Surviving Trauma School Earth: A Practical Guide to Emotional Survival on the Earth Plane

you!

INTRODUCTION

The title of this work alludes to the necessary lessons arising during our sojourn on earth. The word trauma may be misleading in the title, for I am actually referring to the ability to pause, freeze, store, and survive any experience, large or small, that overwhelms us in our daily existence. Depending on our boundary formation and the given day, such an event may be a minor trigger for some and an event of unimaginable impact for others. Such overwhelm forms the invitation for us to unearth the gifts latent in the bodymind and bring order to chaos.

What we are going to examine in this work is how we can employ our profound creative resources for survival. Our goal, of course, as a species is even greater: to move from survive to thrive. The dominant role of trauma in our personal and collective histories, however, dictates a certain path. Earth is the school of the via negativa: the path of shadow and trauma. As we will discover, unless it is fully resolved, trauma dominates and governs the psyche, altering our good intentions to insure survival. Once resolved, however, new pathways open to possibilities that we have not seen in our 1.9 million years (minimum) of trauma imprinting on this planet. Unfortunately, upon hearing the term trauma, many individuals jump to the conclusion that we are here to speak about the catastrophic and 911 content of our life experience. While we will eventually reach such levels of discussion, the content is far more imminent and relevant than most realize. Our greatest challenge to love, intimacy, health, communication, and the fulfillment of our dreams and goals involves the pausing of consciousness that occurs from stress, small t trauma, and big T Trauma. The principal source of our spiritual alienation from the Divine, from each other, from nature – from access to higher states of consciousness, is the moment when we step out of the flow of the Eternal Present (Presence) and are rebound to space and time: yanked out of our state of union with All That Is and captured in finitude. To the sensitive and vulnerable child mind that we once were, the smallest of our states of emotional overwhelm triggers a protective reaction that freezes our perception, our body sensations, our emotional and brainwave states.

Although the actual definition of Consciousness eludes us, we have discovered that we clearly possess the innate capacity to pause the infinitely complex flow of data that creates experience and to contain such awareness indefinitely. In other words, this book is not about traditional trauma; it is about the single most powerful experience that routinely disrupts our ability to complete a sentence, to bond emotionally, and to stay relaxed. We move out of the main flow of consciousness and trance under the influence of varying degrees of stress. What we routinely call stress is frequently a physiological reaction to overwhelm. Loud noise, harsh touch, sudden pain, a voice raised in anger, sudden isolation or aloneness, or excessive pressure can all lead to the simple pausing of consciousness. Such freezing is exactly proportionate to our age and level of sensitivity. The more fragile our boundaries are in their formation, the easier is the compromise to our safety. Additionally, in this day and time, where sound and imagery are digitally amplified, enhanced, and accessible almost everywhere, our likelihood of stepping out of the present moment is greatly increased. It also changes the world of Reality TV and the media obsession with live, adrenaline-stimulating traumatic events into a potential consciousness nightmare. In an age where advertising has pushed the envelope of multi-sensory perception into the realms of seduction, shock, illusion, paradox, absurdity, and the vulgar to elicit our attention, our adrenal overload or burnout should come as no surprise.

While I suspect that there are not so many individuals who look out for your subconscious mind’s best interests, our unresolved trauma histories leave us quite vulnerable to the triggering of that which is already imprinted as stress and overwhelm. This work is about marshaling the resources used in the successful emotional reframing of over one hundred thousand memories. When I speak of the emotional reframing of memory, I am referring to the capacity to separate the memory of a profoundly stored experience from its emotional impact upon you. Actually, when you think about it, it is precisely the emotional charge of a memory that makes the bodymind believe that the event is still impacting you – is still intact! When you think about an event, if that event still holds a strong emotional charge, you are, in all likelihood, still in that scene in your subconscious (ninety-five percent) mind. Given the sheer quantity of stored memories that we have imprinted adversely under stress and trauma by our early teens, it is not surprising that our essential channels of pure communication are compromised early on. The degree to which this occurs in our development opens up the possibility of internalizing very powerful voices ranging from the critic or perfectionist within, all the way to the extremes of trauma like multiple personalities – now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Very severe trauma and abuse before the age of five can result in the creation of very distinct containers or Parts of the psyche that protect and hold both positive and negative memory patterns intact until healing can occur. For many, the healing required has never fully arrived. At the least, trauma frequently leaves us with parts or sub-personalities that are the constructs of repeated patterns of memories that coalesce to leave us with powerful aspects of self who run our lives as the worrier, critic, controller, perfectionist, workaholic, addict, overeater, etc. These powerful parts often subvert our good intentions and redirect our power to serve their own survival ends.

