The Past: Fear

When fearful, we disconnect from ourselves, our resources, our friends, our families, and our Higher Power (or the Light). This unconscious action reinforces our disconnection and our fear. Fear is the opposite of love. If we have had much trauma in our lives or we have had a complicated and/or abusive relationship with one or both of our parents, our nervous system cannot develop in a safe and nurturing way. We quickly get overwhelmed and may easily go into a panic.

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We may even become phobic about things like what others think, leaving our homes, animals, etc. By realizing what we are doing and by going back to our first traumas through image and feeling as well as words, and by staying with our body feelings, we can begin to stay more connected a little at a time.

 

Visualizations, meditations, new images, and awareness of what is happening within us are some things that help us remain in the present. Fear keeps us locked in the past. Fear can even be held in our bodies over generations when past traumas in our parent’s families were never seen, accepted, or resolved. We can take steps toward a future of living in love with appropriate boundaries.

 

Click for meditation to go from fear to healthy boundaries

 

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The Present: From Fear to Boundaries

When we can remain present in our bodies, despite fear, we can begin to see and know when our boundaries are being crossed or when we feel invaded or abandoned. To move from fear to love, we need to establish healthy boundaries. Then, we feel protected. As we feel protected, we can love ourselves more fully and reach out to others. The foundation must be re-set to take a risk and love freely. The key is being able to be in the present

 

Click here for exercise for boundaries to love

 

 

The Future: How Boundaries Create Love

Healthy boundaries enable us to love ourselves and to recognize and own our truths while honoring the truths of others. Boundaries enable us to see and feel our feelings while remaining connected to ourselves and others. This is the foundation of being able to experience love for self, others, and the world.

 

 

The Past: Depressed

Many of us move through what is called situational depression, but true depression does not alter when the situation alters. We feel depressed most of the time. Often, depression is repression of our feelings, especially anger. The energy it takes to hold anger inside is immense.

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Being able to become unstuck and move out of this depressed state takes many things. One vital resource is moving from the sense that everything is about us. As children, in order to survive, most things revolve around us. We feel everything is about us: our parent's anger, a fight with a sibling, etc. When something freezes us in that state of believing someone's mad look is about us, for example, we stay stuck there. This usually takes a large traumatic event: the sudden death of a friend or parent, being thrown out of the house, a parent leaving, and so on.

 

A significant step in moving us into the present and away from a traumatic event is to gain perspective, to step back from what someone says, to see our parents with a larger lens of what happened to them, and so forth. The weight of believing things are our fault is enormous. As we realize that everything is not about us, we can give ourselves permission to feel our own feelings and separate from others. This distancing lets us see that others' reactions are not about us. We can begin to accept ourselves for exactly who we are. This later translates to accepting others for who they are

 

Click here for meditation on becoming unstuck

 

 

The Present: From Depression to Perspective

When we feel depressed, we are engaged in an active process of holding in our feelings and not allowing ourselves to feel our anger and resentment. We are stuck in the past of the trauma. This energy does not allow us to see that we are reacting to our perceived ideas of what others think and feel. As we can step away from the trauma that still lives in us and see ourselves as separate from others, we can own our feelings, which also means learning our feelings will not kill us. This shift in perspective gives us the inner freedom to begin to accept ourselves, our feelings, and others exactly as we all are. This is what is called being in the present.

 

Click here for exercise on developing perspective

 

 

The Future: How Perspective Leads to Acceptance

Self-acceptance is the ability to love oneself just as one is true. This True self-acceptance includes our shadow side as well as our light side to the surface. We get to this place step by step and by fully being present.

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The Past: Lost

Feeling lost is often an indicator that we have lost something important. We have lost a connection to ourselves, others, or the light that shows us our way. We need to remember to listen to our own guided small voice inside. We get lost when we do not know how to listen to our voice or we listen too much to someone else’s voice.

 

We may have been told by others all our lives what we should do. We felt we had to follow and listen to our parents and community members. We also did not have a chance to survive to develop our voice, yet it is waiting inside of us for us to give it a voice.

 

This requires learning to be nurtured, especially if we did not experience it from our mother and father or caretakers. Nurturing enables us to grow inside and listen more fully to our voice, which tells us who we are and how to connect with others truly. Being lost can lead us to the present and real inner growth.

 

Click to hear meditation on self nurturing

 

 

The Present: From Lost to Growth

When we can separate from others and hear our own voice, we can begin the process of allowing ourselves to follow where the inner voice wants to lead. Often, the path is slow, like in the game Chutes and Ladders, where we have to climb up slowly, and then suddenly, we have a chute that goes quickly. This also takes being able to risk doing something our way, which can trigger our old survival mechanisms. Doing something our way, rather than our family’s, can cause fear of losing them. We become lost in ourselves when we allow that fear to keep us from listening to and following our voice. Only by growing our confidence and steeping in self-nurturance can we be fully in the present, which leads us to a future of connection.

 

Click for exercise on listening to and following our path/voice

 

 

The Future: How Growth Leads to Connection

One step at a time, by being connected to ourselves, others, and our light, we open internal and external vistas that expand and deepen our desires.

 

 

The Past: Defended

We begin to defend ourselves while still in the womb when we feel our mother’s fear, anger, loss, overwhelm, or other complicated feelings. We also pick up chaos in the atmosphere; the loud voices of those around us penetrate the womb. At that time, our nervous system was developing, and we knew everything that was going on around us without understanding or words to help us categorize everything. We know what we are being born into without the words to describe them.

