Relationships and Relapse: or, the Danger of Codependence

Addiction is sometimes called a disease of relapse. That doesn't mean that relapses are inevitable, thank God! My husband has just celebrated his 27th AA birthday, while I've just turned 25. Neither of us has suffered a relapse, and there are many others like us in AA and NA.

But relapses can and do occur, and when they happen it's more often than not because a relationship has gone wrong.

Why should this be? Why are relationships so dangerous? And does that mean we'd be better off living alone for the rest of our lives?

Heaven forbid! As well as being AA "old timers", my husband and I are happily married. We thank God every day for bringing us together, and next week we'll be celebrating our china wedding (20 years).

Others aren't so lucky. 

The problem is that when we are drinking or using drugs, we're in the grip of a terrible illness, our addiction. We are sick people. Very sick. Sick people choose other sick people for partners, and consequently our relationships end up a mess. Sick people have sick relationships; a relationship is only as healthy as the people involved.

Whether we're well or sick, we all choose people whose level of mental health, or sickness, is similar to our own. Addiction is a family illness, and many of us were raised by addicted parents and their codependent spouses, so it's no wonder that when we first come into recovery we haven't a clue what a healthy relationship actually is.

For example, a controlling, fearful woman may choose a passive man for a partner, because this is a situation she's familiar with, and one she thinks she can manipulate. Codependents are often controlling, because they think this is what the other person "needs". Being in control makes such a person feel safe, but what happens next? Soon, the man begins to resent being controlled and may relapse, or the woman may become dissatisfied and resent the limitations his passive nature imposes.

A martyr may choose a compulsive helper; an abuser may choose a willing victim, and so on.

Typically, an alcoholic person, even in recovery, will make a beeline for a codependent partner, because that's what he or she observed in their family of origin. And codependents gravitate to alcoholics for the same reason, and the situation perpetuates itself.

To understand the dynamics of the dysfunctional, addicted family, it's important to study the literature on codependence and if possible go to a meeting of Alanon or Adult Children of Alcoholics.

There are various coping strategies that those of us from such families have unconsciously adopted, and that skew our perceptions and the way we relate to others. Nobody from a dysfunctional family ever escapes without damage. And we bring the damage with us into each new relationship we try to form.

If an addict in a long term relationship comes into recovery, either the entire relationship will improve, especially if the codependent spouse also attends Alanon meetings; or - more likely - it will collapse. The newly abstinent spouse seems a completely different person, and the codependent partner feels useless and helpless. Deprived of their familiar role, the codependent may leave, and then the addict is perfectly poised for a relapse. The codependent partner may then return, and the whole cycle begin over again.

My own case is typical. I was raised by an alcoholic man and a passive, codependent woman. I learned that it's a woman's job to obey her husband, cover up his addiction, and accept abuse. When I grew up I had absolutely no idea of what a healthy marriage could be, and I chose my spouses accordingly.

I've been legally married three times, but only once in church, so I'm very fortunate - my first two marriages, both disastrous, didn't count in the eyes of the church, so as a Christian I've been married only once. And that's actually how it feels to me now. This is the first healthy relationship I've ever had, and it's completely different from my past experiences. What I have today is love, not codependence.

I can see now that my first two "spouses" were completely unsuitable for me, but it's only with hindsight that I can see just why this was so. My first, whom I was pressured into marrying at university by the dean of students, was a heavy drinker who went out each night, chased other women, and left me on my own. I soon grew bored and angry, and moved out.

The second was a gay man who thought he might be bisexual, and was therefore interested in trying to make a go of being married and having children. Unfortunately for our marriage, he turned out to be gay, not bi, and eventually he felt he was living a lie. He left me and our children and went to live with another man, with whom he'd fallen in love, and that was the event that precipitated my drinking. Of course, my ex wasn't responsible for this and he didn't cause my alcoholism. The illness was waiting in the wings and would doubtless have surfaced in the end, but the breakup brought it on.

What had attracted me to this man - apart from his being very good-looking and popular - was his emotional unavailability. My father had been similarly remote, when not actually drinking, so I replicated my family situation in my marriage.

