The Rootstock of Synchronosophy (Part I, Chapter 6/6)

The Destructive Trail of Trauma

In a kinder world, one I promise you, I’ve seen, men and women flirt and dance and love

with only the fear of what it would mean without the other in their lives.

〰 Melina Marchetta 〰

photo © Jacob Buchhave on Unsplash

Kamikaze Relationships

If you cannot be yourself in a relationship, you no longer have one. 

〰 Shya Kane 〰

Having ‘squandered my one chance in life to find true love’ (according to an unforgiving law imprinted in my inner world), my attitude towards relationships flipped from highly discerning to almost indifferent.

My expectations of life in the love department dropped so low that I accepted suitors on the basis of them being ‘in love with me’ (whatever they meant by those words). That I wasn’t in love with them, was no longer an obstacle.

With this mindset I survived three intimate experiences of Kamikaze relationships (= consensual partnerships which turn out to be self-destructive).

The first intimate relationship of any human is the bond with their mother. In my case, my life was in danger during birth due to my mother’s life threatening condition, and bonding never happened.

The experience must have left an imprint in the fibre of my Consciousness saying, »intimate relationships are dangerous. They pose a real threat to life.«

This was the crux of my dysfunctional relationship pattern. But I didn’t know that. I had no idea! The message in my head was: »I’m not good enough, imperfect, inadequate, unworthy of love.«

I might have never known, if life itself hadn’t revealed this dangerous pattern to me, in the raw, crude and painful ways, in which life tends to speak ~ sometimes ~ when we fail to get the message in its more subtle formats.

On the surface I gave the impression as if my life was reasonably normal, fairly successful, healthy children, a husband who did the dishes or even cooked a meal, occasionally, living in a nice house ~ what more did I want?

Inside, my soul was dying. I was deeply unhappy, and couldn’t understand why. In the first two of these relationships my partners were hardly ever around. I had one son with the first, two daughters with the second, and ended up mostly home alone with the children.

We drifted apart before we’d even established a true relationship. I went to ‘fawning mode’ trying hard to do everything right for him. They took my behaviour as an invitation to make more demands on me. We both fed into this unhealthy power dynamics until the relationship imploded.

Fawning is a term from trauma theory. The classic response of trauma victims was originally identified as fight, flight or freeze. In recent years, fawn has been added as a ‘4th F-word’. The so-called fawning response is now recognised as a common survival strategy of people who have suffered trauma in early childhood.

My partners were traumatised too, in their own ways and with a ‘complementary’ survival strategy of demanding attention, support and obedience without consideration for anyone else’s needs. They were not interested in, or able to connect with me as a living human sentient being.

I felt like a ‘human resource’ filling a vacancy in their lives. I was expected to fulfill certain functions and not cause any hassle. It wasn’t ‘their fault’. They did assure me that I was a ‘treasured android fulfilling an important role in their lives’ (I’m paraphrasing).

I wasn’t content to be a prized possession of anyone. I expected an equal partnership, based on the role model of my parents.

Two failed marriages and three beautiful children later ~ lulled into a false sense of security, while my career as a freelance translator was taking off ~ it got a lot worse.

background photo © Julia Arte on Unsplash

Before it gets Better it might get Worse

Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.

〰 Alice Hoffman 〰

During my years in Totnes, I had not only studied holistic medicine, I’d also picked up the message that all humans have an innate power to create their own life. In theory, all you had to do was practice certain life hacks, get some specific esoteric knowledge under your belt, and you could create-manifest-attract the life of your dreams.

Anything I wanted seemed within reach. Being a quick learner, and confident in the powers of my mind, I believed ~ no I knew ~ this shouldn’t be a problem. I would figure this out in no time at all and I’d be off, happily creating my golden future.

Practical instructions in those days included thinking positive thoughts, sticking positive affirmations on doors, walls and mirrors, and reprogramming your belief system to match your dream (in line with the so-called Law of Attraction). Back in the old pre-apps-era, you had to create your own phrases of positive thoughts and positive affirmations.

With this set of New Age skills in my mind-over-matter toolkit, I believed I knew how changing-your-life works. Surely the authors of those self-help books about Untold Secrets, Smart Success Habits, and Rediscovered Ancient Wisdoms knew what they were talking about…

Nowadays you can find positive affirmations stuck all over the internet. Even Psychology and ‘Mental Health’ websites offer Positive Thinking apps, with enticing strap-lines…

They should come with a risk warning!

