The basis of our present emotional limitations is from the unresolved conflicts that we have encountered in life. The challenges we have suppressed in early childhood are often the most difficult to uncover.

In the process of discovery of how our life was created, listening to our body and trusting what we perceive allows us to have a greater insight than recalling our life only from the memories in our mind. As we review our life we can feel those memories as body will express the repressed through reliving the tensions, fears, angers, etc … The energies of our traumas and conflicts exists not only in places like our stomach, heart and solar plexus but we often hold the memory outside of our body as we separate parts of our spirit from us as a way to deal with the shock of being unable to process the conflict. The suppression of these part of our self is the impetus for addictive behaviors, love addiction, co-dependency and other self sabotaging behaviors.

For the past few days I have grieved the loss of my former girlfriend. It was not an odd occurrence as I have processed this for several months. Today was worse as something was obviously coming to a head.

As I sat and contemplated I begin to reflect about the woman who I declared as my first love at age eighteen. I was crazy about her yet when the relationship was beginning to become intimate she broke-up. As I thought about Nelda I began to feel a heavy yet traumatic sensation vibrate about eight inches outside my lower abdomen. I am not unfamiliar to such sensations as I feel the energetic memory of much of my past. This particular sensation was the part of me that was still grieving my first love, still in the shock of it frozen in an energetic place outside my stomach.

Within a few minutes of this realization I was negotiating with this shadow part of myself telling me that I was no longer eighteen and if it wishes to find love the best place is in my body’s heart. The split part of me integrated back into me.

I quickly explored the separated part of me grieving my latest former girlfriend in a place outside my stomach invited that energy to come back into me. Then I recalled three other relationships that had similar endings and not surprised to find the same dynamics of the other two relationships. Though these were not all of the loves of my life these five relationships were all hauntingly disappointing like grasping for something that I could not have. Looking back it felt like I was destined to fail in all five loves.

The question arose, “Was there an earlier relationship that began this pattern of futility?” The information was almost immediate, my mother. I did have a sexual attraction to my mother and a competition with my father during my early years of life. Sigmund Freud was spot on with the Oedipus complex, I felt in not only in my bones as correct but could perceive the split energy resonating strongly outside me more dominate than the other five ones.

Beyond feeling the sensation of the energy it all made so much sense for myself. I was a sickly child, was very dependent on my mother and the youngest son. My father had bonded with my two older brothers; I had my mother. As innocent as the dynamics were it all laid out nice and neat. However, as Freud said the son cannot have his mother and must come to terms with this loss.

Unfortunately there were no therapist or counselors in rural Texas in the 1950’s to help me so the part of that overwhelmed with this challenge left my body to exist outside of me. I spent much of my childhood and adult life living outside my body functioning in the fears of these separate shadow worlds where the incidents of trauma perpetuated itself. It was the shadow part of me that believed that women were unobtainable, or at least a certain type of woman. I could now see how I unconsciously created suffering for myself by wishing for a type of woman that was unavailable like my mother, (though my mother loved me as her son). I would find myself spinning in a cycle of frustration.

The power of finding the shadow part that long ago separated from us allows our body to integrate that unconscious part back. An unresolved part will continue to recreate the traumas it was created from as a way to find resolution. Unfortunately most of us are unaware of how the body and mind process conflicts and are influenced by the energy to recreate the event again in a different situation with similar types of people to the original crises.

When we bring the shadow energy back into our heart and body all of the emotional angst and unconsciousness that the split part created dissolves as the spirit becomes whole. We receive back all of the energy that was used to create the stuck point of view. When I witness a shadow part going back to a person it always feels like a minor miracle. It is a testament to the concept that our unresolved unconscious conflicts are the source of our suffering but we can find the freedom through our self-rediscovery.