Sometimes I go back to a feeling because I remember it so strongly.  So vividly.  So real.  And so traumatic.  And the feeling plays again.  And I realized today that those tapes play because those feelings are more memorable than the simple loving feelings.  We pit the trauma against GREAT happiness, INCREDIBLE joy, OUTSTANDING moments, CHILLS.   

And we think they cancel each other out, or the BIG happy feelings are the ones that show we are not in BIG trauma feelings.  How misleading.  How terribly misleading.   

Our trauma is big, but the counteraction, the goal, the life well-lived isn’t the opposite of trauma.  It isn’t the HUGE win, the BIG trip, the EXCITING adventure. It’s the realization that you’ve lived days or months or years without all the big feelings, the roller coaster, the wondering if you were feeling anything at all.   

The catch is that trauma makes us feel.  And especially if we experience trauma as a child, we become used to big feelings, so that it is an addiction.  But we don’t know it’s an addiction, because it feels like our normal.  We were raised with big feelings and responses and protections and heroic moves to protect those around us. And we think that is living.  We think we have to have those dramatic backdrops in order to feel, to actually be alive, to be truly living, to be full of purpose.   

And we seek it and live and chase it and run next to the train of wildness and overexertion and achievement.  And it’s hard to see when you meet something healthy or grounded because you aren’t sure what those smaller feelings mean. They feel small or miniscule or limiting.  And sometimes they are!   

But sometimes they’re what life would have felt like if you were raised trauma free.  Some people live normal lives and love simplicity because it’s the level of feelings they have, they understand, they need to find peace, to live normally.   

I have loved simplicity, but I have loved that the simplicity makes me feel elated and superb and FREE!!!!  And well, that’s still a trauma mirror, I believe.   

Today, just today, I felt something extraordinary and simple and I didn’t jump too high or feel the pain in order to assess the gravity of the feeling I felt.  If you’re still following my thoughts, I was trauma free.  Love wasn’t attached to something grand or brave or exhilarating.  And yet it was, but without the seeking of its antithesis to measure the apparent reality.  It was what it was.  And it was beautiful.  It is beautiful.  And it is for me.  Without inflating or destroying its reality, this one’s for me.   

And if you’re working through something, even years in, or seemingly lifetimes.  Keep working.  It’s not that you know exactly what it should feel like or what it should be.  But one day, one moment, three hundred moments later, you feel what it should be.  Love and life and simplicity.  And well, the work was for all that.  And because there is no other choice, but to continue to love yourself enough to find your best life, each day.  

With love to you today, 

Martinimeditations.com  

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