Welcome to the exploration of the ROOT CAUSE. This is the 1st module out of 12 modules where we go right back to the beginning and take a look at our childhood and development. This may be triggering and complex so please go easy on yourself and I will help guide you all the way as we walk through each phase together!
Please be prepared that there is a substantial amount of reading. If you would prefer the AUDIO VERSION please click below
Here we go friend
Before we are even born, a seed for our seed to be planted is planted. We are manifested in the physical before we even become physical but, our physical body is the very 1st thing that we are birthed with and upon our 1st breath, our sound is released to announce our arrival, our senses awakened and our brain then begins to crystalise and form in to its hardened state. We are yet unaware of what to expect upon our arrival but upon our arrival, the games begin.
We spend our young lives as foundational youths being primed and conditioned to suit the rules and legislations of our surrounding environment. Social expectations and conditions, family conditions and hierarchical orders, schooling, pressures, language barriers, communication issues, etiquette, rules, all designed to fit us in the ‘SOCIETY’ box that is set to standards by ‘we aren’t actually really sure who’ yet we all follow suit. Same curriculums, mandates, laws and orders, uniform policies and so on.
What we come to realize in later life however, especially if we go down the line of parenthood and learn from becoming mothers and fathers that then witness our own children take on the world, is that while the one box fits all society expects us all to follow along, we are all very, very different and by conditioning each other towards certain 1 Dimensional standards that clearly don’t always work, we are subjecting each other to layers of trauma, confusion, self-doubt, hatred, self-neglect, stress, anxiety and overwhelm.
We have to know first and foremost, how the body and brain work together (which we will get on to later on in the program) but as everything has a ROOT CAUSE we need to establish this first and often it stems from our childhood. Our innocent times where our brain and body are still developing but we are steered, led and taught by adults who we would hope have an understanding about how it all works but actually haven’t got the first clue about conscious living, emotional intelligence or their own brain and body, hence why we inherit their trauma as they pass it down to us, without realising 99% of the time.
The problem also, is that as adults now trying to figure out the ROOT CAUSE and put the pieces back together to find balance and self, we have actually blocked most of what has happened throughout our childhood, Our memories of our childhood are stored if not in our subconscious mind where most of our past is kept hidden away (also, more on that later) but also in our body, in our tissues, cells, fibres and structures and we often don’t realise this and confuse physical symptoms as pain to mean represent an actual illness or problem of serious concern when most of the time, it is a benign physical problem and more a signal of emotional or mental trauma being sent through the body messenger hoping you’ll take notice
Tight muscles caused by stress and tension can lead to so many other internal triggers. Chest pain and breathlessness caused by worry and grief. Abdominal pain caused by anxiety and stress. Tension headaches caused by stress and brain overwhelm. Your organs house all your emotions (More on that later also) and send signals through the neuropathways and the body’s fibrous highways that can end up in strange places and as humans that are so led down this 1-Dimensional path our environment does not tell us this or explain it to us. Instead, it tells us
- You have a headache – Take a pill
- You have chest pain – Take a pill
- You have abdominal pain – Take a liquid, go on a diet
- You have back pain, leg pain, hip pain – Take a pill, rub on an anti-inflammatory cream
It never addresses the ROOT CAUSE, but again, no one seems to know what the root cause is and 99% of the time that root cause is sat there in all your organs, tissues and cells waiting for you to notice the pain and trauma of the years of build up that has been endured, that you’ve bypassed because you’ve let your mind get programmed and conditioned by a very malfunctioning society and environment that causes lower vibrational energies such as stress, overwhelm, fear, anger, sadness, grief, doubt, worry, shame and confusion to take over and place itself in all those little internal houses that harbor those emotions.
And until you are ready to accept that emotions need to be accounted for in your life and the journey of life, they will sit there giving you signals until the day you do.
As a society we have been so shamed to express our emotions. This is no place for emotions and the freedom of letting them out. We must ‘shove them down’ in to the inside houses and claim our rightful place in the world of cold commerce and military corporation. Boys don’t cry. Girls must be quiet and unassuming. Sit up straight. Face the front. No talking. No gazing out the window. Don’t get distracted
THERE’S WORK TO DO
And all of this ‘work’ in the cruel outside world that we all have to tow the line and adhere to, takes us away from ourselves and our internal world where our imagination exists, creativity is born, where we can have 5 minutes to slow down and tap in to our thoughts and feelings and not be so overwhelmed and over-stimulated and burnt out by the crazy rat race of the external world that spins at a million miles an hour and if we can’t keep up well, then we’re failures, we haven’t got what it takes. The shame, doubt and worry creep in and we start to hate ourselves and our lives.
