Tag Archives: narcissism

Meditation Can Intervene With One’s “Monkey Mind.”

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The “spin” that I have kicked around the last few posts pertains also to religion, even mine! I was given by birth the Christian tradition, which I still greatly respect, but which I realized I was given in a socio-cultural context from my birth in the American South in the early 1950’s, coming with a particular “spin” which taught me that my hyper conservative Baptist church was very “special”; it was  so “special” that even the Southern Baptist Convention of which we were a spin-off was “too liberal.”  There was a sense in which my little denomination, the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church, took for itself the exalted position of the “bride of Christ,” an honor that awaited us when we got to heaven. These were good people, very, very,  good people, who afforded me this “spin.”  If I had not been given that “spin”, I would have been given another; we all get a “spin.”  Many of the generation I grew up in did not take it as seriously as I did and were able to slough off the spin-dimension  more readily than I was; they were secure enough to not take themselves so seriously.  I was very thin-skinned, very wounded and needed the specialness “spin” to protect me from the vulnerability that would have otherwise overwhelmed me.

My spirituality has, therefore, always been “all about me” more than I could have imagined.  This is still the case and will always be.  In a sense, “I can’t help it” for I am a mere human and can only “hold this treasure in an earthen vessel.”  My ego, still with its infantile baggage, wants to believe otherwise and have the assurance that the viewpoint I have on spiritual matters is beyond question, is “objective” in some sense.  But we are never as “objective” as we think we are and this leads to delusional thinking, especially in religion…and politics. But once you “see” a dark dimension of your heart, it is not eradicated but its power begins to diminish; that “diminishment” process follows one the rest of his life.

Beginning about a decade ago when I stumbled across the work of Richard Rohr and a meditation class at a lovely church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, this narcissism began to crumble.  St. Paul’s Episcopalian Church offered many treasures, one of which was a Sunday School class which emphasized Eastern and Western meditation wisdom and practice.  There this “monkey mind” of mine became more visible, its shrieking and chattering more apparent for what it was.  Next time, I will explore a bit more the importance of meditation in my life.

Will the Madness Ever End?

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The White House intervened to prevent the U.S.S. McCain from being seen during the Trump visit to Japan.  The Wall Street Journal reported negotiations between the White House and the U. S. Navy to move this ship “out of sight” so that the President would not see it.  This is because of the rage that Trump has for this now deceased Senator who dared to be critical of him.  Trump denies having anything to do with this decision, of course. Trump may not have had anything to do with this silly decision…directly.  He does not need to as his handlers are completely in his thrall and automatically move to protect this two-year old child from anything that might make him uncomfortable or angry.  Can you imagine the time, energy, and expense that went into this decision-making process and negotiation between the White House and the Navy?  And they even bought a tarp to drape over the ship!

My concern here is not Trump.  He is but the symptom of the madness that is unfolding in our culture, a madness that is daily being aided and abetted by a supporting cast of handlers, aides, cabinet members, and Congress persons.  He has them in his grip and many of them do not have the “awareness” to know it.  Some of them are aware of this I suspect but are stymied by intimidation or black mail, and do not have the courage to speak out.

Trump’s two-year old narcissistic wound has been aided and abetted like this his whole life and he has always felt indomitable.  He still does!  And now he has what he sees as ultimate power, for he is the “duly elected” President of the United States!  Holding that office, to him and his supporting cast, is the ultimate validation of their beliefs and they support him steadfastly. BUT, the “hunger” of a frustrated and angry two-year old can never be satisfied unless an “adult in the room” will find the courage to set limits.  If the “parents” continue to indulge, a monster will be created and catastrophe will ensue.  In my clinical experience, this “catastrophe” often would find a “parent in the room” with my intervention which at times entailed hospitalization or juvenile court referral.  At times, this did not suffice and catastrophe did happen in the form of violence, often leading to incarceration.  The “acting out” of the two-year old, then running amok as a 16 year old, could not be contained other than by the strong arm of the law.  The phenomenon of a “brain-stem without arms and legs” in life is usually reined in by reality; but when “reality” allows it to occupy the Presidency, the peril for all is great.

