Gregory L. Burget

It seemed like it was going to be another one of those dreaded lost days.  I had been having more of them lately.  This morning I had slept through the alarm again.  I fumbled around and finally hit the snooze button with a heavy thud.  I forced my legs over the side of the bed and sat myself upright.  I sat there for awhile, rocking slightly, hoping to ease the pain.  My head throbbed.  My neck and back were stiff.  My ears were ringing.  The rest of my body felt heavy and sluggish.  My mind was in an intense fog.  Stress.  I knew about stress.  I knew what it could do.  I knew my anger was deep, insidious and overwhelming.  I knew it would destroy me if I didn't deal with it somehow.

The alarm suddenly shrieked out again piercing through the darkness.  It hit me with a jolt that nearly knocked me off balance.  "How stupid!", I cursed as I realized my error.  I lunged for the alarm, by-passing the snooze this time, and silencing the foul thing once and for all.  I brought myself awkwardly to my feet and scuffled to the bathroom.  I wondered idly at how my wife and children, who all share the bed with me, managed to sleep through the repeated assault of the alarm. The shower began to revive me a little.  My mind slowly emerged from the fog.  I began to wonder what was going on.  I used to be able to get up before the alarm ever went off, waking up fresh and ready to take the day.  I rolled back through time - back to when I felt more on top of things, more together, more alive.  It was the time before Leslie became pregnant with our first child, Sarah.  Nothing had been the same since.  I slowly sorted forward groping for clues - looking for where my life had gone so far off track.  Why did I feel so lost, so disconnected, so low?  I felt so much rage at the world and myself.  Why?  What had happened to unravel me so, leaving me threadbare emotionally, spiritually and financially?  I thought I had been playing by all the rules.

The warm shower was beginning to turn cold, rudely bringing me back to my present-time senses.  "How stupid!", I cursed myself again, realizing that Leslie needed to get showered before I left for work.  Yes, it had all the marks of being another lost day.  I hurriedly finished rinsing off the soap.  I thought how nice it would be if only I could pull out my mind and give it a shower too.  I jumped out of the tub, dried and dressed, woke Leslie gently to avoid waking the kids while managing a footnote apology for her probable cold shower ahead.  I poured up a bowl of cereal, burnt a couple of pieces of toast, washed it all down with coffee, let the dog out, let the dog back in, quietly bid the sleeping ones good-bye, interrupted Leslie's hair-drying with a good-bye kiss and headed for work. Bus commuters in my town are fairly sympathetic to stragglers - most of us have been one once or twice.  My fellow commuters convinced the driver that she should wait for me even though she had already started to pull out.  She stopped with a jerk and reopened the doors.  I offered profuse apologies and muttered all manner of gratitude as I showed my pass.  I stopped short of kissing her feet as I turned to locate a seat while struggling to squelch the rush of embarrassment that was about to overtake me.  I tried not to make eye contact with those who did have it all together, which, of course, was everyone but me.

As I sat down, I cursed the world for being such a miserable place.  I cursed everything from the dog for being such a dolt, to my wife for not being able to get up before me at least once and lead into the day, to the self-serving tyrants I had for bosses, to my spiritual pursuits for failing me.  I cursed God for abandoning me.  I cursed men for being totally unable to form any kind of meaningful relationship with each other.  Right now I could use a good friend.  Women are very intelligent indeed - they at least support each other where it counts and with passion and understanding.

So there I was...I hadn't even gotten to work yet and I had already cursed or berated myself or someone or something else countless times and with much venom.  I had been helplessly watching this decline for some time.  This morning it really hit home.  I had to know what was wrong.  I felt like I was going to crack at anytime.  Everything in my life had gone sour.  A barely controllable rage was gaining momentum as I felt increasingly  incapable of dealing with the constant buffeting that we had experienced over the last three or so years.  Loss of jobs, losses in home equity, bankruptcy, both vehicles totalled in a hail storm, one totalled again by a neighbor's car that had rolled out of her driveway unattended, constant illnesses in our children and ourselves, all the late nights taking care of kid's needs and the strung out days that followed, the not knowing how we were going to keep from getting further into debt as we used our credit cards to make ends meet, the loss of "friendships" which were too long grieved over due to our lifestyle changes.  Everything should have been fine.  I mean, I have two beautiful children, a wonderful wife, a job!  Everything should have been fine but, instead, it was gaining speed for the ditch.  I was mean and crabby much of the time with my beautiful gift of family.  "What's wrong?!," I shouted at myself under my breath.  The lady sitting next to me on the bus readjusted herself a bit.  She didn't hear me say that did she?!  I was so panicked at that thought that I just stared numbly out the window for the rest of the trip, concentrating on not mumbling.  Maybe I had already cracked.

Work was the usual, insulting, cover-your-backside-never-mind-the-quality-it-should-have-been-done-yesterday-but -you'd-better-make-it-look-good experience it had always been.  I knew it wasn't just my company. What a horrible perversion the work place had become.  But I really tried to remain grateful.  I really did try.  It was, after all, steady work; hard to come by these days.  And the pay, well, it was coming close to making ends meet - sort of close.

