The Inconsolable One

If you are familiar with my books or talks then you know that at two times in my life I had my .357 magnum against my head with the intent of killing myself.

This wasn’t a “cry for help” as I didn’t tell anyone about it until well afterward.

This wasn’t a dramatic moment of selfishness (something that some people have said who feel suicide is selfish and not “considerate of others.”)

This was for one reason and one alone:

I wanted my suffering to end.

And as it turns out after doing some core work I finally met the “person” who put the gun to my head.

It’s a very strange feeling when one is really suicidal, it’s like some part of me is trying to murder another part of me.

It’s the center piece of Eckhart Tolle’s famous inner conflict:

“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. ... If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the 'I' and the 'self' that 'I' cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real.”

It took a bit of searching, in fact, it took a fair amount of “spiritual bypassing” to find this “person.” (As it turns out “Spiritual bypassing” is merely the act of running away from this exact part of my psyche to a “spiritual” place of peace, but I digress…)

I found him in my inner child core work.

When I did my inner child work I found many children locked in many “unresolved emotional and psychological states.” I found a sad one. I found an angry one. I found a jealous one. I found many many children who were not allowed to express themselves fully and I sat with them and let them finally resolve those states. Then I finally found him.

He was full of rage. He was miserable. And he was unable to take it anymore. His emotional garbage can was full of pain and he couldn’t take one more drop.

I asked him who he was angry with and to my great shock he said “you…”

My parents may have put him in uncomfortable situations in the past. My siblings may have abused him for their own feelings of self worth and power. Society may have been an un-nurturing and hostile environment where he was a “weirdo” and a “nerd.” But he didn’t mention any of them.

He hated me.

I was stunned.

I remember bargaining with him trying to make some kind of ally like “yeah we’ve been through a lot” and he wouldn’t let me get away with it. There was no “we.” It was his pain and I was unwelcome, in fact I was the primary cause and he wanted me dead.

I can’t tell you how stunned I was to find this inner child. I wasn’t working with a mental healthcare practitioner, I was doing this work on my own so I began to wonder if in fact I was doing it wrong.

I gave myself many justifications for avoiding working one on one with this inner child. I had found through meditation and a surrender practice some stunningly deep access to peace, love, and joy which I found far more fulfilling an expenditure of my time than listening to his rage and hate.

So, I avoided him a lot, hence the spiritual bypassing.

But he would find ways to sabotage. He would use my brain mechanics dedicated to “doom and gloom” (to quote Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor) and join in enthusiastically with any Pain Body attacks that arose in my consciousness.

While I was “working on my Pain Body” he was swimming in it.

While I was working on healing the darkness and bringing it into the light, he was turning off light switches all over the place.

In fact, it is this inner child, and this inner child alone that is the basis for my confident assertion that without core work enlightenment practices are doomed to fail and why the success rate for “spiritual methods” that don’t include them are very low.

If this child isn’t dealt with, they will sabotage your practice until the day you die.

So, how do we deal with them?

My teacher’s primary lesson was “accept what is” and “surrender to what arises in your consciousness.” He would make these points in one way or another repetitively and with a wry sense of impish humor that was not to everyone’s liking.

And those were the tools I had at my disposal. So, one day, while my Inconsolable One was very active and boisterous I decided to apply those tools to him.

When he arose and said “I hate you I wish you were dead” I said “ok, I accept that.”

It wasn’t enough to say it. I had to feel it, don’t forget that as a part of us our inner children “know us better than we know ourselves…”

He was stunned.

He didn’t buy it.

He said “fuck you…”

And went quiet.

My rational mind was happy with the peace and quiet that came from my inner child’s silence but I calmed it and knew that if I kept this inner child as an adversary I wouldn’t be able to maintain my surrender. So I told it to shut up and stay out of this interaction.

And I sat holding the space for him to want me dead.

Nothing changed.

But he was quiet.

Over the years he would arise, I could feel him, but he wouldn’t say anything. When he arose I sat with him and held the space for him to feel anything he wanted. It was during this time, because he never seemed to change, that he earned his nickname “The Inconsolable One.”

My interactions with him, coupled with my surrender practice, were primary in how I came to my definition of the word “love” as: “accepting something/one as it is with your whole heart.”

So, when he arose, I simply loved him.

It took years of this until he began talking to me again. I was shocked. I was watching some movie and he piped in and said to me “I don’t like him, he’s mean…” about some villainous character in the film.

I was shocked. Even more shocked because I knew this was HIM, this was “The Inconsolable One” speaking. And… he was confiding in… me!?

I said back to him “me too buddy, me too…” and he went quiet again.

Over the last eight or so years we’ve had similar “chats” where he comes “online” to tell me of something he disapproves of and I say “me too buddy, me too…” and he goes away.

About two years ago we got to the point where he could “sit on my lap” and watch the entire movie with me with his own little “bowl of popcorn” and make little asides during the whole process.

I can hear him, my mind even has him speak with his mouth full from time to time, saying “Oh, she’s mean, I don’t like her…” and I respond always the same with some kind of “yes, buddy, yes she is…” and nothing more.

I don’t try to console him. I don’t try to “show him the bright side” I just sit with him and let him complain.

It’s been many years since he put a gun to my head, and, now he doesn't seem to want to anymore.

But if he did I’d merely say to him “I understand buddy, I understand…” and sit and hold him in love.