Stream of consciousness vs mental chatter
There is great value that can be found through allowing for a stream of consciousness to be channelled through your mind and being. I was recently reminded of this whilst working closely with a client. It also reminded me of a structured Shamanic Practice that I utilised during my training in connected breathwork, which I outline below, slightly modified, if you want to try it.
Stream of consciousness: the continuous unimpeded flow of ideas, thoughts, and feelings forming the content of an individual’s consciousness.
In the past, my life felt in total chaos.
Because I felt in a state of chaos I lived in a great deal of fear. I was fearful that I wouldn’t get things right or meet all the expectations and commitments. These feelings persisted all my life until the health of my triplet daughters was almost completely taken out of my hands at the moment of their birth.
When they were born prematurely at 28 weeks, I became incredibly anxious that I wouldn’t get things right so that they could heal and reach their full potential. I got trapped in cycles of trying to formulate the right decision for every situation or eventuality.
The thinking mind is an important asset for not only communication but for finding solutions to problems. But the mind is only good at finding solutions to problems that are not overly complex. The mind is also deeply attached to the ego which likes things to be either “yes” and “no”, or black and white, no grey areas or middle ground. But emotions are not like that, they can’t be resolved by the mind. They must be felt.
My mind went into overdrive trying to find solutions for specific situations and to control the environment that I was in to have the best possible outcomes. I was caught up in complex projections of conversations with other people, all fabrications and fantasies within my mind.
I would find myself overly reviewing, reciting, and practising what I would say and then trying to think about all the eventualities. I would be trying to project what the other person was going to say so that I could be prepared with my response.
This created, and was fed by, anxiety.
At any moment, when the time actually came to respond, instead of saying what I rehearsed I ended up overreacting, because I wasn’t connected to my emotions and feelings in the moment. This was my inner wounded child acting out through automatic patterns and cycles, because I wasn’t grounded in the moment and felt unsteady and unsure of myself. When in this state of emotional dysregulation, my rational mind could not come online.
There was a massive disconnect between my emotions in the body and the actions I was taking. The trick that I found was that I needed to get ‘out of my mind’ to allow myself to feel.
Unfortunately, in my 30s, the way that I found to get ‘out of my mind’ and distract myself from strong feelings was through reliance on alcohol and opiate painkillers in the evening. It felt like the only way I could unwind. This repeating pattern wasn’t solving anything.
It wasn’t until later that I realised what I needed to do, I needed to find new and healthier ways to communicate out loud. But I just wanted to vent! Of course, I couldn’t do that without creating drama. I needed to channel what I was feeling and thinking into words externally to allow them to be released from the trap of the mind.
The mists of time conceal pain
The mists of time conceal old memories, which if they hold emotions, create suffering and repeating patterns of pain in the present. Allow reflection to create freedom rather than generate remorse, shame, guilt and regret.
Now, I tried journaling, but when I did I often managed a few consecutive days of writing before not being able to continue. I know that for some people written journals are an incredible tool. But the ‘stream of consciousness’ that I needed at that time was verbal.
A stream of consciousness allows you to tell a story about the way that you feel about certain events in your life. When I’m working with clients, simply supporting them and listening to them means that they can begin to untap some of the things that they’re holding onto that they may not be aware of.
When you’re being carefully listened to by someone as you’re reflecting, you can begin to unpick any self-limiting beliefs that you have or where you are holding strong emotions around certain memories.
You also get the chance to practice where and how you might communicate the boundaries that you require, so that the people you relate to can better understand your needs.
Traditional counselling and therapies don’t offer support between sessions whilst you’re integrating. This was one of the things that I experienced. For example, seeing a therapist once a week with six days between sessions without any support or guidance. A lot of things can happen in those six days.
During those six days you miss out on some of the valuable and deeper learning which can take place as you’re living your life. You lose out on being able to break the patterns and integrate your experiences, so they don’t keep repeating.
During my formal training in breathwork I used a video journal to begin to do this for myself. But it can be difficult to really drop in until someone else is listening to you, a human connection phenomena. The practice of having and allowing yourself a stream of consciousness is best supported when you have a guide or a receiver, a trusted human presence.
Maybe you have interactions with other people which lead to going over conversations in your head trying to make sense of why you felt a certain way or responded (or reacted) a certain way, and then you can become trapped in patterns and cycles of thought, criticism and judgement. All of which pull you further away from embodied presence. Recording your reflections via video or voice clips, can help you to tap into a stream of consciousness as you reflect and can be an effective pattern breaker.
Here is a practice which can help you to self-review your past life experiences and begin to change the patterns and cycles. It provides a structure to help you to untap a stream of consciousness.
Finding the patterns in life with the busy mind.
You can begin to unravel the patterns and cycles of life to change the future. Reflecting on the past allows for trapped emotion and tension to be released. Learning to forgive through a conscious practice of reflection.
Practice: 7 Year Cycles of Life
In this practice you will create a timeline of your life from birth to the present moment. This timeline will incorporate several different factors, all of which are listed below in the following steps.
I suggest that you give yourself at least half an hour to sketch out the first part or skeleton of your timeline. You may like to do this on a large sheet of paper perhaps A3 or A1 leaving some gaps in between to fill in as revelations and remembering’s arise.
Remember, don’t overthink it, let what comes come, and you can always loop back to note something down… let the structure allow you to flow within it.
Step 1. Write down what you can remember or have been told about your birth up to the age of 7. You may recall certain events or images, put them in the order that you best possibly can without too much concern of accuracy.
Step 2. Continue this process in seven-year cycles up to the present day.
Step 3. Write down the relationships that you’ve had during each of those seven-year cycles. Carefully allowing yourself to notice any feelings or emotions in the body connected to specific events or relationships. Note these down on the timeline. If they’re strong they’re still holding power over the present moment.
Step 4. Once you have the timeline sketched out with this basic information, begin to fill in any gaps on your timeline as they arise.
Step 5. You may leave the timeline for a couple of days to percolate and add in any new information over those few days to fill the timeline out a little bit more.
Step 6. Look through all the cycles and begin to look for repeating patterns in where you live, intimate relationships, family relationships, work and how you look after yourself.
Step 7. Write down all the major achievements that you have had in your timeline and see how they are affected by different relationships, cycles and patterns.
Step 8. Be honest with yourself of any patterns you would like to change and what you want the next seven years to manifest for you.
My experience of the ultimate pattern breaker is when you can reflect and share with another person, even better when they reflect back to you what you’re saying and guide you to certain practices that will change your life.
If you’re ready to go deeper and want this kind of support and guidance, Holistic Shadow Work may be for you.
One of the reasons that Holistic Shadow Work with me as your guide offers Telegram support 7 days a week is to enable and encourage maximum and lasting growth. This allows you to open up your stream of consciousness whenever you need to and someone can hear you and reflect your own wisdom back to you. This in itself creates massive change.
If you try out this practice but want support in finding where big changes can take place then please reach out.
You can do a lot on your own but having the support of a guide means you can learn, reflect and change faster and without less repetition of old mistakes.
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