How does my pathology take me out? There are many ways that I am taken out of the work, away from the conscious contact with the Divine. My mind is a feral one, filled with ear whisperers who tell me lies. The lies are convincing because they are told in my own voice and because they play on the heartstrings of past trauma.

My current homework: Be in the tunnel and feel the fear in the vastness and quiet of the tunnel. Notice when I am feeling guilt and judging myself or when the voice of pathology is loud and trying to confuse me.

How am I taken out? The constant undercurrent of fear wants to move me into reaction. I have no patience for the unpredictability of the world or the reactions of others. My partner complains and interrupts. I react by throwing something across the room and storming out of our house, tearing down the driveway stones flying off my tires. I am out of control. I want to make it about the interruptions, the complaining, I am late for work, I am tired. I want to say my fear is about getting to work on time, a possible fight with my partner, that I am not appreciated, it is her fault I feel this way! I don’t want to acknowledge the place in the tunnel where I just feel terrified of the unknown.

I come back to the house under the pretense of forgetting my cell phone, but really, I just can’t leave that way. She takes the high road and hugs me as I cry out my terror, my not knowing, my fear. She says, “Ahh…the fall is a hard time for you. The anniversary of Sue’s (my birth mother) death is weighing on your heart.” I feel the relief of “yes, here is a safe and reasonable place I can put this feeling”. This is the human conditioning around fear. I jump away. My limbic system takes me into fight or flight. I become the wild animal responding only to the heightened emotional memories of trauma, unable to bring to bear my faith. In the work, this is a constant struggle…to return over and over to the place in the dream that is where I need to be.