The Opportunity in Our Pain and Anger
Negative feelings are not a desire for most of us and unwanted by many, but once experienced and examined leads us to our greatness and joy.
When we experience negative emotions such as anger, fear, jealousy, inferiority, and so many more, we tend to get caught up in the feelings and lose our conscious ability to choose a different experience except that of pain and suffering. Sometimes the aftermath can even be worse when feelings of guilt and shame occur.
What purpose do these feelings and reactions do for us? Initially, they were our response to an experience that was perceived as dangerous and possibly even imminent death. They were the drivers to find our way to survive even if in reality there was no danger but many times perceived as such. Learning to survive in the human experience can be so complicated and hard to understand at times.
This then becomes an automatic response to any experience that has enough similarities to the original source of pain so that you can survive again and again and again and…
The biggest catch is that experience which you have learned to survive persists as it is the only thing you know how to survive. The unknown is perceived as potentially even more dangerous. So that the abuse we have learned to survive, both emotional and physical, tends to repeat itself over and over again. Whatever our form of abuse, we tend to attract people that abuse the same way because they are insanely on our survivability list. How many of us continue to attract the same kind of bosses and relationships, and yet so desire it to be different?
Since the experience of not being abused is not on the list of behaviors we can survive, we will find it hard to impossible to find others that will truly support and love us for who we are and our potential to find happiness.
There are many ways of resolving childhood trauma and I have tried many of them. Although they all helped to some degree, the one that worked best for me was doing a reimprint of the original incident – the choices we had available at under 5 years of age. By revisiting that event, we can redefine another way to survive and by doing so we change what it means to be us or meanings of how the world is. This usually requires a skilled person to guide you through this so find the right person for you.
A question I find helpful when reliving these memories is to ask yourself what is truly going on for them, what issues or pain were they dealing with that seemed to make it hard to act in a loving way. If the source of your trauma could have healed their own pain, they would have and would have been an even better parent or person.
When these behaviors repeat again and again, they become the patterns of our lives and we can become lost in the pattern as our unconscious mind takes over. A goal I advise for you is to develop the ability to wake up the conscious mind either afterwards during the pattern of behavior, or right before it starts. In the beginning it almost always starts afterwards. I call it being intensely curious about how I created my rules for life and to view the source of my trauma.
The first thing to ask is, what does this feeling want for me, I mean truly what does it want beyond just surviving. It almost always is some unfulfilled desire or need. Just knowing what specifically that it is or just asking, usually ends the pattern immediately and then you can focus on getting what you want or need.
I also will ask myself that because I learned to survive this kind of trauma over and over again, how did I choose to be in a way that made me stronger and more capable as a result. In other words, what about who I am do I want to preserve and keep as a result of the trauma especially as I learn I no long need to experience in order to survive.
For most of us, we create behaviors and capabilities directly as a result of the trauma that we like and want to keep. Isn’t it time to realize you can keep the ones you like but experiencing the pain is no longer a requirement to keep or further develop those skills.
LATEST BLOGS
COMMENTS
No comments yet.