There are dozens of newsletters you can sign up to, promising daily motivational messages and positive quotes straight into your inbox to keep the mind filled to the brim in the positive affirmative 24/7. Because, when it comes to practicing positivity, consistency is key…

They should make users aware of potential side-effects!

And finally › Every human creator’s dream can come true with smart Positive Thinking for Dummies.

You don’t need to create your own phrases any more:

“I am safe, I am strong, I am well.”

“I am dealing with this the best way I can.”

“I let go and I’m at peace.”

Just scan the lists, and take your pick.

What the content creators of those websites tend to forget (or probably don’t know) is that such instructions carry grave risks. They should come with a big and bold HEALTH & SAFETY WARNING in CAPITAL LETTERS.

That warning sign should say:::

FAIRYTALES ALWAYS COME TRUE

Whether you believe in them or not, fairytales are stories where terrible things happen, and the happy ending is not guaranteed.

Real fairytale heroines and heroes always have to pass through some frightful ghastly challenges, and pass several tests, before they might get to the happily ever after,

but only if they are awfully good and terribly lucky.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION & AT YOUR OWN RISK

SCARED AT HOME, photo © J R Korpa on Unsplash

A Psychothriller (too) close to Home

That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse. 

〰 Bill Watterson 〰

The third of my Kamikaze relationships came closer to a suicide mission than my wildest nightmares. The guy who picked me that time was a bit of a psycho-terrorist ~ a predator stalking unsuspecting young women for some dodgy business.

Ok, he had most likely also suffered some trauma as a child and was living out his personal survival strategy, which shouldn’t justify terrorising and traumatising innocent fellow humans, but that’s what happened.

In this case I was not only naive. I was arrogant. My ‘high-sensitive-empath superpower’, acquired as a gift at birth, picked up on his underlying emotional needs and convinced myself that I had been ‘chosen’ to rescue him.

In the final installment of my series of dysfunctional relationships, this suitor (nearly 20 years my senior) was not only a total mismatch but also coercive, abusive, manipulative and dangerous.

Having grown up in a sheltered bubble, guided by relatively naive parents, surrounded by people who were reasonably honest, friendly and kind, I had no firsthand knowledge of a world where humans could be outright dishonest, and unfriendly, and abusive, and take advantage of starry-eyed idiots like me.

I fell into the trap because this man’s surface behaviour was exceedingly charming. He showered me with more attention than I’d received in the first 3.5 decades of my life. With my history of a loveless lovelife, I soaked up his ‘favours’ like a dehydrated sponge.

Being a potential victim of domestic violence was not on my radar. When this became my reality, I was shocked to find myself cast in that role. Like being in the wrong movie. How could something like this happen to me?!

In hindsight ~ after reading similar stories and studying these types of destructive relationships it is obvious how the whole pattern unfolded:::

› being cut off from family and friends

›› being groomed and manipulated into accepting certain behaviours as ‘normal’

››› being fed a narrative that ‘you can’t trust anybody’ , ‘we live in a dog-eat-dog-world’ and ‘the whole world is against us’ therefore ‘we have to stick together and not talk to anyone’

The grooming phase was followed by attempts to gain my consent for illegal activities, at which point I refused to play along.

In brief, Mr. Charming tried to convince me that committing tax fraud wasn’t a big deal, that everyone was doing it all the time, and I was too naive in financial matters, which was probably true, but in my world, no justification for the suggested fraud.

I dared to disagree, refused to do as I was told, and so the violence began. The situation quickly escalated into psycho-terror.

Oh, I forgot to mention some significant words he said to me in the beginning of our relationship: “I worry that one day you might become scared of me.” These were his words. He also called me ‘his angel’, which I took as a compliment.

Both expressions were warning signals! Especially the combination of the two!! I failed to recognise them.

[Here’s the translation: When someone says to you, “I worry, one day you might become scared of me.” it most definitely means »I know how dangerous I am, and I worry I might be violent towards you one day.« and if they then say, “You are my angel” the deeper meaning is »Please rescue me from myself!«]

The movie which had started as a romantic drama switched into a psychothriller from one frame to the next, without theatrical soundtrack.

