The inner child speaks about her resistance to activism

A year ago I was immersed in a project to improve the way Sand Point Housing residents are treated by management. I had heard stories directly from residents about what was amiss. I had some comrades in wanting to address the injustice. I loved the idea of using my privilege to make headway on behalf of those lacking privilege. The way forward did not seem complicated. It appeared to involve writing letters, scheduling and attending meetings with officials, granting interviews, writing articles, attending local events, and planning together with my comrades. Wow, it sounded so fun and exciting! I had spent two years learning about power and privilege and the root causes of racism. I wanted to make a difference but did not find it appealing to participate in protests. I wanted to do something constructive and I wanted to do it in my own neighborhood. I wanted to do it in partnership with my neighbors and on behalf of neighbors. I wanted to build connection with the residents of Sand Point Housing and I saw that such connection would be a likely by-product of this kind of activism.

The first step we took was to write a strongly worded letter to the mayor about the situation, with copies sent to the press. I enjoyed working on this letter. The letter did get a bit of press. We also got immediate feedback from Solid Ground, the non-profit that is managing the housing and doing a poor job of it. The CEO of Solid Ground offered to meet with us, and the marketing director wrote an "anonymous" letter to me about the harm that I had done, which made me feel bad and took me a few days to recover from.

After that, I attended a couple of Solid Ground board meetings and met with the board president, and I arranged a meeting with our city council representative. Someone obtained the legal contracts that Solid Ground has made with the city, and I spent several hours reading and summarizing them. But other than that, although we have met every month or two, we have taken NO action in the past year! Even though I have plenty of ideas about effective actions we could take. I found, to my surprise and dismay, that I had very little motivation to move forward. What the hell was going on?

Just now I settled down with my inner child and had a talk with her about it. I asked her why she doesn't want to move forward. She said, "It's going to be too hard!"

After giving her some tender affection, I asked, "What seems hard about it?" She responded with the following:

It will be hard to make decisions about what to do next. I will be faced with doubt and confusion at every turn.

I will feel lonely unless I have one or two close partners in this work, the way that E was my close partner in the business we founded together.

I may not be successful. I may do harm.

There's nothing making me do the work, and at any moment I'd rather do things that are less fraught or more fun, like cooking, organizing, writing, visiting, or watching movies.

These are worthy of further exploration.

When I see myself retreat from projects that are hard, sometimes I despair and think that I'm a quitter, just someone who doesn't follow through on anything unless it's within a structure of some authority seeming to force me to do it, or unless it's for a tangible reward of money or acclaim. But then I notice my steadfast dedication to my spiritual life, and I see that I am not a quitter.

Further inquiries into self

Below is a small fragment I wrote on December 30 but didn't publish.

Things I am noticing today:

A clinging to positive stories about myself: "Aren't I clever!" and perhaps a clinging to belief in self so as to retain those stories. A bit of fear that without those stories, there's a dark void.

Am I willing to let go of the positive stories so as to also be rid of the negative ("I'm no good")?

Asking: who is deciding whether to visit Rosemary at Mission Villa today?

A movie plays out in the mind, where there is a bearing down, rumination over some pros and cons, and then finally a saying to myself, "OK, I'll go! That's the right thing to do and I'll feel better about myself if I don't spend all day sitting around the house!"

Uncovering a very early story

This morning I awoke with fear, as usual. I have several methods for working with this. This morning I tried shifting my attention toward seeing through the illusion of self to see whether the fear would dissipate as a result. I noticed that the fear is a combination of a set of bodily sensations and a set of thoughts.

Although I was able to notice this, the fear did not dissipate. The thoughts arose again and again. As I noticed the components of the fear, it would no longer feel like fear, but in the next moment one of the thoughts would captivate me. I then noticed one particular thought:

I am never going to make any progress

I have long wondered to what extent this thought has been hindering me throughout my life, particularly my spiritual life, and specifically my inquiry into self. I held this thought and inquired of the inner child: why are you never going to make any progress? The answer:

I am afraid to make progress. I am afraid to adopt a new view, or new ways of doing things.

I then asked, why afraid? I tried to treat the fearful inner child with the utmost care, tenderness, and respect. When doubt arose as to my ability to do so, I reassured myself that whatever care, tenderness, and respect I was able to muster would be enough. Slowly, more layers were uncovered:

I can't allow the notion that I have been wrong all these years.

This answer, like the previous one, was familiar from other times that I have gone down this road in my inner work. I had never before been able to go deeper. "Why?" I gently asked. After some time, the answer emerged:

I refuse to let go of who I am

"Ah, so you identify with your current worldview," I responded. "You identify with your lifelong strategies for living life. You feel that if you admit your strategies have been ineffective, or built on false assumptions, that you are losing yourself." At this point I felt discouraged and stuck. If there is an inner child who is this defended, what can be done? I continued to extend tenderness and patience, and slowly, slowly, the next layer emerged:

I will not allow to be obliterated the story that has been long buried.

Aha! What's actually being protected is the story of the initial wound(s). The inner child has been hindering so-called progress because she does not want her not-yet-fully-told story to be forgotten. She wants more attention for this story. Things looked more hopeful now.

I have delved into this story on numerous occasions over the past decade. There are no details of time, persons, place. There is no sequence of events. But the story is felt vividly. It is a story of great loss, of massive misunderstanding, of overwhelm, invasion of personal space, and subsequent abandonment. Love and safety were once felt, but were lost! They were lost seemingly as a result of something I did, or failed to do.

I allowed the thoughts and sensations of this story to unfold. I listened to the words that came up, I asked more questions about what happened. At first, all that was felt were anger, grief, utter helplessness, and despair. These had been felt before when going into this story. My present-day self also had thoughts of despair: was it futile to keep delving into this sad story? Perhaps even harmful? I remembered that, in the words of Mary Oliver, this was my one "wild and precious life" for me to live as I wanted to. And right now I wanted to be in this story (vs., for example, arising and "getting on with the day").

Slowly, almost without me realizing it, the unpleasant emotions melted into pleasant ones of safety, comfort, and love. As has been described by several of my teachers and guides, it was as though this next set of emotions was behind the previous set. I rested in this new layer of emotions, touching back from time to time into the sad story, but feeling safe and held.

At this time, E arose to prepare to go to a family breakfast. I'd been invited to that breakfast and, as is typical for me, I was paralyzed by fear that if I didn't go, I'd be seen in a negative light and abandoned. This fear makes decisions about whether to attend social engagements quite fraught. This time, remarkably, I let go of that fear and found a sense that even if I didn't attend, I was held and loved unwaveringly by Eric's family. For the first time in my memory, this particular fear lifted and revealed the truth underneath. So beautiful.

This morning's work felt very fruitful, very rewarding. And the desire for attention for the early wounding story seems, according to the dialog above, to be very much related to why I hold myself back in life. However, for the past 18 months I have refrained from going into this story because I was immersed into an inquiry into desire and ill will, and Lake, my guide in the inquiry, advised against going deeply into old stories. I stopped working with Lake about two months ago because we seemed to be at an impasse. For several weeks after that I continued the inquiry on my own, and continued to refrain from inner child work. But now, I think it is time to do some more of this work. It seems quite possible that this will be the key to me moving forward with the desire and ill will inquiry!