The Quandary of Evil Tongue
The Evil Tongue Quandary, Preamble I, an Introduction to Trauma Dynamics
Today has been calling to me to start a posting on the spiritual life growth issue raised in the most recent BE page of the www.goop.com website, “Why does it feel good to hear something bad about people you don’t like?” I would like to be able to respond to this query in a single post, but that consideration is too ambitious, and so I won’t get it all down on one blog posting. I’ll break it up. The GOOP evil tongue quandary brings up alot of considerations for me. I think it is a large subject. This particular quandary goes into an important central issue of traumatology: why do we judge? What kinds of traumas happen in our lives, and at what times in our lives, that create in us the need to judge self and other?
I want to explore this concern in a preambling style, and get down some thoughts before No Nonsense (my favorite Crestonian) announces that supper is ready. This is a good day to take on the evil tongue quandary, and so I’ll come out of this introductory stream of consciousness now. It’s time to get to it, fish or cut bait. Let’s see if I can take myself seriously enough (a kind of judgment) to deliver a meaningful essay. OK, here goes….
A basic consideration to keep in mind in the big picture of this essay is that we all carry traumatic memory imprints from our past. Such memories can be of traumas that are overt and obvious, like your parents yelling at you, or striking you, or the memory can be of a more covert type of trauma, like your parents, teachers, and peers subtly shaming you repeatedly over some trivial issues that are probably more their problem than your’s. Think about your boundaries. Both the overt and covert traumas are manipulations of our being, and these acts represent boundary violations, whether we consciously recognize them as such, or not. The overt and covert traumas can be physical, emotional, sexual, or some combination of these 3 forms of experience. The experience is fully imprinted in our subconscious mind, and to variable degrees in our conscious mind.
Over time we consciously forget some trauma experiences, or we may repress them so deeply that the conscious memory is “erased.” I have worked with a number of clients who cannot consciously remember anything in their lives before age 7-10 years. This type of memory issue usually indicates that these people were exposed to, and suffered from, some kinds of difficult traumatic events in the family of origin. Despite our level of conscious memory lapse, the subconsciousness, which is a fast processor, and remembers everything, will harbor the memory of the trauma, and will hold it until it is healed through forgiveness, and subsequent release. Until such healing occurs, our subconsciousness will continue to shape the conscious mind according to the perceptions and beliefs held in the subconsciousness.
Through the course of the experiences of an ordinary day, the subconsciousness informs the conscious mind via a variety of dynamically interactive and entangled belief filters. These belief filters are very very busy at any given moment sifting through the enormous amount of input from our sensory field, our internal physical field, our LightBody field, our transdimensional connection to Superconsciousness (Soul/Spirit), and last but not least, from the conscious mind itself. There is a 2 way communication between the conscious and subconscious minds that we can become aware of, and utilize for our growth and healing. For example, some people use conscious mind affirmations to help shift subconscious mind beliefs. This technique helps somewht, but a full subconscious shift usually requires healing at the subconscious level.
All moments of unfolding time and events, both perceived events, and those beyond the event horizon, are experienced by the fast processing subconscious mindfield (encompassing physical body, LightBody, and Beyond), and the processed understanding moves into the conscious mind through our belief filters. A response to the event of the moment is then enacted by the conscious mind.
The filters allow only so much information to filter into the consciousness, usually only what we can handle for normal reasonable functioning. Essentially, belief filters serve to protect us from overwhelm. What do you think you would experience if everything in your subconsciousness came flooding up into your consciousness?
Many of us, lacking resiliency, as is the case, would probably short circuit into a dissociative blob, an extreme form of denial. It’s probably a good thing we have the denial mechanism, as it serves to protect us from degrees of overwhelm. It is a good idea to become familiar with our denial mechanism. Such familiarity will help guide us to heal the source of the denial process. This development serves to build resiliency, accountability, responsibility, good choices, reliability, and freedom in our daily lives.
