How Trauma Affects Us | The Power Of Authenticity (Part II)

Transcript

Previously in Part I we discussed one of the many powers of authenticity, namely how authenticity allows us to experience greater levels of freedom in our lives for one, and secondly and how authenticity can serve as a remedy for the crisis of meaning in our world today, owing to the fact that it is a fundamental pillar for living a meaningful life. As human beings, we need to feel that our lives have purpose and meaning, that what we are doing is contributing to the wellbeing of others, ourselves included, and a commitment to authenticity is how we achieve this sense of meaning, purpose and fulfillment in our lives, not just professionally, but also in our personal lives, in our inter-personal relationships, and relationships are another major avenue through which we find meaning in this existence as human beings.

And that’s really the direction that I want to take this talk in today, for this part II I want to discuss how a lack of authenticity can seriously harm our personal relationships, and even destroy them, and how this becomes a source of great suffering in our lives.

In part I, I spoke about how authenticity is a form of freedom, it’s sort of a measuring instrument through which you can gage how free someone really is. The more someone is authentic, the freer they are, and the less someone is authentic, the more imprisoned they are, whether they realize it or not, and that’s really the tragedy. A lot of times we can be in prisons, mental prisons, and not even realize that we are emprisoned, which is how this slave matrix by the way keeps Humanity emprisoned, controlled and enslaved without Humanity even realizing it is being emprisoned, enslaved and violated in so many horrific ways, but that’s another topic for another episode.

To break free we must first become aware of the bars, the walls that keeps us entrapped, and those bars can be beliefs, dogmas, rules, ideas, and traumas that keep us emprisoned in a false self, in a limiting paradigm of reality where we are unable to become all that we can become in this lifetime.

The truth of the matter is that it’s not always easy to stay true to who we are, it’s not, especially if who we are is incredibly different from our family or the people we are surrounded by when we begin this life.

It’s not always easy to think differently and to be the only one who thinks in this way because you can often face a sea of ridicule from people and it can feel very lonely and isolating. It’s a lot easier to fit in with the ways of thinking and doing of others around us rather than to stand often times, alone, for what we believe in and what we know is right for us.

To consistently honor who and what we are and what is right for us, can and often does put us at odds with the people that are the closest to us, and it can even result in communities and families disowning us. If we have been born into a family or community that does not accept who we really are, then as children, it is actually in our best interest, in the interest of our survival, for us to reject our authentic self in order to fit in.

So I’m going to take it back to childhood here, specifically childhood trauma, because many things have their origins in childhood, and if we want to understand why we lose that connection to ourselves, to our emotions, passions and needs, we need to understand our past.

This habit of repressing our self-expression, of denying ourselves the joy of who we are, it starts at the tender age of childhood. And the reason we forgo our need for authenticity, is simply because we need to survive.

As children, if we were brought up in a traumatic environment, whether it was physically abusive, emotionally abusive, verbally abusive, or sexually abusive, or all 4 of them combined, or even if we just grew up in an environment where our true self was not accepted and was rejected, and even shamed, which is also traumatic, if we grew up in any such environment, we learned that the world was not a safe place for us, that we could get abused at any minute for displeasing our caregivers, so we better conform to who they want us to be, if we’re going to have any chance of making it out of this hell hole.

We learned that wasn’t safe to feel or display certain emotions if those emotions anger our parents or threaten them in any way because they could then physically abuse us, emotionally abuse us, or even abandon us, whether it’s physical abandon or emotional abandon, which is just as terrifying to a child.

We learn it wasn’t safe for us speak our truth, much less live our truth, if our truth threatens someone in the family, especially if it threatened the illusion or facade of the perfect loving family that the family was trying to portray. And so we started to form the habit of lying to ourselves, and denying our truth, and we got pretty good at it.

And not only did we get good at it, but we got comfortable with lies. We got comfortable with telling lies and hearing lies.

We learned that it wasn’t safe to be what we are, if let’s say what you are is homosexual for example, if you saw your parents judging and shaming homosexuals you got the message loud and clear, that this was not acceptable and that you would not be loved if you were homosexual. So it was in your best interest to reject that truth about yourself.

So the list really goes on and on, but the point is, if we received the message as children, in any way shape or form, that there were aspects of who we were that were not acceptable, then those parts of ourselves were sacrificed for the sake of attachment.

I’m going to quote what Doctor Gabor Maté here says about the need for attachment and authenticity, he says:

“People have two needs: attachment and authenticity. When authenticity threatens attachment, attachment trumps authenticity.”

This quote perfectly captures the essence of why we become disconnected from our authentic selves and go on to lead inauthentic lives. Because as children we are extremely vulnerable, we depend on these adult figures for literally everything in our lives, for food, shelter, attachment, love, connection, validation, belonging, you name it. So it’s like with our bodies for example, when our bodies don’t have all the nutrition that they need to thrive, things that are non essential to our survival, will receive less nutrients, things like our hair, and nails, and other organs.

