Various things happen that can knock us out of our connection to our lives, that make us feel we can’t live who we’re supposed to be, and we begin to drift from one day to the next. To other people, we may look solid and involved, but inside we feel trapped, lost, drifting or drowning. The first source of these feelings often is a painful childhood dynamics. Later, something else might happen that evokes childhood events. Other times, singular events, such as accidents, death of a loved one, or other traumas, can be the source. Often, too, it’s a combination of both.
Painful Childhood Dynamics
Children are born naturally being who they are. Their nature is to be fully engaged in life on the earth. You can see this with babies and little children, who are fascinated with objects, with putting smaller objects into bigger objects, turning them in all different directions. They’re excited about learning the names of things, curious about everything around them. Then, often, the way we’re related to as children, painful events that happen or painful childhood dynamics begin to make us feel trapped, lost or drifting and we lose our hold on our unique selves, on our enthusiastic engagement with life on the planet. There’s always something in us, though, longing to be all we are and pushing to shake off the trance, the trap, and to really live rooted in our lives, on the earth.
Losing Yourself Due to an Accident
Here’s an example of someone losing connection to herself and her life due to a serious bicycle accident. Even though her healing from a couple of broken bones was going well, several months after the accident, she still felt an echo of the awful nauseated, light-headed, spinning feeling that happened right after she fell down. The original feeling was caused by the pain and the trauma to her body. Working with an EFT practitioner, using EFT Tapping, she began to see herself metaphorically as floating way up in space, attached only by an umbilical cord to the earth way far below. In a way, it felt good to float up there, disconnected from the responsibilities of her life, nothing to worry about, just drifting up there. There was something seductive about it. But also, something felt wrong: she realized she was in danger of having her life pass by while she was in a trance.
Reconnecting to Your Life
She wanted to reconnect to herself and her life, but she had no idea how to get back down to earth. Using EFT Tapping, she stayed with her experience and suddenly it came to her that she could pull herself down by the umbilical cord-which she did. When she stood back on the earth, she felt gravity grabbing onto her again. In her imagination, the umbilical cord snapped back into the earth. She realized, though, that she still had a choice: did she want to float or did she want to commit to her life. She had to make a conscious choice, and she chose to commit to her life.Interestingly, after that, she was more excited about her work, her relationships and her creativity than she had been for a long time.
Losing Yourself Due to the Trauma of Surgery
Another person (biographical details changed to protect anonymity) found himself in a traumatic situation after surgery. Back in his room after surgery, he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even gasp and definitely couldn’t call out. Fortunately, his friend was in the room and saw what was happening and called a nurse. This person felt trapped in his body and simultaneously felt that it was too hard to stay here. He felt himself fading out. For a long time after that, he couldn’t stay attached to his life anymore. It was too hard to deal with all the painful events happening in his life. He felt he was done being on the earth and that he’d rather be with God. Being a very religious person, he remembered that God is always there and realized he was the one who had lost awareness of the connection. Using EFT Tapping, he, too, came to the realization that he deeply wanted to re-engage with his work, his family and his friends.
Reconnecting to Your Life
This experience of losing oneself can also happen when we lose someone we love, and for a number of other reasons. Somewhere inside, however, we all have a connection with something that loves us unconditionally and knows everything about us. It’s always there, but we can lose our conscious access to it. The good thing is that the knowledge of how to reconnect is in each of us, just waiting for us to notice. The beginning often is remembering a time when you felt the connection in the past, and to think about that time in great detail. You’ll notice that, when you do that, the feeling is still there inside you and, if you burrow deeply into it, you’ll be able to find yourself again and find yourself reconnecting to your life.