While the denial mechanism may serve to protect us at some level, it is also the source of our self sabotage patterns of reaction. It hinders our progress into what Joseph Campbell referred to as “the threshold of adventure.” Our Hero’s Journey is truncated on a daily basis by the workings of the denial mechanism. We are inhibited from moving into the apotheosis, and coming away with the Gift to develop and share with humanity. Instead, we return to the comfort zone of our humdrum existence when faced with a challenging opportunity to open into, and advance into our life growth.
Please keep in mind that we do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. We see the world from the level of the belief filters of the subconscious mind. The subconscious filters are like the filters a photographer places over their camera lens to change the recorded image to some degree, altering the perception of reality. We can see the world as it is, or we can see the filtered version. Another example is the “news” on television. That so-called news is highly filtered and sanitized by the filter controllers. To get to the real news, one has to dig deeper and seek out unfiltered news (See the “Useful Websites and Perspectives” blog where I listed some real news resources. See how you handle it. You may need to allow yourself a practice of some of your resiliency to be able to open up to some real news.).
The nature of the belief filters that one is operating from can be discerned through investigation, such as is developed in a healing spiritual psychological technique known as Psych-K (www.psych-k.com), developed by my fellow Crestonian Rob Williams. Faulty belief filters can be corrected through the Psych-K techniques. Other forms of trauma healing can occur through Reconnective Healing (www.thereconnection.com), which I practice. There is also the well known technique known as Somatic Experiencing (www.traumahealing.com), as developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D. There are many styles and ways to heal our traumas and resultant beliefs about ourselves. These are just some examples. A short bibliography will be offfered below.
An example of a typical subconscious belief filter that can become established in a traumatized individual is, “I am unworthy of the best that life and love have to offer.” Such a belief filter can be diagnosed, and healed into the positive, “I am worthy of the best that life and love have to offer.” In consideration of belief filters, one can regard any kind of belief filter as an example of how one is going to view the world; i.e., judge the world and one’s ongoing experiences.
One will only be able to give to others what it is that one owns. The self judgement that one owns is the kind of judgment that one will have to give away to others. If one’s self judgement is negative, then one will give that kind of judgment to others. One will judge others negatively, just as they have so judged themself. On the other hand, if one has healthy loving judgments of self, then one will project that energy onto others, and give them that.
If one is triggered by a life experience in a fashion which evokes a trauma memory, and if too much difficult trauma memory information comes flooding up from the subconsciousness, then the individual can go into a dissociative state, and devolve into incompetence, or just “check out.” This is also known as being overwhelmed. We can think of trauma as a sort of memory disorder. We can also think of it as a disorder of perception. We can also think of trauma as a disorder of individual resiliency in the face of the trigger. So, memory, perception, and resiliency are important variables to consider as we self study our inner trauma repository, and how to heal it.
Regarding the exact words of the Evil Tongue question, we are having a look at the query “Why does it feel good to hear something bad about people you don’t like?” In the GOOP blog answers to this question we can see the finely worded responses of noted thinkers and spiritual leaders: a Kabbalist, a Sufi, an Episcopal priest, a Zen Master, and a NYC psychologist. These luminaries probably were given a certain limitation of space and number of words in which to ponder this important human judgment quagmire.
As for my uninvited response, I’ll have more liberty of time and space to develop a response, and perhaps discover a practical remedy. If you re-read all of the above, you will note that all of these preceding sentences are sorts of judgments. What else do we do with our thoughts but label and redefine? What do you think it would be like if we experienced the quietness of our own Being? No chattering Brain Mind, but just the expressly elevated emotional frequencies of Love, Joy, Peace, Enlightenment. These are wordless states of being, and judgment fades out as a non sequitur when we transcend our cerebral meanderings. At a certain state of our development and evolution, we simply lose interest in judgment and judging.
