Healing from the past in the present.........

[clean42day]

I wasn't sure where to post this - but I think it is important.

Article found at: http://www.askahealer.com/healing-emotional-wounds.html

Why we may recreate emotional Challenges
There is a spiritual phenomenon associated with self-development and the evolution of the soul that I call distancing the manifestation that many of us use as a spiritual path for healing emotional wounds from our past.

I'm sure psychologists have another word for it but this is a spiritual wellness article, not a psychological analysis, so please listen with your heart.

When we passed through our formative years, from age one to seven, we were imprinted with the morals, ideas, belief systems, etc., of those adults who were closest to us -- mother, father, older siblings, grandparents. For so very many of us, our role models were not positive.

We learned things like abuse, low self-esteem, explosive anger, fear-based secrecy or total lack of respect for privacy and boundaries, co-dependence, smother-love, etc. Then, as we reached dating age, we discovered (some of us early on, others not until after years of operating within the behavior pattern) that we ended up being attracted to and dating people who reminded us of our own negative role models. Some of us even married such a person.

If we had fathers or mothers who had explosive tempers, for example, we married a man or woman who also flew off the handle at the slightest provocation. It was the attraction of the familiar, and it was our challenge to heal -- an opportunity to decide to make a different choice.

This is a step in the healing process, for many. For many, it is not the only step. The next step is what I call distancing the manifestation and works like this:

After the first few levels of emotional wounds have healed, through re-inventing the past and making different choices, thereby creating a more healthy reality for oneself, there are often even deeper levels of wounding that usually surface. Healing these core wounds often requires a safer environment than one where we are just fighting to change our ways of relating, and cellular level issues have to wait until we have made some progress in that area, before they rise to our outer consciousness.
Creating a Safer Trauma:

At this point, one of the ways we can create a scenario for dealing with these issues is to bring someone into our life in-relation to us, our spouse or most intimate friend, who mirrors the parent or negative role model. This is a safer arena for the deeper emotional work because we have the foundation of a good relationship to buffer the in-relation manifestation we have created. Stay with me. It will all be clear as mud soon.

Let's say you break the pattern of negative relationships through a process of marrying into one, and learning new ways to relate. Then, either the relationship changed to a more healthy one, or you ended it, and created a more healthy relationship in its' place. You successfully created a new reality for yourself. You healed enough levels of your past programming to manifest a different living situation than the one in which you may have grown up.

Within that time span, there may be the introduction of a new and agitating person into your life, via your most intimate, healthy relationship. Perhaps, the relative of your spouse suddenly has to move in with you; a brother or sister, aunt or uncle, grandfather or grandmother, etc. Or, perhaps, it is one of your close relatives.

If your spouse or partner is not your most healthy relationship at the time, the new person may enter via your closest friend. This person is quite obvious because they begin to assert themselves in your life a lot more than you want them to do, and they annoy you a lot!

Over time, you may begin to notice that the annoyance is not general; there is actually something about this person that specifically reminds you of a negative role model. Maybe they have the same explosive anger tendency as dad, or the same passive-aggressive behavior as mom.

If you don't know about this phenomenon, it is easy to choose the martyr or victim stance, considering this burr in your side to be just something you have to put up with, the price you pay for loving your spouse or friend.


In truth, there is another level of healing being offered in such cases. It may well be that you have "distanced the manifestation" of a past, unhealed issue, away from your most intimate circle.

By distancing the relationship, it isn't right in your face all the time, the way it would be if you had manifested it in your spouse or best friend. It's actually a sign of spiritual and emotional development that you have re-created an irritating or non-supportive relationship in such a way that you now have some support in dealing with it.

If this is happening to you, these words will ring true. If not, this may sound like mumbo-jumbo. Disregard what does not now apply.

Whatever your situation is, and whatever drew you to this article, the first step to healing is surrender to what is and an acceptance of your role in creating whatever exists in your life. In resenting what is, what you have consciously or unconsciously drawn into your life, you may be missing an opportunity for healing emotional wounds that arise from belief systems that no longer serve. Some common belief systems about life are:

I knew it was too good to be true
It is always something
I can never be completely happy
Something is always going to stand in my way

By identifying the specific personal programming that you hear in your own mind when you think of this irritating presence in your life, will give you tremendous insight into what needs healing.

