When Trauma comes knocking

How to not reenact the old trauma again

Good morning.

This morning, I want to talk about trauma. This is a topic which almost everybody knows, whether they know it or not.

Trauma is when we experience things, and we cannot deal with it at that time.

Something happens, and we are left alone with it, and we are unable to feel it. And then there's a natural, very helpful response in the human psyche: these feelings, these experiences, they're being stored away in a safe place in us, and they're being kept there until the time where we are able to feel it. It's a very helpful and very natural response.

And since most of us experience things which are difficult at a time where we cannot deal with it, many, many people are affected by that which is called trauma, and today, I want to shed a little bit of light on this topic. I know this too, out of my own experience. And I would like to start with this by reading from a letter I received where a woman talks about how it is for her in this process of discovering her trauma and the feelings which go along with this.

"Dear Mikael, thank you very much for encouraging me to the Samarpan Meditation and to inspiring me in a new way. Now that my relationship seems to be almost over, I can see very clearly that it was largely a reenactment of my sad childhood relationship with my father. My father was unhappily involved in the development of the traumatization during my 1st year of life. Back then, he took me to the hospital where I was kept alone for observation for 2 weeks because they were worried about me having epilepsy.

And there, I was surrounded by other desperate, uprooted, constantly bitterly crying children. His own traumatization prevented him from simply giving me a long hug afterwards. This is now 45 years ago. My parents didn't tell me anything about it for 30 years, and it was only through holotropic breathing that I discovered that something must have happened in early childhood. And so, I kept asking until my father gave me the explanation. And then it was like a space inside me where air was finally coming in.

In the meantime, I guided this 1-year-old inside of me to a safe place with my trauma therapist, because until then, she had often crashed into my life in some incomprehensible and inexplicable way. Since then, there has been more peace. I'm often unable to say what I want and what I value. I often feel like I'm being remote controlled, especially by my mother's wishes. Basically, I feel terribly lonely and somehow socially prevented.

So, now I'm on my quest to find out how I'm really like, and to finally heal all this trauma. It's like a late self-discovery. But how I can escape this unconscious reenactment of the old trauma, apart from daily meditation, which is very good for me, this is still unclear to me, even though it is my deep desire to gradually learn to replace the early loneliness and sadness with closeness and intimacy and security. It would be nice if you could please talk about this."

Thank you for your letter. Thank you for your trust.

Yes. This is how it is for most people. You are an adult, and then you begin to notice that things are happening in your life that you simply don't understand. You only notice: something is going on.

And then what we usually do is: we try to understand what's moving us. We want to know what happened. Why am I like this?

And then, we want to heal what we discover. Feelings come to us which are difficult for us. We don't know what to do with them, and we have the feeling that they limit our life; that it's almost like they cripple us. We begin to understand why we are this strange person we are, and then we believe: "If I can heal this, then I will be different. And when I will be different, then I can have a good life." And that's usually the motivation behind this whole process of trauma healing.

Many people... most people I know, they come onto the spiritual path, they start this journey to discover themselves, not because they think this is so much fun, but because they experience such things in their lives which are difficult, which seem to be a problem. And that's the motivation for the first steps into spirituality. This is the motivation for the first steps towards oneself – not because it's fun, but because we want to solve a problem.

But the thing we discover is: we find out what happened, but that doesn't help. That doesn't solve the problem.

This helps insofar as it makes us more open to accept the feelings that we notice are coming. It's like when you first notice these feelings, old pain or very, very strange feelings you just can't understand... Usually, we don't want to have anything to do with them. They are just a problem. We want to get rid of them, but then we learn what happened when we were children, and this makes us a little bit more open to acknowledge this feeling: "Okay, now I understand why you're here."

This rejection of the feeling, this inner attitude of: "I don't want to have anything to do with you", gets replaced by something like: "Okay, now I understand why you're here". You still don't want to have the feeling, but at least, through your understanding, there's a little bit of willingness to acknowledge the feeling.

But the discovery of the reasons doesn't help. The feeling is still there, and it doesn't help. We still don't like the feeling, and then, we try to do things to achieve our goal, and our goal is to get rid of the feeling. We call it 'healing', but I don't like this word healing, because, basically, it's not the truth. We don't want to heal something, we just want it to go away, and we believe: "If I can heal it, it will be gone."

