An intervention is an action becoming intentionally involved in a difficult situation, in order to improve it or preventing it from getting worse. The Universe is moving to set the ground rules for a face to face reconing, with the assistance of the corona-19 virus, for us humans to take a deep look into the manner in which we have been living our lives. The virus is squeezing and tightening our boundaries, condensing our movements and freedom to the point of straggling our ability to move with freedom and ease within our own neighborhoods, while, trauma, fear, anxiety, and stress has unleashed its destabilizing affects upon our mental health.
This virus has opened and exposed the fact we humans are largely inwardly empty; we are relatively empty vessels. There is no inner fullness from which to give to others, no inner richness of understanding through which we may receive and solve the problems confronting humanity, and thus helping ourselves and others. Instead of unity and understanding there is opposition, strife, quarreling, and inevitable wretchedness, combined with rampant poverty, and unrelenting pain.
My first and foremost curiosity is: How are all of you doing?
This afternoon, my daughter said she felt off. Tired. Unmotivated. Had no inspiration. Didn’t even want to put on makeup— had tried several looks that weren’t working. The makeup part is unusual for her. She is an esthetician and a talented makeup artist.
She asked me if I was feeling off. I told her no. I went on, “You might think mom is being woo-woo, but a veil has been lifted for many of us right now. This veil protected us from certain realities and allowed us to live in illusion.”
I went on, “For some this is an incredibly difficult time. For others it is a time of celebration. I am celebrating. And, it makes sense that you are feeling off— you’ve gone through some big changes.”
Weep, and then smile.
Do not pretend to know something
you have not experienced.
There is a necessary dying…
Very little grows on jagged rock.
Be ground. Be crumbled,
so wildflowers will come up
where you are.
You have been stony for far too many years.
Try something different. Surrender.
~Rumi, A Year with Rumi, Coleman Barks
Btw: Rumi is a fucking gem! If you’ve not read his poetry, find some. If you have, find it again!
Currently, I am not engaged with a large circle of people, but from my small circle, I can tell you EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know has made seismic shifts in the last few weeks. I am also hearing from fellow therapists and social workers that clients are coming in with an unusual amount of challenges and traumas.
Me
For myself, during this time, I’ve faced the deeper, if not the deepest, psychological wound within myself. It is a wound made from neglect. A wound that has caused incredible suffering, and has been passed down to my daughters, and was passed down to me. It is the generational trauma of neglect, which so many of us feel. Which so many of us endure. It is silent. It is insidious. It is ours. Many don’t know it is there. But now is the time to surrender to our childhood, generational and historical traumas. To bear witness to them. To feel the pain, fear, and sadness they hold. To understand them and their message. To release them and be transformed. These traumas need not stay in our minds, our bodies, our souls any longer.
These traumas wreak havoc and prey upon EVERYTHING— from our relationships to the countries we live in. For example, President Trump has an entire closet (and then some) full of unprocessed trauma that is damaging the United States. But, in this post, I am not going to go into that. The focus for this post is to report that the FUTURE IS HERE. The new paradigm, the cosmic shift, the new reality— that some of us have been talking about for a while— happened. In a very real sense, we made it AND there’s more to come.
For July’s Soul Report the message I am sharing to help assist us is: Slow Down & Surrender
June’s Soul Report was also about slowing down, slowing down in order to sense the subtleties of energies, patterns and dynamics. This was to help us prepare for this big shift that has now occurred.
July’s slowing down is about getting clear now that some internal debris has been lifted. It’s about commitment and being conscious participants in our ongoing personal growth and transformation. It is about creating our own Bodhi Tree (under which Siddhartha Gautama became enlightened) moments. These moments are glimpses of insight about who we are and who we are not. These moments build upon each other to become a lighted chain that leads us to greater awakenings of who we really are.
The root of suffering is attachment.
~The Buddha
As I reflect upon my own journey thus far, it is indeed true that the root of suffering is attachment. How I experience attachment comes from a psychological perspective that has to do with attachment trauma. As infants and small children, if we did not securely attach to an adult, we have already made our first step into suffering. If a secure adult did not answer our cries for nourishment, protection and affection, we attach to this trauma. If a secure adult did not answer our questions about life or we were reprimanded when doing so, we attach to this trauma. If we were exposed to a caregiver who was addicted, we attach to this trauma. The list of traumas are many.
As adults we now have attachment trauma. We feel neglected, abandoned and empty. We put out our feelers, literally our feelings of fear and insecurity, and find our fix- the thing to fulfill us. Mine was, and is, a 32-year codependent relationship. For others it can be anything: shopping, success, drugs, gambling……….and the list continues. The cycle also continues. And I, who have spent my entire life living and processing my attachment trauma, want to do whatever I can to help and assist others as many have done for me.
