Trauma & Art

Blind spots

‘WE ALL HAVE MOMENTS when the curtains part and we see no longer “through a glass darkly,” but instead with utter clarity and conviction, something that is unmistakably true or real. It can happen when you’re sweeping the kitchen floor, when you’re thinking about what you will eat for dinner, or while you’re wondering whether your niece is going to heal well from surgery’ Kelly Boys

Gaps in our knowledge, natural cognitive biases, unvisited wounded places, even our gut instincts when they are hacked by previous experience, emotions and core beliefs born in less than optimal childhoods or collective experience, all contribute to the creation of our blind spots that serve as filters and to a great extent define our experience, our choices and roads taken, and ultimately, our suffering and happiness below our conscious awareness. In her book The Blind Spot Effect, Kelly Boys defines blinds spots as ‘unconscious impulses, fueled by emotions and beliefs, that create habit-building patterns in relationship to ourselves and others’. She suggests that ‘blind spots start wars and break up families…..  foster disconnection and isolation at home and at work……  hold us back or force us into places we never wanted to be’ and that ‘seeing blind spots is like a treasure hunt — but not a witch hunt. If we approach the subject with curiosity and affection rather than shaming ourselves, we can discover some immensely valuable truths’. A metaphor to describe the damage that blind spots can cause could be that of a prestigious museum with a sophisticated security system to guard against invaders and theft of its most valued objects and works of art. The blind spots in the security scanning system are the weak links in the system that ultimately allow the robbery to occur often in broad day light (at least in films) Read more….

A page from an old aquarelle block….

Two extracts from Elizabeth Lesser’s book Marrow: A Love Story on sisterly love, love and the journey of uncovering our deepest nature

‘What I learned from both transplants— the bone marrow transplant and the soul marrow transplant— is that the marrow of the bones and the marrow of the self are quite similar. Deep in the center of the bones are stem cells that can keep another person alive, perhaps not forever, but for a time and, in the case of my sister, for what she called the best year of her life. Deep in the center of the self are the soul cells of who you really are. Dig for them, believe in them, and offer them to another person, and you can heal each other’s hearts and keep love alive forever’

‘If mothers and fathers were handed a script to read to their newborns from a Certified Human Parenting manual, it might go something like this:

Welcome, little one! We are glad you have come here. We want to know everything about you— down to your marrow, down to your fingerprint. Please show us who you are. We’ll listen closely to what your soul needs and what it longs to express. But we also will teach you the ways of this earth. There are some things here that cannot be changed, but there are many things that can and should be changed. We will help you figure this out because we know you have come here to make a difference; we will help you find that purpose. You will cross paths with many “others” throughout your life, and they too will be sorting out their unique purpose and plans. This will be your greatest challenge: staying true to your marrow while honoring the truth of others— their values, their backgrounds, their wounds, and their strengths. If you have siblings, they will be your first teachers in this arena. They will serve you a confusing cocktail of care and competition, friendship and rejection. Please forgive them for mistaking you for an invader. And please forgive us— your parents— if we give you conflicting instructions; if we push you toward individuality and also insist you play well with others. Somewhere in between those two impulses is the holy middle path. To be true to yourself and to be good to others. Our greatest gift to you will be to walk that middle path ourselves, because we know talk about the path is cheap. We promise to try to walk the talk’.