Those living with CPTSD (or, who grow up in dysfunctional households,) can confirm this by lived experience: both pain and bliss fragment consciousness. [bxA] To incarnate at all is to bear great risk--and to bear additional trauma worsens our suffering still more. But listen: Martha was worried and concerned about many things, and there was need of only one thing. The Adulterous woman committed many sins, but her judges dropped their rocks and she was left with Christ alone. On the mount of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus: the building of multiple tents was suggested. But after the fear and the cloud, the apostles, too, were left with Christ alone. Legion's names were many, but, stilled by Christ's presence, he dropped the rocks he gashed himself with and sat, clothed and in his right mind. Mind, emotions and nervous system long for stillness...failure to find it multiplies anxieties, makes life's inevitable sufferings infinitely worse. We who know this commit to seeking diminishment of suffering for all sentient beings. Messiahs and Buddhas have seen it together: for those living in a hell realm, kindness is the only sane response. To live out of this realization is the beginning of awakening.
Indeed, the epistles teach that Christ replaces self. The modern age is slightly incorrect when it says "if you were the last person on earth, Christ would have come just for you." Note the slight and important nuance here: instead, the Christ of John's gospel says "because I live, you will live." We hear Holy Writ lay the groundwork: Christ is before all else that is, the firstborn of the dead. Neither pain nor bliss are ours to build an ego story from. Eventually, we become devoted to sensations we were once averse to--because we've come to know "the one within" who bears what we cannot. Paul identifies him specifically, says "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."
The Eight Evil thoughts of the Lower and Higher Selves.
There's a set of people, usually somewhere in the midst of various dark nights, who have begun to see the problems that redemption leaves in place in disappointing preference for changing their own heart. The dark night of the senses is hard, but eventually they see that spiritual work is necessary for sanity. There's group of practitioners who have begun the frustrating process of trying to find a church with the mechanisms to accommodate their unique vocation. The dark night of the spirit is hard, but eventually practitioners realize that God's voice isn't as limited as the response rate of various churches.
The Desert Fathers taught that a certain predictable set of compulsive thoughts would, in the emptiness of their solitude, pose itself as a solution to basic vulnerability. Thousands of years later, they not only remain correct, they are widely recognized as the world's first psychologists.
Here is the kicker, though: there isn't just a single list of eight thoughts, there are two. One pertains to the lower self, and the list of manipulative thoughts and behaviors with which we end run around our the struggle to get basic needs met. The other pertains to the higher self, and to the challenges of those whose experiences of humility, contemplation, and the empty mind of Christ, though unquestionable, are also not yet permanent.
The "eight evil thoughts of the lower self" is a list of afflictions that come about as a response to initial solitude. Theologians will find it familiar. The eight evil thoughts of the lower self are: gluttony (the compulsive thought about food), greed (the compulsive thought about new possessions or status) sloth (the compulsive thought about life's pressures), sorrow (the compulsive thought about sadness), lust (the compulsive thought about others' bodies or attention), wrath (the compulsive thought about anger), vanity (the compulsive thought about our own excellence), and pride (the compulsive thought about our own self sufficiency.)
There's a set of people, usually somewhere in the midst of various dark nights, who have begun to see the problems that redemption leaves in place in disappointing preference for changing their own heart. The dark night of the senses is hard, but eventually they see that spiritual work is necessary for sanity. There's group of practitioners who have begun the frustrating process of trying to find a church with the mechanisms to accommodate their unique vocation. The dark night of the spirit is hard, but eventually practitioners realize that God's voice isn't as limited as the response rate of various churches.
The divine image has perhaps begun to clarify itself in such people. In "the eight evil thoughts of the higher self," there is an "I" anticipating a spiritual or temporal benefit, which is usually frustrated. Self pity is simply an "I" that can't deal with insecurity. Shame is simply an "I" that can't deal with past mistakes. Blame is merely an "I" that can't take responsibility. Remorse is just an "I" that can't let go of past mistakes. Rationalization is an "I" that can't face poor choices. Resentment is simply an "I" that can't let go of emotion. Self aggrandizement is just an "I" that can't live anonymously. Entitlement is merely an I that believes the universe owes it something. If we walk around saying "that's who I am" instead of grounding in the body and letting the thoughts pass, anxiety proliferation goes into overdrive.
