It's all connected - Part 1

As most everyone was aware June was “LGBT Pride month”. It was a time for gay people to feel acknowledged and accepted by our nation which is built on diversity. President Obama had the wisdom and respect enough to proclaim it as such after President Bush stopped that designation during his time in office. Pride month is a time when the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community can celebrate our successes and raise awareness of our struggle for acceptance and equal rights. It’s a time that we can focus on being proud of who we are and our ability to love.

I make no secret about the fact that I am a gay man. I live my life in a way that pleases me with honesty and integrity. I am out to everyone that I know including my loving birth family and my beloved partner’s family. I am proud of the fact that he and I have been together for 10 and ½ years in a loving, committed relationship. I am honored to be able to work with other men to help them love and respect themselves and their sexual expression whether they are gay, bi or straight. By fully accepting ourselves just as we are and sharing that we can offer others the choice to love and accept us and not a false personality that we have created in an attempt to be who we think they can accept.

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

As a child and small boy, I grew up during a time (the 60’s) when gayness was considered a psychological defect which needed to be treated and cured. I was born and raised in a small town in Alabama which was full of people with good hearts but misguided belief systems that said if you were not heterosexual and white you were not welcome. In fact if you were not straight AND white you ran a very real risk of being beaten or even killed. In an area of Alabama with a strong Klan presence, homophobia and racial discrimination were not only rampant but openly embraced.

I was a very soft natured and physically small boy who was quiet, effeminate and very introverted. The local religious environment taught me to view myself as a sinner because of my homosexual nature. The community taught me to hide who I was to avoid physical harm or verbal assaults. I grew up living every day in fear for my safety and well being because I could not hide who I was inside. I had very few friends outside my immediate family because I was so obviously different. Kids at school pretty much avoided being friends with me because they knew it could bring negative attention to them simply by our association.

Needless to say I really valued very highly the friends that I did make because they gave me a feeling of safety, love and acceptance and a sense of community. At that age, fitting in and being accepted was essential for good emotional health. Having a group of friends at school that I could feel safe around allowed me to relax and let down my guard a bit and experience a sense of belonging. I knew that no matter how cruel the verbal and physical assaults were from the other kids, I had a safe refuge somewhere with my friends.

RECONNECTING

Since I left that place back in 1981 I’ve made my peace with who I am, the painful experiences I had there and even reconnected with a few of my childhood friends thanks to Facebook. One of those people was a boy that I was very close to as a child. We were born 10 days apart and I always felt a close kinship to him until after graduation when I left town. We’ve since reconnected on Facebook and it’s been nice getting to know him again but as an adult. It seems that we both have developed a rather sharp sense of humor that can cut and entertain. We both can go so hard for a joke sometimes that other people can easily and unintentionally get hurt along the way.

This became very clear recently when I was the one who was hurt by his humor. He posted the image that you see here on his Facebook wall. He was actually posting it to another of his male friends but I saw it on his wall and was immediately triggered by it and let him know. His response was that I was being “too sensitive” and reading something into it that he didn’t mean. He said he considered himself an equal opportunity offender with his humor.

The more I thought about this, the angrier I got and the more hurt I felt. I considered the possibility that I was over-reacting and even posted the image on my Facebook wall asking my other gay friends if it offended them. Most who responded began reading into it and even defending it saying that gay’s “have a more refined taste and are classier” which is also in line with Mac’s marketing practices. I get where they were going with that but to me that was definitely reading more into it than was present and even showed how corporate marketing can affect us.

EMBEDDED HOMOPHOBIA

Finally I decided to sit and analyze why this bothered me so much rather than just saying that it hurt me because it was truly NOT directed at me personally. It was me that had the problem after all. I realized that it was because of the divisive nature of the message. To me this image says “the sole criteria that I will use to determine which group you are in is your sexual orientation. The thing that divides us will be your sexual identity.”  On the surface maybe there is some humor which can be had based upon our personal beliefs around gayness, Mac’s and PC’s but there is embedded homophobia within it. As someone who is trying to bring forth a message of Oneness, self-acceptance, peace, harmony, love and awareness, this flies directly in the face of that message. As a gay person, it stings. Coming from someone who I thought had my back, it hurts.

On many levels I was deeply hurt by this insensitivity and I let him know that I was both upset and offended by it. I explained to him why it offended me and let him know that I expected nothing from him because of it. The problem was with me and my response to the posting and so it was my issue to work. My life experience provided the fertile ground for this situation to bloom and so the healing needed to occur there as well. I made it clear to him that I wasn’t looking for an apology or for him to do anything other than be aware of the response his actions had triggered. What he chooses to do with that in the future is entirely up to him because now he knows the impact his actions had.

I didn’t know it at the time but this experience was getting me set up for a deeper awareness and a an opportunity to heal an old issue. I’ll share that in Part 2.

DISCRIMINATION IS NOT OKAY

In a country which struggles with its treatment of gay people, homophobic remarks like this one get dismissed by society because it has always been okay to make gay jokes. The message that our government and religious organizations send is that it is okay to discriminate against gay people because they don’t deserve equal rights or equal treatment because of that one issue. When the culture holds a belief, it should come as no surprise that its members will act in alignment with that belief and not see a problem with their behavior.

On the one hand, it would be easy for me to say “Oh, he didn’t mean it THAT way” and just ignore it but then nothing will ever change. The truth however is that when you post (say, write, act, display) anything like the image above, not only do you get your particular message attached to it but you also have to own the deeper embedded energetics of that message. It doesn’t matter what joke you are trying to connect it to or why, you get it all and are responsible for it as if it were your own words. If that image had replaced “gay” with any racial designation, it would have caused an uproar but because it used “gay” it was seemingly okay.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY

Every subsection of our culture has had its struggles for acceptance and equality. It is challenging when you are in a minority to get the majority to treat you fairly because they hold the weight and power of the majority. The role of government is supposed to be to protect the minorities and ensure their equal rights and fair treatment. Unfortunately the majority seems to think the government is there to protect their fears relating to the minority wanting a piece of their pie. We’ve seen this happen with women, African Americans and now it’s time for equality for gay people.

