The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.
Sigmund Freud
The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou
Being in a state of denial is a universally human response to situations which threaten to overwhelm. People who were abused as children sometimes carry their denial like precious cargo without a port of destination. It enabled us to survive our childhood experiences, and often we still live in survival mode decades beyond the actual abuse. We protect ourselves to excess because we learned abruptly and painfully that no one else would.
Sarah E. Olson, Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Dissociative Identity Disorder
The renowned trauma therapist, Dr Gabor Maté, when outlining his exploration technique with clients, („Compassionate Enquiry“), often invites a bystander such as the panel discussion moderator or random member of the audience to participate in a brief dialogue about their childhood.
Initially the volunteer is upbeat, stating that her childhood was „not bad“ or „OK“. After a few incisive questions, the reality begins to dawn. The interlocutor may have realised that she was often scared, overwhelmed, or anxious throughout those early formative years.
Then comes the six-million-dollar question: „Mary/John), when you felt those anxieties, to whom did you turn as a young child for solace and support?“ After a roaring ten-second silence, the answer is oftentimes: „Nobody“. That is, indeed, the deepest of wounds.
Thus begins the gradual crumbling of denial which many of us have maintained all our adult life until such an epiphany occurs. It may come through the questions posed by a therapist or something as mundane as an old photo found while cleaning up the drawers of a desk, or even the aroma of baking bread wafting from a stranger’s house in the neighbourhood.
In my own inner work, I have extended the scope of the question, for example in the following ways: When you were being constantly bullied at school, who protected you? Where was the protection when, as an eight-year-old , you were sexually molested by that priest who lived in the street opposite the school? In each case, the same answer: „Nobody“.
Siblings (we were ten, in all) can be cruel to each other, even when very young, especially in an energy field characterised by stress and chaos. It is the parents’ responsibility to protect all their children from abuse: physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual, even from their other children. In such large families, this duty of care is not always upheld by the parents or those adults they recruit to assist them.
Then the question that hit hardest. Why didn’t my father protect me from the emotional meltdowns of my mother? Why didn’t my mother protect me from the sadistic excesses of my father? Viewing these questions now in middle life, with adult children who, themselves, have recently become parents, it is obvious that there are two options when it comes to the wounds we carry from childhood.
Either we do the inner work to transform them, or we transmit them to the next generation(s). Again, in the spirit of „progress , not perfection“, the goal should be to transform as much as possible, so that the least possible amount is passed on.
These are not easy questions to confront yet confront them I must if healing is to take place. In confronting them, the full weight of the original pain of abuse, betrayal, and abandonment will, at times, bubble up to the surface. The re-feeling of the original pain, in part or full, is as essential part of the healing process.
The emotional blowback can be intense, difficult to hold and endure. This explains why many people balk and run for cover, an understandable reaction though not the response which will liberate us from the life-long bondage of childhood trauma.
In a recent Gestalt training session, I heard the term „premature transcendence“ for the first time. The term describes a state induced by the predominately cognitive processing of old wounds whereby the encounter with the old pain is sidestepped.
People who engage in such a dynamic may feel temporary release and might thus be convinced that they are out of the woods, while they continue to be driven by the old fear-based ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, blinded to the reality of their on-going dilemma.
What I have learned is that trauma is not what happened but about my original response to what happened. The willingness to revisit the original „scene of the crime“ with a view to reframing my response using the resources now available to me (to which I had no access as a child), that is the alchemy whereby the wounds can be truly transcended and fashioned into gifts for the present and beyond.
Lead is transformed into gold, a concept which has occupied the hearts and minds of humanity since the dawn of time.
Another lesson I have learned is that protection is not and sometimes cannot always be provided to an appropriate degree. This becomes apparent in the light of compassion, compassion for self, for others, and circumstances. There is no perfect parenting. Good-enough parenting is the goal.
Sometimes we fail to fulfil that ideal. We are human, after all. Stepping up to owning responsibility for such situations, for learning the lessons on offer, and making amends, where possible, are all effective means of healing, individually and collectively.
When denial begins to crumble, some become engulfed with rage and resentment for the harm done onto them. This is a natural initial reaction which will be tempered and transformed through awareness, patience, fortitude, and practice.
When it comes to the harm we have done onto others, many move into guilt and shame, beating themselves up for not having done better in those past circumstances. Again, this is a normal initial reaction.
However, when sufficiently mentally fit, we recognise the futility of tarrying in such fear-driven energies, learn to self-regulate, and shift to the „Sage Powers“ of Explore, Compassion, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate to find a measured, trauma-informed response, a response fuelled by love rather than fear.
This shift from the fear-driven „Saboteurs“ (in this case „Judge“) to the love-inspired Powers of Sage, by means of self-regulation („Mind Command“) is the core of the Positive Intelligence (PQ) Mental Fitness Programme which I have integrated in my daily practice since 2021 and which is a key resource in my coaching toolbox.
Twelve Step Programmes identify making amends as central to the process of recovery, healing, and growth. After identifying our instances and patterns of harmful behaviour (Steps 4 & 5: Inventory), we become willing to have these removed from us and request this of the Universe (Steps 6 & 7: Shortcomings). We become willing to make amends to those we have harmed (Step 8) and subsequently make direct amends to those people, except when to do so would injure them or others. (Step 9: Clearing away the wreckage of the past).
That last subordinate clause is not to be used as an escape hatch to dodge our responsibilities. Sometimes the person we have harmed is emotionally incapable – too young, too old, too intensely affected by trauma – of receiving amends or discussing the issue. In such cases, we bide our time and continue to manifest the best form of amends – „new behaviours“ – in all our affairs.
Amends cannot be outsourced or brought about through third parties. They must be made directly. Otherwise, they will simply manifest harmful forms of co-dependence in the family system or network of fellows, which need healing, not further harm. Triangular communication is typical of dysfunctional systems.
In this context, another pattern has become apparent to me over time. Many traps lie directly right and left of the path of spiritual and emotional development. They usually take the form of „magic wands.“
One such magic wand could be described as follows: „As soon as that other person changes, my/his/her/our healing can begin.“
This is an illusion which keeps us stuck in fanning the embers of our rage, resentments, self-pity, and victimhood, all the while seeing the other as the perpetrator of our misery, „the bad guy“. A cunning trap indeed!
As already pointed out, there can be no healing without compassion. Compassion for self, for all others, and for the circumstances of life. These circumstances include the fact that protection was not always provided us when needed and that we are all capable of harming self and others, and have indeed caused harm, even to those who could rightly have expected our protection, the epitome of betrayal.
This is one of the great mysteries of life. While embracing that mystery, we can continue to develop and maintain our Emotional Intelligence, Mental Fitness, and Spiritual Condition, one day at a time. That practice includes the continuation of daily inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitting it. (Step 10).
Note the use of „when„, not „if„. As a human being, I will screw up, again and again. That – in itself – is not a tragedy. The real tragedy is to press on incorrigibly, blinded by the emotions generated by my Saboteurs, thereby missing the opportunity of learning from my transgressions and transcending the traits that underpin them.
