In the past week, one of my clients has had a MASSIVE breakthrough. She's discovered something that was very deeply hidden. She's uncovered the heart of her health issues.
I share her story because chances are, it will also click with something in you.
Here's her story. I've modified parts of it to keep her privacy. We'll call her Rose.
Rose is in her twenties and has been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in the last couple of years. In case you don't know, RA is an autoimmune condition. Prior to her RA diagnosis she had also had other health issues like sporadic bouts of psoriasis (another autoimmune condition.)
About a month ago, sweet Rose said something that stood out to me and I took note of it. She was telling me about her health issues and how they are a big focus of her life right now; the pain and other symptoms regularly interfering with her life. Rose said that throughout her life she had always known something was wrong, so finally when she got the diagnosis she felt validated.
If you don't listen closely, the way that I listen to my clients, you might have missed the golden nugget right there. I certainly heard it loud and clear and though I didn't mention anything to her, I took note of it. I'll tell you about it in a minute.
A a couple of weeks later, I was helping Rose sort through some feelings she was having about her job. She was feeling uncomfortable about a conversation she needed to have with her boss. As we explored it, she uncovered that she was feeling fearful and unworthy of asking for what she needed.
Mind you, what she was requesting was NO BIG DEAL, and ultimately the conversation with her boss went great. But leading up to it, her discomfort was immense.
As I do with most of my clients, I asked Rose to rate the intensity of her emotions on a scale of 1-10. For Rose the fear was scoring at a 6 and the unworthiness at a 9. So clearly the unworthiness was more of an issue. So we addressed that.
I took Rose through a combined EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) set of processes. With these tools, we are more easily able to dig up the stuff that's hidden in the back corners of the subconscious mind than if were just to talk about it.
As we moved through this process, we identified a core sensation in her body and in further moving through the technique, Rose was transported to a memory of her first temper tantrum when she was 2 years old. Her mother had no idea how to handle it and she just left the room. Rose was a baby with concrete needs that she was incapable of vocalizing and her mother, not being able to deal with it, left her there.
As her mother walked out, tiny Rose got the notion, "there must be something wrong with me." And because we know that children are powerfully intuitive and telepathic, perhaps Rose's mother was thinking there might be something wrong with her child.
This was not a one-time event. It became a pattern that repeated often in Rose's life. The adults in her life were not capable of understanding or meeting her emotional needs. Throughout her childhood she experienced may occasions of being pulled out of class, separated from other kids in multiple instances, and her parents publicly speaking of what a challenge she was.
Over and over, Rose got the message that there was something wrong with her.
After processing and releasing the grief and pain from the realization that she'd felt this way most of her life, Rose was immediately able to think of the upcoming conversation with her boss with much more confidence. She was no longer apologetic or fearful for speaking up about her needs and acknowledging her emotions. Needless to day, the conversation ended up being a breeze and after it was had, she and her boss chatted about other stuff for a good hour.
Now... after we processed those emotions, I asked Rose to journal about all of the times in her life where she got the message that there was something wrong with her.
You see, THAT was the thing that had stuck out for me clearly when Rose told me the story about her Rheumatoid Arthritis diagnosis. She had said, "I had always known something was wrong..." And now she had found perhaps the first event in her life (her tantrum) where she began to believe that there might be something wrong with her.
For our session this week, Rose came back with her homework of a LONG list of times where she was made to believe there was something wrong with her. I pointed out the connection between this belief and the thoughts preceding her RA diagnosis.
It was incredible to see the powerful realization in her eyes. All of a sudden she could feel the truth of that in every cell of her body.
Rose SO deeply took on the belief (from her parents, teachers and friends) that there was something wrong with her, that it became part of her identity. She came to expect that there would in fact be something wrong. Until finally her body proved her right; first with little health issues here and there, then the psoriasis and then the RA.
This week we started dismantling that belief from her identity. And we found that she's so used to it, that the idea of getting rid of this part of her identity triggers some anxiety! And for good reason. You see our subconscious mind likes the status quo. Change is very scary to your subconscious mind.
So we also started addressing the part of her that was anxious. This part of her is anxious about "needing to work hard to be different than who [she] is." This anxious part is the little Rose who got pulled out of class so many times for not being like the other children. She's anxious because she's hearing "you need to change" and "we're pulling you out". Poor thing! Of course she'd be terrified and wondering, "why in the world do I need to change?!"
The subconscious mind is a fascinating thing, but as you can see, it can keep us from moving forward and it can keep us from healing.
Now, shifting these things will not take long using NLP, EFT and Encodement work. If Rose were in therapy, she'd probably spend a good number of months or years talking about these things until she very gradually desensitized herself from all of it.
We're going to do it much quicker. In fact, just this week, we did two of my processes that already brought down the intensity of her belief from registering at a 5 down to a 2, and then finally down to zero.
Understandably, Rose is skeptical that it's totally gone. It's OK. It's natural for us to be skeptical of feeling so dramatically shifted in such short a time. But over the next few weeks, we'll continue to reinforce her shift and it will soon be permanent.
I love Rose's story because it is SUCH a universal story.
We all carry nuggets of the belief that there's something wrong with us. We're not perfect. "Nobody's perfect" is a popular expression in our culture. It's proclaimed as a righteous argument and sometimes as a compassionate one. However, the messages of our imperfection and 'wrong-ness' can be truly insidious.
Some of you reading this can feel your cells resonating with some of these words:
"There's something wrong with me"
"There's something wrong in my body"
"I have this ______ because it runs in my family"
"If only I were_____"
"I'm not ________"
...and so many more.
Getting rid of these beliefs that become a part of your core identity feels like an exorcism. You are all of a sudden shifted from the person you've known yourself to be. It feels almost unbelievable but it's also incredibly freeing and exhilarating.
I encourage you to look within.
What might be some of the core beliefs that have become part of your identity and possibly manifested in your health?
Do you feel doubtful that you could change them? Or doubtful that you could be free of this _____ (insert symptom or health issue)?
Do you feel the odd puzzlement of not even knowing who you'd be if you didn't have this ________ (health issue / belief / way of being)?
These are the openings in your subconscious mind. They offer a crack into your ability to completely transform your life and your health. If you're determined, you'll see it happening quicker than you might expect.
I do have to offer the disclaimer that it's not often easy to see them on your own.
We're all a little bit like fish in water. We can't be aware of the water in which our lives take place without it being shown to us. It simply is.
Our beliefs and identity simply are, and they're often invisible to us.