We underestimate how guilt is controlling so many aspects of our lives. Before diving deeper into guilt, it is important to understand how it differs from shame. Shame reflects how we feel about ourselves while guilt involves an awareness how our actions may impact someone else. In other words, shame relates to self; guilt to others.
I was once in an intimate relationship where I felt it was time to move on but could not get myself to communicate it to my partner. She was the same person that I used to adore earlier in the relationship and was actually making steps in the right directions. There were things that bothered me in the relationship but I kept going when she was at her worst, but now that she was making drastic positive changes in her life, showed affection and a commitment to turn her life around, I felt that it was time to part ways. Matters of the heart are not rational and we either feel the love or we don’t. Attraction is more based on suppressed feelings, unresolved traumas from childhood with our primary caregivers than compatibility, comfort or the perks that come from the relationship. Love chemistry is more based on repressed and subconscious feelings rather than what is conscious. In this particular instance, I did not feel it was the right time to communicate my intention to break-up. She was going through an intense personal journey to heal destructive patterns that had significantly limited her life for many years, and I did not want to disrupt her process by breaking up with her. Paradoxically, our relationship had acted as a catalyst for her to commit to this new path. So when I visited her, I pretended that everything was normal while still making plans together for the future. When I came back from the visit, I felt terrible. I felt depressed, disconnected, low-energy, deeply triggered and confused. It took me actually two days to figure out what was really going on. I was overwhelmed with guilt. I felt bad about wanting to pull away from the relationship while she was both fragile and finally working on the aspects that I told her were so important to me. I felt I would hurt her badly by triggering her abandonment traumas, and possibly discourage her to continue on her path of recovery. I was experiencing an intense conflict about how I felt romantically about her and what was the right thing to do according my personal code of ethics and value system.
As we have a tendency to attract partners that reflect the unhealthy dynamics we had with our parents as a child, I went on exploring how this trigger was related to the relationship between my mother and my inner child. I saw my desperate and futile attempts as a child to save my mother, to alleviate her pain and to make her happy. This is how roles get reversed and the child becomes parentified. The child has no choice. The child is too young for individuation. He cannot differentiate his feelings from his parents’ feelings. Unfortunately, this parentification is also amplified by the immature parent that derives their sense of self from the control they exercise on the child. Guilt is the most common way to subject the child: «You are being so ungrateful after everything I have done for you», «How do you dare acting this way to hurt your poor mother after all the sacrifices I have made for you», «You are so selfish, only thinking about yourself» or «This is how good boys behave». We can dive even deeper and darker into the subconscious contract between the dysfunctional mother (or father) and their child «I gave you life so you owe me everything», «I gave you life so that I would stop feeling lonely and miserable», «Be a good boy so that I appear like an excellent mum but not to the extent where you may start to make me feel insecure about myself», «You are flawed. I am the only one who is able to love you. Just do what I say and you will be all right and I may not abandon you. And don’t get too close to other people as they will hurt you».
The child cannot afford the loss of connection with his parents because he depends on them for survival. So he complies and abandons himself to guaranty the security of the connection with his parents. Wires have been crossed, and later in life, his path of awareness, healing and maturation will include attracting partners reflecting the same dysfunctional patterns that he was made to believe were loving. The insecure little girl with an absent father will attract partners that are emotionally unavailable. The little boy with an emotional unstable mother will attract borderline girlfriends and so on so forth. Most people believe they are learning unconditional love by having children not realizing how conditional their relationship actually is. They don’t give without expecting anything in return. We are not saints so it is natural to have expectations and even a sense of reciprocity with our children, however what is not OK is to manipulate, pretend we are sacrificers while we just look for our personal interest and gaslight our kids.
Typically, our intimate relationships follow the same patterns of survival, enmeshment and conditionality that we experienced as a child with our own parents. Break-ups are so painful because we project in them the loss of a parent that we simply cannot afford to lose when, as a child, we depend upon them for survival. These relationships are codependent with a high level of entanglement. While there is love, affection and caring, there is also frustration, control, projection, fear and identification. Passion and romance quickly subside to the routine of the new arrangement and life necessities. For the minority of people (probably not more than 2%) that achieved personal autonomy, I would like to suggest a new model for romantic relationships. These individuals are able to rise from mainstream morality to conscience, they are happy alone and in a relationship, they know who they are, they don’t impose their views on others, and they are able to sustain themselves financially through their own efforts. Everything they do is an act of personal preference and freedom. These persons only get involved and stay in intimate relationships that 1. feel good 2. promote their personal growth 3. are reciprocal; or a combination of these 3 factors. The success of these romances is not defined by the duration of these relationship but rather by the shared good times, and the growth that came out of it. They may not be aware intellectually of why they choose to merge or break-up with an individual but they always do it with it with respect, empathy and truthfulness. They choose to live from the heart and as Blaise Pascal used to say «The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of…». They understand that the beauty of their union comes partly from the total freedom and complete unpredictability of the relationship. They have enough self-love that they are not tempted to control their beloved. They let them fly freely because they desire the same freedom for themselves. In such relationships, guilt simply does not exist.
I used to underestimate how much guilt was controlling my life. I left my parents’ home at a young age and made decisions in relationships, career, places to live and circles of friends and acquaintance independently of other people’s decisions. I felt I was immune to being controlled through guilt until my personal life journey brought me to experience the abomination of parental alienation, when your ow children, the flesh of your flesh, are used as weapons of war against you. The amount of guilt I experienced as a result was excruciating. My full body had become toxic from guilt, and I believe I would have gotten very sick as a result if mother Ayahuasca did not cross my path and help me heal. As a child, I suffered deeply from the separation of my parents and the way they handled it, so I made it a point that my children will never experience the same misfortune. Unfortunately, at the end, it may have been worse for them. I felt so utterly powerless to avoid what I was fearing the most. It took many hours of purging and sobbing with loving guidance of mother Ayahuasca to start feeling better again. When, years later, I was finally graced to reconnect with my son after years of absolutely useless court custody battle, a huge weight was lifted off my heart. It was such a liberation.
On a related topic, this is why judges in family court can be so easily manipulated by guilt. They have a difficult job as their decisions impact in critical and often tragic ways other human lives. They make their judgment with few and often erroneous or even manipulated information. Their intuition is often poor because they had to shut off emotionally to deal with the stress of their profession. As a result, they feel terrible about themselves despite the mask of authority they are trying to project. For 4 years, I kept losing court battle after court battle. While a good dad, I was treated like a criminal and my request to visit my own children was dismissed with prejudice. On top of it, I got a judgment against me for a large sum of money to pay to my ex wife’s parents to take care of my children while being prevented to see them! How did my ex wife achieve this? She was able to trigger the guilt of the judge by playing the victim while dropping that tear at the perfect moment in order to make me look like a monster. Family courts are typically pro women because women are generally more apt at manipulating and feigning victim control drama (men perform the same form of psychological manipulation though less frequently and effectively). Historically, men took power away from women and women had fewer opportunities, often related to marriage and child bearing. Women were left with only indirect ways to exercise control so had to develop more covert manipulative techniques to achieve their goals. So, to an extent, men are collectively paying karma for their own collective abuse of power.
While I mostly talk about the toxic form of guilt, guilt can also be healthy when we become aware of the harm we have caused others so that we may remedy it. In this sense, it is a form of empathy. While I made a distinction between guilt and shame, the unhealthy form of guilt is using personal shame as its foundation. We can be easily controlled through guilt because we believe there is something bad, dangerous or inadequate about us. This is often deep subconscious programming that originated from childhood trauma. Shame acts often as the necessary hook for toxic guilt to take control of us.
I exposed the Covid-19 plandemic early April 2020 as a political and not a sanitary crisis. The criminals that have orchestrated this scamdemic are successfully depriving ordinary citizens of their freedom through the power of toxic guilt. While there is no scientific evidence for the use of masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus as they are often compared to putting up a chain-link fence to stop mosquitoes. The coronavirus is 0.1 micrometer in diameter while the holes in woven cloth are visible to the naked eye and may be five to 200 micrometers in diameter. Still the whole world is now wearing masks. Why? Because of toxic guilty used at a massive scale by politicians and mainstream media. If you refuse to wear a mask, you are simply a selfish a**hole that only thinks about himself, you don’t care about the vulnerable and the elderly, and you are a murdered that does not deserve to live. If you dare to even question the usefulness of masks, you are just a bad person. At this time, people don’t even know why they are wearing a mask. They are just doing it because everyone else is doing it and they want to appear as a good person that cares about others while they are just actually facilitating the spread of fascist regimes all over the world. The mask farce was just a rehearsal for the upcoming vaccine that is meant to microchip (or rather nanochip) the whole population for total mind control while 5G networks allow for massive data transfer between citizens and big brother governments. In order to illustrate how people are attempting to control us through toxic guilt, I have gathered some responses from some of my Facebook postings challenging the mainstream narratives.
It always follows the same pattern «If you don’t do what I believe is right, you are a bad person that doesn’t care about others, you are selfish and inconsiderate». These guilt trips are just attempts for control. On my side, I respect the freewill of people that decide to wear a mask, stay in house arrest or get vaccinated for Covid-19 (i.e nanochipped). I have no interest in making them change their mind as I respect their ability to think and make decisions for themselves unlike the government that is treating us as irresponsible children and leaving us no choice. If their masks or vaccines were that effective, why are they are trying to impose them on us? Let me decide what is best for my health. I am choosing a good diet, plenty of exercises, a stress free life, contact with nature, sufficient rest and good relationships. They are choosing masks, vaccines, pharma drugs, lockdowns and plenty of mainstream news. Let’s actually see who will be healthier down the road. They act no differently than religious fanatics ready to impose their views and way of living by force. Similar than WWII, the collective suffering will have to get much worse before a majority of people will start waking up to the reality of what is really going on.
The mainstream media in the western world has never been so controlled since WWII in order to promote the dark agenda of the 1%, and guilt once again is their most effective weapon of control. Let me give you some examples with recent headlines and you will find that all media are now saturated with guilt inducing news to get people to comply. You may google each headline to access the original article. This is not journalism but fascist propaganda based on guilt.
Translation: it is wrong to satisfy your basic human need to celebrate and mingle with your loved ones. Just stay home, watch CNN, be afraid and comply without questioning
Translation: wearing a mask, a symbol of the loss of our freedom of speech and joy (we stop seeing each other smiles), makes you a good citizen that care about the life of others and your country. After all, we have called patriotic the systematic killing of our brothers and sisters since the beginning of times
Translation: forcing foreign (and probably toxic) agents into our body makes us good citizens. After all, our body is just government property
Translation: we are completely powerless as Covid strikes also on the young, healthy and successful. Forget about a healthy lifestyle to strengthen our immune system. Just follow government regulations
Translation: those who are preventing my access to power will be responsible for the death of many people
Translation: challenging government policies is synonymous of child abuse
Translation: partying is now a criminal activity
Translation: stay away from anyone challenging government narratives because they will destroy your life
One of my French relatives wanted to visit me in Central America. I warned him to hurry-up because the second European lockdown was imminent as it was obvious they will disguise our regular flu season into the second wave of Covid-19. He did not take me seriously until the government announced it. Still, he had 48 hours to escape France and I wrote to him specific instructions to make it happen. However he received a guilt trip from his mother that it was not responsible, safe and kind to leave on such short notice. As a result, while a grown-up man, he is now in house arrest with his mother for an undetermined amount of time. His personal vibration made him a match to this experience. What we are living at a collective level is simply mirroring our subconscious powerless and immature inner child. Our governments are behaving towards us like an overbearing, narcissistic, punishing and controlling mother. As long as we keep playing the role of scared, ignorant, insecure children ready to do anything to deserve mummy’s (i.e the state) love, we will continue to enable the instauration of fascist regimes all over the world. As I wrote previously, the narcissist cannot exist without its codependent counterpart so at the end, we get the leadership that we deserve.
Guilt can only thrive in the shadow of personal shame, ignorance and fear. Fortunately, they are based in illusion in the same way that light exposes darkness as immaterial. Combatting darkness will just make it stronger. The best attitude is to simply continue to live your life according your own values and stay our authentic self no matter what. Shadow can do its little dance however it will pass like everything else in our temporal world while our invincible human spirit remains. We are living through the great awakening but before we can shift to higher awareness, the human shadow has to come out and be expelled. The solution for powerlessness is autonomy, the remedy for fear is love, and the antidote for guilt is authentic self-love. This is what we are meant to learn collectively in the next 5 years.
The black widow is a spider that is well-known for sexual cannibalism. She would sometimes eat her male counterpart after being impregnated. While the idea of devouring your mate may seem terrifying, the idea of eating your own offspring may sound unthinkable, but it has been observed with a number of animal species. Female wolf spiders frequently practice filial cannibalism. Zoologists are assuming they get an energy benefit from this unnatural practice and they might be using it as a source of food when other sources are scarce. This same behavior is unfortunately much more common than we may think on a psychological level with human beings.
Many of us enter parenthood more for unconscious reasons than conscious ones. For example, our parents had children so we feel it is the right thing to do. At a subconscious level, we may want to heal our own childhood by having children of our own. We may be afraid of being alone or need to make our existence meaningful by having offspring that will survive us. In some culture, there is some expectation that children will take care of us during our old age. On a more positive note, we may aspire to have children to experience unconditional love. While it is painful to separate from a romantic partner, time heals everything and we move on with our life. The same cannot be said with children. Children are the flesh of our flesh, and we are never able to move on completely from the loss of children. Conflict with our children torments our soul. On a psychological level, our children reflect our light and shadow even more than romantic relationships. This is why parental relationships suffer a high level of projection. As such, our children are ultimately our most challenging teachers, and often choose to fulfill many of our unrealized dreams.
The ideal parent is able to see the uniqueness of his children, does not project his own unfilled desires and aspirations into them and encourage his children’s development according to their own abilities and desires. The ideal parent brings unconditional love, presence and support to the child so that he may eventually become autonomous and create a life that feels good on his own terms. Parental love should be about what is best for the child independently of what could be best for the parent. This is why we call unconditional love and the hidden purpose of parenthood is to bring us closer to this state of being.
Unfortunately, many of us have experienced trauma and we are far from being an ideal parent. As a result, we suffer a number of psychological ailments such as fear of loneliness or abandonment, depression, disconnection, low self-esteem, scarcity consciousness and many other insecurities. As long as we are not whole and we have not experienced the fire of self-love into our heart to become a sun of our own, the reality is that we are likely to vampirize our children. When children come to this world, they are pure and radiate unconditional love. They are still connected to Source so they easily fall prey to parents that are not whole and will pass on their own traumas to their children. I have a number of coaching clients that had neglectful or abusive parents. They may be scared to revisit the painful memories but they had no choice but to accept the shadow of their unfit primary caretakers. As such, they can move rapidly through emotional healing as they are not trying to protect the ghosts of their painful past. However, I commonly have clients with parents that exhibit narcissistic love. These are actually harder to work with, as it is so difficult for everyone to let go of the idea that they were not really loved when they were the center of attention of their parents. Wires are crossed in these children. The child (or the grown-up adult) is still convinced that he was loved whereas he was actually used and manipulated for the parent selfish motives. It may be difficult to observe and accept as the parents apparent actions only seem to indicate love & care.
This type of narcissistic parental love may be expressed in many ways. Parental narcissism is actually so prevalent that many people may become angry while reading my examples below as these may be the only times where they felt actually loved and cared for. Narcissism is just a mental state that limits us to see only our own reflection and not the child’s uniqueness when we relate to them. Unconditional love is rare and precious, but once we experience it, it is easier to let go of this form of conditional love.
Too much emphasis on school grades
So-called “good” parents are very identified with their offspring school grades. They make sure homework is done perfectly. They get offended if their child gets less than a perfect grade and do not hesitate to schedule a meeting with the teacher in such case. They punish the child emotionally when they get an unsatisfactory grade. Actually, this parental behavior is unhealthy for many reasons. First, it teaches the children that they are loved only upon achieving specific results, therefore they are not worthy as they are. This is conditional love. Additionally, this attitude does not nurture autonomy in children. They work to get good grades to please their parents and not get in trouble with them rather than for their own good. This is programming them to choose a career in the future to please mum and dad instead of choosing a path that is truly fulfilling. Over focusing on school results is a way for parents to avoid their true role as educators. The smarter parents understand the limits of the school system, and coach their children in other areas that is not covered by standard education. They develop their children emotional intelligence, character, compassion, expand their horizons, teach by example, promote their interest in sports and hobbies. While it is important to coach our children to have good results at school, it is far from being a necessary condition for living a successful and happy life. Many parents with low-esteem will use a child with good grades to compensate for their own insecurities and personal sense of failure. If they have one child with good grades and another one struggling at school, such parents will cause deep psychological damage to the child that is challenged academically. This child will feel even more unlovable, unworthy and is likely to resent his sibling. This is setting up the unhealthy dynamic of the Golden Child and the Scapegoat that is well known by therapists.
