I was inspired to write this article due to my recent viewing of the movie, “What the Bleep” do We Know.” This movie inspired me as after years of helping people overcome their addictions (including myself), “What the Bleep Do We Know”, actually gave one of the most precise explanations of the holistic models of healing that I have researched and utilized the past 35 years. What follows are two case studies whose journey it was to overcome years of heavy levels of addiction to become drug, medication, and alcohol free.
CASE #1- When I met Stan for the first time it was at a talk I was giving at Books a Million in Delray Beach, Florida. Stan walked in with his girlfriend and joined the group listening to me discuss my latest book, “When Life Becomes Overwhelming.” I thought it was odd that in his hand he already had a copy of my book which had just being released in this bookstore with my lecture as the kickoff. Later when Stan and I met in my office he told me he had bought the book at another bookstore three miles away earlier that evening. He and his girlfriend had been bicycling around town, saw Books a Million and decided to check it out-unaware I was at the bookstore launching my latest book to this store.
Stan met me professionally about a week later in my office. He explained how he was now taking the large doses of LOVOX (300mg) and BUSPAR (60mg) for obsessive-compulsive disorder, DEPAKOTE (1000mg) for manic-depression and SEROQUEL (100mg) for psychosis. Stan had been living a life in a “fog” of chemicals for the past 24 years which included for many years, quarts of different alcohols daily. Stan was filled with anger and resentment towards his father, wife and the world in general-overwhelmed, suffering and hopeless. As he told me later-“You are the tenth and last therapist I have come to and for me it is the end of the line. I have separated from my wife and am going through a divorce, watching my business collapse and I have lost all desire to go on.”
“My psychiatrists up North told me that I must be on these medications the rest of my life”, he spoke despairingly, “yet these drugs drain me of energy, nullify my creativity and I’ve lost all joy in living. I can’t even connect well with my 10 year old son. Since meeting you in the bookstore last week and reading your book, “When Life Becomes Overwhelming.”, it seems to me you had your own challenges to go through and have obviously more than surpassed them. I’ve come to you today as a last resort-Can I be helped? Can I get off these medications which destroy my vitality for life? Is there any hope at all I could be happy again?”
I sat there for a few moments without saying a word. I just looked at Stan and extended a compassionate heart and mind to him-connecting “spirit to sprit”, before speaking.
“Thank you for sharing your situation with me-I understand where you are in your life and the events leading up to it. I realize how devastating it can be to hear from one psychiatrist after another that you are chemically imbalanced, brain damaged and would be a victim of your upbringing your entire life. However as I look at you and feel the presence of your Being I can tell you with great certainty, you are so much more than just your body; you are a powerful spirit with an enormously competent intellect. You are not just a bunch of chemicals interacting according to the grey mass in your head. Your brain takes directions from your mind-and your mind takes directions from you, the knower of the mind, which I call the Self. Call it Self, Spiritual Being, Soul, Pure Consciousness, Divine Spark of Light, whatever you like but you are so much more than what you’ve been told.”
I noticed Stan’s eyes brighten as I told him this-his breath eased and he sat more relaxed. Years later he would tell me how this was the defining moment for him, he suddenly felt a connection to his authentic self that he had separated from 30 years earlier and had completely forgotten about. This image would be held onto for years acting as a perpetual life preserver and motivation to drive Stan through to the other side.
Stan shared with me the story of his life consisting of continual emotional abuse. He felt scared growing up-trying to “escape from being nutty”. He spent three years on his back from ages 11 to14 with Perth’s disease in his hip. He became ashamed to face people. He had an extremely negative self image and took heavy doses of four medications to try and “cope and remain comfortable in my skin.”
When I initially did some sensory channel testing, I found his auditory and kinesthic means of perception nearly shut down. (Not uncommon in heavy drug users.) He was going through a business melt down and divorce and was quite overwhelmed in every facet of his life. He remembered very little about his childhood but knew it was painful. Stan was confused, numb, frightened, alienated and lost. He was a human being who did not know how to be the Authentic Self that was peaceful, happy and loving, a state of mind shared by few humans!
Perhaps worse for Stan was not his childhood abuses but the psychiatric abuses he endured. Psychiatrists continually over medicated him and labeled him with so many “made up” illnesses like-Bi-Polar, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Manic Depressive, Psychotic. Unhappiness, bad habits and being caught in the past are not illnesses-they are mental states of human beings can get trapped in that with redirection becomes free, happy, healthy and present.
Stan was told authoritatively a number of times,“never stop taking those drugs we prescribe you as otherwise you’ll never be able to function in your life.” I reframed this for Stan in our first meeting-“if there was an insane person in the room when you were told this, it wasn’t you.” We laughed.
