Are You Pushing Away Your Loved Ones?
Nothing makes a motherfucker harder to be around than an unresolved thing in their past that they don’t fully know or understand yet.
Hair-trigger tempers, addictive and avoidant behaviors that get in the way of positive relating - all of them exist because of some unfaced shit.
A person with unresolved memories will have difficulty with other people’s emotions. They will lash out at others in order to feel they are protecting themselves. They have difficulty imagining that they have any responsibility in altercations and consistently focus externally on what other people are doing to upset them. They think the answer to their problems is that someone else will change to make them safe. This is a fragile state to live in and it’s extremely disempowering to think this way. It often gets worse with time and makes intimacy extremely difficult.
Most of the time, people haven’t connected the dots at all yet. If they think they have, they don’t know or understand the whole story behind their behavior. If they did, they wouldn’t be triggered by similar situations or would be making obvious progress. Sometimes you’ll hear people go on and on about why they’re the way they are because of their past traumas which means they are still in a victim mentality and are still intentionally holding onto that energy from the past instead of releasing it.
Trying to beat a trigger is hard when there’s an unresolved memory at the root. Unresolved memories feel like…like lying on the floor with a couple of 45 lb plates on top of your ribs, then from there trying to implement behavioral changes, habit-building, and communication strategies. It’s heavy. You’re operating at a deficit without even knowing it.
People harboring unresolved memories are often dissociated from their bodies. When someone asks what they’re feeling they drop into an explanation instead of feeling. Or they get defensive, or they have no idea what you’re talking about even if you explain it, and then get defensive.
Something like,
Me: “Can you name 2 sensations in your body right now?”
Other person: “I have this thing in my neck because I had surgery when I was 12…
“…I had a stressful day today so I’m kinda feelin that…”
“…I know why, because my doctor told me it’s just something I’m going to have forever, but I have this condition called [diagnosis name] where my spine is slowly becoming fused together…it’s ok though I have medication for managing the pain, there’s no cure”
If they are simply able to go in - to focus, sink a millimeter under the story and know what they’re really feeling - there is a rapid and immediate shift into something new.
Even if we don’t go even deeper.
Which is my favorite curious, exploratory, loving thing to do with people (even over Zoom).
Something like,
Me: “Can you name 2 sensations in your body right now?”
Other person:
“I have this thing in my neck because I had surgery when I was 12…”“I feel like something is hovering just behind my neck and it’s kind of moving up and down a little bit? Kind of buzzy?”
“…I had a stressful day today so I’m kinda feelin that…”“There’s a tight feeling in my upper throat and another one in my belly. When I focus on it though it moves a little. Oh, it went away. I can’t find it any more.”
“…I know why, because my doctor told me it’s just something I’m going to have forever, but I have this condition called [diagnosis name] where my spine is slowly becoming fused together…it’s ok though I have medication for managing the pain, there’s no cure”“I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly thinking about my cat that died when I was 13. I see her there, on my bed. I feel a sharp feeling in the middle of my back. And the color blue?”
This is why I’m always prescribing exercises in this newsletter to simply sit, focus, and let yourself be with the feeling of what is. That simple act of attention will move and change and settle many things.
And if they don’t we go in further, asking questions, and resolving memories together. Rapidly.
One moment, they have a memory that triggers the shit out of them. An hour later, they merely have a memory. The difference in charge around it from triggering to neutral or even better is the thing I use to measure how much progress we make together in a single session.
Overall people feel lighter, freer, and sleep better than they did before they went on a guided inner journey.
They find it easier to be nice to people now that there isn’t something to protect.
You can try this right now.
Sit down and set a temporal container by setting a timer for 5 minutes. It will allow you to sink deeper when you know there’s a time limit. I often assign real, paying clients to light and blow out a candle as a part of the ritual ceremony as well.
Now sit, and notice what you’re feeling. Once you find something, focus on it. If you feel nothing, focus on accepting that that’s what you’re feeling. Continue for the remainder of the 5 minutes, knowing that your attention will flow, shift, and change but returning back to seeing what you’re feeling, and focusing on where you feel it, just accepting the sensations, until the timer goes off.
You can do the same thing by bringing a triggering memory to mind and following the same instructions. This should get you just a little space, though it may not resolve the root. If you want to do that: