The Deepest Insecurity
The deepest insecurity stems from not having a sense of Self* established. A sense of Self is established (in utero) when the spirit chooses our body with which to incarnate. This is our first embodiment experience. It is solely a bodily experience, as ego has not yet developed. So, Self cannot be “thought, “read” or “talked” into being…ever. It must be felt. The biological structures associated with the felt sense are subcortical: limbic and reptilian.
In the human-animal kingdom, the task of facilitating this process lies with the mother. Her job is to reflect back to you, your Self (soul) and it’s bespoke purpose. If your mother is karmically living an insecure existence, she is only able to reflect back to you that insecurity. Self, therefore, is not developed. In its place, a visceral feeling of not being accepted into this world is landed somatically. Clients in my private practice often describe this as feeling “homeless.”
Indeed, if your mother did not facilitate your first embodiment experience, then she probably facilitated an experience of annihilation. I describe annihilation as an existential experience of feeling both dead and alive. In essence, not only was your divinity not reflected to you, it was stolen from you before you had developed the faculties enabling consent.
Due to this, you will then live a life attempting to find acceptance in this world, as well as your aliveness. This is what I call “splitting.” The “split” stems from the ego/mind: a created sense of self that has little or no connection with the Soul. Splitting gives us temporary relief from the pain of abandonment. It is, therefore, not sustainable. The only sustainable sense of peace comes from having one’s sense of Self firmly established - it was spiritually intended to be our first “home.”
Like a spiritual pilgrim walking along the “homeless” path, you will put yourself out there in the external world excruciatingly attempting to fill the hole in your body. You will try to find your Self through alcohol, drugs, sex, porn, food, merging with others, multiple partners, etc. As these behaviors cause great suffering when they leave, we know they are attachments, oftentimes advancing to full-on addictions.
In yogic practices, divine mother energy is caked Prana Shakti. It is the energy that brings spirit and soul into relationship at the inception of our life. It is the energy so many of us are craving. In the spiritual realm, many of us are calling out for some version of Mother Mary to come to us as she is an avatar of Prana Shakti.
Most of us will only extinct the behavior of reaching out into the external world (the addictive state path) through exhaustion by way of pain, not by insight. In the throes of being confronted with this new illusion of being nothingness and left completely alone to fend for our Self, we can then choose a new path with which to begin a relationship with our True Self. This is the path of the Warrior. It is a lonely path as it’s only ever achieved by being and feeling the depths of aloneness. This is the state so many people unconsciously avoid by way of distraction and excuses.
In my chosen path (yoga), a critical piece of this process is to create a sadhana (daily practice). I believe it must be non-negotiable that we carve out a part of our day - even if it’s 10 minutes - so we can be in relationship with our blocks, and eventually have access to our True Self. Accompanied by a teacher/mentor/therapist and a healthy community, Sadhana can be a means with which we lessen the time and energy of suffering in these karmic cycles (samsaras). And, the biggest piece: it is where we put an end to hurting ourselves, others and the world.
There are many paths with which to choose from. What is critical is that your path includes embodiment practices. The body - as opposed to the mind - is where the rupture was created in the first place, i.e., when you were conceived, so that’s where it must be healed.
The Architecture of Humanity curriculum, Understanding Us, is a path of psycho-bio-spiritual practices, tools and protocols that has the capacity to meet an individual on many points on the path. It begins with identifying one’s being as feeling “lost” from Self and being in crisis (Level 1), and moves the individual up the path to integration, coherence and self-actualization (Level 3).
*Soul , big-S-self, True Self, The Core and Atman can be used interchangeably with “Self” within this context.