The Perfect Devastation

Once when I was very broke I’d managed to scrape together some funds for a flight. Then I got to the airport late and missed the plane. I was almost hysterical. I found a disabled toilet that was self contained and let myself completely fall apart. I was so shocked that I’d made this happen and I was equally shocked at the wrenching pain that cascaded out of me.

Once I’d gathered myself together out the other side of the storm, I was able to piece together a solution. I can’t remember where the money came from but I managed to get on the next flight. And as I settled further, I came to appreciate the great gift of the trauma. It had thrust me into some deeply buried pain that normal day-to-day life wasn’t allowing me to access. I felt a bit washed out afterwards but also stronger for having properly cried out that old deep hurt.

I helped a man once who was terribly numb and depressed. The day afterwards he had an accident in his rental car. He hadn’t paid the extra fee which would have protected him financially and was faced with a crushing bill. The shock of it tipped him over the edge and he completely crumbled. He found himself crying for the first time that he could remember. The terrible incident was exactly the trigger he needed to kick off an extraordinary emotional release that began to free him from his debilitating depression.

Several years ago I was blindsided by the most devastating betrayal. I was reeling in disbelief for the first day and then collapsed in bed for nearly all of the next in a darkened room. My darkest night of the soul. It was like I sank into a deep well and didn’t know which way was up. By surrendering completely, I managed to stagger out of it, and in time I could see the great perfection. The gut wrenching situation was the exact fit to help me dislodge a family trauma that was so old and pervasive that I had no idea it was there. I needed something extreme to drop me deep enough to touch it.

Healing doesn’t always have to involve suffering by any means. There’s an enormous amount of growth that can be secured purely by extending into pleasure and joy. But every now and then there might be something important that requires excavation via deep catharsis. It’s crucial not to fight or try to fix it when it happens.

The reflex response amidst something really awful is to try and make things better and find a solution quickly. We tend to scramble back from the overwhelm to deny it somehow or at least distance ourselves from it. But it’s so very important to allow the pain to have its way. The faster we yield and allow it to run its course, the more cleanly we’ll be released. Trying to find a solution amidst the chaos is fraught. It’s almost impossible to make great decisions when we’re emotionally compromised. And it’s also easy to trick ourselves and pretend that we’re okay before we really are. That invites the disturbance to spread even further and create new problems.

Trauma offers paths to rebirth. When it comes upon us, the best plan is to stop all activities and sit or lie down to allow the turmoil to overtake us. Give it all the time it needs to reveal its depths. Feel everything. Only return to life when there’s a true calm - a new effortless calm that comes as the natural result of resolution.

I’ll be forever grateful for that betrayal because it was instrumental in breaking a kind of spell I’d been under for nearly my entire life. Out the other side of that I’ve been able to reclaim aspects of myself I never even knew I’d lost.