Trauma = unintegrated event that leads to the formation of dysfunctional mental, emotional, and physical patterns
Healing the trauma = integrating the event, releasing the pattern, and regaining the vital energy stuck in it
This morning, oscillating between dream and reality, I reached for my phone, found my way to Facebook, and there, in the foreground, exhibited proudly, beautifully framed, color-coded, in 4 neat little boxes, were The Traumas. I closed the app thinking it was too early for trauma before coffee. As I woke up, however, the chart would pop into my head over and over, with the question *How many people have ever released a trauma by recognizing themselves in a chart?*.
Instead, I've met people who identify with their trauma as if it were part of their business card - Marcel, 43, marketing specialist, father of 2, survivor of cancer/helicopter mom/domestic violence, and so on. But the awareness of an imbalance, its acceptance and healing untie us from it, they don't put it in our pocket as a permanent appendix, a defining part of our being.
When people see a light, a potential for healing, for liberation, and accept it as possible for themselves, they will naturally gravitate towards it.
Any limitation I put on that light - I don't deserve it, it takes years, I have to work hard for it - blocks my access to it, takes it away from me.
Through the lens of these limitations, many people choose to understand themselves better not to free themselves, as it does not seem possible or profitable to the mind that created the limitation, but to improve their current circumstances a little, to gain power over them, redefining them, but remaining in same parameters. For many 'healing' stops at *Done, I know what I have*. In other words *I'm right...this is who I am because of that incident/that person....now I can carry my imbalances content knowing it's not my fault*. The awareness of trauma then becomes the sword with which man more vigorously cuts the bridges to his soul.
If a man who has already identified himself as a victim of his circumstances, of his own life, is given the label of having 'an abandonment wound', he will become the victim of that wound, he will receive it as a new explanation of the lack of sovereignty over his being, and it will strengthen this pattern of his.
In the absence of a potential for liberation, which man recognizes as possible for himself, the identification of a trauma followed by processing will become a justification, another brick in the crooked wall that surrounds the human being, which feels safe like this, but is isolated from life, soul and his inner gifts, locked in a yard, a penitentiary to which he condemned himself.
If I have in front of me a balanced man whose blockage at some point in his life he sees can be dissolved by releasing a traumatic pattern, he will most likely use the understanding of his wounds towards release.
When it comes to public models of liberation that we can trust, we are not in a good place, because most people who have experienced a transformation of the inner landscape are simply enjoying their new life, they don't feel like trumpeting it, you just see them changed, bright, with a light soul.
Those who talk about it the most also have a financial or image interest in their sharing, and even if we admire them, we do not fully trust the veracity of their experiences. On a mental level, I might buy into 'the miracle', because I want to believe that it is possible and that Laura from TV did it, but when Ingrid on Instagram sells me on it, while being seductive, inducing that all the answers are found in her astrology program/ her '5 steps to' book/ her special crystal-therapy, something in me puts the brakes on. Maybe I'll go to her class, repeat her mantras, and delight in her holotropic breath. However, I'll still return to my courtyard with my oppressing walls, because in the absence of trust, as a state, not as a thought, the release of a pattern that brings so many benefits to my mind will not take place.
The patterns we have made for ourselves are loaded with benefits, we have given them power over us believing that because of them we get something of value, often an infantile version of safety. If I have a pattern of anger related to stating my wants and needs, the mind believes that without that anger everyone will trample over me, as if there are no other states - of peace, firmness, ease - with which I can communicate the same things. As if without the redness, the hot sweat, my increased pulse, and the indigestion I'm left with afterward, people wouldn't hear me or believe me. *Anger keeps me safe.* - No! My common sense keeps me safe, discerning what, when, and how to communicate, and when to cross the street. My state of presence gives me the information I need to make clear judgments and feel what is appropriate in each situation. But we give anger or fear or stubbornness the laurels of our safety when, in fact, they belong to ourselves and the creative parts of us that somehow still survive in the closed space of the penitentiary.
