Becoming
Whole
“We pass
through the present with our eyes blindfolded. We are permitted to
sense and guess what we are actually experiencing. Only later when
the cloth is untied can we glance at the past and find out what we
have experienced and what meaning it has.”
Milan
Kundra (Laughable Lovers)
There is much that we
realize only in retrospect. It is not that we are blind to our
surroundings, but in the moment we are too busy experiencing them to
parse the meaning. As children, we can live in extreme circumstances
and not realize its impact until we reach adulthood. A great deal of
adult behavior is predicated on childhood experiences that, at the
time, simply did not register. Most of our anxieties, insecurities
and phobias formed in childhood, and because we don't remember
precise incidents, or because the underlying cause was so pervasive
and “normal,” we don't tie the two together. Feelings of not
belonging, not fitting in, not being smart enough, or handsome
enough, or rich enough don't end when we grow up and educate
ourselves. They creep out at unexpected moments and cause bizarre
behavior. A similar circumstance may happen—a snub, a hateful
glance, a snide comment—that triggers the feelings we felt in
childhood and we react accordingly. Regardless of how accomplished we
may have become, how proficient, this is universal—the only
question is are we conscious of it, or not. Do we realize, “okay,
that's my stuff again,” or do we place the blame outside ourselves.
Becoming whole requires
that we reclaim our lost pieces. To do that, we must become
self-aware—that is, we must separate out what is us from what is
not us. This is not as simple as it sounds. Many times, when a
“weird” feeling arises in us, and we don't know why, or where it
came from, we project it onto someone else. They caused it, so the
solution must be to get rid of them. When we are carrying unconscious
trauma, the same type of weird experiences keep happening over and
over. We keep choosing people who are of the same ilk as the one we
just got rid of, or we choose the same environment that we just
walked away from. Sometimes we are still unaware that they are
similar and that we are repeating a pattern. Those repetitive
experiences, however, are a good indication that the problem resides
with us, and not outside of us.
This may sound like a lot
of mumbo-jumbo, but I promise you, it's for real. Until we explore
our own psyche and get to the underlying causes of our fears and
personality quirks, they will persist and repeat. It's worth doing
the work, even though the work can be scary and difficult at time.
The way to stop the repetition and change the pattern is to become
aware of it, to acknowledge the unconscious experience underpinning it,
and how it affects our behavior today. Once we get good at
recognizing the trigger and the feelings it evokes, the trigger no
longer has power over us. When we can integrate the experience into
our consciousness, we become more substantial emotionally—less
fragile, less reactive, more whole. The more whole people we have
walking around on this planet, the less violent and more peaceful it
will become. That's what we all want, isn't it?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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