Mar 25 • Inner child and Authenticity
Social Effect on social animals
Most of us travel through our days in a state of constant alertness, particularly those who have suffered trauma. Routinely looking for danger, removing potential dangers, suspicious of everyone - a constant of FFFF (flight, flight, freeze, faun) - heightened state of autonomic arousal, or the sympathetic state set as default.
This vigilance burns so much energy that it makes day to day life hard - threats and dangers, potential - perceived - or phantasmal, all in an effort to protect ourselves and those we love from injury or pain
Our shoulders are tight, our jaw clenched, our abdomen engaged, our breath short and fast - and when things eventually or inevitably go wrong, we take a certain pride in saying “here we go” or “yeah, thought so”
This becomes what psychologists call a “self fulfilling prophecy”, and though they relate this to subconscious self sabotage, spiritually or energetically we call this manifestation - not what we say we want, but what we are expecting and creating in our minds
The universe doesn’t know the difference between a joke, a fear, and a heart felt desire - it’s about focus, energy, and intent
This is why Usui Sensei put “Worry not” in his principles. Worrying creates energy with a frequency of failure, chaos, and sorrow - we experience it in the present as inhibiting self talk, thoughts and emotion, and then experience it in the future as those worries manifest
In positive psychology, the aim isn’t to be an incurable optimist (which to me appears as a some kind of delusional mental disorder), but rather to learn how to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, “rest and digest” - the diametrically opposite of the sympathetic system (you may have also encountered this in NLP, Somatic release techniques, and Polyvagal theory)
The aim here is to notice when you are slipping into the sympathetic state - shoulders, jaws, breath - and consciously and audibly tell yourself you are safe, take a few deep breaths, let your shoulders relax…perhaps do a little shake, splash some water on your face, have a healthy snack…
One of the reasons people eat when they are anxious, nervous, or dis -regulated is to engage the rest digest part of the parasympathetic system - plus there is the replenishment of the energy burned through with all the mental activity and emotions. In Wiccan tradition it’s a common practice to have something to drink and eat (Ritual of libation, feast of ale and cookies…) to ground out the energy still lingering in the practitioner’s body - essentially engaging the parasympathetic in order to untether their energy and thoughts from the rite, spell, etc
Practicing the pause requires the mental aspect of self awareness, the biological action of deliberate relaxation, and the internal work of knowing our triggers and learning to deprogram learned behaviours, responses, and negative self talk - remember RICE
Reaction - you don’t have to respond - it is not the person, action, word or thing that that causes you discomfort - it is the learned emotional response you have towards it (CBT) - know your triggers, know when, where, and from whom you learned them from
Impermanence - all things, events, objects, words, will fade or pass in time, and though they seem consequential in the moment (and yes we must feel and process our emotions and not spirituality or emotionally bypass them, bury them, or dismiss them) will they matter in a week, a month, a year, a decade…this too shall pass
Control - the cause of most anger and sorrow in our lives is that we cannot control people/events, and when things don’t go as well as we had hoped, or someone acts differently than they should, we get frustrated, which if unchecked can easily turn to anger. In truth the only thing we can control are our words, our actions, and our focus. We are not responsible for the words and actions of anyone else unless we have lied or manipulated them, which is of course control
Energy - our environment has a direct impact on our energetic state, which isn’t just about our home environment, but the people we surround ourselves with. One of the 3 key points in polyvagal theory is that our social network contributes to our sense of safety and support - so if we associate with people that judge us, undermine our confidence, don’t respect us or the things important to us, then even if we have the biological and mental components in hand, we will still feel alone or unwanted (and we are social animals) - Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs 🔺 going for walks, hugging trees, swimming, going to the beach are all great things, but if you return to a unstable home, you’re fighting an uphill battle
So, take a breath - you’ve passed so many trials to get where you are now, and there may be more…heck even great things will happen…you don’t have to master these hard things today, just keep them in the back of your mind - let go of the thoughts and emotions that weigh on your heart, then you will float with the flow with ease and grace - so it will be 😇
Be kind to yourselves 🥰🙏🌈
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Social Effect on social animals
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A guide on how to heal your life - understand and release trauma, increase your vibration, manifest and more. Follow me on FB @reikiworkstowmsville.
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