when I'm caught between a
rock and a hard place
let me be water
let me be water
let me be water
John Roedel
When I read this short and powerful poem by John Roedel, I could feel my body softening. The image reminded me that tensing up, physically, emotionally, or mentally, when I feel stressed, is not helpful and indeed often makes things worse. Lately, “let me be water” has become something of a mantra for me when I notice I am feeling stressed and stuck. Stuck between two unyielding thoughts, situations, or feelings. Caught up in anxious thought patterns. Having difficulty making decisions. Being in those hard places causes not only emotional tension, but a physical tightening as well. Something like an inner bracing. Based on my own lived experience as well as what I hear about the inner experiences of my therapy clients, friends, and family, this seems to be an all-too prevalent symptom in our culture. Anxiety is by far the most common issue that my clients bring to therapy.
I have often shared with people that I am at least
a third-generation worrier, and it probably goes back
further than that. My mother told me that her father, my grandfather Reuben Dial, often said that he was “afraid not to worry.” Late in his life, Reuben suffered from what was then called “hardening of the arteries” and lived with us for a few years when my sister and I were young. I remember him seeming agitated and on edge at times, especially when we were playing loudly. I can picture him sitting in his green recliner, dressed in a button-up shirt with a bowtie or one of his favorite western-style bolo ties, often with a cigarette in his hand. He had an extremely sensitive startle response and would express his disapproval of our running and using loud voices in the house. But when you hear my grandfather’s story, it is easy to understand why he felt like the world was not a safe place.
When he was 13 years old, my grandfather stood alone in a graveyard in Tarpley, Texas, a small community just outside of Bandera, bearing witness to the burial of his parents and maternal grandmother. Tom and Annie Dial, as well as Annie’s mother Margaret, had all died one week in March 1907, two days separating each of their deaths. Reuben’s brother Joe, who was 16 at the time, was home fighting to recover from the “catarrhal” pneumonia that had become an epidemic in the area and was devastating his family and community. (Joe did survive but was in poor health the rest of his life, dying at 39.) Reuben and Joe were taken in and raised by their mother’s sister Ethel and her husband, Dr. J.O. Butler. After marrying my grandmother Vera, Reuben moved to Arizona where he worked in a variety of occupations including sheep rancher, grocer, police dispatcher, and café owner. He was described as kind, soft-spoken, generous, and well-loved by family and community. Trauma and loss continued to pursue him, though, with the death of his first-born child, Clare, from meningitis, 10 days before her first birthday, and the loss of his only son Gene in a car-accident when Gene was 22 and home on leave from the service. With these kinds of losses, it is understandable that my grandfather was anxious and worried all his life.
Whether through nature or nurture or most likely both, my mother developed a similar pattern of anxiety and fearfulness. She was parented by a mother and father who had lost a daughter before she came along, and she experienced the loss of her beloved older brother when she was a teenager. I saw my mom struggle with anxiety, depression, and panic disorder, off and on throughout her life. When she was around 50, she began to see a therapist and worked hard to overcome the limits her fear placed on her. As I began my training as a therapist, we had many conversations about this, and I was so proud of her as she committed herself to hard inner work.
And then there’s me, the third-generation worrier. What I have learned about generational trauma helps me understand my worry and anxiety so much more deeply. I was a shy and timid child, not as adventurous as many of my peers, and afraid of speaking up in class (even though I was a good student) or playing sports, even casual pick-up games (because athletics, unlike academics, did not come easily for me.) Around the time I was entering my senior year of high school, I began to find the initiative and courage to “put myself out there.” I continued to do so through college, graduate school, and beyond, but not without experiencing intense, visceral anxiety. It was not until I began studying and practicing mindfulness in the past 20 years that I found relief from that suffering. It isn’t that I don’t still experience anxiety, I do, but at a much lower frequency and intensity. My relationship with it is much different. I can see it, feel it, recognize it for what it is, and struggle less with it, mindfully choosing strategies for regulating my emotions.
What I am learning from mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and other contemplative practices, is to “be water.” To recognize the inner bracing and tension I am carrying and to find a way to soften, become more fluid, more spacious. This is what I experience with breath work – taking deeper, slower breaths creates more space in my chest and abdomen. The type of yoga I practice, Spinal Release Yoga, helps me to loosen and release the tension I carry along my spine, from my neck to my tailbone. Meditation supports me in creating more space between my thoughts – I am more able to avoid getting hooked by anxious, worrisome thoughts by practicing letting them come and letting them go.