When we know better, we can do better. Discrimination and separation will never move us in the direction that we need to go as a nation or as a species. They only further divide and weaken us. To survive and flourish we have to learn to think and act as one. “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice FOR ALL.”

WE ALL DESERVE LOVE AND RESPECT

We all deserve to feel safe, respected and heard. This is especially true when we are with our friends. At the same time each of us owes it to the world to be our own unique, authentic expression of the Divine. As we experience that which is different from ourselves, we learn and grow and see the value of the diversity of nature. Yet despite our differences, ultimately we are one planetary species and we have to learn to find ways to value those differences. When we can drop our judgments of others which drive us further apart, we can see that ultimately we have more in common than we think because we’re all human and we’re all in this together. We can choose to be a piece of the whole or we can choose to live in fear, separation and ultimately isolation.

Remember, energetically you get back what you send out. Will you choose to radiate love and acceptance or project your fears out into the world?

Expanded consciousness exercise

The most common theme among all world religions and spiritual teachings is the core belief in Oneness or Unity Consciousness. Every religion brings this teaching out in various ways but the belief is there beneath the dogma of the particular religion. This awareness of Oneness is what I’ve been using as the framework for the information that I’ve been sharing with you in this blog. It is also something that I’ve been working to manifest in my own personal life, not just as a concept but as a reality that I’m consciously choosing to orient my life around.

The biggest challenge that any of us face when we choose to focus on our Oneness with that which created us is overcoming our sense of separation. From the moment we leave the womb and the umbilical cord is cut, our lives begin to organize around a sense of separation. That one quick snip by a doctor which separates us from our mother is the moment where we first experience our individuality and uniqueness. In essence it is the very first lesson we receive and so it should come as no surprise that our world is built around the belief that we are all separate.

So how is it then that we can be disconnected and yet still ultimately all be connected? The answer to that question has everything to do with where our consciousness is and how aware we are of it. Since our consciousness is not physical and therefore not fixed in one place, it can move from place to place and level to level in an instant. To help understand this a bit more easily, it may help to also think of your consciousness as your awareness or point of focus.

INTERNAL AWARENESS OF AWARENESS

Let’s do a little exercise here to help you become a bit more familiar with shifting your consciousness around. The first step is to get familiar with how it feels when you move your consciousness around within you. Before engaging this process, it’s best to make sure that you have your “Basics” in place first. It’s always a good idea to have your Basics in place in every moment but until you can hold that as a constant state, reminders like this can be helpful. It’s also a good idea to turn off any external distracters like televisions or radios. The quieter your space is the easier this exercise will be. Spend some time with this first part and really get a feel for the movement of your awareness before you engage the second part. If you can focus inward enough, you will actually be able to feel your awareness move. The key in this first part is really observing how it feels when your awareness holds in one spot and moves.

1. Sit comfortably in a chair in an upright position. Ideally the chair should have arm rests. This exercise can also be done by lying on the floor and pointing your fingers toward the ceiling. 
2. Spread your legs comfortably wide and rest your elbows on the arms of the chair with your hands raised pointing up and index finger extended on each hand pointing out and away from your body so that you would have to turn your head from side to side to easily see each finger. 
3. Turn your head and shift your eyes to the index finger on your left hand and put your full focus on the tip of that one finger for at least 10 seconds.
4. Observe how it feels inside your finger when you hold this focus. Notice the sensations in the finger for a few moments and then notice how it feels in your head and body to hold your awareness on this one point.
5. Turn your head and shift your gaze to the index finger on your right hand and hold it there for at least 10 seconds noticing how it feels during the shift from the left finger and the moments after the shift and beyond.
6. Slowly shift back and forth a few times between these fingers to get familiar with the feel of your consciousness shifting between these two visible locations within your body. Really focus and observe what you feel in the finger as you move to it and away from it.
7. Hold your full awareness on the left hand index finger and let your awareness gather there for 10 seconds then just very lightly, without turning your head to look or putting too much focus there, observe how the index finger on your right hand feels when your awareness is still fully on the left. It’s very easy to split  your focus with the right hand while doing this so really fix your gaze and hold your attention firmly on the left hand. Just use the tiniest amount of awareness to notice how it feels in the right finger without your full awareness on it. Yes, it is tricky but possible and may require practice to get it.
8. Experiment with this a bit until you get a good feel for it and then while still gazing at the left hand, without turning your head to look, send your full awareness (minus the visual focus) to your right index finger. This one can also be a little tricky so play with it a bit until you can feel your focus settle in on the right hand while still gazing at the left hand. Notice how that feels in each finger.
9. Experiment with rocking your awareness slowly back and forth between the fingers while holding your gaze on only one of them. Repeat this until you can almost feel your consciousness shifting within your body. Once you have that felt sense of the shift within your body, you’re ready to continue.
10. While holding your gaze on the left index finger, shift your awareness to the right finger, then down to the right big toe. When you feel the shift down to your toe then go to the left big toe. (Picking a specific toe or finger like this helps to narrow the focus more fully and makes it easier to feel.) When you feel that shift then come back to the left finger where your visual focus is.
11. Slowly repeat that loop from finger to finger to toe to toe to finger several times until you can easily observe your consciousness shifting within your body.

