The adventure continues.
Far too many people just don’t realize what is going on under the “hood” of their consciousness. Does the motor run a little rough? Even if it does not, it may be time to take a look. While you are looking at it, you may want to grab a beer (non-alcoholic is just fine ).
!987 was a profound year for me. I went from Bruce 1.0 to the beginnings of Bruce 2.0. Bruce 1.0 was the person who was experiencing the depths of despair, disease, and drug related insanity. Yet, Bruce 1.0 led me to the outskirts of what our Christian religious adherents might call “The Kingdom Of God”, or the beginnings of the development of Bruce 2.0, which is a more healed, spiritually aware version of myself. Before you stop reading and run for cover, I now call this space, and place, new healing paths of consciousness, which takes all religious and Christian overtones away from the experience. I am certainly not a practicing Christian, so no shame here. You may add Christian “born again” themes back in now, though, if you are of that persuasion.
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The version of myself, Bruce 2.0 came into real predominance in the years 1987-1993. I lived a life characterized by a seeming full attunement with the Spirit within myself. I always had a smile on my face, for the joy just continued to overflow from my interior parts. I meditated often, and I was committed to the spiritual path. It culminated in an experience with a retreat with a spiritual teacher, Eileen Bowden of the Infinite Way, which brought me into a transcendent state, one which I would not emerge for over one week. It might have appeared that I had reached the spiritual pinnacle of life, but life was not through with me yet.
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I had to return back to my normal employment, and I was again immersed in the incredible dysfunction of the American male’s predominantly toxic consciousness. I also saw the total foolishness of bringing my “spiritualized” sense of self into this toxic world, for I would be a lamb amongst the wolves. And yet, from an inner knowing gained through another 1987 insight, I also knew, that I all that I see, unto eternity, is myself, in its infinitude of forms. What did these damaged men represent to me that I had not yet witnessed and/or addressed within myself? I gradually walked away from my “enlightened” experience, to directly address my human condition, in a pretty unconscious version of myself.. Yet, at this point, I did not have the language, nor the full insight, as to what I was witnessing, its source, and how to bring healing to that inner dimension that was clouding my vision. And here I thought that I had “arrived”, and needed no further exploratory work into the darkness within the human mind.
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I have had several major insights along the way to where I am today as a healing member of the human race. Bruce 2.0 had seen its inherent limitations, and began making way for the best version of itself, which I now call Bruce 3.0. Bruce 2.0 started out oblivious to those unexamined traumatic influences and controls that guides much of the movement of our culture, with its often times divisive politics and religions, as well as continued poor family and neighborly relations.
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Human consciousness itself, if you will pardon me for this analogy, is like a glass of beer with a deep head on the top of it. The froth represents our knowledge, science, religion, memories, and the collective history of mankind. Yet, without the liquid beer underneath it, all support would collapse. So, what constitutes the nature of the supporting beer? The beer may be considered to be the foundation of inner knowing in this analogy. Some would say that the beer is just our spiritual nature, or our essence. It is non-verbal in nature, yet it advises all of our potential for thoughts, and for the creation of personal narratives and collective knowledge. What is neglected with this understanding is the influence that our emotions contribute to this dynamic. Emotions are an integral part of ourselves as human beings, helping to inform and guide us, protect us, and keep us in alignment with our integrity and personal sense of self. And, their source is often non-verbal in nature, as well. All emotions are not acknowledged or expressed, nor do they all originate from the conscious centers within the matrix of our own consciousness. Those who have read my writings will know that this unconscious aspect or center informs and maintains our individual, and cultural, Conspiracy of Silence.
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Wait a minute. What am I really saying here?
