Together We Rise: Towards Wholeness through Separation
Last night, our nine-year-old put taco powder in the chilli. It was a delicious touch, but he was afraid his dad would get mad. “Dad gets mad easily mom; he’s not like you.” Through my son’s eyes, I see how much I’ve healed. I used to believe I was broken. Now I believe we’re not broken. We’re just puzzle pieces, waiting to come back together. Almost a year ago, I wrote about my physical healing. The latest set of scans are completely clear. Now I will scan once/year. As I finished healing physically, I began using the tools from the emotional healing course. I soon discovered a crucial piece of my puzzle: childhood wounds led to me becoming codependent. It began with developing failure to thrive after five months in the NICU, continued through almost thirty surgeries up to age sixteen, and culminated with the death of my father when I was seventeen, thirty years ago today.
Sprinkle in the mental health issues in the household, and I spent most of my formative years in a state of survival, not knowing what was coming next. Why does this matter? Because our attachment wounds determine why we choose the partners we do, how we will behave, and what we will tolerate. If you are among the 50% that grew up with a secure attachment, consider yourself fortunate. You wouldn’t have overlooked “red flags” because your brain was wired to look for “green flags.” Because of the trauma I experienced, red flags felt familiar. For those of us who grew up with an insecure attachment, love can be a battlefield. My work has been learning to put down my swords.
Last fall, I realized that because of the trauma, I developed a fearful avoidant attachment style, desperately craving connection, but also believing I could only rely on myself. As adolescence arrived, this carried over into my romantic relationships. I would rush into them, completely lose myself, and then just as quickly, sabotage them by creating conflict in an effort to retrieve my sense of self. It was hot or cold, push or pull. I could be the queen of hearts, but I could also be the queen of swords. This caused me to sabotage relationships with two men with all green flags. Because of the trauma however, my subconscious mind craved chaos. Subconsciously, I equated love with chaos and conflict. So I managed to marry a brilliant, charming, handsome, nurturing man who was completely devoted to me. And, just as I had the first eighteen years of my life, I spent eighteen years of our time together walking on eggshells.
When we first got married, I was just as combative as he was. My swords were up all the time. I was easily triggered, quick to anger, and as one of my brothers said at our wedding, “Had a really nasty temper.” We both had narcissistic traits, refusing to take responsibility for our behavior and instead blaming others, gaslighting each other, seething with rage at perceived criticism, acting impulsively, and lacking empathy for each other. A few years into our marriage, however, I discovered Reiki. It gave me a tool to start removing the layers of anger and sadness, it healed me physically; I could have children after being told I couldn’t. I studied six more healing systems and started my own practice. The more I healed, the more it became clear that we were very different people destined for different paths. By the time the cancer came in the summer of 2023, I realized that in fearing abandonment, I had abandoned myself.
When we are the codependent partner of someone who is mentally ill or has any number of acute dysfunctions, we become as sick as the person with the problem. In an effort to restore their health and wellbeing, we sacrifice our own. This is classic codependence. This subconscious programming comes from survival instincts in early childhood. As an adult, this causes us to choose partners that mirror some aspect of our unhealed childhood. In marrying my husband, my subconscious was revisiting those wounds and saying “Can you change the outcome?” “Can you heal this pattern once and for all?” The key to breaking codependency for me has been practicing detachment. I have accepted that we can’t heal or change other people. They have to want it for themselves. They have to be able to do the work. What we can do is detach and put up boundaries.
When answering the question: should I stay or should I go? A key piece of the puzzle for me was coming to the conclusion that we can both love someone and also know that in order to continue loving ourselves, we have to let them go. I have deep compassion for my husband, who, because of his brain chemistry, hurts the ones he loves most and pushes them away. I have empathy for the shame this makes him feel. I see his suffering. But I cannot suffer with him anymore. In the end, all I can do is change myself. In walking away from my marriage, I am literally rewiring my brain, setting boundaries I wasn’t allowed to have as a child. I’m also performing an intergenerational act of alchemy: breaking cycles.
Breaking cycles begins by making the unconscious conscious. This requires being present. But our past often prevents it. When we experience heavy emotions in life, they become stuck in our body, brain, and subconscious. They’re our triggers. The subconscious rules ninety-five percent of our thoughts, behaviors, and actions. We are basically being guided by the puppet strings of our past. As humans, we resist being present, numbing in any number of ways so that we don’t have to feel our triggers. In an effort to protect us from the pain of the past, our subconscious mind and ego drives this process. Instead of protecting us, however, the same situations are magnetized right to us in an attempt to heal them. We may even marry them. The saddest part of it all is that if we are operating from our subconscious mind, we create the very outcome we fear most. Just as I pushed my green flag partners away by creating conflict, in pushing me away with his behavior, my husband’s fear of being alone is coming to fruition.
Everything is energy; from the flower growing in the garden to the embryo. Energy operates at the level of vibration. When we are operating at a higher vibration, we experience joy, flow, and abundance. When we operate at a lower vibration, we experience despair, stagnancy, and lack. Energetically, trauma causes heavy, dense emotions such as fear to become stuck in our body, brain, and energy field. Past heartbreak becomes lodged in our heart, and it becomes heavy, blocking our blessings and our ability to give and receive love. When we heal energetically, we are able to raise our vibration, releasing the dense, heavy emotions and traumas from our energy field. As a result, we heal the subconscious, cutting the puppet strings of our past and taming our triggers. Using healing tools that specifically targeted the trauma I carried and healed my heart removed the dense energy that was keeping me trapped in my triggers and the trauma bond that was my marriage. We’re no longer vibrating at the same frequency.
If I’m triggered now, I can reflect on what is coming up for me, and I can put down my swords. Securely attached people hold space for themselves. Their nervous systems don’t hijack them and cause them to go into fight, flight, or shutdown when their trauma is triggered. When we heal, we are able to understand why we are behaving in ways that don’t serve us, and even hurt us and those around us. We release the pain of the past. Instead of being driven by our subconscious, we consciously choose to do things differently. We begin to reclaim our sovereignty over ourselves. We’re responsible for our own evolution. My father used to say that a relationship either evolves or it dies. When two people are both committed to the healing process, they can grow together. When a partner will not, or cannot change their harmful behavior, we have to walk away. We have to reclaim our crown.
The other day, I was playing Hungry hippo with the boys, and I won three times in a row. This prompted our nine-year-old to say “See mom, you’re happy, so the universe is rewarding you with winning. That’s how it works.” These days, my prayer is “Help me see what I need to see and be what I need to be.” I still don’t have the whole picture, but the pieces of my puzzle are coming together. My husband and I are setting down our swords and surrendering to this separation with the hope that we each become more whole through this process. As we navigate this new beginning, I am grateful for the blessings that came out of my marriage. Two boys that are the light of our lives, and so many lessons learned. As we burn down the life we built, we burn away what doesn't serve our family. From the ashes of our old life, a whole new life emerges, as together, we rise.