interviews

Tom Daly: On the Shadow

cont.

Tammie: After closing my psychotherapy practice in Maine, and having an opportunity to step back and think about the process of psychotherapy, I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom of James Hillman, who points out that a significant amount of what therapists have been trained to see as individual pathology is often an indication of our culture’s pathology. I’m wondering what your perspective is on this.

Tom Daly: Jim Hillman has shaped my thinking on this as well. I certainly agree that we have for too long over-looked the collective aspect of neurosis. Hillman sees us spending a lot of time on introspection and that for the most parts seems to have made us less politically and socially active. In my private practice and in my Trainings I always stress the link between the personal and collective. It is not a question of the personal vs. the political but how can we be effective in both realms.

What interests me about Hillman’s inquiry is how we can bring the inside out. If therapy simply makes people more conforming to the mainstream values then we all lose. If on the other hand we help bring out the best in each individual, then the result will probably be a more vital and active person both personally and politically. I have no doubt that an individual or small committed group can bring about profound change. I definitely believe that individual choices do add up and make a difference.

Our anger, our pain, our joy, our fear, is all influenced by our environment. We can’t solve our problems only by talking to our therapist, we must also talk to our families, to our neighbors, and to our national, state, and local politicians. We cast our vote about everything by who we are. Every act is consequential, how we treat our friends, how and what we eat, the way we pray or don’t, how much time we spend or don’t spend with our family, where we go after work, how much water we use to brush our teeth, it all makes a difference.

As much faith as I place in individual choice, I’m not convinced that we can make the changes we want simply as the sum of many individual choices. We are, I believe, at the point where individuals are not smart enough by themselves to make the wisest choices. The systems are too complex for any individual to process the data and make choices for the good of the whole. The time of the lone ranger leader is past. The answers we need are in the "field" and in the shadows. And we haven’t been so good at looking there. In fact we are trained not to look beyond ourselves and most trusted allies.

We all need to develop a new skill of sensing this field wisdom. If we don’t, we will continue to be torn apart by shifting individual, group, and nationalistic self-interest. My guess is that this shift to greater group awareness will be one of the next "BirthQuakes".

Tammie: In the simplest terms, I’ve described a BirthQuake as a transformational process triggered by the quakes in our lives. You appear to me to be a living, breathing example of the power and possibility of our quakes. Would you be willing to talk about your own "BirthQuake" experience?

Tom Daly: I have experienced a number of important birthquakes in my life starting with being adopted at age three and a half and being brought to America from Europe. Each of these experiences seems to build on the one’s before. What I would like to speak of briefly is my most recent BirthQuake, which came as the result of a tragedy in our family.

Less than two years ago my son-in-law, David, physically abused his daughter to the point that she was hospitalized and then placed in foster care for over a year. For many months he denied what he had done and we all defended both him and my daughter, Shawna, looking for any cause other than the most obvious one. When he finally admitted his guilt and was sent to prison for 3 years the Department of Social Services continued the case against my daughter for another six months claiming she had been involved or was in fact the perpetrator and had convinced David to take the rap for her. It was a year of agony and trauma for all of us at many levels: medical, legal, financial, psychological and spiritual.

Happily my granddaughter, Haley, is very healthy and has been reunited with Shawna. The physical wounds have healed and we are all continuing to work with the psychological and spiritual ones. Shawna and David are separated both by his prison bars and by the gulf between them. This event called into question some of my most deeply held beliefs. The situation remains quite complex but most of us are moving in a healing direction.

The pain of all this taught me many things, some of which I am only now beginning to sort out. Because of my interest in men’s work one of the greatest dilemmas was and still is how to relate to David. Here was a young man who on the outside was a very loving and devoted husband and a father who happily took birthing classes and looked to be doing everything right. We could all see the stress that he was under and were aware of his conspicuous problems finding a job that suited him, but we all wrote that off as "normal" for someone of his age and situation. Both he and my daughter had a image of themselves as strong people who could handle whatever came their way. None of us knew the depth of his insecurity and his inner turmoil. I have tremendous compassion for him, and would like to forgive him and move on. And yet there is a part of me that will not do that. I don’t feel that it is in either of our best interests to forgive and forget. I want to continue to work with the shadows that got us all into such a painful place.

I could literally write a book about how we all made it through this passage, this BirthQuake. And the saddest chapter would be about David. I have written to him several times and his response has been minimal. He seems to have retreated into a hard shell. I’m not sure if he is reacting to the conditions of prison where a shell is a necessity or he has made a decision that he is beyond help.

I will keep reaching out to him because I know how import it is to our whole family, especially to his children. However this turns out we have all been changed forever, we are all reborn and it is up to us to learn from what has happened. It some very important way I believe we have all been tested for the days to come. We all know ourselves more essentially having set in that fire. Working with this issue will always take us deeper into our own and each other’s shadows. I am faced with practicing what I preach.

