Listening...without judgment

What do you do when hurt manifests in your life? Maybe someone is currently and actively hating on you. Or maybe your thoughts are of past or recent slights, deep wounds, and traumas. Maybe your hurt arises from your feelings of fear, anger, or hate. However hurt manifests in your life, what do you do?

Do you depress the feelings; anesthetize your mind? Maybe your anesthetic is drugs or alcohol, ice cream, shopping, gambling, exercise or…just name your addictive behavior of choice.

Do you let your feelings capture the real estate of your mind, while you run over and over your strategies for how to manage the hurt, get revenge for it, stop it? Do you lose sleep while your thoughts circle and circle the drain of your pain?

Do you act out your feelings on innocent bystanders in your family or workplace? Yell at your partner or kids or co-workers? Take out your hurt on the grocery story clerk?

Do you turn your anger upon yourself, mentally berating yourself; or maltreating your body by over-feeding or starving it, or with self-injury (sometimes also known as having “an accident”)? 

Or do you become still and listen to the wisdom from within that tells you how to heal the pain? 

Many of you—friends and those who have attended my workshops—already know that, as a child, I was a victim of incest, sexual assaults by my father. Well, now you all know. I will not write about what happened; rest assured you can safely read on without finding any details of what that experience was like for the child I once was. 

Instead, I want to write about healing from the effects of that experience, which has included development of the 7 Childhood Treasures framework and deepening my understanding of their influence in my own life. I started my healing journey just over 30 years ago and recently entered a new phase of it.

I was fortunate in my early recovery, to work with a great therapist. In her approach, one goal was to empower me with knowledge about the therapeutic process as I engaged in it. As I studied developmental psychology in my PhD program, I studied, too, in the laboratory of my own life. One of the most empowering strategies used by my excellent therapist was a belief in my own deep wisdom. I would answer one of her questions with, “I don’t know,” and she would assure me, in a voice full of gentle love and belief in me, “Yes, you do.” 

And I did…or, rather, a part of me did. She encouraged me to tap into a source of wisdom I had never tapped before, through talking with her and also through journaling, drawing, and dream interpretation. In every session, she helped me find my answers, rather than telling me her answers. I learned that, when I can quiet my fear of the unknown, then I can know what is waiting to be known. My therapist taught me to heal myself, listening to the guidance that knows what I really need. Listening is a critical component of the Childhood  Treasure of Trust.

Yet, I didn’t fully understand that dynamic until now. I believe that it doesn’t matter at all what source you believe generates that wisdom. Is it God’s voice? Yes. Is it the voice of your inner child? Yes. Intuition? Your deep self? Sure. Maybe you believe it’s your past lives speaking. Okay. Or perhaps you experience that voice as your future self, coming back in time to guide you. Fine…any or all of the above can be true. It doesn’t matter to me what you name it. What matters to you is that you trust that voice. In the context of the Childhood Treasures, you trust it to meet your need for information.

How do you know that this voice you hear is not the voice of ego mind? Well, ego mind likes to be afraid; to plot, plan, strategize, figure out, and be afraid some more. It's interested in defense or  getting even; it likes to think about actions that seem to promise revenge, justice, and safety. The deep wisdom is never about any of that. It delivers simple, straightforward messages, such as:  "Drink green tea and journal," "This pain is not yours anymore," and "Get out of bed and write a blog post." Deep wisdom is always about something to do for myself, not to someone else.

Here’s what I know: when you still your ego mind and listen, there is guidance that comes for your greater good. Listen to it. Try trusting it...just a little, and then a little more the next time.

Really listening to the “still small voice within,” and responding to its guidance, is what matters. At this point in my life, I trust that guidance. That sounds so good that I’m going to say it again. I trust that guidance.

The healing process in which I’m engaged now requires me to tune into my body’s “muscularmor,” as I call it. It’s the armor created by my muscles and other soft tissues, as they hold awkward tensions that impede natural movement, grace, and relaxation. Originally a response to trauma, or adopted as a posture that brought a sense of protection or safety, these tensions are now locked into my body, so solidified from decades of practice that they are hard to even notice, let alone release and replace with more flexibility.

So I’m listening daily to the guidance from within about what I need for rest, alone-time, and interaction. I am listening to what my body tells me it needs for nourishment and healing supports like massage and acupuncture. I am listening to the messages about what will, right now, protect and help heal some more remnants of the damage to the child I was. Sometimes that means I take a nap or play solitaire when I “should” be doing something else. Maybe I decline invitations or cancel plans with friends and stay home alone, stretching or just reading or watching Netflix. Sometimes I don’t answer the phone when it rings, even when I know it’s a friend. Lately, I am often choosing solitude and silence, to let me feel the parts of me that are calling out for healing.

You might have some concerns, negative thoughts, or judgments about these actions of mine...or I should say that your ego mind has these thoughts. That’s okay; mine does, too. Am I isolating in unhealthy ways? Maybe. “Should” I spend more time with friends? Perhaps. Now, I can more often recognize all those thoughts as my ego mind doing its job, keeping busy with worry and plans for self-protection.

In those moments, my choice remains to continue my commitment to silence and deep listening...and to TRUST what I hear. Accessing the still, small voice is crucial to me now, and I do it with a whole new level of respect.

Are you listening to yours? What do you hear?