The Path of Devotion - Healing Ancestral Trauma and C-PTSD
It took me a long time to realise that being switched on all the time was a trauma symptom.
I certainly didn’t know it was rooted in childhood trauma.
Because I didn’t realise I had childhood trauma.
That’s because it wasn’t just MY trauma, but my mother’s trauma – and the trauma of my ancestors who came before her that was mixed up in my nervous system.
Each time I would go to a new healer, they would ahem for a bit and then tentatively ask me if I had been sexually abused.
It's not the easiest thing to answer with absolute certainty because we've all heard stories of repressed memories, but I was pretty certain it hadn't happened to me.
It was years later - decades in fact - that my mother told me about her childhood sexual abuse.
She was so traumatised by her experience (especially by the lack of support in her family) that she disconnected from her feeling body and projected her abuse on to me. I carried it for her, thinking it was my duty. Eventually it became mine. So when I tried to give it back to her, she became furious with me.
The healers I saw could see the energetic imprint of sexual abuse but it had completely merged with my own energy and seemed to be mine.
In hindsight, all the signs of childhood trauma were there, but because I was being gaslighted and abused, until I studied trauma, I didn’t know what they were.
It was only when I returned to Australia (after spending thirteen years travelling abroad) that my trauma came rolling in at the rate of knots. That happened because there was 'relative safety' - even though I had fled from my parents after their constant breach of my boundaries, demands that I override my pain and ignore my collapsing health, and their high expectations, put-downs, and excessive controlling.
Human beings are amazingly resilient, even under the most spartan of circumstances. Even though my parents were far from safe, my ingenious dysregulated nervous system found something safe to cling to. It can be astonishing just how little goodness a person needs to feel relatively safe.
It was that 'relative safety' which gave me space and opportunity to face my past and heal the trauma tangled in my ancestral lines.
I've accepted that my ancestors are absolutely determined that I am the one they have chosen to heal the DNA and trauma in my family lines. But I also know that I am my own ancestor, and my soul chose my parents. Even if I wanted to, I cannot dodge my inheritance...which is also my legacy. But this path is far from a martyr's sacrifice. I call it healing through the "Path of Devotion to the Self."
After years of walking the ‘Path of Devotion to Others’, I am ready to try another way.
Although the pathway is worn well, and in truth so familiarly comfortable that it is tempting not to change, I know, sense, and believe that I cannot go any further, if I continue this way. Changing directions is necessary unless I am avoiding movement. I don’t to want to stagnate. I want to feel the air underneath my arms like wings in flight. So I must. Look another way.
The other way has been sending me messages for a while. I’ve admitted them into my home, but I didn’t realise they were already in my heart. I thought I had to get used to them first before I could let them close. But messages from the Divine always end up at their intended destination, irrespective of protective boundaries.
So they were already there.
I had accepted the inspiration to follow Kashmir Shaivism as from the Divine (although I waited a long time to act…for the teacher to find me!) I didn’t really pay attention to the fact that Kashmir Shaivism promoted worshipping the Self. Although once, I told my teacher I wasn’t “there yet”, and “being ‘there’ wasn’t especially important to me.” So I put it out of my mind.
Quite a few months pass by…three or four, I guess. I continue my meditation and mantra practice and take a course to learn about my Human Design. It shows me it is my destiny to worship my body and share the wisdom and joy of embodiment with others. Soon afterwards I receive inspiration that I need to shift my path from Service to Others to Service to Self so that I can eventually be of greater service to Others.
So I have to change the loop in circle to become a spiral, otherwise I would go round and round. As I spiral, I realise that focusing on my love of writing is serving the Self.
When I write, I am my most creative and inspired self. And that is definitely worth worshipping.
Read more about ancestor work here.
What Next?
Before I crawl away to write my book, I’m teaching another round of my trauma-informed group program for healers and neuro-sensitives. In this 10-week program, I teach methods to eliminate overwhelm and rewire patterns of protection, banish procrastination and self-sabotage and metabolize trauma that holds back multi-passionate, highly sensitive, and neurodivergent practitioners from thriving. All set within a safe container of shamanic wisdom practices.
You’ll be able to use this nervous system healing framework to help yourself and your clients, and adapt it to fit with any other modality.
Expansion Training for Healers is an intimate group program for just 12 healers and neuro-sensitives - with plenty of individual support.
Doors are now open for the next round, starting on Tuesday 9th May, 2023.
If you're curious about how to heal a dysregulated nervous system and how expanding your nervous system can help you, book a co-regulation call to explore whether this trauma-informed counselling is for you.