There are also other nice words for it, like 'dissolving' it or 'letting it go', but the truth is always the same. We notice these feelings, we notice how we are, how we act, and we don't like it. We just don't like it. And then, we do therapy to get rid of the feelings, to help us to do something constructive with it which feels good, so then we are free of the feeling. And we really believe: when we solve the feeling, when we manage to get rid of the sadness, get rid of the loneliness, then, then we can be happy. We really believe this.

So, we think, the feeling is the problem.

We find the cause for the feeling. The feeling is the problem, and now we want to solve the problem. That's what we think. And then, we do therapy. We do all kinds of things, and there are many ways, but the feeling is still there. The feeling just doesn't go away, and that is because the feeling is not the problem. Now, this this might sound strange to you, but I want to tell you a little bit about what happens, what truly happens, in trauma.

It's like this: you experience something. Usually, these things happen when you are very young and very weak and unable to cope with things. You experience something, and you experience feelings as a human being and you are unable to feel them at that time, it would just break you. And what the human psyche does is: it takes these feelings, and it safely stores them away at a safe place.

And that's genius. This allows us to survive experiences we are not ready for at that time. Maybe we are not ready for them because we were left alone, and alone, we cannot cope with them. We didn't have the support we would have needed, but it doesn't matter. We experience a situation which is such that we cannot cope with it, and then, the feelings are just being taken away from us and safely stored somewhere else, deep in us. They're just waiting. And this is a good process. Trauma is a psychological survival mechanism.

And it's being stored away until we are being able to deal with it. It's just like when you have your daily life and you have certain tasks to do, and there are some tasks you just don't have time for right now, so you just let them sit there. And then, later, when things relax a little bit, then you take care of these other things. They're not going away. They're still waiting for you. At some point, you have to take care of it, but they're just waiting. And it's the same with things inside of us. That's trauma. Trauma is this waiting mechanism, and it's a good mechanism.

So, you experience something, and you don't feel it because you would not be able to feel it at that time. It's just taken away from you for some time. But then, later, 10 years later, 20, 30 years later, you are an adult. You are more mature. You are stronger. You are bigger. You're a little bit more powerful inside of you. And then something interesting happens: then you begin to feel certain things, things you cannot explain. You don't know where they come from. In your normal life, there doesn't seem to be any trigger for it that would explain such profound, such disturbing feelings.

And what's coming up there are these old feelings. And when they come up, it means: now they don't need to be tucked away anymore. The psyche knows: now we are ready, now we are strong enough. But we don't understand.

For us, the feeling is a problem. We believe: what we are facing there shouldn't be there, and that's why I want to heal it.

And what I would like to suggest to you is something else. The feeling is not a problem. No feeling is a problem. When the feeling is a problem, then it's being tucked away as it happened in a trauma, but when it comes, then we are ready, and the only thing which is then needed is to accept the feeling. Accept the feeling means: to allow it to be there, to just allow it.

Now this might sound strange and impossible for you. When you hear this, you might feel: this doesn't work. It feels like when I allow this feeling, I'll die. That's how it feels. I know it because I went through this, too. It feels like: "If I allow this feeling, if this would be here all the time, I would be crippled. I couldn't live. My life would be impossible." This is how it feels. It feels like all my relationships will be screwed up.

But what I want to suggest to you is something else.

I just described to you this marvelous mechanism of feelings being safely tucked away in a little box inside of us, and then comes the time when you are ready. That's the time when you begin to feel those feelings. They knock at your door. They say:" Hello. Now, we are here. Now, you're ready." But you don't know that you are ready. You still feel... your reaction is still this reaction of: "This must be tucked away.

If I allow these feelings, I will die." That's how it was for the young child. And what I want to suggest to you is that the problem now, where you are at in your life right now, is not what's in the box. Now the problem is your attitude towards the box. You say: this must stay closed. This must stay closed, you say. "I don't want to feel this feeling". And that's what's crippling us: this very strong belief we have: "I must not feel this. This is killing me. This is crippling me."

