I’d like to share a recent breakthrough I’ve had in therapy. You’ll need just a quick background of my symptoms from childhood trauma to understand the break through. Basically I exhibit an irrational rage to any emotionally charged situation. So the closer people are to me and the more emotionally charged the situation, the more I rage. Anger is largely a learned behavior. While my dad wasn’t ever abusive towards us kids, he did have anger issues, he would react with anger to high stress situations. I learned how to react with to the world with anger by watching my father. My abusive mother is what ingrained triggers in me that will provoke an angry response to things that seem to be not at all connected to my trauma.

So these triggers induce a rage in me. What I’ve learned is that I’m not really angry. With humans, anger and rage are almost always a cover for much deeper feelings. In situations that relate to my triggers, I found that what is at the core of my anger is fear. When I get afraid my unconscious reaction is to get angry. The anger and rage completely cover any fear I feel. I know this logically, but I cannot separate the fear and anger internally. I don’t feel afraid at all, just mad, I only know this intellectually because it’s the only thing that explains my over the top reactions I have to everyday minor situations.

Part of my breakthrough is this: In a therapy session, when I was talking about my current feelings, I started to feel the rage build in me. I was guided by my therapist to “walk through” my anger so to speak, to interact with it, ask it questions, investigate it. In doing that, she actually enabled me to separate my anger from my fear. I was able to physically feel my fear separate from my anger in my body. Something that has never happened to me yet, even after a few years of pretty intense therapy.

So in doing this it enabled me to investigate my fear. Again, something I’ve never been able to do. I was able to ask myself what I’m still afraid of after all these years. My mother was physically (and emotionally) abusive when I was a child, back then I was obviously afraid of her in a physically sense. She’s 4 foot 10 inches, so I haven’t been physically scared of her for a long time. What I found is that the same physical fear I used to have, morphed into a fear I have that is wrapped up in guilt. I’m afraid I’m making the wrong decision with my mother. For those that don’t know, about a year ago I cut my mother off completely, like absolutely 0 contact with her at all. Even though my 3 other siblings are still very much involved in her life.

I’m afraid I’m making the wrong choice here. I now have to learn to separate the guilt from the fear. Because the guilt I feel about cutting off my mother is inducing the same fear I felt as a child, which is causing my rage in everyday situations.

That’s the breakthrough I had. Firstly, I was able to actually separate my anger from the fear, to be able to investigate my fear. Then I found that my guilt is wrapped up in my fear, something that is constantly looming over me. I obviously still have a lot more work to do, but now I have a direction to go, I can try to untangle my guilt from my fear.

This is what therapy is for. This is the tough spiritual work one has to go through for real change. You can understand how the human mind works on an intellectual level all you want, but you have to actually put these things to practice in your own mind. You have to have a rich inner life to look into the depths of your soul, to investigate the things that you’re not in control of. This is wisdom. This is gnosis.