Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Viktor Frankl
All the layered reactions in the cycle of reactivity are defences against the abandonment depression. Each layer is also a defence against all of the other layers beneath it. As such, each layer is a type of dissociation. When we are triggered and lost in a 4F response, we fight, flee, freeze, or fawn to disassociate ourselves from the painful voice of the (Inner) Critic. On a deeper level, the critic is also distracting and disassociating us from our emotional pain.
Moreover, fear and shame disassociate us from the bottom layer, the terrible abandonment depression itself. Dissociation, the psychological term for disassociation, then is the process of rendering all these levels less conscious or totally unconscious. As recovery progresses and we learn to stay present enough to the (Inner) Critic to begin shrinking it, we become increasingly aware of the fear and shame that underpin it.
With sufficient feeling into fear and shame, we notice that fear and shame cover up the deadened feelings of the abandonment depression itself. Learning to stay self-supportingly present to the feelings of this depression is the deepest level, bottom-of-the-barrel work of recovery. When we were able to do this, our recovering has reached a profound level.
Pete Walker, Complex PTSD – From Surviving to Thriving
The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor absence of pain, but vitality — the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings. It is part of the kaleidoscope of life that these feelings are not only happy, beautiful, or good but can reflect the entire range of human experience, including envy, jealousy, rage, disgust, greed, despair, and grief. But this freedom cannot be achieved if its childhood roots are cut off. Our access to the true self is possible only when we no longer have to be afraid of the intense emotional world of early childhood. Once we have experienced and become familiar with this world, it is no longer strange and threatening.
Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child
Depression used to have a bad reputation in my world view. This stance was shaped by prejudices on my part, implying that depression could be a sign of weakness or passivity on the part of the sufferer. As I learn to identify and embrace my own shadow, however, it has become clear that many of us, as children, experienced grave adversity for which we were not equipped. This can leave a deep-seater pool of depression in its wake.
Under ideal circumstances, when children are faced with adversity, adult caregivers would be sufficiently present and attuned to pick up the slack, comforting, protecting, and encouraging the child, while teaching her to expand her repertoire of resources and grow in resilience, to be better able to deal with the next round of challenges.
Unfortunately, the adult caregivers are, themselves, sometimes emotionally compromised, absent, or pre-occupied with their own issues such that they are incapable of providing the support and comfort their children need. In such scenarios, seeds of emotional abandonment are sown, and the Inner Critic is born.
Emotional abandonment is a subjective emotional state in which we, as children, feel undesired, endured, discounted, overwhelmed, left behind, and deeply insecure. People experiencing emotional abandonment may feel at a loss. The child, not yet capable of grasping the context of her dilemma, may feel like she has been cut off from a crucial source of sustenance, either suddenly or through a gradual process of erosion. The effect, though invisible, is as powerful as being cut off from oxygen.
My own imprint is that of feeling overwhelmed, alone, and bereft of comfort and encouragement while facing existential and circumstantial challenges well beyond those appropriate for my age at that time.
The feelings associated with the experience of rejection, which are a significant component of emotional abandonment, have a whole-body (somatic) impact in that they activate the physical pain centres of the brain, leaving emotional imprints in the brain’s warning system and within every cell of the body.
The depression that accompanies abandonment can create a sustained type of stress that constitutes an emotional trauma (wound), commonly referred to as Developmental Trauma or Complex PTSD, with far-reaching potential effects on vitality, spontaneity, and authenticity while impacting future life choices and responses to confusion, setbacks, rejection, loss, or disconnection.
One after-effect of abandonment is the phenomenon of triggers. These triggers are linked to our primal fear of separation. This type of fear is referred to as primal abandonment fear. We fear being left alone and having no one to take care of our needs. People usually first experience anxiety as a fear of being separated from their initial primary caregiver, in most cases the mother.
This sensation is stored in the amygdala – a structure located deep into the brain’s emotional memory system. The amygdala is responsible for conditioning the automated so-called 4F Response System (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn) which kicks in when a flashback is triggered.
In this manner, primitive fears can be reawakened by later events, especially those reminiscent of earlier unwanted or abrupt separations from a source of physical, emotional, or spiritual sustenance. Long after childhood, being catapulted out of a relationship or otherwise ejected from the warm nest of our comfort zone (through illness, career setbacks, social isolation, etc.) can arouse primal fear along with other primitive sensations which contribute to feelings of terror and outright panic. We may also experience the intense stress of helplessness.
The Inner Critic, or Judge Saboteur, is the child’s best option when trying to make sense of the abandonment as it is happening. Faced with the prospect of realizing that the adult caregivers, on whom we are still fully dependent, are not up to the job of child rearing we prefer to adopt a different interpretation: There must be something inherently wrong with me. This explains everything, while maintaining the illusion of being in a safe environment among caregivers who, in reality, are underperforming.
