Healing

This is an idea that can be easier to teach than to live. When those emotional triggers are hit...ugh. And at the same time, that's the important piece to remember...it's an emotional trigger...not something wrong with me.

I started reading a very interesting book on trauma and the author reveals a powerful nugget in the introduction about relational trauma, a repeated, ordinary event that "is too abrasive or confusing for us to fully absorb them." (Judith Blackstone, Trauma and the Unbound Body). It happens to all of us, especially in childhood. The key is to bringing light to those events so they no longer carry the emotional trigger.

A key emotional trigger for me is saying something and knowing it is accepted by someone, namely someone close...spouse, family, friend. I'm not looking for anyone to agree with me, simply accept what I say. For a touch more clarity, it is about things I share connected to me, personally.

When I sense that what I say is not accepted, I cringe on the inside...waiting for the "punishment"...the dismissal, the "you shouldn't feel that way", the eruption, the iciness, the attempt to fix it and make it something different...in other words...the rejection.

It can take some serious heart-centering to get me through moments that have a more vulnerable sense of rejection to them. I also need to remember to be gentle with myself for somebody else's response does not need to become my work. The other side of the gentleness comes in knowing that this is a dance that I know the steps very well to. I continually explore where the root of this lies. Gentle curiosity. Always. I need to remember that someone else's rejection of my words does NOT mean that there is something wrong with me. It simply means that my sharing triggers a relational trauma within them.

There is nothing wrong with any of us. We all have stories that need to be told. We all have experiences that have shaped who we are and how we respond to situations.

Acceptance is a key to deep healing.

Accepting my story.

Accepting your story.

Accepting my response.

Accepting your response.

We are all navigating the best we can with the tools we have. There is nothing wrong with us...only uniqueness that needs acceptance.