At times I feel meekly paralyzed
Covering my face at the shame of gruesome deeds
If one could perhaps rip the blindfold from their heart
Lay each story onto a scale and measure them
They’d be horrified at the punchlines we’ve been sold;
One man with limbs marred by pavements heat in the scorching summer
Somewhere near 96th Street
Onlookers watch gazes filled of disgust
And I, I disappear into the crowd
Stomach full of lead
Or perhaps the woman with two children
One upright, one decrepit
As she stumbles up and down flights with purse, babe and stroller in hand
Mere seconds from plunging to her demise
But her worry is with is the place she needs to go,
the mouths she need to feed,
the work she must return to
Never mind patrons passing idly along stairs until she trips on the first child,
Another rushing to grasp the falling carriage from her hands
As she tumbles down 8 flights, child firmly clasped to her chest
Woe to these current times—
Profit at the demise of our brothers
Without the means to purchase tombstones for graveyards
While others are sipping from gold plated cups
Until one sees the face of God within themselves
It is hard to see God in the needy man with burnt limbs;
The wailing child dangling from the mother’s arms;
The man on Wall Street stuffing his mouth with gold
I am horrifically guilty—
Wishing for the return of my innocence
You know the saying “with great power comes great responsibility”?
Each person is incarnated into this existence with an ego and a soul. The ego, operates in the form of “I”, which is important because it allows for us to have an experience of the world which is personable. In almost every religious and spiritual view, each person is fully liable and responsible for themselves. This means that each individual has personal accountability for acquiring each of their needs. The ego seeks to fulfill these needs through external means: validation, romantic love, money, fame, etc. This, as many people come to understand, is extremely problematic because external means are fluctuating, fleeting and conditional. For example, people give love at the capacity they are able to love themselves. In almost every instance, to give love to another human being is usually fully dependent on the individuals ability to find beauty, likeness, admiration and thriving “acceptable” traits in another person. This is the meaning of conditional love, which is fully dependent on the ability of the opposite person to fulfill one(or more) of the ego’s needs.
The soul, however, is believed to be derived from God/All That Is. In many Abrahamic religions, God has been said to have blown a piece of his Spirit into man and with that– completed His wonderful creation. Within this context, it is important to comprehend that the soul is whole on its own. It is timeless. It can love unconditionally because it is directly derived from a being whom is limitless and unconditional in His existence. Nevertheless, the only “need” the soul has is to be in connection with God. This need cannot be fulfilled by external means: it’s contentment is found in the acquisition, communion and connection to The One. And because God is everlasting, this wholeness is everlasting as well.
Why is this important? When attempting heal to core wounds, it’s important to fully comprehend their roots. For example, a person who’s experienced childhood abandonment often has a distorted view of fault vs. responsibility. Fault is the belief that you control others and the choices they make. Responsibility is the ability to take accountability independently of others. The ego of a young child experiencing abandonment has not yet matured enough to understand that the actions of others do not serve as reflections of their own worthiness. The ego takes fault and thinks to itself, “Their absence is a result of my doing. I must not be good enough” and experiences feelings of guilt, shame and fear, which confirm its self-imposed suffering. The person then grows up seeking validation from external means in order to prove its worthiness to themselves. But no matter how much validation they receive, it will not heal the core wound of unworthiness.
This story of lack in it itself is an illusion created by the ego. The fact is that no one thinks about you as much as you do. This means that other peoples actions are often self-serving and not a personal attack on another being. The journey of each person is to fight off mental attacks from the psyche and shatter the ego’s illusory perceptions. This takes time. If a person has been living in the ego’s illusions for years it will often take just as much time to unlearn their beliefs and rewrite their own reality. The wonderful thing about the human mind is that perception is individualistic to each being. While we are not responsible for the actions, ideals and perceptions of others we are responsible for ourselves. With this knowledge can come great relief; that our personal power is not dependable on another persons intrinsic reality—but our own.
When a person commits to recovering from trauma, a holistic assessment and healing of the human psyche are often needed. The human psyche is made up of:
Physical body – Biological and physiological needs such as air, food, water, warmth, sleep, etc.
Conscious/Unconscious mind – Thinking, knowledge, information, reasoning, cognition, understanding, perception and memories
Emotional body – Feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, desires, and experiences
When experiencing trauma, memories are instantly stored in the conscious/unconscious mind and emotional body. The same way our memories have an imprint on us, so do our emotions. Emotions hold information. They are reactions to the deep memories and thoughts about our experiences and its effects. The emotional body is integral because it allows for man to experience his thoughts, memories, and reality in a way that goes deeper than simply thinking. Feelings translate our thoughts and perceptions of reality into the embodiment of experiences: in the first person. In other words, emotions and feelings make our experience one that is personal. Nevertheless, as the human body and mind are interconnected, emotions can determine decision making, thoughts, and behaviors. They ultimately serve as alerts to our psyche with clues and information on things that may harm, help or excite us.
In therapy, the act of conceptualizing, rethinking and logically deciphering traumatic events is essential to healing the conscious mind. In essence, in order to heal from psyche damage, many humans need to logically reason and understand the experiences they’ve had. However, just as important is the emotional body which imprints and stores feelings in the psyche and therefore affects the conscious mind.
For example, one who may have had the occurrence of an absent parent usually reports feeling the emotion of abandonment. Abandonment is a subjective emotional state that is characterized by feelings of insecurity, loss, fear, sadness or undesirability. A child experiencing abandonment often does not have a conscious understanding to make sense of what is they are feeling. In addition to this, the conscious mind is born as protective and will innately react to the negative feeling of fear and shield the child from experiencing that emotion. Therefore this feeling and experience get stored away into both the unconscious mind and the emotional body.
This child will continue to grow up with feelings of inadequacy, being undesirable, fear of loss, sadness, and insecurity. Because the conscious mind was so protective, it would’ve have stored the memory and feeling deep into the unconscious and emotional body, disabling the growing child from being able to cognitively process and experience those negative emotions. What do you think happens next? Yes, in search for healing, the child will then unconsciously seek out situations in which the psyche replays the story of abandonment over and over again.
In order to heal, one must dig into the emotional body and allow for those old emotions to come up in order to be experienced and united. There are various techniques for fostering this integration with one being the meditative practice of “sitting with one’s emotions”. Here is the technique I use for this practice.
Sit comfortably, cross-legged or in a chair with feet planted firmly on the ground
Breathe deeply into both nostrils, in and out
Bring up the memory/core issue that wishes to be explored
Tune into the body as this memory comes up. Ask yourself “What emotion am I feeling?” Take the time to feel this emotion as it courses through your body. Do not try to guide your thoughts or change your emotions. Simply let it take its course.
Now ask “Where in the body is this feeling? What does it feel like?” You are familiarizing yourself with this unique bodily feeling so that you will know what emotion you are experiencing if it comes up again in the future.
Next, ask “Where did I first experience this emotion?” If nothing comes up at this point, that is fine. Sometimes we are unable to remember exactly when we first experienced an emotion. Simply allow for the feeling to come up, in order to experience it.
Say that emotion “I hear you. I am here with you. I support you. You are allowed to feel.”
Reconstruct the memory into what you think you NEEDED at that time in order to feel your best. This will be personal for each person, so allow for your feelings to guide you and not your conscious mind. Your emotional body knows best what it needs.
Healing the emotional body does not happen in one sitting. Many people are unaware of the fact that there are years of emotional trauma that must be experienced, healed and integrated. Take all the time you need to foster this union. Healing is a journey that one must take for the course of their life not a single destination.
Genuinely Jannah 