Living with a person who is running from the bears
"Within you, there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself."
Herman Hesse
Morning, my time to prime my nervous system for the day.
Sitting outside facing the sun, I start tuning into my environment. It's a process of allowing my environment to weave in me.
All my senses are awake, and I am starting to tune in.
I feel the sun on my skin, it's gentle, early morning sun, that spills red light and warmth on my body-everything that my cells need for the start. I hear background noise from the highway that is not too close but the humming of it almost works like hypnosis on my brain, occasionally interrupted with the happy sound of birds chirping.
The smell of a wet grass, soil, leaves that have fallen down to the ground. It's beautiful and colorful fall morning.
My senses are active but I feel still.
The sun is rising not to fast nor to slow. It's becoming more and more prominent as it wants to show self-importance.
And more I stay in the moment the more I am sinking deeper and deeper into the now. Serenity is wrapping around me and I am surrendering in my peaceful aliveness.
Suddenly, everything is still, the world is not moving, nothing exists except me and my moment that I have been captured in.
Motions are everywhere around me and everything is moving, but my brain is perceiving as the world is still by the power of now.
I breathe in... and out...., flawlessly, effortlessly, my heartbeat is more and more coherent with each second spent in my sanctuary now-zone. And I feel happy!
This is all I need in order to begin my day. In a time when so many of our nervous system are on high alert, having right morning routine is a necessity.
And that is me, I have been meditator longer then I've been an adult. It's my way of living. In each situation, I seek that place inside of me that I can feel "at home".
But how many people you know that are running on high voltage, almost able to shock or zap people if being touched?
I wanna talk about those people who are most of the time in a higher alert mode, whose hearts are beating like a crazy, cortisol is constantly high, pupils dilated and mouth dry. People who are wired to feel like they have been chased by the bears all the time.
About people who live in a world of negative possibilities, the state of mind where they are ready and alert for danger, in the hypervigilant state of mind.
"It is exhausting to view the entire world as a potential threat."
Recently I was able to participate in some body-demonstration about how nervous system works when some stressors are present in our body (from allergens, chemicals, stuck emotions or yeast overgrowth).
Basically, what I saw was, that my body is perceiving some very beneficial and life depending things as stressors due to imbalances inside my body. I would feel tired and low energy by being exposed to those beneficial things but couldn't explain myself why.
Then this subject started occupying my mind further and further.
Suddenly I started observing the subtle signs of my nervous system when I am around my family that I love dearly, or friends and relatives. What I noticed was that if I gently touch the arm of the person I care about, but with whom I had experienced stress in the past, even though I strongly believe all the problems have been resolved, I noticed that my body is going into the firefighter mode. I have to admit I was shocked because that's the last thing I need or want. It's like being allergic to your wife, or dad.
By knowing how much emotions play the role in our lives and decisions we make, if they are not healed, it was clear to me that I have some work to do.
"The soul has no secrets that the behavior does not reveal".
Lao Tzu
Let me tell you this example: let's say your husband organizes dinner for you two in order to reconnect and become closer. Having a long history of things not in the best place between you two, you go there thinking you are open and ready for things to be better. But in reality, your brain is scening your environment searching for the smallest sign of "danger". Do you think that dinner will end up with a warm, cozy feeling of togetherness? No, of course not, you and the other side will be driven by those old patterns and pushed to be expressed.
Our brain, in general, is not designed to create happiness but has evolved to promote survival. That biological machine in our head is scanning for problems, and it's very good of predicting them.
That is sort of a good thing because we have inherited the brain that helped our ancestors notice threats in time to act.
Our brain releases the happy chemicals (dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin) in short spurts which are quickly metabolized and it uses for the opportunities to meet our survival needs.
Today many people as we said, live in constant survival mode which exhausts all reserves of happy molecules and they go on an endless search for stimulants. After whom, they feel crashed again and a new fix is needed.
That is how addictions are born.
In my title, I am referring to a person, it can be your wife, your husband, your child, or your sister. I've met many women struggling with high anxiety levels, day by day.
Some scientist believes that today, women tend to have higher rates of depression and anxiety, which are linked to stress. The study suggests that a possible source of the gender discrepancy may be the different ways gut microbiota responds to stress in males vs. females.
Also by being aware how powerful women's hormones are and what they can do to their "sanity", I think as well, that in general women have more triggers, but some of the women are better at connecting with their emotions and expressing them than men, which give them an advantage over this issue.
But it's not a competition, our environment is loaded with stressors, we are all affected.
While we think of a stress through psychological lens we have to be aware that causes distinct physical changes. We don't want to accept stress as a normal way of modern living.
This issue is very close to my heart and hits the home every single day.
At the time when I have faced this issue in people very close to me and started thinking about it, I didn't know much about the brain and my way of looking at that problem was very limited.
I needed to understand and see what can be done.
Survival behavior definitely has it purpose, some people by caring it in their mature age became very successful and make a way up in their career, but that behavior if stays for life has a huge downside.
For a matter of health, personal growth and relationships can be super challenging and debilitating.
I have spent many years working and supporting the process of rewriting those faulty patterns in my loved ones and myself.
I am emotion-reader queen and my scanning systems are in the gifted zone but faced with brains that are wired to be guarded no matter what was something that I didn't know at the time, how to penetrate.
To understand the human behavior you need to dive into many different topics.
I will touch on some for the better understanding.
We need to understand how human soul functions
We need to understand how our biology works: cells and mitochondria
How our wiring in the brain operates and why
Before I dive in the soul function I wanna say a few things on mitochondria.
