Stronger Every Day

      A few days ago, I made good progress on a stationary bike (so far, this sounds like a joke) rehabilitating an injured knee. The following spontaneous response was a first for me: I held my head in both hands & silently told myself, 'Well done!' - the way a loving parent would congratulate & encourage their small child. Immediately I strongly sensed that this was initiated by my deceased parents, now standing together smiling, filled with love for me & each other.
     This whole event was deeply moving, healing & empowering, because during their life, my parents had never given me loving approval or congratulations. I knew that my Dad loved me. But his idea of good parenting involved consistently reminding me, no matter what I achieved, that I should have done much better, and anxiously urging me to work smarter, harder, longer, etc. My Mother on the other hand, from probably before I was born, found creative ways of letting my Dad and I know that she didn't love us, was ready to leave, & finally did so in my early teens. Even as a little kid, my Mother's other-worldly coldness always felt wrong - something too broken to ever understand, repair, or even communicate with.
     It's now very well known (Adverse Childhood Experiences {ACE} studies) that lack of secure attachment & lack of unconditional love, especially during early childhood, are severely traumatic, predisposing to many adverse mental & physical health consequences throughout life.

     In my adulthood, I avoided thinking about my childhood, but when I did, I angrily resented my Mother - anger is a massive drain of vital energy, yet some of anger's (toxic) energy can keep one going (in some ways) better than depression.
     "Holding on to ‘it shouldn’t have happened’ perpetuates a grievance. This creates an energetic contraction that freezes your life force, locks it into the past, and prevents full engagement with life now. ... But even though this self-protective pattern continues way past the original event, it is possible for the energetic knot of trauma to be released."
      Amoda Maa. “Embodied Enlightenment. Living Your Awakening in Every Moment.” Reveal Press, 2017. 

     After decades of meditation practice & learning about trauma, I gradually forgave my Mother, realizing that she herself had been traumatized by her cold-hearted father, and had unconsciously behaved like her father towards me - "intergenerational trauma."
      Bessel Van Der Kolk. “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Penguin Books, 2015. 

“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek & find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”                                                  Rumi

     Listening to about 50 interviews of people who had near death experiences (NDEs) revealed a consistent pattern of them being received by a loving intelligence that instead of judging them, accepted & welcomed them regardless of what they had done. Life was seen as an opportunity to learn - much like small children falling in the process of learning to walk. THIS was the nonjudgmental light in which I now perceived my parents.
     People who are able to recall pre-birth memories recount that before birth, some of us volunteer to be "bad" in the life to come, specifically to evoke positive changes such as forgiveness & loving support, from those around us, because it often takes a shock to our system, such as abuse, trauma & wounding to catalyze our awakening. This is yet another reason to be nonjudgmental & be the source of unconditional love & nurturing.

     "Our task is to discover a freedom that's independent of all circumstances & times."
       Kornfield J, Breiter P. "A still forest pool. The insight meditation of Achaan Chah." Quest Books, 1985.

    The relationship between our body, mind, and overall energy or 'life force' is vitally important to understand. A few weeks ago, my injured knee was stuck for two weeks at a maximum of 60° flexion (bend). I felt a rigid hard limit beyond which I simply could not progress - very frustrating & energy-draining, as I had been happily active before my accident.
     Around this time, I started taking an online course, “Progressive and Intensive Online Course Bundle by Dr Joe Dispenza.” https://drjoedispenza.com/ This is a very intelligent - incredibly important - immersion into letting go of our past negative conditioning. Much time is devoted to re-education, meditation & other trainings to focus on & realize our aspirations. An excellent 60-minute interview about this training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH8GtM7CCcI

     Over the past week, my attitude & energy has become far more optimistic, and not surprisingly, the flexibility in my knee continues to improve very nicely - presently around 98° (a huge improvement).

      We seriously underestimate how negatively our past traumas impact our outlook on life, our ability to create a better quality of life, & perhaps most importantly, on the quality & quantity of energy we have to make critically important life changes. We can hugely benefit from becoming conscious of the autopilot that runs our lives. We CAN write a NEW program for a MUCH MUCH brighter future - it really is ENTIRELY up to us.
      The older we get, the more challenging it is to be positively energized - which is absolutely necessary not only for bouncing back from injuries, but to navigate all the other inevitable 'set-backs' we encounter. We CAN be positively energized & filled with joy even as we lose physical & mental competencies as we approach death, right up to, and during death itself. Who we truly are is beyond time & space.

     “A single force, love, links and gives life to infinite worlds.” Jordano Bruno

 

     We FIRST have to bravely shed a LOT of rigid protective armor (that we don't realize exists) around our traumatized hearts before this even makes any sense.
     A lot of people have a strong impression that they've never been traumatized, that their heart is not armored & may even get upset that there's too much time wasted on the subject of trauma! These folks especially would benefit from reading: Bessel Van Der Kolk. “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Penguin Books, 2015.