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Waking up is challenging enough, even without a trauma history. With a trauma history or significant nervous system dysregulation though, the dynamic changes significantly. We can feel too restless to sit, or we can be too numbed out to feel anything at all. We can face overwhelming emotions. And it’s common for the capacity to surrender to not be available because letting go is overcoupled with feelings of powerlessness and despair. Surrender reminds us of the moments we were most powerless, and the unprocessed terror from those moments blocks our process.
It's important to learn to practice with our nervous system in mind - to learn how to move the energy when it’s stuck (freeze/depression) and how to move or soothe the energy when it’s heightened (fight/flight/anxiety). It’s also important to learn to work with the blocks our trauma creates that keep us from seeing the world simply as it is, which is all that's asked of us to awaken. Unfortunately the teachings themselves often encourage us to do the opposite of what our modern trauma needs.
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They tell us to transcend: to accept, to disidentify with our body, to let go of form. But these teachings were put down in a completely different time and context than our own, at a time when people were already embodied. Going beyond the body was thus a natural step. But for us, in trying to go beyond the body before the body and mind are linked, we simply dissociate, and we lose access to a tremendous amount of wisdom. Our awakening, to the extent that it’s present, is brittle, fragile, and lacking in intelligence and direction.
We also struggle with self-hate in a way that's relatively new, globally. In fact, it's still true today that cultures outside the West don’t struggle with self-hate in the way that we do here, though that’s sadly changing as the West’s influence grows. And the more trauma we’ve experienced, the more self-hate we usually have - we blame ourselves for what happened to us. We turn to the teachings and they tell us the ego is illusory, imaginary, irrelevant. Our own unconscious self-hate is so happy to pick up that mantle and wear it like a banner: ‘Thank god, I’ll just see the parts of myself I hate as imaginary. Then I won’t have to deal with them, own them, or admit to them.’ Needless to say, this strategy doesn't work for long.
We also struggle with self-hate in a way that's relatively new, globally. In fact, it's still true today that cultures outside the West don’t struggle with self-hate in the way that we do here, though that’s sadly changing as the West’s influence grows. And the more trauma we’ve experienced, the more self-hate we usually have - we blame ourselves for what happened to us. We turn to the teachings and they tell us the ego is illusory, imaginary, irrelevant. Our own unconscious self-hate is so happy to pick up that mantle and wear it like a banner: ‘Thank god, I’ll just see the parts of myself I hate as imaginary. Then I won’t have to deal with them, own them, or admit to them.’ Needless to say, this strategy doesn't work for long.
The clear seeing necessitated to awaken is much harder to access when we are seeing the world through so many unconscious lenses and biases.
In making conscious and healing some of these unseen biases, we become clearer, less desperate, less invested in our views. This opens space for us to finally see things, as they are.
In addition, the awakening process causes disorientation as we move out of one perspective and into another. Our entire energetic system dis-organizes so that it can reorganize itself based on the new perspective. It literally learns to operate in a completely different way. Our brains unwire so they can rewire. Even without much trauma, the experience of this can be quite confusing and unsettling. People with trauma tend to struggle with this aspect of the process because trauma causes an internal experience of chaos and disorganization. When we lack some sense of internal stability, control, organization, and differentiation, our system will fearfully contract away from any experience that induces more of the kind of experience we’re already having. And so again, we need to do the exact opposite of what the teachings recommend: we need to cultivate internal and external orientation such that we experience more stability. Instead of surrender, we need to cultivate influence over our internal state such that our sense of intense helplessness is relieved. We need to organize our experience so that we have more of a sense of internal safety. From this place, surrendering into chaos, disorientation, and undifferentiated being becomes possible.
Ancient peoples also had more access to their impulses, in part because they were more embodied. These days, we unconsciously suppress so many of our impulses - the impulse to get away from things/people that are painful or dangerous, the impulse to move towards things/people we like or find joy in, the impulse to say what we really think or how we feel, the impulse to ask for help, even the impulse to go to the bathroom often gets suppressed because our body’s needs come last societally. Trauma is created after an experience where we were not able to allow our survival impulses to come through. So, the more trauma we’ve experienced, the more frozen our impulses will be. With our impulses locked up, our bodies are locked up and our minds with them. We feel anxious and depressed because we are cut off from the very impulses we need to take care of ourselves, the impulses that make us feel alive, joyful, and free.
This is not to say it isn’t appropriate to reign in our impulses in at times, but instead to say our choice to act or not act need not come from fear or self-hate. Awakening means all actions are on the table as potential responses, and our choice in any given moment arises from surrender and love.
