Positive Energy Guide

It makes perfect sense that intuitive people respond more to global events. We feel them. If you think about it, you will see that intuitive people, when other factors are the same, go through life changes more quickly than average. Seeing through into what is going on, and being able to grasp the life lessons within situations and relationships makes for a faster response.

We all say “I’m not going to do THAT again” sometimes. Intuition increases your ability to tell at the start whether a situation is actually new or THAT again. If we THINK it is different but it is not, we stay stuck. If we think it is the same and it is not we remain rigid with respect to it–defensive—and do not engage in it and grow. It follows that flexible, intuitive people grow faster. This accelerates life changes.

Speedy life changes are not particularly comfortable. Poise through change demands spiritual detachment and works-over the ego as we become self-aware through new experience. This is hugely true during transformation. So when the world is changing quickly, those of you sensitive, positive people who are looking for constructive ways to improve your lives and the world are often uncomfortable.

In response to the world changes, those of us who are able, are becoming more open to compassion, more aware of others, and keener to the preciousness of life. We long to use our hours and days for something truly meaningful. Uncertainty about the potential duration and quality of our lives makes transformation a much more immediate goal than it is in times of inner peace. These choices accelerate the pace of change even more.

The process of becoming aware IS exposing. Consider the first post of this series, with the list of personal traits and issues that pop into awareness as awareness expands.

Another reason some feel exposed is a side-effect of feeling so directly connected with the rest of the world. It’s as if we can no longer effectively hide out at home to get a break from external energies. One highly intuitive client said she felt “very exposed and vulnerable.” She found some relief in long periods of time alone.

A lot of energy-sensitive folk are spending periods in isolation lately. As one highly-aware friend put it, “I’ve had a few days where I’d just as soon take a beating as pick up the phone.” I could relate, even if I could not indulge.

Feeling vulnerable runs the gamut between wondering whether one will still have a house, a job, a family, our health, or a life by the time the world quits bucking, to feeling floating anxiety in resonance with the pervasive and ambient feelings of others. This is in addition to our internal, personal response to major change. If the way that you receive internal guidance is also in flux, you may have intermittent access to the clarity on which you usually rely.

I will take up the topic of inner guidance and life direction in some subsequent posts. The next post details specific experiences energy-sensitive people experience when planetary changes sweep the globe.

If you can use this period of change to transform YOUR life, what would you like to create?
What is precious or meaningful to you?
Can you see a way to aim yourself toward what you value, using the current disruption to your advantage?

The same energies that are actively altering our physical and societal world are of inestimable use for transformation and awakening.

Energies that stimulate profound change can cause restlessness and exhaustion. Alterations to our personal energy require energy to adjust to and assimilate.

As we explored in Part 1 & 2, we are not immune to the energies that change the planet.

Energies that cause radical change make us want to change too. We are less willing to tolerate situations—in the world and in our personal lives—that go against what we feel is right. We may be less likely than usual to tolerate restrictive or annoying circumstances.

When specific types of energy are prevalent, we tend to drum up a feasible story in order to make sense of our experience. As an energy worker I observe that when certain types of energy are around-and-about at a planetary level, a large percentage of clients show up distressed about related emotions and sensations. When fiery energies are taking place clients come in angry and frustrated–and find a “reason” in their lives to explain.

Sometimes we simply search through our experience for a supposed “reason” to make sense of what we are experiencing. Other times the ambient energies add fuel to the fire of what we already have burning.

Anxiety is usually easy to find “reason” for. Spacey energies may be more challenging to explain away, unless someone has been missing out on sleep. Knowing “what is going on”—even if the explanation does not acknowledge the primary cause—is easier for most of us to deal with the great unknown. Consider the way superstitions have seemed safer than the fearful void of having no idea WHY.

Carolyn Myss describes trauma as “A trauma is something that has happened to you that your reason cannot understand.”

“Our myths are being dismantled.” This trauma calls us into transformation.

Carolyn goes on to observe that “Spiritual Awakening is a trauma.”

I have been discussing these formulations with clients and friends, who find them enlightening. In this blog series I expand on these useful observations, extending them into the context of “subtle” energy. (I used quotes because some of the energy these days is not so subtle.)

The first step is . . . backward.