Everyone should understand by now thatwhen someone is labeled as broken or ill who has a natural human emotion such as unhappiness, grief from loss or confusion in life-people soon no longer see them as a spiritual being, people see them as another “depressive”, another “ADD” or another “broken being”. The mind becomes what you focus your attention on. Give mistakes all your attention and you will feel like a mistake. Focus your attention upon your strengths and you will feel your strengths. What you feel, you radiate, and you will receive what you transmit, a reflection of itself, a like kind returned. Psychiatry doesn’t understand this yet…. I’m an eternal optimist-it feels better for me to focus on their goodness and the bigger picture of being healed.
Beginning my work with Stan-I knew how it was important to get him to stop focusing on all that had gone wrong in his life as he had for over 25 years in sessions with his psycho-therapists. They always seem to concentrate on what wasn’t working in his life. But this never worked to make him feel happier or stronger. A basic rule of therapy I’ve always used is “observe and adjust”. If what you’re doing isn’t working to improve your client-change what you’re doing. Simple isn’t it? You don’t just increase the medication dosage and hope! Stan’s past therapists didn’t recognize Stan’s forgotten abilities and powers-and they didn’t know how to help him call upon these resources to help himself. This was the direction I felt guided to take. For this I began using Meta NLP-to build new strengths, good feelings and things he did right amidst this entire drama. I wanted him to access his abilities as somehow he had still managed to get married, have and raise a child to ten years old, build a million dollar construction business and still be alive today! He survived! A “Very Well Done!” for that!
Stan was very open and seemed to enjoy the creative approach to strengthen himself, instead of dwelling on his weaknesses. When we would get stuck in an issue with someone-especially his father-we would use one of the many Miracle Mindedness Forgiveness techniques to unhook him from the anger, resentment and hatred-which lessened the resistance to circulating the emotional energy he was experiencing. These “stuck” masses of energy were gradually diluded and dissolved free by helping him redirect his choices to look at things from a viewpoint of seeking compassion, understanding and release, he gained access to new possibilities and resources that were previously ignored. Stan worked well with gentle guidance-rebuilding his life from the bottom up.
To support his recovery process, I sent him to a nutritionist to evaluate his biological levels. Medications strip key nutrients from our bodies-especially B-complex-as well as weakening the immune system from the medications toxic effects.
Stan agreed to follow a regime of multi-vitamins, Flax seed Oil and other mineral supplements-combined with a 20 minute daily Epson salt foot-bath. Exercise was encouraged-walking, biking, tennis etc. Long term drug users need to re acclimate themselves to being in their body without the need of numbing it as they had been doing.
Meanwhile Stan dealt with divorce ramifications-costs, child support, alimony etc. I worked intensively with Stan and helped guide him to reshape his attitude, self-image, inner dialogue and belief systems. He was open and ready to learn.
One of the common effects I see in long term addiction patterns-is the tendency to dwell on a few undesirable events or situations and to carry them forward, recreating them again and again in the present. The recreation of a past unwanted feeling or emotion- does not make any sense, does it? Wouldn’t someone want instead to create a new opportunity to feel good? Part of my approach is-why not remember a different time in which things went well-or you just felt good about things in general? Then by modeling this-you can begin heading in a new direction. Many therapists, like most people, get caught in the ego’s trap-always looking for what’s wrong. When you dwell on what’s wrong it will generalize into other areas of life to remove the joy and fun. The right minded way of thinking is to look instead for what’s right and build on that! The exercises in the Miracle Mindedness CD’s help train listeners in these techniques.
I continued to help Stan rebuild a new inner core, creating compelling models of strength and the ability to survive in life easily. Stan demonstrated the one thing that always guarantees success, complete commitment. He always did his best every day to complete the different parts of his assignments. Stan embraced the technique of forgiveness that A Course in Miracles taught as I shared in Miracle Mindedness. A session didn’t go by that we used these techniques on one or more former friends, relatives or business associates who were still entangled in some unhealed grievance from the past. Stan also learned to use the “Clear Mind, Open Heart” meditation techniques I taught him, and he practiced them consistently between sessions. One of my goals for clients is that through daily repetition they develop new habits that soon just happen unconsciously and automatically.
As his emotional self was stabilized, Stan eased off all medications by 75% within 3 months. He was 100% medication free in 4 ½ months, the first time in 27 years!