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I am saying that we, as human beings, may be informed not only from our conscious minds, our history, our pains, our joys, our sufferings, our personal and collective history, but also from two non-verbal centers within ourselves, the spiritual center, and the silent part of our emotional center. Those who would argue against the existence of a spiritual center should not discontinue reading, as the other non-verbal center that also informs us may be of more short term importance and also intellectually acceptable to their minds. The non-verbal part of our emotional center may have one, two, or a thousand or more unconscious informants, depending upon our life experience,
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So, what, or who, or where are these informants? Are they informed by our gut, or by our heart? Are they informed by our muscles, other bodily organs, or even our bones? These non-verbal informants are our internalized traumas. These traumas literally are stored within the tissues of our bodies, as well impressions within our nervous systems. Never doubt their existence within your self, and your body, for even if we have no conscious recollection of trauma, trauma exists, and continues to inform our entire being daily. Even if you had the perfect parents, perfect childhood, and are now perfect adults. you are part of a collective experience as well, and you have watched the evening news, haven’t you? Your innocence has been repeatedly challenged, and you have been wounded, whether you want to acknowledge that fact, or not. You have witnessed man’s inhumanity to man, our wars, our murders, the assassinations of our political and spiritual leaders, our misogyny, our racism, the insults we may have delivered to others, or even the insults others have delivered to us..
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That which does not flow through you,
Sticks just like glue, and becomes part of you..
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Is a little poem which captures the essence of the impacts of trauma. The latest research in psychoneuroimmunology (a discipline that has evolved in the last 40 years to study the relationship between immunity, the endocrine system, and the central and peripheral nervous systems.) shows how these traumatic influences actually impact our bodies, our minds, and redirect our spirits to engage in unhealthy responses to stimulus that has long since disappeared. The issues remain in our tissues, and the latest studies show how unrecognized trauma causes the victim to prematurely age, and suffer abnormal stress while also living under the threat of more physiological diseases through the over-excretions of cortisol over many years.
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In the 1990’s Kaiser Hospitals conducted a study whose results culminated in the development of the ACE scale. ACE stands for Averse Childhood Experiences, and there were ten questions by which the experts could determine one’s predisposition to self-defeating behaviors such as obesity, alcoholism and drug addiction, as well as establishing the direct relationship between early trauma and adverse health outcomes later in life. Have you ever wondered why you hurt so badly, yet have nothing to directly attribute it to? You may have embedded trauma, awaiting for you to wake up to its ticking time bomb presence, and address it, before it explodes into poor health outcomes for you.
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My narrative around my childhood trauma and abuse, and Spirit’s attempts to have me heal myself has been documented in several of my books, and will not be extensively expanded upon here. I will mention a brief healing story about an experience that I had In July of 1987. In that experience II was granted insight into my body, and I actually saw two energy vortices trapped within my life energy field. I know that this sounds like gibberish to most people, yet sometimes our proprioceptive senses extend inward, allowing for us to see our internal body energy matrix, much like insight allows us to look inward to see the matrix of our consciousness, and potential blocks to our evolution and healing. These two vortices appeared almost like two little independent identities, which I immediately labeled as “tricksters”, without really knowing why. They were not there for my greater good, and yet, at the time, I did not know their origin, or how to free myself of them. Now I know that their unspoken voices competed with those unspoken voices of my truest innocent self, and my spiritual nature.
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Let me fast forward to 2017, when I finally was able to address these energy “vortices”. I learned after an amazing stressful event, or panic attack, two weeks after the death of my father and my best friend, that they represented my unhealed perceptions of my parents, who subjected me to severe, though unintentional, trauma when I was a baby, and a growing boy. These vortices represented the internalized pain of not having my presence acknowledged, my cries heard, my need for physical and emotional security met, and my need to be valued for who I was. These “informants” made sure that I interpreted life from a limited perspective, tied to the whipping post of the ignorance of other possibilities for myself. I had wondered why self sabotaging behavior still was part of my life, and why I sometimes felt like nobody wanted to listen to me, let alone read anything that I had written.
