Jim Cogley: Reflections Tues 11 June – Mon 17 June 2024
Note: Following some cancellations a few spaces have become available for the Wood You Believe Retreat that will focus on healing both at a personal and ancestral level scheduled for July 16 to 19th in Slí an Chroí Retreat Centre in St Patrick’s College Kiltegan. Phone: 059-6473650 or 089-4690508.
Tue 11th June – The Weight of the World
When the Russian invasion of Ukraine first began I was glued to the TV at every possible opportunity. Needless to say I found it harrowing, distressing and even incredulous that it was even happening. Towards the end of that first week I was scheduled to give a seminar in Omagh. As usual I wasn’t coming with a pre-set agenda and carefully prepared notes. My biggest preparation is always to be as fully present to the group as possible and to trust the guidance of the Spirit. On that occasion I almost suffered a panic attack because when I opened my mouth it felt as if I had nothing to say, and even worse didn’t feel that I was present to the group. It took me some time, and a few delaying tactics, to regain my composure, as I realised what had happened. I had become so absorbed in the negativity and horror of what I had been watching that my energy had dropped to a very low level and so I had little to offer. The acknowledgement of this became my starting point and from there the day took on its own momentum.
Wed 12th June – ‘Not my Grief’
A doctor some years ago told a story about his son. This young man was a sub-aqua diver and a member of the RNLI. He had been involved in a search and recovery operation where several members of the same family had been drowned when a car went into the sea. His son had been the one to recover the bodies from the car. All members of the RNLI who had been involved were present at the funeral. Surprisingly, his son refused to attend. When they met, his father was curious as to why. He said, “I know you are not lacking in compassion and yet I found your refusal to attend the funeral rather strange.” His son replied, “I did what was my duty by manning the lifeboat and later by taking the bodies out of the vehicle. My decision not to attend the funeral was because ‘in the end of the day it was not my grief.’’’ The father understood the wisdom of those words and remarked “I wish that someone had taught me that when I was setting out on my career and it would have saved me so much unnecessary suffering.”
Thurs 13th June – Holding the Higher Ground
There is a lesson in life that is quite difficult to learn. It is, ‘that in order to lift someone else up I need to stand on higher ground.’ Another way this could be said is that in order to rescue others from drowning I need to keep my own boat afloat. Growing up in a culture that prioritised care of others over and above care for self this can be quite difficult and we may even feel guilty about not feeling as miserable as the ones we want to help. Yet the reality is that unless our energy level is operating at a higher frequency level, we end up drowning ourselves and being more part of the problem than the solution. We are not obliged to take on the pain of the world, but we do have an obligation to do what we can to alleviate the suffering of others by whatever means, to the extent that it is within our power.
Fri 14th June – Our Inner Weather
If it were not for the ever-changing weather in Ireland, we might never know how we feel. We project so much of our inner reality onto our climate. ‘That’s a rotten day, it feels heavy, its dark and dreary’. Or the typical pessimist remark, ‘Sure it’s a lovely day, but it’s not going to last very long.’ Expressions such as these can be saying more about the person making the comment than the actual weather. This is projection clearly at work and so on a wet, cold and rainy morning when you greet someone with, ‘Lovely day, pity about the weather’ there is often shock at the hint that inner and outer reality might be different. Similarly in relation to the state of the world, our inner conflicts become mirrored in outer conflicts. The dreadful state of things, that no one can deny, can reflect our own sense of helplessness and hopelessness. It’s so much easier to make comments on whatever might be happening in the outer world than to recognise what is going on within.
Sat 15th June – Carrying what is not ours
In the practice of counselling and psychotherapy one of the biggest lessons is to never take on board another’s pain and make it your own. Someone comes who is burdened and depressed. My role is first to be fully present to that person and help them to explore what might be the root causes of their discomfort, and to offer a sense of objectivity around their situation. During the session I hold a space for a certain matter to be explored. However, if I still hold onto the issue after he or she has left, it will have a detrimental effect on the next person who comes in, and if I also take on board his or her ‘stuff’, by the time I meet a third I will be so wiped out as to be of no use to that person whatsoever. All this sounds fine in theory but in practice I will on occasion feel hooked and when this happens I need to explore whatever it is in me that remains unresolved for this kind of energy attachment to take place. When it happens there is always a hook related to my own personal or ancestral story, something that may not be all that obvious.
Sunday 16th June – The Sower
A farmer went out to sow seeds. That brings back very early childhood images of my father walking some small fields with what looked like a box and a bow called a fiddle sower. This was still primitive but a big advancement to the age-old method of scattering seeds by hand. Whatever the method there’s no chance of the seed growing on hard soil or rock. A few years ago, I tried by hand to cultivate a small piece of ground in my back garden to sow some vegetables. To get the hard soil to the place where it was loosened up and clear of roots and stones was seriously hard work. Yet, without the soil being tilled there’s no point in sowing the seed. The ground has to be ready to receive it first.
