Trauma and awakening

Many years ago I was walking across a parking lot, several feet behind my grandson, who was meandering slightly behind his father.

In slow motion I watched as a car, driving fast for a parking lot, approached on the right, headed in the direction of my two-year-old grandson.

I froze – literally froze in place, unable to move, much less run if needed.

My son had moved my grandson out of the way of the car, all without any sense of urgency, and the two of them casually went into the restaurant.

I followed moments later – shocked beyond words as I tried to reconcile what had just happened. I would not, could not, have moved from the spot, no matter whose life was on the line, which means I would and could not have run to grab my grandson and pull him away from the oncoming car if that had been necessary.

Trauma and awakening

Distancing from the immediacy of life, from everything and anything that is happening right now, right here, is even more exaggerated for those of us who have been traumatized by abuse, violence and/or neglect. Everything related to trauma is frozen inside or exiled from the human psyche, which more often than not, robs us of being present in the moment. Robs us, in many ways, of being present to our lives. At times, robs us from moving at all, can even rob us from doing what must be done, like swooping a child out of harm’s way.

To one degree or another every human lives in some measure of a trance – removed from the here and now.

Instead of being present to the immediacy of the here and now, we humans historically live in our heads, keeping us bound to the relative and limited – and keeping ourselves at a distance from the visceral truth of our lives. Like it or not we are more accustomed to metaphorically talking about eating a peach than actually full-on-experiencing the full juiciness of eating one.

I read a poem by Marie Howe and she, with music in every word, describes her father’s step coming up the stairs – and has, in melodic detail, given us lucky readers the sound and smell and touch of her family’s rebellion and anguish when her drunken father demands middle of the night cleaning.

And not for the first time am I aware, in a rather poignant and life-long saddened way aware of what it means to have very little, if any, real specifics of my early life, closed off from so much around me. Trauma – or should I say the protective phenomena of dissociation . . . being in a trance, can rob us of most sensations. Even more stunning is how trauma can remove us from what is real, what is true, having us, often, confused and lost. I wonder about the millions of seconds that went on between me and my world, what it was like walking to and from school every day, what did the sheets on my bed feel like, what smells came out of my grandmother’s kitchen and what did it feel like to be alive in this world, alive and sentient.

This is a grief I now have words for. I can be amazed at what I had no idea I was missing . . . and yet, some part of me sobs at what couldn’t be known.

So much is clearer from an awakened state.

Awakening to our true nature kindly dissolves the gaps and erases the distancing – inviting everything that has been frozen, cast aside, buried or forgotten back into conscious awareness. Not as a thought or a concept but fully felt and embraced.

But here’s the thing. The pain or the strong feeling or the fear or the fury or the grief that shows up in the defrosting and re-integration does not mean the same thing you might think it means. It is not seen or experienced through any interpretive lens, it is not experienced as resistance, it is not suffering. It is pure in its sensation, albeit possibly uncomfortable, but sure as day it, when welcomed and felt, moves along.

As the sensations are embodied, as the feeling is embraced, (as a frightened or saddened child might be), as the forgotten is viscerally remembered it is all given the freedom to move and to alter and suddenly we likely will be awash in clarity, and wide open roominess, like a cool breeze washing over a vast grassy meadow. The pain or the agony or the constriction, fully experienced, is a game changer.

Bringing us smack into this very moment, as a life lived. Really, really lived. Alive and fresh in every breath. Alive and electric with felt senses. Alive and present to everything and everyone, breath by breath by breath. Wondrously alive.

We can be awake to our state of being at any second. We can be deliciously real with ourselves right now. We can be gently honest each and every moment.

We can, right now, know wholeness – be awake to our true nature.

This was a revelation to me. For most of my life I looked to the heavens for feeling okay; I looked to the transcendent for the longed for rest and, when the real thing poured through my system I came to a profound and embodied realization – I am here! I am okay in the mud, I am at home, viscerally at home, in the mess and the sublime.

Give yourself this gift of letting go of the defenses you have built up over a lifetime – you do not need them. What was once needed for protection is now keeping you small and blind.

Invite back the discarded, the cut-off memories and feelings.