Here is what all 16 evil thoughts do. They interpose themselves between us and our senses. When you are angry at your coworker, you are more likely to crash your car. When you are daydreaming about tasty leftovers in your fridge, you are mentally checked out from conversation with colleagues. When you are unable to let go of sadness, you cease to be able to taste your food because you are too in your head. A return to seeing, feeling, and hearing becomes necessary, but it escapes us, ongoingly and for years.
The Paradox of Theosis and Shadow work
The Trinity within is the highest form of consciousness, but even that must be surrendered into mystery in the end--as Christ said "into your hands I commend my spirit." Christ emptied himself, and his saints say "en la montaña nada"--so dissociation must be faced as dissociation in the end. But there is much to be learned in the interim.
The Father within is the observer: he alone can see our silly little ego drama from a perspective of "otherness." The Father is happy and fascinated. He creates, and, without needing control or security, he can still manage to be utterly jazzed about stuff. The Father can allow chaos to be chaos, while still appreciating its genuinely neat and shiny bits.
The Son within is the compassionate one: he's the one who could judge, but doesn't, who could blame but instead says "father forgive them," who could avoid pain but instead says "thy will be done" and "It was for this hour that I have come into the world." Every flaw whose energy is turned into a spiritual gift--when this happens, Christ is present.
The Spirit within teaches sensitivity to the subtler layers of embodied experience, and it is the energy which, like angels ascending and descending Jacob's ladder, ascends our spine to turn our evil thoughts into gifts of the spirit. This clears blockages--and can be painful, unless our consciousness is modified by some sort of altered state of consciousness. The Spirit rose in the apostles when a knock came at the door after the crucifixion. They were afraid of arrest and execution, and held their breath--Hindus say subtle energy rises within when the breath is held--and the Spirit is no different.
Christ became all that is seen and unseen, and his disciples became all things to all people. We see God in ourselves, and we will also bear a suffering that expresses not just individual evil, but systemic evil. We fulfill the law, the prophets and the psalms and half of that is not fun in the least: because we become all that is sinful, wrongfully accused, condemned, debased. We are nothing if not everything.
Give up self and do not judge, and you will realize: action is motivated by thought. Thought is motivated by emotion. Emotion is motivated by sensation. Sensation is motivated by energy. Energy is not to be judged--deciding to think about energy and sensation instead of feeling them and letting them go can cause immeasurable self-induced suffering. Not everything we go through makes sense logically--and yet it's still incumbent on us to deal with it. What we cannot deal with as intense thought or emotion, this we may yet be able to feel on the level of sensation.
We cling to what we're attracted to, we push away what we're averse to, and we've transferred that onto God. So what's pleasant we call a blessing, what's unpleasant we call a curse. This isn't just "not necessarily true." Realize all attractions are temporary. Enjoy them and let them go. Our nervous systems are wired to do this, and skimping on "recognizing impermanence" can lead to lifetimes of game playing. Realize all pain contains a lesson. Set your face like flint and learn it. When the learning becomes preferable to avoidance, Christ will be present in your own body.
Body Work in the Patriarchs and prophets.
Moses had abandonment issues and a murder rap. He spent his midlife experimenting with the primary drive systems of breath, sex and nervous system regulation. God's name is YHWH, which is merely a transliterated breath cycle. When compulsive thought goes quiet even for a moment, hearing your own breath is a theophany. Again, Moses' staff was a snake when he let go of it, and it stiffened when he reached out and grabbed it. Without judging at all: this is a metaphor for masturbation--relax, it's ok, neither trauma nor grief are clean--most likely, in the desert, the means for self-comfort were in short supply. Lastly, Moses saw the burning bush: This was most likely a creosote bush, which contains resins that make it flammable and an irrigation system that allows it to survive--but is very well could also have been "Moses experiencing his nervous system." Jacob struggled with a being till dawn, and it broke his hip--this was just a process of facing stored trauma. Ezekiel "prophesied to a field of dry bones." Those dry bones were his own. He was reframing trauma. Jeremiah said "when I say 'I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name' then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot." In other words, he struggled with "verbal impulsivity"--and a confusion about whether his words were socially, or merely individually valuable. Anyone with CPTSD is familiar with the phrase "trauma dumping"-- and this totally describes that. One wonders whether the prophets were simply people who were highly sensitive to communal grief.
