By Jenny Peterson
Does the thought of working on your past bring up some discomfort? Have you been told that there is no need to go into the past to heal your chronic conditions? Do you feel like you have already worked on your past yet are still experiencing chronic symptoms and wondering why?
Did you know that about 95% of everything you do on a daily basis—the habits you have, your thoughts, your perceptions, even your relationships—are dictated by your past? You wouldn’t be able to do the things that you do daily if it wasn’t for your past. Because in order for you to do all these things automatically, your brain has to reference your past programming. All of your life experiences, the things you did with repetition over and over again, the things that hurt you that your brain wants to prevent you from experiencing again, the beliefs you have formed about yourself from your experiences, its all stored in your subconscious. Stacks and stacks of data that your subconscious is referencing minute by minute.
No matter what age you are now, you are operating from patterns that were established primarily before the age of 12. Think about when you were 10 years old. Did you have the emotional maturity to realize that what adults did was based on the patterns that they were operating from? Did you know not to copy the same survival skills that the people around you were doing? Did you know not to take things personally? Did you have the skills or confidence to provide safety for yourself? Of course you didn’t know these things. But those times were crucial times that your subconscious was being programmed and what created all your patterns and automatic responses that you have today. No matter what age you are now, you are operating from them. That should be an eyeopener in itself!
Those survival patterns that you learned when you were a child are outdated. If you have chronic health conditions, they are the root cause. Remember, chronic symptoms are an indication that something within the subconscious believes that it still doesn’t feel safe. Our perceptions are what establish that safety and our perceptions are based on the programs that we are operating from that were established many years ago.
So for your chronic symptoms to go away, a shift in your perception or actions that create safety are needed.
Can you do this without digging into your past? The short answer is no.
Yes, you can try to shift the way you think, be more positive, see things from a healthier perspective, become a better person, etc. These are all things that people are trying to do differently everyday, but unfortunately, they often don’t succeed. That’s because there are a lot of missing pieces here that are not being addressed in order to create change in your subconscious.
Remember that your subconscious is king. It has all the data and patterns stored that it uses as proof for why you do what you do. That’s one thing. Another one is that before you can become this new person with a new perception or be able to take action, you have to have awareness of your patterns and those that are no longer serving you. Without awareness, there is no change.
In addition, every time you try to consciously do something different than what is programmed, your subconscious will resist. That is because the subconscious and conscious are not on the same page. This is what causes you to feel like change is so hard. Change in your subconscious requires debunking the proof first, this is the unwiring process. Then you can rewire with new patterns that serve you.
I’m going to walk you through an example:
Imagine that your mother loved to suffer. She acted and really believed that the world was against her and she thrived from getting pity from others. You unconsciously saw that this behavior pattern enabled her to get what she wanted in life. Let's also say that you've had a few tough experiences in your own life which created quite a bit of suffering for you.
Those memories, where you learned by observation— monkey see, monkey do— are still in your subconscious. You learned from her what suffering looks like. For more than 20 years you've practiced thinking and feeling, feeling and thinking about suffering. Actually, you no longer need to think about the past event to create the feeling. You can't seem to think or act any other way than how you've always felt. You've memorized suffering by your reoccurring thoughts and feelings, those related to that incident as well as other events in your life.
So now you are an adult and you know really well how to create your own suffering. Its an automatic program in your brain. You don’t even need to think about the memories anymore because its so automatic in your mind and your subconscious doesn’t know whether or not the event is done or still happening or if it's even real. All it knows is that it is the proof for “how you do suffering.”
One day, you decide you no longer want to be suffering. You see that you are creating your own suffering, so you try to change it. You try changing your thoughts, learning new habits but it just doesn’t work. You end up doing what you always have, creating your own suffering.
The reason this change is so hard is because for many years you have been firing and wiring those same thought patterns in your brain. They got stronger and stronger. Every time you do this, your brain relives the past. Your stack of proof gets higher and higher.
So, you could consciously try to shift into this new person and continue struggling, or you could go into the past and debunk your proof, which will make things ten times easier. This is the process that we take all of our clients through to create long lasting change without there being so much resistance in the brain.
With the example that I gave, it would be so much easier and create much less resistance from the subconscious to go back to those times when you saw your mom create her own suffering. Remember, that's a memory that your subconscious is using as proof. You look at it from a new set of eyes and realize that your mom was actually doing this because she learned it from her mother. You then realize that your mom was never taught how to step into her own power to create her life. That was a skill that wasn’t shown to her. Then you realize that its up to you to step into your power and create your own life. Ultimately, this whole thing was just a story and you gave it a lot of power, and so did your subconscious. But when you go in and shift your perception around it, tell your subconscious that we don’t see it that way anymore, you essentially create a new memory in your mind. That new memory is one where you see everyone's limitations but you also see your own power.
