Integration is Key.

One of the most important aspects of any healing journey is integration (and I believe we are all on a healing journey in one sense or another).

We all have parts of us that we wish to reject, forget about, not look at, erase from memory, disassociate with, suppress, push aside, not acknowledge, blame others for…but it’s been my experience that when we do this, we can never fully feel whole, complete and ‘at home’ in our bodies.

Integrating all aspects of ourselves is key. That doesn’t mean criticising, analysing, judging and constantly trying to make sense of them. It means accepting, acknowledging and honouring the lessons they have to offer us.

Work on the ‘shadow self’ or the ‘pain body’ is fascinating to me! We all have ‘shadows’ in our subconscious mind that are limiting beliefs that hold us back in life. Most of these limiting beliefs we pick up as children. They are not our own beliefs but they are picked up from external environments. 

Research shows that children before the age of 7 have not developed the ‘rational thinking’ mind (which acts like our filter system), they are in ‘theta’ brainwaves (which is like a hypnotised state). Therefore everything is programmed straight into their subconscious mind. So say for example, a parent is constantly working on their phone or laptop around them, the child doesn’t think, ‘they are working hard to provide for me’, ‘they have my best interests at heart’ or ‘they need to do this in order to pay the bills’, they just think, ‘I’m not important’, ‘I’m not worthy’, ‘I’m not loveable’ or something to that effect. This is not something they consciously think, this is the belief that is programmed subconsciously.

This is just one example, children come in contact with all sorts of environments, but you can see therefore how we would all have subconscious limiting beliefs. We don’t need to have gone through a traumatic experience to pick these up. It’s just the way our programming works when we’re kids. However, this is not something to be fearful of either, it is a part of life. It is a part of our programming but awareness and self-education is key! For some people these limiting beliefs may not play a big role in their lives, for others it’s huge.

We don’t know what we don’t know and this is why going on an inward journey of self-discovery is crucial. Until we stop to notice and look at our limiting beliefs, we’re oblivious to them. All we see is the external manifestation of these beliefs through our daily lives (yet we don’t see how they are connected). Also the presenting problem (be it addiction, lack of motivation, over eating, excess weight, depression etc) is not the problem, that’s the coping mechanism. It’s futile pointing the finger at that because for many people, it’s what’s keeping them alive and we need to be grateful for that. Instead we need to go below it & unlock the subconscious belief that is causing the problem in the first place. Everything is a mirror to a subconscious pattern that is coming from inside us.

The answer always lies within and it’s from within that we need to begin to create the change. We have to reprogram ourselves to shed the old limiting beliefs, integrate the lessons and replace them with new empowering beliefs!

Are you aware of some of your own limiting beliefs?

This is an aspect of my work that I love because like that, I was so oblivious to a subconscious pattern within myself that was really limiting me in my life.