• Especially when you’re coming from a dysfunctional upbringing: any situation of unmerited suffering, unequal giving, giving beyond capacity will tease out the emotions of the lower self.  You’ll feel the hypervigilance, the blame, resentment, remorse of a trauma response all over again.  Mantra is important, to incorporate all of that.  But words are designed to return to silence, and there’s a point past which mantra is no help.[bxA]  Jesus teaches with the dishonest wealth of overwhelm, scandal, condemnability, and dissociation specifically because the doors you are afraid to go in are the way to life.  Behind the doors there’s just “a body that carries stress”, a “nervous system that’s out of whack,” an overused trauma response.  And it’s important to acknowledge how hard those have worked, to honor them, give them permission to relax and hear, in the sound of sheer silence, the word of God.  Monks will say that, when you're struggling, the day's scheduled prayers become like rungs on a ladder.  When students of Christian Tantra struggle, their ladder is a way of recollection whose primary tools are breathing, listening and feeling–this is an important part of grounding.  Denial, see, happened when you couldn’t cope so you crawled up in your head, utilized coping mechanisms, built a facade out of them.  I’m telling you, whatever you are, it is mystery enfleshed, not an ego.  Hypervigilance happened so that, later, you could give up self and be present: you’ll focus attention and intention with the same skills.  Overwhelm, scandal, condemnability and dissociation simply create a space where spirit, powerlessness and nonself can let go of control and the need to be right.  Christian enlightenment is when you can’t cope so you let go of self and let the breath, the body, and cosmos carry you.