The Dharma teachings, The Four Foundations, by Zen Buddhist Master Samu Sunim, from a somatic lens. Obvious Inquiry—“What would happen if I met all of me as I am?”

The Dharma teachings, The Four Foundations, by Zen Buddhist Master Samu Sunim, from a somatic lens. Spontaneous Inquiry—“Is my attempts at getting it right keeping me stuck?”

The Dharma teachings, The Four Foundations, by Zen Buddhist Master Samu Sunim, from a somatic lens. Immediate Inquiry—“What gets in my way of me experiencing the now?”

The Dharma teachings, The Four Foundations, by Zen Buddhist Master Samu Sunim, from a somatic lens. Intimate Inquiry—“If I’m not in intimacy with my practice, where do I go?”

Trauma heals different because it doesn’t care for your thoughts. It reaches into the depths of forgotten language, of memory, of feelings and sensations to tug us into a place where drowning is the only inevitable solution. 

I used to adorn my worth in certifications, convinced the more I accrued the more of an expert I’d be. The more I studied, the greater my worth would grow and the emptiness of what I was actually trying to fill would subside. Trouble was, it didn’t matter how much I learned, I never felt like I had enough.

You cannot heal through your thinking. To heal at the matrix level means to get to the root causation of all forms of ailments. Which is of course, where the root of all of our dreams and aspirations live too. 

The last words Master Brian spoke hit me square in the chest; “share from the authority of your own healing experience.” I’ve been wrestling with this notion of being an authority of healing. I had yet to accept that what I have experienced gives me authority to impart healing for the intent of helping others.

At 35, I can confidently say that I know what me feels like. What a road it’s been, inhabiting the skins of my guardians. Cloaking my essence in crowd consciousness. Dampening authenticity for the fleeting rush of belonging to the bond of accepted behaviors.

She is I and I am her, often forgetting my worth. Working the world of shadows. Merging, rebirthing, dividing. Stripped of a selfhood as I change clothes. Writing words offers a solace reminder of the journey. My place a bead of dew on the web of Life.

It happened again last night. Waking up to the chilling heat of a full body panic. I don’t feel safe. Thoughts racing, grasping at stories to make sense of the boiling agitation and gripping of nerves coiled tightly around my spine suffocating me from the inside.

In the story I had written for myself, the selfless martyr always painted as priority. I am not an I but rather I belonged to other. I belonged to the service of healing, whatever was asked of me I did so perfectly. Wrapped my pride around the finger of meeting everyone else’s expectations, and never once established an expectation for myself.

The pivotal point in all of human evolution where one stops dead in ones tracks, seemingly lost and confused, unsure of which way to turn, lays down their past and listens. The path that leads us deeper into our own version of suffering to show us how to build the ladder that we ourselves must get ourselves out of.

My entire system feels like it’s on the brink of collapse, and my normal coping strategy (leaving my body) is the very strategy I am cognizant I am healing. The only way out, is through.

My joy, I relish in it. I’m nurturing it to expand and root into me, to penetrate the deepest layers of my realized self. To stroke the back of my wounded parts and accept the feel good nature of being good, at my core.

Meeting endings unanticipated is a salty sting to my ego, especially because I get passionately consumed by everything life has to offer. I’ll throw myself into the fire of whatever craft I’m working until the point it serves its usefulness. Usually that usefulness is, have I understood the cycle of experience?

Healing trauma wounds requires a resource. A source much greater than the trauma itself, and yet a force able to pull back the layers with appropriate tenderness and grace. So what is it for me? What comes rushing in as I gasp breathlessly in the clutches of emotional intensity?

I am terrified of the Light, I feel what it does to me; shaking loose everything I have ever cherished, every dream I ever built, even those that remained as castles in the sky, thought does not serve a purpose here. I am just the vessel, I guess that’s what I’ve signed on to be, a body that transforms human suffering.