Tag Archives: releasing

Healing and our Brains

Change is not just about your thoughts

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I recently watched the film “The Living Matrix” which features the work of a number of people involved in examining how our world actually works.  It was a good film in many ways and explained well some of the top-level notions about quantum physics and the interconnectedness of life.

One of the things I noticed was the usual preponderance of people pronouncing that our thoughts determine so much in our lives, and the mention of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Speaker after speaker emphasized the importance of our thoughts and how they affect us.

There was a small portion of the film that discussed the power of emotions and the power of the heart, and then the focus shifted back to the brain and thoughts. If one only had access to the material presented here, one could conclude that changing one’s thoughts was the key to better health, peace and happiness.

For a long time, I was in that same camp. I studied NLP and Hypnosis (Ericksonian Hypnosis was the basis for NLP), read books, took courses, listened to lectures, etc., etc. all about how to improve my mind. I can’t recall exactly when and how, but eventually an awareness in me was triggered – we’re not our thoughts and changing them is not the answer, but only part of the process of transformation.

The danger of specialization

I’ve written before about the conceit of the prefrontal cortex, that part of our brain that thinks it is charge and tries to overcome our emotions. One of the dangers of being too specialized is that one can miss all kinds of other information that lies on the periphery of our focus. This is what I observed when watching The Living Matrix. I saw a series of people, with brilliant minds and incredible aptitude, focusing almost all their attention on just one part of what makes up the complex beings that we are – our brains and thoughts.

What was missing from the film, and it is a big omission, is a discussion of how we are made up of, at the very least:

  • our emotions
  • our body sensations
  • our thoughts
  • our beliefs
  • our memories
  • our consciousness filters
  • our ways of being.

Humans are a complex organism and our various aspects are intertwined to such a degree that we must take a “whole person” view to properly honor our reality. We must acknowledge that each one of these aspects affects all the others.  Our thoughts do not stand alone nor do they drive the ship that is us.

To effect any substantial change in ourselves, we need to have our various aspects in alignment and agreement – we need to have congruency. The evidence to support this notion is all around us – many people say they want one thing, and yet it never appears in their life. They might blame all kinds of external factors, but it does not take very long to discover that their actions do not match their words and underneath there is dissension. They might have a life-long fear of success or a preconceived negative notion about their own self-worth or  a belief that it takes too much effort to attain that goal. It could also be dozens and dozens of other factors, any one of which is enough to introduce incongruency and internal dissension.

All together now

If one has the intention to change some aspect of one’s life, then one needs to become aware of how each of the various aspects is affecting the movement toward that goal. One needs to benignly notice the beliefs, the thoughts, the emotions, the memories, the body sensations, etc ,which are evoked when this goal is contemplated. Anything which is out of alignment needs to be gently brought into alignment. If a fear is present, for example, it must be released using some sort of technique such as AER. If a limiting belief is present, it needs to be acknowledged and released as well. The same is needed for all aspects which are not congruent with the movement toward the goal, and this is more a project of releasing blocks and dissension than it is about forcing oneself into conformity.

Next time you hear or read someone say that one needs to change one’s thoughts, remember that you are not your thoughts – they come and go, thousands of times during each day. Your thoughts influence you, yes. So do your emotions, your beliefs, your memories, your body sensations, etc..

Take a “whole person” approach, get your aspects into alignment,  and you may be surprised at how much easier it is to obtain your goals.

Copyright 2009, Robert S. Vibert

Healing and our Brains

What do you mean, I can’t do that to you any more?

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Now, truth be told, it is highly unlikely that you will ever hear someone actually say something like the title of this article.  Not in these exact words, that is for sure. However, if you read between the lines of what they are saying, this will be the message. And if you pay attention to what they are doing (always a good idea), you’ll definitely get the message.

First, some examples. Let’s think of some times when people do something to you, something along the lines of taking your generosity for granted. Maybe one day you let someone have some of the compost from your garden because they wanted to try their hand at growing a plant or two. You gave them some of your compost and were happy to help them out. The next time they came by to visit, they asked for some more.  And the next time,  the same thing happened. And again, and again. Until they were constantly taking compost, and started to do so without even asking. Hmmm… I imagine you can extrapolate this to any number of situations besides compost – the principle is that you were generous once, and the other person then assumed that you would always be willing to give and give and give, of your time, your energy, your belongings.

