Spiritual Paths Aren't Always Lofty, Serious, or Trauma Free

In nature, paths weave and wind. They meander. A mountain path can drop down quickly, sometimes without warning, and it can take some time to climb back up again.

My yoga path has had that trajectory. far more so lately. My road has been rocky at times. Tragic at times. Gorgeous and full of joy at times. Like life for most of us.

I’m grappling right now with ownership of that path and how it intertwines with trauma healing. How trauma wounds coexist with an evolving spiritual life — when our meditation is opening up to mystical places yet our bodies gets triggered from events that occurred years ago — in an instant, right now, as if they were happening for the very first time, and it feels near impossible to OM our way out of it.

It’s the essence of a nonlinear life. We can call it just our stories, our narratives, the maya we cloak ourselves in - all pretty opposite from our True Selves. Yet there can be days, weeks, months, years of sweetness, levity, interconnectedness, seeing God while on this nonlinear road. Or there can be a minute of it, in a lifetime.

There is plenty of room for cries of despair, overthinking, underthinking, even anger while opening up to Samadhi. We are in a human form, after all.

As long as there is intention to release the human suffering; and knowledge that shedding our stories IS possible and available. As long as we can still feel it in our skin when moving through asana, feel it vibrate in our throats when chanting, or hear our own breath bring us into the moment that’s waiting for us to wake up into. You can’t forget the sweetness, everywhere. Or you can, but then you always remember again -- breath and meditation are your guides to get there.

Incidentally, yoga and PTSD are not great bedfellows. One offers to ground us into the joy of our lives as it's happening, and the other takes that grounding from under our feet in a moment — regardless of how much we don’t want to believe the story of our past, how much we viscerally know that we, ourselves, are carrying our own burdens of that time.

The awareness of our imagined burdens makes those moments more challenging — we can feel so far away from our True Selves, and have no idea how to open back up there because our bodies have been triggered by an event that happened long ago,or maybe a moment ago.

It’s my most recent challenge on my path. I’ve had a lot of forgetting lately. I’ve allowed my reality to be hijacked as well - with the notion that there is one lofty road to open up to grace and my True Self. That my road is too fraught with overthinking; I’m not dancing in the clouds with God.

I have, and I am, and I will. My road includes my healing, which for now, is moving slowly through an evolving version of companionship, safety, and attachment. In this framework, my past is still calling for boundaries, for a definition of love is that may be more worldly for now - less lofty, more connected to personality in this human form. I may talk too much and breathe too little at times, I may have too many opinions on my path, for now, but I do understand the need to release into the pure empathy and compassion that is endemic to our True Nature.

I walk down the road, sometimes almost floating, and then I get pulled back under the sea. And what I’m realizing is that this is the stuff of life, if we choose to be truly immersed in the body we’re in for this incarnation. We try to keep one foot outside of our story, knowing that none of it is real. I think it’s possible to experience both while we’re opening up to Grace.

If we’re integrated, if it’s not just about our spiritual bliss - it’s also about building relationships in this human form, risking, giving, falling down, laughing, dancing, feeling, caressing. But in order to connect with others, we have to give some of ourselves, see the needs and paths of those around us and be willing to meet them where they are. Spiritual awakening isn’t a solitary endeavor. And seva to others is a vital part of the path.

Love and love more. Have intentions to keep loving more. Radical self-compassion. No shame. Fall apart and place yourself back together again with the sweetness of a spring flower garden. And please remember that it isn’t that serious. Laugh while you’re doing it.