Forgetting (written 9/24/07)

Hi travelers - my advice to us this week : Forget About It. I know it seems harder than that, more complicated, maybe even impossible, but MAYBE, just maybe, the subject of our particular fixation, the thing that has most of our attention/concern/worry these days, can just be forgotten. And what would that be like? This week's JEN NEWS: Forgetting, Hysterics, and Growing the New. Here is a bit on the story that got me thinking about it.

We've been reading The Secret Garden (by Frances Hodgson Burnett) to Sawyer. It's my favorite book and he's really gotten into it. For those who haven't read it, or don't remember it all that clearly, it is the story of a ten year old girl named Mary Lennox who comes to live with her "hunchbacked", disillusioned uncle, Archibald Craven and his servants at Misselthwaite Manor after having lived in India and lost her parents to Cholera. She begins as an entitled, miserable, unpleasant, bossy, hard little person and comes to life as she finds the key to the Secret Garden and discovers her love of life, really, for the first time. In the course of the story, she also meets Colin Craven - her cousin- and son of Archibald who remains hidden away in the mansion, crying and throwing tantrums, convinced he is ill and going to die. Under the impression that he will grow a lump on his back like his father and that he is weak beyond repair , he keeps himself hidden, refusing fresh air and growing more frail every day. His presence is kept a secret until Mary discovers him one night when his cries can be heard from down the hall.

They have many meetings after that and she teaches him of the Secret Garden and all the potential there, for she is already working away at bringing the garden, which had been locked up for ten years, back to life. One night, however, Colin has one of these tantrums and brings himself to a hysterical state and Mary steps in and calls him on it. She demands that he stop screaming; she has him turn over and she examines his back . And when she does she can find no trace of a bump or lump anywhere. This is a huge relief to Colin as all of his hysterics are a result of his fixating on the idea that something terrible is happening to him. Later, when the doctor arrives, Colin expresses his desire to go outside (for the first time) and to go with Mary. The doctor is wary at first and tells him he must "remember", basically, that he is sick. And Colin says:

"I don't want to remember. When I lie by myself and remember I begin to have pains everywhere,
and I think of things that make me begin to scream because I hate them so. If there was a doctor
anywhere who could make you forget you were ill instead of remembering it, I would have him
brought here. It is because my cousin makes me forget that she makes me better."


So, Colin has figured it out. He's realized that no matter how real or compelling one of his thoughts can seem, or even how much evidence there seems to be of its "truth", it is the focusing upon those thoughts (those that he hates) that is creating his greatest, most real pain. And so, it is up to him: Does he choose to lie in his bed and fear the growing of a possible lump or does he wish to focus upon the potential inherent in THE SECRET GARDEN? This is his moment of choice, and this is the moment when he starts to grow strong and changes the course of his life.

It is easy to make ourselves weak with our thinking, sick with our thinking, tired, ugly, not enough, angry or powerless with our thinking.
But there comes a point, when in order to change what we most want to change, we actually have to Forget that which once seemed absolutely impossible to forget. So, forget it. Whatever the "it" is. This perception of self as weakened -as powerless - is the most painful perception one can hold. So, forget it. It was never true and you know it (regardless of what situation or experience seemed to inspire this thought). And Remember your strong self again by following the trail of what you love and what feels good to think about and grow.

Our power is like Colin's power, it is there waiting. And it always will be.

So, this week, let us forget our limitations and let ourselves open the doors available . There is always a Secret Garden in our peripheral vision. There is always a Thought of Something that feels better that can be built upon.

Lots of love to you all.
All is Well,
Jen