Two-Legged Medicine: How to Be Your Own Brilliant Therapist

By Robyn Bridges M Ed

So often clients have come to me unsure of how therapyor healingreally works. They want both an overview and specific ways to find what they seek. They are asking, in effect, for a roadmap to guide them.

Two-Legged Medicine: How to Be Your Own Brilliant Therapist offers such a template, full of life-enhancing healing systems, many of which you can use on your own. These techniques provide the path of direct experience, designed to engage your body, mind, and spirit. Both contemporary and ancient self-directed teachings described here will help you recognize and heal wounds from the arc of childhood through adulthood. Youll discover which of the five stages of your own heros/heroines journey you are currently traversing. Youll absorb insightful and practical ways to understand the power of your childhood, recover from abuse, transform codependence to inter-dependence, create vital relationships, and develop a deep friendship with your own sense of spirit. Whether you are new to your path or a seasoned traveler, welcome to an enhanced perspective, where your psyche will relax and your soul will open to the magnitude of healing. You can truly be your own brilliant therapist. Heres to discovering how rich your journey can be.

Robyn Bridges, a gifted body-mind-spirit therapist, offers us a comprehensive, unique, and wise insight into the human condition. This compilation of visionary philosophy and practical tools is a must-read for both professional health care providers and anyone looking to live in consciousness. To read this book is to enter into a healing journey and exit transformed.

Dr. Holcomb Johnston, Naturopath

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Apr 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452588452

Robyn Bridges M Ed

Montana resident ROBYN BRIDGES, M Ed, LCPC, has offered body-mind-spirit therapies for over twenty-five years. A transpersonal teacher, mentor, speaker, and soul-based psychotherapist, she has assisted those seeking greater inner wisdom to navigate and find their own true north. Through speaking engagements, Robyn delivers presentations with readings from her books, Moose Medicine, Two-Legged Medicine, and This Way to the Kiva: Poems for the Journey Home.

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Copyright © 2014 Robyn Bridges.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-8844-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-8845-2 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 4/28/2014

Contents

About The Author

Introduction

Part I: Early Damage – the Loss of Innocence

Chapter 1: Inklings and Signposts

The Vow to Remain Unconscious

Why Am I Dealing With This Now?

Spiritual Emergency

Understanding Your Wounding: Journey Initiation

The Importance of Your Story

Chapter 2: The Way Out Is Through

The Curse of Abandonment

Shame: The ‘Not Enough’ Syndrome

The Essential Inner Child

The Peter Pan and Cinderella Syndromes

Chapter 3: The Sacred Wound

Abuse—How to Believe It; How to Heal It

Addiction Is a Secondary Pain

The Truth About Parenting

Unlearning: From Negative Self-Talk to Positive Re-Framing

Discernment: When to Hold ‘Em and When to Fold ‘Em

What Your Therapist May Not Have Told You

Chapter 4: The Power to Heal

Re-Parenting Yourself

Why It’s OK Not to Forgive—At First

Body Wisdom: Learning to Live Inside Yourself

When to Retire Your Story

Chapter 5: The Etiology and Healing of Trauma

What Qualifies as Trauma?

The Difference Between Stress and Trauma

Adult vs. Childhood Trauma

Detecting Your Own Adult Trauma

The Development and Healing of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Part II: The Development and Healing of Codependence

Chapter 6: Nice and Needy

Understanding the Brilliant Way You’ve Learned to Get What You Want

Narcissism—The Too Grand or Not Grand Enough Self

The Highly Sensitive Person

The Self- Serving Server

Chapter 7: How to Heal Codependence in Your Inner World

Self-Image—How Do I Learn to Approve of Myself?

Accepting Responsibility; Releasing Guilt

From What Do You Want? to What Do I Want?

Neediness—Filling the Void Through Radical Acceptance

How Being with Codependents Can Activate Your Own

Chapter 8: Practicing Inter-Dependence

Help from the Ancestors

Let Your No Mean No and Your Yes Mean Yes

Release and Revise Sticky Interactions

Recognize Your Own Signposts of Personal Power

Part III: Relationships: Blessing or Bother?

