Help for Disentangling the Rope of Disregarding
The Rope of Disregarding
In the post on The #2 Task of Midlife, I started the topic of Regarding. I mentioned there is a Rope of Disregarding that holds us back from taking care of ourselves. It can also hold us back from taking care of others. The purpose of this rope is to keep on keeping us safe. But since the danger is past, we need to take a fresh approach. Taking care of your physical, mental, and emotional health, as well as your household, begins disentangling the Rope of Disregarding. We loosen from the Rules of Don’t Speak Up, Don’t Stand Up and Don’t Keep WithStanding. These possible actions are what trigger your fears, the aspects of yourself that you are disregarding. You have been taught, encoded as it were, that speaking and standing are dangerous. We start with taking care of household tasks like fixing faucets and clearing out the attic so we can feel regarding for ourselves.
The Pathway of Regarding
First, if we need to disentangle from the Rope of Disregarding, we need to see if we know anything about what problem the rope was solving. It was tied around us for good reason, as if to keep us from falling off a boat and drowning, or being blown away in a tornado. We and those who gave us the rope are being loyal to our ancestors, parents, or leaders who were facing a really big, long term, terrible problem and figured something out that they thought would make them safe. They might have been trying to not attract attention from authority. They might have witnessed someone getting punished for asking for what they wanted, or for speaking up about injustice. They might have been threatened with torture if they told a secret. The energy for expression was bound up, stuffed down below their feelings,[1] twisted, like turning a dial.
Even if we don’t know specifics about our family history, we might have guesses about where this rope extends back to. For instance, my father’s parents grew up in occupied Ireland. Their ancestors as well as my mother’s ancestors lived under the occupation from the late 17th Century till 1921.[2] Without knowing particulars of my individual ancestors circumstances, I can acknowledge that my grandparents and their grandparents lived under terrifying laws and punishments. It was imperative in this situation of extreme NotWithStanding (not having any standing at all) for Catholics to not attract anger from the occupiers. There were many instances of people being tortured and killed, and of families being turned out of their homes with no way to support themselves.[3] I can be grateful for my ancestors’ endurance and attempts to continue to keep themselves and each other safe.
Second, once I start feeling, I sense the distance in time from then till now, the difference in our surroundings,[4] and I am grateful for the changes in my family’s circumstances. My father’s parents and my mother’s great grandparents, fought in the resistance and, fleeing punishment, ended up in this country.
Third, now that I am clearer about the difference between when the rules were necessary, and what is necessary to move forward now, I want to feel myself stepping out into the world. Wanting comes before acting, so before we act, we notice our wanting the feeling of success we will have with our accomplishing.
Fourth, stepping out into the world, I can feel myself standing on my own two legs, and I am glad. Glad for my family, and glad for my legs that carry my interests.
Fifth, as I practice this standing and feeling, I recognize this feeling is natural, a part of my nature. Feeling the distance my family has traveled through time, this part of our nature must have been in my family before they felt the need to hide their feelings and their natural desires. Continuing my interest in learning and practicing, I find that this is so.[5] Paying attention, I am regarding.
Sixth, now I am standing in my legacy, healing the ties that bind up the energy in my family lineage. What we are fearing is the energy of not complying, of NotWithStanding the Rules we were taught keep us safe - the ones that are no longer necessary. We are moving into reality with almost no effort.
Seventh, I am healing my family. I’m a family member, too. And at mid-life, I am moving toward becoming an ancestor myself. With this clarity about what suffering was in the past that deserves healing, and what strength we are bringing forward into present circumstances, I am grounding the truth of my family’s resilience, strength, and talent.
Eighth, as I reclaim my pride[6] in my family, I feel Standing and WithStanding. I feel the ground with my whole feet (I’m equally grounded.), the strength in my legs, a full “pot” of energy in my solar plexus. My head is upright. As I start to research what really happened, I am sorry I blamed my family parenting, and I am pleased to be in the lineage that came to be. I open my eyes. I am WSing.
My family history
The changes we want to see in our lives stem from Regarding. When we find out about Regarding, we inch away from self-reproach for all the things we didn’t try, didn’t speak up about, or didn’t feel. We know we were being loyal, which is a virtue. Our resentment is dissolving, even if only slowly. We are feeling freedom, perhaps for the first time.
When I was in the Stage of Life where I researched my family history, I learned more about my ancestors’ active resistance to the occupying forces in their country. I learned the prices they paid for Standing and WSing in those circumstances. I learned once they came here that they were part of building our country. And I am so proud of them; so proud to be with them, to call myself Irish American in their name and in their stead. I hope this blog post is in some small way a healing gesture to those who came before me.
[1] This is why we might feel cut off from our legs. We are NotWithStanding.
[3] For example, the New Advent website contains this paragraph from their research: “… degraded Irishmen called priest-hunters were rewarded for spying upon their priests, and degraded priests who apostatized were rewarded with a government pension. The wife was thus encouraged to disobey her husband, the child to flout his parents, the friend to turn traitor to his friend. These Protestant legislators in possession of Catholic lands wished to make all Catholics helpless and poor. Without bishops they must soon be without priests, and without schools they must necessarily go to the Protestant schools. These hopes however proved vain. Students went to foreign colleges, and bishops came from abroad, facing imprisonment and death. The schoolmaster taught under a sheltering hedge, and the priest said Mass by stealth watched over by the people and in spite of priest-hunter and penal laws.”
[4] Note to self and reader: In a future post, we will see the importance of messages in our surroundings. Like circumstances, they are around us.
Etymology from Google - Middle English: from Old French circonstance or Latin circumstantia, from circumstare ‘encircle, encompass’, from circum ‘around’ + stare ‘stand’.
[5] This experience goes with two aspects of our study: the 4th of the 5 Tasks of Mid-life, and the Stage of Life after 50 - Blessing Your Fathering.
[6] Pride is an important quality of WSing. Many of us learned that pride is sinful. But strongly clear knowing is a strength and when we have strongly clear knowing that we did something well that helps us follow our path. It’s Regarding. Arrogance, on the other hand…. But you know this. The Design of WithStanding is for us to have strongly clear knowing of where we stand, what our strengths and talents are, and with whom we are standing – a worker among workers, a sister among sisters, a friend among friends.