The End Of An Era – My Father’s Passing – April 2024

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Life’s Transition Point

I sit here at one of the many transitions my life has offered to me. A time where a line is drawn in the sand, behind me is the life I can reflect upon and in front of me is a great mystery and the unknown life I will create after. It is the end of an era, my father passed away unexpectedly the other day. His death comes along with mixed emotions and a lot of relief and closure.

There is a completion when life comes full circle to death. It is a fact of life that we all will have to deal with. I certainly am stirring with feelings ranging from anger to grief and sadness. What I do know after 20+ years of hospice volunteer work is how grief works on its own terms. All I know how to do is sit and be as present as I can with what is at the moment and await the next turn in the road.

There is duplicity and duality in our existence with many different perspectives. My father had his wonderful and beautiful traits, as well his dark side that he hid so extremely well. We all have a light and dark side to ourselves. As wonderful as I feel about the positive things my father brought to my life, I think it is just as important to illuminate some of the darkness that surrounded him, so that nothing of my father’s existence become a hungry ghost. My intent for this writing is to allow the full and complete man of my father into existence. As above, so below… as within, so without. In complete and perfect balance, holding him with the upmost positive regard.

In Honor Of My Father

My father, Jay, was a happy-go-lucky guy who was full of positivity, loved living life, and always had a smile on his face. It was not uncommon for him to run into people he knew wherever he was, anywhere in the world. He greeted all strangers as his next soon to be best friend. My cousin Steve Leavitt puts it so well, “I will always feel the light from Jay’s smile and heart and his fearless inspiration to carve an individual path through this world”. My cousin Janis Newcomen also says it like it is, “I always had a good feeling about your dad as he had one of the loveliest smiles and often a twinkle in his eyes”.

Yosemite

Jay loved the outdoors. When he was 17, in a radical act of defiance, he escaped some of the craziness in his own family and with a bunch of friends, drove to Yosemite from Chicago before he left for college. It’s a story of courageousness he frequently came back to over the years. Some of my fondest memories with my father include being in nature. Places like Alaska, Arches National Park, Acadia National Park, white water rafting, being a ski ambassador for the Aspen Ski Company, tending to the apple orchard, and winter camping in Wisconsin. He even built his home on the side of a mountain in Colorado where he could take in the beauty of the Rocky Mountain’s majesty every day.

I was turned on to my father’s love for music at a young age. Jay had accumulated some vinyl records and cassette tapes over the years. I remember his fondness for Fleetwood Mac and some jazz musicians like Chick Correa, Al DiMeola and Pat Metheny. I was lucky enough to have experienced a couple of live concerts with him, and in various forms of altered states of consciousness .

Concert On The Pier – Palpable Joy

My father was full of creativity and expressed it being an artist at his core. As a young man he began creating. From string art, watercolor painting, photography, and carving marble. He poured his creative outlet into his career as an architect. He didn’t do well in a traditional 9-to-5 job. And when his jobs began not working for him, he resigned. Always following his desires and what he wanted to do. Dealing with the consequences along the way.

History

My father never spoke much of his parents or the kind of environment in which he grew up in. It wasn’t until later in my life that I became curious about it. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to dialogue with him about his family growing up to learn more about him and understand some of the ways he operated in his life.

Trying to get to know how my father was feeling… about situations and life events was a feat, if even possible. In fact, he never spoke much about his feelings at all. He compartmentalized and denied experiencing his feelings for much of his life. He learned at a young age it was dangerous and not a good idea to talk about feelings… until it became too late, and he lost his shit and blew up. His emotional unavailability was frustrating and something my mother got infuriated by.

Acadia National Park

I learned more from my father about my paternal grandmother and grandfather and the family my father grew up in. After learning more about him and his family, I got a better understanding about my own life. The issues in my immediate family started to make more sense. I was surprised to hear from him that his family was full of conflict, fighting, playing favorites, anger, alcoholism and avoidance. There was a streak of avoidance in my family as well, where people made a choice not to speak feelings and personal truths. This created an environment of omission, naturally becoming deceit. The deceit turned into lies which turned into betrayal. While this was a hard thing to come to terms with and to realize, it made sense as I was able to reflect on some of these issues in my own families’ drama that looked a lot like his.