The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation: Breathe, Listen, Feel Mantra
The End Result.
The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation: Breathe, Listen, Feel Mantra
Modern psychology would tell anyone suffering an anxiety attack "five, four three, two, one. Tell me five things you can feel, four things you can see, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste." This is a method of "grounding in the body." But it is not new. Mystics like Francisco de Osuna and Teresa of Avila have been talking about "recollection" for centuries. Recollection means "the in-gathering of the senses around the presence of God." But let us be honest: modern psychology and the Spanish mystics were really repackaging something much older--as old, in fact, as the Jewish God concept itself.
The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation, summed up in 4 parts: breathe, listen, feel, mantra. Breathe: YHWH is a transliterated breath cycle. No matter what is TAUGHT, Moses experienced a head quiet enough that his ears heard his own breathing. Listen: “Shema Israel” is a statement of faith for a reason. Elijah had to give up his self concept “I have been zealous for the lord, and they are seeking my life” before he heard the still small voice. Feel: Ezekiel “saw the dry bones”—which were probably his own—and had to “prophesy” to reframe the trauma. Mantra: Elijah heard "kol dammamah daqqah" (translated as "the sound of sheer silence," kol also means "everything.") The feeling of sound in the body allows us something to concentrate on that isn't anxiety. Chanting Christ's name constantly gives a new name to the identity that CPTSD fragmented. We who chant the name realize that the name is bigger than we are. This is nothing new: Paul says "In God we live and move and have our being."
The Teachings of Jesus
Instituted by Christ, the sacraments give grace. But grace resembles neither a costume nor a drug. In other words, sacramental grace enables us to live with increasingly profound levels of emptiness--not "maintain a piety performance amidst stresses." Accordingly there's this to say: basic needs make us feel vulnerable, and sacraments render us not just "unafraid of insecurity" but able to accept that very lack of control as sacred ground.
Think of it this way. Initially, A baptized infant is completely vulnerable. That infant will develop an ego as a survival mechanism. Pride is, indeed, at the door, and will need to be mastered. But what serves in the short term will take a long term toll. Baptism is what's needed to transform the terror of vulnerability into fear of the Lord--baptism, and the prayer that looks at the fearfulness of existence and says "O God, come to my assistance!" Next, we all have a basic need for belonging. Sloth will pose itself as a solution to life's pressures generally--and we will vacillate between anxious overwork and underwork for years. Confirmation teaches us we belong to Christ, we come from and return to him, and it's Christ who both works and rests in us--that Spirit of knowledge will have a gradually calming effect. Finally, we all have a basic need for nourishment. And we can cling, use food to cope. But just as daily work is Christ himself, so is daily bread. It's a hard thing, asking food to provide neither emotional comfort nor security, but, whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, gathering more than what rest and work requires inevitably leads to spoilage. Fortitude forms as trust that the Father knows our needs: whether for food, or the Word, and a spirit of might begets remembrance that "hungering without fear" is itself nourishment.
On the one hand, we are at a disadvantage, learning to love: not even legitimate basic needs for affection and acceptance guarantee need fulfillment. However imperfect a marriage, not everyone goes home to spouse that's happy to see them. Not everyone pairs with someone able to be vulnerable and communicate clearly. Marriage comes with a "grace of state" which is nothing more than acknowledgment of how lucky we are. Whether in marriage or not, hardships in love should be, like any involuntary pain, revered. But the spirit of justice fills us with empathy, and it helps us to see others' suffering. On the other hand, we are at a disadvantage, learning to serve. Those with trauma to grieve often lack limits, and trade people pleasing for approval. This is not charity. Holy Orders is given to us so that we can balance self-care with helping those we can. At our inability to do enough, wrath is a real option. What can we say, except "Lord I believe, help my unbelief?" As faith forms, we entrust those we can't help to God, and, whether busy or at rest, abandon ourselves to his care.
