Anytime we have a traumatizing event happening to us in our adulthood, know there is always a matching and compatible original trauma/traumas that happened in our childhood that we have denied, disowned and suppressed into our subconscious mind so that we can survive the pain of it.
The universe always puts us in a situation that is a match to our most hidden, denied and disowned pain in ourselves. It doesn't do that to punish us, it does that to make us aware and awaken us to the hurt that is not in plain sight of our conscious mind. By bringing these parts that we had previously cast off into our subconscious to the light, we integrate and become whole again. Paranthentically, we always attract things, people and events into our lives that bear the same energy and frequency that we are at, even if we don't know that. So if an unconscious aspect in us has a dominant energy of sheer powerlessness caused by a childhood trauma, we will wonder why we attract really bad,catastrophic even, events that traumatize us even more and reinfirces the powerlessness even more. Obviously it's not our fault, it's not like we choose in a conscious manner for these things to happen to us.
I made this side note because I am wanting to illustrate an example of how simple, apparently harmless remarks may wound a child for life and how this child, in adulthood, is a match to similar situations and people that trigger the adult that is ignorant of his trauma. I also want to dive deep into their options are in the moment.
Say you have a 5 year old girl who sees a beautiful dress that she falls in love with in the display of a store.She begs her mom to buy it for her. Her mom buys it. When this little girl arrives home and puts on the dress, she looks in the mirror and feels like a princess. The dress is sparkling, it is glamorous and it makes her feel she is a character in a fairy tale. She imagines herself in this fairy tale where people cheer her and praise her and she feels incredibly happy and beautiful. So she storms out the door, wanting so badly to show her mother her dress that she was so proud of. Her mother is in the living room with her back turned,holding this little girl's brother, who is 2ys old, feeding him. The little girl pulls her mom's clothes:Mommy mommy look at my dress, it's so beautiful! Do you like it? Her mom replies, all the while keep her back turned to the girl: I don't have time right now, I'm feeding your brother! The little girl asks her mom again: ”But please just take a look!” Her mom yelled: ”Not now!” The little girl is suddenly engulfed by a terrible feeling of disappointment and loneliness in her chest. She feels like she is invisible to her mom, and that she rejected her. Her enthusiasm shrivelled. But the little girls thinks her dad would be proud and happy for her. When she enters his office, her dad was at his desk writing something very preoccupied. She asks him to look at her dress, but when her dad looks up with an annoyed and vexed look on his face, she feels like she's intruding, like she's bothering him, because her father had more important things to do than see her. "I'm working". And he immediately goes back to his work. This girl felt a sinking feeling in her whole body now. She became sad, desolate and bereft of something essential. But she doesn't know exactly what. She goes into her room, takes off the dress and collapses in her bed. She concluded: "I am not beautiful. If I were,my mom and my dad would have been so proud of me, but they didn't even see me. I'm probably ugly and they feel ashamed of me. I bothered my dad with my presence and I wasn't important enough for my mom to look at me. I'm nothing, I don't matter, I am not worthy of their attention."
See the shame spiral right there? See how this girl got traumatized from what apparently seemed like a benign circumstance? It's not the parents fault either they are doing the best they can with what they had available at the moment. The mom was probably saddled with chores, taking care of the little brother, the dad probably had a deadline to a project that was due the next day, and if he doesn't finish it, he wouldn't have the money to feed his family for that month. Both adults were barely surviving, riddled with worries and fears for the family. But the girl doesn't know that, does she? Because when we are children we take things personally and we have idea about the problems our parents are facing and so we make everything about ourselves. We make everything that is wrong our fault. This is how core beliefs and traumas drill into our consciousness. And so this little girl grows up with countless limiting beliefs and core beliefs and pain that her consciouness has pushed aside, into the subconscious, because the reality that she perceived was too painful to handle and she had no tools and no way to deal with them. Her mom and her dad were too busy to be able to help her navigate her emotions, needless to say they didn't know themselves how to handle their own emotions.
So this girl becomes and adult with core beliefs such as I'm unlovable, I'm not good enough, I dont matter, I'm invisible, I'm not worthy of love, I'm ugly, I'm worthless. This IS trauma right there!! She will feel an agonizing loneliness and emptiness and she wouldn't know why. She will be a match to people that need her on their terms and are never available emotionally for her needs. She will be afraid to speak up, she will feel she bothers people with her presence, she will also feel like a burden to anyone who shows the least amount of interest in her, she will feel unworthy anytime someone will compliment her, she will get into unhealthy abusive relationships where the partner neglects her and abandons her emotionally just like she felt her parents did in her childhood. This girl will betray and abandon herself and her needs anytime it will be asked of her. "I'm not good enough so I will settle for what I get" is what her subconscious mind keeps repeating to her without her awareness.
So this girl - now a woman - when in a situation where someone does not give her the mirroring that she unconsciously is looking for, just like her parents didn't back in her childhood, she is triggered. She is triggered into a spiral of shame, into feeling disconnected from the person in front of her and extremely alone, desolate abandoned and neglected. Just like in that situation in her childhood with that dress. But she is not aware of it and the trigger is meant to make her aware of her pain. A feeling of frustration or anger may also arise. So in that split second - because the trigger happens in a literal split second- she is in the so called space of choice.
What does that mean? That means she gets to choose between reacting to it, responding or not engaging in the situation. A scenario where she reacts would be one where she lets her emotions take control, lashing out or shutting down, depending on how she is used to handle these situations from her childhood. The second option she has is one where she takes a deep belly breath and decides to respond - from a non-polarized place- rather than react. But people who choose the latter are usually people who have awaken to their trauma and are conscious of it, people who have done the inner work and know that responding is healing and empowering. However, I'm not going to tell you what you should do here. It is your choice. You may choose reactivity, when triggered, because you feel more heard and seen upon lashing out than you'd feel when you respond. It's fine. I know a lot of spiritual teachers don't approve of reactivity when the person is triggered, but I personally saw, in my experience that reactivity is not inherently bad. It just shows that the person needs to look deeper into the reason this trigger shows up, learn the lesson and bring to light the actual pain. So reactivity has its role and importance into a person's journey. A response comes from a place of understanding what your triggers are, what they are showing you and also taking the other person as part of you.
You should not feel guilty for not yet being able to respond, you will, in time, the more you do the inner work. The space of choice offers you just that: a choice. It is always the other person who can offer you the deeper insight into your blindspots through the emotions they stir up in you because every person is a reflection of who you are.
A third scenario in a triggering context would be to simply choose not to engage in that particular situation. No response is also a response.
It is important to know we also have this option available for us which is just as valid. We may want to stay silent, it is ok. However, know that you may be faced with your ego, that is your self identity, that desperately wants to have the last word in an argument or triggering situation as I described before. The ego doesn't want to be perceived as weak so it will ask of you to lash out, to punish, to react, to be upset at that person because to the ego it's you vs them. Before I finish, I want to leave you with some food for thought:
When we are triggered and feel that emotional wave alongside the physical sensations, what our soul truly wants (and that we are not able to articulate because we are not consciously aware of it) is for the other person to empathize with what we are feeling. If you were to take a step back and detach yourself from any emotion you have ever felt, you will see how every one of these emotions longs and craves to be seen, heard, acknowledged and validated exactly as it is in that second and not changed. Every person thirsts for the empathy and unconditional understanding of the person standing in front of them. So however you decide to engage in a particularly triggering situation, remember this: no choice is wrong because any of the three variants serves you in some way. We are all here to learn.
Open yourself up to be vulnerable, let this vulnerability show you the path back to your wholeness. Let yourself be teachable. It's the wisest and most generous gift you can give yourself.
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