You could say we all have a non integrated shadow side. Triggered behaviour may be a great example of what happens when you do not work on integration. You may experience 2 sides the conscious side and the resentful, cruel, mean tantrumy, angry side. Not integrated in. Instead they switch between each other. One rational one irrational. One skilled, one unskilled. One an adult and in control and another a young one out of control…

I could look at the younger me, not only did this happen to me , that is how it is perceived, as happening to me with me out of control to it. As if the conscious self were the I. The triggered self was a swamp of undifferentiated  emotions. – over there –  Only untangling with much time, observation, love, skill and practice. 

Years of impotence, uncertainty, unsafety and helplessness, yielding years of adrenaline, flash anger, separation and loneliness. That didn’t quite match the situation. 

Fear having nothing to hold onto, no foundation of safety to support the organism. No way to ground out the fear and differentiate what is current danger and what is past danger. What is needed now? And do I have the skills to resource it? Instead it is chemicals in the body, yelling ALERT, fight, flight, freeze. Mac truck coming!

Even when the person gets differentiation the chemicals in the body may still flow at high volume.

The person may not have learned many developemental skills. 

The right to safety, certainty, clarity, calm… may not be wired in.

The ability to communicate from these rights. Being able to notice and say what I need and want. May need waking up or learning.

The ability to self regulate

please add any of your own insights

Yes trauma is painful and we need to pay attention and do some work looking at the impact it has had on us. Multigenerational trauma, Cultural trauma, Family trauma, etc. etc.

Yet I am seeing a lot of simplistic views out there and a weird sense that there is such a thing as having a life without difficult challenges. So let us say for instance you did manage to have a childhood without any difficult challenges, you may find yourself not equipped to handle injustice. I guess I could say this another way. I see again and again that there is some truth in the saying that  “whatever doesn’t kill you can make you stronger.” 

Growing up in a household where I may get rewarded or punished for the same behaviour depending on the whim of my career. I do not have fixed views of the way the world ought to be. This is best exemplified in an example of crossing the street or driving in india (probably many other places), I do not expect or get distressed when the drivers drive on the wrong side of the road. I have watched westerners get hit, expecting drivers to obey the rules. 

Another way to look at trauma is not as how it is “not trauma”, as measured against some fictional norm but as what did you learn from it? What resources did you develop? How has that aided you in the world and in life? And of course what sensitivities did it leave you with both positive and negative. 

What skills have you developed in working through your trauma?

You may be sensitive to your enviornment and know what is going on in a room?

You may sense into other people and know what is going on with them?

You may even find yourself with psychic skills?

You may not be rigid, knowing how to navigate change.

You may be a risk taker?

Maybe you do not pedestal authority thinking it is automatically right?

On and on. Think now of how you have adapted. What special skills do you have? 

We all know that belief and intention heals. I imagine that is why placebo is so powerful. The problem is that most of our beliefs are unconscious. 

Most of us are familiar with the research: “… the body does its own extreme makeover regularly. In fact, 98 percent of the atoms in the body are replaced yearly.”Jul 14, 2007

We also know that when we take out a memory and look at it we put it back altered. We also know that the brain doesn’t distinguish between real and imagined. Think of a big juicy ripe lemon. Smell that incredible fresh lemony scent. Bring it slowly up to your mouth, now picture biting into it. Remember when watching a movie and feeling sad, or disturbed, or even relieved.

Deepak Chopra, Lester Levenson, and R. David Hawkins, to name just a few, use this information in their work. 

All this brings up so many questions that some scientists are looking into. Ie: If the mouth regenerates in so many hours why does it keep a disease? What tells it to? And can we reprogram that?  I wonder is that what is really happening in placebo or in miraculous cures?

In my work I notice a hierarchy. It goes from subtle to dense. If you do not deal with things energetically then it hits your psychology if you do not deal with it there then it hits your body. 

This takes us back to the beginning – most of what is going on with and in us is unconscious. 

There is a piece of research that impacted me and I think shows this clearly: they shocked mice while they smelled cherry blossoms then for 7 generations when the mice smelled cherry blossoms they would go into an anxious, trembling…, response. Well by 7 generations you would not have a clue why a cherry blossom smell made you anxious. Maybe you would even attribute it to something so that your anxiety made some sense to you. I imagine we are doing that all the time and do not have a clue. My favourite quote from Melissa Tiers is “this shit is all made up”. This does not mean it isn’t real or valid. Rather for me it means that we can play with it, explore it, be curious and maybe even create our own miraculous cures. Which Lester Levenson and R David Hawkins have done and we all probably have done also. 

Getting access into that unconscious majority part of ourselves. Shamans have used this throughout the ages, science is now exploring it and we are often trying to do it with our conscious minds. Yet that is the problem we can not do it through that door. It is like surfing, driving a car, riding a bike, some kind of click, when the being “gets it” and it all comes together. Ah I get it now. – yet great intentional healing has also come from here. 

In my work we play with this. Learning to hold things lightly. Waking up to the unseen, the subtle. Manoeuvring in these realms. We can learn it and it is not at all like we think. I keep getting surprised over and over again as my assumptions get blown as I learn to navigate these dimensions of our experience, universe, reality. A group helps a lot because you are not alone. You have others for checks and balances and I love this. This distilling in the subtle, yet ever not quite what I thought. Yet also a knowing or a waking up to noticing your knowing and opening to your knowing, that click, that feeling of bulls eye and humility. Not noticing from a personal I more like the field. – ah enough for today!

the brain does not discriminate between an experience we picture and imagine and an experience that is real. we will play with this tonight. yet as always being present we see what wants to manifest from our energies together. so this is how it works. ready to go forward with an intention but not holding it tight, holding it lightly within the context we are in. so always open to changing data yet holding direction. this is how you do not drift around like a leaf in the wind.

i am not triggered so much and when i am i know what to do

i know how to be in a feeling/sensation without feeding the story around it.

lots of joy – greater capacity for joy

a recognition of being home and content as a background field

i can go past my conditioning

i can let myself know where someone else is at without loosing myself

i can relate to the emptiness in anyone

i know i am not separate.

i viscerally know we are connected

i acknowledge the field

i know what is needed in any given situation

i have a greater capacity for love

i can tune in

i have skills that i never dreamed were possible

i can tune into so many dimensions

the invisible is accessible to me

i understand ken wilber’s wake up, grow up, clean up and show up stages

i am connected to my body and at the same time not limited to my body

there is more space and less overwhelm

In case you are wondering what we are doing?

we really see everything from where we developmentally are! as well as our cultural, biological, multi generational conditioning : thus determing our entire perspective, our feelings, how we make meaning out of an incident, our actions and our decisions. this is why we work on development as well as waking up. Both are necessary! 

in the energy work we constantly touch into, wake up and develop both of these. It is not just about keeping your psychology painless and regulated. the more we develop the more choices we have and the more energy frequency we can handle. our connection to the field and support becomes a given. things that used to be hard work become effortless. we find ourselves saying “i remember when that was difficult or when i could not even do that, and now i don’t even think about it”.