While it is natural for a parent to initiate their children to activities they are familiar with for their mutual enjoyment, there is a healthy balance to reach. I knew a woman who dropped off musical school when she was 16 as her parents had prepared her to become a concert pianist. She refused to play at home for her family and friends as the memories of the pressure of having to play 6 hours a day had been traumatizing. However, when she had a son, she made a point that he would take piano. She would teach him piano from time to time but every session ended with her son’s tears. She was repeating her own trauma through him by giving him the same harsh treatment that she was once the victim. There are some professional athletes that had to endure a high level of projection from their coach parent. The 8 times grand slam tennis champion Andre Agassi went public about his father who put him through a brutal training as a young child. When young Agassi rebelled, his father just shouted at the top of his lungs “You’re a tennis player! You’re going to be number one in the world! You’re going to make lots of money. That’s the plan and that’s the end of it”. Mary Pierce is one of the best French female tennis players of all times. Jim Pierce, her father, once reportedly screamed “Mary, kill the bitch!” at a tennis tournament his daughter Mary Pierce played in. He verbally and physically abused his daughter. His outbursts at events were so bad that the World Tennis Association banned him from attending all tournaments. Many parents use their children to raise their social status vicariously. They use their children to look good to their family & friends. Sometimes, they have something to do with their children achievements but more often than we think, the children’s accomplishment are reached despite the parents’ unhealthy projections. These children feel excruciating pressure from their parents to perform and this is hindering their ability to truly enjoy their sport or activity. They tend to exhibit a lot of stress and anxiety. Failing in the activity would just reinforce the subconscious belief that they are not lovable.
Using children as weapons of war
Unfortunately, children are often caught in loyalty conflicts. In case of high divorce conflict, the narcissistic parent would turn his own children against the other parent. The children are brain-washed to take the alienating parent’s hatred towards the former spouse as their own. These parents are extremely toxic they are putting the child in a position to hate half of themselves. The psychological damage that these children suffer has been well-documented. Even outside of parental alienation, it is quite common for a parent to project their own resentment toward a friend or family member with their own children. One of my clients used to have a very close relationship with her stepdad. However, when the relationship ended the mother manipulated her daughter to behave very harshly towards the stepdad to get back at him. As a result, this young woman has had very unsatisfactory intimate relationships with men as she is very tormented subconsciously with the guilt of hurting someone she loved. The same process of alienation is not limited to the narcissistic parent’s former partner. Loving connections from uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins and friends can be severed the same way.
My daughter as a Barbie doll
If the girl is good-looking, she may be used as an object of self-glorification and unhealthy pride for the parent, typically the mother. She is made to wear pretty little dresses and apparel to become a way to boost the self-esteem of the parent. The daughter is therefore compensating for the mother’s fear of getting old and losing her attractiveness. There is nothing wrong in the action of making our children look good when we can afford it. It is all about the intent behind the action. We need to examine if we have selfless or on the contrary self-centered motives. Because there are so many parents who think their children are so incredibly pretty, many photography agencies are exploiting this parents’ weakness by promising to submit the photo-shoot to modeling agencies. They charge an outrageous price for the photo-shoot but never submit anything. In such instance, the mother is grooming her daughter with the sole intent of getting attention and this is not coming from a nurturing instinct. In another example, a mother felt some jealousy towards her sister. She went over the top to make her daughter look gorgeous before visiting her aunt. The purpose was not a friendly and caring family visit. Her real agenda was to show that she was better than her sister because she had such a lovely, well-behaved and pretty daughter. Good behavior in this mother’s book is synonymous to anything that her daughter does to make her look good, and bad behavior is the opposite. The child’s best interest is never considered. She is just seen as an extension of the mother and any attempt to escape from her control is severely punished.
Children used as retirement and financial support
This is more prominent in cultures that do not offer a satisfactory retirement plan to their citizens. Parents have children so that they may support them financially and even physically during their old age. Parents see children as an investment, and if the child deviates from the plan that the parents have set-up, they are condemned as ungrateful, selfish and unworthy. This is the opposite of unconditional love. Children are geared towards careers that bring more money such as doctors or lawyers instead of following their passion. This way, they will not be a financial burden on the parent but on contrary could contribute to the parents’ materiel well-being in their old age. A friend of mine got a law degree just for his father. When he graduated, he told his father “This diploma is yours, now I am going to do what I like” What a waste of time! A caring parent is preoccupied first and foremost with his child’s happiness, not with the benefits he will draw from his children’s material success. While transactional relationship are required in the field of business, the world of family and friendship is there first to teach us about unconditionality. Real love is about giving without any expectation in return. I have a friend who used to help a lot financially his wife’s parents when they were married. When they decided to separate, she kept the expectation that her ex-husband should keep paying for her parents’ lifestyle. She has been suing her ex husband for the last 5 years for exorbitant child care fees charged by her parents for spending time for their own grandchildren! The irony is that she is also preventing her children to spend any time with their father.
Self-sacrificing behaviors
These self-centered parents are distorting reality to manipulate their children to feel a sense of indebtedness so as to better control them. One of my friends had a mother who had an affair with a young man during their marriage. She told her daughters that he was the love of her life but she decided not to leave their father as a sacrifice to them. In reality, she never had any intention to divorce as she enjoyed the financial stability of her emotionally unavailable husband. The daughters felt terrible as they felt responsible for their mother’s “sacrifice”. Many of these children, once they become adult, become very concerned when they receive anything in a relationship. They are afraid this may be used against them in the future. Some mothers may say they sacrifice having a fulfilling career because they had to raise their children while in fact they were afraid to face the workplace. People should never give out of sacrifice. Either they give from their heart or they should not give at all. I have heard from many grown-up children that they would have preferred not getting anything than feeling guilty because of their parent self-sacrificing behavior. They understand this is just plain manipulation. These parents have the habit of convincing their children that their own selfish behaviors were in fact self-sacrificing. They are just teaching their children that it is wrong to have needs of your own, and the only way to fulfill desires is through manipulation.
The helicopter parent
An helicopter parent pays extreme close attention to a child’s or children’s experiences and problems. This a coping mechanism not to experience their own inner void, self-worth issues and dissatisfaction about their own lives. They oscillate between being over-loving, over-protective or over critical to their children. With their actions, they are depriving their children of their own experiences and are severely limiting the child ability for autonomy. Children raised with helicopter parenting show poor emotional regulation as they are never given the space to handle, process and reflect on their own emotions. Whether they are feeling sad, angry, disappointed or distressed, the parent immediately takes over in solving the situation for them. Hence, they are disabled to handle real-life situations without their parent. The parent is enabling the child’s over-dependency of the parent. If the child is on school trip, the child will insist for example to talk with her mother at night before she is able to fall asleep. This child will continue to call her parent every day even far into adulthood. The child never cuts the umbilical cord with the parent which severely impacts his/her ability to experience life. The parent stays omnipresent and this leaves no space for other intimate relationships in the grown-up child.
The “gift” as a control mechanism
Such parents may give very generous gifts to their children however they may take the desired object just as quickly if the child deviates from their line of conduct. One of my friends had a boyfriend she was madly in love with. He was receiving financial support from his parents, and the parents found that she did not have the appropriate social status for their son. They threatened to cut financial support if he were to stay with her. He broke off with her shortly after. Another one of my friends got a dog when she was a teenager. She adored the dog as she received unconditional love from the animal in sharp contrast with her parents. The mother did not like the fact that her daughter could pour so much love outside of her. She got her husband to tell their daughter that they could only keep one dog because of the size of their house, but because her mother was very attached to her own dog, they would then give away the daughter’s dog. The daughter became so enraged with this decision that she actually became cruel with her mother’s dog. As a result, the dog started to exhibit some dangerous behaviors and they had to part with that dog too. The daughter developed some toxic guilt traumatizing this animal, and had to eventually work through it in therapy. This type of parent shows his or her omnipotence by making clear to the child that he has the ability to give but also to take away. In the most extreme form of this pattern, it is common for satanic cults to make little children attached to kitties before sacrificing the young cat in horrific ways in front of the child months later. This is imprinting the child with a deep sense of powerlessness so that they may be more easily controllable to follow the cult’s agenda. When the child becomes aware that anything they care for may be taken away at any time, they refuse to connect intimately with anyone or anything outside the toxic organization.
There are some parents that cannot stand if their children may start showing more affection towards someone else than themselves. They have a strategy of “divide and conquer” to stay #1 in their children’s heart or mind. Such parent would criticize the child’s boyfriend or spouse behind their back to ensure the child shows loyalty first to the parent and not to the romantic partner. One of my clients’ mother had left “inadvertently” an open bottle of pain medicine at her house and my client’s dog ate dozens of pills. The dog barely died as a result. Toxic mothers may even get jealous of their daughter’s attachment towards their newborn. In another situation, one mother took away her pregnant daughter’s chair as the latter was going to sit down. As she didn’t notice that the chair has been removed, she fell abruptly and almost got a miscarriage. These parents are very proficient at slandering anyone that may become too close to their child. These could be children, romantic partners, other grandparents, friends, animals or even competing activities that could prevent the narcissistic parent to feel his/her dominance. These parents only know possessiveness because they know no real love in their heart. There is a common pattern in families when the mother becomes jealous of the daughter as she becomes an attractive teenager. This mother would then use her husband to punish the daughter on futile ground. This achieves multiple goals at once. First, it reassures the insecure mother about the loyalty of her husband. Secondly, it antagonizes the daughter towards the father to ensure that the mother-daughter bond stays primary. Another mother would make sure to exhibit all his son’s pictures with his past girlfriends every time a new girlfriend of his would visit. This would make the new girlfriend feel insignificant and create strife in the relationship. The hidden purpose is to ensure that she stays the dominant female figure in her son’s life.
Before we can experience real love, we need to recognize what is not love. Narcissistic love can exhibit many of the attributes of real love: deep care and concern, commitment, gifts, affection and positive compliments. To differentiate conditional and unconditional love, we need to consider if the parent is able to see the child as separate to him, that he possesses his own desires, aspirations and dreams that may be different from the parent. While we come to this world in a state of fusion with our mother, the process of maturation is about recognizing our own individuality separate from our parents as we grow-up. It is also natural to be egocentric and think we are the center of the world as a small child. Problems start arising when we do not develop past this stage because of childhood traumas. Real love stems in complete freedom when we choose to spend time and affection with people we care for. Not because we have to, but because we want to.
French translation below – Article en Français ci-dessous
La Veuve Noire
La veuve noire est une araignée qui est bien connue pour son cannibalisme sexuel. Elle mange parfois son homologue masculin après avoir été fécondée. Si l’idée de dévorer son compagnon peut sembler terrifiante, l’idée de manger sa propre progéniture devient alors impensable. Toutefois, cela a été observé chez un certain nombre d’espèces animales. Les araignées loup pratiquent fréquemment le cannibalisme filial. Les zoologistes supposent qu’elles obtiennent un bienfait énergétique de ce repas contre nature et elles le font d’autant plus que d’autres sources de nourriture deviennent rares. Ce comportement est malheureusement beaucoup plus fréquent que l’on ne pourrait le penser à un niveau psychologique chez les êtres humains.
La plupart du temps, nous devenons parents plus pour des raisons inconscientes que conscientes. Nous pouvons le faire par simple mimétisme de nos propres parents. À un niveau inconscient, nous pouvons vouloir guérir les traumatismes de notre propre enfance en ayant nous-mêmes des enfants, voire même pour combler notre propre vide affectif. Nous pouvons avoir peur d’être seul ou nous voulons donner un sens à notre existence, c’est pourquoi nous voulons une descendance qui nous survivra. Dans certaines cultures, nous comptons sur nos enfants pour prendre soin de nous pendant nos vieux jours et ce également sur un plan financier. Dans l’ideal, nous pouvons souhaiter avoir des enfants afin de leur donner un amour inconditionnel et qu’ils puissent se développer afin d’améliorer le monde dans lequel nous vivons. Bien qu’il soit très douloureux de se séparer d’un partenaire romantique, le temps finit par apaiser un coeur blessé. Cependant, nous ne pouvons pas en dire de même en ce qui concerne nos enfants. Nos enfants sont la chair de notre chair, et nous ne sommes jamais en mesure de guérir complètement de la perte de nos enfants. La blessure persiste et tout conflit avec nos enfants nous perturbe profondément. Sur le plan psychologique, nos enfants amplifient nos aspects de lumière mais aussi notre part d’ombre, encore plus que ne le font nos relations amoureuses. Voilà pourquoi les relations parentales souffrent d’un fort niveau de projection. À ce titre, nos enfants sont en fin de compte nos enseignants de vie les plus difficiles. Ils choisissent aussi souvent de réaliser les rêves que nous n’avons pu réaliser.
Cependant le parent idéal est capable de voir le caractère unique de ses enfants, et ne projète pas ses propres désirs et vocations manquées sur eux. Ils encouragent le développement de leurs enfants en fonction de leurs talents et de leurs propres désirs. Le parent idéal apporte l’amour inconditionnel, la présence et le soutien à l’enfant afin qu’il puisse devenir autonome. Il les aide à se créer une vie heureuse. L’amour parentale devrait se focaliser sur ce qui est le mieux pour l’enfant indépendamment de ce qui peut être le mieux pour le parent. C’est ce que nous appelons l’amour inconditionnel et c’est ce vers quoi nous devons tendre en tant que parents.
Malheureusement, nous sommes loin d’être des parents idéaux du fait des traumatismes que nous avons vécu lors de notre enfance. Par conséquent, nous souffrons d’un certain nombre de maux psychologiques comme la peur de la solitude ou de l’abandon, la dépression, l’indisponibilité émotionnelle, une faible estime de nous-même, la peur du lendemain et bien d’autres angoisses. Tant que nous n’avons pas intégré et purgé tous ces aspects en nous et que nous ne sommes pas capables de nous donner de l’amour, nous sommes très susceptibles de vampiriser nos propres enfants. Lorsque les enfants viennent au monde, ils sont purs et rayonnent d’un amour inconditionnel. Du fait de leur innocence et pureté, ils deviennent les victimes de parents qui leur transmettent leurs propres traumatismes. Un certain nombre de mes patients qui ont eu des parents négligents ou abusifs, ont souvent peur de revisiter les souvenirs douloureux du passé alors que la guérison émotionnelle peut aller d’autant plus vite lorsqu’ils ne cherchent pas à protéger les illusions d’un passé cruel. Beaucoup de mes patients n’ont connu qu’un amour parental narcissique. Il est très difficile pour l’enfant une fois adulte d’accepter qu’il n’était pas vraiment aimé alors qu’il se croyait le centre de l’attention de ses parents. C’est une situation très confuse. L’enfant maintenant adulte veut se convaincre qu’il était aimé alors qu’il était en fait utilisé et manipulé a des fins égocentriques par ses parents. Cela est d’autant plus difficile à accepter que les apparences sont trompeuses, et que les gens extérieurs renforcent cette même image du parent parfait.
Ce type d’amour venant d’un parent narcissique peut être exprimé de plusieurs façons. Le narcissisme parental est en fait si répandue que beaucoup de gens pourraient sentir la colère monter en eux en lisant les exemples ci-dessous car ceux-ci peuvent être les seuls moments où ils se sont sentis vraiment chéris et aimés. Le narcissisme est juste un état de conscience qui nous empêche de voir à l’extérieur de notre bulle et donc de voir le caractere unique de l’enfant en face de nous. L’amour inconditionnel est rare et précieux, mais une fois que nous en faisons l’expérience, il est alors plus facile de cesser de s’accrocher à l’amour conditionnel.
