazing creative processes, with an emerging dialogue that would now make a brilliant radio drama.
My resistance to accepting the reality was so strong and in those early days of receiving dad's news, all I wanted was to believe that it was a dreadful teasing nightmare. It was so hard. Somehow, by accepting what was happening was like giving in to this reality that now had power over all of us involved.
Yet in the quiet of the dark early morning hours, during those repeated liminal moments of waking from very little sleep, in my heart I knew what this reality meant. Listening to that wise ol' voice of Rogers, I realised I did have some power in all this flux, and that lay in my ability to exercise choice. Choice that sat within my whole attitude towards being with what was now happening.
After summoning up enough courage and using the energy of my pain to face this reality, I managed to reach my own place of being open to this very experience.
I realised that this was dad's process, not mine. I had no power to change the ending and neither was it my place to interfere.
From that moment on, tiny steps of change began to happen.
I began to develop a very different relationship with dad which I will be sharing more about in posts to come.
During the next 6 months, I was to learn a lot more than I could ever have known or realised at the time of standing in front of this sculpture. The following Rogers' quote really helped me to navigate through the waters I would have to traverse, so rich and honest in its offering:
"This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. (Rogers 1961)
So I come back to my original question - my willingness to learn? You'll have to wait and see !
Until next time . . .