Integration

There was a time in my own life where I was determined to stop the generational traumas as I mentioned above. Healing some of these patterns and attachments from my past was looking at me in the face. I needed to learn how to access my emotions, speak to them without shame or blame, and learn what it meant to “love well”.

A rumor had circulated that I had joined a cult as I began spending time at a retreat center in upstate New York to get free from the past’s bondage. My mother became curious enough to go to the retreat center and experience what that was all about, but not my father. Jay wasn’t so much interested in his own personal psychological growth, emotional intelligence, self-reflection, or introspection. I imagine it was just too painful for him. What I do know, he was one of those “drive-by-drop-offs” into therapy by my mother from time to time.

Inspiration

Jay inspired a lot of people to lean into their individualism. I was inspired by him to follow my dreams and not get stuck in societal norms. To make the leap of faith and take the risks to live my best life. I felt supported by my father to become the man I was always meant to be. Even if he had a hard time expressing it. He allowed and supported me to feel how I did as I explored the extreme edges of life and do the healing I needed to do to feel more grounded, complete and whole. He was an incredibly sweet man who would not hesitate to extend goodwill and his heart to someone or a charitable event… even at his own expense sometimes.

My father is one reason, if not the main reason, I will be able to leave my quarter century career as a college professor and create a new life chapter for myself. Making a new home in a place in the world where cultural values resonate with my soul. Overwhelmed with gratitude for my father and I thank for helping me achieve this possibility for myself. I am fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to verbally communicate this to him on multiple occasions before his death.

Here I sit… in the messiness of all the emotions… remembering my father and all the joy I have been able to experience with him… and all the frustrations and events I wish could be different, that I realize and know very well cannot happen. I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason but, I do believe all that happens in life is for our benefit.

I stand tall and proud as I salute my father, Jay, while his spirit has left his body, and he makes his way into the unknown mystery that we are all destined to experience someday.

The Cycle of Trauma & Violence

 

screaming_illustration_by_jon_estrada

America – Land of the Not So Free, Home of the Not So Brave

Today is the day I experienced the biggest mass shooting in Maine and the largest one so far this year. The event was not far from my home, and as I write this, the suspect is still at large. This, after just a few months ago where a double homicide occurred 250m down the street from where I live. Three children were sitting in the back seat of a car and a man came up to the car and shot both their parents who were sitting in the front seat.

My feelings range from sadness and grief because I feel helpless to do anything about it. To anger and disgust with American society and culture as these murderous gun shootings have hit so close to my home. All the while, gun control laws have yet to be put into effect and all the American leaders have to offer are their thoughts and prayers, rather than policy and change.

USA Crazy TownWhere does all this violence come from? Did the Cold War following World War 2 between democracy and communism turn into a terror war after 9/11? Why would someone actually follow through with a mass killing in normal everyday society where people are only trying to live their lives? And why would people in powerful government leadership choose war against another country, people, religion?

I realize these are big questions to ask with many possible answers. It just feels like the country I was brought up in and benefitted from is letting me down. I’m not feeling like being American means the home of the free and the land of the brave anymore.

Violence From Trauma Perpetuates Violence

Not many of us escape growing up without experiencing some sort of trauma. I even have a resistance to using that word. Because I associate it with things like military veterans, incest, being beaten by a parent and not things like emotional abuse, shaming, and missing the mark of our culture’s version of masculinity. Whichever it is, not many of us grew up in households whose parents did their internal and psychological work, so they didn’t pass on the generational traumas from the past.

Each man (woman) is a link, spanning a lifetime of all the images and traditions about masculinity(femininity) inherited from past generations and imparting—or inflicting—their own retelling of the events and tales on those whose paths they cross. Unresolved emotions of shame, grandiosity, depression, and others, often passes from one parent to their offspring, despite the parent’s best intentions, like a toxic, unacknowledged legacy. Conversely, when a person transforms the internalized discourse of violence, they do more than relieve their own depression. They break the pattern, interrupting the path of generationally inherited pains and emotions. Preventing them from being transmitted to the next generation. Recovery transforms legacies.

