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Archive Number 3588 | ||
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Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:28:23 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Syd, I saw you a few months after your husband's suicide and can recall how fragile, tender, and determined you were at the time. Like someone returning from a horrific journey. Over this year, although I have not seen you, we have corresponded and I have had the privilege of seeing your resilience that gave you strength and good humor to rebuild your life. I have been impressed and nourished by the mother love you have given to your children. It is as if you have carried them and yourself over a falling bridge to safety on the other side. It must have taken great courage and inner trust to watch the videos. And, to watch with your children so that they could make real the fact of their own relationship to their father and to his death. The question that you asked about suicide and protecting your own son is the one that I am truly moved by because it is essential for him, and for your own sanity. I was once told a story about suicide, which I will tell at the end of this letter. the real storytelling will probably begin from this time onwards, when you and the children, having seen the video and talked, will be able to tell stories about your husband - the good times that were shared - and also (more privately and carefully) some of the signs of his troubled heart and mind. In this way, the grief and confusion can become part of a greater tale and alleviate any sense of each person being responsible for his death.. or, a secret shame arising that privatizes the grief and makes it also an immovable story that can become an inner abuse used to punish self and others and isolate. I was in the audience once when Alan Ginsberg asked a Tibetan Buddhist teacher about a friend of his who wanted to commit suicide. the Rinpoche answered that Alan should tell his friend that it is not a good idea. That one has to live out one's life, otherwise whatever has not been dealt with will be harder in the next life. Also, to say to someone about to commit suicide that It is not a good idea. " He also pointed out that if someone is reallly far gone, you can not stop them. but, you can tell them that they are losing their mind, and willhurt others teribly. To tell them that pain is real, but there are ways to work with it. Some people simply can not bare the pain, or find the power to work on themselves. What he went on to talk about later was MAITRI - love of self and compassion for the suffering of our own's minds that we can relieve through developing awareness of how thoughts habitually are believed (our secret more insidious storytelling activity that can rule our entire lives without our realizing that we have constructed, fixed and adorned certain points of view or opinions as if they are factually real). Inner stories can have alternative or unknown endings that are a surprise. The view about story is more provocative than a socalled lesson or single analysis. One of the great potentials of storytelling that is far more enduring in effect than content is the process that provides the practice in flexible and alternative thinking, and awakening imagination. This has to be learned, understood, felt , known to truly function from the point of view of the storyteller. I know that you are working with this and it will help you to strengthen your children's minds so that they are not patterned toward suicide themselves. More we can address personallyl. because our list has ventured into the areas most needed to explore for storytellers, I have made this basic letter public. for the last two years I worked on a book called BECOMING THE WORLD. It is a manual for using storytelling in crisis and challenging situations. It is published by a large hunanitarian group called MERCY CORPS. We received one of the Hasbro sept.12th grants to do it. It is being taught now by trainees that I trained and it is very successfuld. I have 500 copies and am now in the process of both attempting to find a good mainstream publisher, and expand it. As well, as sell these books to storytellers. I can be contacted privately in this regard. Working on this book has become a teacher. My editor and helpers working in the field have struggled along with me and we have truly seen something remarkable take shape. The training is now in the 86th organization. We can be of tremendous service in the world, far beyond what we think possible, in a way that is not very obvious, but enduring, sustaining and transformative. Our mutual dialogue on these topics will provoke us all to continue to learn further and open the necessary doors. My buddhist teacher also said, "If you want to be unhappy think only of yourself. If you want to be happy think of others." with love, Laura ------------------------------- To Unsubscribe from Healingstory send the message: unsubscribe healingstory to: listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu ------------------------------- | ||