Are you living a life that has meaning and purpose or are you just surviving?Do you go through all the motions yet find something is missing? Maybe you’re gradually becoming aware that the things you are doing aren’t working for you and your present reality reflects that.
In other words, you realize the beliefs you learned and agreed to early on in life are limiting you.
What can you do to change old patterns?
Although unlearning old patterns is a simple process, it’s not easy. As a child, your beliefs are shaped by your family, schooling, religion, and culture, and because you have nothing to compare them with you accept them as true. The more examples you were shown of something, the more it became reinforced in your mind and the stronger it became.
Your belief becomes your truth.
Each belief of how you should think, behave, and see things, had been downloaded into your psyche, leaving you with an energetic imprint on the world behind your eye where there is a parallel reality—the unseen world. These are the dynamic structures that create truth in your outer world.
Where to start?
Since the two worlds coexist, meaning one cannot exist without the other, the beliefs that no longer serve you create a life that is disharmonious and out of balance. You need to be clear about your limiting beliefs as you can only change what you acknowledge.
Change and growth are inevitable, and the more we align ourselves with this truth, the easier our lives will be.
Becoming aware
The first step to awakening from your programmed life is to become aware of the authority your ingrained beliefs have on you and what you want to change in your current reality. Ask yourself where you
may be stuck, what is holding you back, or what habits need to be modified. The best way to do this is to start a journal and write your reflections down.
Words make it real
Play detective and follow your thoughts and emotions to discover the beliefs that are limiting you. The simple act of writing it down keeps it still long enough for you to get a good look at it. Once it’s in front of you, you can determine if it something you want to change.
For example, you want to take an art or photography course, but you believe, “I don’t have enough time.”
Or you know you need to exercise, but you believe, “I have no energy.”
Acknowledge that these are beliefs, not truths!
Truths are universal and have been proven to be true.
Gravity works on earth. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The earth is round. We don’t need to validate them beyond that.
Beliefs, on the other hand, are personal, selective, and changeable. The stories we tell about ourselves, others, and the world come from beliefs.
The source of our values, beliefs, and behaviors
Keep in mind that usually, the concern you are dealing with is not new, but an unresolved one leftover from childhood where you accepted the points of view from those around you. These points of view created your beliefs of what appears to be true to you—positive or negative. Being told you are lovable and worthy has a positive result while being told your opinion doesn’t matter has an adverse one.
These beliefs become your truth because you look for and find evidence to support it.
The beliefs we hold and live by, define our values, and it’s our values that govern the way we behave, communicate and interact with others.
Awakening from a programmed life is about examining and transforming the energy of our beliefs so that they create positive and life-affirming values that result in behavioral changes impacting life physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
AWAKENING FROM A PROGRAMMED LIFE – PART II will provide the steps you can take to begin changing your beliefs from limiting ones to those that empower you.
Writing in a journal about your thoughts, feelings, dreams, images, and physical sensations trains you to pay attention to these ways you receive inner guidance. Keeping a written record is one of the best ways to begin trusting and developing your intuition. It’s a tool for self-discovery.
One of the first things that happens when you write down your observations is that you begin to know yourself better; you get a deeper sense of who you are and are able to explore and unlock your unconscious, revealing hidden aspects.
You also train yourself to pay attention by writing things down. You may get a sudden thought or an urge to do something, like take another route home. If you don’t heed these impressions or cues, you’ll dismiss them as insignificant. But this is exactly the manner in which intuition speaks to you; it is subtle and understated.
Recognizing intuitions when they happen takes discipline.
Everyone is born knowing, having an intricate and highly tuned inner GPS. There are different ways to recognize these messages; you may feel them (clairsentience), you may see them (clairvoyance), or you may hear them (clairaudience).
The key here is to write them down as soon as possible so you have a record where you can revisit them, strengthening your awareness of your intuition and seeing it working in your life. By journaling its presence, you allow intuition to become more evident and influential in your experience.
Discover your intuitive style.
