It is a beautiful spring day, and all I want to do is pray.

In my quirky way, I sat on the couch where the cushions did slouch. I then unzipped my drawing pouch. With my assortment of pencils, markers, and such, I started sketching an image of guess who? It was you!

I didn’t get very far before there was a stillness of thought. It soon covered over my creative mental spot. Quietness surrounded me. Everything seemed blank. At that moment, my intellect sank. It felt universal, like spiritual bliss, but I could have been experiencing a mental slip-and-miss.

Like an endless hole in the ocean floor, it was a feeling that compressed me more and more. I drifted away from my chronicle of life as I knew it to be, and something awaited me. It hailed me as if to say, “Goodbye time, matter, and space.” I wiggled the toes in my shoe, and that’s when I knew it wasn’t a prank from the deep blue. Onward I went with my sketching of you.

I drew your eyes without any strife. I could even see part of me in your life. It was more than a picture, and I wanted something true. I tried to embrace you with each line that I drew. When I finished the neckline and your puffy lips, I had an emotional pause that seemed like a trip. I found myself gazing clueless and still. There was a slight chill. I felt someone coming nearer. I had to stop and look. I examined my space just like reading a book. There was an emotional drift. A calming presence that swallowed me whole.

It was a feeling of loveliness with a warm glow. It was full of spirit and something slow. I hadn’t a clue what to do, so I reached out to find nothing resembling me or you. I felt a connection with everything around me. I glanced at my drawing and wanted to speak, but no words came out, not even a creak. The feelings inside were quieting down. I couldn’t distinguish one energy from the next. It was a moment full of perplex.

I sat on the purple couch like a motionless fawn

I sat on the purple couch like a motionless fawn. There wasn’t anything arising, not even a yawn. I let the feeling overtake me like a wave to the shore. But, soon, there was a knock at the door.

Without realizing where I was or where I had been, I rose out of the mist to be human again. When I got to the door, it was a person, indeed. The visitor sat and told a tale full of loving feed. It was the saga of her boyfriend, who admired her features. She went on and on like he was a mystical creature. Her story’s spirit was joyous, but I didn’t know why she shared it with me. Soon after that, the visitor rose from where she sat. She left with silent steps to the room where her friend was at.

It was then that I returned to the drawing at hand. How nice would it be to show you the drawing before we meet? But before the thought set, another shift came my way. In an instant, it seemed, I heard a scream. “Help me!” the visitor exclaimed with a painful shriek. It was an array of emotions that felt big and bleak. Without hesitation, I leaped from my seat. I ran to the room, where I found an aura of gloom.

When I went to the door, I saw that the visitor’s friend was on the floor. Her friend wasn’t breathing, and something more. I was the only one there that could help with resuscitation. As a medical responder, I knew what to do, but I had no thought at this moment of code blue.

I pressed my mouth with a seal against the partly living person’s face. I funneled my air at a particular pace. After the compressions, I had a brief pause. Soon it became repeat, repeat, and repeat again. There was nothing more to do but dive deeply into the pace. Somehow it felt like a mortal race.

When the ambulance arrived, there was a helping shift. They began triage support. At that phase, I left the room as if in a daze. I walked to the kitchen to place a call. I remember feeling like I was going to fall. I dialed the number, and an answer came on. I said, “Your partner isn’t breathing…” and it was the best I could say. I shared that a dear friend was willing to stay. Over the phone, silence came through, and I then heard a sound that felt full of dread. Next came a question, “Is my love dead?”

I felt the love and sadness over the phone. It was a beginning and an end that I couldn’t explain. My words were jumbling with grief and self-blame. Inside, I felt I had caused all this pain. It became clear that someone’s partner was transitioning to a bodiless state. I felt an unavoidable fate.

Just a week earlier, I spoke over the phone with the person that was entering the ethereal zone. During the call, I heard their relationship was gaslit with abuse. My help was requested in the most direct way. I wish I knew then what to say. I could have diverted this moment for a brighter day.

I write about it because grief of this sort always seems to be near

Somehow, my experiences all strung together. I could view how a person averts stigma or abuse by ending their life. It is a common theme of relationship strife. It is a social taboo that no one wants to hear. I write about it because grief of this sort always seems to be near. I cannot escape it. The pain collectively interferes. Even so, there isn’t sadness for a spirit to be free. It is the direction for you and me. Yet, there is disenfranchisement when vulnerable people are being held down. Especially punitive domesticity, and much is easy to deny. It makes me frown. It is so pervasive that it can be found in every town.