Under the sun, none are righteous, and none exempt from struggle. Make no mistake, forgiveness is a basic human need, and an immense vulnerability: but the sacrament of reconciliation shows the need was holy the whole time. Our fear of judgement--justified or not--is massive. It can be paralyzing, and if it's not, our egos may be purchasing their functionality by sorrow. Sorrow isn't just "feeling sad and letting go," it's using sadness to manipulate. If we can sit with the sorrow till the energy shifts, we grow in Wisdom--and we have the necessary experience to fuel true hope. Grieving till the energy shifts by itself, enduring hard lessons, allowing the legitimate enjoyment of impermanent things--all of these things are part of the lawful unfolding of life on which our serenity hinges--we buck the lessons at the expense of our own calm. Make no mistake: denial of impermanence, (full, as it is of clingy little temptations to greed) costs us more dearly than we admit: and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick sets us on the right path. Acceptance of aging, sickness and death, even biologically, is a basic human need--the lack of which leads to all sorts of insecurities. And if we can sit with all of that till the energy shifts, the Spirit of the Lord arises in us to say "It is finished. Into your hands I commend my spirit." But before that, after knowledge passes away and tongues cease, we learn by experience that love enables us to endure all things.
No teacher in Israel undercuts self-righteousness more purposefully than Jesus. To that end, despite how egos long to be excused from struggle, Jesus left what was taboo in place on purpose, for its usefulness in growing humility. Disappointed expectations are Christ's classroom space. That's otherworldly difficult, but his kingdom is not of this world. And neither is the one within us of whom it's written "morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear to listen as one who is taught." For egos, otherness is an entrance exam, and following is a placeholder for recess.
Jesus modeled and mandated a vital relationship with silence. (Remember Elijah, in his cave, asked three times "why have you come here?" When he replied "I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts," the Lord was entirely silent. We can see that Jesus absorbed the lesson--there was a point, standing before Pilate, where Jesus went entirely quiet. And we know the cosmos respected it, too--at the cross, for the space of half an hour, even the heavens were silent. For Jesus, isolation was a teaching tool. Jesus tells the Roman official "go, your son will live." He tells the demoniac Legion "Go home to your family and friends, and tell them all that the Lord, in his mercy, has done for you." Jesus taught using non-fulfillment. Remember Jesus talks about "Naaman the syrian"--who longed for the miraculous to be flashy, but for whom normal, unheroic things were the path to healing. Moses asked to see God's glory, but was only shown his back. Jesus taught using overwhelm. The disciples worked all night, and caught nothing. They had no leisure, even to eat. And when they said to Jesus "Rabbi, eat something, he said "My food is to do the will of God." For Christ, scandal had a lesson value: the law said "cursed is he who hangs upon a tree" and yet he also said "take up your cross and follow." Cannibalism, in the Torah, was a feature of desperate times. Christ was making it clear, when he said "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you cannot have life" that redemption would not excuse his disciples from times of desperation. Jesus--who gave the commandments "give up self" and "do not judge"--freely used "condemnability" as a teaching tool. Egos judge--they should no more be blamed for it than a tree should, for growing toward the sun. And so Jesus said "if you call a brother a fool, you are liable to the council. Even the innocent are liable to judgement, when the scales of power tip that way. Jesus said to Pilate, "you would have no power over me if it weren't given to you by the Father." He said that his disciples will be hauled before governors and kings, that they're to use it as an opportunity to testify. Indeed, if you're willing to accept it, it's of the ego itself that Jesus said "If it is my will that he remain until I return, what is that to you? Come follow me." Lastly, Jesus taught using dissociation. At first dissociation feels negative. Given some time, it feels more numb than anything else. Finally, dissociation cleanses us of attachments, and "going through the motions" feels somewhat preferable to the anxieties of craving, attachment, manipulation. Indeed, dissociation is that thing Paul eventually renames in himself: "I live," he said," but not I. Christ lives in me."
The End Result.
The very coping mechanisms that kept us safe--these now become our spiritual gifts. We are digging around a fruitless tree, trying to get at the roots of our actions and actually experience a change of heart and mind. As it is written "make friends for yourselves with the world's wealth, so that when it is gone, they might welcome you into the eternal homes." And again "If you do not do well with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?" Hypervigilance becomes deep presence. The survival technique of "reading a room accurately" becomes a sure foundation for empathy. Emotional impulsivity becomes spontaneous obedience to the needs of the moment. We are learning, in trauma, the gifts we will eventually use in service to others.