EXPANDED AWARENESS

The first part of the exercise should give you a palpable feel for your focused awareness and the energy that it has. When you have that then you’re ready to proceed with shifting your awareness beyond your body. Take some time with this part and really notice how you feel after each step, not just at the beginning and then the end. Notice your thoughts (but don’t get caught in them), sensations in your body, shift in mood or emotions, whatever happens for you, just observe it and gather the data.

It might be easier to do the second part with a friend reading the instructions to you rather than trying to remember it all or read it step by step. You may also want to record yourself reading these notes (with long pauses between steps) and play that back when you’re ready to engage the exercise.

1. Close your eyes and repeat the finger-finger-toe-toe-finger loop a couple of times to notice how it feels when you shift it with no visual focus.
2. Once you have a feel for your consciousness shifting around to these points then play with moving it around to various points within your body allowing time at each point for your awareness to gather at that point before moving on. Think of the point first and then move your awareness to it. Joints and points are the easiest places to select because they are more specific spots (i.e. hip, knee, tip of the nose) than surface areas (chest, thigh, back).
3. When you have a feel for that internal movement from point to point then relax your arms down and let your hands rest and draw your legs in so that you can sit or lie comfortably for the next part.
4. With your eyes closed, bring your awareness to your nostrils and just observe the breath moving in and out for a few cycles. Feel the coolness of the inhale and warmth of the exhale. If you can’t immediately feel the difference in the temperature of the air, hold on this step until you can.
5. Now slowly allow your awareness to spread out to include your whole head, down your neck, through your chest and down the arms, down the torso into the pelvis, over the glutes and abdomen then down your legs. Don’t focus on any one spot during this process but rather feel like your awareness is growing from the tip of your nose to include your whole body but do it slowly piece by piece this way. Each place you expand to include is added to what you already have and is not the center of your focus. Remember to hold on to the awareness of the whole as it expands and not just focus on the next point or level.
6. When you have added all parts of your body, spend a few moments here observing how it feels to notice ALL of your body from the inside. Notice any tingling or pulsing which arises within your body and really gather the data on how this feels in your body. This is different from any thoughts you might be having on doing this exercise or mental distractions which may arise. Try to let those thoughts go for now and just notice the feeling of this expanded consciousness.
7. When you have gathered the data on “the self” now allow your thoughts to also include any other members in your immediate household one by one. This is human, animals and plants…any living beings within your home. Just lightly call in thoughts of each of them without losing your focus on you.
8. Now expand your thoughts to include only your immediate family one level out which is mom, dad, children, brothers and sisters. The family members referenced here can be living or dead. This exercise is about expanding your consciousness only and not about connecting with these individuals so just any visual or feeling you have for each one is all that is necessary to feel like you’re including them in your consciousness.
9. Now continue expanding to include the next family level…grandparents and grandchildren. Think for a brief moment about each one as you bring them into your consciousness. Don’t make this too heavy or sharp of a focus but more their name and maybe flash upon their face. It’s almost like what you would do if I said “tell me the names of each of these people” but this is all done internally.
10. Now begin including your entire extended family including in-laws and any distant relatives that come to mind. Don’t get caught up in trying to make sure that you get every single one but feel for what it’s like to bring them in one by one and still hold the awareness of the group you already have.
11. Now include friends…again one by one, just lightly allowing your consciousness to expand to hold them.
12. Next include immediate co-workers, associates, old friends, past relationships…anyone that you have physically met and related to in the past. Really get a feel for anyone that comes to mind during this process no matter what emotional history you have with them but again don’t focus on them or your history with them, just their name and a maybe an image of their face and then move on.
13. Notice any challenges that come with this process but don’t let that stop you. The more people you include in this exercise the more challenging it will become of course but that is part of the experience we’re seeking here. Once you have all your direct relations done, just lightly scan across them and notice how it feels within your body to hold your focus on you AND them. The important part is to not lose awareness of you in the process.
14. Now shift to thinking about places rather than people but still holding on to the thoughts of the people you’ve pulled in. Imagine that they are all right there with  you and think about the place where you live and begin slowly expanding from there to the whole building (if you live in apartments or condo’s), then on to your neighborhood, then city, state, region, country, continent, hemisphere and finally to the entire planet. Take your time and focus fully on an image of this expanded upward movement at each level and notice how challenging it becomes to still hold on to the awareness of yourself and all those you gathered at the individual level. It’s almost like you were using Google Earth and slowly zooming out to go up and away from the planet.
15. Feel like you are holding all of the people, animals and plants around the entire planet in your consciousness. Gather the data on how this feels to have your awareness be this so expanded as to include the entire planet. Really spend a few moments gathering the data for how this feels and how taxing it might be on you or how easy it feels.
16. When you really have this feeling noted, quickly let it all go and bring your focus back to your nose. Notice the feeling of your consciousness collapsing back to this single point.
17. Experiment with stepping your awareness back out to the planet level and then back to your nose a few times to really gather the data on how it feels to be connected to the whole and how challenging that can be and then how it feels to bring your consciousness back to a single point. Take more time with the expansion, hold when you’re there, notice the feelings/sensations/emotions and then do a quick collapse to the nose. This enables you easily compare between fully expanded and totally collapsed. Going from the nose to the Earth quickly doesn’t get you the same feeling nor have the same effect as stepping through the upward stages with more awareness.
18. When you feel done, release the thoughts of your relations and perhaps send a thank you with them for helping you and then get your Basics back in place as the energy of this can really overload your system.

EXPERIENCE VS. THOUGHTS

Once you actually engage the exercise above rather than just reading the words and thinking about it, you’ll have an idea of what expanded consciousness feels like. When you can begin to feel and know (not just think) that you are a part of something much bigger, your consciousness will expand to hold that. When you make your decisions from that expanded place, the decisions you make will change because of your expanded consciousness. Holding your conscious awareness at a level beyond the self initially takes a lot of effort, much more than just an awareness exercise requires, because that effort is where the work is. It is how we consciously evolve our consciousness. It is why I invest my time in creating this blog so that you can hopefully be inspired to do that work.

