To survive I emulated these attitudes consciously and subconsciously in parts of my internal tribe. Inadvertently and sadly taking up the role of abuser towards myself and others in its wake. Rarely allowing myself to feel or own moments of sensitivity or tenderness, my subconscious numbing and repression being instant and almost total in all but a few situations. Recoiling from, feeling uncomfortable with and irrespectful of those who expressed their sensitivity and tenderness, all the more harshly if they were male. And yet I felt attracted to the more artistic, poetic and creative types who tended to be more on the sensitive side – nothing about trauma and wounding is ever logical in my experience.

Concurrently I incarnated with a strong warrior spirit willing to protect whoever was marginalized or attacked, most often than not the weak, the powerless, and the sensitive and tender. And so this specific internal war was seeded and took a great part of my energy, attention, and capacity to live life in inner peace and full creative expression away. Decades of moving from one perception to the other, feeling good about myself in one and painful shame when the harshness overtook.

I began my work on this in my late teenage years with whatever tools I could find in a world that was still pre-internet and little psychological and neuroscientific research being accessible to ‘normal’ people. I learned to manage the external expressions of the abuser, by sheer willpower, and had to endure many defeats and failures without the soothing balm of self compassion, which heaped more shame to the mountain I already held in the subconscious. In my thirties things thankfully began to take a turn as better tools and practices became available to me and I opened more to ‘esoteric’ tools. This is where my true and most effective work commenced. Everything before could only be compared to putting bandaids on a deep and infected wound. A temporary solution at best but mere useless actionism in the long run.

Fragility

Reclaiming my tenderness and sensitivity only happened once I had learned to differentiate it from the fragility of my wounded parts. In my mind fragility is an expression of the egoic nature, its existence serves to protect the status quo and is counterproductive to true healing and integration. Fragility is what makes us reactive, defensive and stubbornly avoidant to all that would heal its underlying pool of emotions, sensations, memories distorting and festering in the depth of the subconscious expertly hidden from our waking awareness. 

Fragility being a function of the ego is cunning, a shapeshifter and spinner of illusion which manage to enchant us into believing them to be reality. Fragility’s rationalizations and emotive reactivities have an intensity of pull that effortlessly highjacks our awareness into its states of hyper-activation and limited higher brain functioning.

To calm fragility I have to face, feel and integrate trauma and shadows – it is, of course, an ongoing process as we keep experiencing new traumas which express in novel ways and necessitate new and better adapted tools of knowing and healing. 

Trauma and Shadow work

A lot of people speak about trauma and shadow work these days but when I look at them and their words I can often sense with clarity that they only ventured to do the most superficial work on these themselves. Rare is the voice of wisdom and the glint in the eyes of those who went deep into the abyss of trauma and shadow.

I have written and shared some insights into my ongoing trauma and shadow work here, but admittedly only in the lightest way, as to write about it as I experience it is nigh impossible as our language lacks words to aptly describe the depth of despair, excruciating pain and abject sense of disorientation and lostness and all the other hues of sensations and emotions that I have to sit with as I contain my impulse to flee and deny whatever arises. This work is not for the faint at heart, it is definitely not for those lacking in discipline, honesty or the lazy.

Shadow and trauma work necessitate much courage, resilience and willingness to begin them and stick through the challenging moments, but the most precious qualities needed are cultivated in the process when handled right: self compassion, self love, self trust.

Without self compassion and love we cannot gauge in a helpful way how much work is needed, when to take breaks, when to resource ourselves by doing things we love and by taking loving care of our body, mind and spirit like the amazing parents and lovers we never had. Without self trust we will crumble whenever our fragility speaks in the language of fear and catastrophizing instead of trudging on the seemingly endless path of self work. And in my case I will add that I needed my inner light and spirit, the aspect at the core of my being, which has always led and gently pushed me towards healing and integration and picked me up whenever I was down on my knees.

In shadow and trauma work I learned to feel and engage with my sensitivity and tenderness in wholly new ways.

Sensitivity and Tenderness

When sensitivity and tenderness are released from the repression of our wounded patterns we might easily feel overwhelmed by them and with the old judgements still echoing in our minds we might feel like stepping back or distracting ourselves in order not to feel them. And we might even feel shame-anxiety or the shame that was induced into us when we showed ourselves in tenderness. 

It is key how we respond in these mystical moments of new beginnings. We are learning emotional intelligence and competence here. It takes time, effort, compassion and a playful attitude to navigate this with grace. This is where our trust in ourselves deepens: In daring to experience how much we can stretch, how much more than our mind believes we can actually take and what happens when we mindfully move past the boundaries of our thinking. 