Our experience with Covid a few years ago created a worldwide churning of the soil in all our lives. The ground beneath our feet no longer felt as solid as it used to be. Age-old securities were shown to be not secure anymore. What was gilt-edged before had lost its lustre. Many felt rattled, uncertain and anxious about the future. Our reality had changed where even the familiar looked unfamiliar. It was a time that caught us all by surprise that none of us thought we would ever have seen except in movies.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that as a people we were traumatised by that event and we still carry residual effects. It came into our lives like a giant wave and swept away so much before it. Then when it receded it left behind so much emotional debris. Now that things have returned to normal, there’s more anxiety around than before that time. Workers in shops find customers to be more crunchy and difficult to deal with. Even on the roads there seems to be much more aggressive driving and poor concentration resulting in an escalation of fatalities and injuries. Just simmering beneath the surface there’s a lot of anger and we need to exercise caution as to what we do with it. We can say and do hurtful things forgetting the age-old principle of only treat another the way you would like to be treated. Some in ignorance just want to throw stones, forgetting that it’s much easier to break glass than build greenhouses.
I rather like the saying that ‘Storms come into our lives for a reason, they last for a season. Learn the reason and outlast the season.’ We survived Corona which was more like a hurricane than a storm, and like any hurricane, it blew away everything that was not either tied down or very flexible like a palm tree.
It has left us asking what really is secure anymore. We need solid places to drop out anchors. It has tilled our soil, rattled the faith of so many and literally shaken the ground beneath our feet. However, it has also made us far more ready than we ever were to receive the seeds of truth. We are now looking for answers to questions that until now we never even took time to ask. Some of these are basic question that have always been with us, like where do we come from, why are we here, and where are we going? The sense has been heightened that here we have no lasting city so is there anything that doesn’t change in the midst of all that is so vulnerable?
How badly do we need to find a rock that is higher than we are at this present time, so where can our souls find a solid foundation? We may be forced to look beneath religious practice or even non-practice and turn to our Christian faith with fresh eyes to see what it has to offer. There is a growing awareness that we must now go inwards to find answers and so many are looking to prayer and meditation.
One of the most wonderful places on my own journey that was equally the most painful was where I had to ask, ‘I know what it means to be a practicing Catholic but what does it mean to be a Christian?’ It was as if I were starting out from scratch and asking fresh questions that were not affected by religious conditioning. In my faith journey I had moved from unquestioning acceptance to a place of questioning non-acceptance and it was from that place of doubt and upheaval that I prayed ‘O God if you are there, then you a so much greater than my doubts, please find me and reveal yourself to me.’ That moment I now look back to as the beginning of a great journey of faith, of simply trusting God to be God in my life. It’s a time, not when I found God, but more like when He began to find me.
Early during that time I came to realise that the gateway to all Christian experience was surrender. Without an act of surrender and accepting Christ as Lord of my life it would be possible to practice one’s religion, be a good person, live a moral life, and still feel on the outside. Letting go and letting God was the real challenge. This is a rather amusing story that carries the essence of the kind of surrender that each of us is called to:
An elderly immigrant couple living in New York called Mike and Kate, both of whom were illiterate, travelled home one night and stopped to listen to the Salvation Army Band playing some songs. The religion of their childhood had become a distant memory and over the years they had drifted away from the faith. An ancient spark became reignited and they remained to the end when an altar call was extended for anyone listening who wished to commit their life to Christ and accept him as Lord of their lives. Both went forward. It had been a chance encounter and they went away on cloud nine. Still basking in the glow of his newfound faith, Mike went to a men’s gathering for worship the following Sunday. Returning home, it was obvious that his spirits had dropped and he looked crestfallen. Kate was very concerned and enquired what went wrong to have caused such a change of heart. Mike explained that in the meeting he felt an outsider because all the men wore a blue pullover with something written across the front and being unable to read he didn’t know what it meant. Kate assured him that for the next meeting she would knit him exactly what he needed and quickly got to work.
When completed, the problem arose as to what was to be written on the front. With neither able to read or write all they could do was bow their heads and pray for guidance. Looking up they saw a sign being erected in a shop window opposite. Believing it to be the answer Kate copied it onto the pullover. After the next meeting Mike came home jubilant. So many had commented on his jumper and said that the inscription on the front was by far the best they had ever seen. Kate naturally was more than curious as to what it meant. ‘Would you believe,’ said Mike, ‘it says, ‘This business is now under new management.’
For anyone who surrenders to the Lord what better an inscription could there be.
Mon 17th June – Disempowering
As children we are naturally vulnerable and our defences are weak. Even in the womb, because of our oneness with the mother, we can feel what she is feeling and particularly pick up on what she is not expressing. This pattern continues into childhood where our emotional states like anger or sadness may not entirely belong to us. We may be expressing something that more rightfully belongs to our parents. So it is that the very passive parent may have a very angry child. In adult life we may continue to pick up and unconsciously carry others unacknowledged emotional states. A wife will say of her husband that he doesn’t express his emotions and will not go there. But then who does? All too often she becomes the one who has to ‘go there’ and in carrying the weight of his unexpressed emotions she may very likely become ‘mysteriously’ sick. Becoming aware of where this kind of toxicity exists in our closest relationships is crucial for health and wellbeing. Also, if we choose to carry what is not ours, we are denying the other from ever having to face what is rightfully theirs. In effect, to the extent that we carry, we disempower.