You see, we’re all different. We all have different neuro-diversities, genetics, social backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, ethics, principles, traditions, beliefs etc but when you strip it all back to its most basic form
WE ARE ALL HUMANS WITH HEARTS AND SOULS, BRAINS AND MINDS WALKING THROUGH THIS CONFUSING, MESSY PLACE CALLED EARTH TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHY ON EARTH WE’RE HERE AND WHO WE REALLY ARE
Everyone has feelings. You could be the highest up corporate lawyer sat in the pinnacle of your shining tower throwing orders to the minions below you but you’ve only got there because you’re ‘cut throat’ code of conduct has enabled you to climb to the top. Standing on the heads of those on your way up without thinking or feeling the consequences.
I’m not saying every ‘leader’ is build this way or has to be built this way but, for the purpose of seeing where the societal flaws are, we live in a mans world built by men and this masculine ‘fight and build’ energy is very much part of the problem and where we have gone wrong but even those on top have feelings. They just suppress them because their principles and ethics aren’t adjusted and they have their priorities wrong.
We see this shift dynamic currently playing out externally right now. There is a huge transformation under way which is why it’s so important right now to understand yourself and make sure you’re the one in control!
Where we have all been steered to believe that success comes in placement above others. Productivity and achievement comes at the detriment of our own sanity and health. The winners don’t have time for lunch, families and feelings. They win because they fight and build and for generations, we have carried this very distorted and antiquated BELIEF on what it means to be alive and worthy of a place here on this earth but wait a minute…
IS THAT HOW YOU MEASURE YOUR SELF WORTH? IS THAT WHO YOU REALLY ARE?
You are not your job. You are not just a title: teacher, doctor, lawyer, mother, daughter, son, friend etc YOU ARE FAR DEEPER THAN THAT but you’ve forgotten haven’t you? Because layers of trauma have built up over the innocence and purity of the real you!
THAT’S WHY WE HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND FACE THE TRAUMA HEAD ON.
We have to try to acknowledge our feelings and emotions that have been stuck within us so that we can identify the problem areas, have a chat with them and then let them go!
The problem is that most of us truly buried things that had happened in our youth because we never wanted to have to remember them ever again. But you can’t just leave them stuck there…..You have to face your demons. It’s the only way to release them so that you can be free
LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND WHAT THAT MIGHT LOOK LIKE
As part of the ROOT CAUSE de-program program, we’re about to go DEEP into the world of EMOTIONS and how we can start to identify key areas that might require reflection and action!
ARE YOU READY?
Remember this is a safe space and only YOU will have access to this information.
If you would like a few tips on how to create a creative safe space have a look at the next few slides and hopefully this might help
for those of you that like the new age touch, a little quirky aid below. If that’s not your thing, don’t worry, just focus on part 1 and add a cup of tea and let’s get to work on how to de-work
PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AT THE BELOW AND LET’S START TO DE-C;UTTER SOME BAGGAGE HERE!
This might sound woowoo to some of you that haven’t participated in any form of somatic or yoga, breathwork therapy or EFT before but wherever possible, please try to keep an open mind and heart
1. Ground it.
For this process to work, you must be in your body and in the now. To begin, find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Sit comfortably with your eyes closed, and take several deep breaths, bringing your awareness into your body. Squeeze and release your muscles, and feel the heaviness in your arms. Let yourself feel connected to the ground under you. Imagine a stream of energy going from your tailbone all the way down into the center of the earth. Once you feel that you are centered in your body, go to Step 2.
2. Recall it.
Think of a situation that you’ve been upset about recently. Find something that provoked a mild to strong emotional reaction, or that would have if you didn’t feel emotionally numb. Review what happened in as much detail as possible, and imagine yourself back in that time and place. Experience it all again with your senses. When emotions begin to arise, go to Step 3.