Abuse is more than a perpetrator thing. It is a dominating cycle that squeezes everything. It is permitted by some who get off by harming another with hurt, while some do not, and get jailed like dirt. Whichever the case, it is a festering plot. To be free of abuse is a perplexing thought. I’ve been told the answer is control, but I know it is not.

A mystical path encounters many things. It is a path that often collides with a variety of beings.

There is maturity and immaturity, inside and out. It is like being a bird that wants to sing out. Instead, there isn’t room for a loving tune. Its wings are clipped, and it’s put in a cage. The metal rings all around are to bury its sound. Of course, this is my estimation of the world I see. It is based on experience that is inside of me. No matter how much I cry or ask it to stop, it usually ends in a mystical flop.

To be free from abuse is a conscious state. Call it awareness or wisdom, it is our natural fate. Even in moments of doubt, this stuff can transform into a beautiful bloom. There is infinite healing deeply seeded in everyone I see. I often wonder what life would be like if awareness was set free.

Even if most can’t listen or hear what I say, the loving energy drifts in every which way. From what I have gleaned from abusive stuff, anyone can rise above it. What makes life profound is sound healing. It unfolds into joys that reach beyond earthly bounds. Even as life offers a bumpy ride, I know there is a purposeful guide.

What I want more than anything, is to share my light. It is pure and loving, but I know there is fright. There is also crudeness that I’m refining throughout. It is a purification of consciousness, no doubt. An innate ability that has to come out. Resurfacing from the ashes is what people do, I’m not the first or the last. But then, how about you?

You have some facts to tell and things that have been done. There is purity in you if you give it a run. Of course, there isn’t anything I can do to show you your light. You find it yourself through your wisdom-based sight.

I’m anxious to meet you when you find your pure glow. I’m a bit revved up about it, I’m sure you have sensed. Maybe this is old news, like a worn-out sixpence.

The universe is calling with a spiritual song, and I’m listening heartfully while singing along. It’s a song and a prayer, all bundled in one, that the days of gloom will return to its tomb. Yet, in case my words get too grey, let me put it another way.

There is a glow within that will forever be.

If you want to see me, I’m just beyond my deformity.

Into me, you see, there is purity.

It is a profound remembering that makes forgetting disappear.

This is how you and I become very, very near.

It is glowing so bright it outshines individual light.

Oneness comes when letting go arrives.

So, I’m letting go of everything with all my might.

I pray, in every way, that soon this day will come.

It is an energy that is likely under every thumb.

My words are nothing more than translated feelings. It is an intimacy that I share with you. By the way, you are everything I think isn’t me. With that, all my love to you from me.

“When everything is alive, death no longer exists.”

Life is more about feelings than words.

Special note:

Every discipline has an answer. For psychologists, the answer is in thought. For a spiritualist, the answer is in philosophy. For a pastry chef, the answer is dessert. But, unlike these, the mystical doesn’t need an answer because it is alive everywhere.

I wish I knew something profound, but alas, I have limited knowledge, no power to pursue, and no authority over anything. I’m drifting along this life with as much stride as I can muster. Before birth, and even to this day, love is the only way. I feel it and give it, and it can be intense at moments. Beyond the murkiness of me, there is love, and I hope you can see it. If not in me, at least in everything else, and then it won’t matter. It can be happily hereto and each ever onward. Thanks for reading.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Eric Zuniga

The 3 Principles are evidence-based and used in counseling settings worldwide. Eric provides a variety of 1:1 guidance, such as trauma/poly-survivor support, addiction closure, and relationship counseling. Eric has experienced living beyond traumatic events as a poly-survivor. To share his journey, Eric has created a vlog series called One Spiritual Principle. 

Honestly, why spend any moment in life collecting or promoting the gloom of a cloudy day when the sun will shine again?

In conventional psychiatry and counseling, clients are accustomed to being deemed broken. Conditions, casualties, and disabilities are the general offshoots. It seems like a discipline of disease more than health! However, in a mental health setting, the clinician must identify a specific condition before treatment can begin.

Inadvertently, the profession promotes the idea that people are damaged or unchangeable unless there is clinical intervention. Overall, the goal isn’t curative. It is mainly to reduce the symptoms. Likewise, if one approach falls short, another is enlisted.

Since many mental health conditions are deemed permanent, it usually requires ongoing maintenance. Therefore, decades of counseling are customary. But even beneficial interventions can, over long periods, cause harmful effects. For example, medications with contraindications or side effects. Further, non-invasive options can have limits when their basis promotes illness as a person’s defining core. Moreover, the underlying premise is that a person is incurable. Thus, it displaces health.

The Clinical Experience

Decades ago, when I began my mental health career, I also believed that people were defective, including myself!