Step back and notice the connection between the world situation and your personal experience. While obvious if we really think about it, most of us initially do not connect the dots between World and Self when we feel out of whack. Personal and Universal are customarily viewed as opposite categories. Culturally, we rarely link them. Even the fact that these polar experiences are becoming mixed together in our experience carries an element of trauma. It’s a breakdown of an old worldview.

Questioning faith goes along with the territory in the process of transformation. Alterations to core beliefs is almost always somewhat traumatic, particularly when loved ones cannot support changes we are called forth to integrate into new life expressions.

A clear-sighted and intuitive friend said, “I feel that old ways are dissolving around me.”

An energy-sensitive client describes her experience: “It’s like being pulled out of one world into another and all the rules change—and you have to figure them out. You don’t know what they are until you bump into them.”

You have to figure basic things out instead of simply living into them as we do with established structures and habits. This takes focus and energy. At the same time your ability to focus may be compromised by odd shifts and changes, and alterations in the ways we perceive guidance. Part of the trauma is not knowing how—or whether–to respond at a practical level.

Radical change takes energy. Your energy fields, meridians, and subtle energy structures take time to accommodate and assimilate these changes. The vast majority of people who walk through my office door have been unaccountably exhausted. The effort of trying to understand the incomprehensible can be draining.

I think it is safe to say that the majority of people on the planet are having some serious concerns at this point, whether it is about rising water levels, water pollution, banking, housing, employment, war, or planning ahead. We are becoming aware of our vulnerabilities collectively. This is reflected in our personal experience.

In Part 4 we’ll explore specifics about global change and energy-sensitive or intuitive people.

What are YOU learning about yourself and the world during this time of change?
What do you feel is important for you to create, achieve or release in your life while you have a chance?

How do the changes going on in the world impact our personal energies? We think about housing, money, oil, water, food, and pollution. Let us also begin to consider the subtle impacts of monumental and global change:

Conversations with clients and friends are revealing to me that most of us underestimate the extent to which we are impacted by world events. Changes that impact our personal energy fields are highly subjective–yet more important than one may think at first glance.
If you have a home, a job, and your family is okay you may not recognize the extent to which world changes impact your day-to-day experience.

Changes in the world we live in present new choices. Small changes such as banking options or Facebook format do not rock our world—until they accumulate speed and combine with enormous world changes. Constant change in simple things we have taken for granted can cause overwhelm and over-stimulate us.

“Choices equal change.” (Carolyn Myss) Change forces choice. As our available options change our previous choices are no longer available. We have to rethink things. Here again we see the circular relationship between transformation and awareness, since having to make new choices makes us more aware.

When internal changes–no matter how vague or undefined–challenge basic assumptions about the world this is a type of trauma. (See Part 1)

Think of a time when you were really hungry and absolutely nothing you could find seemed fit to eat. You might feel really stirred up and restless. Feeling a need and having no idea how to satisfy it is, in a very minor way, a kind of trauma.

Have you ever discovered that something you believed in wholeheartedly or took for granted was untrue? Your realization may have taken the form of a betrayal, loss, disillusionment, or the failure of a system, like a religion or the legal system. Situations that force us to rethink everything, wondering where we went wrong and why unimaginable things have happened are traumatic. They throw us into uncertainty and confusion and disrupt our sense of stability.

The severity of trauma does not depend on external factors. When I was raped at 19 the worst part was that the legal system let the guy go. Rape had been verified at the hospital. I had been robbed, and police told me the rapist had assaulted other women but the case was dismissed. Discovering that society allows this and feeling unsafe all the time were infinitely more painful to assimilate than the physical event. I had to work with this disillusionment for years.

Things we do not understand cause a degree of trauma. Some adopt belief systems to make sense out of experience. If these belief systems collapse we feel intense trauma. Right now we do not understand what is happening in the world and many do not feel safe.

Culturally we are accustomed to leaving the world outside our doors, peeping now and then via technology, which we could turn off at will. Technology now streams into our homes on the airwaves. We can turn off our myriad technological linkages, but cannot insulate ourselves. The actual energy of world-rocking events comes through our walls with the same ease as wireless technology, radio waves, ionized air, radiation, and innumerable yet-to-be-defined influences that connect us. That the world is all One is not spiritual rhetoric. It is molecular fact. We are steeped and stewing in the changes that rock the world.