And that's why we want to get rid of all the feelings. We want to 'heal' it. We want to do something with it. We believe that all these years, this feeling was our problem. No. What's affecting our life is a feeling which is unfelt. The inability or the unwillingness to feel a feeling, that's crippling; that consumes an amazing amount of energy, this rejection, this tucking it away.

But we don't know this. We think the feeling is the problem, but all along the "not feeling it", that's the problem. And I always like to understand what actually is the problem. What actually is going on? Because if you understand what's actually going on, then it's easy to find a solution. As long as you work only on the symptoms but not on the actual problem, everything you do will not really help, and that's what most people who discover their trauma are experiencing.

I want to tell you my own experience with this out of my own life. I had a childhood trauma, a classical one. I don't want to go into what happened, because this is not important, but I experienced something, and it got tucked away, a nice, safe trauma. And then... I think I was about 37. 30 years later, 32 years later, 33 years later, suddenly, those feelings came. I still remember the moment when they knocked at my door for the first time.

Suddenly, I began to get a taste of these feelings which were waiting there for me, and I knew: "Wow. This is big. I can't touch this. This is too big for me." That's how it felt. It was amazing.

And then, I started a therapy, a very helpful therapy with a man who knew the truth. This man knew what trauma is about. He knew that what happened is not important. He knew the feelings which got triggered by what happened, they were not a problem at all. He knew this. He knew what the problem was. He was familiar with the truth.

And I remember back then... it felt for me in those therapy sessions as if I'm sitting in front of a very strong, thick door, and behind this door, all these feelings are waiting, like monsters. And it was an interesting situation. I knew: if I open this door, it will kill me. I knew I should never open this door. If I open this door, this is the end.

That's how it felt. And at the same time, I knew: I have to open this door. It was clear, this is now the time. This door has to be open. It was a funny situation, and I was so scared. I was so scared of these feelings. I was so scared of opening this door. I didn't know what I should do with these feelings. I felt completely unable to handle them.

But this man, the therapist, was a good one. One day, I opened the door.

The instant I opened this door, there was peace, and since then, there's peace.

The feelings are still there. The feelings which were behind this door, I can still feel: the horror, the agony, the desperation, it's all here right now, but they are not a problem. The closed door, keeping the door closed, that is trauma.

When we are a child, it's important for us that this door stays closed until we get the help, until we become able to open it. But once we reach that age, once we come into a situation where it's time, then it becomes a problem. Then this which was helpful for many years becomes an obstacle for us, and that's what we feel. But we misunderstand it. We think what's behind the door is the problem. This is not the case.

So, knowing this, it's all about becoming ready, becoming willing to feel what's waiting there, although it feels impossible.

A trauma gets not healed by understanding the trigger, by understanding the situation. What helps you by understanding the situation... it helps you with acknowledging the feelings. And then, it's not about healing any feeling. It's not necessary for your loneliness to go away. It's not necessary for your pain to go away. If you work on this, you will never come to the end. There's always more pain. There's always more loneliness.

But I invite you to feel your hostility against the feelings. I want you to feel how you more or less subtly reject them. We call it 'healing', but we want to throw them out, and this is what's limiting you. This is what's blocking your life. That's the only thing. If you can develop the willingness to simply allow these feelings being here, although they feel impossible, then the trauma is gone. The trauma is the box around the feelings, not the feelings itself.

It's all about the box. It's only about opening the box. Once it's open, you're free. What's in the box is not a problem. It was a problem when you were a child. That's why the box happened, and that's why it's not good to dig for things. Some people try to dig out feelings. They want to find some something. This is not needed. When you are ready, the feelings come by themselves. One day, they knock at your door, like it happened in my life. One day, they were all there.

And when you feel the feelings, you know: "Ah, I must be ready. I cannot imagine this." It feels like they will kill you. It feels like they will destroy you. But the opposite is true. When you begin to feel these old feelings, it means: "Hey, you're ready, that's why we are here now." That's why the box begins to open. And the more you open the box, the more the trauma is dissolving.

So, in a way, what happened is completely unimportant. Even what you feel is completely unimportant.

It's a little bit different for every human being, but the task is to allow them to be here; not so they go away, but to be really willing for any feeling to come, anytime.

