Breaking the Bonds. Dorothy Rowe

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СКАЧАТЬ to deal with the consequences, beginning with contacting the insurance company through to selling the site and rebuilding in a more advantageous part of town. It was not till a few days later when the police were talking of sabotage and the insurance company were delaying in living up to their promises that the full horror of his situation hit him. He had thought that he had everything in his life under control when in fact he had not. Now he felt that everything was slipping out of his grasp, that his world was crumbling, and that instead of having his feet firmly planted on solid ground he was falling through bottomless space. This terror and a sharp physical pain suddenly became entwined.

      The ambulance and hospital seemed like a dream, and it was not until later that he saw with absolute clarity that he had encountered death. Again he felt that fear, for all his life he had told himself that he had death under control and now he knew that he did not. ‘I felt,’ he said to me, ‘that my whole being was shattering. I hadn’t felt like that since I was a kid and my father died.’

      Good fortune had not entirely deserted Dan. It was while he was in his most frightened and shattered state that Danny came to see him and, for the first time in his life, Dan asked Danny for help. For once, instead of ordering Danny to do something, Dan said, ‘Please would you help me? I can’t manage the business on my own.’ Danny, instead of going silently away, said, ‘Yes, Dad’, and took over the running of the business.

      Mary said to me, ‘Now Dan’s getting better he’s showing signs of slipping back into his old ways of working too hard and bossing us around. I have to remind him to take things easy and to say, “Please”.’

      Dan and Danny still had many things to sort out individually and together, but one thing Dan had realized was that all his life he had felt that to keep himself safe he had to have everything organized and under control. If he did not do this his outside world would become chaotic, dangerous and strange, and he would feel that his very self was shattering. He would become nothing but a pile of rubble. The fire and his heart attack showed him that his organization and control were nothing but an illusion.

      We can think we have everything organized and under control, but in fact everything that exists in our universe is in constant movement and change. If we fail to recognize this then one day our universe will show us that it is so.

      Dan was faced with three choices.

      He could go on being terrified by the discovery that the world was not the way he thought it was. Such terror is physically exhausting and, in his case, would almost certainly lead to further heart attacks.

      or

      He could do what Pat had done, bring the terror to an end by locking himself in the safety of the prison of depression.

      or

      He could accept that everything is in constant change and that we can control and organize very little of the universe, and then only for a little time, and that this is not something to fear but something to welcome and enjoy, for it is out of this constant movement and change that we gain what makes our lives splendid – spontaneity (including the spontaneity of love and forgiveness), hope, freedom and our capacity to change.

      Each of us in the way we experience our sense of self and the threat of the annihilation of our self is either like Lisa or like Dan. Each of us experiences our greatest fear, the fear that our very self will disappear or shatter, either as being rejected or abandoned and being left entirely alone, or as losing control and falling into chaos. Each of us experiences our sense of self either as being a member of a group or as the development of individual clarity, authenticity and achievement.

      Most of us would say that we want both to be a member of a group and to achieve as an individual. It is often not until we are in situations of danger that we realize what is most important to us and how we see the greatest threat.

Finding the Source of Our Greatest Fear

      Whenever someone consults me I try to establish in our first conversation how that person experiences his or her sense of existence and perceives the threat of the annihilation of their self. When somebody tells me something that sounds important I ask,

      ‘Why is that important?’

      When I was in California I met two people, George and Ruth, each of whom had encountered many difficulties in their lives.

      George was sixty-two and recently retired. He was very courteous, ready to tell me his story, but his eyes looked tired. He had been diagnosed as having ‘dysthymic disorder’, but an inability to have a good night’s sleep and to concentrate were, he said, his main problems.

      George told me how his first wife had left him. That, he said, ‘was not the kind of thing I could take easily. I don’t think I ever got over it. With my present wife things have worked out quite well, except that there’s a total lack of affection. Life is difficult for me. The reason I can handle all these things, and the reason I haven’t said forget it, is because of my religious belief. That allows me to cope with all these things.’

      ‘Can you tell me what your religious belief is?’

      ‘We’re Christadelphians. I believe that God is who He says He is, that there is a God. I can’t, try as I might, see any sense in Darwinism. I feel that there’s a power behind all of us. The Bible is His instruction to us and therefore we must find what He wants of us and what He’s promised to us without preconceived ideas or having someone tell us what to believe. The promises were given early on to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Those same promises were repeated to King David. Those promises include anyone who encompasses those beliefs. We all have basic sinful ways inherited from Adam. Christ’s purpose was to give us a way out. He was the Son of God and he therefore, being perfect, was able through his sacrifice to save all those who would come to him. Those promises will come to pass when he returns to earth and then there’ll be a thousand-year period of shaping up the earth, bringing people into alignment, and we’re told nothing beyond that, God being the be-all and the end-all. Christ will turn everything over to Him. Along with that, we believe that marriage is something which you should respect and hold to. My present wife has taken up my beliefs strongly. For many years she didn’t give religion the time of day. She started to like what she saw and the people we associate with. Finally she went to a class and she liked that.’

      ‘Did that draw the two of you closer together?’

      ‘In a sense, but not in so far as affection is concerned. I’ve just decided that this is not in my life. In my own family we were never affectionate. I don’t recall my mother and father, or my brothers and sisters having a hug between any of us, ever. With this group now, that’s something I’ve had to get used to, always that’s the greeting, a big hug, and, my goodness, with that something passes between you. It’s like something bad goes out of you. It doesn’t go into them, but you share something. I had never had that during my life. That’s something I appreciate about this group. But as far as depression is concerned, the way it shows up now, I feel that life is no big deal. I don’t think it’s all that worthwhile, short of what I believe in. I’m trying to improve myself as best I can for as long as I can – that precludes any notion of doing away with yourself. I don’t think I’d ever consider that. I simply don’t think that life’s all that great.’

      ‘Would I be right in thinking that when you think about your life you feel disappointed?’

      ‘In some ways yes. I’ve never had any great aspirations. I’ve never wanted great СКАЧАТЬ