After some time, we did different types of regression work and unburied interfering childhood and past life memories. Stan was amazed to see how many of this life’s challenges were the accumulation of un-forgiven mistakes from earlier points in his personal existence. By the sixth month working with Stan, he was stable and had opened his heart and mind to realignment with his Higher Power-his Authentic Self and was reconnecting deeply to Life-thoroughly and profoundly. I can still remember the joy in his face as he shared with me the joy of going out to a club to hear music for the first time in years. Because of the OCD labels his psychiatrist gave him, Stan was told to stay away from going to places with music or playing music. Dan loved music and art. After a few months in our work together he reconnected to his love, began playing guitar again and doing art for the first time in many years. Creativity returned grandly as it usually does. Fortunately creativity is your life essence-is your loving, peaceful nature as long as you are alive you possess this innate quality. The creative nature is unchangeable as is your loving, peaceful nature.
My experience has shown me that the process of healing goes through various stages-a beautiful dance around the vibrations of existence in and out, to and fro. Once you commit to the process-each day provides a meaningful event for you to learn and grow, develop new abilities, experience things in different ways and have fun. But the detoxifying process can be quite difficult at times as you sort through the valuable from the valueless. Sometimes it feels things are being taken away and your body may go through various withdrawal stages as the old is flushed out, releasing ideas and beliefs that are worthless in reaching your intended state of peacefulness and freedom to make space for the new healthy replacements later. But this soon will pass if you persist.
Amidst this healing process for Stan-I also had a chance to work with his significant other. She had been in recovery for over 15 years and had been by Stan’s’ side for over a year watching him lose his grip on life. Fortunately for Stan, she was very open to the work I was doing with Stan and she began attending the same classes to learn empowering tools for her self so as not to fall into a co-dependent relationship any deeper. She also came to me to work on some of her unresolved issues which helped her clear away other obstacles to her inner peace, and gave her helpful insights into how the transformation process Stan was experiencing worked to be more understanding of the stuff Stan was going through.
I know of no better way for a couple to strengthen their relationship then by facing their shadow sides together-and emerging into the light-together, remembering: always start every communication from a place of stillness with the purpose of peace being primary in your mind.
Ten months since starting, Stan had reached a wonderful milestone-drug, alcohol and medication free for over 4 months. He was now ready and willing to face the mess he made with his family and business. He felt connected to his Higher Power and was filled with faith that whatever life would bring him-he could handle it and know it would bring him good. Stable and clear minded Stan moved back North to begin his new life.
A year after finishing therapy work-Stan wrote me a letter letting me know of the difficult readjustments to his new life. To currently survive he was working a contractor job for $14 an hour. He wrote how his “worldly” life is “unimaginable now”- “The only good news” being how after giving away his million dollar construction firm for nothing while in a daze on medications and not thinking straight, he felt at least “I didn’t have to go bankrupt!” (He reframes it to a positive later as he writes, “But I have never felt better in my life. I live each day at a time in the moment. Life is a mysterious gift!”
I occasionally received a letter from Stan telling me of his progress. Then-four years later, while visiting Florida, Stan stopped by my office. He had grown a beard and was joined by the same girlfriend from 5 years earlier. They had been through a great deal together-but that’s another story in itself. At age 52, he was back in school studying to be an architect-and this was his Spring Break. They were on their way to Key West to relax and enjoy. He had just celebrated his fourth year medication, drug and alcohol free and was feeling great. He still did his Clear Mind, Open Heart meditation and used the Miracle Mindedness techniques to experience life as a wonderful mysterious gift. Interestingly, Stan attempted to have the courts remove the wrongly diagnosed labels from his record- psychotic, OCD and disabled. The courts refused-and Stan is given disability income because of this which now supports him while in college. College tuition is also paid for by his state of residence. Funny how the universe helps bring us back into balance when we are right minded!
A major principle in my work is, “With your willingness to be open and learn and, your commitment to face your shadow side, when you combine it with faith and honesty, you can accomplish anything!” Just as a caterpillar on the ground has no idea he’ll transform one day into a beautiful butterfly soaring amongst the tree tops, anyone can emerge from their cocoon and begin sailing in the sky instead of crawling upon their belly, looking up-and wondering if they’ll ever get off the ground. For even as the caterpillar crawled up a tree to gain new perspectives and begin to wonder about unknown inner impulses beginning to draw his attention within, you can begin to imagine lofty new horizons in your perspective-as you rise up to see the mental construct of the life you created for yourself. With this new vision you can see clearly the steps you need to take to reach your goals, and you happily begin to take them.