Be brave and take an honest look at how and where you are closed off. Spirituality is the process of stripping away every layer of yourself that is false. It is the process of seeing through the falseness of the small self, the ego and really understanding its constraints and, even more importantly, experiencing its limitations.

Strip away, dissolve and discover another ground on which to stand and take in reality.

See from a new vantage point. Open to the vast field that holds and surrounds all there is; to your deepest nature. Open to Life, life itself: soft, intelligent, wise, neutral, alive (technicolor alive) and infinite Life.

This is what is beckoning you and is the peace that passeth all understanding.

Why can’t we all get along?

I was recently reminded of Rodney King’s words: “Why can’t we all get along?”  Rodney King, a black man, was beaten by white policemen, during the riots in Watts, CA., in the 90’s.

We are still asking that question, and truth be known, have been asking that question in one way or another forever.  

Why can’t we all get along?

Dear god, why can’t we all get along?

The hero gives a wooden sword to 
his son
Until he learns to use a
real battle sword

Human life is a wooden
sword
Until he learns to battle
hurt with mercy

Rumi

Battle hurt with mercy?  To really love, no matter what?  What happens to “all getting along” when our hearts harden?  What happens when it gets to the “it’s you or me” showdown? What happens when someone you do not know or do not like or do not relate to or is not in your tribe or has brought you harm is hurting, is in danger, or simply needs to be heard?  

We tend to experience conditional love – love in bed with fear and with need -  until we know better.  We are open and comfortable when we feel safe, bonded and not afraid.  Introduce the “other” and something else happens.  When we do not feel safe, connected or understood something else happens - love freezes, entangles, and shrinks into fear and into need. 

From a very young age it can be crucial to join our protectors, our people, our caretakers, crucial for our very survival.  You know that feeling you get when you are with someone who agrees with you, thinks like you do, looks enough like you, has similar experiences as you do, sees the world as you do?  The feeling you get when you find your peeps, your tribe.  It has the feeling of all being well in the world.

How easy it is to feel relaxed, open minded and open hearted, when we are with our tribe, our culture, our country or even our sport team. How easy it is to feel comfortable when we are not fighting with our loved ones or friends or when we are feeling healthy. 

But you can be sure that won’t last.  We will certainly come face to face with the other. The other out there; a different tribe, people who look and speak strangely, folks who hold opposing values, our very own family member who refuses to do what we want him or her to do.  

And the other within our very own mind and body.  Who hasn’t come up against big and small conflicts inside their head?  The warring sides/criticism/judgments that go on inside your tired beings. Or the insult you might feel when your body becomes ill or breaks down.  

Then wham bang, some part of you turns away and to some degree you close your heart.  You assume or sense or believe the other is posing a threat to your well being.

Given that we begin life completely dependent on someone taking care of our needs and that we are physically incapable of taking care of ourselves it is easy to see how, as conditioned adults, we believe we might actually die if we are not joined or are at odds.   If not die, then certainly we are in some serious danger. 

Don’t automatically buy this belief.  If you really look you will discover that the belief is insubstantial and is in bed with fear.  

Take a deeper look.  Don’t take it for granted that you are in danger or under threat. Ask yourself what really might happen if you drop your pride, surrender your fear and listen, really listen to the other with an open mind and an open heart?  What really happens when you truly and compassionately listen to yourself – to your internal conflicts and your bodies’ break downs?  

When you really look you can see the belief simply doesn’t hold water. 

And here is the important thing – the real thing:  In our heart of hearts we are unconditional love.  Pulsing through our beings is natural and effortless mercy no matter what.  Indiscriminate love – free flowing love that knows no other – 

Do not buy into the knotted and gnarled defenses and beliefs that keep this unbounded love bent and distorted – defenses and beliefs that actually keep you at a distance from love and life itself.

We are all in this together.  That is how it really is. And nothing short of knowing that in the marrow of our being is going to help us get along.  Really get along, genuinely, kindly and abidingly. 

From moment to moment look deeply into your heart.  Be brave enough to allow your heart to completely open – let it melt, let it break from the weight of sorrow and loss you feel for being at odds with yourself and each other and the earth and the universe itself.  Let your heart expand and embrace every single moment of your daily life, no matter what shows up.