It wasn't until I was two years sober, and had the benefit of a year's counselling, that I was finally able to make a wise choice.

By that time I'd become enmeshed in yet another codependent relationship, this time with a man who drank heavily (surprise!) and was married, so was just as unavailable as my second husband had been. After that initial two years, I realized I had to end that relationship, because if I didn't I would put my sobriety at risk, and then I would have nothing. I couldn't allow that to happen, for my children's sake as much as my own, but ending that affair was the second hardest thing I've ever done. The first, of course, was giving up alcohol.

So much of our culture exalts codependence as if it were something marvellous, to be sought after. Pop songs reinforce the idea that we have to have that one special person, that man or woman we just can't live without. Plays, films, soap operas - all show relationships as heavily codependent, with the implication that that is how we're meant to live.

But in recovery, counsellors call such codependence a "second step slip". Instead of relying on our Higher Power, normally the God of our understanding or the AA group, we've chosen to make another, very fallible, human being our higher power - and no relationship, no person, can live up to that expectation.

In recovery we're advised not to get into a new relationship until we've been clean and sober for at least one year, and preferably for two. If we're already married or in a long term partnership, we will want to work on making that relationship as healthy as possible; but we have to accept that perhaps it can't be done. We chose one another in a state of mental distress, and our choice may be the opposite of what we need to become well.

What I've written applies as much to same-sex relationships as to heterosexual ones. The feelings are exactly the same, of course, though there may be added social pressures to cope with. AA and NA both have separate meetings in most areas for LGBT members, so that they won't feel stigmatized by other alcoholics and addicts. Sadly, that can happen. 

Any addict is also codependent, and along with working the Twelve Step programme around our primary addiction we will want to examine our codependence. We can do this with our sponsor, especially when we work the fourth and fifth steps, or with a counsellor. But we have to face it and expose it as the impostor it is, otherwise we will be setting ourselves up for another failed relationship and - perhaps - a relapse.

My husband knows that, much as I love him, my sobriety comes first, and the same is true for him. If we don't maintain our spiritual health, sooner or later we will lose everything, including each other.

Sobriety means so much more than just abstinence. It means being clear-sighted and honest, understanding ourselves and the devious nature of our disease, and relying on our Higher Power for the help we need in staying sober. As the AA Big Book says, alcoholism has no cure, but we are given a daily reprieve from our illness as long as we maintain a fit spiritual condition.

Codependence is the hidden disease which drives so much of our behaviour when we are drinking, and in the early days of our recovery. If we don't overcome it, we will surely relapse. And we can't afford to do that. We may have the potential for another relapse in us, but we can't be sure we will have the strength for another recovery.

AA and the Sidelining of God in the UK

An American alcoholic can walk into a UK meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and feel at home straight away. And the reverse is also true, of course. There are many, many similarities between meetings in both countries because AA worldwide is based on the same Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

But there are also some differences, and they can be puzzling. I was somewhat baffled when I went to my first AA meeting in England, after having been in recovery for two years in America.

There on the wall were Twelve Steps, clearly printed in large type so that everyone could read it.

There too were the familiar slogans: H-A-L-T; Live and Let Live; Easy Does It, and so on.

There was a table spread with AA literature, including the Big Book, which I love.

Just as in Atlanta, where I used to live, I was greeted in Bournemouth by friendly members, offered a cup of tea (in Atlanta it had been coffee, but tea tends to be served more frequently in England), and a plate of biscuits.

People chatted, greeted friends, welcomed strangers like me, and then sat down in a large circle when

the officers took their places.

And then came the first difference. I expected we'd open the meeting with the Serenity Prayer, as we'd always done in my Atlanta home group - and in other Atlanta AA groups, too. 

But no, in England the meeting began with a reading from the Preamble, followed by the Promises, and then by some notices.

And this threw me. Because for me, the overarching principle of AA, the factor which drew me to it at first and kept me a faithful member, was the presence of God. And what I didn't know, but soon realized, was that in England people "don't do God" - at least, not all that much, and very rarely in public. Even in AA.

