Thresholds

Thought of the Week: May 7, 2007

OUR RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
MAY ORIGINATE IN OUR IDEALS

There are many ways to resist change throughout adult life... Apart from the pathological effects of trauma and abuse, most resistance has to do with fantasies about how the world and others should treat us. It is rooted in ideals―for perfection, beauty, love, security―that turn into dukkha, suffering or negativity, when they are held to tightly or are too exaggerated and grandiose. Great expectations, even our most humane visions for the future, can throw us off balance and become a barrier to development when we regard them as more important than what stands before us.

Polly Young-Eisendrath. (1996). The Resilient Spirit. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. (p. 108)

Comment:

Suffering caused by expectations

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 2007 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.

In the context of the heroic journey, resistance to change is symbolized by the threshold guardian. When we insist that the world live up to our ideals―of fairness, of honor, of compassion―we set up our own guardians. These guardians, projections of our childhood beliefs about the world, hold us out of the journey to growth and understanding. We must remember, however, that in the journey the threshold guardian has two tasks:

  • to block us from the challenges we are not ready to face, and

  • to step aside and point the way when we are ready (often becoming our mentor).

The paradox of the guardian, in the context of suffering, is that the guardian does not become a threat or a mentor until we respond to our suffering―the meaning we give to it. Then the guardian becomes a mirror of our own understanding.

If we feel that we have been hurt or wronged and we cling to that meaning, we may develop feelings of victimization or helplessness: "What have I done to deserve this?" or "Why did this happen to me?" These emotions, though understandable, can become guardians preventing us from transforming our suffering into deeper meaning and growth. The guardian, which is really our own fear or ignorance, sends us back, back into our suffering because we are not ready to face the challenge of creating greater meaning. We can never get past the threshold to growth, understanding and healing.

If, however, we look into our emotions  the anger, the sense of helplessness or victimization―we can begin to see why we respond that way. We can discover the ineffective under-standings that are generating those feelings and keeping us from growing. These understandings are usually the result of childhood experiences and the perceptions those experiences gave us. Those childhood understandings may have helped us cope with the suffering we felt in childhood, but when we cling to them as adults, they turn on us and block us from coping effectively. In this case, the guardian becomes a mentor, a guide into our sense of self that can help us through the journey to create a large, more effective meaning.