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The path of unfolding our true self as effective participants in life is not as random as it seems.
March 24,2013
The Path
Hi ,
About a week ago Ellen  was expressing to me a need for some sort of general guiding "map" for her clients to help them get oriented in their emotional/spiritual healing process. I thought about it for a moment then remembered that I had roughed out just such a map several years ago. I did a computer search and pulled up my very rough notes - just 12 lines of consciousness transition.
My original ideas were supposed to be a synthesis of several philosophical disciplines of consciousness unfoldment, beginning with Donny Epstein's work on the 12 Stages of Healing I learned as a Network Chiropractor back in 1989. Network was (and is) a wonderful Chiropractic technique for releasing the innate wisdom of the body to move people through consciousness shifts to promote healing. I had a lot of fun doing Network for several years, but found some of its philosophy lacking in elements of personal responsibility and participation with the creation process.
Ellen's expressed need re-ignited my project to create a map of the consciousness shifts we pass through as we heal and unfold in each area of our life. I had started it but never finished it. So now was the time to flesh it out and make it usable. As usual in such situations Ellen and I get into a sort of half conversation and half muscle-testing interaction to pull up and out information in a more targeted manner. The muscle testing helps us sift through and find the relevant information from all the distracting information - just like in Ellen's Heartflow sessions.
The following is the map I put together based on my experiences and insights working with so many people on their healing and unfolding combined with wisdom I have picked up from spiritual teachers throughout history.
The most fundamental understanding is that there are two primary relationships to life we have: outside-in and inside-out.
We are born with an outside-in orientation to life because we are helpless when born. We depend on support and nurturance from the outside to survive. We are an endless well of needs and want struggling to get parental attention to fill those needs and wants. This becomes our basic relationship to life. We identify with it while we are infants. We have no sense of our creative ability to do for ourselves until about age 2. We look to others to do for us. For some people this becomes a life long habit and identity.
As we mature we begin to develop a growing sense of our own ability to not only care for ourselves, but to have impact on the world around us through our actions. We begin to develop a relationship to life that flows from the inside-out. This is the other half of the growth and development cycle.
As individuals, we have many different specific personal relationships in our life. Every one of these can potentially be in a different stage of maturational development. Sometimes it seems like we are crazy, because we might have our head really together one minute, then be totally 'off the wall' the next simply because our relationship focus has changed. For example you might have a really good relationship with a friend at work, but be reduced to infantile behaviors when you are around family at Christmas. Every one of our relationships to life unfolds and develops at different rates depending upon the experiences in that relationship. You might be centered and wise at work and a complete fool with your mate. Maybe you are playful and energizing with your softball buddies, but a complete ass in your relationship to other commuters on the freeway. We are all across the board, and that is normal.
It is like we are many different people, and in a sense we are. In each of our relationships we have to develop successful action and response skills specific to the circumstances of each relationship. We have to create realistic and appropriate expectations and eliminate inappropriate entitlements in every situation. We have to define and exercise the skills to create win-win relationship strategies for each and every one of our relationships. These strategies differ with each situation. There is no one right way to do things. We gradually form general overriding principals that become our personal philosophy. But we still have to go through the work of generating the specific perspectives, expectations, responsiveness', and actions that will produce respectful relationships with each person and aspect of life we participate with.
So even though we have many parts to ourselves, and our mood and behavior can vary wildly from moment to moment, there is a general larger pattern and flow to the growth and development of each individual piece of us. Why is this important? It is important to keep us from going into judgment of ourselves. It lets us know that everything is all right even when it's not. We can also use the map to glean what might be a good focus for us that will be productive when an unskilled part of our self pops up. Too often we just beat ourselves up for the parts of our self that have not learned to be grown up instead of supporting our self for where we are and with what would actually be helpful at that moment.
So lets get to the map...
Outside-In
1. Pain and desire...
I want, and I feel bad when I can not get what I want.
Ex: I want everyone to love me and make me center.
2. Hope/magic - dependent control tactics...
I create a belief or story that gives me the hope that I will get what I want if only _____ happens. (I wish upon a star) Believing the feeling I want comes from getting something outside myself. Feeling entitled to that something.
Ex: When I get married my husband will make me feel _______. (from my story). Like a new car or a hot girlfriend will make me feel good. (Using dependent control games like "the victim game," "blame game," and "rescue me game.")
3. Frustration--Pattern recognition..."It's not going to work!"
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results but not getting anything new.
Ex: Repeated relationships - jobs - situations that end up the same... recognition that what I am doing is not working.