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“My story isn’t pleasant, it’s not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” —Hermann Hesse

Life is messy.  So, we attempt to eliminate the mess but the end result is that at best we lessen the mess for ourselves and heap it upon others.  But we can’t get away from the gist of Hesse’s observation, life is messy unless we are willing to lie to ourselves. Of course, “lying” to ourselves is how social convention is formed in the first place.  That is to over state the matter for sake of emphasis but, as Otto Brown once wrote, “Reality is a veil we spin to hide the void” and I’m benefiting from this veil even as I write.  The problem lies only in the human tendency to not acknowledge the veil, to not realize that it subjects us to seeing “through a glass darkly” and basking in the comfortable illusion that we see things objectively.

“Not wanting to lie to ourselves” is now becoming ever more apparent as the contradictions, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies of our social facade have crystallized into a single point, Donald J. Trump, who is merely the figurehead of our collective duplicity.  He is obviously the “toy of some great pain,” spinning and twisting about like the bit of paper cavorting about in the wind in that mesmerizing scene in the movie, “American Beauty.”     He is being used by the gods to give us an opportunity to own our ugliness, our horrid self-absorption that refuses to see beyond the end of our own nose.

Of course, I’m talking about you…and all of those who aren’t reading this…as I stand above all of this, being as narcissistic and psychopathic as Trump!  Wink, wink!  Really big wink, wink!!!  My facetious point is that this is a human problem and all of us have this tendency to go to great extremes to avoid reality, reality which includes a deep-seated aversion to being disillusioned of our pretensions.  ‘Tis much easier to cling to our “invented stories.”

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Here is a list of my blogs.  I invite you to check out the other two sometime.

https://anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com/

https://literarylew.wordpress.com/

https://theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com/

Language is Nuanced and Contextual

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Ben Carson is now on stage with Trump, playing his part in the daily clown show.  He almost immediately made a splash when in his first speech after taking office as Housing and Urban Development Secretary described slaves on slave ships as “immigrants.”   When he was immediately criticized over this statement, he responded with, “Look up the definition of immigrants.”

Carson is another demonstration of the Trump administration’s lack of appreciation of nuance in language, reminding me of the former Supreme Court jurist, Antonin Scalia who argued, “The constitution means just what it says.”  Conservative politicians, and theologians, are literalists and do not consider the contextual dimension of words.  Though these very same persons will readily argue that one who cries “Fire” in a theater does not have the right to do so, that venue being one one “context” which is relevant to the use of words.

Carson replied in response to critics of his observation, “Look it up in the dictionary!.”  He is right, “immigrant” means someone moving to another country.  However, the notion that a black person in the bowels of an 18th century slave ship was an “immigrant” is just absolutely ridiculous.  And, though this is only obliquely related, let me show you a photo of Ben Carson and Jesus in his household, the nuances of which are highly comical.

If only I was skilled with photo-shop, you would soon see a picture of myself with Jesus and Buddha on either side of me, arms around me and myself with a beatific smile.  This photo is such a stunning example of how Ben Carson, and so many of the Republican Party, have no idea of how they are coming across to the onlooker.

ADDENDUM—This is one of three blogs that I now have up and running.  Please check the other two out sometime.  The three are: 

https://wordpress.com/stats/day/literarylew.wordpress.com

https://wordpress.com/posts/anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com

https://wordpress.com/posts/theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com

“The World is My Oyster” (Not)

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I hardly know where to start.  This Donald Trump demon that has been unleashed on the American psyche has tripped all of my triggers too and “literarylew” has “more offenses at my beck than thoughts to put them in.”  So I’m reaching into my stuffed “beck” and pulling out, “The world is not my oyster.”

To Trump, the world is his oyster.  He is a two-year old boy who never had limits set when he went through the developmental stage of the “terrible two’s” and so remains a two year old boy, “breathing out threatenings and slaughterings” anytime he is faced with a limit.  All of us go through this developmental stage, very much related to what we clinicians describe as the Oedipal transition. Though this is a challenging moment in our young lives, most of us learn to control our rage and acclimate to the external world, accepting deferred gratification over immediate gratification.  Without this willingness, we fail to fully enter the human race.

I know it was challenging for myself and even remember a dream in my early thirties when I was beginning to address my early childhood repression.  In this dream I was a furious little tyke, red-faced, shaking my fist in defiance when denied what I wanted.  It took a girl friend at the time to point out, with a laugh, what that dream was about.  She knew me very well!  And I can tell you very clearly now, in my mid-sixties, I feel the frustration of dealing with the experience of the world not being my oyster.  I often declare, “I want it all” and add, “Why should I have to accept limits” as I deal with the frustrations of aging, especially the realization that the river Styx is fast approaching.  But mercifully, back in my terrible two’s, the gods (i.e. “God”) recognized he did not need to unleash a redneck Arkansas Trump on the world and tied me down with a fundamentalist Christian load of guilt and shame.  And, central Arkansas, you better be grateful to Him!