In addition, the awakening process causes disorientation as we move out of one perspective and into another. Our entire energetic system dis-organizes so that it can reorganize itself based on the new perspective. It literally learns to operate in a completely different way. Our brains unwire so they can rewire. Even without much trauma, the experience of this can be quite confusing and unsettling. People with trauma tend to struggle with this aspect of the process because trauma causes an internal experience of chaos and disorganization. When we lack some sense of internal stability, control, organization, and differentiation, our system will fearfully contract away from any experience that induces more of the kind of experience we’re already having. And so again, we need to do the exact opposite of what the teachings recommend: we need to cultivate internal and external orientation such that we experience more stability. Instead of surrender, we need to cultivate influence over our internal state such that our sense of intense helplessness is relieved. We need to organize our experience so that we have more of a sense of internal safety. From this place, surrendering into chaos, disorientation, and undifferentiated being becomes possible.
Ancient peoples also had more access to their impulses, in part because they were more embodied. These days, we unconsciously suppress so many of our impulses - the impulse to get away from things/people that are painful or dangerous, the impulse to move towards things/people we like or find joy in, the impulse to say what we really think or how we feel, the impulse to ask for help, even the impulse to go to the bathroom often gets suppressed because our body’s needs come last societally. Trauma is created after an experience where we were not able to allow our survival impulses to come through. So, the more trauma we’ve experienced, the more frozen our impulses will be. With our impulses locked up, our bodies are locked up and our minds with them. We feel anxious and depressed because we are cut off from the very impulses we need to take care of ourselves, the impulses that make us feel alive, joyful, and free.
This is not to say it isn’t appropriate to reign in our impulses in at times, but instead to say our choice to act or not act need not come from fear or self-hate. Awakening means all actions are on the table as potential responses, and our choice in any given moment arises from surrender and love.
Restoring access to our frozen impulses restores a sense of inner safety and shifts a deep body/mind trauma story of "I can't" into "I can." From a place of "I can,” seeing "I can't" in the way awakening asks of us becomes possible. Surrender becomes natural.
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Here's how what spiritual practice asks of us contrasts with what’s needed for trauma recovery:
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- Instead of relinquishing control of our internal state, we need to cultivate healthy influence over it such that we experience greater levels of agency and inner stability.
- Instead of opening to the disorientation of the shift into the awakened perspective, we need to cultivate inner and outer orientation.
- Instead of letting go of the impulse to move towards what we desire or what feels pleasurable, we need to encourage and to learn to follow those impulses and to cultivate the skill of savoring pleasure and goodness.
- Instead of moving towards selflessness, we need to cultivate a seeing of, a loving of, an understanding of, and an appreciation for our relative selves, along with a willingness to take care of ourselves even if it means we say no to what someone else wants or needs.
- Instead of seeing our feelings as empty, we need to learn to treasure their wisdom and value their goodness.
- Instead of endeavoring to always be present, we need to teach our attention to be flexible, to move between simple presence, more intentional focus, and spaciousness.
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And so on.
There’s much more to this work than I can speak to here, but I hope this gives you a taste of the intersection I see between trauma work and the awakening path. We will never feel internally safe through trauma work or ego work. That’s why the teachings exist. There’s no such thing as safety from an egoic perspective. My point here is that we need *just enough* of this work so that we can allow the awakening process to unfold in the way the teachings discuss. With just enough empowerment, orientation, self-love, enough capacity to do what we need to do to take care of ourselves, enough stability, enough inner safety...we can fall into disempowerment, disorientation, instability, selflessness, surrender, and so on. We can let go of our sense of self, our individuality, our egoic desires and aversions, our egoic orientation, our egoic desire for things to be the way we want them. This is the challenge facing us today that did not exist 2600 years ago. Of course paradoxically, from here, we come back to the relative world and are able to value the human perspective as much as we value the Ultimate perspective. It’s not an easy path . . . but I know it’s still the only path for so many of us who have long heard its calling from deep inside |
Book Recommendations:
*Unfortunately, there are no books out there right now that address these topics in as specific a way as I would wish, but the ones I’ve listed here are all supportive of trauma-sensitive meditation practice and balanced and grounded spirituality.
Spiritual Bypassing, Robert Augustus Masters
Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, David Treleaven
The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You, Matt Licata
A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times, Matt Licata
Falling in Love with Where You Are, Jeff Foster
You Were Never Broken: Poems to Save Your Life, Jeff Foster
Grounded Spirituality, Jeff Brown
*Unfortunately, there are no books out there right now that address these topics in as specific a way as I would wish, but the ones I’ve listed here are all supportive of trauma-sensitive meditation practice and balanced and grounded spirituality.
Spiritual Bypassing, Robert Augustus Masters
Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, David Treleaven
The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You, Matt Licata
A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times, Matt Licata
Falling in Love with Where You Are, Jeff Foster
You Were Never Broken: Poems to Save Your Life, Jeff Foster
Grounded Spirituality, Jeff Brown
All Photos this page by Katherine Savage
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