Outward and Inward
Everything organic in the material world festers and decays. All fruits, vegetables, insects, and animals, including us humans, when our time comes, eventually decay and become star dust. Yes, I said star dust because, as I have mentioned in previous posts, everything in the cosmos, including our own solar system with its planets and moons, was largely made possible by star dust, scientifically speaking as well as poetically. Anyhow, in this post, I want to focus more on our inner world. Yes, we can all see the outer world, but we certainly cannot see our inner world so well unless we are equipped with the right tools or understanding, especially when dealing with trauma and dissociation.
When we talk about outward or inward, we are obviously referring to two completely different directions and two distinct natures. If we observe something manifest outwardly, we can all witness it and eventually see the same phenomenon taking place. When something manifests inwardly, we have to observe with a completely different set of tools, and the experts will eventually get to the bottom of the issue, although more time is often required.
Beyond physical phenomena, there is another dimension that still contains a lot of mystery for us humans, and that is the mind (and the soul). While there is an entire field dedicated to studying the brain, psychiatry, and other related disciplines, to this day we have yet to fully understand the depths of how our mind is intrinsically connected to our human experience, as well as how it may be universally connected to the cosmos, whether through alternate mind-inducing states like mysterious dreams, exotic plants, meditation, out of body experiences, near-death experiences, or other methods.
While the soul has more of a religious connotation attached to it, for the sake of this post, I do not want to delve into comparative religious studies and turn this into a 30-minute read or more. If I ever mention the soul, I want us to connect it to the heart field, or the center of our body in the chest. For the old sages in the East, this was known as the heart chakra. If you ever got to read the first book I published myself, because no one wanted to publish it for whatever reason and trust me, I tried contacting over one hundred publishing houses, if not more, you’ll see that I spoke about the heart chakra and how newer scientific studies suggest that the heart’s electromagnetic field responds before conscious awareness kicks in, acting almost like another center of intelligence. This is where intuition lies as well.
Mind, memory, soul
If there is one thing that makes us equal in this world, it is human function. Human function, while complex due to various cultural and moral boundaries, is similar in all of us, as it is intrinsically linked to our nervous system. For instance, when we as humans study animal behavior, we can understand how an animal’s history influences its many functions, such as social behavior, adaptive qualities, survival instincts, and so forth.
In humans, the nervous system is made of the brain, the spinal cord, and a vast network of nerves. It is located in the head, runs down the spine, and spreads throughout the entire body. It rests within and alongside muscles, organs, and tissues, constantly carrying messages that keep us alive and responsive. It is responsible for how we sense, respond, adapt, and survive. It regulates basic functions like breathing, heart rate, digestion, movement, and sleep, but it also governs how we process emotions, stress, danger, and safety.
Now the brain has two core functions. One is to keep us alive and safe, and the second is to store memories properly. When I found out that storing memories properly is a big deal for our brains, I wanted to know more. So, storing memories in our brains is the second core function for humans because it helps maintain a sense of continuity, meaning knowing who we are over time. I mean, if we didn’t know who we were over time, think of the disaster this human experience would be. Storing and organizing memories properly helps us adapt, build relationships, make sense of the world, learn from experience to guide future behavior, and regulate emotions, attention, and decision-making.
While this sounds all neat and tidy, it can actually get quite complicated, especially when the nervous system is overwhelmed by stress and survival overrides memory. This is something I will elaborate on further in this post.
Violation, Trauma, Dissociation
Content note: The following section touches on themes of violation, trauma, and dissociation. Please read at your own pace.
Violation comes from the Latin violatio, from violare, meaning to treat with force, to dishonor, to transgress, or to break a boundary. At its core, violation means crossing a line that is not meant to be crossed. That is why it is universal in all human systems. Whether it is a violation of speed laws, property, consent, or trust, the structure remains the same. A boundary exists, and if breached, there are consequences.
In the cosmos, boundaries exist through orbits and forces. Planets follow precise orbital paths governed by gravity. Each body has its place and trajectory. If a planet were to suddenly break its orbit or cross into another’s path, the system would become unstable. Collisions, ejections, or collapse would inevitably follow, and the system would no longer function as it currently does.
While I am not a clinical psychologist nor wish to be at this point, I will only mention a couple of examples worth noting. Humans become more complex when boundaries are blurred at an early age. While the causes differ in each family or similar relationship dynamics, the consequences remain. Oftentimes, because the mind overrides memory in violation of boundaries for survival and adaptation, memories are lost and not stored properly. Meaning, the person sensing danger and overwhelm is not preoccupied with understanding or remembering, but with getting through the moment. Memories are then stored as feelings like fear, shame, panic, dread, or body sensations like tightness, pain, numbness, pressure, and/or images or fragments without a full narrative reaction, without a clear “why.”