Following is a paradox, not a dichotomy. Life and death, pain and pleasure, eternality within impermanence--they're not punishments or rewards, they're just items on an incarnational to do list. If you can hear that, perhaps it'll feel safe to be aware, as well, that when our logical minds finally relax, everything is paradox. When Abraham's servant asked Rebekkah's parents if they'd allow a marriage to Isaac, they replied "we cannot say one thing to you, bad or good, the thing comes from the Lord." In the book of Ezra, a mixed group of exiles attended the dedication of the second temple. Those old enough to remember the first one wept loudly. Those too young to remember rejoiced. The text says "the weeping was indistinguishable from the rejoicing." Jesus said "I am troubled now, but what should I say 'Father, save me from this hour?' It was for this hour that I came into the world."
Intuiting when to let go and when to steel our resolve is difficult work--but its yield is equanimity. Our egos are incapable of grasping this, but the Christ within--a whole persona built of unknowing and humility and intuition--this is the one within us for whom it is is possible. Our aversions and attractions aren't ours. They belong to the 'Christ within" and our serenity is contingent on surrendering everything, even our identities themselves, to the one who heals us. It is written "always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also."
For the traumatized specifically, Christ's appearance in the hungry, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned--this expresses an awareness objective, not a social service objective. Christ became literally present in marginalized groups so that we'd end up devoted to the poor and needy, having seen our own vulnerabilities in the mirror of theirs. And so there'd be a safe place to work out people pleasing, codependent lack of limits, and an externally referenced sense of self. This is why Thomas, when presented with Christ's wounds, given the opportunty to probe them, simply said "my Lord and my God!"
For followers of Jesus, equanimity is an underrated objective. But if we can enjoy things and let go of them, learn hard lessons when they're on the day's curriculum, we will begin to see our liabilities become our strengths in real time. Hypervigilance will become deep presence. Emotional impulsivity will become prudence. As the big book says "we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us"--if only we can get our egos out of the way.
In real time, our sorrow will turn to joy: we will understand "blessed are those who weep" because we've broken into deep laughter. Indeed, all who suffer to live for a standard will know what it means to be told "Blessed are you when people hate you and revile you on account of the Son of Man." Because it will be in their own flesh that the prophetic vocation is fulfilled "rejoice on that day and leap for joy." To hunger without fear is itself a nourishment. To the pure in heart, all things are pure--even suffering and pain--and those who see it are God's children.
Focusing attention and intention on sensation defends us from overstimulation, and such focus diminishes compulsive thought. Ask a person to rate the noise in their head on a scale of one to ten, and most people, being possessed of chatty minds, will hover from the six to eight range. But ask them to listen to the noises outside the room they're sitting in, and most people's "head noise rating" falls dramatically. This is why psychologists tell nervous people to "ground in the senses" when they're anxious. Focused senses diminish thought. And the same can cancel out thoughts of self altogether.
Indeed, we take in data with our senses all day long, but only with focused attention and intention are we able to let compulsive thoughts go. One of the many blind men in the gospel required two touches from Jesus: after the first, he could see people, but they looked like trees. After the second, the text says the blind man "looked intently" and saw things as they are. Bartimaeus was blind until the messiah was standing right in front of him. It was the Christ asking "what do you want me to do for you," and the Christ is the first thing he saw when he replied "Rabbi, I want to see." What stands right in front of us asks "do you believe in the son of man?" We ask, "who is he, sir" and he says "the one speaking with you is he." St. Paul talked to the Ephesians about "seeing with the eyes of the heart." Benedict tells monks to "Listen with the ear of the heart."
And if St. Paul is right, if "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me," then if I'm able to see what's in front of my face, to truly hear what's being said, to be rooted in the body and able to feel emotion and sensation--if that has happened, then it's Christ doing the seeing, the hearing and the feeling. Theresa of Avila said "Christ has no body now but yours" and thank God: it is the only reason we can perceive accurately in the first place. Our part is just to watch.
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