Trop d’emphase sur les résultats scolaires
Ces soi-disant parents parfaits accordent une importance démesurée aux résultats scolaires de leur progéniture. Il faut que les devoirs soient faits parfaitement quite à ce qu’ils les fassent pour eux. Ils s’offensent si leur enfant n’obtient qu’une note moyenne et ils n’hésitent pas à exiger une rencontre avec l’enseignant dans ce cas. Ils punissent aussi l’enfant quand il obtient une note médiocre. Ce genre de comportement parental est malsain pour de nombreuses raisons. Tout d’abord, il montre aux enfants qu’ils ne sont dignes d’amour que par leur performance, ce qui veut dire qu’ils ne peuvent être aimés en tant que tel sans une action qui leur donne une valeur. C’est l’amour conditionnel. De plus, cette attitude ne développe pas l’autonomie chez les enfants. Ils travaillent pour obtenir de bonnes notes afin de plaire à leurs parents et ne pas avoir des ennuis avec eux plutôt que de réussir académiquement pour leur propre futur. Ils vont souvent choisir une carrière qui vont plaire à maman et papa plutôt que d’opter pour une vocation qui leur convient. La pression sur les résultats scolaires est aussi un moyen détourné pour les parents d’éviter leur véritable rôle d’éducateurs. Les parents plus expérimentés comprennent les limites du système scolaire, et aident leurs enfants à s’épanouir dans d’autres domaines qui développent leur intelligence émotionnelle, leur caractère, la compassion et l’empathie, l’élargissement de leurs horizons, et leur intérêt pour les sports et les loisirs. Alors qu’il est important de suivre nos enfants dans leur scolarité, les bons résultats sont loin de leur garantir une vie réussie et heureuse. Beaucoup de parents avec une faible estime d’eux-mêmes utiliseront un enfant qui a de bonnes notes pour compenser leurs propres insécurités et leur sentiment personnel d’échec. S’ils ont un enfant avec de bonnes notes et un autre en difficulté à l’école, ces parents causent des dommages psychologiques profonds en reproduisant la dynamique malsaine et bien connue de “l’enfant parfait” et de “l’enfant bouc-émissaire”. Cela montre non seulement que l’enfant est aimé de façon conditionnelle, mais cela engendre aussi une rivalité destructrice entre frères et soeurs ce qui permet au parent narcissique de renforcer sa toute puissance.
Lorsque les activités extra-curriculaires sont utilisées comme identification projective
Bien qu’il soit naturel pour un parent d’initier ses enfants à des activités qu’ils aiment personnellement, il y a un équilibre à atteindre. Une de mes connaissances avait abandonné le conservatoire quand elle avait 16 ans alors que ses parents l’avaient préparé à devenir une grande pianiste. Elle refusait de jouer à la maison pour sa famille et les amis car elle avait des souvenirs traumatisants à devoir jouer 6 heures par jour et regrettait de n’avoir pas eu d’enfance. Cependant, quand elle eut un fils, elle mit un point d’honneur à ce qu’il apprenne le piano. Elle commença à lui enseigner le piano, mais chaque leçon finissait par les larmes de son fils. Elle ne put s’empêcher de répéter le même traitement dont elle avait été plus jeune la victime. De nombreux athlètes professionnels doivent subir la pression et les projections de leur parent entraîneur. Dans le monde du tennis professionnel, le grand champion André Agassi a rendu public dans son livre autobiographique “Open” les entraînements terribles qu’il devait subir. Lorsque le jeune Agassi se révoltait, son père se contentait d’hurler à pleins poumons « Tu es un joueur de tennis! Tu vas être le numéro un mondial! Et tu vas aussi gagner beaucoup d’argent. Il n’y a aucune discussion possible! ». Mary Pierce est l’une des meilleures joueuses du tennis féminin français de tous les temps. Jim Pierce, son père, avait une fois crié pendant un match en parlant de son adversaire lors d’un tournoi professionnel « Mary, allez, tue-la cette salope! » Il abusait aussi verbalement et physiquement sa fille. Ses explosions de colère lors de matchs professionnels étaient si menaçantes que l’association mondiale de tennis lui a interdit d’assister à tous les tournois. De nombreux parents exploitent leurs enfants afin d’élever leur propre niveau social. Ils utilisent leurs enfants pour se faire valoir auprès de leur famille et de leurs amis. Alors que ces parents s’attribuent le succès de leurs enfants, bien plus souvent que nous le pensons, leurs accomplissements sont souvent atteints en dépit des projections malsaines des parents. Ces enfants ressentent trop de pression venant de leurs parents et cela les empêche de profiter pleinement de leur sport ou de leur activité. Au contraire, ils montrent souvent beaucoup de stress et d’anxiété. Ce genre de comportement parental renforce simplement la croyance subconsciente qu’ils ne sont pas dignes d’amour.
L’utilisation des enfants comme des armes de guerre
Malheureusement, les enfants se retrouvent souvent pris dans des conflits de loyauté. En cas de divorce très conflictuel, le parent narcissique n’hésite pas à retourner ses enfants contre l’autre parent. Les enfants sont manipulés pour prendre en eux la haine du parent aliénant envers l’ex-conjoint comme si c’était leur propre haine. Ces parents sont extrêmement toxiques car ils mettent l’enfant dans une position où il doit haïr la moitié de lui-même. Les troubles psychologiques que ces enfants vont alors développer ont été bien mis en avant par les experts. Il est aussi fréquent que les enfants s’approprient les ressentiments des parents envers un ami ou membre de la famille. Une de mes patientes avait une relation très proche avec son beau-père. Cependant, lorsque la relation a pris fin, la mère a manipulé sa fille afin qu’elle se comporte très durement envers le beau-père pour le punir d’avoir rompu avec sa mère. Par conséquent, cette jeune femme a eu de nombreuses difficultés en couple avec les hommes car elle est restée très tourmentée inconsciemment par la culpabilité envers son beau-père. Ce processus d’aliénation ne se limite pas à l’ancien partenaire amoureux du parent narcissique mais inclut souvent toutes les relations avec les oncles, tantes, grands-parents, cousins, cousines et amis.
Ma fille comme ma poupée Barbie
Si la jeune fille est belle, elle peut être utilisée comme un objet d’auto-glorification pour nourrir une fierté malsaine chez le parent, généralement la mère. On lui fait porter de jolies robes et vêtements afin de rehausser l’estime de soi des parents. La fille est simplement là afin d’atténuer la peur de sa mère à vieillir et de se sentir moins attirante. Il n’y a rien de mal à ce que nous voulons que nos enfants aient le meilleur quand nous pouvons nous le permettre financièrement cependant il faut regarder quelle est la véritable intention derrière nos actions. Nous devons nous poser la question si nous agissons de manière désintéressée ou égocentrique. Beaucoup de parents ont la conviction que leurs enfants sont d’une beauté extraordinaire. Beaucoup de photographes exploitent cette faiblesse en leur promettant de soumettre les photos de leurs enfants à des agences de mannequins. Ils facturent un prix exorbitant pour la séance photo sans jamais rien soumettre à l’agence. Dans d’autres cas, la mère habille sa fille dans le seul but d’attirer l’attention et de se faire valoir. Par exemple, une mère était jalousie de sa sœur. Elle s’assura que sa fille soit absolument superbe avant que cette derniere aille rendre visite à sa tante. Il ne s’agissait pas là d’une simple visite familiale amicale et chaleureuse pour la mère. Sa véritable intention était de montrer qu’elle était mieux que sa sœur parce qu’elle avait une fille si sage et si belle. Pour ce genre de mère, les comportements de son enfant ne seront jugés bons que s’ils vont dans son sens à elle et si elle peut en retirer quelque chose personnellement. L’intérêt de l’enfant n’est jamais pris en compte.
Les enfants utilisés comme un soutien financier
Ceci est plus commun dans les cultures qui n’offrent pas de régime de retraite satisfaisant à leurs citoyens. Les parents ont des enfants afin que ceux-ci puissent les soutenir financièrement et même physiquement pendant leur vieillesse. Les parents voient leur enfant comme un investissement pour le futur, et si l’enfant se détourne du plan que les parents ont mis en place, ils sont sévèrement jugés. C’est l’opposé de l’amour inconditionnel. Ces enfants sont orientés vers des carrières qui rapportent plus d’argent comme médecin ou avocat au lieu de suivre leur vocation. De cette façon, ils ne seront pas un fardeau financier pour les parents mais au contraire pourront contribuer au bien-être matériel de leurs parents âgés. Un de mes amis a obtenu une licence en droit juste pour son père. Quand il a obtenu son diplôme, il a dit à son père « Ce diplôme est pour toi, maintenant, je vais faire ce que je veux » et il commença de nouvelles études dans une branche complètement différente. Quelle perte de temps! Un parent attentif se préoccupe avant tout du bonheur de son enfant, et non des avantages qu’il tirera de leur réussite matérielle. Bien que les relations transactionnelles sont nécessaires dans le domaine des affaires, la famille et l’amitié devraient être basées sur un amour inconditionnel. L’amour véritable est de donner sans attendre en retour. J’ai un ami qui aidait beaucoup financièrement les parents de sa femme quand ils se sont mariés. Ensuite, quand ils ont décidé de se séparer, elle a consideré que son ex-mari devait continuer à payer pour que ses parents maintiennent le même mode de vie! Elle poursuit en justice son ex-mari depuis 5 ans pour payer les frais exorbitants de garde d’enfants réclamés par ses parents pour passer du temps avec leurs propres petits-enfants! L’ironie du sort est qu’elle empêche aussi ses enfants de passer du temps avec leur père.
Comportements pseudo sacrificiels
Ces parents égocentriques déforment la réalité dans le but de manipuler leurs enfants afin qu’ils ressentent un sentiment d’endettement et de culpabilité pour mieux les contrôler. Une de mes amies avait une mère qui avait eu une liaison avec un jeune homme au cours de son mariage. Elle a dit à ses filles qu’il était l’amour de sa vie, mais qu’elle avait décidé de ne pas laisser leur père car elle devait se sacrifier pour sa famille. En réalité, elle n’avait jamais eu l’intention de divorcer comme elle appréciait la stabilité financière de son mari même s’il était froid. Ces pauvres filles se sentaient donc responsables du malheur de leur mère. Un grand nombre de ces enfants, une fois adultes, deviennent très soucieux dès que quelqu’un leur donne quelque chose car ils ne veulent rien devoir à personne à cause du traumatisme lié à leur mère. D’autres mères disent qu’elles ont sacrifié une belle carrière professionnelle afin d’élever leurs enfants alors qu’en fait, elles avaient peur du monde du travail. Les gens ne devraient jamais donner par sacrifice. Il est préférable de ne rien donner si l’on ne peut pas donner de bon coeur. J’ai entendu de nombreux adultes dire qu’ils auraient préféré ne rien recevoir de leurs parents plutôt que d’être constamment culpabilisés. Ils comprennent finalement que tout était manipulation. Ces parents sont passés maîtres à faire passer leurs comportements égoïstes pour de l’abnégation. Ils enseignent à leurs enfants qu’il est mal d’avoir ses propres besoins, et que la seule façon de satisfaire ses désirs est par la manipulation.
Le parent “hélicoptère”
Un parent “hélicoptère” est trop identifié à l’enfant ou s’immisce de manière exagérée dans toutes les expériences et tous les problèmes de l’enfant. Il s’agit là d’un mécanisme d’adaptation afin que le parent ne fasse pas l’expérience de son vide intérieur, de son manque d’amour de soi et de son insatisfaction quant à sa propre existence. Ils oscillent entre des états remplis d’affection, sur-protecteurs ou très critiques vis-à-vis de leurs enfants. Avec leur ingérence permanente, ils privent leurs enfants de leurs propres expériences et limitent la capacité de ces derniers à devenir autonomes. Les enfants élevés par de tels parents montrent de la difficulté à gérer leurs émotions car ils n’ont jamais reçu l’espace nécessaire pour faire face par eux-mêmes aux problèmes de la vie. Qu’ils se sentent tristes, en colère, déçus ou en détresse, le parent prend immédiatement le contrôle dans la résolution de leur problème, et pas toujours à bon escient. Ces enfants se sentent donc perdus une fois qu’ils quittent le domicile familial. Le parent a créé une dépendance excessive de l’enfant. Si l’enfant est en voyage scolaire, l’enfant insistera par exemple pour parler avec sa mère la nuit afin de pouvoir s’endormir. Cet enfant continuera à appeler ses parents tous les jours quand il sera adulte. Cet enfant ne coupe jamais le cordon ombilical avec le parent, ce qui a de lourdes conséquences quant à sa capacité à vivre sa propre vie. Ces parents sont omniprésents, et n’hésitent pas à débarquer à l’improviste dans le domicile de l’enfant une fois adulte pour faire par exemple de nouveaux aménagements comme s’il s’agissait de leur propre domicile ce qui ne laisse par conséquent aucune place pour d’autres relations intimes.
Le « cadeau » en tant que mécanisme de contrôle
Ces parents peuvent donner des cadeaux très généreux à leurs enfants mais ils peuvent reprendre l’objet désiré tout aussi rapidement quand l’enfant s’écarte de la ligne de conduite qui a été tracée pour eux. Une de mes amies avait un petit ami dont elle était très amoureuse. Il recevait un soutien financier important de ses parents qui n’aimaient pas le niveau social de sa petite amie. Ils l’ont donc menacé de retirer tout soutien financier s’il s’entêtait à rester avec elle. Il a rompu avec elle peu de temps après. Une autre de mes amies avait un chien quand elle était enfant. Elle adorait ce chien car elle recevait un amour inconditionnel de l’animal, ce qui contrastait fortement avec celui de ses parents. La mère qui n’appréciait pas que sa fille porte plus d’attention à son chien qu’à elle-même, a mandaté son mari pour dire à leur fille qu’ils ne pouvaient garder qu’un seul chien à cause de la taille de leur maison. Comme sa mère était très attachée à son propre chien, ils ont alors donné celui de leur fille qui en a été très malheureuse. La fille était alors si en colère qu’elle est devenue réellement cruelle avec le chien de sa mère quand ils avaient le dos tourné car malheureusement les comportements pervers se transmettent généralement à la génération suivante. Par conséquent, le chien a commencé à montrer certains comportements dangereux et ils ont dû également s’en débarrasser. La fille a alors développé une forte culpabilité d’avoir traumatisé cet animal et d’avoir fait du mal à sa mère. Une fois adulte, elle s’acheta à deux reprises des chiens qu’elle finit par donner à sa mère. Le deuxième chien fut acheté pour son fils mais elle se plaignit de ses aboiements et le donna également a sa mere qui en fut ravie. Ce n’est qu’en faisant une thérapie qu’elle compris ce qu’elle avait rejoué inconsciemment. Ce type de parent montre son omnipotence en indiquant clairement à l’enfant qu’il a la capacité de donner, mais aussi de reprendre. Dans la forme la plus extrême de ce schéma, il est fréquent pour les sectes sataniques de faire en sorte que des enfants s’attachent à un petit chat avant de le sacrifier de façon horrible devant l’enfant des mois plus tard. Ceci fait naitre chez l’enfant un profond sentiment d’impuissance afin qu’il devienne plus facilement contrôlable par la secte déviante. Lorsque l’enfant se rend compte que tout ce qu’il aime peut être enlevé à tout moment, il évite de se lier profondément avec quelqu’un ou quelque chose. Son isolement est alors utilisé par l’organisation toxique à des fins utilitaires.
Nuire aux relations intimes de l’enfant qui pourraient menacer la suprématie du parent
Il y a certains parents qui ne peuvent pas supporter que leurs enfants puissent montrer plus d’affection envers quelqu’un d’autre qu’envers eux-mêmes. Ils adoptent alors la stratégie « diviser pour mieux régner » afin de rester maître dans le cœur ou l’esprit de leurs enfants. Un tel parent critique donc le petit ami ou conjoint de l’enfant pour que l’enfant continue à montrer sa loyauté envers ses parents plutôt qu’au partenaire romantique. La mère d’une de mes patientes avaient laissé « par inadvertance » une boîte grande ouverte de comprimés pour la douleur. Le chien de ma patiente a mangé des dizaines de pilules et il en est mort. Ces mères toxiques peuvent même devenir jalouses de l’attachement de leur fille envers leurs propres enfants. Dans une autre situation, une mère a enlevé la chaise de sa fille enceinte où celle-ci s’apprêtait à s’asseoir. Comme elle n’avait pas remarqué que le siège avait été enlevé, elle est tombée brutalement et elle a failli faire une fausse couche. Ce genre de parents sont très habiles à diffamer toute personne qui deviendrait trop proche de leur enfant, que ce soit des partenaires romantiques, d’autres grands-parents, des amis, des animaux ou même des activités concurrentes qui pourraient menacer la suprémacie du parent narcissique. Ces parents ne connaissent que l’amour possession et l’objetisation. Il est aussi commun dans ce genre de famille que la mère devienne jalouse de la fille lorsqu’elle devient une belle adolescente qui attire le sexe opposé. Cette mère utilise alors son mari pour punir sa fille pour des raisons futiles. Cela lui permet d’atteindre plusieurs objectifs à la fois. Tout d’abord, cela rassure la mère quant à la loyauté de son mari. En second lieu, elle créé ainsi un conflit entre la fille et le père afin de rester toute puissante. Une autre mère ne manquait pas d’exposer les photos de son fils avec une ancienne petite amie chaque fois que son fils venait avec nouvelle compagne. La nouvelle petite amie se sentait alors insignifiante, ce qui ne manquait pas de créer un conflit dans la relation. Le but caché de cette mère est de veiller à ce qu’elle reste la figure féminine dominante dans la vie de son fils qu’elle ne veut pas partager.
