I work with a WIDE array of amazing people that share similar stories of traumas, difficult thoughts and cyclical behavioral patterns. Many of them have been to therapy of various sorts, talked about these issues to death, and yet the pattern still ran them… the reality kept showing up the same way, and the same coping mechanisms and lack of mental freedom is still very much there.
This is in no way a kick at standard therapy, I deeply appreciate the work that is done, and in that, like all things, there is room for improvement in some areas, which is what lead me to step out of my PhD and chase better solutions so that my clients could say, “30 days of this work did more for me than 15 years of therapy.”
So, how do you metaphorically “get out of the chair?” How do you shift something so greatly that you don’t have to discuss it every week? Let’s hone in on two fast acting factors…
Find the root cause. I remember in some of my work with individuals who had health ailments that were created through their thought patterns, the seemingly oddest of reasons were found to be the root cause of their heart disease or their bee allergy. These health issues are known as psychosomatic ailments, which you can do research on if you’d like. In these studies I found that it was not always the deep scary trauma they had experienced that was running their mental show, it could be something far off in left field such as being broken up with in fifth grade, not receiving love when stung by a swarm of bees, or feeling the loss of approval from a parent. Finding that TRUE root cause began the process of shifting the perspective and releasing the belief as well as the crap reality that was coming along with it. Basically, the neurological pathway was not firing in the same fashion, and a new pathway could begin within hours.
So take a deep or even hidden belief you may have such as, “love is not a safe emotion to feel freely.” You could work on all the “branches” of that issue which are the symptomatic issues that have shown up such as issues with your partner or sabotaging good relationships OR you could instead ask yourself WHY you feel love is unsafe. You’ll look at your beliefs, behaviors, actions and realities that show you the true root meaning or event in your life that stemmed this reality or re-solidified it. Whom is attached to that belief? What happened? What we are moving away from in this method is spending a lot of time trimming branches, so we can instead peel the layers and get to the true root that is shaping so many components of our reality. This could be a belief such as, “because I am not good enough because I never got my mother’s approval”, “money is evil because my ex partner used it to hurt me” or “love doesn’t last because my father remarried 4 times.” We forget that just because we may have been raised with a root, we don’t have to carry it forever. If it was given to us and we weren’t born with it, we can set it back down now that it is too heavy. Once you have that root cause established, you can move to the next step.
Creating a Perspective Shift. Due to human filters, we see life through tainted glasses, and most of these filters are ones of untruths and pain, but were built to keep us safe. This safety mechanism has been completely misused, but nonetheless we can be grateful for the attempted act of love and protection of oneself. So let’s take that root again, “because I am not good enough,” it’s time to play around with multiple perspectives and questions. The goal is to show the brain that that belief is in fact a lie and is NOT serving. Once we know we are lying to ourselves, the juicy rewards, as well as the strong neurological pathway supporting it, begins to weaken. Questions such as, is that true all the time? Is that an ultimate reality? Do I feel in my heart this has to be true moving forward? Is there another perspective or set of eyes I can see this through that is more serving? This is about moving from your head space to your heart space for answers. You heart space is highly intuitive and actually has far more clarity than your mind when it comes to solving these types of issues, plus it keeps you in a space of calm and even love, which is rarely present in therapeutic settings and is a major component to creating change quickly. When you feel safe, loved or supported in your discovery of the painful root causes, and your subconscious feels it’s finally safe enough to go to the corners of your life and dust out the cobwebs, you’ll get far less pushback from your brain as your heart is leading the way.
Remember that you are in fact, a perfectly made human. At times, some people in your reality may have tried to tell you differently, or showed you differently unbeknownst to them. That does NOT make it factual and true. It’s a beautiful and confusing part of the human experience and when we embrace new perspectives and find why we even held a perspective that did not serve us in the first place, we find freedom. We are able to thrive instead of survive, and that is where I believe we are most naturally meant to be.