TNR Happenings, September 30, 2024

The Presence of Absence. Wait, what? Yes, read this a few times, and it will settle in. Daddy’s little girl or a Momma’s boy. Abuse, lack or withholding of love, and never feeling good enough are all tributaries from this river. Memes don’t endure unless there is more than a kernel of truth in them. After coaching more than 1200 individuals, I have seen an enigma only spoken in hushed tones: the absence of a parental figure. It’s of particular note that the parent may be very much present but emotionally unavailable. Early death or divorce cases are easier to spot, but how about a supposedly functional nuclear family? These are much harder to spot at first. How can a wonderfully trained, gifted, intelligent, handsome/pretty, etc. person lay an egg on practice, life, marriage, business, or partner? When journeying into the unknown, there is always an excuse or a story that explains this invisible factor. It carefully avoids the taboo of the presence of absence.

 

With a distance created for the child, we see a dichotomy, a tale of two cities. One is a life of overachievement and overcompensation with depression or a deadness. Every physical symptom imaginable can be seen: malaise, melancholy, no passion or intimacy, relationship strain, degeneration, and able only to impoverish the world by reducing it to the narrow and ugly measure of this concept in order to spite itself and out of resentment toward life. A hollow dutifulness ensues, and a sense of gloom prevails and doesn’t leave. Are you nodding your head now or immediately thinking of a specific individual? When s child doesn’t appear in the vision/awareness/life of a parent, the child receives no reflection from them, and this cripples or impedes self-development. This absence contributes to a self-image of inadequate, infantile, and dutiful. There is ambivalence to life, anger, and going through the motions.

 

Behind a feigned hate for the absent parent is the desire for love, which can become an obsession or fascination. This rivets the child to the parent even if they have no relationships or have died. It’s that strong. This absence invisibly destroys creativity and individuality, and life has no meaning and purpose. The people around them don’t understand these invisible mechanics. Now, let’s go from the theoretical to the concrete mechanical.

 

• You have a parent who refuses to care for a child in trouble, citing economics, busyness, school activities, etc. In their own minds, they weren’t cared for, so why should they bother with their child? 
• You have a practice member who won’t buckle down and accept your recommendations. They keep missing appointments. You see them again and again in the same condition. The look on their faces says it all: a mixture of shame and humiliation as they look for the long-lost guidance of their absent parent.
• Corporate people (symbolic absent parents) who don’t think for themselves and support every corporation's agenda no matter how idiotic it may be. The same goes for government people. They need a de facto parent figure and will not stand up for themselves; instead, they are infants and compliant. Firing and covid come to mind here.
• You have a person with a lethal illness that will stick with an MD who has told them they can’t help them and they are going to die. They would rather go down with the sinking ship of authority instead of having the independent ability to decide independently. As crazy as these sounds, their life-affirming quality was never developed. They can’t hear when you say, “Don’t do it.” They do it anyway!
• People who believe that suffering and struggle are part of their destiny will not do enough to break the cycle of the absent parent. Many are not aware of its dynamics because they are invisible to them.
• People who put money (the absent parent) in front of their own lives. They will not invest in themselves even if their lives depend on it; they will default to being cared for by de facto, authoritative figures even if they can’t help. They live in the known and will not venture into the unknown because of the presence of the absent.
• CA interviews where the candidate doesn’t show up. Girlfriend/boyfriend splits where the intimate lover texts the other instead of telling them to their face. It’s an unconscious reflection of dehumanizing the person as they were dehumanized in their childhoods. That’s what makes the anonymity of social media so seductive.

 

This insight will seem new to many readers, but it’s untrue. It’s all around you! Just because you aren’t aware of this familiar dynamic doesn’t mean it’s not right in front of you. In Miracle Training, this concept comes up again and again. Does the person have the necessary grit and perseverance to save their life, or will they throw their life away and give up in honor of the ghosts of absence?          

 

Miracle Training

Nothing is absolute; however, when the 4 Ds (death, divorce, disease, depression) visit someone without their invitation, all of this comes out. Often, the client is unaware of this or vehemently denies it. It doesn’t matter; the effects of this still prevail and ruin the person’s life. You can’t just make it go away by analytically or intellectually discussing it. Like layers of the onion, you must dissolve as much of this as you can, repair the functionality of the nerve system, and enter into a sacred relationship with that person. Training in TNR allows you to pick up the breadcrumbs instead of stepping on them (ignoring them). Giving people a second chance at life is sacred. It gives you a feeling that is not available with any drug, computer, or amount of money. People always come out of the training with a sense of gratitude and a heartfelt connection to source/innate/God that was not there before.