But Trump has used wealth to create a world for himself in which he could get by with the assumption that the world is his oyster.  And, now given to the severe pathology of the American psyche, the Republican Party finds itself willing to cater to his narcissism to the point that he is their nominee for the Presidency.  Furthermore, and gravely troubling to me, evangelical Christians are lining up behind him in over whelming numbers displaying a profound lack of critical thinking skills.

Accepting the fact that the world is not our oyster is merely accepting limits.  Watching Trump allows us to see an impulse that we all have, if we could only come unleashed for a few minutes.  I think Trump’s fanatical following by the Republican extremists represents their unconscious desire to become unleashed, to give vent to their darkest, most violent impulses which are a very “human” response to the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”  But this is a dimension of the “human” experience that must be kept in check and certainly does not need to be encouraged by demogogues.

The Delusional World of Trump Continues

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I just finished my morning foray into the mad world of Donald Trump and was not even taken aback to see that he is now focusing on the mental instability of Hillary Clinton.  This is just further illustration of how completely out of touch with reality he is; for, if he paid any attention to the feedback that he is getting from friend and foe he would realize that he should not touch the subject of anyone’s else’s “mental instability.”

But this is the problem with narcissism, especially when that mental illness has reached the stage of malignancy it has with him.  For in that state of madness, one is impervious to feedback from the outside.  One then finds himself comfortably ensconced in a delusional system and inevitably will have constructed himself a social world consisting of people who will help him maintain his lunacy as they too live in a version of the same delusional system.  Theologian Paul Tillich described this as “an empty world of self-relatedness”, a pristine world comprised of people who march lock-stepped to the beat of the same demonic drummer.

I speak from experience.  As noted before in this venue, I grew up in a context of delusional narcissism in which I learned that I was one of God’s “special” and “chosen people who had the truth; and, yes, others perhaps had the truth also but no one had it like we did!  And I’m not free of this poison yet and will never be completely as it always tempts me to bask in the safety of my present day mind-set and dismiss any and all those see the world differently.  But when the Grace of God has intervened and one has “named the demon” the demon can no longer work its tyranny in your heart with the same degree of abandonment.  Yes, I still catch myself taking myself too seriously…in this venue and in the whole of my life…but then “reality” chides me and I am reminded again that I’m only a finite perspective in a world of other perspectives.  I don’t have “the” Truth though I now feel that I am in the loving hands of the Truth and therefore don’t have to be so damn “right” any more.

And this is often quite uncomfortable.  For in my heart’s core I still have that childhood desperation for “certainty” but am learning to live without it, learning that this is what faith is about.  And, yes, this is faith in God…though that is a long story…but it also is a newly found faith in myself as I’m discovering that the certainty which used to offer comfort was specious at best and was predicated upon a denial of my human vulnerability.

Trump has a god-like power over many people in my country.  His message preys on reptilian-brain fears which are readily assuaged by his promise that he is gonna “Make America Great Again.”  He knows that he can say and do anything he wants to and his followers will stay with him for they are hapless before his demonic falderal.  Last fall he even declared publicly that he could shoot someone dead in the streets of New York City “and my poll numbers will still go up.”  The very next day his poll numbers spiked.  He offers a delusional hope and when desperate people have imbibed of this nectar it is usually impossible to take it from them.

And many evangelical Christians are drinking the kool-aid with relish, disregarding the advice of one of their own spokesmen, Chuck Swindoll, who posed the question of Trump, “Where is the basic thread of human decency?”  It is not there but many evangelicals, terrified by the reality of the modern world, are willing to sell their soul for the specious hope of a “strong-man” who will turn back the clock and restore our country to the “good old days.”  They fail to realize that these “good old days,” that I remember well, were the days when blacks knew their place, women knew their place, gender diversity did not even exist, and those Communists occupied the place that “Muslims” occupy in our present day mindset.  The “good old days” required rigid demarcation between “us” and “them” which is best illustrated by Trump’s promise today to “build that wall.”  “Walls” and boundaries are necessary for life.  But when they are emphasized to the neglect of openness and inclusiveness they are destructive, destructive of the world outside but also of those that are inside the “safe” confines of those boundaries.  As W. H. Auden noted, “We have made for ourselves a life safer than we can bear.”

