FINDING YOUR TRUTH

Beyond Prosaic Reality

“I believe that within the core of every human being dwells a yearning for the meaning that lies beyond the prosaic reality of everyday life. We reach out for evidence of something beyond the ordinary.” ~ Denise Linn

Earthschool Harmony

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Love the image beside these words—the perspective juxtaposition of immediate foreground against the distant horizon implying a well-trod path along the leaf’s midrib toward the astral orb of light.

Who hasn’t taken that imaginary path during some vision? But few might equate a leaf held in their hand as the vehicle for such transportation; and yet on some level of comprehension, it makes perfect metaphoric sense—at least as much sense as any other consideration.

“…We reach out for evidence of something beyond the ordinary.”

Perhaps one of our greatest assets and at the same time our biggest weakness, is the ability we have to adapt quickly to ‘sensory input patterns,’ meaning that any phenomenon’s newness wears off quickly to our constantly-assessing analytical mind to the point that we may discard its peripheral significance or even the possibility of its greater importance beyond that which we can immediately discern.

Said more simply: We tend to ignore that which is more familiar to us (if we deem it non-threatening), because with familiarity it has become ‘just another leaf on the side of the road.’ Which unfortunately then makes it “ordinary.”

But is it ordinary?

Is anything that we experience REALLY ordinary, or do we just tend to view most aspects of our lives in that manner?

My opinion leans to the latter: We may deem them ordinary because that’s how we choose to view them. But maybe LIFE is actually a bit more open to one’s personal interpretation.

What’s that applicable William Blake poem?

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour…”

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Maybe the importance of that leaf in hand just depends on how you choose to perceive it.

‘Understanding Nothing’ At Last

I did chuckle when I saw this saying above: “To understand nothing takes time,” because I remember thinking as a junior in high school that there couldn’t be ANYTHING new to learn that I already did not know, so what was the point of my senior year? Ha-ha. (Yes, I actually said that.)

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment when I began to realize how little I actually did know about workings of the world (as opposed to what I thought I knew), but it probably started at the beginning of my SENIOR year when all my previous LIFE assumptions and expectations began to implode in on themselves.

But hey, that’s how we really learn—through shattered expectations and busted delusions. It’s a little hard on the ego, but that’s a natural part of our intellect’s evolution process.

In time you’ll find that LIFE is seldom what you think it should be, and if anyone ever told you that LIFE would be ‘fair’ with you, well, they were definitely pulling your leg. LIFE has nothing to do with fairness—only education.

Long ago I read something (likely in a Castaneda book) that said there are three types of knowledge: 1) that which is KNOWN, 2) that which is UNKNOWN, but knowable, and 3) that which is UNKNOWABLE.

At the time I arrogantly thought “What could possibly be unknowable?”

I mean, how can you even fathom such a thing as ‘unknowable-ness’? How can there be ‘things’—concepts, considerations, possibilities—that we are forever unable to grasp or comprehend or document in some way even as our minds expand and our collective experiential databases increase?

As the years ground on for me, I began to better realize that with each passing day, I learned something that I had not previously known, so I was definitely in the ‘KNOWABLE range.’ But still I could not comprehend what could possibly be UNKNOWABLE to me in time if we constantly accumulated more and more information and experience every hour of every day?

Then a few years back, I began to focus more on how we humans established ‘context’ in our lives.

One of the books I ran across when I was doing research for my Honoring the Hermit—Building A New World book, was The Production of Reality by Jodi O’Brien and Peter Kollock—it was a social psychology book of essays describing what reality is to some individuals due to their unique perspectives. The most important and unifying factor of tracing those perspectives had to do with establishing and assessing the CONTEXT of how each person’s personal reality was created. Here are a few quotes from the Preface on the books intentions:

(p. 5) “A person’s reactions to the world depends on how he or she defines the situation. The definition of the situation can differ from moment to moment, depending on what the person is inclined to see. People may appear to be perfectly reasonable in one situation and then appear the opposite in another situation. Indeed, a great deal of human behavior appears unreasonable and illogical if viewed out of context.

