Recent discoveries in neuroscience, especially regarding the plasticity of the brain, have provided the welcome reassurance that these default scripts can be modified and even overwritten, right though to old age, correcting the earlier erroneous assumptions that we were forever stuck with what formed in the first seven years…
It is no wonder, then, that contrary to the initial intention, those of us affected become less and less vibrant over time, as if the life were being sucked out of us. Obsession supplants imagination, compulsion replaces creativity, fear displaces joy, connection makes way to alienation, and the `being´ in `human being´ begins to wither on the vine. Recovery becomes possible when we hit bottom, when we become so sick and tired of being sick and tired…
Many of us carry a bag of different lies around with us until we begin to take stock of our lives. We may, therefore, have two or three main Saboteurs which are the cause of most our problems. We each have a unique Saboteur profile. Just as it is necessary and beneficial to handle more overt losses by grieving in a healthy manner, – rather than avoiding, numbing, and dissociating – we learn in recovery to practice loving ways to grieve our childhood losses and the alienation of Self…
For me, the key question is what impact these achievements have had on our happiness. Are we as happy or even more happy than our predecessors? I have my doubts. Rather than get into a competitive debate about today and the `good old days´, my interest revolves around one important question: In a world which values freedom above all other human characteristics, are we really free?
Deeper layers of motivation emerged from my shadow. It was clear to me how, since childhood, many adult interactions had been governed by the righteous, justified anger hidden in my shadow. Once revealed, this too can be consciously relinquished (rather than repressed). This is a good example of the ongoing work of spiritual fitness, as defined in both the Twelve Steps and PQ…
As these recovery fellowships mature, we are now moving to the `both, and..´ perspective with respect to exploring the scientific and spiritual aspects of the root causes of addiction and in drawing upon modern and recently developed resources to augment the Twelve Steps as we implement the solution. These resources may include Jung’s work on Archetypes, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, Trauma therapy modalities such as EMDR and Somatic Experiencing, PQ Mental Fitness, Inner Child work, Kinesiology, etc., to name only a few…
It has been shown that our Individual Positive Intelligence Quotient (PQ), i.e., the ratio between positive and negative emotions on a typical day, has a direct influence on how stress-resistant we are and how much, or how little, of our real potential we manifest in our professional activities, relationships, families, and private lives. If we have three positive thoughts for every negative one, we have a PQ of 75. Anything above 75 is considered beneficial in terms of sustaining growth as we move towards achieving our true full potential…
Basic elements of reality which we, through our culture, collectively attempt to deny include the facts that we are all going to die, that everything is impermanent, that we have no control over much of what occurs in life, and that there is, beyond what we recognise we do not know, a vast amount of knowledge of which we are not aware that we do not know. We are blind to our own blind spots…
There are no doubts in my mind that, on occasion, I also behaved in the same monstrous way towards others, especially those smaller than me. Children can be very cruel to each other. This cruelty gets played out if our caregivers are not sufficiently present and tuned into what is going on. Under such circumstances, they can’t protect the children, whenever necessary, from hurting each other. This lack of awareness and presence on the part of the adults is probably due to the untended childhood wounds they, themselves, still carry…
This experience was very much influenced by the prevailing image of a punitive God, all rules, and no mercy. I imagined the delinquent (me) kneeling before a fierce figure of authority (God) pleading for mercy in the hope of averting the worst degree of punishment (eternal damnation in hell), which was of course deserved, in the light of my unworthiness and the scourge of Original Sin. If this sounds dramatic, it was. Remember, these signals were being picked up by the ears, heart, and imagination of a very young child.
As long as we are constantly hijacked by our Saboteurs, fear rules our lives and the lives of those around us. This takes place sometimes very obviously, sometimes more subtly. Fear’s toolbox contains a very powerful device that, if not addressed and relinquished, will ensure that the old order will forever rule the day. This device is denial. For many years I stewed in the juice of denial. Sara Bareilles describes the dynamic eloquently in her sublime song “Orpheus“:
Missing the world
The one you knew
The one where everything made sense because you
didn’t know the truth…..
Indeed, many of us didn’t know the truth for long stretches of our lives. Denial has an important role to play in our survival…
My general observations lead me to conclude that we are either in autopilot and react in line with the coping mechanisms and survival strategies we developed before our fourth birthday (approximately) or, having developed sufficient awareness, mindfulness, and mental fitness, we learn to pause before responding to whatever stimuli cross our paths in a conscious, loving manner – beneficial to the healing, growth, and joy of all concerned. The term “autopilot” may be considered charitable. Some would call it “sleepwalking through life” (Dr Allen Berger) or even refer to a “Zombie” existence. And of course, this is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon…
So, it was really telling when, in a recent yoga lesson, we went though balance exercises which included the Vrikshasana (The Tree Pose, where standing on one foot we bring the other to the inside of our upper thigh), that the terror of childhood – as a felt state – returned. My heart began to race; I began to sweat and couldn’t maintain my balance for longer that twenty seconds. Of even more interest was the fact that my breathing froze. Despite all the insights and, indeed, practice in so many other modalities and situations, here we had the default patterns re-asserting themselves immediately, and with a vengeance…
© 2022 SoberOasis | Patrick Little
