Sometimes we find the valuable gift is more valuable under the starry sky by chance. Our study also confirmed that there was a traumatized population quite distinct from the combat soldiers and accident victims for whom the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis had been created. Some people do not remember their traumas (one of the criteria for the PTSD diagnosis) or at least are not preoccupied with specific memories of their abuse, but they continue to behave as if they were still in danger. They go from one extreme to the other; they have trouble staying on task, and they continually lash out against themselves and others. To some degree their problems do overlap with those of combat soldiers, but they are also very different in that their childhood trauma has prevented them from developing some of the mental capacities that adult soldiers possessed before their traumas occurred. The consequences of caretaker abuse and neglect are vastly more common and complex than the impact of hurricanes or motor vehicle accidents. Probably because when a caretaker or someone you trust abuses you, there is often no end in sight. Out of 17,421 people who participated in a research study about childhood events, however, they typically did not grow up in households where there were adverse experiences.

The study revealed that the trauma many of these people suffered was a result what happen to them as adults, their choices and decisions in life caused them to experience abuse and despair, and they blamed their parents for it. These people came from middle class, well educated, and financially secure households with medical insurance, and they reported no adverse childhood experience. More than likely, children who come from good houses, and were cared for and did not experience abuse, but mess up their adult lives blame their parents for the failures because the lives of the parents look so easy and the grown children become jealous and feel that they are entitled to that lifestyle because they grew up privileged and do not want to put in the work to emulate the lifestyles of their parents. Instead, they act up, as adult, and try to make the parents feel guilty in hopes of getting money, cars, or property, instead of working for it themselves. As these children matured, they did not outgrow the effects of their early experiences of being cared for and provided for and that is what they came to expect their entire lives. It turns out what was really going on is these grown children experienced higher workplace absenteeism, financial problems, and lower lifetime income because they did not adequately prepare themselves for adult life. All of the suffering that is brought to psychotherapy is a confused or contracted expression of the unconditional love that we are. When suffering is embraced by this love, the confusion is clarified, the contraction is relaxed, and we are released into a simple presence.

Once awareness awakens to itself in a human being, it is possible to liberate all forms of confusion through this meeting, including those resulting from trauma. Left to itself, the ego-personality will endlessly repeat trauma or try to hide from it. Only the unconditional love of conscious awareness can truly embrace it. It is when awareness somehow meets itself as Love, when all experience is touched directly that Love, that is dissolved, freed, healed, transmuted, and transformed. When experience is met with full acceptance without any resistance, it reveals itself to be the same Love. Nothing survives this meeting. Nothing stands up to the presence of being and remains. We naturally move away from pain. However, there is also a movement of intelligence within all beings that is moving toward what is, without needing to fix or change anything. It is the coming together of awareness and its experience that is freeing; that is Love. That is Love returning for itself. And it has no motive other than union. This is touching and transformative. Transformation takes place in the present moment. Our past traumas can be resolved only in the here and now. This resolution involves an open receptivity to what appears each moment without any form of resistance, interpretation, or identification. By fully allowing what is, moment-by-moment, all experience finds its natural resolution. To have a good friendship is to have a beautiful wish. Do you feel stars are bright tonight? May my sincere friendship like the Sunshine on your smiling face today!