The First and Last Disassociation
“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.” - Gabor Maté
Disassociation is a psychological term. In order to escape the pain of an overwhelmingly frightening experience, we cut ourselves off from feeling. This is also the nature of trauma which is in a way energetic scar tissue that protects the body but can no longer feel.
Many of you know of my early childhood experience of being tied into bed, regularly, from the time I was about two until I was about six. On one of those occasions I distinctly remember disassociating, literally stepping out of my body and looking at myself desperately trying to untie the knot that was around my ankle. I would beg my mother, "Don't tie the body. Please don't tie the boy."
The boy, not me, but the boy. In those moments in our lives when we have no options, we are entirely powerless, like a prisoner of war, the drive to survive finds a way to keep body and soul together. But the price it pays for this survival is severe. The price is your soul.
In childhood we are totally at the mercy of the giants, the gods on whom we depend for life itself. We will do anything to please them, to bond with them, to earn their approval. We have to. Without them, body and soul do not stay together. But what happens when those, on whom we are 100% dependent, are the very cause of the fear? What happens when your very being, your character, the very qualities that make you are rejected.
In some cases (very rarely thankfully) the soul just leaves the body behind. Most often though, what happens is the two stay together, but all contact is cutoff. Communication is severed. The mind, body and emotions disconnect from the soul. Genuine self-expression is replaced with learned behaviors, conditioned responses and energetic programs that present to the hostile environment a "self" that is acceptable and thus guarantee that the basic needs will be met, the body and soul will remain cohabitants, estranged but dwelling together, like a couple that has given up.
All of this happens so deeply within us and so totally and so instinctively that, in time, we will come to believe that all those learned behaviors are in fact, who we are. In this misidentification, the ego or false self, is born and the soul, the real you, remains almost entirely hidden from view. Almost, but not entirely.
Of course, it cannot be completely buried. It is after all the REAL YOU! And that which is real cannot be lost. It can be covered, obscured, hidden (even from you) but like the sun obscured by the clouds remains in its entirety, untouched, pure and beyond beauty.
The realization of the reality of the true Soul that was buried deep within can cut off from all contact, was the experience I had 51 years ago when I stood, a very broken and hopeless young man staring into a river so polluted almost nothing could live in it.
In that moment, something broke open and a voice, from deep within me spoke loudly and convincingly, "Look closer."
I did as I was told and, when I did, the sky broke open in intense light and I met my Soul or rather THE SOUL, as if for the first time. I have recounted that story in detail in many places and, you can hear the whole thing in my video series I created called "End Suffering ~ Be Happy." (You can get it here https://www.gpwalsh.com/ir)
Over time, with inner guidance from the grace of The Soul and the kindness of genuine teachers I came to understand the whole mechanism.
Contrary to what many spiritual teachers claim it is not a one and done miracle. But, over time, through joys and adversities, through miraculous moments and humbling setbacks, a mature understanding emerged. It eventually took the form of a teachable process I now call Inner Reconciliation which the HOW TO OF SOUL RECONNECTION.
This inward journey is like nothing else. It truly is the final frontier. But what lies at the heart of this strange but all too familiar lost territory is the original, innocent, glorious you. The you before the energetic scar tissue formed, before anything was disassociated, before there was any rejection of the pure you. The you that was there before you parents were even born and will persist even after this body is dropped off. For you ARE that sun that waits beyond the clouds of the conditioned mind, waiting with infinite patience to welcome you home, back into the arms of the Divine Love that is you True Self.
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