Another example would be when someone presumes upon your good-will. Let’s say that they are rude or insulting to you. You respond with dismay or disgust and  maybe they apologize, explaining that they’ve had a hard day, week, life. A little while later, the same thing happens – they are out of line, say something inappropriate, accuse you of something inane, etc. They expect that you’ll always accept their behaviour, no matter how inappropriate, because they have mitigating circumstances,  explained themselves once, because you didn’t constantly make a fuss about it or because they think they simply have every right to express themselves however they wish.

A third example would be when someone constantly imposes their worldview on you. For whatever reasons, they have formed their own particular vision of how the world is and works. They see things in one way, and expect everyone else to see it in the same way. They are not shy about telling you how wrong your ideas are, how much superior their views and opinions are, and how it would all be so much better if you’d simply agree with them.  They never miss an opportunity to tell you what you are doing wrong, and how much better their ideas are. Some people would call this fundamentalism, but they certainly do not need a religious context for this zealousness. Even when you ask them to respect that you may have a differing perspective, they insist on “being right“, perhaps even raising their voice to drown you out.

We draw the line, they pop

When we draw the line, tell them to stop what they are doing, that we’ve reached our limit, the usual response is that they get upset with us. And that is when you’ll see and hear what amounts to a protest against their “right” to carry on with behaviour that is not kind, compassionate, generous or life-enhancing. They may be shocked that you would actually tell them to stop.

This protest will come in various forms, ranging from pouting to bullying to misbehaving to pleas for forgiveness. The pouting and sulking is pretty much what you know from watching child behaviour. The bullying can be a bit more subtle, as they have often developed skills to enhance it. They can try to browbeat you with arguments as to why they should be allowed to continue as they had been. They can try to use shame to manipulate you, often bringing others into the discussion in an attempt to gang up on you. They can become insulting, suggesting that you are not man or woman enough to stand up to their manner and that you need to toughen up. They may resort to anger or belligerence, hoping to intimidate you into backing down from your position.

If all of those tactics fail, they may beg forgiveness, hope that you’ll soon forget your position and then plan to revert back to their old ways within a short time.

After all, they are entitled to be the way that they are, right? They are the Entitled Ones.

Why do these people get so upset when asked or told to respect a boundary? More than likely, no one ever told them NO or STOP before.  People have been polite to them for most of their life, and not pointed out the rudeness or inappropriateness of their behaviour, generally to avoid getting into a conflict with them.  Their propensity to be conflictual becomes quite evident early on in their relationships with others, and since most humans prefer to not be in conflict, the people around these Entitled Ones walk on eggshells.

Finding Balance

Given that when denied what they want, whether it is more of your generosity, your goodwill or your acquiescence,  the Entitled Ones react like spoiled kids and engage those around them in a battle they need to win.

The truth of the matter is that all involved in these scenarios need to use a more mature approach. The Entitled Ones need to learn self-restraint, respect and consideration for others. Those on the receiving end of the entitlement request need to learn how to say NO and stick to it. In some ways, it is harder for the second group than for the first. The Entitled Ones are used to taking and taking and not being challenged often, so they have precedent on their side.  Their learning includes releasing the fear of scarcity and being alone that drives a lot of the behavior. When people are always looking for more, it is usually because they sense that they will not have enough – that explains a lot about why people who already have a lot of money are driven to keep getting more. This fear is not overcome, it is accepted as part of our human inheritance and then released. The other part of this, the constant need for attention, even if gained only by creating conflict with others, is also possible to release. Having released these unhealthy drivers, the Entitled Ones can find it much easier to interact with others in a manner that enhances the lives of everyone involved.

For the second group, those who have some trouble establishing boundaries, the path to a better way is rather straightforward. They start by noticing what comes up for them when they imagine themselves confronting an Entitled One they know, and then releasing those feelings. With those feelings gone, often ones of fear of rejection and battle, it becomes much easier to stand one’s ground, firmly but kindly establish boundaries and help the Entitled Ones evolve into more respectful folks.

For both, the key is to release the underlying feelings that drive the behaviours.

Copyright 2010 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved.

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Healing and our Brains

What were you expecting – The Spanish Inquisition?

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Those who are fans of the 70s British Monty Python comedy troupe will recognize the reference to the sudden, unexpected appearance of the Spanish Inquisition as mentioned in the title, although I have mangled the concept a tad to make a point.

