While studying how to bring new services out, I’ve also been studying the second level of Embodied Processing. This includes Embodied Enquiry, a more somatic and embodied form of inquiry. And this study leads to some interesting nuances around presence and witnessing.
A very common response to unresolved experiences coming up is to disconnect from our present experience. Many will shift from the present into the mind. The mind is in the past or future. We’re not here in the present, in our bodies. Many of us learned to disconnect like this early in life, as a coping strategy, as there were few examples of healthy processing.
We call this disassociation. Disassociation sits on a spectrum of degree. We might experience mild disassociation, like drifting off into worries while listening to a talk. We can struggle with being present in our life. Or we can be full on dysfunctional.
Many people get into spiritual practices to help with their lives, then their “protectors” discover that these practices can be co-opted as another form of escape. (The protectors are the inner functions that work to keep our trauma hidden.) This is not a conscious choice, but something the body recognizes as another coping strategy because we’ve not yet learned how to heal. Soon, you see people overdoing practices, or chasing flashy distractions, the latest concept, or teacher. Anything to avoid being with the current experience, as it is, here and now.
The tricky part is that the mind can co-opt everything. We can think “I’m practising presence, being now” when it’s just mind creating a narrative.
Dissociation is often mistaken for detachment. We think not feeling means being “detached.” Or we use concepts like “the world is an illusion” to dismiss the value of our life and live in an avoidance belief system. Or we use mindfulness to try to avoid how we feel (the opposite of its intention). We may also eat too much, shop too much, use substances, game, and so on to dull or avoid how we feel.
Again, there are degrees of this. I’ve seen people in mild aversion to a few things like public speaking, while others can be afraid to leave their home.
Disassociation does not produce detachment. Disassociation is avoidance, an aversion. It is not acceptance and allowing.
The path to detachment is through disentangling our attachments. This is through going beyond the mind and discovering our true nature. And from resolving our unresolved experiences that are causing the aversion. In other words, meditation and healing work.
Healing is much easier when we’re not entangled with our experience, when there is a bit of separation. In my classes, they talked about being a witness to what is arising to be resolved. Then we can see it arise, we can feel the feelings, and process the sensations. We don’t get (too) drawn into what is coming up. Thus, we avoid going back into the experience and reliving trauma.
Again, there is a spectrum of “witness.” The way I use the term ‘witness‘ is as a detached observer. We’ve shifted from experiencing ourselves as an individual person to experiencing ourselves as consciousness, observing the person. From that place, we can bring up even deep pain and allow it to move through without getting entangled. Letting go becomes second nature, as we’re not in or attached to the experience.
While this can arise prior to awakening, witnessing is more common after. What about before that?
This is where we use what I’d call noticing. We have an attitude of curiosity about what’s in here, and we notice what’s arising, and favour not getting drawn in, if we can. No blame here – sometimes it will be easier than others. And being alert to the mind making a narrative about it – this is about direct experience, not a story.
As we get used to noticing what is here and being present to it, we can move towards our current experience to allow and embody it. We move into the body and the present, yet not into the trauma.
It’s important not to see ourselves as broken and needing fixing. This kind of intent is controlling, not allowing, and will create entanglements. It’s also going to bring out self-judgment, which is poison for allowing.
This isn’t about going dredging into “our problems.” Rather, we learn to process what is arising in experience. This is ripe to be processed and is easier to resolve. It just needs to be allowed to complete, and it’s done.
This can take some practice. But once we and the body have the direct experience, it becomes much easier and eventually almost automatic.
Often, it’s easiest to start with simple energy healing. This is noticing emotions or intensity arising, allowing it to be experienced, and letting it complete.
Once we get the hang of that, we can tackle our somatic impressions.
As we clear the mind, emotions, and body, it gets much more pleasant to be here, embodied, now. Being in the body and emotions becomes a comfortable place. Then enjoyment becomes the norm. And isn’t that a joy?
Davidya
Hi, David.
This is brilliantly expressed and very important.
There is so much chatter in the spiritual awakening community that glorifies a kind of “detachment” that is actually avoidance, repression and spiritual bypassing. This is often labeled “no-self” or “non-dual awakening.”
Often there actually is an awakening on the level of consciousness, even though much personal material remains unprocessed. The fact that there is awakening in consciousness can be used to justify the idea, “I am complete. Non-dual awakening automatically solves everything. I have attained the goal and there is nothing left to be done.” This is a subconscious pretext for “hiding in emptiness” (sometimes called “Zen sickness”) in an attempt to shut down any further opening of what may be potentially difficult personal material.
Simultaneously with this “I am complete and there is nothing left to be explored” attitude, a person will often take on the persona of a nondual teacher and evangelize to others the same kind of “detachment,” again using terms like, “no-self” and “non-dual awakening.” Such an approach puts the person on a pedestal so that he/she can interact from a top-down position and avoid engaging with others in a direct, co-equal way that might involve mutual inquiry and exploration.
NOTE: There are certainly many instances where the terms “no-self” and “non-dual awakening” are appropriate and useful pointers. I am only bringing up this issue because it does happen a lot. We need to be discerning and skillful in our use of these (and all) concepts, alert for the ways they can become like “a finger pointing at the moon” that draws the attention away from, rather than toward the actual object of our inquiry.
Hi Jerry
Yes, and I fully agree. It’s so easy for the mind and that unresolved material to hijack the process into a concept of detachment that is just that. It’s a concept, a belief, a bypass of our actual lived experience. Yet it’s that lived experience that is the point of spiritual practices. To be with what is here now, learn how to resolve what arises, and then embody what comes through in our life.
Awakening isn’t a divorce from being human. It’s a much fuller expression of it. But we can’t get there by hiding in narratives of detachment.
It’s important to keep an attitude of openness and interested curiosity, continuing always to look and feel into whatever is arising with a willingness to follow wherever that process leads. The journey does not end with awakening. In a very real sense, the journey BEGINS there. What comes before awakening is only preparation.
“Brahman is the charioteer.” ~ Upanishads
“There are three journeys: the journey away from God, the journey back to God and the journey in God.” ~ Sufi saying
“The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.” ~ Theresa of Avila
I again quite agree, Jerry. It’s the attitude of curiosity that can help us shift from a mental fix-it or aversion mode, to just allowing the experience to be as it is. And yes, each stage can feel like we’re back in kindergarten again.
Love the quotes.