Facing Pain: The Spiritual journey

I have previously reviewed the Untethered Soul by MichaelSinger.  Singer throughout the book invites us to notice the ways we avoid our own pain.  In one chapter he talks about what if you had a thorn in your body that you orchestrated all of your efforts to not have touch anything so you would not feel the pain.   In another chapter he talks about the way dogs can be put on a collar that when they reach an invisible boundary will shock them (mildly) so that they don’t try to go there any more.  He says that this is how we live…not going towards activities that cause us discomfort.  He continues, that all of our efforts to control the events in our lives is again an attempt to avoid certain feelings.

As a therapist I know that when people have PTSD that they will avoid activities, places, and emotions that remind them of their trauma.  But the thing is, as Singer points out, we are all this way.   We don’t want to do things that embarrass us or might make us look bad, or just simply bring up emotions that we find uncomfortable.  I think with pride of my daughter who has never developed much a bicycle habit and deliberately is choosing to take the challenge of trying to do much more riding with her boyfriend who is a very active cyclist.   Most people finding themselves not skilled at something, in the company of someone more experienced than they will shrink back.   She also must face painful memories of how her father acted as she learned to ride, and other traumas.  But she is determined.  As has frequently been the case in her life she is an inspiration to me because I know I have avoided physical activities that I did not feel that I was good at.

Singer says: “Spirituality begins when you decide that you’ll never stop trying.  Spirituality is the commitment to go beyond, no matter what it takes.”  He describes being mindfully aware when you encounter your discomfort, recognizing it as your “edge”…your self imposed limit to your own cage.  And then he says you deliberately go beyond so you are not controlled by fear or your own suffering.  I have previously written about Tara Brach’s teaching around facing our fears.   What a crazy notion right? Going right towards our fears, not being controlled by our fears.

I see now that I have been avoiding something…perhaps for years, maybe for a life time.  In the past month I have paid a price both monetarily and in hassle because I did not want to face this something.  But eventually my own grasping efforts to avoid it ran out and there I was.   And you know what is funny?  It was not bad, in fact it brought me into deep connection with my own soul.   I also look back at the memories and feelings I thought it would bring flooding up, and they are there but I realize “hmm they are sort of photos of a not very good day.”  They simply don’t have the power they did when I was experiencing them originally.

What are you afraid of?  What might you have to feel if you went towards that which you are afraid of?  And what might happen on the other side of that fear?

Samskara

I have been reading the book The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.  Singer explains aspects of meditation in very Western ways, thus making it very accessible to the Western mind.  In the book he explains the Sanskrit word Samskara in the following way:” a Samskara is a blockage, an impression from the past.  It’s an unfinished energy pattern that winds up running your life.”  As a therapist this fascinates me because I know that when someone goes through trauma they wind up with PTSD.   I would describe PTSD much the way Singer describes the trapped energy of Samskara “When a Samskara is stimulated, it opens like a flower and begins to release the stored energy.  Suddenly, flashes of what you experienced when the original event took place rush into your consciousness – the thoughts, the feelings, sometimes even the smells and other sensory input.  The Samskara can store a complete snapshot of the event.”  This is exactly how I would describe PTSD, (minus the flower opening – way to beautiful a description for a PTSD flashback which is usually very painful.) 

 In the therapy community it is usually acknowledged that there is big T trauma (near death or annihilation of self experiences) , but that all of us have small t experiences: experiences of loss, humiliation, fear, hurt that we also carry inside us.  EMDR (Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing) is considered the treatment of choice for PTSD.   It is a process that through bi-lateral stimulation (rapid eye movement right and left, or tapping right then left side of body rapidly) while focusing on the trauma memories creates a brain state that allows the person to re-evaluate the stored painful memory and release the negative conclusions and patterns that have been accumulated over it.  Singer describes how through mindfulness one can watch our energy, can watch how certain stimulate trigger old memories and feelings (Samskara) and rather than blocking off to that which is arising one can simply notice and release it.

This all related in an interesting way to a spiritual issue for me.   My ex-husband was a pathological liar and an alcoholic.  As a result much drama and painful experiences took place, especially involving ways he brought our young daughter in to his dramas.  I worked over and over to forgive him because I did not wish to carry anger or pain with me (or Samskara would be a better way to explain it).  But every time I did a new incident would occur.  I eventually felt he had created spiritual damage to me.  (I did not have words for it, but it was Samskara; I was aware that I was less trusting and less open hearted and I was sad about that.)  I have watched my daughter grow into an open hearted person and felt fear for her as to what injuries she was leaving herself open to.

As I sat reflecting upon all this, trying to see how to open my heart and release these hurts and noticing my own resistance, I watched the familiar litany of complaints against him; the unalienable sense I had arrived at 25 years after knowing him that I simply could not even interact with him any more because it was so toxic.  But this time I tried to just “observe it all” just notice it all.   Suddenly I noticed with my now adult and completely amazing daughter sitting beside me that one of the greatest experiences of my life has been being her mother.   I realized that without him in my life I would never have had this experience or have know this amazing soul!  I realized that I had closed off the energy, held the hurt because my relationship with him had started (like all do) in beauty and hope with a promise of a great witness to all around us about redemption, and then it felt as if he had betrayed all that promise in trade for a bottle of alcohol.  It felt like the limb I had gone out on in marrying him (risking the disapproval, judgement and rejection of all kinds of people) had simply snapped off.   I realized that it was my own attachment to the picture of what I thought my marriage would be, and subsequent stubborn refusal to re-evaluate it for anything other than him “ruining” what it was suppose to be, that had kept me from noticing what the event really was: the introduction of a great blessing into my life – my daughter.

I reflected as well on earlier Samskara from earlier in my childhood which also set me up to push against life’s hardships rather than soften, observe them, notice their gifts, remain unattached to them, etc.   So the spiritual problem of forgiveness which I have struggled with for years, turns out to be more about staying open to the moment, releasing my preconceptions or expectations, being willing to discover what life is really presenting me, not what I ordered up or wished for.