Products can be faulty, but people aren’t products. There isn’t a recall notice for people. Labeling people defunct, even with good intentions, can compound, stigmatize, and possibly imprison a person’s psyche while the goal of the practice is to support well-being.

Consider the following statement by an unspecified client:

“You can only be treated like a wounded animal for so long until you start believing you are wounded.”

After a decade or more of ascribing numerous evaluations, educational groups, treatment, and case management, one option rose above the many. Yet, surprisingly, it wasn’t a technique, strategy, or part of any training or diagnostic manual.

Realizing that people heal because of an inner source isn’t a new idea. The resiliency of the spirit is timeless. The premise that wellness is already in a person transcends the current construct of the mental health discipline.

When I was a clinician, I had a shift of experience, from practicing an outside-in modus to recognizing an inside-out phenomenon. In my experience, acknowledging clients as people, whole and divine, was a profound mind-shift. At these moments, seeing the authentic core of another, the symptoms would subside, and the wellness would rise. Although it appeared as if I was the activator, the true reason had to do with the well-being that already resides in the client. My part was merely to provide an invitation that could be accepted or denied.

Transcending Conditions

Once the nature of well-being grows into understanding, it affords a person the opportunity to pursue life unencumbered by the lens of brokenness. So, from my perspective, it makes sense that mental freedom includes the experience of well-being.

The distinction here is that conventional approaches engage cognitive healing, while divine healing arrives from realizing there isn’t anything to fix. An inside-out modus is an understanding that the essence of the psyche brings forth states of experience. It is profound resilience that reaches beyond conventional modalities.

Syd Banks knew that the Three Principles would shift the profession of psychiatry and psychology. While it isn’t a silver bullet, it guides directly towards the silver lining of the spirit. Rather than an innovative trend, realizing wellness is a discovery that each person makes on their own. Each person has a gift of psychological potential, which can guide experience towards happiness, sadness, and anything in between.

So while the Three Principles provide a guidepost toward psychological well-being, giving a person well-being is impossible. Wellness isn’t injectable. Simply, mental health is already in every living being, and it is one thought away.

The Feeling of Wellness

A wellness model with a foundation of a disease isn’t a wellness practice. To truly have a wellness model, the basis would be everything about discovering mental health. Thus, recognizing well-being is primary, and it happens with the understanding that the psyche has unbreakable divine features.

For this reason, 3P practitioners are resolute in offering guidance and understanding about the functions of the psyche that create an experience. It inevitably leads a person to an unfolding recognition of their unbreakable potential. Hence, there isn’t any damage to repair unless someone makes it so via thinking. So then, why support a person in subscribing to a condition?

Here is an unidentified client’s experience with conventional medication:

“Prescribing medications is not an exact science. It’s like kissing a lot of toads to find the right one. Many side effects are intolerable, and that’s why we need doctors that LISTEN. The process sucks, but I’m lucky and love the results.”

Consider this, the origin of the placebo: placēbō Dominō in regiōne vīvōrum, a design to please the living by reducing the symptomatic worries about the condition of death.

In modern days, a client feels supported by external treatments that result in fewer symptoms. This process may please the client’s concerns. Still, the causality of how thinking functions to create unwanted behaviours or feelings is often unexplored.

The Core of Mental Health

Mental health is about understanding the spirit. It is the most direct course in affirming the core of wellness and a person’s authentic self.

So, why blame a person for sadness, depression, or anxiety? Why blame the psyche for doing what it does? Its function is to think, and when it thinks, it becomes realistic. When sad thoughts fade for the healthy ones, a shift happens. The psyche naturally produces the experience it embraces.

Believe it or not, many psychiatrists, counselors, and practitioners are switching gears from the fixer-upper approach to supporting well-being directly. It is a new frontier. When insightful guidance is fundamental, there isn’t a need to claim that people are damaged goods.

Practicing without reliance on coping mechanisms is a shift, indeed. It is a pioneer’s territory where practitioners resemble healers, advocates, and mentors by aiming their clients toward well-being rather than tinkering with mental constraints. Supporting a person’s resiliency is the core of the helping profession anyhow.

Exploring wellness gives a person another chance to discover the divine well of being that is already there instead of enlisting a coping crutch. Sound too good to be true?

Instead of resembling an auto repair shop that diagnoses a complaint with a mechanical solution, Three Principles is a process that guides towards inner abundance. In this sense, 3P describes how the psyche is a content creator of reality rather than fussing about the momentary content it makes.

