A note to anyone who needs to hear it: We don't "get over" or "move on" from our trauma. We are forced to make space for it. We carry it. We learn to live with it. And sometimes we thrive despite it.
Unknown
We are getting our first snow fall of the season and it is lovely out there. A clean white blanket has been gently laid over a tired and weary earth. All the browning, semi-lifeless and bruised offerings are covered up so the world we see temporarily looks fresh and inviting. Hmm.
Regardless if we are ready for it or not, seasons change. What a reminder that is for all us about the the impermenent and ever changing nature of phenomena, the coming in and the going out of all experience.
I have been thinking about past experience.
Trauma From the Past
I had a lovely conversation today with a trusted individual about trauma. I had given this individual just one chapter of my book to read, a chapter based on a trauma memory I had that I have shared with very, very few people. I am at the point, as you may be too, where you are looking back at your past as nothing more than a story, the wake of a boat, that you simply want to stop clinging to. You may want to let go.
I tell myself and others that I want to let go of my past, this idea I have of "me" because of my past. So I wrote this book and have already shared some of it because I felt that sharing it would somehow help me to let go.
So the goal was to "let go". That is an expression we often use in this waking up process, don't we? Yet, how realistic is it, I wonder to let go?
Is Letting Go Realistic?
I am realizing that this trauma has wrapped itself around every muscle, been absorbed by every bone, and is in the RNA of every cell being copied here and there throughout me. Every one of my semi abnormal heartbeats are echoing this trauma. My core beliefs...I mean the deepest and most tenacious beliefs...that guide my everyday decisions and actions have been built on this trauma. It is in me. It is a part of me....whoever this "me" is.
Influenced By the Wake
Letting go, then, on the psychological level is not going to be something I may ever be able to do completely. I see clearly how my past impacts this little "personal sense of self" physiologically, emotionally, socially and mentally...even finacially probably.
Though our pasts, like Alan Watts describes so eloquantly, are merely wakes following a boat our present reaity is impacted by them. The type of winter we have will have an impact on our spring. . True...the wake/past is not driving the boat but on a very human and earthly level, they do have an effect on how we,as these little clumps of flesh, drive that boat...on this level of form anyway.
I can connect some of my present day fears, reactions, choices to what happened back then. I can. Reactions to trauma triggers used to happen so quickly and automatically, I couldn't make the connection right away...but now I see the influence of those old well established beliefs have on my everyday life. I am aware of old feelings under the surface...and though I am releasing more and more of these emotional knots I am aware that striving to release all of them...to let my past and the effect it had on me go completely...is probably not realistic and may in a sense do more harm than good.
Let it Be
This wise person encouraged me to think more about "Letting it be; than Letting it go." And that sat so well with me. Recognizing, accepting/allowing, identifying this experience for what it is everytime I feel the past trickling or splashing into my present...is what I truly want to do. And, as this wise individual I spoke to today pointed out...I really need to nurture myself as I do. Hmm! This is the R.A.I.N. Tara Brach teaches, isn't it?
I may never be able to let go of the damage the trauma has done completely...and striving to do so puts too much pressure on an already tired body and mind. Just letting the past and its consequences be by recgonizing it when it comes up, gently accepting it while feeling compassion for who I was then and who I am now because of it, is very, very doable. Hmm!
All is well in my world.
No comments:
Post a Comment