The Pendulum of Disconnection

When there was an overwhelming situation in our childhood we had one of two options. The first was to run to our parents, guardians, or support system for co-regulation, bringing the nervous system back to balance. This was the ideal situation.

The second then is that we found a way to hold ourselves through the challenge. This was less ideal but came when our family was unavailable to share the overwhelm. In this situation, we likely created an intelligent defense or coping mechanism to help with the regulation of stress. The process shows up in various forms but the dynamic is usually either a pulling back into oneself or being hypersensitive to the environment. Either distant or over-engaged.

The coping mechanism helped us in childhood, but what happens when this process is still alive in us as adults? The coping mechanism is likely used in circumstances in which it may no longer be needed. We then regress in our behavior to a younger stage in development and have the experience of feeling less competent to manage our life.

On one hand, this can bring about mistrust that brings about the symptom of distance in relationships. On the other, it can reflect an over-serving quality, where we find our safety by making other people happy. So when we are triggered into the same level of overwhelm that we felt as a child, this is our unconscious process. The spectrum of distance or over-engagement, where the echo of the past overshadows our current level of resources as a developed adult.

Our natural state is an equilibrium of internal and external awareness. Our consciousness has the space to hold both ourselves and the world. When we experienced stress in childhood this space collapsed. We no longer could hold all of life, so we had to split ourselves. In the process of splitting, we found ways that would bring safety to a frightening circumstance.

In other words, it was either safest to pull back, putting a wall between us and the world, or to be hyperaware of people's needs and fill into any position to make life easier for them. In each, we gained what we needed to cope, but we also lost something. In pulling back we lost connection to others. In becoming a chameleon and serving in every way we could, we lost a connection to ourselves. But again, it was the most innovative approach to hold ourselves through the challenging time.

Today, these habitual responses to overwhelm are running many parts of our life. They are so close to us that they have become a piece of who we are and how we interact with the world (i.e. personality traits). These processes lead us to create relational strategies that keep us safe, but not fully attuned or connected. Consequently, we find ourselves in many of the same situations over and over again, even if our relationships change.

If this process is left unconscious, we will not have a choice in the way that we respond to life. This means we will continue to live in the past that places a preformed architecture on top of every situation that touches our overwhelm. No choice at all.

The patterns we create to cope are a stagnation in the movement of life, which is intent on flowing. So, our life will bring us many opportunities to transform what is stuck back into a movement. We will continuously bump into fragmented elements of ourselves that may have originated 20, 30, or 40 years back in time. Therefore, we have a chance to change the past by developing what could not be developed before, due to all of the resources going to defense. Most importantly, the opportunity to re-establish a connection, either with others or ourselves, that was impossible before.

The integration of trauma- stuck and frozen overwhelm of the past melting into fluidity- serves us to be truly present. We cannot otherwise be with life as it is because our patterning, the past, is running the show. And, of course, when we are present with life, there is less suffering (i.e. resistance) and the decisions or actions we need to make are clear. Our life flows, which doesn’t mean that everything is easy and we reach an idealized state, but the challenges we face are dealt with through maturity. Meaning, that we can stay related to the world as it is even through painful experiences.

The strategies of the past in no doubt saved us. They are a part of who we are. The process of integration is a conscious re-owning of the forgotten or hidden ¨childhood heroes.¨ Once we own what saved us, we can choose how we want to interact with it. Then, we may see the habits that cause so much struggle in our life, not only as extremely intelligent processes but also as the greatest gifts we can learn to wield.

¨Your spirit is a fountain; river after river flow from it,

Put all mourning out of your mind forever and keep on drinking from the water.

Do not be afraid. The water is limitless.¨ 

- Jalal al-Din Rumi