The gifts we manifest in the world and our lives are all ours, just as the patterns are all ours, we are their owners, not their victims. All the patterns we have made for ourselves are in our service, but they serve different parts of us, different aspects of us.
Most of the patterns are practical and easy, they don't burden our minds with learning over and over again how to drive, open the door, at which counter to pay, how to make stew, etc. When a pattern is rigid and heavy, when we see that it hurts us and yet we continue it, it serves an aspect of us that we don't accept, that we fight, that we hide from, that we maybe hate.
To release a pattern and integrate an aspect, the state of presence is first required. So we go to a specialist most of the time - because it is immensely difficult to maintain a state of presence in front of a pattern that triggers a myriad of mental, emotional, and physical triggers. Therefore, we reach out for support and it sometimes happens that we are facilitated by someone who cannot sustain a state of clear presence at that moment. It might be there, and yet we do not feel it (for the presence is felt, not thought/believed), or trust it, so we partially open up, we lie, we cover up, we don't let the core issue surface.
The state of presence gives us that safe space in which we can see new potentials for ourselves because it goes beyond judgment and limitations. It's like clear water where you can see the bottom of the lake, the fish, the rocks. In clear water, you step with confidence because you see clearly through it, the same as with the state of presence. Safe space isn't about gentleness, coddling, or understanding, it's just a transparent, honest reflection of our creations. The more we free ourselves from dysfunctional patterns and integrate the aspects they serve, the better able we are to maintain this safe space within ourselves. By seeing without distortion what we create, we can choose consciously, with discernment, beyond judgment, where we are headed with these patterns - do they serve us easily or not? is it time to release them, and make room for other experiences?
From this safe space of presence, of clarity, we choose what we will do with our patterns, our aspects (whether they were formed after a trauma or not). Can we be so bold as to forgive them, release the struggle with them, the hatred, the anger, the judgment towards them and welcome them back Home into our being with compassion and acceptance? This choice of honoring the Life that we Are will integrate and release them. It will allow us to use all the resources and vitality put into them into another creative expression of ourselves that will delight our soul and serve us smoothly, and harmoniously in our life experiences.
Thus we will become the embodiment of a freedom potential for others, not by what we say about our experiences, but by who we are, and what we radiate around us. This was illustrated to me just yesterday when the gentleman who came to repair my oven told me about Mrs. Joana, whom he had known for years from the spare parts store.
She had a reputation for being high-strung, sarcastic, giving snappy answers to questions, and generally being apt at starting a fight. At first, people didn't pay attention to her - that's just the way the woman is - but in time, they started to look for pieces in other stores to avoid Mrs. Jo, because after all, who needed to sit in the tension and the explosions of her displeasure. At one point the lady from the store disappeared from her job, for a year, no one knew where she went and what happened to her. When our lady returns to her post, all the craftsmen come, curious as to what she's doing, where she's gone, and who will get their head chewed off - the vital work gossip.
Mrs. Joana, however, was unrecognizable, she seemed like a different person. A wide smile that had never been seen before decorated her face, a kind, open look overtook her manner and she didn't seem to mind any of the dozens of small things that used to wind her up. She took time to explain to the uninitiated how to use the parts, which is more suitable for which model, protecting beginners from making mistakes. That's how a new era of advertising began for Mrs. Jo, because she became famous again in their circle, this time for the Great Transfiguration.
No one asked her how she changed or what had happened to her because they didn't dare and, from what I saw in my storyteller's eyes, they preferred the mystery, as it had the hope hidden in it that maybe it's a miracle that can happen to anyone at any time. They didn't want to see the shadows and hardships that Mrs. Jo went through for the Great Transfiguration, somehow it was enough that it was possible.
Often the light of a new potential is enough and it's all we can offer the world, honoring the choices of those around us. The seed of that potential will remain grounded in the soil of other people's reality, and when the rain, sun, and nutrients meet in the right proportions it will serve to begin their journey to their own Great Transfiguration.