Unresolved moments of paused consciousness hold immense power. In the past, therapy was largely focused on the rational, conscious mind. We now understand from studies in consciousness, that the conscious mind is about five percent, while the subconscious mind is ninety-five percent (I combine the unconscious and subconscious in this current categorization). Without speaking properly to the subconscious mind – to those moments where we freeze, we cannot fully stop the disruptions in the flow of consciousness. If we do not target and address the fragment, part, or ego-state that was created at the moment of trauma, we fail to resolve the trigger that is created by the storage of holographic memory patterns. This is the underlying property of the hologram – every fragment of a holographic scene can resurrect the entirety: physiology, brainwave states, and all! It is so easy for us, therefore, to access an unresolved memory and have such a trigger seize control of the flow of consciousness, whereupon we find ourselves, once again, trapped in a static event of overwhelm. And as our adrenaline rises, our Thymus-cell (T-cell) production diminishes, and we are more likely to become ill. The easiest way to boost your immune system today and foster both short- and long-term health is to be and live in the present moment. There is only one small problem: we are in trauma school.

CHAPTER 1

WELCOME TO TRAUMA SCHOOL

Only a philosophy of eternity, in the world today, could justify non-violence.

Albert Camus

The pathways to enlightenment are diverse and infinite. Only a Consciousness with full grasp of our creative power and potential to love would justify such an immersion. A confident parent offering the gifted child an inestimable opportunity to shine sets the stage. In this remarkably diverse environment, the expansion of the heart is a given, and our course mapped out for us from our earliest conception. We are never without guidance, nor are we ever fully alone. When we can reach the point of gratitude and witness the immensity of our identity as a love that dissolves barriers, fosters healing, and enables mastery of space-time perception – only then do we fully appreciate the glorious undertaking that is a human being. Earth is privileged among the paths that reveal the depths of Consciousness to us.

I affectionately call Earth: Trauma School. This is simply based on the fact that, upon conception, we step into the density and weight of close to two million years of accumulated trauma. In the chapters that follow, we will examine the origins of this burden, underlying meaning and purpose, the unique invitation it holds, and specific methods for coping with and surviving the impact of trauma on body, mind, and spirit.

The invitation, as implied by Camus, is to survive trauma by appealing to a higher order: to bring heaven to earth by learning to live in the power of the eternal present. Only in the knowledge, truth, and appeal to our underlying immortality do the painful lessons of Earth become manageable and fully comprehensible. Eternity is the backdrop of the earth school, and only in the expanded consciousness of the Big Picture can we survive the immensity of heartbreak and pain that are the hallmark of the earth experience.

I was recently moved by work with a client who was born with limited kidney functioning: one fully functioning kidney remaining. Shortly after her daughter’s birth, her child’s kidneys began to fail; her husband donated one of his kidneys to her, and all now live with one fully functioning kidney. As she indicated, having a fever can trigger a level of fear and anxiety – a need to promptly act upon the earliest sign of kidney failure, which necessitates constant vigilance, respect, and clear-minded focus. Such ongoing presence can be exhausting without assistance and heightened self-care. I recall, before my mother died of cancer in 1983, sitting at her bedside and watching her labored breathing, worrying whether each long pause between breaths would be her last, and wanting to be totally present with her during the last step of her sojourn on Earth.

Trauma offers a gift by heightening our appreciation for how precious and fragile life really is. It intensifies our focus and realigns our priorities, forcing us to examine our intentions on the deepest level – determining what is really important to us and helping us to decide where to commit our energies. Such continuous presence is demanding and takes a toll on the psyche over time. I discovered that I had almost hypnotized myself into her symptoms by focusing so intensely on her breath and pain. This is not surprising, considering that all of our perception occurs as a three-dimensional movie or reconstruction produced within the bodymind.

All images and experiences within our histories are inner perceptions that the bodymind creates and records as we move through life. Everything from the traumas of those around us, TV, movies, music, etc. are all creative constructs that we admit into our own physiology by simply observing. In the internal recording of such experiences, it becomes easy to understand how the pain of others and our concern for them creates such an intense focus that we imprint the experience deeply within our minds and hearts. Similarly, when our internal projector shows us images that overwhelm us, we have the innate capacity to stop the pain by pausing it within until we can handle it.

