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Signs of the Co-dependent Empath pattern:
The high-volume empathic system of a highly attuned person is often perceived to be a curse. But in actuality, it is an inherent part of our intuitive guidance system that allows us to read between the lines. It alerts us to where we can support healing and transformation by enabling us to pick up on the unseen, including the emotions and repressed issues of other people. Because other people's emotions register directly through our own emotional and empathic systems, it requires us to consciously differentiate our emotional content from other peoples. But this can be a tricky business if our innate gifts of empathy and attunement were mis-used to manage our safety, belonging and self-worth during our childhood years, through patterns like the Co-dependent Empath. Without awareness of our childhood survival and esteem-based patterns, and the pro-active conscious release of them, they are likely to travel with us into our adult years and undermine many areas of our lives. In the case of the Co-dependent Empath, it will continue to misunderstand the gifts of our empathy and attunement and sabotage our ability to be honest with ourselves and others. When we meet someone who our Co-dependent Empath perceives as needing our support and help, that person is more likely to meet our Co-dependent Empath than our genuine Self. Very sadly this pattern can be so deeply ingrained we wear it like a second skin, thinking it is our true self. But in reality, it is simply a way of manoeuvring in the world that gets in the way of our ability to attract relationships based on love, respect, reciprocity and balance. While Part One of this article, 'Releasing the Co-dependent Empath', helped us to identify the defining characteristics of the Co-dependent Empath pattern (See below for the link to Part 1), Part Two covers a loosely-framed reflective process on how to graciously release this pattern from our life. By giving thanks for how it helped us in the past whilst simultaneously letting it go we can begin to attract in and cultivate more genuine and honest relationships in to our life. The Change Process: From Co-dependent Empath to Empathic Truthtellor Our childhood survival and esteem-based patterns are akin to having entrenched long-term addictions, wired in at an exquisitely deep level. As we know, the ride can be bumpy with addiction recovery so support to create the optimal conditions for a smooth-sailing passage to sobriety is essential. Transitioning out of a psychological pattern is no different. It requires education to help re-wire our brain, ongoing self-reflection, and ultimately at least one trustworthy human to support us into a more genuine way of being in the world. Once we can SEE these patterns with awareness, we no longer have BE these patterns in behaviour, but we don't necessarily get it 'right' at first shot. It therefore requires befriending ourselves through this sometimes bumpy process and cultivating the muscles of diligence and patience as we traverse the bridge from old to new. And is a committed practice of showing up for yourself, gradually growing the 'felt sense' experience of your inherent self-worth, as you begin to say no to the things that hurt you. A complication that can confuse our transition into the new is the Co-dependent Empath's collision with a soul calling many highly attuned people hold dear. This soul calling is our inherent pull to support healing and transformation and is the reason we have such a high-voltage empathic system in the first place. Without awareness of this tripple whammy, from our high-voltage empathic system in partnership with our Co-dependent Empath pattern, compounded by an immature understanding of our soul calling, we can find ourselves being propelled into many unsavoury situations that we may have otherwise sidestepped. As we wisely know, some people are not ready to be helped. And part of our learning, as attuned beings, is discerning who we can effectively assist, and who we can not. So if you are judging yourself for repeatedly drawing misaligned people into your life, it is crucial to understand that you were wired to have this depth of empathy so that you are able to a) be exquisitely aware of both the seen and unseen suffering in the world in order to b) affect positive change where you can. And the great news is, we can learn to pivot out of the Co-dependent Empath pattern, and simultaneously hold our soul calling wisely, whereby we discern where best to use our gifts and where best to not. Differentiation: an essential skill for discerning what's your emotional content and what's mine As highly attuned people we are much like a radio picking up on multiple stations at the same time. We have the ability to receive and experience a number of channels of information simultaneously; emotionally (feelings), somatically (sensations/symptoms) and cognitively (thoughts), from both internal and external sources. To be able to accurately detect the source of this information, we need time to reflect. This will help us to break down firstly, what is our emotional content so that we can, secondly, identify what is likely to be that of the other. Moreover, our multi-sensory system can also receive, what I will refer to here as 'energetic intuitive information', including visual, auditory, knowing and sensing data. If we find ourselves experiencing out of the blue, uncharacteristic visual imagery, auditory messages, cognitions, feelings, sensations, it's important to not take these cues personally or project stories on to them. Please note that intuition simply means to know something to be true without logically knowing how we know. There are multiple ways of interpreting where our intuitive data comes from. This interpretation is determined by the individual and could be referred to as anything from divine/spiritual guidance or an inner knowing to psychic or intuitive guidance. For the purposes of catering to as many people's frameworks as possible, I am referring to it generically here as 'energetic intuitive data'. By using the neutral, curious lens of our Tracker (see link below for more information on the Tracker) and noting the data for what it is - that is simply data - we can begin to interpret this information, with growing accuracy, through our reflections. As we track the data we are receiving overtime, we will gradually become more confident in the message it is communicating to us. Please bear in mind a good rule of thumb to come back to as we are learning to differentiate our emotional content from others. If you are in a balanced state but find yourself, for no apparent reason, knocked off-balance in an interaction with another person or in a new environment/situation, the feelings coming up for you are probably 'not yours'. Of course, it is always best to take some time to reflect on the context before jumping to this conclusion but it is equally important to keep in mind that not all emotions that register through your emotional system are necessarily 'yours'. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a step-by-step loosely-framed reflective process to help us identify and release our Co-dependent Empath. Gaining clarity on what is our emotional content though this process will help us to gain clarity on what is the emotional content of others. Let the disentangling process begin! 1) NOTICING, without judgment. Is something happening in your system, akin to the signs and symptoms of the Co-dependent Empath described above? Excellent!!! Data received, thank you :) Pay attention to the 'felt sense' energy of your Co-dependent Empath. What is she feeling, thinking, seeing, hearing, sensing, doing? How is she moving, expressing, speaking? What urges did you notice? These questions help us to identify the habitual energy of our Co-dependent Empath. We can start to build a more nuanced picture of her by collecting this data on her. The more intimately we know how this pattern expresses through us, the easier it is to detect her in the future. With this, a natural detachment will gradually occur, allowing us to pivot into more consciously-chosen ways of being in the world. Please note that the Co-dependent Empath, like all patterns, manifests itself like a biological instinct within nanoseconds when triggered. She can feel easily overwhelmed by the pain and suffering of others, followed by intense urges to fix, save, sooth, repair, rescue, make better. If we can, at the very least IDENTIFY her we have a chance to initially stay with ourselves and sooth our own nervous system. Alongside our Co-dependent Empath, the initial overwhelm may also activate other patterns like our Inner Tormentor/ Critic or Perfectionist. These patterns tend to shame, put down, blame, and may even label us as 'crazy'. Originally the job of these patterns was to whip us into conformity to meet the expectations of our tribes and culture so we weren't cast out, punished, or humiliated. If you notice these patterns also emerging for you, honour them. They may have saved you in your younger years! And then gently return your attention to the energy of the Co-dependent Empath because that's our focus today. 2) GROUNDING If we feel de-centred, flooded, emotionally reactive, overwhelmed or out-of-balance, this is the data that provides our guidance in this moment. It is directing us to calm, sooth and GROUND our physical body before engaging in any further reflection. And re-centering will take as long as it takes, so we need to be patient with ourselves. A dysregulated nervous system is never calmed by urgency. 3) IDENTIFYING, without judgement Pay attention to the context. To start to make connections, go deeper into understanding the context: what was happening at the time? was there a trigger? where were you? who was there? what was happening? what was lead-up to this need to 'help, fix, rescue' energy? Also ask yourself, was your empathic system picking up on anything out of the ordinary?: a thought? a feeling? a sensation? or some other kind of uncharacteristic and out of the blue energetic intuitive data? Reflect on ALL of what you experienced and write down the most important aspects of what you recall so you can see it external to yourself. 4) CURIOUSLY UNPACK THE DATA. Is your Codependent Empath energy connected to... 1) Your wounded child's need for safety, belonging and self-worth? If so, can you remember moments of your Younger Self's needs being bypassed in their pursuit of caretaking other people? If so, hug them in with compassion and meet their unmet needs NOW, giving them the safety and reassurance that they needed back then. Please keep in mind that whatever unmet needs got suppressed and shoved into your unconscious as a child, have the potential to create long-term mental, emotional or physical discomfort. This can make both substance and behavioural-based addictions highly tempting in order to keep this discomfort at bay. Hence, healing the core wound of your Younger Self, by reparenting it, is non-negotiable on any type of wholistic healing journey. 2) Or is it your conditioning that has shaped your Co-dependent Empath pattern? Did you observe the female role models in your childhood taking on the traditional responsibilities of providing unconditional support and nurturance to others, hence naturally adopting this intergenerational culturally-conditioned pattern as your own? 3) Unresolved issues, trauma? Unresolved grief, for example, experienced in another person can hit your empathic system much more intensely if you have not fully processed your own. By identifying this, you can make an assessment of how much is your grief and how much is theirs, on a scale of 1 to 10? If your own grief has been triggered, continue your own grief work by staying with your own pain, feeling it to the edges as much as you safely can, and doing whatever is required to keep releasing the layers as they come up. Please note that in the case of losing a loved one, this is lifelong journey. Hence it is likely you will be triggered by those who are having similar experiences to some degree, no matter how long ago it happened and how much grief work you have already done. It's normal and its ok. 4) Is this your innate moral code speaking to you? Does this person, situation, environment trigger your value system? For example, if it violates your moral code to not speak up in the face of bullying, your conscience has the ability to loudly notify you through your empathic and emotional systems to STEP UP in these moments. You will most likely feel empathy for the victim and anger towards the person expressing the 'bully energy'. Articulating a clear boundary, gracefully and in the spirit of love, may be a call to action in that moment, or even after the fact (upon reflection), if safe to do so. This type of reflection will lead us to 1 of 3 outcomes: 1) Clarity - this part is mine (trauma, conditioning, innate moral code) and that part is theirs (genuine pain or repetitive suffering due to their conditioning or trauma-induced patterns. Please note: we need to have a solid handle on our own variety of patterns to be able to detect patterns in others and this skill takes time to master) With clarity we instinctively know if there is an action step we need to take for self and/or on behalf of the other/s involved, bringing an overall sense of peace to our system. 2) I don't know and it feels unresolved - if this is the case, it is helpful to access a neutral trustworthy support person to help unpack and resolve what's jamming up our system. This is a particularly important step to take in the case of things, situations and people that we are closely attached to as our perception in more likely to be skewed the closer we are to something. A safe space with a wise, healing presence, baring witness to our experience, opens doors to insight and clarity. 3) I don't know but it feels resolved for now - Great! Just note the data, without judgement, and trust that life will provide you with more information to broaden your understanding, in due course and if necessary. This can often be the case with energetic intuitive data. It may be building a bigger picture for you over time as it gradually gets fed to you in bite-size puzzle pieces. The trick is to NOT attach your agenda or narrative to this data. Let it be, carry on with your life, and allow the bigger picture to emerge over time! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please keep in mind, that if we are physically, mentally, emotionally or energetically/spiritually out of balance, with our own unresolved issues/stress, we need to attend to these first. When imbalanced ourselves, we are less resilient and more easily triggered, hence the guidance in such situations is to 'ground and recenter'. If no amount of self-care is working to help you ground and access clarity, please reach out to a neutral trustworthy confident who can help you to make sense of your 'next steps' towards balance. In Summary Breaking free from outdated childhood patterns ultimately supports a key skill we need to cultivate as highly attuned, empathic people: the skill of differentiation. By disentangling ourselves from our childhood patterns and unconscious projections, we are better able to appraise our 'here and now' relationship dynamics and discern our 'emotional content' from the 'other person's'. By diligently using a reflective process like the one outlined in this article we support ourselves to master the skill of differentiation by remaining grounded in our present reality, turning down the volume of our empathic overwhelm, voicing our truth, and making healthy decisions around how to support others effectively, if and when needed, without hurting ourselves in the process. This reflective process requires the following steps. These steps can be used with any childhood pattern that may be blocking us from accessing our personal truth and realising our potential.