By the time I got home from my daily flogging at work I was so demolished I could barely function.  I knew I was gradually sinking further and further into my malaise, with fewer days looking bright and worthwhile.  I was becoming increasingly intimidated by the thought of going home because of the herculean effort it took anymore just to get through the 2 1/2 hours until the kids were supposed to be asleep.  Every day this was an excruciating time of day.  I dragged myself into the house for the predictable ambush by the kids and the dog.  Leslie looked like something that had melted on the couch.  Laundry and toys were everywhere.  My mind started fumbling for reasons again as I tried to maintain my fatherly stance under repeated demands of "Up, daddy, up!"  Sarah weighed about 50 pounds by then, but it felt like five hundred as I tried not to aggravate my old back injury.

With briefcase abandoned on the floor, Sarah up in my arms, little Nathan tugging on my pant leg demanding "Up, daddy, up!", I bellowed, "Will somebody get the door here before the dog bolts again?"  I thought to myself that if that dog runs off again I'd be content to let it find nirvana under the wheels of a truck or car.  I thought about how rotten I had become to think such a thing.  I was now checked in for my other job.

01  Leslie slowly took a more recognizable form, go4'''''''''''''t up and shut the door.  I peeled the kids off - I would like to take off my overcoat, thank you - as I tried to get my bearings.  Surely other fathers were more joyful and energetic with their children and wives when coming home.  Weren't they?  "What's wrong with me?", I heard the tape in my head repeat again.

Leslie and I tried to lie to each other by weakly exchanging niceties without really wanting to hear the truth.  We could see the truth plainly enough.  We just didn't know how it got that way.  What was it?  We love our children very much.  We love each other very much.  Yes, we are going to great lengths to build a family life that we feel would be supportive for the children and us.  Yes, it runs very much against the social and business grain these days.  So what.  There must be more to what's going wrong than this!

Leslie sat down again.  She was showing some signs of recovery.  She was glad to have me home to relieve her from the kids for awhile.  They were both high-need and non-napers.  I would do my best.  She was needing breaks in the worst way, but I knew I'd been letting her and the kids down more and more.  At a deeper level I felt that the increasing demands on me at work and at home had gone well beyond what was called for.  It's true that I hadn't been very imaginative as a father or very responsive as a husband over the last few months, but my competency as husband-father-provider was being undermined on all fronts.  I was overwhelmed.  Even in my sleep the totality of my lack of ability to deal with anything haunted me without mercy.  Somehow, in 2-3 hours a day, during the most weary time of day for all concerned, I was supposed to become a fully accomplished father while coping with a failing career on top of it all.

Later, the kids were finally asleep.  We got through the dinner, story and bedtime rituals more or less intact.  We always did, but I wondered if we would the next time.  The stress was starting to strangle us.  Our children were really starting to feel the pain.  We both were getting short-tempered and sharp with them.  My helpless feelings stoked my rage even more.  Some life!  I went off in search of solitude in the house to read, reflect or maybe even meditate.  "Meditate?  How stupid!  When's the last time you've been able to...".  I shut down my internal, infernal critic.  I'd had my fill of abuse for the day.

The quiet times that I could sometimes carve out for myself were becoming increasingly important to me.  Actually, these times were more than important, they were critical.  It was in my quietness, as I read and contemplated, that I began to notice the growing feeling-knowingness of my own indispensable part in the whole drama of my life.  It was no bit part.  But I was fighting any significant level of self-responsibility.  After all, how could I, such a small piece in the universal puzzle, create such devastating havoc in my life?  It just didn't make any sense!  I had to spread that around.  I had to have been victimized somewhere along the line.  If only so-and-so or such-and-such would change.  The beauty and joy of children in my life - how could I be responsible for inflicting such anguish?  It was God's fault.  Unconditional love and support?  It was, obviously, all lies.  But there was this little part in me that would flash up from time to time refusing to let me get away with the blaming.  But wait, hadn't I shifted or given up everything for the sake of providing my children with the most supportive and open childhood possible?  I wanted more than anything for them to retain a strong sense of Self, for them to keep their spirit intact.  It was the President's fault.  If only my employer was human.  If only Leslie were more organized.  The still, small voice remained relentless.  The feeling-knowingness of my own contributions to my condition was dawning in my awareness.  It was no longer something I had heard or read about, it was becoming an embodied truth.