So, by doing this process of stepping into the past and shifting the way you perceive these events, you debunk all the old proof in your subconscious. Your new perception is creating new patterns in your brain that with repetition will now become automatic just like the patterns that were not serving you. This is the process of unwiring the proof connected to your patterns and rewiring new patterns.
Without digging into the past, your subconscious will continue to win and use all those data files as proof for why you can’t make the changes you want to make.
THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY
Your history is very important. Your family's history is very important. When you see that similar ways of responding to life run through your family, you will see that it is not a mystery to why you are the way you are. It will also give you a reason for creating change and stopping those patterns from continuing into your family. Past programmed patterns dictate future results.
Knowing your history takes away the frustration of change because rather than getting mad at yourself thinking that you can’t change, you realize that its just a pattern that was created from your past and you can change it. The only difference between then and now, is now you are consciously choosing the patterns you want in your life versus then when you were unconsciously programming yourself.
Healing is personal growth. If you want to get rid of chronic symptoms, you have to step into a new you. How do you know what the new you looks like if you don’t look at the proof and patterns that created who you are today? When we ask our students what their 2.0 self would look like, their minds have a hard time even thinking about who that person would be like. That’s because they don’t see their old survival patterns yet. They haven’t done the awareness and identification stage to see what patterns are driving their bus. It's all so automatic, it can’t be seen with their own eyes. But, once its all brought to the surface- the conscious, it's very clear what their patterns are and they know that their 2.0 self is the opposite of those patterns.
WHY YOU MIGHT BE HESITANT
If you are hesitant to work on your past, I encourage you to look at what is really underneath this. Because what we think is the issue is really never the issue.
Have you had bad experiences with working on your past, do you want to avoid digging into the pain? Do you want to on a subconscious level keep your stories for a benefit?
Working on your past is a delicate area. Your subconscious needs to be ready and feel safe. Without the proper steps to create that safety, there can be resistance to working on memories. There is no need to relive a situation, there are healthy and safe ways to address painful memories without having to relive them.
When people think about addressing their past, they think about therapy. Opening a can of worms and then leaving without any real tools to adapt to life in healthier ways. That is not how we approach this work. In fact most of our clients have been in therapy for 10 plus years and when they have a session with us they are blown away at how things get resolved so quickly. From our observations, we don’t see that therapy addresses past experiences to create resolution in the subconscious or help you step into your power.
The other thing I often hear is that people are worried that this won't work because they can’t remember their childhood. Yes, the brain can make you forget traumatic experiences due to trauma and for survival reasons. Here again, if you are doing this in a safe way, a way that allows the subconscious to open, this isn’t an issue. There are ways of accessing the subconscious memories even if you consciously don’t remember anything.
Keep in mind that when we are working on past experiences, trauma is not what happened, it's the beliefs about yourself and perceptions that you created that is the true trauma and the most important piece to your healing.
Healing your past experiences isn’t about “Why did this happen to me” or “What did I do to deserve this?” It’s "Now that it's happened, how can I make choices that allow me to thrive?"
It's not blaming your parents, it's about doing the work to break family cycles.
It isn’t being a victim to the past, it's about having the maturity to face your issues and finally resolve them.
It's not about talking about your problems, it's about building new habits and patterns so that you can break free from them.
It's not about expecting everyone to validate your emotions, it's about learning how to regulate your own.
This is the deep work that surface level work will never address. It may seem easy to avoid the past, but is it really when it's literally with you everyday in all that you do? Are you willing to be a little uncomfortable for a few minutes working on a memory so your mind can be at peace and your body can finally heal?
SUMMARY
Addressing your past is not about dwelling on old wounds or regrets but about harnessing the wisdom and insights gained to propel yourself towards a brighter future. By embracing your past, you can confidently navigate the path ahead, equipped with a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you. Your body is literally telling you where you need to make changes to old patterns from the past through your symptoms. It's going to be difficult to step into a new version of yourself if you don’t go into your past first. This new version of you is required for you to heal your chronic conditions. It's a beautiful journey my friends, this work will change your life forever and you won’t regret a bit of it, I promise. In fact, you will wish that you did it sooner!
Jenny Peterson is the founder and CEO of Mind Body Rewire (MBR). She teaches those that are overwhelmed with trying to heal chronic symptoms how to simplify their healing by focusing on just one place, the subconscious mind. Learn more about MBR here.
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