Impacts to our personal energies differ depending on the specific frequencies of the energies that flood the earth. Forces and frequencies real enough to cause sun spots, solar flares, aurora borealis, earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, extreme weather, and tsunamis can and do impact human energy fields. The manner and extent to which we are impacted depends on our unique personal balance, resilience, sensitivity, strengths and weaknesses, chemical and nutritional composition, stress level, and so forth.

We are not the same. Some of us thrive when others decline from stress. The stronger the influences, the more of us feel stress. Current influences are very strong. Even if you are someone who thrives during massive upheaval and change you know and love others who do not. Through bonds of compassion and the energies that link us with those we care about we are bound to feel something. Energy-sensitive people who resonate with those in trauma mirror that distress.

In Part 3 and 4 we go on to explore exactly what you might be experiencing and how you can use your experiences to enhance your life.

How sensitive are YOU to events that impact Earth?
Which kinds of change impact you the most?
How does your sensitivity show up for you?

In this post series we explore the way major world change impacts energy-sensitive people.

“Spiritual Awakening is a trauma.” I was surprised, intrigued, and inspired to hear this comment from the spiritual thought leader Carolyn Myss.

Some of you may need definition and background for the rest of the series. Let’s jump right in and define my use of terms so the rest of the series will be smooth sailing:

Transformation means moving quickly into and stabilizing within a more-inclusive state of awareness. (My definition for this context.)

“Awakening means becoming aware of our relationship to power.” (Carolyn Myss)

Huh? Okay, that threw me too when I first heard it. It takes a bit of thought because it’s such a tight summary. I’ll unpack it, the way I see it. The list below refers to experiences that we may lose power to or attempt to have power over.

Awakening/Self-awareness involves becoming aware of:

• all emotions, including so-called negative emotions
• wounds to self-esteem and how we compensate
• the extent to which we use possessions, roles, or positions to define ourselves
• how honest we are able to be with about who we are
• how we manage our personal needs in relation to others, such as whether and why we give up parts of ourselves in an attempt to secure intimacy
• any posturing we do to try and control our image and the way others view us
• hidden motivations and unconscious drivers that influence how, when and why we attempt to get what we want
• what we are willing to give up to get what we want or to be right
• how our energy and body language communicates needs and requirements to others
• our degree of willingness to use force or impose our will
• our level of moment-to-moment awareness about the way our self-assertion impacts others

The state of being spiritually awake includes being awake to what we are up to and why. Awakening is the opposite of denial. Full self-awareness and presence in the moment require awareness of the above.

Confronting and assimilating the initial realizations that accompany self-awareness takes tremendous compassion and the ability to observe neutrally, without condemnation. As we explored in the Forgiveness Series, compassionate acceptance is key. Our patterns run for cover into the unconscious instead of remaining available to view unless we are able to bring forth love in the face of them. Once we are able to do this for ourselves we can also view the same behaviors in others without withdrawing love.

Considering this list you can see the role authenticity and humility play in Awakening. In a very real sense, full authenticity IS personal power. The power to be fully one’s self is far greater than false power associated with domination and control.

Authentic power includes awareness of what we are serving from moment to moment. Unconscious patterns allow the Shadow (unconscious) elements to drive.

In psychology we pursue understanding to better our life, using a rational approach to feeling and motivation, often by looking for answers in our personal pasts. We are, however, much more than the sum of our pasts.

In spirituality, we seek to expand awareness through heart-centered, intuitive and energy-based methods of connecting with the Greater Whole. The Self-knowledge of Awakening transcends distinctions and categories.

Transformation causes and is caused by self-awareness. This circular aspect makes it massively powerful, again relating transformation with power. Awareness confers a greater range of choice—an element of power. 

Transformation occurs as we become more Awake to who we really are. As we Wake Up our interior contents begin to come to light. The process of Waking Up can and will reactivate unresolved traumas. Being awake includes familiarity with and deep acceptance of our inner wounds. Whatever we resist seeing in ourselves is a pocket of Sleep.

No doubt you have heard of supposed-spiritually-advanced persons who abuse power in one way or another. It is a daunting challenge to fully know ourselves and to achieve a significant degree of mastery over our baser impulses. Again: Judging ourselves and holding ourselves to perfectionist standards makes the issues we need to accept go into hiding, giving them power. Gradual, compassionate awareness over time is the best plan.

