The Difficult Journey Part 2

Some day I would like to write a part-2 article (part 1 is here) about the difficult journey of healing attachment trauma, about how deep it goes and how much it asks us to stretch and stretch into more intense layers of emotion, sensation, and trust.  I'd like to write more about how one of the awful benefits of gaining more capacity to feel hard things and trust more deeply is the opening it allows into even deeper layers of intensity and trust. Certainly, I will write more about how important it is to have good support for this journey, people you can turn to when you're feeling shaky, a friend to call at 3 am when you can't sleep because your nervous system is still trying to process the terrifying vulnerability that came up during your last session. I'll write about how incredible it was that my friend picked up at 3 am (6 am for him) and gave me the help I needed to work through more of my vulnerability so I could go back to sleep. And I will salute the friends who always welcome me into their arms when arms are what I most need (in fact, I'm saluting you right now and bowing to you and sending you endless gratitude). I might write about how humbling and vulnerable it can be to need friends so much while I also wax poetic about how my friendships have new layers of depth, commitment, and love thanks to said humbling vulnerability. Maybe, I'll write about how hard it can be to keep trusting the journey when you don't understand why your body is doing what it is doing and feeling what it's feeling during your deep processing work, when the memories aren't clear or when there are no memories at all. And, there is a good chance I will include something about how forests and gardens and non-human animals might be essential, and probably ancestors, too, and, perhaps, whatever else is available from the other side. 

Near the end of that Part-2 article, when the reader is wondering why anyone would embark on such a journey, I will go into great detail about how, as you work through the layers of unresolved trauma in your nervous system, more and more of you returns to the world, more life energy, more capacity to feel more emotions, better boundaries, better intimacy, more confidence, more creativity, and, indeed, more trust. It can take a while and it often gets worse before it gets better, and sometimes hopelessness is one of the valleys to cross along the way. Nonetheless, slowly but slowly but surely, more and more of you shows up to create, contribute, feel, connect, play, dream and engage in this extraordinary existence. (By the way, one of my dreams is to offer live sound journeys in Europe... cavernous cathedrals and castles... acoustics to die for... everyone breathing and singing along through layers of pain and joy....)

And what will I write about the completion of this difficult healing journey? I don't know, but my best guess is that I will write something about how there may not be one.