If my observations of late were translated into a few news headlines, they might read something like this.
Worry, Fear, Insecurity, and Doubt Infiltrate the Land of Infinite Potential - Thousands Taken Hostage and in Fear for their Lives!
Statistics Show Suffering is at an All time High! Newscast at 11:00!
Your Mind is Not Your Friend! What Science is Telling Us About the Power of The Subconscious Mind.
A few weeks ago, during a Compelling Conversation about Fear and Faith with host, Lorraine Cohen and an incredible panel, I shared a four step shifting process (S.T.O.P) that spontaneously jumped into my head. It was in response to dozens of questions submitted by folks who are struggling with fear and perceived lack in their lives and has been a powerful reminder to shift when needed (and Lord knows I've needed to!).
Let's face it. Fear and insecurity appears to be on the uprise (which is really a downward spiral in our vibrational frequency), or at the very least, it's what folks are talking about. In spite of many positive upturns, such as the elections in the U.S., we can't ignore how current social and economic conditions are influencing us at both the conscious and unconscious levels. More importantly, we can't ignore how the combined forces of our individual consciousness' are impacting the conditions in the larger collective.
I can appreciate that the phrase, we create our realities, can feel obnoxious when one's survival feels as if it is being threatened. For some, life circumstances feel beyond one's control. In such cases, it may feel easy to dismiss or deny the idea of playing some part in the creation of a current reality. On the other end of the spectrum, others may self judge, blame or even shame themselves for the undesired manifestations in their lives. Either way, we lose out on the larger opportunity which is, and I wish to emphasize, if we possess the power to create our realities than we possess the power to un-create and re-create them.
Moving Beyond the Undesired Familiar
I've been working with dozens of private clients on transforming at the level of identity. This level of healing is what I call Transcendence of Past Conditioning. I became passionate about sharing this potential with others because of my own personal experiences with transcending that which our culture said was impossible to transcend (or in western language, cure). Say, for example, someone has a history of being abused during their childhood. The identity of being a victim or survivor of abuse was formed largely by how one's family and culture viewed a person who experienced abuse. They were given a whole set of symptoms, experiences, issues, and maladies that others in similar situations (or diagnosis) have experienced. Initially it can ease any sense of isolation or aloneness because they are informed, "it is normal for people who have...to feel, think and experience..."
Over time, however, their sense of identity becomes imprinted with the labels and predictive experiences they have been "told and taught" they would experience. In the indentification with their culture's or family's viewpoint it continues to manifest in their reality.
The undesired actually becomes familiar and the familiar becomes expected. Expectation influences future experiences. Get where we're going with this? This is how we begin to create identities and patterns in our lives and ultimately, the entire brain (and energy patterns) need to be re-wired to release the "undesired familiar."
Personally, I have had opportunities to release identities related to emotional and physical trauma and medical diagnoses. In the first few years after my initial healing of Lupus, I continuously needed to clear "memory and identity" at the energetic, physical, mental and spiritual levels. Eventually, after my final "healing crisis" in 2001, the repatterning was complete and healing at all levels was firmly established in both mind (all of my minds) and body.
The Primal Urge - Seeking the Familiar
Virginia Satir reminded us that man's primal urge is not so much to survive as much it is to seek the familiar. Think about it. Although change is desired, the very nature of stepping into the unknown and releasing the familiar can cause panic and paralysis! Even those parts of us that we would rather not contend with (like the parts that doubt, fear or judge, or still run tapes of not good enoughness) will work really hard to avoid annihilation. It doesn't take long for something to become both familiar and expected (and root itself in our subconscious) and as humans, we are wired to ensure the familiar survives, whether or not we like it!
If struggle has become what is familiar, we can temporarily forget what it feels like to experience ease and sustained flow in our lives. We wonder if we'll ever find a sense of sustained peace again and because, in that moment, we can't imagine "how" to change our current circumstances, we become blind to the vast possibility of multiple alternative potentials! We see "what is" and become so identified with it that it ultimately translates into "what will be." Thinking, emoting and acting from this space of constriction, we become frozen in the circumstances of the past or what is showing up in the present. And, out of habit and strong imprinting, we engage in patterns of thinking and behavior that actually foster more of what is undesired.