Well it’s the same thing in childhood, when our authenticity threatens our need for attachment, authenticity is then seen as this non essential need by our subconscious minds, so we sacrifice that need for the sake of attachment. Because if we’re going to survive as children, we need to stay attached to our parents and caregivers, and not just physically attached but emotionally attached.

And I say these words emotionally attached very loosely, because this emotional attachment with our parents or caregivers is actually fake, it’s not genuine or real, because what kind of genuine connection can you have with someone who doesn’t accept you in your entirety ?

And this is the root of problem, the fact it was not safe for us to be ourselves as children, it wasn’t safe for us to be authentic and be real with ourselves and others about how we actually felt, what we actually liked, what we actually wanted, and so forth. And so we formed habits of being in inauthentic relationships with ourselves and others from the get go, from childhood, and these patterns continued in adulthood. And so what was once a valid and adaptive strategy for us to protect ourselves and feel safe in the world as children, has now become maladaptive in so many ways.

Many of us still carry these beliefs, these emotional somatic memories, that it is not safe for us to be who we are in the world, and these are part of what make up our mental prisons and what causes us to experience less joy and fulfillment than we are capable of experiencing, and it’s also by the way why there is an epidemic of loneliness in our world today.

There is a deep sadness and loneliness that develops in our Being when who we authentically are isn’t embraced by our caregivers. As children we need that mirroring, and attuning to, we need parents to reflect to us who we are, not who they want want us to be, but to actually see us, see our gifts, passions, needs, and mirror our emotions back to us.

Before I continue talking about loneliness, I feel the need to clarify the difference difference between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness and solitude are not the same, many people mistake these two to be the same, but they’re not.

Solitude is simply the state of being alone, which can be incredibly fulfilling, it simply describes the distance in the spatial relationship between you and other individuals, whereas loneliness describes the gapping emotional distance, between you and other individuals.

You can feel incredibly lonely in life and still have many relationships or even be surrounded by many people in your life, because loneliness has almost nothing to do with physicality or how many relationships you have or don’t have.

Loneliness is a phenomenon that develops when we have become estranged from ourselves, which subsequently results in an estrangement from others and the world around us.

Loneliness is about the lack of any meaningful connection in one’s life, the lack of meaningful connection with others and the lack of meaningful connection with oneself, and we need both to fulfill our need for connection.

This is one of the negative effects of childhood trauma, it causes us disassociate from ourselves, from our bodies, our emotions, and our needs, and some do this to greater degree than others, but nonetheless there is a dissociation present there. And when we are operating from that place, of being completely disassociated from ourselves, unaware of who we are, what we want, what we feel, not fully embodying our human vessel, it is inevitable that we will then feel disassociated from life, and what this also means, is that our ability to have a meaningful connection with another is going to be limited.

And herein lies one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my life, that one of the most important foundations you have in your life, is this relationship to Self, because the way you relate to yourself is the way you will relate to others and it is the way in which others will relate to you, others will always mirror back to you the quality of your relationship with yourself. And so the quality of the relationship that we have with ourselves, or lack thereof, determines the quality of all of our other relationships in life. So if you are in an inauthentic relationship with yourself, meaning you’re not being honest with yourself about who you are, how you feel, what you really want, you will inevitably be in inauthentic relationships with other individuals, and this is how a lack of authenticity harms our inter personal relationships with each other.

When we don’t know ourselves, when we lack this intimacy with ourselves, how then do we seriously expect to have intimacy with another ? How can we hold space for each other and receive another when we haven’t even received ourselves ? We can only be as deeply connected to another as we can be deeply connected to, with ourselves, with the depths of our Being.

When we are disconnected from ourselves, we then feel disconnected from the world around us, and from the Divine which contributes even more to our feelings of loneliness. And we mistakenly think we can cure this loneliness and fill this void by surrounding ourselves with more people, with more things to do or with substances that temporarily numb us to the pain or give us an escape from it, when the only real lasting cure is to once again re-establish this sacred and intimate connection with the Self again. And it’s from this place of alignment and integrity with ourselves, that we will then be able to attract and find our people, people who get us, people who resonate with us on a Soul level and that you can have those soulful, intimate fulfilling relationships with, that our souls are so desperately seeking.

Journaling is a great first step to take to start to establish that connection with yourself again, and to just become familiar with the being that you are, with your emotions, your patterns of thought, and your needs, desires, passions and so forth.

Journaling has been an integral tool in helping me build a foundation of self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-love in my life, and I honestly don’t know where I would be, or who I would be today without journaling. So because I know how powerful journaling is, I’m always going to recommend it to people, and actually in some cases I didn’t even need to recommend it to people. Certain people have seen me journal and heard me speaking about it, speak about the insights I gained from journaling, and just in them seeing me journal, it’s caused them to want to also start journaling themselves, and they have, and that’s great. The more people get reconnected with themselves the better.