Death threats alternated with profuse apologies, begging me for forgiveness, promising it would never happen again, everyone deserved a 2nd chance…

I didn’t want or need any more ‘chances’. I was scared. He got his 2nd chance, and a 3rd one…

It only made matters worse. The death threats became more explicit, the psychological abuse more volatile.

Then came flashbacks. In the early days of this relationship he’d coerced me into watching psychothrillers ~ as ‘evening entertainment’. I hate any kind of violence, factual or fictional!

Had this been been part of a strategy? Had he been showing me the horrors of what would happen to me, if I didn’t obey and follow orders?

How long do you wait when someone tells you, they want to commit collective suicide, and you happen to live under the same roof? I knew he had a history of attempted suicide.

Where do you draw the line between supporting a partner in their obvious mental struggles, and protecting your own life ~ and more urgently the life of your children?

Within a few weeks of living with such horrific crap, the perceived risk grew into a monstrous menace, the emotional stress was ripping me apart.

We took only the bare minimum of our belongings when we walked out. Most of our worldly possessions were in his house.

I would have to prove in court that it was mine, he announced, I would never get away from him, and he would make sure my life would be hell forever after… the standard reams of verbal excrement, #MeToo-survivors are subjected to every day, I suppose.

Being a refugee and alive felt a hell of a lot better than the thought of my name in the local news as a tragic victim of some deluded nutter.

To be fair, I was aware of contributing to these dysfunctional dynamics through non-reaction. In response to aggression I tend to dissociate and disappear in my inner shell. He desperately wanted to provoke a reaction and wasn’t getting any. My silence drove him nuts.

Whether my life was ever under real threat, I will never know. There were ‘only verbal threats’, no explicit physical violence. I didn’t need to find out more, or watch the situation escalate further. This movie happened to play with my life.

THE KNIFE ANGEL, photo © Paul Harris on Unsplash

Just some Phrases I had to Go Through

But difficulties were made to be overcome,

and if the Supreme Will is there they will be overcome.

〰 Sri Aurobindo 〰

Before my psychothriller-experience I had taken up a positive-affirmation-practice with the intention to ‘create a happier life’. As a result of my ‘creation work’, I landed in deep trouble.

You could put it down to bad luck. No one becomes a master at any skill with their first attempt, right?

I believe the reason for this phenomenon lies somewhere else entirely, which we’ll unravel as we delve deeper into this work.

In my first attempt at creating a happier life from the basis of an unhappy-family-story, I followed the tried and tested trajectory of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Sure enough, a tragic sequence of events unfolded. In the opening scene I ‘created’ a dangerous psycho-drama that transformed my safe but unhappy life into a full-blown nightmare and left me traumatised, frozen in shock, feeling like I was under an evil spell.

The course of my real-life-fairytale took a sharp turn for the worse. It all got very complicated, messy, and scary. To share all the details would fill a whole book, rivalling the famous Tolstoy novel, but that’s not the story I’m writing here.

Not to leave this chapter in the gloomy undergrowth of trauma, however, I want to mention affirmations as a tool for transformation, and also give a context for when and why they might work.

During the darkest moments of my drama, a friend gave me a booklet. He was a South African pilot flying for Air Malta and the dad of my daughter’s best friend.

“Read this,” he said. “Maybe it’ll help.”

He was one of the few people who knew about my precarious situation. He probably assumed I’d never heard of affirmations. After all, what was regarded as normal in Totnes, was called ‘woo-woo’ by most people in most other parts of the world. He seemed shy about making such a ‘whacky’ suggestion.

“It’s a bit like prayer,” he explained. “Just try it.”

Affirmations? Really? I thought I was done with those. Last time I tried them, this dreadful catastrophe happened…

I was truly done with anything remotely smelling of ‘positivity nonsense’. But then again…

… I decided to give it another go. If nothing else, affirmations would help me calm the racing thoughts in my head, which added to my emotional exhaustion.

For a couple of weeks I filled my mind with the following phrases literally every waking minute of every day, like a voice recording on a loop ›››

You are strong. I’m proud of you. You are on your way out. Your guardian angels are guiding you. Everything is working out perfectly. You are strong. I’m proud of you. You are on your way out. Your guardian angels are guiding you. Everything is working out perfectly.….

