Healing Our Past with Spiritual Based Tools in Oneness.
Healing our past takes extraordinary courage to face our fears and be the best person for the people we love.
There are past experiences in our life that are stuck. These experiences may have been confusing, overwhelming, packed with hurt, we feel rejected, and or traumatized. Unless we are coming from a place of pure Oneness, we all have these stuck experiences. For the majority of us, these stuck places from our past, are a mystery to us and we may not be conscious of them. In the course on 'Love', we learn how to identify these stuck places, heal them, and learn from them without having to relive them.
These stuck places from our past cause chaos and havoc in our current lives. We have likely developed a pattern of behavior in life that helps us avoid or suppress similar events in our present. These suppressive and avoiding behaviors are often referred to as neurotic.
Calvin* was six when a particular neurotic behavior began for him. He avoided giving people gifts outside of the typical gift giving holidays or birthdays. Gift giving gave Calvin an inexplicable surge of anxiety and fear that he never understood. There were several times where he had thought of or spotted a wonderful gift for a friend or family member but he refrained from purchasing it. He always felt an inexplicable surge of fear. He was always worried that his gift would be laughed at and his love and appreciation for the person would be too vulnerable to show.
This neurotic behavior hindered Calvin’s relationships with friends and family as he didn’t know how to express his love and appreciation for them. Sure, Calvin was kind and thoughtful, which his friends and family appreciated but it was always stunted with his inability to give a gift. Even when the gift was expected for a birthday, Calvin still felt the anxiety as they opened it. He often downplayed his gifts as people opened them despite the loads of thought and attention he had put into them.
One day, Calvin brought over some fruit from his tree along with some cookies his child made for the holidays to a neighbor. His neighbor took one look at the clearly child decorated cookies with abstract sprinkles and frosting and said, “I don’t want that.” But then the neighbor looked at the fruit and said, “I’ll take the fruit though.”
A rage built in Calvin that he did not expect. Yes, his neighbor was being rude but Calvin’s rage was disproportionate to the event. He couldn’t shake the anger he felt. It lasted weeks and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t let it go. He ruminated over the event again and again. ‘Why didn’t he just take the gift if he was on a diet and given them to someone else? Or he could have politely taken the gift and thrown them in the trash later.”
Adding to the difficult moment, Calvin also felt protective of his child’s efforts and innocence. Calvin wasn't a violent man so the reoccurring thought of punching his neighbor in the face was a bit out of character for him. But the rage in him was felt at the, 'I'm gonna punch you in the face' level.
Calvin learned the skills taught in ‘Love’ and decided to apply it to this situation. He followed the steps and felt considerably better about the whole incident in less than a minute. But there was still something that bothered him that he couldn’t put his finger on. A memory kept popping into his head that he couldn’t shake from his thoughts. He decided to apply the ‘Love’ skills again to this memory and that’s when everything shook free and Calvin was not only able to move on from the neighbor but he was able to move on from his issues around gift giving.
When Calvin was six, his family went camping (something he absolutley loved to do). However, this time camping was a little different because he was a little older this year. Calvin’s dad gave him and his siblings a small amount of cash that they could use to buy candy at a nearby store. This money was intended to last them for the full four days, so he was encouraged to spend it wisely. Once it was gone, it was gone.
Calvin walked to the store with his cousin and brother to buy a little candy on the first day. He scoured over the shelves of candy and found something he knew his dad really liked. As a gesture of gratitude and appreciation for his dad, he decided to buy him his favorite candy bar along with a little something for himself. Calvin was filled with so much joy and excitement walking back to camp. Not only was he excited about camping but he was also very excited to give this gift to his dad.
He approached the group of family members sitting around a fire laughing and sharing stories. He walked up to his dad and gave the candy bar in gratitude. His dad took one look at the candy bar and said, “what’s this for?” And before Calvin could explain, his dad began making jokes about it. “What...that money was just burning a hole in your pocket and you had to spend it?” Many of the family members began to laugh and some did not. Some knew that his jokes were insensitive. They also saw the look on Calvin’s face as he turned away embarrassed and hurt.
With the skills taught in ‘Love,’ Calvin addressed this memory without having to relive it. He can now speak about this memory without all the hurt and pain as if it were happening right now. Instead, he looked at the moment and it taught something very important about his dad and their relationship. Calvin became more courageous in showing the vulnerabilities of his love and appreciation for others in his life. His relationships and friendships deepened and he walked with a confidence in who he was and how he wanted to express himself to others.
A rejection of a thoughtful gift would be painful for anyone, especially for a young child. While Calvin still feels that pain of such a rejection, it isn’t crippling to his emotional and mental health. Instead, his gift giving has become more fearless. Strangely, his gifts are no longer being rejected in the first place but he knows that a rejection wouldn’t bother him for very long with his skills.
Someone’s rude rejection of a gift, is on them. It is a better reflection of some issue going on with the receiver and less to do with the generous and thoughtful nature of Calvin’s gift giving. Instead, Calvin looked at his neighbor and dad with a sadness for them. Whatever painful experiences they went through in their past must have been so horrendous, they felt adamant to reject or make fun of a gift from a child.
Calvin learned several skills taught at ‘A Little Oneness Therapy’ and he did discover not only what the painful moments were from his past but what they were for his dad and his neighbor. This allowed Calvin to forgive them easier and he noticed how everyone has a past of stuck events that have led them to act and treat each other in awful ways.
Calvin turned away from his neurotic behavior of avoiding gift giving and faced his fear. This improved his relationships with his family and friends as he gave whenever he felt like it. Any rejection of his gifts would’ve left him unphased and instead of getting angry or hurt, he felt empathetic towards them. His compassion grew for these people.
In this incident, Calvin was left with a stronger compassion for others. He not only became kinder to others but he became kinder to himself. He no longer criticized himself for the fear and anxiety he felt around gift giving. These changes are the attributes of Oneness. Like all courses at ‘A Little Oneness Therapy,’ we are moving towards our Oneness.
This was one of Calvin’s many experiences after utilizing the tools in ‘Love’ but this is not always how it plays out. Each time is a little different. The ‘Love’ skills provide us the tools to move through the difficulties we regularly have in life. Instead of turning to our neurotic behaviors that temporarily solve the issue and cause more chaos in our lives, we turn to tangible tools taught in ‘Love’ to resolve the issues indefinitely.
*Names, places, and gender have been altered to respect, protect identity, and confidentiality.