Death is not a popular topic because it’s attached to loss.  People often deny that they or those they love will someday die so when it happens as part of a natural life cycle we are devastated.

I became introduced to death when my Grandmother McCart (who lived with us) died of a massive heart attack.  The memory of Grandmom lying in her antique bed, her children all around her with  her ever present rosaries  intertwined in her fingers made a deep impression on my ten year old soul.  It remains with me still.

Three years later my father died suddenly.  It shattered a major part of me but the gripping grief went underground and stayed unacknowledged until it my favorite uncle died twenty years later and resurrected the buried sorrow.  That’s when I began to comprehend not only death’s complexities but the real power loss over a psyche.  The timing was right, however, to address death’s mystery and its veil because I was earning my Master’s Degree in counseling.  “Counselor, heal thyself” became my personal mantra.

During these four years of academics I came to identify that just because my father was resting in peace didn’t mean I was.  I gave my father pain a voice realizing that not only would talking help heal me but it would translate into making me a better and more sensitive therapist.

When I turned forty-two my beloved eighteen-year old daughter, Katie, was diagnosed with cancer.  She immediately went to a rational place that said she could die.  She shared that information with me and added that her illness could possibly aid my ongoing search to understand my own father’s death.  Because Katie was a teenager, I don’t believe she realized that her illness eclipsed my father’s death a thousand fold whatever her fate would be.

Sadly for me, and for the multitudes who loved her dearly, Katie died at twenty-eight years of age.  This year marks fifty years for my father and eleven years for my child.  Many other people close to me are now also peacefully on the other side: my mother, grandfather, five year old niece, sister, every uncle and all but two aunts.  I am no stranger to death and I am also no stranger to life.

It’s what keeps me focused on the bigger picture.

August 19, 2010

How we feel about a person’s death changes over time.  I think it has everything to do with our relationship to that person and maybe even the age we are when we experience permanent loss.  I also think it has to do with accepting the mystery of death.  Sometimes the death of someone is so shattering in the beginning that we barely function.  Then, as time moves ahead little-by-little, we begin to heal a little at a time depending on the intensity of the love we felt for the deceased.

Sometimes, however, our grief experience is in reverse and delayed as mine was in the case of my father who passed away I was thirteen years old.  Rarely talking about him it appeared on the outside that I was coping fine.  It wasn’t until my early 30’s in graduate school while attending workshops to deal with unconscious elements, my long ago grief for my father was uncovered.  I discovered then how much pain and sorrow had been buried when he was layed to rest.  I learned then that just because my father was at peace didn’t mean I necessarily was.  I addressed then consciously and seriously my deep sadness and loss of him.  And, while a delayed grief process, the-better-late-than-never paradigm was applicable.

When my beloved daughter Katie died at 28 years of age, my father’s death felt suddenly eclipsed despite my love for him because no grief compares with the agony of a child’s death.  My days now - despite it being almost eleven years – go up and down still where her absence from my life is concerned.  There was never a delayed grief with Katie.  It was more a paralyzing one in the beginning.  It still wasn’t going to work for me to talk to anyone about her death but I knew that I had to deal with her absence and my choice for expressing grief came with writing in a journal which, as you all know, evolved into a book.

My sorrow isn’t crippling anymore because I have accepted that death is a mystery no less intense than birth because neither life event can be fully explained for where were these souls before they came to us and now when they leave us?  To me, that is the essence of mystery which, except by faith, is an unexplained phenomenon.  There is consolation there if we allow ourselves to go there spiritually because responsibility to understand and control are removed from our earthly plate and we allow life and death to move at its own rhythm in surrendering the need to understand that which is not understandable.

As we travel through our lives we will all experience many losses.  Being able to pick up the pieces of our lives afterwards and begin a new chapter is a choice that takes grace and faith, friendship and hope.  And we will need other people to help us.  We will need family members to be loving, supportive and sensitive and never to bring on additional pain.  We will need gentleness from others who only need to take our hand and ask, “What can I do to help you?” Or, “Let me take you to lunch this week.” Or, “Allow me to watch your children while you take a walk or get your hair done or go out to dinner with your spouse.”