The important part is to work at the place where you are and grow from there. If your day-to-day minute-to-minute decisions are only based upon you and your immediate survival needs, trying to jump to planetary consciousness won’t work. When you can begin to offer and accept unconditional love towards just yourself and then expand that unconditional love to just one other being and then continue that expansion outward, things will begin to shift for you. If you find yourself saying “how can I unconditionally love that person (criminal/molester/ex-lover/fanatic/etc)” then you know you’re not ready for that level yet. The important part is first learning to unconditionally love and accept yourself NO MATTER WHAT. Acceptance, forgiveness and love are choices and they are yours to freely make. Nothing concrete stands in your way, only your thoughts and beliefs.

YOU ARE NEVER ALONE…EVER!

Remember there will be times when you feel that you are totally alone or like it’s you against the world but that’s never true. You are always connected to the whole of humanity and thus the planet simply because you exist. Any belief to the contrary is just a false sense of separation that has been handed down to you either consciously or unconsciously by those who came before. In every moment the choice is yours to feel disconnected and alone or connected and whole but either way you are always connected. The only difference is your thoughts and beliefs.

Will you choose to feel alone or will you choose to feel connected?

Memory

We are the summation of all our memories. Every experience helps to shape who we will become as we remember and process the experience. Fortunately most of us don’t remember every single detail of every day but our subconscious records the experience whether our conscious minds recall it or not. In every moment, we are bombarded with billions of pieces of data but our conscious minds can only process about 2,000 of them. These 2,000 bits then are what we are aware of and this is how our awareness shapes our lives. This is also why it is important to notice what you put your awareness on…and even what you are choosing to ignore.

After my last posting on “Wounds”, a reader said the following: “The unfortunate thing is that these hurts and wounds become more self-inflicted and assisted by insensitive comments from others. They turn into pain that keeps the memory fresh in the mind.”  He is correct in that these old wounds can cause us to become our own judge, jury and executioner. When we accept other people’s opinions of who we are, we use that as ammunition to punish ourselves for not meeting someone else’s definition of who we should be.

Once we have a wound firmly in place even the slightest reference to something associated with it can send us into pattern. We then deepen the wound through self-inflicted pain because of the issue. For example when I was ridiculed for my haircut as a child, I became hypersensitive to anything having to do with my hair. Thinking of hair made me think that my hair wasn’t “normal” and I would become “triggered” by it. I would get embarrassed, angry, bitchy, ashamed, or any number of less-than-loving responses would result. More often than not I would then project the hurt from that triggered response onto someone else as a way to try and feel better about myself. That process NEVER works despite its repeated and defensive use. We can never feel better about ourselves by trying to make others feel worse about themselves.

STORING MEMORIES

At the root of the sensitivity is what is known as an “active memory”. When the memory of something is laid down in our brains, any emotional component to the experience is connected to the memory as well. There is no magical recorder in our heads that just tracks and stores every sequential event in our lives and stores it for future playback. Instead there are neural pathways which are formed that connect the memory to emotions associated with it. We may have tons of memories which are ultimately connected to the emotion of sadness but the memory itself doesn’t have sadness as a direct component of the event. Sadness was our emotional response to the event itself and so our brains connected the memory of the event to sadness.

If you think of the brain as looking similar to the picture you can begin to understand how memories are formed. Think of each of the spots, a neuron, as a single piece of data. Our brains are incredibly powerful machines which are also incredibly efficient. So your brain might have one of those spots as the location for “sadness”, another one for “anger” and another one for “love”. The brain only needs to store that emotion in one place. Then when it stores the other components of a memory, it simply connects that group of neurons to the spot for the associated emotion. Therefore we will have tons of individual memory paths which are all connected to that single emotional neuron for sadness. A memory will actually comprise a collection of countless neurons (location, age, people involved, environmental data, emotional response, etc.) which are connected via neural pathways. Therefore one memory of something sad can often trigger memories of other times when sadness occurred because they are all connected via that one neuron for sadness.

This is of course a very simplified explanation of an incredibly complex function of our brain but I hope it will help you to have an idea of how memory is stored. Given this format, “active memories” are those which are directly connected to neurons which trigger the emotional response within our bodies associated with the emotion. An “inactive memory” is one which is not associated with any particular emotion. These types of memories are typically forgotten rather quickly or are simply memories of places we’ve been, things we’ve seen or actions that we’ve done and that don’t elicit any emotional response.

MAKING AND BREAKING CONNECTIONS

For example, I remember walking around my neighborhood but I have no real emotional charge associated with that so therefore walking down my street is easy for me to do. Of course if one particular house has a big dog that barks at and scares me, I will consciously or unconsciously avoid walking past that house in the future. My brain associates that house with fear and I avoid the house. Maybe to avoid the house I have to take a different street and that then becomes my habit because it is safe. Years later I may start to walk down that street and suddenly feel fear without consciously knowing why. The dog may be dead now or the people moved but I still associate that house (and street) with the emotion of fear.

This is an example of living in the past because I’m avoiding a street in the present moment because of a negative past experience. If I bring my consciousness into the present moment however I can begin to shift that. I sense “fear” and rather than reacting to it and running I will be able to respond and potentially go into the fear. I can then choose to walk past the house and see that now it has beautiful flowers which I love, an adorable puppy or someone I might meet who will become a dear friend. The potential for joy and healing lies only in the present moment.

