11 Jun The open door

One of my first individual clients from ‘De StressOntknoping’ was Freek, he worked in an institution for young people with special support needs. He visited me at the Zen Center, where I was conducting my sessions in the front room at the time, while old Zen masters looked on from photographs with kindly expressions.

Freek told me how he regularly went cycling in nature with a friend. Riding hard on lightweight racing bikes. After a day with strong gusts of wind, a branch lay on the bike path after a turn. The friend who was leading made a swing to avoid the branch and slipped. Freek crashed into him, flew through the air, and landed on his shoulder, hearing his bones crack. The complicated fracture he sustained from this still causes him chronic pain today.

Coloring the pain spot
I asked Freek to close his eyes and go towards the pain. How big was the spot exactly? Where was the pain most intense? I suggested he mentally color the spot. Where the pain was most palpable with an intense color and fading to the sides less intense. Freek now stepped into his pain. I asked him if he could feel resistance against the sensation. Freek confirmed. Could he also let go of this resistance? Could he relax into the discomfort? Freek’s face softened. The pain was still there, but without the resistance it became noticeably less and more bearable.

Freek explained that something was still bothering him about the accident. At the moment he turned around to his friend after the fall, his friend had laughed. This was incomprehensible to Freek. His friend had scrambled upright and instead of caring for Freek, he only focused on his own scrapes and inspected his clothes. Then he laughed again. As Freek was telling me this, you could see that it still affected him deeply. He was still blaming his friend.

Resentment
The pain from the fall was clearly localized; it was in his shoulder, but where was this mental pain actually located? Freek could understand that there was no malicious intent from his friend. He had not noticed how badly the fall had affected Freek. He was mainly focused on his own maneuver, which had allowed him to escape worse consequences. Despite this understanding, Freek couldn’t shake it off. He was still struggling with the resentment he felt towards this man.

Some emotional pain is old. It originated in childhood. The scars that were formed there we carry into our adult lives. Freek grew up in a baker’s family in a small town. His parents worked from early morning until late at night and were also people who had been damaged in their youth. Emotionally detached, Freek told how as a teenager he once prevented his father from jumping out of the window on the upper floor of their house. There was little attention for the children, and they were left to fend for themselves. The lack of attention was a pain point from his childhood. The behavior of the friend who left him lying on the ground and only cared about himself rubbed against the old wound. Freek had an allergic reaction.

Through the open door
By seeing this connection, Freek began to move. I told him that a door had opened, the door to the old pain from the past. In the next session, we were able to visit this old pain spot. Freek noticed that he mainly struggled with his own resistance to the old pain. When he no longer resisted but dared to feel the pain without resistance, it dissolved. And with it, the resentment towards his friend also disappeared.

Plant with beautiful flowers
There was also a positive consequence of the neglect Freek had experienced in his youth. He could empathize well with the feelings and needs of troubled children. He had a natural connection with them, they trusted him, and he was the heart of the institution he worked for. From the suffering of his youth, a plant had grown, a plant with beautiful flowers.

*This post has been automatically translated from Dutch