The rest of the English meetings proceeded in just the same way as AA meetings everywhere. There's usually a share by a guest speaker, sometimes a session of Big Book studies, and always contributions, or shares, from anyone in the room who wants to speak. 

But at the end, another difference, small but telling: in England, that was when we said the Serenity Prayer and closed the meeting. 

In America, however, meetings had ended with the Lord's Prayer. We'd already said the Serenity Prayer, so each AA meeting was bracketed with prayers at opening and closing. The ending, the loud and happy recital of the "Our Father" was a part of the meeting I particularly liked. I'd recently found my way back to God, and I appreciated the way that, in the USA, the God of our understanding was kept strongly in the forefront at AA.

At my American home meeting, a regular member who happened to be a Methodist minister would stand up at the close, hold out his arms, and call out - "Whose Father?"

And we all stood up, held hands, and called back, "Our Father!" And then followed with the rest of the familiar, well-loved prayer, said by everyone present, even those who claimed to be agnostics. It is such a well-known prayer to Christians of all denominations that everyone knew it by heart, and it gave the meeting a rousing finale. We walked outside feeling energized, refreshed, and recharged.

But in England, that simply didn't happen.

Why not? I've often pondered that question. And it seems to me that it reflects a profound and troubling difference in European, especially British, society, as compared to the USA - it exemplifies our post-modern religious apathy, our refusal to think about God, our desire to push Him into the background, even at AA meetings.

When it comes to thinking about God, the situation is really bad here in England, and, I think, throughout Europe.

We've simply cut Him out of our daily discourse and we don't even give Him much of a place at Twelve Step meetings, where most of all we would expect to find religion and spirituality honored rather than shoved into the background.

When the EU constitution was being drafted, the then-Pope, John Paul II (now Saint John Paul II), implored the politicians to make at least some reference to Christianity. Without it, as he rightly said, Europe as a political entity would never have existed. It was the Roman Empire, then the Holy Roman Empire, and then the various converted little states and principalities that eventually moved towards creating the idea of Europe, a larger, overriding category that included all these minor and major Christian powers and bound them together in common belief.

But no, the European politicos would have none of it. Democracy was highlighted, God left out.

In England today, Christianity has fallen into such disfavor that public servants or officials dare not wear a cross or even display one in their car. Nurses have been disciplined for doing so, and a council official lost his job because he kept his Palm Sunday cross on the dashboard of his van. Public prayers, even though ecumenical and inclusive and once the accepted way of opening council meetings, are now largely abandoned, and even in schools there is no guarantee of a public morning assembly with prayers, hymns, and readings, such as we always had 50 years ago.

Such a Christian background gave people a standard to live up to. Honored more often in the breach than in the observance, it nevertheless offered a common ideal towards which we were encouraged to strive. Society as a whole was permeated by Christian belief. Our laws, our festivals, our school and academic year, our government - everything reflected Christianity. 

But then, in the 1970s, my generation of students graduated and took up jobs in the media, in politics and in education. Formed by the prevalent Marxist philosophy of our undergraduate days, we were - most of us - very left-wing and idealistic. We thought naively that if we could only educate children to be unselfish, change the laws of the land to allow for more latitude as to marriage and family, and encourage everyone to "do their own thing" through the print and broadcast media, we would achieve some kind of semi-socialist Utopia. God was, we declared, irrelevant. We'd do much better without Him.

Of course, we didn't.

What happened instead was that ever since then we have forced the Judaeo-Christian religious ethos into the corner and ignored it as much as possible. 

Whereas, until the 1960s, Christianity was the ideal, today we have an entire generation of intelligentsia devoted to secular, socialist ideology in which there is no place for God. Only Catholics, some Baptists and Orthodox Christians now go to church on a regular basis. The good old Church of England, once the standard-bearer for social ideals, has become in many places an embodiment of the left-liberal ideology that now takes the place of real spirituality.

