Childhood trauma: what story are you telling yourself?

Suddenly I realized that I wanted everything to be as it was when I was younger. When you're young enough, you don't know that you live in a cheap lousy apartment. A cracked chair is nothing other than a chair. A dandelion growing out of a crack in the sidewalk outside your front door is a garden. You could believe that a song your parent was singing in the evening was the most tragic opera in the world. It never occurs to you when you are very young to need something other than what your parents have to offer you.
Heather O'Neill

Our gurus tell us that there is no ‘I’ along the Way. That is right! Unfortunately though, no one can be with God all the time. Like whales swimming in the depths of the ocean, we do have to come to the surface eventually to get some air. When we do, we better appreciate our avatar, and we better let go of all misguided stories and pain bodies otherwise our self-imposed interferences will always throw a wrench into God’s Works. While the pain bodies can come from everywhere, our childhood traumas have by far the biggest impact as the psychologists rightly remind us of.

The other day a woman posted a question in one of the spiritual communities. She said that her life partner had recently died and while she tries to date men, she always finds their communication lacking. Surprisingly though, instead of asking, “are all men stupid or something?”, she asked instead, “am I perhaps not beautiful and intelligent enough to attract the right men?” Her photo was stunning, her message was witty, so I replied that this clearly wasn’t the case. I asked her about her childhood instead and she replied that her father left them when she was 4. She added, ‘wow, I never thought this was relevant!’

Well it is. While she has to rebuild her trust in the divine masculine, all of us carry a little homework that needs addressing before we really can enjoy the wholesome ‘I’ that has a shot at hanging out with God most of the time. Not all parental action has to be vicious, sometimes it can be little misunderstandings that cause havoc. This surprising story came from a note Suzanne Yang had shared:

A young man talked about his estranged relationship with his parents. He thought he was not loved by his parents. And this belief set had a big damaging impact on their relationship. During the session, Bert Hellinger asked him why he felt that way? The young man replied, “they wouldn’t give me food when I was hungry.” His mom was present during the session, and she suddenly remembered, it happened because he was sick and the doctor recommended that he shouldn’t have food for one day.

When the reality and story is revealed, everyone is freed. There are stories behind most of our sufferings in relationships.  Our suffering is not so much related to the reality but much more related to the stories we are telling ourselves.  When we believe in the stories we are telling ourselves, we will look for evidence to prove them and hence create our own sufferings. What are the stories you are telling yourself?