Remember, being able to think about and speak about death and loss whether the loss of a job, our health, our marriage or our beloved child or loved one makes a difference in a grief recovery.  It makes a difference in whether we feel we can make it.  But do believe me, my friends, when I tell you that you will make it.  You might not feel as though you will, but you will, if you allow yourself to speak of your loss and take heart to know there is always a good soul that is willing to sit with you and listen.  There is always a merciful person who is only a phone call or doorbell away.  There is always a sweet someone who reminds you that blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted, who wants you not only to unburden yourself but to help you through the night so you can remember to make your Every Day Matter.

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Many people find it a challenge to love themselves.  I think that could be due to something from childhood which under-minded your precious self-love.  Maybe it was a critical parent, a teacher at school or just plain rejection from classmates.  But do not despair because those old neuro-pathways in our brain can be rerouted and they must be re-routed.  You really do have the courage to do the “shifting” work to become that woman or that man who you really are before situations and difficult relationships undermined your self-awareness and self-respect.

 Mental health is intricately involved with self-honesty.  Did you know that?  Outside of a biological depression and anxiety – which can be successfully treated – our self-honesty will let us know when we are in pain, when we are hurting.  Our self-love couples with our self-honesty and kicks our butts to speak up when someone is mean and we tell the person so.

 Self love will give us the words to remind our mates to treat us like the treasure we know ourselves to be.  For example I said to my husband just last week, “Honey, please remember to tell me how lovely that dinner was if you like eating here!”  Humor is a marvelous tool of self-love and men enjoy learning through humor not lectures.

 Self-love will keep your spirit strong and your self-confidence unshakeable.  Even when you go through painful times – death, divorce, illness, betrayal, your self-love won’t allow you to stop because you will value the importance of your life, even the painful places in it.  Pain causes us to grow; pain enlarges our personality and our compassion for other’s pain.  Or we could always adopt what writer Madeline L’Engle once said, “When I have something to say that is too difficult for adults, I write for children.  They have not closed the shutters.  They like it when you rock the boat.”

 

 

 

 

The foundation of the mother complex in men and women is found in the mother archetype also know as the magna mater, the Great Mother.  This essay addresses the positive mother complex in men.

Swiss Psychiatrist, thinker, and philosopher Carl G. Jung referred to the positive mother complex as that which “has been glorified in all ages and all tongues.  This is the mother-love which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends.” (CW Vol.9 Part 1, p.92)  Surely this is the sacred and benevolent goal most mothers aspire to on that first day when we hear “it’s a boy or it’s a girl.” 

For our purposes here today I will focus on the positive mother-complex within a man.  In a future writing I will address this complex within women.  In the male, the complex draws much from his personal association and relationship with his own flesh and blood mother. This psychologically energized and charged representation of woman that he holds, this experience of the feminine in his own psych, is also fueled from the collective mother archetype plus the other women in a man’s life (wife or life’s partner and other women teachers for example).  It is a complicated picture that Jung spent a great deal of attention addressing in his writings.

Personally, I am fascinated by the beauty and the power in a healthy (as opposed to smothering or engulfing) positive mother complex (particularly on a man) because I’ve seen it demonstrated over the last 30 years in my professional experience.  An example for understanding this complex could be the recent death of Senator Joseph Biden’s beloved mother - Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden at age 92.  I respectfully use this spirited lady, Mrs. Biden, as my example to explain a profoundly mystifying topic. 

Mrs. Biden believed in her son’s capabilities, validated him, and most importantly she loved him unconditionally.  She was a positive and direct communicator and his memory of that is clear. “As a child I stuttered and she lovingly would look at me and tell me ‘Joey, it’s because you’re so bright you can’t get the thoughts out quickly enough.’  When I wasn’t as well-dressed as the other kids she would look at me and say ‘Joey, oh, you’re so handsome, honey, you’re so handsome.’ And when I got knocked down by guys bigger than me, and this is the God’s truth, she sent me back out and said ‘Bloody their nose so you can walk down the street the next day!’” (Huffington Post)

 

The supportive mothering the Senator received continued in a respectable fashion his entire life.  We watched from afar this mutual caring of adult mother and son in the media over the years, during the recent presidential campaign, and especially since Mrs. Biden’s death.  The Senator said her strength was “immeasurable.”   Early on he would need that strength and that Irish-Catholic faith his mother drew from to help him survive the painful death of his first wife and precious daughter alongside the serious injury of his two little boys. 