Avant de pouvoir expérimenter le vrai amour, nous devons apprendre à identifier ce qui n’est pas vraiment de l’amour même si cela ressemble à de l’amour. L’amour narcissique peut présenter un grand nombre des attributs de l’amour véritable: la préoccupation, l’inquiétude, l’engagement, les cadeaux, l’affection et les compliments. Pour différencier l’amour conditionnel de l’amour inconditionnel, nous devons nous demander si le parent est en mesure de voir son enfant comme un être séparé de lui-même et de voir qu’il possède ses propres désirs, ses aspirations et ses propres rêves qui peuvent être différents de ceux du parent. Alors que nous venons dans ce monde dans un état de fusion avec notre mère, le processus de maturation de l’enfant veut qu’il développe sa propre individualité au fur à mesure qu’il grandit. Il est bien naturel d’être égocentrique et de penser que nous sommes le centre du monde quand nous sommes petits. Les problèmes commencent lorsque nous ne dépassons pas ce stade infantile en raison de traumatismes affectifs. L’amour véritable s’exprime lorsque nous choisissons en toute liberté de passer du temps, d’aider, de faire plaisir et de montrer de l’affection sans rien attendre en retour. Non pas parce que nous le devons, mais parce que nous le voulons.
Mythology and neurosis have a common essence.
The myths are a symbolic expression of the unconscious universal dramas. As
such, they reveal many secrets into our psyche. Mythology is a projection of
the collective unconscious and these archetypes manifest even more strongly
when their awareness is limited.
The Oedipus complex is a concept of psychoanalytic theory from Freud. It is inspired by the Athenian tragedy, Oedipus the King, by Sophocles. Oedipus could not escape his fate of marrying his mother and killing his father. When expressed in a healthy way, the child’s hatred for the opposite-sex parent and unconscious sexual desire for the same-sex parent urge the young adult to leave his parents’ nest to start his own life, and look for a compatible mate to start a family. The son leaves his father’s home that has become too restrictive for his own development, and finds a woman that shares many attributes of his own mother in order to heal his own childhood traumas. The father represents what is being rejected while the mother represents what is desired.
While mothers are just as affected by parental
alienation as fathers, for the illustration of this article, I will refer the
mother as the alienator, and the father as the targeted parent. There are many
ways a case of parental alienation seems to evoke the Oedipus complex
literally:
When the father is alienated, the son is used as a weapon of war
by the mother to psychologically kill the father in the children’s mind
After the father has been eliminated from the family structure,
the son becomes the new de facto husband of the mother. The son is heavily
enmeshed and is asked to fill the void left by the father
Oedipus father, king Laius, attracted misfortune to him and his
family because of his dark previous deeds against Chrysippus. King Laius is
also the one ordering the killing of his own son Oedipus. The targeted parent’s
tragedy can always be traced to unresolved traumas of his own past and this is
what he needs to heal to change the alienation dynamics. He cannot see himself
only as a victim but needs to take responsibility for his part in the
alienation
Oedipus becomes obsessed in finding the killer of King Laius (before
he realized that was him) whom he replaced as the new king because the Oracle
said this unsolved murder is responsible for a plague in Thebes. In the same
way, the alienated child’s life is plagued by self-hatred as he was forced to
reject his father from his life. He does not realize that many of his
psychological and intimate problems are directly related to the alienation of
his own father.
In the Oedipus play, Jocasta eventually commits suicide after
realizing the horror of incest by marrying her own son, the killer of her
husband. Alienators are often very tormented as they eventually realize the
psychological damage they have done to their children out of revenge
When Oedipus eventually learns that he is his wife’s son, he
enters a fury and wants to cut his mother’s womb with a sword. This symbolizes
the rage of the alienated child towards his mother when he finally realizes how
he has been manipulated for so many years
When Oedipus becomes aware of the tragedy of his fate, he makes
himself blind by piercing his eyes with golden pins. The alienated son is also
torn by guilt about his own actions, in particular his harsh rejection of his
father and his blind enmeshment with his mother. Seeing the truth may be so
brutal that he may decide instead to shut down his conscience.
Oedipus’s sons Eteocles and Polynices end up fighting for power
and killing each other. His daughter Antigone commits suicide. The alienated
child carries with him the psychological damage coming from years of
alienation. As an adult, he is likely to experience similar unfortunate events
in his own family life because of transgenerational trauma
The
light of awareness has however the power to lift away the curse of parental
alienation. As they mature, the alienated children have the ability to see the
truth of their childhood, accept the limitations of their parents and start the
process of forgiving them. Then, they will be able to break the cycle of abuse
and abandonment to give their own children a life that is not plagued by
intimacy issues.
I am a big believer in the balance of the physical,
emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of us. Actually, each aspect is
symbolized by one of the four elements. Fire for spiritual (really for the soul
plane as spirit correlates to Ether or the 5th element), water for
emotional, air for mental and earth for physical. Earth is the resultant of
fire, water and air elements working together. The quality of our external
physical manifestations is therefore directly connected to the quality of our
intentions, feelings and thoughts. From my perspective, human beings true
mission is to bring the truth of the higher spiritual spheres into our physical
reality, hence to bring heaven on earth. Many of us deviate from this purpose
as we listen to our ego rather than to our heart.
Many spiritual people deny or reject the physical dimension
while it is the crucible of our spiritual achievements. This is why we say that
actions speak louder than words. On the same token, Mens sana in corpore sano
is a Latin phrase, usually translated as “a sound mind in a sound
body”. The phrase is widely used in sporting and educational contexts to
express the theory that physical exercise is an important or essential part of
mental and psychological well-being. Emotional healing needs to go hand in hand
with physical healing so I got inspired to get myself back in shape. I also
wanted to make a statement for a cause that is close to my heart so I decided
to sign up for my first full marathon in Salt Lake City.
As I was doing some online research on preparing for the marathon, I came across a video with Wim Hof, a Dutchman that ran a full marathon in shorts and sandals in temperatures close to −20 °C (−4 °F) above the arctic circle in Finland. He is an adept of meditation and yoga. A lot of scientific studies have been conducted about him that proved his claims. In one of his videos, he said that “awakening is to be happy, strong, and healthy; the rest is BULLSHIT!” And I could not agree with him more. I subsequently read a book he co-authored with Koen De Jong “The way of the iceman”.
There is a lot of information online about it but basically the Wim Hof method is a combination of breathing exercises and cold training. I am a morning person and this is when I have the most energy. I decided to create my own routine built on these two principles. I would wake-up, put on some motivational workout music, do 3 series of abdominal crunch and push-ups. Then, I would start the Wim Hof breathing exercises that he actually learned from Tibetan Buddhism. I noticed that holding the breath is the part that kicks the primal brain that is responsible for survival and the immune system. While I could only hold my breath for 1 minute initially, I managed to hold it for 3 minutes a month later. Wim Hof is able to hold his breath for about 10 minutes. I noticed that after the third repetition of the breathing exercise, I felt strong and inspired to do anything. The first day I tried it, it was 6 am in Salt Lake City on March 14th under icy condition. I went out with a shirt and shorts. After 2 minutes running, I felt a sense of exhilaration and I took my shirt off and started running bare chest. I felt amazing and so alive. I ran 1.5 mile that first day. The rare people or drivers I came across may have wondered about this crazy guy running naked in freezing Salt Lake City Avenues. I came back home and took a shower, first warm to bring back my body to normal temperature but ended with a cold shower. My torso was red due to the blood circulation but this is actually a healthy sign. Then I would meditate to connect to my heart and plan my day accordingly to live an inspired life. And it happened to be a good day so I got motivated to do it a second day. My body would actually wake me up naturally early, because it was getting already addicted to the high of feeling alive, typically associated with a dopamine or melatonin rush. I kept this strict routine for 7 days in a row. Then I hit a wall. I intuitively felt would get sick if I were to push harder so I took a break.
As I mentioned in previous blogs, we are a multitude within ourselves. If we keep pushing while ignoring the internal parts of us that feel weak, depressed, worthless or unlovable, these parts will eventually rebel which may manifest in illness or accident. These so-called parts are actually very powerful as they are connected to the inner child, the seat of the soul. During the following week, I did a lot of meditation to listen to these hurt and tender parts of my being, which is commonly called inner child work, while giving my body a well-deserved rest. The adult and child selves within me starting to collaborate more effectively, and I created an inner child playlist mostly made to songs of my childhood. Moving forward, during my routine, I would play both playlists so all my inner children and adults could feel included into this process of getting back in shape. The inner adults bring discipline, knowledge, reason, toughness while the inner children bring enthusiasm, joy, kindness and connection to spirit. Once they start working together, true miracles are possible.
I have included my actual detailed jogging training. As you
can see, it alternates cycles of training with periods of rest. And this
routine takes relatively little time, 45 minutes at most.
So I ran a total of 24 miles in total to train for the
marathon (less than the marathon distance), never exceeding 3 miles on any
given morning however all of these runs happened at low temperature (between 20
and 40 degree Fahrenheit) while running bare chest.
One of my training was rather funny and somewhat embarrassing. One of my friends invited me at his cabin in the mountain with over 10 feet of snow. While he started running with me, he quickly returned home. After my regular 20 minute running, I came back but for the life of me, I could not find my way home, as all cabins looked the same. I circled for a while but I was definitely lost. There was also no cell coverage so there is no one I could call. I had to find someone to help me out but the whole neighborhood was empty. There was so much snow that to access any cabin, I would have to plunge into 2 feet of fresh snow well above my knees. There was no street access to the cabins, and most residents there have a snowmobile. There was a small sense of panic but somehow my primal brain had already kicked in due to my new routine and I felt relatively calm and confident. After a few unsuccessful tries, I managed to locate a cabin with people inside. They were definitely surprised to find a naked man asking for hospitality but they were very gracious about it. I called my friend using the WIFI of my unexpected hosts. My friend did not even know his exact address, only the street name as all numbers were covered in snow. I got a map of the residential neighborhood from my new host, and started running again to my friend’s cabin. But after another 25 minutes running in the cold, I still could not find him as it was a rather long street and all cabins looked the same so I had no another choice to return again to my kind hosts. This time, I asked my friend to stay in the street and my compassionate host drove me this time with his snowmobile. And I arrived safely to my friend’s cabin. I was not at all shaken from that experience. We simply laughed, I took a hot shower and then snowboarded the whole day after that. No unnecessary energy had been wasted in fear.
It had snowed the day prior to the Salt Lake City marathon on April 13th. I went to the start a race with shorts and a custom shirt I had designed for my cause, which was now holding my bib. My cold training proved to be very convenient as most runners start the race with lots of layers that they probably had to remove later as it got warmer. I started the race slowly, understanding that I would need the endurance to run approximately 5 hours. I would only play meditation music the first two hours, keeping my workout and inner child playlist for the second part of the race to give me the necessary boosts as things got tougher.
My cardio and my spirit felt great however after only one hour, I felt that my legs were heavy and that my kidneys were strained. I had not trained my legs enough so they would realistically be my limiting factor. After 3 hours, my legs and feet were hurting a lot and I used my playlists to kick in my primal brain. This is a form of NLP technique as the music can now be used to trigger the state. I was then running on heart and will alone. I ran one more hour this way until I reach mile 20. Then my legs abandoned me. I became simply incapable of running so I switched to walking. Walking seemed easy at first as it used different leg muscles, and I found out that I could walk relatively fast. The last two miles were however excruciating and I started limping. I had thoughts of giving up but I could not do it now so close from the finish line. And I finally did cross it after almost 6 hours!
I called my friend Branson and he picked me up. But little did I realize that I had only won half the battle. Recovering from this grueling effort was next. I had to crawl to get to my bedroom as I was incapable of walking anymore. There, I laid on my bed completely disabled so I called Christian to bring me bananas and water. I just did not have enough energy to have a regular meal. For the next 20 hours, I just alternated between sleep and waking time where I would listen an audio program to distract myself. My energy was even too weak to watch a movie on my phone. The hardest part was to crawl to the bathroom to urinate as I had to drink lots of water to support my kidneys’ healing. It was like being sick. The second day of recovery was a bit better. I still could not leave my bed but I could binge on watching movies, and got myself a real meal. During that recovery time, I use a lot of my awareness to be fully present to my body in order to speed up the healing, no matter how much it hurt. The following Monday, my mind was alert and could do some work on the computer though I was limping pretty badly but at least I was mobile again. Tuesday, I was able to go out at night with friends. I gave ample rest to my body during these days, keeping an easy schedule. On Thursday night, I was scheduled to play a tennis league match against the best team of the league, which had won the nationals last year. I had recovered just in time. Just before the match, I did the breathing exercises taught by Wim Hof which I had not done since the marathon. It kicked back my primal brain. I was calm, and determined to win. As expected, I played against a much better player than me but I felt so strong mentally that I ended up winning 6/3 6/4. My opponent lost his composure, as he could not make sense of my resistance on the tennis court to what was supposed to be an easy win for him. I had an overwhelming desire to win while not facing any stress at all. All my teammates were impressed by my win as they were all severely defeated and we ended up losing 4 matches to 1. This single win was however determinant as it kept us on the second position of the league, keeping our chance to qualify for the district tournament.
But the night was not over. My friend Matt called me up and asked me to join him for the 999 ride in Salt Lake City. It is a weekly bike ride that happens at 9 AM at the corner of 900 S and 900 E. So I went biking with over 100 fun people in the streets of Salt Lake City on a beautiful full moon until midnight. I ended up also speaking with a homeless guy to try to help him out, and meet a bunch of interesting people. The night got cooler but I felt great all along. Even after I came home, I still had plenty of energy. Thank you Wim Hof. I can attest from my own personal experience that your stuff works!
However, just like every new information, it is important to
make it your own. We need to experiment just as a scientist would do what works
and does not work. We use our body sensations, feelings and emotions as our
feedback mechanism and inner guidance system. While a teacher such as Wim Hof
can provide valuable information and point us in the right direction, our
progress lies first and foremost within ourselves. It takes personal discipline,
curiosity, introspection, intelligence, proactivity and persistence.
What are you willing to experiment to create a higher
quality of life?
French translation below – Article en Français ci-dessus
Comment j’ai couru un marathon de 42 km sans
jamais m’entraîner sur plus de 5 kilomètres
Je crois en
l’équilibre des aspects physique, émotionnel, mental et spirituel à l’intérieur
de nous. En réalité, chaque aspect est symbolisé par l’un des quatre éléments.
Le feu pour le spirituel (je parle ici du plan de l’âme, car l’esprit est associé
à l’Ether qui est le 5e élément dont les 4 éléments sont issus), l’eau
pour l’émotionnel, l’air pour le mental et la terre pour le physique. La terre
est la résultante de l’action des éléments feu, eau et air travaillant
ensemble. La qualité de nos manifestations physiques externes est donc
directement liée à la qualité de nos intentions, sentiments et pensées. De mon
point de vue, la vraie mission de l’homme consiste à apporter la vérité des
sphères spirituelles supérieures au sein de notre réalité physique, et donc à
amener le paradis sur terre. Beaucoup d’entre nous s’écartent de ce but en
écoutant leur ego plutôt que leur cœur.
De nombreuses personnes
spirituelles nient ou rejettent la dimension physique alors que c’est le
creuset de nos réalisations spirituelles. C’est pourquoi nous disons que les
actions parlent plus fort que les mots. De même, « Mens sana in corpore
sano » est une expression latine, généralement traduite par « Un
esprit sain dans un corps sain ». Cette expression est largement utilisée
dans les contextes sportif et éducatif pour exprimer la théorie selon laquelle
l’exercice physique est un élément important ou essentiel du bien-être mental
et psychologique. La guérison émotionnelle doit aller de pair avec la guérison
physique, et cela m’a inspiré pour me remettre en forme. Je voulais aussi courir
pour la cause de l’aliénation parentale, alors j’ai décidé de m’inscrire à mon
premier marathon à Salt Lake City.