Right now the world is Waking and shaking us. What happens when we start to Wake Up more quickly than we are prepared to assimilate?

In Part 2 & 3 we will explore a subtle-energy perspective of trauma. We will look at how and why monumental world change impacts those of us who are sensitive to energy.

Related Posts: If this Post seems dense the Inner Work Series supplies background. Find by clicking numbered pages below.

Good questions (from Carolyn Myss):

“What is it in your life that you allow to have authority over you?”
“What part of your life are you willing to give up to make that [higher awareness] happen?”

Forgiveness is totally tied up in our personality structures and belief systems. This post contains potential action-steps from the Forgiveness series. Tips and tools in this text help create conditions that support authentic forgiveness from the inside out. Each person may need a different prescription, so I am including a Holistic selection.

Tips are categorized with respect to the Modes of Forgiveness in Posts 1 and 2. These suggestions areprimarily Inner Work (see related post series). Forgiveness is internal. When we forgive inside, and forgive ourselves, authentic external expression naturally follows.

These behaviors and exercises help us to respect and release our wounds. They begin with practices that help us to avoid setting ourselves up for resentment, and work toward more profound strategies for managing and releasing pain. Part 1 covers Social and Mental skills and tips. Part 2 goes into Emotional and Transcendental.

If you have been through horrific experiences of loss and abuse you may need additional support. Practice forgiving yourself in all the ways you are able until you can take on challenging incidents involving others, or life itself. The frustrated rage of torment can make us push away the energy and possibility of forgiveness. Whenever you can, stay open to even small experiences of relief and release. No matter where you start to eat the elephant, you will make progress.

Social Level

• Change “What’s wrong?” to “What do you need right now?”
• Place more value on what you think of yourself than on how others perceive you.
• Acknowledge and communicate your needs–without making others responsible for them.
• Acknowledge other people’s needs–without assuming inappropriate responsibility for them.
• Take careful note of people’s capacities before making yourself vulnerable. Expect a learning curve, and possible inconsistency under different circumstances.
• Set boundaries with compassion for yourself.
• Make yourself vulnerable and open where compassion is abundant. Talk about your wounds only with people who can relate, understand, and make a caring response.
• Notice when and why you begin to blame or become defensive. What is going on inside? Seek to use clear boundaries instead of defense.
• Notice when you feel like you need pretense. What do you need from yourself at that moment, in order to be authentic?
• Resolve disagreements whenever possible–and attempt to even when you’re not sure you can. Life goes by quickly. People can die before you forgive them. Forgive whether or not you care to spend time with someone again. You can release them in peace.

“Never let the sun go down on an argument.”

Mental Level

• Remember that lack of forgiveness binds you to the people who hurt you. Consider exactly what it costs you to maintain a grudge. Free yourself.
• Learn from your mistakes—especially if they hurt. Let the lesson be about insight and understanding, not a way to be hard on yourself but a way to move forward with grace.
• View pain as a form of guidance. What needs does the pain speak for?
• Find the gifts in your wounds–authentically.
• Think, visualize, imagine, intend, and wish for authentic forgiveness (but do not fake it).
• Notice claims you make against yourself and assess what kind of personal development would allow you to release them.
• Read my Post series on Betrayal.
• Notice your internal talk. Never talk to yourself in ways you wouldn’t dream of addressing someone you care about. If you speak harshly to yourself, invite a compassionate voice to come forward. Do this every single time, if you can. The nasty voice is not “you,” but only a part of you. You need not to take its comments to heart. Talk back to that voice, balancing its harsh assumptions with loving truth.
• Put yourself in the place of others and seek to understand the circumstances and conditions that formed their fractures.

Which of these tips stands out for YOU?
What can you do to help yourself to remember to practice it when you need it the most?

“Being positive” or acting “loving” can be driven by narcissism. Denying wounds drives them deeper and makes them inaccessible to healing or forgiveness.

I am going to say some things about narcissism. Please understand that this discussion is less about the disorder itself than a further commentary on the importance of owning our wounds.

Narcissism, in my estimation, is a kind of a turning point. One common expression of narcissism represents an extreme of social adaptation. It’s like social conditioning on steroids. Appearances have turned the corner from being socially useful and are now headed down the road to pathology.