Before I go further, here’s a visual encapsulation of the Three Principles:

The Three Principles are foundational for a 3P coach or mentor that guides individuals, couples, or groups to further their understanding of the inner golden egg of wisdom. With this in mind, a 3P mentor offers an invitation to live in wellness by compassionately sharing their understanding of the universal nature of the psyche that makes every experience possible.

Person-Centered Wisdom

When a person wants to feel happiness instead of sadness, it isn’t a matter of reducing symptoms. Instead, it is about recognizing thought as a divine gift that can create a temporary state of mind. The principle of Consciousness enlivens thought beyond neutrality and into a pool of sensory experience. Every life experience has a divine source, and the principle of Mind is the origin of it.

Everyone is born with a psyche, and its essential features are near invisible. Its universal functions bring formless into form. Each experience begins with a thought, awash by consciousness and powered by the mind. The experience itself is a composition of memories, associations, and beliefs. Thus, the past infuses the present via thought. The intellect can have prominence, but wisdom is always in the mix.

What is wisdom? Where does it come from? Does it ever go away?

Wisdom becomes self-evident with awareness. Its origin is divine, and it is within everyone. The point, it is an aspect of our authentic self. Our ancient relatives considered it the Allness. Since its source is continuously forming, there are limitless moments to recognize it. In the 3P modality, wisdom is a moment of divine sight.

As wisdom reaches the cognitive surface of experience, it brings a new branch of thought, an ‘a-ha’ moment. The profound A-ha of living is when pureness saturates the hum-drums of thinking with originality. It is the spirit of inner sight, and every insight has a divine origin.

Experience is the Mirror of the Psyche

The psyche is pure energy, continually bringing the ethereal functions of Mind, Thought, and Consciousness into existence. Nevertheless, every moment is full of unknowns, and our thinking can console us as much as it can create fear.

Thinking is a factor of living. It is relative to every experience, including mental health. Rather than addressing the offshoots of mental conditions as primary, there is another option. It is a self-recognition of the psyche’s interplay with experience. Essentially, understanding how the psyche functions can illuminate what creates distortions and how to right-size them insightfully. Mostly, distortions are shadows pulled by a string of thought.

By understanding the psyche’s functions, the Principles go beyond the root cause of conditions and into the origin of how energy manifests. Syd stated, “[Our wisdom is] hidden in the depths of a silent mind. It is a state of no thought.” If an experience is unwanted, only a new thought can dissolve it completely.

New ways of thinking make the past ruts obsolete. For this reason, even addictions, such as opioids or alcohol, can have closure beyond recovery.

Truly, what else is there that could cause mental health or illness than thinking within the consciousness of the psyche? More central, what else is mental healing than a leap beyond the condition via plunging into wellness within the divinity of the mind?

One of the biggest hurdles in life is trust. Trusting there is an authentic self buried under the rubble of the ego, the fear, and the illusions of life. “Physician, heal thyself” is a shift from illness to wellness from the inside out. Each person has the resilience to delve beyond all psychic wounds to heal, and experience is the mirror that makes it self-evident.

3P In Me and 3P In You

The most frequent obstacle a person faces in life is pain and suffering. It is an oppression of the spirit and exists by engaging thought. For example, when thinking of persecution is absent, its hardship cannot exist.

From a couple of broken-free practitioners:

“I meditate in my own way, and I do my own thing in life. There isn’t a prescribed method to follow anymore, and there might never have been. Living from one insight to the next, I move with what moves me and be with whatever wisdom rises into awareness.”

“Been self-healing so long, it’s time to smell the roses and commune with nature from the inside out. It’s all there is anyway. It brings more solace than any of the temporary stuff of life. While many are digging their heels in known comforts, I’d rather be in the unknown. It’s where the divine possibilities rendezvous.”

There isn’t anyone more healthy, holy, or resilient than any person. The difference is merely in the actualization. Manifesting one’s divine core into each moment is engaging innate intelligence. Bringing potential into awareness is boundless. It is an energetic state that is accessible to every living being. Having this in mind, we are our own teachers and students. We are the enlightenment we seek.

Of course, the choice is up to each person to pursue well-being from the outside or the inside. Either way, it begins from the same formless place.

The Ingredients of An Insight

Are the Three Principles the most reliable way to recognize mental health, or is it conventional therapy?

Each person makes a choice in life. Everyone wants optimal health, and it is as close as within oneself. Of course, the ultimate hope is for a person to discover and experience life without anguish.

While 3P coaches, like myself, find the Principles to be a direct route to illuminating well-being, it is up to each person’s inner sight to be the guide. Howbeit, there are some points I want to make about the Principles and the differences it has with conventional methods:

Modality Chart-A-Factors

Everyone deserves a choice for therapeutic support. But especially when the basis is insightfully generated. Whichever path, healing is a worthwhile pursuit when insight is engaged.