Trauma is a self-hypnotic state that the body enters into automatically upon overwhelm. It captures and internalizes the observed experience as our own until we can learn to address and resolve it. This internalized pain is, therefore, one of the ways in which the bodymind informs us that we have stored something that does not belong. We internalize shame and begin this negative storage of affect even from the womb. Prolonged exposure to such experiences demand a level of presence, vigilance, and self-care that I will share with you in this work.

This book is about the resources available to us to draw the deepest meaning, value, and opportunity from our daily lessons. The key to the optimal future is by living fully in the present, cherishing and embracing each moment in order to draw the deepest meaning and greatest love through each breath. As we learn to birth ourselves from light, we learn to tap the unconditional source of love that knows wholeness, perfection, and peace. Conditionality and trauma are not our natures, but our lessons. Our underlying nature is uninterrupted, eternal presence that serves to anchor our true home and identity, serving us through the storms and vicissitudes of life. In the eternal present, all is love, whole, fulfilled, satiated, and peaceful.

Our greatest challenge is to abide in this presence when we, in fact, routinely leave the present moment or trance fifteen to fifty times an hour. Try it if you do not believe me; hold a counter and click it each time within an hour that you drift from your intended train of thought. This trancing phenomenon is Earth School in its current state of evolution. Unless we rise and embrace our quantum potential to master our space-time perception, to emotionally reframe our stressful and traumatic experiences, we will move in and out of trauma, impacting our adrenals, weakening our immune systems, and shortening our life spans on earth.

As we have learned from SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) scans of the brain, the brain does not recognize the difference between an original traumatic event and the memory of such. If the event is unresolved and has not been emotionally reframed, the scans are virtually identical – which means that we are moving in and out of these alternative physiologies many times an hour as we trigger our unresolved memories. We shape shift into the original physiology and mindset whenever the unresolved state of consciousness is triggered! We may readily conclude, therefore, that the single greatest contributor to the aging process, to stress and anxiety in our daily lives, to the increase in autoimmune disorders, allergies, and cancers is our hourly trancing – our apparent disconnect from Source!

Trauma is a static, paused state of consciousness created to give us time to reframe such experiences and to restore the flow of light that is frozen at such moments of overwhelm. We have come a long way in understanding this amazing, protective mechanism, but we cannot continue triggering this mechanism hourly without relief. Such pathology continuously triggered will demand resolution and force our hand, so to speak. This is the challenge and invitation of Earth School.

CHAPTER 2

BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS AND DEFENSE

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

Rumi

When most people think about trauma, they think of the extremes: sexual abuse, murder, death, violence, terrorism, and other forms of abuse. This is probably the greatest deception, for, given the magnificence of the psyche and our heightened sensibilities, we know that stress and trauma imprint in the bodymind as quickly as we can hold our breath. An ill placed question, comment, or touch can cause the vulnerable psyche to react protectively.

We pause consciousness and freeze our physiological reactions under a broad range of stressors. Our own reactions are deepened and shaped by personal vulnerability and the strength of our boundaries – only a small number of which were fully formed before trauma impacted them in our early personal development. Additionally, the more sensitive we become in our evolution, the more quickly and deeply we react to offense, violation, or threat – or at least until we become desensitized to it. Initially we become hypervigilant with the accumulating and increasing boundary violations and breaches of our integrity. Our defensive responses are buried so deeply within our psyche that we are not even aware how much energy has been diverted to defense. A tremendous amount of effort goes into the reinforcement of personal and collective boundaries, and it impacts many aspects of our lives. Let us examine the historical origins of this phenomenon.

In history, consistent, defensive walls around villages and cities emerged with the Early Bronze age, about 3500 – 1950 BCE. This has been referred to as urbanism and the establishment of the first cities. In southern Israel, where I excavated for over thirteen years (1979-1992), the tallest of the walls surrounding the villages and towns prior to this were barely over a meter. And we called the resulting evolutionary stages with the focus on defense: civilization!

With the Early Bronze age tremendous energies began to be expended to fortify the cities and build walls and towers many meters high. At our own small site in the Middle East, a huge glacis or sloping stone rampart was built around our small seven-acre Tel or town (Arabic for ruin), Tel Halif – predating similar defenses in the region by hundreds of years and requiring tremendous manpower. But the site itself, like Israel herself, lies at the intersection of several different geomorphological zones: the Coastal Plain, the Shephelah (foothills), and the Negev Desert. Our Tel