4. Anger/separation ...leads to "a moment of clarity"...
"I am mad as hell and I am not going to take this any more!"
A break in the old patterns...clarity...no one is going to give me what I want. I am going to have to make it/create it my self.
Ex: Hitting the wall.
5. Self-empowerment/self will overrides- doing everything "right".
Determination and focus on doing everything right to make life be the way I want.
Going back to school, taking self improvement seminars, positive thinking...the exercise of my will or my mental power to make it be right (being responsible). I am in a constant (background) state of self-judgment.
6. Feeling of dis-ease - the stress of the constant focus wears me down.
We can only do the left brain override for so long before we are so disconnected from our right brain/heart that mental, physical, or emotional disease is created. The constant battle to
Stay controlled feels forced - without joy.
Inside-Out
7. Discovery of self--beginning heart feeling work and sub-personality work
We start asking "Why is what I am doing not working?" We run out of excuses and open up to "feeling questions and answers."
Ex: I have been married 5 times, why can't I make this work?
8. Healing feeling--connection with repressed and suppressed feelings, doing inner child work, and shadow work.
Discovering the pieces of self that have been repressed or suppressed. Uncovering old conflicts. Finding basic beliefs and assumptions I have about life are wrong.
9. Chaos--feelings become unmanageable
Connection to suppressed feelings bring confusion, fear,
overwhelm from encountering our history and projections in the now. We have overloaded with information and self discovery.
10. Surrender--become willing and open to receive new information and direction
The chaos allows grace (spontaneous insight) to come in and bring ease. I stop having to know, to fix, to be right.
11. Listen and reconnect with inner blueprint/God's will
Seeing the perfection of "what is" in the moment and seeing
my feeling self as perfect in the moment then engaging in a
response from my blueprint. For better or worse, I let my
heart lead. (God's will be done!)
I see, feel who I was created to be and appreciate and identify with it instead of my story and my ego defenses.
12. Action--create new boundaries of defined self and act on them
Breaking the old habits - choosing my heart's truth and acting in alignment with it. To my higher self be true!
Each step is built from what is unearthed in the step before it, so skipping steps does not work. You might get graced with standing in the feeling relationship of complete and balanced to motivate you to keep up the good work, but it does not last. The foundation work has to be done for the new state to be strong.
We see this a lot with folks that go through transformational weekends or belong to spiritual communities. Because all the folks around you are feeding you and supporting the higher state of consciousness, it artificially lifts you up while you are around them. But within a week or two of going back to your old life and relationships, you bounce back to where you left off so you can proceed with your own individual growth. Group consciousness is a wonderful thing and fills us with hope and great memories. Our personal growth is typically a little more "down and dirty" with life.
Another pattern you may notice with the map is that the first 4 steps are "average Joe" reactive states of being - where most people live. The next 4 states (5 - 8) are what I call the psychological steps. Here we use our mental capacities to engage our growth using techniques developed in the realm of the Psychology disciplines. The last 4 steps are feeling and trusting life steps that come from the realm of  transformational change and neural reorganization. The conscious mind is not capable of transcending itself because it only knows what it already knows. Simply put, you can't think yourself into mental health. Our final growth steps require us to expand beyond our normally functioning mind into a whole new dimension of feeling and acting. Here is where a spiritual coach like Ellen is really helpful.
Ellen and I will be working more on expanding the steps of growth and finding many applications for it in her Heartflow work with clients. Basically the message I get from it is to keep up the good work. Having someone like Ellen to work with who can access your sub and unconscious feelings and beliefs is super valuable for moving you forward through the steps of growth.
Understanding the step by step process makes it clear why the overly simplistic approach of most therapists today rarely works. They are not given enough time to let you walk through all the steps you need so they have to focus on endpoint outcomes. That focus does not produce stable lasting results. Following the natural order works - both with the body and the mind.
Take care,
David
Hours Changing at FOHAC for Dr. DeLapp
We are returning to Wednesdays as our short day beginning April. Our new hours will be 9 to 1 Monday through Friday and 3 to 6 Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Friday.
How to find us -
Our address is 9725 Fair Oaks Blvd.
If you are coming from the Roseville area you could come down Sunrise Blvd, but that is a long trek. It is probably shorter time wise to come down Auburn Blvd - San Juan Ave like you have been for the Sunset
office, but instead of turning left at Sunset, keep going straight 3
more lights to Fair Oaks Blvd and turn left. Go down 2 lights to New York Ave, go through the intersection, and immediately turn into the turn lane once the center divider ends. We are on the left.
Take care,
David
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