Heroes in Business - Symptoms may not be the Problem Patterns

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Guided Self Healing Fearless Living: Sometimes the problems you come to heal are the Problem, and sometimes they are Symptoms of deeper Problems, Universal Patterns. Working on symptoms or echoes of foundational patterns is limited.

Hi, my name is Andy Hahn and I am coming to you again from my library in Waltham, Massachusetts, and this is episode number six of Guided Self-Healing, Fearless Living. And this episode we're going to call, Your Problem may not be the problem, patterns, which we had talked about last week, we were going to talk about today. Now, let me give you an example of why this is important, why patterns are important when you're doing your healing. And I'm going to take the example I gave way back in an earlier episode when we were talking about healing and what why people suffer and that healing is mastering suffering and the way you

do it as you focus on a body sensation well we use an example so let's go back to that example and the example was that you were in my office and the motorcycle backfires and you suddenly have a panic attack. So I say to you, if we're keeping this really simple, when you're having the panic attack, what happens? What do you notice in the body? And you scan your body and you say something to the effect of, my heart's beating fast. So then I say to you, it's not you, whoever you are, who's in my office, who's having the panic attack. Someone whose name is heart beating fast is having the panic attack. And let's suppose what you're going to do is you're going to become whoever this

is. And the way you're going to do it is you're going to bring all your attention to Heartbeating Fast. That's its name. It's not My Heart Beating Fast. It's Heartbeating Fast. That's its proper name until it tells you whatever its name is. Now let's suppose in this example, it tells you that its name is you, my client, 10 years ago. And you're in a war, say in Afghanistan, and a bomb goes off too near you for you to be able to take it in stride. And so you get stuck there. And that's what happens when we're traumatized. We get stuck. And in the moment we get stuck, the sensation is born.

We've been through all of this. And if you could choose to become the sensation, you are now facing the thing you were too, was too bad for you in this case. So it's no longer that you're going to be identified with that soldier. You're going to choose to become that soldier. You're going to enroll yourself by becoming, by choosing to become Heartbeating Fast, and then you identify with the witness who is holding or hosting Heartbeating Fast, and then you remember an aspect of you that has been split off or dismembered. You remember in the present moment Heartbeating fast. And when that happens, heart beating fast says, thank you so much. This is you from 10 years ago. And I no longer need to

be here because you have remembered me. You have accepted me. You've been able to say, I can handle this without reactivity. And then theoretically what happens is the next time, if this was all that was going on, the next time the motorcycle backfires, you might say, this reminds me of something that happened to me 10 years ago in a war, but I'm not identified with it anymore. It's just one more experience that I'm aware of and I'm able to witness, to remember. All right, now we're going to take the same symptom, but we're going to take a very different story. So let's suppose this time you come in again and the motorcycle backfires and you have a panic attack again. again. But this time, there's a very different problem. And this time, it's not the sound that's the problem because it's related to the bombs. This time, we do a diagnostic and we find

out that that's just a symptom of a much deeper problem that we'll call betrayal. Because there are these universal themes, which is what patterns are patterns are and in this case we do our diagnostic using muscle testing which we described to you before and we say we can't work directly on your reactivity to loud sounds because it's not the problem it's not it's a it's a symptom of a deeper intention and in this case we find out through our diagnostic that the deeper intention. And in this case, we find out through our diagnostic that the deeper intention is betrayal. So then what I would do is I would have you say something like I betrayed a trust or something like that. And I would muscle test it. And if it stayed really strong, I would say to you, even if it makes no sense to you rationally, does that resonate with you any place? And virtually all the time it does,

even if it doesn't make any rational sense. So then what I would have you drop into is not the sensation that you associate with the backfiring motorcycle. I would have you find the sensation that's associated with, I betray it a trust. And let's suppose you find the sensation that's associated with I betrayed a trust. And let's suppose this time the sensation is different. Let's suppose it's throat closing up. And so you bring all your attention to throat closing up, and suddenly you say, oh, my goodness. Now I'm in the woods someplace again, you know, like you were in Afghanistan, except you probably weren't in the woods, but whatever. I mean, I don't know, I've guessed maybe you were in the woods, I don't know. But you're in the woods and you're walking and this time you're the leader of

a group of soldiers. And let's suppose, let's say it's 1916, and you're in World War I, and you're the leader of this group of soldiers, and you're not paying enough attention, and you're sort of like looking around, like distracted a little bit, and because you aren't paying enough attention, you believe, you walk them into an ambush, and you didn't really see the signs, and you walk them into an ambush and you didn't really see the signs. And you walk them into the ambush and then you watch as grenades blow up and you watch your men get killed. So, or now the loud sounds aren't the problem. So you're going to have reactions to loud sounds. But let's think of all the other things. Let's keep this simple and say, let's think of all the other things that could have just come out of that story that you may not have ever associated with the loud sounds. You might also have what we call obsessive compulsive disorder. And you