Listening For Something Well

“Not all good feelings are grounded in insight, and not all uneasiness signals a condition.”

Everything can become a learning opportunity in life’s journey toward well-being. For example, I met an industrial mechanic while working as a technician at an oil refinery in California. He told me about his diagnosis of Black Lung Disease. He told me that some treatments are available, but no conventional cure exists. Many jobs throughout his career required him to wear a mask or respirator when he was in confined spaces. These confined spaces had various forms of coal dust and chemical particles. He knew he was required to comply. He just didn’t feel like following the guidelines.

The inflammation and damage to his lungs from repeated exposure weren’t apparent until twenty-five years later. While he had some regrets, he was unphased. He considered his career and life an overall success. He was able to provide for his wife and secure his children’s college aspirations. From his perspective, the benefits outweighed the costs.

Our health relies upon a sight within. A holistic nutritionist had told me, “… act as if everything human-made causes cancer, and everything in nature doesn’t.” Each person decides the mantra to live by and how and when to listen to the wisdom within.

The nearest point of access to well-being is listening to our inner voice. Whenever it reverberates the tone of divine wisdom, something well is engaging. Hence, the main reason for anyone to attend a therapeutic group or plant a garden reveals itself by an unfolding insight.

Listening to wellness is an optimal way of living life. For example, if a person has an insight that reading a book is helpful, rather than reading it based upon outside endorsement, then that would be wisdom in action.

The journey towards health, healing, and well-being is unconditionally present within the spirit.

Special Note:

For most of my life, I was treated as subhuman. Yet, I survived many traumatic events in childhood and adulthood. As a result, I have a unique view of life. Even so, my life mutated from a subhuman state into experiencing a profound sense of awareness and well-being.

Early in my clinical career, I rarely heard a story that was more tragic than my own experience. It seemed I had an experiential reference point for just about every category in the diagnostic manual. At one point in life, I was even prescribed Stelazine, a generic brand of Thorazine.

Why be a clinician after experiencing so much pain and suffering in life?

Years ago, I had a profound inkling. Much more than any treatment modality, I found that hope is an evergreen component of the healing process. With this in mind, sharing my hope as a clinician became part of my healing process. Today, I realize that hope is anything and everywhere. It is a matter of listening to the depths of the conscious heart.

Peeling Away the Layers of Illusion

Pardon my boldness, but people don’t need another innovative modality, whether it claims folks are damaged or claims that health is at the core. Neither matters as much as holding onto hope and self-love. It is the stuff that brings the possibility of healing nearer, even for a second.

Life isn’t about 3P (Three Principles), WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan), ET (Exposure Therapy), MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction), EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy), and the list goes on and on.

Finding hope is everywhere, and it is a matter of discovery. My sense, wherever we go in life, hope is there. When it seems that it isn’t there, we likely forget how to recognize it. But in the moment of need, remembering our truer nature brings it to the forefront from its inner depths. Rediscovering our innate resilience is a profound moment indeed.

“Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”

—Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

The divine is within everyone, and like starting a loving relationship, recognizing it begins with a spark. From there, it warms into a flame. Of course, the flame of hope and love isn’t an actual fire. It is consciousness illuminating.

The bottom line, there is no reason for a person to give up on themselves or squelch their spirit for the temporary wants of living. There is much, much more to life than meets the optical eyes.

The Eternal Re-Discovering Authenticity

Life is full of struggles, challenges, and perplexities. Yet, it may seem like it is full of brokenness or wounded spirits. If we let the outside sabotage the purity within, we might even believe it. Truly, the abyss in life isn’t indicative of a condition. On the contrary, it reminds us of our resilient nature!

How about letting the divine spirit within us ambush the outer illusions of conditions, casualties, and disabilities for the sake of well-being?

The limitless potential of the spirit is nearly invisible. Yet, it is the authentic energy that each person is born with and rediscovers in their own way. It isn’t up to me to advise anyone in which direction to go. However, I have a bias to guide towards insight because it is the closest position without end.

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”

—Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

This article was originally published:

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Eric Zuniga

The 3 Principles are evidence-based and used in counseling settings worldwide. Eric provides a variety of 1:1 guidance, such as trauma/poly-survivor support, addiction closure, and relationship counseling. Eric has experienced living beyond traumatic events as a poly-survivor. To share his journey, Eric has created a vlog series called One Spiritual Principle. 

Some stories sound similar, while some resemble the unknown. There are segments with joyous moments met with a welcoming embrace. But, noticeably, some parts have a tragedy. In every situation, the psyche has its way of converting these moments into cognition. Innocently, it weaves into the mental fabric of day-to-day reality.