Alors que je
faisais des recherches en ligne pour me préparer marathon, je suis tombé sur
une vidéo de Wim Hof, un Hollandais qui a couru un marathon en short et
sandales à des températures proches de -20 °C juste au-dessus du cercle arctique
en Finlande. C’est un adepte de la méditation et du yoga. De nombreuses études
scientifiques ont été menées à son sujet, qui ont prouvé la véracité de ses
propos. Dans l’une de ses vidéos, il a déclaré que « S’éveiller, c’est
être heureux, fort et en bonne santé ; le reste, ce ne sont que des bêtises !
». Et je ne pouvais pas être plus d’accord avec lui. J’ai, par la suite, lu un
livre qu’il a coécrit avec Koen De Jung : « La voie de l’homme des
glaces ».
Il existe de
nombreuses informations en ligne à son sujet, mais la méthode de Wim Hof
consiste essentiellement en une combinaison d’exercices de respiration et
d’entraînement au froid. Je suis une personne matinale et c’est, à ce moment-là,
que j’ai le plus d’énergie. J’ai donc décidé de créer ma propre routine basée
sur ces deux principes. Chaque matin, au réveil, je mets donc de la musique
motivante, je fais trois séries d’exercices abdominaux et des pompes. Ensuite,
je fais les exercices de respiration de Wim Hof qu’il avait, en fait, appris du
bouddhisme tibétain. J’ai remarqué qu’après les trente hyperventilations,
retenir le souffle est la partie qui déclenche le cerveau primal responsable de
la survie, de la motivation et de l’instinct. Alors que je ne pouvais retenir ma
respiration que pendant une minute au début, je réussis à présent à retenir mon
souffle pendant trois minutes un mois plus tard. Wim Hof est capable de retenir
son souffle pendant environ dix minutes. Après la troisième répétition de
l’exercice de respiration, je me sens fort et je suis impatient de commencer à
courir. Le premier jour où je l’ai fait, j’étais à Salt Lake City le quatorze mars,
à six heures du matin, dans des conditions glaciales. Je ne portais qu’un T-shirt
et un short. Après deux minutes de course, je me suis senti exalté et j’ai
enlevé mon T-shirt pour courir la poitrine nue. Je me sentais fort et vraiment
vivant. J’ai couru deux kilomètres et demi ce premier jour. Les rares personnes
ou conducteurs que j’ai croisés ce matin-là se sont peut-être interrogés sur ce
fou qui courait à moitié nu dans les rues de Salt Lake City à une température
négative. Mon torse et mes jambes étaient rouges à cause de la circulation
sanguine, mais c’est, en fait, un signe de bonne santé. Je suis rentré à la
maison et j’ai pris une douche, tout d’abord chaude pour ramener mon corps à
une température normale, puis j’ai fini par prendre une douche froide. Ensuite,
j’ai médité pour me connecter à mon cœur et j’ai planifié ma journée en suivant
l’inspiration du moment. Et comme ce fut une bonne journée, cela m’a motivé
pour recommencer le jour suivant et ensuite, celui d’après. En fait, mon corps
me réveillait naturellement plus tôt, parce qu’il était déjà accro au sentiment
de se sentir vivant et en bonne santé. J’ai gardé cette routine pendant sept jours
d’affilée. Puis je me suis heurté à un mur. J’avais intuitivement l’impression
de commencer à tomber malade si je venais à trop forcer. J’ai donc pris une
pause pendant une semaine.
Comme je l’ai
mentionné dans mes blogs précédents, nous sommes une multitude en nous-mêmes.
Si nous continuons à forcer en ignorant nos parties internes qui se sentent
faibles, déprimées ou sans valeur, ces parties finiront par se rebeller et
pourraient créer une maladie ou un accident. Ces soi-disant parties sont en
réalité très puissantes, car elles sont connectées à l’enfant intérieur, le
siège de l’âme. Au cours de la semaine suivante, j’ai donc beaucoup médité pour
écouter ces parties de mon être douloureuses et tendres, un processus
communément appelé travail de l’enfant intérieur, tout en donnant à mon corps
un repos bien mérité. L’adulte et l’enfant en moi ont commencé à collaborer
plus efficacement, et j’ai créé une liste de musique pour mon enfant intérieur,
principalement composée de chansons de mon enfance. Par la suite, pendant ma
routine du matin, j’alternais mes deux listes de musique pour que tous mes
enfants et mes adultes intérieurs puissent se sentir impliqués dans ma remise
en forme. Les adultes intérieurs apportent discipline, connaissance, raison,
endurance tandis que les enfants intérieurs apportent enthousiasme, joie,
gentillesse et connexion à l’esprit. Une fois qu’ils travaillent ensemble, de
vrais miracles sont possibles.
J’ai inclus mon
entraînement de jogging détaillé. Comme vous pouvez le constater, il alterne
des cycles d’entraînement avec des périodes de repos. Et cette routine prend
relativement peu de temps, 45 minutes au maximum.
J’ai donc couru trente-huit
kilomètres au total pour m’entraîner pour le marathon (moins que la distance du
marathon), ne dépassant jamais cinq kilomètres chaque matin, mais toutes ces
courses se sont déroulées à basse température (entre -5 et 5 degrés centigrades)
en courant torse nu.
Un de mes entraînement
était plutôt amusant et quelque peu gênant. Un de mes amis m’avait invité à son
chalet dans la montagne avec plus de trois mètres de neige. Alors qu’il avait commencé
à courir avec moi, il est rapidement rentré chez lui. Après mes vingt minutes
de course habituelles, je suis rentré, mais malgré tous mes efforts, je ne parvenais
pas à retrouver mon chemin, car toutes les chalets se ressemblaient. J’ai tourné
en rond pendant un bon moment, mais j’étais vraiment perdu. Il n’y avait pas
non plus de couverture réseau, donc je ne pouvais appeler personne. Je devais
trouver quelqu’un pour m’aider, mais tous les sentiers étaient vides. Il y
avait tellement de neige que pour accéder à un chalet, il me fallait plonger
dans un mètre de neige fraîche bien au-dessus de mes genoux. Les chalets
n’étaient pas accessibles par la rue et la plupart des résidents avaient une
motoneige. J’ai eu alors un léger sentiment de panique, mais mon cerveau primal
avait déjà commencé à fonctionner à cause de ma routine et je me sentais
relativement calme et confiant. Après quelques tentatives infructueuses, j’ai
réussi à localiser un chalet avec des personnes à l’intérieur. Ils étaient
vraiment surpris de trouver un homme nu demandant l’hospitalité, mais ils se
sont montrés très aimables. J’ai appelé mon ami en utilisant le wi-fi de mes sauveurs.
Mon ami ne connaissait même pas son adresse exacte, seulement le nom de la rue,
car tous les numéros étaient recouverts de neige. On m’a donné un plan du
quartier et j’ai recommencé à courir vers le chalet de mon ami. Mais après vingt-cinq
autres minutes supplémentaires de course dans le froid, je ne le retrouvais toujours
pas, car la rue était assez longue et tous les chalets étaient identiques. Je
n’avais donc pas d’autre choix que de retourner vers la maison de mes gentils
hôtes surprises. Cette fois-ci, j’ai demandé à mon ami de rester dans la rue,
et une personne m’a conduit avec sa motoneige. Et finalement, je suis bien rentré
au chalet de mon ami. Je n’étais pas du tout ébranlé par cette expérience. Nous
avons simplement ri, j’ai pris une douche chaude, puis j’ai fait du snowboard
toute la journée. Aucune énergie inutile n’avait été gaspillée dans la peur.
Il avait neigé la
veille du marathon de Salt Lake City le treize avril. Je me suis présenté au
départ avec un short et un T-shirt personnalisé que j’avais conçu pour ma cause
de réunification familiale, recouvert maintenant par mon dossard. Mon
entraînement au froid s’est avéré très utile, car la plupart des coureurs
débutent la course avec beaucoup de survêtements qu’ils doivent généralement enlever
plus tard quand il fait plus chaud. J’ai commencé la course lentement,
comprenant qu’il me faudrait de l’endurance pour courir environ cinq heures. Je
n’ai fait que jouer de la musique de méditation les deux premières heures, afin
de réserver mes musiques d’entraînement pour la deuxième partie de la course,
quand la fatigue allait me rattraper.
Mes poumons et
mon moral étaient hauts, mais après seulement une heure, j’ai senti que mes
jambes s’alourdissaient et que mes reins étaient en suractivité. Je n’avais pas
suffisamment entraîné mes jambes, et elles devenaient donc mon facteur
limitant. Après trois heures de courses, mes jambes et mes pieds me faisaient
très mal, et j’ai utilisé ma musique de motivation pour enclencher mon cerveau
primal. C’est une forme de technique de PNL, car la musique pouvait maintenant
être utilisée pour déclencher l’état. Je courais alors simplement avec la force
du cœur et ma volonté. J’ai couru une heure de plus dans cet état jusqu’à
atteindre le vingtième kilomètre. Puis mes jambes m’ont abandonné. Je suis
devenu incapable de courir davantage, alors je suis passé à la marche. La
marche semblait facile au début, car elle utilisait différents muscles de la
jambe et j’ai découvert que je pouvais marcher relativement vite. Les trois
derniers kilomètres étaient cependant insoutenables et j’ai commencé à boîter.
J’ai pensé abandonner, mais je ne pouvais pas le faire maintenant si près de la
ligne d’arrivée. Et je l’ai finalement traversée après presque 6 heures !
J’ai appelé mon
ami Branson qui est venu me chercher. Je ne réalisais cependant pas que je
n’avais gagné que la moitié de la bataille. Se remettre de cet effort exténuant
était le prochain défi. J’ai dû marcher à quatre pattes afin de rejoindre ma
chambre, incapable de marcher. Je me suis couché sur mon lit, complètement
handicapé et j’ai appelé mon ami Christian pour qu’il m’apporte des bananes et
de l’eau. Je n’avais tout simplement pas assez d’énergie pour prendre un repas
régulier. Pendant les vingt heures qui ont suivi, j’ai simplement alterné les
heures de sommeil et de veille, où j’écoutais un programme audio pour me
distraire. Mon énergie était même trop faible pour regarder un film sur mon
téléphone. La partie la plus difficile était de ramper vers les toilettes, car
je devais boire beaucoup d’eau pour faciliter la guérison de mes reins. J’étais
comme malade. Le deuxième jour de récupération a été un peu mieux. Je ne
pouvais toujours pas quitter mon lit, mais je pouvais regarder des films et prendre
un vrai premier repas. Pendant ce temps de récupération, j’ai utilisé une
grande partie de ma conscience pour être pleinement présent dans mon corps afin
d’accélérer la guérison, peu importe la douleur. Le lendemain, mon esprit était
à nouveau alerte et je pouvais travailler sur mon ordinateur même si je boîtais
encore beaucoup, mais au moins j’étais mobile. Mardi, j’ai pu sortir le soir
avec des amis. J’ai donné beaucoup de repos à mon corps pendant ces jours, en allégeant
mon emploi du temps. Le jeudi soir, je devais disputer un match de tennis
contre la meilleure équipe de la ligue, qui avait remporté les championnats
nationaux l’année dernière. J’avais récupéré juste à temps. Peu avant le match,
j’ai fait les exercices de respiration enseignés par Wim Hof, ce que je n’avais
pas fait depuis le marathon. Cela a réactivé mon cerveau primal. J’étais calme
et déterminé à gagner. Comme prévu, j’ai joué contre un joueur bien meilleur
que moi, mais je me sentais si fort mentalement que j’ai fini par gagner 6/3-6/4.
Mon adversaire a perdu son calme, car il ne réalisait pas ce qui lui arrivait.
J’avais un désir irrésistible de gagner sans être stressé. Tous mes co-équipiers
ont été impressionnés par ma victoire, car ils ont tous été battus à plate
couture, et nous avons perdu quatre matchs contre un.
La nuit n’était toutefois
pas finie. Mon ami Matt m’a appelé et m’a demandé de le rejoindre pour la
balade 999 à Salt Lake City. Alors, je suis allé faire du vélo avec plus de 100
personnes dans les rues de Salt Lake City par une belle nuit de pleine lune
jusqu’à minuit. J’ai parlé également avec un sans-abri pour essayer de l’aider,
et j’ai rencontré tout un groupe de personnes intéressantes. La nuit s’est
refroidie, mais je me sentais bien tout le temps. Même après mon retour à la
maison, j’avais encore beaucoup d’énergie. Merci Wim Hof. Je peux attester par
mon expérience personnelle que vos outils fonctionnent !
Cependant, comme
pour toute nouvelle information, il est important de la personnaliser. Nous
devons expérimenter comme un scientifique, et faire le tri entre ce qui marche
et ne marche pas. Nous écoutons nos sensations physiques, nos sentiments et les
émotions de notre corps, et nous les utilisons comme un système de guidage
interne. Un enseignant tel que Wim Hof peut nous fournir des informations
précieuses et nous orienter dans la bonne direction, mais notre progrès repose
avant tout sur nous-mêmes. Cela demande de la discipline personnelle, de la
curiosité, de l’introspection, de l’intelligence, de la proactivité et de la
persistance.
Que voulez-vous
expérimenter aujourd’hui pour améliorer la qualité de votre vie ?
Les cercles de
développement personnel et spirituel parlent souvent des concepts du Moi
supérieur (ou l’âme), de l’enfant intérieur et du besoin d’une personnalité
positive, introspective, reliée aux réalités de la vie matérielle et efficace.
La plupart des ouvrages de développement personnel abordent un seul aspect,
rarement deux à la fois et presque jamais les trois. Si quelqu’un me demande ce
qu’est l’éveil spirituel, je réponds simplement « Vivre le paradis sur
terre », c’est-à-dire la capacité à fonctionner dans cette dimension
physique selon des principes spirituels élevés. De manière pratique, nous avons
en nous trois aspects principaux et très différents : 1. l’adulte, 2. l’enfant
et 3. l’âme, et les trois doivent coexister en harmonie afin que nous puissions
être véritablement intégrés et devenir ce que nous appelons un être éveillé. Le
développement d’un aspect sans les autres est en réalité un danger pour soi et
pour les autres.
L’adulte ou
adulte intérieur n’est rien d’autre que notre personnalité. Notre personnalité s’est
construite selon notre éducation familiale, notre culture, notre éducation et
notre environnement. En conséquence, elle est pleine de concepts erronés, de
perspectives limitées, d’idées fausses et de contradictions. Par
l’introspection, l’étude des grands sages, l’application des leçons précieuses
tirées de notre expérience, la pensée positive et consciente, nous pouvons peu
à peu améliorer notre personnalité pour mieux soutenir notre vie et celle des
autres qui nous entourent. Beaucoup de livres sont consacrés à nous aider à
développer une personnalité plus efficace afin que nous puissions avoir plus de
succès dans la vie, qu’il s’agisse de gagner plus d’argent, d’améliorer notre
relation de couple ou d’être plus heureux. Un adulte mûr a une pensée claire, répond
aux situations de la vie de manière réfléchie, projette des valeurs positives
et comprend les étapes nécessaires pour atteindre ses buts. Il sait aussi
comment se protéger et protéger les autres. Il est capable de tirer parti de ses
précieuses expériences de vie pour améliorer la qualité de vie de tous ceux qui
l’entourent.
L’enfant
intérieur est un concept plus récent. Bien que Carl Jung soit à l’origine du
concept dans son archétype de l’enfant divin, John Bradshaw est en réalité
celui qui a popularisé le travail sur l’enfant intérieur auprès du grand public
dans les années 1980 grâce à ses best-sellers et à ses apparitions aux côtés d’Oprah.
Tous les professionnels de la santé mentale sont maintenant familiers avec le
concept de l’enfant intérieur. L’enfant intérieur correspond à notre essence et
au noyau de ce que nous sommes. C’est un aspect hyper sensible, complètement
ouvert et la source de notre créativité, de notre spontanéité et de notre joie
intérieure. Quand nous grandissons dans ce monde difficile avec des parents
imparfaits, notre enfant intérieur (ou nos enfants intérieurs) est victime de
traumatismes. Ceux-ci vont engendrer une faible estime de soi, une pauvre image
corporelle, des déséquilibres affectifs, l’auto-flagellation, des masques
bloquants, des problèmes d’identité, d’intimité et d’engagement, des dépendances,
etc. Le travail sur l’enfant intérieur a pour objectif de renouer avec cet
aspect subconscient du soi, de revivre consciemment les émotions refoulées afin
que nous puissions aider notre enfant intérieur à poursuivre son développement.
