I have been privileged to have a career where I could touch human beings. Not just human bodies, but all that makes us up. When I touch your body I am aware that there is a physical body, a spiritual body, and an emotional body all rolled into one entity. You are a history book. More and more I am drawn to work that acknowledges the impact and active participation of the subconsciousness level. We think with our conscious minds many grand and astounding thoughts, but we are really passengers in our own vehicle while the subconscious drives the bus.
Switching metaphors, the (original) developer of EFT, Gary Craig, uses the term "the writing on the walls" as a metaphor for all the "programming" or scripts we use to shape our lives. We get this information when we are very young. Younger than about 6-7 years of age, we are almost always in theta brain waves. This is a highly creative state. Also one in which as children we absorb all the information coming to us as fact. The old expression "little pitchers have big ears" acknowledges that little ones are lurking and listening to adult conversation. Of course we were, how else were we supposed to learn how to be a grown up? But there are many other bits of information kids are picking up besides a few salacious tid-bits of gossip. And in the end these shape much of our lives.
Aside from the whispered conversations about topics too adult for little ears are the direct instructions we are given as children. How many of these sound familiar? "You're not smart enough," "Our family doesn't believe that," "No one in our family goes to college," "All rich people are greedy," "all poor people are lazy'" "All the women in our family get cancer," "All the men in our family die of heart attacks in their 50's," "all the men in our family are lawyers," "You're too tall of a woman to get a man." A short list of entries on the "this is how we are so this is how you are" list. We listen and watch, we absorb the conversations adults are having around us to learn how to survive in the world and our place in it. Depending on our luck and temperament we live in a world of possibilities where we are loved and capable beings, or in a world of lack where we are victims of powerful forces that don't care for us. For the most part we are a collection of parts that believe many different things to be true about ourselves, some positive and some not so much.
We all know stories of people who are really successful in one area of life, not so much in others. Indeed, I'd wager most of us would see ourselves in that description. A really great CEO, who can't control his eating. A wonderful loving person who is constantly in debt. A person who has no trouble earning lots of money, yet struggles to succeed in marriage after marriage. It all comes back to the writing on the wall, the map the driver of the bus is following.
All those stories and truths we heard and were told as children about who we are is the script we come back to repeatedly to build our world, and our place in it. To a large degree this also helps shape our bodies and our health. A lot of it is subconscious so we have no idea the influence it is having on us. But, there is a way to access it and re-write it.
Next time: bringing it all together.