Life Ebbs and Flows

Some global estimates claim that 115 babies are born each minute. In contrast, these estimates also note that 14 children (ages 15 years or younger) die each minute. Accordingly, life happens more than death. Viewing it from the sacred, laughter and love happen more than calamity.

Life experiences become a story via the psyche. From it emerges how we think of ourselves, the world, and the universe. The mind’s eye is flexible, so its view can recoil, shift, and expand. It can happen at any moment, whether amid tragedy or during a celebration.

Shifting Loss into Love

Losing a loved one, especially a child, can become a relentless heartbreak. Sure, there are tears and fears. But the spirit knows that hope has an unrelenting avenue to restoring the balance. In the realm of probability, within each minute, a gift is unfolding. It is the gift of something more sustainable than the rawness of the past. Finding a vision of the present worth carrying into the future is a courageous moment, indeed.

In my personal experience, there are moments when I miss my children more than any comforting thought. With it comes the inability to talk, and soon I am crippled with hopeless emotions. It doesn’t take much to trigger me into these thought waves, and it isn’t challenging to let them go either. I accept both. The tears of loss and loving embrace for my children have become one in the same. I reach for living memory, and it connects me to my children wherever they may be in this world or the next.

The most challenging aspect of losing my children is how my story is heard. I appreciate understanding and compassion, but there has also been imposing disbelief that my loss was just imagination. Yes, on some level, my feeling of loss is a figment of my thinking. Since I have seen my children in photos, I know there is more than mental tarnish to my experience.

The Eternal Love of a Child

When I reflect upon my younger relatives growing from children into young adults, I feel joyous and gay. It overpowers the losses I have endured. I can appreciate their spirit through my mind’s eye. Even with my grief, I always have good intentions toward them. While I haven’t had moments to raise my birth children or participate as a Grandparent, I continue to admire the cycles of generations unfolding afore me.

I have become accustomed to being misunderstood, and it is usually an offshoot of occupied thinking from my losses. Rarely is my tragedy understood when I share the unpleasant parts of the story. So, I share the digestible pieces mostly because it keeps me in check from going off the deep end of sadness.

For what it is worth, I continue to embrace a loving vision. It is the vision of being reunited with my children, somehow on this earthly plane. In a recent conversation I had with a cheerful and loving Grandmother, I heard something that hadn’t been detectable before. It was the point that all children have intuitive intelligence about their parents. It is intelligence that reaches beyond the physical and into the sacred.

What became resounding is the thought that my children think of me as I do them, with love and heartache from missing a connection. It makes a mystical feeling of warmth accessible. It happens in a hopeful moment and is within the realm of reality.

Yes, I wish to open my front door and embrace my children. Those children who have already departed surely know me better than I know myself. whether it be a Heavenly or physical embrace, there is no doubt that love is alive and well, especially if I give it a caring chance to surface.

Returning to the Living

Here in this world, some questions curious parents ask me are, “Do you have children? How old are they? What happened to them?” In the spirit of camaraderie, I respond with the good portions. For me, finding the words has been challenging. So, I had moments when I didn’t know how to reply. I have felt it proper to state, “I don’t have any children,” to avoid possibly damaging my feelings or another person’s idea of reality.

In my experience, not everyone is receptive to hearing about the loss of a child. Especially the parts that include the undertows of this world. For some, the undertow is an unknown quantity, and it seems many prefer it remains that way.

All the same, many people have experienced child loss. It is a cycle that every community will eventually face, sooner or later. Each community decides how and when to support fellow parents through the abyss of losing a child, and it can be challenging. Howbeit, with love and a commitment to healing, it can afford new levels of compassion and informed care.

In my reflection, I continue to navigate a safe and hopeful route. The way I think about my past in the present has a pivotal role in the direction I forge. I realise these experiences have held me back from enjoyment and laughter, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I have a right to feel my loss and express it as compassionately as possible when sharing my story. Thus, I am no less than anyone because of it and surely no less than the trees and the stars. I am as much a child of this universe as any being. I am learning who I am with each experiential step I make.

The Invisible Glue of a Lifetime

Yes, I love life any way I can. It includes my community, the giant creatures, and the near-invisible ones. All of us beings have a purpose. We are unfolding spirits!

I don’t want anyone to experience a loss of a child, parent, or loved one. So naturally, I want everyone on Earth to be happy, joyous, and wildly free. This thought has returned to my mind since I was a child. I embrace my childhood thinking because it has a unique pure connection to this world and the sacred universe. I think it is a tragedy for any generation to forget the purpose of childhood. Each community is the exact result of its loving intentions and the safe care it affords children.