Chapter 9: Building the Face of Love

With Whom Are We in Relationship?

The Necessary Risk of Loving

Lost in Love: Where Is the Me in Us?

Projection: Can I Love You Apart from Who I Think You Are?

Important Differences; Crucial Similarities

Chapter 10: It’s a Family Affair

Loving and Hating: The Dual Face of Relationship

Conflict Resolution: Works in Progress

Unhappy Alone or Unhappy Together?

Our Parents, Our Selves

The Relativity in Relatives

Chapter 11: Relationships Are an Inside Job

The Real Affair

The Power of Now

Developing Your Own Inner Masculine and Feminine

The Quantity and Quality of Physical Love

Chapter 12: Ripened Fruit

From New to Mature Love: Deepening

Soul Mates: One or Many?

Finding the Beloved

Wrestling the Blessing from the Bother

Part IV: Spiritual Sourcing

Chapter 13: To Whom Do You Belong?

Are You a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience?

Abandonment and Belonging

The Man Behind the Curtain: Uncovering Your Oz

Chapter 14: Is Your Psyche Aligned With Your Spirit?

Ego Is Not the Enemy

The Ruse of Religion: Breaking Free from the Grip of Guilt

Three Roads Converging: Tolerance, Discernment, and Trust

Living Archetypes

Chapter 15: Natural Divinity

The Function of Magic: Paranormal Experience

Carving Out Your Spirituality: Animals, Angels, and Demons

Earth and Sky Cosmologies

Developing Your Own Vibrant Connection

The Urge to Merge

Part V: From Surviving to Thriving

Chapter 16: The Healing Arc

Illness: Compassionate Befriending

From Grief to Acceptance: When to NOT Pathologize Yourself

Caring for Special Needs People—and Yourself

The Gifts and Limits of Guides and Mentors

Chapter 17: The Great Spiral

Changing Identity: The Purpose of the Void

The Pursuit of Freedom

Creativity: The Mark of a Full Life

Soul Development, the Tender Scar, and the Aging Body

The Spiral of Your Evolving Self

Part VI: Applications: Healing Systems for Personal Use

Body-Mind-Spirit: The Transpersonal Philosophy

The Path of Direct Experience

1. Drumming

2. Movement and Dance

3. Sound Healing

4. Consciousness Music

5. The Mind at Play

6. Transactional Analysis: Your Parent, Adult, and Child Selves

7. Voice Dialogue: The Unconscious Revealed

8. Divination Systems: Messages from Your Wise Self

9. Peaceways: The Art of Forgiveness

10. The Medicine Wheel: Tracking the Truth of Your Life

11. Imagery: The Vast Imaginal

12. Hypnotherapy: The Mind Heals the Body

13. Chakras: How to Hear Messages Through the Chakra Energy Centers

14. Just Breathe

15. Artistic Expression: Not for Professionals Only

16. Body Talk: Emotions in Motion

17. Stages of Birth: A Living Metaphor

18. Personality Types: Testing, Learning Styles, and How to Benefit from Them

19. Energy Balancing: Your Own Healing Hands

20. Nature’s Healing: Crystals and Minerals

21. The Solace of Nature

Epilogue: Beyond Techniques—The Mystery of the Healing Self

Acknowledgments

Resources

For my esteemed clients, who have

taught me how to trust

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For Life, having taught me how to live

About The Author

M ontana resident Robyn Bridges, M Ed, LCPC, has offered body-mind-spirit therapies for over 25 years. A transpersonal teacher, mentor, speaker, and soul-based psychotherapist, she has assisted those seeking greater inner wisdom to navigate and find their own true north. Through her psychotherapy private practice, providing At-Home intensive retreats and facilitating workshops, she has taught a wide variety of ancient and contemporary healing methods on conscious living nationally and internationally.