We have been trained to be good soldiers, to tough it out, and to swallow our emotions. To take the “dark path”, the grueling work of healing from these passed down events, is the courageous and brave path that not a lot of people are willing to take. Facing the reality of our pain, now,will keep it from being passed on to our children and allow for more compassionate and loving relationships. Because, don’t we want the legacy of physical and/or psychological violence to stop?

The Shadow of Masculine Invulnerability

masculinity

One of the ironies around masculinity is that the very forces that help perpetuate the cycle of violence, keeps us from seeing it. Men are taught not to be vulnerable. To rise above the pain. To suck it up. Whoever is being brought down by pain and emotion will likely be seen… by himself, family, friends, and even mental health providers, as shameful. The potentially hidden issues of this kept secret of unexpressed pain are where many of the challenges lie in men’s lives. The problems society typically sees as issues: alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, intimacy failure, and self-sabotage in physical care and professional careers… are mostly male issues.

A societal culture where cultivation of a stance of invulnerability exists will rob relationships of a wisdom — that people actually connect better when they expose their weaknesses. A vital part of intimacy is inviting the listener in by opening up and expressing one’s own points of vulnerability. To the degree to which we learn to “be strong” and to devalue weakness, compassion toward frailty not just in ourselves but also in those around us may be limited or even condescending. In this and many other ways, the loss of expressivity and the loss of vulnerability inevitably lead to diminished connection with others.

The Breadwinner, Caretaker and Performance Based Self-Esteem

Violence is Societal

The roles of men and women have changed greatly in our society in the last 100 years. The structural changes brought about by the industrial revolution changed the shape of the family unit. During previous times of family farms and cottage industries, households were organized equally around the tasks that served everyone’s well-being—cooking, education, tending the ill—and the production tasks needed for food production and clothing. There was no real distinction between family caretaking and family production. Philosophical role distinctions did exist—women were the tender souls most suited to care for the ill, and men were the physical ones to do the heavy lifting —in practical terms, the activities of men and women, adults, and children, even family members routinely overlapped. The daily life of the household was marked by enormous fluidity in roles.

As the industrial revolution took off, men moved to the growing urban areas. It was at this point where a great division began. Women and men began to engage in a deal, unconscious and pervasive, men agreed—for their and their family’s well-being—to relinquish many of their deepest emotional needs to devote themselves to competition at work. Women agreed to abandon many of their deepest achievement needs to devote themselves to the care of everything else, including their working husbands. The men became the breadwinners and the women became the caretakers and the cheerleaders in the family.

If relationship division and dynamics were then based on caretaking and breadwinning and men could not find his self-esteem in money, power or prestige, the caretaking work of the woman essentially doubled. Traumatized and emotionally depressed men have typically become angry, rageful, abusive, and violent. While the women turn inward and tend to blame themselves. And until things got really bad, the women would seldomly make a stand. Societies socially engrained proclivity where women avoid confrontation often provided a situation where her man’s deteriorating self-esteem and relational dysfunction may flourish and grow.

Getting Personal: Generational Traumas Hand-Me-Downs

Helping Generational Trauma

I have witnessed my own family’s generational trauma being passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes I feel I am fortunate that there was no physical violence or sexual abuse in my family. However, abuse and trauma show up in a myriad of ways and not one is better or worse than the other.  Without addressing how these behaviors and patterns effected our own life’s protective mechanisms, we will continue to perpetuate the same expressions into our own relationships and to our children.

The matriarchs on my mother’s side of the family enforced that you must follow societal norms and passed down the message you will never be good enough to their children. The patriarchs on my father’s side of the family succumbed to passivity, avoidance, deflection, and alcoholism to deal with negative emotions concerning relationships and life events. These messages and behaviors did not get addressed by individuals. Which then got passed down to their children as well. I am a recipient of these emotional abusive expressions through both, the generations and genders.

One of my earliest memories confronting these generational traumas was when I was about 6 years old. I can feel the anxiety I had when I knew I had to talk to my mother about her anger. I could not understand why I was brought into this world if mostly what I was doing was making my mother upset and angry. I was a little boy. My father was distant, emotionally unavailable, passive and did not stick up for me. He never confronted my mother about her anger and its repercussions. I remember him typically coming home after my mother so he could avoid all the drama he could, just like his own father did. When I was 11, most of my friends, including myself, were molested in the local high school locker room during the evening community open swim. When I told my parents about this, neither one did anything to protect me. It was then I realized I had to take care of myself because my parents would not.