It is uncomfortable to be sensitive or tender, things get under our skin much more than they ever did in our previous armored iterations of self, therefore we will have to learn ways of dealing with sensations and emotions as they arise and keep tinkering away until we find our stride. It helps to train the mind to look out for the gifts of these states: What are we experiencing, learning and accessing through being sensitive and tender? Where do we need to set new boundaries now that we are becoming softer and more receptive to energies and life? 

I have found, with an infinite sense of awe and wonder, how much strength and resilience I derive from reconnecting with and making ample spaces for sensitivity and tenderness. Once I had my critical selves come around and welcome them, external comments or dis-ease could not get to me as much anymore. I am more sensitive, I feel more of the violence and harshness that has been normalized and embedded in human relating and communicating. And yet it is by far easier to balance and integrate any harm encountered in a state of tenderness and sensitivity than it ever was to do so from states of fragility. 

In other words it is SAFER to be in open, sensitive and receptive states than it ever could be to be armored, protected and therefore in fragility. Read that again and ponder it!

Yes, it may seem that people can hurt me more easily than they could hurt previous iterations of myself. But to an awakened and self-knowing observer, who has done quite a bit of deeper trauma and shadow work, it is clear that the cost of armoring and hyper-activations are much higher and self-destructive than open-hearted living could ever incur. 

Living in our trauma and without integration of shadow has deeply destructive costs to our mental and physical health down to changes of our DNA and limits our capacity of making a good life for us in all other aspects of life. That is why I often silently shake my head at those who are health fanatics, experts on nutrition, body work, health hacks, etc. but deeply avoidant of anything that would take them deeper into trauma and shadow work. And though working on your psyche and subconscious unlocks positive effects for your physical health, merely focusing on the body only has a lightening but not a consistently healing effect on our psyche and subconscious. 

The only adjuvants or partial alternatives to doing self work I have observed are conscious and shamanic plant medicine treatments and highly charged and focused energy healing work, which both take a level of mastery most energy healers unfortunately cannot access due to their own states of fragmentation and lacking spiritual mastery.

From my current vantage point I am observing on the global plane humanity experimenting with fragility and clashes of fragilities.

My hope is that we are becoming aware of the immense costs of egoic games of protection, victimhood, abuse and dominance and that we heal and transcend them in our race consciousness. Ending the need for endless replays of hurtful and destructive patterns and opening the pathway to higher and new ways of engaging with each other, with animals, plants, and our beloved mother planet.

I see the opportunity for us as a collective to learn and evolve past fragility and learn to live with sensitivity and tenderness instead. Deeply empowered by the gifts of tenderness and enriched by the dimensions of life, joy and fulfillment it unlocks for us.

This is the dream, hope, and vision I hold at my core.

Art “Neuroses in Blossom” by Shikeith Cathey 

The post On Fragility, Tenderness and Sensitivity appeared first on Venuskind.

Hungry ghosts

Some of the parts that operate in the shadow of our unconscious I call “hungry ghosts” as they are residues of our past (own, other lifetimes or ancestral). They are seeming black holes of need which are masked and keep replaying the same patterns to try to haphazardly fulfill their unacknowledged or repressed needs. When still weakened they only haunt our minds but if they gain strength or find a weakness in the repression that held them down they come out with a vengeance. And in their hunger and pain they will ransack, destroy and sacrifice anything standing in their way. Relationships, livelihoods, homes – everything is up for grabs when they take the wheel of selfhood.

I was able to observe a hungry ghost in action and learn about its ego-centric if not narcissistic logic at play. What was most fascinating to observe was that the person who houses it remained wholly blind to its nature as their identification with the thoughts and expressions were complete and they lacked the distance to question where the thoughts expressed came from and how they align with their values, previously expressed wishes, their wellbeing or the person they are speaking to. It is always easier to observe it in others than in ourselves as we lack identification with the ghost but it necessitates to be dis-identified to whatever counterpart in us is triggered by them.

Hungry ghosts are the parts of ourselves we have split off and starved of our acknowledgement, attention, consciousness and love. They are geared towards getting their needs met externally and focus all their energy and dramatic play on external engagements to take, get or manipulate others into giving them what they want. But no amount of external love, attention or care will ever be enough – this black hole of extinction can only be filled and transformed by our own love, attention, forgiveness and making amends with the gentlest of care towards that part.

