repairing the narrative

Pardon me while I process through some of what I am reading today. Feel free to add your thoughts as well because we learn new ways of thinking in the context of relationship (something for another blog).  For the class I am currently attending we are reading "The Developing Mind" by Daniel J. Segel. This book is not an easy read. For me it is like the first time I read C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce). I didn't understand much and reading a paragraph at a time was about all I could manage because there was so much meaning packed into a few words. This book for me is a life-changer.


I have had the opportunity to do a lot of emotional work during my time in graduate school. Some of it under the guidance of my experienced instructors, some within the grace offered by my classmates, some within my personal relationships and some I have sought out to work on with the guidance of a much trusted and appreciated therapist. This emotional work has helped me untangle the emotional connections of painful, difficult and frustrating relationships in my life. Several times through out this last 18 months I have had to stop myself or remove myself from engaging in interactions with others that were more of the same. This very slow work has helped remove the emotional threat, and taught me even more about relationships. I have told myself several times, when dealing with intense emotional chaos "this is not how this story is going to end." My family, my life, my future will not be defined  by these experiences. I have a choice. I can choose to define my life by the losses I experience, or by the blessings in my life.


The brain works to understand experience by creating a form of narrative, a story of our lives. Through the production of neurotransmitters, past memories and current expectations the brain then looks for the continuing threads of the story in the relationships and experiences around us. Let's look at it this way.

If a person experienced abandonment in a primary relationship, whether as a child or as an adult, and no repairs are made, then it is likely that the individual will continue to find ways that the other person acts to reinforce the story of abandonment, whether or not that is the intention of the other person.

As I participate in the therapeutic process both as a therapist and as a client, I seek to empower myself and my clients to take the initiative in changing their role in their story. The process of emotionally claiming the outcome in the story they seek provides a catalyst in their understanding of who they are and what their future holds.

The challenge is in the relationships where emotional cut-off exists. For the longest time the only language I had for these relationships involved reconciliation. Now I understand that is not what I am encouraging. I am looking for a "repairing" of the narrative of the shared story. This repair allows physical and emotional arousal to reduce, better adjustments to stressors to occur and the brain to reorganize itself based on current relationships. This reorganization without the emotional focus on another person, allows the brain to look for a new story line, based on current relationships and releases the overpowering emotional connection between two people frozen in time. The choice is still there though. You and I can choose to define our lives by the relationships in emotional cut-off, or the relationships repaired allowing room for new relationships.. And when we choose, within our very neural development, those losses or those blessings will become ingrained, the threads of our story.

A cosmic do-over!

This week was full of emotional peaks and valleys. As I come to the finish line of this week and take a moment to reflect, I realize I am abundantly and overwhelmingly blessed. I say this even though I am far grumpier at the moment, then I can ever remember being or would ever want to be again. I blame it all on my quickly growing little one, affectionately of course. Over the last few months I have thought of my little one as "baby", an unknown individual, someone I will know in the future. Now I know this little one is my son! My son! I am still getting used to it. My heart literally melts whenever my hubby calls home during a break and wants to know how our son is doing. Such a little bit of knowledge has changed everything. I realize too not everyone gets a second chance like we are experiencing.

Years and years ago I remember listening to an episode of Dr. Laura on the radio. During a call she talked with a woman about the fact that we have two chances in life to have a parent/child relationship. First as a child with our own parents and second as the parents to our own children. I remember her suggesting to this woman that instead of trying so hard to fix her relationship with her mother, to focus on the relationship with her daughter, not to fix her past, but to give her daughter the best of her love, attention and devotion. This call has always stuck in the corner of my mind and occasionally I would ponder it. This week, this memory was brought to the forefront of my mind again. My husband and I get a do-over.

My husband for many years did not have his father in his life. The reasons are too many to discuss or to worry about at this point. Relationships are often so complicated, burdened by the issues of more then one generation and more than one family even. All that mattered in the middle of these complex relationships is my husband grew up without his father present. This week, each time I think about how blessed we are to have this second chance, I begin to cry. My husband gets to experience a parent/child relationship with his son. I am not saying we are going to fix the past. What's done is done. I am saying that I have a little boy who will know his father and I have a husband who will know his son. We are so blessed! ( and yes, I am crying again).