might have this, what people might say is a crazy belief that if I'm not really careful and I don't do everything correctly, something catastrophic will happen. You may have no idea, of course, that that's related to the reactions to loud sounds. Or let us suppose that, I'll make this kind of graphic. Let's suppose you feel so guilt-ridden and ashamed that you take out a pistol and you shoot yourself in the foot because you don't want to be a leader anymore. And then you come in and you have chronic foot pain, which you can explain to me because somebody, you know, stepped terribly on your foot seven years ago and they like crushed it. But people are saying, you shouldn't have that chronic pain anymore, but we can understand why you still have chronic pain. And the reason you'd still have chronic pain is because it wouldn't be a physical problem. And in fact, having that person

step on your foot might be something that you unconsciously co-created in order to feel the pain of those soldiers and to feel like you ought to suffer. And it would be a way of trying to remember that you shot yourself in the foot, right? So you'd come in with chronic foot pain and you'd have a story about it, but no one would really know why you had it. And let's suppose you say to me, you know, every time I'm a natural leader, and every time I get close to being in a position of leadership, I shoot myself in the foot. And of course, you would be thinking that you're talking metaphorically, and I would be thinking, no, you're telling me a story where something happened, and there was a betrayal, and you shot yourself in the foot. Right? And let's suppose you no longer want to take initiative. Right. Well, that would make some sense.

And let's suppose you have a bad case also, not only of OCD, but ADHD, you know, ADD, and you're distractible and it's making you crazy. And let's suppose this took place in the forest. And whenever you walk into the forest, you say, I have a bad feeling, but there's no good reason. You know, I think something terrible is going to happen here. So let's look at all of those symptoms, right? Let's look at what you might come in with. And you might come in with reactions to loud sounds, obsessive compulsive disorder, ADD, chronic foot pain, a sense of shooting yourself in the foot whenever leadership is possible, unwillingness to take initiative, and strange reactions when you walk into the woods. the woods. Okay. So what we know is that all of those things are the manifestation in this case of only one problem. I betrayed a trust. And they're all unfolded into that. Now, of course, in my original training, if you came in and said, I have reactions to loud sounds, right? And I have obsessive compulsive disorder that I've been doing all kinds of therapy for.

And I have attention deficit disorder. And I have chronic foot pain. I wouldn't have even thought of having come in with chronic foot pain, right? right and um you know i every time i uh want to be a leader i shoot myself in the foot and i won't take initiative and i have strange reactions when i walk into the forest in my original clinical training i would say i got a problem here i don't know what to do with all that stuff but in the work we do now in life-centered therapy, if those, because sometimes, of course, there are levels and levels to any problem, which we'll talk about in a second. But if all those symptoms were there, I'd say, what am I going to do? You know,

then they'd all sound different. I'm sure that they were systemic in some ways. They must have something to do with each other, but I wouldn't know where to start. But now what I know is, what I could find out potentially is, that all of those problems may be just enfolded as symptoms into a deeper intention that is a trauma called I betrayed a trust. And I feel guilty and ashamed because of that. So when I have you say this time I betrayed you know I betrayed a trust and I say well what are you feeling now and you say oh my throat's closing up I can't I can't speak I can't breathe I can't do anything so I say okay you're going to

become throat closing up that's your new name and suddenly you say you might as we say you could be kinesthetic at which point when you become throat closing up it's like you relive the scene but this time by choice because it's like you're stepping into a role now right and you've stepped into the role of someone whose name is throat closing up except you'll find out that he was some American captain or something whose name they might even tell you. But you become him and then either you literally become him or images come like you're watching a movie and but you're not identified with it even though you're enthralled perhaps or devastated or it might be like reading a book and you say, I just know what's happening. Because as far as I know, divine doesn't care if you're auditory,

which would be like reading the book or visual, which would be like seeing the movie or kinesthetic, like I'm going to relive what happened, but this time by choice as opposed to doing it automatically. And so you tell me you're walking in the woods and you're just looking around and you think nothing's going to happen. And suddenly you realize you walk your men into this, you know, ambush and you're watching them all get killed. and I feel terrible. And like, I never want to be a leader again, I get to get out of here. So you shoot yourself in the foot, you know, because like, then you'll say, well, I was wounded in this whole thing, too, except they'll find out it was a gunshot, or maybe you get lucky and get hit by

shrapnel, so to speak, which would have the same effect, although not quite. Right. And you saying that, and you're saying like, Oh, God, a forest, I never want to go into a forest again. And you're saying all these things, right? And I never want to be a leader again. I'll shoot myself in the foot every time I'm going to be a leader. And initiative, I'm not going to take any initiatives because look what happens when you do, right? Okay, you tell your story.