Usually, we are willing to feel a feeling, but in order for it then to be 'transformed' or 'healed' so it can be replaced by happiness or by some other feeling we call 'good feeling'. But the secret of a happy life is to allow everything which we believe makes us unhappy. This is the secret of life, and this is the healing of trauma.

That's why the meditation, the Samarpan Meditation, is tremendously helpful for people who deal with trauma. During the meditation, two things happen. The one is: something in you, that's what Swamiji, my Guru who brings this meditation to us, he calls it soul. Your soul gets strengthened. You could also call it your inner ground, your fundament.

That's what you truly are; that gets strengthened; that grows; that gets stronger in you. And the stronger this gets, the easier it gets to feel these things. It's an amazing help. And the second thing you learn through the Samarpan Meditation is acceptance. It's like: "Okay. Yes." You just learn this letting go of all the things you believe, all the things you feel. You just learn to allow everything.

24, 25, 26 years ago, when my trauma caught up with me, I didn't know anything about this meditation, so I did therapy, and that was helpful. That helped me with this. But today, I must say, the meditation is the easiest way, the fastest, and the cheapest, because it doesn't cost anything.

But I don't want to say that other things are not helpful. I experience it like this in my life: when I meditate, then everything which I need to help me with my challenges I have in my life right now, all this comes into my life, automatically. The more I meditate, the more I learn about things which are helpful for me, the more the right people come into my life. It's really amazing. So, I don't want to say: forget therapy, forget all these trauma techniques. There's so much helpful stuff out there. That's not what I'm saying.

I just say: the core challenge of dissolving trauma is acceptance, and the easiest way to learn and to train acceptance is the Samarpan Meditation. That's the direct way. But if you need other help on that path to dissolve your trauma, to open your box... The trauma is the box, not what's in there. If you need other help, it will come to you. Just use it. And your guide is your energy: if you feel attracted to a certain therapy, just do it. If you feel attracted to some methodology, to some things people do to help with trauma, if you are interested, if you feel attracted to this, do it.

I don't want to prevent you from doing anything. You know better; your own feeling guides you, your own energy. But just know what the actual challenge is when trauma knocks at your door: the challenge is acceptance. When you can accept, then you can open the box. When you open the box, the trauma is gone. I know, this sounds simple. It is simple, actually, but you can only see this when you are through it. Before you are through it, it doesn't feel simple, and I know this. Be patient with yourself.

Meditate, if you feel like it, and try to accept what's in the box. Try to accept everything which is in this trauma box as much as you can, the loneliness, as if you are willing to be lonely for the rest of your life. Be that willing. That's willingness. You will not be feeling lonely for the rest of your life, but you don't know this.

But to discover this, you have to be willing to be lonely for the rest of your life. Or, if there's another feeling, desperation, pain... you have to be just willing to invite these feelings forever and ever, and then, you discover something amazing. Then you discover: there's no problem at all, just children playing around you. It's really amazing to discover this.

As I said: my childhood feelings are all here, but the intensity is gone. There's no problem involved, because the box is not closed anymore.

That's the core of trauma healing.

The source of the unknown pain

And I received another report from another lady who experienced something slightly different, but it goes into the same direction, and I want to talk a little bit about this. It gives another viewpoint of the same topic. That's why I want to read this out now.

"I want to tell you about the pain I'm feeling right now. I cannot understand this deep pain. I already know where this comes from, but I can't understand why it's tearing me apart like this. I ended my relationship at the beginning of February. It just became so clear that this is needed. And then, this really triggered him, and when I saw how this triggered him, it was clear to me: I really have to leave. This confirmed it for me. He was in absolute distress. It pushed all of his buttons. After I made the decision, I felt such an incredible sense of space.

I've never been able to breathe so freely. I didn't even realize that my breathing was so constricted. And at the same time, there's such a deep, deep peace inside of me. And now, now I'm experiencing an incredible pain that I cannot understand. Sometimes I really have to distract myself, it's so deep. It probably has nothing to do with this and comes from somewhere completely different, but there's no going back. Going forward hurts so much that I think I have to go back into the relationship because it hurts so much, but that's no longer possible.