Every day, we wake up and dust off our expectations, charge the batteries on them and set off to live our life, bringing them in tow behind us. We encounter a situation and expect it to match what we have encountered before. This can be anything from where the sun will rise to the effects of gravity to what happens when we push a door closed.

All is well with these sorts of expectations as they generally refer to situations which will evolve in essentially the same way each time. Scientists who study how our minds work consider this to be a form of mental shorthand, which saves us time and mental energy. This is related to how we can quickly figure out that this new object we see is a chair, because it matches the general profile and features of so many previous chairs that we have seen.

Problems can occur when we apply our expectations to new people and new situations, or when we do not allow for evolution in the actions and reactions of people we think we know.  And, to add just another bit of complexity to this discussion, our expectations can be conscious or not.

The man with the black hat

An example of a non-conscious expectation is when we expect someone who looks somewhat like someone we have encountered in the past to behave in the same manner. Therapists see this sort of thing all the time, as clients appear with issues which derive from associations with traumatic incidents from childhood. If you were 12 months old and a man wearing a black hat scared you badly, it is entirely possible, even as an adult 30 years later, that each time you see someone wearing a black hat, your internal survival system will trigger a response, typically some level of fear or anxiety. Your system has stored the memory of  “black hat = danger” and until you use something like AER to release that stored memory, it will remain with you. (I have witnessed people release stored feelings/traumatic memories that were more than 60 years old, so it is never too late to start releasing.)

Experiments have shown that our internal survival system is aware of things that we are not consciously able to notice. Just one example of this is when people who had a fear of spiders were shown a film with some embedded/subliminal  images of spiders – although they could not explain why they started to feel nervous, they certainly were noticing their physical and emotional response to the film. The researchers monitored these people for their heart rates and skin galvanic response, and it was easy to see the correlation between the timing of the  images and their levels of fear response. These sorts of experiments clearly show that any attempt to control ourselves by relying purely on mental processes are doomed to fail, as our state of being is not determined solely by our thoughts, and in times of distress, our thoughts follow our feelings, not the other way around. But, I digress.

Although there are many things for which we have non-conscious expectations and it is harder to deal with these as they fly under our radar screens, so to speak, we can be aware of our conscious expectations.

What value would we derive from noticing our expectations? Possibly the greatest value would be that of self-awareness and conscious decisions about how we approach the world. Having expectations which are more in alignment with what is actually around us makes for a much easier life as we are not resisting the world and hopefully not being constantly disappointed.

According to neuroscience, for the first part of our life (up until around age 20 or so) our brains are in intense learn and develop mode. Environmental cues provide much wanted clues to the world and how to interact with it, and our neural circuits wire themselves in response.We form an interpretation of the world and our internal map to navigate it.

The rest of our lives is often spent trying to make the outside world match up with our internal map. This gets more and more stressful as the years pass, as the world is in constant evolution (some might say devolution).  The internal map we carefully constructed about how the world works was never really all that accurate anyway, as it was so influenced by our perceptions. But it was the best map we had, and we made do with it as best we could. If the world was static, we could probably get away with keeping our original internal map without many problems. Ah, if only it was so easy.

Given that we live in an ever-changing world and that our expectations are guided by our map, it makes sense to update this map of ours regularly. The first step is to become aware of the existence of this map and its associated expectations. Notice what you are expecting to happen in the benign situations you encounter every day.  As you are reading this article, for example, you almost certainly have a few expectations:

– you expect the sentences to make some measure of sense
– you expect that the author will eventually stop writing
– you expect that when you look up from this text, the world around you will still be in basically the same state as when you turned your focus here.

If you wanted, you could take a moment and notice what expectations you have right now. You could even take as long as you like, and I promise that I’ll hardly notice and will be right here when you return. 🙂

You could also take a fresh look at what you expect from those who interact with you and how you react when you do not get what you expected. You might even ask yourself if you had clearly communicated this expectation and had a clear agreement with the other party on this. It is possible to change our expectations to be more in line with the world and what we can realistically count on happening, and this starts by noticing.

Noticing your expectations, without judging them, is a form of self-awareness that can lead to opportunities to discover hidden treasures.

Instead of expecting the world to be a certain way, take a closer look and notice it. Who knows what you might find, hidden in plain sight.

Copyright 2009 Robert S. Vibert, all rights reserved