Compassion in the Swampland
Final Part 7
I thank the little second-grade girl for her persistence in showing up in my morning meditation, beckoning me to see what I was missing. Asking me to look for the piece that lay just below the surface, floating just out of reach. Finding this “piece “ has brought me “peace.”
Like my companions in the swamp, I too struggled with depression. At one point with suicidal depression. Anti-depressants and talk therapy helped to a degree. Fortunately, my depression dramatically shifted when I started practicing Spring Forest Qigong. Soon after I committed to a daily qigong practice, a “dark” day came upon me as a surprise instead of the daily norm.
I spent years struggling to be happy. I believed that happiness was the end goal, and I had reached it. Overall, I was a happy person. When I hit a bump in the road, I used my Spring Forest Qigong tools to change the negative emotions that I was feeling. That is why I was surprised when that little girl showed up in my meditation and when I felt her shame wash over me. (See Shame: The Swampland of the Soul)
I thought being happy was enough, but it wasn’t. I was missing something, and the missing piece was compassion. Compassion is different from my just wanting to be happy. Compassion is wanting myself, and others, to be free from suffering.
When I look at my second-grade school picture I can feel love for that little girl. Who can’t feel love when they look at a young school girl smiling out at the camera on school picture day? But when I look at my picture with loving compassion, it opens up a deeper feeling of love. I love her and I want her to be free from suffering, free from feeling that she was dirty, and ugly, and unlovable. Free from her shame.
I wanted that little girl to be free from suffering. I also wanted my companions in the swamp to be free from suffering, free from their burdens. I needed to feel compassion for myself, as well as, the women who came before me.
I saw that I had a choice to make. I could see myself and the generations of women in my family as wounded souls, or I could see us as beautiful lotus flowers rising out of the mud. My companions and I all began our lives as buds under the swamp water. Yes, our roots were there in the mud, but we managed to grow until we emerged from the mucky water as lotus flowers.
Lotus flowers have a strong will to survive, they even survived the Ice Age, a time when many plants in the northern hemisphere became extinct. Even if a natural disaster tears the root system, the seeds can survive thousands of years without water. Blooming once again when conditions are favorable.
My ancestors may not have been able to find their way out of the swamp, but like the lotus flower, they had a strong will to survive. I see them as flowers rising up through the mud. They were brave women who struggled onward, never giving up. I love them, and I thank them.
My great, great grandmother, Elizabeth Phelps Burnham, grew in the swamp with mental illness tugging at her feet. The pain of her brother hanging himself threatened to pull her under, but it didn’t. I wish her to be free from her suffering.
Her daughter, my great grandmother, Lizzie Burnham Marshall, also struggled in the swamp through multiple commitments to the mental hospital. She bore the unbearable sadness of abandoning her children when they were sick. Of leaving them in the care of others for months at a time when she was institutionalized. I wish her to be free from her suffering.
My grandmother, Edna Marshall Hollis, was also stuck in the swamp. Edna was burdened with the belief that her mother’s mental breakdown was a direct result of exhaustion from taking care of her when she was a sick child. Stuck in that belief she, in turn, was unable to care for her daughter, my mother, when she was sick. Stuck with the heart-breaking inability to tell her daughter that she loved her until the night before she died. I wish her to be free from her suffering.
My mother, Natalie Hollis Somero, who was bogged down in the swampy water trying to reconcile growing up with a mother who was unable to show her the love that she so desperately needed. Bogged down trying to feed and clothe five children with the farm slipping into bankruptcy. Bogged down as she looked at herself in the mirror, knowing that if she had not gotten on the bus that day, my uncle would never have molested me. I wish her to be free from her suffering.
And myself, Laurel Somero Blaine, who was born into the swampland, and grew up feeling that she was never good enough. Who one day was finally able to look with loving compassion at that little girl who was filled with shame standing outside her second-grade class room getting a lecture from the school nurse. (See Shame: The Swampland of the Soul) I wish her to be free from her suffering.
I’m extremely grateful for the people and the tools that have shown up in my life creating a pathway to lead me out of the swamp. Every day in my qigong practice, I thank all of these women, and all of the women that came before them, stretching back to the beginning of time.
If any of them had given up on life, if they had not struggled to grow in the swamp I would not be here today. And if I wasn’t here neither would my sixteen children and grandchildren Brycen, Seth, Lesley, Diane, Delaney, Miles, Sophie, Clay, Averie, Jackson, Harper, Landen, Mason, Emma, Willa and baby Maeve.
I end this with a tribute of love and gratitude to all sixteen of you wonderful beings.
If not for you
…there would be one less smile,
one less laugh, one less hug, and
the song of life might have skipped a beat. (16X) *
With Love & Healing Energy from the Pond,
Laurel
*Maggie’s Quill greeting card
