Ch 3 - HOW THE 'WORDS' OF THE BLOCKS KEEP US STUCK

CHAPTER 3:

HOW THE 'WORDS' OF THE BLOCKS KEEP US STUCK
This is an overview of the unconscious belief statements that run us.
What they are, when they were put inside us, and by whom.


Now I'll further explain what's inside these blockages that makes them have a behavior of their own. The root cause of the sabotage is a set of unconscious belief statements intertwined with the unreleased trauma. Both beliefs and trauma are contained in that tight musculature I mentioned. And they're also part of that shell that surrounds the core of your being, much like a poncho covers your whole body. So the beliefs you developed in past experiences are part of your present day shell behavior. It's like another person along side you, but one who has a specific, and inflexible way of behaving.

To expand on what I've said, these belief statements and trauma are the residues of a number of your past experiences, all of the same type, but from different time periods. You don't recognize the belief systems for what they are because of the way they're embedded. The unreleased trauma in the experiences keeps you from consciously seeing and understanding what the beliefs are. It also keeps you from releasing them through methods like rebirthing and the Structural Integration Bodywork all by itself. Both of these treatments can remove some traumatic energy, but they don't remove the words.

Here is how these beliefs get imbedded and how they work.

It's been discovered that in an alpha state, our subconscious minds absorb and record, in literal form, all the energies around us. This means they act like tape recordings or computer memories. Whatever gets recorded stays just that way, and when replayed, makes an exact copy of what's inside. They're different from our conscious minds that can analyze and update anything we think about. These recordings can't do that.

Alpha states occur when we're touched as well as when we're relaxed, sleeping or meditating. They occur when we're injured and when we tense up under overwhelming circumstances. In our mother's womb, we recorded everything she experienced, consciously and unconsciously, into our own subconscious minds. During birth and in infancy, and in the rest of the 'pre-verbal' years, we also get imprinted with what is going on around us, including the words that are said by doctors, nurses, parents and other adults and children. When there aren't verbally spoken words, we 'get the message' anyway, from the emotional and physical energies of these people, as well as from our own direct feelings.

These are not purposeful commands as we normally think of them. It's not like droning subliminal messages. It's simply the recording of everyday statements, either spoken, thought or embodied within emotions.

The reason we get the programming in the subconscious mind is that the conscious mind is pre-occupied or asleep. It then goes in directly, without conscious interpretation or knowledge. We get it out the same way. This programming is very similar to what we do when we play subliminal message tapes. We are not interpreting the words being spoken with our conscious minds. In fact we don't even hear them. We are just busy watching TV, listening to other taped music, working around the house, or even sleeping. The conscious mind is distracted and the other words go right into the sub-conscious mind like a tape recording.

So in a Netherton session, we reverse the process. We focus on the physical sensations of the body, or our emotional feelings, or the literal words that express what we're feeling. These are direct experiences of the state of our being in this present moment. As we focus our attention on these things, we get information about what happened when they were formed. This information is also in the form of direct experience, of physical and emotional energies, and of word pronunciations. Because it comes to consciousness, we can immediately reflect upon it and describe the incident from a third person perspective. An original picture in our mind's eye might show a picture of a baby in pain and the person's adult body feels the sensation of that pain. The verbal thought that comes to mind says, "I'm frightened." When spoken, these words express the energies in the same form in which the experience was stored in the subconscious mind. It is the same form that was originally experienced many years ago.

This kind of expression results in a direct release of the material. If, instead, the adult reports that "The baby is lying in its crib and is in pain, and feels frightened," it is a conscious interpretation of the event from an observer standpoint. This never releases the experience because one part of the body is commenting about the other. The stuff went directly into the sub-conscious mind and it must come out the same way. With the process, we also happen to be the witness so we can learn more about ourselves and what we do.

The same processing works for other people's words, too. We all pick up experiences from other people with our whole bodies, not just with the eyes, ears, nose, etc. In alpha state experiences, Mother might be confronting the small child with an angry look, a grasp and shake on both arms, and the words, "You're bad." When a person experiences the physical tension and the grasping and shaking sensations, they will also have the words, "You're bad," and others, come to mind. When felt directly with the conscious mind, and expressed in the exact manner Mother used, these energies come out of the unconscious mind because we are channeling them out of us. When we report on what Mother did, the conscious mind has interpreted the data and this does not allow the actual material to flow out. The conscious mind has actually concocted additional words and statements that did not exist in the real experience. "Mother said we were bad" is not the same thing as "You're bad."

Many belief statements appear as warnings. "I'd better be cautious about doing such and such or something bad will happen to me," relates directly with a fear that says, "I'm afraid to do such and such." In early life, and in past lives, such and such did happen, with dire consequences.
As I explain in the last chapter about karma and 'being ready to release,' no one I've ever met has altered their common sense about caution after they release these kinds of fears that stemmed from past experiences. More so, they are more open to the cautionary words of others, and apply them quite readily, but with prudent concern and not upset and argumentive fear. This change is immediately noticeable by the person and practitioner, in the same session that affects the release, and in the weeks following. Since each pattern consists of many episodes all saying the same thing, it is only fair to say that this release and change of behavior occurs in stages, as more and more episodes are released, rather than all at once.