Be still and deeply listen to the truth of this. 

Sit still in presence – wherever and however you find it.  Maybe the practice of meditation opens the door for you, perhaps it is sitting in solitude that allows the quiet voice of your inner knowing to be heard.  Or for some or at certain times it might be being in the presence of someone who is unconditionally accepting. Someone who enables your interior to quicken and come to life.  Court presence, moment to moment, as if your life and love depends on it. 

Want nothing less than falling into full-on-mercy to every hurt, every time, for everyone and everything. Want nothing less than really caring for yourself and every other being.

Sharing a wound

We humans share a wound.  

We share the trauma of believing we are separate, feeling disconnected and alone. We share an agonizing and often stifled cry, as Rumi writes when he gives voice to the reed complaining about its separateness from its source.

“Listen to the story told by the reed
of being separated:
‘Since I was cut from the reed bed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back."

We are all born into a world of change.  A world where nothing lasts forever and nothing stays the same.  We come into a world of unpredictability and uncertainty.

We come into this manifest world whole and at one with everything.  

As young children we turn to the vibrant color of a leaf or flower, we cry when we are hungry or uncomfortable, we stop in our tracks at something that catches our attention, no matter how small or fleeting, we wrinkle our noses at a nasty smell, we are alive to the whole wide, ever changing, world, attuned to the very moment that is happening right now.  

And as we grow we develop into unique personalities.  I, me, mine personalities.  We develop personal narratives – seeing ourselves as standing apart and separate, becoming aware of ourselves as a body and able to think for and about ourselves. I am a girl.  I am tall, I am a brother. I like dogs. 

Over a lifetime we can and do develop marvelous abilities: we can remember our history, we can imagine how things might be tomorrow, we test ourselves and reality with adventures, we think about ourselves and can know how we feel and to varying degrees we can feel confident and “make things happen” in our lives. 

And typically, we lose ourselves into our personalities – we invest in our way of life, we identify as those personalities, and we attach ourselves to the superficiality of who we think we are.  We live as if our personalities are all there is to us. The separate personality, carving out a life, attempting to find some semblance of control and predictability in a world of change . . .and, of course, the ultimate change -  the inevitability of our death.  

We often forget what we came in knowing. We forget the eternal NOW that we were in touch with when we were very young. We forget the innocence of open-to-everything. 

And if and when we go looking – and if and when some hardship cracks open our façade – if and when something breaks our heart – we can finally hear our plaintiff cry for what we have been cut off from.   

And, in our very bones, we will remember:

We are human and we are divine.  We are, in actuality, one, undivided and whole.

We live in a divided world and we can love and be empathic.  We live as unique personalities and we can reach across the divide in our families, in our neighborhoods and in the world, in a real way.  We are tribal and we can be inclusive.  We are human beings and we can know oneness in the marrow of our bones.

This divided world is a “playground”, overflowing with opportunity for growing and for remembering, in a visceral way, that we are, in essence, unconditional love and wholeness.  We can actively embody oneness in every day life.  

From our innate wholeness, we can start with ourselves – loving every part of our sweet, confused and messy humanness.  We can truly accept our foibles and our trespasses as we relate to each other. It is possible.  We can deeply inquire and know our selves as humans; we can have compassion for our self-centeredness.  

And we can extend this kindness and love and acceptance out into the world, especially knowing that the great divides we see – male and female, white and black, powerful and powerless, arrogance and humility towards nature and life – are illusionary, deeply false and truly heart-breaking.  

We can hold, know and embody the whole picture, the transcendence of duality.  We can because we are the whole picture.  We are essentially, undivided. 

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Living from wholeness

What does it suggest to live from wholeness?  Or as Muktananda wrote: “There is boundless love within. Go within and find it.”

It is more to the point to talk about what keeps us from our innate liberation.  What keeps us from going within, from seeking the boundless love we hear is within us?  What keeps us looking “out there” instead of within?  So often it is fear – including, and maybe especially our fear of pain and distress.  