From my heart to yours, if you are a parent living with the loss of a child, I reach out to you with a loving hug. Even as I have had my own loss, I want to understand yours from your terms of experience. Hence, you are in my prayers for a healing connection. I wish for you, more than anything, that all our children can find safety, even if they are in the ethereal. I firmly believe love unites all of us.

Understandably, I am genuinely sorry for the losses. I want this world to be humane for all children, youngsters, and elders alike. But I can’t do it alone and don’t want to do it alone. Such a vision includes you, us, and them. If I have it my way, I would build a Disneyland in every community to show how much we care for the development of our children and the joys of parenting. Being an adult is amiss, without children or childhood intact.

Moment For Heartfelt Reflection

I wish I knew how this sacred universe worked so I could remove the tragedy of living. But, since it seems unremovable, I want it to be right-sized and make it dwarfed by the unyielding graces of love and laughter. So, in my limited way, I meditate on the idea that we can find a way to unfold the gifts within us.

There must be a way for everyone in the community to find healing avenues here and today.

Special Note:

Via my written word, I hope to encapsulate my heart’s consciousness; the feelings and thoughts about the momentary living experience in life. Through story, I include my version of joys and heartbreak with as much insight as possible. I wish to make a profound connection with you. So, I reach across with as much sacred thinking as I can muster into words.

Besides words, there is another way to express the sacred, and I am ready for it. Loving embraces, warm smiles, and compassionate feelings are my expressive wish to ‘reproduce’ for you. Translating my experiences, words, gestures, and sounds has been challenging. So, understandably, there is a decoding process that often is mistaken for something personal.

Communication, for me, is about listening for understanding and centered on another being’s experience with loving openness. I want to understand everyone. In this sense, clarity unfolds with curiosity. It isn’t about delivering a cemented decree. So, if there is a need for clarity or wondering about my expressions, it boils down to love.

When I say “I love you!” there isn’t an endpoint, ever. Once it reaches you, it can sail to another and another. It’s an endless waterfall of expression. My thinking, every present moment can benefit from loving rain pouring down, again and again.

When it comes to love, the folks in my life have been my sacred rock. Together, my micro-community of sisters, brothers, and elders are keen listeners of my story. While I often emphasize the losses, it is for reflection on the distance I made through the raw patches of the past. I do what I can to right-size the wounded past for balance with the present and its future.

Healing the Past with Love

In the nutshell, I want to share my past for healing purposes. Especially the parts that have morphed into conscious understandings. For example, I had gobbles of unresolved traumas in my younger years. These traumas never transferred to my children because there wasn’t direct contact. It is a loss with a rainbow lining that my children had a generational gain. It is my loving wish for all children to leap frog beyond generational traumas. Of course, there is more to my story than these words can tell.

The most direct way I know to heal generational trauma is compassionate love, inclusively. It embraces curiosity with another being for understanding to mend wellbeing together again. I sense that the heart can make miracles happen beyond mental impositions. Someday, some way, I wish to meet my children and welcome them into my human arms like many parents get to do routinely.

Simply put, my message to my children is the same message to you. I live and love with all my heart, hoping to reunite, connect, and whenever possible, live profoundly. The potential is there for it. Perhaps it has already begun.

When the moment arrives to break bread together, I am ready to reunite. There is likely going to be some home-cooking for the occasion. For the appetizer, I want to share with you some words about love that live in the profound realm of the sacred universe.

“Love is the only way to embrace another living being in the innermost core. No one can become fully aware of the essence of another living being unless they love them. By love, it enables us to see the essential features and personality traits in the beloved person; and even more, it is seeing that which is potential in him, her or they, which is not yet actualized but yet to be actualized.”

“Furthermore, by love, the loving person empowers the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making them aware of what they can be and of what they should become, making these potentialities come true.”

Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust Survivor, Man’s Search for Meaning (edited for inclusiveness)

Eric Zuniga

The 3 Principles are evidence-based and used in counseling settings worldwide. Eric provides a variety of 1:1 guidance, such as trauma/poly-survivor support, addiction closure, and relationship counseling. Eric has experienced living beyond traumatic events as a poly-survivor. To share his journey, Eric has created a vlog series called One Spiritual Principle. 

Can a person with a complex self-harming expression find a healing cure?

For every illness, there is a cure. Many prominent approaches are outside-in, while the healing functions of the psyche are always inside-out.

Outside-in approaches to healing have become commonplace for psychiatric and traditional therapies. These utilize diagnostic criteria based on the observable symptoms.