“Cultural rules dictate what is ‘real’ and what is ‘not real.’ The trick is to figure out the rules. They are not necessarily based on logic or sensory perception. This book is about how human beings come to know the rules for determining reality in various situations. These rules enable us to organize and make sense of our experiences.

“When people interact with one another, they do so according to cultural rules. The result of this interaction is a set of meaningful patterns that we think of as ‘society.’ It is important to note that these rules are constructed by human beings and that they are meaningful only within the specific social context. In other words, behavior is contextually meaningful. Taken out of context, many behaviors appear contradictory or silly….

“…This ability, to distinguish between contexts and to behave in accordance with social expectations, is a defining feature of humanness….”

(p. 9) “According to the theory of symbolic interactionism, ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ are determined by the context in which they are practiced.”

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That was a lengthy intro to my next thought but perhaps necessary to consider, because when you try to conceptualize that which is “UNKNOWABLE” you become CONTEXT dependent. And if you are dependent on society’s concept of what constitutes REALITY, then you are limited in your understanding of any broader meaning.

“To understand nothing takes time.”

It takes a lifetime to realize that the human brain has limitations—even our eyes can only recognize electromagnetic lightwaves within the ‘visual lightwave spectrum’ unless we utilize other lower and higher frequency sensing devices to gauge them.

To think that we CAN understand all there is to know about the Universe that we inhabit or what may exist beyond that limited universe or in multi-dimensions beyond that which we inhabit, is as arrogant and delusional as I was in my junior year of high school.

At my current age I now know that I understand absolutely nothing about our human existence or any other possible existences, despite my often thinking that I can catch glimpses of ‘those other existences’ during moments of extreme higher-awareness exploration.

We are simply too ‘context dependent’ in our current earthly existence; and venturing beyond that earthly awareness throws our every earth-based sensor and comprehension comparability, out of our ‘knowable’ context.

I can guess at a lot of things—I can speculate based on what I’ve seen, done, and intuited; but to say I understand some of the experiences that I’ve had during more unusual states of awareness, would be a lie.

So at last I can declare with all humility, that I ‘understand nothing.’

And leave it at that.

Creating Our Personal Reality

Haven’t mentioned Dr. Joe in awhile, so since today he seems to be touching on the REALITY subject that I’ve been recently exploring, I’ll list him as a good source of theoretical discourse and experiential training in what it takes to shift your thinking, your energy, and then your life to what you truly want it to be.

I can repeat it over and over ad nauseam, but it is still TRUTH: The energy that you hold, is the energy that you attract; or more specifically in sequence: the focus of your thoughts becomes the context through which you view/frame your life, which then becomes your ‘intention’ locus to where you direct your manifesting energies.

Dr. Joe describes it in terms of ‘your personality determines your personal reality.’ (A bit more catchy phrase.)

Dr Joe Dispenza – OFFICIAL NEWS & FAN PAGE

“If we can’t stop thinking about our problems, our mind and life will merge. The objective world is colored by the perceptions of our subjective mind – and reality continuously conforms.
We become lost in the illusion of the dream.We could call this a rut, but it goes much deeper than that. Along with our actions, our attitudes and feelings also become repetitive. Eventually, as we become enslaved to our environment, we form the habit – of being ourselves.
To change our lives, we must fundamentally change the ways we think, act, and feel. Because how we think, feel, and behave is – in essence – our personality. And our personality creates our personal reality. So to create a new personal reality – a new life – we must create a new personality. We must become someone else.”

Learn more in Dr Joe’s book “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself” by following this link: https://hubs.la/Q0131Grr0

***

Hmm, …“We must become someone else.” Sounds a bit like reinventing ourselves in a way; or taken more negatively it might sound like we are playing a dramatic role for a staged effect—which is NOT what this is really about at all. If you want genuine life changes, you must make genuine effort toward that change.

Phrase catchiness and ad bites are okay to draw your attention to the main point, but if you take this too flippantly, you might miss the actual substance of it.