Now everything is here, this deep pain, and on the other side, this freedom and such a deep peace. Sometimes it feels like I can't stand it. Sometimes I don't even know what to do with myself, and yet I feel such a deep connection with myself. My ex says that when I am with myself, I am full, but he's empty. When I am with a man, I somehow always feel like the man is leaning onto me. Somehow, I seem to be extending a kind of invitation. It was the same with my ex-husband. And it wasn't until I left him that he started to walk and live on his own.

Being with me somehow seems to paralyze men. And it also feels like I never wanted to get involved in anything like this again because I just can't handle this anymore. I know, basically, it's just growing pains of the heart, but these thoughts just come up.: I can never do this again. And yet, I'm doing so well. I'm so blessed. I'm so glad you exist and that you are a light in this world. Namaste."

Yes. Namaste. Thank you for your report.

It is like this... For me, in my life, it was exactly the same way like in your life. I shared earlier how this was for me when my old trauma knocked at my door. And what I didn't share earlier was that this happened immediately after my marriage had ended. I had been married since many years back then, and then something happened, and, basically from one day to the next, this relationship was over. And a few days later, it was that those feelings came, this inexplicable horror and pain. I didn't know where it was coming from.

But it is not that this pain you feel has anything to do with the relationship. It's not that you entered this relationship, and you lived through this relationship, and through this, painful things accumulated which now are being released. It's easy to think this, but I know that you know this is not true. The pain you feel has nothing to do with the relationship at all. It's quite the opposite.

We have a few of these old traumas in us, these little boxes, and for a long time in our life, we are unable to deal with its content, and that's why they're being safely stored away. And then we live our life. And just by living, we become stronger. Just by living, we become more mature, especially during relationship. Relationships are triggering us; relationships are challenging us. We become stronger. We become more and more true to ourselves.

And that's why it is often that after a relationship ends, then we are able to deal with something new which we have not been able to deal with before. During the relationship, two things happen. We grow stronger slowly, and we are being supported without us knowing this, distracted from these old things which are not to be felt at that time.

And then, we come at this point in our life where we become ready and able. We don't know this. We just live our life day by day, and then we become ready without us knowing. And when we are ready to face a trauma, the relationship ends, so there's space, and the feelings come.

When this pain knocks at your door, this is a sign, a clear sign: now you're ready. The man is not the cause of the pain. The man helped you to become ready. Now the man is not needed anymore. You're ready. Now the pain comes. And you don't have to understand why the pain is there. You don't have to understand what created this pain in the first place. The job is simply to feel the pain, and I know it feels impossible. I know this, but that's the job: to feel, to allow it, to surrender yourself to this pain, as you're doing.

I can feel that you do this. That's all that's needed. Nothing else is needed. If you're willing to receive the content of the trauma box, the trauma is gone. You just feel the feelings. That's the only job. Not an easy job, but that's the only job. And it's not difficult, but it takes time. It takes your entire awareness. For a while, it takes your entire strength just to feel this what's knocking at your door right now. But nothing else is needed. There's nothing to understand. There's nothing to analyze.

There's nothing to heal. These feelings don't have to be healed. They're part of human life. Once you learn to allow them, they are easy. It's only this learning to be willing for them, that's the only challenge. But we don't know this. We have the feeling: the feeling is the difficult part. That's not true. Once you have the neck, once you experience it a few times what happens when you unconditionally invite a feeling, then you know what I'm talking about.

And, of course, I know it feels like you never want a relationship again when this happens, but this would be like saying: I don't want to grow up. I want to remain a child, so I never have to deal with these old things. You don't want to be a child. It longs you to be as big as you can be. It longs you to become wider and stronger.

But when you get wider and bigger and stronger, automatically, these things come up because now you're capable, and you just feel them. And then you discover: "Wow, it's not a problem. I believed it is a problem all my life. I believed it so much. But now that I say 'yes', I discover: this is not true."

That's why the meditation is such a help. If you meditate, this will help you more than anything else. If you feel attracted to other things, that's perfect. Do whatever you feel to do to support you in this process of becoming willing to say 'yes' to this pain. And you say: it tears you apart. It feels like this, I know. Be willing to be torn apart, and just allow these feelings.

