Everyone speaks about the light, giving little reference to darkness – or that which haunts you. It comes as a gift to us, beautifully packaged but unopened. What deters us is the fear of the contents, also known as TRAUMA.
To identify Trauma, you have to peel away layers and layers of addiction, fear, abuse, neglect, vanity, competition, inadequacy, lack of grieving/excessive grieving, violation of self and others, worry and not speaking your TRUTH.
Everyone develops ways to cope and accept a life that is half lived. We set a goal for ourselves and we give it time, multiplied by effort and then we expect an outcome. What we fail to admit to ourselves is what we’re trying to hide when – We know that the goal we set is not what we want and it’s not who we are OR the level of
the goal is mediocre. A pattern of Trauma is then activated: shame, denial, deceit, neglect. These are the pillars of Trauma.
Remember the diet that you attempted every Monday morning? Or the intention of completing that which you’ve postponed over and over? Or what about the last cigarette that you’ve lit, 30 cigarettes ago? The list becomes endless. And so each time we berate ourselves for not being strong enough, bold enough, weak, powerless, cowardice and fearful. At the end of the last cigarette, of ‘the last time and this is final,’ we are so traumatised that of course we deserve one more for the road. How do we make it out alive? We don’t. We barely function. We pretend.
Facing what haunts you is gruelling stuff. But we cannot journey forward if we don’t get that monkey off our backs.
by Dominique Jones