Henry Shukman

As soon as I got home, literally almost walked through the door of my father's house.

Actually, an hour later, I was just overwhelmed by these terrible memories of

and emotions in my body of my childhood that I had not been able to feel as a kid, had avoided, suppressed, buried.

But the awakening opened me.

So I could feel them, but at that time I had no resources and I didn't want to feel them.

I thought it was a catastrophe that I could be feeling these terrible things.

And I thought I'd lost that marvelous awakening and I went into despair.

And I think this is, I really feel this is a crucial part of this whole process

that we humans can go through of awakening, it's also healing.

It's always, I think, gonna be both awakening and healing.

Because for me, I was a very reluctant sort of client, patient, needer of healing.

I didn't wanna know about it, even then at 19.

And it took me, well, several years, three years, four years of being really unhappy,

drinking, you know, university and kind of dragging myself through life, gradually finding a little more joy with music.

Actually, I was a musician and writing again and, you know, but then I found meditation.

And almost as soon as I started meditating,

I realized, man, I'm unhappy.

And I started therapy and I started dealing with all the trauma in my childhood.

And it's been a kind of twin journey of awakening and healing, how to live more consistently and get actually even more deeply into whatever that was that I opened up to, but also be dealing with this suffering, troubled, traumatized human being.

And I think the mercy of this path is that it doesn't leave either behind.