See for yourself. The clinical definition of self-harm is widely accessible online. From a clinical view, the consensus revolves around the conditions. It then forms into its diagnostic category. Even so, treatment remains unstandardized.  Finding clarity about the ailing state is half the equation. Ultimately, restoring health is primary over the symptoms and its disorder.

An example of outside-in, an article published in 2014 by the Canadian Psychiatric Association, nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has acquired the definition of “the deliberate, direct, self-inflicted destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent…” Within this definition, the cause and remedy are unfindable.

Initially, the DSM-V noted self-harm as an associated symptom of Bipolar Disorder (BPD). Since then, it has become the classification entity, NSSID. While the classification is pending further study, the exploration of viable treatments continues to appear less evident.

Hence, the condition of NSSI or NSSID attributed to a person offers information about the symptoms. It neglects a comprehensive scope of healing options.

In a sense, identifying the diagnosis can be a means to an ambiguous end. Psychiatric remedies for self-harm apply familiar avenues such as atypical antipsychotics and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Remarkably, these approaches are more anecdotal than medically based.

In treating self-harm, many psychotherapies remain in a promising practice phase too. They rely on reusing evidence-based therapies, such as dialectical behavioral therapy, emotion regulation group therapy, or other cognitive-oriented therapies. However, controlled studies have shown moderate efficacy. Clinical Practitioners utilizing these approaches know that the outcomes are variable.

In all fairness, people with self-harming expressions do find a reduction of symptoms by the standards. There are additional options as well. For many preferring an alternative approach or the spiritual, there are equivalent possibilities.

When a person arrives at healing from the inside-out, it has profound results. From this approach, wisdom is at the helm.

As noted in the recent CPTSD Foundation article by Belinda Pyle, “Why Pets Are Better Than People,” she shares her healing and rewarding experiences with a four-leg companion. Animals are considered a viable therapy for recovery from a traumatic past or its related symptomologies.

Restoring health is an inside-out journey of self-discovery and awareness. Healing is mostly an experiential phenomenon. Its origin is the inner light that eclipses the shadows of the condition. By viewing life insightfully, the shadows naturally fade for an experience of well-being. It can happen gradually or shift profoundly.

To encapsulate, a clinical practitioner provides a method. It is not the method for everyone. In another article, “The Dreaded DSM and CPTSD,” Gemma Jones notes many inspiring therapeutic options as alternative possibilities. She cites a few, such as yoga, floating meditation, and the alternative practice of acupuncture.

Transforming self-harm into healthy self-care is reliant upon insightful understanding. By way of inner sight, a person can regain stability and well-being via the inherent potential from within the psyche.

Life is more about the path than its ruts and pits. Undoubtedly, the human psyche is not an invention of science. It is a feature of nature. Within the formless elements of the mind resides the key to unlock the cure to any condition.

The article by Shirley Davis, “Becoming More Resilient,” describes restorative qualities inherent within everyone. The spark of resilience is a profound inner ability in restoring well-being.

There is a clear and present solution for healing within the spirit of the psyche. From the depths of wisdom, the impossible can become a probability.

Many healing from self-harm, an aspect of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), experience the clouds of condition. It blotts out the light. It can be formidable and destabilizing. Of course, the features within the mind are formless. Within the psyche, any condition can reshape and eventually dissolve as wisdom overrides the debilitating state.

From the depths of the psyche, the cure rises to shift the shallows of condition. No one is born with self-harming. Every self-harm expression is acquired. In a sense, all disorders are a displacement upon a person. These can be “uninstalled” via insightful thinking within the conscious mind. The wisdom within restores completely.

While studies of people restoring health from self-harm or complex trauma are limited, it is evident that many on a healing pathway find profound well-being.

One possibility, restoring health from self-harm or trauma, is an inner phenomenon of reconnecting a conscious pathway deeper than the condition itself. Once healing begins, it unfolds into new levels of awareness from the inside out. Essentially, an inner bridge of wisdom supersedes the shallows of conditions.

While a clinical diagnosis may have a grasp on symptomatic appearances, insight reveals the cause and the potential for an inner cure to restore health. The world is full of conditions. Each person decides if life is a glass half empty or half full. Once symptoms dissolve for a deeper understanding, every experience can transform into a profound gift of living in greater well-being.

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Eric Zuniga

The 3 Principles are evidence-based and used in counseling settings worldwide. Eric provides a variety of 1:1 guidance, such as trauma/poly-survivor support, addiction closure, and relationship counseling. Eric has experienced living beyond traumatic events as a poly-survivor. To share his journey, Eric has created a vlog series called One Spiritual Principle.