Note that most of these phrases are formulated in 2nd person rather than 1st person. I can’t remember the title of the booklet. All I remember is that these affirmations were different from the ones I’d known before. These came with the instruction to imagine a person of authority, someone you respect, saying this to you. I imagined the voice of my mother. And that was powerful!!!

The effects were staggering, in every sense of the word. These affirmations didn’t work like magic. The results were pure magic.

Magical solutions presented themselves.

Angels appeared in unexpected moments, looking like a taxi driver, airline crew members, a friend and fellow homœopath, an estate agent, a publisher, a lawyer, a judge, a president, in other words ordinary people. Most of them knew nothing about my ‘situation’. They turned up co-incidentally at the precise right time, played their helpful part perfectly, and disappeared, like walking off stage.

My psychothriller movie lapsed, as if some higher force had pressed the fast forward button, and ebbed away.

By the time my real-life drama came to an end, I found myself on safe and distant shores, walking into a breathtaking sunset, heart and eyes overflowing with relief and gratitude 〰 letting the nerve-racking, nail-biting, white-knuckle scenarios drift across my inner sky 〰

photo © Genevieve Dallaire on Unsplash

Had all these unbelievable bizarre scenes really happened to me?

~ undercover rescue missions ~ an untrustworthy ‘friend’ who ensnared me in her own drama in the guise of ‘help’ ~ an unforeseen pregnancy and miscarriage ~ being threatened, stalked, slandered, robbed, blackmailed, and falsely accused of various criminal offences ~ a true friend who, somehow, arranged a secret number account in Geneva ~ a complimentary bottle of champagne on a Getaway flight ~ meeting Richard von Weizsäcker (then president of Germany) at Frankfurt airport ~ two exes on a surreal quest to win me back (oblivious to the damage they had caused) ~ a massive pile-up on an icy road ~ an amazing Hertz employee who saved the day ~ a court case ~ a supportive and fabulous lawyer ~ a sympathetic judge who sent me off with best wishes for a better future …

… and so I went on to create the beautiful life I knew was still possible.

Synchronosophy offers tools to identify, understand, and heal dysfunctional life patterns. The practice of Synchronosophy is not related to any manifestation techniques.

photo © 愚木混株 on Unsplash

A few Notes on Affirmations

Remember that what’s happened to you does not define who you are.

〰 Noa Shaw 〰

Affirmations are not part of the practice of Synchronosophy ~ with very few exceptions, and limited to specific circumstances.

What is normally known and practiced as ‘affirmations’ is rooted in anthropocentric thinking, which assumes a supremacy of ‘mind over matter’ and, inevitably, a separation between the two.

Positive affirmations’ are recommended on various websites as a daily pep-talk “to counteract low self-esteem, negative self-talk, reduce stress, and improve mental health in general.” ~ in my understanding, this is a ‘mental wellness-drug’, as dangerous as any chemical substance, perhaps even more so!

Synchronosophy is rooted in the evolutionary theory of symbiogenesis and a holistic, symbiocentric, nondualist paradigm. It is based on inherent authenticity and self-honesty.

For these reasons, Synchronosophy does not resonate with the concept of using positive affirmations as a means of self-hypnosis ~ and ultimately self-deception ~ in the guise of ‘positivity’.

An important aspect to take into consideration before creating anything are the starting conditions. ‘Create-your-own-life’ methods usually focus on the goal, beginning with the question, “What do I want?” (that’s the method I applied in my first attempt ~ with devastating results.)

In my experience ~ and the practice of Synchronosophy ~ it is far more beneficial, and much safer, to turn your attention to the life you’ve got, which is your creative medium. After all, no human can ever create anything out of nothing.

I suggest to begin with the question “Where am I?” and take it from there. The golden thread we follow in this work is not ‘positivity at all cost’, but radical authenticity. It’s the only way to connect with our eudaimon ~ the good spirit who is born within us and never abandons us throughout life.

In the practice of Synchronosophy we work with our creative medium ~ which is simply real life experience in the present moment. The essence of the work is to look for authentic understanding of what is really going on. Authenticity and understanding inevitably lead us to our highest truth, and miraculously transform our present reality, in a good way.

Synchronosophy is a way of working with and transforming the present experience ~ which is your creative medium ~ and connecting with your highest truth through authenticity & understanding.

End of Part I of Synchronosophy: A Rough Guide to the Feral Side of Life

Missed the earlier chapters? Click the links

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5