More or less out of the blue he texted me: “Hi Marianne, how are you?” I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, and wondered if it was just that question or if there was more to come. I was on the road with someone and saw no opportunity to answer carefully. Not until just after midnight, when I got home, did I sit down to do that. I had another Compassionate Inquiry session ahead of me that night and wanted to get some sleep before it started, but I also wanted to answer this question; I had the feeling that there was more to it and I wanted to create space for that.
I said that considered it a sweet, unexpected question and honestly told him how things currently are: “It’s an intense time. I have been a Compassionate Inquiry student in the professional year training since February. CI is a psychotherapeutic approach in which self-examination is the essence in this first phase. Outrageously transformative, insane amount of introspection, self-reflection, questioning habits, and so on and so forth. I feel privileged to have been admitted and at the same time it is also extremely exciting and emotional to experience what all of this will bring.”
He was still awake and replied: “I have been stuck for years and I am ready for a new challenge, but in recent years I have been chasing myself too much to see a path out. I wanted something different, but nothing presented itself. Everything trudged on and I was indecisively waiting for a new turn.” I read his words attentively and thought of him. I know his work and am impressed by it. I realised how much we can often be mistaken about how “well” someone is. It can look great on the outside, while inside there are all kinds of sadness, discomfort, loneliness and disappointment. At the same time, I also thought it was great that he was ‘waiting’. Remaining in the ‘discomfort’, just ‘sit’ with it (more ‘human being’ than ‘human doing’) is an art that not everyone understands. It takes courage that not everyone has available. However, the slowing down that comes with it can be healing. It can show us that something is allowed to, or, if we really want to flourish again, has to change, while at the same time we acknowledge that we do not yet know in what way and how and when, and with whom and what and without whom and what. To first feel and become aware that it is time for change is already a valuable insight in itself. If you then even dare to reach out, you have already taken a few very important steps.
The time of our conversation was a bit strange, maybe, after midnight, but sometimes that is just the best time, when the darkness surrounds us and the world is quiet, when we are not distracted by other things, when, strangely enough, it sometimes feels safer to make yourself super vulnerable towards someone you trust. That is what he did: “I have made an appointment for a psychedelic retreat because I think it might give me a breakthrough that I cannot seem to achieve any other way. Addictions get in my way; I keep falling back into them and therefore I do not make any progress. There is pain in me that time and again I keep trying to numb. For so long. I did not dare to be myself. There have been some wonderful role models in my life who have given me courage, but there is still much that lingers and whirls within me and that hinders me. I still find it difficult to really find my footing.”
We exchanged about slowing down and adapting to the circumstances. I mentioned an adage from Krishnamurti: “It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”, often quoted by Gabor Maté, especially in the context of his book ‘The myth of normal’. “Wow, I want that on a t-shirt and written on a tile!” was his enthusiastic response. “I will write to you more often, but now you have to take that power nap, girl, before you go into your session later on!”
I did, but when I woke up later that night, I still remembered things I wanted to share, options that might help him find a new path. I texted them, fell asleep and was woken up because there was something on the program. Then I realised I had forgotten to finish the conversation properly: “Thank you for reaching out and for your vulnerability – an honour to receive. I will respect it.”
Lately I have been having these special conversations and encounters, where people share deep, intense experiences, let down all their defenses, and say out loud what they are tentatively acknowledging about themselves: “I didn’t feel right the way things were. I am on a quest. It is intense. I want to organise my life differently. I want to get rid of my addictive behaviour, but there is so much pain that I cannot bear. Only now do I realise that so often in my life I had to hang the garlands myself, that there was no one to do it for me. I recently became aware that as a child I often felt so incredibly lonely.” What an honour, indeed, to be a silent witness to hearing that ‘precious pain’ being expressed and to be able to offer ‘holding space’ without judgement.
They grab me and get to me, all those stories. They make me acutely aware of how many children have a hard time, even if they do not go fully off the rails, even if you cannot see it on the outside, even if they later build what appears to be a successful life when looked at from the outside. All of it makes it a bitter read that the cabinet thinks that too many children receive psychological help. How should we interpret that? What does that say about how the government looks at the problems of young people? Where do these problems come from according to the cabinet? What does the government think is the consequence of ‘too much help’? And what does the cabinet think will be the consequences if that support is increasingly reduced, if we as a society no longer really allow ourselves to realise what it means for the future if young people are so out of balance and have the feeling that cannot succeed in building themselves a good life? What kind of policy will the government develop to turn this sad tide?
Later that day we picked up the conversation thread again. He said he did not want to go into the planned retreat with very high expectations, but still hoped for insights. I understood that; I recognised that. I had been open with him about my own experiences and presumably that was part of the honest exchange we had now. We talked about how ‘enlightenment’ doesn’t even have to be the goal: first just more peace and balance, a feeling of being in the right place, being seen, heard, loved. We also talked about the need for a sense of safety and security in order to develop empathy and how that fails when trust is lacking. And from there we returned to the core, to the origin of a lack of empathy and trust in the world: to the young child who grows up with parents who, back in the day, have missed so much themselves that they cannot sufficiently see and satisfy the basic needs of their child.
For now we came full circle; soon we will spin a new thread – the date has been set. I hope that the retreat will be a wonderful, nurturing experience for him and will initiate a development towards a sense of liberation and freedom. He so deserves it.