In Common Light

The more and more we let go during every day moments– such as when someone cuts us off in traffic — the more free we will feel internally. At a certain point, our psyche will want to clear out the bigger things — the bigger emotional wounds. For this post, I will be talking about this process and referencing Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul (2007).

As Singer says, “Once you can face your inner disturbances, you will realize that there is a layer of pain seated deep in the core of your heart,” (pg. 99). To clear out this payer of pain requires a process similar to letting go, just in a bigger way. For me, it was allowing this pain to completely pass through me that brought me the most healing and steps towards a more healthy psyche. 

Pain Points

When I say the purification of pain, you may be asking, the purification of what pain? What old pain had to be purified? Stored pain, suppressed pain, and all of the blocked energy from my past, mainly from childhood. 

For me, my biggest pain points were insecurity, shame, and self-doubt. When I felt shame in my childhood for the first time, my heart closed and blocked that energy flow, thus storing it in my psyche. Because this energy was blocked, each time I subsequently experienced something similar to that initial experience, I became triggered and felt that shame again. During these instances, my mind would generate thoughts. For example, each time I shanked a pass during soccer practice I would tell myself, “I am such a bad player, all of my teammates are so disappointed in me, they wish I wasn’t on this team.” (For more details on this process, Singer discusses this more in Chapter 6 of The Untethered Soul and Chapter 22 of Living Untethered.)

Singer brings up other examples of psychological suffering: “People are constantly thinking things like, ‘What if I get put on the spot? What should I say? I get so nervous if I’m not prepared.’ That is suffering. That constant, anxious inner talk is a form of suffering,” (pg. 90). 

As another example, in high school, when I was interacting with new people and shame would come up, my mind would say things like, “Nobody will like you,” and, “You’re so lame.”

So, I made efforts to blend in. I bought the newest clothing and followed the trends. This wasn’t always the case, I found people that I could feel authentic around. But shame still tricked in more often than I wanted it to. My habits became a way for me to avoid pain. Instead of wearing what I wanted, or talking about things that truly interested me, I dressed and talked in a way that avoided feeling shame. From these experiences, I could relate to this quote: “Your entire personality is built upon ways of being, thinking, acting, and believing that were developed to avoid this pain,” (pg. 99).

It is Painful to Avoid Pain

These behaviors to avoid feeling shameful led to more suffering than actual shame. Who was to say that I would be outwardly rejected or made fun of for being my authentic self? My behavior pattern to avoid feeling shame caused me suffering. To this, Singer says:

“You will come to see that any behavior pattern based upon the avoidance of pain becomes a doorway to the pain itself… Even though the actual events causing rejection are infrequent, you will have to deal with the fear of rejection all the time. That is how we create pain that is always there,” (pg. 100). 

This type of suffering for me looked like constantly monitoring peoples’ reactions towards me, obsessing over trends and products, and feeling anxious about attending social events and being put on the spot.

Clearing out Pain

I realized that my levels of shame were in fact not inevitable and could be changed: “Every day we bear a burden that we should not be bearing,” (pg. 89). I only thought that these levels of negative emotions were normal because I hadn’t experienced differently: “People do not understand how much they are suffering because they have never experienced what it is like to not suffer,” (pg. 89). 

I wanted to get rid of these anxious thoughts and this behavior created from my inner pain. I wanted to live a life not ruled by the avoidance of pain.

The Process and Immediate Effects

The process of letting go of deeper emotional wounds is the same as letting go of the every-day triggers that I discussed in the previous post. When I felt the shame come up I let it pass through me. As I did this and behaved less and less from the avoidance of pain, my triggers of shame came to decrease.

Modern Day Psychology

Modern day psychology has a take on this process. It describes it as healing childhood trauma and “childhood wounds.” A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist on Psychology Today describes the process of clearing out pain: “Sit with your emotions and their sensations… Don’t try to change or hide them; observe them…If you feel the urge to cry, cry… Expressing your emotions — in a productive way — is key to getting them moving inside you and to fully process them,” (Brandt, 2018). In this description, the therapist is describing the purification process of, in spiritual terms, stored energy from our past.

In therapy, when talking about difficult past experiences, though you do not get hurt right then and there, you still cry. This is because your body, in the present moment, is healing itself from your past stored energy. When you resisted the experience, your body didn’t get the chance to do so at the moment that the experience happened.

Because we may not recognize how much pain we are carrying or that this type of healing is even possible, we may not recognize that opening ourselves up to the opportunity to feel pain can be an amazing thing.

The Long Term Benefits

After a couple of years of this awareness process, my shame, thankfully, pretty much diminished. Ridding ourselves of our deep rooted pain can bring us the most abundance and joy. Singer says that through clearing out old pain, you “Will be able to walk through this world more vibrant than ever,” and “You will feel everything at a deeper level,” (pg. 106). 

My poem “What are words really” describes this new ability to feel things deeply. When I began this “purifying” process, I began to relate more to songs, I began to relate more to poetry, to fiction and nonfiction; ultimately, I began to relate to the human experience in such a deeper, more beautiful way.

Conclusion

When we get better at letting go of every-day matters, we begin to approach a deeper layer of pain and purify that to reach a state of more inner peace and healing.

References

Brandt, A. (2018, April 2). 9 steps to healing childhood trauma as an adult. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindful-anger/201804/9-steps-healing-childhood-trauma-adult
Singer, Michael A. The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. New Harbinger Publications, 2007.