My own common sense, and belief in a supportive universe, causes me to postulate that people who have warnings placed into their subconscious minds were too reckless to begin with. Once they have integrated these concerns into their general attitudes, the emotionally charged belief statements that forced them to act this way can be removed.

I believe it is important, and quite natural, to share this information about prudent concern with my clients. I explain to them that they have now been able to release the emotional trauma that's been forcing them into the caution because they have already incorporated the concern into their adult awareness about life.

As a general rule, the experiences we have as adults reinforce the belief statements that were entered into our sub-conscious minds before we can remember. This reinforcement is necessary to drive home the lesson. "See, it's true! It does happen to you. When I do such and such I do get hurt." Well, sure. That's part of the program. The pattern is always set up so you get hurt. That's the kind of event that put the original tape recording into your subconscious mind in the first place.

As long as you heed the warnings to the letter, we'll minimize the painful experiences. But we can't always be in control of the world, and a number always sneak through.

This can trick us. Some people only relate to what they experienced from late childhood on. But these are not the experiences that are really running them. Except in certain circumstances, physical attacks in adulthood are not overwhelmingly shocking experiences that shattered the organization of our consciousness. Even in the midst of rapes, moderate beatings and holdups, there is some amount of conscious awareness, usually described as analytically thinking how can I survive this.

Yet some people get really stuck in their heads on this position because of the energy pattern of unconscious fear they experienced in the huge physical overwhelming experiences of infancy. It is this fear that causes them to be argumentative. One way to describe what's happening is that their energies are running up to the analytical center of the brain, and away from the pain they experienced in their bodies. But it's not a conscious volitional running. The energy pattern was created in the midst of the physical trauma. Since it's not removed, it stays there along with the rest of the pattern's words, physical experiences and emotions.

As I've mentioned, blocks, by their very nature, block us from taking action. As I said, embedded within the block are the command statements that tell us that if we don't have these worries and concerns, something bad will happen to us. This alone is not enough to create the block, however. The fear in the body, that I mentioned, from infancy, keeps people from looking into that very old past traumatic experience and releasing it. The result is a person who resists processing out the material. Their awareness mind believes the thoughts of fear are theirs, as objective reports about the events they can remember. Since that is all a conscious mind can remember, it is understandable why these people are being fooled.

The only two ways I know of to free a person from this stuckness are with Structural Integration Bodywork and/or strong breath concentration meditation in the lower abdomen. (I suppose a serious Yoga practice can also do it.)

The Bodywork will remove most of the adult experiences from their physical form and dissolve the fears and belief statements generated in those episodes at the same time. Even if nothing else is done, the kinds of things people start noticing that, to some degree, what happens to them now is different than what happened before. If they're aware, they'll notice that the bad things do come up, but only when some fear triggered them into the old pattern. Once fearfulness activates the old pattern, all the elements of that pattern again come to life, and it's the way a person experiences life around him.

The breath concentration meditation in the lower abdomen will shift the place of consciousness from the person's head into his (or her) body, but physically below the fear chakra that is located in the solar plexus. When the self-awareness part of us in the forehead, or sixth chakra, looks down into the body, it runs into the fear bubbling up out of the solar plexus. The complementary side of this fear is control, also located in the third chakra.

So when the awareness mind looks down, the ways to control, or prevent the trauma from happening, are also there. "I'd better not behave that way, or I'll die," is one of those control statements. When we develop a 'bigger' mind energy, centered underneath the fear/control chakra, we do not get run by those emotionally charged statements so much. They appear, but we can see them from an observer standpoint, and do something about them. Unfortunately, many people are, instead, stuck in their heads. The Bodywork also helps release these rigidified patterns of only living in the head, very quickly.

Alpha states record 'good' times as well as 'bad' ones, but it is the bad ones that keep perpetuating problems. But processing out the 'bad' ones does result in 'good' experiences. We can, and do, use the Netherton techniques to reinforce positive behavioral development. We bring people to a clear place where the blocks are removed and no longer lock in the inner potential of that person.

During the processing, this also provides deeper information about what was going on 'inside' our parents that we were never aware of. It also tells us things that happened before, during and soon after we were born that our parents never told us about. This information can, and has, corrected mis-perceptions of how people's parents felt about them and treated them when they were very young. As you will see later in this book, one result of the therapy is an improved understanding about our parents. This allows many people to relate with them in a more appreciative and loving way.

