Letting go of trauma

Being raped is a terrifying experience for a seven year old child. I know because I've experienced it.

The mind is clever at dealing with such things. In order to avoid the intense rush of adrenaline and cortisol that such an experience induces, the mind disassociates. That is, it turns its attention elsewhere. In my case I focused on the sky and the forest around me, on the feeling of the hard ground underneath me. These are the things that I remember. The pain and confusion didn't really register, at least not consciously.

Letting go of traumatic experiences like this is not easy because with no memory of the incident it's hard to see which behaviours stem from the trauma. No doubt the observer self holds a full record of the experience, which could be accessible by hypnosis or meditation, but in the absence of the logical connection between cause and affect it's difficult to discern whether a pattern of behaviour is unhealthy or not.

Trauma also stays embedded in the body at an energetic level, mainly in the auric body. The result can be energy blockages, over or under activity of the chakras and other disorders. These can be resolved through meditation, energy healing techniques such as reiki, kinesiology and acupuncture. Yoga, aromatherapy, sound and colour healing can also help.

 
Practice conscious presence in your everyday life so that you become aware of whether your behaviours impact your energy body in a positive or negative way. This may feel like areas of tension, pain or tightness in the body. Let go of behaviours that do not serve you.

Letting go of trauma can be the catalyst for healing of chronic disease and mental illness, and the key to success, abundance and inner peace.

Letting go of shame

Lately I've been noticing the role shame plays in my life and how it limits and inhibits my true expression. Nothing is more sure of sending us into a state of depression, indecision or denial than shame! And all these feelings inhibit our ability to make wise and courageous choices in our lives. The kind of choices that expand our lives and our sense of what is possible.

Shame is different to guilt which usually only shows its head when you've deliberately or maliciously wronged someone. But shame can attack even when no one has been hurt at all! I might feel ashamed of the chubby parts of my body or of my off-beat sexual fantasies or because I feel I haven't lived up to my own high expectations. Everyone has their own shame triggers.

Guilt is more of a function of traditional and accepted notions of right and wrong, whereas shame can be attached to all manner of odd things. For example the other day I was sitting by the window and catching a movement out of the corner of my eye I looked up to see if my boyfriend were coming up the drive; afterward I felt a twinge of shame for caring so much about him! Yes it's bizarre but this is how shame works. It's attached to all sorts of wrong-headed beliefs that we hold about ourselves, others and the world around us.

Shame causes us to become stuck for a number of reasons. Firstly, it can cause us to start beating ourselves up which weakens us spiritually and makes it difficult for us to make empowered decisions. Secondly it can make us feel that we're not deserving of the good things in life. And thirdly it can send us into a state of denial where we unconsciously block out key facts about a situation that we need to know in order to make wise choices.

Letting go of shame requires us to first develop our self-awareness so that we become very clear about the beliefs we are holding onto that trigger shame. These beliefs may have been passed down to you from your parents, or perhaps they were developed in response to experiences that occurred earlier in your life. Either way they need to be explicitly understood and seen for what they are: just one way of looking at things.

Next it's important to become really clear about whether these beliefs are useful to you. Perhaps they were once, but if they're now triggering shame you can be sure they have outlived their usefulness! Ask yourself: 'What is another way I could look at this?' Even just realising that there is another perspective on the matter can help you see that your belief is not the only truth.

Meditation and the daily practice of mindfulness can help us notice when shame occurs and we can then trace the experience to a preceding thought, slowly deconstructing our ideologies and replacing these destructive beliefs with more life-affirming ones. By letting go of these beliefs day-by-day we can gradually free ourselves from shame. 

Letting go of needing to be liked

Most of us spend a lot of time censoring our behaviour because we don't want to be disapproved of by others. In fact many of us actively make decisions in order to make sure that others like, respect and approve of us.

Why do we do this? One reason is that we have learned to define ourselves by the responses we receive from others. If others are impressed by our intelligence, tell us we're beautiful or that we've done a good job then we feel validated. We feel worthy. This method works just fine as long as we can ensure that people only think and say good things about us. But as soon as the criticisms start making an appearance we fall apart. What makes it all the more ridiculous is that our self-identity is often so fragile that one little negative remark can override years of compliments and approval. Someone thinks an idea we had is impractical and suddenly we feel as though we are incapable of having a good idea ever again!

Clearly this is a very tenuous way to live. It sets us up to be constantly swinging from self-confidence to self-doubt. We will always feel needy of others' attention, always looking for the next kind word that will buoy us up. Perhaps more importantly it prevents us from living our lives freely and to our fullest potential because every time we open our mouths or consider doing something a little differently we end up thinking: 'But what will other people say?' If we cannot be completely sure that other people's responses will be positive we may avoid doing something that could help us learn, expand our horizons or express our creativity. We are trapped by this need for others' approval.

