Falling on my feet by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

May 2023

As my previous articles have been documenting, I am making a conscious effort to explore the bardo, the “between spaces” in my life. I first became interested in the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the bardo many years ago, stumbling upon it in relation to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is where the most common understanding of it is attributed. The more I studied, the more subtle I realized the idea represents. It isn’t just that state between being alive and dead, or between death and rebirth, it’s every moment, from this to this to this. It’s in here that we populate our experiences with psychological noise, much of which is quite unconscious.

The bardo is a thick space, as the writings on the matter in Tibetan Buddhism demonstrates, where figments of the imagination, of fears, of dread, of desires, of neediness, of habitual responses, of hungry ghosts loom to the surface: matters of psychological and emotional distress. Figments, nevertheless, of one’s psyche. The what, the why, the which triggers are interesting, I think. Putting one’s focus of attention on these inner fabrications is really useful in stopping habitual reactions and behaviours before they take hold and interfere with one’s life. Too much of our behaviour is unconscious conditioned responses that may, or may not, be actually terribly helpful in our day to day life. Just because this reaction is familiar to us, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate right now.  Too much of our conditioned responses give rise to high levels of anxiety, which we probably don’t need.

The exploration of my conditioned responses gave rise to the experiments I’ve been practicing on myself in recent months. I put my Lismore house on the market (it’s sold now), I set off for Western Australia without a home and stayed with friends, I travelled overseas to the Shetland Islands and swam in the freezing Atlantic (fantastic!), I returned and had to face not having anywhere to stay as  my friends needed the space for other people, and I came back really ill from a virus (not covid) picked up in one of the aeroplanes I flew in. I  contemplated sleeping in my car, airbnbs, hotels, even flying back to Lismore to stay in a friend’s flat. I was really scared. I’ve never done anything remotely as unsafe as this in my life. I’ve always been very security/safety conscious, and yet here I was potentially homeless. All the terrors of my childhood  (and nightmares) welled up in horrible forms. This was exploring the absolute edge of existence for me. And there, in the midst of all this, the settlement on my house came through and on that very same day, within minutes, I’m contacted by a relative of someone I know well saying they have a flat in Fremantle they wish to sell and that they’d be happy if I stayed there while the process of buying the unit was happening. So here I am, writing of the generosity of people, as well as my own extreme feelings of terror in a quiet, lovely home in a place I have wanted to settle all my life. Beneficence!

I have resumed daily swimming in the Indian Ocean and I can feel my body/mind recovering. I notice that the undoing of anxiety knots is happening as I recover my equilibrium. Dreaming is starting to happen again. It was as though even dreams were put on hold as I stumbled from feelings of terror to  the conjuring up of horrific what ifs.

 Interesting times, these, and interesting to me how all this has played out. This experiment on myself is useful in helping me understand better how others explore and overcome their existential terrors. We are all vulnerable  creatures on the way to healthy conscious life and bringing awareness to this process is helpful for all of us. As a therapist, I can only be effective if I too know this process inside out.

 

 

At the Edge. by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

Dec 2011 

 

     When the tears of a lost relationship, or any significant loss at all, exposes the ancient edge of existence, the place of unanswerable questions, we know the edge of meaning/meaninglessness has been reached. It is like teetering on the last rock before the yawning black abyss. We look down and feel engulfed in the inexplicable. What is the meaning of life? Where do we go from here?
 

     I know this edge very well, and know when my clients are there too. This is the edge of existence as we know it; the familiar is no more.

     What now? We cannot go back, and going forward is stepping off the edge into the unknown. I cannot write, “unknown vastness” for I do not know its size, or if it even can be measured. It’s “possibility,” it’s “potential,” yes, but how, why, what?

     When the edge is known, and I suspect we have all experienced this at various times, we can certainly draw back, grab a beer, turn up the radio, or follow each excruciating filament of our own fear to apprehend the nature of our own despair and see what possibilities arise.  This is a scary place. Is this apprehension a stepping off into space? Yes, I believe it is. 

     Some people have faith, some have trust, some have other philosophical beliefs or religious stories about this walking into abyss. For myself, this is the time not to take refuge in ideas, nor engage in fabricating happy endings before the work is actually done.  It is too easy to imagine the fulfilment of a hero’s journey, but such imaginings have a hollow ring, like when you tap a plastic version of a grail cup. The actual work must take place, and I value working with people as they begin or continue that profound work.

     The trouble with our over enriched cultural environs is that we know much about happy endings, and heroic journeys, and mythical places, but don’t well know the hard work that is required for even for the stories to exist.  It is ultimately ineffective to half-heartedly do a bit of this abyss apprehension work, keeping in mind all the while a vision of finding the grail. No, the work is in facing full on the gaping horrifying mouth of the abyss: going in there, terror-filled, and not knowing what next. Grail quests are mere stories; the unknowing is real.