My mother became the head of the household because my father had a hard time keeping a job and making a consistent income.  She carries much resentment towards my father for this. She emasculated and verbally demeaned him openly to me. As if I was supposed to be taking her side. Being loyal to her and to the family was a cliche repeated like a needle on a broken vinyl record. I was too young to understand how my mother’s resentment was getting played out. What I did know was that a daily occurrence became anticipating my mother’s arrival home from work and wondering what thing would set her off yelling and screaming before she soothed herself with a couple glasses of wine.

There were a couple of things that became daily habits. To numb myself from the feelings of never being enough for my mother and the search for acceptance for who I am as a person and a man in the world. I numbed my emotions with daily marijuana use. When I became old enough I began chasing of women, turning them into my mother so I could feel the acceptance from the female form that I was lacking. These soothing habits distanced myself from my emotions as I experienced the rage, anger and screaming by my mother while my father stood by and did nothing.

It was the beginning of my marriage where I began looking at my own soothing habits and protective behaviors that were brought into my adulthood from these events of my childhood. My wife came from as much a tumultuous family as I did. Full of alcohol abuse, abandonment, and neglect. It was in my early 30’s where I began to learn and see how these generational traumas were passed down in my family and into me. My anger was getting the best of me, controlling me, and I had no idea what was going on. The generational trauma was passed down into me. I was determined to attempt to have a healthy relationship with myself and with others by facing these demons.

Lack of Connection, Empathy and Compassion

Generational TraumaAny core issue that we have to face comes from family of origin issues growing up. When we experience a lack of empathy, connection and compassion from a parent growing up we develop unconscious mechanisms that shield us from the pain. My mother laid guilt trip after guilt trip on my brother and I. While my father was mostly absent and emotionally unavailable. I picked up my mother’s fighting approach to deal with family issues while my brother embraced my father’s avoidant tactic.

People who experience trauma from a lack of empathy and compassion, which is most of us do, will need help learning how to cherish ourselves and, ultimately, cherishing each other. There is an internalized dynamic of violence that sometimes will turn inward against ourselves when the feelings of our traumatic past are not acknowledged. And the violence of our expressed emotions can turn outward as an act of aggression when our unresolved traumatic issues are vulnerably open and apparent. When we decide to face into our issues and past traumas we must turn both inward, towards increased maturity, self-regulation AND outward to learn about increasing our relational skill.

Beginning to heal evokes the heart of valuing, caring for and sustaining… the relationship towards ourselves, towards others we are in relationship with, and even to care for the world itself.

Prone To Impose Our Pain

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
– James Baldwin

To the degree someone relies upon defensive patterns to numb and ward off their traumatic history determines the degree of abusiveness, or irresponsibility, towards others. It’s difficult, or impossible, to care for someone else’s needs because the energy is all going towards maintaining those defensive patterns. Even when the culture is established on performance-based esteem, these defensive patterns can be so compulsive, they get in the way of our functioning at work, connecting with people, and our love relationships.

I’ve seen this play out in my own immediate family and my extended family. One abandoning and manipulating parent trying to mold their children into something they are not. While the other parent remains absent and unavailable to both the relationship and their children. The generational trauma has kept perpetuating across three generations. There is no wonder while I have not had children. Out of my own relational fears.

I never thought it might be possible to have a fearless relationship. Without fear of intimacy, suffocation, loss, enmeshment, hurt, boredom, without fear of speaking my truth, without fear of change, without fear of the future, without fear of conflict, and even without fear of other people.

The opposite of fear is acceptance. And that is what any fears need to be replaced with. Not other people’s or societal values or dichotomies. A commitment solely to nurturing, supporting, and honoring three important entities in our lives: the two people in a relationship, and the relationship itself. No matter what it takes or however people will change.

Stopping The Cycle

Let's HealIt only takes one courageous person at a time to stop the cycle of silent suffering and sacrifice.

We are born innocent, pure, beautiful, honest, and in a state of oneness with each moment. As we grow up, our caregivers and others load us with baggage. Some of us keep accumulating more and more baggage until we become burdened by all the weight, trapped in beliefs and behaviors that keep us stuck. This is one of the reasons we have the problems we do in this highly competitive capitalistic country of ours.