The set of unconscious experiences that create a belief system is arranged as an inter-related matrix, and scenarios are peeled off the top of its stack in the order most affecting our immediate behavior. This happens quite naturally when a person processes them out. The material in the stack started accumulating at conception and continued to pile up and inter-relate through the periods of prenatal, birth, infancy and childhood. And while some teenage and adult events are significant, the 'behavior pattern' always seems to be formed in the early years. If anything significant happens later on, it's been set up and attracted into the person's life by the earlier patterns.

The episodes are not organized vertically in the 'stack' in the chronological order they were put in. They are arranged according to the strength of their energy and in what their belief statements say. All unpleasant past episodes do not have to be re-experienced for a person to get their issues resolved. Rather, the arrangement is more like a three dimensional crystalline structure. Depending on how the issue is affecting the client, and on what stage of therapy he or she is in, different episodes will be more prominent than others. And removing the most prominent ones usually collapses the structure.

The therapist can facilitate the process through careful analysis and his or her trained ear can pick up the emotional nuances of the client's words. Sometimes an argument in the teenage years sounds like something that happened between two adults in the pre-natal. Other times, a big block that stops a person from moving forward in a career can be cleared by removing the actual blocks that were created in childhood, infancy and birth. Clients can be guided to work out earlier and earlier episodes in the same stack, and do so quite readily.

People who just hate going over this material time and time again can be encouraged by the fact that when the original tapes are being cleared they're not just rehashing old events; they are removing old, original energy with focused verbal statements. And once they're out, no more rehashing tends to come up.

It's important to understand that the ORIGINAL voices and many of the emotions in the blocks we experience were not our own. The dramas we carry around with us are recordings of our parents and grandparents, of the doctors, nurses and others at birth. In these very early events, long before we ever learned to speak, and even before we were born, the recordings of others became inter-mixed with what we ourselves were feeling. The real life relevancy of these dramas was to situations that took place many years ago. But the energies still reside in our bodies and minds as 'present tense scenarios.' When the're triggered by current events, they take on a life of their own, in our current situations. This causes us to react in ways we find troubling. It's the old patterns that are reacting.

Because of these early program tapes, experiences of the same type occur when we're older children, teenagers and adults. Since we can remember what happened at these times, we think all of this is our own 'stuff.' But the 'text' of the play was actually 'written' into us years earlier; in infancy when we can't remember, and in the pre-natal where the two sides are acted out by Mommy and Daddy, even starting with what they were thinking at conception. We just end up acting out one side of the story while people around us act out the other.

Since most of us grow up with the same parents we had from conception to infancy, it's easy to see how the same patterns will perpetuate in childhood. When we grow up, we often act so much like one parent, or the other, or both. This might be because we consciously copied them in childhood, but it is always because their behaviors around us when we were infants and unborns literally got recorded in our minds.

There are other scenarios, in the same stack, that are called 'past life experiences.' Yet, as I said in the introduction, whether one believes in past lives or not, doesn't seem to matter. The scenarios are always there and can be processed out of our un-conscious minds. In fact, the elimination of these scenarios is just as important as the elimination of those from prenatal, birth, infancy and childhood. Some people who can't do the work if they call them past lives call it processing from 'the creative unconscious.' And it's amazing how the experiences are just as complete and detailed as any events from the different time periods of what we call this life.

It's also important to eliminate occurrences in the teen and adult years if they included life-threatening experiences and emotions, or were periods when we were physically unconscious. This includes wars, gang violence, automobile crashes, parental violence, rape, operations when we were under general anesthesia and so forth. The same therapy can also be applied to remove the incompleted 'residue' from significant emotional events, such as the loss of a loved one, either through death, divorce or some other breakup.

In all of these kinds of experiences, what other people say gets recorded into our sub-conscious minds and take on the nature of command statements. To remove these subliminal commands, we have to release the original episodes out of our bodies and minds.

In past lives, or whatever you wish to call them, traumatic situations similar to those in this life, are accessed in the therapy, and their original tapes are erased, too. Morris Netherton offers the explanation that, as souls, we have 'issues' to work out in order to learn universal love and compassion. He theorizes that we select a mother (and father) who have many of the same issues, so we then have another chance to work them out.

The period of re-seeding the issues occurs from conception to birth and the words are those of the people around us. As a soul energy being, we have the issues. But in order to force us to work them out, they have to be implanted in our physical bodies and sub-conscious minds, so we again think they are our own issues. Thus, they're put into the unconscious mind, as programs, or scripts.

I would say that Christians, who don't believe in past lives, might understand this process as a way of breaking down their own internal barriers that cause them to behave in ways they know they shouldn't. Spiritual counseling to help us be better people has limitations. It does not remove these imbedded attitudes I've been talking about. The material to be released is very deep in the psyche, and experience has shown that releasing it with this kind of process has helped get rid of negative behavior in people of all faiths. In this regard, Netherton is accurate when he says this therapy is similar to others of the same vein, only it goes back further, or deeper. It is a psychological procedure, not a religious one.