Case #2 Trained into Addictive Behavior
Before I met Ted-I met his mother. She had been in the downtown Delray Beach, Florida area and “accidentally” walked by the Quantum Healing Center where I work. She walked upstairs and looked at one of my books and some articles I had written and asked to see me. She sat in my office for the next hour as a frightened desperate mother. She had been overwhelmed watching her son become more and more withdrawn from life. Her son would hardly bath, always wore the same T-shirt-and was very out of touch with reality after 4 years of taking LSD nearly every day. He had also been getting drunk on alcohol, often times, twice in one day.
Ted’s Mom had tried everything a 28 day in house programs, AA, treatment centers, psychiatrists, medication, psychologists and addiction counselors. Her son was now doped up on heavy dosages of medications-introverted and non-functional-“Please could you help my son in anyway”, she pleaded.
Tears ran down Ted’s mothers face-A pretty woman in her late 40’s who obviously was deeply afraid of losing her son. Her son had already been suicidal on more than one occasion. I explained to her that I could help her son if he wanted to receive my help-and was willing to work with me, committed to his healing. I told her the story of Stan from Case #1, which filled her with hope.
There was no question when I met Ted he had been very disoriented and disconnected. Fortunately his mother followed my advice as she read Dr. Peter Breggins and Dr. David Cohen’s book, “Your Drug May Be Your Problem.”, and listened to important information I have later put in a health education CD set I made called, “Caution-Psychiatric Drugs May be Hazardous to Your Health”. She then began a two week detox of the medications Ted was taking (I believe two weeks is usually too short and 4-10 weeks is more appropriate under a medical doctors supervision). Despite some difficult days-he broke through and was more clear headed then he had been in quite some time. When I met Ted-he was quick to say, “I feel angry, depressed and nervous. I’m without any grasp of reality and have no motivation for anything. My depression is bad all the time and I’m angry all the time”. He listed 82 unwanted personal, emotional and spiritual conditions he sought help for.
Ted was your stereotypical ‘lost boy’-finding a sense of freedom in the thousands of LSD trips, alcohol, speed, coke and downs he took. He had no hopes or dreams and had become like a hermit. “Nothing is real”, he repeated to himself like a mantra.
As is my standard procedure-Ted and I looked over his life and made a Time Line to see the defining moments, pivotal decisions, traumas and sudden shifts in any particular direction. It became very clear-Ted was raised to model drug and alcohol use. Both his parents openly took drugs in great excess and when a father substitute as a young teen entered into his life, he was a chronic alcohol and drug abuser that tutored Ted further in these ways.
Over the next few sessions I did some receptivity testing to determine his ability to access and utilize his mental functions. He was able to visualize well and his artistic nature shone through. Ted shared some powerful metaphysical experiences with me. His intense LSD use had forced open some portals into deeper realms of the super-conscious and unconscious minds. As a spiritual astronaut myself in the 60’s-I was well aware of what dimensions of consciousness can be opened through the use of psychedelics. I was sure to acknowledge what he did and showed him many self trance techniques so he could safely continue his spiritual exploration without dangerous side effects of drugs. Ted and I then worked together to discover the underlying decisions as to why he made these choices. I encouraged him to express his feelings and new visions and to put them into his paintings to allow whatever influences he liked to flow through him in creative ways. In one of the receptivity tests I used he easily uncovered a safe and good memory at age two-while on a boat-breathing in the salty air (I anchored him to this feeling so each time he put his hand on his heart he would feel these safe and good feelings).
As forementioned, my therapeutic philosophy is to spend substantial time building positive, healthy, workable resources to have the strength, patience and determination to keep on the path of healing and stay the course as they remodel their self image. I believe it’s important to score small victories along the way. (Which written down in a “Valuable Insights” journal can help ourselves later, your journal can become a source of helpful insights to guide you if you ever fall off course.) Additionally, it’s helpful to learn what’s right about yourself-expand your strengths and abilities and not focus on mistakes and inabilities. I’ve observed when you feel confident and strong in what you decide, life goes easier.
Another direction I take with most addiction oriented clients is to get them into physical work. A workout at a gym 3 or 4 times a week, walks in nature, doing physical labor, yoga, bioenergetics, gardening, construction-these are excellent to reground an addicted persona back into the Earth. Those who numb themselves with substances disassociate from their bodies-often because of suppressed pain. Learning to reconnect yourself back into your body creates a more powerful base from which to function and can then open you to a wider array of the unconscious minds resources.
In addition to Ted’s personal problems-his relationship problems fared no better. Ted’s parental history looked like this-his mother was separated from his father, when the SWAT raided them while a small boy enjoying a day trip of fishing on a boat. A few years later his mother came out of the closet and moved in with a woman lover/partner for a number of years before leaving her and finally marrying a wealthy man to take care of her, when her girlfriend could no longer support her. Throughout all of this Ted was in a permissive substance abuse environment.
