The You that Sabotages Everything
THE HEARTS OF MEN. Cyanotype Collage with Gouache & Drawing, 2020.© Jonah Calinawan
The Paradox
We have all experienced, witnessed, or at least heard the good old stories: someone wants a fulfilling relationship but ends up in one abusive one after another, someone wants a successful career but can’t help but miss important deadlines again and again, someone wants close friendship but keeps hanging out with people who have no intention to prioritize their friendship. Despite our best and purest wishes, it almost seems that there is another invisible force driving our lives: a dark, cracky, destructive, psychopathic, masochistic version of us living inside of our psyche, ready to manifest its next comeback so that it can perfectly sabotage our lives once again.
Freud calls this paradox repetition compulsion. Morden psychologists call this trauma. Some Buddhists call this karma, where we suffer in this life to pay our debt from past lives. Some Christians might see this as a manifestation of the human inclination to sin. People use different languages, but essentially we are talking about the same thing.
Western society trained us to be logical creatures. It values logical minds over everything else, as René Descartes put it “I think, therefore I am”. Yet psychologists and neuroscientists now understand that our emotion system — the limbic system — trumps the logic system. Since the emotional reaction is faster, the limbic system processes information much quicker than the prefrontal cortex, in the choice between logic and emotion, emotion always wins, no exceptions. And trauma, the part of you that keeps bringing suffering to your lives, lives in your limbic system, and the limbic system does not care about space or time.
When we repeat, it’s the limbic system that tries to calm the fight-flight-fright response and complete the trauma cycle. It’s the part of ourselves trying to make the past right. It’s the wounded self manifesting itself out desperately trying to heal. It’s the me-centered ego falsely claiming our responsibility to fix the traumatic situation that happened to us. That part of us wants to relieve the suffering of past trauma in the present moment, so it can bring its story arc to closure. It believes that if it can fix the trauma this time, it can finally fix something in the past.
The Wounded Self
In the therapy room, one of the most gratifying moments to witness is when clients have an ‘ah-ha’ moment — the moment when they realize that their current suffering is not an isolated event but a persistent underlying pattern that manifests in different forms. They didn’t have three abusive relationships; they experienced one prolonged abusive relationship with three different partners. They weren’t just bullied in the workplace; it’s the same pattern of bullying that started with little Jimmy in kindergarten, continued with Josh in high school, and now happens again with their coworkers. When the dots finally connect, their eyes light up as if they’ve awakened from a long, dull, and painful dream, and they start questioning “How did I get here? What happened to me?”
And now we are talking. We can finally look at that knot, and have a conversation with that wounded self to untie that knot: “Hey there, I see you and I hear you loud and clear. What are you trying to accomplish? Who hurt you? What happened to you?” Psychodynamic-oriented therapists may examine clients’ childhoods, shamans may journey with clients to face their passed ancestors, and some hypnotherapists and spiritual healers may guide clients to face and untangle a past life.
The forms and storylines can shift, but the core energy is the same. Ultimately it doesn’t matter too much why the wound was there. What matters is to recognize that the wound is indeed there, and it wants healing desperately. And how to heal it, is up to you.
Many Paths, One Destination
There isn’t one standard manual to heal trauma. TF-CBT, EMDR, somatic psychotherapy, shaking, yoga, psychedelic-assisted therapy, Reiki, shamanic journey, breathwork, mantra, chanting, prayer…
Psychologists and neuroscientists call this process reactivating the parasympathetic nervous system and completing the trauma circle. Buddhists call this process working through your karma to reach nirvana. Shamans call this process soul retrieval and shamanic journey. Christians call this process cultivating the relationship with God to reach salvation.
There are many tools and techniques, and people assign different names to various healing journeys, but they all lead us to the same destination: acceptance, peace, forgiveness, and love.
Accept that bad things happened to us, that we couldn’t change the past, and that there is nothing wrong with us. True acceptance usually comes with grief. Grieving your lost childhood, grieving that your mother never loved you as who you are, grieving that human beings are powerless in front of disasters, rupture, and death. Yet despite all that, we are all lovable, innocent, and perfect in God’s eye. We are resilient, we are still breathing, and we will continue this journey called life and make it worth it. Grieve, cry it out loud, stir up the energy and let it go, accept it, and carry on with life, but this time —feel lighter.
We will find peace in catharsis. Like my favorite developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld said “We shall be saved in the ocean of tears”.
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