Trump is an Overly Indulged Child

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At times I actually feel sorry for Donald Trump.  For, like all of us he is a child at heart and his campaign demonstrates that beneath the surface he is a frightened, even terrified little boy.  Anyone who harbors unconscious terror like that must find someone or some group to project their own perceived inadequacies.  And it is a clinical fact that privileged children who have been overly indulged have a difficult time with boundaries, not learning that there is a world “out there” beyond their own private fantasies

Trump has consistently demonstrated blatant disregard for common courtesy and civility.  He even told the nation last week about his penis size, not being aware of how incredibly gauche this was.  And I’m sure he exaggerated…like I always do! Most of us who would make a declaration like, especially being in his position, would be checked by consideration of how it would be perceived by his audience and by the nation.  But with his narcissism, he lacks a “filter” or antennae which would allow him to be aware of how he is coming across to those outside of his private fantasy.

Someone with this deep-seated malady cannot admit they are wrong; they must always be right!  That is because beneath their grandiose persona they are filled with an unconscious dread based on the perception they are intrinsically wrong.  This “wrongness” is certainly nameless and if one with this problem could ever manage to simply muster the courage to own this feeling of wrongness, to acknowledge it, to “name the demon” there would be some relief if not complete.  It is similar to the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous, “Admitting that I am an alcoholic.”  This is the reason that every time Trump makes an outrageous statement or does something ridiculous, he never back tracks but only doubles down on his position.

But, back to my original point, he is in a world of pain.  I am not, however, excusing him or attempting to mitigate the tragedy that he is putting on our collective table.  We all live in a “world of pain” and carry the impact of the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir too” inside our hearts. I certainly do. But most of us have some ability to address this pain, acknowledge it, make appropriate adaptations, and live in this world with some respect for his fellow man.  Trump is sorely lacking in this regard and, as Shakespeare told us, “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”  And, I would add, “not so great ones” also.

Donald Trump Flirts with Humility

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“Humility comes hard to the humble.”  I’ve said this many times, bringing attention to a lesson I’ve learned that when one is steeped in a culturally tradition of being “humble” it is very hard for any real humility to sneak through.  And when it does begin to penetrate that hard shell of self-righteousness, it is almost always quite painful.  I’ve given up on that and the rest of Christian virtue, coming to believe that the best I can hope for is that something I call “humility-ization” is underway in my life and will periodically have my arrogance brought fully to my attention.  And this itself does not make me humble!  It just makes me aware that there is something other than I am aware of that is present in my life, some indescribable and ultimately Ineffable mystery that is unfolding in my life…and the whole of life…and occasionally it subjects me to a rebuff.

Donald Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican Party nomination for the President in 2016, is the perfect embodiment of narcissism and egotism that I have ever seen in a public figure in my country.  His arrogance is so profound that even those in his own party have brazenly confronted him on the matter and he has merely responded with more arrogance and bluster.  But two nights ago in a debate with ten others vying for the nomination, perhaps he demonstrated the criticism is getting through even to him.  Perhaps.  At the end of the debate, the moderator posed a light-hearted question, “Name a hypothetical code name that you would want from the Secret Service should you become the President.”  Trump’s response, with a slight pause and a faint smile of self-consciousness, responded with, “Humility.” Wow!

What’s inside always comes out.  This is true individually and collectively.  Trump is putting on a show for our collective psyche, demonstrating in flesh and blood a parody of a conservative theme of the political far right—American exceptionalism.  I too love my country and think also that it is “exceptional.”  But I think all countries and cultures should be encouraged to have “community” pride without taking it to the extremes we often see here and in other extremist groups around the world.  This is also egregiously apparently with churches and religious groups who should have pride in their spiritual tradition but take care to not let the poison of human arrogance tempt them to believe they are the only ones who have “got it.”

Carl Jung: What we Resist,Persists!

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During my clinical practice, family therapy was probably the most difficult task that I had to tackle.  I’m sure this was because I, too, grew up in a very dysfunctional family and with these families I had to stare at my own unresolved issues stemming from growing up in an enmeshed family.

