An Initiation

James Hillman, in his book The Soul’s Code: In Search for Character and Calling (1996), critiques the modern worldview that magnifies the focus of trauma. This overemphasis on the trauma event itself often causes us to set aside the “annunciation” of our soul’s calling and code. We miss the mark by seeing development through the inflated lens of trauma that spotlights the destructive forces of an ordeal diminishing the opening and opportunity for response. We are consumed with all that is wrong and unjust about a given situation, swirling in the stew of terror and hurt so that we miss the the invitation that trauma offers us within and just beyond the murky waters of pain. 

Hillman supposes that the traumas, neuroses, and marginal behaviors, particularly in childhood, are part of the shape of our soul from the start. Much of modern psychology pathologizes and stigmatizes childhood events blaming parental behavior for marginal characteristics and symptoms that surface in a child’s development. Hillman flips the devastations and symptoms on their head, giving us a sacred opportunity to shake out the gems from the deep pockets of those original wounds and mysteries to discover our soul’s divine image and purpose. In this sense, life itself is a liminal sphere to transform us as we follow the breadcrumbs of symptoms and ordeals.

It is a beautiful way to perceive trauma and wounding that occur as a part of normal life. And, it is a splash of ice cold water in the face of our pain, anguish, and fear. It is no easy task to tuck our pointer finger back into our fist when we have been harmed by another, the world, or an event. The anger is real and protects the deep hurt beneath it. We must do both, opening to the anger and hurt as we open to the possibility that there is something more on the other side of those intense feeling states. Opening to the wisdom of these darker emotions as messengers requires enormous courage.  

When a loss occurs, it hurts terribly. It also brings up our other hurts waiting in line under the surface. These similarly situated circumstances or, more likely, similar emotional wounds of our past, see an opportunity to be tended along side the current conditions. These wounded parts of us are ripe for healing, and do not want to miss the opportunity for care and to reconnect to the larger self. When there has been a similar pattern of loss or wounding based in our experience, the grief can become complex, especially if we do not have awareness around our past losses and wounds.

Hence, the tangled ball image comes to mind here again. Pulling out one thread at a time would be so much easier, except that the hurts are all knotted and tied together. However, with each new traumatic occurrence, we have the ability to heal through layers and tangles. We can heal not one hurt but many painfully related wounds if we have awareness of our patterning and the bind we are in.

The either/or bind, the all/nothing bind, and the live/die bind are the sharp edged gifts of being in a state of trauma or deep wounding. We are in the impossible position of only seeing two choices that are not really choices at all. This is the alert telling us we have been triggered into a trauma state. When we are in this state, we do not have the ability to find nuance or a middle ground. It usually also means we are in fight/flight/freeze/fawn. Essentially, we have lost access to our coping skills and regulating systems, and our mature self is not in charge. Being ruled by emotions is tumultuous, unpredictable, and dangerous. It is a risk.

For the last few days, I was in that risky dangerous place. Finding myself in the bind: I want Edmond or I don’t want to be here, I knew I was under water in the sea of grief. I was not in charge. Getting back to a regulated state, finding the nuanced middle ground where possibilities and more choice exists has been the challenge, the risk, and the place of greater knowing. 

I know, with support, I can find my way back from the edges of the bind. Here, at zero ground in full presence, if I stay long enough and listen to the wisdom of the symptoms and the big emotions surfacing, I will shake the gems loose. I will grow. I will expand my consciousness to contain the next iteration of who I am becoming. 

In the tightness and rigidity of the bind, it took two and a half days before I found my center again. 

Surrendering to the emotions and waves that take us under into the darkest depths is part of this grieving process. Being in control has nothing to do with grieving. In fact, being in control prohibits us from feeling, expressing, and releasing. Controlling ourselves is not in service to our soul or transformation. Keeping our wild emotions under wraps makes other people feel better and serves to reinforce our conditioned notion that we are too much or not enough. Being in control keeps us stagnant and refuses our soul’s call.  

Regulation and centering are not about control, but about safely allowing emotions and feelings to arise, be felt, noticed, tended, and considered. If we begin to feel intense anger and too quickly squash it back down with an opposing gratitude, we are in the bi-polarity. We can bounce back and forth between these two opposites, looping. The anger spins, and we repeat and repeat and repeat it on a loop often seeing it as separate from ourselves and sourced in others. And, all the while we are screaming our gratitudes to the world. We have not spent enough time fully feeling, or truly allowing ourselves to feel either the anger or the gratitude from a place of regulation.

Feeling a feeling fully, especially within the centered regulated self, allows us to gain insight, knowledge, and release. We then have space to feel something else.   

Sometimes, being in a position to allow the fullness of our feelings means falling in to a million pieces, being pushed beyond our capacity. Exceeding my own containment and regulatory system is to be expected in transformative work. If we do not push beyond our limits, falling over the edge at times, how will we know where to grow? How will we know where we need to expand the foundation of our being?

I am still sitting here in this place a little longer than I think I can. An expansion occurred through pain, dysregulation, and destruction. Some part of me is asking to die so that some other part can be born. Maybe that is the gem that has fallen from my deep pocket. Maybe that is my soul’s call at this time, and in this instance. I don’t know yet. 

It is an initiation, these moments when our soul is called to expand to higher levels of consciousness. It feels like crazy-making, and the disorientation often seems without end. These initiations may even deprive of us eating, sleeping, and human contact. In fact, when we undergo initiation by choice instead of circumstance, we often purposefully exclude the physical comforts and necessities of regular life. Christians may fast from meat or other habits of comfort during the season of Lent as a means of transformation. Muslims, in honor of the revelations that the Angel Gabriel gave to Muhammad, fast from sun up to sun down during Ramadan for spiritual development. In indigenous traditions, rites of passage require similar dismantling of physical comfort to grow spiritually. Individuals often retreat into nature for several days alone and apart from their community. 

When we seek to transform, fasting or forgoing regular nourishment or human contact breaks down our inhibitions and helps us let down our guard. We deprive the body to open to our soul. We may also stay awake, not sleeping or getting our normal rest. This too opens us to the spiritual parts that seek growth and development.  

This initiation, Edmond’s death, was not and is not my choice, but it is my reality, my invitation to answer my soul’s call. Grieving Edmond’s death deprives me of proper amounts of food and rest, sometimes for two or three days at a time. Back in a state of self-imposed confinement, quarantined, I do not feel fit for public consumption some days. I spiral, and hit a new sharp-rocked bottom. It breaks me into pieces in a new painful way than before. Then, I rediscover nourishment and rest, sleep, and dreams if I am lucky. Here, in a more balanced and regulated state, is where I sit, not in comfort so much as in reflection of the puddle that I became in the days before. It is not a time to let go or move on. It is a time to bring in those edges of wisdom, the extremes where terror lives. I will be here in the knowing of the new edges I have experienced working those sharp uncomfortable bits so that they become smoother parts of who I am becoming. It is my soul’s desire to be whole, and I cannot deny any of the parts asking for entry to this expanded space. Through this initiation, I will continue to look for the gems falling from the depths of my soul.