A few years ago I went through a mid-life crisis. I had just lost my job and was struggling with self-identity issues. My daughter got me the above picture as a way of saying she understood and empathized with the things I was going through. I see that picture now and think about how we are fragmented, not only as people, but how our world is fragmented. We are taught so many conflicting and contradictory ideas and beliefs; be polite, don't rock the boat, stand up for yourself; there is no right or wrong, that action was wrong; there is no absolute truth, all language is meaningless...I could go on and on. We try to believe that people are generally good, moral creatures, and then we get hurt...betrayed, lied to, used, deceived, taken for granted, and manipulated. We find that people who profess to hold certain beliefs and values are only hiding behind a mask, an illusion of how they want the world to perceive them, and not who the really are. We carry secrets, the things deep down within us that we try to hide from everyone around us, because we fell that if we cannot accept these things ourselves (and most of us struggle with this), how can anyone else accept them? So, we go around living our lives like the girl in the picture...fragmented, struggling to make sense of not only ourselves, but of the world around us.
I think of the things that I have kept hidden, the deep dark things, the monsters, as things kept in boxes and stored in places that no one could ever reach...not even me. Something kept nagging at me, kept whispering to me that these boxes needed opened, gone through...explored. I needed to be whole, to know myself, to accept myself for who I am and not continue to be fragmented. I know, I know, "But, Bishop" you say, "you can't put a vase back together after it has been cracked or shattered." I agree, my friend, you cannot put it back exactly how it was...but you can make it glorious, a real work of art. Are you familiar with Kintsugi? No, let me share what little I know...it is a Japanese art that repairs broken pottery with gold, which renders the the new piece more beautiful, more exquisite, than it was originally (look it up, I encourage you to). Imagine that, being able to take something that is fragmented, broken, and making it better, more beautiful...more unique.
I started studying Carl Jung and his philosophy of the Archetypes and shadow work, and how we can integrate the parts of us that are fragmented, the things about us that we are ashamed of (and if you dare tell me that there is nothing within you that makes you feel ashamed or insecure about, I think you are a fool), and I realized that this is possible. Did you know that children are read stories about knights killing dragons aren't a warning that dragons exist? No, these stories are told so that children can learn that dragons can be killed (I heard that analogy from somewhere, cant think of where). We tend to fear the darkness, only because we first learned that what's in the darkness could hurt us (or at least that's what we are told).
I learned of dragons, how dangerous secrets are, and how utterly fragmented we can become when I was nine years old. My father was an abusive alcoholic and my parents had split up for the final time. My brother and I were upstairs in bed when my father kicked the front door in, and when my brother and I made it to the center of the stairs we could see the door laying on the floor and my mother in the living room, on her knees, with my father standing behind her...he had the phone cord wrapped around her neck and she was begging him not to kill her in front of us (this image is forever imprinted in my mind. If you ever want to see the look on my father's face, watch the movie, "unhinged" with Russel Crowe. Except in the movie Crowe is choking the little boy and the mother comes to his rescue). I believed at that moment, that some dragons could not be killed.
What does all this have to do with BDSM and you? Well, maybe nothing...then again, maybe everything. We have these boxes within us that carry all our "garbage," all of our deep, dark secrets...dragons of will. I imagine us, an individuals, carrying around these boxes, big and heavy, and refusing to look inside because the stench, the mold, the stuff itself may be too much to look at. Even if we are able to do the work to integrate these dragons, to look through these boxes and recognize them for what they are, how can we begin to accept them as ourselves? Yep, I was bounced off walls, abused both physically and emotionally, told I was worthless and would never amount to anything...I was a loser. I believed those dragons could not be killed, those monsters could not be tamed...I was wrong. We can go through the painful work of integrating our shadow selves into who we are and become stronger, but until we can stand shoulder to shoulder with someone else, exploring each other's boxes, I would argue we can never know true acceptance. Only then can we allow Kintsugi to happen in our lives.
The problem I see with this, is very few people ever want to understand the depth of themselves or someone else. We live in a Nike and Burger King world, "Have it your way, right away," and "Just do it." I fight my monsters everyday, and some days I tell myself I'm winning. Mostly I just get tired, the little bastards don't really die. Maybe that's why I post what I post, if you can see what's in my boxes of garbage, maybe, just maybe we can kill them or learn to embrace our monsters, together. Isn't that what relationships are about?