Robyn holds certifications in Integrative and Shamanic Breathwork, Advanced Transpersonal Hypnotherapy, Transpersonal Teaching and Spiritual Counseling through the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person (AIWP), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming (EMDR), and Voice Dialogue. She has been inducted into the Wolf Clan of the Seneca Nation and carries Medicine Wheel teachings from Grandmother Twylah. She has completed seminars in Hakomi Therapy, Gestalt, Dreamwork, Feldenkrais Movement, Expressive Dance, Sacred Drumming, Sound Healing, Hands-On Healing, Eco-Psychology, Therapeutic Storytelling, Deep Meditation Practices, and Radical Compassion. Among her many teachers and authors who shaped her healing practice are: Richard Moss, Matthew Fox, John O’Donohue, David Whyte, Angeles Arrien, Thomas Moore, Grandmother Twylah, Linda Star Wolf, Jacquelyn Small, Bill Plotkin, Gregg Braden, Debbie Ford of the Depak Chopra Center, and Vickie Molinar-Sanz.

Robyn has written five books centering on the healing of body, mind, and spirit. Currently published are Moose Medicine: Healing Wisdom from the Natural World, and now, Two-Legged Medicine: How To Be Your Own Brilliant Therapist. Her first book of poems: This Way to the Kiva: Poems for the Journey Home, and five other books will follow shortly. Robyn’s first CD, The Return of the Sacred Feminine in Nature and Consciousness, will soon be elaborated by a series of fireside chat CDs and web blogs about women’s empowerment, the urgency of eco-psychology, and waking up to a soul-filled life.

Recently closing her practice, Robyn now devotes herself to writing, speaking engagements, and spending time both in the natural world and in her community. She continues to live in Bozeman and travels abroad.

A complete listing of Robyn’s books and CDs can be found at

www.booksbyrobynbridges.com. Orders may be placed through your local bookstore, Balboa Press, or from amazon.com.

Introduction

L ife offers us both daunting challenges and powerful joys. How we navigate those difficulties and celebrate the joys depends in part on the perceptions we hold and the choices we make. We so often don’t realize that we can choose to live richly fulfilling lives no matter our circumstances. Yet so many of us in Western culture run around full of stress and worry, depression or angst, all of which keep us from feeling fulfilled.

Consider, if you will, your own current life satisfaction level. Has it changed over time? If you are not as happy or peaceful as you’d like to be, what keeps you from it? Are your circumstances preventing you in some way from being more centered, peaceful, or content? Or are you currently quite enjoying life but sense you could be even freer?

Whether you are experiencing the joy of wellbeing or the drought of difficulty, circumstances are always changing. Life vibrates back and forth between wellness and suffering. During challenging times, learning how to artfully navigate the sense of being dropped into an unwelcomed underworld can guide you through and out of the depths of incredibly dense human experience. By making suffering conscious and facing it squarely, you will participate in the dignity of the human spirit. You will become, as is popular in contemporary Buddhist thought, mindful. Mindfulness (or, as I sometimes call it, consciousness) builds a foundation for moving through life with authenticity and real power. When overcome with your worst pain, even in the midst of confusion and desperation, you can learn to activate and benefit from your wisest self.

So how do you proceed? Before embarking on your journey, you may have been wandering around, unconsciously looking for answers. However, J.R.R. Tolkien reminds us, in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, All who wander are not lost. If you are wandering, it most likely has a purpose: to explore in order to gather experience that will ultimately lead you to your best sense of home. Even if solutions to problems you face do not arise immediately, poet Rainer Maria Rilke admonishes you to love the unanswered questions. Loving the unanswered questions teaches you to be present with the truth of your issue, whatever it is, while trusting that there is already an answer embedded in each question.

