My experience of Bankruptcy
I have been through bankruptcy, potentially up there as one of the big trauma-inducing experiences in our culture. It certainly was for me. It wasn't just me that experienced it; it affected my wife and children; we lost our home, the business, an income, and our marriage almost broke completely. The specifics of what happened, at a paper level, are less relevant than what impact the bankruptcy, and the events leading up to, through and beyond the experience, had at the somatic and psychological levels, and on my overall state of health. The following is of some of the effects I experienced during that phase:
Flipping from anxiety to anger to a near-catatonic state.
Anger and blame towards myself, my family and customers, and pretty much everything to do with the business that wasn't contributing to fix it.
Depression, suicidal thoughts, dissociation, physical and emotional paralysis.
Desperation, and loss of focus and clarity while trying to find any solution to keep me, my family and the business afloat.
Dissolution of a trusting, intimate connection with my partner, leading to several instances of near separation and the threat of divorce.
Chronic body pains, increasingly unmanageable headaches, loss of appetite, binge eating, disrupted sleep, night sweats, bouts of constipation and diarrhea and a serious lack of overall functional energy.
I was working hard to make the business work, hold my family together, hold myself together. On my own. I actually did believe hard work in an unhealthy and desensitised body would work - I can rest later when it's all sorted, right? It reached a point that I was effectively juggling too many balls and trying to spin a half-dozen plates simultaneously. I was losing it, terrified of losing it. I couldn't let anyone down, and yet I was letting everyone down. To those closest to me I was lost and generally unapproachable. One day merged in to the next all too quickly and I was effectively, and sometimes really felt like a zombie. All the practices I had learned around Ki, Aikido, breathing, meditation, and everything I had learned to that point went out the window. Not one voice could adequately penetrate the fog, and I had dug a hole so deep that nothing, nothing could help, and that’s what I believed. The more I repeated this mantra, the worse it got. I found my rock-bottom without going 6-feet under.
Now I am taking better care of myself, regularly checking how my breathing is, how my body is feeling, understanding when it is time to rest and time to move, making sure my tools are up to the task, asking for help when I come upon obstacles and helping when asked, and it's a full Yes. Every day I use the exercises and processes I have learned, the practices to remind me that every day, the best state to be in is Centred, Connected, Extended and Flowing. I don’t assume that I’ll never feel moments like I did in that lifetime before, and every day I use my tools. They are invaluable and I genuinely appreciate their importance and place in my life. Even if I am feeling fantastic, even when my body is feeling clear, I will practice emotional release tools, stretch my body, feel my body, and experience my body’s gratitude for my attention to my body. I nurture and nourish my body the best that I can. Some days are better than others, I'm on this journey too, and I’m prone to drinking too much coffee in the morning, or enjoying too-full a plate at a Sunday dinner with the family.