Heart Medicine: Freedom from Painful Patterns is Possible!

Radhule Weininger on writing her book Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom—at Last by Radhule Weininger, MD, PHD, featuring forewords by H.H. the Dalai Lama and Joanna Macy

—

At 5:00 a.m. one morning fifteen years ago, I rolled uncomfortably from one side of my bed to the other, glancing anxiously toward the window, awaiting the kindness of morning light. My chest was constricted in a stinging tightness, my jaw ached, and I felt too tired and too awake all at once. Thoughts circled through my head and crept up from under the covers: “Why hadn’t I been invited to an event that many of my peers—therapists and meditation teachers—had been asked to attend?” I felt excluded and hurt. An ancient wound had opened, rekindling an old, painful pattern. 

Throughout my life, wounds from a traumatic history have continued to reopen. My father left my mother before I was born. Having given birth to me on her own in 1950’s Germany, my mother hid me for two years in an orphanage to avoid condemnation from her Catholic relatives. When she finally returned and brought me home, she presented me to her family as her adopted child, and I was often treated with ambivalence and contempt. Deep inside I came to believe that I had no legitimate place in that family. The sense of being an outsider, someone who is not recognized as a valued member of the tribe, has become part of my ongoing experience. 

On that restless morning in bed, I felt once again unacknowledged by those whom I longed to accept me. I felt a dull emptiness in my stomach, a familiar sense of shame and self-defeat. I was once again the tiny one in the crib who hadn’t been picked up and protected by either her mother or her father. As my thoughts and emotions whirled fast and chaotic, I grappled with the tangled knot of hurt and blame about not being included and validated. Despite my decades of training in Buddhist practices, my meditation skills felt almost useless against this painful constellation. 

After that morning, I committed myself with renewed ardor to contemplate the history of my ancient wounds and how their painful patterns have recurred over the years. Vulnerability frequently appears in my emotional landscape, just like a hungry ghost who is never satisfied and repeatedly suffers over being abandoned or excluded. With a heavy heart, I noticed how often I have tended to obsess about my injuries and the stories I have spun around them. 

A few months following that incident I found myself walking with my mentor and friend Jack Kornfield through an ancient oak forest. We talked about my experiences of falling into the pothole of this old wound over and over again. Knowing my story all too well, Jack nudged me to find a way out of this self-repeating predicament, and to use all the skills that I had learned during my studies of psychology, my experience as a psychotherapist as well as the many years of Buddhist training. But first, Jack wanted me to find a new word for such experience. What C.G. Jung had called complexes and Eastern philosophers had called samskaras, he felt, needed a new name.

“LRPPs,” said aloud as “lurps,” is the onomatopoeic term I chose to describe these knots, those trip wires, and landmines in the psyche that when triggered can explode to cause great suffering and damage. LRPPs—which stands for Long-standing, Recurrent, Painful Patterns—are always in the present tense, shockingly and frustratingly so. At the same time, they have an ancient, gnarled quality, like something one might stub one’s toe on in the mud of the Jurassic. LRPPs can be intensely challenging, even crippling, and express themselves as repetitions in the shape of difficulties over long periods of time. Our early experiences, especially the painful ones, predispose us to a heightened sensitivity to certain problems and to continually reacting to those problems in self-defeating ways.

In my book “Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom-at Last,” I began to collect a toolbox of practices, medicines that had helped me, my students, and my clients to face and transform those patterns. The most important medicine is awareness. Awareness helps us to recognize when we have gotten LRPPed, to be mindful of how emotions, body-feelings, and thoughts loop themselves like strings of seaweed wrapping around us, pulling us underwater. With the medicine of loving mindful awareness, the LRPP loses its power over us. In particular, self-compassion quietens the might of self-blame and allows our minds and hearts to calm down. Being able to experience the felt sense of our suffering allows our ruminations and emotions to pass though without entangling themselves. Then, transformation can happen. 

I describe twelve different steps which support us on our way to freedom. Of those, for me the most surprising and effective are the following three medicines: The first, Forgiveness, which unburdens us from the grudges we are holding and the resentments that keep us tied to our own feelings of anger and urge to retaliate. The second surprising medicine is Awareness, here not understood as the skill of being mindful, but as the field quality of awareness. When we learn to rest in the numinous, the sacred, the ocean of awake awareness, then we can experience the tender and often agonizing feelings that accompany the LRPP from a place of spaciousness. Then we can go beyond our worried and small selves towards much greater freedom. Now the LRPP is losing its sting and its power over us. The third medicine is Service. Sharing our healing sets us free. I noticed that when I support and love others, I feel a sense of strength and effectiveness, then my sense of isolation turns into a sense of belonging and my heart is open to the world. When we see our true nature, which is interdependence and love, we leave our LRPPs behind, just as a snake leaves its outgrown skin. 

—

Radhule Weininger, MD, PHD, is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and meditation teacher. She leads meditation groups in Santa Barbara and retreats globally, at La Casa de Maria Retreat Center, Spirit Rock, Insight LA, the Esalen Institute, and the Garrison Institute. She is the author of Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom—at Last and Heartwork: The Path of Self-Compassion. https://www.radhuleweiningerphd.com/ 

Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom—at Last

Find freedom from life’s painful recurring patterns in 12 simple steps, with guided practices of self-compassion, mindfulness, and embodiment.

Do you ever feel trapped by experiencing challenging feelings over and over again–sometimes without realizing it? Or do you find yourself thinking “Why is this happening to me again?” or “Why do I always feel this way?” You’re not alone. With Heart Medicine, you can learn to identify your emotional and behavioral patterns through the lens of loving awareness–without self-judgment or blame, learning to hold yourself as you would a dear friend, with space and grace.

Radhule Weininger draws on decades of experience as a therapist and meditation teacher to help readers understand the trauma behind their patterns, then offers twelve simple steps to work toward healing. Each chapter includes short practices so readers can begin to put the book’s concepts to work for transformation in their own lives. With Heart Medicine you can finally be equipped with the tools to break through the patterns that hold you back and begin to live with more freedom, confidence, and peace. And that’s good medicine, indeed.

BUY HERE

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing