Trusting, Surrendering, and Cracking Open…
“We do not always have to hold onto the ideology that our brokenness defines who we are. That it has the final say. To fully surrender ourselves to healing we need to go on an extended journey, a trust walk, a gradual letting go, unlearning, and handing over. Experience an “identity transplant”, as Father Richard Rohr describes the transformative power of healing through our willingness to surrender. The gradual healing and reconnecting of head, heart, and body so they operate as one open field. Happiness can be found in that open field.”
— Bess Hilpert
Did you know that Giant Sequoia tree seeds cannot germinate (come into existence and develop) unless they are subjected to fire? The fire melts protective resin in the Giant Sequoia cones that have fallen to the ground. It also eliminates low-level brush that would compete with the Sequoia saplings, giving them a leg-up to mature. Finally, the charred remains of that competing brush help fertilize the new saplings. So, even the largest trees on earth need special circumstances to reproduce and thrive.
Just as we must go through our fire on our extended journey/trust walk in order to heal our wounds of the past and find the true deep self. Our unbroken self. Our whole self. Walking through the fire to free ourselves of the chains of our previous abuse or neglect does not sound fun, let alone safe. But it is this process that opens our hearts, our minds, and our bodies where the wounds are stored to our deeper truth.
Without surrendering through the process to the truth of our pain, and walking through the fire we cannot grow. The “fire” is our own cross-bearing journey. Even the embers of what burned around us help prepare our path. That pain brought us here and until we go all the way through the fire patiently, we cannot come into existence and thrive.
That made me think of the silence of the seed generating life, in the underground darkness, amidst the ashes. The seed accepts the fire knowing on the other side is new life. The transition from the unknowing to the knowing. The seed represents the deep trust that is involved to surrender to the opening of one’s deepest secrets. One’s deepest pain. Trusting, surrendering, and cracking open.
That is faith. Faith that there will be healing and new growth on the other side.
Mark Nepo, spiritual thought leader and poet wrote this:
All the buried seeds
crack open in the dark
the instant they surrender
to a process they cannot see.
Gabor Mate, Canadian physician and author specializing in childhood trauma was asked to define trauma. He said, “The origin of the word “trauma” is the Greek for “wound”. Trauma is a wound. Trauma is when there is a loss of feeling and there is a reduced flexibility in responding to the world. This is a response to a wound.” He goes on to say, “Trauma is a psychic wound that hardens you psychologically that then interferes with your ability to grow and develop.”
Our wounds prevent us from surrendering to the mystery of cracking open and developing into the Giant Sequoias we are meant to be by keeping us in the past or in an unknown future versus this glorious precious moment. This glorious precious moment where we are right now. Where we are safe. Where we are in connection, and free of the chains of the ideology that our brokenness is who we are.
Sitting with someone, feeling safe, having connection allows the crack to begin. The crack that is the beginning of letting go of that which has held you hostage. Held you trapped by the past and unable to embrace the beauty that is deep inside. Cracking allows us all to open our hearts to the love that is already there and has been silently waiting for us to embrace it.
As I have shared, the past is still a part of me, but the “I” of me is deeper. As is your “I”. Wounds pain us and they make us act out of pain. Wounds induce fear and have us act out of fear, and without knowing it we are now operating our whole lives regulated by fear and pain. We are continually trying to escape our wounds.
If only we would or could pause. Be the seed in the dark. Trust that our trauma did not destroy our seed. Trust that our life’s pain did not burn the forest around us. Trust that the ashes of the past provide nourishment for our future.
Trust that our seed is once again germinating life. Our seed is the doorway into our original goodness.
You are more than the things that happened to you. The things that happened to you can be an opening. An opening for you to touch another because you know their pain. Because you understand what they feel. Because you care about the life in you and the life in the other.
From their cracking fully open and their birth among the ashes, these Giant Sequoia seedlings have become the gloriously impressive groves we see today with trees nearly 300 feet tall.
Let us rise from the ashes. Let us trust in the process of letting go and letting in. Let us sit with the wound, breathe through it, feeling it fully, so we can crack open blossoming into our deeper selves.
Let us together have faith that there is healing on the other side. Until next time, friends.