Choice therapy was helpful in helping Ted learn to look at consequences, purposes-ego gratification versus right mindedness. Step by step Ted was reconnected with his environment, his family, work and school. Learning meditation and the steps it takes to create a satisfying life each day helped Ted quickly take hold of himself and have a foundation to build upon. He liked to use as part of starting his day the phrase, “Nothing is going to change-unless I change it!”
Within a matter of weeks-Ted showed great improvement. We began setting goals to get his GED, go to college, get a job-build a future career. “I want to feel good.”, became the new mantra.
Through the course of our work we did many forgiveness interventions. As I present in both Clear Mind, Open Heart Meditation and Developing Miracle Mindedness, it is imperative to release the past. Failing to let go of the past is like walking around with one hundred pounds of lead weight on your chest and shoulders. We must lighten our loads for our own sakes!
As we searched around pivotal times in his life, we discovered Ted had many cross flow traumas that still weighed heavily upon him. Watching his Dad hit his mother as a child, watching his father arrested by a SWAT team, having his best friend die at 13-and then “becoming” him-clothes and all. I’ve found that many times cross flow memories can have a greater impact than a directly involved situation. Observing others experiencing traumas can make one feel more helpless and hopeless than when something is done to you-or by you. Unfortunately for Ted, these cross flow situations, were always his parents, his “deities”. Feeling separation or any threat of separation of a parent-real or imagined-can often cause a separation from your essential self that could allow the establishment of a new false “self-image” to cover up this perceived emptiness to compensate for the resulting gap. Separation events are one of the most important segments in our lives to heal. It is often here we broke away from our authentic power-and got caught into a weakened version of ourselves that believed and felt it was alienated from its true source. Understanding this, its easy to see how separation events are a major cause of depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome and scores of other illnesses. Through the work I’ve done with individuals using hypnotherapy, NLP, regressions, Hellinger Constellations, Quantum Psychology and other modalities of therapy to reveal these hidden negative influences, healing the major separation points, provides great transformation.
Ted quickly made progress. After less than 3 months of intensive work Ted was driving again, had a job, a new girlfriend and had signed up to finish school.
When I look back at Ted’s process-I think the recognition of hidden rage that occurred when his father threw him and his mothers’ clothes overboard while on a boat one day was the key negative charge release that unlocked the door. As a young child it was the difference that made the difference in his life. He remembered watching his favorite polka dot shirt floating in the water-and decided both his parents were crazy. This separated him form his “creators”. And he now felt “alone”, “alienated”, “unlovable”, “nothing”. It was these cognitions that helped Ted emerge from the shadows and reenter life with a positive attitude and clear mind. Now the challenge would be maintaining it-staying in this channel of consciousness.
Nearly a year later after finishing my work with Ted, I received an email from him:
“I wanted to write to you and tell you how much you helped me. I’m working part time and going to school at night and haven’t ever felt this happy. I live down the road from my mom and her husband. I just want to let you know how much of a role model you were to me and how appreciative I am.”
Friday, June 15, 2007
Addiction to Drugs, Medication and Alchohol - A New "Bleep" in Understanding True Recovery - © Dr. Brian Sheen – March 2005
The Real Causes of Depression - © Dr. Brian Sheen – March 2004
There is an old saying that if you continue to tell a lie often enough people begin to accept this as a truth. Perhaps the greatest lie being told today is “depression is caused by chemical imbalance 
Now with this out of the way let me describe to you my research that has clearly shown how you can easily overcome depression without medications – one of many case studies. Susan was very depressed when she appeared at my center. Her face was glum, her body language languid and her words dispirited. She related to me how lousy life had been and she was feeling hopeless. Life had little meaning to her and she wondered if she had much of a purpose for living. She felt used by her sister, her friends and former boyfriends- and was exhausted from carrying the load of her family on her back.
“It never seems to let up”, she confessed, “I drag myself to work, go through the motions and then eat all weekend to try and cheer me up. I haven’t had a good relationship in over 3 years and I’ve gained 25 pounds to boot! I feel so unloved and wonder if it pays to continue living.”
As we talked further I learned Susan had been taking prozac for over a year and a half and previously Zoloft for 2 years. They had increased her dosage twice which gave her a temporary boost but even this soon subsided. She had also done 4 years of psychotherapy which also seemed to produce little results.
“If you’re still feeling depressed while taking your antidepressants - why do you continue to take them?” I asked.
