I have fished once in my adult life. It was the late 80s and we were on vacation in the boundary waters of the Thousand Islands, downstream from Kingston, Ontario. We were fishing the St. Lawrence River for northern pike, a feisty fish that fights like the devil when you try to get it above the surface. Once caught, it’s not a particularly good fish to eat because getting the bones out is nigh on impossible.

I think about that trip often because of how much that experience reflects my life. What exists beneath the surface wants to stay beneath the surface. It’ll fight like the devil to stay there, and if you finally reel it in, what you’ve caught is hard to swallow.

It is always interesting to me when people quit therapy before they really begin. I usually can tell it is coming. They have hooked a fish in the depths, and they have no interest in reeling it in. Sometimes they do not have the energy. They know dealing with the past is going to be hard work, and they cannot bring themselves to do it. Occasionally, they just aren’t ready to deal with it. Whatever the case, I am always disappointed. With a qualified guide, you can reel the fish in, no matter how hard it fights.

What we refuse to deal with eventually deals with us. My mother broke her ankle and refused to rehabilitate. It was exasperating to her doctor and physical therapist. Ankle breaks are often hard to heal, but it was an ordinary break, not one that required surgery. Still, she refused physical therapy. She said it was too hard and painful. She did not walk, and rarely got out of bed, for the last ten years of her life. It probably shortened my mother’s life and definitely negatively affected her quality of life, but for reasons I will never know, because they remained beneath the surface, it was easier for her to be non-ambulatory than it was to rise up and walk.

It reminds me of John 5:6 in the gospels when Jesus asked the man at the pool at Bethesda if he wanted to get well. For some people, it is just too hard to get well. It is tragic, but you have to respect their freedom to choose.

Generational trauma results from the accumulated layers of trauma that have not been brought to the surface, confronted, and healed. When I first started therapy in 1993, my therapist said, “You are breaking patterns that have been there for decades, if not centuries.” I thought she was being dramatic. She was not. I fought with a lot of northern pike beneath the boundary waters. Occasionally I still go back to therapy because I need to go fishing again.

What have I gained from all of that fishing? Wisdom, compassion, empathy, knowledge, understanding – those for sure. Given those positive lessons, you’d think I’d be free of the effects of trauma by now.  I can point you to people who would say I am as messed up as I ever was. They might be right. I can still be self-serving, blind to injustice, and inclined to speak too quickly when it would be better to keep my mouth shut. There is always work to do.

Here are a few gems I have gained from my fishing expeditions:

1. “I can’t do that!” are usually words spoken when we are navigating from a childhood map, back when we actually could not do a lot of things because the powers that be stopped us from doing them. It is more accurate to say, “I won’t do that.” That forces us to acknowledge the empowered decision we have made to not do something. To say “I won’t” instead of “I can’t” is empowering. It is owning your decision. No one else made it for you. It was yours.
2. When someone says, “I’m just joking” they are never just joking. Just as the blush betrays the secret wish, the quick jab that necessitates a deflective, “I’m just joking,” has been just beneath the surface for a long time, ready to strike when one’s guard is down.
3. Some fears will always be with you. No one likes being humiliated or shamed. For me, it will always take me back to a very early wound that has never quite scarred over. I wrote about it in my book. No need to repeat it here.
4. Sometimes all you get is a decision between two evils, and you must choose the lesser of the two. I never wanted to transition. Transitioning was better than dying. My wife and my best friend thought I was headed in that direction. They might be right. Gender dysphoria is a difficult diagnosis. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. And in today’s America, it is harder to navigate than it was even ten years ago. It turns out that the general public having no information about what it means to be transgender is better than having the wrong information.
5. Your problem is usually not the thing you fear. It is that which gave birth to the thing you fear. Beowulf’s problem was not so much Grendel as it was the mother of Grendel. For almost all of us, that which gave birth to the thing we fear is a conviction there is something inherent about us that makes us unworthy of deep human connection. We began life with a 360 degree perspective. Those who raised us quickly let us know that 345 degrees of that were not acceptable. We learned to live within the 15 degrees that was acceptable, but from that day forward we were pretty sure our desire for the other 345 made us unworthy of unconditional love.
6. If you were raised as an evangelical Christian, the majority of #5 was centered around your gender and sexuality. Most of what you were told is wrong. This keeps therapists in business.
7. You are more capable than you believe you are. One single negative comment can undo the good of fifty positive comments. To understand the reason for that, see #5 above. Find a person who truly sees you, sees what you are capable of, and relentlessly encourages you in that direction.

I’ve learned a lot of other lessons in my seven decades on the planet. I’ll share some others another time.

And so it goes.