First, however, like the Grail King of old, you must ask, What truly ails me? The honesty of this question will take you on an unprecedented adventure. Whether you have already traveled this road once or a hundred times, whether you have traversed your own trials and tribulations consciously or unconsciously, you seek the jewel: to intimately know and tend to your own wounding. Through tenacity and fortitude, even through seeming failures, you will discover what healing really means. You will morph from having been a victim, to surviving, to thriving. You will also learn to recognize and do your best to right any wrongs along the way for which you realize you might have been at least partially responsible.

How do you find the ‘cure’ for what ails you? Through this book, you will find a host of psychologically sound and spiritually activating healing techniques, from Voice Dialogue to Walking the Medicine Wheel. You will also be introduced to, or reminded of, the awareness that many visible and invisible beings have your highest interest at heart. In the visible realm, you will find mentors, teachers, and healthy friendships. In the unseen realm, you can invoke inspiration that brings welcome encounters with the divine. With your focused attention, answers may breeze in through nature itself, through wild animals, trees, rivers, on angel wings, through the fairy realms, the voices of the ancestors, or through synchronicities. Whether you worship the essence of a God or Goddess, Buddha or Christ, God within or God without, you can have direct experience of the sacred to remind you that you are loved, not alone, and so much more than your mind and physical body. In this text, I often used the terms ‘God,’ ‘Goddess,’ ‘Creator,’ ‘Divine,’ ‘Spirit,’ ‘The All That Is,’ and ‘Great Mystery’ to refer to a power higher than us yet of which we are a part. Your sense of God is a personal matter. However, spirituality—the living understanding of the Divine Life Force in everything— is universal. Spirituality is the experiential comet trail of the ‘Great Mystery,’ and it is waiting for you. Through it you will find a companionship with the world at large, even in the midst of your own suffering. You can have amazing encounters with the unseen world that can restore inner vision to your expectant heart. If you’ve been on your spiritual path a long time, you can rediscover which sentient beings are waiting for you to help restore and revitalize your life.

Like all good antidotes, however, whatever relief you discover must be taken in proper doses. Sought out appropriately, you can find inspiration filtering into your necessarily grounded and earthly life. But with too much spiritual encounter and not enough practical human activity, you may float into the ethers, becoming no earthly good to anyone. With too little spirituality, you might become mired in earth’s gravity. Depression and addictive reactions can follow. The proper balance of this antidote between human and spiritual help provides an infusion that heals and enlivens a spirit-filled earth walk. In Two-Legged Medicine: How to Be Your Own Brilliant Therapist, you will find reminders sprinkled about of the Creator within and without to help you balance the necessary and arduous tasks of authentic healing and participatory living.

I have been a psychotherapist for over 25 years, helping clients navigate life transitions and live better lives. Many of my clients deal with issues shared by most of us. I have chosen to address these in a specific arc from early childhood to adult needs. From my own work with fine healers, workshops I have facilitated, and private clients I have counseled, I have gathered confidence in the amazing intelligence of the psyche. I refer to the psyche as the organizing principle of the mind, ego, and personality. When the psyche is healed of wounding, it becomes a marvelous host for a solid and integrated spirituality. To capture this experience, I have written Two-Legged Medicine to encourage readers to heal through activating the body-mind-spirit connection with the path of direct, personal experience. When you feel it in your body, know it in your mind, and sense it in your spirit, it becomes yours. No one can take that from you. You will not forget it. And it will continue to benefit you for the rest of your life.