“I’m afraid to stop” she cried, “my psychiatrist has repeatedly told me I’d be even worse without them and that I needed them to function.”
Unfortunately I had heard these students too many times before as either the withdrawal effects that occurred from getting off the medications were uncomfortable and caused temporary anxiety (like withdrawing from any addiction)-or the attending doctor themselves filled them with fear due to their own bias or ignorance as to what these medications do (I prefer to think positive about these doctors that they don’t keep their patients on these drugs to have an ongoing income source!)
I looked deeply into Susan’s eyes and let her know I understood her dilemma but was curious; “What brought you here then-you must know I don’t recommend medications except in the most extreme cases, for very short term and then only when combined with proper therapy that opens the subconscious layers of the mind to uncover the actual causes”.
“Exactly” she said “that’s why I’m here I read your book “When Life Becomes Overwhelming” and saw that having gone through depression yourself you understand what I was going through. Coincidentally one of the clients at my spa who had been seeing you told me she got off her anti-depressant medications in 10 weeks and feels great. She told me that by working with you privately and coming to your meditation and ‘A Course in Miracles’ classes she got to the underlying causes of her depression-learned tools to better handle her life and now is feeling good most of the time-I want the same thing for myself. Is it possible?”
“Yes, it’s very possible.” I told her but only if you’re willing to learn new ways of thinking and living your life. You have to understand the way you have been living your life has not been working to produce the peace and happiness you desire. Yet the life you have been living is based upon the choices and decisions you make, learn, and be aware that your decisions are based upon your interpretations of your perceptions which are evaluated by the underlying system of beliefs and thinking you have established. Unless you’re willing to look at the underlying formation of your entire belief system and thinking process and open it for correction to one that can produce a happy and peaceful life nothing will change. “Are you willing to undertake this work?”
Susan didn’t hesitate for a moment and said, “Definitely!”
“Good that’s the first step-but then there’s one more; commitment. Without your conviction to do this inner work you will be deterred at the first roadblock you encounter. You must be determined to see this through; come to sessions and to classes as well as do the assignments I give you between sessions to reinforce and expand the aspect of the transformation we’re working on. I ask for a 6 month commitment although I find the average is 3 months for a 70% or better improvement. You can usually begin to see a nice change after as little as 6 weeks but everyone is different will you make this commitment?”
Susan agreed and for the first time since I’ve met her had a small smile of hope on her face. At this point I smiled back and looked deeply into her eyes and told her, “Remember Susan-you’re so much more than the chemicals in your body-you have a mind and a spiritual consciousness that has great power and ability. At your core is a peaceful and happy spiritual being who has been hidden in layers of junk that has piled up so high you forget you’re true nature.”
Susan enrolled into my foundation classes for A Course in Miracles and Meditation, and begun listening to my Peaceful Living CD package. My goal was to understand how the mind works and to give her tools to help her master the directions in which she gave it. Until we understand the power of our thoughts – the difference between our ego’s wrong mindlessness, versus our Authentic Selves right-mindedness we are lost and confused. When we learn our role as the decision maker who chooses which side of our mind to interpret the constant input we receive we no longer are a victim to the people and events outside us – we become responsible for the feelings and conditions we experience in life and become empowered.
In my sessions and classes I make it very clear how it is the choices we make that determine the life we experience. We make hundreds of decisions each day that either emanates from our fears or from a sense of love and trust; from our guilt and anger or from our peace and innocence. The world we experience inside reflects back our underlying thinking and beliefs. Until this is understood, we believe we are the effects of what happens to us and not the interpreter (decision maker).
As we laid out her timeline, it became very apparent that her feelings of depression began not a few years ago as she had thought, but early on in her childhood. When four years old she decided she was no longer good enough as she felt her father separated from her and spent more time with her little brother. Later at five years old a sister was born and she felt relegated to the role of caretaker for her little sister and was strictly disciplined to ensure she would be a perfect model for her younger sister.
Susan was filled with animosity, as she believed lost her childhood at 5 years old and was expected to act like an adult. This event caused her to take her life very seriously and always felt guilty when she had fun as she decided, “If I have fun I’ll get punished and lose my parents love.” In later sessions we reunited her fragmented inner child and installed new childhood experiences within her timeline using miracle re-patterning and re-scripting.
As we continued drawing Susan’s timeline, we finally came to a point of great emotional distress. Susan begun crying and moaning in great pain as we approached her life at 10 years old. After much comforting and reassurance, Susan related to me she has been sexually abused by an older man at a store one day. She has been tricked into taking off her blouse and letting him touch her in exchange for some candy she couldn’t afford.
