A Journey into the Deep: Suppress Emotional Traumas

Writing about the difficulties of our human existence is not easy.  In order to write a post that may have relevance to readers, I must have a connection with the subject. Deep healing to free myself of inhibitions has been my life-long pursuit. But it is not all about the journey inward. Here is a short tale from a master healer.

In many indigenous cultures the path of medicine is one passed from person to person with great seriousness. The Medicine Way is a full-life commitment to Great Mystery, the people, and the instruments of medicine. 

One Legendary Spiritual Guide told a story of the time shortly after his teacher handed him this responsibility. The teacher's instructions were, "Do not ask the people to face any obstacle that you have not faced in yourself." The new initiate accepted the task and determined to follow this mandate with great discipline. He made a deep voyage into the ceremony vision quest-style with the belief that total immersion would strengthen his bond with Great Mystery, the medicine, and his relationship as a guide of the people.

After a full lunar cycle of high ceremony he summed up the experience like this:

I have taken this medicine every day for a month, and have determined one thing -

I do not want to re-live my childhood any more.

It’s true, in previous posts I have given no guidance on how to “make it through” a therapeutic pivot point such as releasing birth trauma. Like in the shaman’s story above, there is no promise of higher awakening to God or self-mastery. In fact it would be irresponsible for me to tell someone where this experience will bring him/her. I can state with certainty that the feelings ushering in the release of early life wounding will be sensations that are familiar and uncomfortable. It is almost certain that these feelings have been the catalyst for learned escape mechanisms.

“Why is it always something I want to avoid? Why is it the tender spot on my soft underbelly?

Why is it something that throws my entire life into a tailspin?!?”

The reason for this is almost universal.  The original experience was overwhelming. Our socially conditioned mechanism for correct coping had no way of managing the newness, volume or speed of an experience, or series of occurrences that happened in our early life. Quite likely there was no therapist standing by to shelter us while we diffused the original mental and emotional shock. In that moment, once our known strategy for coping with “this type of situation” was expended, we stored the remainder of the feelings and thoughts inside ourselves to be sorted through later.

It can be said that trauma is a natural byproduct when a person has had too much of a new experience, or that experience happened too fast, and the entire emotional impact was not released on the spot.

A perfect example of healthy emotional release is seen in newborn babies. Have you noticed that infants are openly and spontaneously expressive? This is because they have not learned social conditioning yet. As external experiences create internal sensations, an infant will express directly from his/her gut. From a holistic health perspective emotions are the way our internal organs release excess energy. This is a natural pressure valve to avoid damage to the organ. For a child to scream bloody murder at a sudden fright is completely healthy. When a baby feels loss his/her grief is completely expelled through tears and wailing. An infant's anger is a gasket-blowing rage, his/her joy is full-body intoxication. These are healthy releases that come built-in with the body.

How do we manage to store trauma even with this built-in release mechanism? At about the time we learn to speak in phrases we become responsible for our social educations. This is a necessity. Our social education is a set of fundamental skills for dealing with life in the natal culture. These skills conduct us intact (more or less) through development and into adulthood. Our parents, siblings, peers and authority figures are our teachers. They show us how to absorb external experiences consciously. Thus we learn to tone down the spontaneous output of our organs to an appropriate proportion. These subtle lessons accompany situations that occur regularly, such as surprises, disappointments, frustrations and anxiety-producing events.

We absorb quite a bit from our role models in the pre-school-to-puberty years, so whatever our strongest social conditioning source demonstrates is what we will learn. This is a “for better or worse” education. If the person we most closely bond with uses food to suppress emotional expression, for example, we will learn this coping strategy as a conscious alternative to full emotional release. Conversely, if that parent indulges in fits of rage at the first sign of inconvenient feelings we will follow this strategy as well.

Here is an example of a subconscious response that followed me into my thirties.

When I was about 4 years old one of my relatives came for a visit. One morning she, my sister and I were hanging around talking. My sister was able to answer and jibe, having picked-up social interaction quickly. But I was less skilled.

At one point the conversation turned to how pretty we girls were and how did we get so pretty? I had no point of reference for this question, and just played along.

“Do you think you’re pretty?” she asked me directly. I didn’t know what to say, so I said “yes…”

I was entirely unprepared for the peals of laughter that followed. “Ahhaha! She thinks she’s pretty! Oh, that’s so cute! This girl thinks she’s pretty!”

Though her voice was still laughing, these words were delivered in a way that did not equate with the fun and friendly game we had been playing.

It was the first time that my attempt at truthfulness had been turned against me. I had no social conditioning for the experience of being shamed.

For many years to come any comment on my appearance, either positive or negative would trigger a deep desire to cover my face.  I hid behind a mop of hair rather than show what could be a shameful face to the world. I began to cut my hair to cover as much of my face as possible, which lead my mother to comment that I was trying to “ugly up” my appearance.

In college I was re-unite with this relative and came to understand her way of humor was to

Art therapy: Perceived and Potential self image.

poke at other people and re-tell stories out of context. She had her reasons for this approach, and I did not think to judge it. Though it served her purposes, I began to realize that this strategy had informed my self-confidence in a way that was utterly unnatural for me. Though unable to re-connect with my source of self-love, I had the epiphany that a major in Drama was the wrong direction for my education. I had been practicing wearing masks but not wearing my truth.

Eventually I made my way through Shiatsu school, a direction that shed light on the call to service. I began digging into the inhibitions that held me back from full participation in the work but continually balked at a dark self-loathing inner-twined with my feeling of self-worth.

After Shiatsu school I assisted in an international child-protection summit as an organizer. One of the participating presenters complimented me on my work behind the scenes, at which I squirmed and attempted to escape.

"Just accept the compliment!" she finally said.

This was the push I needed to remind me that part of me was still waiting to be felt. In the safety of therapy I was able to explore the avenue this genuine compliment had opened. It lead to the key experience, which I brought to consciousness for a more adult decisions on how to express fully the feeling I had at the age of 4.

The very first time I allowed this feeling to re-emerge it had the same quality as when I was young. There was a mixture of confusion, bewilderment and extreme negativity toward myself. Once I’d felt it in a more mature frame of mind I knew I had been unprepared for the original experience. I had not known my truth at that time. Social conditioning had not taught me how to deflect feelings that did not belong to me, or re-direct my awareness toward compassion. Luckily the feelings were stored deep within me, waiting for the moment when I could re-connect and grow more fully into my truth.

Having transformed this and other early-life experiences, I know that it is not something that every adult is willing to go through. After all, most adults have earned their positions of respect in life and will not stoop to the level of expressing their elementary school emotions. There is one thing I can say for those who will go to this depth: you will become more human for having done the journey.

As a parting note, I would like to add one thing to the Legendary Spiritual Guide's statement. We are not prepared for everything in life as it happens, however we are given a natural process of maturation that empowers us to find the good in what we have endured. We can then openly stand beside our friends and loved ones as they, too face the obstacles that have held them back.