And, by the way, you say that you experience that these men always take you as if you're a mama, and they don't live their own life, they just depend on you, as long as you are with them. This is normal. They all do this. All men do this, and all women do this, too. You notice how he does it with you. You just don't notice how you do it with him, but in some way, we do it with each other. This is normal. Don't worry about it.

The stronger you get, the more authentic and independent you get, the less you need the other, the less they will do this. You know: if you allow somebody else to lean on you, this means you only allow it because you need him, too. Your neediness you don't feel. This is normal. But we do this, and the more independent you become, the stronger you become in yourself, the less you lean on somebody else, and when you don't lean on somebody else, nobody can lean on you. That's my experience. So, don't worry about it.

Thank you for your report. It's amazingly beautiful what happens in your life. You know, when this phase of life starts, usually, we think: "Oh, now I'm in trouble." But the opposite is true. This is such a good sign. When trauma knocks at your door, it means you have been growing up. You have reached a certain height, a certain strength that this now is possible. When trauma knocks at your door, it means you're ready. You don't know it. It feels different, I know. It feels the opposite. But that's what's actually going on. You're ready.

Thank you for your report. I'm with you.

How does one grieve?

And now, at the end, I would like to read another very short email, which really touches me, and which brings this whole topic to an amazing magic end.

This email is from a lady who just lost her loved one. That person died. "Mikael, how does one grieve? Someone said to me, just be sad. But, you know, grieving for me is something deeper than just being sad."

Thank you.

This is such a beautiful question. How does one grieve?

The thing is this: one can't grieve. You can't grieve.

It's impossible. It's like you are being grieved by the sadness.

Grieving is nothing you can do. It's just like it's not possible to feel a feeling. This is just not possible. Feeling a feeling is not an act, it's not a doing, it's more like an allowing. Feeling a feeling is making space for the feeling inside of you, just giving it room, just allowing it to be there, doing its job.

The same with the grief: you can't grieve, but you can let yourself be grieved. This means: you let yourself be washed away by the grief, killed by the grief, destroyed, burned up. That's how it feels. So, it's not an active doing, it's more like a passive being grieved, like with the pain. You're being pained.

You don't have to do anything. You can't do anything.

You're just being grieved, and you just allow everything that is involved in this. You feel completely incapable of certain things. Okay. You are incapable. You just allow this.

It feels as if you're being eaten up, and in a way, this is true.

And I like this question so much, because it's the same with every strong feeling, also with the pain or with horror or whatever it is which visits you.

Surrendering to this, delivering yourself to this, allowing this to surround you, to be above you, below you, everywhere, and you can't do anything. That's the proper way of dealing with feelings. No resistance, only invitation, only yes. "Yes. Come. Come."

And don't judge yourself.

The lady before, she said: "It's so strong. I have to distract myself." She said: "I don't know where to put myself. I don't know what to do with myself. It it's so intense." If you feel like distracting yourself, distract yourself. If you feel like retreating so you can totally be with this, do this.

If you feel, "I can't work, I can't see anybody, the only thing I can do is being with this"... do this. Take a day off. Take two days off or a week. Give yourself space to do this what you feel like right now. You know best what's the next step for you in this being grieved. That's how you grieve. That's how you pain.

You see, this is the beautiful thing about this life. We don't have to know what to do. We don't have to know what to do with trauma. We don't have to know what to do with the pain. We don't have to know anything. The only thing we have to do is allow it to be here.

The sadness does the whole work. The pain does the whole work.

There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to know.

That's why life is so easy.

I love sadness. Sadness is the king of all feelings for me. When sadness knocks at my door, I know that I'm up for some huge gifts. Nothing brings me closer back to myself than sadness, if I allow it, if I let myself be carried by the sadness.

Sadness is the queen of all feelings for me, my favorite. I don't have favorites. They are all welcome, but it's my favorite.

Sadness... You know, I can be amongst other people, I can be in the family, I can be occupied with all kinds of things, and then, sadness comes, and it feels I get so intimate with myself by the help of the sadness. It's so delicious. It's so helpful.

The sadness brings you back to yourself. You don't have to do anything. The sadness does it for you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm so happy that you are here.

I love you.