The Evil Tongue, Preamble II, an Introduction to the Emotional Toolbox
The 5 GOOP responses to the Evil Tongue question covered the issue of how individual feelings of low self esteem create a world view in the wounded individual of their felt need for some kind of one-upmanship over other in order to feel some sense of improved self worth and self esteem. So, we are dealing with the issue of a person who is expressing a feeling of what it feels like to be themself, which is a feeling of low self worth, and that individual might feel better, perhaps, by bringing others down, at least to their level, if not lower; yet another judgment of the mess. A concomitant concern is the feeling of the need for revenge, which is a construct of held shadowy grief, shadowy fear, shadowy anger, and shadowy pride, and all of this represents an amplification of simple one-upsmanship, and an unknowing of how to use emotions correctly.
There are 6 emotional frequencies which can be expressed in the shadow, and they can also be expressed in the positive utilitarian manner for which they were intended to be used inside of our emotional toolbox. That intended use would be that these emotions are actually placed in our being to help protect and heal our lives, not to be used to recreate our traumatic reflexed memory patterns. All total, there are 17 key emotional frequencies, which one can think of as an arrangement of an energetic spectrum, from low frequency states, wherein our mind feels very opaque and clouded, with low energy in the body; to higher and higher frequencies, where we have more and more energy in the body, and the mind has increasing clarity and one-pointedness.
The 6 emotions in this scale, which can be expressed as shadow or utilitarian, are apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, and pride. These are expressed as shadow when we are influenced by our unresolved traumas, which bring shame and guilt to push the emotion into the shadow. On the other hand, these feelings can also be expressed as utilitarian emotions when we shift the frequency to the positive, and use the emotional feeling in the body to protect and heal our lives. The emotional toolbox will be explored over and over again in this blog site. Shame and guilt are the 2 lowest of the emotional states, and these 2 states are like being next to dead.
When shame and guilt are active, it indicates that the individual is responding from a held trauma memory, and will use the next 6 higher emotional frequencies (apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, and pride) in a shadowy fashion. The ability of the individual to ascend to the higher emotional frequencies of courage, willingness, neutrality, acceptance (forgiveness), reason, love, joy, peace and enlightenment will likely be truncated by their cloud of unknowing. Inside of this paragraph all 17 of the emotions in our emotional toolbox have been mentioned. We will organize the toolbox later.
The shift from the shadow feeling state to the positive utilitarian state requires a recognition of the shadow, and a subsequent conscious shift to the positive expression of the emotion. This conscious shift takes practice, and is aided by the initiation of healing trauma memory and reflex at the subconscious level. Healing at the subconscious level gets the trauma imprint out of the flesh, and out of the LightBody, where it is also memoried. Healing at this level releases the karmic imprint from the past. This level of healing is possible through a variety of techniques which approach the issue at the cognitive conscious level and also at the subconscious energetic vibrational level, as was alluded to in Preamble I above.
The recognition of the shadow emotion requires that the individual allows themself to actually experience the intensity of the shadow without denying it, or suppressing and repressing the feeling back into the inner world that it comes from. We have to relinquish what I call active resistance and active disbelief about our inner landscape in order to gain the toehold that will enable healing. This practice of self awareness is also called “mindfulness.” The development of mindfulness takes practice. Practice makes the master.
In allowing ourselves to feel the shadow states, we get to know them and their unique individualized dynamics intimately. As the spiritual warrior knows, “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” We need to know what our enemies on the path are up to. In witnessing and knowing our inner dynamic of negative shadow emotion states, we find the means by which we can shift them into the positive utilitarian format of practice. As we practice this shift at a level of conscious competence, our practice eventually evolves into unconscious competence. At this level of competence we are reflexively responding in the positive utilitarian state. We no longer have to think about it (as we do in conscious competence). It simply is what we have become. It’s what we do. Our belief filters have also shifted to aid our conscious mind efforts. The enemies have fallen away. We have lost interest in exerting our energies into judgments.
Chaotic negative shadow feeling states are projected by the Heart into the quantum field, and inform the field of what we are intending to attract as an arriving future manifestation of a life event (a recreation of the trauma imprint, usually). I call this methodology of manifestation the attraction of a future memory. The future memory that we attract is going to be a mirror of the vibrational state that our Heart Mind was vibrating at back when we launched the “rocket of desire” out into the field of the Mind of God. We manifest in the present moment based on how our heart is doing, how its vibrational frequency is set. Heart has a range of frequencies which have been studied, and can be easily measured with biofeedback devices. This issue of Heart electromagnetics was covered briefly back in the blog posting entitled, “A Mother’s Day Message, An Attack of Common Sense.”