Narcissists do exist whose adaptation is focused on professional attainment, who do not care how they appear to others. They are perceived as jerks. This post focuses on those whose world revolves around being liked.

Society generally envies narcissists. And why not? They have mastered the art of social appearances and seem so enviably well-adjusted and well liked. External appearances are maintained without functional introspection or sensitive awareness of other people’s feelings. Narcissism is a personality disorder. Something is not working correctly.

Recognizing the disorder is essential self-care. A sensitive and loving person can get drained and dispirited relating to a narcissist. Staying in the relationship too long is likely to become something for which the sensitive person needs to forgive him or herself.

Narcissists are motivated by how they appear to others. They may seem very normal. A crucial difference between someone with a bad case of “nice” with an intense need for approval and a narcissist is that the latter is incapable of putting themselves in another person’s shoes. If you feel distress about something a narcissist has done they blame you for making them look bad–if only to themselves.

Someone who lives in their image of themselves CANNOT understand or value in you what they push away in themselves. The wounds. It’s not personal. That makes it more confusing.

The most confusing interactions I have ever had were with people who excelled at appearing positive, confident, and caring as a way to avoid their wounds. Sensing what was actually going on was like being lost in a fun house with a distorted hall of mirrors.

Narcissists can be consummate actors. Some narcissists can be generous with material things, attention, and loving words, and may even have scores of adoring friends. (Think: “Iron Man.) A narcissist may even run a charitable organization, become a doctor, or set themselves up as a spiritual leader. It’s easy to believe the narcissist’s act–because they do. Seeing what is going on can be shocking. You just don’t want to think someone who ACTS like they care so much could be so cruel without even noticing. They have no clue.

Trying to explain backfires. If you express distress or give them feedback, they may praise themselves as loving, generous, and skillful with people, telling you with apparent sincerity that you are way off base. Meanwhile they systematically ignore anything that does not support their glowing image. Attempts to communicate your own experience are interpreted as something positive or negative—about them.

If you become angry or hurt this only seems to prove that the problems are all yours. He or she maintains the illusion of being wonderful while you “carry” the difficult emotions for you both. Superiority is a powerful defense.

When we show compassion to someone with this character disorder they have no compunctions about using that—and the rest of our energy—for themselves.

Narcissism is extremely difficult to treat. Those who need treatment cannot recognize it. They are extremely successfully defended. Narcissists don’t seek help; they do not admit to having any issues. They are likely to put down people who appreciate or suggest therapy.

My heart totally goes out to anyone living with a narcissist. It can make you feel crazy. Even intuitive people can be taken in. I hope this post will increase awareness. If you’re partnered with someone who everyone seems to love, who is super-friendly with others and casually callous to you, this is a warning sign. Forgive yourself with great tenderness if you are in this situation. You can forgive the narcissist too—but remember that you are dealing with a personality disorder. Mind your boundaries and don’t let yourself be used.

A knowledgeable friend said, “They can be so charming and persuasive. And one can be fooled at first, then be ensnared by the time the damage is done.”

(The psychiatrist and Intuitive Judith Orloff has online resources for dealing with narcissists.)

Here are a few links for technical information in case you need it:

Symptoms of Narcissism
Diagnosis and Treatment of Narcissism

The rest of this post applies generally, not just to narcissists.

If the need to look good or nice or loving or even spiritual makes us deaf and blind to the distress of others, hidden wounds are blocking the ability to see out. We need to be able to see IN in order to see OUT clearly.

Acknowledging our own wounds is a genuine kindness to others.

Part 14 consists of tips and suggestions that support forgiveness, in each of the four modes from Part 1.

How do YOU feel around people who do not acknowledge any shortcomings or issues?
What happens inside you when you extend kindness to yourself?

Please pass this post along to those who need it.

Positive people who have not experienced or do not accept emotional pain radically limit their ability to include and support others. This story shows how social contexts can suppress inner wounds:

One of my most vivid memories from seventh grade involves a lovely young man, a Christian in my singing class. He came from a loving, intact family. One day he made an overture to me, to join in an after-school activity. I remember vividly the intense sensations that passed through me and the aftermath of this tiny moment. His eyes were so happy, so full of light. I so much wanted to join him. I actually sensed IN and THROUGH him his family and community support, and how loving they were to one another. I hesitated in terror that they would reject me, and asked a few questions to try and find out if I were truly welcome as myself. The light faded from his eyes. He did not meet me as I was. I could see the shroud of “other” settle between us. It felt like becoming a non-person.