Over time, all of the limiting self-talk and statements about "what is" (regardless of what is true) becomes imprinted in the subconscious brain through repetitive thoughts, experiences and evidence gathering. Conclusions are made and repeated hundreds and thousands of times in our minds and in our conversations. Each time, the belief, and often the perceived causality, becomes more deeply imprinted in our subconscious mind. This is the part of our mind that does not evaluate the truth or discern the mythology of our beliefs and accepts everything as is.
The pattern I personally trip over time and time again is one of thinking "not enough." It touches just about everything. Not enough love, not enough money, not good enough, creative enough, successful enough (blah, blah, blah) and I'm becoming more vigilant to use my S.T.O.P process with myself as soon as my "not enough monster" comes up for a feeding. Here are just some of the repetitive, conclusion-based statements I have recently heard with clients and in the media (and yes, a few of them in my own head).
· I'm broke
· I can't afford...
· I don't have time
· I'll never find true love
· I'll be alone for the rest of my life
· It is too hard to...
· My husband (or wife, son, daughter, mom, dad) will never change
· I'm the type of person who...
· We are in the worst recession we've ever been in
· My sales are not enough
· Not enough (time, love, money, support, etc.)
· I can't...
· I tried but nothing changes
· I'll never be able to...
· I'll always be...
· Every time I...(blank) happens
· He'll/She'll never give me what I need
· The world is going to hell in a hand basket
The long and short of it is that the conclusions you make and speak of become the reality you experience.
As a minister, shaman, metaphysician and a hypnotherapist, I am continuously amazed at the inherent connection between mind and spirit and how they influence our physical realities. Whether the physical reality is showing up in our health, bank accounts, or relationships, the polarity that can exist between what we believe (or want to believe) and the evidence we are collecting, can be frustrating at best. Even more challenging is when we think we believe (in a greater potential) and we engage in behaviors that are aligned with receiving what we want (visioning, gratitude, affirmations, etc.) but the positive results just aren't happening. Or, they aren't happening in the way, to the degree, or in the speed of our liking. When this occurs, faith is tested, hope is chipped away, and the subconscious begins to imprint itself with enough doubt laden evidence to justify it taking up permanent residence and ultimately becoming the truth from which all else is created.
The Science of Worry and Fear - What Happens in Your Brain?
Long before "The Secret" I was gifted with the awareness of how our thoughts influence our reality. My mom had me writing gratitude lists before I was 7 years old to help me shift my focus. Dad subtly shared healing modalities, prayer and chanting. Grandma and grandpa turned me on to "the supernatural" and the work of Edgar Cayce. My Grandfather Elmer was teaching OAHSPE and Concept Therapy when mom was a teenager. I began to learn that the laws of the mind were constrictive at best and created much suffering and conflict, whereas the laws of the soul were limitless and expansive in nature. Shaligram and Shakuntala, my dad's parents, were active in Gandhi's movement, which in reality, focused on altering cultural concepts of inequality, occupation and oppression to libration, freedom and equality through commitments and practices of non-violence and compassion.
My fascination grew and evolved over the years and I began to look at the brain and the mind (two different, yet interconnected things) as intermediaries between the spirit and the body. I wanted to know how to move beyond the conscious mind and the "limitations" of physical and material laws into the limitless nature of the subconscious and superconscious (spiritual) realms. I wanted to know how to speak and work directly with Source and learn the mysteries and laws of the mind and the soul so as to leverage an inherent ability and identity we have as creators and influencers of our own realities.
My research of late has been more interesting than ever. To see science show how parts of our brain are activated or deactivated based on the quality of thought and emotion is fascinating. In particular, to understand how certain emotions such as fear, worry, indecision, and judgment, actually take us out of our more evolved brain (forebrain and prefrontal lobes) and limit creative, intuitive, imaginative and spiritual thinking. Understanding how the quality of our emotions and thoughts alter our electromagnetic energy and physiological responses has helped me understand how to heal. Most importantly, it has helped me understand the power of prayer and hypnosis in opening pathways to that which exists in the field of infinite potential.