Although this was not to come until many sessions later, this act continued for some time as Susan enjoyed the attention this older man gave her. It made her feel pretty and loved, which she didn’t feel at home. Yet as she was from a strict Catholic background, the belief in her self, as a horrible sinner caused feelings of guilt to overwhelm her. It was at this point Susan decided “men could never be trusted and that they only wanted her body.” Susan felt shameful and begun putting on weight to protect her self from men and “cover up” her guilt.
Finishing the timeline took a few sessions for as we hit upon sensitive areas, I utilized a variety of interventions to release her negative energies and traumas, reframe her experiences and literally revive her mind to fill it with the goodness of who she was and the helpful lessons she had learned. Uncovering buried decisions on how she programmed her belief system proved to be a life altering experience. By the fourth week of session she informed me she had completely stopped taking her anti-depressants and was already feeling much better.
Through Neurolinguistic Programming I was able to make needed shifts to return her thinking about men and herself to ones of acceptance and love. Her entire body language began to change, as she no longer saw men as a threat. She begun to lose weight, work out and reclaim her sexuality, as she no longer felt being sexy was dirty. There was an obvious shift in her dressing too as she started to accent her body’s curves instead if hiding them.
After each NLP shift I then made hypnotic induction tapes to reorient her subconsciousness, and made a tape of this to relisten to a couple of times a week.
“It’s hard to believe I’ve been dwelling on these fears for 30 years in my subconscious” she related one day. “All the guilt of my little girl mistakes was sabotaging any relationships I entered. I see so clearly now my ambivalence to wanting to have love but being so afraid what would happen if I made that connection. Worse is, I separated from who I was because of my horrible self-image. I finally understand I can’t be in a loving relationship with another person until I can be in one with myself – how can I share what I don’t have with another!”
Susan made steady progress although she had occasional minor setbacks that always seemed to be connected to her sister. At last, in one session, we confronted this issue and we uncovered huge amounts of anger and blame towards her sister for what Susan believed was not having paid back over $2,000 she lent her a few years back.
Therapeutically, this is called projection – we project on to another the guilt we feel inside ourselves that we refuse to face. By projecting onto another we seek to make ourselves right and them wrong. Like an attorney would in court, we will build a case to support our feelings of guilt and sin. It is a warped way to rationalize our judgments. From the surface it looked like a legitimate beef - a $2000 unpaid debt, but a rule of healing is: “You are never upset for the reasons you think.”
“I understand how you feel Susan” I said “but as you’ve learned in A Course of Miracles – you are never upset for the reasons you think.” She looked at me and agreed.
At this point I began some regressions to uncover similar feelings in her past where she had separated from the love and unity of being with her sister, and what of her own beliefs and actions were beneath it. It wasn’t long before we discovered seeds of guilt in her early childhood when she had left her sister alone when she was supposed to be watching her. She even had taken her sister’s doll once and broke it out of anger. We unearthed her original decision to see separate interests with her sister when she decided her sister ruined her life by being born and made her second-rate in the household.
Of course, I’ve only given you sketches here of what occurred over the course of our work. We utilized Holotrophic Breathwork to open some blocked energy; Circular Breathing, Hellinger Constellations, Core Transformation and even a couple of Past Life Regressions.
After 4 months of work Susan came to me and related an experience of how she had reached a new level in her life. Each moment she now felt blessed and able to express herself in new better ways. She had experienced deep levels of forgiveness and is now very close to her sister, father and mother. She looked at every day as an opportunity to have fun and knew she was responsible for the fun she would have.
Susan now meditated more regularly, did A Course in Miracles lesson nearly every day and listened to one or two of our session tapes each week. She even felt confident to go on a wild adventure overseas to meet some long-lost distant relatives in Italy just for the fun of it.
Our regular sessions have ended and Susan continued to come to class every couple of weeks and see me once a month. More happy, peaceful and balanced – her depression had been transformed into an expression of the joy of life. She no longer dwelled on what was wrong with her self or others, consciously and subconsciously, and let go of the past at all levels. Her spirit and mind solved the problems it had created for itself and now was free to enjoy life.
