Mariposa, named by her lepidopterist mother, was a beautiful person who lived a little broken. She felt alone, lacking connection and resonance with the people she wanted it most from. It was a feeling that pursued her whole life, like a shade whose ghostly presence chilled her ability to feel emotional warmth. But at the same time, she said, “My family is so wonderful. Each of them. I know they love me. I know it in my head but every time I go toward them with intention and fullness, I then feel gutted. Hulled out. I feel alone.”

This is not unique to Mariposa. You may also struggle with loneliness, despite living in abundance. But somehow the connection that your relationships offer naturally do not satiate emotionally.

I remember a Greek myth about Erysichthon, who in his hubris and desire, chopped down the goddess Demeter’s sacred oak. Inevitably, as in most Greek myths, human acts out, deity angers, deity punishes, human forever suffers particularly tailored horror. Demeter cursed Eryschithon with an endless bottomless hunger that drove him toward more intake until he ate his own flesh. Ew. Do we do that emotionally, toward terminal self sabotage? The very desire for connection ends up being our isolation.

Mariposa however did not entirely see her role in the perpetuation of this. She vaguely suspected, but whenever she spoke about it, somehow it circled back to the various problems of her nuclear members. Blame was a trim to all her dressed-up conversations about loneliness.

Not to draw this out, Mariposa was able to link the intensity of her longing to attachment history. A parent who was transactional. A lifelong tendency to attach intensely to a very few elite members of her inner circle. Repeatedly “touching in” for reassurance was a pattern that never really tapped back. Again, alone. She and Erysichthon, surrounded by abundance, yet never in full resonance. Never satiated. A tragedy.

The paradox of experiencing being emotionally starved while surrounded by genuine love was an inner incongruence she was trying to resolve to be kind to herself, but also an act of love to those she loved in truth.

A therapist she spoke to about this used to work with her using the Psalms as something of a CBT tool. He advised her to read them, use each verse as a spot check, reflect, meditate, and pray over it. He reasoned that God, the ultimate source and giver of love and connection would be where to start again so to speak. She did some of this but not routinely, as CBT intends, considering that the hope is to reroute the automatic thoughts of the brain. And I think if her counselor had been clearer on the need for routine, and explained the idea behind cognitive restructuring, she might have gotten effective help earlier in her life for this. This was a lovely harmony between faith and science.

Marvelously, Mariposa, in this progress, recognized the limits of control. Even saying that some of what continued to distance her from others was a subtle tug of war to control them. “I get it that when I blame them, I am still trying to control them a little bit. The blame is another outfit for that.”

Wow. That was a wow moment for me, hearing her say that. And I realized she is almost there! Like Paul in his defense before Governor Festus, King Agrippa said, “You have almost persuaded me!” So close! I wondered in my amazement, would she get there?

Mariposa’s ongoing pursuit of reassurance kept her attention fixed on what is missing. “I live in so much abundance, Dr. Quijada! I am really blessed! They do love me.” A strain from Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto in C minor sounded off. “And they are so wonderful.” Oh, lonely hearts of ours! The central cognitive distortion was not “I have nothing,” but “what I am receiving doesn’t count because it’s not enough or is not offered in the form I most desire.”

There is a prayer I have been given in my own life, “Lord help me love the way that I am loved.” Because Love surrounds us. Even we could say that Love has won. Conquered evil. And is in so much abundance that we are told, we can get from Jesus with whom like living water, we will never be thirsty again. But we live as if there just is not enough. Or that we need to be loved a different way. And the truth is that there is so much love for Me, for each of us, and not a deficit. In fact, evil has been completely defeated. But we live as though the wanting of it will devour us from the inside out.

How much of this is biological? Hm. Well emotions and behaviors do come from brain, or so I have heard, wink. And so, we dance. It is all the above. There are brain illnesses which result in a sense of profound loneliness and when treated, amazingly the perception disappears or at least diminish greatly and the world looks differently. This is different or at least a distant relative of what Mariposa was going through. She did not demonstrate brain health pathology, rather she demonstrated pathology in her coping skills. When she was triggered, or one could say received a brain stimulus, her neurons fired down pathways that had become bear and deer trails in the wild woods of her brain. These paths became pathways of least resistance for her thoughts. Or like water slipping into a groove, they traveled there over and over again. Easily. And getting them to go a different route, such as toward automatic thoughts of gratitude, it would take a lot of work. It would take routine, and walking sticks, and good shoes.

Amazingly, Mariposa came to this herself by the end of our discussion. Super impressed, I was, “Wow. Thank you.” In receipt of her humility, vulnerability, and courage, I just said wow.

In my own life, I turned and told my own nucleus about my own tendencies toward blame and it was hilarious. Everyone seemed to know about it except me. They just looked at me, like, “And?” They were already there. Quite anticlimactic. Could I blame them?

Self Care Tip: Go toward the amazing freedom that gratitude brings.

Question:  Are you still trying to control what you can’t control through the pathways of blame? Please speak! We need to hear from you!  Keep on!