I have found the love of my life, and know I will lose her in six months due to an illness.
That’s all I remember from this dream. It may have been more of an image, or a brief scene, more than a full storyline.
When I woke up, my first response was that it’s familiar. This has been a thread through my life in many different ways. I find someone or something I deeply fall in love with, it feels deeply right and helps me come alive, and then it’s gone – sometimes after a few months, sometimes almost immediately, sometimes even before it happens.
I suspect it reflects my trauma behavior since, most of the time, I have allowed it to happen, or set up the situation for it to happen.
A LIKELY CHILDHOOD TRAUMA
Most likely, it’s what I experienced early in life. I got what I deeply wanted – love, attention, nurturing, and then it was gone.
Of course, that’s just about inevitable1. It’s part of being alive. But in most cases, a loving and caring parent is there to help heal the inevitable small wounds. In my case, I had parents that loved and cared about me, but they had their own wounds and traumas, and that impacted how they cared for me.
I suspect many of the wounds and traumas were passed on to me. (Intergenerational trauma, which are also almost inevitably expressions of larger social and cultural patterns and collective traumas.)
Some of my earliest images are of me crying in a crib in a dark room for what seems forever, and some sounds and movements by the door, but nobody coming to help me. I also have a picture of my mother seeming distant, preoccupied, and irritable, and I felt I was an annoyance, and it was best if I wasn’t there. (Of course, these are images. At most, they are fragments of a much more rich picture. It may also never have happened that way.)
A THREAD THROUGH MY LIFE
In the past, I have repeatedly (a) not gone into relationships that felt deeply right and where there was a strong mutual interest, (b) gone into relationships that felt deeply right and then fell apart within six months (mostly due to me allowing it to happen), and (c) stayed in relationships for a long time that felt deeply off and wrong.
It’s the same with communities. I found the Zen center in Salt Lake City that felt profoundly right to me – the practice, the people, the place, and so on. I was there for just two-three years, and then made a choice (that went against a clear inner guidance and knowing) to go somewhere else and lose just about everything that was important to me. Before then, I found Vækstcenteret in Denmark, which felt profoundly right in every way, and promptly moved to another continent.
It happened with California Institute for Integral Studies as well. For years, there was an amazing series of things that happened so it repeatedly looked like I would be able to do a PhD there, and then it repeatedly fell through for various reasons. Although this time, it was mostly outside of my control. (The Norwegian government changed the rules for what programs qualified for financial support, so I first couldn’t, and then could, and then couldn’t again. University of Oslo sent the wrong transcripts, and nobody told me. CIIS lost their APA accreditation, and it was unclear when they would regain it. And so on.)
I feel something similar is happening with our place in the Andes now. There is the same sense of feeling deeply in love with the place, and of it feeling profoundly right. And now, they are building a huge hotel project right next door, in sight line to our houses. We can even hear people there when they talk. They haven’t opened yet, but they may – unless it can be stopped.
There is no lack of other examples, in several areas of life, and it has impacted my life hugely. I sometimes think it’s a miracle I still have a roof over my head, friends, and people who seem to love me.
TRAUMA BEHAVIOR
As I mentioned earlier, it’s very likely a trauma pattern. I am repeating what I experienced early in life. It’s familiar. It’s what I expect. (So it feels easier to create it than waiting for it to happen outside my control.) It’s what I feel matches me. It’s what matches what I feel I am worth.
Saying it like that makes it sound terrible, even to me, and it is in a way. It has created a series of very difficult losses in my life. It’s something I need – i.e. want – to explore far more seriously.
Often, we avoid the central themes and traumas in our life. This is one I have been very aware of and explored in the periphery, but never with determination and over time.
Maybe it has felt too painful, or too central to wounded and painful identities.
LOSS IS INHERENT IN LIFE, I DON’T NEED TO ACTIVELY CREATE IT
Loss is inherent in this process of living. Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything – from universes to solar systems to planets to species to individuals to this experience here and now – is in change.
Impermanence is the mother of everything that exists. Without it, nothing would be. It’s what creates space for something new, and then something new again.
It’s already here, so I don’t need to add to it. I don’t need to make an effort to make what feels deeply right fall apart. It will, eventually, fall apart on its own. No need to make an effort there.
HOW CAN I EXPLORE IT? THE ESSENCE
How can I explore it?
The main way is to see the importance and urgency in noticing the pattern and relating to it in a way that’s more healthy and mature.
The pattern itself is not really the problem. It’s how I relate to it that matters. Do I identify and join in with it? Or do I recognize it and chose a different way?
Do I have the psychological space to relate to it differently and chose to not go with it? Do I have the motivation to go against old habits and create new patterns?
Often, I notice and go against my old patterns for a while, and then give up at some point after meeting resistance from others or the world. How do I find the strength to stay with it? How do I more consistently act on care for myself and others?
How do I find that urgency and motivation? One is to take full responsibility for my role in the many painful losses in my life, and use that pain to fuel motivation for change. Another is to recognize the pain this has caused others in my life. That’s very real, and a good reason to change it.
It’s also important to notice that when I act on this trauma pattern, I am abandoning myself. I am re-enacting the behavior that likely led to the trauma in the first place.
When I instead am with myself and support myself, and find another way to relate to this trauma in me – one that’s more loving and caring to myself and others – I find healing for how I relate to this part of me.
EXPLORING IT – SUPPORTS
That’s the essence, and as a support I can….
Use tonglen and ho’o with that part of me, my parents and I back then, and the people in my life who have – directly and indirectly, been impacted by it.
Go through some Vortex Healing protocols for the core issue behind this pattern in my life.
Explore through inquiry – The Work of Byron Katie, the Kiloby Inquiries, and the Big Mind process.
Tell others in my life about this pattern, that I wish to relate to it differently, and ask for support.
When I notice it in myself, can I tell you? It helps to have a witness and support.
When you see it in me, can you tell me? Can you remind me? That will help me remind myself.
NOTES
- At least in our modern Western society with nuclear families. In other cultures, and at other times, there would be extended family and a community of people to step in and take care of children.