 

A mother’s devotion toward a son (not possession of him which I will address in a future topic on the negative-mother complex) assisted the senator to continue his life after such a devastating tragedy.  I believe Senator Biden’s mother’s formidable spirit was also the significant foundation within his own psyche which helped him choose a kind and loving second wife.  Positive self-regard is close at hand when our cradle is rocked with abiding love. 

 

Lastly, when men feel cherished by their mother everyone’s life is sweeter, especially their wives, because these men had a loving relationship with the first woman on their journey: their mother.  This mother/son relationship then permits the access of unencumbered love for all future female relationships.  This all seems so simple; but it is not, because when the mother/son relationship was difficult, if mother was rejecting, physically or emotionally absent or vilifying, the outcome for a man’s future relationships with women often predicts much struggle, discontent and unhappiness. 

 

Mary Jane Hurley Brant

 

When a complex takes over, oh the behavior. But to have one’s worst expression of narcissism be seen again and again in the public media, I cannot imagine the embarrassment. Does a public humiliation really change one’s behavior if they have the disorder? I cannot say for certain except to express that I don’t believe too many true narcissists will commit to the demands of depth psychotherapy to examine their behavior. And we remember in the tale of Narcissus, he fell in obsession with his own reflection and died of unrequited self-love.

When I was a very young clinician I met the esteemed Jungian analyst Dr. Mario Jacoby who lectured one evening in Philadelphia, PA on Individuation and Narcissism. Back then I knew relatively little about narcissism so I asked this kind and scholarly gentleman what engaged him in this topic. What could be the depth of his interest to delve so deeply into the subject of narcissism?

His eyes twinkled; his smile broadened as he responded, “Well, my dear, my own narcissism, of course!” Then he laughed unselfconsciously and patted my hand. I smiled at him realizing in that moment the choice that each of us has to pick our own spots for the expression of that self-centered six year old behavior whether it is an inner or an outer experience!

Mary Jane Hurley Brant, M.S., CGP
Hope and Grief Specialist
Author of When Every Day Matters
Simple Abundance Press, Oct. 1, 2008

(Top Article in Fall 2005 Newsletter at Malvern Retreat House ~Women Series )

Women frequently ask me, “M.J., how can I have more love in my relationship?” My answer is simple: learn to be more loving of yourself.

Love and intimacy are about honesty. We can’t share what we don’t know or understand about ourselves. And when we are not conscious of what is going on inside, we will project those unconscious parts of ourselves onto another.

Women who are capable of deep love and intimacy are attractive in every way.They also don’t put obstacles in front of their honest and noble intentions for a loving relationship thus thwarting the closeness they desire. They know that playing games is ultimately unrewarding, inauthentic and it leads to loneliness,isolation, and oftentimes to its relatives – anxiety and depression.

“But M.J., sometimes it’s terrifying sharing who I really am with another so I practice the opposite holding back my real self!” I’m shuddering now because look what is being practiced to perfection! How about instead we practice what we truly feel no matter how uncomfortable it makes us, because with practice we will be making more perfect those straight inroads to our deepest truths,our deepest selves.

What a precious gift it is offering our love and emotional intimacy to another,for like the great poet Gibran said, “It is only when you give of yourself that you truly give.” And, here’s the wonderful reward: that man in your life will feel safer with you and he will begin to share how he feels about things and about you! Now the intimacy takes root.

Jesus was The Devine Psychologist. He told us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. He knew the path to the other always began on the road to ourselves. So, take a deep breath, jump into that driver’s seat and head straight to your own heart, your own soul and your own mind first. Start loving yourself as the gift that you are, the gift that God made you to be. The intimacy you have always longed for with that special fellow, your other self, will be right around the next corner after you take yourself for the initial ride.

