I attended the latter part of a workshop last Saturday led
by
Jacob Munhoz, psychotherapist and centering prayer practitioner. The title was “Contemplative
Spirituality as a Path Toward Healing and Wholeness.” Weeks prior to the
workshop, I had heard that he might discuss how a meditative practice could
facilitate healing from trauma. I have long wondered about this after seeing
folks well-versed in trauma therapies taking very cautious approaches to
meditation – sometimes even warning against it, particularly in cases of
complex trauma, and opting for somatic therapies (which, I agree, can benefit
us all.
Here is a sample somatic approach to releasing trauma). I have also met survivors who have had negative—or at least
disconcerting—experiences with meditative practice. One woman confessed to me
that she could not do centering prayer because the prospect of even ten minutes
of relative stillness was terrifying. She feared what would be revealed within
the stillness. Another friend initially loved meditation, but came to the
conclusion that she was slipping into some kind of dissociative state – the
protective maneuver she learned while being subjected to severe abuse as a
child. While this state felt “good” to her, she felt it might just take her
backwards – keep her stuck in a mode of bypass rather than moving forward into
genuine healing.
Because centering prayer is a very gentle practice, it is
unlikely to cause an overwhelming amount of unconscious material to burst into awareness
(as some more intensive practices can). But part of the centering prayer’s “divine
therapy,” to use Fr. Thomas Keating’s terminology, is the “unloading of the
unconscious”—that is, the arising of previously unconscious emotional material
into consciousness, often experienced as an unusual mix of feelings or images
that may bear no relationship to the practitioner’s current mood or
circumstances. This unloading is part of what enables healing: we become “unblocked”
as the obstacles to grace and love—toxins embedded in our psychic tissues—come
to the surface and are released.
And yet, a heavy bout of unloading can be rough. I had one of my most vivid,
intense nightmares several days into an otherwise gloriously peaceful 10-day silent
retreat—and in my adult life, I generally don’t have nightmares. I confided to
a co-retreatant that the dream I’d had was so horrible, with images of violence
that would make me close my eyes or “turn the channel” (on TV) if I were to see
them in my waking life. He pointed out that the much of the news (and even entertainment)
we’re exposed to every day is – of course – just that horrible. But being on
retreat and going into such deep inward relaxation allowed an inner “de-freezing”
to occur, fostering a releasing of material that I generally become numb to so
that I can go about my day-to-day life without becoming overwhelmed.
That makes some sense.
But it also gives me pause. Is numbness my default? Have I –
have we – become too desensitized to the pain of the human condition? Do I
over-consume—media, movies, books, information—in a way that has calloused over
my spirit? How does one keep the heart of flesh from becoming a heart of stone?
There are those who live with the conundrum on the other end
of this spectrum: They are highly sensitive to the pain of the human condition
and may be prone to becoming overwhelmed by the injustices in the world. They have
a deep capacity for compassion but may become immobilized if they are blown
away when encountering suffering.
And maybe the majority of folks reside somewhere between
these poles – or perhaps bounce back and forth between them. (My personal
suspicion is that numbness, be it comfortable or uncomfortable, is where a good
portion of us in this country live). Whatever the case may be: How might one
learn to live fully and engage compassionately in a world full of suffering
without becoming overwhelmed by it?
Like a tongue testing the soreness beneath a tooth, it’s
one of those perennial questions I keep returning to.
The final experiential exercise in Jacob Munhoz’s workshop spoke
to this question. He called it “Learning to Live in the Axial Moment.”
(I want to preface this by saying that he told people it was
okay if they didn’t want to engage in this exercise—to give ourselves
permission to sit it out if it felt like too much.)
First he showed a slide, a photograph of a small
brown-skinned girl standing alone on a beach. Her wet hair curled tightly
around her face. She was crying hard, her mouth agape in an expression of terror
and sorrow. We were allowed some time to just take this image in and sit with the
feelings that emerged.
I was surprised to feel the tears come to my eyes. The
moment somehow cut through the unconscious emotional buffer I tend to put up against
these realities. This girl was likely a refugee, I thought, now orphaned and
alone in a strange country.
Jacob then gave this direction: “Imagine that you step into
their circle of suffering with one foot while your other foot is grounded in
love which transcends suffering, grounded in the openhearted state, grounded in
Presence.”
(For me, this “openhearted state” is where I go to in
contemplative prayer: a spacious place of naked sincerity, the undefended
place, wordlessly grateful and humbly present before the Mystery that I have
come to call God. I float there, gently caught up in what feels like a warm, inexplicable
current of love.)
Next, we practice the “axial moment:”
1 – “Leaning in to the suffering, touch it with love and
connect with the person who is suffering by breathing in their suffering.”
(Included on a worksheet, there were questions accompanying each part of the
moment, e.g.: “What sensations do I feel within my body? What impulses am I
feeling arising within me? How am I experiencing energy moving within my body?
What images are arising? What emotions are arising?” Etc.)
2 – “Leaning out into the more spacious place that
transcends suffering, breathe out the person’s suffering into love.”
3 – “Still leaning back, breathe love in.”
4 – “Lean forward again into the person’s suffering and
breathe love out into their suffering.”
5 – “Repeat.”
This exercise reminded me a lot of the Buddhist practice of
Tonglen – at least what I have learned of it from reading
Pema Chodron. What I
appreciate in Jacob’s rendering of it is the initial grounding of “one foot” in
openhearted loving presence. From that stance, you breathe in the other’s
suffering. Tilting back into openhearted presence, you exhale the suffering
into the larger current of love. Then you breathe in love before again leaning into
the place of suffering and exhaling the love there.
I see this as an exercise – and perhaps even a form of
prayer – that offers a model and an experiential “how to” on engaging empathetically
without becoming overwhelmed by the weight of suffering. The implication is
that empathy requires “feeling with” – actually taking on (breathing in) of
some of the burden—quite the opposite of numbness. But continuing to return to the
openhearted space of loving Presence gives us a sustenance that restores us, prevents overwhelm or burnout—and provides medicine that we can take back to the place of suffering.
Praying / practicing this way is, I think, a deep form of
petitional prayer. Not because it’s going to magically end the world’s suffering or solve all problems,
but because it exercises and strengthens one’s capacity to step into suffering
from a space of presence, humility (groundedness), and love.
It is the capacity we need now in our dying, crying world.
(By the way, I chatted with Jacob for a few brief minutes
after the workshop. I told him about the folks I know who have qualms about contemplative
practices for survivors of severe trauma and asked for his opinion on this
issue. He agreed that caution is warranted. For survivors who are new to
meditation, he would suggest starting with very brief sits, perhaps five
minutes, and gradually lengthening them. They would also benefit from working
with a skilled therapist who also has an ongoing contemplative practice.)
