BREATHE. RELAX. BE.
“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” Eleanor Roosevelt
I started this blog trying to source who said “Resist that which resists in you”, thinking it was Eleanor Roosevelt, but found the above quote instead. Roosevelt succinctly summed up what I’ve been focusing on this week — self-transcendance — or the act of overcoming fear with bravery, and overriding my biased inner narrative with presence and clarity. Self-transcendence, if well-understood, can make a tremendous difference to one’s psycho-spiritual health and development.
According to Transpersonal anthropologist Hillevi Ruumet, one of the greatest obstacles to personal growth is the residue of past experiences which, at the time, “were too obscure for us to see or more painful or distasteful than we could bear.” Instead, we buried these experiences deep in our subconscious, and now our psyche will fight tooth and nail to keep these unwelcome feelings from surfacing.
Little do we know, as adults, how much these buried energies have impacted the whole of our lives. St. Paul called it “seeing through a glass darkly”. To see “through a glass” — a mirror — “darkly” is to have an obscure or imperfect vision of reality. When we do not know what is clouding our sense perceptions, we cannot possibly make an informed choice, or take effective action in response to what’s actually happening.
To keep past trauma from entering present consciousness we are, like as not, playing a game of pin the tail on the donkey, taking ever more futile stabs in the dark as our relationships with family, friends and society in general fail to engender the peace, harmony and ease of wellbeing that we seek.
Worse still, we seldom realize what we’re contributing to the problem. We put so much unconscious effort into blocking past pain that we are ill-equipped to perceive and deal with actual reality.
In other circumstances, such self-deception would be a recipe for disaster. Would you drive down the highway at night without headlights? Or leave a toddler in control of your vehicle? No, you would not. Better to confront the shadows that lurk in the psyche and stare down these feared and fearful memories.
Once you decide you want to take control of your psyche, daily life provides ample opportunity to see what’s been operating behind the scenes. Your inner emotional “ammo-dumps” will be hit again and again by present circumstances, and you will need all the courage and humility you can muster to ride out these inner upheavals.
Singer offers this advice: “Let your spiritual path become the willingness to let whatever happens make it through you, rather than carrying it into the next moment. That doesn’t mean you don’t deal with what happens. You’re welcome to deal with it, but first let the energy make it through you. If you don’t, you will not actually be dealing with the current event, you will be dealing with your own blocked energies from the past. You will not be coming from a place of clarity, but from a place of inner resistance and tension.”
You’ll know when your “stuff” has been hit when you feel this tension and resistance manifesting physiologically and/or psychologically. Supposing you were once painfully bitten by a dog as a toddler. Now, even as a rational adult, when Lassie trots up, tail wagging, you perceive only the threat of history repeating itself. Monitoring the body you might experience an elevated heart rate, shortness of breath or heat in your face and neck. Psychologically you may hear a voice screaming: “Run! Hide! Fight!” All of which will only compound your plight.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, the only way out of this predicament is to do nothing. Do nothing in the sense of not reacting to the energies that percolate up from the unconscious. Not believing the story your inner narrator is telling. Not trying to avoid or suppress feelings, images or impressions that were tucked out of sight, out of mind, since you were a child.
Instead, you can steady body and mind by concentrating on the breath. Focus on inhaling to a count of three or four, and exhaling to a count of six or longer. Let the agitated energies flow out with your breath, following this self-suggestion: “With every inhalation, awareness increases; with every exhalation, relaxation deepens”. You will gradually experience a release of the pentup energy that you have unwittingly been harboring for a lifetime. From this fresh, unbiased perspective you can see Lassie’s visit for what it is, and return his greeting with warmth and friendliness. An encounter with a different dog might call for a different response, but the response will come from a clear perception of the present moment, not driven by a host of shadows.
Next time your stuff gets hit, see how brave you can be. Stare unflinchingly at the mirror of your unfinished inner business. Not only is it not as dreadful as it seems, but you will gradually experience what it’s like to be free of your maniacal inner roommate.
Aum Namah Sivayah