Carl G. Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist said that what we fear, deny or don’t address consciously, will come to us as fate. Feng shui says that if we don’t manifest our intentions, we will manifest our fears.

Many people believe therapy is about resolving a crisis or healing a traumatic past and while these are worthy goals indeed, good therapy is also like good feng shui, because it is about making our noble intentions manifested through exploration so that our life can be not just more interesting but more deeply meaningful.

Balancing Yin and Yang energies in our relationships is imperative. Think about Jung and feng shui within the context of our feeling afraid that our relationship with our significant lover will end because our mate will find someone else. So sometimes we might pull away in a detached manner to the point our Yin (feminine) energy is all that remains for the other. For balance to occur within the context of that relationship the significant other may become understandably and notably angrier, wondering, “Where did my soul mate go?” Now the Yang (masculine) energy comes. Normally this isn’t done consciously, no it is unconscious and it is out of fear. The first party for example we’ll say a woman fears rejection and detaches.

The male party also fears rejection and abandonment but maybe his response is anger. These are psychological realities yet their origins were fear based, they were unacknowledged and they began being manifested. Lillian Too (pg. 203Encyclopedia of feng shui) discusses the principles of Yin and Yang in how the Chinese view conjugal bliss as a double happiness! Hooray! But there will never be much bliss in a home if the space is filled up with anger (Yang) as in “You never!” or feel the passive resistance (Yin) “Oh no, husband, nothing is wrong.” Sometimes one spouse needs to be assertive and extraverted (psychology) and take the lead (Yang) and sometimes one needs to be more passive and introverted and follow (Yin). It’s nice having the opportunity to play both roles in a relationship. One size needn’t fit all in marriage or in looking for a love relationship.

Are you feeling angry today? (Yang) Do yourself and your relationship a favor and literally cool off by removing that red sweater if you are then wearing one, have a nice glass of fresh spring water over some crushed ice and maybe submerge yourself in a tepid bath. Not only will you feel better when you finally speak to your mate, but in your new physically balanced state, you will feel clearer emotionally about what is actually troubling your spirit. “I feel hurt when you come home an hour late and never even call. It makes me feel like you don’t care.”

Psychologically this makes one vulnerable, I will agree, but it also makes one face their real truth and believe me, the truth does indeed set us free.

Are you sometimes lacking energy in the romantic department? Where did the chi go? Time to get physical! Go for a walk, lift some weights, take a bike ride. Statistics show that people who exercise not only feel more in the mood; they feel more attractive and that fabulous energy unleashes everyone’s tiger. Also introduce a beautiful red comforter in your bedroom, make certain you have a stable new headboard, preferably made of wood with a solid wall behind it and buy Klimt’s picture of ‘The Kiss’ to replace the one of Grandmom! Surely then you’ll make your own fire element!

Sometime people will try to save money and economize, but in matters of love, it’s more costly not to implement positive changes. I know a man who after he married wife #2 told me he would not get a new bed because he didn’t need one, “The one I have is fine for us!” Whoa, lots of Yang here from him. She, wife #2, wanting to keep the peace, shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. Lots of Yin here but where’s the balance (feng shui) with her and him and where’s the honesty (psychology). Did he learn that kind of rigid control in his family of origin? Did she learn that peace at any price in hers? Yikes now how many people are in that bed? Wife number 1, wife number 2 and husband number 1 every time one enters that master suite! This is not good psychology or good feng shui!

It’s a known fact that Yin and Yang energies work together creating a harmonious space. You can transform your master bedroom into one that feels warm, receptive and restful (Yin) and passionate, exciting and on fire (Yang). Think of the lovely balance you are creating as you turn the lights low (Yin) and put a match to those two red candles (Yang) whose flame releases an exotic cinnamon scent in your bedroom: nice and spicy. Also make sure you have balanced rest for nothing takes us further away from the mood than exhaustion which can then lead us to it’s sister and brother: depression and anxiety.

So until our next talk my friends, remember everyone loves love, it’s universal! If you are fortunate enough to have an attachment and devotion than protect it by enhancing its chi and keep your relationships strong by being mindful of your mate’s needs as well as your own, and don’t forget to keep your thoughts, your words and your actions positive. You can do it!