We’re Not Broken, We’re Life Unfolding

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the second post of Mark Blogs. 

We’re Not Broken, We’re Life Unfolding.

When I was twenty-one years old my mother passed away suddenly. I was in my final year of university and I experienced the loss in many ways that I couldn’t understand. One thing that seemed to change overnight, was my internal relationship with myself. Prior to this my relationship with my mind felt avoidantly harmonious, a bit like Homer Simpson’s, it didn’t bother me and I didn’t bother it. But after my mother’s passing, I experienced an unpleasant shift in my interior narrative. It felt like my mind began to turn in on itself, becoming harsh and self-judgmental. I was struggling and often felt overwhelmed by a relentless inner critic. I needed help. Fortunately, at this time, my brother was beginning his training in psychotherapy, and he recommended a therapist he felt could help. It made sense, if I invested early in my psychological well-being, I could reap the benefits for the rest of my life.

The investment started first with a number of years of psychosynthesis, a form of psychotherapy with a spiritual dimension, emphasising an integration of the self. After completing this, things were better, but still, I felt I needed to go further, so I followed it up with more years of intensive psychoanalysis, an approach that focuses on identifying and resolving the unconscious sources of internal conflicts.

At some point, I felt that I had done enough; I had done “the work”. I had earned my certificate in excellent psychological acuity and could now go on to conquer the world unperturbed by a disagreeable mind. In terms of Berne’s transactional analysis, I felt, “I was okay”.  I‘m not quite sure how long these halcyon days lasted but when I arrived in Plum Village ten years later, in the spring of 2014, I found out that that feeling of okayness was not quite as robust as I’d imagined.

In those early years in Plum Village, I came deeply into contact with many painful feelings and emotions that I thought I had already dealt with, most notably my anger. My initial response to experiencing these emotions was to deny them, I had spent too much time and too much money in therapy, to have to deal with them again. As you can imagine, this strategy didn’t work, so I practised diligently, took refuge in the community and did my best to take care of what was there. Many times I felt overwhelmed by the intensity of these emotions, unable to hold them and feeling lost and desperate to find a way out. 

In 2019, something significant shifted. In that year, Plum Village hosted a neuroscience retreat; many renowned experts in the field had been invited to speak and share their work, including Peter Levine and Dan Siegel. One particular evening during the retreat, I remember sitting outside the big meditation hall listening to a presentation about neurofeedback. Dr Sebern Fisher, a specialist in this modality, was sharing about the benefits of the therapy, and how it could potentially be seen as a new Dharma door, [a practice or path that helps us return to ourselves and live fully each moment]. Although there are apparently 84,000 such doors already in existence, Thày always encouraged us to open new ones.

As the presentation progressed, I found myself leaning in, sitting on the edge of my seat. My mind, not for the first time, was trying to work out how I could find a therapist who was leading the way in this field, would there be one in London? how could I arrange things to go there for regular sessions? There was something very familiar about this experience for me. In the intensity of my interest, I recognised a part of me that felt fundamentally broken, a part that was desperate to find someone or something that could fix me.

With this awareness came insight, I sat back in my chair, in that moment I could clearly see that I was not broken, I was not in need of fixing, yes I had my difficulties, but this was a part of my humanness, part of a continuation of all the struggles of my ancestors and society. What I needed most was to stop running after an idea of healing and to accept, love and embrace all aspects of my being. All of us are carrying some kind of trauma, whether it be inherited from our ancestors or from our own lifetime, whether it be collective or personal, whether it being known or unknown.

In that moment, I recognised that I am enough as I am, and that from that place of enoughness I could move forward with calm and peaceful steps, to engage with the supportive elements that were already here and to allow healing to unfold naturally.

The first noble truth is the recognition that there is suffering. The third mindfulness training asks us to look deeply into our suffering to see that it is not separate from the suffering of others. Healing is not a destination, even if we were able to heal all our own suffering, then we have the suffering of all beings to embrace. We need to find a sustainable way to relate to our suffering, to recognise its essential interconnectedness with our happiness.

Even now I see that I can sometimes fall into a subtle mindset that says that there is something wrong with me and that I need to fix this so that I can truly belong, be accepted and be worthy of love.

The most recent manifestation of this, is a desire to restart therapy, in particular, a form of therapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS). An approach which feels consistent with Thay’s teaching on healing the inner child. 

When I look at how I have related to my suffering in the past, I can see the thought that I cannot be truly happy until I have healed everything. 

Recently I was having tea with a monastic called Br Bao Tang. The topic of therapy came up and he shared something that helped me crystalise an understanding that had been slowly developing within me for some time. 

Intellectually I knew that there wasn’t some point in the future when I will have transformed all my suffering, but somewhere within, I still held onto the idea that happiness was not now or never, that it lay somewhere just over the horizon. 

In the book Reconciliation, Thây shares with us that the first way of transforming our suffering is to focus on sowing and watering our seeds of happiness. We are encouraged not to work directly with the seeds of suffering, but instead allow the seeds of happiness to transform them. Thày calls this “indirect transformation”.

When we have generated enough stability in this way, we can go back to our inner children and reconnect with them, we can recognise their pain and update them that we have now grown up, that we can take care and protect ourselves. We no longer need to be imprisoned by the past and we can invite our inner children to come into the present moment and enjoy it with us. 

I see that therapy can be a real support in looking deeply into our suffering, helping us see and understand its roots and I would not rule out entering into it again. But I also see that I am no longer waiting to be happy, my inner child needs me to be happy in the present moment and to be the beacon of stability that he or she needs to be liberated. I would also want to be careful not to dwell too much on the suffering, and to continue practising generating joy and happiness and to engage in a way that avoided watering the seeds of suffering within me.  

There are times in our lives when we will inevitably get lost in the depths of our suffering and we do need the support of others to find our way home. When we haven't got enough of our own mindfulness energy, we can take refuge in our community, allow them to help us recognise our wholeness, to support regaining the perspective that we need to ground ourselves in the wonders of the present moment.

I share these thoughts not as concrete truths but as thoughts to be held lightly. Thày shares that in order to progress on the path of understanding, we need to be ready to let go of our current view. This is not easy, when we look back, we can see what we have already let go of many notions, but when we look forward, it’s difficult to see what we will let go of next.

So the practice of mindfulness is not in conflict with therapy, indeed the practice of  mindfulness can learn much from the therapeutic process, but mindfulness also has something important that therapy can incorporate. None of us are truly broken, we are human and in need of taking good care of our suffering but we must not wait to be happy.