So that’s another one of the many powers of authenticity, it’s power to create not only greater levels of freedom in our lives, but also greater levels of fulfillment in all areas of our lives, including fulfillment in our relationships with other human beings, which can be a source of great love and joy, or a source of immense trauma and pain.

We deserve to have and experience soulful fulfilling relationships, and once we’ve experienced those kinds of relationship, we will never again settle for anything less than that. This is how powerful a commitment to authenticity, because once we’ve tasted this level of freedom and fulfillment that authenticity offers us, we will no longer settle for a lesser quality of life, or for relationships that don’t truly fulfill us. Why would even want to ? Once we’ve had the experience of something greater, that thing will forever haunt us and remain ever present in our minds, reminding us of what is possible for us, but what we do not presently have so long as we persist in entertaining relationships and connections that are not in alignment with who we are, that do not fulfill us.

And people do this everyday, everyday people are holding onto relationships and connections that are far past their expiry date, relationships that are not fulfilling them, that are not good for them, that are not in alignment with their path, all for the sake of attachment, or for the sake of longevity, being able to say we’ve been together for such and such years, or I've been friends with that person since I was 5 years old, or whatever it is.

Loyalty is an admirable trait to have, but whatever happened to having loyalty to the self as well ? To being loyal to one’s truth ? Loyal to one’s path in life ? We overly value loyalty to others to the point where we are too willing to betray ourselves, our truth, for others, and that isn’t helpful to anyone. We are not doing anyone any favors by being disloyal to ourselves. But that’s a topic for another conversation and another episode.

The last topic that I want to briefly, very briefly address in this conversation is the relationship between authenticity and ancestral healing.

When we reclaim ourselves, reclaim our truth, our lives, and live our truth, not only is that healing for us, for our inner child who did not feel safe to be herself or himself, but it’s also healing for our bloodline, and for the collective.

Do you know how many of our ancestors, especially women ancestors, could not be who they truly were, could not love who they wanted to love, could not do what their Soul was calling them to do ? All of the internal limitations and external structural limitations of societies that prevented them from accomplishing their dreams, and desires, from being who they are ? All of these untrue beliefs they held that they passed down to us, that as women we have to sacrifice our needs to serve others, that we can’t ever think about ourselves at all because that makes us selfish, that we must selfless and only think about others, only think about the children, the husband, the siblings, the family, everyone must always come first before us, because our needs, our dreams, our wellbeing, they don’t matter.

That energy, that pain of self-denial, that pain of self-betrayal and self-neglect, those self-sacrificing beliefs and patterns that our ancestors experienced, they are still within our DNA, and they affect us, they affect all of us, the entire human collective, not just the descendants of that bloodline.

Because we’re all connected.

So can you imagine, how healing it is for your bloodline, for you to finally be able to live your truth, for you to use your voice to speak your truth when your ancestors could not use their own voice ? Can you imagine how healing it is for future generations and past generations, for you to finally be in relationships, in a marriage or a romantic relationship that is not based out of and defined by trauma, abuse, co-dependency and dysfunction, but out of true authentic unconditional love ?

Can you imagine how healing it is for the bloodline, for you to now be able to accomplish your goals and dreams and be in alignment with your own calling, and be doing all the things that they wished they could do but couldn’t, and here you are, doing what they could only dream of, and what some didn’t even allow themselves to dream of.

Just think about that for a second. Think about the ripple effects that your commitment to authenticity, your commitment to your truth, will have and is having on yourself, your family, and your bloodline, and subsequently the collective.

Our authenticity is part of the medicine that heals our bloodline.

In Maya Angelou’s poem called “Still I Rise” she has a beautiful line that says “I am the dream and the hope of the slave.” that word slave could very well be exchanged for the word ancestors, to say.

Because we are, we are the hope of our bloodlines and the hope of the world. Us, in our truth, in our authenticity, in our power and in our purpose, it’s us.

And when we give ourselves permission to be who we are, to embody our truth, we then give others that same permission. Because sometimes, in all honesty, we just need permission to be who we are, we just need someone to tell us, it’s okay to be who you are, to be true to that, to follow your calling, it’s okay.

I know some people say oh you don’t need permission from anyone to be who you are and do what you’re called to do, and yes that is true, but what’s also true is that sometimes we really do need permission. Sometimes we really do need someone who believes in us because the trauma we’ve gone through has completely annihilated any shred of self-belief, self-confidence and self-esteem that we possessed, and so now we need someone in our corner, someone to give us the green light to be ourselves.

For me in my life, that person was my Gogo, which for those who don’t know is the Zulu word for grandmother, she was that person for me to give me the green light and tell me it’s okay, it’s okay to be different, don’t be afraid of who you are which sets you apart. She really freed me, with those words, in more ways than one, and so I hope that I can be to you, what my Gogo was to me in that way. My hope is that we can all be that for one another, because we need each other, and because as Ram Dass said, “We all walk each other back home.”

We’re all in this together, walking each other other back home to Love, to the source of our Being, and walking each other back home to the truth of who we are.

Uploaded on October 8, 2024