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Narcissistic Deprivation
Important reading....about Narcissistic Deprivation....
much love to us all.
Date: 1/17/2006 7:35:33 PM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 4145 times
http://www.cliftonunitarian.com/toddstalks/lovinggod.htm
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Loving God
The Mystic Quest for Love
by Todd F. Eklof (02-26-02)
Love Loss
Dylan Thomas once wrote, "Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and Death shall have no dominion." For the poet this grandest of human experiences, love, cannot end or be defeated. But how many among us can truly say we haven’t known the loss of love? It may be that the entire human predicament is centered on this problem of finding love. In her book, Drama of the Gifted Child, psychoanalyst Alice Miller suggests many of us, if not most, suffer from a narcissistic deprivation. That is, we often don’t get our need for love met. The way Miller describes it, we begin to experience the loss of love in our infancy, as if we are born into this world needing love. "A newborn baby is completely dependent on his parents, and since their caring is essential for his existence, he does all he can to avoid losing them. From the very first day onward, he will muster all his resources to this end, like a small plant that turns toward the sun in order to survive."1
One of the few resources available to children is conformity and adaptation. But in conforming and adapting to their parents’ expectations, children unwittingly begin repressing or forsaking their own inner truth. This truth doesn’t go away, it just gets locked away, imprisoned in the unconscious where it may eventually lead to all sorts of emotional and psychological problems. Indeed, the original title of Miller’s book was Prisoners of Childhood. "One serious consequence of this early adaptation," she writes, "is the impossibility of consciously experiencing certain feelings of [one’s] own (such as jealousy, envy, anger, loneliness, impotence, anxiety) either in childhood or later in adulthood."2
Following this dissociation from one’s own feelings is the tendency to develop a personality that is not one’s own, an "as-if personality," as Miller describes it, or, a false-self. In many cases this false-self is an over achiever, forever attempting to gain love by winning approval from others. Miller noticed many of her patients suffering in this way had been toilet trained during their first year of infancy, and were capable of taking care of their younger siblings by the time they were just a few years old.3 There is small doubt such a little person’s parents are quite pleased with such behavior and reinforce it with praise and acceptance. Even so, the child, and later the adult, can never by wholly fulfilled since the love he or she receives is based on conditions of achievement, rather than given unconditionally. "In analysis," writes Miller, "the small and lonely child that is hidden behind… achievements wakes up and asks:
What would have happened if I had appeared before you, bad, ugly, angry, jealous, lazy, dirty, smelly? Where would your love have been then? And I was all these things as well. Does this mean that it was not really me whom you loved, but only what I pretended to be? The well-behaved, reliable, empathic, understanding, and convenient child, who in fact was never a child at all? What became of my childhood? Have I not been cheated out of it? I can never return to it. I can never make up for it. From the beginning I have been a little adult. My abilities—were they simply misused?4
After dissociation from one’s own feelings and the development of the false self, comes, what Miller refers to as, "bond permanence."5 In this situation the sources of conditional love, be they parents, friends, spouses, lovers, or even a boss, etc., etc., find in this false-self of another the "confirmation"6 of what they are looking for. The child, or adult child, in turn, being incapable of relying upon his or her own emotions, is also incapable of separating from the emotions of others. Today we call this codependency, which author, John Bradshaw defines as loss of identity.7 "To be co-dependent," he writes, "is to be out of touch with one’s feelings, needs and desires."8 Ironically, such a person is all too keen on the feelings, needs and desires of those with whom he or she has permanently bonded.
Grieving Love
We could go on to explore this narcissistic woundedness in more depth, but enough has been said to establish the idea that all of us experience a degree of love loss, even if raised by the most compassionate and understanding parents. So let’s turn our attention to the solution. How do we obtain the unconditional love we need in order to resurface our true selves?
