Part of my process is realizing that, to heal myself, I must be able to look at a great number of details. I must study myself like a scientist. I must be willing to look at the little things that I often might blow by. Noticing the little things can shine light on larger themes, and deepen my understanding of why I am the way I am.
In my therapy group I've been reflecting on why I behave a certain way. Members of the group have pointed out that often when I am talking about difficult parts of my early life I often look up at the ceiling rather than maintain eye-contact with those in the room. They have gently pointed this out on several occasions.
So why do I do this? My best guess is that the behavior is an echo of events from the time I was five and six years old, ones which I've talked about a lot. And there seems to me good reason to do so. The events in question have shaped my whole development process and who I am today. Let me explain.
When I was a young child (birth to four) I received what Eva Marian Brown calls "Good enough parenting". That means that, although my parents were not likely to win any awards for their parenting skills, they were doing a good enough job for my development to proceed through its natural steps in a healthy way.
But between the ages of four and six my environment became much less supportive. We moved to a new state. Several months later my parents divorced and my mom and I moved to a town several hours away from dad. After nine months we moved back to dad's town but I started getting molested by my babysitter. I spent time with dad but saw him depressed and alcohol-soaked. Several months later my dad moved out of state and I never saw him again.
These successive shocks to me, each more damaging than the previous one, shook my little world at its core. My world was becoming dramatically less safe and neither my parents nor anyone else were able to give me support to help me navigate the heavy weather. I was forced into a situation where I had to respond to various blows without someone helping me through it. In a certain very real sense, I was on my own.
In my last post I used a term, "inverted" to describe what I did to survive. What I meant by this term is that all of the radiance I was projecting out into the world reversed direction. I adopted a protective gesture in a basic way. My energy turned inward in a way which was not healthy for me.
The inner part of me, my higher nature, what Charles Whitfield calls the "Child Within" went "out". That is to say, my inner self, under "attack" from outside forces, actually tried to exit my body. Healthy development leads to "integration" where the body and the higher self are closely aligned. The body gradually becomes closely aligned with the higher nature, and unfolds in harmonious development. My inner self, which up to that point had integrated in a healthy way into my body, now went "up and out". In a certain spatial way I was up and behind my physical body. I could not exit my body but I could get as far away from it as I could while still being, technically, in it.
One of the facilitators of the therapy group showed me a picture of what I was describing. It was from a book by Barbara Brennan called Light Emerging and shows the space around a person where the area above them has bulged up and back. The picture sure looked like my experience of what life has been like for me. We inhabit not only our body but the space around our body. The space around our body is also "us". So perhaps one way to say what I did at age six was to push my being out of my physical body and into the space above me.
As a child I was still able to function. I did reasonably well in school, etc. but I was always very dreamy. Spacey would be another way to say it. It also created something of a split, which is not uncommon among humans: I had a higher side and a lower side. A noble and radiant side contrasted with a cold and thoughtless side. A light-filled part of me and another which was a wounded animal clawing for survival.
My work as an adult has been to try and knit those two sides together; to integrate all the parts of myself and bring healing to the wounded parts. I have tried to become more grounded and not so spacey. I have tried to acknowledge my darker parts and thoughtless actions I have towards others in the past. I have made progress.
But I still look up when I talk about my trauma. The little boy who was trying to fly out of his body to get away from danger stills shows up in my eyes.
Becoming aware of this little detail will help me to heal that little guy. I can let him know that he's safe now and doesn't need to fly away.
Your comments are welcome.
Warmly, Ben
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