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In 1992, a friend of mine, Paul Z. attended a weekend meditation retreat hosted by Jerry Jones, a local meditation master who had gained national recognition. Paul was a pretty straightforward guy, a devout AA adherent, and almost a guru of sorts for its philosophy and potential to bring healing from alcoholism, as well as many mental health issues. He did not believe in new age understanding, per se, being a very practical and pragmatic man. Seeing is believing, and Paul was not easily swayed from that point of view. During one of his meditation sessions, a small entity seemed to emerge from his back, crawl up to his shoulder, and actually appeared to talk to Paul. Paul was informed by this “entity” that it was actually all of his thoughts, and internalized misunderstanding of his own back pain, and Paul’s contribution to its continued existence. Paul had been plagued by a sore back since his childhood (he was in his 40’s at this point), and unconsciously Paul had married a childhood trauma that he experienced with a back injury he had also sustained when he was 10 years old. Through Paul seeing this “creation”, he was freed from it, and his back pain disappeared, FOR GOOD. Guess what? Paul now understands the incredible power of trauma to influence the body, and the mind.
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My first wife, Donelle Mae Flick Paullin ( deceased 11/20/2022) suffered from what psychiatric professionals labeled as paranoid schizophrenia. She developed this disease near the end of her senior year in high school. We had known each other for two years at this point, having dated for the last eighteen months. I struggled mightily to both help and understand her, over the many years that I stayed in relationship with her. I gained insight not only into her “disease”, which also devolved into multiple personality disorder, but also into the very mind of mankind. Mankind suffers from aspects of this disease in a collective sense, and the traumatized, oppressed and victimized, and most innocent and sensitive people in our society are most vulnerable to developing such mental illnesses. ALWAYS REMEMBER, our mentally ill population, including the addicts and the alcoholics, are society’s “canaries in the mine”. We will all die of spiritual asphyxiation, should we neglect to listen to the stories being told by our most vulnerable, and damaged, family members. 
In 1987, I visited Donelle at her apartment near Camas Washington. We had been divorced since 1984, but I still kept in touch with her on occasion, because of my concern for her. I had just gotten sober, and I wanted to make amends to her, as part of the program of working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (total sobriety was to last for me for over 20 years, until I developed a pain killer addiction in 2007). This time, she was in the middle of a complete MPD (multiple personality disorder) type of nervous breakdown. She had candles lit throughout her apartment, and the setting was quite eerie. I sat down with her to talk, and I noted that she looked so young and innocent, and I was struck by the change in her appearance and countenance. As she spoke to me, I felt like I was witnessing a 6 or 7 year old girl, with the new persona that was now speaking through her. For some reason, I was inspired to give her feedback about her “six year old self” that I was witnessing. I told her that she was not responsible for the sexual abuse that she experienced from Bud (and perhaps one or two unnamed others during Marlene’s drunken soirees). I tried to be as forgiving and compassionate as my heart would allow to the naive, innocent child making its presentation before me.
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We both cried together, and my heart was broken, and I hurt like I had never before hurt as a human being. I can only imagine her own terror and fear around her own abuse at the hands of her elders. Later in this visit, another “personality” appeared. A calm, composed mature person then “incarnated” into Donelle. I asked who I was talking with. She told me that she was “God”, and proceeded to give me the wisest, most loving feedback that I had ever received as a human being up to that point in my life.
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“I have many faces, but you have recognized mine, and you have reached the point of being able to accept beauty in your life. You have made peace with your past, but peace does not last forever. You have much work to do, but your work will have love guiding it, and protecting you.”
As I was open to “God” at that point in my life, it was a miracle that “God” could use the vehicle of a damaged human being to talk with me. That is how “God” works sometimes.
Looking at my history, I remained open to the revelations from the Mystery
Who can say with certainty what reality truly is? Those who cling too tightly to what they think that they know, can unintentionally exclude a “whisper from God” that might be experienced and revealed in the newness of each moment, no matter what or who the source may be.
