Unfortunately, many of us will suffer an unbearable trauma at some
point in our lives - a serious illness maybe, or a severe injury, or
the loss of an irreplaceable loved one.

I often hear people say - after intense pain, abuse, suffering or
loss - things like....

"I can never get over this!"

"I am damaged for life!"

"I will be emotionally & mentally scarred for life!"


How true are these statements?

Can these self-fulfilling, self-perpetuating prophesies ever be
turned around?

I said the above "truths" to myself once...two decades ago, after
experiencing a terrible and terrifying trauma - a trauma, or rather
series of traumas, that were well-beyond my worst nightmares.

I was 37 years old at the time and I had already seen quite a bit of
suffering and death in my life and survived. Maybe I was beginning
to that think I could take most anything life threw at me!

For 8 years I lived my own predictions - I never recovered. Worse
than! - I actually deteriorated....

Down and Down!

"Down and Down" until I lost almost everything that was dear to me -
marriage, home, family, leisure interests.

Just when I thought things could get no worse and was pulling out
all the steps to rebuild my life, I cracked up completely and ended
up in an acute psychiatric ward.

I fulfilled the worst predictions of "post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD)" - the worst outcome i.e. "steady decline and no recovery" -
no recovery of my lost quality of life, my ravaged self-confidence,
my wiped-out self-esteem.

Seven years of intermittent psychiatry, psychotherapy and medication made little
difference - there was no going back to the self-assured, coping person I used
to be, and no going back to the quality of life I had once enjoyed - or so it
seemed!

Just when it seemed that I would for sure be a "head case" for the
rest of my days, I saw a poster for a "change your life" weekend
workshop. I was still on medication and expected that the workshop
organisers would not want to take on an ex-psychiatric in-patient.
Still I took a risk and filled in my application form. To my
amazement I was accepted, and for the first time experienced
some "real healing" - a combination of complete acceptance
(unconditional and undemanding love), mental health education,
shared personal stories of pain and loss, cathartic release of long-
held-in emotions, dancing, singing, joyful "inner child" play,
meditation and visualisation techniques.

That pivotal weekend workshop of healing happened 14 years ago. It
was the beginning of a decade-long journey (a joyful and magical
adventure) in which a succession of healers, teachers and loving
companions came into my life and helped me to heal my wounds.

How can we live with an unbearable, irrecoverable wounding?
==========================================================

There are 2 secrets...

1. The simple fact is that our painful memories are just electrical
recordings in our mind. Fortunately our mind is not the "read-only",
indelible memory tape that we think it is - our
mental/emotional/imagery memory can be transformed - the
transformation of "healing" - it can be transformed into a pain-free
and more wholesome story than was originally recorded.

What is more, this healing does not have to be achieved through some
kind of hypnotism jiggery-pokery of implanting a false memory. The
transformation of a traumatic unbearable memory into a memory we can
live with, can be achieved by entirely natural means - we have an
inbuilt natural capacity for healing which goes way beyond what most
of us can ever imagine.

2. Part of the journey of healing unbearable experiences involves
transcending our present reality (expanding our consciousness) to a
new and more mature (enlightened) world-view where apparently
senseless, incomprehensible and unforgivable occurrences begin to
make sense - in the great scheme of things.

We call this expansion of consciousness: "transcending duality".

Transcending Duality - Free meditation class
---------------------------------------------
If you would like to gain a glimpse of the expanded consciousness we
call "transcending duality", you are welcome to join the free
meditation group I will be leading in Cambridge on February 17th
2006, entitled:

"Be Still and Know Both Dark and Light"

Details of the meditation group can be found here:
http://www.sunflower-health.com/workshops.htm

Catharsis as a Tool for Healing
-------------------------------
More about "cathartic healing techniques here:
http://www.lovehealth.org/tools/catharsis.htm
[Catharsis techniques should not be attempted without experienced help and the
advice of your healthcare professional]


May all your traumas be small and bearable!

Mike