Love is an Action

“And the day came when the risk to remain in a tight bud was more difficult than the risk to blossom”

Anais Nin

When it comes to dealing with emotional pain, the journey of one’s progress through life can encompass more than just overcoming the emotional trauma. It’s can become journey that embraces the knowledge that, with courage and conviction, it’s possible to transform everything we are to find a unity with why we are here, what we really believe in and what we can do to cement such strong beliefs into everything we do. I refer to it as Trauma Transcendence: it’s more than just coping, it’s about reaching for the stars to find a world of greater meaning. 

It’s the same path that many others have blossomed into to find their own unique path to salvation, wholeness and purpose.

Part of the story is about the turning over the jigsaw pieces that represented the difficulties of one’s life, the traumas and the losses that need to be borne with patience along with holding a hope for a better life, no matter how distant, if something better is to follow. 

The next part of the story is about experiencing what is often described as a descent into hell, as a failure to cope mentally takes hold.

The greatest part of the story is about the mystical path that can arise through the process of healing trauma.  A path of transcendence that leads to a higher wisdom, wholeness and peace of mind.  A path which, often referred to as “The Hero’s Journey”; embraces a person determined to face their own fears head on so they can live a life freer from the limits and suppression that has gone before. 

It’s not about religion, but it doesn’t exclude religion either. It doesn’t require adherence to any faith or philosophy; what it does do is let a little of the inner self become a little more of the outer self, and through that fascinating journey, find what has real meaning to us.

Many have made the sacred journey.   Each having challenge themselves by looking sincerely in their mirror, or through therapy, or  religion, through reading, through meditation, through fire walking, through acting, through the Arts, through boxing, through anything that brings about a profound, mature, change in self-awareness.  The essence of the Hero’s Journey is a life given to finding a path of higher purpose, initiated through the kind of loss and hardship that challenges how we experience ourselves.  When the profound inner changes of self awareness happen, we can morph into a new world of understanding and connection to a world that is more real than before. 

Trauma; transition; transcendence.   

Anyone who has been through the drudgery of existence, been profoundly challenged by physical or emotional limitations, who has ended at the bottom of their barrel, in depression, in pain, in their own dark places through mental, physical or cultural circumstances and found that the old “self” or “person inside” has had to die on order to survive, then that’s the essence of the Hero’s Journey.  An opportunity for the destruction of old and outmoded ways of behaving or thinking and the heralding in of new and better ways of living.  Without the challenge, without the darkness, without the isolation or pain, without the self-hatred or the shame, or whatever is horrible and unfitting in life, there wouldn’t be the drive or the courage to force open the door to new understanding; that rite of passage that marks the middle phase of the hero’s journey; the doorway of becoming a man or woman in a brave new world.  That doorway, unique to the growing soul, which, when passed through, everything changes and nothing is sure anymore. 

Each person’s journey is unique.  No one can go through someone else’s doorway, no one else can travel the same path, no-one would understand what has gone on before in terms of loss or trauma or what is involved in preparation for the rite of passage. 

On one side of the door is the burden of conformity, of the expectations of those around us, the pressure to fit in, the pain and drudgery of managing a senseless world, the suppression of self and authenticity, depression, anxiety, addiction, self-hatred, self-abuse.  It’s where the witches’ formula of horrors exists that can call a person to destroy his or her own mind, with all its toxic realities. It’s where the finality arises of ending the destructive internal dialogue and the abuse that a person may have had to endure in silence for twenty years or more.  Where it becomes impossible for someone to breath another day, carrying secrets of a shame that invariably was not theirs to bear. A place, where when all is lost and “normal” thinking breaks down, it’s the time when the troubled soul, with a little guidance, can move through the prison door and into a world of greater authenticity, freedom and healing where the internal need to stop bottling up anger, or shame, or sadness, or fear, provides the catalyst for change.  

The Pheonix rises from the ashes. The rebel comes out. The snake sheds it’s skin.  The butterfly emerges. 

Whilst it’s a rite of passage and a journey of transcendence that can lead to a more fulfilling life and one that holds authenticity and inner peace as its foundation, it comes with a warning.  As anyone knows who has taken the journey, it’s not plain sailing. Once through the doorway, once the bud has blossomed into the new world, whilst freeing and brighter, like a child finding its way in a new school, understanding and navigating the new world takes time.  It needs patience and support.  The old-world order probably didn’t ask for the change so there can be those that want the old person to return, often because a provider or an enabler has been lost.  Spouses, siblings, friends, family, co-workers each who had a stake or a benefit in the previous life may not want to entertain the new colours or celebrate the new perspectives. 

Courage and clarity are needed to navigate the boulders of the old world so it’s the mark and the qualities of the emerging hero that can gently bring in the positive changes for himself and others. Along with a harnessing of the ego, the Hero’s Journey needs to be about harnessing new powers of personal strength as well as taking time to heal the wounds that caused it. Trauma recovery, PTSD recovery take time to recover from and as many will attest the journey never ends, but it does become easier. 

With each new day, with each new challenge, with a fresh pair of eyes on the problems of old, new energies mature.  Clarity, release, passion, individuality, creativity, a sense of humour, a sense of purpose; all the assets that arrive to furnish the emerging hero with the wisdom and opportunities to walk a newer path of life, lesser burdened by shame or guilt or fear. 

With the biggest shakeup ever of the old jigsaw, it takes time for the new picture connect together, to reflect its new surroundings and begin to shine through the darkness of old.  But shine it will if the intention is right and it is setting personal intention that is, in my experience, the best key to progress.  Personal intention being that overarching value or desire that we invoke to achieve our goals in life. Personal Intention being the guiding principles, visible or hidden in our unconscious, that we choose to live our new life by. 

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