The Beginning of Letting Go

In loss, failure, and breaking.

We have all seen people in stressful situations. We have also seen a stark contrast in how people handle these stressful situations. Divorce, death, failing a test, running late, a cancellation of sorts, a poor performance. How can some people seem so stoic and handle stress so calmly and presently, while another is pulling their hair out, starting to shout at everyone in proximity to them, or crying incessantly.

I often think of break-ups or divorce as an example of loss after I got to witness this at the age of 7. Many things happened over the next decade that were very confusing to me. Things that other kids my age had never seen and never had to face even if they experienced divorce themselves. One thing I learned recently is after divorce, mothers are often overbearing on their sons in particular, trying to turn them into who the husband was not, for her. She is deeply terrified the child will grow up and leave and she will have nothing. The mindset becomes something like ‘you don’t have to do anything, but you don’t get to leave’.

Often we expect and accept less in life. It’s us ‘playing small’. This small part of us is attached to the familiar pain, it’s what feels like home. Not a good home, but the only one we know. When you play small you’re stagnant, but it’s easy. It lacks deep thought and effort, and not in a negative way. What I mean is during hard times like stress or loss we can’t develop purposeful deep thought, we can’t give good efforts. Sometimes all we can do in a moment is survive. Sometimes making it to the next day alive is the only goal, and when you have lived that you understand.

We see people online becoming so easily triggered at words typed up from another person. It has people wish death upon others, say others shouldn’t have access to healthcare, to have the government ‘throw the book at them’, or just label them as white supremacists. External events only trigger what we have repressed consciously or unconsciously. Energy of blocked feelings re-emerge through the autonomic nervous system, the same system responsible for involuntary actions such as beating your heart. The rationalizing mind tries to blame events or people for causing the feeling they have. That person would say something like “they made me angry” and they view themselves as a victim. It’s because you are angry that things make you angry. If you surrender to your own ego and shadow and look inwards, it becomes impossible for anyone or any situation to make you angry. When you do this you become more compassionate and understanding of others, and yourself.

Stresses have profound impacts on us physically. Swollen ankles, ulcers, gut issues, high blood pressure, likelihood of stroke, and aches and pains. The aches and pains are often more on weekends for these people. This is due to the typically higher stress and therefore cortisol levels during the hectic week acting as an ‘anaesthetic’ of sorts. Promiscuity outside of relationship is also linked to this. The stressed cheater experience lower self-esteem and seeks a short hit of reassurance from another person. Emphasis on short hit. This is also why we know people who exit a relationship only to find themselves in another after a couple weeks. The pain of loss is hard. The reattribution into another fantasy land that brings that classic ‘honeymoon phase’ back is too tempting.

For now, I’ll tease into the next blog coming up of how we can bring more awareness to ourselves and our ‘shadow’, to avoid the treachery of endless suffering.