Genuine personal change is indeed possible. And yes, you can change your life for the better once you focus your thoughts and energies into doing it, but first know WHY you are doing so. What aspects of your current life are so untenable that you desire a serious life change? Stop and list them on paper for yourself as concrete evidence that your life needs to change for the better. (Journaling is a great tool for self-discovery.)

Increasing our self-awareness is a life-long effort, and it is probably one of the main reasons that we are currently enrolled in this earth-plane training ground.

But another main reason for being here is to learn how to shift your own energies in the direction that you truly wish to head. You are not at the mercy of FATE here. You can set your own life course once you learn to control your thoughts and control your manifesting energies that define your chosen life path.

In general THAT is what Dr. Joe is offering in his books and participatory courses—he’s showing you HOW to shift your thinking to refocus your energies and redirect the course of your life.

I list him only as a resource to consider because he is a proven ‘change maker.’ And I believe in sharing resources in this blog.

All Creation Is Made of Vibration and Light

The Four Winds Society

“Shamans in the Andes, the Q’ero, read the signs of destiny and foretold the end of time and the dawn of a millennium of light. The prophecies present possibilities of chaos and the promise of the emergence of a new human, homo luminous, at the end of the turmoil. Most importantly, the prophecies speak about a tear in the fabric of time itself that offer an opportunity for us to define ourselves not by who we have been in the past, but who we will become 10,000 years from now. These teachings held that all of creation — the earth, humans, whales, rocks, and even the stars — was made of vibration and light: Nothing perceived as material existed, other than as a dream that humans projected onto the world. To continue learning about the Q’eros, we invite you to tap on the link below and read our latest blog, ‘Shamans of the Andes and Prophecies’.” by Dr. Alberto Villoldo

https://thefourwinds.com/…/shamans-of-the-an des-and…/

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And of course today I see an online follow up above from ‘Four Winds’ to what I had tried to extrapolate yesterday on visualizing the frequencies of light waves and sound waves; and how when our collective frequency is raised high enough (doubled) we can shift to a higher octave of existence—a new way of being.

Not surprisingly, the above blog post yesterday from Alberto Villoldo also emphasizes the need for collectively raising our frequencies:

“…We all feel the tremendous upheavals happening on all levels, physical, emotional and energetic, and know we are facing a quantum leap in collective consciousness. Aware that we are consciousness, we know in our very bones that the more of humanity that makes the leap, the better. By taking an evolutionary leap with other conscious, deliberate individuals, critical mass is reached and we are pulled forward all at once into the new world we created….”

***

In truth we may never know the minute details of how this REALITY is produced or even projected onto some massive, interactive viewing screen, but as our collective consciousness increases, so does our better understanding of HOW and WHY we are ‘doing what we are doing’ daily.

But the BIG questions still remain for speculation only:

WHO initiates/manages/manipulates this REALITY that we all participate in?
For what purpose is/was this REALITY created?
And the true biggie: What is the ENDGAME here?

Almost feels like some trippy NETFLIX concoction.

The ‘Cymatics-Cuboctahedron’ Conundrum

At day four of my viral cold I’m not the sharpest tack on the corkboard, but when I saw these two images, one after another this morning: the Cymatics individual 8 x 8 sound patterns, and then the Resonance Science postings, something clicked somewhere in my fuzzy head. “Understanding this is all about visualizing frequencies—light wave and sound wave frequencies.”

We are trying so hard to get our heads around the underlying purpose and composition/structure of what we call “REALITY,” that the concept of everything existing solely as points within a broad spectrum of ‘frequencies’ is as close as we can currently come to making sense of it all.