The first part of the solution has already begun simply by realizing you are wounded. Again, as Miller puts it:
It is one of the turning points in analysis when the narcissistically disturbed patient comes to the emotional insight that all the love he has captured with so much effort and self-denial was not meant for him as he really was, that the admiration for his beauty and achievements was aimed at this beauty and these achievements, and not at the child himself.9
As we all know, the healthy way to deal with the loss of a loved one, even if that loved one is one’s self who has never been fully loved, is through grief. So, in realizing our narcissistic wounds, our love loss, we begin to heal. Legitimately questioning one’s upbringing, according to Miller, is "accompanied by much grief and pain, but the result always is a new authority that is being established… a new empathy with [one’s] own fate, born out of mourning."10
More importantly, upon grieving our loss of Self, we must begin turning toward God. Now this is an uncomfortable thought to many, I’m sure. Such a statement can, at first, seems all too cliché, shallow and meaningless. But if we begin to digest this statement, getting past its fundamentalist aftertaste, we may find it quite nourishing.
Although the idea of God is far too broad to restrict to any single definition, one way of looking at God might be as an archetype of the true Self. In this psychological sense, it is only reasonable that we should begin to regain love for our lost Self by returning to its image in God. It may, at first, seem contradictory to link the idea of God to the notion of Self, especially in light of the Western idea that faith in God requires denial of Self. Nevertheless, as psychologist Edward Edinger concludes, "Each individual projects his inner God-image (the Self) to the religion of the community."11 He goes on to say, "The collective religion then serves as the container of the Self for a multitude of individuals."12 If this is so, then it seems one way we humans have adapted to the loss of unconditional love that begins in infancy, is to seek the love we need through religion, or, through an encounter with something Divine.
Of course, we are not always successful in achieving love through religion. Sometimes, as many of us know all too well, religion can have the opposite effect, compounding our dislike for and repression of the true Self. On occasion, however, particularly in the lives of mystics, religion does serve this purpose for which it is intended. Indeed, during a genuine mystic experience, the distinction between Self and the Divine is completely removed. As his poetry attests, Meister Eckhart is one such mystic who had difficulty distinguishing himself from God:
I know that without me
God can no moment live;
Were I to die, then He
No longer could survive.
God cannot without me
A single worm create;
Did I not share with Him
Destruction were its fate.
I am as great as God,
And He is small like me;
He cannot be above,
Nor I below Him be.
In me is God a fire
And I in Him its glow;
In common is our life,
Apart we cannot grow.
God loves me more than Self
My love doth give His weight,
Whate’re He give to me
I must reciprocate.
He’s God and man to me,
To Him I’m both indeed;
His thirst I satisfy,
He helps me in my need.
This God, who feels for us,
Is to us what we will;
And woe to us, if we
Our part do not fulfill.
God is whate’re He is,
I am what I must be;
If you know one, in sooth,
You know both Him and me.
I am not outside God,
Nor leave I Him afar;
I am His grace and light,
And He my guiding star.
I am the vine, which He
Doth plant and cherish most;
The fruit which grows from me
Is God, the Holy Ghost.
I am God’s child, His son,
And He too is my child;
We are the two in one,
Both son and father mild.
To illuminate my God
The sunshine I must be;
My beams must radiate
His calm and boundless sea.13
It is apparent from this that Eckhart’s love for God moved him to discover love for himself. Unfortunately, as we move toward secularism in the wake of Nietzsche’s oft quoted, though misunderstood statement, "God is dead," encounters with the Divine, such as Eckhart’s, are becoming difficult to achieve. Edward Edinger warns us of three possibilities that may result from this. Firstly, as one ceases to project Self into the God Image, one simultaneously loses connection with Self. Secondly, one may begin projecting the energy previously attached to the God-image to one’s own ego, becoming grossly inflated so that one’s own desires and needs become central, leaving the individual without any genuine sense of altruism. Thirdly, without a religious container, one’s supra-personal value might be projected onto a secular or political movement.
