Our parents didn’t know any better. They told us to stop crying — you aren’t hurt — and shut off the light as they exasperatedly said monsters don’t live under your bed. When we fell down they said, jump back up; never show your pain; just ignore it; be strong.

Our parents, and our society, didn’t know any better … and they were wrong.

Today many of us are suffering from a form of PTSD, some from fighting in endless wars, others from traumas just as real: relationships that didn’t honor us, deaths of loved ones, illnesses that appear for no reason, life proving itself unreliable at best, untrustworthy for certain. So, not knowing any better, our minds mindlessly repeat what we were taught: be strong;  hide the pain; you aren’t hurt; ignore it and it will go away; don’t be silly, monsters don’t live under the bed … and the trauma persists.

And yet, they do. I know; I have seen the monsters. Occasionally I still walk into that bedroom just to be certain that the human version I knew is really, truly gone. We hurt. I know I have, and at times I still do. It doesn’t take much for PTSD to spring back to life — something simple, a name spoken, a memory resurfacing. The body is the last to release its trauma. Even when the mind, emotions and spirit no longer hold on, the body often does.

We are scared and in reaction to life. waiting for the next shoe to fall and fall it will for it always has. When the pandemic hit it added a new global level of trauma to an already fully traumatized life, and deposited proof the next shoe would fall to boot.

Is that true? Some see it differently. Minds see what minds see, what is residing within their consciousness to see.

Were I not willing to feel all of my life as it is, to be present to my experience, to remain here-now, the trauma would go untended. It would grow and morph into a hellish nightmare world. I have found that meeting my reality is my only job here, my only purpose, for in meeting it I am emptied and the energy of the cosmos flows freely through this vessel.

Two days ago I heard that name again and noticed that this sweet little body went into reaction. Mind didn’t take up stories. Emotions weren’t on alert. My spirit was at peace in full trust of the unfolding now, including unexpectedly hearing the name.  And yet, the heart rate accelerated, the cells took up vigil. It lasted less than 24 hours. It lasted until I said out loud, “Wow. Look at that. I have PTSD; trauma still resides within this body of skin and blood, bones and organs … and that’s okay.” There is nothing wrong with me. I have not failed or taken a wrong turn. It has no meaning. This is Life on planet Earth.  The moment I genuinely felt it all — with all programming deleted — the lesson crumbled and the energy lifted, leaving me scrubbed clean, innocent and alive.

What would happen if instead of creating stories that feed our need for safety — stories that can only be based in our early programmed avoidance of what we truly feel — we meet the monster, we acknowledge its existence, and we let that be okay? Life would be real, authentic and such a blessing to us all. Feel that.

“What actually does take place is as you awaken you are simply more capable of feeling the dark in its entirety, and strange as it seems, that means you are more fully alive.” Card #6, Ebb and Flow — The Wild Child