On triggers, root systems, and changing the music
The Depth That Never Bottoms Out
The deeper we scratch, the deeper it goes.
Life never ceases to show more depth than imagined previously. Sometimes situations seem to be on repeat, looping for decades, bringing with them a slewing stew of triggers, reactions, a feeling of helplessness and suffering.
And the question that keeps arriving underneath all of it: what happens when we bring consciousness to the aspects that feel so out of our control? And how is that even possible?
Owl Pellets
Triggers, when dissected thoroughly, reveal their makings. Like pulling apart owl pellets and looking at their pieces under a microscope.
Lately for me, so much has been coming to the surface. Like the oldest owl in my psyche just dropped its most ancient and massive turd on my face.
I’ve been spending a lot of time alone, peeling open the pellet, sitting with the pieces. Trying to catch a deeper glimpse of the subconscious record that’s been skipping over the same spot, repeating the same music for as long as I can remember.
It’s not comfortable work. But there’s something about the discomfort that feels different from suffering, more like the particular ache of something that has been waiting a very long time to finally be looked at.
The Question That Opens The Door
The question I keep asking myself is: when was the first time- in my entire life – that I can remember feeling this way?
An answer arrives in the form of a memory. And a door opens for the imprint/memory to be discovered.
Like finding an old box of photos in the attic, this reveals aspects of your conditioning that may have imprinted before the rational mind was even formed. Before you had words for any of it. Before you knew you were being shaped.
With this coming into awareness, we can see more clearly why the current situation in our life pains us so. It may not be so much the situation itself- as much as the repeating of our mental perceptions and judgments of the situation, and of ourselves, that is causing the pain.
The situation is new. The record is old. And it has been skipping over the same spot for so long that we stopped noticing it wasn’t moving forward.
When The Snake Turns Back Into a Rope
Once we can see our own root systems more clearly, situations have a way of losing the charge that previously felt so destabilizing.
Like the old tale of a rope mistaken for a snake – our situations may almost become slightly comical once the relief of clarity arrives. Simply because the story we were telling about it- the ancient, pre-rational, deeply grooved story – starts to loosen its grip.
And something that felt monstrous begins to look, in the light of awareness, a little more like what it actually is.
Changing the Record
I believe that when the time is right, we naturally feel a readiness. A desire. An inspiration and inner strength to peel apart certain aspects of ourselves and change the record altogether.
Or replace it with a boombox.
The deeper we scratch, the deeper it goes, but somewhere in that depth is also the original imprint. The first moment. The earliest memory of this particular flavor of pain. And finding it doesn’t fix everything overnight, but it gives us back the authorship of a story we didn’t know we were still living inside.
Loving you always!
Meghan