Thanks, again, Jo (Josephine Bowens Lewis) for answering the call once more.
I was talking to my grandson, Addae, tonight. He's somewhat afraid to "try on" some options to discover why he sometimes gets door-slamming angry with little apparent provocation.
He's been reluctant to try on some key WHB options designed to clear emotional substitutions - mad for sad, or mad for scared, etc. I pulled up this picture of you and took him back to one of our conversation at your home in Chapel Hill, NC. It was the one where I was afraid of being authentic with you, for fear that you'd "get into my head," that you'd be able to manipulate me or know more about me than I knew myself. Remember?
You were ten years my senior. I'd seen your work with groups and individuals as a therapist, advisor, counselor, etc. I had respect for your skills - both professional and personal, those that you acquired from your studies at the South East Institute and those that you caught from your mother and your father and his operating as a Bishop of the United Holiness Church of America in which both my mother and my grandfather were ministers.
With you, the knowledge was integrated so smoothly that no one knew from which tributary the intuition or wisdom flowed. They all seem to flow from you - or maybe through you. Either way, it never seemed a struggle. It was natural. Your flow was easy and powerful.
I was scared and didn't even know it. You sensed the conflict between the part of me that wanted to have an honest conversation - no pretense, no covers - just flowing and my verbal hedges, avoiding phrases and guarded body language.
You put words to my fears, "Do you think, I can read your mind or something?" you asked. My eyes, my countenance or maybe my denial confirmed your suspicions. Without laughter or ridicule, you reassured me like I tried to reassure my grandson:
"You are the only one who knows your thoughts or can know your thoughts. I can guess, and they are from my experience. They may be right or wrong guesses, but you are the only one who can really know what you think, what feel, what you did and what you will do."
I believed you and began to tell the truth about what I thought, what I wanted, what I liked and didn't without a million calculations about what you would think about it and, ultimately about me.
Something in the way you reassured me went beyond the message that I could trust me; you were saying that you trusted me, and trusted yourself to take care of you - with me. More than giving words to my fears, you kissed them, like a mother reassuring a child with a gentle kiss on the forehead. Even now - more than 40 years later - all I can say is damn! The freedom was incredible. My self-discovery accelerated and has yet to stop.
It wouldn't be the last time that you encouraged me to trust myself, to remind me that I didn't need to construct an artificial psychic/emotional wall to protect me. It would be years before I would discover and name "not trusting myself" a part of "injected oppression." It would be years before I discovered how many layers deep it was planted, the corners of my stories where it hid, and the various ways it would rear up from its edifice of fear.
Somehow, whenever it showed up - erecting yet another wall of pseudo-protection - your words "you can trust yourself" would help me dissolve it. In the face of your reassurance, solid stone turned into millions of fragments - getting smaller and smaller, then disappearing. In its place, I stood - authentic me - trusting that I was enough and trusting that whatever I chose to think or do would be good and would be the best thing for me. From that place, I've made masterpieces and I've made a mess, alternately applauding and growing from both.
Jo, even though you're on the other side of the river, I know you hear me and feel me - as I hear and feel you. Medase, I pray that my voice and your part in nurturing it will touch my grandson such that he grows increasingly to trust himself enough to find the authentic power that he is.
I was talking to my grandson, Addae, tonight. He's somewhat afraid to "try on" some options to discover why he sometimes gets door-slamming angry with little apparent provocation.
He's been reluctant to try on some key WHB options designed to clear emotional substitutions - mad for sad, or mad for scared, etc. I pulled up this picture of you and took him back to one of our conversation at your home in Chapel Hill, NC. It was the one where I was afraid of being authentic with you, for fear that you'd "get into my head," that you'd be able to manipulate me or know more about me than I knew myself. Remember?
You were ten years my senior. I'd seen your work with groups and individuals as a therapist, advisor, counselor, etc. I had respect for your skills - both professional and personal, those that you acquired from your studies at the South East Institute and those that you caught from your mother and your father and his operating as a Bishop of the United Holiness Church of America in which both my mother and my grandfather were ministers.
With you, the knowledge was integrated so smoothly that no one knew from which tributary the intuition or wisdom flowed. They all seem to flow from you - or maybe through you. Either way, it never seemed a struggle. It was natural. Your flow was easy and powerful.
I was scared and didn't even know it. You sensed the conflict between the part of me that wanted to have an honest conversation - no pretense, no covers - just flowing and my verbal hedges, avoiding phrases and guarded body language.
You put words to my fears, "Do you think, I can read your mind or something?" you asked. My eyes, my countenance or maybe my denial confirmed your suspicions. Without laughter or ridicule, you reassured me like I tried to reassure my grandson:
"You are the only one who knows your thoughts or can know your thoughts. I can guess, and they are from my experience. They may be right or wrong guesses, but you are the only one who can really know what you think, what feel, what you did and what you will do."
I believed you and began to tell the truth about what I thought, what I wanted, what I liked and didn't without a million calculations about what you would think about it and, ultimately about me.
Something in the way you reassured me went beyond the message that I could trust me; you were saying that you trusted me, and trusted yourself to take care of you - with me. More than giving words to my fears, you kissed them, like a mother reassuring a child with a gentle kiss on the forehead. Even now - more than 40 years later - all I can say is damn! The freedom was incredible. My self-discovery accelerated and has yet to stop.
It wouldn't be the last time that you encouraged me to trust myself, to remind me that I didn't need to construct an artificial psychic/emotional wall to protect me. It would be years before I would discover and name "not trusting myself" a part of "injected oppression." It would be years before I discovered how many layers deep it was planted, the corners of my stories where it hid, and the various ways it would rear up from its edifice of fear.
Somehow, whenever it showed up - erecting yet another wall of pseudo-protection - your words "you can trust yourself" would help me dissolve it. In the face of your reassurance, solid stone turned into millions of fragments - getting smaller and smaller, then disappearing. In its place, I stood - authentic me - trusting that I was enough and trusting that whatever I chose to think or do would be good and would be the best thing for me. From that place, I've made masterpieces and I've made a mess, alternately applauding and growing from both.
Jo, even though you're on the other side of the river, I know you hear me and feel me - as I hear and feel you. Medase, I pray that my voice and your part in nurturing it will touch my grandson such that he grows increasingly to trust himself enough to find the authentic power that he is.
Medase, and good night.
An entry from my upcoming book:
Moyo Musings (Due out in the fall of 2019).
This piece is in the section entitled "Through me."
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