Furthermore, these chaotic (or non chaotic frequencies, known as resonant frequency) energetics are also transmitted from the Heart to all the cells of the body, and inform the DNA and cellular matrix of the chaos frequencies which create chaotic cell growth patterns, otherwise known as the various labeled disease states referenced in all medical texts. There are many types of disease states. All of them have unresolved emotional chaos (trauma memory patterns= unresolved shame and guilt) as their basis. So called disease diagnoses are simply labels put on a symptom complex carried by a unique individual with unforgiven issues. Forgiveness is the only way we heal.
No Nonsense says supper is ready. Got to go, posting blog, turning off computer.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond. Love.
PS- it is a few days later, and I realize that you may want a bibliography from experts which supports Preambles I and II, and so here it is for your consideration. I have arranged the bibliography in an order which matches the flow of information in the text.
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Psych-K, the Missing Peace in Your Life by Rob Williams. Rob is the founder of the Psych-K technique, and he lives down here at the end of the road with the rest of us Crestonians. He is way up on the hillside at a vantage point from which the entire San Luis Valley can be viewed. He gets channelings from Spirit side about the next ongoing Psych-K development. Psych-K is on the move. Teachers and facilitators of this technique come to tiny Crestone from all over the world.
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The Reconnection by Eric Pearl. I referenced this autobiography of healing in the bibliography posted on May 13, 2009, entitled “Names of LightBody and Bibliography.” This book is a pretty fascinating treatise on healing, and introduces a type of energetic technique known as Reconnective Healing. This hands off of body energy healing technique replaced the surgery I used to do.
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Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine, Ph.D. This is the textbook of Somatic Experiencing, and it is excellent, and stands as the authoritative text on the subject. Dr. Levine has spawned several noted students who have taught me, and their texts are mentioned next. There is a companion audio series to this text entitled “Healing Trauma, Restoring the Wisdom in the Body,” narrated by Peter Levine, and is available from Sounds True, www.soundstrue.com.
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The Body Bears the Burden by Robert Scaer, M.D. A Boulder, CO neurologist, my friend and teacher, offers a tour de force of scientific understanding about how trauma affects the physical body. Bob was taught by Peter Levine, and he now goes around the world giving lectures on traumatology to science/medical types as well as the lay public.
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The Trauma Spectrum, Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency by Robert Scaer, M.D. This is a follow on text to Bob’s first text, and is even more scholarly. Neurophysiology, brain memory pathways, Freud, Pavlovian conditioning, fetal development, the modern birthing process, the “little traumas” of everyday life, etc.; all get spun into our health and disease over the course of our lives. This is probably the best text to pick up, even though Peter Levine’s is simpler. This text should be a primary text in every medical school.
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Crash Course, A Self Healing Guide to Auto Accident Trauma and Recovery by Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. Diane also goes around the world teaching Dr. Levine’s Somatic Experiencing technique. She and Dr. Scaer are students of one another, and Dr. Levine, and fortunately for me, they both took me to school. While this book addresses a common type of debilitating trauma, the automobile accident, and the sequelae of the accident, the book also is a good treatise on the principles of trauma healing.
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Trauma Energetics by William Redpath. A client and student of Peter Levine takes traumatology into his personal meditational holistic vision in this autobiographical account.
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The Divided Mind, The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders by John Sarno, M.D. All of Dr. Sarno’s books on the mindbody issue are quite good. His books really belong in the new field of traumatology because it is our traumas which inform the mindbody.
