There is no 'WAY' for everyone.
Your body, illnesses, pains and pleasures are your path. They are your teachers.
Now you can let go of the struggle to improve yourself, which would be to lose your true path.
Just pay attention to your life, relationships, body and emotions ... with love and compassion.
Your body, illnesses, pains and pleasures are your path. They are your teachers.
Now you can let go of the struggle to improve yourself, which would be to lose your true path.
Just pay attention to your life, relationships, body and emotions ... with love and compassion.
Altered states of consciousness - Neurobiology and trance
The human brain is designed to learn from our parents and immediate community so as to survive and thrive in a local environment. In our childhood we are built neurologically, each person differently depending on their culture, their family and their experiences. We must be careful of all proposals to let go of our conditioning, proposing that with the right beliefs we can alter our neuro-plascicity to create a new life and experience. Most of this is not true. Neuroscientists generally agree that we are not actually 'free' in the sense we like to imagine, that our actions are fully determined by our genetic heritage and our early conditioning. These determine our future 'choices' and what we call our freedom. This interests us for several reasons.
First we need to understand that most of our unique neurobiology is fixed in the early years of life, we cannot change it. If a kittens eyes are covered during the eighth day of its life then it will never see again. Its DNA programmes it to connect the optical nerve on that day. No matter what fantastic therapies are carried out later, it will never see. We also are programmed to wire up our neurological map of the world in complex ways and phases that the scientists are only now discovering. We all have our own particular 'wiring' depending on our early experiences. We are in our personal neurobiological trance. Like the kitten, there are things we may never see in our lives, and we will develop other skills and senses in order to survive.
In the development of our personal neurological model of self and the world, all our 'interfaces' with the world are involved. The nose and mouth, the whole digestive tract, the various sphincters, the skin and lungs are all involved in our learning what is good and bad for us. This gives us a deeply wired, unconscious model of our boundaries, what invades, what is threatening and what is nourishing. From this early model we then relate to the rest of the world through our lives: diet, relationships, our own body, our work, house and economy, … If we are fed under stressful situations, food that is mixed with sugar and salt and other flavours, food blended into semi liquid so that we do not learn to chew, ... then we are inhibiting and confusing the brain's capacity to discern in the rest of our lives. Then as adults we continue eating toxic food, drinking smoothies (baby food) and our relationship boundaries are likely to be very confused.
First we need to understand that most of our unique neurobiology is fixed in the early years of life, we cannot change it. If a kittens eyes are covered during the eighth day of its life then it will never see again. Its DNA programmes it to connect the optical nerve on that day. No matter what fantastic therapies are carried out later, it will never see. We also are programmed to wire up our neurological map of the world in complex ways and phases that the scientists are only now discovering. We all have our own particular 'wiring' depending on our early experiences. We are in our personal neurobiological trance. Like the kitten, there are things we may never see in our lives, and we will develop other skills and senses in order to survive.
In the development of our personal neurological model of self and the world, all our 'interfaces' with the world are involved. The nose and mouth, the whole digestive tract, the various sphincters, the skin and lungs are all involved in our learning what is good and bad for us. This gives us a deeply wired, unconscious model of our boundaries, what invades, what is threatening and what is nourishing. From this early model we then relate to the rest of the world through our lives: diet, relationships, our own body, our work, house and economy, … If we are fed under stressful situations, food that is mixed with sugar and salt and other flavours, food blended into semi liquid so that we do not learn to chew, ... then we are inhibiting and confusing the brain's capacity to discern in the rest of our lives. Then as adults we continue eating toxic food, drinking smoothies (baby food) and our relationship boundaries are likely to be very confused.
Our infantile development is further confused where we are given mixed and contradictory messages around what is ' good and bad', around the satisfaction of our basic human needs. For example:
In these, and many other, ways we are constructed to fit in with the neurotic norms of our family and culture. We believe these to be real and true, since they are all we know. So, In fact we are each in a particular “Altered State of Consciousness!”
This might be frightening to contemplate, but as we look at it, we can see that it explains much of our miscommunication in life. We seem to use the same basic language without really understanding each other. Now instead of blaming each other we can begin to explore together, precisely how my trance was formed in childhood and how it differs from yours. Understanding this is actually a step to freedom. It frees us to stop comparing ourselves with others. It frees us from trying to be something else, from trying to change ourselves, as we imagine other people to be happier. We can be free to love ourselves as we are.
Since our neurological addictive construction is unique - there can be no generalisations about freedom for everyone. All the political, spiritual and therapeutic promises of 'the seven steps to happiness' or 'the three keys of life' or 'a new politics for freedom', each with its rules and systems and promises will always help some people and not others, depending on their neurological construction. There is no WAY for all. Since your neurological construction and character is unique, so also, your fears, your weaknesses, your strengths, your illnesses are all part of your special path to explore life and freedom. In this way it can free us to look at ourselves, to see our personal pains, pleasures and experience as our personal path toward freedom. My real freedom is to bring consciousness and love to myself, to my neurosis. Free finally, to be me.
So when we work later with trances and altered states of consciousness, what we are actually doing is looking firstly at this early inner neurobiological trance through different eyes. With practice we can find our personal images and symbols deep in the unconscious, so as to help in our healing.
“Thoughts are an important part of your inner wisdom – and they are very powerful. A thought held long enough and repeated often enough becomes a belief. A belief then becomes part of your biology” Dr Christiane Northrup
- We are given things, toys, material goods, sweets, ... in the name of love, confusing our ideas of what love is
- We are allowed to sit in front of televisions and other screens, to be entertained, told that this is education or creativity
- We are taught to delay our satisfaction with the lie that we will be happier when we get the right job, get to heaven, ...
In these, and many other, ways we are constructed to fit in with the neurotic norms of our family and culture. We believe these to be real and true, since they are all we know. So, In fact we are each in a particular “Altered State of Consciousness!”
This might be frightening to contemplate, but as we look at it, we can see that it explains much of our miscommunication in life. We seem to use the same basic language without really understanding each other. Now instead of blaming each other we can begin to explore together, precisely how my trance was formed in childhood and how it differs from yours. Understanding this is actually a step to freedom. It frees us to stop comparing ourselves with others. It frees us from trying to be something else, from trying to change ourselves, as we imagine other people to be happier. We can be free to love ourselves as we are.
Since our neurological addictive construction is unique - there can be no generalisations about freedom for everyone. All the political, spiritual and therapeutic promises of 'the seven steps to happiness' or 'the three keys of life' or 'a new politics for freedom', each with its rules and systems and promises will always help some people and not others, depending on their neurological construction. There is no WAY for all. Since your neurological construction and character is unique, so also, your fears, your weaknesses, your strengths, your illnesses are all part of your special path to explore life and freedom. In this way it can free us to look at ourselves, to see our personal pains, pleasures and experience as our personal path toward freedom. My real freedom is to bring consciousness and love to myself, to my neurosis. Free finally, to be me.
So when we work later with trances and altered states of consciousness, what we are actually doing is looking firstly at this early inner neurobiological trance through different eyes. With practice we can find our personal images and symbols deep in the unconscious, so as to help in our healing.
“Thoughts are an important part of your inner wisdom – and they are very powerful. A thought held long enough and repeated often enough becomes a belief. A belief then becomes part of your biology” Dr Christiane Northrup