7ToF: pain, forgiveness, and moving forward

(this got really long, apologies in advance. you've been warned.)

1. The surgery went well. Thank you to all of you who were thinking of MadMax. I did manage to keep it together. Dean was here for the surgery and the first day--and since he's not usually available during the day, I was really grateful for that. But he's been on a business trip since Wednesday, so the last couple of days (and nights) have gone by in a blur of timing meds, changing ice packs, and trying to get some sleep. MadMax is as usual being patient and stoic, but it's pretty painful. I have a hard time going back to sleep if I'm woken up (we've been setting alarms for meds), which has led to not much sleep, but even so I've slept considerably more than he has.

2. Said blur is the reason this post is late. About eleven last night, while I was lying on the other twin bed in MadMax's room keeping him company while watching Megamind, I remembered that it was Thursday and thus time for a blog post, and I just couldn't get up the energy to do it. Also, I was going to title this post Nurse Nancy after the old Golden Book, but fortunately I googled first. Oh, my. The times, they change.

3. I'd better start typing about something else or I will start telling you way more than you want to know about MadMax's recovery. So, let's see. Ah, it is coming back to me what I was going to post about. I'm reading a memoir by Ken Wilber about his wife's journey through cancer treatment, Grace and Grit. I'm not quite done with it yet, but it has given me lots to think about. He is a philosopher with a gazillion books to his name about spirituality, mysticism, religion, theology, philosophy, psychology and who knows what else. One of the things that makes this book so fascinating is the vast reach of topics covered. It feels pretty dated--it was first published 25 years ago, and cancer treatments and public attitudes have changed since then. Also, he is annoyingly sure that everyone wants to know his opinion about everything. And occasionally he goes into way more detail than I want, so I start to skim. But other than those caveats, it is fascinating. Worthwhile read.

4. He alternates his version of what's happening with his wife's journals. (Even though I haven't finished yet, it says right on the cover of the book that she dies at the end, so no spoilers here.) They are wide open to alternative treatments, but there is none of the blatant disregard for science and reality that I was expecting because of that. They go with conventional treatment until the conventional treatments stop working. He is surprisingly honest about some of the things they go through--the near meltdown of their relationship at one point, the prosaic nature of his own major epiphany toward the end. I alternate between being thoroughly annoyed with him and cheering him on.

5. They (the two of them) are at their best when they are dismantling the belief--still so widespread even now--that you create your own reality, and its corollary, that you get cancer (or any sickness) because of something you did or didn't do, or because you chose to be sick. Treya (his wife) has a great essay (which he includes) about how this belief affected her personally. She points out that, regardless of whether or not it is true, when you tell someone who has cancer that they got it because they didn't express their anger toward their mother or whatever, it's not helpful. When you are the recipient of statements like that, it feels like you are being attacked, not supported. Also, because it happens so often, the person with cancer soon starts to realize that the person making these statements is trying to reassure themselves that they're not going to get cancer because they haven't done whatever it is. It's about control, not support. Then Wilber takes on the whole "you create your own reality" mindset and brings it down, beautifully. Since I spent quite a bit of time in my old blog trying (less successfully) to do the same thing -- this post, for example-- I was cheering in my seat.

6. So buried among the mountain of ideas in this book, including quite a bit about how to support someone who is chronically ill or dying, there are two things that have profoundly affected me. One is a discussion fairly early on about forgiveness. I've been involved in several discussions over the years about forgiving the big things--an abusive parent or spouse, a scout leader who raped you, the big things. But I hadn't really spent much time thinking about forgiveness of the little things, the little resentments and hurts that don't really amount to much but that pile up over time. Wilber has a theory about that-- as we develop from the undifferentiated awareness of infancy, the way we learn to define ourselves is because of the little bumps, bruises, and insults we receive as we realize that we are not the same person as our caretaker. Thus, the ego is in effect defined by its hurts. Some of us come to identify so thoroughly with the ego that we hold on tightly to every single little resentment, because without those little hurts, we are nothing. Forgiveness feels threatening, because if I let go of all those little hurts, who am I? I must have them! Forgiveness is the way we let go of our small self, the selfish, narcissistic, it's-all-about-me self, and expand into a larger consciousness. This should be an entire post (and in fact it was the post I was going to write on Monday when it got pre-empted by ACL repair), but I love this. Very helpful insight.

7. And the other thing that had a significant take-home message for me is his discussion of the "pre/trans fallacy." My interpretation of it is possibly not what he intends at all and is definitely a vast over-simplification. But in all the years that I've tried meditation, I've always understood that I was reaching back to some ideal state that I was in before-- I think I might even have defined it as that infant state of undifferentiated awareness. When I meditate, I've been trying to sift through all of the experiences, emotions, intellectual fallacies, cognitive dissonances, whatever and get back to some previous, deeply buried state of peace and bliss. And it never worked. It felt to me like the more I dug, the more tangled up in my own mess I became.

But I get the idea from reading Wilber's discussion of the pre/trans fallacy that an early (pre-personal) state of mind is not the goal. The goal is to move forward into an integrated (trans-personal) consciousness, bringing all that you have learned, all that you have experienced with you. It's not a return to a lower state of consciousness, it's growth into a higher state of consciousness. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure I'm not describing it very well, because I'm making it sound hierarchical. But the basic idea feels important to me. If it's something that interests you, you should definitely read this book, because he explains it better than I do.

So, wow, that was way too much stuff for a Friday, but it's all I've got. If you're still reading, thanks and have a great weekend.