"There are some things you never get over" is a widely-held belief, and perhaps that is true. On the other hand, maybe not. Perhaps the agony of loss is evolutionary biology's way of saying, "Hey little boy or girl, there is a tiny bit of wisdom stored in circuits in your unconscious mind that nature wants you to learn from this loss and when you discover it, the agony will melt into love, compassion, gratitude, hope, forgiveness, awe, and joy."
It's the unconscious mind, the emotional circuits in our emotional brain, that we must process with symphonic precision to gain that freedom. It's the gentle power of using the Cycle Tool. I did a Cycle this morning, a long one, perhaps it took five minutes. I realized that I still had a stream of grief about the loss of my parents. Here they are, Mackey and Papa, with the six grandchildren. It was Christmas for our Jewish and Christian family, but the holiday was about the love Mackey and Papa had created in our family. Don't they radiate love?!!!
How negative emotions help us out
On a biologic basis, negative emotions have a major purpose. They call our attention to an unmet need. They keep nagging away at us or going underground only to resurface in the early hours before dawn when the mind is clear or virtually any time when we least expect it. In the wee hours of this morning, I felt that leaden feeling in my body and a heaviness in my heart and arms, so I did what any EBTer does, what anyone who believes in using the brain's emotional channels to heal. I did a Cycle.
It did not spiral me up to One, as it usually does, a hint that another Cycle or even more are needed. It's not a small loss we're talking about, but it got me to Brain State 2, perhaps 1.5 and now I feel secure, happy, a little sad, and grateful that I have a plan. After complaining (to myself, as this is all silent work unless I ask my partner or a Connection Buddy to listen to me), I dove right into sobering, negative emotions, which unlocked the Stress Circuits in my brain. These are the wires that control us. Unlike the wires of good insights, happy thoughts, and rational plans, these wires are far more powerful and beyond our capacity to change unless we know how to enter the portal of our emotional brain and roust them out. Again, that's the job of the Cycle Tool.
Birds are singing, and up bubbles a lesson about love
What bubbled up for me on this beautiful moment with birds singing outside my window, out of the sadness that I may never again feel loved the way my parents loved me was creating a new wire for myself. It went something like this (this is the Take Action Cycle Tool, one of three types): I expect myself to create joy in my life. Positive, powerful thought? I can do that. The essential pain? Nobody may ever love me the way that they did, and if I want that love, it's my job to give it to myself.
Bingo! I shot up to Brain State 1, at least for a moment. Finally, I got it. Their gift to me was loving me and my job that would free me from this agony of loss was to accept this truth, roll up my sleeves, and, on a far deeper level than ever before, give myself the sweetness of unconditional love. The love they had for me is the love I must have for myself.
I'm smiling wide now, and my chest feels the love and the joy. What we feel, we can heal, and this awakening delivered to me a sense of security that I do have power and I can give that new depth of love to myself. Why will I do it? What's my earned reward? Freedom!