The Interference

We experience deep pain when we lose someone close or when we go through life- changing events like job loss or divorce or when a major health issue pops up from nowhere. Such losses are approved by the society as something that needs to be addressed because of their impact on personal life.

At the same time, some losses are so subtle that they remain unacknowledged and unnoticed for a long period. Those moments of neglect, insults, disregard, and disrespect remain unattended. Sometimes deep down, guilt and regret for the lost opportunities keep on lingering in the backdrop unprocessed as we fear of being judged. Most of them are often difficult to express and even if shared, they are disregarded as worthy enough to be settled and processed. And we continue feeling unheard and unseen with a lost sense of belonging with self as well as to the relational space around us. With that we find solace in something else which helps us to avoid facing difficult emotions and we keep carrying a hidden burden, invisible to the outer world.

A few months back, Seema, a Yoga teacher and a life coach, came for consultation over her life goal alignment. Although, she pursued her Yoga career enthusiastically for almost 6 years but somehow, she started losing interest in it. She said, at one point of time, she felt that, with her yoga career, she found her calling but don't know what happened. She started gaining weight and lost interest in it.

Then she turned towards a life coaching career. It's not that she was financially unstable. Her husband owned a great business. Her daughter and son settled abroad with good career path. But all were busy in their space. Seema being ambitious woman struggled to find her space within her busy family and life started to become meaningless for her.

She herself being a life coach was aware of the various processes and methods to cope up with the situation which she was facing. But nothing was working and she wanted to explore the reasons. She joined the session with her beautiful diary and a nice pen.

As we started the work, Seema was very much attentive towards the insights, she was gaining through our discussion and she kept noting it down in her diary. I could sense the need to note down everything that she correlated deeply.
At one moment, the process required her to concentrate on her feeling but the sudden strong urge made her speak loudly “Ohh !! My god, I need to write this down.” The urge was so uncontrollable that she started writing her insights in her diary.

I asked her, gently, what will happen if every pen on the planet, including the one

she is holding, disappears?

She stopped writing. After few moments of silence, she took a deep breath and with her pen in her hand, she said softly “My pen has been my companion for the last 6- 7 years.”
I asked her further...What in your companionship, you are missing, that this Pen is filling up? Putting down the pen, she looked at me.

She has been into therapy for the last few years and has done few consultations with different therapists. She tried almost all things, from meditation to cultivating a positive mindset to watching countless motivational YouTube videos and taking help from her motivational coaches. Still, she was feeling stuck in a big way. It’s not that nothing worked. Some things did work for a brief period, but the experience never changed. She started feeling that being good is hurting her more than anything. A sort of hopelessness & helplessness about her life started to fill the space.

As we discussed, she jokingly said that all this work that she did in the past has stretched her capacity to accommodate more unwanted experiences. She could not muster courage to stand for herself in those moments of life where she was supposed to say no. Conflict avoidance and being good became her pattern in her

relationships and social interactions. Sometimes she did say something, but she had no support. Putting others first bought her a good number of painful experiences throughout her life.

As we discussed, we tried to bring more awareness to what’s exactly happening. We made those roles stand out separately and tried to see what exactly was happening in those roles. She realized that these roles had their own stories and own hurts, which were not processed. It seemed like her identity was at a constant deep struggle between her conscious efforts and unconscious hurt experiences.

As we progressed, at one moment, she sensed that although she understood what she needs to do but somehow lacked willpower to bring the change. She felt like something within her is still not ready to act upon what she decided.
Not knowing what it would take her to move forward and still avoiding the action, she got puzzled in a big way.

Is the agency within her saving her from any anticipation of bad future experiences by not acting?
Or has the agency lost hope in the effort ?

Was it really the agency that is not deciding or something else? Who is interfering with the action ?

With all those questions in her mind, looking downwards, she said, I can remember all those moments when I felt pity for myself thinking, "Why am I so weak?"

“Those fights, arguments and insults, where I felt compromised, are still with me. All those compromises and adjustments were just to avoid future uncertainty. I suppressed all those inner voices within me.“

As she said this, she became silent. After some time, she looked at me and said,” I wish to stop here and just want to be with me”.

I understood that the coach in her has taken over the case and she needed some time with herself. We paused the session.

What Seema’s story tells us is that the unconscious reliving of the hurtful memories is nothing but the interference of those parts that crave attention for the resolution. And till that resolution happens, they will keep creating the interference for the agency, in their capacity, when faced with similar experiences.

Our life experience remains diluted as we keep these stories of regrets, disappointments, resentments, guilt and shame alive.
We need to bring closure to some of those stories.

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