Letting go of the loyal soldier
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Join Date: Apr 2010
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Letting go of the loyal soldier
I get Richard Rohr's daily meditations and this one struck a chord with regard to my lifelong clinging to fear and behavior related to alcohol abuse.
I think I'm like the "loyal soldier." I've certainly never served in a war per se. But I think some of the same defense mechanisms just keep playing out day after day after day as I try to deal with alcoholism in my life and keep acting like the proverbial insane person, doing the same things over and over, expecting different results.
I wonder what kind of a ritual would help me? What kind of a "rite of passage" will enable me to put "childish things" behind me? Who needs to give me permission to grow up and leave the war behind?
Have any of you used a rite or ritual to help you move from one stage to another? What did it look like? Or what could it look like?
I think I'm like the "loyal soldier." I've certainly never served in a war per se. But I think some of the same defense mechanisms just keep playing out day after day after day as I try to deal with alcoholism in my life and keep acting like the proverbial insane person, doing the same things over and over, expecting different results.
I wonder what kind of a ritual would help me? What kind of a "rite of passage" will enable me to put "childish things" behind me? Who needs to give me permission to grow up and leave the war behind?
Have any of you used a rite or ritual to help you move from one stage to another? What did it look like? Or what could it look like?
Lacking True Rites of Passage
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Sadly, much of our world seems to stay stuck in the first half of life. A story from Japan at the close of World War II illustrates how we might support ourselves and others in transition to the second half of life. If you have ever been to Japan, you will know that it is a country that is ritual rich, with a strong sense of the importance of symbol, aesthetic, and ceremony!
At the end of the war, some Japanese communities had the wisdom to understand that many of their returning soldiers were not fit or prepared to reenter civil, peaceful society. The veterans’ only identity for their formative years had been as a “loyal soldier” to their country. They needed a broader identity to rejoin their communities and families. You do not know how to be a father/mother or a brother/sister or a husband/wife with a soldier persona. They are completely different identities.
So the Japanese created a ceremony whereby a soldier was publicly thanked and praised for his service to the people. After the soldier had been profusely honored, an elder would stand and announce with authority: “The war is now over! The community needs you to let go of what has well served you and us up to now. But we now need you to return as a man, a father, a husband, and something beyond a soldier.”
We have no such rites of passage in our ritual-starved culture, and they are deeply needed to let go of a past marriage, a past identity, or a past failure. Otherwise, we just keep living, regretting, or trying to redo our past over and over again. That must be true of half of the people I have ever met!
I call this process “discharging your loyal soldier.” This kind of closure is much needed at the end of all major transitions in life. Because we have lost the sense of the need for such rites of passage, most people have no clear crossover to the second half of their own lives, and remain stuck and trapped in early identities and personas. I wonder if this is not one reason for the high incidence of “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” or PTSD, in our country today. Most are trying to live a human life with an unhealed soldier dragging them down.
Adapted from Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,
pp. 43-44
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Sadly, much of our world seems to stay stuck in the first half of life. A story from Japan at the close of World War II illustrates how we might support ourselves and others in transition to the second half of life. If you have ever been to Japan, you will know that it is a country that is ritual rich, with a strong sense of the importance of symbol, aesthetic, and ceremony!
At the end of the war, some Japanese communities had the wisdom to understand that many of their returning soldiers were not fit or prepared to reenter civil, peaceful society. The veterans’ only identity for their formative years had been as a “loyal soldier” to their country. They needed a broader identity to rejoin their communities and families. You do not know how to be a father/mother or a brother/sister or a husband/wife with a soldier persona. They are completely different identities.
So the Japanese created a ceremony whereby a soldier was publicly thanked and praised for his service to the people. After the soldier had been profusely honored, an elder would stand and announce with authority: “The war is now over! The community needs you to let go of what has well served you and us up to now. But we now need you to return as a man, a father, a husband, and something beyond a soldier.”
We have no such rites of passage in our ritual-starved culture, and they are deeply needed to let go of a past marriage, a past identity, or a past failure. Otherwise, we just keep living, regretting, or trying to redo our past over and over again. That must be true of half of the people I have ever met!
I call this process “discharging your loyal soldier.” This kind of closure is much needed at the end of all major transitions in life. Because we have lost the sense of the need for such rites of passage, most people have no clear crossover to the second half of their own lives, and remain stuck and trapped in early identities and personas. I wonder if this is not one reason for the high incidence of “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” or PTSD, in our country today. Most are trying to live a human life with an unhealed soldier dragging them down.
Adapted from Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,
pp. 43-44
Engineer Things; LOVE People
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 3,707
Yeah, my T had me write a nice "Retirement Letter" to SGT Rock -- my "inner A-hole" Drill Sergeant, as it were. That was back some years ago for PTSD, waking-nightmare type stuff.
Got that nickname from jogging backwards across the finish line maxing the PT Test.
He (me) was one driven/driving A-hole. Carried me through Army times, O-times, School and Grad. School. Double-Time. All The Way. Everyday.
========
As far as that Loyal Stuff. Part of why it is so hard for me to hold AWtf accountable for anything. I see her as part of my "troops" or friendly or whatever. Never abandon your troops, and all.
Got that nickname from jogging backwards across the finish line maxing the PT Test.
He (me) was one driven/driving A-hole. Carried me through Army times, O-times, School and Grad. School. Double-Time. All The Way. Everyday.
========
As far as that Loyal Stuff. Part of why it is so hard for me to hold AWtf accountable for anything. I see her as part of my "troops" or friendly or whatever. Never abandon your troops, and all.
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,281
I need to do this. My war is over. It's his now.
I don't know what my ritual will look like yet. Ideally, it would include my husband. Writing a letter about my war, my current fears and the need to let it go, that it's behind me now and I'm releasing it. Then burning it in a bonfire and saying a prayer for the part of me that fought, and for me now to heal and turn forward to a new life.
Thank you.
I don't know what my ritual will look like yet. Ideally, it would include my husband. Writing a letter about my war, my current fears and the need to let it go, that it's behind me now and I'm releasing it. Then burning it in a bonfire and saying a prayer for the part of me that fought, and for me now to heal and turn forward to a new life.
Thank you.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 157
Originally Posted by keepingthefaith 
I need to do this. My war is over. It's his now.
I don't know what my ritual will look like yet. Ideally, it would include my husband. Writing a letter about my war, my current fears and the need to let it go, that it's behind me now and I'm releasing it. Then burning it in a bonfire and saying a prayer for the part of me that fought, and for me now to heal and turn forward to a new life.
Thank you.
I don't know what my ritual will look like yet. Ideally, it would include my husband. Writing a letter about my war, my current fears and the need to let it go, that it's behind me now and I'm releasing it. Then burning it in a bonfire and saying a prayer for the part of me that fought, and for me now to heal and turn forward to a new life.
Thank you.
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