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Power vs. Force by David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. Here is a widely regarded book, and I recommend a perusal of pages 68 and 69 which is a charting of the 17 emotional frequencies. The chart is called “Map of Consciousness.” Dr. Hawkins does not mention anywhere in his text that the emotional frequencies of apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, and pride have a very important role to play in protecting and healing our lives. Once we resolve our traumas, and the shame/guilt frequencies which are triggered by how we memory and reenact our trauma response, then we can begin to meaningfully practice these 6 key emotions in the positive utilitarian manner that these emotions are intended for. This text is worth getting simply to note this chart, despite its obvious shortcoming. The book is a best seller, and so it is good overall.
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The Sedona Method, by Lester Levenson. This is an audio series and is offered by the Sedona Training Associates in Sedona, AZ, www.sedona.com. Dr. Hawkins influenced these teachers and these teachers influenced Dr. Hawkins. It’s a chicken and the egg phenomenon. I discovered this jewel back in May, 2001, and it really aided my life growth.
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Emotional Genius, Discovering the Deepest Language of the Soul by Karla McLaren. Now we’re talking. A trauma survivor helps us understand that our emotions are feelings that live in the body and are attempting to inform us about something. Now what could that be?
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Wherever You Go There You Are, Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. I recommend that everyone have this book and read it from time to time. The chapters are a smashing 2-6 pages long, and give the reader straightforward simplicity about how to deal with one’s cerebral thought stuff. Since the seat of the mind is the Heart, the book is actually a book about how to be full of Heart Mind. If you think about your Brain Mind which is rattling off Judge, Critic, Skeptic, Pusher, and Victim from moment to moment, you will come to the conclusion that you don’t want to be “full” of that kind of Mind. You want to be “full” of Heart Mind, which is silent, except for the breath that swirls around it, and the sounds of the 4 valves closing. Mindfulness is a daily walking around practice that connects you to the fullness of the Heart, your Heart. On our healing and evolution journey, we have to be connected to the messaging, passions, and Gifts that our Heart Mind is attempting to inform us about.
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www.abraham-hicks.com. This is the website of the Spirit side beings (channeling through Esther Hicks) which have brought us The Law of Attraction, or, how we manifest. The principles are correct, but they have not organized, and don’t speak about the emotional frequencies, in correct order. It’s true, the Spirit side beings are informing Esther incorrectly about the order of emotional frequencies. This is important because they want us to access higher emotional frequencies in order to allow our point of vibrational offering to be in alignment with our point of vibrational attraction. But Dang! Somebody has the ordering of the frequencies messed up. They need to read Dr. David Hawkin’s text Power vs. Force, mentioned above, and keep in mind that Dr. Hawkins has not mentioned the positive utilitarian usage of 6 key emotional frequencies! Nonetheless, The Law of Attraction is worth studying if you want to learn about how you can manifest your desires and dreams. Esther Hicks was featured on the first version of the recently popular video “The Secret.” Unfortunately, she requested that her presence on the video be removed for reasons that I don’t understand. The subsequent edition was not as complete, but it is still good. I was able to see the first edition of “The Secret” on one occasion, and fortunately, I took alot of fast written notes, which I later edited, and still use with my clients.
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www.heartmath.org. This is where I learned about what the heart is doing besides pumping blood around, arguably the least important of its functions. Actually, Swami Muktananda taught me about the Heart back in 1979, and he forecast that science would soon start elucidating Heart’s higher functions. When we cross over to life after life, the blood pumping function of the Heart ceases, but the other functions will continue. They don’t discuss this important principle at HeartMath. I cooked up this spiritual extension of the obvious, based on what Muktananda taught me. The HeartMath Institute is offering a valuable scientific perspective on heart bioenergetics, that’s all. Remember, it is the vibrational frequencies that we are broadcasting from our Hearts that are responsible for what we are attracting from the Mind of God. I put this heart bioenergetics information together with the secrets of manifestation, the emotional frequencies toolbox, and the science of traumatology, and I began to figure a few things out. That is some of what I offer in the Haelan LifeStream model. It’s just a bunch of common sense, like an open secret.
Coming up next isThe Evil Tongue Quandary, Preamble III, where I will discuss the 5 Levels of Competence. These Levels of Competence apply to any life endeavor, from healing our world, to engaging with any worldly pursuit therein.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond. Love.