In May of 2006 I sat in the front row of the room, within spitting distance of Gary Zukav, author of Seat of the Soul. He and Linda Francis were speaking on authentic power. Linda’s major claim to fame might have been her connection to Zukav, but I will always remember her for this comment: “Your emotions tell you what your soul wants you to know.”
At the workshop a woman asked Gary how she could deal with someone who tries to take her power away. She went on with a lengthy description of precisely how her husband would criticize her for spending money on seminars like the one we were in. He would say she was wasting money better spent in other ways. Those teaching such seminars were only interested in taking your money. Gary was very present with this woman, taking nothing personally and skillfully offering suggestions for her to not react from the frightened parts of her personality. Nothing seemed to make much headway with her as she went on and on about how controlling her husband was.
Finally, seeking greater clarity within his desire to be of some genuine help, Gary asked, “What did your husband say as you were leaving today?”
“He did not say anything today,” the woman answered.
“Why is that?” inquired Gary.
“He is dead,” she replied.
Gary’s head snapped back before offering a brief condolences and inquiring further, “How long ago did he die?”
“Fourteen years.”
The audience let out a collective gasp, and Gary was momentarily speechless. Absurd…
In many ways, any perceived lack of personal empowerment we are currently experiencing is just as absurd.
In Healing with Language: Your Key to Effective Mind-Body Communication, Joel Bowman and I wrote about the recurring patterns of behavior known as unconscious communication patterns. These UCPs are also called calibrated communication cycles, scripts, games, tapes (audio or video) or core scenes. These conditioned responses can be triggered by a particular word or phrase, tone of voice, or gesture that the receiver unconsciously interprets in a specific way.
Best to note, the interpretation is outside of the awareness but conditioned by the receiver.
These interpretations are driven by patterns buried in what has been called the reptilian brain, the old brain, or the first brain, the nonrational and unreasoning seat of human emotion. This woman’s lack of awareness was obvious to every person in that room except her. She was blind to her continued reaction to a dead man.
Unconscious communication patterns can be either positive, such as private jokes and special meanings for certain words or gestures; or negative, such as repetitive arguments or self-defeating attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors (as in the case of this woman).
A positive UCP reminds you that the world is a safe, nurturing place where your survival needs will be met. You know the world is a place where individuals are predictable and you can trust one another, even though you have differences.
Negative UCPs, however, are triggered when something in the environment suggests danger. Unmet childhood needs and fears are locked into the old brain so that certain situations may trigger old-brain defensiveness or aggression. Because at root they are based on survival—the survival of the fittest—negative UCPs often originate in competition and separation. Programmed responses mask what is underneath our emotions, often blocking the genuine needs of our soul.
My mom spent many years complaining to her friends and family how she would be able to do wonderful things if it were not for my dad. He was an alcoholic and extremely jealous. Her typical conversations would include some variation on the following: “If it weren’t for him, I would go to church, but everyone in town knows about his drinking, and I could never hold my head up.”
After my dad’s death, when my mom finally did venture out, she discovered that she was horribly afraid. His behavior, contrary to her years of complaints, had really been protecting her from having to acknowledge her own fears.
A story about the Buddha fits here. A very murderous man was known to be in the region. The Buddha was warned that Angulimala (meaning finger garland) wore a garland of many hundreds of human fingers around his neck—fingers cut from the hands of his victims.
The Buddha passed by Angulimala, and kept moving ahead of him, even though Angulimala, knife raised, ran after him calling out, “Stop! Stop!”
The Buddha replied, “I have stopped. It is you who have not stopped. I say that I have stopped because I have given up killing all beings. I have given up ill-treating all beings, and have established myself in universal love, patience, and knowledge through reflection. But you have not given up killing or ill treating others and you are not yet established in universal love and patience. Hence, you are the one who has not stopped.”
With these words of truth Angulimala’s heart opened and he was set free. He became a student of the Buddha and lived the rest of his life in service to humankind.
You and I don’t kill people and wear their fingers around our neck, but we have probably all held someone or something from our past responsible for the choices we are not yet making to live in our authentic power. We have been driven by the primitive brain. We have believed the lies that the world was not safe.
Perhaps we are ready to listen to our emotions and notice what our soul wants us to know: stop. You can stop the old, unconscious communication patterns. We can be willing to have our hearts opened and to be set free. Let us, like Angulimala, live the rest of our lives in service to humankind….