While there are many consequences to violations in early childhood that result in trauma with various mental disorders, such as Dissociative Identity Disorder, CPTSD, attachment-related disorders, and mood and anxiety disorders, an example worth noting is parentification. We often hear this term mentioned and thrown around on social media lately, but please be very mindful in doing so, as trauma is dangerous if not dealt with properly and should be taken very seriously.
While dissociation is a protective response where the mind disconnects from identity, thoughts, memories, emotions, or sensations under overwhelm, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a rare and severe condition, usually rooted in chronic childhood trauma, involving distinct identity states and significant memory gaps between them. When someone with DID is about to have another Identity take over, they will often describe it as feeling like they are going to sleep. Hence, memory gaps between identities.
Parentification is a dynamic where a child is pushed into an emotional or protective role toward a parent, often becoming the caretaker, confidant, or defender. Over time, this blurs boundaries so deeply that survival-driven attachment and responsibility can be mistaken for love, even romantic love, regardless of gender. When a child is highly empathic, the parent may allow this dynamic to continue or fail to stop it, especially if the parent lacks the ability to self-regulate and unconsciously leans on the child to meet emotional needs the child was never meant to carry.
Trauma and Demonic Possession | Dissociation
If you ever felt that you had a demonic attachment or were undergoing some form of demonic possession, a good and grounded priest would likely do you the favor of sending you to a psychotherapist first, one who is trauma-informed at the very least. People often underestimate the severity of undermining our humanity, what actually makes us human in the first place. We tend to think that addressing our basic human side is weak, and we skip straight from zero to hero. What turns a hero into a bitter villain is often the silent wounds that fester within. They’re silent because there are no words to make sense of what’s happening, or a grounded and logical perspective from which to process what we are internally going through. The soul slowly, surely, and silently festers until one is completely consumed by what happened and begins to act autonomously, as if driven by an external force that cannot be defeated.
Trauma, when resurfaced due to an overload on the nervous system, is no walk in the park. Old survival patterns activate without context. Emotions, sensations, and fear come up faster than the mind can organize them. This is why people are so afraid that they are going to lose control. When an internal overload happens, where dissociation, fear, and stored survival responses flood awareness all at once, it feels like an external entity has taken possession of your body. It is by far the most disgusting and scariest psychological or spiritual phenomenon a person can ever go through. The only thing you seek at that point is to get this disgusting thing out of yourself, and that is because the energy that has been held in your body for years is suddenly flooding your nervous system, bouncing all over from behind the eyes to the lower lumbar spine, with pressure within both sides of the brain constantly moving and even taking over your body movement, with your throat swelling, nausea, vomiting, etc.
If there is one piece of advice I can give to a reader here, it is to never let fear consume you. You have to be still in the eye of the storm. If you are not equipped with a strong sense of self, meaning having strong faith in yourself or God, or any grounded understanding of what may be happening to you, I cannot even fathom what could possibly happen in these cases. This is why psychiatric hospitals are often flooded. If you are on your own and lack a good support system, such as people who can truly be there for you in those moments, a therapist, or good friends, seeking professional help is crucial and nonnegotiable.
Meditation vs. Fear | Trauma & Dissociation
Perhaps contrary to medical advice, especially when dealing with trauma, I would proceed with caution and work with both a therapist and other helpful means you may know. Some professionals suggest that long hours of meditation can enhance the feeling of trauma, and that is actually very true, so you have to be the leader of your own discernment here. While I find that meditation is crucial, at least within the first days of re-emerging trauma, it should not be done with the intent to become enlightened, of course, but with the simple intent to calm your nervous system down and return to being yourself after dissociation. Especially when your body is scanning for spiritual or symbolic meaning, such as demonic possession, etc., the last thing you want is to have some creep on the internet perform an exorcism or traumatize you further by neglecting the very parts of yourself you have deemed demonic. Sometimes, even the idea of choosing ourselves can flood our nervous system with overwhelming guilt. The last thing you want is to have some idiot make you feel worse about yourself or about what your body is screaming to process and integrate. If you choose this route, you are not actually healing; you are just postponing the inevitable. If the universe is conspiring to show you something within that needs immediate addressing on your part, be courageous and grounded enough to face the trauma. Do not run from it.
