Armee, Thanks for the follow up. And just sending a hug, as you'd done before, still means a lot to me. So hugs are always appreciated.
Natureluvr, Yes; EF means Emotional Flashback and it refers to the period in time when something has triggered our trauma responses. An EF can last for any period of time, from a minute to a season or even longer. The term comes, I believe, from Pete Walker's book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.
San, Thanks so much for the kind words. I’m glad to hear you’re also starting to sense the truth that you’re a good person too. It sure smooths over the EFs when we are finally able to start understanding that we don’t deserve to be tormented by them.
UPDATE on progress:San is right, this is not a silver bullet. A silver bullet would be something requiring no effort on my part, like how penicillin cures strep without any effort on the host’s part. This is not a penicillin shot, it’s a new way of experiencing my identity, which I am fully responsible to manage from now on. Like exercise, spiritual awakening works only if I work it. Ongoing, daily participation is my responsibility. Hypnotherapy may be what finally triggered this new perspective. The timing certainly points to it.
Viewing the "bigger picture" is something that can be done by most anyone who truly seeks to do so, whether they are religious, gnostic, or flat-out atheist. I don't negate anyone's religious beliefs through what I'm experiencing. There's a lot of room for God or aliens or spirits or guides or angels in this new view of life. This is about meditation on peace and the size and eternal nature of the universe. Nowhere in my posts am I talking about gods or angels or aliens or any other human belief. It's about quieting the mind and
experiencing our small existence within the bigger picture.
The more I meditate and read about focusing on a greater existence than my own life, the less I feel leashed to my trauma-dramas. I watch documentaries on Near Death Experiences (NDEs). British comedian John Cleese hosts one of my favorite documentaries on the topic. (Here's a link to that documentary on YouTube--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RGizqsLumo). I have friends who’ve had NDEs who report that the documentaries are pretty accurate. A great number of NDE survivors report that their ability to let go of human issues is greatly improved post NDE. They now know that peace awaits. Suicides are not as peaceful, so I'm eternally grateful that I never fulfilled any of my past attempts, but surviving natural deaths by illness or accident seems to make a dramatic improvement in many people's abilities to let go of human problems from that day on.
Science supports the same sense of peace when viewing the bigger picture. Will Smith hosted a 10-episode docuseries called One Strange Rock on National Geographic TV. He had 10 astronauts helping him narrate this docuseries about the scientific history of the planet earth. The astronauts all expressed that their lives were profoundly improved by being able to spend months in space looking down at the entire earth. They said that when you’re in space, you don’t see divided races and divided cultures and money problems and crime and abuse and corporate greed…you just see a silent, beautiful blue ball with one race of human beings. There are no map outlines of country borders, no huge letters naming cities, like on a globe. It's just one single natural ball spinning peacefully through space. Bette Midler used to sing a song called From a Distance, which told the same story as these astronauts, who were seeing the bigger picture from a window in their space station. The world is at peace when you see it from a distance. The farther away from earth you go, the smaller you realize it is in the vastness of space. To me, I feel like as I’m contemplating the Universe as a single place, and earth as just a small part of that space, that I’m somehow experiencing some variation of what the astronauts are experiencing. Seeing and knowing that the bigger picture is real shrinks my small trauma-dramas into something I don’t need to stress over.
I've also watched some documentaries by mathematicians who try to help us grasp the mind-boggling concept of eternal time and infinite distances. That's mind blowing, but at the same time, really truly helps me grasp how small my life is compared to how big eternity and infinity are...again, something any religion or atheism can study without feeling like their beliefs are being challenged.
I'm not religious, nor am I an astronaut nor a mathematician. I'm just a guy who is choosing to look at the bigger picture, high above the walls of my own body and identity.
Whatever this is, it's working. I'm feeling better.
I still have the trauma triggers. I still cringe at the sight of people who remind me of my past abuse. The difference now is that I let go of the triggers as quickly as they come on me. No more EFs. At least not in the last 6 weeks. The triggers still make me cringe, but the knowing that they don't matter seems to not engage the usual EF. I’m still living in a world that is falling headlong into utter chaos. My past still happened. I still hope to never see my narcissistic family or former narc friends ever again. I think what my new perspectives are giving me is a new and real sense that I’m just visiting or witnessing this chaos, but am no longer required to participate in it. I'm allowing myself to view my life as small part of a big, infinite, eternal puzzle. I no longer believe it, I now know it. Knowing saturates my reality far deeper than believing does. I'm claiming my spiritual awakening as my new path in life. My true reality. Once again, I quote my therapist who says to me, "When we claim what is ours, what isn't ours falls away." I guess, as I'm claiming my place as an innocent witness to a crappy world, my feeling of participation and my former 62 years of claiming responsibility for its flaws are falling away. I guess I could say a plant not watered withers and disappears.
A few days ago, I was in a bad dark place. I felt like I was happy and not-suicidal, but at the same time, bored with life and uninterested in hobbies, chores, or anything at all. Those are the symptoms of clinical depression. So how could I be both happier than ever and clinically depressed at the same time?
I googled it. I entered in the words “Spiritual Awakening is Painful” and got a long list of hits. One of the top websites was this one,
https://www.sherylwagnermedium.com/blog/symptoms-and-signs-of-a-spiritual-awakening. the author names 15 symptoms of transitioning from a physical perspective to a spiritual awakening. It made perfect sense and calmed my fears that I was headed for a meltdown. As it turns out, transition, even from bad situations to good ones, is unnerving to the brain and body as the consciousness goes through the process of disconnecting old neuropathways and rebuilding new ones.
Even a good change causes mood swings. In fact, these NDE survivors whose lives have been transformed also often report that they lost a few friends and marriages because their partners couldn't grasp their changes. Their own families started calling them crazy. I believe it is frustrating for a non-spiritual person to be around someone who isn't leashed to the world's dramas as firmly as they are.
I feel better now. In fact, I’m now viewing my mood swings as evidence that my spiritual awakening is really happening. For real. If I weren’t struggling, then that might mean I’m not actually transitioning at all. No pain, no gain. Right?
