Love at the Core:: An Illustration

She lost her mother before she was even able to grieve.  You don't need Attachment Theorists to convince you how extraordinarily significant this loss must have been.  She was just two...barely able to understand.  And this, some might say, is an advantage.  At two, you don't know any better.  But, everything we know today says something very different.  At two, Mom is your world.  And if Mom goes, so goes your world.But human beings are resilient.  I've seen severely abused young women become successful traders and managers and entrepreneurs.  That does not necessarily mean that they are successful. Human beings have evolved into expert compartmentalizers.  Some of the most successful young men and women I know stuffed away large parts of themselves very early on, even unwittingly, in order to become the so-called successes they are today.And so, my client became a success, despite her mother's death at an early age.  Her Dad's coping strategy was to extinguish every memory of Mom.  No grieving.  No memorializing.  Soon, a Stepmother entered the picture.  And there were no conversations, photos, or side chats about Mom.  She was gone.  Quite literally.Many years later, my client comes to me for therapy.  Her presenting problem - depression.  I find that she is a compulsive exerciser.  Her only release is in the gym.  In fact, it is there where she feels.  In fact, in the gym, she and her body become one.  Many years before, I suspect, she disconnected from her body.  She shut down her feelings.  She buried her pain.  But now, exercise brings her life.When I say to her that exercise is the very place where she feels, she begins to cry.  I continue saying that I think that exercise is where her body feels held, where she connects to something she desperately longs for...the feeling of being held, loved.  She weeps...uncontrollably.  She knows.Exercise may be her idol.  And sure...she may need to repent.  But what's really going on?  She is desperate for love.  Mom's hold daughters.  But she wasn't held.  And her body is saying what her mind and heart long to say - that she wants to be held, loved, enjoyed, cared for.  Exercise is her entryway into belonging.  Exercise is where she comes alive."No one has ever seen that," she tells me.  She feels known.  She finds a picture of her deceased mother, and places it on her dresser.She will likely always enjoy running and exercise.  But today she's begun a bigger journey.  She will grieve.  And pray more deeply than she's ever prayed.  And she'll speak to a picture, sitting atop her dresser, of a mother long gone.And God will hear.  A God who gets to the heart of the matter - Love.(Note: Whenever I refer to someone I saw for counseling, I am using a mosaic of clients who I have seen, not an actual client.  I cannot violate the confidential relationship counseling demands.)