Over the next few weeks I turned this event over in my mind. I realized at some point that his group was looking for recruits. They wanted me to believe something. Part of me wanted to believe it because I thought it might make me happier. I watched. What I saw struck me deeply. I noticed that the people in that group turned away from any expression of distress, however subtle.

I almost judged them for dismissing the people who needed them most. Then I realized that they simply were not equipped to deal with anybody who did not come from the same mold. They had great hearts and intentions. But they lacked depth. Their lack of depth diverted their compassion to the extent that they had no idea whatsoever that they were exclusive and closed to people who were in pain, people they could help.

I am not saying this is true of Christian groups in general. I am saying that the same thing happens, to a lesser or greater extent if more subtly, at a cultural level. Those who have not experienced suffering are generally incapable of compassion for those who hurt. And why not? It is not in their realm of experience.

I thought about that young man on and off in the course of my life. I wondered how he unfolded, whether he ran toward the arrogance of assuming that his way was better and isolated himself within his comfort zone, or whether his lovely heart gradually opened him to new people and experiences. He could have gone either way.

Those who come from families who seem to “have it all” and do not have a heart focus as his did often become hardened to feeling and focus on external attainment. Their children tend to lack compassion and even look down upon those who are in pain—and themselves when THEY are in pain.

Serious competition is not compatible with compassion. When we get caught up in trying to be better than others they become heads to walk over. This is an extreme state of ego with the wounds hidden and denied. It’s all about the outside.

Even being ‘all about other people’ can become an ego defense. It can be another way of being all about the outside. Those who study what it takes to please others and do it in order to avoid pain by securing love for themselves have not processed their wounds. They may have authentically loving natures and values. In general they get by well in the world. They may even get by in close friendships with clearly defined roles. Profound intimacy challenges people who use this defense because it goes beyond roles, brings up wounds for healing, and requires receptivity.

Forgiveness asks of us to feel first what is going on inside and to understand that others too are molded by life circumstances and conditions.

How do YOU feel around people who are in pain?
Are you able to be present with them, or do you turn away?
What do you tell yourself about people you perceive as being better than or not as good as you are?

Day-to-day social life can convey the impression that there is something wrong with us when we hurt inside. Understanding why enhances forgiveness and healing. The next three posts explore social impediments to emotional health, and support integrating self-awareness with life in the world.

Remember that social life is our external life. Emotional health is balance between our internal and external lives. Society sees to it that we learn social norms. Instruction and modeling for our internal lives is sadly uncommon.

Social personas or images seem to work in the outer world but often retard or prevent inner healing. Those who do not process their wounds often hold an attitude of superiority toward those who are in pain. There is nothing superior in being out of touch. Despite posturing and pretense, lack of compassion and insight is not social or moral high ground.

AVOIDING wounds strains social life and creates a need for pretense. HAVING wounds is not necessarily a problem. How we MANAGE them often is. Noticing wounds with the intent to HEAL them is healthy. Once we have healed our wounds we become infinitely more socially functional—authentically. No pretense necessary.

Motivation to heal is less likely to be strong in people skilled at social adaptations. Is this good or bad? That depends whether you want to stay in adaptations or heal deeply and become fully authentic. In some ways being unable to hide wounds can be an advantage over being able to bury them so well you can get by without working on them.

We get socially conditioned to shut down the feelings that others are uncomfortable feeling themselves. We get social messages to turn away from our wounds. The only necessary change is to be careful to discuss the wounds only with persons who have developed compassion already, can make a caring response. If we talk about them with someone who cannot manage or see their own wounds they must reject us in exactly the same way they reject that part of themselves. They cannot do otherwise.

Awareness of wounds indicates being healthier, not more messed up. Those who appear really together without processing their wounds have just as many problems. They are simply less apparent—until they do something obvious. How many times do we hear about someone in a public office or position of service, or religious power like a priest, whose wounds overwhelm his or her ability to stay balanced in the role of public service or sanctity?

