I find myself thinking a lot about habit-patterns of energy. I am deeply interested in the habit-patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that humans develop around trauma, stress, and pain. I want to know how those habit-patterns grow and develop and often end up sabotaging our lives, and I seek to understand the process of moving out of those habit-patterns and ultimately developing a new, whole identity. You see, I believe that our habit-patterns are indicative of a fracture, a Soul Loss, if you will.
I’ve come to think that the biggest part of my work as a clinician, as a healer, and as a human being is the process of identifying, studying, and unknotting these strands of energy. This work is much deeper than simply changing old habits. I look at it as a form of Soul retrieval. In order to create lasting, positive change, I believe that we have to contact that wounded part of ourselves inside our body and bring them into the present where that old wound no longer needs to be protected. By finding, feeling and accepting that Younger Self, we begin to heal the fracture, and we can actually enlist her help in developing new, more fulfilling habit-patterns of energy and ultimately healing old wounds.
Recently, I tapped one of my own habit-patterns in a post I called Child’s Fear, Adult’s Sabotage. Thinking that I had a clear understanding of the habit-pattern and the specific Younger Self that I was looking at, I started writing an article about the fear of rejection. As I wrote and came into my body, I realized that I was dealing with a slightly different Younger Self. The Younger Self, or Soul that spoke to me was the little girl who thought she had to be a perfect, precocious, creative, smart little girl in order to keep her parents from killing each other. She believed that by being perfect, she could control the alcoholic environment she lived in. She developed her magic like this: She listened carefully to her parents, being vigilant for the things that she did that made them happy. If she did well in school, did something that was particularly daring, or behaved in a particularly lady-like fashion, her parents smiled, so she tried to do those things more often. When something didn’t come easily to her, she quit or wrote off the activity as stupid. When she couldn’t quit, she lied and found ways to cheat the system. Over time…
