After we wake up, we gradually wind down old mind patterns and shift into the flow. Smooth actions come naturally and without side effects.
However, this also highlights places where we’re still out of sync.
Typically, it’s a place where we’re making choices based on mind patterns or emotional reactivity. The second is more obvious and usually easier to heal. Just allow the experience to arise. The emotion surges up in awareness and is completed. The wave washes in and away.
But mind patterns are often more subtle. And we can have programs running from even deeper than mind. Some have been running since before we were mentally conscious. Our mind is trained to ignore what is familiar, leaving us unconscious of our own stories. Also, where there is resistance, a wall goes up casting a shadow. The shadow hides clear seeing.
If we’re faced with an unclear path or a difficult decision, it’s often because the picture isn’t clear. Something isn’t seen. There is a shadow at play. When we recognize this, it’s good to get outside advice from a more objective perspective.
We may recognize themes running in our lives, like getting the same kind of boss or partner. The common element is you. This indicates some kind of program is running. We might call this a lesson or karma but it’s an exercise in seeing. Once we see clearly, the issue resolves by simple attention. Then we don’t have to live it out so much.
Conscious awareness or attention is the most powerful solvent in the universe. This is why the ancients called the observer Shiva.
Davidya
“Conscious awareness or attention is the most powerful solvent in the universe. This is why the ancients called the observer Shiva. ”
Beautifully said. 🙂 Thank you.
🙂 Thanks Jim
Thank you 🙂
You’re always welcome, Lorey.
Thank you for this and your earlier posts, really good to have your perspective on things.
I relate to some of the points you raise here. I have found over the years that I have come to understand the reasons for my own patterns and traits and as you say that understanding has served to defuse them. However, for some years I have felt that some of the more stubborn patterns perhaps belong to experiences that predate memory. (I have intuitions as to what those might be, but really I am guessing.) Interestingly, elsewhere you explain how such early memories are generally speaking lost because of what you call myelination. If this is so, then those early memories will be inaccessible to full consciousness and therefore less accessible to healing. Is this so, and if so how best can we deal with such pre-mental experiences?
Great work you are doing on this blog, thank you.
Hi Frank
Welcome to the blog and thanks.
When we’re very young, the brain produces many more synaptic connections that we have as adults. We’re soaking experiences up like a sponge. Then as we enter school years, we start pruning the unused connections to make the brain more efficient and conscious. But that pruning drops connections to early memories.
Those memories are not lost. The brain is somewhat like an antenna. When we drop connections, we lose the ability to “tune in” to them in that way.
The inverse is the well-used pathways. When synaptic pathways in the brain become well-established from use, they’re myelinated with a layer of fat. This is much like a wires insulation. The areas of the brain that get established and myelinated evolve as we mature. The forebrain is the last.
Those early memories are available but we need refined perception to access them now. Very early ones are more feelings and impressions than ideas so we may not relate to them as much.
Impressions that can lead to patterns and traits are also passed down from prior lives and from our heredity or blood line.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about “morpho groups” – protein structures that inhibit gene expression (epigenetics). This influences not just protein production but hormones, regulation, and how the body processes food and information. This also ties into causal karma that is shared in the collective. These constrictions can be caused by parental stress when a child is very young. They can also be passed on to our children (inherited). This is useful in that the child will be well-adapted to the environment in which they’re being raised. But it also limits our functioning and potential.
So yes – the stubborn patterns can begin early on but can pre-date our lifetime too. They can be driven by still deeper patterns on the causal level. If we don’t address the actual core driver, the pattern will continue or come up again.
Everything can be healed. But it has to become conscious to do so. Unresolved experiences are relatively easy to clear as we just have to complete them.
As our perception slowly refines through samadhi/ transcendence, we’ll become aware of things that were unconscious or hidden prior. Simple attention will resolve some of that. But other things are complex and a good resolution or healing requires a balanced approach so we don’t knock the wall down when we’re re-framing the door. In such cases, it can be useful to consult with an expert. They also have the advantage of a relatively objective perspective that’s not influenced by the same blind spots we have.
The process can help make areas conscious for us so we can heal ourselves thereafter. But we need some refinement to be effective with the deeper stuff.
Make sense?
Some of this is clearly practical psychology and I feel it should apply to us poor un-awakened creatures well. For example, “conscious awareness” – we can all bring this to bear on a situation. Some times with more difficulty than at other times. You say “If we’re faced with an unclear path or a difficult decision, it’s often because the picture isn’t clear. Something isn’t seen. There is a shadow at play. When we recognize this, it’s good to get outside advice from a more objective perspective.” I am faced with a difficult decision of how to be kind and supportive to my mother who has been destructive and abusive in the past (I don’t mind that as much) but in the present continues to be manipulative and untruthful. Her present behavior is unsettling and jarring though my goal is to be helpful. I struggle with avoiding her calls vs. wanting to be helpful. So what would be the shadow at play here? I do try to get advice from counselors but they just reify that my mother is difficult/disturbed.
Hi K (laughs)
Yes, the orientation I’m taking in various articles varies. This one was addressed to the more recently awake, getting to know this new way of being.
Many of the same principles are true for others. As I mentioned in another recent article, awareness is awareness so it can be very potent in any case. But until we are awareness itself, it tends to be more heavily filtered and less stable, reducing it’s potency. “What we put our attention on grows stronger” remains true though.
I appreciate the challenge of family members like that. I had a difficult step-father. You want to rise above their behaviour but they want to pull you into their suffering. There are a lot of energy dynamics in play and family members know your weak points. They’ll even play on your compassion.
For some, the fear of death, the weight of loss, and the pains of aging make them nastier. They’re not conscious enough to see anything but their habits, how they’ve always been. They blame the world for their lot. And their world gets smaller and nastier.
In this case, it’s not so much your shadow as theirs. But you probably carry elements of it because you we raised in it.
What played out here was that I had to make them more conscious that their behaviour was unacceptable. The treatment of my children brought it to a head. We refused to visit until the behaviour changed. After a few months, the family basically ganged up on him to change and he agreed.
In the end, dementia took away his stories & grudges.
Essentially, you have to change the relationship from parent-child to adult-adult. If they refuse, you stand firm. It takes 2 to tango and if you refuse to play, they don’t get to either. But thats about all you can do. This is their problem not yours, so it’s not yours to fix. All you can change is how you are with them.
Becoming energy aware can help too. When we resist energy manipulation, we amplify it. But when we become transparent to it, the energy dissipates and they lose power and stop. A lot of this is unconscious but making it conscious gives you choice.
You might find this useful:
https://davidya.ca/2015/03/28/resolving-problems/
Never easy but it can help you become more conscious of the dynamics you were raised in and thus rise above them.
Oh sorry – the “recent article” isn’t published yet. Coming soon!
🙂