Tammie: Do you believe it’s possible that we’re encountering a global quake?

Tom Daly: I think we are undoubtedly entering a time of world-wide chaos and transformation that easily fits your definition of a BirthQuake. My hope is that it will lead us to a rebirth of soul and more sustainable options for all of us.

For the past twenty years, the economies of the US, Western Europe, and Japan have been gobbling up world resources at an alarming rate. Most of our growth has come at the expense of the Third World. Now it seems clear that the current world economic bubble is about to burst. The recession in Japan, South Korea, and many South East Asian countries as well as the instability in Russia will lead to a deepening world-wide recession. There simply isn’t enough loan money to go around. If any of the major world economies (the G-7) falter all the dominos will fall. Many smaller countries are already collapsing under the strain of repaying massive debt that further oppresses their people. The rich and powerful are getting richer and more powerful on a world-wide basis. History tells us that this can’t go on much longer before something will shift things to a place of greater balance.

I believe the year 2000 computer problem will be the catalyst for this larger break down and reconfiguration. Even if the rest of the world had their computers fixed (and they don’t), the magnitude of the disruption caused by the failure of the US government to handle this problem would be enough to create a world-wide depression. The costs of fixing the problem is now estimated in the trillions. That alone would be enough to cause a global recession, if not depression.

The problem is not simply one of fixing a few million lines of computer code or replacing a few million embedded chips. The problem is that most people in power both in business and in government simply don’t grasp the magnitude or interconnectedness of the system and it’s problems. And if they do, they are becoming increasingly afraid to speak out about their fears because of threats to their credibility and fears of being held liable for potential failures. Many states are in the process of passing legislation limiting their liability related to failures due to this problem. Most insurance companies are in the process of restricting coverage for the period just before and after the year 2000.

Given the instability in this country due to the impeachment issue and how much energy that debate will take away from working systematically with Y2K , combined with the world-wide economic issues I mentioned previously, I can see an inevitable BirthQuake of enormous proportion coming.

I think that it is no coincidence that the most popular movie of our time is "Titanic". We are all sailing on the grand liner of western technology and democratic capitalism and think we are invincible. A small number of us see the potential dangers and warn the captain (CEO’s and politicians) but he is easily convinced that it is to his advantage to make a new speed record and that the great ship herself will get us through. Like Titanic passengers we really don’t have the option of getting off or being involved in the decision making process and are held hostage by the powers that be. For a few more months we do have the option of building more life rafts, but in the end that will not save more than a few million of us. A larger percentage of the steerage passengers will probably die, many are already.

This BirthQuake will require that we all work together is ways that are new to us. We will be required to work together is smaller groups on issues that are of immediate importance to us. We will be asked to use our inner and outer resources in new and creative ways that I mentioned earlier. It will be a exciting and difficult time.

Tammie: What concerns you the most about our collective future? What makes you hopeful?

Tom Daly: My biggest concern is that the Year 2000 Problem, the world-wide recession, global weather extremes, terrorism, nuclear accidents and proliferation, the combination of these factors will lead to a neo-fascism on a world-wide scale. My fear is that in the face of so many uncertainties, many governments, including our own will attempt to consolidate control through force. This will happen more completely in countries where the military is already in charge of food and water supplies and infrastructure.

What makes me hopeful is that this BirthQuake will bring us into closer connection and healing at local levels and not simply in cyberspace. We may be forced to both think and act locally, esp. in our own bioregions. Perhaps this more local self and community sustaining possibility will spread. With many more experiments in living being tried perhaps we will align with a more nature based model where redundancy and diversity will allow for many new ways of living to emerge and succeed. We humans have flourished on this planet precisely because of our adaptability. And that is my cause for optimism. We will adapt, and hopefully we will do that in ways that makes this a better place to live, for all living things and not just humans. Perhaps we can let go of our arrogance and take our place in the world and be of it, rather than above it."

Y2K sites and articles contributed to by Tom Daly:

www.year2000.com
www.survivey2k.com
www.isen.com
www.senate.gov/~bennett
www.gao.gov/y2kr.htm
www.prepare4y2k.com
www.yardeni.com
www.euy2k.com
bouldery2k@millennia-bcs.com
www.y2ktimebomb.com
www.yourdon.com
www.wild2k.com
www.garynorth.com
www.tmn.com/y2k
Fortune Magazine, April 27, 1998
Business Week, March 2, 1998
The Washington Post 12/24/97

You can contact Tom Daly at:

Tom Daly, Ph.D.
P.O. Box 17341, Boulder, CO 80301
Phone and FAX (303) 530-3337

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