This was the Cymatics post today along with the above image on the left:

Cymatics

“Philosophy is written in that great book whichever is before our eyes – I mean the universe – but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written.” ― Galileo

Here the 2-D Cymatics image on the left is visualizing how distinct sound waves form 64 geometric patterns to represent specific frequencies of sound vibration; while the Resonance Science “Cuboctahedron” 3-D image on the right, shows the ‘12 octave semitones in spherical relationship to each other’ describing it as:

Resonance Science Foundation

“The musical system known as the Circle of fifths maps perfectly to what Buckminster Fuller called the ‘vector equilibrium’: the Cuboctahedron. This same geometry is theorized by Nassim Haramein as one that could account for why we measure space itself as nearly infinitely full of energy (in the form of quantum vacuum fluctuations) even though we perceive it to be completely empty: because it is in a perfectly balanced state where all vectors in the geometry are of equal length, twelve around one…

Learn more about the connection between resonance (frequency) and spacetime (geometry) …”

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Plus a little more background on Octaves and Frequencies:

“In music, an octave (Latin: octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason)^[2] is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the “basic miracle of music,” the use of which is “common in most musical systems.”^[3] The interval between the first and second harmonics of the harmonic series is an octave.” (Wiki)

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“Why do notes an octave apart sound the same?

An octave is the difference in pitch between two notes where one has twice the frequency of the other. Two notes which are an octave apart always sound similar and have the same note name, while all of the notes in between sound distinctly different, and have other note names.” www.howmusicworks.org/107/Sound-and-Music/Octaves

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“In terms of physics, an octave is the distance between one note and another note that’s double its frequency. For instance, the note A4 is the sound of a vibration at 440 Hz. The note A5 is the sound of a vibration at 880 Hz. Going in the other direction, the note A3 is the sound of a vibration at 220Hz. … And How Is an Octave Divided? In Western music, octaves are connected in 12 equal intervals. Each of these 12 intervals brings us to a new note. …”

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/music-101-what-is-an-octave

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Now with all that background info and the images above, consider that all of us are energy beings who are capable of holding/maintaining specific operating frequencies ourselves—individually and collectively. And when those individual frequencies rise higher, the collective frequency also rises higher.

When we collectively manage to reach a “higher frequency octave” than previously held (meaning when we double the previous collective operating frequency), we will theoretically then shift into a higher-octave operating environment.

So for what it’s worth, I’m all for raising our frequencies into the next higher octave, because to me this one has way too much lower-frequency dissonance and disharmony.

The Transition of Thich Nhat Hanh

Plum Village

Public Notice:

“The International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism announces that our beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has passed away peacefully at Từ Hiếu Temple in Huế, Vietnam, on 22nd January, 2022, at the age of 95. We invite our global spiritual family to take a few moments to be still, to come back to our mindful breathing, as we together hold Thay in our hearts in peace and loving gratitude for all he has offered the world.”

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“This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died. Over there, the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies all manifests from the basis of consciousness. Since beginningless time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source. Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.”
-Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear

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The “Great Bell Chant,” read by Thich Nhat Hanh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1ZwaEzMtJw&list=RDLVF1ZwaEzMtJw&start_radio=1&rv=F1ZwaEzMtJw&t=70

From A Female Perspective

“When the Yoga Sutra began to be taught by priests and scholars from a masculine Hindu tradition, one with the power of gurus and temples and decades of study behind it, the feminine aspect of Spirit, Devi, began to be pushed aside and a disdainful attitude toward women arose.” – Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D. Yoga, Power, and Spirit: Patanjali the Shaman.

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First of all—Love the image!!! Wish I knew the artist but don’t. (It came from Alberto’s blog feed.)

Secondly, my first intro to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra was from a very balanced modern approach explained by Stephen Cope, so the gender bias of it was not as evident, but considering the actual time period that the original Yoga Sutra was first published and taught, I believe Alberto’s take on it is factual.

Thirdly (if there is such a thing) as a woman who has seen, felt, struggled-with, and survived-through ‘gender bias’ from high school onward to my present retirement age, where today’s girls and women can hardly fathom such a thing as ‘female dismissal or exclusion’ having ever existed except in fanatical religions or dead-end cultures; I can say that it did exist and still DOES exist for many women around the world, and it was far from pleasant to personally experience over the years when I knew it and dealt with it firsthand.

