In these next two articles I am going to take a dive into what I consider the stages of human development and spiritual evolution in regards to ego identity, and how the healing of childhood imprints can bring about the dissolution of that identity, bringing about the experience of Unity and Oneness. 

I am aware that not everyone will see how the journey of healing trauma relates to the unravelling of identity, but the deeper levels of this work is a process of unravelling parts of our conditioned self, and true healing is the integration of these parts and the revelation of our essence.

True healing is not about adding anything to ourselves to cover up an underlying sense of deficiency.

It is about removing layers and, if this is done, we may find ourselves losing chunks of who we believed we were. At a certain point, the process can eventuate in an opening to the essence or spirit that exists underneath the sense of having a separate self.

The first article was about the term "awakening" and the experience of waking up from our everyday sense of self into an expansive space of present moment awareness, this article will be more in depth about the process and development of self-centred consciousness, otherwise termed “ego”.

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The next article will be about the unravelling of this construct and the revelation and development of Being into a unified state, otherwise termed “Oneness”. These concepts can be dense and difficult to understand, but the purpose of the discussion is to bring about contemplation and direct insight in your own journey rather than any kind of intellectual conclusion.

These concepts are not supposed to be absolute truths, but symbolic of a very real and experiential journey. Beware of mistaking the map for the territory. When reading, take moments to reflect upon the implications of this understanding, look objectively at your own experience.

Try to SEE and experience the truth yourself. 

When we are in the womb and during the first few months of infancy—prior to the development of our psychology or even our ability to scratch an itch on our leg—we experience a kind of unity with our mother.

We have not yet developed the ability to discern ourselves from anything external. Here, experiencing ourselves as a separate human being exists only as a potentiality, like a drop of water in a pond which has not yet developed any boundaries or sense of its own existence separate from the pond itself.

In this first stage of development, the child is in a state of total non-separation with the mother, in this symbiotic phase of infancy the oneness with the mother is sometimes called dual unity.

The mother and child’s nervous systems are absolutely one, anything the mother feels the infant feels absolutely as there is no capability or experience of subject-object relations. At this stage, the ability to discern self and other has not yet been accomplished as a developmental milestone. 

This is not simply the absence of a psychological process, but an energetic Oneness where the felt sense of existing is merged with the mother.

It has no borders to separate itself from anything else, much like the drop in the pond that, not yet having formed its own existence, is not only one with the pond but is the pond. We could call this state the ground of our existence, a state that is prior to our sense of having a separate identity, as infants we are this Oneness though we are not conscious of it.

On the return journey, where we go through a process of unravelling ourselves back to this state we do so consciously, we do not revert back to how we were when we were infants, we do not lose functionality, we remain awake, aware and conscious whilst experiencing a state of pure non-duality and Oneness with existence.

All of our previous developmental milestones remain intact and functional though our individual consciousness has merged back with its source and we experience our identity as one with existence.

The spiritual journey is the journey of consciously returning to this state of unity, sometimes referred to as Oneness or Union, where we as a drop merge back into the ocean of Being.

Evolutionary development of identity as a separate individual is the natural process of becoming and then unbecoming, like the process of a wave rising up, cresting, then crashing and returning back into Oneness with the ocean. It is a process governed by natural forces, just like a wave, this is why unity is often called the natural state. 

But how does this sense of separation arise in the first place?

As we develop out of the infancy stage, our psychological process begins. When we start to discern our subjective sense of “I” from the object we are experiencing as our mother, that is the first moment of individuation.

From here, we begin a process where we separate more and more from our mother and from the ground of unity and develop our own sense of self, we begin the process of building the feeling of a separate self-centred existence, the “Me”.

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From this perspective the subjective experience of “Me” is a product of development and not an experience that we are born with, which means it is not essential to us, it is an addition, something that we have acquired in order to function.

We develop this sense of a separate “I” from the mind's capability to discern external objects within the environment, and around the initial sense of “I” the traits of personality are built from how we relate to those objects and how those objects relate to us.

This is why much of our core wounds and structures are built around our parents, as they are the first external objects that we relate to. This sense of self then grows and adapts and becomes the very centre of our experience, it is what orients us as we move around in the world.

We become a distinct wave separate from the ocean, with its own existence and specific qualities.

The creation of a separate identity is a very natural and essential stage of development. Every human being goes through this and the environment in which we grow will be the stamp that leaves the imprints that create the specific qualities and traits of a person.

Who someone is on a personal level is just the specific adaptations and coping strategies the mind adopted in order to survive in the childhood environment. In every case, this process is bound to suffer some arrests in its development, obviously to varying degrees.

In the context of trauma I see developmental trauma as anything that hinders, ruptures or arrests this process in any of its stages, and it seems as long as we are in relationship to other forms of existence our boundaries will be breached at different times, we inevitably will close off, shut down, and adapt to survive whilst relating to others and it is these experiences that often cause the most adaptive traits. 

This sense of self has an ability to contort, adapt and change itself in order to survive in the world.

It is not only a mental concept, but has its roots throughout the whole nervous system as the body has adapted to functioning and orienting based on the basic governing drivers of the survival of this sense of a separate entity.

This is why spiritual bypassing does not work as the very energy of the personality is embedded in the physical structure of the body. The deepest and most transformative spiritual work happens within the body, which I will speak about more deeply in the next article.

I feel this stage of development has been an essential stepping stone in the evolution and survival of human beings, but at this point has become self destructive. I truly believe life is calling us to unravel the layers of this identification and step into more embodied and essential dimensions of consciousness, where the ego structure is not experienced as who we are but is experienced as a tool to assist us in functioning. 

More and more I feel that none of this is a mistake, but just part of the developmental evolutionary process for humans. This first stage of ego identity then creates the opportunity to lead into another level of development which is the waking up from this identity into a more expansive space of awareness, which I spoke about in last week's article called “What is Awakening?”.

I feel that this process may not only be only inevitable, but perhaps essential for the evolution of human consciousness and to experience deeper and more essential levels of identity than just the superficial personality.

In the next article I will dive deeper into what I see as just the next developmental and evolutionary process for human beings, one of waking up from this self structure and the unravelling of the unconscious content, moving from the space of Self Realisation and consciously receding back into the more unified states of Oneness where our identity is experienced as One with the whole. 

The deeper dimensions of our Being are calling us home.

Peace & Blessing,
Matt Kay (Co-Creator of Embodied Processing)

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