And that my friends, was a tangent, but apparently a needed one.
And brings me to what occurs as we process our traumas: space. Space in our minds. Space in our bodies. Space in our souls. This space allows for generosity for ourselves and every living thing. This space allows for greater efficiency so that when new traumas or challenges come, we can process them more quickly and easily. This space allows for our natural desires and tendencies to surface and create a more satisfying, deliberate and peaceful presence. This space allows us to see, perhaps for the first time, what our burning desire is— that blue flame inside us all that keeps us going and brings us everywhere.
What once kept me going was the desire to fill my empty space. But this was only part of the journey and leads me to discover what actually is within that empty space. I am here now, and I celebrate and anticipate its unfolding.
I am here to process and hold space with any of you moving through these shifts and changes. I am here to answer any questions you might have about this month’s Soul Report.
When so much has occurred, when a life has crumbled, when we find ourselves in transition it is not wise to be so quick to rebuild and configure. It is not wise to fill our lives up with perhaps more of what we don’t want or might burden us in a new life.
For instance my daughter met a dog at the humane society. Its tail between its legs. Its loneliness hooked into hers and she wanted him. She wants to fill her life up, and it would begin with this lonely dog. From here she would need to move out of our temporary residence and into a place that supports this dog and the income from her new job. If this occurred, then she would build a life around taking care of the dog: who will take care of it when she is at work, for example. It will also need vet appointments, dog food and attention.
I tell her from my own experience not to be so quick to fill her life up. I tell myself the same as I look around and see the emptiness from years of a former life that has crumbled and a new life that has yet to begin. Emptiness is uncomfortable for many of us. When I taught classes on clutter, I’d ask the participants to imagine themselves in an empty room. I asked them to pay attention to how they felt in this room. What were their impulses, if any? Did the mind fill the room quickly with things and people or did the room stay empty?
Some people felt relief in the empty room. But more often this exercise brought anxiety. There are unconscious impulses inside of us, which paint a life. If my daughter were to get the dog she would be rescuing a lonely animal, and this is a heartfelt sincere impulse. But, also she would believe that this dog was also rescuing her own loneliness, which is a deep and unconscious impulse, which cannot be satisfied, except temporarily, from anything from the outside world. There are women who have babies because they think they will finally have someone to love them. As those of us who have or have had babies know, we must love them and fulfill their needs and not the other way around.
Another example: my mother, during a time she was losing her home, had me over to help her go through her things. In her bedroom was her chaise lounge. In her former life, where she had lots of money and traveled, this chaise was filled with outfits that would soon be going in her suitcase for one of her excursions. This chaise was always filled. But, with little money left, this chaise was filled only with pillows- lots and lots of throw pillows.
Well, when I looked at her chaise lounge, knowing that she was in transiton and cannot travel as she once did, I see this as an opportunity. I see her on that lounge, reading and enjoying time with herself—perhaps imaging her next chapter. Seeing this image of her, I took the throw pillows off so she could actually sit down. Within minutes my mother found the pillows and put them back on.
In my mind, she could not handle seeing her travels and former way of life going away. She couldn’t see a future beyond this. She didn’t want the space or the possibility of something new. There are many difficult twists, tests and turns in a life, and this one I am personally witnessing is one of the more difficult: to allow this space of emptiness. To see the former life for all that it was in order to understand and make some peace and then to sit and be still silently in that space without allowing our impulse to fill the space.
If we do not allow for this space I can gaurantee one day we will stop and notice our life and see that once again it is filled with obligations, things, people and expeirences that are not enhancing and enriching our lives, but merely filling it up and keeping us stuck and stale.
Spring is on its way, and with it new life. During this transition, it is wise to allow for space. To be thoughtful. To listen and pay attention and embrace the emptiness between what was and what will be. And perhaps, someday we will find all there is, is this S P A C E.
Let’s allow for some freshness, to reawaken us—however long that takes.
The Soul Reporter
This month I am taking names of people interested in one-0n-one sessions, support groups, and classes. The focus of these services is what I wrote about here: taking an investigative look into our impulses—both the conscious and unconscious ones. As we explore, we will gain clarity about who we are, where we’ve been and where we are going next. It is an opportunity to invite in more space in our cluttered lives.
If you are interested, please fill out the form below and I will contact you shortly. (All sessions, groups and classes done online unless in the Twin City area).
The Soul Reporter 