A Lesson Thirty Years in the Learning

 When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace  is disturbed to no avail. 

Seng Ts'an, Third Chinese  Patriarch 

So...on yesterday's long winded entry,  I wanted to say that though my intention was to encourage a reexamination of the benefit of hope in our spiritual evolution,  it also allowed for some personal insight to surface. I realized upon writing, much more than I intended to, that  I am still stuck there.  

As much as I talk about living in and appreciating the now, at the mere thought of "chest pain", I am still pulled back to something that began 30 years ago. I still have that emotional pain  stuck within me like a knot tangled around my insides. It is probably more life limiting, more  detrimental to my health than the angina is.  It gets triggered so easily and I react so strongly  whenever that pain, that so wants to come out and be done with me, comes up.  My initial reaction is to reflexively attempt to push it back down so that I don't have to experience it  coming out. 

Pain On Top of Pain

It is the "shame" feeling I think, that is the hardest for me to deal with and that "shame" goes beyond that health seeking  experience.  In fact, that experience triggered some deep shame that was already in me long before I started getting chest pain. So I actually have a shame- upon -shame -kind -of -squishing-down- thing going on, a trauma over a trauma. I can see so clearly what Michael Singer is talking about in the below video. 

A Mind Disturbed

I created a very disturbed mind by reacting to my circumstances in the way I did. When the pain of childhood trauma was meant to flow through me as all emotion, all thoughts, all energy is meant to do... it, instead,  got  deeply stuffed within me. It was too painful then for my little mind...so I suppressed and repressed, pushing it out of conscious awareness. I actually fooled myself into believing it went away, when it actually remained, all along,  very much a tender, receptive-to- triggers part of my personality.  When  I encountered what I encountered in my health seeking ...it got poked,  triggered to the point it started to come up again and again. My mind said, "Too much pain!"   It convinced me, without words, that I  could not deal with the initial trauma, and therefore I could not deal with the trigger either...so I pushed that down too. I resisted.  

My resistance did not benefit me or others in my family.  And by my resistance, I mean  my inability to allow my emotional pain to just be expressed. I judged it all as "too painful", therefore "wrong, bad, shouldn't be". 

A Lesson Thirty Years in the Learning

Though these external events  were indeed extraordinary and very challenging by anyone's standards, I clearly see now how my resistance only made it all worse.  Like Annie, I encountered some difficult times and rainy weather,  and have  been at the receiving end of what could be viewed as "unjust"  judgement and treatment from  some  less than conscious human beings attempting to preserve their own egos. Still,   I could have probably dealt with it all in a much healthier way. I was, however, too busy, at the time,  "reacting" to the way it triggered old trauma while I went about resisting the resistance, to see that. 

 Could I have changed the situation, changed those personalities, made them see my truth, and  gotten what I wanted and now know I deserved if I responded rather than reacted?  Maybe not... but I could have had a lot more peace in my life, a lot less trauma and a lot less suffering if   I "surrendered" sooner and learned to relax into what Life was giving me. 

When I first noticed the external assumption and judgement was being formed about me and observed how it was getting in the way of "my" truth as I presented with my very real symptoms , instead of saying, "Oh No!  This shouldn't be!", and beginning a desperate effort to make people see my truth...maybe I could have done something completely different.  Maybe, I could have taken a step back to see it all with a deeper perspective that went beyond mind and body. Maybe,   I could have said, instead,:

"Ohhh...this is what Life is offering me for an experience now. Wow! This is different. . I don't understand why this is unfolding the way it is unfolding but it's okay.  I trust  that I do not need to change what I don't understand about Life.  Maybe instead of trying to change it, fix it, control it in some way, I will just witness what  is happening inside me because of it? I will experience all of it."

" Okay...I can see that hurts.  I feel shame.  I feel frustration.  I feel confusion.I feel fear.  I feel a lack of trust. I feel devalued, diminished, unseen.  I feel punished. I see how this experience  is poking at some old wounds, wanting me to react.   Hmm! It feels strange, not pleasant....part of me really, really wants to resist this .. but I won't react. I will allow each of these feelings their time with me, watching them as they pass through.  I won't judge them as "bad" and push them down and away. I will experience it all...and then just observe it as it goes. I won't cling to any of it either. I won't  grasp for pleasant  experiences to distract with and ease the pain. I will just feel and experience it all. This is what living Life is all about...experiencing fully the 10,000 joys as well as the 10,000 sorrows. "

" I won't waste my energy hoping that "they" will see the truth and that things will be better  tomorrow. I won't distract myself from feeling and dealing with the unpleasant in my present.  I will notice, allow and accept this experience to be whatever it is, knowing that my peace is not dependent on any condition outside myself.  I will observe, and participate in this life experience without judgement or expectation,  finding meaning in it as I do."

" I won't get lost in this false notion...that I have  to "do" something about it. I mean, I will continue to speak my truth and seek what this body and mind needs and deserves but I will not struggle against what is or "fight" to make people change their minds about me. I will not spend my Life fostering thoughts of blame and injustice either , nor will I live as a victim.  They may or may not ever see my truth  and they may or may not ever  help me. That is beyond my control.  All I can do is speak what is true for me. The rest is up to Life."

"Sure it is painful but it doesn't have to advance to full blown suffering.Whether or not I suffer here, is up to me. Awareness, I have learned, is the true antidote to any state of altered well being. As long as I remain aware, allow Life and all she puts in front of me  to be what it is, this pain and all things with it ,will pass. That is the nature of things.  It comes in and it goes out. I will relax into this experience knowing that for now, (which is the only time that matters, in fact it is the only time there is) it simply is what it is and it is all perfect."

Wow that would have been a game changer, wouldn't it have been?  If I would have let go and stepped back in the beginning and allowed Life to take care of things...things could have been a lot different.  Maybe I would  still have chest pain...maybe even have  succumbed to it because I would not have gotten the diagnosis' and treatment I did eventually get for some of it... ( if that is what Life had in store for this body)...but...but   I would not have the big   fat folder  I now have full of tests that show "some" but not "enough" evidence to warrant the help  I felt I needed at the time  and that supports the  rationale for other's assumption about me.  And I would not have spent thirty years living in shame and fear.  My getting in Life's way, I see so clearly now,  actually made the situation worse on the physical plane. On the spiritual plane, however, ...didn't matter one bit what I did or didn't do for who I truly am is just a "happening" as well , an ever unfolding process just like all the other happenings  that unfold in front of me. It's just Life!

All is well in "my" life.

Michael Singer Podcast ( July, 2021) Spirituality: An Exploration of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E

Warren Weinstein (n.d.) Third Chines Patriarch: Hsin Hsin Ming https://home.csulb.edu/~wweinste/HsinHsinMing.html#:~:text=The%20Great%20Way*%20is%20not,for%2C%20or%20against%2C%20anything.

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