The Judge cannot operate in a vacuum, however. In order to create a level playing field, I begin to judge not only myself but my peers and my circumstances. Everything is now seen through the judgmental lens.
In the Positive Intelligence (PQ) Mental Fitness modality, the Judge is the Universal Saboteur common to us all. As the primary Saboteur, it is assisted in keeping us hijacked by and reactive to our fears by further accomplice saboteurs, namely: Avoider, Controller, Hyper-Achiever, Hyper-Rational, Hyper-Vigilant, Pleaser, Restless, Stickler, and Victim.
These Saboteurs, located in the left-brain hemisphere, generate, — individually and in various combinations, — all fear-driven variations of the 4F reactivity of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
In addition to the fear-driven Saboteurs, we have recourse to another set of resources which are situated in the right-hand side of the brain. These are the life-affirming, love-fuelled Sage Powers of Empathize, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate.
The difference in quality between Saboteur and Sage is summed up in a quote by Mohandas Gandhi, who said: Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.
PQ facilitates the gradual mastery and cultivation of mental fitness in that we learn to intercept the Saboteurs, enhance the powers of the Sage, and develop the capacity, by means of regular sensate exercises throughout each day, to shift, in real time, from Saboteur to Sage.
The result is the expansion of that space in which our power to choose our response to any given stimulus resides. With practice, liberation from fear-based reactivity is achieved. We regain, — in our thoughts, emotions, and actions, — our natural spontaneity and attunement to the infinite love of the Universe.
Exercises of imagination play an important role in the PQ modality as a means of `rewiring´ neural pathways. Using the Navigate Power of the Sage, for example, we can imagine our older, wiser self, looking back on our lives as we are about to depart this incarnation. We can use this scenario to examine what each of our Saboteurs might find at such a juncture.
The Judge wishes we had been kinder to self, others, and circumstances, realizing and mirroring the true essence of love in every manifestation of Creation.
The Avoider wishes we had been bolder in handling conflicts and meeting challenges and had demonstrated fortitude and patience in following our dreams.
The Controller wishes we had trusted more and had empowered others, accepting and utilizing circumstances rather than trying to control them. He wishes we had learned to surf the waves rather than trying to control the weather.
The Hyper-Achiever wishes the goals we had set had been more meaningful and that we had taken time to smell the roses along the way. He wishes we hadn’t skipped necessary pit stops in the pursuit of the alluring competitive edge.
The Hyper-Rational wishes we had listened more to my heart, followed my intuition, and connected more deeply with others. He now sees that the cave we feared to enter held the treasures that we sought.
The Hyper-Vigilant wishes we had not stressed out over so many things that never happened and spent time and energy regretting what we couldn’t have changed. He wishes he had been able to live the Serenity Prayer.
The Pleaser wishes we had not sacrificed so much for the validation, attention, and acceptance of others and had better learned the art of self care.
The Restless wishes we had learned better to experience the joys of life in the present moment, that we had been more adept to sidestep the allure of the `weapons of mass distraction´ in today’s frenzied world.
The Stickler wishes we hadn’t sweat so much small stuff and had been able to see the big picture more often. He wishes he would have embraced the reality that all roads lead to Rome.
The Victim wishes we had mastered giving and receiving true love rather than settling for pity and engaging in resentment. No longer needing to be the Centre of the Universe, he wishes we could have experienced more kinship in the community of life.
In the playbook of the Saboteurs, we see variations of the 4F reactivity discussed by Pete Walker in his excellent book: `Complex PTSD – From Surviving to Thriving´. In this book, he argues that such reactivity is an attempt to blind us from the reality of the destructive Saboteurs, to keep us in denial. When that impediment is sufficiently dismantled (Saboteur Interception), we come face to face with the fear and shame that reside one layer below.
With sufficient Sage Power, beginning at first with Empathy and Explore, that layer of dissociation, — the fear and shame, — begins to dissolve, revealing the underlying excruciating pain of the abandonment depression.
It is this depression that has been waiting since childhood for expression, expression in the form of simply being allowed to see the light of day, uncensored and without being judged. The Inner Child heals through the experience of unconditional love, affirmation, acceptance, and support while this process unfolds. These can all be provided by the attending Adult Self. Our agency is thus fully restored and, with it, our natural spontaneity, vitality, and joie de vivre.
The process described is by no means linear. My experience is that of moving back and forth along a continuum in a manner that does not necessarily make sense. Overall, however, the trend is that of the abandonment depression becoming subsumed in an unconditional `Yes´ to life, just as life is, and our decision to give it our best shot.