In April of 2023, my sister and I went on what we called the “I have a family, too” trip to Texas. Here’s the backstory on that name. My mom and dad met and married when she was at Arizona State University and he was stationed at Luke AFB near Phoenix. After my dad got out of the Air Force, he and my mom returned to his home in Mississippi, living in the same town or very close to my paternal grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and a host of extended family. My mother sometimes missed her family in Arizona so much, she would get a little resentful that so much of our lives revolved around the Crisses. Thus, the famous statement, “You know, I have a family, too."
This trip became something of a pilgrimage really, visiting the home of our maternal grandparents, great-grandparents, and our Great-Uncle Oscar and Great-Aunt Ethel who took in Reuben and Joe and later kept my then 10-year-old mother for a year during the war. We stayed at the Flying L Ranch Resort which was built on 486 acres of ranch land purchased from Oscar and Ethel Butler. Our first day there, we explored the small town of Bandera, including the Frontier Times Museum, a place teeming with oddities from the surrounding area and around the world that my sister and I remembered from a family vacation to the Texas hill country when we were girls. We spent time by the beautiful Medina River that runs through the heart of Bandera, a deep, verdant green that reminded me of Hildegard of Bingen’s veriditas, the greening power of life that flows through all creation. Such a soothing image…let me be water.
But this pilgrimage was about visiting the land of our ancestors, honoring their lives and deaths, and hopefully bringing healing to that generational trauma. The desire to visit the Dial Cemetery in Tarpley was what had led me to suggest this trip to my sister. With a bit of internet exploration, I had been able to find someone who put us in touch with the owners of the land that our relatives were buried on. We met the son of the owners, a true Texas cowboy, who graciously took time out of his busy day to unlock the gate that gave access to the land and lead us up a slight incline to a shady area of live-oak trees thick with ball moss (a cousin of Spanish moss) which held the old cemetery. He chatted with us for a moment then said, “take as long as you’d like,” and went off to feed the herd of cattle who were making their way toward us and the pickup which held their mid-day meal.
And so, we did. We took our time looking at the faded headstones, looking for Thomas and Annie Dial, Annie’s mother Margaret Hudspeth, Reuben’s brother Joe, our great-great-grandfather Street Hudspeth whose name we had always loved. I wondered about these ancestors of mine, about what their days had looked like, what made them happy, what their struggles were. I wanted to bear witness to their suffering and longed for them to know their stories were remembered. I believe that when we each do our own inner work of healing, that healing not only moves forward and impacts future generations, but it also extends backward in time and offers comfort and solace to those previous generations. This is not
supported by any empirical evidence, of course, but it’s my deeply held belief.
On our way out of Bandera the next day, we stopped by a more modern burial ground to find the resting place of Aunt Ethel and Uncle Oscar. We drove through the large cemetery slowly searching the headstones for "Butler." Not having the energy at that point in the trip to get out and walk up and down the many aisles of graves in this large cemetery, I was about ready to head on to our next stop when my sister said, “just go around one more time.” I said loudly, “OK, Mom, we have come here to visit your family...help us find them!” And around the next curve, my sister spotted it. Butler. We were able to visit Oscar and Ethel and thank them for the roles they played in the lives of Reuben and Ann and us.
I believe that my grandfather and my mother, much like me, spent many of their years in a state of inner bracing, hoping that worrying about the bad things that could happen might in some magical way, prevent them from doing so. Or at least, if the bracing and preparing and worrying didn’t prevent the next loss, it could protect them in some way. Of course, there is no magical way to stop bad things from happening or protect ourselves from pain and loss. If we spend our lives in a state of tension, trying to steel and fortify ourselves against sorrow and suffering, we still spend our lives suffering. The path of healing for me has been to engage in practices that allow me instead to soften, release, loosen, and create space for all of it. The image of water flowing between, over, and around rocks is peaceful and healing, which is why John Roedel’s poem resonated so deeply. Water imagery is helpful when I want to ease the inner tension caused by worry, anxiety, fear. Buddhist psychologist Tara Brach offers a meditation called 9 Magic Breaths, which uses the imagery of ice melting to water and water disappearing into vapor to encourage this letting go. And I can picture a flowing river where, after acknowledging them, I can place my anxious thoughts and feelings and let them go where the water takes them.
Is there an image, song, writing, or practice that helps you to soften, to ease the inner tension you carry? Can you be curious about this tension or tightness when you notice it, and see what’s called for in the moment to help you release and let go, as best you can?
Check out John Roedel and his work here https://www.johnroedel.com/
You can listen to Tara Brach's 9 Magic Breaths meditation here https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-9-magic-breaths/
And two really good books on mindfulness and anxiety and how the nervous system works in regard to them are Buddha's Brain by Rick Hanson, PhD, and The Mindful Way Through Anxiety by Susan M. Orsillo, PhD, and Lizabeth Roemer, PhD.
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