I’ve battled my male counterparts for many a job position with less-than-enlightened male employers. I’ve even had to “prove myself” or “prove my worth” to those ‘men-in-power’ over less-qualified male applicants at the time. Sometimes I’ve had to do the work of two people just to show what a better choice they had made by hiring me over the next-best male applicant. If you complained about the workload unfairness, it was, “If you can’t cut it—you’re OUT!”

So I always “cut it.” I was a hard-driving over-achiever because that’s what it took to make it in the world against workplace gender-bias back then.

Over my work life I’ve been discounted, ignored, laughed at, snidely commented on, and sometimes even mildly assaulted by crude, ignorant men who thought that their male dominance was a permanent fixture in our modern work culture—men who felt that their authority was never to be questioned because they were unlikely to be ever be unseated from their self-created and well-protected thrones.

Well they were wrong.

Devi—the feminine Spirit, is finally back now.

And if She (Spirit Devi) is anything like me, she came back different than she once was. No more wallflower—no more door mat—no more punching bag—no more the willing recipient of male insecurity and uncontrolled, raging aggression.

Nope. Not gonna take it now or ever again.

When I look back on the young woman I once was—so idealistic and unsophisticated, so believing of ‘a better world for all’ just waiting to be unveiled and willingly accepted by everyone, I laugh at my previous naiveté and shake my head over all my years of perpetual struggle for ‘worthiness acceptance,’ and the simple acknowledgement of my equal right as a female being to exist on this planet—or the “feminist’s agenda” as some have actually called it, like ‘equal rights/equal pay’ was some female aspirational fantasy.

I think that’s what I like most about this image above—there is such power there—such calmness, clarity and assurance. And in her eyes I see strong, unbending intentions for a world to exist as SHE sees it to be, no matter how anyone else perceives it.

I look at HER image—the Spirit Devi—and nod now, because from the depths of my being, I can FEEL that new world materializing even as I write this—the birth of a new creation that is sure, steady, and unfolding as it was always meant to happen just as soon as there were enough of us around to strongly hold the energy and intentions of HER.

Well, we are all here now.

And at last, so is SHE.

Reinventing Ourselves

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.”

~ Hal Borland ~ Art by Mark Duffin

(shared from ॐ Simplicity, Elegance and Grace of Nature ॐ )

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As one who has spent decades reinventing myself career-wise or at least ‘adding to my collective skill-set’ depending on how you view it, I know a bit about setting goals for yourself.

This time of year people often create New Year’s Resolutions to hopefully change their lives or themselves in some way—by trying to make themselves more attractive to others, or by trying to become better people and help others in some way, or they want to simply feel happier with themselves (less self-loathing or eliminating a sense of guilt over some questionable personal behavior, or even for eliminating that feeling of inner dissatisfaction with the focus of their life in general).

There can be many reasons that we desire change—some reasons we are currently aware of and some reasons we only intuit at a deeper level until our unconscious mind makes it glaringly apparent and unavoidable to our conscious self.

I once made New Year Resolutions, but now I don’t. What I realized is that no matter what “resolution” I had set for my inner or outer “intentional change for the better,” if my heart and my willpower weren’t behind the intended personal improvement, that resolution would be discarded by mid-January. Few of my actual New Year Resolutions survived. Most fell away, until I began to view this yearly “resolution” dictate differently.

What I instead replaced them with was a year-end assessment in my journal of what had actually occurred in my life that past year, and then made “suggestions” to myself on how to improve my life situations and to improve the overall ‘feel’ of my existence for the coming year ahead; i.e., like how could I be more joyful overall, or how could I simply enjoy each and every day more than I was currently experiencing it. You know, start simple and see where it goes—make simple daily changes and see where it takes you.

It’s like that ‘gratitude and appreciation’ focus that you can learn to adopt—it enables you to stop for a moment and ask yourself if your most basic needs are being met (ample food, warm place to stay, some endeavor to occupy your mind, and enough outside activities—like walking—to keep your body moving so it doesn’t deteriorate).

And if your basic NEEDS are being met then you have very good reason to be appreciative, and when you adopt that ‘gratitude and appreciation’ mindset, your energy field changes to magnetically attract more and more situations and experiences into your life to enhance that ‘appreciation’ mind-state. “The energy you hold is the energy you attract.” It just is.