 

All of this goes into our hearts and our bodies. If the early years of our lives are marked by mom or dad’s overwhelm, depression, or anger, we subconsciously find ways to defend ourselves. These defenses keep us alive. In order to survive, we put armor around us so we cannot be hurt. This armor protects and distances us from the pain and discomfort caused by our parents and those around us.

 

This kind of distancing does not allow or foster perspective or understanding. Too much distance – from our feelings or parents–can harm us. However, we developed these defenses to protect ourselves, which is the conundrum.

 

To move forward and live in the present, we need to develop a different kind of distance, one with consciousness that protects us and allows us to be our authentic selves while remaining close to those we need and love. This distance helps us separate from our caretakers and creates enough space between us and their emotional realities.

 

Click for meditation on creating distance from our caretaker’s feelings

 

 

The Present: From Defended to Distance

As we separate from others' pain and suffering, we can live in our bodies and truly experience our feelings. This lets us slowly strip away our unhealthy defenses a little at a time. We then have space to experience something new. We can hear our inner voices and feel our breath as we live in the present instead of the past. The new distance gives room for inspiration, ideas, and thoughts for a different future.

 

Click for exercise on creating necessary distance and unmerging from others

 

 

The Future: How Distance Leads to Inspiration

Inspiration is the ability to inspire, to take a deep breath. By breathing freely and hearing our inner voice, we give ourselves space to bring in something new, which comes from inspired ideas grounded and sourced from our soul. Living with inspiration is also a legacy for the future.

 

 

The Past: Alone

When we feel alone, we have disconnected or separated from ourselves, others, and our higher power. We know when we have done this when we experience emotions such as abandonment, anger, resentment, overwhelm, and depression. Those feelings, while very real when engaged in them, keep us disconnected from who we are and those around us

 

When we were little, we often felt alone; maybe our mothers could not be present with us. Maybe they were angry and alone. Maybe Dad was yelling, or Mom was yelling. This emotional atmosphere did not allow us to experience our value or feel loved for who we are and as we are.

 

Feeling alone then becomes our default place whenever we are triggered. We must learn to nurture ourselves and connect to our identity rather than feelings of victimhood. That can be difficult to do when we are stuck in those traumatic feelings and times. Identifying with victimhood then also keeps us from making decisions that can move us to the present.

 

Doing dream work, visualizations, and creating new images are all very helpful in letting go of that sense of being alone while also allowing us to integrate our old memories and the past, which is essential to being truly present in our lives.

 

Click here for meditation/visualization to help us to be present to our alone and victim parts

 

 

The Present: From Alone to Integration

As we recognize that this feeling of aloneness is a choice that might not have been a conscious choice, we can then choose something different. This also involves realizing that feeling alone identifies with being victimized somehow. We might have been when we were tiny, so we became entrenched in that feeling.

 

When we accept every aspect of ourselves that we have abandoned, we can welcome each part joining our whole. This integration is what allows us to leave the aloneness behind. When we are whole, even by ourselves, we are never alone.

 

Click here for exercise on welcoming all our parts

 

 

The Future: How Integration Leads to Hope

Hope is being in a place where we know that we are on a positive path of growth that leads to a knowledge in our bones that we are choosing life and wholeness, that all of our parts are integrated and moving forward. This is saying that all is good, not by ignoring or denying the difficulties, but by realizing that we become one by bringing up our dark memories and sides and embracing all. There is growth, hope, and new light when we are one.

 

 

The Past: Angry

When we are angry, we are mainly in a secondary emotion. Usually, when we are angry, we are in a reactive state. This differs from feeling anger as a temporary emotion when we are wronged or hurt.

 

As a state of being, anger destroys our health and growth. Being angry is being in a place where we defend ourselves from an underground feeling of loss, sadness, or disappointment. When we are angry, we are often really sad or disappointed.

 

Growing up feeling disappointed is very difficult for us. Maybe we had a father who kept saying he would visit us and never came, or if he did, he was late, and you never knew if or when he would come. Maybe mom was furious and took it out on you; anger is all you experienced in mothering.

 

Moving away from anger means we have to feel and acknowledge our anger without necessarily acting out. When we feel our anger, we can ask what is behind and beneath the anger. We can begin to see what we have been hiding from and protecting ourselves from: the loss of our father or mother, the not knowing when someone would come and the, disappointment, and so on

 

Allowing our truth to be seen and recognized means we can also hold and contain our feelings. Containment without numbing through alcohol or other addictions involves being able to soothe and talk oneself through one’s emotions and hearing the words that need to be heard.

 

Click here for meditative words for self soothing

 

 

The Present: From Anger to Truth

In order to lift the veil of pain and disappointment and see inside to a greater truth, we need a safe place. This safe place is an inside place where, through a more significant state of consciousness, we can face what we have been running from. When we create an inner safe place, we can connect with those we love and want to love but feel it is too painful. We can have compassion for the pain we and our perpetrators experienced. This also allows us to develop compassion for our internal perpetrators and victims, as we all have them. This compassion gives us a safety net to see a greater truth and live more fully in the present.

Click here for exercise on compassion

 

 

The Future: How Truth Leads to Clarity

Clarity is the ability to see and know things clearly; perception's inner and outer windows are as straightforward as possible. Seeing a problematic truth opens us up (and future generations) to living in clarity, love, acceptance, connection, inspiration, and hope.