Let’s Go Inside
Love is all around as Valentine’s Day fast approaches. To some it’s a reminder to celebrate the ways that love has shown up in their lives. To others it’s a consumerist holiday manufactured by the flower and chocolate industries. To those with complex trauma it can be a reminder of all the ways in which love was—and maybe still is— absent.
A common misconception is that trauma is only what happened to you and how that impacted you. There is an overlooked piece to the puzzle that has affected my clients just as much if not more so. That piece is what didn’t happen to you—how you were not seen, heard, known, witnessed, held, cherished, adored, and loved. A lack of these experiences can lead to a sense of an inner void or abyss.
A great degree of our suffering is a result of these holes, these inner voids that shape us. We grow around these holes the way a tree grows around its injuries. These inner voids can lead to a mental, emotional, or spiritual emptiness that has us sleep-walking through life, numbing or distracting ourselves because feeling anything at all can become overwhelming, pushing us over the edge.
Neglect can make love exceedingly complicated because there is no reference point, compass, map or guide based on past experience to show us the way back home to a greater sense of connection, attunement, or resonance with another. It’s important to acknowledge this loss, what it meant to your younger self, and how it affects your relationships today. This is a deep injustice that shakes up the very foundation of your sense of Self and Being.
Can love exist after such seismic trauma? Yes and here’s why: you do not need to have past experiences of love to know and experience love. You don’t need a reference point from your childhood. Love is not just your birthright. You are Love. It’s your inherent nature. It may be hard to believe at first but what happened to you has not robbed you of the love that is interwoven into your Being. You do not need to create or cultivate experiences of love and relationship to get back in touch with love (although that can help of course).
Because your natural state is love, you only need to find what is blocking you from accessing its natural flow. These blocks are wounds, burdens from the past, or armor you’ve picked up to bear the unbearable and survive. When those wounds are healed and you’re free from the past, you will naturally reconnect to what has been there all along. You will be living proof of what’s possible—you went to hell and back, you dug your roots down, and at last you can grow to heaven.
Wrestling with the shadows of the inner void infuses your life with greater depth, meaning, and purpose. Parts of you may rightly wish there was never a need to wrestle or descend into your own personal Underworld. At the same time, there can be no true joy, peace, or aliveness without integrating, and even honoring, the full spectrum of your experience—from heaven to hell, from light to darkness, from love to hate, from good to evil, from pleasure to pain. Life paints itself in broad strokes across your Being and it’s up to you to embrace all the colors and turn your Self into the work of art you already are.
Questions
How were you not seen, heard, witnessed, or cherished? How you were not accepted, embraced, taken care of, or taken into consideration? How were you not protected, defended, honored, or challenged with love? How were your strengths and weaknesses, desires and needs, talents and skills, not reflected back to you?
What are all the ways you were not given permission to be your most authentic, bold, creative, thriving self? What are all the ways you were not given the love that should have been (and is) your birth right?
What survival strategies did parts of you use to fight for the love that is your birthright. Perhaps you checked out completely to shield yourself from the pain. Perhaps like many of my clients you became a high achiever, work and accomplishment becoming an island of safety, a refuge from the abyss.
Do you believe love can be after trauma? Why or why not? What if your wounds could be healed and you could be free to love without the overwhelming fear? What if you didn’t have to guard your heart with such vigilance and for so much of the time? What would your most intimate relationships looks like and feel like?
More from Sofia
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4 Keys to Building a Happy Relationship / article
I share with you the four keys to a happy relationship. These keys are meant to serve as maps guiding you on your journey of deepening and expanding your intimate relationships. I believe true intimacy is a place–a field–where you and your partner meet to discover the sacred and meaningful that make life worth living.
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Invitations for Exploration
I'm Reading:
Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health--and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More by Chris Palmer, MD. Chris Palmer, has created a revolutionary unifying theory of mental illness. I'm grateful to see he is receiving greater traction and popularity as his insights on the connection between diet, metabolic syndrome, and mental health can lead to unbelievable transform and healing from the inside out. Healing trauma is one piece of the puzzle, and I know personally and professionally, that what we consume psychologically, spiritually, and physically can either have dire consequences or unlock our body's innate healing potential.
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. This is a classic course that has been recommended to me over the years. Its purpose is to help you reclaim the creative spirit within you. Creating reminds you you are an agent of Life, not only a reactor or consumer. Taking action and articulating a creative impulse reconnects you to a greater power within and beyond regardless of the end result. For trauma survivors, this is critical since disconnection from Self and Source is a root cause of suffering.
I'm Watching:
End of the World Series by Jonathan Pageau. Jonathan Pageau is a unique intellectual and religious scholar. He breaks down current events through the lens of the symbolic world and the ancient traditions of our ancestors. If you’re looking to make sense of the modern world and understand how community and connection can help repair us on individual and collective levels, then this is for you.