Here is the simple KEY attitude shift to developing more ‘gratitude and appreciation’ in your life:

Start observing more and judging less.

Start each day with this simple mantra: “Watch and Learn,” — observe every aspect of your life, all interactions and situations without comment or criticism, including self-criticism, because sometimes we are hardest on ourselves.

Take notes at the end of the day on what you ‘observed,’ and write down what you saw that day and how it made you feel, and then ask yourself WHY you felt that way because of what you had observed. You don’t have to label the feeling good or bad, just note what it was that you honestly felt about what you non-judgmentally saw.

Do this for at least a week—stating the WATCH & LEARN mantra to yourself wherever you are. ‘Observe, don’t judge.’ Just watch everyone and everything without comment or criticism. (Not easily done.)

At the end of the week, then ask yourself in your journal, what did you LEARN from that exercise?

The real value in the process is the inner realization of how most things that arise in our life path are fairly neutral in intent toward us, but WE choose to interpret their significance to us one way or another—adversely or beneficially. And that INTERPRETATION of what we are seeing is on us.

When you can shift your perspective to be simply more observant and less judgmental about everything that crosses your daily life path, you naturally become more flexible and adaptive to be able to either avoid potential drama-inducing situations or to take advantage of possible opportunities that suddenly appear before you.

Maintaining neutrality throughout your day enables you to reinvent yourself moment by moment, depending only on how open you stay to all those ‘multitudes of possibilities’ that may arise before you with every step taken.

How I Feel

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“The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass, they speak to me.

The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.

The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning, the dewdrop on the flower, speaks to me.

The strength of the fire, the taste of the salmon, the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me.

And my heart soars.”

~Chief Dan George

Shared from Tao & Zen

Believe in Miracles

NLP and Reframing Situations

While listening to a Brandy Gillmore session this morning on healing a client’s self-blame/inner-guilt, I finally realized what techniques she was actually using with her client—it was a mixture of distant energy-work, combined with light hypnosis and some serious NLP (Neuro-Linguistist Programming) phrasing and reframing meant to shift the client’s current unhealthy ‘stuck-perspective’ and expand her perception of her actual situation to one more accurately depicted, and therefore changeable.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it’s not.

We initially dig our own little ‘bunkered hidey-holes’ to peep out of because we feel safer in them than we do out in the world-at-large facing those ‘scary unknowns’ of all sizes, shapes, and emotional intensities. The unfortunate problem is that while our fox-hole of sorts protects us from the most violent incoming verbal/emotional barrages, it also prevents us from seeing the more accurate picture of what is really happening to us and around us.

This subject relates back to the online Trauma Conference that I recently finished. While I clearly loved Dr. Aimie Apigian enough to make her MY prime presenter, there were many others who were interesting and a few who were familiar to me, like Connirae Andreas, who co-authored a book with sister Tamera Andreas called Core Transformation: Reaching the Wellspring Within, of which I had previously mentioned in my post long ago on trauma-relief techniques with which I was familiar.

Good book and good example of how NLP techniques can be used to probe deeply into a client’s self-restricted perspective on their life situation to help them expand that limited view and to shift their possibilities-thinking out of the ‘fear-defined mode’ and into more helpful and enriching scenarios.

That ‘self-blame perspective’ Gillmore mentions was a reoccurring theme in many conference presentations on the unhealthy affects of trauma emotionally, psychologically, and even physically.

How you help a client shift out of self-blame and into the all-important self-empowerment is the real trick—and it takes a skilled practitioner to facilitate that transformation. So I admire those skills when I recognize them knowing how difficult initiating and then consolidating/solidifying the client’s new perspective shift can be.

If you are interested, there are many resources available to better understand NLP, including books, online sources, training classes, etc. The Andreas (Connierae, Steve (deceased), and Tamara) were all great trainers, with numerous books among them. They still offer valuable info on their websites.

