Namaste,
Dear one.
Thank you for being here.
This is your sacred time.
Time that you have teamed.
That you are worthy of.
Before we begin.
I want you to understand.
What you're about to experience.
Is not a typical relaxation.
Meditation.
This meditation works at two levels at the same time.
At the conscious level,
It will gently explain to you why you have been doing this.
What you have been doing while you freeze when someone is upset with you.
Why you keep reaching for the approval of people who seem unable to fully give it.
Why the patterns you want to change are so difficult to escape,
No matter how much you consciously try.
Understand them.
At the subconscious level.
It will begin to introduce something new directly into your sacred nervous system.
Not through information.
Through imagery.
Body awareness.
And the careful repetition.
Of truths.
That your conscious mind already know.
That your nervous system has never been given permission.
To believe.
Because here is what most approaches to healing miss.
Understanding a pattern.
Talking about a pattern.
Is not the same.
As changing it.
The wound does not live in the mind.
It lives in the body.
In the subconscious nervous system.
In the invisible blueprint that was written before you had any language.
For any of it.
This meditation is one step toward that level.
It is not the complete healing.
It is the first door opening.
All I ask you is this.
Receive it not in your head,
But in your body.
Let the words land.
Where they need to land.
And if something moves you,
Dear one,
Let it.
That movement is not a weakness.
That is the nervous system beginning to thaw.
When you are ready.
Make yourself completely comfortable.
Close your eyes.
And let us begin.
You can sit or lie down.
Whatever allows your body to feel most at ease.
Close your eyes gently.
Not squeezed shut,
Just resting.
Take one slow breath in through your nose.
And release it slowly through your mouth.
Again,
Breathe in.
One more time.
Breathe in.
Slowly and let it go.
I want you to know something about what just happened in your body when you took those breaths.
The longer exhale.
Breathing out more slowly than you breathed in.
Is not accidental.
It activates a specific part of your nervous system.
Called the parasympathetic system,
The rest and digest system.
Heart that tells your brain in this moment.
You can relax.
And you are safe right now.
Part of your brain.
That is capable of living completely.
In the now.
You do not need to brace.
You do not need to scan.
To your body,
To your nervous system.
You can be still.
Most of the people listening to this meditation have nervous systems that rarely receive that signal.
Because a nervous system that grew up in an unpredictable emotional environment learned to stay on alert,
To never fully rest.
To always be ready for the next thing.
That might go wrong.
So those deep breaths were not just breathing.
They were the beginning of teaching your nervous system.
Something.
It may not yet fully believe.
Dear one,
You are safe.
Right now.
Let that in.
In this moment.
In this body.
Nothing is required of you here except to be.
Whatever brought you to this meditation,
Whatever relationship,
Whatever exhaustion.
Whatever that quiet feeling that something is deeply wrong.
That you cannot quite name.
I want you to hear this before we go any further.
Let this sink in.
You,
Dear one.
Are not broken.
You never were.
You are not weak.
You never were.
And what has been happening to you.
Has a reason.
That lives far deeper than anything.
You have been able to see.
From where you have been standing.
In this meditation.
We go a little deeper.
Together.
I want you to bring your awareness.
Gently to your body.
Not to analyze it.
Not to church it.
Not to shame it.
Just to notice it.
Just to observe.
You are an observer now.
A witness.
To how your nervous system has been frozen.
And responds.
Start at the top of your head.
Is there tension there?
Just notice.
Move down to your jaw.
Your neck.
And your shoulders.
For many people who have been in relationships.
Where their feelings were dismissed.
Or criticized.
Or used against them.
The shoulders carry a particular kind of weight.
The weight of bracing.
Of perpetually preparing.
For something.
To go wrong.
If you notice tension there,
Dear one,
You do not need to fix it right now.
Simply acknowledge it.
Place your awareness there for just a moment.
As a gesture.
Of kindness.
Of empathy.
Toward yourself.
Now bring your awareness to your chest.
To the sacred energy center.
That is your heart.
Have you noticed that sometimes when someone in your life is upset.
Or disappointed.
Or even just quiet in a certain way.
Something happens in your chest.
Before you have had a chance to think.
Consciously.
A single thought.
The tightening.
A contraction.
A sudden sense of wrongness.
Of dread.
As if the whole system braces before the mind has had a chance to understand what it is bracing for.