Appeasing and reigning in our hungry ghosts is a journey, it takes disciplined mindfulness, self-compassion and self love – lots of love to balance out the neglect and violence perpetrated by us in decades. No half-hearted attempts or dishonesty will do here, they are acutely aware of these and need us to show up in full integrity or with honesty as to our current state. It is truly an art to listen to their needs, worries, beliefs and integrate them into a balanced tribe of selves in a healthy and enriching way. Yet feeding and healing our hungry ghosts is non-negotiable to living a conscious, prosperous, creative, healthy and joyful life with thriving relationships and spirits.

Another’s hungry ghost

I will listen to expressions of wishes, wants, needs, dreams and goals others share but I especially look out and give more weight to the pattern of choices, actions, slip ups and other expressions of unacknowledged parts of their selves.

When faced with a hungry ghost in most people I try to simply be a calm witness to them and their underlying story. Acknowledging them energetically without feeding them my energy or enabling their harmful patterns by engaging them. I sometimes fail in this and catch myself in an entanglement with them but I am working on getting better at it.

Depending on the level of consciousness or dearness of the other to me I will gently or fumblingly put questions to them that might act as a disruptor in the identification with the ghost. Seeding awareness and curiosity in the most light-hearted and non-judgmental way I can muster and making the observation and analysis of the ghost pattern a fun and playful dance. What is the value of our relationships if we are not in service to each other’s awakening to self limitations and unconscious patterns?

With some, who not only consent to but are also capable of having a meta conversation and reflection of their dynamics and mine, I will be acting as a mirror and share impressions, bringing their blind spots into their range of vision to inform their self work. 

With the right people these can be magical moments of sharing impressions that trigger cascading domino effects of reflections, realization and knowing of the driving motivations, thought forms, beliefs, old wounds, effects of the behavior on self and others in both or all participants. Such are moments of blissful value even if they may be painful to our ego and its game of hide and seek. The unraveling, the ripping of a veil and the light of spirit in their eyes as they take back more of their power and freedom to embody more of their sovereignty is a magnificent sight & sense. To me this ranges amongst the peak experiences we can share with another being!

Of course it doesn’t mean that we won’t lapse back into behavioral patterns after such revelatory insights but we will no longer be able to blind ourselves fully to the dynamic and its cost anymore which is an important milestone in the journey towards freedom.

The impersonal self

There are of course the painful moments where we have to accept that another is not ready or capable to face his hungry ghosts or hasn’t cultivated enough self-compassion and self love to feed and heal themselves. Nothing left but to accept it and trust and honor their soul’s path to be perfect as it is.

It often leaves me a bit at a loss when the person with the raving hungry ghost is new to my life. Typically two selves in me will take the stage, one arguing for complete disengagement as I have committed to give my energy and service primarily to those who are already in my life and dear to me and those intuition explicitly guides me to and no longer waste it where it will have no positive effect. My service self argues that I would not want to deny another the service of having a compassionate witness which he needs and this part thrives on giving. As both sides discuss and other selves chime in with current priorities in need of my finite time, energy and attention this might come to an impasse necessitating my impersonal self to save the day. 

I am so in love with this part of my being which has awakened last year to full power and action and has brought peace to my inner tribe wherever fault lines had kept conflicts going for decades.

She is a dispassionate and impersonal (read as non-ego-driven) assessor, weighing the experiences shared with the other and looking at the dynamics, personalities from all sides available to her, listening to all selves participating in this conversation, calling in other selves to give their input and calling in communion with intuition to discern if this connection is necessary to my soul’s path or theirs… once all is said, heard, seen, felt, sensed and weighed she makes a decision all other selves align with and peace leads my being back to love and harmony. 

She is the only one that can talk sense to my hungry ghosts in their most triggered state as they know her as an unswervingly loving and fierce ally, she is beloved to all in my tribe of selves and acts in service of all that is to the best of her knowing. And even if at times she feels cold and heartless to the more dependent or co-dependent selves they surrender to her in trust as they keep learning from her that love doesn’t mean self-sacrifice and martyrdom and that loving others tempered by self love is a gateway to vaster love and blissfulness than their patterns allow for.

If I walk away from people these days it is no longer a reactive response from fragility, even if that may have played into it, it is a harmonious decision of my tribe of selves which has taken the other’s wellbeing into equal consideration. And I am grateful for this process of integration of all selves by nourishing the hungry ghosts back to life and the feeling of more integrity in my actions and words which result from it.

Aligning more with my essence… a beautifully messy work in progress that fills my life and heart with wonder, adventure and gratitude!

Photography: The ghosts of my past by Mrs-White via DeviantArt

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