memories of your past. As we return to those early experiences and rewrite them, we can often see the connection of the past filtered experience and how we continue to use the same filters in similar circumstances in the present. With this new perspective of our past, we can then choose to process information in the present in a healthier, more informed way.
Our values help us decide what is good or bad, right or wrong. We make judgments about ourselves based on these values, so it’s important to identify what our values are, and their hierarchy of priorities. Our values are the result of our internal model of the world. If our model of the world differs from our values or someone else’s, there’s conflict.
Beliefs are what we have presupposed about the world. They can either empower us or destroy us. The important task in re-storying our past, is to find out the disabling beliefs that get in the way of the magnificence of who we really are and attaining true and lasting happiness and success. Our memories are responsible for coloring our present and our presence.
By rewriting our stories, we have a chance to explore the language, images and feelings that encompass our experience. We can then choose to open our perception beyond our filters to see a larger and more empowering story.
By modeling a successful person, we can apply this element of modeling in rewriting our stories with ourselves as the heroic character. If we have been teased by other children because we are dyslexic, we can go back and choose a different way to respond to the teasing. We can even take our actions a step further and make friends of our tormentors by educating them about dyslexia.
Another way to rewrite your story is to embody positive traits in other characters that represent different empowering parts of the self, as has been done with the characters Jasper the Joybird and Zephyr the Wind. For instance, in the childhood incident I rewrote as Bea Wished, which I present in chapter three, I couldn’t ask for the understanding and reassurance I needed from my father, who was consumed by his own sadness during a difficult divorce. But Jasper and Zephyr encouraged me to take the steps to get my needs met. Zephyr represents the voice of my higher wisdom, so that I could see that despite my father’s self-absorption, he really loved and valued me. Jasper represents my empowered self that takes positive action to be heard and get my needs met.
Is there someone that you respect and admire and would like to emulate? We can incorporate this person’s belief system, mental syntax (the way a person organizes information) and physiology into our childhood character. By going back into the childhood incident as the empowered child with an informed adult perception, we can experience the incident anew, using all our senses to filter the experience in a more positive way. When you rewrite your story, project these qualities in your own personal wise guides; you are not locked into using Jasper and Zephyr.
We have discussed the importance of understanding our beliefs and the way we filter information, but we haven’t addressed the very important element of our physiology. The stories locked in our unconscious not only affect our memory, belief systems and the way we filter our present experience, but they can live in our bodies. A friend of mine who is a body worker includes the following slogan on her business card, “Our issues are in our tissues.” We are living out the decisions we made in childhood about who we are and the possibilities and limitations of our lives. These unconscious decisions and beliefs have also affected our physical health. Often, re-storying our early experiences can help us restore our bodies as well.
The Mind/Body Connection and the Chakra System
Have you ever awoken from a dream of falling off a cliff? Do you remember how your breath quickened and your heart beat furiously? The fact is our bodies don’t know the difference between an imagined event and a real one. Conversely, if we had a pleasant dream of swimming in a tropical island lagoon, we can feel peace and relaxation as we wake up to greet the day. Stories have the same powerful effect. Other cultures know the power of storytelling and give it due respect as a healing modality. In Islamic societies, loved ones tell a sick person an uplifting story. It helps the sick person imagine their own triumph over circumstances, which then empowers the immune system to heal the body.
Hindu physicians employ fairy tales to help emotionally troubled patients because they understand their mysteriously powerful effect on the subconscious.
Because of my own struggles with Epstein-Barr Virus and breast cancer, I felt it was crucial to address the connection of my emotions and beliefs to my physical health. As I began to study books on the mind/body connection, I saw examples of how certain beliefs based on childhood experiences positively or adversely affected physical health years later. It seemed that going back to rewrite these childhood traumas might also improve our health as well as our attitudes. I incorporated into my story the ancient Indian system of the chakras and gave Jasper a rainbow colored tail of feathers representing each of seven chakras.
Chakra means “wheel.” Chakras are energy centers or vortices. They are used to understand the way energy is processed by the human being. The “Lower Triangle” chakras focus on elimination and reduction and are balanced by the “Upper Triangle” chakras which accumulate, create and refine. The fourth chakra, the heart chakra is the balance between the two, where we experience shifts from “me to we.” A seventh chakra represents the aura or magnetic field of the body. It is said that cosmic energy flows down from the eighth chakra and collects in the other chakras. The chakras affect our perceptions, feelings and choices. They affect the flow and types of thoughts we have. They affect the relationship between the conscious and the subconscious. There are many practices and healing modalities, such as yoga, Tai Chi, acupuncture, etc. that address balancing the energy of the chakras and clearing blockages that lead to mental, emotional and physical distress.
Each chakra has a particular location in the body and has organs and glands associated with it. There are positive qualities of each chakra when balanced and negative qualities when they’re out of balance. For instance, the first chakra, or root chakra, is located at the end of the spine between the anus and sexual organs. It concerns security and survival issues and governs the organs of elimination. The color associated with this chakra is red. The positive qualities of this chakra are a feeling of being grounded, security, stability, loyalty and healthy bodily functions of elimination. When out of balance, we feel fear and insecurity. Life can feel like a burden. We can feel out of touch with our families or culture. Physically there are problems with a weak constitution, elimination problems and lowered resistance. In the Appendix a chakra chart has been included for your reference, which identifies each of the chakras and their qualities.
When rewriting our stories, it’s important to pay attention to how you feel in your body. How does it feel in your gut? If you were hurt physically, where was the wound? Did you feel grounded in your body during the experience, or were you in your head? By re-experiencing the emotions associated with the event, we can often find the reactive patterns in our body that stem from those emotions. Feeling an emotion in a certain chakra can also give you insights into the unconscious issues associated with that chakra that need addressing.
In my own case, it was no wonder that the accumulated hurts and emotional pain I’d experienced caused an imbalance in my heart chakra, which then manifested as breast cancer. During my recovery I attended a breast cancer support group and the psychologist leading the group asked me if I knew the profile of women who experienced breast cancer. I replied that I did not. He informed me that these women were very competent about taking care of other people’s feelings but not as competent in taking care of their own. Hmm, I definitely identified with this group. Therefore, I decided to approach my recovery with the best of western and alternative medicine, while addressing the emotional and spiritual causes of such a disease. As part of my treatment, I chose to rewrite my Bea Wished story again. This time, I delved deeper into the experience than before and concentrated on what I felt in my Heart Chakra. The Heart Chakra rules subtle feelings and the ability to touch others with our purity of feeling. It is also about boundaries, both on the