L’âme est notre
moi transcendantal. Celui-ci est déjà parfait, pleinement développé et connecté
à l’ensemble de l’existence. Le moi supérieur est au-dessus du cycle de la
naissance et de la mort. C’est la conscience elle-même. Grâce à cela, nous
pouvons faire l’expérience de la conscience de Dieu. Qui mieux que Rumi, le
mystique soufi du XIIIe siècle, pour nous décrire le moi supérieur ?
« Ces formes que nous sommes sont comme des tasses flottant dans un océan
de conscience vivante. Elles se remplissent et coulent sans laisser de traces.
Ce que nous sommes, c’est cet océan, mais nous sommes trop proches pour le
voir, même si nous y nageons et le buvons. Ne soyez pas une tasse avec un
rebord sec, ou quelqu’un qui chevauche toute la nuit et ne connaît jamais le
cheval entre ses cuisses. » Nous ne travaillons pas sur l’âme, il s’agit
simplement d’élever notre conscience et de nous rappeler qui nous sommes en
tant qu’âme. L’âme est indestructible et ne peut être blessée, car elle est cet
amour infini.
Permettez-moi
d’illustrer l’évolution de ces trois aspects à travers mon expérience
personnelle. Quand j’étais enfant, j’ai subi une série de traumatismes qui m’ont
conduit à une dépression profonde et à une forte anxiété à l’âge de treize ans.
Ma personnalité adolescente cherchait des possibilités de sortir de mon enfer
émotionnel. Bien que les progrès aient été lents à cet âge, j’ai développé petit
à petit des concepts et des idées pour rendre mon existence plus supportable.
Mes progrès touchaient uniquement le niveau de la personnalité (ou mon moi
adulte). Je suis devenu adulte trop rapidement et j’ai géré ma douleur affective
en devenant le meilleur élève possible à l’école. Je manquais de spontanéité,
j’étais très sérieux et me sentais comme un vieil homme à l’intérieur. À dix-neuf
ans, j’ai passé tout l’été aux États-Unis, ce qui a élargi mes horizons. Je
suis tombée amoureux d’une fille à mon retour à l’université, et une rupture
douloureuse trois mois plus tard a ouvert ma conscience. L’intensité de la
douleur émotionnelle m’a fait vivre pour la première fois un état de conscience
mystique où je me suis senti extatique. Soudain, je me suis rendu compte que la
vie était bien plus grande que le monde visible. Je me suis lancé dans une quête
spirituelle et suis devenu obsédé par cet éveil dont parlent les grandes
philosophies et religions. Pendant les sept années suivantes, sans le
comprendre consciemment, j’étais à la recherche de mon moi supérieur que je
n’avais ressenti que pendant quelques instants. En tant que chercheur
spirituel, je suis tombé dans un premier piège, et j’ai rejoint une secte. Les
sectes sont des organisations toxiques, qui se positionnent comme des
intermédiaires dans notre relation à Dieu afin de nous exploiter. Après en être
sorti trois ans plus tard, et après avoir pris le temps de me déprogrammer,
j’ai poursuivi mes efforts pour m’éveiller. Cela a porté ses fruits et quand
j’ai eu vingt-six ans, j’ai vécu un état de conscience où j’ai vécu un état
extatique ou le pur amour pendant plus de vingt-quatre heures. Cela a ouvert
une porte où j’ai pu retourner consciemment à cet état avec une discipline de
vie spécifique. Tandis que j’éprouvais des états de conscience extatiques, je
me suis rendu compte que j’étais devenu un junky spirituel et que ma vie ne
reflétait pas extérieurement les états de conscience extraordinaires que
j’éprouvais intérieurement. J’ai commencé à me sentir seul et j’ai concentré
mon attention sur la manifestation physique. Sans le savoir, j’avais changé la
focalisation de mon travail intérieur de mon âme à ma personnalité. Pour faire
mûrir cet adulte intérieur, je me suis inspiré de gourous de du développement
personnel tels qu’Antony Robbins, Wayne Dyer ou Brian Tracy. Je me suis marié
avec une PAJ (princesse américaine juive), et j’ai fondé une famille. Je me
suis concentré sur ma carrière pour réussir ma vie. Je suis devenu un
entrepreneur prospère dans la Silicon Valley et le vice-consul honoraire de
Monaco.
J’étais un
lecteur assidu avec toujours pour but de m’améliorer. Mon succès professionnel
était un mécanisme d’adaptation à ma douleur émotionnelle que j’avais continué
à enfouir, et qui se manifestait à travers une relation tumultueuse avec ma
femme. Quand j’ai eu trente-cinq ans, je n’ai plus réussi à contenir ces
émotions sous-jacentes. Je suis entré en thérapie à ce moment-là et ai commencé
à renouer avec mon moi transcendental, car j’avais constamment le sentiment que
quelque chose me manquait. Je suis devenu un grand fan d’enseignants de non-dualité
tels qu’Eckart Tolle, Adyashanti, Krishnamurti ou David Deida. Quand j’ai eu trente-huit
ans, la grâce est venue au travers d’un événement inattendu. J’ai eu une
commotion cérébrale à la suite d’un accident de ski, qui m’a recâblé le
cerveau. Après avoir récupéré de l’accident, je pouvais méditer sans effort et
le sentiment qu’il me manquait quelque chose a alors disparu. Je suis devenu
beaucoup plus intuitif et me suis toujours senti guidé dans mes actions. À ce
moment-là, j’avais fait un énorme travail pour développer une personnalité
consciente afin de soutenir ma vie et ouvrir le chemin intérieur à mon âme. Cependant,
jusqu’à ce moment-là, je n’avais fait que très peu de travail sur mon enfant
intérieur (je n’étais pas au courant du concept à l’époque) et l’écart s’accentuait
entre cet enfant intérieur sous-développé et brisé et le reste de mon être.
J’ai connu une crise de milieu de vie et ai attiré une partenaire encore plus
déséquilibrée que moi-même. Elle était un canal clair pour son moi supérieur,
détenait la connaissance spirituelle la plus remarquable, mais toute sa vie
était en réalité contrôlée et rendue misérable par les traumatismes de son
enfance qu’elle se sentait impuissante à guérir. À cause de ses dons
spirituels, elle pouvait voir à travers moi, et je ne pouvais plus cacher mes
enfants intérieurs blessés. J’avais tellement réprimé la douleur de mon enfance
pour atteindre le succès matériel et spirituel que mes enfants intérieurs
perdus se sont manifestés sous la forme de l’aliénation parentale de mes
enfants réels. Tout au long de ma vie, j’ai fait face à de nombreux défis, mais
aucun n’était comparable à la brutalité de cette expérience. Mon dernier mariage
s’est également effondré quelques temps après. Cette année passée a été
difficile, mais riche en apprentissage. Elle m’a permis de réintégrer mon
enfant intérieur avec ma personnalité d’adulte et mon moi transcendantal.
Maintenant, lorsque mon enfant a mal, je m’assieds en méditation avec la
douleur. Mon adulte et mon âme le rejoignent, lui prennent la main et l’aident
à guérir. J’ai arrêté de le brimer et de le faire taire comme je l’avais fait pratiquement
toute ma vie. Qu’il s’agisse de solitude, de trahison, de dépression, de
colère, de jalousie, de suspicion, de méfiance ou de tristesse, je reste assis avec
lui sans jugement. Avec suffisamment de patience, mon enfant intérieur est en
train de se reconstruire lentement grâce à la confiance en mon adulte intérieur
et à la sagesse et la présence de mon âme. En fait, je n’ai pas découvert un
seul enfant intérieur, mais plusieurs, qui ont entre deux et onze ans. Il est
clair que cet aspect de moi est encore un peu en retard par rapport à ma
personnalité et à ma connexion avec mon moi transcendantal. C’est donc sur cet
aspect que je me concentre afin d’atteindre mon plein potentiel, et ainsi finir
par me reconnecter à mes enfants réels.
J’espère qu’en
partageant mon expérience personnelle, j’aurai
réussi à illustrer l’importance de rester équilibré avec ces trois axes de
travail tout au long de notre cheminement spirituel. Je pense intuitivement que
Wayne Dyer aurait pu faire face à un déséquilibre similaire. C’était un
professeur remarquable, doté d’une personnalité très intelligente et d’une
profonde compréhension de l’âme. Sa troisième épouse, Marcelene, mère de cinq de
ses enfants, a divorcé après vingt ans de mariage, et il est décédé plus tard
d’une leucémie, révélatrice d’un traumatisme infantile non guéri (Wayne était
un enfant de l’assistance publique). De la même manière, Jerry Hicks, l’auteur
inspiré de la loi de l’attraction avec sa sixième femme Esther, est décédé d’un
cancer.
Les individus qui
font l’expérience de leurs aspects transcendantaux sans faire le travail
nécessaire sur leur personnalité pour développer l’objectivité et l’intégrité
nécessaires, peuvent facilement devenir des leaders de sectes. Leurs
traumatismes non guéris génèrent alors des fausses croyances et des illusions.
Les Amérindiens ont
souvent un lien authentique avec le divin et ont un enfant intérieur en bonne
santé. Malheureusement, le manque de développement de leur personnalité fait
cependant d’eux une cible facile pour l’exploitation, les abus ou la dépendance.
Les personnes ayant
une personnalité très développée, mais peu connectées à leur âme peuvent avoir
beaucoup de succès, voire faire des choses magnifiques dans la vie, si elles
ont un enfant intérieur en bonne santé, mais il y aura peu d’incitation à aider
les gens en dehors de leur famille proche. Celles dont l’enfant intérieur est traumatisé
seront souvent autocratiques avec le désir d’exploiter leur prochain.
Ces trois
dimensions sont faciles à voir chez les êtres éveillés. Par exemple, le Dalaï Lama
agit souvent comme un petit enfant qui adore s’amuser ou plaisanter, mais peut
exprimer des concepts complexes à partir de sa personnalité sans jamais perdre de
vue sa nature transcendantale. Il peut basculer entre ces aspects à volonté en
fonction de ce qui est requis dans le moment présent. Une personnalité
développée peut comprendre et connaître Dieu, cependant seul l’enfant en bonne
santé en nous peut en faire directement l’expérience en tant qu’amour, unité et
créativité. C’est pourquoi on dit souvent que le cœur (auquel l’enfant
intérieur a un accès direct) est le siège de l’âme. Ayant développé cette
trinité en nous, nous pouvons maintenant regarder les étoiles avec les pieds
solidement plantés dans le sol et créer le paradis sur terre.
I went back to “grandmother” last week. I am not talking about my grandmother who just turned 101-year-old, but the plant medicine administered by the shamans more commonly called Ayahuasca. Some centers in Costa Rica can actually administer it in a completely legal way. It always amazes me that some of the most toxic and addictive pharmaceutical drugs are administered completely legally in the US while the most healing and non addictive drugs such as Ayahuasca are banned. Though it was beneficial in so many ways, my last Ayahuasca journey 3 month ago had been painful however I knew I had to come back. When I went last time, I was stuck and quite desperate. This time however, I felt pretty good, having a sense of direction and making good progress on my life current challenges. But just like we should not wait for a health collapse to start exercising or eat healthy good, it is also wise to go to “grandmother” before we hit bottom.
This time, I did not have any particular intention besides coming closer to living my life with an open heart in a state of spontaneity. This has been a conscious goal of mine for at least 20 years. I feel I have made so much progress towards that goal however the destination still seems so far. I felt both anxious and in a state of acceptance before meeting “grandmother”. As we grow wiser, the fear does not disappear. Instead, we learn to speak with it so that it does not freeze us into inaction. There were just 3 of us for this ceremony, one community member and a Yoga teacher from Drake Bay, Costa Rica. We were brought to a new beautiful location with a river and abundant fruit trees. We had a couple of hours to chill out before darkness. After exploring the property, I used this opportunity to take a nap. This is when I realized I was under more pressure that I was willing to accept. After I woke up, I chatted with the shaman who shared with me his own journey in finding God. He does not see himself anymore as a separate individuality who has to control his life to make things happen. He sees himself as one of the arms of the divine, and in this new perspective and identity, synchronicity is abundant as a more universal and larger “he” is working towards the fulfillment of his mission. As we were talking after dark, I noticed the beautiful fireflies or lightning bugs that were flying around us. The shaman asked if I wanted to see one closer. He made a few steps, took one in his hands and showed it to me. The firefly was completely at peace and seemed to enjoy for me to look at it so closely. There was instinctive trust between it and the shaman, and with me vicariously. After about 2 minutes after I had all the time to contemplate the two light dots on its dots, it went back to its business flying away into the dark.
It was now time. The shaman called me to take in the magical drink. The taste is quite awful. Despite this, I declined his offer of getting honey to sweeten the bitter potion. It never takes me very much to start on my shamanic journey. The fact that I always choose to fast for at least 2 days before the medicine could be a factor. Within 5 minutes, my heartbeat had accelerated and my body felt the need to dance, sing and move. The shaman gave me a maracas to beat with the music. It felt good to be able to express the energy this way, as I know that when the energy gets stuck, confusion and purging are next. I felt the need to be active with my body for about 30 minutes until “grandmother” called me back to my inner world as I was entering the psychedelic part of the journey.
This was only my third time doing Ayahuasca. I had done it for the first time 5 years ago. During this first journey, I was first called to a high definition, high-tech fractal space. The sharp and very colorful beings that appeared were frightening as I felt I could not trust them. They initially appears as predators to me. It was so scary that I became afraid of death and leaving my body. During my second journey, I saw them again. I was not as afraid however still chose to ignore them. In this last journey, we were able to establish a more trusting connection as I started to accept that they might be benevolent beings from a higher dimension. They felt like doctors from the future. They took me in what seemed like a spaceship for treatment and were quite busy. Their physical appearance seemed like high technology, very colorful, robotic flamingos. As I warmed up to them, I even entertained the fact that I could be one of them on a visit to Earth. They recommended to me to keep coming every 3 month for a check-up as it is critical that I keep working on my heart connection, as I will inevitably gather heart blocks and hindrances during the normal course of my life at this stage of my evolution on Earth. My heart is the receptor that makes it possible to listen to the truth from higher dimensions, and live in harmony with the laws of this universe. During this journey, I identify this truth as Christ Consciousness. They went on explaining to me that the Lord left his Kingdom to our care, and only by staying connected to our heart, can we administer his territory (Earth) according his Loving and Conscious Will.