P.S. It’s been two months since I finished this article and I had the opportunity to meet with Susan after her adventure to Italy. While in Italy she met a handsome, loving romantic Italian attorney who spent a week wining and dining her. As she explained “this is what I had always dreamed of – my wish had come true. I feel so full of love I’m speechless.” We spent a couple of sessions to discover how to now utilize her new feelings and freedom to experience a joyful relationship. Through this process we uncovered some deeper levels of self-hatred that had its source in a past life when sold into slavery to a brothel as a young girl to support her family and stay alive after her village was overtaken in a war. Within a week of this session she received a call from her Italian lover who invited her to come to Italy for 2 weeks to travel the country and that he’d send her an airline ticket as soon as possible. The story continues…
Remember – until we remove the interferences to love in our mind – our heart can never be open to send a signal to other like-minded beings to attract them to you.
Depression is just a form of non-expression of the love you have been created in. Each moment you are depressing yourself from the choices you make they are not honoring your higher self. As you dwell upon what went wrong in the past you think and feel wrongly about who you are – and as like attracts like – this thinking will only attract the “wrong” people into your life. Actually these “wrong” people you attract are perfectly right – as they reflect to you on the outside the thoughts and feelings you have about yourself and others on the inside. When you understand this you can stop depressing the possibilities of this moment and the future by destroying it with your old thinking that the past will forever repeat itself. When you learn to release your old patterns and accept the joyful power of this moment – you will attract to you other like-minded people and things that reflect to you your new inner decision-making. This takes determined work and willingness to face your inner darkness – but when you do – the light comes through and you will feel your love expressions fill your heart and mind.Thursday, June 14, 2007
The Yoga of Healthy Relationships
Growing up, each of us inherits the prevailing belief systems for our gender. Men are trained to act in accordance with the accepted customs of the groups they are connected to...family, religion, region and country. Women are conditioned to theirs.Even our ancestral heritage intrudes upon our deep levels of collective unconsciousness imposing the symbolic hunter and gatherer archetypal impulses into men...and homemaker and nurturer into women. These conscious and unconscious influences are powerful forces of the interplay of relationships we subject ourselves to in every aspect of our life...romantic, social and business. Yet, like all things of the mind...our beliefs are ideas and, as such, are impermanent. Accepted behavior during one time period, (i.e.) the 1950's when I was a child and domesticated, radically changed in the 1960's as free love expression of the hippies sprouted and then the feminist movement emerged. All the accepted roles that had been ingrained in our minds had been turned squarely on its head. This continues today to be as those influences grow and develop into many new acceptable concepts. To be successful the ever changing role of men in beginning and maintaining a relationship must go deeper into the knowledge of the one who is the knower and interpreter of the beliefs and choices if one is ever to succeed.
Joining together in Yoga
In yoga, practitioners learn to develop balance and a steadfast position through first asana's and then meditation. Without achieving what is called an "easy seat" our bodies and thereby our minds are off center and disconnected from the harmony of their own existence. Through yoga practice deeper concentration is developed to know oneself as a divine spirit and to recognize the divine spirit everyone else is. It is through a steadfast practice of asanas and meditation that purification of the mind occurs.
Through ones' practices (sadhana) the confusing and ever changing concepts of what roles we are to play in relationships are transcended. Love and devotion begins to flow from the heart to join together in shared purposes and goals in a unified oneness.
Perhaps the hardest lesson we come to learn in our life is when we loosen the ties of our conditioning and become one pointed in our relationship with God. We can then experience God and that this awareness energizes all relationships, romantic and otherwise. We are all children of God, Life, Pure Consciousness and so deserve the same devotion. Our notions of acceptable behavior are in a constant state of flux and the human notion of love is we love to be in love; as long as the other gives us what we feel we need, want or believe we are missing in our life (what the Course in Miracles calls"special" love). Through the practice of elevating our consciousness to its purified state of devotional oneness with our Source can we experience the true power of a yogic relationship. (Yog is Oneness of Being)
From my experience I can only say giving devotion to another is recognizing their God Self. It brings amazing bliss and enlightenment and when that devotion is mutual it becomes a celestial joining that lasts forever in the Light of God.
Expressing Oneness
Each day we are given the opportunity to develop the yogic state of being. Being kind and gentle to ourselves and each other, earning how to interact in a pleasing manner...stepping back from the concept you have of someone or something in your head, and experiencing the light of their essence in your heart. Couple meditation is an excellent way to unite two people in spirit using the principles of tantra in sexual relationships can release life enhancing shakti and kundalini to raise the energy vibrations quickly and remove chronic depression, anxiety or tiredness. The archaic roles most humans play in the sexual dramas are not life supporting. Of course, the ability to communicate at all levels on a centered face to face basis is still not important.
Having a healthy relationship is a choice each of us can make. Find a helpful support team of coaches, teachers and therapists and look deep within yourself to purify your own self first and then radiate that light so others can be guided to help themselves and have fun.
Brian Sheen, PhD