The reigning monarch has been Head of the Church in England since Henry VIII, but now, the heir to the throne, Prince Charles, has said that he wants to be "head of faith", or something similar, instead. Whatever that means.

 There are still many devout Anglicans who deplore the loss of the public religious standard, and who practice their own religion with devotion and love. They are the backbone of society, Good Householders par excellence.

But generally, God has been so neglected in modern day England that even in AA He no longer holds the centre stage.

Blasphemy and four letter words have become too common at many AA meetings, and members talk of their inability to believe in God with defiance rather than humility. 

Because AA was and remains a basically Christian programme, though broadminded enough to be suitable for people of any religion or none, I don't think the religious element will ever be entirely banished. If it ever is, God help the recovering alcoholic.

For all of us, whether we know it or not, who are recovering from addiction are wholly dependent on God for our spiritual progress - indeed, for our very lives. Only His power can keep us sober, and if we try to shut it out of our consciousness we will lose our sobriety, and chaos will again take over our lives.

As the Big Book says, we have a daily reprieve from alcoholism that is dependent on our maintaining a fit spiritual condition. 

And we can't do that without God.

Four Types of Suffering: (4) Redemptive Suffering

"Suffering may come as a result of your own feelings, thoughts and actions connected with your task; it may come by itself as a result of your own faults or as a result of other people's actions, attitudes or feelings. But what is important is your attitude towards it. It becomes deliberate if you do not rebel against it, if you do not try to avoid it, if you do not accuse anybody, if you accept it as a necessary part of your work at the moment, and as a means for attaining your aim."

-  P.D. Ouspensky - "Conscience: The Search for Truth"

We know that suffering is extremely important in the Work. So vital is it to our spiritual progress that we can't reach a higher state of Being unless we are prepared to suffer, and suffer willingly. What Ouspensky writes about above is that suffering which Christian writers call redemptive, or expiatory
 suffering. It's not that this suffering is any different in origin from the types which we've looked at in the preceding posts. It may be produced by our own internal negative thoughts and emotions, by life itself in the normal processes of living on this planet or by the remorse of conscience we feel when we see ourselves as we truly are.

Such suffering creates a spiritual energy which the Work calls "higher hydrogens". I'm convinced that this is the very energy that the Christian churches (especially the Catholic and Orthodox denominations) call the "treasury of merit", which is stored up in higher realms to be available for the redemption and healing of the world.

Jesus Christ Himself created an unimaginable amount of this spiritual substance during His ministry on Earth and most especially during His Sacred Passion and Crucifixion.

Such fine energies were necessary if mankind was ever going to be able to climb back up the Ray of Creation by means of the "side octave" created by the Sun, which to us in the Work represents the level of Christ.

We could not create sufficient by ourselves to accomplish this task. Wise men and woman throughout the ages have accepted suffering as part of their path, even before the incarnation of the Messiah. In Isaiah, the prophet describes the plight of the "suffering servant," a virtuous, wholly innocent person who is punished for the sins of others, and who "openeth not his mouth" to defend himself against his accusers. With hindsight, Christians interpret this passage to refer to Jesus. Orthodox Jews see it as applying to all innocent people made to suffer for the sins of others.

But however much individual human beings were prepared to suffer on behalf of others, it took a completely perfected and sinless human being - Jesus - to undertake the huge task of creating the energy which alone could lead us to redemption, or salvation. Nobody else had reached that level of perfection.

This is the significance of the Passion of Christ. This is what makes it possible for all of us, whether in the Work or living as Good Householders, to begin the ascent back to our origins, the true home of Essence. Without Him, we would never have been able to do this, and we would have been lost forever. Even now, our own personal redemption and the redemption of mankind is far from a certainty. Gurdjieff describes the creation of man, the three-brained being, as "an experiment". If sufficient people do not work on themselves, the experiment may fail.

Today, with the possibility of environmental disasters or vastly destructive wars looming more closely than ever, we can understand this difficult saying. Our consciousness, our Being, has not kept pace with our scientific knowledge. If mankind does not evolve, the planet may be destroyed.