Writing down your messages helps you uncover the major ways you receive them. Some people receive communication through dreams and images, while others through thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. You may even have a combination of them.
By keeping track of the subtle ways your intuition comes through, you get a sense of your intuitive style, making it easier to recognize it in the future.
There are many benefits to keeping a journal and recording your intuitive messages. They include stress reduction, healing, knowing yourself better, growth, and enhancing your intuition and creativity. The following list contains more specific advantages for employing this tool:
Reduces the scatter in your life
Detaches and lets go of the past
Balances and harmonizes
Reveals your greater potential
Clarifies thoughts, feelings and behavior
Helps you get rid of the masks you wear
Creates more results in life
Explores your spirituality
Improves self-trust and intuition
Awakens the inner voice
Provides insights
Don’t Know Where to Start?
Just jump in! Get yourself a notebook or a journal (it doesn’t have to be fancy) and a pen or pencil and beginning writing. Ask yourself some thought-provoking questions and ideas. Here are a few:
How can I get more stillness and serenity in my life?
List 5 things every day you are grateful for.
What do I criticize and judge others for?
What major blocks need to be resolved?
What excuses keep me stuck?
List three great ideas or creative things you’ve thought of.
When am I my happiest, saddest?
Journaling with intention and purpose has more uses and benefits than any other tools we know. It can truly help us make sense of our world.
Take a leap of faith. Commit to journaling so you can uncover your own inner wisdom.
To understand what Shadow Work is, you must first be conscious of your shadow. The shadow, according to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, consists of those parts of ourselves we choose to repress or hide that we don’t like. We do that by pushing them down into our unconsciousness during childhood.
Several examples of shadow aspects are selfishness, aggressive impulses, being self-centered, arrogance, shameful experiences, and fears. These aspects lead to certain types of behaviors, such as criticizing someone else that has your flaws, letting people know you’re entitled, judging people unfairly, and always being the victim.
Many negative issues that affect your life can result by keeping your shadow hidden and locked away. These can include:
Addictions
Uncontrollable rage/anger
Social anxiety
Obsessive/compulsive disorders
Sexual deviancy
Depression
Self-sabotage
Neuroticism
Limiting beliefs
Shadow Work is the process of exploring these aspects and is an endeavor you enter into on your own. There are various means to do this, but you must first acknowledge your shadow, and then embrace and befriend it. It is only by bringing these aspects to the surface that you can begin to live authentically, discover your inner wisdom and life purpose, and gain access to your Soul or Higher Self.
In my practice, when clients choose Shadow Work to connect with their intuition, I utilize other mediums to help facilitate the process since they are all interconnected. Sitting in silence is one way to start, so a Mindfulness Meditation practice is valuable to have in your toolbox. Learning to live in the present moment is key to connecting to your Higher Self.
Cultivating Self-Compassion and Self-Awareness are also key to being able to confront your shadow. Mindfulness Meditation helps foster non-judgmental awareness – the ability to stay in the present moment without involving the inner critic or other modes of judgment.
Journaling your emotions and new discoveries as you experience them – stream-of-consciousness writing – gives you an unfiltered window into yourself. Writing your insights and reviewing them later helps encode the discovery into your awareness.
“Why should I do Shadow Work?”
Working with your shadow allows you to slowly deepen many interior aspects of yourself and become loving and kind to that which you previously rejected, eventually allowing you to become more compassionate to both yourself and others.
When you work with the shadow you begin to reclaim the projections you put onto others. You turn inward and begin to gently listen and heal those aspects within yourself instead.
Shadow Work is how you integrate the aspects of your unconscious psyche into your conscious experience and allow the positive aspects of the shadow to express themselves. When properly used and channeled, the shadow-self has traits that you can use to further your own personal development.
Some of the traits include:
Creativity
Intuition
Resilience
Self-Esteem
Shadow Work is not easy, but until you own your shadow, your shadow will own you. Wouldn’t NOW be the time to begin your journey to self-awareness and freedom to live the life you were born to live?
