Puzzling, the way opens...

The way keeps opening, because there is no end.

Omnipotence and Free Will spiral together.

I’m developing my own internal language for how I’m creating my life, moment by moment, day by day. I’ve lived long enough to realize that this is what I’ve been doing all my life, tumbling along, and now at age 70, I’m shamelessly (more or less) letting myself play around with this reality and beginning to write about it.

Are you aware that you’re creating your life, thought by thought, story by story? Sometimes? At some earlier stages of my life, if you’d asked me that question, I’d have said something like: “Get real. That’s like asking me if I built the car I’m just learning to drive.” Or worse: “If I’m creating this, someone should put me out of my misery.” But even then, a part of me recognized the ‘streak of omnipotence’ that kept me going through the sometimes glorious, sometimes miserable messes I made. I’m using the word ‘mess’ intentionally here, not as a judgment, but as an accurate description of the miscellaneous, unstructured, free-formed heaping of intentions and circumstances that my somewhat carefree life-choices delivered over time. A 3D puzzle in motion. You know what I mean: if you took random photographs of your kitchen counters, some will be documentation of crazy people irresponsibly whirlwinding and leaving the debris, and some will be suitable as illustrations in a cookbook. And everything in between!

---

You might feel your own streak of omnipotence when you’re dreaming. I remember a client in therapy for developmental trauma coming into his session looking exhausted and anxious. Over the past year he and his older siblings had been arguing about settling their parent’s estate, while at the same time he was negotiating his divorce. Overwhelmed by the conflict, he had been avoiding taking a stand on some critical issues in both negotiations in favor of keeping peace. This man was capable of deep empathy but hadn’t received much support for recognizing and protecting his boundaries. He began to describe a long dream from the night before in which he found himself locked in his two car garage with a hungry tiger stalking him in the dark. The tiger was agile and quick, hopping from car to car, whisking around corners to pounce on him as he tried to hide; lashing its tail, snarling, eyes glinting in the dark. Even just describing the experience, his feet scrambled on the floor, his hands gripping his knees, eyes wide. I found myself leaning forward, asking questions, breathless. We took a break to orient again to my warm office and the lightly falling snow outside.

After a while I commented that the tiger in the dream seemed lively and robust, hopping around on top of the cars, as though it was enjoying itself. His eyes brightened and he said in a puzzled tone, “Yeah, what was it doing in the garage?” “Good question,” I answered, “how about if you run through the dream being the tiger?”

Gazing into space for several moments, his eyes widened again, breath quickening, he practically growled: “I’m rrrrravenousss and I don’t care about anything else. I’m sooooooo hungry!” Eyes darting around the room, jaw clenched, this time his feet pressed to the ground. As his breath calmed and deepened again, he looked back at me, eyes narrowed, his chin dropped and he said firmly, “I’m going to get what I want.” Another big deep breath.

At that point, we both knew what he meant. By the end of the session he knew he had to advocate for his own needs clearly, first by defining them for himself, and then communicating them appropriately. That tiger was expressing its streak of omnipotence; it could focus completely on its needs and use all of its skills, ingenuity and resources for its own fulfillment.

---

As I began this piece, tucked up on my little blue couch, I didn’t know what I was going to write about, except that I wanted to be present, free associate and then explore the way that opens. I spontaneously remembered sitting with that client and his dream, thrilling to the natural potency of his need, and the creative aggression within it. What am I showing myself, and you, through that memory? The puzzle proceeds.

Another free association pops up: this morning, in our garage, there were three mice caught in the traps we’ve reluctantly set as we discover whether our house has been adequately sealed for the winter. Yes, I feel guilty for claiming this home territory and excluding the mice just when the temperature drops further below freezing… Here’s the next thought: do the mice represent the ways in which I haven’t protected my own inner territory from the small shames and guilts that curtail my creative impulses?

“Dweep, dweep, dweep, dweep…”

That’s the echoey sound of me backing out of this cul-de-sac. That particular free association led to a dropping of energy, a wave of sleepiness, and after drinking some water, a 15 minute nap with the tigers already asleep on our bed. Just because a way opens doesn’t mean you have to go there. Then I got up and wrote the rest of this piece.

Jasper and Alice Ann, tigers displaying their streaks of omnipotence.

Okay, so maybe I am working out some shame in the process. This is a significant puzzle configuration for me and for many others: I do have some shame around feeling rambunctiously creative with writing. My first attempt at fantasy fiction when I was around 10 years old included making up words for the hidden civilization my characters discovered. My father’s response when he read the story echoes in my memory: “How dare you?” Or was it: “How dare you use the English language that way?” His father was an English teacher. I still don’t understand what crime I’d committed, which makes it all the more haunting. Shame is often seeded that way, a small but dark or distorted mirror shard that catches light only sometimes.

Do you have particular splinters of shame? Do you ever notice evidence of shame for feeling good and being happy, enjoying your privileges and resources, and choosing your creative path according to what feels joyful, expansive and fun? Watch out for this kind of question: “How can you play around like that when others in the world are suffering? How can you indulge your impulses that way when your first duty is to do what’s right for your loved ones and family? Do you believe you’re here in this life just to have fun?” Even when asked rhetorically in social media, or across the dinner table, these questions are shaming you for wanting to enjoy the creative impulses that arise as you love your life. The result is that you learn to hold yourself more privately by inhibiting your spontaneous impulses.

The more privately you hold what you love, value and believe in, the more isolated you feel, so you don’t share your values, enjoyments, or creative expression. This kind of shame masks your deeply rooted ‘streak of omnipotence’ which is all wound up with your ‘free will.’ Like your DNA, your streak of omnipotence and your free will are constantly self-correcting, and will find a way to be expressed.

Clearly, shame can be a GIANT CAN OF WORMS. Shame is often collective, having been passed down through generations of people in communities. However you take it in, it becomes a bind between a rock and a hard place, so there’s no wiggle room to get out of it easily. Worms like to wiggle; being stuffed into a can is no fun, and when you open the can, there can be a chaos of wiggling, as my client felt in his dream. Eventually, though, the free worms, or the free associating, will find the way forward opening up. So how are you creating your life, moment to moment? You have choices.

Come to think of it, therapy, or writing, is like tending your inner garden. The worms of private experience take care of that soil. When there is undigested experience, such as traumatic shame, therapy (and writing) work to compost those feelings. If worms are needed to help the composting process, and they’re all locked up in a can, composting is much slower. Thus opening the can of worms and allowing them to wriggle free, with appreciation for their streaks of omnipotence, the soil of your inner garden will be richer and more fertile.

Okay then; have I made any progress puzzling this through? I’ve covered some ground to end up here, bumped into a wall, kept going, played with some worms.

Where do you want to go? Consult your own streak of omnipotence, and free will. The way will open.

Special thanks to my friends at Write Hearted for encouragement and suggestions on this post. What great fun to wade into this delicate territory and play around with ways to explore it! Thanks again to Rick Lewis, Kathy Ayers, Larry Urich, Neha Patel and many others as we meet and mess around with our puzzles.