The Gift of Trauma

Last week I sat in a meditation retreat. It had been a while since I had taken a week out of my life to just sit, to be still, and to train my mind. This year the sitting was easy, almost simple, much different from years past. I didn’t have a lot of internal noise to sort through.

Having been on silent retreats since the late 1970’s it felt like a joy to arrive carrying so little inside. There was less that I had to drop, or set aside in order to be there. As a consequence the retreat unfolded into states of bliss and love.

Over the years, I’ve tasted these states. I’ve come to know that love is what unifies everything. This retreat deepened that knowing and solidified it.

At one point during the week I flashed in awareness that my history of trauma, as painful as it was to move through and to frequently feel stuck in, was the exact configuration that allows me to be open to love more fully now.

The gift of trauma is its promise of living a life undefended knowing of love. All those moments of painstakingly putting internal pieces together, one by one, over and over again, despairing or ever getting anywhere. All those moments solidify an internal self structure which then allows us all to choose to open without fear, instead trusting and knowing, being led from within.

I recently said this to a client with a devastating history. She nodded along as I was speaking then used her words to agree. She knows. It feels true to her. And then, it’s like the darkness of history floats over and shields her from her own knowing, protecting her from this absolute sure future that shimmers ahead.

She says at one level she knows parts of her protect her, keeping her from jumping there -- so that can has to be here – has to put the pieces together so that her spirit can later be unbound and free to love without fear.