How often are we afraid of feeling fear?  Weakness?  Or anger?  How often do we avoid feeling hurt, disappointment, shame, confusion, humiliation and so on and so on - avoiding ourselves so intently that before we know it we are closed off from our emotions, from how we feel, from the small, quiet voice of our hearts. 

We are emotional/feeling beings and when we turn away from ourselves in this way we are losing much of our juicy-ness.  Like keeping our car in first gear . . . only . . . and missing out on the higher gears.   Chug, chug, lurching along.  Maybe we are staying in first gear for some apparent safety and perceived control sake, but we lose out on the freedom that comes from living life in the fullest way possible, feeling and sensing the wide-open road, feeling and sensing our full selves, being in direct contact with life.  

Fear of:  When we are afraid of feeling, when we turn away from our first, and often our most natural response to some sensation or circumstance we have added another layer that is blocking our direct contact with reality.  Now we are not only distanced from pain or hurt or fear; now we have added debilitating resistance.  Fear of and resistance to is how we do it – it is how we are taught.  It is how humans from the beginning of time have been taught. 

Resistance – the granddaddy of all suffering!  If you want to get a feel for the power of resistance pay attention to how it feels in your body when you say no to something that is already happening – a feeling, a sensation, a circumstance.  Notice the contraction, the tension and the discomfort.  Then pay attention to your body when you lean into and allow what is actually happening, what has already happened.  Your body softens and eases, like a crying child welcomed into a warm and supported embrace.  And this ease, this softening is the opening into more creative and more open ended responses.

Living from wholeness is surrendering and trusting in something higher than our small selves, our limited minds. It is letting go . . . surrendering the ego – the voice in the head that is saying don’t go there, don’t feel, don’t be vulnerable or open. 

It can feel counterintuitive to your way of thinking but when you are devoted to remembering your deepest nature you will allow yourself to break, to crumble and be held. When you surrender into whatever you are feeling in this moment, in its’ rawness, when you stay open to the sensation in your body, including the fear of feeling, including whatever resistance might be showing up, it is likely you will slide deeper and deeper into yourself and into the real heart of the matter.   And you will soften into a different reality, into a more expansive state of being.  Science tells us there is an emergent order as things disintegrate – an entropy that reveals a bigger picture.

We experience an opening in our interior when we allow what is being revealed.  In fact, the mere movement of noticing what you are feeling, what is showing up is powerful in itself.  Bringing presence to a feeling can be transformative.  In the wash of presence, the feeling can, and often does, dissipate, like clouds in the sky.

And yet . . . what about the feelings that do not dissipate?  What about what persists, even though bathed in presence?  

All that is unhealed, unseen, undigested and, especially all that is unloved, is heeding our undivided attention and might be sticking around for a deeper look – for acceptance.  All the repressed, hidden away, tucked into corners of our bodies and minds – the hushed and silenced shame and rage and grief lives within us, consciously or unconsciously.   So, why not listen; truly listen and engage.

Feelings come and go.

Presence is everlasting

Bringing presence to deeper . . . getting honest with oneself deeper . . . encounters are transformative.  Looking with a genuine curiosity – being sincerely open to what is revealed (scary feelings that stick around or come back again and again- deeply embedded habits and patterns) - will open things up and bring in sorely needed spaciousness. 

Having repressed anger most of my life it is deliciously liberating to feel a sense of outrage that might arise in the face of some egregious behavior.  Now that I am not afraid of anger, it is exhilarating to be one with the pure animal energy instinct of oxen’s hooves pawing the ground or horns banging into trees.  I am not only more in touch and more alive, vibrantly alive, but the energy it took to suppress anger is freed up and available.  There is more space. 

Something . . . call it consciousness, awareness, the ground of being, presence, or creative intelligence . . . whatever name you give it . . . is silently holding and infusing every cell of your being, every cell of all matter.  Learn to trust it, giving over time and time again to its’ call and its’ wisdom.  Feel what you are feeling.  Sense what you are sensing and let something deeper and wider speak ITS’ mind. Follow its teachings.  Trust the creative intelligence of expression. 

The conditioned mind tells us something is wrong with us when we feel frightening and vulnerable emotions.  Instead, by turning towards and by turning inward, we are given the opportunity to bring what has been left out or behind into consciousness.  Wholeness is calling us home, inviting us to be as we naturally are . . integrated, undivided, one.  