and finally breaking that data down via....
As we start to practice this, we grow our capacity to perceive, with growing accuracy, crunchy and triggering situations as they come up, so we CAN actually do what we were effectively placed on Planet Earth to do - to support the healing and transformation of what is ready to be healed and transformed, starting with ourselves :) If this article has been helpful, stay tuned. I will continue to post as many articles and presentations to support you to better understand your multi-sensory system and cultivate its inherent gifts. Thank you for taking the time for reading this and engaging with me on this greatly important topic: the gift that is your high attuned, empathic, multi-sensory system :) Link to Part One of this article: https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/releasing-the-co-dependent-empath-pattern-part-one For more information on the Tracker (as mentioned above): https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/the-intuitively-perceptive-multi-sensory-body For more information on childhood survival and esteem-based patterns: https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/from-fate-to-destiny-using-archetypal-awareness For more information on Intuitive Guidance: https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/the-mystical-aspect-of-healing
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A beautiful person once shared with me that life is like a tapestry that requires us to discover the right threads to complete it. A tapestry unable to be wholly appreciated until we stand back to see it in its totality. This resonated with me. Life strikes me as an active creative process as we weave the different strands of our tapestry together, in alignment with what we know to be true for us at the time. These threads may even call for blind acts of faith as we follow the instruction of an inner knowing, sometimes leading us in surprising and unexpected directions. This type of divinely or intuitively-led journey (however we, as individuals, choose to define it) tends to be a non-negotiable component of the life path of those who identify as being highly attuned, sensitive and empathic. After many years of working in the field of psychology, it would be remiss of me to not speak into what I see as the spiritual and mystical aspects of the human healing journey. This is not to exclude or minimize the importance of medical and specialist expertise, both allopathic and complementary, nor the wide-ranging holistic health practices on offer when faced with mental/emotional or physical health challenges, but more to highlight that we cannot dismiss the contribution of our intuitive and/or spiritual guidance. If we are open to this inherent aspect of ourselves, it has the potential to not only be a legitimate pathway for our healing but, for some, a key player in their recovery process. Defining Spirituality and Mysticism Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. It is a universal human 'felt sense' experience that defies translation into words, encompassing peaceful feelings of interconnectedness, faith, hope, meaning and purpose. It generally includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, activities that lift our spirit, and a search for meaning and purpose in our life. Mysticism, on the other hand, takes us a step further. We find mysticism baked into most religious and spiritual traditions, all of which subscribe to the common belief that we need to intimately know and disentangle ourselves from our unconscious motives and programming in order to accurately perceive our reality. As humans, we accumulate layers of protective, yet limiting filters and behavioural patterns from our childhood conditioning and challenging life experiences. These projections from our past often lead to day-to-day choices that sabotage our ability to tell the truth. It requires our awareness and reflection, followed by behavioural change, to break out of their trance. This is a type of depth work that could be described as a 'know thyself' journey, whereby intuitive sensory information received beyond our 5 senses, starts to show up in various different and unexpected ways. Dropping in like puzzle pieces, this information grows and supports our understanding, healing and transformation. The more we build confidence in what is being intuitively shown to us, the more we trust the invaluable contribution of our intuitive guidance. Intuitive Guidance Intuition means that we know something to be true without knowing how we know. Depending on an individual's belief system it can be interpreted as emerging from inside of us, such as our 'inner knowing', or from outside of us, connected to spiritual, religious, philosophical or wisdom tradition frameworks. Put simply, intuitive guidance is our personal truthtellor, supporting us to see things in more nuanced and contextual ways and/or pointing us in particular directions, even if it doesn’t make logical sense at the time. It cuts through our well-reasoned, rational mind, and is a 'felt sense’ experience of truth and clarity, expressing itself through individuals in uniquely different ways. It usually comes to us, unexpectedly and out of the blue, and is neutral and unbiased. As a deeply touching experience in the moment, it can automatically or later reveal itself as symbolically meaningful and/or directional. Without knowing our unconscious programming, however, we run the risk of accidentally running it through our unconscious filters, either dismissing it away as 'nothing important' or overthinking and distorting its message. As intuition works to support our higher growth it often takes us out of our current way of seeing the world. Through this experience, we come to understand that even if we feel like we have taken the 'wrong' path at certain times of our life, there is actually no 'right' nor 'wrong' path to take, only learning, growth and evolution. We all have multiple senses through which guidance is constantly coming to and through us. At a base level, our emotions are our guidance. Working with our emotional guidance system helps to keep our psyche clear and attuned to 'next steps'. If we are sad, for example, we need to process our loss in a way that best fits our unique individual needs as we come to terms with our new reality. At a more symbolic level, guidance pertaining to our broader life journey may appear as internal 'felt sense' nudges, auditory messages, visual data, or a sense of simply knowing or feeling something to be true from deep within us. We may synchronistically receive information from a person, a book, or online that deeply resonates or piques our interest. Some of us may also experience symbolic or prophetic messages through dreams and/or visions. These different types of guidance are registered as truth in the moment. They feel right, they are clear clear, and they come from a place of neutrality rather than from a scattered place of fear or anxiety. Of course, we may initially experience an emotional response to our guidance, especially if it is something that surprises us, but its lucid message will always be undeniably strong, direct and deliberate. The 'Dark Night' In Western culture where the logic mind has been pedestaled and intuitive knowing, devalued, we may only start to pay attention to our divine/intuitive guidance when we are faced with what I will refer to as a 'Dark Night'. This is a time when we find ourselves pummelled into uncertainty as life as we know it begins to dismantle right in front of our eyes. It is a time of great loss, re-evaluation and rebuilding, with every stage requiring more than just a logic appraisal of one's life. We come to realise very quickly that if we distract ourselves from the experience, and don't listen to our intuitive nudges, we run the risk of staying stuck in repetitive suffering. Life after a 'Dark Night' is usually unrecognisable to the life we had prior. We discover that we, in many ways, are no longer who we thought we were. It is a highly uncomfortable process, as we patiently, diligently and proactively work with the puzzle pieces given to us, one piece at a time. We are, in essence, forced to take the path of a Mystic, often coming face to face with the sabotaging and unconscious drivers in our life. This experience is akin to a dying process as we release the many unhealthy aspects of our ego identity, realigning it with a more honest representation of the truth of who we actually are. Although this process usually involves multiple painful encounters with the disingenuous ways we have been running our lives, these are followed by the grace of epiphanies that have the potential to change our beliefs, open our mind and heart, and set us on a more genuine and liberating life path. We get to consciously choose how we continue to create our own life tapestry in a way that is better aligned with the truth of who we are. In Summary This is the mystical and beyond-the-mind aspect of the human healing journey. With the intention to clear the debris of unhealthy patterns of our unconscious programming, our intuitively and divinely-led guidance drip feeds information to see a fuller, more nuanced picture. And this allows us to courageously make conscious, healthy choices for ourselves so we can pioneer a more integrous way forward. This appears, from my clinical observations, to be a compulsory mission for many who identify as being 'highly attuned and sensitive'. With our natural inclination to resolve our unfinished business, we grow our ability to see our reality through clearer eyes as we strip away the muddied filters of our past and intergenerational trauma. And this is how we reclaim and grow mastery over one of our most important inherent gifts: our intuitive/divine guidance system. This is, as I see it, invisible and oftentimes solitary, yet vitally important work to be undertaken by a courageous minority. To those people, I salute you. I see you. I hear you. I feel you. I honour you. I love you and I Thank YOU :) If you resonate with this blog, I hope the material I offer in both my FB page and website help enlighten, give meaning, and provide encouragement on what may feel like the more tolling aspects of your highly attuned nature. Your need and search for truth and to do the right thing, no matter the circumstances, may not necessarily be welcomed, nor understood by your surrounding culture or tribe/s, but by creating a supportive, respectful, inter-faith based community with those who are on a similar journey, I hope we are all encouraged to keep moving towards an integrity-based and love-led united human collective and global community.  