Back in time I go searching for the source of this upset. Back to age 28 and my street-fighting days, subway scuffling, karate sparring.
I stay here for a moment but the tug persists – back, back, back – the past keeps tugging me – searching for the source – until I arrive again at age eight, hearing my parents fighting in the bedroom. And then the tears start. Unable to help my Mom in the face of my Dad’s anger.
Finding myself here again, the tug of the past eases and I know I’m in the face of the original upset. And here I remain, feeling anger, completing the experience, finishing the unfinished, enduring the unendurable.
Here’s where life stopped and my major upset in life began. Here is the source of a lifelong rage, watching the innocent attacked.
I sit with these original feelings, this original anger, until it gradually lifts in its own time, and the present-day upset, directly connected to it, lifts with it. One more piece of baggage dropped. One more upset sourced. And a return to Self.
Without sourcing each upset, the past lives forever. Without completing the unendurable, I keep projecting old issues onto the present.
The strain drops away. The urgency disappears. The past loosens its grip again and I move on.
But still some residuum is there. What might it be?
Another layer? Another level? What is it?
This one is not hostility, protectiveness. This one is simple refusal, unnegotiable resistance. This one is different. Where do I refuse to go? I will not stand by and watch another be attacked. This is the same situation as before, but from a different angle. This is the adult responding to what the child endured.
I don’t care what it costs. I will not stand by and watch an injustice being committed. Fearless. Prepared to die.
But this one is not aimed at anybody. This is just a stand. It doesn’t impinge on me as the other one does. This one is just what’s there, needing to be acknowledged but not requiring fixing or doing or anything. This one represents a wall, a stand, but not a driving force. I can leave it alone.
Why source each upset? Without completing each one, I leave a residue which begins the process of getting stuck. One part of me remains back there in the past, incomplete, binding me.
I’m returned to center again, able to breathe, able to respond.
OK, back to work.