NLP BOOKS: I first read Bandler’s Guide to Transformation, and Bandler and Grinder’s The Structure of Magic; then NLP: The New Technology by Charles Faulkner and Steve Andreas. Also Transforming Yourself, Steve Andreas; Heart of the Mind, by Steve and Connierae Andreas; and of course, Core Transformation mentioned above by Connierae and Tamara.

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General background on NLP from WIKI:

“Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California, United States, in the 1970s. NLP’s creators claim there is a connection between neurological processes (neuro-), language (linguistic) and behavioral patterns learned through experience (programming), and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life…”.^[1][2].

“According to Bandler and Grinder, NLP comprises a methodology termed modeling, plus a set of techniques that they derived from its initial applications.^[15][16] Of such methods that are considered fundamental, they derived many from the work of Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls.^[17]

Bandler and Grinder also drew upon the theories of Gregory Bateson, Alfred Korzybski and Noam Chomsky (particularly transformational grammar),^[15][18][19] as well as ideas and techniques from Carlos Castaneda.^[20]

Bandler and Grinder claim that their methodology can codify the structure inherent to the therapeutic “magic” as performed in therapy by Perls, Satir and Erickson, and indeed inherent to any complex human activity, and then from that codification, the structure and its activity can be learned by others. Their 1975 book, The Structure of Magic I: A Book about Language and Therapy, is intended to be a codification of the therapeutic techniques of Perls and Satir….”^[15][21]

Ethical NLP websites to consider:

Connirae: https://conniraeandreas.com/

Homepage

Dr. Aimie Apigian

Personal assessment of the Trauma Conference: As one who loves to establish a contextual framework for all aspects of this shared life experience, complete with defining the proper components within LIFE itself so that all the interconnections can be assessed and understood both for their individual functions and for the synergy of the entire system, NO ONE in that entire 70 speaker Trauma Conference put explanations of TRAUMA treatment itself into a more practical, logical, and low-jargon comprehensive matrix better than Dr. Aimie Apigian did. Wow. And she did it in such an informative, organized, clear and humble presentation, that I wanted to capture her statements for further consideration. So I took notes to share here because after today, it’s not available for FREE.

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“Dr Aimie Apigian

Dr Aimie is a Board-Certified Preventive and Addiction Medicine Physician with a Double Masters in Biochemistry and Public Health. She specializes in trauma, attachment and identifying and reversing the effects of stored emotions in the body and on our health. Having personal experience in foster parenting, adopting and then her own chronic fatigue and autoimmune issues, she has discovered that negative life experiences become our biology, not just psychology. Compromising every system in our biology, these stored emotions cause inflammation, digestive issues and contributes to all disease and aging. Stored emotions become the biggest thief to our health, happiness and aliveness without us ever knowing.

A two-time Summit Host, she is the founder and director of Family Challenge Camps, a weekend intensive for families, and founder and CEO of Trauma Healing Accelerated where she provides education and courses for those wanting to hack their survival systems and accelerate their healing journey from trauma to achieve their best mental and physical health. Her courses include experiential courses for the general public on shifting The Biology of Trauma and a certification coach for those in a healing profession to have more tools for understanding and addressing the Biology of Trauma.”

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My NOTES: Attachment trauma—anything that is not a Secure Attachment, is an ‘attachment trauma’ because her definition of a “trauma” means that it overwhelms the system leaving lasting effects on the biology. And when an ‘insecure attachment style’ develops, it leaves lasting effects on the bio-chemical processes and on the body itself. When the ‘insecure attachment style’ becomes severe, it would become an ‘attachment disorder’ as it can affect all aspects of the person/child’s life—behaviors, emotional regulation, physical inflammations and sensitivities, body pains, etc.