The dark night of the soul, a term coined by 16th Century Spanish catholic monk and mystic, St John of the Cross, is a descent into a dark internal chaos where you are confronted by things about yourself you have not seen or experienced before. By exposing the corruption of the monastic institutions of his era, St John was locked up in a dark confined space, released only for public humiliation and abuse on a daily basis by his brotherhood, until he was finally able to escape. His profound spiritual work during this time laid down a framework on how to transmute the raw emotions of human distress, such as hatred, anger and vengeance, when faced with unjust circumstances. It was essentially a purging of these parts of himself, using the power of his spiritual faith and prayer, and no doubt influenced by the modelling of forgiveness by Jesus Christ himself, with his declaration on the cross to 'Forgive them for they know not what they do', that helped St John transmute the darkest parts of his human nature into a force for light and unconditional love. Like many mystics found in most religious institutions across time, St John crossed the veil from religious dogma and doctrine into universal cosmic territory, mapping out a soul transformation process for humanity in his dark night framework. His dark night process is a soul-driven (or God/Life-driven) journey of releasing the unhealthy parts of our ego identity, caused by cultural conditioning and trauma that no longer serve our life path. Hence my re-coining of St John's 'dark night of the soul' to the 'dark night of the ego identity'. The dark night can happen randomly or be triggered by an event or a sequence of events. As you start the descent down, you will reach for every distraction-strategy in your playbook; from addictive tendencies to victim narratives of blame and entitlement. With our love of control, as humans, uncertainty is not something we relish. At such times we will do anything to maintain the status quo, often getting unconsciously drawn into behavioural patterns and filters from our past to help manage the chaos, confusion and unpredictability we are experiencing. A dark night process is initially one of the pain of loss, and as a 'beyond-the-mind, mystical and mysterious' process, we sometimes won't even know what we are losing in the early stages of it, yet we will still feel the acute pain of grief with every cell in our body. If you sense you are currently in this incredibly brutal and annihilating, yet ultimately transformational process..... Welcome to the death of certain parts of your ego identity that have made you who you are but are no longer fit for your greater Life purpose. You are currently in a life review and the process of becoming, my Darling, so please trust this process. I once heard a wise soul say regarding a 'dark night' process, 'when in hell, go to hell'. Surrendering to the process is the first step. Don't fight it. Its real, its happening. Our job is to hold tight and anchor ourselves to what is healthy in our lives, ideally recruiting experienced and wise human support to help make sense of the internal confusion, and keep us alert to the unhealthy distractions that block or numb ourselves from the healing process. We are being called to learn to TRUST and lean into our life, as it currently is, and our intuitive/divine guidance system which drip feeds us breadcrumbs of direction throughout the process. This guidance may not make much sense in the actual moment but will start to paint a greater picture overtime as to what we are letting go of and where we are going. The process will eventually rewire us in a new direction that we do not have the eyes to see yet. Put simply, in the face of such internal disturbance, we have two choices: 1) to either flow with the organic process, embracing the initially painful learnings it has to offer you, or 2) to push against it and inevitably stay stuck in varying degrees of repetitive pain until we learn the lesson/s it is attempting to teach us. If you are crying everyday and not sure why, welcome to the dark night. If it feels like life is against you at every level, welcome to the dark night. If you keep losing things of value to you and you think it can't get worse but it inevitably does, welcome to the dark night. You are now being forced to be totally reliant on your spiritual and intuitive guidance that will lead you step by step through this healing process. And that includes respecting the pain of loss. If you think you can cry no more, think again. You are releasing, my Love, you are letting go. You are transitioning, you are becoming what you were always meant to become but you have to let go first. And because there is no set roadmap for the journey, it requires you to build the muscles of surrender, trust and self-connection to endure this painful growth process. If this is not the most rigorous of character development programs I have ever come across, I really don't know what is. Hence, I salute you if you are currently in this phase of your life. This is why I have been sharing information (see below) on our intuitive guidance system, which may include, for some, your spiritual/energetic senses. As a moment-to-moment truthteller, our intuitive guidance system, feeds us information in random and piecemeal ways, as this process requires us to move from our old frame of reference to a new one. This 'beyond the mind' process does not come with an instruction manual, yet we are essentially required to navigate the enormity of both a death and rebirth process simultaneously. This means we are feeling and sensing our way in the dark towards something NEW that our piecemeal intuitive guidance is helping us to build, piece by piece. Our intuitive guidance system helps us to navigate this process in a world that may be shouting at us to keep everyone happy and maintain the status quo. So in order to go though a dark night process we require: a) a connection with our intrinsic esteem (see below link for more info) to hold strong through this personal growth process that many around us will not understand b) trust in the guidance we are being given even if it doesn't make sense at times (and if you are experiencing grief, THAT is the guidance. We need to SUPPORT ourselves to go through the loss consciously and it will take as long as it takes) c) know how to accurately perceive and read the guidance that is assisting us to grow and evolve. This means building our ability to DISCERN the 'old' perceptual frameworks, that are currently dying and have been distorting our ability to SEE reality clearly, as well as perceive the glimmers of the 'new' which will be shaping our future trajectory. Here's some important anchoring messages that may support your Dark Night chaos, confusion and pain, if you are in the thick of it right now:
With this information at hand, may we allow ourselves to turn towards the 'dark night' process by holding hope that if others can survive it, we can too. Thankfully we are at a point in Western history where we are more receptive to this type of information to support our individual growth process, instead of being slapped with pathological diagnoses that need to be medicated away. Medical supports may be helpful, in part, but they are not the full picture for a crisis of the soul/identity/life journey. We are instead we are required to mature and evolve into what we are called to become. It is for our highest good that the path we were on has been blocked and this is the re-route for our life. If you sense you are in a dark night process right now and resonate with the information I am sharing, please keep following my posts, website and YouTube channel. I will be supporting you to identify and release any outdated and unhealthy patterns of your ego identity so you can become the clear vessel required to accurately interpret and detect the emerging 'new' through your divine/intuitive and sensory guidance system. Please keep in mind this is a inter-faith based dialogue, holding a container of love for all spiritual and philosophical creeds, for no spiritual or philosophical path is exempt from a 'dark night'. It is a universally experienced phenomenon undertaken by souls strong enough to sustain this incredible evolutionary journey that holds human healing at its core. Lots of love to you, and with much gratitude to the courageous and wise soul who was St John of the Cross, Kira X Your Intuitive Guidance System: The Ultimate TruthTeller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry9y9x8X0o4 Your Intrinsic Esteem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZW-vadzc4 Information on the Tracker: https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/the-intuitively-perceptive-multi-sensory-body YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@kirafollas2991 FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559357951966 Website: www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz Email: [email protected] Below is a beautiful piece of art that helped carry me through my recent 'dark night' by a very special friend, Emma Prill https://www.emmaprill.co.nz/ 
We are moving into a new cultural paradigm. We are waking up to the truth that we have always been enough, despite our mis-steps and limitations as human beings. We are now leaning towards a new understanding that we are all equals here, on equal standing, and with equal value, no matter how we are showing up in the world, in all of our messiness, and all of our beauty. This means we are no longer chasing our enough-ness through the old value-based lens of acquisition, status, wealth or material things. We are instead allowing the truth of where we are at, in any given moment, to lead us to the next best self-healing steps at hand, even if that means 'hugging ourselves in' as we reach for our 6th chocolate bar or take another swig of Gin. This 'staying with ourselves, no matter what' practice ushers us gradually towards becoming all of who we are meant to become in this lifetime: from the humble and often deeply painful beginnings of unlearning all that we are not, to the soothing healing waters of becoming all that we are meant to become. This is a shift from culturally-determined prescriptions of what is expected and of value, to intuitive instruction from an internal code and compass embedded within you, that resonates as your personal truth at the deepest core of your being. Intrinsic esteem is perhaps an abstract idea that cannot be fully grasped until experientially felt in your body. The way that we initially help activate this natural self-worth and connection, comes from practices that treat us as such. Much like forgiveness or the experience of unconditional love, experiencing our intrinsic esteem is a 'beyond the mind' process and visits us initially like a butterfly lightly landing on our shoulder until it becomes more and more of an everyday 'felt sense' experience. The ongoing actions and practice of showing up for ourselves, with an attitude of 'all of me gets to be here' is required to firstly SEE our wounded ego strategies and patterns so we can then tweak these patterns towards new ways of operating in the world that are in alignment with our truest expression. At this point of human history we are in an internal revolution of sorts, breaking the intergenerational survival patterns of our ancestors from the inside out. As we break away from the old paradigms of being separate from each other in a hierarchical structure of 'perceived' winners and losers, pervasive denial and minimisation strategies to keep the greater collective happy and maintain the status quo, shame-based perfectionism and its whipping stick mentality, and the valuing of science and logic over body-based intuitive and faith based-guidance, embracing our intrinsic self-worth is but one part of this enormous intergenerational reshuffling that is occurring at present in Western culture. And it is a part we all get to play in this cultural evolution, whether we are aware of it or not. It is our journey towards wholeness as individuals, as societies, and the greater global collective as a whole. In summary, our intrinsic self worth cannot be quantifiable or achievable by scientific, logical, step by step measures. In other words, we cannot mentalise or positively think ourselves into intrinsic self-worth. This is instead a 'beyond the mind' healing process that happens on its own terms, in its own time. Our sole job is to activate the optimal conditions for the beginnings of this beautiful 'felt sense' experience to grace our human body, like a divine visitation of sorts. With increasing awareness, through our multiple senses and the intuitive/divine guidance they provide us, we learn to listen to, and sense our way into this gradual healing and rewiring of intergenerational patterns through our own physical bodies and psyches. We are in the throes of a revolution of sorts, but one that is internal and individual, that spreads its light to those around us like a restorative contagion, as we heal as a humanity towards wholeness. Starting from our own personal and individual healing, this naturally spreads to a greater societal healing, and that, my Darlings, is the game right there. If you are doing this invisible, yet critical, work, I see you, I hear you, I feel you, I love you, I honour you and I thank you :) If you resonate with this blog, I hope the material I offer in my FB page, website and YouTube channel helps enlighten, give meaning, and provide encouragement on what may feel like the tolling aspects of your highly attuned, empathic nature. Your need and search for truth, and to do the right thing, no matter the circumstances, may not necessarily be welcomed, nor understood by your surrounding culture or tribe/s, but by creating a supportive, respectful, inter-faith based community who are on a similar journey, I hope we are all encouraged to keep moving towards an integrity-based and love-led united human collective and global community.  Signs of the Co-dependent Empath pattern:
The high-volume empathic system of a highly attuned person is often perceived to be a curse. But in actuality, it is an inherent part of our intuitive guidance system that allows us to read between the lines. It alerts us to where we can support healing and transformation by enabling us to pick up on the unseen, including the emotions and repressed issues of other people. Because other people's emotions register directly through our own emotional and empathic systems, it requires us to consciously differentiate our emotional content from other peoples. But this can be a tricky business if our innate gifts of empathy and attunement were mis-used to manage our safety, belonging and self-worth during our childhood years, through patterns like the Co-dependent Empath. Without awareness of our childhood survival and esteem-based patterns, and the pro-active conscious release of them, they are likely to travel with us into our adult years and undermine many areas of our lives. In the case of the Co-dependent Empath pattern, it will continue to misunderstand the gifts of our empathy and attunement and sabotage our ability to be honest with ourselves and others. When we meet someone who our Co-dependent Empath pattern perceives as needing our support, that person will meet our Co-dependent Empath, not us. Very sadly this pattern can be so deeply ingrained we wear it like a second skin, thinking it is our true self. But in reality, it is simply a way of manoeuvring in the world that gets in the way of our ability to be honest and genuine in relationship with ourselves and others. In this article I will focus on the identifying characteristics of the Co-dependent Empath and how it can undermine our ability to be all of who we could potentially be. And Part Two of this article (see link below) will set out a loosely-framed reflective process on how to graciously release this pattern from our life. The Co-dependent Empath If your gift of attunement was channelled into taking care of, managing and smoothing over what may have seemed painful, scary, dysfunctional, and perhaps even unjust in your childhood, welcome in the Co-dependent Empath pattern, at your service, Maam. Whilst the experience of intense empathy and empathic overwhelm is generally self-explanatory for those who identify as highly attuned or sensitive, co-dependency is a term used to describe an excessive emotional reliance on others for our self-worth and sense of identity. This can cloud our judgments in relationships, particularly around appropriate boundary setting, leaving us feeling depleted and burnt out, more often than not. As an empathic temperament we feel everyone in our family and the usefulness of this is to anticipate how to behave for them to like and approve of us. Why? Because we need our parents to be level and present to parent us. If there was drama and dysfunction everywhere, we will feel our family member's unintegrated emotional fields and our unconscious will strategically position us in context to this. With the co-dependent posturing of putting others needs before our own, from a place of ‘you matter more than me’, our template of other-determined self-esteem is naturally born. The "I will only survive if I don't have boundaries' erroneous childhood conviction frames how we value ourselves for the rest of your lives unless we become aware and heal ourselves. So as much as the Co-dependent Empath pattern may have helped us out and perhaps even saved us in our younger years, it's unlikely to help us now as adults, as we look around our life and wonder why we keep attracting people who NEED us to plug the gaps in their lives. For what was initially experienced as an esteem-boosting 'act of service' to others, can eventually leave us feeling drained out, collapsed and perhaps even resentful and angry. We can be quick to judge ourselves for ongoingly attracting people who are draining, self-focused, in active addiction, or emotionally unavailable. But the truth is, we didn't! This was, instead, a template set up on our behalf by our unconscious in our earlier years. Its sole purpose was to help us manouevre ourselves in a way that we could get our basic needs met such as our safety, belonging and self-worth. If Mum had unpredictable moods or Dad was depressed, by utilising the Co-dependent Empath pattern, our unconscious was working to manage the situation as best it could, putting our inherent abilities of understanding what other's need, attentive listening skills, and helping, fixing and problem-solving to good use. Think of it this way, the Co-dependent Empath's view on relationships is 'If you are even-keeled, then I am even-keeled, so I will do everything I can to level you out''. This equates to safety. And if we take this a step further: the Codependent Empath also assumes that 'If I can fix/help/rescue you, and you value me for this, then I have found my identity, purpose, belonging and sense of self-worth'. This way of viewing oneself often stems from erroneous beliefs such as 'If somethings not right, it must be my fault or due to my failings'. And because the Co-dependent Empath staunchly believes these untruths, in it's relentless pursuit to prove its worth through fixing everything, it struggles to rest until its entire environment is at peace. Needless to say, the life of a Co-dependent Empath is stressful and taxing, not to mention exhausting and draining. If tip-toeing around people, efforting to make things better for them, and continually peace-keeping choppy interactional waters is a skill used, in excess and without awareness, when this dynamic disappears we will feel uncomfortable and out of place. This is why we continue to return to this familiar dynamic, over and over again, until such a time that we become so imbalanced in ourselves that we have no other option but to re-evaluate and start the process of change (See link below for more on the change process in Part 2 of this article). A Personal Example of the Co-dependent Empath As an example of my own experience of the Co-dependent Empath pattern, I recall a long-term relationship with a man who struggled with depression. His emotional suffering elicited a high level of empathy and compassion in me alongside strong urges to help him feel better. In this sense he was a perfect match for my Co-dependent Empath pattern. I felt energised to think I could help him and initially it appeared that I could. Through the delusional eyes of my Co-dependent Empath we made the 'perfect couple'. This man also carried the 'blaming anger energy' of a Victim pattern that was often unpredictable and scary. With limited awareness at the time, I followed the potent urges of my Co-dependent Empath to do whatever it took to keep him calm. Upon reflection, this was a life or death situation to my nervous system because if I didn't solve his problems, there was potential for him to leave me, as my psyche was seeing him through the lens of my Wounded Abandoned Child. This was another childhood pattern unconsciously set up through my experiences of abandonment in earlier years. In addition, co-dependency was an intergenerational pattern expressed though the female role models in my family growing up. Basing their safety, worth and identity on their ability to nurture and emotionally provide for others, co-dependency was deeply inbred in me from the get-go, and like so many other women, I knew no different. Despite the various communication strategies I tried using during this relationship, it was met with defence, blame and accusations. Only able to see reality through the muddied filters of my Co-dependent Empath and Wounded Child, I took his stories of blame and accusation on as my own, allowing myself to be scapegoated for his unresolved pain. This understandably manifested in my body as physical symptoms. Interestingly, I often recall seeing a visual in my minds eye of a balloon sitting above his head with a pin pointing towards it, as though it was about to pop, whenever he was close to exploding with anger. This was intuitive visual data, appearing out of the blue that I dismissed at the time, putting it down to my own 'craziness'. At midlife, however, I can confidently say, after many years of tracking my interior landscape, I have noticed that the same imagery emerges for me when I interact with people who have similar tendencies. For this reason I now honour this information for what it is - intuitive data - supporting me to make conscious and sensible choices for myself in my life. (More on intuitive data in Part 2 of this article - see link below) Attracting people who need me to make them feel better or solve their problems has been a lifelong challenge that I have come to realise has been driven by my Co-dependent Empath pattern. If you can relate to this pattern, it is not your fault, and there is zero-shame in admitting that you have unconscious magnetic attractions (friendship, sexual or otherwise) to people who fulfil your Co-dependent's 'need to be needed' to validate your value as a human. To highlight the potency of unconscious childhood patterns, they are like biological urges, driven by genetically inherited and conditioning/trauma-induced biochemistry, akin to addiction. What have you done to attract this, Kira?' is the shameful message I have received much of my life, and for anyone in this position, I want to empower you to know that a) it is not your fault and b) you can break these patterns by pro-actively working with your empathic system. Through education we come to understand that our empathic system can assist us to identify who and how we can help, love and support effectively, without hurting ourselves in the process. To finally come to learn that my empathic system was not here to disable me but instead to help heal myself and others, has been a game-changer at every level of my life, and I hope this will be the case for you too. From Co-dependent Empathic Overwhelm to Inherent Self-worth Our esteem is NEVER determined by another. As adults we come to understand that we were born into this world with esteem inherently. We have always been deeply loved and always will be. This wise knowing begins to bubble up as a 'felt sense' experience through regular daily healthy/spiritual practices that allow us to reconnect with ourselves and honour our personal truth in any given moment. From a place of esteem, we begin to say no to the things that hurt us, protecting and re-parenting the fearful younger energy still alive and well inside us. By beginning to take graceful and gentle steps towards honest expression with ourselves and others, we begin to set up a new energetic template that attracts others who aspire for the same. As we transition from a dependency on others' happiness and wellbeing for our self-worth, to a tranquil self-trust based on knowing our inherent value, we naturally discover a strong, direct, loving and honest voice to gracefully share with others. And as the energetic charge on our Co-dependent Empath begins to subside, those who are meant to be in our life naturally become more visible and those who are not gradually fade away. In summary: If you relate to the tendencies of the Co-dependent Empath outlined in this article, in Part Two (see below for link) I will outline a reflective process on how to release this unconscious childhood pattern. By releasing the Co-dependent Empath we support a key skill we need to cultivate as highly attuned, empathic people. This is the skill of differentiation. By disentangling ourselves from our own unconscious projections and patterns from our past, we are better able to appraise our 'here and now' relationship dynamics by discerning what is our 'emotional content' and what is 'other person's'. This helps us to turn down the volume of our empathic overwhelm, remain grounded in our present reality, realistically appraise the situation at hand, and support others effectively, if and when needed. Taking baby steps to understand our unconscious childhood patterns and their motives not only supports genuine self-expression but also helps hone the skills of our inherent intuitive abilities. As we stop seeing our external reality through our childhood filters we naturally do the same with our intuitive/divine guidance. With increasing levels of open receptivity, non-judgmental curiosity, and seeing through a neutral, grounded lens we have a much higher chance of both detecting and accurately interpreting our intuitive knowing with more ease. This opens the potential for transformation and healing for ourselves and those around us, in ways we may never have imagined possible. The sky becomes the limit :) If this article has been helpful, stay tuned. I will continue to post as many articles and videos to support you to better understand your multi-sensory system and cultivate its inherent gifts. Thank you for taking the time for reading this and engaging with me on this greatly important topic: the gift that is your high attuned, empathic, multi-sensory system :) Link to Part Two of this article: https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/releasing-our-co-dependent-empath-part-two For more information on the Tracker (as mentioned above): https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/the-intuitively-perceptive-multi-sensory-body For more information on childhood survival and esteem-based patterns: https://www.counsellingtauranga.co.nz/blog/from-fate-to-destiny-using-archetypal-awareness The Experience of the Intuitively Perceptive Multi-Sensory Energy Body If you relate to being multi-sensory, you know that you can intuitively sense, feel and perceive more than your own field and psychology. It's like you are a radio station picking up on a number of channels at the same time. This level of perceiving can include other people's emotions, thoughts, perceptions, patterns, sensations, symptoms and even illnesses. Your perception may also extend into sensing spiritual energies (however you define this) and other dimensions, including plants, animals, group/collective energy, solar system shifts, and perhaps even foreseeing upcoming events and changes. This can feel very overwhelming, exhausting and confusing without the tools to know how to accurately interpret the sensory data you are receiving. This blog is dedicated to sharing a tool to support you to learn how to read your own multi-sensory system so that you can a) take good care of it and b) understand the gift of your own unique intuitive/sensory language. Before we go any further, let's define intuition. Intuition is our truthteller. And it simply means we know something be true without knowing how we know. And whilst everybody has intuition, it is a predominant faculty of highly attuned people that is too loud to ignore. As a consequence of our intuition being suppressed and illegitimised for centuries in our logic-valued Western culture, it currently requires our courage to resist the collective negative attitudes towards it, in order to rebuild a relationship with it. And as we grow our trust in our intuition, which naturally happens with the continued experience of matching our intuitive nudges with growth and evolution for ourselves and others, we will start to use our intuitive gift as a directional compass for our lives in balance with the logical, rational facts at hand. Seeing life through the lens of the Tracker - A tool to help interpret your multi-sensory psychology Imagine if we could see our lives the way fish in a fish tank see the outside world. Its impersonal. Life is coming and going, and changing moment by moment. In a similar way, we can use a technical, impersonal lens to collect data on ourselves and life, as it unfolds around us. Using this technical lens, we can learn to observe our thoughts, sensations, emotions and urges as simply data/energy moving through our physical body. An example of this, as an intuitive temperament, could be 1) empathically feeling into the field of someone you care about who you know is suffering whilst simultaneously 2) noticing your urge to find ways to help them and 3) holding the intention to parent your children with love and care in the here and now. Additionally 4) you may also notice anger rising in you when having a seemingly neutral interaction with a friend on the phone, for which 5) your inner critic starts attacking you for. You may also be aware that 6) there is a distinct feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach for which you cannot identify its origin and with this 7) an urge to go source some chocolate asap to curb the discomfort of this uncertainty. As you can see, being multi-sensory can sometimes feel very overwhelming and exhausting, without the tools to help us read the multiple strands of information we are experiencing. And the above example is a very simple one. Imagine walking into a mall or crowded space as a highly attuned person, especially if the chips are down and resilience low! To witness, identify and name the different elements of our experience we can use what I will refer to here as your Tracker. Your Tracker simply collects data, in a grounded and technical way, taking note of the sensory information at hand without judgment. By naming what is true for you in any given moment is what we could call tracking the data. If you notice you are flooded with too much data, try taking a moment to write down the different components of your experience. This exercise, in and of itself, can help calm a physical body that has become information-flooded or empathically overwhelmed. And if that doesn't help, the 'instruction' from a body out of balance is always 'to ground and recenter'. Our body needs our help and our job is to assist it. Once it recenters, clarity of perception and directional 'next steps' naturally emerge. Tracking the data The accuracy of our intuitive perceptual skills will only ever be as good as the consciousness work we do on ourselves. Our consciousness work helps us to wipe clean our perceptual filters that have been muddied by our past conditioning and unrecovered trauma. We have a tendency, as humans, to project away what we have repressed in our psyches. The unconscious stores and manages what has been repressed and our body keeps the score. For example, if we have been taught by culture to shut ourselves down emotionally, we may struggle to empathise with others' feelings, even as highly attuned people (and especially for males in a culture where masculine strength is expressed through the 'tough guy' persona). So we firstly need to identify, and then 'hug in', what has been banished to the unconscious part of our psyche, from our personal truth and unique gifts to our insecurities, fears, and shame. By locating these repressed parts of ourselves, and their recruited protective patterns and distorted perceptions, we will become better acquainted with what triggers us into reactive patterns and simultaneously liberate our truth and inherent gifts, allowing us to change the trajectory of our life. This is an essential part of the 'know thyself' human healing journey and is ultimately a form of esteem work. When we are comfortable in ourselves, with the truth of ALL of who we are - the good, the bad and the ugly - reactivity tends to dissolve, we are more genuinely connected to others, and life simply doesn’t activate us in the same way anymore. This work requires commitment to regular self-reflection and self-connection. While it may feel like a confusing and messy process at first, this is how we begin to see through eyes of neutrality and accuracy. It also helps us to detect and interpret our intuitive sensory data, as it is no longer mixed up with, and skewed by the protective projections and patterns of our past. In due course, I will be offering some information on some of the common patterns and filters that block our ability to see through a clean lens. But for now, I encourage you to start practicing using the neutral pattern of Tracker to identify your experience in this now moment, without judgment, attachment of stories, or making any part of yourself wrong. Making sense of your sensory data - starting with the very basics Towards and Away From Sensory Data: You can start to practice using the Tracker lens right now as you read this information. When I am sharing information, it is simply that; information. Neither good, bad, nor right, wrong, but simply information that your physical body will either resonate with, or not. Knowing what resonates and what doesn't, through your subtle sensory system, is you discerning your personal truth in this moment. For example, notice when your ears prick up, something registers deep inside, you experience the 'full body divine tingles', a sense of 'connecting the dots', or a sentence or word gleaned that peaks your interest. We can pay attention to these signs running through your sensory system to move you towards or away from something, be it information, interactions, situations or environments. Outdated Conditioning or Unresolved Trauma Sensory Data: Equally, our Tracker can NOTICE when we are triggered by a wounded, unresolved part of ourselves that needs to be 'hugged in' and attended to. The difference here is that it won't be a moving towards or away from feeling, but more of a rattled, discombobulated feeling. You may feel emotional, irritable, unwell, flooded, overwhelmed, exhausted, angry, perhaps even disassociated. A reaction like this is your ally: a signpost to the fact that you are out of balance. If all things considered in your lifestyle, health, relationships and general wellbeing are at a reasonable baseline, it is likely to be a psychological imbalance pointing to old wounds that need healing or conditioning that needs updating. This will require our attention to delve into its origins, process what was not fully processed or considered at the time, and update our distorted filters. Once our psyche becomes a neutralised container we naturally find that we can hold different situations, beliefs, and points of views, with ease. Our Moral Compass: Keep in mind, however, there can be another type of triggering which may be entirely appropriate to a situation. We all have a conscience, an innate moral compass of sorts, which is connected to the core of who we are. The closer we are to our integrity and conscience, the more confidence we have to speak assertively into the topics that are truly important to us, but if culture has shamed us for doing so in the past, we may react out of character in the moment or suffer in silence. Because our innate moral code also speaks to us through our multi-sensory system, violation of it will cause an immediate response that could look and feel like a triggered reaction. A good way to check this, if you are rattled by your own reaction post-the-event, is to ask yourself, 'had I not reacted in that way, would I be haunted for not speaking or stepping up in that moment?' Equally, if we are unable to respond in the moment, we can process our reaction (as I will outline below), allowing us to get to know this core part of who we are, and if necessary follow up with an action for closure. A personal example of processing using my Tracker As an example of using my own Tracker to drill down on one aspect of my now moment experience, let me share with you some real-time processing of one of the bouts of reactivity I recently experienced. I felt overwhelming frustration when I was faced with a group of people holding a collective attitude, in what I believed to be lacking nuance and the 'fuller picture' leading to bias and prejudice. Scanning the data I can break it down to: 1) In the moment of the trigger, I experienced ANGER (violation to my moral code), SELF CRITICISM from my Inner Critic (why can't you just be like everyone else - your life would be so much easier!), BLAME from my Victim (why have I been given such a high-volume emotional and sensory system that never seems to fit with the greater collective? why can't I have an easier life?) Once I have acknowledged and held space for all the initial screaming in my psyche, it made space for: 2) I am experiencing SADNESS that parts of humanity are still so closed in their perception due to unchecked black and white conditioning, and... 3) the Idealist in me (connected to my value system and conscience) grieves that this hasn't changed yet. Tears are running down my cheeks as I write this as I... 4) release somatically the energy of SADNESS from my physical body, grief that we are not yet where I would prefer us to be as a human collective. Simultaneously, I am becoming aware, as I peel back all these layers is my inherent... 