If you want to become conscious and free yourself from the past, live a vibrant life, break out of codependent patterns, and develop a soulful, spiritually attuned, satisfying life, then this book is for you. Each section is designed to help you identify your own life story and then find ways to transform fear and constriction into action and freedom. Part I, Early Damage— The Loss of Innocence, helps you authenticate and recognize your environmental and familial wounding. It then points the way for developing safe and supportive living situations in your adult life. Part II, The Development and Healing of Codependence, defines habits and patterns that keep us stuck and unhappy, and includes ways of seeking higher guidance to adjust thought and behavior for healthier outcomes. Part III, Relationships: Boon, Blessing, or Bother?, helps identify what you are really seeking from other people. It assists you in filling the empty places inside yourself before asking another to do it for you. It also describes the pathway to true intimacy. Part IV, Spiritual Sourcing, offers direct ways for you to develop your own vibrant relationship with the Divine, to hone your life purpose, and to open daily to the miraculous world around you. Part V, From Surviving to Thriving, winds you through the valleys of loss, response-ability, and grief to the heights of living from a soulful vantage point. It reveals ways to make choices that serve the best outcomes for all concerned. The final section of the book, Part VI, Applications: Healing Systems for Personal Use, details effective healing techniques I’ve synthesized from many fine teachers and healers. I incorporate these systems into both my private practice and my own personal healing work. You can use most of these techniques on your own, though having a trusted friend or therapist with you may be most beneficial. You can walk yourself through the exercises in this book and find which work best for you. You may also choose to creatively adjust them to suit your own needs and purposes.

The title for this book, Two-Legged Medicine, is gratefully borrowed from North American indigenous societies who have for eons referred to ‘two-leggeds’ as humans, and who refer to ‘medicine’ as any helpful and divinely inspired cure for what ails us. Naming humans as two-legged implies that there are other creatures with more, or fewer, legs that have equal places in the scheme of things. No one species is meant to be superior to another; in fact, all species can learn from one another, and they must, in order to survive. This wisdom, so forgotten in contemporary society, is being revived today, hopefully in time for humans to rebalance before destroying the earth forever. From my honorary membership in the Wolf Clan of the Seneca Nation, interaction with various indigenous people, and my own healing encounters, I have come to appreciate that we two-leggeds have much ‘medicine’ to receive from all life forms. My previous book, Moose Medicine: Healing Wisdom from The Natural World, chronicled the power of personal experience in nature to help heal our human malaise and contradictions. Now, Two-Legged Medicine focuses in greater detail on the human causes and human cures for many of our ailments.

The subtitle for this book, How to be Your Own Brilliant Therapist, came as a compliment from a client I was able to help in a way he’d been seeking all his life. He called me brilliant. After an ego-rush followed by a humbling self-reminder of my all-too-human failings, I responded, Thank you, AND, we can all be brilliant. You are recognizing that piece in me because you have it in yourself, too. As he began to accept this, he stepped into his growing psychological and spiritual power. It is my hope and intention that in reading Two-Legged Medicine: How to be Your Own Brilliant Therapist, you will find yourself more empowered, deepened, wiser, stronger, and, ultimately, happier. The text and exercises are designed to activate your conscious self: the wise part of you that knows exactly what you are about and wants to help you live in even greater freedom than you are right now. Whether you are quite experienced in this kind of awareness or more of a newcomer, the principles are the same: applying love, understanding, and compassion will heal what ails you. Some of you will just benefit from a reminder; others will be cultivating a whole new landscape of relating to self and other.

A vital element of being your own brilliant therapist is also to be able to discern when to go it alone and when to seek out help from bona-fide healers, trusted friends, or loving family. Sometimes we need other sentient human beings to mirror love and help us become more fully human. As we receive medicine learned by those who have traversed their own passageways, we develop knowledge, experience love, and find the courage to continue on our own path of consciousness. Once we’ve made significant headway, we are then able to assist others, either directly through healing work or simply by the attractive quality with which we live our lives. We become true travelers on the path of consciousness, with a fine appreciation for the miracle of life. We learn to accompany ourselves, to breathe deep, and to persevere through it all. And we remember to continually immerse ourselves in the vast world of nature to heal, rebalance, and renew us in body, mind, and spirit. Here’s to the development of your own brilliance, and the good medicine of a soulful journey.