Catholics have the clearest understand of the necessity for suffering, in my view. Sufi teachers also talk of the "Way of Blame," which is very similar to the path taken by Jesus and by Gurdjieff, who refused, like the "suffering servant" of the Bible, to respond to their accusers and accepted blame and suffering as the path to enlightenment. But few outside the Muslim world have heard of this way, while Catholic Christians the world over do understand and value the worth of suffering.

Catholic schoolchildren are taught from the earliest age that when they have difficulties or pain, they may "offer it up" in union with the sacrifice of Jesus, for a cause that they themselves may choose or simply to be used for the redemption of creation in any way that Jesus may desire.

St Pio of Pietrelcina (formerly venerated as Padre Pio, the Cappuchin Friar and stigmatist) says, "If humanity could realize the value of suffering, they would ask for nothing else ... My sufferings are more precious to me than gold".

St Pio experienced extremes of physical, mental and spiritual suffering in his lifetime. Not only did his stigmata, the wounds in his flesh identical to those of Christ, cause him almost unbearable pain and loss of blood, his physical health was fragile throughout his life and included pains and symptoms of many different kinds, all verified by medical doctors.

Yet not only did he willingly accept them in the interest of saving souls, he also accepted, though with even greater suffering, the pain of being completely misunderstood and vilified as a charlatan, even by some officials in the church, who later realized their error and apologized for it.

Redemptive suffering can only come to us when we are in what the church calls "a state of grace", which means that we are free of serious sin, and in what the Work calls "a state of self-remembering". If, in that condition, we are asked to undergo suffering, we may willingly accept it as a sure way to transformation which also helps many others, from our own family to our Work colleagues, to people far away on the other side of the planet who have never heard of us but who benefit by receiving the fine energy created by our acceptance of suffering.

Our suffering transforms our blood itself, when it's accepted with good will. Many poisons are eliminated, and fine, higher hydrogens can begin to circulate around our body. Sometimes this may result in physical healing, sometimes not. Many, if not most, of those who are willing to undergo redemptive suffering find that the task is theirs for a lifetime. But the experience is not a depressing one - on the contrary, suffering may be accepted not only willingly but with peace and joy, because the sufferer knows that what he or she is undergoing is of very great value to God and their fellow beings.

When suffering continues for long periods, or for the person's lifetime, then we are invited to use it as material for spiritual growth and understanding. The health of the body, while to be sought and enjoyed when it occurs, is not our chief goal. It is the health of the spirit which is being created here, a condition which will last past our physical lifetime and offer us the chance to progress even further in a different dimension, that which Christians call "heaven".

Without suffering, no higher "being bodies" can be created.

On a different level, suffering can also heal us emotionally if it is accepted and willingly undergone. If it has been caused by anything we ourselves have done, then we may learn from it and renounce the faults that caused it; if not, if it is truly undeserved, then besides offering it to God as Catholics do, we may also grow in compassion towards our fellow human beings. We begin to understand what innocent victims have to suffer, and we become more patient and more willing to help others.

The great Catholic theologian Henry Nouwen described the enormous benefits that suffering had given him, in his writings. After a period of great mental and spiritual torment, he began to live simply, among the mentally and physically handicapped residents of  "L'Arche," a Christian-run programme which cares for those unable to care for themselves.

In serving them, Nouwen discovered a deeper realm of living, a depth of understanding and a channel of grace which he had never suspected and which brought him healing and peace. For the first time, he understood the meaning of love.

This, too, is redemptive suffering. And it is the task required of us in the Five Being Strivings, where Gurdjieff explains that we must eventually begin to make efforts to lighten the sufferings of God Himself. We can do this only after painstaking work on ourselves, accepting suffering in the ways I've described above. If we persevere, we will truly take part in the redemption of creation, comforting our Creator as we do so.

How can God suffer? Is he not above all pain?

No. God has chosen to undertake the unimaginably difficult task of creating and maintaining the entire cosmos. And he is intimately involved because of His love for us. He is with us in our sufferings, and he is comforted by our willingness to bear them patiently, even joyfully, playing our part in the redemptive process.