Tier 1.
Here's the brain science of what is actually happening in those moments.
Here we will activate metacognition.
The sacred,
Divine,
Miraculous ability.
To observe.
And to think about the way that you think.
Rather than allow subconscious thoughts to do your thinking for you.
Here is what is actually happening.
In those moments.
Your brain.
My brain.
All brains of all people.
Has a small almond-shaped structure called the amygdala.
Its entire job.
It's default setting,
Something you did not ask for.
Is to scan the environment for anything that feels like threat.
And to sound the alarm.
Before the thinking part of your brain.
Has had even a fraction.
Of a second.
To evaluate.
What is actually happening.
This is not your fault.
In a person who grew up in a safe,
Predictable environment.
The amygdala is relatively calm.
It fires when there is a genuine danger and rests the rest of the time.
In a person who grew up in a home.
Where the emotional climate was unpredictable.
Where love was sometimes warm.
And sometimes withholding.
Where conflict could erupt without warning.
The amygdala became very sensitized.
It learned to fire earlier.
Faster.
And more frequently.
Than in someone who grew up feeling genuinely safe.
This is not your fault.
This is neuroscience.
And it is connected to another structure called the hippocampus.
Which stores every memory.
Of what happened the last time.
You were in a situation that felt like this one.
So the moment the amygdala fires,
The hippocampus floods the entire alarm system with every stored memory of what happened before.
Every time you were criticized.
Every time the silence meant something bad was coming.
Every time you froze and it did not go well.
All of that happens before you have thought a single conscious thought.
Before you have had a chance to assess.
Whether the current situation is actually dangerous.
Or simply familiar.
That phrase you feel.
Is not weakness.
It is not cowardice.
It is not something wrong with your character.
Dear one,
It is a nervous system.
Doing exactly.
What it was designed to do.
Protecting you.
With the only tools that was given.
Before you had any say.
In the matter.
You Here is why so many of us seek approval from those who cannot give it.
I want to explain something to you now.
And I want you to receive it.
Not as information.
But as relief.
If you have found yourself in relationships.
With people who are unavailable.
And critical.
Withholding.
Or unable to truly see you.
And if you have found yourself.
Working harder and harder for a love.
Or approval that never fully arrives.
I want you.
To understand something.
Deep in your body.
Deep in your subconscious mind.
That why.
It is not because you have bad judgment.
It is not because you do not know better.
It is not because you love too much.
Are not enough.
The developmental psychologist Eric Erickson.
Identify the very first stage of emotional development.
As occurring between birth and death.
And approximately 18 months of age.
He called it trust versus mistrust.
And during this window.
Before you had any language.
Before you had any memory you can consciously access.
Your nervous system.
Was asking the most foundational questions.
Of your entire life.
Can I trust that my needs will be met?
Can I trust that the people around me are safe?
How can I trust my own feelings as accurate information?
About the world I have just been born into.
Can I trust that I am worthy of love?
Simply because I exist.
In a home where the caregiver was consistently warm,
Attuned,
And emotionally available.
Those questions were answered with a felt bodily yes by the nervous system.
And the child developed what researchers call a secure base.
Of secure attachment.
An internal sense.
Of his or her own words.
That one could carry with them.
Into every subsequent relationship.
But you're one.
In a home where the caregiver was narcissistic.
Emotionally inconsistent.
Critical.
Or simply too consumed by their own pain to be genuinely present.
Those questions were answered with something else.
Not necessarily a loud no.
Often quiet.
Invisible No.
By the nervous system.
A no that said your needs or inconvenience.
Your feelings are too much.
Love is something that comes and goes based on conditions you cannot always predict or understand.
And you must work constantly.
Which remain worthy of the love that is available.
Dear one,
That conclusion was not made in words.
It was made in a felt experience within the body.
In the nervous system.
And the felt sense of what love requires.
And it became the subconscious blueprint.
For every relationship that followed.
Here is the part.
That is important to understand.
The brain's reward system.
Driven by a chemical called dopamine.
Responds more powerfully to intermittent reinforcement.
The unpredictable giving and withholding of warmth and approval.
Than to consistent nurturing.
This is the same neurological mechanism.
That makes gambling feel compelling.
The nervous system is not drawn to what is healthy.
It is drawn to what is familiar.
