What Does Recovery Entail? Or: The Healing Process
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Let’s
review what we’ve learned so far. We know now that “trauma” refers
to any kind of severe injury: whether mental, physical, emotional, or
spiritual. We also know that we have the most control over the mental
or psychological component of any given trauma, and that we must therefore
use the mind to overcome or mitigate the damage done to our beings as
a whole. As we discovered above, the mind responds to trauma by playing
a trick on itself called dissociation. Rather than suffer, the mind shuts
down and withdraws from harm. This state of withdrawal then becomes habitual,
an automatic defense mechanism that may be triggered even in the absence
of harmful circumstances. This unconscious habit of dissociation keeps
us from being fully present in the moment, since we cannot give our full
attention to anything when part of the mind has retreated from the front
lines of experience. Jamie Sams says in Dancing The Dream (1999), “Fear
is the enemy of being present.” Dissociation can thus be linked
with fear. Just as an animal will run from a predator, so the human mind
seeks to escape from negative experiences in life.
Only a trained
animal such as a dog will stand up to a larger creature like a bear or
wolf. By the same token, the mind must also be trained to face the things
that it fears. Only through such training can we learn to be fully present
in the moment, no matter how scary things get, or have been in the past.
Jamie Sams, in Dancing The Dream (1999), also tells us that, “if
our thoughts and feelings from the past are haunting us, we cannot be
fully present...if we fear the unknown of the future, we are also out
of balance because we have invested our energy in what could happen
rather than what we are experiencing at present. We cannot receive the
immediate blessings of happiness and contentment when we invest our energy
in regret, fear, or expectation of doom.”
Recovery,
then, must begin with the process of overcoming and releasing our fears.
This process could be metaphorically called “mental healing.” Note,
however, that the mind exists apart from the physical world of which
the body is a part. The mind, as a metaphysical object and not a physical
one, cannot actually sustain an injury. By the same token, fear is not
a disease of which the mind can be cured, since the mind cannot become
literally “sick” the way that our bodies can.
According
to ChristineJette in Tarot Shadow Work (2000), “The Latin
root of recovery is recapture, meaning ‘to receive or
take.’ To receive something is passive—you allow it to happen.
To take is a deliberate choice requiring action.” Thus, we can
see the release of fear as a passive process, like falling into a pool
of water. Overcoming our fear then takes the opposite position as an
active choice, like choosing to swim instead of sink.
Without fear,
we might never be motivated to get out of bed, walk out the door, and
struggle in the world for the things that we need. Fear is a survival
mechanism. Fear only becomes a negative force when it changes from a
survival reflex into an obsession. As Christine Jette tells us in Tarot
Shadow Work (2000), “The survival purpose of fear soon begins
to permeate all aspects of our lives. We learn there is no endless source
of anything. We are taught to live by the fear of loss. We align ourselves
with fear: we fear someone will die, we fear we won’t have enough
money, we fear our significant relationships will dissolve, or happiness
won’t last, we fear being alone. This is where our fear of, and
resistance to, change originates, and where our shadow starts to grow.”
In order
to reclaim that shadowy part of ourselves that fear has taken away from
us, we must choose to have courage. Though fear threatens to blot out
our consciousness, we must learn to remain present in spite of our fears.
No one can do this for us, and no one can really teach us how. The trick
lies in how we look at things. Though we don’t always know it,
our perception is something that we can control. A change in our thinking
can transform the nature of the entire world. The world inside of us
doesn’t have to be a frightening place for us, and neither does
the world outside. Overcoming our fear that past traumas will recur also
allows us to face the present without the anxiety that causes dissociation.
This same
detachment also helps us to overcome fears that arise from present circumstances.
No matter how frightening and terrible the past has been for us, we can
decide to carry on and face the future without fear. To do otherwise
would be an act of cowardice. Such lack of courage must also be seen
as a decision on the part of the coward who displays it, though few would
wish to take credit for this kind of moral weakness. Jamie Sams, in Dancing
The Dream (1999), tells us, “In millions of ways, havoc can
be wreaked in our lives; depending upon our attitude, either we choose
to pick up the pieces and begin again, or we choose to give up.” This
giving up amounts to a conscious, willful act of cowardice. Jamie Sams
continues by saying, “It is the coward who abandons himself or
herself first, and from that place of cowardice, all other betrayals
come easily.”
Beginning
again takes courage. No one said courage would be as easy as self-betrayal,
but surrender is not an alternative for those on the spiritual path.