Here are some of the societal reasons why we get the impression there is something wrong with us when we are wounded:

• People ask, “What is wrong?” instead of “Can I do anything for you.”
• Our pain scares people who are not able to embrace their own.
• We live in a culture who “medicates” with drugs, alcohol, and diversions instead of bonding in ways that connect and involve people in healthy ways
• We may have been scolded when we cried or had a tantrum
• People who do not know how to express compassion pull away when we express our pain
• We send people to professionals to deal with “their problems” instead of supporting them appropriately before this becomes necessary

In the movie “The King’s Speech,” Bertie was imprisoned in his royal persona. He lacked the positive vulnerability (see post #7 in this series) essential to effective therapy. He wanted the speech therapist to fix his problem on the surface, without approaching its causes. The therapist was blocked from access to Bertie’s inner world of feeling.

Bertie lived in the emotional isolation common when worldly roles are of greater importance than personal feeling. He was unable to fulfill his role of King until he confronted his depths by allowing his therapist, Lionel, into his inner world. Through the mirror of both therapy and genuine friendship Bertie learned to allow his inner life its central place in his own world. Then he could be King.

Social life may require images from time to time. Authenticity does not require full and complete disclosure at all times or with all people. We pick and choose appropriate expression for this moment. I am suggesting that the motivation for what we pick can be based on comprehensive values, not unconscious compulsions or social conditioning.

Social life, in balance, is our exterior life. Its healthy function does not take the place of your inner life or cripple your personal life. The horror movie in which the mask becomes stuck on someone’s face depicts this malady. In real life this issue is more of a problem the less we are aware that it is occurring. Wounds wake us up to our humanity, needs, personal emotions, goals, dreams, and capacity for genuine intimacy.

How is YOUR balance between your social life and your inner life?
Does one take over the other, or can you move back and forth between them with ease?
What makes this balance easier or more difficult?

If you have to stretch to relate to this post or have trouble staying present in your body while you read it, be sure to stick through the series. Hidden issues can make this topic tough. Although my words are spare and direct, I wrote this post with the utmost love, thinking of some brilliant, warm, profound people who have needed support to deal with Inner Wounds. The insights in these posts have made a difference in many lives:

The urge to defend is generally driven by internal self-criticism. Like conscience, forgiveness entails sensing inwardly. Tracing sensitive feelings is incompatible with defensive behaviors. Defense shuts down feeling. Unwinding these patterns requires vulnerability.

Defense divides us into the parts that are sensitive and the parts that are aggressive, blocking effective introspection. For this reason criticizing ourselves makes it almost impossible to change our behaviors.

These formulations of feeling arose for a client who has the guts to clearly observe how her inner patterns are structured (shared with permission): “When bad things happen I’m not good enough,” and “When bad things happen I deserve it.” A child next door was making a lot of noise, for example. She took this to mean, “I deserve to suffer.” Self-berating followed almost every discomfort. She was “supposed to be good enough” that nothing painful occurred. Of course she was raised by parents who hurt her if she expressed pain.

This woman is a competent professional. It took real Inner Work to learn to observe and give voice to these patterns instead of living on the surface, and going through life asleep to yet acting out their unconscious messages.

Self-blame originates as a defense. It can be an attempt to be flawless to avoid abuse, win approval, earn love, and so forth. Love is to be given freely, not earned with perfect behavior. When we are very young and have inconsistent or violent parents, how simple it is to believe we are flawed and worthy of blame. Feeling responsible is a way to have at least the illusion of some control, or a feeling that the crazy world has some rhyme or reason.

I have seen quite a few people call themselves stupid for not knowing something that they could not possibly have known in advance. This is an internal verbal attack, so it increases defensiveness, blocks creativity, and retards healing.

Calling one’s self “stupid” for not knowing something before having the EXPERIENCE by which we LEARN it mimics the experience of an abused child. We are not “supposed” to be omniscient. Life is to learn. We are not “supposed” to be perfect, all on our own and in our egos. Imagining that we can is actually an arrogant fantasy, if you think about it. It’s way too much work and feels cramped. Kindness is infinitely more spacious.

Accepting wounds gives us humility.

Olive Branch

We are not stupid, wrong, bad, or flawed, for having wounds. Wounds are doorways into our own humanity. They are vehicles through which we learn. Wounds enable us to see the humanity of others, as we embrace our own. Wounds are also a medium by which many develop intuitive skills and learn to read energy. They spur us on spiritually—if we are willing to dignify our pain by accepting it as a part of life. Accepting does not mean you invite more. It means being present to what is real instead of living in pretense.

