just ‘be present’ with that
Good Evening Friends,
Have you heard the advice to 'be present' with whatever you're experiencing?
That sounds like really great advice, and might just the ticket many a time, but how do you 'be present' with very intense reactions? There's a whole spectrum of reactions and emotions out there, and often not much surface level clarity around what tigger causes what type and degree of reaction.
It's one thing to 'be present' with the little reactions, emotions, and upsets.
It is quite another thing to 'be present' when one of those giant triggers is set off. How do you ' be present' when a freight train of rage just exploded in your head and is roiling, boiling, and shooting through the roof?
How you do 'be present' with self-loathing that presses down so hard you can't lift your arm, much less your head up off of the couch?
How do you 'be present' with body hatred and shame that grinds so powerfully though you that you can't get out of the front door to go to the coffee shop, much less that school event?
These are extreme examples. I list them because I'm sure that some of you live with them every day, or they come and go, sometimes its easier, sometimes harder. There is an entire spectrum of examples like this, all of which could use the prescription to 'be present'.
Here's me 11 years ago: I'm going through my days, muscling through the days really, having precipitously uncovered an abyss of self-loathing so deep it loomed beneath me at every turn, unable to be covered over again. I had to literally will myself though the day.
Then I got turned on to Eckhart Tolle, and the instruction to 'be present' with the suffering. I could tell he was speaking the Truth. Somehow I knew that presence was the healing balm for my pain. But how to apply it?
I tried to do what he suggested. I tried and tried and tried... I knew that he was onto something.
The problem was, there is a lot more nuance and guidance, fine print if you will, to 'being present' with something than I garnered from his teachings. I ended up muscling my way through 'being present' with the considerable inherited trauma life circumstances had unceremoniously unearthed and deposited square in my lap for about 3 years.
It was hell. Some days it felt like there was a cement mixer continuously smashing up glass bottles with a bowling ball inside me upon waking clean through to falling asleep. It's difficult go to the bank or cook dinner and clean up the kitchen with little kids with that going on. Some days there would be minutes or hours of reprieve.
My interpretation of Eckhart Tolle's 'be present' was to basically sit on the couch (you may remember this couch from my last email, it played a big role that first year) and force myself to 'be present' with the huge emotions and horrible voices in my head, no matter how difficult. I thought that would cure it.
The problem was that I was putting my trauma in charge of healing my trauma. . And, of course, I had no inkling that that was what I was doing. I didn't get the nuances, I didn't understand that the energy of willpower and gritted teeth have never healed an inner child yet. I didn't even know what an inner child was.
Thank goodness there are actual practical steps to 'being present' that are infinitely gentle , patient, loving, and WORK. And they don't involve forcing the wounded inner teenager to heal the inner child, nor the inner child to heal the inner baby.
And if you think about it 1) why would you ever want to do that you your little ones, and 2) it doesn't work. Ever. Because it's simply not their job. Trauma can't heal trauma.
I'll write more about the things that actually work soon. In the meantime, drop me an email if you relate, or if you have heard the advice to 'be present' without the essential small print instructions on how in the world to do that.
And so, let us be so tender and kind with each other and ourselves, and when we cannot, may we be so tender and kind with that. It is as it should be. I wish you much love today,
Evangeline
