“I woke up Tuesday in an emotional funk. I had sunk into an abysmal dark tunnel of I’m not enough and there has never been any possibility of me being anything more than a continuing failures as a neer-do-well. The feeling was disgustingly familiar and dangerously comforting. Finance, romance, career; my point of view had gotten as distorted as a shattered IPhone glass. All I wanted to do was run away”
“The familiarity of this experience is validated by the 38 addresses I had lived in by the time I was 40. I vowed then not to run anymore yet I had anyway and now I was 78 and way too old to be indulging in such self-effacement.”
“Yet there I was. I could not blame my parents, Viet Nam, The Marine Corps, Drugs, Alcohol, Relationships, the other political party or even God. The morose self-pity was all encompassing and not directed enough for me to take any action. I’m just a mistake. Forever.”
All this was going on in between my ears reflected only by inability to generate an authentic smile from my up-tight facial muscles. I did my daily exercise routine with a vengeance of over exertion. Showered, shaved and went to a Recovery Meeting. I sat quietly, grateful that I was not called on to share. Getting reminded that there is a God and it’s not me. The voice in my head continued to remind me I was different. I went to the office, worked, saw patients, was cordial and effective. I would never burden my patients with such self-centered self-pity.
Around Noon I finally called a close friend and told him what was going on with me. He listened dutifully and said “Yeah”. And my head continued talking shit to me.
That evening I went to a gathering of 14 men in Newport Beach. This was group was not affiliated with any larger group but they had been facilitated by effective counselors for some time. They called themselves Savages and Saints. Check in time when each man introduced himself included how there day had gone. When my turn came I unloaded completely. I emphasized the, “I’m not enough” refrain that had so demolished my day.
Most of the group knew enough to not cross talk or try to fix or talk me out of what I was feeling.. The other men listened for the similarities in their own lives and shared how “I’m not enough” tormented them in various ways. This is called “recreating”. When two people can share emotional upsets, without trying to fix or change, then the vibratory rate cancels each other out and the emotional strife disappears. This is why combat vets only talk to other combat vets, drunks to other drunks, molested victims to other victims. They can relate to each other and cancel out the emotional baggage.
I easily gave up the notion that I was alone and unique in my grief driven self-pity. With each share I felt much better and could little by slowly begin to see clearly my Humanness and value. Towards the end the evening, one of the men who was going through a divorce and other issues shared completely and ended his with “I love it that this community is medicine for me”.
I belong and participate in a lot of groups. Recovery, Landmark Education, The Masons, Wide Sky Men’s Council, Hellerwork Practitioners, Chiropractic Society, High School Reunions, Golf groups, Savages and Saints, veterans groups. With each group I have something in common with and can share openly about fears, anxieties, heartbreaks, grief and all those emotional blows that can take me under.
Each Community is Medicine for me and my emotional health that precedes all other landmines of difficulties in life.
Isolation kills a lot of people. Community is the Medicine to begin healing.
Community is Medicine.