Into what triggers the strongest reward response which means that the person who withholds love from you who runs hot and cold.
Who is never quite satisfied with you.
Does not just feel familiar.
They feel magnetic.
Because they match the subconscious template below the veil of consciousness.
They recreate.
The original emotional environment.
In which your nervous system first learned what love felt like.
Do you want?
Please hear this in your nervous system.
You are not seeking approval from people.
Who cannot give it because something is wrong with you.
You are seeking it because your nervous system was taught before you could speak.
That this is what love looks and feels like.
And the body always returns to what it knows.
Every time until the subconscious below the veil template is changed.
Take a deep breath.
There's nothing wrong with you.
It was never you.
It was only programming.
Therefore,
This is not hopeless.
You are not hopeless.
Your situation is not hopeless.
This is the explanation.
And explanations.
When they arrive with enough precision to dissolve the shame.
Are the first step towards something different.
I want you to imagine something with me right now.
Imagine a small child.
Perhaps of three years old.
Or five or eight.
They are doing their best in an environment that gives them mixed signals about their worth.
Some days they are loved warmly.
Other days the same behavior that earned approval yesterday?
Brings criticism today.
They cannot predict the weather of this home.
And so they do what all children do in this situation.
They adapt.
They watch.
They learn to read the room.
Before anyone enters it.
They make themselves smaller.
They suppress what they feel.
They perform a version of themselves that they hope will finally be enough.
Psychologists call this the internal working model.
The attachment template formed in early childhood that becomes the implicit procedural memory system.
Guiding relationship behavior.
Throughout adult life.
All below the veil of consciousness.
It does not operate through conscious thought.
It operates through the body's nervous system.
Through automatic reactions.
Through the felt sense of what is safe.
And what is dangerous.
And what is familiar.
In any given interaction.
Which means the adult mind can now.
Intellectually.
And completely.
Know that a relationship is unhealthy.
And the inner child's nervous system.
Will still read it.
As home.
That child did not disappear when you grew up.
They are still inside you.
Still running the program they wrote in that home.
The program their nervous system runs.
And every time you freeze when someone is upset with you.
It's a recreation of the past.
Every time you find yourself working harder.
And harder for the approval of someone who cannot give it.
That inner child's nervous system.
Is the one calling the shots.
J1,
They deserve to be seen.
Not blamed.
Not fixed.
Seen.
They did everything they could with everything they had.
They were never broken.
They adapted to an environment.
That was not safe for them.
To fully be themselves.
And they have been waiting an entire lifetime for someone to finally understand that.
There is a veil.
Not a physical veil.
A veil of consciousness.
It is the boundary between the subconscious world where the old program runs automatically and the conscious world.
Where you can observe them.
Understand them.
And gradually,
Through deliberate and repeated efforts,
Begin to change them.
Research tells us that approximately 95% of all human mental activity.
Is subconscious.
Which means that only about 5% of what drives your thoughts,
Your reactions,
And choices is available.
To conscious awareness at any given moment.
Below the veil.
And that 95%.
Your old programs are running.
The template you did not ask for plays out.
You're no fault of your own.
The nervous system reaches for the familiar and the person makes choices they cannot fully explain because the force driving those choices is utterly invisible to them.
Above the veil.
In that conscious 5% something different.
Is miraculously possible.
Above the veil.
You can see the program running.
Without being run by it.
You can feel the amygdala firing.
Without becoming the alarm.
You can notice the pull.
Toward the familiar painful.
Dynamic.
Without following it.
Automatically.
This is what neuroscientists call metacognition.
Thinking about your own thinking.
Observing your own mental and emotional processes.
From the outside.
Rather than being trapped inside them.
And research has shown.
That practicing metacognition consciously the deliberate observation.
Of one's own reaction.
Activates the prefrontal cortex,
The most evolved part of the brain.
And reduces amygdala reactivity.
Over time.
In simple terms.
The more you practice watching the program,
Rather than becoming it.
The more the alarm system calms,
And the more the wise choosing part of you.
Comes online.
Above the veil,
You can ask a question that below the veil is simply not available to you.
Is what I am feeling right now.
A true reading of the present moment.
Or is it the past?
Speaking through my nervous system.
Asking me to relive what it already knows.
That question.
Is not a thought.
It is a practice.
And every time you ask it,
Even imperfectly,
You are doing something your nervous system has almost never been given permission to do.