This third danger seems particularly threatening to Unitarian Universalists. In our distaste for the intolerance associated with traditional religions, we often make social activism our primary focus. This would be fine, if, like religion, a social/political thrust enabled us to reconnect with our lost love, our lost Self. As history has shown, however, this doesn’t seem to always be the case. Edinger writes:
When the value of the Self is projected by opposing groups onto conflicting political ideologies, it is as though the original wholeness of the Self were split into antithetical fragments which war on each other. In such a case the antinomies of the Self or God are acted out in history. Both sides of the partisan conflict derive their energy from the same source, the shared Self; but being unconscious of this they are condemned to live out the tragic conflict in their lives. God himself is caught in the coils of the dark conflict. In every war within Western Civilization, both sides have prayed to the same God.14
Love is God
These dangers, along with our original need for unconditional love, begin to make a strong argument for loving God. Loving God, however, should not be misconstrued for loving our ideas about God. It is obvious from Eckhart’s poem, that he wasn’t in love with an idea, but with something Divine.
Perhaps no poet expresses passion for God like the ancient Sufi poet, Mawlana Jalal-ad-Din Rumi. Rumi was himself no stranger to lost love. His lover and teacher, Shams of Tabriz was taken from him, likely murdered by Rumi’s own jealous disciples. Although his grief was profound, Rumi managed to rediscover his connection to his lost lover through his mystic encounter with the Divine.
Be drunk on love, because love is all that exists;
Without love, no one has the right to enter His house.
They ask, "What is love?" Reply: "Giving up your self-will."
He who hasn’t given up his will isn’t chosen.
The lover’s an emperor, the two worlds are at his feet:
Does an emperor notice what is through in his path?
It is Love and the Lover that live eternally—
Don’t lend your heart to anything else; all else is borrowed.
How long will you go on and on embracing a corpse?
Embrace the soul that is embraced by nothing else.15
Rumi’s love for Shams was so great, it is said when he first encountered him he exclaimed, "The God which I have worshipped all my life appeared to me today in human form." It is apparent in Rumi’s poems that he refused to embrace the corpse of his lover, Shams, and instead when on living as if their love were eternal. For Rumi, God and Love seem inseparable. For Rumi, Dylons words do ring true, "Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and Death shall have no dominion."
You that love Lovers,
this is your home. Welcome!
In the midst of making form, Love
made this form that melts form,
with love for the door, and
Soul, the vestibule.
Watch the dust grains moving
in the light near the window.
Their dance is our dance.
We rarely hear the inward music,
but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless,
directed by Shams,
the pure joy of the sun,
our Music Master.16
I once had a professor who was fond of reminding his theology students, "God is love, love is not God." I’m not certain Rumi, and many other mystics would agree. Again, to cite Rumi on thesubject, "Reason is powerless in the expression of Love. Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover… If you want to live, die in love; die in Love if you want to remain alive."
The words of the mystic, Hugh of St. Victor, takes this notion even further by implying that love is greater than God:
You have great power, O Love; you alone could draw God down from heaven and earth. O how strong is your bond with which even God could be bound… You brought him bound with your bonds, you brought him wounded with your arrows,… you wounded him who was invulnerable, you bound him who was invincible, you drew down him who was immovable, the Eternal you made mortal… of Love, how great is your victory!17
So it seems, for the mystics, and, perhaps, for us, the first step toward loving ourselves, is a step toward God.
________________________________
1 Miller, Alice, Drama of the Gifted Child, Basic Books, Inc., Unite States, 1979, 1990, p. 32.
2 Ibid., p. 9.
3 Ibid., p. 5.
4 Ibid., p. 15.
5 Ibid., p. 13.
6 Ibid., p. 14.
7 Bradshaw, John, Homecoming, Bantam Books, United States, 1990, p. 8.
8 Ibid.
9 Miller, Ibid., p. 15.
10 Ibid.
11 Edinger, Edward F., Ego and Archetype, Shambhala Publications, Boston, MS, 1972, p. 65.
12 Ibid.
13 Quoted in C.G. Jung’s Psychological Types, CW Vol. 6, Bollingen Series XX, p. 256f.
14 Edinger, Ibid., p. 68.
15 Harvey, Andrew, Teaching of Rumi, Shambhala Publications, 1999, p. 73.
16 Rumi, Like This, Version by Coleman Barks, #1195.
17 Jung, Ibid., Vol. 5., p. 63.
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