This act of going into the fear (which I spoke of in the “Wounds” entry) is where healing resides for me. By recognizing that my emotional response was triggered by past events and not present experiences, my brain will begin to form new neural pathways that associate this street and house with “love” or “friendship”. Ultimately the street is just a street but it is my emotional coloring of the street (based upon my past experiences and memory) that changes the experience for me. Eventually my brain will drop the connection to “fear” because no energy goes into feeding that neural pathway since my focus is now on the love that I feel associated with that house. I may always remember that a scary dog used to live there but the active component of the memory isn’t there any longer.

This is how it is with active memories of emotional wounds. Unfortunately they can’t be cleared as easily as choosing to walk down a street but they can be cleared. Awareness of the issue is the first step in that clearing process and then it becomes a matter of finding a technique or healing practitioner to help you discharge the active component of the memory. Just like I mentioned in the “Wounds” entry however, it is important to get to the core issue however and not only address one of the surface symptoms.

GETTING HELP

There are a variety of healing techniques and modalities that are incredibly effective and practitioners are available in most every part of the country and certainly in most larger cities if not all cities. I will mention a few techniques that I am familiar with and I recommend that you surf the web for more info on any of these which resonate with you. That search will undoubtedly lead you to the technique that is exactly right for you so just follow your heart for choosing the right technique and if necessary the right practitioner. Once you think you have the practitioner, ask lots of questions and trust your instincts.

REIKI

Reiki is a technique which I’ve been a practitioner of for over 10 years. It is really great for quickly addressing physical issues but also for getting to the underlying mental, emotional or spiritual issue. It’s simple and effective but very subtle. It initially helps to relax the entire body and clear the mind. From this relaxed place, your spirit is able to communicate with you more easily because you are able to sense and know it more clearly. Reiki helps to quiet the mental chatter and allow your inner guidance to emerge. This guidance will often reveal the true nature and core of the issue you are working on.

Many times when we address a situation in our lives which we think is current such as a failing relationship, our spirits will reveal that the core issue is one which actually began in early childhood and continues to replay itself in your life. The beauty of life is that it will present you with many opportunities to look at your issues through many different experiences. Until you identify, address and heal the core issue, you will continue to see it play out time and time again. Leaving one situation where the problem is manifesting won’t fix the problem; it will only shift the resulting symptoms. For example if your core issue is that you don’t respect and maintain your boundaries, you will continue to attract relationships where those boundaries will continually be violated and which will ultimately force you to look at the issue. If you’ve ever heard yourself say “why do I keep attracting (losers/abusers/alcoholics/immature partners/psychos/etc)” you know that one of your core issues is trying to get your attention. Changing relationships won’t fix it.

BODYTALK

Another technique that I practice is BodyTalk. While this system is great for a addressing a large number of issues, one particular component that I think is incredibly effective is the one used for deactivating unconscious beliefs and active memories. Often times there are limiting beliefs that we have adapted in order to help us survive in a situation or that seemed right based upon our limited understanding of life. These surface beliefs are often so strong that they completely obscure the real issue and so they need to be dealt with first.

Let’s say for example that you are struggling with weight issues. Over the years you may have adopted the belief that “food is my only true friend” because it is always there and helps soothe the pain and so you over-consume it. In truth the over-consumption of food is contributing to the problem and so your belief holds you in an unhealthy relationship with food. Clearing that unconscious belief can then allow you to see that eating doesn’t fix any problem, it only masks it. From that place you can then begin to see the underlying issues which are where the real problem is but sometimes you have to get the limiting beliefs out of the way to see them. BodyTalk is great for directly communicating with your unconscious mind to tell it to dissolve that neural pathway that connects food with the emotion of love.

EFT

Another amazingly simple technique which you can learn to do on yourself is called Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT is specifically for disengaging active memories and limiting beliefs which are holding you back. It is a simple technique which involves tapping specific points in a specific sequence on your body. This process has the effect of neutralizing the powerful emotional component of an issue within your brain. The beauty of this system is that there are manuals available on the web that you can download for free and learn to use the technique on yourself.  Once you learn the sequence of the tapping, you can neutralize these issues in less than two minutes. The key to success with this technique is to ensure that you are addressing the core issue and not just the surface symptom.

It is important to note here however that the manual that you can download is only one small part to the EFT process. There are trained EFT providers who can take this process and really help you do some deep and intense healing. Yes, the manual can help you slog through the surface issues and even some deeper ones but it may not be able to take you all the way to full healing. If you try the process and it resonates with you, you might want to seek an EFT therapist and work with them on the deeper issues. They can help you work past the surface issues and fully heal the true core issue.

This technique is great for releasing some core issues but it is also just as effective for getting rid of those little tender spots that we have. Through our past wounds, we all have those issues which we can be very sensitive about. Anytime someone brings a specific topic up, you can feel emotions start to arise such as shame, embarrassment, anger, or resentment. By being aware of these emotions through bringing your consciousness into more and more of your life, you can simply notice that these emotions arise without reacting to them. Once you notice a particular emotional response this way, you can then use the EFT method and disconnect that neural pathway which associates the emotion and the topic.

Once the emotional component is neutralized, you may then be able to understand what the core issue is beneath it. In the example with my hair, it was just a surface issue, the core issue for me was one of self-confidence. I couldn’t get to it however because I couldn’t get past the sensitivity issue to my hair. Talk of my hair triggered a memory of me feeling very insecure and being emotionally wounded and so my defense was to become angry or bitchy to protect the wound. Simply discharging my sensitivity to people talking about my hair would not have really healed my true core issue. By not becoming triggered by it however I could then begin to see that I was basing my self-worth on someone else’s judgments of me. That is what the real core issue was for me.

