by Donna Joy Usher
Most of us, at some stage in our life, feel frustrated by our inability to create something that we want. We feel like we are throwing ourselves at it, and there is some invisible force stopping us from having it. Like we are cursed, or doomed, or the universe will not allow us to succeed.
The truth is that it is what is inside of us that is keeping us stuck and struggling.
And today I want to talk more about that, and about how you can identify and release it so that you can remove the resistance it is creating in your life.
Our brains are really interesting. Especially the unconscious brain, the limbic system, the reptilian brain which just wants to keep you alive.
That is its sole job. To keep you alive.
So, whenever something happens to us that we survive, then that becomes the circumstances, conditions and feelings that the unconscious searches out even more to survive.
Now this is quite handy if you think about it – until it isn’t anymore.
So, it is handy in teaching us to run away from things that might harm us, but not so handy when it comes to it deciding to keep us in a situation we don’t consciously want to be in anymore, because the unconscious mind knows that it can survive there.
Example – if a child experiences toxic shame – to the point where they feel like there is something wrong or not right about them, but they don’t die, what happens is that they survive – even though the toxic shame hurts them, they survive.
And that is what the unconscious mind gets out of that – a survivable situation.
You might know somebody like this, somebody who seems to always end up in abusive relationships. And then they don’t leave. And when they do manage to take themselves away from it, it’s not long before they end up in another relationship the same. Or even crazier – they somehow attract someone who treats them well, but then they leave that one and end up in another abusive one.
And the reasons they are doing it is that as a child, this survival gets learnt – in order to survive I should find places to feel shame and then not die from it – because the unconscious brain can survive from it. It knows it can live through toxic shame, or abuse, but it doesn’t know if it can survive other things, like abundance, or joy or love.
I already know I can outrun a lion, why would I go over there and try something new that I don’t know if I can survive.
So, the environment becomes a thing you search out for in yourself and in others. And if it is missing, it feels like there is something wrong. When it is there, it feels like it is okay.
Like you fit into that and nothing else feels quite right. And you put it down to many other things – destiny, a curse, doom, but the truth is that you are choosing it. You are seeking it out and choosing it, because as awful as it is, it is your comfort zone. Your safety zone in which you know you can survive.
Everything unknown is risky – even things that we consciously know are good. But to the unconscious mind it is scary.
So the survival/safety pattern works like this:
1. The child brain experiences a threat to their belonging – it is often a perceived threat of 3 year old mind. And their interpretation of that thing.
2. The child cannot fight and it cannot flee. So, if you cannot fight and you cannot flee but you do not perish – then your survived it.
3. The threatening experience becomes an essential element in not perishing or dying. Abuse becomes an eliminate of survival. Being criticised. Being judged. Overthinking. Being shamed. These become essential elements of survival. We know how to play that game, so we will find ways to keep playing that game. It might hurt, but we know we can survive it – that one over there, I have no idea if I will survive that.
4. This creates a situation where our system values the threat as a key ingredient to our survival.
There is no good reason that you don’t have what it is that you want in your life, except for the good reason that your unconscious has made up a long time ago. There is no good reason, you don’t have it, except for the one that you are hanging on to, because it feels safer to hold on to suffering, than to create what you want.
If this is resonating with you, I want you to know that it does not have to stay this way. Recognising the pattern is the first essential step to being able to break it. But being aware of it is often not enough.
You are going to need help releasing it. It’s been there a very long time and there are depths and layers to it that you are not able to reach or comprehend.
Which is where Analytical Hypnotherapy comes in. The combination of hypnosis with root causal therapy is a super powerful way to connect the conscious mind with the unconscious mind as well as the psychology, the emotions and the physiology of the trauma within the body. When you can do that, then you can finally start to affect real change, and remove the old patterning that is keeping you stuck so that you can start to create new ones, that will allow you to have your life the way that you want it.