You are choosing above the veil.
Here is what I want you to know about the nervous system.
You have been living in.
Dear one.
It is not permanent.
The template is not fixed.
The blueprint is not final.
The program can be updated.
This is the principle of neuroplasticity.
The brain retains the ability to form new neural pathways.
Through repeated experience for as long as we are alive.
Regardless of your age.
Every time you have a new experience,
A genuinely felt embodied experience of something different from what the old template expected,
A new pathway forms.
And with repetition above the veil.
That pathway strengthens.
The old one does not disappear.
But it loses its dominance.
And eventually the new one becomes your new default.
This is how healing works at the level where it actually needs to happen.
Not through understanding.
Through repeated emotionally engaged new experience at the depth where the old programming lives.
Healing your inner child.
Is not a metaphor.
It is a neurological healing process.
It is the repeated experience of being met with compassion at the subconscious level.
Where the wound was formed.
Until your miraculous nervous system learns.
That it is safe to feel.
To need.
To express and to exist without having to earn the right to any of it.
And generational trauma.
Patterns handed from parent to child.
To grandchild across decades.
Those patterns end.
The moment someone is willing to do the work.
That reaches the level.
Where they actually live.
Not the surface level of behavior and willpower.
The subconscious level.
The level below the veil.
Tier 1.
The cycle can end with you.
Not because you decided it will.
Because you did the work.
You did the work that reaches the level where cycles actually change.
I want to offer you something now.
Not as a belief you have to force yourself to hold.
As a possibility instead.
That you are willing to let in.
Place one hand on your heart.
Feel the warmth of your hand.
Tier 1.
This is not a gesture.
Physical warmth of your hand on your own chest.
Activates the vagus nerve and signals safety to your divine nervous system.
It is a real physiological event.
You are giving your body a new experience of self-contact.
Self-awareness.
And self-care.
At the somatic feeling level.
As I read these words.
Receive them dear one.
Not in your mind.
But in your body.
Let them land.
Where they need to land.
Let them melt into you.
Let them hydrate you.
Each one.
Is new data.
For your miraculous nervous system.
It is the data.
That your nervous system needed.
To update.
Each one.
Is a small repetition.
Of a different possibility.
Let them land.
Open your heart.
Invite this information into.
Your nervous system.
Below the veil.
The approval I have been seeking.
Outside of myself.
Has always lived inside of me.
I have always been enough.
I am not responsible.
For other peoples.
Emotional states.
I am not.
Nor have I ever truly been.
Responsible.
For other people's emotional states.
I am willing to release.
Any responsibility.
That I have been holding on to.
That has caused me.
Live in fear.
Of other people's reactions.
My feelings are real.
My feelings are valid.
My feelings are mine I am willing to release.
In a subconscious belief.
That has had me believing.
That I needed approval.
Or permission.
To feel what I feel.
I am willing to accept.
That the patterns I have been living.
Were not my fault.
My attraction to unhealthy people.
Was not my fault.
Everything was tied.
To a pattern.
I inherited.
And in this moment.
I am choosing.
Now to inherit.
Something different.
From above the veil of consciousness.
I am now allowed.
To exist fully.
To feel fully.
To need and to express.
Without having to earn the right to any of it.
If not to others.
I am willing to practice feeling fully.
And expressing fully.
To myself.
I am willing to be the witness.
Of my true self.
In this moment.
Above the veil.
I am willing to accept.
That the part of me that froze.
Was protecting me.
I honor.
A part of me.
And I am learning.
That it is safe to thaw.
As the witness of my own experiences.
In this moment.
Above the veil.
I am willing to acknowledge.
I am not,
Nor have I ever been,
My subconscious inherited programming.
I am the one.
Who can see the program now.
And observing it.
From above the veil.
And seeing it.
Is the beginning of being free from it.
Tier 1.
Take a slow deep breath.
Exhale gently Allow these new thoughts to integrate.
Into your nervous system.
And be accepted by your subconscious.
Begin to bring your awareness back to the room around you.
Become aware of the noises in your room.
Feel the space beneath you supporting you.
Open your eyes.
Gently smile.
Tell the vagus nerve you are safe.
You are safe and know it.
That you have done the most noble.
And healing works.
Anyone.
Could ever do.
Welcome to living above the veil.
Namaste.
Until next time.