And then what we do is we have you go find the men. You know, we have you, let's say you dissociate which often happens there because it's so painful so you're kind of stuck there because you can't you can't forgive yourself you can't accept yourself anymore you know because the consequences were so great and you had a you were responsible and you're accountable and instead of saying like i have to learn from this and there was such a horrendous thing that happened and i'm going to have to you know account for that you just say i can't handle it which is a way of course of not being responsible and not being accountable in a funny kind of way because to truly be accountable and responsible we just say

i will face whatever it is that I've done. In this case, betraying a trust, which ended up with a lot of men dying in a war. So you have to then go through a death process, you know, if you shoot yourself in the foot or maybe you don't. But at some point you have to find those men and you have to say, you know, something. You have to do some kind of making amends and you have to hear what it was like for them and what they had to say right and whatever they say to you you can't defend yourself or you can't say i'm so terrible all your attention has to be on what it was like for them. And then and only then, maybe you can find out what everybody was trying to learn.

And maybe they were trying to learn that they shouldn't be so dependent and they should have been doing their own watching. Who knows what they were trying to learn. And maybe you were trying to learn that you had to take responsibility more seriously. And this was the only way you're going to learn. Who knows? But you'd find out. And then something miraculous might happen, which is all of those symptoms might just all go away in a half hour,

which I have seen on several occasions, things like that happen. And those are when we call them one hour miracles. Those are the things that truly look miraculous because people can't believe it. They can't believe that, first of all, all of those different seemingly, those symptoms that seemingly would not necessarily have anything to do with each other, we find that they're all enfolded. And so many beliefs and so many symptoms and so many boundary issues and everything all get unfolded in that story. And, of course, they all go away. Now let's take this even further. So that would be a miracle.

But let's suppose you were in both stories. Let's suppose in 1916 you were leading the troops, right? And let's suppose, you know, earlier in your life, you were this time the soldier, not the leader. And this time, your leader wasn't paying enough attention, perhaps, and he walks you into an ambush and the bombs go off near you and scare you to death, right? Well, the interesting thing then is you could work on that problem for a long time, but really you wouldn't exactly be able to resolve it, to bring it into balance, because nothing new may have crystallized in that war. And if that's the case, and you do something like what's called emotional freedom technique, which we'll talk about later, or EMDR or something like frontal occipital holding, you might get a result, but it wouldn't feel complete. And the reason it wouldn't feel complete is you could say that all of that was just a shadow element of you wanting to know what it was like for those soldiers, but not having to go through the death.

element of you wanting to know what it was like for those soldiers, but not having to go through the death, right? But just the terror, because you'd say, I want to know what it was like for them. All of this, of course, would be unconscious. So you could work on being that soldier for a long time, but that soldier really would be just representing for you those men that you walked into the ambush. And of course, you'd never be able to resolve the problem because it's not where it crystallized and it's not really what the problem was and so you would do you do a lot of work on it and you'd say and you do a lot of really interesting work on it perhaps if you know the you know the really good somatic therapies or whatever you might do but you might say like or internal family systems and you might be able to do a lot around that but you'd say something isn't complete and the reason it's not complete is what you're getting is

something that is just a reliving of an echo of what happened in that other lifetime so it's not the problem in a funny way then the motorcycle backfiring could remind you of what happened 10 years ago, but we could bypass all of that and say nothing new crystallized 10 years ago. It's sort of like another version of the motorcycle backfiring. It's just here as a way to try to remember where the whole thing originated, the whole thing crystallized in your field, which may have been in that war, you know, in 1916. And if that's the case, miraculously, when you take care of the war in 1916, you take care of the younger you without ever having to work on the younger you. Because nothing new happened there. It was just you trying to gain greater awareness, greater wisdom, greater compassion for what it was like to be in all positions there.

And that's really a remarkable thing, right? So that's why we work with patterns. I wanted to give you the big picture first, right? So if you know that, then we just have to know what all the possible patterns are. And there are three areas of patterns that we talk about. And that's what I'm going to talk to you about in the future, but you can look forward to it, right? The first kind of category is traumas that affect only one of your centers. The head, which is about beliefs.