OUR TRUE CORE

On my journey I have learned that beneath it all, I am perfect and divine because I am an individuated piece of the Divine, Source, or God. And so are you! When I self reference against that ultimate perfection through the awareness of Unity Consciousness, I have no need to become defensive, play small or weak, or in any way feel inferior. Those feelings belong to my egoic human self and are all based upon self-judgment, not self love. As such they are not in alignment with my true nature and so they have no place in my life and do not serve to further my evolution.

There are a huge number of healing modalities available and finding the one that works best for you and your issue can seem daunting. That should not be used as an excuse not to work on yourself and heal your issues however. Doing nothing will ensure that you do not change, heal or grow. Yes, it takes time and effort to do this inner work but we can find the time by making small changes in our lives. By removing the time wasters and attention distracters such as television, music, video games, web surfing, drugs or porn you will find the extra time and willingness to do the work. All of these things are not inherently bad but they have to be kept under control rather than being used as a way to prevent us from doing the work which will help us become better humans. As we grow and become more healed, we make life easier for those around us and provide a template for them to want to grow and heal as well. This ripple effect contributes to the collective whole of humanity and helps us to evolve through the awareness of this Oneness.

I invite you to ask yourself:

-      “What are my hot buttons?”

-      “Am I willing to heal those issues?”

Wounds - Part 2

HEALING THE WOUND

Once we have located the wound then comes the work of healing the wound. If you begin to think of energetic wounds in the same way that you might think of a physical wound, you can follow the same process that you would use to heal that.

• -      Expose it
• -      Clean it out
• -      Put medicine on it
• -      Protect it while it heals
• -      When healed: forget about it and move on

So let’s look at those steps in terms of energetic wounds to give you an idea of the actual healing process. Depending upon the wound that you expose, you may be able to do this work alone but you may also need to seek assistance from someone in the healing profession or a trusted friend. Don’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for help. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of courage. The healing process is a journey into your power, a willingness to look at what holds you back so that you can become stronger. It takes strength and courage, so honor those qualities in yourself and know that none of us are in this alone. The perception of aloneness or separation is what keeps us from truly healing our deepest wounds. We are all connected and as each of us heals our individual wounds, the collective benefits and grows stronger. That fact is why I’m sharing this information with you and all the information contained within this blog.

EXPOSE THE WOUND

This is where “going into your fears” comes in. Here are a few ways that you can identify where the wounds are so that you can expose them.

• -      A subconscious resistance to doing something that consciously we know we should be able to do
• -      Irrational fears or phobias
• -      Phantom pain in your body, especially if it changes location
• -      Dis-ease
• -      Body tension
• -      Anxiety, depression or over-excitement
• -      Hyper-sensitivity
• -      Strong emotional reactions
• -      Judgmental attitude

All of these issues are indicators that we are off balance and away from our true nature which is perfect health and true inner peace. If we believe in the Western Medicine model of disease and treatment, we will run to the doctor with most of these issues and try to get a pill to fix it. The pill will mask the symptom but it doesn’t cure the issue. Your body manifested the symptom because your subconscious mind held the belief that you needed it. Your body therefore also knows how to release it and cure it.

CLEAN IT OUT

Once you determine what the wound is or is related to, then you can begin work on the issue. This involves taking an open and honest look at the issue without judging yourself for having it or rationalizing it away. Judgment moves us away from healing and so it has no place in the healing process. The need to judge is often an indicator that there is a wound that needs healing.

One way of getting to the core of an issue is by continually asking “Why?” until you’ve gone at least 5 layers deep. For example, let’s say you have exposed a wound and are ready to clean it out. Quiet yourself, still the breath and focus inward. Ask yourself “why is it a problem for me that (insert the issue here)?” and then wait for the answer to come. Rather than trying to figure it out, just drop that question in to your consciousness, sit quietly and wait with an open and receptive mind. When you get ANY answer, ask yourself “why is that a problem for me?” and wait for that answer. Continue this cycle of inquiry until you’ve gone at least 5 layers down. Each time you go deeper with the “Why?” you move closer to the core issue. If you stop after the first one, you’re only brushing the surface symptom and not addressing the core issue. Dig deeper!

The key here is to trust whatever response arises in your mind without judging it. It may take you 10 layers to get to the core issue so stay with the process no matter what happens for you. Journaling is a great technique to help uncover issues in this way. Engaging the inner dialogue and documenting the thoughts through journaling will bring many deeply held issues to light that might be otherwise missed by just “sitting and thinking”. As you journal and notice issues, ask yourself “why is that a problem for me?” and just keep the stream of consciousness writing going and watch what comes out.

You’ll know when you hit the core issue because you will probably have an emotional release of some sort or one of those powerful “AH HA!” epiphanies that makes everything seem suddenly clear. Don’t let a few tears or a little “ah ha” slow you down however, get under the issue all the way to the core. That is how you clean it out. Go at least 5 layers deep with the questioning before you stop but go until you truly know you’ve hit the core issue. Over the years we have built up excuses and rationalizations for why we behave and respond the way we do. These things keep us in victim mode and away from healing. “I’m not (strong/smart/pretty/rich/clever/etc) enough to do that” is nothing but the wound speaking so that it can stay hidden. You ARE enough, you just have to learn to believe that with all of your being.

PUT MEDICINE ON IT

Now that you have dug down into your psyche and determined what the core issue is then it’s time to go to work on healing the issue. Depending upon what the issue is and how deep it goes, you may need to seek help with this part from those trained in doing healing work. This can be energy workers or body workers, shamanic practitioners, counselors, psychologists, hypnotists, or anyone trained in some technique which specifically addresses your issue. When searching for professional help, the main thing to keep in mind is that this is an energetic wound; you need to get it out of your head as well as out of your body and energy field. This is often why people don’t see complete results from talk therapy. Understanding the issue and talking about it only heals part of the issue. Perhaps you’ll need to see two or more people to fully clear the issue. Trust your intuition and listen to your body when doing the healing work.

