Last week I wrote a post about the Gift of Loss. It seems this week, several other people are also writing about the same topic. Leonie Dawson wrote The Incredible Joy of Loss about the loss of her brother when she was young and how that impacted her life. Joseph Campbell wrote on his Facebook page the following post about the loss of his grandmother and his home to fire:

In my own situation, when I was between the ages of about eleven and fifteen, I was crazy about American Indians. My family bought me The Complete Works of Parkman, reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, and all sorts of other books on the subject. I had a very nice little library, with beautiful, bronze, Indian heads that were bookends, and Navajo rugs, and so on. Then the house burned down. It was a terrible crisis in our family. My grandmother was killed. All of my things were gone.

I now realize that the sacred space I created for myself, the room in which I do my writing, is really a reconstruction—a reactivation, if you will—of my boy-hood space. When I go in there to write, I’m surround-ed by books that have helped me to find my way, and I recall moments of reading certain works that were particularly insightful. When I sit down to do the writing, I pay close attention to little ritual details—where the notepads and pencils are placed, that sort of thing—so that everything is exactly as I remember it having been before. It’s all a sort of ‘set-up’ that releases me. And since that space is associated with a certain kind of performance, it evokes that performance again. But the performance is play.

Work begins when you don’t like what you’re doing. And if your life isn’t play, or if you are engaged in play and having no fun, well, quit! The spirit of the sacred space is Śiva dancing. All responsibilities are cast off. There are various ways of doing this casting off. and it doesn’t matter how it happens. The rest is play.

~ Joseph Campbell in A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.

~  Joseph Campbell Foundation

I was reminded of my own loss due to fire and it brought me to one of the major lessons I learned in my Hakomi training. When we experience something traumatic in our lives, and everyone’s experience of trauma and what is traumatic is different and unique, it stays with us energetically, emotionally, in our nervous system, and in our bodies. It informs and molds our lives from that point forward. We unconsciously create habitual responses to life based on these experiences.

Sometimes these responses are quite useful such as Joseph Campbell’s creation of his sacred space where he can center and let creation flow. Or for me, the gift of letting go of objects and realizing my home is where I am. It’s inside of me. So I create home wherever I am.

Habitual Responses Can Get In Our Way

However, sometimes these habitual responses get in our way of living the life we desire. In my case, I get anxious when life gets too fast. When things move too quickly around me that I can’t feel like I’m home even within myself. This anxiousness comes out in irritability, moodiness, stubbornness and sometimes anger. I get exhausted and turn inwards trying to find stability. I want to run away and hide or at the very least find a quiet space to rest.

There are many areas of my life where I have habitual responses that limit me. We all have these. One popular solution is to recognize the response and choose to do things differently. The power of mind over emotion. Positive thinking. It works for some people, but I find it very difficult.

Finding the Root

What has worked for me is to find the root of the habitual response. Where did it come from? What event triggered it? Once I find the source of the response, and I get in touch with the feelings of that event, I can really understand the situation and I usually find a deep compassion for myself. Of course I get anxious when I can’t find my home within myself. I experienced a very traumatic event in my life. It’s only natural for me to be worried any time life feels like I might lose that again.

The beauty of the Hakomi technique is that when I allow myself to feel the strength of the emotions around the loss, I can begin to heal it from within. My nervous system can reset itself and begin the process of moving forward from that time. My emotional system can relax and make way for a new response to form. My body can relax it’s tightness where it’s been holding onto that trauma.

Why does this work? Because that part of me has been acknowledged. It’s been seen and loved right where it is. There is no judgment about where or how I should or shouldn’t be. There is no right way or wrong way. There is just acceptance that this event happened and this is how I respond now because of that event.

Choosing My Response

I then have much more freedom to choose if my response is something I wish to change. When the response comes up, I can acknowledge it with love and then choose to act differently — If I desire.

This is the deep healing work I do with clients. I support my clients in seeing themselves more clearly so that they may walk in their life with ease and joy and much more clarity of how they wish to be in the world.

So what habitual patterns do you have? Do you know where they originated? Can you accept them just as they are without any judgment or desire for them to be different? Can you love them and yourself for them? I would love to hear your comments.

And if you would like explore how your habitual patterns were created so that you may see them in a new light, let’s talk. Contact me to schedule a free 30 minute phone consultation and we can begin the process of finding what tools work best for YOU.