What I came to understand was how worry and doubt prevent us from truly partnering in the perfection of the Divine; a consciousness that depends on our faith and trust to facilitate the highest good in our lives.
What is Fear?
If we look at fear as "doubt energized with the idea of repercussions of loss, rejection, abandonment, and even death" we can see that fear is sourced in doubt; a state of thought that is contrary to the very nature of faith. I know that new agers often say "there are only two emotions, fear or love." They say fear is an illusion. Pain is an illusion. Life is all an illusion. Anything that exists in the realm of the undesired is an illusion and that the only reality is love.
Well for anyone who has been (or is) in pain, to be told that one's pain isn't real can feel like a slap in the face. To tell a sick person there is no disease or a dying person that there is no death, or that they are dying because they must want to die, don't have enough faith, or haven't evolved their consciousness enough, is metaphysical malpractice in the cruelest of forms. The Law of Attraction just ain't the only law out there.
Pain and fear is what often takes people to the edges of who they think themselves to be. In frustration and desperation, many turn to prayer or finally make the decision to change through alternative modalities that help them transcend that which has become the norm - or familiar through conditioning. In fact, many people begin their spiritual journeys as a result of pain and tragedy. The quest to find a church or work with a spiritual teacher is often motivated by the pain they are experiencing, more than any natural and inherent desire to develop a deeper connection with Source and to explore spiritual beliefs. Therefore, I have also learned the immense transcendent value of pain and have learned to use it to overcome many challenges.
In my own reflection on the power of prayer and hypnosis in healing, I have often wondered what the spirit (or demons) of desperation and lack conditioning does to the energy or quality of our desires and prayers, and how they influence what we are seeing in our lives. Many years ago, I heard the quote, "the quality of our thoughts are our prayers." Activated by fear, many of us go directly into doomed thinking or "doing" motion, and engage in patterns of thought and behavior that just get in the way of God and our Godselves (The Universe, Spirit, Higher Self, etc.) from intervening in ways that are of service to our deeper requests.
Fear induced behaviors keep us holding onto the wheel, attempting to control something we can't even see. Sometimes we need to let go, slow down and get quiet so we can receive the higher forms of guidance or divine interventions that will help us transcend the perceived struggle that keeps recreating itself in the manifestation of the undesired.
How To Pray?
Praying with belief, certainty and expectation is not possible with even a speck of doubt. Throughout the ages, absent of any particular influence of faith or religious dogma, we see that this form of prayer is taught in many of the wisdom traditions. When the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith, his response perplexed them. He told them they didn't need a large amount of faith, in fact, he said, all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed! We hear time and time again (stated in many ways) the passage that says, "And all things, whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive."
Praying believing isn't possible when we house even a modicum of doubt or unworthiness. And, when one sees an emergent need in their lives, like getting the mortgage or electric bill paid (let alone having money for the holiday season), it is challenging, to say the least, to pray believing.
S.T.O.P
This is where my new little acronym comes in. To be used in the moment you come into contact with doubt or fear, it is a simple and effective shifter; one that influences you at the conscious, subconscious and superconscious levels and opens pathways to transcendence.
S - Silence. Get silent. Get quiet. Turn off the T.V., computer, and phone (and your fettered mind) and go into the silence to access the still small voice within that will bring you both comfort and guidance. Yesterday, I was reminded of a great Unity quip that goes, "Go Within or Go Without." Oh how true it is. Instead of going within and communing with the TRUE Source, we focus all of our energy on external things and people that we think will make us feel better or rescue us from our misery (all sourced in our thoughts and outlook). If you are telling yourself you don't have the time, you are lying to yourself and getting some sort of secondary gain for staying encased in the energy of fear, judgment, doubt or a feeling of "importance" for being busy. Personally, because silence sometimes can be an invitation for my worry to increase its volume, I usually begin with a guided meditation or self-hypnosis to take me into a level of consciousness where silence and mindfulness is actually possible. Hypnosis enables me to move beyond the critical faculty in my mind that doesn't see the possibilities that exist beyond current reality.