A distressed Jew once asked, "Where was God in the holocaust?"

And the reply came, "He was there, suffering with the victims."

St Paul puts it thus: "I, Paul, am made a minister; who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which may be lacking in the afflictions of Christ, in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the Church".

In other words, St Paul was rejoicing because he was suffering as part of the body of Christ, joining his own personal suffering to that of Jesus, helping the entire Church - visible and invisible - grow in grace.

In the Work we don't use religious language, but when we take suffering as a path to enlightenment we join with Jesus, St Paul, St Therese, St Pio, St John Paul II, the Buddha, the Sufi Pirs and Sheikhs, and all the saints and angels both known and unknown who comprise the circle of Conscious Humanity.

To be among them is our goal, and the way to reach it is by redemptive suffering.

Four Types of Suffering: (3) The Pain of Seeing Ourselves

"If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be ...(for Jesus) a pleasant place of shelter". 

- Collected letters of St Therese of Lisieux, translated by F. J. Sheed.

The trial of being displeasing to ourselves - this is the pain we all feel when we see ourselves and our fallen state. It's integral to the Twelve Steps and to the Work. It is a real pain, and it bites like no other. James Joyce's phrase - "agenbite of inwit" - is an accurate description of how we feel when our conscience, which literally means "seeing all together", shows us how we are. It bites us again and again until we accept our pettinesses, our weaknesses, our inconsistencies and much, much more; and we must suffer the sight of all this without running away from it, without trying to justify ourselves, and without judging and condemning ourselves, either.

St Therese offered everything to God, including her own "littleness". Here is the origin of the name given to her spiritual path, "The Way of Spiritual Childhood". By this she did not mean being naive or childish. She was talking of the way children with loving parents will run to them and confide their faults, and how, strengthened by our faith, we as adults can also confess our faults and accept our own "littleness". The saint was increasingly aware, as she matured in her convent community, of her own weaknesses; "her sinfulness, her tendencies to be self-righteous and judgmental, and to show a lack of full charity to her sisters" (Walking the Little Way of Therese of Lisieux, by Joseph F. Schmidt).

In working the Steps, we first catch a glimpse of our littleness when we admit in Step One that our lives have truly become unmanageable. We give up our previous ideas, that we are perfectly all right, that we are doing well in every respect, that each alcoholic binge is just an unfortunate and rare mishap, and admit that we've lost the plot. Our drinking has taken control of us, rather than the other way round, and every part of our life is a mess. We must see this, really see it and accept the truth of it.

Wisely, the Steps immediately go on to encourage the alcoholic to have faith in a Higher Power, a "God of their understanding," and then to willingly submit to the loving guidance of that God. By the time Step Four is reached, and the alcoholic is asked to make a fearless and searching moral inventory of his life, he has at least begun to trust that he is not alone in his distress, that he has the love of his God and the fellowship of an understanding AA group to turn to when he needs them.

But the inventory itself must be written and confessed, eventually to God and to one other person,  usually a sponsor from the AA program, who's been there and done it all and who will completely understand the alcoholic's situation.  As a Catholic, I chose to make my own Step Five (the "confessional") to a Jesuit priest, who was also a member of the program. His wisdom, honesty and compassion helped me through this difficult task, and I'm forever grateful to him for that.

However understanding our sponsor or chosen confessor may be, however, we have to bear the pain of looking unflinchingly at ourselves, and this can never be easy. AA members continue with this practice throughout their lives; it is vitally important for their sobriety. A daily inventory is made, either with "spot checks" on their spiritual state throughout the day, or, if they prefer, a final, more thorough spiritual check at the end of the day. Alcoholics are advised to continually check themselves for feelings of fear, worry or anger, so that such dangerous states are not allowed to fester.