3. Sense it.
Continue breathing deeply, and spend a moment in quiet relaxation. Then, mentally scan your body for any sensations. I call this process “percolating” because of the way your emotions will stir and bubble up inside you. Observe any physical response you experience — tingling, tightness, burning, etc. Each of these sensations is a bit of information you need to understand your past experience. Explore these sensations, and silently describe them to yourself in as much detail as you can. Once you’ve explored and described all of your physical reactions, you can move on to Step 4.
4. Name it.
Associate an emotion with each of the sensations you feel. Is the tightness in your chest anxiety? Is the heat you feel traveling up your arms anger? Before starting this exercise, you may want to print out the LIST OF EMOTIONS below that can help you identify exactly how you’re feeling. It’s important to recognize the often subtle distinctions between sometimes similar emotions. This will give you a greater sense of your experience and a richer knowledge of yourself. Once you’ve named your emotions, go to Step 5.
5. Feel and experience it.
Sit with your emotions and their sensations, letting the feelings percolate and flow. Don’t try to change or hide them; observe them. Acknowledge and welcome any discomfort you feel, knowing it will be gone soon and will help you to heal. Let your body respond the way it wants or needs to. If you feel the urge to cry, cry. If you feel the need to yell something or punch something, give a shout out or air punch. Expressing your emotions — in a productive way — is key to getting them moving inside you and to fully process them. When you’ve fully felt and experienced your emotions, move to Step 6.
6. Receive its message and wisdom.
Do the sensations or emotions you’re experiencing right now connect with one or more experiences in your past? Do they give you any insight into the root of the trauma or a negative, limiting belief about yourself? Right now, you might be thinking, “I’m not getting anything.” Ask yourself: “If this sensation or emotion were going to say something to me, what would it be?” If you still have trouble, do some free writing. Journal about what the feeling means, for a full 10 minutes without stopping. When you think you’ve heard all the messages your emotions are sending you, move on to Step 7.
7. Share it.
If you feel comfortable sharing your reflections with someone else, do that. Otherwise, write about them on your own. Describe what happened when the wounding incident first occurred, how you reacted at the time, and what you’ve come to see about it now. Talking or writing about your experiences and emotions is an important step in healing. Writing letters (but not sending them) to those who hurt you can be a very effective method for moving an emotion out of your system. Once you’ve shared your reflections …
8. Let it go.
Visualize the energy your trauma took up inside you leaving your body, or perform a ritual of physical release, like burning a letter you’ve written to the person who hurt you, or casting off the trauma in the form of an object into the sea. You can borrow a ritual from Judaism called Tashlikh. During the period of repentance, many Jews cast off their sins into a natural, flowing body of water in the form of breadcrumbs. Instead of sins, you can cast off traumas and the emotions and sensations that go with them.
How did that feel? I urge you to keep notes of work such as this and any other work we complete throughout the program. You can find print outs that can help and trackers that are relative to this assignment below:
Continuing on, let’s start having a look at the next part of the module and consider the consequences of PTSD through our childhood into adulthood
PTSD AND CHILDHOOD TRAUMA
PTSD in the BODY – Before PTSD was ever a thing with a sustainable diagnosis, there was some pretty huge misinterpretations of what was occurring from a psychosomatic view point. Standard doctors and physicians who are not trained in psychology and that do not understand that your body and brain are inter-wired to respond to trauma will simply tell a victim of PTSD that it’s all in their head meanwhile, when something in your NOW MOMENT sends a reminder of a traumatic experience that you have had in the past, your body will re-live that experience as if it’s happening NOW because your body holds the memory of the trauma that has happened previously. Your body might re-live some of the trauma that you’ve experienced and when you try to express how you ‘FEEL’ about the physical manifestations and you might get told that what you’re experiencing isn’t real, which is why so many victims of PTSD are led to believe they’re going crazy or losing their minds. It is hugely misunderstood on the mainstream stage.
THE WORD RELIEF COMES FROM RE-LIVE – WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOUR BODY AND BRAIN HAVE STORED AS TRAUMA MUST BE RE-LIVED. ONCE YOU HAVE RELIVED THE MEMORY CONSCIOUSLY YOU WILL ‘FEEL’ RELIEF FROM IT
The FEELING is by far more important than the thought or the action as it is what is connected to the senses (the body) and it is your body that either wants to live, love or leave certain situations because of how they make you feel. Once you can master that, the thoughts no longer bother you and you don’t need to take action. The notion that we should suppress our feelings is absurd. It is not about shoving them down or about overly exaggerating them but finding a balance to acknowledge them and allow them to pass through you without getting stuck
We are quite literally operating systems that store data, much like a computer. Mother boards, hard drives and the likes of are not too dissimilar to how we are build to store, play, rewind, fast forward and pause, play, pause, play etc. It’s only when we never rewind and pause that we end up often missing parts out. And who can say that right now life feels like someone’s got their heavy finger wedged in the fast forward button and it’s all moving too fast?