Ultimately this part of the process is about understanding and clearing a core belief that is driving the behavior/issue that you trying to heal. Once we have a deeply held belief at the subconscious (this lifetime) or super-conscious (soul level) level that is where the belief must be released from. As we mature and gain knowledge in the world, our beliefs and views may change in the conscious mind but if we unconsciously hold a contradictory belief, that is the one which will drive how our bodies respond. The body is controlled by the subconscious mind and so that is where the healing must occur.

One book that I’ve found to be very helpful in my work and in my life is “You can heal your life” by Louise Hay. Her body of work is unparalleled. Through her years of working with the body, she has come up with a chart that maps physical symptoms to their underlying emotional cause. She shares many wonderful techniques for doing self-help work that are simple and effective for anyone to use. The techniques may not be able to help you resolve every issue which arises but it is a great start for most. For the rest, seek experienced healing professionals.

PROTECT IT WHILE IT HEALS

True healing takes time. If you are working at the energetic level, change can occur there instantaneously but because the body is more densely held energy, change will occur more slowly there. The best example I can give is to think of the 3 states of water; solid, liquid, gaseous. Let’s say for example that your wound is that “you believe that you are not worthy of love”. This gets frozen inside your body which we’ll call the ice cube. Let’s say that belief makes you cold and unapproachable. I come along with a heater (love) and surround you with it. The air around you may warm up instantly but the ice takes time to thaw. Slowly it becomes water which is less energetically dense and allows for change more easily. The water begins responding to the heat and warming up which further melts the ice. Finally after the ice is fully melted, the water reaches a point where it boils and eventually becomes vapor.

We are a lot like that. Our bodies are the ice cube, our emotions and thoughts are the water and our surrounding energy field is the vapor. It’s important to keep that in mind when doing healing work so that you give the process time to complete. The change has to occur at all 3 levels to be effective. This is why often people will have surgery to heal an issue and a few months or years later, the problem is back. They simply chipped away some ice but didn’t clear the core emotional issue. Our entire being must be addressed and tended to for healing to be completely effective. The energy body holds the template which the physical body forms to.

FORGET ABOUT IT AND MOVE ON

The important part of healing is to accept and embrace the results. If I continue to hold on to my story around the issue and form my identity around that wound, then I’ll never be able to move on with my life. For example if my issues were rooted in being molested at age 10 by a friend and I get my attention by being known as a “molestation survivor” then I am still holding on to the drama therein. In the present moment, where I exist, the abuse is not occurring only the identity I’ve formed around the wound is all that is left. I am the only one holding the memory of that event so I need to do my forgiveness work for the perpetrator and for myself to the point where I can let it go. I can then begin forming my identity around being complete and whole. http://peacefulmichael.blogspot.com/2009/08/claim-your-power.html It’s the difference between being known as a “survivor” and as “a fully empowered being”. As we heal and become whole, the words and labels that we use to define ourselves need to change as well. Heal. Forgive. Forget. But remember, the healing part has to come first because your conscious mind may forget but your body remembers.

THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS

While it may seem easier to go with the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy when it comes to doing healing work, that approach really does not work. If we spend all of our energy trying to run from or ignore the core issue, nothing will truly change. Our outer experiences in the world will continue to trigger us in an effort to get us to heal the issue. We can blame the world or other people but our spirits have a vested interest in us being healed and whole and so they will always attract those experiences which will move us in the direction of healing. Until we stop blaming others and own the fact that whatever experience is happening for us is one which we have attracted or created to help us move towards healing. We have to be grateful for its presence in our lives and thank it for what it has to teach us.

When we claim our power to create in this way, especially if we are creating negative experiences for ourselves, we can then own our ability to use that power differently to create experiences that we do want. We can always choose to learn through the “teacher of pleasure” or the “teacher of pain”. If we create pleasurable experiences which help to evolve our spirits and help us grow, we will be attracted to that and we will indeed grow. We will want to do it more and more. Loving yourself more or hating yourself more. Which do you think would make your life happier?

Sometimes in order to fully embrace the change that we manifest in our lives, we have to be willing to let go of our old identity. We have to release our old stories and be done with the past. No longer victims of our past but rather powerful beings who because of their past have made it to be a part of the present moment. Each and every one of us that is alive at this moment is here because we chose to be here, even if unconsciously. We are the chosen ones who are awakening in this moment to be a part of a shift in human consciousness. Cultures from around the planet have predicted it and with open eyes we can witness the fact that we have to evolve the way we think and behave quickly before we destroy ourselves. We are fighting because of our differences and not celebrating our diversity.

Who would you be if you let go of your oldest story of wounding? What would your life look like if you didn’t hold on to that identity?

Wounds - Part 1

Wounds. We all have them and usually we have lots of them. They’re such an integral part of who we are that most of us aren’t even aware of them…yet they’re still there. When people who haven’t done much inner process work hear this term, they believe it means physical wounds, such as cuts, scraps or old broken bones. Those are indeed wounds but the wounds I’m speaking of are energetic in nature and typically show no outward physical appearance.

Energetic wounds are places in our energy fields, which surround and include our physical body, where we hold the memory of the hurt which has come to us. This hurt comes in many forms. Sometimes this hurt has come from physical damage such as when we are in accidents or fights. The majority of our wounds however have an emotional or mental cause. These are the ones which are less visible and are often outside of our conscious memory either because they are so old that they’re forgotten, were so subtle when they occurred, happened to us when we were so young that we don’t have a recallable memory of the experience or it was so painful that we’ve chosen to forget it.

HOW WE ARE WOUNDED?