In the Work, we are told from the very beginning of the need to observe ourselves. Not only do we look at our actions, we also become of our thoughts and feelings, our physical state, and our posture as we take "snapshots" of ourselves during the day. All centres must be observed so that we get a complete picture of how we are, because unless we are thorough and honest with ourselves we will never make any spiritual progress at all but will keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

At the same time, the Work and Twelve Step programmes both insist that our observations must not be allowed to drift into what AA calls "morbid reflection", and what the Work points out as a negative emotion: the constant return to a state of remorse, without any attempt to change. If an alcoholic does this, she may be in danger of becoming seriously depressed, and this in turn could lead to a relapse. It is to be prevented at all costs, and a wise sponsor will be able to spot whether this is happening and if necessary draw the sponsee's attention to it.

In the Work, we don't dwell on our negativity. We don't identify with it: it is no more the "real" us than are any of our negative emotions. We see it, let go of it and make a fresh start at once.

As we go deeper and deeper into the Work, we discover that we are not at all the people we once thought we were. Our once-buried conscience gradually begins to speak to us without words, bringing its light to situations and inner states we had never suspected were present. Thus, we may see that we are not at all the kind, gentle, courteous driver we had believed - we may not have shouted at anyone, true, but what about the quiet fuming and sighing when we are caught in a traffic jam? Or our angry thoughts when the way is blocked by a really stupid person? What's wrong with them - don't they know who we are? And so on. We may find our attention drawn to these thoughts by changes in our physical state, such as increased heartbeat and muscular tension; or perhaps we are suddenly aware of feeling uneasy. When this happens, we can see ourselves, and disidentify.

Throughout our lives, we have all been prevented from seeing the full reality of our being by something which Gurdjieff called "buffers", and which Charles Tart, the psychotherapist and writer on the Work, calls "defence mechanisms". Other therapists refer to them as reaction formations, or blocking mechanisms. Whatever their name, we all have them. They stop us from seeing our multiple inner contradictions, and that's necessary for our survival,  because if we saw ourselves all at once, in all our contradictory, inconsistent states, we would go mad.

Their removal is therefore very gradual and happens at a time when we are prepared to suffer the pain of seeing ourselves. As St Paul writes in II Corinthians, "For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this self-same thing, that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves .." (verses 8-11).

This "clearing of ourselves" is exactly what we need, in the Work. It is a form of self-remembering. It brings us close to Real I. St Paul is pointing out that when we suffer because we have behaved mechanically, this can lead to repentance, a word which literally means "thinking again". In the Work we are encouraged to repent, not in the sense of wringing our hands and bewailing our sins, but meaning that we look afresh at what we are like so that we may become more conscious as a result.

In previous posts I wrote about mechanical suffering, which we must sacrifice to make progress in the Work, and the sort of suffering which is brought about by events in the world, over which we are powerless and which we must simply accept. But this third type of suffering, that of seeing ourselves as we truly are, painful as it is, can bring us real insight and new understanding.

Of course, we must make these observations every day, but if we persevere we will find that the light works very gently and very compassionately, pointing things out that we need to see, but never condemning, never judging, never criticizing. If any of those judgmental "I's" creep into our observations, we detach from them immediately and let them go. We take the feeling of "I" out of them. Such "I's" will put a stop to any sort of understanding if we let them, and that is why Jesus tells us not to judge, because if we do, we ourselves will be judged, and there will then be no escape from our suffering.

In the Acts of John, one of the gnostic gospels, Jesus tells his disciples, "If thou hadst known how to suffer, thou wouldest have been able not to suffer. Learn thou to suffer, and thou shalt be able not to suffer".

And much of the Work is about learning how to suffer, so that we may be able not to suffer, as Jesus says.

Each day is a new start in our spiritual journey. It is a fresh opportunity for insight and growth.

I'll end with an insight from Dr. Nicoll, who says, in Volume Five of his Psychological Commentaries, that in the Work, "state is place". In other words, when we are in a particular psychological state, we are in a definite place in ourselves. Different places in the brain are concerned with different thoughts, activities and emotions. Our state at any moment is due to the place we are in.

He goes on to say, "There are many dangerous places in the psychological city of yourself. It is necessary to study them by prolonged Self-Observation, and try to become increasingly conscious of the roads that lead to them, and why you go down them. This is intelligent observation."