I was then brought in the current state of the world. I was sent in the immense heartless gearing of a production factory. It felt like animal farming but for humans. It was all about production, power, control, profit with no consideration for human feelings and happiness. Facing the actual reality of the matrix and new world order was incredibly brutal for my conscience under Ayahuasca. As Teal’s husband, I became interested to better understand SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) and the abominable treatments she went through in her childhood in order to become a more supportive husband. Before I knew her, I was aware of conspiracy theories like most of us but I felt powerless to do anything about it. The information on the Internet seemed sensational, contradictory in nature and not very scientific. I felt I could not verify the veracity of one perspective against the other, so I let go and just went after my own business dealing with things I was actually in control of, which was my work, my relationship and diverse activities that increased my quality of life. A turn around of my thinking happened when I read Breaking the Chain from Svali, a former Illuminati trainer. It was so similar in many ways to what I heard from Teal direct cult experience that I knew she was telling the truth. Two other books from former president models Cathy O’Brien and Brice Taylor Trance:Formation of America and Thanks for the memories confirmed to me the corruption and moral depravity of our world leaders, and that the situation is much worse that I had initially envisioned. Most of what we are taught or hold for true are sadly just lies and manipulation. History is teaching us that we defeated the Nazis. They have actually won as their most lethal weapon Mind Control has infiltrated all parts of society that has money and power: politics, large corporations, media networks, music & sports industry all over the world. Actually, the top German experts in mind control such as Josef Mengele were placed in top US universities in complete secrecy to continue their research. The new world order is already in place as the elite realized it was much easier to control the masses when they are ignorant to what is exactly going on. The creation of superhuman slaves through trauma based mind control and dissociation is the covert tool for the elite to lead society in any way they chose to. Presidential elections are decided in advance or when they are not, they make sure to control both candidates that are presented to the people. This was the case in the USA with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and it was again the case in France with Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. National elections are nothing but a puppet show designed to distract the masses to what is really going on. The actual world leaders are not the ones that are fed to us by the media. These leaders are just corrupt puppets that have already sold their soul to the devil through criminal activities, sex deviance and various addictions. The world as we know it is actually governed by black lodges that act in complete secrecy to feed demonic or low astral entities that have cut themselves from the Source. As a result, their only way to sustain themselves is through manipulation and stealing energy from beings who are still connected with their heart with the divinity, basically people like us. “Grandmother” showed me more clearly the covert ways of how we all get corrupted. I am going to give you some examples. Being vegan is quite inconvenient in our society, so we develop the taste and the craving for unethical food that require the systematic murder of our animal friends. These foods are heavily advertised through the mainstream media. By buying and eating this food, we become the partner in crime of the elite so now we have to defend them to cover our own shame. Let’s look at another form of insidious corruption. We work hard to develop skills and abilities to get us ahead and create a better world together. During our progression, we reach a spot where we get closer to a leader that we used to admire. As we get to know him personally, we realize then his level of moral depravity and we feel disillusioned and helpless. We exchange then our sincere desire to do good for the world and our longing for a merciful God for the vanity of belonging with the “big boys”. There is then no turning back as our thirst for power and security make us then commit some actions that if revealed would make us lose everything. As we get corrupted, we become easily controlled and manipulated. This is one of the reasons why the leading politicians are such sex addicts. They had to corrupt themselves to such an extent to get to the top that sexual deviance is used to sedate them as their conscience that is tormenting them. At least this is true for the ones that are not completely disconnected and dead inside. Many facets of society are conducive to traumas that promote disconnection and selfishness so that, we, the masses are more easily manipulated. There is only one escape from this somber reality. It is the connection to our own heart. Purity, personal integrity and self-discipline, the antithesis of corruption, is what keeps this heart link alive. At that phase on my shamanic journey, I see the voice of the Lord (Christ Consciousness) on the other end of my heart. This is the inner guidance and connection we desperately need not to give in the manipulation and venality of our leadership. In their gloomy reality, everything is transactional. People’s value is judged according a hierarchy, as they hold no value in themselves. It is a predatory environment based on exploiting rather than taking care. It is a world full of backstabbing, lies, manipulation, betrayal, selfishness and apathy. To realize the split in oneself between the two realities of our heart and disconnected mind is the first step towards healing, and loosening the grip with our own demons. How we spend our time, what we buy, who we connect with will strengthen or weaken the parts of this polarity. Become a vegetarian, avoid watching TV and mainstream media, develop authentic heart-based relationships, maintain a healthy balance in your life between work, family & friends, be kind with all living beings, buy an electric car with solar panels on your roof, honor the word you gave, be congruent with your value system in all of your relationships, and build a trusting connection with the divinity. These are some practical steps we can take to do our part in this confusing world to slowly develop an internal frame of reference when faced with the brutality of the truth regarding the world elite.
During that night with “grandmother”, I was brought many times to my wife. I felt so much love towards her that the words are lacking to express this ecstatic feeling. As a species, I saw how our need to attach is so critically important. Our society and even the spiritual field is so much about developing independence however it is unnatural. This is why understanding attachment theory is such an important key in one’s personal healing and in explaining most personality disorders. Attaching to someone we love is so critical and healthy to our personal development. This is another reason why I am excited to facilitate our next singles retreat in July, and catalyze people in finding new love. Relationships are hard but there is nothing else in life that can bring the same level of contentment and fulfillment. I could see at a deeper level my absolute terror for aloneness, and accept it as something healthy. We have been shamed for wanting intimate connection as it makes us look needy, weak and dependent while this is our birthright. It is also natural to be frightened to attach as it is so painful to lose the connection once the relationship breaks. This is why I want to educate people to recognize a match when they find one and then to empower them with tools to help grow the relationship and avoid rupture. There is something truly sacred when two people commit to each other. Only a life with love is worth living. I was shown how when a woman marries a man, she gives herself to him and to that extent, he becomes her owner. However, this is ownership in the sense of nurturing and taking care in the same way Teal & I feel responsible for the land we own at Philia with all the trees, plants, animals and bugs. We will not kill even a snake or a scorpion on our property. We are not speaking here of ownership the way that the corrupt elite think of, as their understanding of ownership is nothing but exploitation. The millions of mind controlled slaves today in the world can attest to this fact.
During this new experience with Ayahuasca, I developed a new relationship with purging. Purging is used by Ayahuasca as a purification mechanism. Let’s agree to call demon, a repressed and unhealthy attachment, belief, negative emotion or fear that is here to repress a sense of lack we have within ourselves. As we experience resistance to let go of our inner demons, Ayahuasca would sometimes attach them to our own fluid to purge both at the same time. This process is painful but salutary. 3 months ago, I did so much purging that I was really not looking forward to it again. Fortunately, this time, purging was only required on two occasions. The first one was related to the culpability around my children. Interestingly enough, I thought I was exempt of culpability as I hold consciously the belief that I always do my best so if it could have been better, it would have been. Actually, Ayahuasca made me realize that I was deeply repressing the culpability of losing my children. It was difficult to accept so “grandmother” had to get me to expel it physically. It felt such a relief once this energy was out of me. The second one was related to an action that I had taken that I knew was not in the interest of a loved one while it made financially sense. The mind had fortunately won and I was full of remorse. I had to suffer the potential consequence of damaging a very important connection for a monetary gain and realized deeply that it was not worth it. I made the decision to come clean to the person, take full responsibility for my decision and openly communicate about the shadow that had taken a hold of me. I ended up doing this a couple of days later and the person, while dissatisfied, did not hold a grudge as he felt I was sincere with my regrets. “Grandmother” challenged me throughout the night with some of my beliefs and actions. She would tell me “we can do this the easy way or the hard way”. This time, she only had to do it twice the hard way, which is something I am very thankful for. I developed a new understand regarding our relationships with demons. Demons are not able to have a hold on us unless we repress feelings or emotions. Denial is a necessary condition for demons. I got to understand better why Teal is so open with her emotions when sometimes it does not show her in the best light. By being authentic on how she truly feels, even if it can be frown upon as a spiritual teacher, she makes herself less vulnerable to these demonic entities. I am also trying to be more open about my own struggles so that many will follow, and together we can be more authentic and accelerate our path of healing and learning. The most deviant men today are often the ones that are looked with the highest regards: our presidents, heads of religious institutions or non-profit organizations, artists or sports idols. The books I mentioned above will make you realize this fact. They appear saintly for the media but participate in the worst perversions behind closed doors. Many people have become experts in projecting an appearance they give that have nothing to do with reality. As we come closer to seeing reality, the level of manipulation is such that we can feel lost in believing in anything or anyone anymore. In fact, when an action is made and tries to solicit positive attention, it is already suspicious. Productive narcissism as defined by Ross Rosenberg in the Human Magnet Syndrome is still narcissism. It is enough for our intentions, thoughts and deeds to be known by the divinity. Ultimately, as we need to cross over death, this is the only authority we will have to respond anyway.
I am currently counseling a business executive in developing a truly connecting and intimate relationship with his new partner. Despite his best intention, he is unable to feel into her, see her and understand her, which activate many insecurities in her and lead to conflict. He sees her as emotionally unstable and acting out for no valid reason. He thought I would help him to fix her so he became surprised when I confronted him that most of the work would have to get him to reconnect to his heart. When I talked to him, I felt true compassion, as I understand the struggle and suffering to go through to bring back to life our inner child. Unfortunately, in the business world, we are often rewarded to develop a sociopathic behavior. 10 years ago, I remember telling a new older executive I hired for my company that I was proud that I had never fired anyone in my company. He made fun of me and told me that he is going to get me tougher. Two years later, I had to go through a downturn and had to fire almost half of the company. He congratulated me for my “progress” and expediency. As a business executive, we need to make many decisions that impact people life and families. With the goal to succeed in a highly competitive environment, we do not give ourselves the time to feel and evaluate the consequence of our decisions on our employees’ emotional life. As a consequence, we learn to feel less & less. After 20 or 30 years in a position with responsibility, we have develop the capacity to disconnect so much that we have become incapable to develop a truly intimate and connecting relationship. We start treating our significant other like an employee as we start optimizing the home life in the same way as our office life. The irony is that most of our professional success is driven by the desire to be loved, admired and respected by our loved ones. It often leads us to a place where we are wealthier but actually alone. I am spending now a lot of my time undoing what I thought was useful to my career. I want to tell the younger generation that it was not worth it. Money & power is never worth selling your soul to the devil and disconnecting with your inner child. Do not compromise your personal integrity for short-term financial gains. It is however easier said than done and the temptations are plenty.
“Grandmother” brought to me a new understanding about people suffering with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This disorder comes often hand in hand with people who went through very severe abuse or have complex PTSD. These people do not have the means to cope with life. Borderline individuals are the psychological equivalent of third-degree burn patient. They simply have, so to speak, no emotional skin. For this reason, the slightest touch or movement can create immense suffering for the borderline. Yet, on the other hand, life is movement so they find themselves in permanent pain and crisis. I was shown that if everyone would lose their capacity to cope just like the borderline, then the world would rapidly become a better place. By coping, the rest of us are actually enabling and feeding the dysfunctionality of this world. Every day, we keep accepting the unacceptable: killing our animal friends for food when it is absolutely unnecessary, keeping our corrupt leaders unaccountable for their crimes, exploiting and polluting our earth for profit, ignoring the abuse of minorities as long as we are not part of it. What would happen if we were to become physically incapable to participate to all of this wrongdoing? A similar analogy can be made of autistic children who from a spiritual perspective are refusing to engage in our 3D reality as a wake-up call.
During the night, “grandmother” kept revisiting with me all these various topics, going deeper every time. At dawn however I shed my first tears as I felt fully the pain of separation with my two children, my little ones that will always be my babies. They are the flesh of my flesh (“la chair de ma chair” in French). It is so hard to feel alienated by them as I have not had contact for about a year. I am then shown the suffering of cows that are separated from their calves at birth for the dairy industry. The cows are then made to produce milk in an industrial way as they are in distress wondering what happened to their babies. The male baby calves are actually brought to a horrible death by the meat industry. The agony of the mother crying for her babies goes in the milk and the cheese that you eat everyday. As I relate to this suffering, I decide to let go of dairy products. It is not an easy for a French man as we are so attached to our cheese. I decide to use the natural cultural temptation of my body preferences and associate it with the future reconnection with my children. Every time I say no to dairy products, I connect with the suffering of these poor cows longing for their babies, which I connect with my own loss. This loss though uncomfortable is a way I can connect today with my children and send them my love on the inner planes. It does not matter how much it hurts, I make the commitment that I would rather be connected and be in pain rather than disconnected. I do not want to contribute more to the world misery. I still hold so much grief for losing my children. I realize however that I will be their caretaker for the rest of my life whether they accept it or not in this dimension. They live in me just as I live in them whether they are denying this reality presently. This is why it feels so ridiculous that they are currently made to believe they have no father or being assigned substitute fathers. Fortunately or unfortunately, the connection between biological parents and children can never be erased. I experience then compassion for my own parents and while I have diverging views with them, I promise to give an honest shot at loving them. I do not have to make what they have done OK to love them. I can love them even though I disapprove of many of their actions. The fact is they need peace and appreciation like anyone of us. If our children keep evolving and raise their standards for parenting, they will probably find that many of our behaviors were abusive. It is not always easy to love our parents especially if one of our parents keeps hurting us. However by being at war with them, we only are getting at war with ourselves. It is a difficult balance to achieve and only within the deepest places of our heart, can we know if it is best for us to maintain distance or develop a closer connection with them at a given time. Suddenly, I start breaking down as I relive the double abandonment from my mother and father when I was 11 year old. I am disappointed as I thought I had already worked through this trauma 5 years ago. Obviously, there was still much more to release as I now sob uncontrollably. “Grandmother” then shows me that my subconscious mind used my own children to re-experience the pain of this double abandonment. My daughter was the first one to disconnect with me. This feels like my mother who left me behind to live a new life as she is in too much pain. Then 6 months later, my son decides to stop all communication with me. This is a remembrance of my father who gives up on me, as he feels overwhelmed by the pressure he is under. I am called to apologize on this blog to my own children that I used them subconsciously to heal traumas from my own childhood. I want to tell them that the horrible experiences they had to go through are not their fault. This is not their pain. It is their mum and dad’s pains that were replayed subconsciously. It is unfair and cruel to them. This is why it is so important we do everything we can to heal emotionally before we have children. I have failed in this instance as I could not prevent the ordeal and tragedy my children had to go through. After I was able to fully relive this trauma, I hope they will feel more invited to reconnect with me as they could see I come more from a place to add to their lives instead of repeating the hurt from my past. In the meantime, I want them to know that they have teaching me unconditional love like no one before as I patiently wait for our reconnection. Papa thinks of you everyday and has never abandoned you.
And you “Grandmother”, I thank you for revealing to me so many insights that help me to become a better and more connected man. Your wisdom is grounded in simplicity, truth and heart connection. Thank you for guiding my steps. I will finish this blog with some humor from our friend JP Sears’ video “If Trump drank Ayahuasca”
Yesterday, we went hiking with the family and visited an aviary with birds from all over the world. I had decided to organize some fun family time as I understood how important is “together time” for Winter, Teal and our extended family. Teal and I travel often and I have many activities and responsibilities that occupy my time and I recognized I was not present enough to my stepson and members of the extended community such as Graciela. As we were about to start on our day trip, Winter started to act out and refused to come. A couple of years ago, if it had been my children, I will have raised my voice and coerced them into getting into the car, shutting their feelings as I felt I knew better what was right for them. Fortunately, Teal knows better and she took the time to engage a dialog with her son. She got him to a point to express his discomfort. And as we were driving to the mountain, he started to give us to our awe a remarkable speech on the power of the attachment theory with the words of a 7 year old. He expressed how his heart was starting to feel distrust as people acting as nannies would come in and out of his life. He felt very connected to a community member that last year for a variety of reason had to leave us temporarily and as a result he is now feeling a resistance to get close again to new caretakers as he feels they would leave and the pain of separation would be too great to handle. He explained in a remarkably clear way for a 7 year old what he needed to feel very close to this individual again. She felt so moved by his words that she started shedding tears. I used this opportunity to ask Winter about our own personal connection and with his hands, he showed me the separation between him and I which was significant. He basically said that I was around but not really there. His statement moved me deeply too. He is right that I am not really present to him as a stepdad as I have not made it a priority and often find myself delegating his caretaking to other members of the community. We talked and we decided together to spend at least once a week some time just the two of us so that we can truly connect and feel closer to one another.
As we drove back in the evening, I told Teal that I felt a heavy heart and would love to do a process with her on it, before working on the computer. I had pain in my upper neck, which was an indication I was repressing emotions. Teal helped me work through some triggers and did some body work on me. Her hands are truly magical as her extra sensory gifts showed her visually the stuck energy in my body. At that point, she felt I was ready for an authentic talk. She confronted me that while we spent the day together, she felt I was not really engaged and present with the rest of them. It was hard to hear at first as I had organized the full day to make it fun for everyone, and it felt like all of us had a good time. I reviewed then the day in my mind and could see her perspective. I had spent the day a lot in my own mind. I did not make particular efforts to engage with anyone. I found myself a couple of times alone during the activities as I was either before or behind our small group. I asked to read my book in the car instead of going to the store shopping for clothes for Winter. I started to feel bad. I tried to do the right thing by organizing a fun family day but I had failed. I had been physically present but not emotional present to the family. As a result, my wife was actually starving of connection after a day dedicated to spending time together as a family! I pushed my projects aside that evening and made sure all my attention and focus would be on her and us.
Teal was right. I was acting as a human doing and not a human being, and I was making them feel while I was with them that I did not want to be there and that I would rather work on my projects. I became conscious that I had the same pattern with my previous family. I would go on hikes, often leading the way in the front of everyone, not curious about my children inner world, feelings, endeavors, content with a shallow connection while this would our only day off in a busy Silicon Valley work week. Shortly after Alina and I separated, I tried to make the time spent with my children special, and I would organize special trips, time with friends or activities during the time I had them. They however complained to me that what they really wanted was to connect to me instead of always being distracted. I felt unappreciated as I felt I was really trying to make our time together special. I was making them feel that they were not enough by themselves for themselves and that I had to always add more stimulation to make the time spent with them acceptable. This was not my conscious intent. This was more my own projection. I felt subconsciously I was not good enough that they would enjoy spending time with me without additional entertainment. People around me often feel that I would rather do something else than truly being and connecting with them. Despite my 25 years on the spiritual path, I felt disabled in my connection abilities. I was feeling powerless to create the very feelings in myself and others that are so important to me.