The biggest number of mitochondria are in ovaries, and the reason is: they act as perfect nature's mechanism to sens the stressors from the environment. Once stress and its level is detected, mitochondria are giving the signal what kind of egg will be produced. If you as a woman (or future mother) were exposed to toxins both external or internal or constant stress you will have an egg and later a child that will be hard wired to stay in survival mode. Not to grow and thrive but rather to survive. Because of all the signals that child was getting, while being in your womb was that outside world is not friendly.
If a child had some sort of early childhood trauma, maybe even before the birth, like the umbilical cord being tied around the neck...that will pretty much determine child's behavior and state of mind.
"When you are in fear you take all available energy of your body and use them for fight or flight purposes. You shut down growth and you shut down the immune system."
Dr. Bruce Lipton
That kind of behavior is called survival-oriented behavior- SOB
When SOB is most pronounced, which occurs under the good amount of stress, the person is emotionally unstable, aggressive, negative, impulsive, irresponsible, very egoistic, self-assertive and unempathic.
These traits may be barely noticeable, if at all when the person is not stressed. Especially so if he/she has been brought up to suppress them, which is not uncommon in some cultures and social settings.
But this “polish” disappears sooner or later when the level of stress increases.
By reading those lines you can relate and recognized those characteristics in people you know, I am almost certain.
It is very hard to live surrounded with that kind of people, even if we understand that most of those people are victims of their circumstances even before they have been self-aware.
We want them to care about us, or our kids, animals, or environment and planet...to show empathy, humility, tolerance, reciprocity in relationships, calmness..etc. But things are not happening.
Now I wanna go deeper into the human soul and its development.
By being a coach I was trained to guide a person into the safe place beyond the land of bears and all kind of scary creatures and situations.
It's presence based coaching and the client is supposed to walk out of survival-oriented behavior and engage more advanced levels of the brain in the prefrontal cortex and enter into the balanced empathic behavior where a person is emotionally stable, thinking become clear, realistic, creative..etc, and stress tolerance is higher.
The more layers we open the closest to the soul we touch.
We have a physical body, energy/spiritual body, and soul. Who disagrees with this, please stop reading I will save you some time.
For those who agree, take a few deep breaths, allow yourself to stay present and let's go!
The physical body has organs, sensory apparatus, brain, internal organs..etc and all of those are that soul can experience the universe through. We are here to develop, not our body but rather the soul through love.
Your physical body and energy body are governed by soul and development of the soul can't be reached by exercising a mind.
Believing, that you can make your mind more loving is wrong because it's a physically impossible. In science, you can see that there is a lot of emphasis on the brain and its ability to control all of the functions of the physical body. At the same time, we are faced with a big mystery of how it manifests the mind. Is it a bunch of nerve cells going on or off can create thoughts and ideas, belief system and personality? There is not even the foggiest answer on this question.
Our senses from the physical body are connected to the senses in our energy body and all of those are connected to the soul.
Many people believe that brain is where the personality of the individual is. But in reality the brain only controls the physiological function of the body, it doesn't control the thought processes or the personality, or emotions of the individual. They can be expressed through the brain.
The majority of the population has suppressed their soul so much that the mind they are using is the "surface mind". And if the soul has unhealed traumas, brain will control physiological processes, not in our favor. That's the one reason we get sick.
Because of something going on in the soul causing an interruption to the flow of energy and the flow of information from the soul to both bodies.
When we engage in the development of our soul the mind becomes subservient.
Also, we often forget about our heart, and the heart of the soul expresses the love based feelings and emotions and they are far more powerful than anything that mind is capable of expressing.
By engaging development of the soul, we are developing many great qualities, like for example humility. As soon as it developed, it takes control over our mind. Which disables us to behave in an arrogant way. Humility will control the thought processes and we will not accept the thought that disagrees with our concepts within our soul.
This understanding of a soul as something much bigger and powerful can help us to be willing to enter the process of soul development or freeing our soul from emotional injuries.
There are many hacks for helping people overcome their survival-oriented behavior.
And SOB is clearly unhealed traumas within the soul that manifests through specific brain wiring and physiological processes of stress.
Some of them can be very helpful like HRV training, Neurofeedback, Advanced brain technologies, 40 years of zen, meditation, NeuroSculping, yoga, REIKI, CranioSacral Therapy, ETF, diet, and supplements as well...breathing techniques...etc
But without clearly understanding that damage is at the soul level and that you need to engage yourself in the emotional process and experience them, the recovery will be at some level but not complete.
You will put a bandage on the wound which will feel much better but you will not be healed.
The biggest fear people have is the fear of experiencing fear itself, it's like feeling the fear of having a dentist visit because it might hurt. Once you pass that wall process is unfolding itself on every level.
Once you remove yourself or your control from its own way process is happening.
Some people need a team of professionals and many pieces of the puzzle to be on the table, but for the rest of the people who live with SOB like with a low-grade fever, a coach can do it a job.
We are not designed to heal through complex systems and programs. The world existed for so long even before technology and modern medicine, people have been experiencing emotional healing and physical healing for centuries.
In fact, we were more resilient in the past than now.
Our body is designed to heal itself, but not giving up of control and suppressing our own soul and emotions will keep us in our prison.
I know how much people suffer day by day and how much people around them suffer as well, my desire is to help them by working with them.
Purely exercising your mind to be positive, and grow in love is like trying to fix your hairstyle on the image in your mirror, it will not help.
But remember:
"Within you, there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself."
Herman Hesse
https://drgrandville2.wordpress.com/survival-oriented-behavior/
https://www.ksl.com/?sid=46182036&nid=1010&title=stress-might-be-just-as-unhealthy-for-women-as-junk-food-byu-study-says