It took a very long time for me to finally realize and admit that I can't pass on what I don't have operational in myself.  I had arrived at a single point of understanding; I had been fragmented for most of my life!  I didn't have a strong sense of Self.  My spirit was decimated.  I was ignorantly trying to give something to my wife and children that wasn't at work within myself.  That something was wholeness.  Until I reached the age of about 38 years, I protected myself from the fact that I was fragmented and hated myself with the illusion of immortal youth.  It took another four years before I came to the recognition that, yes, I had played by all the rules, but I had been playing the wrong game!  It was a game that no one could really win; any feelings to the contrary had been proven to be temporary.  I had swallowed the whole line fed to me since childhood by family and society that I had to be a rugged individual, to make my mark, to need no one, to think for myself, to carve out my niche, to make it happen, to earn my place in the sun, to shut down huge pieces of myself and just get a job.  What they left out, because they didn't have it either, was where you turn when your are flat on your face, time after time, completely used up, and without answers?   I had turned it every which way trying to shake out meaning and direction.  I even prayed - nothing.  I certainly ranted and raved - nothing.  The constructs in my mind were useless.  The bottom was gone from beneath me.  I was at the end of it and I knew it.  The weight of my life had become too much, my grip was weakening and I was about to drop into the abyss.  The terror was shattering.

I don't know why, but something kept "pushing" me through this darkness.  For some mysterious reason, I kept searching for answers.  There was this...I don't know...this very deep place in me that remained untouched and peaceful through all the turmoil at my surface.  I would catch glimpses of it now and again.  It kept "pushing" me, in a sense, to literally quit relying on my limited sense of self; to open to something far greater than what I had been conditioned to believe.  All at once I remembered reading something in Polly Berrien Berends book, Whole Child/Whole Parent, about not only giving birth to children but being born ourselves into Parenthood.  If we were to fail in this birthing into Parenthood we could never truly parent.  I began to contemplate the birthing process in actuality and in metaphor.  The comfort of the womb had to be left behind.  To make it through the canal there had to be cooperation, release and trust.  So much trust!  It was the Great Passage into The Great Unknown - all at once exhilarating and terrifying.  I saw that the womb I was now in was my old way.  In that deep, peaceful place within I knew I had to move on.  All the misery I had been experiencing, since the illusion of immortal youth had faded, was my struggle in the canal on my way to being birthed into Parenthood.  But, it was even more than this.  I was fighting against being birthed into my own, full Selfhood.  I didn't want to let go of the old way - it was all I "knew".  The abyss yawned wide and deep beneath me.  But the cosmos was in labor with my being, and I was going to be birthed into a fuller life or I would be stillborn.  My choice.  There was nothing in the old way that could prepare me for this inevitability.

I had come into my answer at last.  I realized that my struggle against my birthing process was bringing chaos to me and my family through all the circumstances in my life.  I suspect the effect rippled out farther than I knew.  I could see that by staying fragmented and by struggling with circumstance I was never able to be in the present with my wife and children.  I could never fully focus with them because of all the noise and fear in my mind.  This was the blockage of love to myself and to them.  Slowly, in further contemplation and renewed spiritual dedication, broader understanding-through-feeling began to emerge:  the wisdom of the heart.  My intellect, which was fully encompassed in the old way, had failed.  I realized that my rational mind could not possibly know all I needed to know.  It was not my Self nor could the Self fully express through it.  I started to let go into intuitive prompting; the language of the heart.  I began to experience a growing sense that somehow I was connected to the Universe as a whole.  I was not some creature alone and up against it all, turned loose in the Maze without support.  I realized that only through the heart I could receive all the guidance, healing and love I needed.  Through the heart I would be born into Selfhood.  Only then could I hope to envelope Parenthood.

The heart is exquisite in its wisdom.  I am only just beginning to learn its ways.  The heart does not blame, does not judge, does not fear.  It is so enrapturing with its warmth and love and its steady reassurance that everything is alright.  I love to bathe in its light, submerging myself and my loved ones in its healing powers.  And I do so from time to time.  But living moment by moment in this way is challenging.  It is like walking the razor's edge.  It takes a lot of focus to suspend rational mind intervention - the old way trying to reassert itself -  long enough to allow the heart energy to emerge.  There's the key: allowing.  When I do remain focused and cooperative and releasing and trusting and allowing, the results are astounding.  There is no way that I could plan the beauty of how things flow and work out.  I am freed of all the chains that held me down.  I feel so light and alive.  My whole family resonates with the uplifting feeling that we are on our way home and that we are moving into the experience of what life is really all about; love, joyfulness and support in being who we really are.  In this state, I am fully present with my wife and children.  It's almost like I have been fully absorbed into the moment.  No distractions, no agendas.  My focus is clear and I flow with them in ways that I could never have dreamed.  My energy is boundless and clean.

This is a process of releasing, not acquiring.  I am not becoming anything.  I am releasing that which I am not.  It was there for me all along.  Neither is it a process of manipulating circumstances as I had been taught I must do to survive.  I am now convinced that I was not designed to use rational mind to manipulate circumstances.  Rational mind has this inherent lack of ability to know all of the variables in any given situation. It's like coaxing a cart to pull the horse.  Living life from the inside out - from the heart - is letting the horse pull the cart.  The wisdom in the heart knows.  There is no rational basis with which to understand the heart-wisdom.  It can only be felt.