Part Two on Healing Emotional Wounds

How to heal the past emotional wounds.
If you have read part one of this spiritual wellness article and recognize that you are distancing the manifestation in your own life right now, here are some helpful tips for getting the most out of the path your soul has chosen to take toward healing the past:

Refuse to be a victim:
The number one tip is to release all martyr and victim thinking.

Take responsibility for having created exactly this situation for some reason your soul and higher self knows.

Simply reminding yourself, in an empowering way daily, that you are a sovereign master, will help shift victim thinking over time.


Remember when You are:
Remind yourself daily that this is not the past repeating, regardless of how much it looks that way to you.

Remember that you have different options now, and that things are not the same as they used to be though the illusion may be that they are the same.

These sorts of spiritual exercises may sound like symantics but it's vital that you remind yourself, out loud if necessary, that this is a play. You are an actor re-creating a scene so that you can learn from it what you didn't get the first time. Simply reminding yourself of this will help shift victim thinking over time.
Break the pattern of programmed reactions:
Use the opportunity to heal your past, by choosing not to react, today, in the same ways you may have reacted years ago. Make this shift by becoming clear of your past patterns of reaction so that you recognize them when you attempt to react the same way in present situations that remind you of the past.
Change the only person you can change:
Work at being proactive, not reactive. This means keeping the attention on yourself and what the other person is triggering in you, rather than on them and why they are choosing to do the things they do. This means that you literally monitor your need to react and track it to the source, often the past, and learn to make different choices based on who you are and what you want in the present.

When you have successfully broken the habit of reaction, the person will begin to be ineffective in attempting to trigger you into any negative response. Often, this shift in the energy is enough to move the person out of your life because without a partner to play the emotional response game, it cannot be effectively played.

Let there be no judgment of past work. This isn't the same lesson repeating; it is a deeper level of soul work. Honor the work you've already done and consider it the foundation for the next level. Falling into self-critical, negative self-talk is counter-productive to healing the past.


Energy work is helpful with all aspects of spiritual acceleration and healing childhood trauma or patterns of victim thinking stemming from the past is no acception. Reiki healing sessions, massage, chakra balancing and meditation classes can all help as well as spiritually-centered exercise programs such as yoga, qigong or tai chi. . There are also healers who specialize in balancing the chakras so, in addition to your own work and programs to help with that, you might consider seeking a color therapist.

One note on movement: As a spiritual healer, I've long recognized that memories get stored at a cellular, molecular level in the body. Spiritually focused movement can facilitate the release of cellular memory. So, just doing yoga or tai chi with the spiritual intent of healing the past can help the body do that faster, and more smoothly than leaving movement out of your spiritual focus.

What if you are distancing the manifestation for someone else? Of course, there may be times when it is you who find yourself thrust into the life of one of your spouse's relatives, or the relative of your best friend.


This is high spiritual work and an honor, though it may not feel like it at the time. You may find it difficult to understand why your very presence seems to irritate this person, or why everything you say seems to draw a negative reaction or defense posture from them. It will seem as though you are being as clear as possible when you speak, but they simply do not hear what you are saying. In fact, they often think you are saying the exact opposite of what you are indeed trying to communicate, or feeling something different than what you say you are feeling.

If you are not triggered into past reactions but they are, you may instead be serving as a catalyst for them; you are their "distanced manifestation". They do not hear or see you clearly because the person you are is clouded -- well, overlaid is a good word -- by the image of the person from the past which you are mirroring for them and/or the situation from the past which needs healing.


Is the Coyote Dancing?
I understand this kind of encounter to be a type of Heyokah Medicine, also known as Trickster Energy or Coyote Medicine.

If you are unfamiliar with Heyokah energies, I'd suggest reading up on Native American spirituality because The Trickster (Heyokah) visits everyone and it's valuable to recognize the Coyote when he is teaching you about the folly of ingrained habits.

Whether you are experiencing the distancing of manifestation in your own life or providing distancing for another, the same tips apply. Remember that it is not our job to manipulate the energies of others by trying to figure out what the lesson is for the other person, and/or trying to get them to see the lesson.