5) FAITH-BASED BELIEF/INTUITIVE KNOWING that everything is exactly as it is meant to be at this point of time, and that change is not only possible but inevitable. This brings hope, peace and relief to my psyche, as I reconnect with my INTUITIVE TRUTH so that there is now room for me to move more fluidly throughout the rest of my day, without the added layer of stress that repressed grief brings. This unexpressed grief could have otherwise triggered a familiar Defeatist pattern in me creating a low mood, heavy energy, and a narrative that 'there is no hope'. Instead, by using my Tracker, my sensory data naturally led me back to a reconnection with myself and my personal truth, resetting my physical body and allowing me to be present again in the here and the now. If I went through this reflective process and came to the conclusion I needed to take an action for closure (by speaking to the people who were involved, for example) I could have done that. BUT after peeling back and working through all of the data, including expressing my grief somatically, I have become intuitively aware that this is not necessary. In fact I know it could further entrench their black and white thinking. When we neutralise our psyche in this way, we have better access to our intuitive perception and a greater ability to let go of that which we cannot control. Once I had released my grief I could see clearly that it was not my responsibility to try and change this particular group's attitudes. This has returned me to a feeling of warmth and acceptance towards the WHOLE of who these people are, not just what I perceive to be negative. In Summary: Change is constant and resistance to change causes suffering, as Buddha has wisely taught us. Our physical body is changing moment by moment, so staying attuned to ourselves and our multiple senses, never making our multi-sensory system wrong and honouring the information it shares with us, we have an opportunity to get to know and heal ourselves at a deeper level. What needs to be cleared from our system, can be cleared. What needs to be taken heed of, can be honoured. What needs to be transmuted for the better, can be healed. What is your's and what is somebody else's emotional content can be identified and released. And as we get more skilled, with the helpful neutrality of our Tracker, our sensory data can be used discerningly and conscientiously to make wise and conscious decisions for the greater good. By befriending our many channels of information, we learn how our multiple senses are trying to communicate with us, enabling us to utilise their gift of communication to help ourselves and the greater collective along. Whilst this may seem like a challenge at first, as we learn to track our multi-sensory body for data, impersonally and without judgment, it is not only eye-opening but one of the most loving acts we can give ourselves. Moreover, it is a healing antidote to the shame-based messages we may have received growing up in a 5-sensory culture as multi-sensory beings. Such an act of self-connection enables us to see more clearly, honours our temperament and its gifts, and supports us to tap into experiences of transformation and healing that we may never have believed possible.  The groundbreaking work of one of our earliest Western psychologists, Karl Jung (1875-1961), was the beginning of a revolutionary shift in our understanding of the human psyche. Thanks to the voluminous and extensive work of Jung and those who followed in his footsteps, it is easy to understand how human beings can become so divorced from their authentic expression. We are instead taken over by our unconsciously-driven archetypal patterns created in response to our childhood environments, born out of our natural instincts to belong, to be safe and to be of value. This could be likened to developing a 'masked' identity that enables us to manoeuvre safely and effectively in our environments, but simultaneously cuts us off from our authentic self and truth-telling abilities. But thankfully, at certain points of our life, we may experience a cracking through of this 'authentic self' in its desire to express itself, creating havoc in the beginning stages, but ultimately leading to self-discovery, self-healing, and transformation. Jung defined archetypes as universal patterns or forces in the human psyche, much like instincts. Instincts are like biological urges. When we trigger an instinct, it immediately activates a pattern of behaviour, like running a software program on a computer. Simply put, just like we don’t have to think when we drive a car, because the subconscious automatically does that for us, our various archetypal patterns from childhood run many aspects of our adult life, without any awareness on our part. Our archetypal patterns are influencing everything we think, do and feel. Each pattern has its own habitual energy, expressions, gestures, urges, thoughts, feelings and vocabulary. When we can observe an archetype operating in us, we have differentiated ourselves from it. This allows us the option to pivot into new consciously-created patterns, better aligned with the truth of who we are. And with this, our life direction has the possibility to move from an unconsciously-driven fate into a consciously-driven destiny in alignment with your life's callings. There can be a number of archetypal characters driving our adult personality, both helpful and unhelpful. As examples, we may appropriately morph into a Professional archetype when at work, but inappropriately, be unconsciously driven by an Abandoned Child archetype in our most intimate relationships. This 'Abandoned Child' pattern may trigger us to 'act out' in various ways to relieve this historic fear of abandonment even if that fear holds no legitimacy in our present-day context. A universally experienced archetypal pattern by all human beings is the child archetype. The child archetype is where our psychological template was first set up, laying down a foundation for our safety, belonging, and self-worth. But there is a certain limit to our psychology as children, as we are simply not mature enough to understand the complexity of the human psyche at such a young age. With our subconscious mind designed to track any threats to our safety as a child, it was unlikely to perceive our father's anger or mother's depression as having nothing to do with us. Instead, any issue belonging to the adults around us had the potential to be perceived as 'our fault'. If we take on the pattern of a Wounded Child it will usually recruit other patterns to hide its insecurities and find ways to adapt in a 'culturally acceptable' way. This is where the Conformist, Perfectionist, Rescuer, Helper, Achiever, Co-dependent, Inner Critic, Victim, or even the self-focused, self-reliant Shapeshifter/Chameleon/Lone Wolf or Narcissist archetypal patterns may develop, just to name a few. If you can relate to any of these archetypal expressions, we can think of them as seeing, thinking, hearing, perceiving and choosing for us, way beyond our childhood years, leaving us with a skewed perception on reality. Aside from the fact that these patterns block our ability to truly KNOW OURSELVES, they also sabotage our perceptual clarity as mature adults, as we continue to unconsciously project our wounded child's reality onto the people and environments around us. This leads me to speak into the highly attuned, empathic child archetype. If you can relate to this temperament you will know you were exquisitely attuned to the expectations of your environment growing up. You perhaps picked up on the repressed emotions and energy of those around you, potentially found yourself sharing wise insight with people (whether they were ready to hear it or not!), or were shamed for having multi-sensory experiences outside of our mainstream 5-sensory cultural perceptual framework. Moreover, being a part of a culture where our qualities were seen as 'less than ideal'; such as feeling our feelings intensely, becoming overwhelmed by too much external stimulation because of our depth of perceptual processing, and/or ongoingly being told we were wrong when we definitively knew we were right, can lead to self-disconnection, self-abandonment and distrust in our natural instinctive knowing. With little education or support, which simply didn't exist in previous generations, on how to read, manage and use our high attunement in a beneficial way, the potential for feeling 'less than' was very real. The message was clear: DON'T BE YOU and YOU DON'T FIT. Furthermore, there was simply no education provided to let us know that its ok to be you, and here's how to work effectively with a highly attuned system like yours. Given these cultural circumstances it was highly likely for an emotionally abandoned child archetype to develop in many highly attuned children. And to mask their Wounded Child's insecurities they were likely to have recruited a variety of archetypal expressions to compensate for their perceived shortcomings. It makes total sense that they unconsciously utilised their inherent gifts, such as their attuned listening skills and ability to read other peoples needs, to funnel into patterns that helped them feel esteemed, loved and a sense of belonging. They may have taken on the patterns of the Parentified Child (parenting their own caregivers), Adult Child (becoming self-reliant to the extreme, due to distrust in the adults around them) or Codependent Empath (managing other peoples feelings to manage their own safety and emotional balance), just to name a few. They may have even recruited a hyper-vigilant Risk Assessor and Chameleon to shape-shift around the varying situations in their childhood settings, trusting no one and learning to adapt quickly to the wide range of expectations and needs of those around them. Shutting down our inherent gifts in this way, by recruiting them instead for the hypervigilant management of our environments, is likely to burn us out or leave us feeling very alone and disconnected from ourselves and others over time. This understandably puts us at risk of recruiting even more sabotaging patterns, like the addict (workaholism included!) or tuned-out 'daydreamer' or 'fantasiser', to provide us with some temporary relief from the discomfort of the long-term self-disconnection we are experiencing. The silencing or cutting ourselves off from our authenticity can also affect our individual biochemistry, impacting our physical and mental health, and making us prone to becoming pathologised in today's culture. And whilst medication may play an important role in helping our biology to heal, we also need to identify the archetypal patterns that maintain this biochemical imbalance. By identifying where our archetypal patterns originated, we can learn to accept these parts of our selves and 'hug them in' graciously, understanding that they helped to keep us safe in childhood, but utilised in excess NOW, sabotage our precious life force energy, inherent gifts and creative potential. To move into new self-chosen archetypal patterns, in alignment with our personal truth and inherent moral code, is more than just having awareness of our childhood patterns, however. It is a process, that will take as long as it takes, to move from your recruited childhood survival team to a new consciously-chosen empowered one. To do this, trauma recovery and a review on your conditioning is required, oftentimes not without some discomfort and grief along the way. I often refer to this as a 'Dark Night' process of 'becoming a nobody to become a somebody again', as we humbly own our own part in some of the choices we have made in our lives as a result of these recruited childhood patterns. Getting both trusted human and faith-based support through this process can help us through this transition as we shift from, what can seem like an initially messy interior landscape to perceptual clarity from a self-aware and mature adult perspective. And it is important to remember throughout this transformative process, that a healthy 'reclamation of one's true self' has the potential to be hampered by our automatic default patterns, such as our 'Inner Critic' or 'Perfectionist', blaming ourselves, or 'Victim', blaming others. Our job instead is to notice these default patterns and pivot towards a more healing orientation, knowing that there is no right nor wrong, just simply DATA to be TRACKED through a NEUTRAL lens, as spoken about in previous articles and videos. Using an archetypal framework is a powerful roadmap to understanding the human psyche and helps us to see ourselves more clearly, and therefore others too. As we start to identify the uncomfortable shadow parts of our psyche, we can peel back the layers of the inauthentic 'masks' we have accumulated over time and shed their inaccurate perceptions. This can be confronting, especially if we have recruited self-deprecating, self-sacrificing and even self-focused patterns to cope with life. But as we are released from the grip of these patterns, we have the ability to move through life in an entirely different yet empowering way, aligned with the truth of who we actually are. It also enables us to detect those same shadow expressions in others, and therefore not take others behaviours so personally. For the most part, we come to understand that many people are predominantly being run by childhood programming that has never been identified, let alone addressed, to support their own healing towards authenticity and wholeness. For many multi-sensory beings, the search for truth and healing through self-reflection is something we feel naturally drawn to, and our own inner transformation opens a pathway for healing to occur in the wider systems around us. With each of us who dare to tread this often invisible and solitary, yet immensely courageous path, we know intuitively that we contribute to the healing and evolution of our family lines and therefore, human consciousness as a whole. To anyone who resonates with this journey, I salute you. I see you, I hear you, I feel you, I honour you, I love you and I thank you :) In sincere gratitude to the work of teacher and authors, Robert Ohotto and Caroline Myss, for their extensive and advanced body of work based on Karl Jung's archetypes, both of whose work can be found on the internet.  Te Whare Tapa Whā - A Maori Model of Health and Wellbeing