The heart, which is about emotion. And the belly, which is about boundaries or actually physical problems. And we'll go into this next time and we'll give some examples. But that's the first category. So of course, you want your beliefs to line up with what you know on a deeper level, right? So I'll just give you a quick

example. So you say, I'm unworthy of love. I believe that. But on a deeper level, I know everyone's worthy of love. Then what you believe and what you know to be true wouldn't be a lie, which means there's a trauma. In the heart center, when you're really healthy, you're able to feel whatever you're feeling in the motion, in the moment, and be at expression about it. And be able to express it if you choose to, because you get to choose, you know, you don't have to express your feelings, but you're totally capable of it. And you know what you're feeling and you're a choice about expression. But of course, if you're traumatized in the heart center, you don't know what you're feeling, and you're not a choice about expression. So you either deny it and say, no, anger doesn't exist, or you displace it. And instead of getting angry, you might laugh and be anxious, but not angry.

And instead of getting angry, you might laugh and be anxious, but not angry. Or you might displace it, literally. So like if you were angry at me and that wasn't acceptable, you might go home and kick your animal. But you wouldn't be feeling it in the moment. So that's the heart center. And the belly center is about boundaries. So of course, when you're whole there, you get to choose what comes in and what goes out totally.

And you can let out whatever you want to let out. You can keep in whatever you want to keep in and you can let in what you want to let in and you keep out what you want to let out. And when you're traumatized, one or more of those four things happens either around a content or in general or a person, whatever it is. But you're not a choice anymore about what comes in and what goes out. And we'll start there next time because that's the foundation is those three centers.

And we call those single center patterns and then these deep themes right like neglect or betrayal the example i gave you today what you find is when you're in a deep theme like betrayal it affects all of the centers so you believe all kinds of things that you know on a deeper level aren't true you stop yourself from feeling all kinds of feelings and aren't a choice about expression and there are all kinds of boundary issues and physical problems that are associated with these universal themes and they come in two realms what we call the material realms which this would be an example of so in the material realm stories there these universal themes that you can experience through your five senses. You know what happened, you know, in this situation.

You can witness it. And it's in what we call normative Western reality. Whereas the non-material stories are stories of things like dark energies that take you over, curses, or traumas around what we call extraterrestrials or entities or ghosts or there's a myriad of them and they're not in what we call normative western reality but nonetheless if we can think of them they may be the most powerful stories for transforming things whether you literally believe it or not and then the third category is when the problem that you come in with is not a problem but it's a solution to a worse problem so it's really a protection that you chose but you forget you made the choice and then you think that you

are that choice you know so i give you one example of that right let's say you're agoraphobic you won't leave your house you know um and whenever there's something that's exciting you you have to go in and let's suppose when you're three years old you run out into the street chasing a ball and you nearly get run over by a bus and you race back into the house but you forget that you're racing back into the house because that was the best choice you could have made at the time. So whenever anything is a new opportunity or new and exciting, you might become really constricted.

Literally, you might become agoraphobic. But of course, that wouldn't be the problem. That would be the solution to a worse problem, which is that if you follow what is exciting you, you may end up dead. So it's a whole different thing. So having said all that, this has been a wonderful introduction to pattern.

And we're going to go over patterns for the next several of our episodes. And I'll even perhaps share some of the stories that I found for myself that have really been powerful. One in particular I think I might share with you. And the power of pattern and how it informs your whole life. Because when you're in these patterns, you just reenact without being aware of it. So many things. It's like we live in a trance. And again, free will is only one thing.

When you're suffering about something, when you're reactive, you choose to just stay reactive and be judgmental or be comparative or need to know or be agitated or whatever it is. You choose just to live it out and stay on the surface or keep your attention outside? Or whenever it happens, do you choose to bring your attention in and find out what's happening in the body and say, I'm here with you? Which is really just, of course,

being with an aspect of, in the capital S sense of the word, truly being with self, which is like being with soul. So you become in soul, which is a great thing to be because what else is there in life? So you can really live from a place of freedom

and a place of quickening and life enhancement so having said that this has been a lovely conversation with you guys and um if you want to reach us if you want to know more about us just go to lifecentertherapy.com and if you want to write to me and anything that touched you today or anything that, you know, anything you want to remember, if you have any questions or any differences, I love people who like say, you know, really, I love skeptics, you know. So anyone who challenges me, I'm so appreciative of you guys. challenges me. I'm so appreciative of you guys. So anyway, my email address, A-H-A-H-N, at lifecenteredtherapy.com. And I will honor the thing that makes me most happy,

because then I know you're listening, is if you write to me. So thank you. And of course, it's always a pleasure to go on this journey together and I would really like to go on it together and keep having this wonderful conversation because I think of all of you when I'm talking so until we meet again I wish you all well and goodbye