“….she has discovered that negative life experiences become our biology, not just psychology. Compromising every system in our biology, these stored emotions cause inflammation, digestive issues and contributes to all disease and aging. Stored emotions become the biggest thief to our health, happiness and aliveness without us ever knowing.”…

Trauma—it means lasting effects on the biology and the nervous system. When working with ‘attachment styles,’ we don’t have to go into “the story” or “blaming” someone. We just have to acknowledge that at that time in the child’s life there were things going on in the parent’s life that affected how attuned the parent might have been to their child’s need for closeness and support. Because these disorders develop when a child’s earliest needs are either met (and the child feels safe and loved, and can rely on the parent to provide for his/her needs as they arise) or not met (and the child feels unsafe and unloved, and the parent seems to be unable [or unwilling] to provide the stability and security necessary for the child to feel safe and appreciated). The parent may have done her best at the time of the child’s early development, but it wasn’t sufficient for the child’s need, and that created the sense of instability and insecurity, or feeling unloved and unwanted. If the child comes out of the early relationship with a sense of disattachment (to parent and surroundings), that affects the child’s nervous system to be more prone to experiencing more traumas later in life.

The child’s nervous system needs ‘regulation.’ Attachment is regulation. Trauma overwhelms the nervous system on a biological level, and ‘secure attachment’ is the regulation of the system.

Regulation: Going back to the idea that the nervous system has three states: (20:49) Parasympathetic, that middle window of tolerance; the high-energy state of STRESS—called the Sympathetic; and then the very low-energy state that is the FREEZE response—the dorsal vagal response—the Polyvagal theory. An infant doesn’t have the ability to regulate its nervous system state. So it takes its cues from mom—meaning that whatever ‘nervous system state’ mom stays in, is likely the reciprocal state of the infant as well. If mom is stressed, the baby likely will feel the stress also.

No condemnation or blame intended here though, because everyone is doing the best that they can at the moment with whatever they have to work with. Just how it is.

The nervous system is the driver for everything in our health, because it is communicating either a biological state of 1) safety, 2) danger or 3) overwhelm. Those are the three states that it can communicate—you are safe—you are in danger—you are toast: so freeze and shut down.

Fight or flight is the DANGER State, it is high-energy—RUN. In OVERWHELM—then it’s the ‘you are TOAST’ state—the nervous system says shut down all internal power sources, and go either into sleep-mode or flat-line to minimal activity or minimal emotional response, period. With OVERWHELM—or shut-down, you just barely get through each day…you are so overwhelmed in every way. Physically/ biologically, emotionally, and the nervous system can’t handle the excess stress, so it shuts down and people get sick with inflammations and auto-immune diseases, or digestive disorders, or are in pain and distress with basic physical movement.

It’s a ‘mitochondria’ problem when energy levels dip so low that the body barely functions. Mitochondria and energy work are vital to trauma recovery. She sees trauma as an energy problem. So first off, long before the talk-therapy begins, she addresses how to rebuild the energy reserves and focuses more so on the body itself, not the psychology of the situation—it’s the biology of the trauma that must first be addressed for all the other solutions to fall into place. Detoxing and establishing nutritional input to rebuild the body’s ability to generate and store energy.

She shows how interrelated all these issues are—the biological reasons for aspects of the psychological problems. So she begins to address the physical problems and rebuild the energy engines, before the client can address the psychological reasons for the “stuckness”. When the nervous system is bathed in inflammation, nothing in the body works as it should.

She has established a set of protocols and practical strategies to walk people through the entire process of healing the trauma and healing the body.

She first determines whether the client is dealing with STRESS (high-energy) situation or OVERWHELM (low-energy) situation. What prescriptive response she suggests depends on the nervous state that the client is currently in. Her goal is to first stabilize the client’s nervous system. Each state requires specific protocols and procedures. ‘High-stress state’ is different than ‘Overwhelmed state’ and needs different initial treatments.

Once the nervous system is stabilized then therapy can begin, and then the therapeutic psychological and emotional work can start.

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It’s a ‘unified systems’ approach—how novel and how logical for maximum effect. I was very impressed with her presentation. It was to the point, clear, concise, and highly informative. And with no ego or posturing. Nice.

If anyone is interested, she has a couple websites: https://draimie.com and https://www.traumahealingaccelerated.com

And she offers numerous YouTube videos, any of which I would recommend after hearing her talk.