Part I

Early Damage – the Loss of Innocence

Chapter 1

Inklings and Signposts

W hen you first realize the depth of any emotional or physical wounding you sustained in childhood, it is a landmark moment. You may experience a sudden or gradual memory, and, if you tune in, you may notice your body responding. You may catch yourself holding your breath, tightening your diaphragm, or tensing your hands, shoulders, feet, or thighs. Your mind may begin racing or moving into a slow-motion numbing. The reaction will be unique to you, but, sooner or later, you will realize that all of us experience some form of psychologically or physically limiting or difficult event in childhood, even if it does not seem major to us. It is not primarily about blaming (although someone may well need to be held accountable), but it is about honoring the truth and difficulty of what you experienced. It is true that we must ‘feel to heal.’ Shame causes so many of us to minimize our wounding, which in turn keeps us from the very healing we need.

In this chapter, you’ll be able to review the reasons why you may have remained unaware of or not tended to a significant childhood wounding for so long. You’ll also learn why you are perhaps only now waking up to the damage you sustained. Then you’ll read about how to recognize the difference between having a ‘spiritual emergency’ and having a bona-fide mental illness. In the process, you’ll realize that you are already on your own voyage of discovery. As you read on, you’ll find tools, skills, and support along the way. You will feel less alone and more accompanied by yourself and other compassionate souls. Here’s to a good journey.

The Vow to Remain Unconscious

Life can bring unbearably difficult outcomes, originating either from a difficult birth or from a trauma later in life. The seeds for how we handle our lives are encoded in our genes and developed in the nine months of our gestation, our actual birth, and throughout our tender formative years. The psyche, working as the integrating structure of our thoughts, ego, and personality, seeks to make sense of all our life experiences. It is brilliantly designed to help us cope with almost any circumstance, even if it has to split into several parts to keep us alive (as in a formal psychological diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder, once called Multiple Personality Disorder). Perhaps it seeks instead to cope with stress by forming repetitive behaviors (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) or it finds un-embodied contact with wild and unpredictable imaginary spiritual realms in an attempt to relate, or not relate, to life’s demands (as in Schizophrenia). In life’s mysterious choosing, mental illness or physical challenges may be genetically driven. The person doesn’t ask for it; it simply arrives as part of their package. Still, no matter the degree of genetic loading, the psyche is encoded with the large words SAVE and PROTECT. In my 25 years of psychological work, I am still amazed by the psyche’s consistent mission: to develop logical structure, elastic organization, and palatable spiritual satisfaction. The psyche is truly designed with our ultimate survival in mind.

Considering the wide range of psychological and physical terrors we can experience at an early age, it is amazing that so many of us function ‘normally’ at all. At the moment of overwhelming fear, whether from the hands of an abuser or a natural catastrophe, I believe we have pure recognition. We KNOW the full extent of what is happening, even if we are too young to have words to describe it. But we only know it for a moment. The psyche is not designed to live in terror for extended periods of time. Even if the damage is benign and minimal, our human constitutions are incredibly vulnerable. We need an abundance of love and safety in our formative years or we reap chilling consequences of abandonment, depression, anxiety, or anger (to name just a few outcomes) for the rest of our lives. Severe family dysfunction wounds us deeply. Even normal family dysfunction profoundly shapes our little beings. And even expected or ordinary loss and change can create profound reactions.

The psyche mitigates the results, however. One of its most brilliant techniques to help us cope is by covering up frightening moments. We actually forget the unwanted reception, the ignoring behaviors, the loss, the rude remarks made by our caretakers. In an artful maneuver, we take a vow to become unconscious about early trauma. Then we forget that we had a moment of consciously doing so. As we grow, we may develop defenses: we deny the depth of the injury or become aggressive and negative or inauthentically positive, all the while claiming that what happened to us wasn’t so bad. If we are so defended, we may develop a tough outer shell speckled with sarcasm, bitterness, and inappropriate humor. Or we may believe and project I’m fine and Nothing’s wrong. We may become outwardly capable, but inwardly, the compost is turning sour. Our persona may be full of bravado evident to everyone else but ourselves. On the other hand, if we have been victimized and are full of codependence (an overt dependence on others), we tend to place others above and before us and say, I don’t have a choice (even when we do). The victim prefers invisibility and doesn’t take self-supportive action; she cannot do otherwise until she heals. When the defended person finally breaks, and the victim plays out the drama of despair, the wounding becomes ready to be brought to light once again. It is asking to be dealt with directly and wisely. It is asking to be healed and integrated into the true fabric of our lives.