Donelle’s reality was a most challenging one. I am distressed by the abuse that men over the course of her life heaped upon her. She was the most loving, kind person that I had every known, and she got bulldozed by our culture and community, and her diseased response to it. Nature, or nurture? Had Donelle been lovingly nurtured since birth through her adulthood, rather than traumatized, I suspect that the disease would not have erupted. Traumatization of our most innocent cannot lead to happy outcomes.
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I am humbled and amazed by the miracle eternally embedded in the innocent, non-wounded, non-verbal part of our essence, also known as the SACRED SILENCE. May that spiritual informant take a form unique to each of us in all of lives, and lift all of us together into a unity of love, thought, action, and a new shared story of world healing and wholeness. May all of our concepts, words, and actions spontaneously arise from our SACRED SILENCE, and not from the chaos of our traumatized and troubled past.
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As I contemplate the entirety of my life, I see a simple truth arising from the complexities of the details. Silence born of ignorance and oppression, and traumatic influences brings suffering and disease. Silence born of healing brings joy and love into the world. This same Silence brings forth the capacity to listen with the heart for the deepest meaning embedded within All of Life, in All of Its infinitude of forms, and return the dignity back to each sacred manifestation of life.
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Our innocence has been challenged, threatened, or even destroyed through traumatic influences. Yet, through directly addressing those threats, or actual attacks, against our Spirit, and the unconscious internalized wounds created through the assaults, we may become liberated, and free ourselves from the pillories of our past. We can finally listen to other informants, the informants that want nothing but the best for us. Those who have learned how to really listen, hear the “voice for God”. And, we finally get to live in the creation that Love provides for us all, when we accept Love’s healing vision as our own.
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We all have had problems listening to each other. We all have had problems listening to ourselves. Yet, our stories must be told, and we must listen to the “other’s” story, with respect and compassion for ourselves, and for the other. Every good story has an ending. And, so do our bad stories. What value is a story, if it is never told? What value is love, if it is never shared? What is the value of speaking, if nobody is even listening? What is the value of writing, if there is nobody left to read? We all have infinite value, whether it is ever recognized by another, or not.
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Discover, enjoy and celebrate INFINITY, rather than the limitations thrust upon us by the deafness of our culture and of our families of origin. Sing your song, like your life depended on it, BECAUSE, IT DOES! All of our lives depend on each others stories. Those who will not listen to our story, and in turn, will not share their own story with us, are still stuck in their own story of repression and oppression. They are still unconscious participants in a traumatized life, which, while unconscious, abides and participate in the Conspiracy Of Silence.
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The sun shines, and the artist interprets its light upon the beautiful landscape, and paints a classic piece of art. The wolf howls in the lonely, cold, snow-covered wilderness, and, miraculously, another wolf a great distance away howls back at him, reassuring both that each other is still there. The bird sings alone in the forest, yet, a hiker stops for a moment, listens, and her heart begins to sing and soar with the bird. The divorced and lonely man sings in the shower, and the salesman at the door hears him, and is so impressed by the man’s voice that he encourages him to try out for a local band. An isolated man stumbles upon the miracle of silence within his being, and a resultant bridge of words subsequently connects this sacred silence to his latest writings, creating beloved poetry and healing balms for all.
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As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery.
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I have penetrated traumas Conspiracy of Silence, and I have lived well beyond my expiration date. I now participate in a healing Conspiracy Of Silence, where the sacred of my spiritual nature, and the profane of the traumatic wounds of life, live together in a dynamic tension while healing gradually dissolves all remaining wounds, while countering its skewed messaging.
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Who would ever have thought that “having a beer” could become so complicated, yet so healing? I would rather drink from the body of the beer, sans emotional and trauma induced toxicities, than consume more of the frothy head. A true spiritual seeker’s thirst could never be quenched, otherwise.
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How about you?
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My “miracle experiment” of healing into Bruce 3.0 continues in earnest.
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My world can never be the same.
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How about yours?