Māori health expert, Mason Durie, developed the Te Whare Tapa Whā model of health in 1984. This model encapsulates a Māori view of health that has five dimensions: Whenua (earth/environment), Taha Wairua (spiritual health), Taha Hinengaro (mental health), Taha Tinana (physical health) and Taha Whanau (social health). Different parts of a wharenui (meeting house) represent each of these dimensions. Without these different parts, the wharenui would collapse, exemplifying the interdependence between, and powerful influence each dimension has on the other. In Māori culture, taha wairua is acknowledged to be an essential requirement for health, but as Durie points out, it is an often misunderstood approach to wellbeing because, although it is universally experienced by humans as a subjective ‘felt sense' experience, it defies translation into words leaving it infrequently spoken about. Taha Wairua includes experiencing times of spiritual connection which could encompass the 'felt sense' of awe, wonder, interconnectedness, faith, hope, insight, meaning and purpose. This could be, for some, felt via the experience of karakia (prayer) or equally, for others, the awe experienced watching the sun go down. Taha wairua also pertains to unseen energies and spiritual awareness. It is believed that without knowledge of the things that uplift the human spirit in a 'felt sense' way, an individual can be considered more prone to ill health and lack wellbeing. Taha wairua also includes things that bring meaning and purpose to one's life, encompassing a quest for wholeness and knowing who you are, a search for hope and harmony, belief in a higher being or beings, one's connection to ancestors, a sense that there is more to life than the practical and material aspects of it, and activities that give value and meaning to people’s lives. In Māori culture specifically, it can include things like whakapapa (genealogy), atua (ancestors), karakia (prayer), sacred whenua (places) like Marae, sacred taonga (objects) like pounamu, spiritual concepts like mana (power, essence, presence) and mauri (life force energy), and tikanga (custom). Our current cultural devaluing of Taha Wairua and with that, our 'felt sense' experiences The Enlightenment period, swiftly followed by the Age of Reason, was a period of history from the 16th to 18th centuries in Europe of cultural and intellectual revolution. At this time, European society underwent a staggering transformation, in part as a reaction to both the superstition and control fostered by the medieval church. This period initiated a profound advancement in the liberation of the intellect, doing society a great favour in overturning the absolute power of state and church, including its scapegoating of witches across America and Europe in the 15 and 16oos, for the many religious, economic, climate, war and conflict misfortunes at that time. As the West's love affair with logic, intellect and science continued to grow and gain momentum during this period, what was now regarded as unreliable and subjective, including our innate intuitive skills and spiritual beliefs and practices, began to be devalued, initiating a process of gradually writing off the domain of faith, moral instruction, and spiritual direction held dear to humans for millennia. People who were intuitively, spiritually and mystically inclined, found both inside and outside of religious structures in the previous centuries, retreated to positions of lesser social authority and status. Mystics, for example, who were influenced by both their passion for mind and reason as well as God and Soul; and Shamans and Healers, who often worked with plant medicine and different spiritual energies, were much less welcomed as legitimate contributors of value to society at large. For millennia, up until the Enlightenment and Age of Reason, spiritual belief systems and concepts have acted as a bridge for humans into a direct connection to God/the Divine/the Sacred and were regarded as essential in navigating life’s inevitable uncertainties and challenges. One example of this is the practice of prayer, found across most, if not all, religious and spiritual traditions. Prayer induces a state of FAITH in asking a higher intelligence to show us how to best show up in the world and to illumine the right path and course of action for us in challenging times, as well as to assist us in our personal growth and moral development. It is the ultimate act of asking empowering questions, in a 'felt sense' field of grace and trust, where we can expect to receive the guidance and strength we are seeking. There is no greater placebo effect than this (in rational scientific terms) when faced with the unavoidable challenges of the irrational, unpredictable and uncertain aspects of the natural universe of which we are a part. In Gratitude to Taha Wairua: a bridge to reclaiming our Spiritual Senses and Multi-Sensory Temperaments In a culture in which there is currently a spiritual void for many, and in the face of dealing with challenging situations that require us to go beyond the rational mind in our approach, taha wairua is a doorway to restoring balance between our rational, logic mind, and the cosmic human heart. As we enter an age where more and more people are seeking a spiritual pilgrimage into the depths of what it means to be a whole person living a meaningful life, taha wairua offers a legitimate pathway back to a spiritual foundation which ultimately supports the overcoming of adversities, understanding our own unique callings and life path, and the ethical and personal development of our character. As a therapist, I have come to understand that solely bandaging the practical issues arising in one’s life in a rational step-by-step way, to be inadequate for a human soul starving for spiritual replenishment in a mainstream culture devoid of such conversations, let alone practices. It is to taha wairua, I personally hold the deepest gratitude for its support in opening these much-needed conversations in the current emerging era of increasing openness and receptivity than in the centuries prior. The following information is taken from the ‘high sensitivity’ research of Dr Elaine Aron. Whilst this research provides us with an evidence-based body of work, after a decade of my own clinical observations and experience working with people who are highly attuned, I am acutely aware that it is more nuanced than what the science presents us, deserving more elaboration, particularly in relation to how to work optimally with our intuition and multiple senses.
Through my observations I have identified that many highly attuned people with healthy esteem, robust physical constitutions and balanced nervous systems (brain chemistry), as well as adequate supports and lifestyles, don’t need as much downtime as the research may suggest, and may be thriving despite some of the traumatic experiences they have been through. For those without adequate supports, however, unresolved trauma and less robust physical constitutions/nervous systems are more likely to rely on unhealthy patterns to cope and protect themselves, unconsciously cutting themselves off from their optimal potential. These expressions can range from self-blaming tendencies right through to self-focused, narcissistic tendencies. Spoiler alert: highly attuned people may have had to shut down the empathic aspect of their nature to survive their childhood circumstances/environment, using more self-focused strategies to cope. When generalizing a population in this way, we can erroneously think highly attuned people are all the same, which couldn’t be further from the truth. We all come to planet earth, as humans, with different passions, missions and assignments. On the one hand, you may find a highly attuned person to be a conservative, value-based, charitable human, while others may identify as a liberal progressive activist for whatever cause/s that are important to them. There is no one 'right, wrong', 'good, bad', 'better than hierarchies', on this front. All is allowed and welcomed for that is reflective of the natural biodiversity of life itself, keeping the sum of its parts in balance. Most importantly, it must be stated clearly that high sensitivity is not a trait to be diagnosed or cured. Instead, it is a normal variation of the mainstream temperament. With adequate education and support, highly attuned people have the opportunity to thrive in this world being who they are, as opposed to who they think they should be, to fit into our mainstream collective culture. For those of you who are interested in the research on this temperament, please find a brief summary below. And for more detailed information you can access the research online at Dr Elaine Aron’s website, https://hsperson.com, as well as her many books for sale online, including The Highly Sensitive Person. Four characteristics of the Highly Sensitive Temperament based on Dr Elaine Aron's research: 1) Depth of perceptual processing using the five senses and beyond. This means higher degrees of empathy (more mirror neurons produced), conscientiousness (awareness of what is needed, and an eye for the finer details) and clear intuitive abilities (when healthy and well). With a deeper awareness of subtleties and nuances in their environment this can lead to… 2) Overarousal, overstimulation and overwhelm in a culture not designed with their sensitive sensory processing system in mind. It is therefore vitally important for HSPs (highly sensitive people) to know what they can handle and take regular downtime, as necessary, as a part of their toolkit to regulate their more easily-triggered nervous systems. They tend to prefer calm environments to maintain regulation, and stay within their window of tolerance. And if overstimulated beyond their capacity for too longer period of time, without the skills to healthily protect and boundary themselves, can find themselves stuck in a maladaptive stress response. This can lead to mental and physical health issues, especially if there have been less than adequate childhood circumstances. Education and appropriate support is key to healing if such issues have developed. 3) Deeper emotional reactions, both to positive and negative stimuli. A big challenge for HSPs is that they can find themselves deeply distressed about the suffering of others: humans, animals and their environment. Feeling their own emotions more intensely, they are also more inclined to do what it takes to resolve that which is unresolved in their psyche. Hence the 'wounded healer' pattern comes through strongly in many HSPs as they seek to heal self to heal others. 