     I have seen among my clients those who have short circuited the actual work. A tell-tale sign  is a tendency to verbalize a fantasy place, or to draw a happy fantasy situation where opposites are miraculously cojoined – all the while demonstrating an out-of-sortness with their immediate experience of being here, now and in relationship with me. The journey, or dark night  of the soul, or leaping the abyss cannot be fabricated.

     The risk, as I write this, is that the language and imagery of the Grail quest and that of St. John of the Cross’ “dark night of the soul,” or even the “abyss” will be substituted for what actual encounters of the edge a person has. This is an existential place essential unique for each person who finds themselves there, when the familiar veils of  life are wrenched down.

     The fear of falling is great and it is natural to want to cling to anything, anybody, any activity that is around, and yet, such are distractions to the work of apprehension.  St John of the Cross, Spanish mystic and monk of the 16^th century, writes of detaching oneself from the things of the world, but he also writes that doing this aligns oneself closer to God. I suggest, instead, to take the  psychic plunge (not physically) without religious or ideological support and enter into unknowing; experience that and see what happens for you. There is potential, possibility, excitement, discovery, a new way of being (or not at all); there is the unknown.

Copyright @ 2013 Dr Elizabeth McCardell

Loitering on the edge by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

  
Nov 2011

     Last Sunday I went to a jazz gig at the Lismore Bowling Club where I reflected, as I always do, on the nature of jazz as being a music that plays with the edge of things.  There are planes and angles, 3D shapes and near misses; tangents and elaborations; edges and precipices just avoided. I like jazz for all this. It isn’t about melody for me, with this kind of music; it really is its geometry.

     In this article I want to explore the edge and loitering around it. I work at the edge of things as a therapist. The nature of the work I do is spending beautiful time with other people exploring their edge. This is a profound space:  a richly textured and evocative geography that merges tears of sadness, love and laughter. It is where discoveries are made, insights found, connections explored, and old ways of seeing discarded. It is where our mutual humanity is met and shared. 

      The edge is a thick place, in the sense of its intensity, and as such one meets in oneself tremendous resistance in going there. Much nicer, it seems, to flitter around on the edge, or loiter with intent to postpone the learning that comes from actually engaging in what one knows needs to be addressed. I know this loitering very well, but this is not a bad thing. I have come to appreciate the loitering. Too often in our culture, we are told to go for the jugular, as it were. To go directly to the thing that we feel called to do, and to regard hovering around as wasted time.

      I think of loitering at the edge a useful time of preparation, emotionally, cognitively and soulfully. The art is, however, to jump when you are actually ready, and not suppress that realization. The art is not to loiter longer than required by your innermost heart.  Things get really sticky when you have postponed  going to the edge and doing the jump in new ways of thinking, or any new enterprise, actually.  Here in the stickiness,  actions are iterative (things done over and over and over, without resolution) and  are classic procrastination.  A jazz musician would be crippled if she/he got stuck. The whole art of jazz is in letting go, but, paradoxically, also returning to the place already explored – and playing with the two states. 

      Many of us know procrastination intimately. For instance, I have been hovering around doing my tax this year and left it and left it and left it. Fortunately, I finally mobilized my energy and went and saw my tax agent who looks after me wonderfully.  I don’t doubt that this a common experience, but it is an interesting one. What is going on in this place of apparent overwhelm? Why did other things suddenly become more important? Why didn’t I tackle the thing that was just there looming bigger than Ben Hur? What became of my usual intelligence? Why the fog around the item procrastinated upon? It remains a mystery to me. Is it the fear of being made look stupid and paying for that stupidity; is it a fear of being accountable; what?

      Artists loiter at the edge of their blank canvas, and sometimes cannot begin. They can struggle. Will this work be nothing more than a pragmatic, “let’s just get this thing painted”, or will this work explore the depths of one’s being? Will this nurture the soul in its doing, its process, or will it be a superficial thing, a mere product that will bring a quick buck? It can be hard to get going, but there is a need to begin. I know for myself that beginning gently, beginning softly, with little steps and nurturing the infant idea till the energy of doing takes over and the work is done. The engagement in the process becomes the food for continuing. The work drops down from a superficial doing to a wonderful enriching working. Time, though, is required to simply allow the process to be. This is when loitering on the edge becomes a rich time. The plunge into the work then is an entirely natural event; not forced, not artificial, but real and exciting. The embryonic idea grows, is tamed and yet remains wild and, in some way, a bit “other”, a bit “self”. 

      I used to paint a lot and when I felt the work done I’d take it to the bathroom where there was a large mirror. I’d look at my painting in the mirror. I’d see the work and I’d see my own face. If I liked my work, my face would glow. Somehow or other this knowing of my own delight would be reflected in the eyes of other people when the work was right.  Thus painting became a reciprocal process, a bit like therapy. The shared engagement in the exploration of the edge, and the playing with it in all its intensity, is mutually held, nurtured, and let go, and new ways of being is discovered and built upon.

Copyright @ 2013 Dr Elizabeth McCardell