In the family system, childrenare taught to be obedient to their parents, that mother/father is always right, and that they must be loyal and make sacrifices for the parents to whom they owe their entire existence. This philosophy transferrers to how the government demands loyalty, obedience, and sacrifice, until you have a nation of people violating their internal value system for the homeland. Functional parenting is the secret to world peace. And the only way to make functional parents, is to heal our individual psychological wounds with the same urgency that we heal physical wounds.

Healing these psychological wounds of the family and/or past traumas is not something we are educated about. Some of us keep walking around perpetuating and operating out of unconscious past traumas. The cycle never stops until we make the courageous effort to stop the cycle of pain and suffering.

The real purpose of life is to divest ourselves of all the baggage from the past. To become light and pure again.

THIS, is true freedom… by discovering our unique self and being true to ourselves.

Trust, Loyalty & Relationships

have faithLife continues to be a learning experience throughout my journey through Thailand. Staying in Northern Thailand for months has taught me a lot and reminded me of some of the basics. Developing trust and loyalty in relationships, whether it’s in business, work, friendship, or love takes time to establish. It doesn’t happen overnight.

There is an established relationship style I wrote about called the “transactional relationship”. This relationship style is predominant here in Thailand. Especially with the quantity of expats and foreigners living here. It is not uncommon for tourists and foreigners to be taken advantage of. But when something happens that is unkind, or bad business practice, what is the recourse, if any, for the people?

Defamation

There is much slander and defamation happening on a verbal level. You can find some reviews in google maps but, not much that you can find online or in social media. There are strict laws here about defamation here in Thailand and you just don’t hear people talking bad things about each other, or businesses, even if they earned those words.

One thing I noticed is there is no such thing as yelp.com here in Thailand. There are strict defamation laws that are in place with severe penalty when someone defames, insults, or threatens the king. I’ve encountered some problems while doing business. People are not apt to even apologize for any error that they may be responsible for.

This is very different than what I experience in Amerikkkah. Every time I check out social media, people are insulting each other, angry about being offended, and criticizing businesses because they didn’t get what they wanted.

Trust / Loyalty

Whether in business or personal relationship, it takes time to establish trust and loyalty to each other. By demonstrating, over time, that we can “walk the talk”, practice what we preach and do what we say. When we have been treated badly, lied to, betrayed many times, developing trust and loyalty can be a difficult thing to establish between people.

What are people’s intentions in business or relationship? Is immediately making money the most important part of the transaction?  Or are people’s forward thinking an important part of the process by establishing an ongoing relationship for referrals and growth?

One metaphor I came across is how the trust piggy bank is fed over time. This helps bring out the best in each other and demonstrating that the priority is with the people and not in the exchange or transaction. Establishing reassurance and hope in each other. Unfortunately, that piggy bank which has been built over time can quickly be destroyed by being deceitful, a quick lie, or betrayal. Years of trust building can be wiped out in a moment.

Some Frustration

My lack of patience, knowledge, experience all lends to some of frustration I experience. The human experience and the ego also lend its hand to some of my frustrations. Not to mention our family and relationship history. Wanting things to happen quickly and easily because I “deserve” it, I realize is an entitlement based out of ego.

Whether I am given a motorbike that is in disrepair when I rent it. Make a mistake by purchasing some vegetable without much of my own discernment. Or open myself up to a new friendship or relationship and not think that there will be conflict or even potential dissolution of the connection altogether due to incompatibility or personal differences.

Starting all over again and not having my friends and support system readily available makes some of this adventure difficult. I know I’ve been the black sheep in my family, am outspoken with my criticism… some days it feels like a lonely road. I am not looking for pity or sympathy, only mentioning the reality of the situation.

Trusting the process

I am reminded that I need to trust the process. Maybe even more so here in Thailand. Where building trust in relationships is even more important because of the nature of the transactional culture here and the devastation people have experienced of being hurt by poverty, love and sex.

In as much as I would like to blink my eyes and have some wonderfully established friendships, a wonderful primary care physician, settled into a home with a few creature comforts… all of this will take some time. Cultivating more patience, having my own clear intentions, and trusting the process of it all is a good reminder to attain some of these goals.

 

 

 

 

 

Wherever You Go… There You Are – The Practice is the Same

I have gotten used to traveling by the seat of my pants. With little itinerary and only a couple weeks planned out. It gives me a chance to settle into a place and go with the flow and follow anything that the universe might put in front of me. I don’t particularly like to have every moment planned of every day even though I do appreciate some structure. Just not someone else’s imposed structure. I’ve never done well with organized tours or cruises that last for days. Yet, I do see some benefit in them at times.

While I’ve been in Chiang Mai, I’ve had opportunities to see a cacao farm, mushroom farm, get a cooking lesson from one of the grandmothers, get a tour of the ministry of education in Bangkok and travel to the Golden Triangle with a new friend. These things would never have happened if I had a heavily structured itinerary.

Yet, without the structured itinerary, life can get mundane, boring, and sitting with oneself has us turn inside to look at ourselves, our lives… all the joys and the struggles.

The Struggle

Life will always bring some sort of hardship, challenge, and suffering. Career life will have its challenges in dealing with people and having a common goal. There will be conflicts in relationships and family life. Negotiation and compromise in daily life will bring satisfaction and frustration.

It’s been a great learning experience to live in Thailand all summer. To stay put in one place for 6-8 weeks and be able to learn the culture from an insider perspective. There is a vast difference in economy of scale between USA and Thailand, and some of the Thailand culture takes advantage of that with the foreigners. Both in relationships and in business transactions. I can see the similarities that are in my country as well.

The struggles are the same wherever we go. Some people are more interested in money and materialism. While others are interested in connection and love. Both are an important part of our capitalist world. Except, we cannot take our money and things with us when we die. It’s only the legacy of service to humanity and the love we leave behind.

The Internal Critic & Its Projections

There has been some programming that has been passed down in my family for generations. The programming has showed up in my family as shame and embarrassment via an internal critic. Because others thought they had the right ways and the right answers about how someone should live their lives. Expressed them and shamed others when they did not live up to those standards.

My grandmother didn’t think a woman could love another woman and instilled that perspective onto her children. Creating shame when one of her children asked about being a lesbian. While a friend of my grandmothers of the same age, was an open lesbian.

This kind of programming was passed down into me. I loved cooking as a child and wanted to become a chef, but that kind of career wasn’t particularly acceptable with my family.  My family burnt bridges in relationships, and I was taught to be loyal to the family even when the conflicts had nothing to do with me. I continually fought against the status quo in my family.

All this instilled an internal critic inside of me that has wreaked havoc on some of the choices I made for myself and on my relationships. Accepting ambivalence has not been a strong point. I’ve usually had clear direction for myself in life. When I didn’t, it was difficult for me to sit in the unknown.

This internal critic also makes it projections onto others and into the world. It’s the same way I obtained the critic from my family growing up. By others criticizing my thoughts and decisions in life, I have the programming to also do the same. Some members of my family denied what was going on and developed their own way of coping with the criticism.

The critic continues to hit me hard in life because I have an inquisitive soul and my curiosity is repeatedly squashed. I didn’t let that hinder my dreams and goals in life. And the internal critic makes a showing every now and again. Wherever I am in the world.

Remaining Open, The Practice – Freedom in Structure

Maybe it’s being a quadruple Virgo? Maybe it’s because I’m a full-time student of life? Maybe it’s because I don’t enjoy the emotion of boredom? Maybe it’s because I like learning new things? Regardless of my understanding “why” I am the way I am. I know I experience freedom in structure. From the structure of teaching in a semesters time at the college. To the proven procedures of growing mushrooms and making soap. These are examples of some of the structures I can thrive in.

I am a supporter and advocate of the theory that life is a practice. To keep a daily practice is an important part of life. Whether its meditation, walking, exercise, writing, yoga, breath-work, stretching, weightlifting, and many other things. Keeping a daily practice has been an important part of my life. Helping keep a peaceful existence in the midst of life’s craziness. I also encourage my students in developing their own daily practice.

The practice is the same for everyone. Finding the guiding light of peace of mind through some sort of daily practice for the body and soul.

May we all find the practices that bring the peace of mind we all look for.

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