The Creator must be a trickster. Every time I think I've found
an answer, the Most Mischievous changes the question.
In a recent column, I acknowledged that outrage had become such
a dominant player in my life that I wanted to rewrite the script.
Feeling outraged didn't change anything. Not only that, but in my
case it often was a barrier to taking action. The beginning and end
of my outrage was the emotional rush I got from a surge of anger.
What actually gets me involved in making a difference is true
concern.
At the same time I recognized that I always got outraged at
people who were far worse than I could ever be. Extreme violations
of the human spirit made my contribution to the dismal state of the
world look infinitesimal. Getting mad at somebody else let me off
the hook. So I wrote about choosing to focus on one outrage a day,
then turning the remainder of my attention to looking at the part I
play in disrupting the peaceful flow of life in my own family and
community.
I thought I'd gotten wiser. I was not wise enough.
I have an unsigned print I see every time I climb our front
stairs. It's a picture of a figure walking through a series of
doors, and beyond each door is a room with another open door. The
print once folded like an accordion, so that our protagonist could
walk in endless circles, but I like it stretched out in a straight
line. This person is moving ahead, but is never going to arrive
anywhere. The picture celebrates an endless process.
So I reached a conclusion about outrage. Then, while I was
recovering from a back problem, my friend Kathleen dropped John
Sarno's book, ``The Bodymind Prescription,'' into my lap. Dr.
Sarno, whose field is clinical rehabilitation, has a medical theory
that describes how we create pain in our bodies -- from migraines to
backaches to fibromyalgia -- to distract ourselves from powerful
emotions we fear will overwhelm us. Every time anger threatens a
valued relationship, or feelings of grief seem unbearable, or some
current event stirs up memories of childhood abuse, abandonment, or
rejection, our brain rescues us by giving us some ``real'' pain to
worry about.
I was reading a chapter called ``The Psychology of Mindbody
Disorders'' when Sarno mentioned an emotional state that made the
hair stand up on the back of my neck: unconscious rage. His words
suggested to me that perhaps all the outrage I felt about things
happening in the world was a cover for personal rage I was
unwilling to face or to accept. At this stage in my life I hardly
ever get angry. I never cry. After a traumatic upbringing and much
therapy, I've turned myself into someone who can be trusted to be
stable and reasonable. But what if all these roles I've been
playing so competently -- reliable worker, understanding mother,
serene wife -- were related to the increase in the amount of pain my
body was experiencing? What if what I really needed to heal myself
was not to become a better person, but a more conscious one?
I had nothing to lose. My orthopedic surgeon had taken one look
at my MRI and said, ``Well, I'll be seeing you again.'' So in
addition to beginning a regimen of physical therapy, I allowed my
headaches and back pain to be my spiritual guides, to prod me into
asking, ``What am I hiding from myself now? What feelings am I
trying to avoid?'' And I began talking to my brain -- as Sarno
advocates: ``You don't have to distract me with pain. I'm not
afraid to confront these feelings in myself.''
I know this sounds bizarre. It shouldn't work, but it does. I've
been driving somewhere, my head throbbing, and after searching my
memories and coming up empty, an answer pops into my mind. My
feelings got hurt and I smiled and buried them. I was badly
disappointed, shrugged, and felt nothing. My mind has also been
waking me with stress-filled dreams at 2 a.m., my head pounding and
my back aching, and dictated some strange nightmarish scenario,
sending me valuable messages about the nature of my outrage. I have
gotten up to write in a journal, sometimes while crying, then made
a promise to myself to communicate how I feel to the persons
involved -- without blame -- and then gone back to a peaceful night's
sleep. I have made some mistakes that I am seeking to repair, but
for the first time in my life when faced with pain, my first move
has not been to reach for medication. For the first time in my
life, I have resolved a headache without drugs.
I've gone through another door and entered a new room in what
seems to be an endless process.
