We Repeat What We Don’t Repair.

It’s there. It hurts. It surfaces. We conceal. We mislead. We delude ourselves. Wounding. The visceral kind that we disregard and automatically blame on something or someone else. The more space we allow for these things to find refuge in the more likely we are to fuck up the good that comes right onto our path. We mines well just wait for those good things and push them into the trenches, laugh, and go on our way. Why do we do such things? We preach about waiting for something “good” to come along; a job, partnership, opportunities to move, follow our passions in life, but how can we expect such things when we’re scared to face who we truly are?

Complex PTSD; Deeper meanings are behind behaviors. Everyone suffers primal wounding in their life, and as result we disenfranchise parts of our consciousness that resulted in us being hurt and repress them. Then at the same time we repress those parts of ourselves the love, joy, creativity, humor, trust, and connection to the Divine; aspects threatened by the wounding. This results in a personality that is not a true reflection of our authentic self. The primal wounding conditions us and we put up walls so that we can live within an area of experience that will not be threatened by primal wounding. When we go on living like this for a long time, the unconscious starts brewing because we are not living our lives in harmony with our true selves.

Sometimes it takes getting our heart ripped out by something we choose to do to be able to see things from an objective perspective. Self awareness doesn’t greet you with a smile, it actually makes Pandora’s box contents look peaceful. If you haven’t taken a step back, if you haven’t removed your ego from that head of yours and admitted to yourself that recurring obstacles in your life are due to something a little deeper, it’s time to get in the trenches, take a break and think.

Defense mechanisms are humanistic in nature but think about how many times you’ve done this in a situation and ended up thinking later “Shit. I completely overreacted.” But have you ever contemplated the reasoning behind such drastic behavior? Even though you may calm down hours later and realize you were wrong doesn’t necessitate the deeper issues. No, you have to work for these revelations, but I give you the assurance that you will gain contemplation before assuming the worst and reacting so…human.

1. Your emotions are what makes you human. They’re also what makes you grow. Allow the time to dig deep into those emotions and where they are coming from. A lot of the times emotions, reactions, and behaviors are so deep in our sub-conscious that we act without even thinking. Try writing down the negative emotions you experience through out the day, what triggered them, and how you should have reacted. As you start to do this also think about past trauma that you have been through throughout your life. Do some research and see if your trauma and reactions/behaviors start to correlate. You’ll start to be amazed at the inner workings of our mind and the hurt it can hide from us.

2. Don’t be afraid. Emotional processing will not be the easiest thing you do. It will take patience and you will experience many break downs when you start to realize how something from your past has such an impact on your everyday life. You might start to blame yourself for things that are no longer in your control when you realize it just might have been your fault but see the beauty of this. You are coming to self revelations and from this point on anyone in your life will benefit from this, most importantly you.

4. Become aware of your emotional triggers and learn to cope with them creatively. You may have a flashback to your trauma by engaging in a similar activity, going to a similar place, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling something that reminds you of the original trauma. One way to cope with this is to recognize that you are experiencing an emotional trigger and engage in positive self-talk.

5. Try to find some deeper meaning in what happened to you. True, you were victimized but you can become a survivor. Survivors often find that changes in their outlook on life are possible, even preferable.

Be patient with yourself. Healing takes time. Your recovery will have it’s ups and downs. Remember, you may have been victimized but you do not have to continue being a victim. In this unfortunate case you were rendered helpless but to continue in that status is very limiting. The potential is there for you to learn and grow in ways you may not have considered had the trauma never occurred. The first step in all of this is making sure that you love yourself first, despite what has happened or how it has affected your life. You are and always will be a beautiful reflection of the Universe. Our souls are perfect, whole and complete. It’s important to keep mind, body and spirit in check.

This is just one life we are journeying through so allow the struggles to mold you into something amazing because you are.

Smoke Signals,

Charity-Anne Ross

Title quote: We repeat what we don’t repair. ~ Christine Langley-Obaugh

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