TLC Assignment for April 2012 Learn Trauma Emotion and How to Disconnect From It

Inside every person who has ever been hurt — which is every person who has ever lived — there is a voice that knows exactly what to say to keep you small. It knows your specific fears. It knows which wounds to press. It sounds, eerily, like your own inner voice — like wisdom, like honest self-appraisal. But it is not. It is the voice of isolation. And learning to recognize it, name it, and disengage from it without being consumed by it is one of the most liberating practices available to a human being.

The Voice of Isolation: What It Is

The voice of insecurity is the one that comes from all the injuries we have taken in our lives. It is a voice that has only the energy of Self in it — the injured self, the scarred self. It is not the voice of the soul. But it sounds like a soulful voice.

It is the voice of the Self that is full of doubt — the Self of us that has lived a life where things did not work out, the Self that was maybe looked at as the bad person, the one who created trouble or was always in trouble. That voice created by our injuries is the voice we must learn to expose and become familiar with. What does it sound like in you specifically? What mechanisms does it use to get to you? What fears does it strike? What is its typical pattern?

The easiest way to recognize it: it is a lonely voice. A very lonely voice. That is how we know it. The voice of isolation — lonely, soul-ly created by the pain of our lives. We are the only ones who can hear it. It does not come from our parents. It was built solely by our three-dimensional painful experiences.

The Third Party Consciousness

When we hear that voice, we need to integrate thoughts with our Creator that disengage us from it. We must distinctly recognize it. This comes back to awareness. Once we build an awareness of whatever it is that we want to change, we heighten that awareness by focusing on it — and that awareness builds us to the point where we get choice. Because within awareness is what we call the Third Party Consciousness: the observer. We become the observer when we decide to create this kind of awareness.

You must become the observer. You must not be concerned that it is you — it is part of you, but it is not you. In order to become aware of it, we must not be afraid that we cannot get away from it. We must develop a Third Party Consciousness to it — which we ask God to do for us.

The Third Party Consciousness allows us to observe the emotional insecurity voice — the dark voice within us that works off of memories and prior experiences, and works off of concerns for things unfolding the wrong way. We have been running from this voice all our lives. Running from it gives us a concern inside that it will come true. We must run toward it instead. Expose it. Dismantle it. We give it power by running from it.

When you hear the voice of isolation, go directly to God with it — sooner rather than later. Ask God to disengage you from it. Connect to a positive memory — a beautiful sunset, a moment of genuine joy — and ask God to connect the feeling of that moment to the moment you are in right now. As you make this conscious contact, the voice of isolation loses its hold.

Your Symptoms May Be Soul Experiences

Sometimes when we are caught up in life and overwhelmed — feeling that the emotions are too intense, that this experience is too hard — we might be having what could be called a soul experience. Soul experiences are things our souls signed up for: lessons we need to learn, growth that is required. Most times we do not realize it until after it has happened, and then we look back and see the meaning. While it was happening, we were miserable and fought and screamed: “This is not fair, I do not need this.”

If we can recognize, while we are in it: “I am having a soul experience” — then we can look for the meaning and what we are supposed to learn. When I have an overwhelming experience, I try to capture a view of earth from space: widening the hoop, looking down and realizing I have made my problems too constraining. In the scope of the universe, how big are my problems? Not very big. I have lost perspective. I realign my point of view and remember: this too is part of the journey.

The Discipline of Laughter

Make an effort to laugh today. It is so important to laugh. We sometimes wait to have a belly laugh — but in life the wait can sometimes take a long time. I make a point of thinking throughout the day: “Today I want to laugh.” When you were a kid you could fake a belly laugh really loud, keep doing it, and before long you would really start laughing. Try it. Start to laugh and add to the laugh — make it louder and louder. The person near you will look at you, then chuckle. When they do, point at them and laugh even harder. They will start to giggle. Before long, you will both be belly-laughing over nothing.

Laughter is not frivolous. It is a physical displacement of the oppressive voice. When the voice of isolation is pressing down, laughter is one of the fastest ways to break its energy. It is worth cultivating deliberately, every day, as a spiritual practice.