As I went deeper into my process with the support of Teal, I realized the trauma was coming from dad side. His mother would rarely visit him when he was a child. He subconsciously felt she would rather not be with him as she felt shame for the relationship that had given birth to him. Their infrequent meeting was more a painful reminder that there was something wrong and bad with him. My grandmother always lived in her own world too and always had difficulty connecting with family members at a deeper level while appearing as a socialite to the outside world. She had a sister called Tati Jojo who was very kind to us, and we developed a much deeper relationship with her, and this created some jealousy on my grandmother side as she could not understand why my sister and I felt closer to Tati Jojo than her as she was not aware of her relating pattern. We are dealing here with generational trauma. My grandmother mother died when she was 11. Her father quickly remarried. The new wife did not like her and her sister. They were kicked out of the house and had to start working at the post office in their early teens to sustain themselves. Then, 50 years later, my parents divorced when I was 10. My sister and I stayed initially with my father but because of the insecurity of my stepmother and the codependency of my father, I was sent back to be with my mother while I had asked my dad to stay with him. Again, I felt powerless not to repeat the same pattern. My son was 11 when Alina and I separated. While I did everything on my end to fight for an integrated family structure after the divorce, my children were taught to hate my new wife while they never met her, and from their perspective, they felt abandoned by a dad that would choose another woman over them. Any family trauma that is not healed, repeats from generation to generation, often in a tragic way.
After my parents divorced, some of the most painful time I experienced was the time spent with my father. During that time, I felt invisible. Though the times we would spend together were rare, he was not emotionally present to me. It felt like he would rather do something else and be somewhere else. I felt non-existent, small and unworthy of love. He often had hurtful comments or clumsy gifts that made me feel worse about myself. From his perspective, he felt he was making efforts trying to be a good father while still acting from his hurt inner child not very differently to what I am doing today with my closed ones. I understand that he often thinks of me and believes he loves me however his actions more often than not send a different message. He is not an abusive man. He is actually doing what he can but because of his own upbringing, he has incapacity to connect and make other people feel special because deep inside, he feels very unworthy. And I have to accept that he is a mirror of me. My father would often tell me that he and his parents were proud of my school results. As a result, I felt I could only be valued for my successes and external accomplishment not for who I am. I learned that people did not have a real desire to connect to me. I always strived to be the best at school so that I would have a chance to be loved. I became a human doing, and experienced for most of my adulthood relationships that were conditional in nature as a result.
Then Teal brought me to a visualization of the type of father that I really wanted as a child. This father would be fully present to me, he would be a teacher full of wisdom about life and relationships. When we would interact, he would focus and empathically listen to me, he would show concern, have the sincere desire to know me deep inside. He would be excited to spend time with me. I would always be on his mind. He would show small gestures of love making me feel important. He would act as a protector when necessary and always be available for me when I need it. He would encourage me, help me overcome my fears, have a sympathetic ear, and show both strength and vulnerability. As I contemplate who my inner child really wanted as a father, I come to realize the brutal truth that in my present life, I often act more like my father than being the man my inner child has been starving for. From this painful awareness, I feel a sincere desire to change. I understand that to truly heal my life, my relationships, it is time to give my inner child what I always wanted and give it to the closest people of my life. For you Winter, I want you to feel that I enjoy spending time and connecting with you, that you are important to me, that I will be careful with your heart and not pull away, that I am interested to understand and see the unique being that you are. For you Teal, I want you to feel that I would rather be with you than doing anything else in the world, that you are my top priority. I want to make you feel safe, cared for, cherished and adored. I want you to feel that I am an expert of you and always care about your best interest. I want to be your anchor, strength and stability even during the storms of life. I want to share the same qualities to my extended family. As I heal, I sincerely hope that my own children will feel the call of my heart and will consider reconnecting with me as they feel I could improve their lives and support them authentically instead of being a liability.
I remember that in the past I have tried to bring these higher masculine qualities however I am now realizing that I attempted to do so while repressing my inner child. Now, I am committed to bring these qualities within me while staying present to my inner child. My man self not only need to take care of my loved ones but also to my hurt little boy, as he is being reflected externally. This is why relationships are such an accelerated track for expansion. And by living a life with the spiritual catalyst, all my shadows appear clearly and there is nowhere to hide as everything is reflected and amplified.
In my life, I have been a human doing more than a human being and it is not a surprise I spent 20 years in the Silicon Valley where a regular work week is 70 hours without counting the side projects to get ahead. As a human doing, how we feel about ourselves is only connected to our accomplishments. We received compliments as a child only when we achieved something special externally. This is true to me and also to Teal’s childhood. This style of parenting is very common and well regarded in society. While it is better than emotional neglect, most people do not realize the amount of damage done by this parenting style. To be worthy of love, children learn to behave a certain way and accomplish certain results otherwise love is removed. They learn they do not have an intrinsic value. Unfortunately, everyone knows that the satisfaction derived by accomplishments is always short lived. When I was 20, after I entered one of the top engineering schools of France after national competitive exams, my joy only lasted a couple of weeks and quickly turn into depression as I lost the escape mechanism for my own inner void and childhood trauma. Teal told me yesterday that a happy wife will mean much more to me than any of my accomplishments in terms of personal happiness. She is so right. As we grow older, our joy comes more and more from simple pleasure of connecting and relating instead of our past achievements. As a human doing, we develop an addiction to cross as many items from our list in order to feel fulfilled for the day instead of feeling how we have impacted each other lives for the better. As a human doing, failure to perform means worthlessness and that we are undeserving of love.
I can see how this pattern has affected most of my relationships. Every time I have fallen in love, the first couple of months are heavenly. There is no time, just the pleasure to connect with one another. A day feels like a couple of minutes. Then the intensity of the infatuation subsides, and a covert subconscious belief comes in. It makes me feel that unless I am able to have achievements, she will leave me because I am not good enough on my own. So I pull away to focus on my activities in order keep the love I cannot afford to lose. By pulling away, I bring dissatisfaction to my mate that starts pulling away to protect herself emotionally and my very fear of the lost love becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. She feels abandoned, not good enough for who she is and her own insecurity is brought up. She feels unloved and unworthy at her turn. Inevitably, she detaches to make me feel the way I make her feel and the relationship becomes rocky. I become alone in my accomplishments and do not understand why love is going away while I am working so hard, and do so much for my wife and the family. This is the tragedy of the human doing.
Instead, by focusing on our children feelings, values, efforts, how they treat other people, we show them we truly care for who they are, and not only have concerns about their results. Let’s leave that for the corporate world. Transactional relationships may be OK for the business world however they are toxic for family relationships as we need to instill unconditional love to our children to create the new earth. We will then raise children with less fear of failure that are free to experiment and discover their unique gifts, as their self-esteem is not in danger when they do not perform according expectation. We may fear that this attitude may make them under achievers however by doing so, we focus on the very underlying conditions of success and we make them connect to their individual talent derived directly from their inner child. Movement, spontaneity and creativity are natural in children, not apathy. Inactivity and aloofness are the mark of trauma not of a healthy emotional upbringing. Our children can achieve success in two different ways. One will be a direct expression of their being, happiness and creativity, and will often translate in fulfilling and meaningful careers. Other will achieve success at the price of intense inner struggles, coping mechanisms, misery along the way often followed by a crash, realizing later in life that they hate their job and their lives. They will often fool people on the outside as everyone think they are successful. These two categories of success can be observed in all walks of life, especially with top athletes. The human doing is the personality than has repressed the human being or the inner child, the seat of the soul with all its creative, expressive and intuitive abilities. Our human doing has done enough damage shutting down our inner child. It is time to have our human doing serve our human being for a truly meaningful and satisfying life.
Do you want to be a human doing or a human being? What do you want your children to become?
This morning when I woke up, I felt some intense and dark heavy energy. For the last 6 years, meditation has been my refuge when I was faced with challenging emotions. For this reason, I put on my favorite meditation music, sat and started to listen to my internal world. I have verified what Teal teaches, which is that strong emotional triggers can be used as a rope to get deep within yourself and to get unique insights about the healing that needs to be brought forth. Often the strong energy of the trigger will bring on an altered state of consciousness. In this altered state of consciousness, you can see yourself from a higher perspective.
The first energy I felt was connected to the loss of my two children that I have not been able to talk with for almost a year now. A wave of shame ensued. How bad do you have to be if your own children aged 11 and 13 refuse to have any contact with you? At a conscious level, I can understand the psychological dynamics at play. I intellectually understand that because of the many complex aspects involved in this situation I should not be so hard on myself. However I find that my inner child is unable to separate from the deep shame created by this separation.
In my coaching role over the years, I have worked with many people that have daddy issues. Some of them had the most horrible fathers but the children were still trying to have a relationship with their father. They were doing this despite an obvious lack of reciprocity. I am not saying I was the perfect father as I can see that I have made many mistakes along the way as a father. I did what I could with what I knew at the time. Losing all contact with both of my children (like I never existed for them in the first place) feels utterly unfair and cruel. It feels so painful.
At this time during my meditation, I remembered my talk with my friend Avtar in Atenas, Costa Rica. He was telling me that I was making the pain worse by creating a story about the situation that would make me feel worse and solicit other people’s support. I challenged him. I told him that there is a part of us that requires validation, care and concern when we are confronting pain and suffering. Dismissing and discounting the part of us that is suffering is even more damaging. I shared my personal experience with him that I had become an expert at coping. Earlier in my life, I developed the ability to perform & function no matter what the circumstance. I had created a spiritual personality that could always see the silver lining in everything and even convince myself that situations that are traumatic are “all perfect”. While this is true from a higher dimensional perspective, it was only after being with Teal that I realized that I was bypassing and that I had repressed a lot of traumas this way. As a result, they kept manifesting externally. This is exactly what happened with the loss of my children.
My spiritual personality had shut down my inner child and left me disconnected. I had lost my spontaneity and my aliveness. Avtar and I agreed that it is important to avoid the two extremes of identifying with the story around the pain and repressing it. There is always a higher alternative which is to fully experience the energy around the trigger without a story and let this energy runs its course without resistance within ourselves.
As I reflected back on our conversation, I let myself fully experience the pain without identification or without the need to create a story around my pain. I went to a higher perspective and saw that I was continuously creating and emitting the energy of loss in my life. I dove into the energy of loss and I saw my life from this perspective. I re-experienced the loss of intimate partners that I was so close to. I felt their betrayal. I felt the pain of losing my stepson. I felt the pain of losing most of my friends who cut all contact with me after I made the decision to leave the cult I was a member of when I was 23. I felt the pain of losing my own children after a horrendous court battle. I felt the pain of suffering the betrayal of colleagues and employees that I worked with so closely for a long time. I have a self-concept that I am a good guy however all these events seem to show a different story. They show a herd of people angry with me, seeing me as an awful person. I acknowledged this fact and sank into the deep shame underneath all these events.
In the meditation, I was brought back to my parents and I was shown their shame. Shamanism teaches us that we inherit all of the unresolved issues of our parents through our genes. My mother lost her own mother when she was 3 years old after a neighbor had reported the abuse of the new stepfather. She became a foster child raised by an old lady. She was taught to shower in the dark because her own nudity was considered shameful. She was forbidden to turn on the light to do her homework so as to not waste the money of her caretaker. She was instructed to use worn ugly clothes in order to not attract the envy and the negative attention of people that were paying for her upbringing through subsidies with their tax money. My mother’s first love died in his early twenties from terminal illness.
My father’s story is also built upon shame. Unbeknownst to him (until he was in his sixties), his mother became pregnant with him after a love affair with a Nazi officer during the Second World War. She moved away and managed to hide the truth of the situation. However in order to avoid a possible punishment, she gave her son away to an old lady in the countryside. She would send her money, and rarely would visit. Though she loved him, she was incapable of hiding her own feelings of shame about this liaison from her son. It was only after getting more stable in her life and marrying the man that I thought was my grandfather that she took her son back. He was 10 years old. At that time, he hardly knew any French and was acting more like a wild animal than a boy of his age. Considering their background, my parents did relatively well. However, all of the shame they were not able to transform was passed to my sister and to myself.
For this incarnation, I chose to be the son of two parents who were struggling with huge shame issues. During this meditation, I saw my soul contract with shame. 4 years ago, during a spiritual experience, I saw how earth was a prison planet. I saw a vision that we were all souls that had deviated from the divine plan. I saw that from our own freewill, we started to hurt other beings in the universe and as a result, were brought to earth to re-learn the consequences of our actions to become benevolent again. From this perspective, we are like fallen angels using earth as our purgatory. Our sense of guilt has brought us to our human experience.
For a couple of years, I volunteered in jail as a chaplain to provide spiritual guidance to inmates. I realized that most convicts carry an immense amount of guilt and this is how they become a match to the experience of jail. There are a lot of people that have committed much worse actions that walk freely in the world today. If they experience no guilt, they would not end up in jail. This is why someone like Doc (Teal’s abuser) is still walking freely today. In this new meditation I saw how shame, even more than guilt, was the energy that was attaching us to earth. It is acting just like the force of gravity.
In the spiritual community, people see Love as being the opposite of Fear. From this new perspective, I could see how all fears stem from shame. When I am jealous, I feel ashamed about not being good enough for my partner. When I am afraid to do public speaking, I am ashamed to look like a fool. When I am afraid to lose my job, I am ashamed that I cannot support myself or ashamed of the disapproval of my supervisor. Most conflicts in relationship emerge from shame as well. We are desperately trying to make each other wrong so that we can be good. This is a deep realization I had with Teal a couple of weeks ago and now, we decided to practice owning our shame consciously rather than deflecting it in order to avoid conflict escalation.
I recently read the excellent book of Ross Rosenberg called ‘The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us’. He describes the codependent, narcissistic and borderline personality disorders and how they play out in relationship dynamics. As a result of reading this book, I realized that all personality disorders live within us in various degrees because they are the direct result of emotional abuse or neglect that took place in our childhood. From that perspective, there is no mental illness but only traumas that have not been released or integrated. When I realized this true cause of personality disorders, I began to see that these personality disorders all come from the shame we acquired in the face of trauma.
As a child, if something bad happens to us, we need to create meaning to deal with the suffering and most of time the meaning we create is that we are bad and this is why we deserve to get into painful experiences. The personality disorder we will develop will depend upon our degree of powerlessness in face of trauma and our own predisposition for coping. Of the three types, the codependent is the least powerless. While still raised in an environment where their emotional needs cannot be met, they are able to somehow affect the response of their caretakers. For example, a child like myself could have felt powerless with his mom’s mood swings, emotional unavailability and dark suicidal thoughts however he may have been able to get his mom’s attention by crying to evoke her pity at the very least. Codependents learn to control other people through various emotional manipulation strategies because they are not able to meet their emotional needs directly.
The codependent has a desperate need to appear to be the good guy to cover up his own inner shame. The two other disorders (Narcissists and Borderlines) develop from complete and utter powerlessness to create any needed emotional reactions from their early caretakers and they will split into 2 groups. The first group develops the ability to shut down their feelings as a coping mechanism to cover their own shame. These people can end up being narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths. They become unable to feel. They replay their own inner drama externally, often by creating great pain around them. More often than not, men will adopt this coping mechanism because they are head centered. When the individual is unable to stop feeling as a coping mechanism, they will most likely develop borderline personality disorder. This often translates into self-injury, self-hate, suicidal tendencies and emotional deregulation. Women who are more heart centered are most likely to develop this personality disorder. This personality type creates a lot of turmoil around them however they are creating a living hell for themselves more so than for anyone else.
Some of the descriptions of these personality types may appear extreme, however we should consider that each one of us demonstrates some of these traits depending on the amount of unresolved trauma we experienced. And you will always find shame at the core of each dysfunction. Skilled therapists are reluctant to use these labels (narcissist or borderline) because they know their clients will automatically feel shame as a result of being put into that box, which would make the therapy unproductive. These terms are only useful when used from the point of view of self-observation and accessing the wealth of knowledge and tools available around them. They are not useful as a shaming mechanism.
Today, I did an exercise where I listed all the things I am ashamed of. To my surprise, there was over one hundred items in this list! It felt like I was finally being authentic and it helped me release a very heavy emotional burden that I felt I have been carrying for a very long time. I am only sharing with you a few of them because I am too ashamed of the rest 😉
I am ashamed that I have been such a terrible father that my children have chosen not to have a relationship with me
I am ashamed that I am so unattuned that people sometimes see me as dangerous
I feel ashamed of my heavy French accent after 20 years in the US
I am ashamed that I trigger my significant other often
I feel ashamed that I am not valuable enough to my father that he decided not to go to my wedding with Teal
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This exercise helped me so much that I would like to invite you to share your own shame list with all of us in the comments below. We should consider that most institutionalized religions and most social organizations are anchored in shame. I am finding that one of the fastest ways to advance on the path of liberation is to become consciously aware of your shame.