It's easy enough to see how this works in theory but how does one become free from this need to be liked? Well it all comes down to how you define your self. Underneath the part of us that is a reflection of other people's responses (sometimes called the ego) there is another self that doesn't give a damn what others think. Accessing this deeper self is the key to letting go of the need to be liked.

Connecting with our deeper self can be achieved through practicing meditation and mindfulness in everyday life. When we meditate we watch our fears and desires flit across the screen of our mind without becoming attached to them. We let them come and go without judgment; we just observe. This part of the self that observes is the deeper self. Sometimes it is called the witness because it doesn't get involved in the action, it doesn't have any needs or fears of its own. It is beyond fear and desire.

When we have accessed this deeper self, and become more and more identified with it, it becomes easy to let go of the need to be liked.

Letting go of the need to be right

Have you ever found yourself passionately involved in an argument about something that doesn't really matter at all and yet you will not give up your point of view? Say you're arguing about who's turn it is to do the dishes, or why dogs bark more at night, or whether the Queen of England is the richest women in the world. The outcome of the argument has very little bearing on your life, or on the lives of others, and yet you somehow cannot back down. You are determined to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong!

Many wonderful relationships have been ruined because of the inability to let go of the need to be right. In the moment we feel so completely justified in our position that we somehow convince ourselves that we are prepared to sacrifice both our own happiness and the happiness of our friend in order to prove it. At the same time we close ourselves off from learning anything new because to do so would require us to let go of our solidified perspective on the world and to open up to other ideas and viewpoints.

Why do we feel this need to be right? One reason is that our self-esteem is so fragile that we associate being wrong with not being good enough. Even if we know deep down that we are mistaken we can sometimes go into denial and continue arguing til we're blue in the face. The irony of this is that by being so stubborn we often cause others to lose respect for us.

If we have attached our self-esteem to being right it can be difficult to let go of it. One thing that can be helpful is to remember how vast and mysterious the universe really is and to acknowledge that our understanding of it can only ever be partial. That goes for all of us; we're all in the same boat here! Therefore even if you do not know, or are mistaken, this is only to be expected. It does not mean that you are stupid, and it does not mean that you are not good enough.

Another thing that is helpful in letting go of being right is to cultivate mindfulness. When we are mindful we tend to be more aware of what we are about to say before we say it. Thus we tend to avoid getting involved in pointless arguments in the first place. We are also more likely to notice when we are getting attached to our point of view. You'll come to a point where you think, 'Hang on. Does this really matter? What am I getting so worked up about?' It then becomes much easier to acknowledge the other person's perspective and move on to more meaningful discussion.

Cultivating mindfulness also gives you a different view of yourself in relationship to the world. As you watch your thoughts in meditation you find that 'the observer', the part of you that watches the thoughts as they flow through your mind, is unconcerned with your day-to-day anxieties and insecurities. This self doesn't have poor self-esteem, in fact this self doesn't need to be esteemed. All those thoughts in your head that tell you you're not good enough, they're just obscuring this deeper self. When you become connected to this deeper self you become pure peace, and being good enough or pretty enough or smart enough just doesn't matter any more.

Letting go of being perfect

In the past I was one of those people who's addicted to self-help books. Why? Because I've always felt there was something wrong with me that I had to fix, something that I could improve about myself. I felt that until I was perfect I was not worthy of love.

In my work especially I felt I needed things to be just so... Even when I did my best I always felt that I could have somehow done better, that the work I produced was somehow flawed. If someone gave me negative feedback it would send me into a tail spin!

This way of looking at myself meant that for a long time I seemed to attract partners who reflected back my need for perfection. They were always offering suggestions on how I could correct this or that fault, or how I could improve myself. On the other hand, because I had such high expectations of myself I also demanded perfection in them. Needless to say we made one another pretty unhappy!

It took me a long time to realise that achieving perfection is both impossible and undesirable, not to mention that in striving for it we lead ourselves into all manner of difficulties along the way. By expecting perfection of ourselves we set ourselves up to fail over and over and over again, at least in our own eyes. Other people may be impressed by our work, they may love us dearly despite all our flaws but this is never enough. We never believe in their love or praise because in terms of our own aims we have fallen far short.

Letting go of the need to be perfect is difficult, though I've found along the way that a few things can help us along.

Firstly, look to nature; nature is replete with desperately beautiful things that are deeply flawed if looked at from the perspective of conventional beauty. Nature is messy, smelly and seemingly disorganised but somehow harmonious. When we look at our own lives we can see many parallels here; we begin to appreciate that it is our 'imperfections' that make us uniquely, beautifully, who we are.

Secondly, daily meditation helps us to become mindful of our thoughts so that instead of working towards perfection we instead start to notice the kind of thoughts and actions that work for us and those that don't. For example we may notice that drinking a lot of alcohol when we're depressed simply makes us more depressed, so we stop doing that so often. We don't stop because we want to be a better person or to live up to some ideal, we stop simply because we can see clearly that it doesn't work for us.

We no longer struggle to change, we simply let go of what no longer serves us.