But the dysfunctionality of families is also present in all groups and is usually kept beneath the surface by the “structure” of the group which dictates what will be allowed into “reality.”  Just as with a dysfunctional family, the “identified patient” of a group will often “go off the reservation” and begin to articulate with word and deed the hidden secrets of the group.  And this brings me to the delightful comedy of the current Republican Party’s campaign for the presidential nomination in 2016 and the “Donald Trump Show.”  Mr. Trump for the past three months has been almost daily “acting out” by boldly and brazenly voicing what the establishment of his party tacitly embraces but would never admit to.  For example, he has taken overtly racist and misogynist positions and when attacked has merely “doubled down” and thrived as a result. This is because the base of his party is delighted with a politician who is “telling it like it is” and is promising to “Make America Great Again.””

The “fun part” of this is to watch the Republican establishment squirm and begin to take pot shots at “the Donald” all of which would give most men and women pause and lead them to “chill out.”  But Trump refuses to back down and as a result continues to prosper in the popularity polls. Yesterday one of the “siblings” in his dysfunctional family, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal…tired of being almost totally ignored…decided to push things a step further and pointedly addressed the core issues of Trump, calling him a “narcissist” and “egotist,” declaring at one point that Trump’s half-hearted and awkward efforts at posing as a Christian were totally insincere.”  For example, Jindal declared, “We know he does not read the Bible, because he is not in it.”

Trump is the Republican Party’s “enfant terrible” and is functioning as their “bull in the China closet”…and they can’t stop him as the base of the party loves it!  Yes, he is “telling the truth” that the party establishment will not tell but doing so without any respect for decorum and respect.  He is the classic narcissistic and does not know that “Truth, like love and sleep, resent approaches that are too steep.” (W. H. Auden)

Let me emphasize that this “comedy” is merely an illustration of the “comedy” of daily life.  We all live in families, including groups, and each of them have their “secrets” which are carefully guarded, kept buried in the collective “unconsciousness.”  But as long as a group…or individual…fails to acknowledge the dark morass of the unconsciousness, it will continue to simmer and control their decision-making.  As Carl Jung succinctly noted, “What we resist, persists.”

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2015/09/10/bobby-jindal-donald-trump-narcissist-sot-newsroom.cnn/video/playlists/race-to-2016/

http://www.c-span.org/video/?328022-1/governor-bobby-jindal-rla-remarks-national-press-club

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The Apocalypse Within

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Psychiatrist D. W. (Donald) Winnicott once observed regarding his clients, “The breakdown that is feared has already occurred.”  He knew that his clients’ reluctance to forthrightly address their issues was because the pain was too great for their conscious mind to undertake…at least initially.  Many of his clients had been subjected to trauma and had every reason to fear buried memories of the anguish.  Others, though not overtly traumatized, had not been able to successfully adapt to the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” and their denial system had compounded the problem to the point that often it approached “trauma.”  (Scott Peck in “The Road Less Traveled” noted that, “Neurosis is a substitute for legitimate suffering.”)

All of us have fears though many of them do not amount to the terror of Winnicott’s clients.  But our reluctance to face these fears can be equally intense and lock us into attitudinal and behavioral patterns that keep us from reaching the point where our life is in full flow.  We are like Hamlet and “cling to those ills that we have rather than flee to others that we know not of.”

Some whose “breakdown” was acute and merit the description “traumatic” will be prone to see catastrophe “out there” in the world rather than to address their own that are within.  Furthermore, some whose pain can only be described as “plain vanilla” still prefer to project it “out there” as their narcissism prevents them from recognizing that they have any faults.  This applies to individuals as well as groups as even groups can have a narcissistic dimension to the ideology that holds them together.

 

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Furthermore, if you will indulge my penchant for the esoteric, I even conjecture that even the healthiest individual has deep-seated memories of the catastrophe which was the birth of the ego, that primal differentiation of the ego from its matrix which in the depths of the unconscious parallels the big bang.  None of us have actual memory of this event and never will and don’t have to worry about the possibility.  We are hard-wired to have no memories of that psychic catastrophe in which the ego was born.  But I do think that sometimes refracted memories of this event filter into the pre-conscious and influence our dreams and conscious thoughts, often providing an explanation to why an individual can see so clearly why the problem is with “them” when to us looking on we muse to ourselves, “Oh, if they could only see.”  But for them to “see,” i.e. “withdraw their projections,” would entail more pain than they can bear.    Shakespeare had this denial in mind when he had Macbeth declaring, “My dull brain is racked by things forgotten.”