T - Take a Breath. It is remarkable how powerful a few deep breaths can be. When we are in fear or doubt, our breathing tends to become shallow and we don't fully oxygenate our brains, bodies and spirits with the very substance that gives us life! To be inspired is to be filled with the breath of spirit. Desperation is just the opposite. It is a sense of absence of the breath of Spirit. Breathe and receive. Over the years, while in deep meditation, I've been "taught" sequences of breath that empower me to transcend pain by clearing, cultivating, and grounding my energy. Today, I teach and share this powerful use of breath to my clients and often integrate it into my hypnosis and healing meditation audios with incredible results.
O - Open Your Mind. Although it may seem obvious, what I am really speaking of is opening the Higher Mind and that requires us to move out of the lower parts of our brain that govern survival. Our forebrains, and even more specifically, the prefrontal lobes, are how we open to intuition, inspiration, higher communication, creativity and most importantly, The 7 Core Energies of Transformation™ that are represented on The Power of Our Way Medicine Wheel (click here for an audio replay of a recent talk I did on this subject) . Compassion, faith, and unity, three examples of of the seven core energies, are experienced when we move into meditation, deep hypnosis and prayer. We can imagine, and then create an alternative reality and all have a power to leverage our inherent abilities to consciously create (and uncreate). But, and this is a big BUT, we must create the opportunities to travel into this part of ourselves and partner with the energies of transcendence and positive creation. We must transcend judgment, resentments, hatred, and lack and let go of the cultural conditioning that binds us to our undesired realities.
P - Pray and Play. I realize it can feel challenging to play and create joy-filled experiences when life feels like a struggle, yet, the emotional energy of love, joy and gratitude, which are natural and easy when we are in "play" and having fun, are three of the most magnetizing energies that exist. To pray from joy, love and gratitude is how we power up our prayers and enables us to till and fertilize the soil (organically and naturally, at that) as we plant the seeds of creation. Taking the time for both play and prayer is essential in the co-creative process and opens pathways to the higher energies of transformation.
So, What's Ready to Emerge - in 2009?
So, in giving thought to all of what you have just read, what is it that is presenting itself as an opportunity in your life? What are you ready to transcend? What is asking to emerge in your consciousness and life (if you just S.T.O.P)? Join me for Aligning With Destiny (www.aligningwithdestiny.com) or come to our next retreat at www.powerofmyway.com/soulevolution.html and open to a greater understanding of why you exist and what you are here to serve.
Several years ago, again, in meditation, I received a vision of a map, a template to use in my treasure mapping. The first time I used it was sometime in 2001. It combined powerful information about the chakras with a tactile and spiritually- based visioning process with energetic and meditative support for conscious creation. Later of course, the layers of affirmative prayer, gratitude, deep meditation, hypnosis and belief re-patterning were added and gave me a complete recipe for conscious co-creation. Called the Intuitive Chakra Treasure Mapping Process, I invite you to download the materials and audios from this two-part class.
You can get a little more info at www.powerofmyway.com/teleseminars.html (I am not bothering with a lengthy sales letter) and sign up today!
It is my dream to share this dynamic process of transcendence and co-creation not just for individual transformation but to gather the multitudes in shifting the current reality on the planet by altering the collective consciousness.
Can we do it? Yes, yes we can. And, we have lots of living proof happening in this remarkable community! Join us at www.powerofmyway.com and just watch what happens!
By Reverend Anita Pathik Law, CHt., CFCC, founder of www.powerofmyway.com, www.aligningwithdestiny.com and www.hypnoticmanifestation.com and author of, The Power of Our Way; A Path to a Collective Consciousness.
with my 15 year old daughter. But before I tell you about it, I ask that you receive some important background information.
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