Wounding occurs when we encounter an experience which we are unable to process and resolve. Our inability to process an experience may come from a variety of factors including age, past experiences, mental weakness, misguided information or a violation of our trust or boundaries. Whatever the reason for the experience or our inability to physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually or spiritually handle it, the wound is formed and it begins to shape our lives and affect our identity, often to our detriment. Unfortunately the wounds that we carry often cause us to inflict the same wounds upon others.

To understand this process, let me give you an example from my own life. The post I did called Body Memory lays out the story of my childhood haircut drama. As a child, that event was so traumatic for me that I collapsed in tears. That trauma was the source of a deep wound for me and at the time “emotional wounding” was not anything that I was aware of. My response to the experience was to find ways to protect myself from ever letting this happen again.

Growing up I was always very defensive when it came to my hair and always did my best to ensure that it didn’t attract any more negative attention than necessary. Unfortunately I also had very thin and fine hair and it began falling out in my early 20’s and this became an all-too-frequent topic of conversation. I knew that I was incredibly defensive about it and often lashed out inappropriately at others who made wisecracks or comments about it. Anytime anyone would make a comment about any haircut I got, I would shut down and quickly try to change the topic. Often that defense strategy would involve some sort of self-deprecating humor that served to further hold my wound in place. I became my own worst enemy. In some respects, the day that I decided to shave my head was the day that I found peace. My hair could no longer be made fun of because now it was gone.

It would have been very easy for me to write off my defensiveness as “no one likes to be teased about anything personal” but my response to the teasing was always more intense than was warranted. This was because an old wound was being triggered deeper within my subconscious and that wound was the source of great embarrassment. Yet this was an experience that I had mentally blocked out because it was too painful to hold on to but the wound was still very present in my energy field. It wasn’t until the meditation experience that I even recalled the original event.

WOUND AWARENESS

The obvious question then becomes “if I can’t remember the original wounding experience, how do I heal that wound?” This is where awareness and inner work come in to play. Being self-aware is about being able to be in the world and engaged but also being “the observer” of your experiences. Many of us experience the Observer but do it from an unconscious place where it is typically ignored. The Observer is that small part of our consciousness which is constantly witnessing the events which unfold in our lives. The key to identifying the Observer is that it is not judgmental nor does it direct us in any way. It is simply the silent witness.

For most, the Observer is first experienced consciously during a meditation practice. It is that part of our consciousness that not only is aware that we are sitting for meditation but also the part that observes the thoughts that we have. It helps us become aware of the thoughts when those thoughts are not the object of our meditation. For example, let’s say that I’m sitting to meditate and my focus is on the breath. Perhaps for the first 20 seconds I’m witnessing myself focusing on the breath, then I hear an the external sound of plane flying overhead, which causes me to begin thinking about the last time I flew somewhere for vacation. The next thing I know, I’m thinking about me lying on a sunny beach somewhere. Perhaps a few minutes pass before eventually I catch a nudge from the Observer that brings my awareness to “beach thoughts” and this allows me to bring my awareness back to the breath.

BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OBSERVER

The key to that experience however is learning to be connected to the Observer. The Observer is always consciously aware of our experience and can help us become aware of those times when we aren’t in the present moment but rather lost in thought and past events. By deepening our awareness of and connection to this part of our consciousness, we can begin to be aware of when an old wound has been triggered. We may find ourselves in a defensive place trying to rationalize our irrational behavior or reacting like we are 8 years old. This is when the Observer gives us a nudge that we aren’t in the present moment. If we are aware of that voice we can not only observe that we are reacting from a wounded place in our psyche but also what the nature of that wound is.

To give you an example of how that process might look, let’s continue with my hair story. Perhaps someone had made a wise crack about my hair being messy and I became unconsciously triggered by the comment. I became defensive and went into pattern and began projecting my wound onto them by making fun of either their hair or something which I knew would hurt them. Perhaps a bitchy comment I make upsets them and a verbal or physical fight ensues between us and we both lash out at each other. Now my focus is on this fight and not the original wound.

WATCH FOR THE RED FLAGS

It would be easy for me to walk away from that event with my focus on how mean the person was or just the fight itself and still have my deeply hidden wound intact. If I had been aware of the Observer, perhaps I would have noticed that their hair comment took me out of the present moment and into the past where my original wound was. I could have then been aware that there is an old wound that needs healing and even that it has to do with being so self-conscious about my hair. This information would have come to me via the Observer because it witnessed the events just as they were without the judgments of my personality or emotional coloring.

Typically we can become aware of old wounds this way because of our emotional response. We become overly emotional or we experience fear or anxiety. This is where the old spiritual adage “go into the fear (or pain)” comes in. By being aware of what the issue is that triggers us, we are given a pathway to healing an old wound. In my example above, if I had been self-aware enough to notice that I was defensive about my hair, I could have used my time alone to process that through a simple inquiry into my subconscious, “why am I so sensitive about my hair?”

FEARS ARE RED FLAGS

Our fears point the way to healing. Unless there is physical danger involved, truly we have nothing to fear so when we notice that the emotion of fear is present, we can use that as a compass for locating and ultimately healing an old wound. In my example above, I had the fear that someone would talk about my hair so I would go out of my way to try and keep it perfectly combed and styled in a way that I believed was attractive. I of course wasn’t fooling anyone but myself. I held the belief that no one would notice that it was thinning by keeping it styled and sprayed into place. Yes, it was a different issue from a child’s crew-cut but my hair was a source of shame from an earlier wound, thus the sensitivity.

What seemingly simple activity do you have a fear of?  What makes you say “ouch”?

END OF PART 1

This entry turned out to be a rather long one so I’m going to break it into two pieces. In the next part I’ll share a process for working to heal the wounds. Until then examine your life for those areas of resistance, feelings of discomfort and hot buttons. Watch what happens just from becoming aware of them.

Click here for Part 2