We need to have re-plays of our encounters OFTEN in order to truly understand them. We tend to think life only moves in a forward moving motion. That good old 1D MINDSET where we’re on that linear path towards the goals set out for us by our societal leaders keeps us plodding along, following the herd but, often our greatest breakthroughs in life come when we jump OFF THE PATH and retreat in to our own self sanctuary for a while and GO WITHIN.
When we take 5 minutes to have some quiet time, it enables the doors of our subconscious to open up and the memories from the stored archives in our hidden cave in the back of our head gets activated. When life is busy and we’re distracted with all the craze and noise of the outside world, it prevents us from channeling our own inner world and the moment we step away and take that time to reflect on the past is often when the present starts to make much more sense.
It often takes years to relive something and suddenly you see it from a hugely different perspective. Sometimes that perspective is filled with sadness, pain, hurt and bitterness but sometimes its filled with reckoning and awareness and you can finally free yourself from the lead weight of the past believe you had created for yourself on how you had it all thought out in your head.
You see, we over think many things and put layers of thought and different versions of possibilities that add extra layers of trauma and turmoil to situations where if we just simply let them MOVE THROUGH us as they occur or as they need to re-occur then you’re not attaching a belief or opinion to it, you’re simply letting it be as it needs to be and you’re letting it travel through you as you see it and it doesn’t need to stay. (Ah but you know what also happens when you see things and let them travel through you? YOU LEARN AND YOU GROW! )
See, how the darkness is the greatest teacher!
IF YOU’RE FEELING HYSTERICAL, IT’S PROBABLY HISTORICAL
THIS is when you need to be very clear about being able to identify and recognise your emotions. You cannot let anything situationally happen to you unless you can see it clearly for what it is and understand, without judgement or panic how it is making you feel. This takes a lot of conscious effort but, it is hugely enlightening especially for the development of one’s greater self.
YOU CAN ONLY BE THE BEST VERSION OF YOU ONCE YOU ARE COMPLETELY READY TO ADMIT YOUR FLAWS, TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY AND BE 100% AVAILABLE FOR YOURSELF IN ALL YOUR FORMS AT ALL TIMES.
And once you are for you, you can be for others too!
See how it takes a responsible, conscious and emotionally intelligent adult to raise a conscious and emotionally intelligent child? The rest is simply bypassing
SO, AFTER ALL OF THIS, HOW DO YOU FEEL?
The next 17 slides highlight a LOT about emotions and the deeper side to them. It is really useful to spend a good time going through these to really capture the essence of their purpose and how you can start to harness the energy and really become grounded in each feeling
DEEP STUFF HUH!
It’s a ride being a human!
Have a look back over MODULE 1 PART 1 and now with a more conscious sense of your feelings and how they might relate to your past, find some quite time and space and see if you can write down some of your past memories and how you interpret the feelings that come up when you remember them.
Have a little listen to this inspiring audio on why we feel emotions and how they connect us to the internal and the external world!
BEFORE WE MOVE ON TO MODULE 2, YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ BACK OVER WHAT WE HAVE DONE AND JOURNEYED THROUGH SO FAR.
(For those of you following this as part of a WORK / LIFE BALANCE PROGRAM if you want to catch the next 3 modules please email us at info@fortis-vets.com and we will issue you with a members discount for the full program)
And just to complete this part of Module 1, we have created a quiz specifically for you guys so that you can find out how you have ranked on the EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE spectrum. (Results are not automated due to anonymity so we will send them back as soon as they’re processed)
WELL DONE FOR COMPLETING PART 1 OF MODULE 1 – LET’S MOVE OVER TO PART 2, WHERE WE WILL BE LOOKING AT THE FOLLOWING:
- THE INNER CHILD
- THE SELF
- SOVEREIGNTY
- EMPOWERMENT
Let’s head over to MODULE 2…………………………………
CLICK MODULE 2 TO ENTER
HUMANOLOGY 