A total transformation in the external world wasn’t all that happened over my holidays. A major transformation in my internal world occurred as well.
On Jan. 5, I had the most explosive vasana go off that I’ve ever experienced. How interesting that the world should see a major upheaval and I go through a personal one at practically the same time.
Linda Dillon calls the magnitude of vasana I experienced a “core” issue. She says it’s the kind of issue that we’d rather die than face. In fact we often die taking the secret of this type of vasana down to the grave with us. We just cannot face having it revealed and having to face it or deal with it. (1)
As a student of awareness, the educational value for me of the explosion was tremendous and so I’d like to share it. (2)
The conventional wisdom would be not to share it. It concerns a taboo subject. It can only invite criticism.
But this is an awareness journal and, to have value, it needs to incorporate the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The vasana was triggered by my looking in my bank account Jan. 4 and finding I was at $00.00.
Excuse me? How could that have happened?
Being at zero only four days into the month was an almost explosive event for me. Something had to be done. This was no longer a theoretical matter, I said to myself. I ran around in a thousand directions, barking out commands to myself, beating myself up all the while.
The vasana didn’t rise to the surface fully right away. It took around a day and, when it did, it appeared to my mind like a mammoth boulder that was about to roll over me.
Before it could, swarms of memories came off it of people who didn’t help me, people who cheated or scammed me, people who criticized me for being over-generous, poor-paying jobs I’d had, the times I’d had nothing, etc.
The number of memories of finances gone sour threatened to overwhelm me. Seeing how vast was my unfinished business in this area was overwhelming and dismaying to me.
I knew right away that I couldn’t possibly lead with the upset clearing process on a vasana this big and potentially explosive. (2) I had to find another way forward at that moment or I risked losing my grip on my mind and emotions.
I determined to cut through the vasana by taking a stand. (Thank you, Werner Erhard.)
My stand was that I’ll get a job. It became a created context at that moment and I entered into it. I took it on. I began to see the world through the filter called “I will get a job.”
That caused what est would call a “breakthrough” – slicing right through the vasana – and the vasana dropped away, for now.
I knew I had not processed it. I had just postponed the day of reckoning.
It was at this point that someone whispered in my ear: “What about the others?” That comment stopped me dead in my tracks. I hadn’t thought about the others. I thought I was being personally responsible in getting a job. But I was in reality consumed with my own situation.
When I looked at the matter, I saw that I could not leave the others in the lurch. My contribution to the blog is important to all our wellbeing. So I now changed my stand from I will go to I will stay. And stick it out.
This resonated with my sacred purpose as a pillar. It felt right. It was a good fit. So it wasn’t catastrophic to change direction.
Both of these – getting a job and sticking it out – were stands of strong determination and I know that taking a strong stand and then letting it go (as I did with getting a job) can cause an energetic snapback.
And mine did. I was lethargic for the next day. I was desperately tired emotionally and mentally even though physically I was fine. Thank heavens, I knew what was happening. I’d feel like a freak show if I didn’t.
I’ll have to work on the vasana itself one piece at a time. The whole of it is beyond my ability to process without needing a great deal of recovery time afterwards.
I’m not 21 any more, when I was recklessly overstretching myself, breaking down, and regarding it all as juicy experience. I have responsibilities now and cannot flirt with breakdown any longer – or use it as a means of escape.
Another barrier I broke through I didn’t even know was there. I’d been saving my credit-card balance to pay for any move I needed to make – read: downsizing. I now broke through to using it for the rest of this month. Using it slowly. It’s all I’ve now got.
I know part of this is that we’re having raised to the surface every major or residual vasana we have. I couldn’t think of a better way to raise a boulder in me than what just occurred.
Footnotes
(1). Werner Erhard called core issues number one upsets and survival-centered records. I call them root vasanas, largely after Ramana Maharshi and the Vedantic tradition.
(2) Remember how Virginia Satir said you needed three therapeutic approaches if you were to avoid yourself feeling unable to go forward. The upset clearing process is one such approach. Breakthrough/taking a stand is another. Listening might be a third.