4) Awareness of others feelings including picking up on the subtle signs of repressed emotions in others, and this can cause confusion and overwhelm as a child without appropriate guidance and support. Clarification around High Sensitivity: • 15-20% of the general world population are regarded to be highly sensitive. Dr Elaine Aron has coined them the ‘Priestly Advisors’ (with a stronger ‘pause to check’ system) to their counterparts, the ‘Warrior King’s (with a stronger ‘go for it’ system) • HSPs are not necessarily more sensitive to other people’s needs, especially if their baseline of wellbeing is not at an adequate level and there is unresolved issues/trauma • High Sensitivity is also not all about being overly sensitive to criticism, although this can happen if their baseline of wellbeing is too low • There is a spectrum of high sensitivity, where individuals can come to understand their own unique flavour of the trait in order to support their body and psyche to cope and thrive in today’s highly stimulating mainstream culture. Other characteristics that have been found to be correlated with the trait of high sensitivity are: • They are often the first ones that know what needs to be done, becoming pioneers in different fields ie. Einstein, Ghandi • Have potential for high creativity • Can be extra sensitive to physical pain • Have a rich, complex inner life and/or connection with soul/spirit life • Prefer meaningful conversation topics with depth over small talk • 70% are introverts, the remaining 30% regard themselves to be extraverted • There are equal numbers of HSPs in males and females • The trait of 'high sensation seeking', with one foot on the brakes and the other on the gas simultaneously, can be a challenge for some HSPs who have a desire to explore, are easily bored and feel a need to take action, despite having a nervous system that can't handle as much as they would want it to. This can lead to a revolving push-crash cycle. We are all born into the world 'tabala rasa', predominantly as a blank slate. Our template is set up by the earliest messages we receive: both implicitly (through modeling) or explicitly (through language and instruction) Although my childhood was privileged, behind the scenes was ongoing trauma. I was convinced as a child and into my early adult years there must be something wrong with me, that it was somehow ALL my fault. If anything went wrong around me I would immediately blame myself, no questions asked. If I sensed other people were emotionally upset, I would automatically assume it was all my responsibility and would set about doing everything I could to reduce their suffering. Even without trauma, our 'tabala rasa' blank slate is programmed by our early childhood experiences. Children up until the age of 7 are in the same brainwave state as someone under a highly suggestible hypnotic state. All inbound information is swallowed whole without question. So our programming is imprinted from ALL of our experiences in combination. What we see, hear and sense in our environment (often subliminally) becomes a belief-determined filter, governing our overall perceptions and choices in life, for good or for bad. So because I believed that there was something wrong with me, my prerogative in life was to prove to the world that I was an OK, acceptable human being. That I was of value and had something useful to offer. And because in the West, we tend to value high achievers, working hard and pushing through, even to the detriment of our own physical bodies, I got sucked into this too. 'Toughen up' and 'Get over it!' became my everyday mantras... We also tend to accolade the self-less: the generous and charitable spirits of our society. Now don't get me wrong, being productive, charitable and generous are all admirable traits! Just NOT when they are taken to the extreme and come at a cost to the human body. And these were the qualities I adopted in extreme to prove my worthiness and receive what all human beings crave at a deep cellular level: love and acceptance from others. These behaviours were what predominantly made up the mask I wore for the world. And the more I wore the mask the more distant I became from my own true self. The mask was so stuck-hard to my face for so many years I didn't even know it existed. I had no awareness of the mask, thinking it was the real me but never feeling quite right in myself. Wearing this mask caused my body insurmountable stress. The mask pushed me in a direction that went against who I am and ultimately the person I was meant to become. But life has a funny way of course-correcting us when we are off track! As a result of this unconscious stress, a very painful wake up call entered my life in my late 20s: a chronic illness fraught with misunderstanding by both the medical profession and general public called Myalgic Encephelomylytis, more commonly known as, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, true to its name, comes with industrial-strength fatigue. It was like someone pulled the plug out and crawling from the bed to the toilet was commonplace in the early years of having it. Light, noise and stimulation were unbearable and I found myself predominantly in a darkened room, losing my previous life as I knew it. My dream job was lost and I could no longer properly take care of my children or continue my studies. Off the back of Glandular Fever, it felt like the virus never left me. I could barely lift my head off the pillow, my flu-like symptoms and systemic muscular pain so excruciating. With my immune system shot to pieces, viral and bacterial infections landed me in hospital a number of times. And my brain turned to mush. The severe cognitive dysfunction made words coming at me sound like gobbledygook and stringing sentences together seemed like an impossible task. Everyday was 'survival'. It was confusing too because the odd day I was semi-functional. At these times I would often think to myself that it must be all in my head, and try to catch up on my 'to do' list, only to crash for days, weeks and sometimes months all over again. 3 years later I received the medical diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia with the proverbial 'sorry, there is nothing we can do for you - you need to learn to manage your symptoms' spiel from doctors and specialists. My quality of life was so bad at the time that I silently resolved myself to either getting better or ending my life. Keeping my children in the forefront of my mind, I went online to search for recoverees of such-like conditions. Little did I know at the time, my unraveling health crisis was the gateway to finally making what was unconscious in my life, conscious. It was not only the beginning of a healing journey for my physical health but also a healing journey for the WHOLE of my life. In fact healing means to make whole again, to restore back to wholeness - mind, heart, body and spirit. I learnt that everything is connected: past, present and future and most importantly, that our early programming impacts the choices we make in our lives; for example, the relationships we attract, the environments we choose to put ourselves into, the food we ingest, and the way we operate day to day, and treat ourselves and others. I learnt that the way I had been living my life, and the mask I had worn unwittingly all those years, had set up the optimal conditions for me to become very, very unwell. I also had the recognition that if I had the power to contribute to creating illness, then I also had the power to create wellness. Human belief systems and habitual behaviours, however, don't like change. Its requires a pro-active conscious effort to shift the broken record of our entrenched conditioning and automatic behaviours. Whats more, if you feel like the 'living dead' experiencing a 'living hell', mustering up your already limited energy to reflect upon unhelpful conditioning, and most importantly, taking action to 're-wire' your life towards wellness can seem like an insurmountable task! This is why what is known as 'Mindfulness' became the most healing medicinal tonic in the early stages of my healing journey. This required only my focused attention: to become present in the moment and observe my thinking patterns, the very thought patterns that had contributed to pushing my body to its limit in the first place. It was disturbing to discover the broken record that was my own dysfunctional thinking. In the background, like a low volume radio station, I realised the songs that had got stuck on replay were my worst enemies. The six inches between my ears, the noise-making machine, as Echarte Tolle calls it, had taken me for a ride in a very misguided direction. I also noticed the direct correlation between the unhealthy, nasty self-talk and how I physically felt. No wonder I had been plagued with migraines, headaches and sore tummies all of my life! The body, I discovered, was talking to me. It had been crying out for my help for so long only to be met by my own personal whipping stick, beating it back into submission as I kept pushing through. With a developing awareness of my unconscious programming, I was able to gift myself the ultimate antidote to the harsh bully tactics I had been forever dishing out to myself. The remedy was simple: kindness, gentleness and a well overdue slower pace of life. This was supported by a gentle curiosity to discover who was sitting beneath the mask and underpinned by an ever-growing acceptance of the different aspects of myself, both negative and positive. It was a heart-rending experience to reconnect with the flame that burnt bright as a child but had become dimmer and dimmer with years gone by. And this was just the beginning of my healing journey. All up, it has taken a good five years to get my body back to a decent level of health. And it wasn't without a lot of trial and error as I learnt more about my own physical body and what it ultimately required to self-heal including reaching out for support, something my faulty conditioning dictated was not for 'strong, independent and successful people'! Over time, old habits of over-helping and over-achieving slipped into the background as new healthier habits based on a solid sense of self-esteem took their place. From being a ‘yes to everyone’ girl I learnt to navigate relationships in a more healthy, genuine and authentic way. From being a controlled, rational and reasoned thinker, through the conscious changes I was making, I became more creative, trusting my instinct more and acting on inspiration, rather than the unreasonable demands from inside my own head. From a period of chaos, crisis and de-rangement I was able to discover a healthier arrangement that was eventually to become the ideal balanced and sustainable lifestyle, long-term. So contrary to the concept of cure, which has a view to eliminating or masking our symptoms, I learnt that healing demands that we re-examine the way we are living our lives. True healing actually insists that we look at every aspect of our lives, reviewing and assessing whether we are on the right track or not. Implementation of mini bite-size palatable actions ultimately led me to increasing levels of health and a better quality of life whereby I am now able to be more real and authentic, without the tiresome mask that had dragged me down for so long. In my work as a counsellor, I notice that people get so busy, so caught up in distractions that they miss the moment and they miss the absolute ultimate: connection with their truth and their reason for being here. They come to me because they find themselves derailed by relationship or health issues, often due to a series of poor unconsciously made choices. And true to the magic of life itself that totally has our back in every way, the body crashes or the emotions become too uncomfortable to ignore anymore. Its life waking us up to the path we are actually meant to be on if we are brave enough to get curious and take a peek :) These life relapses, whether relational, emotional, spiritual or physical, usually happen because people have missed the important stuff way, way back in time. They lose sight of themselves and may even have a mask on as I did. By taking time to slow down, reflect, and bring some self-compassion into the fold, they find themselves 'landing' back into themselves so they can actually bring the best expression of themselves to the world in a way that allows them to thrive, not continue to sacrifice and bring harm to themselves. The lesson I take from my own personal health crisis is to give myself permission to slow down and be kind to myself. Its from this foundation that we can actually start to make healthier decisions that support the WHOLE of ourselves. From here there is a natural flow on effect to everyone and everything around us. Because your potential to thrive in this lifetime and the legacy you leave depends on you not losing yourself along the way. So here's to creating the space to reconnect with yourself regularly in a kind and compassionate way so you don't lose touch with the truest authentic expression of yourself in 2019 and beyond.... Happy New Year Everyone :) Kira :-) Ph. 021 027 18127  |
AuthorKira Follas is a qualified counsellor and works as Wellness Practitioner and Group Facilitator in New Zealand. She is also a survivor and thriver of multiple physical and mental-emotional adversities and is a Mum to two awesome teenage lads :) Archives
April 2025
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