ROOTS
“This path of using life to evolve spiritually is truly the highest path.” (Michael Singer Untethered Soul)
Since the middle of summer the royal We have been renovating our cottage in Hawaii. As with all such undertakings, challenges have arisen that we had not anticipated, one of which was an accumulation of palm tree roots that were pushing up the walkway and even threatening the foundation of the building (called a hale in Hawaiian). After the trunk was cut in sections and removed, several days were spent severing the thin, stick-like lateral roots that had spread in all directions. As the excavator dug deeper, it revealed a mind-boggling network of roots wrapped bristle brush-like around the base of the stubbornly resisting stump. Quite the undertaking.
If ever I needed a literal image of what Singer meant by old, ingrained thought patterns clogging up the “ground” of the psyche, this was it. He describes it thus:
"You take a set of thoughts in the mind and you hold onto them. You make a highly complex relational structure out of them, and then present that package as who you are. But it is not who you are. It is just the thoughts you have pulled around yourself in an attempt to define yourself.”…and…”If you dare to look, you will see that you live your entire life based on the model you built around yourself.” According to Singer, we cling to this arbitrary construction, this self-created identity as if our lives depend on it. And as far as the ego is concerned, we do.
When circumstances agree with my ego’s model of what is acceptable or desirable, I believe my life is running smoothly. When events conspire to upset this carefully curated self-concept, I resist them, with vigour. Why? They’re just arbitrary ideas of how I think things should, could or ought to be. These concepts are unnecessarily limiting. Worse still, to whatever extent things don’t go as I want or need in order to preserve my self-image, I experience pain and suffering. Singer offers this advice:
“You must look inside yourself and determine that from now on pain is not a problem. It is just a thing in the universe. Somebody can say something to you that can cause your heart to react and catch fire, but then it passes. It’s a temporary experience. Most people can hardly imagine what it would be like to be at peace with inner disturbance. But if you do not learn to be comfortable with it, you will devote your life to avoiding it. If you feel insecurity, it’s just a feeling. You can handle a feeling. If you feel embarrassed, it’s just a feeling. It’s just a part of creation. If you feel jealousy and your heart burns, just look at it objectively, like you would a mild bruise. It’s a thing in the universe that is passing through your system. Laugh at it, have fun with it, but don’t be afraid of it. It cannot touch you unless you touch it.”Of course in theory I am keen to have everyday irritations pass through me, and presumably lots do. But, as Singer is at pains (pardon the pun) to point out, some of these irritations do not pass so easily, because they are connected — like those tenacious lateral roots — to past traumas that I’ve barricaded in my body, so as not to feel their full impact. Now they lay in wait for something to hit the spot where I’ve hidden them, and the result is far more painful than if I’d been able to let them pass immediately after they happened.
The other day one such reaction pointed me to Singer’s theory about buried, volatile energies. Somebody made a comment that “set my heart on fire”, and my ego went on a rampage looking for ways to defend/assuage this achy-breaky feeling. Singer offers this explanation:
"It is because deep inside there is pain that you have not processed. Your attempt to avoid this pain has created layer upon layer of sensitivities that are all linked to the hidden pain.”Hence a seemingly innocuous comment penetrated the layers I had built around some ancient emotional injury, and my gut reaction was to stop the buried feelings from emerging at all cost. But, given Singer’s guidance, I saw the incident as an opportunity to evolve. Daring to look more deeply into these disturbed energies, I was able to see their roots in childhood experiences of censure or rejection. As an adult I have other ways of dealing with fresh or ancient disturbance, such as patience, tolerance, acceptance, forgiveness and compassion. Any and all of these are better than a lifetime of clinging to old emotional baggage under the illusion that it will protect me from pain.
Instead of fighting back when my model was attacked, I quietly waited for the fire to burn itself out, which it did much faster than I could have imagined. In its place came a sense of freedom, of release from that egoic palm tree in my psyche.
Happy Halloween!