Chapter 9 - What We Call Sin | Eden's Flaming Sword
What if I told you, what we call sin is actually grief? Frozen grief in childhood, distorted by loss, acting itself out through us. I know, it seems out there. When the insight flashed, I could hardly believe it myself. I had to dive deep into it. Let me show you what I found.
In Chapter 3, I showed you what happened at birth. Separation from oneness into individuality. Both foundational seeds threatened immediately; belonging and control; and with them, the felt self (identity) that was trying to form on top of them. That was the original wound, the original sin. The survival patterns that emerged? Completely natural. Innocent reactions to protect what was most vulnerable. The patterns were meant to keep us safe. But what happens when those same patterns cause harm?
The patterns don't just protect anymore. They distort.
They create a lens through which every threat to belonging feels deeply like that first separation. Every loss of control echoes that helpless newborn state. And when both collapse together, the felt self begins to shake; as though existence itself is under threat. And from that distorted lens, we act. We blame others and attack what we think is threatening us, not realizing the wound is actually internal.
The pattern encoded at birth, activated by childhood losses, now expressing itself through us while we're completely unconscious to it. This is what we call sin.
This is how it works; how frozen grief at each stage creates specific patterns of harm. Remember the Kübler-Ross stages? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. When grief can't complete its process, it freezes. And most of us are stuck at one stage more than others. That becomes our primary pattern—our default response when a seed gets threatened. And when it freezes, it doesn't just sit there quietly. It acts and moves through us.
FIGHT mirrors frozen anger. Stuck in stage 2. The rage that should move through to acceptance stays locked in the nervous system. And here's what makes it dangerous: it's outward directed, it needs a target. So we lash out. Punish. Dominate. Control through force. We attack what we perceive as threats. Reclaim power through violence and aggression. We defend our existence through rage. Wrath becomes our weapon. We strike, believing we're protecting ourselves, completely unconscious that we're acting from frozen grief. The pattern encoded at birth, activated by childhood losses, now expressing itself through us as violence, domination, and cruelty. All of it frozen anger that never completed.
FLIGHT mirrors frozen bargaining. Stage 3. Endless negotiation with reality. We can't sit still with the grief, so we run. The distorted lens from childhood makes us think: "If I just manage this right, avoid that person, control this situation, numb that feeling…" We lie to escape consequences. Deceive to control the narrative. We flee relationships before they can leave us. Betray commitments. We chase the next thing, the next hit, the next distraction, the next high. Anything to avoid feeling the loss underneath. Addiction, avoidance, escapism, infidelity. It comes from frozen bargaining that never reached acceptance.
FREEZE mirrors frozen depression. Stage 4. The despair that should pass through gets locked in shutdown. The nervous system gives up entirely — not just on one seed but on both. The distorted lens from childhood says: "Nothing I do matters. I have no power. There's no point." So we withdraw. Neglect ourselves and others. Abandon responsibility because "what's the point anyway?" We're not running anymore like in flight. We've collapsed. We stop trying. We let things fall apart. We let people down. Let ourselves waste away. This is what happens when the system gives up on both belonging and control at once — when there is no foundation left to stand on, and the person retreats entirely into what can be numbed or managed. All of it frozen depression that never moved through to acceptance.
FAWN mirrors frozen denial. Stage 1, but turned inward. Not denying that something happened, but denying you have the right to exist fully. The distorted lens from childhood creates this message: "If I'm small enough, good enough, selfless enough, the connection will stay. The loss won't happen." So we erase ourselves. We deny our own boundaries to keep the peace. We enable harm because saying no feels like risking belonging. The person who stays silent while their partner mistreats the children. The employee who covers for their boss's unethical behavior. We tolerate the abuse, keep quiet when we should speak, sacrifice ourselves over and over to prevent losing attachment. We betray our needs, our anger, our grief, our very self. The survival strategy here is self-abandonment; the self disappears so that belonging can survive. All of it frozen denial that never admitted there was a self worth grieving for.
These aren't character flaws. They're grief that got stuck.
And here's what makes frozen grief so dangerous: when we can't complete grief, the Ego creates a defense. It externalizes the wound. Why? Because if we admitted the loss is internal, we'd have to face it. We'd have to feel the unbearable grief of losing belonging, losing control, and losing the felt self, our identity, that rests on both. And as children, without support to complete that grief, we had no choice but to survive it instead of move through it.
So the Ego tries to protect us by creating an external target to blame. Instead of feeling "I lost belonging," we think "THEY rejected me." Instead of "I lost control," we think "THEY took my power." Instead of "the self I built is dissolving," we think "THEY made me worthless."
THEY become the enemy. THEY are the problem for my suffering. THEY must pay. This is the distorted lens in action and once it forms in childhood, it doesn't just disappear. Every loss after that gets filtered through the same lens. Every threat to belonging or control triggers the same response. BLAME THEM. It's their fault. They're responsible for this.
This defense is what the Bible calls pride. Pride is the certainty that we're right and they're wrong. Pride is what makes us unable to see the wound is internal. Pride is the Ego's protection against worthlessness; keeping us focused outward so we never have to face what we fear is true about ourselves inward.
And here's what makes pride so insidious. We don't know we're doing it. We genuinely believe THEY are the problem. From inside the distorted lens, it looks real, it feels real. THEY rejected me. THEY left me. THEY DID THIS! Our entire reality is organized around this belief.
This is why the Bible calls pride the deadliest of sins. Pride is the root of all the others. It's the mechanism that keeps us blind, keeps us blaming, and keeps us trapped in frozen grief while we're certain we're seeing clearly. Pride can show up in any of these patterns: in fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Wherever grief gets stuck, pride creates the THEM.
But the most destruction happens when pride fuses with rage. When we're convinced they're the problem AND we have frozen anger looking for a target, that's when the unthinkable becomes possible. Genocides. Crusades. Ethnic cleansings. Abuse. Wars. Domestic violence. Rage that is fueled by unresolved grief, justified by pride, aimed at enemies we've created in our minds. We genuinely believe we're right and they deserve it. This is a tragedy, but it's real, happening everywhere, distorted by childhood losses. We strike at what we think is threatening us, completely unaware the wound is inside.
So why did I write this chapter on sin?
Because some of us are trapped in the illusion of moral failure. We cannot forgive ourselves, or others. We don't know what we're doing. We think we're defending ourselves. We think we're fighting evil. That's what makes this tragic. No one wins, everyone loses.
I wrote it so we can have understanding. So we don't blame our loved ones. So we don't hurt those who don't deserve to be hurt.