The Strategies of the Unconscious
When guiding an individual in a session, I am a neutral observer of two aspects of consciousness.
The higher consciousness of an individual wants to heal. It wants to bring the body into balance and the energetic flow into alignment. Anything that prevents this natural healthy state, higher consciousness wants to resolve.
On the other hand, the unconscious aspect of an individual wants to protect itself. It does not like change. It prefers to avoid, guard, distract and deny any imbalance, especially if it is related to an unresolved past trauma that has caused pain.
In a guidance session, an individual’s consciousness communicates clearly. It directs me to where the physical imbalance and energetic misalignment is in the body. It directs me to the unconscious protection that is in place. My job is to gently and consistently facilitate communication to bring the unconscious self into more consciousness so healing can occur.
In sessions, we want to reveal the unconscious self’s strategies so that we can understand them and work to change them. To do this, our conscious self has to have a stronger agenda than our unconscious self.
Yet the unconscious self has a strategy, in many cases it is one that has been developed and refined for years. The unconscious self is quite proficient in finding ways to distract us from our trauma. It will manipulate the brain to strategize every possible way to avoid trauma, instead of heal it.
There are many ways our unconscious self strategizes to avoid pain. It uses substances to avoid feeling. It seeks pleasure as a distraction. It uses work or the creation of new projects so there is no time available to uncover its tricks.
The unconscious self easily identifies its own trauma in other people. It can be hyper-focused and critical of other’s behaviors as a way to distract from its own. It will often externalize, blaming others for its discomfort. It will go to great lengths to avoid any type of information that may reveal the trauma hidden within.
To heal trauma, it is necessary to continually strengthen consciousness, in order to diminish unconsciousness. We do this with a practice of consistent awareness, and repetition of new thought and action. Since our brain relies upon memory of past experience to learn, this is a process which takes deeper understanding and patience.
We want to be compassionate of our unconscious self. We want to recognize how hard it is working to protect us, and understand why it is afraid. Once we reveal what memories it is protecting, we can discover and unravel all of the strategies it has developed.
Sitting still with the intention to connect with our feelings, allows us access to what our unconscious self has been fiercely protecting us from. Yet often when uncomfortable feelings arise, many of us stop sitting still. We find it easier to reinforce a strategy to protect ourselves than to participate with our consciousness to activate a process of healing.
As someone who has gone through the process of healing trauma, it is hard to explain what it feels like to be free of trauma – no longer running, hiding, avoiding or denying. To be able to stay connected to your body, to feel fully without resistance, to participate with consciousness – is an experience that is indescribable.
My experience of clearing my mind and body of trauma, and supporting clients through this healing process, has given me the knowing that it is possible for everyone to eventually be free of trauma.
There is only one thing we can take with us when we leave this beautiful earth – it is our consciousness. If we want to discover a deeper state of love for ourselves, others and the earth, and to create the best possible experience in this lifetime, we will want to engage with our consciousness and work to expand it. How else would we want to spend our valuable time?
Photograph by Erik Kossakowski
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