Die into oneness.

“In all chaos there is cosmos, in all disorder, a secret order.”

Carl Jung

What makes me tick?

What do you know of yourself?  What do you know of your deeper self? Asking the questions, what makes me tick, who am I really, what do I know about being alive can be portals into your very essence.  

In our heart of hearts we humans want . . . hunger for - living free from suffering, free from the ache of depression, the struggle of anxiety, the relentless choke of addictions and the underlying fear and aversion to pain and our inevitable death.  We, consciously or unconsciously seek the truth of what we are beyond our “every-day” selves, knowing our inexpressible suffering from being disconnected from direct contact with life.

And, oh, the irony of ironies about this.  It is in the very facing of this suffering, the very felt sense of this confusion and disconnect that we can find the very peace we desire.   In fact, further irony; it is in running away from our suffering that we sadly create more suffering. 

We come alive, blood flowing through the veins alive when we are free to feel the real heartbreak of loss, the real pain of missing out on your life, and the agony we feel when we crush innocence.  We become acquainted with something essential when we open into direct contact with life, with messy, ever-changing and creative life.

What if hunger, yearning, restlessness, fear, loneliness . . . suffering itself is calling you home to direct contact with yourself – calling you back to your waiting-for-you- wide-open heart?  What if desire and aversion themselves are wake up calls to what you deeply know in your innermost heart and mind?

This freedom from suffering comes from the deeply silent place, from a wide-open heart. We get so lost in our thoughts, our made-up world, lost in the forest of bewilderment and suffering, convinced of our beliefs, we miss the truth beating in our hearts, showing and opening the path to what we truly are.  The primitive/limited human mind cannot see clearly into reality.  It is not possible. It distorts, it is self-serving, by its very nature. Reality is perceived through the quiet small voice of the innermost heart and mind. 

Be brave; be willing to go under your defenses and to admit to yourself when you are hiding, when you do not know.  Listen to what has stayed underground and stay open to spiritual insights . . . be still enough to hear the music calling you. 

Follow the path of suffering, of pain and discomfort – adhere, stay, commit until you find and can dwell in ease.  Feeling lonely, being lonely can be a siren song.  You have looked for something or someone to fill the vast abyss of loneliness.  You have looked for the thing that will make you feel better.  You have looked for the song that will keep you company at night.  Take hold of the notes and delve deeply into yourself, following the sound and the resonance of what you most deeply desire.  When you touch, when you taste the wide-open space of your heart’s desire you will realize how familiar it is.  You will remember wholeness with fondness. 

Stop talking . . . figuring out, attempting to understand or control . . . and listen.  Open your ears to the conch – listen deeply and always.  Listen to the strings and beat of your heart. Listen – there is a drum beat in your being, calling you to yourself.  Turn towards yourself.  Turn towards the unspoken, the unknown. 

Do not be swayed by the noise and chatter of what you have been taught, to the limits of your conditioned beliefs.   Do not be persuaded by what is “out there”.  Turning towards your inner world can be one of the most important movements you ever make.  Something inside might just say “I’ve been waiting.” 

Stop moving and be still. 

“ . . .  and one’s body is filled with desire and one suffers. One does not know and one knows.  Yes, vaguely, one realizes that it would be good, that the world would be beautiful, that it would be a paradise, happiness for everyone and joy.  To be guided by one’s blood, let one’s self be beaten, explored, let one’s self be carried away by the galloping of one’s own blood to the infinite prairie of the heavens smooth as sand.  And one would hear galloping, galloping, beating, beating, exploring, exploring, and the thundering drum beneath the great black palm of the pulsating blood.

     But it would be the dance, the true dance, one would obey, with true obedience.  One would do what the body desires.   All these calls of the blood would be calls of joy. Whereas here, one does not know, one is not sure if one ought.  One knows that one ought, but one dies not stir, one is bound.  And from the hollow of the breast one is also bound, that dance music, and the calling blood, it as though one were torn in two.  Because the poor body no longer knows.  Because the young blood that is just made knows. “

The Joy of man’s Desiring 

Jean Giono