Our spiritual work in healing the past or mirroring for another who is releasing past trauma is to allow the lesson to unfold, while monitoring our own behavior and responses to them, and learning our own lessons from within that context.

Whether the other person ever "gets it" is not to be our concern, and we may not even know what "it" is for them. Godforce is simply utilizing the current level of awareness in both our personality selves to present an opportunity for growth.

Featured Spiritual Wellness Resource: Releasing Your Past - Release Victim Thinking

Relationship Health Disclaimer: Relationship counseling may be beneficial in cases where you recognize that you have distanced the manifestation as a way of allowing you the opportunity of healing the past. This article is not intended to replace relationship counseling but to help identify some of the reasons you may have unconsciously recreated the past in some way. This is an entirely spiritual approach to a situation and you may also need to embrace marriage counseling or some other form of mental health assistance if there are emotional issues which are challenging your close relationship with others.

Emotional Health Disclaimer: Mental health issues relating from childhood trauma should be addressed appropriately. The emotional healing information shared here is not intended to take the place of mental health or psychiatric evaluation that may also be needed. Please consult with your chosen mental health professional if emotional issues are challenging your state of health and well-being.

[clean42day]

I am a firm believer that we re-create relationship roles in our lives to either perpetuate habitual relationship patterns....or to break them. In my case - I have been on a jouney of healing wounds from the past for 5 years now.

I took a 4 year (time out) out of any sort of emotional/romantic relationships in order to discover, identify, and begin to heal core issues that have produced some very self-destructive patterns in my life and I have come a long way. But the next level of healing involves taking the risk to "love" again and continue the journey in personal development "with" another person actively participating in my healing.

I am in my very first "healthy" relationship in recovery. and let me tell you - all the things I thought I had worked through in therapy are now rising to the surface and demanding that I "take actions" in a whole new way to trancend my old patterns of reacting. Working to heal in thearapy is a whole different (safe) enviornment than doing it in the moment when my issues are triggered. It seems like I am always in some type of analysis paralysis trying to figure out "where" my feelings are coming from -or what reminds me of what?

but for some reason this person has been placed in my life and I get to become a whole new "healthy" woman - or not. Finding the willingness to keep working on me - has taklen on a whole new level of comittment. Some days I just want to throw up both my hands and holler "I QUIT"

Remember when You are:
Remind yourself daily that this is not the past repeating, regardless of how much it looks that way to you.

But I know that would only be a temporary solution - because if I don't learn what I need to in this relationship -I will attract another one just like it - till I do learn.

Our spiritual work in healing the past or mirroring for another who is releasing past trauma is to allow the lesson to unfold, while monitoring our own behavior and responses to them, and learning our own lessons from within that context.
Whether the other person ever "gets it" is not to be our concern, and we may not even know what "it" is for them. Godforce is simply utilizing the current level of awareness in both our personality selves to present an opportunity for growth.

Sometimes I wonder if I will "Ever" learn

I just have to keep the faith that God has got me right where he wants me for now.


light and love

Gail

[clean42day]

Well I posted this and wrote my reply back in may of last year and here I am 9 months later and I have fallen backwards from this type of awareness. Now i am in the "Dance" again of trying to get loved right which is very reminiscent of my relationship with my father and my reaction back then was to rebel.

my rebellion took the form of self-rejection.....since I couldn't be loveable then I was going to "show him" just how unloveable I could really be.

I am going through this crap with David and the common denominator is ME.

such a powerless feeling and a painful place to be ......
to wrap all my value and worth up into how a man treats me, feels about me, loves me or not.

I am sick of this "dance" and I wan OFF THE DANCEFLOOR NOW!

9 months later I have re-gressed and almost have forgotten all I have learned about self love.

when it comes to matters of the heart - I feel like I am 9 years old again and I want to feel safe and wrapped up in unconditional love........I don't think I have ever really felt that - the only source that I have come close to that feeling is God.

I think and feel that I am going to make him the only man in my life again.

God and my little dog reco - were enough for me for almost 5 years and I did just fine.....back to the drawing board.

light and love

gail