Create something beautiful with what you have already, starting where you are NOW.

Remember, our wounds originate with separation. We must separate ourselves from others to abuse them. When we are One, hurting others hurts. Of course, we always ARE One, we just forget.

Pain embraced develops compassion. Pain rejected creates masks.

What do YOU notice about your own patterns of defensiveness?
Are you able to trace back into the more-vulnerable emotions underneath?
What happens when you do?

Why learn about inner wounds? Simply being able to see and talk freely about the things that hurt frees and relieves us. Understanding wounds in a container of forgiveness is a big step toward wholeness, authenticity, and relaxed Presence.

We need to be able to go into the wounds in loving contexts so that when we end up in them by accident we can get back out. Those who feel intact certainly have loved ones who can use their understanding. So let’s explore the wounded state as it relates to self-forgiveness.

Here is how we start blaming ourselves:

As children we think there must be something wrong with us when others are unloving toward us. We blame ourselves, often to protect ourselves against being blamed by our parents—which is more frightening. Parents, partners, or even strangers don’t withhold love from you because of YOU, they withhold love because of THEM. Their own self-blame–and denial of it—closes their hearts.

These are the sort of things we need to forgive ourselves for:

• turning away from the love we need
• withholding love from ourselves or from others
• making choices that do not nourish our wellbeing

In addition to acts that have caused pain, our lapses in self care, sabotage of intimacy, over-giving, selfishness, blame for things we cannot control, and attempts to control things better left to grace express and aggravate the wounds we long to leave behind.

Here are some examples of traits that result:
Perfectionism, brittleness, inflexibility, projecting denied traits onto others, coldness, saccharine “niceness,” a holier-than-thou stance, resisting rather than accepting the shadow side of life, and so forth. These are ego defenses. They “protect” our sense of identity from material we are not yet able to deal with. These behaviors keep us simultaneously avoiding and replaying the wounds hidden beneath. We’ve all got some. Different personalities demonstrate such traits according to our natures and the way we react to painful circumstances.

Wounds–and their pet issues—take on expression through our actions and interactions. The way these wounds and issues impact our emotions and behavior separates us from feeling deeply connected—with ourselves and with other people. Separating ourselves emotionally from other people is as simple as rejecting a compliment or feeling uncomfortable receiving love. We shut it out—and at some level blame ourselves for it because we know we are doing it.

Going deeply into the wound without resisting it allows you to eventually gain full confidence that you can manage it. Skirting around it, intellectual analysis, giving it power by fearing it, and otherwise denying or avoiding keeps us stuck. Successfully climbing out of the wound-pit a number of times, with full awareness, can make it possible to clamber right back out any time we find ourselves in that pit again.

Olive Branches at Retreat

The pattern that makes it hardest to forgive ourselves is being hard on ourselves for being hard on ourselves. The illusion that we can and should control our feelings is persistent—and toxic. We do have social needs to manage BEHAVIOR. We feel what we feel inside, and address it with compassion when we can. Judging ourselves for feeling things we don’t like to feel, like self-sabotage, creates a vicious circle between self-blame and non-ideal behaviors. The patterns operate similarly whether they involve self-abuse or just wishing we were different than we actually are. It’s just more subtle.

Perfectionism is a common defense against an active Inner Critic. It doesn’t work. Holding a positive ideal is only as positive as we are compassionate to ourselves. If we are self-critical even the most positive ideal can become a measuring stick or a lash.

In psychology of abused children, the passive parent who did not step in to stop the abuse is usually harder to forgive than the abuser. For the same reasons we find it hard to accept that our own self—who should absolutely be the one to care for us and keep us safe—creates, accepts, allows, endures or condones the things in our lives that cause us pain. Like the passive parent, we do our best given our own fear, dissociation, social conditioning, and survival skills. We, like others, close down and get defensive when we treat ourselves to harshness.

Part 3 of Inner Wounds explores the habitual self-criticism and self-blame that can make us defensive. If we can unmask and accept these patterns, healthy self-love and true forgiveness become accessible.

Are YOUR positive ideals rooted in your real values, or in self-criticism?
What motivates you to contribute to others?