Why Am I Dealing With This Now?

The mystery of timing is vast. A new and unwelcome sense that some early wounding has been holding you back can arrive unbidden at any time. The point when the veil of self-deception begins to deteriorate is the result of numerous variables. You can begin by looking at what else is happening in your life. Have you received new information about a past event? Is there an anniversary date of an experience you thought you’d grieved and put to bed? Have you moved, secured a new job, been fired, become ill, lost or changed a relationship? You could even be just envisioning some new and exciting developments in your life. Any change to your normal functioning can stir up the latent, sleeping, and unfinished contents of the psyche that are waiting for you to explore or review in order to heal.

At times we can put a finger on the reason for realization of specific past events—a sudden new trauma, our abuser reveals himself, we have a disturbing dream, or a flashback. More often than not, we become aware of a hidden event simply because a whole configuration of ego strengths are finally in place. It is as though the psyche says, OK, now you’re ready to see what I’ve been keeping for you all along. Even then, the process is incredibly grueling and demanding, and often the person initially discovering the truth of early trauma will need to vacillate between a painful awareness, which can break down the defended ego, and a building up of strengths and abilities, which convinces the ego it is capable of re-forming and proceeding. Doctor and mindfulness practitioner Saki Santorelli writes movingly about the difficult necessity of ‘sitting with’ whatever is happening. He urges us to let whatever wants to arise, to arise, and to watch it with compassion. The practice of conscious breathing in the moment can give us courage to be present, helping us notice and give credence to whatever the memory brings, without judgment.

Often, people feel a sense of grief when they realize they spent so many years not acknowledging a truth that is just now coming to the forefront of their awareness. Though this signals that some grief work is probably in order, it is important not to sabotage further progress by becoming mired in the secondary issue, feeling you should have realized it sooner. You’re only ready when you’re ready, and not before. If you could have become aware and healed sooner, you would have. The primary task before you now is to acknowledge, feel, grieve, heal, and eventually move on.

Spiritual Emergency

When symptoms of dis-ease—distress, fear, numbness, despair, and debilitation—arise all at once, you may be experiencing what is referred to in Transpersonal Psychological circles as a ‘spiritual emergency.’ That term has been coined by consciousness explorers Christina and Stanislov Grof, who have written an excellent book with the same title on the subject. You may become uncharacteristically withdrawn and depressed, finding life dull and meaningless. Or, bipolar-like, you may become wild and manic, have visions, and even experience panic. You may or may not be able to connect symptoms to a specific mental or emotional issue. Whatever your symptoms, you will likely feel upset and worry about yourself. You might be asking, Am I crazy? What’s wrong? Why is everything askew?

A good transpersonal therapist can help you recognize the difference between true mental illness and a spiritual emergency, although sometimes the two can coincide. A spiritual emergency is seen as your spirit’s ‘wake-up’ call through the urgencies of the soul. It shouts loudly so you will tend to your wounding. The opportunity is to become aligned through your ego awareness by letting the desires of both soul and spirit function together. The goal is for your ego and soulful desires to come under the domain of your higher spiritual purpose. When they do, you will realize that you are a ‘spiritual being having a human experience’ in the world.

For example, if you suddenly have a new memory of being abused when you were a child, the opportunity now is to separate the past from the present and let your ego know you are safe in the moment. With this courage, you can then fully remember whatever is present and come to the assistance of your young self who experienced that trauma. Your sense of God may be challenged, and you may ask, Why did God allow this? Why was I not protected? Through sustained inner attention to your questions, answers will begin to form through your mind, your present experiences (for example,