Flashbacks are living, breathing experiences, memories from my childhood which arise in my body and mind. When they are arriving, they bring an energy which is surprising and can feel very uncomfortable, but not always. The energy they unlock can feel very powerful in a good way. The urge to deal with them can be to run into addictive behaviour and distractions, as the reality and suffering they hold can feel unbearable. But I have learned the best way to deal with them is to try to stay still and pay attention, to ask my internal system, what is it ? I have had many years now of dealing with them, so I am used to them I suppose, but that does not mean they get any easier. I only know how to manage them because I’ve had to learn to do that. And that was work believe me, hard yards. Many of my addictions will come up when I have flashbacks. The need to self soothe is strong, it always will be, this is only a human response. All of my senses recall the abuse, I relive. I feel a lot of pain, the natural urge is to want to stop it and I have many ways I have done this, or could do this. But if I pay attention then I can feel and I can cry. And cry, and cry. And my grief, these feelings leads me to a place I feel the suffering of everyone, animals, people and nature. I fall into a sadness which is detached from my own pain and I connect with something universal. Because my powerlessness, my surrender to my tears allows me to travel through and access a love, the love which exists. Because what else is there ? This is the other side of suffering. I cry and feel such sadness it turns into this huge love for the suffering of all living beings. And I don’t know why this happens, but it does and my experience of staying with my grief, the grief of losing loved ones, the grief of my childhood, the grief of cruelty within this world and the fragility of life, it all leads me to this profound sense of pure love. It seems that is all that is waiting, all that is left after the grief in the knowledge of pain. Then there is a peace which descends. Usually I cry some more and I know it’s all ok, despite everything, I have travelled through, I have this love and it warms me. It doesn’t really matter that I have lost what I have because I have been given the greatest gift within this overwhelming sadness and that is knowing love awaits. It always has, it always will, my pain has taught me this. Staying with my pain and not stopping it with an addiction brings me to a place of pure love. It’s kind of like heaven . But I also know it’s ok for me to try to stop the pain too, that’s normal and human. I just had so many years fighting it, in the end I tried a different way as I realised it was trying to tell me something and what it was trying to tell me, or show me was this love. Grief is an amazing thing, despite how it flattens you. It’s a tool for a journey to a love which is sublime and universal. In its power grief breaks you and in breaking you it transforms you. Fear falls away with the falling tears, with the knowing of what you have lived through and what held you this whole time. Love. The answer, the solution , the gift waiting at the end of the pain.