Inner Communication with your
Mind Body and Spirit
Getting answers and needed information
and techniques to move through old fears, resistance and defenses.
by Laurie A Roth, M.A. M.S., MFT
Authors Note
This is written in three parts:
- The first part tells the story of how I discovered a way to move through defenses when I attempted to use an inner communication tool that usually worked for me but wasn’t working.
- The second part is a commentary that gives the understanding of what can block inner communication, and what defenses are. It discusses parts of the story so that the reader can apply the tools given in the last half with a greater understanding.
- The third part gives the tools. There will also be a link to a guided sound healing and voice file to assist those who want it to achieve a deeper state or relaxation and openness for applying the tools
The Story
The Acupuncturist’s Assistant
Acupuncture had always helped me. More than once I had been able to make lumps and bumps dissolve and disappear with acupuncture that my regular doctors told me would need surgery. That’s why, in 1991 when a good friend of mine suggested I see her acupuncturist, I thought it might help—and I needed help badly. It was five months after the birth of my son. I was getting the opportunity to learn about the impact of severe sleep deprivation. Yes it is like a form of torture. My adrenal, immune and kidney functions were dangerously depleted and my frustration tolerance was about nil. This began during four sleepless nights of pre-labor and continued after my son was born. Then for the following three months, I never slept more than two hours at a time because of my son’s constant need to nurse.
My husband and I moved fifty miles south of San Francisco when I was nine months pregnant. It was closer to his new job and he assured me the move would enable him come home earlier and help with the baby after work. That rarely happened. I had kept my city office and had resumed seeing clients three days a week. I scheduled my acupuncture appointment for a day I was also going to work for several reasons; I had childcare for my son the days I worked; I didn’t want to make an extra trip to the city and I expected to feel energized and clear headed after the treatment.
The First Visit
A cold fog descended and blurred my already vague edges as I drove close to the acupuncture office in the Richmond district. Parking and finding the correct building felt like a major endeavor. I lumbered up a dim staircase. At the top I stepped into a large room with a massive desk on one side and assorted chairs lining the walls. The still empty room apparently served as both an office and a waiting room. After I filled out the usual forms Dr S came in and introduced herself. She was a well-known Chinese doctor of acupuncture with an efficient and kind manner. We sat at the desk and discussed my health issues. I also learned she trained student assistants.
I was led to room where I exchanged my clothes for a hospital style robe and was shown to a treatment table. Things were going well, a young man came in and gave me an acupressure massage that felt great. Dr S took my pulses and then said she’d be back shortly to insert the needles. Next, a nice looking woman with curly brown hair came in, but something didn’t feel right. The words—she doesn’t really know what she’s doing—went through my mind. I heard it distinctly, yet I dismissed it as a nervous reaction when we talked because she seemed kind and nice. She told me Dr S had told her to cup my back. Then she began a procedure consisting of putting a lit match at the mouth of a small glass cup to suck the oxygen out of it. This created a vacuum and then she placed the cup glass on my back. She applied about twenty of these. It was not pleasant, but not particularly painful. After the cupping Dr S came in applied acupuncture needles and let me rest awhile. She said she would give me herbal pills to strengthen all my internal organs and immune system and to stop by the desk again on the way out.
When the treatment was over, while putting my shirt on, I glanced in the mirror and noticed my back had turned dark as night. It was completely covered with round black and blue marks. This upset me. I thought of the dark ages and how they “cupped” people back then, taking their blood. I asked Dr S about it while she was giving the Chinese herbs. She assured me a few dark spots were a normal reaction after cupping. It was a way of drawing out the toxins.
I drove out of the fog and across town to my office on sunny Potrero Hill. The yellow rays streaming through the curtains greeted and cheered me when I opened my office door. I collapsed in the recliner; too tired to eat and napped instead. I still had an hour before my first client was scheduled to arrive. About forty minutes later I surfaced. I was still was so tired I doubted my ability to work. I wasn’t sure I could stay awake. Usually after acupuncture I felt better, not worse. This concerned me. Had the treatment been helpful or was it making me even more tired and depleted? I wanted to know. I began an inner investigation, which is a method I use to find answers. I went into a hypnotic state and asked myself questions. I asked if the acupuncture treatment was beneficial. I didn’t get an answer. I asked if it was detrimental—still no answer. Usually I can get answers this way. Sometimes I sense or just know them, sometimes through a process called inner hearing I hear the answer.
Then I had an inspiration. I asked myself if there was a reason I didn’t want to know the answer. I got a clear “yes” to that. So I continued my line of inquiry and I asked myself if it would be okay to know the reasons I didn’t want to know. I got a “yes” again and the reasons started coming in. I didn’t want to know I may have subjected myself to something that might have been harmful for me and paid a lot of money for it besides. If the treatment was bad for me, I knew that to stay in my integrity I would also have to tell them about it and I wasn’t sure how Dr S would respond when I did this. Would she ridicule me, or listen and try to help me. (I had the ability to know things about my body that doctors didn’t usually think patients could know. For instance in childbirth every time I felt I was at a certain stage of dilation when they checked me I was accurate.)
I sat with all these feelings and issues working through them one by one. I decided I could face what I needed to and deal with it all. Then when I asked myself about the treatment again I got very specific answers. I heard that the massage and the needles were beneficial, but the cupping had been much too harsh and pulled out more toxins than my already depleted system could handle. Therefore it had not been beneficial, but detrimental. And it was at that moment I remembered how the thought had gone through my mind that the woman who had done the cupping didn’t know what she what she was doing, yet I had allowed her to do it on me anyway. I had abandoned my own truth and myself when I ignored my intuition. This brought up sadness and I had to deal with my feelings about not listening to my knowing and inner guidance. I resolved to discuss it with Dr S before having any more treatments at her clinic.
Commentary
There is awareness and a knowing in each of us that has answers to our questions. We can learn to tune in to this presence and awareness and discover information and guidance, as we need it. When we choose to heal, we learn to move through and dissolve the fear-based beliefs of our conditioned human consciousness—the part in this human expression that is identified with the thoughts, beliefs and experiences of separation from Love (or you could say from the Divine Essence of ourselves or Source or God).
I call this separated aspect, where the mind is split, the (distorted) ego mind. It is the part of us that creates and then identifies with our defenses thinking those defenses will keep us safe and prevent more experiences and feelings of guilt, shame, abandonment, betrayal and victimization. Yet, because defenses also block the flow of life energy and seemingly split us off from Source, the defense patterns will often generate illnesses. It does this to keep itself, the ego-mind-identity in power. Often this ego mind is built from negatively conditioned experiences, and it becomes wired into our nervous system reactions. We do have the power to change this conditioning.
As we grow in awareness we learn to become present in each moment and this helps us become aware of a larger Reality: the beingness of Love and wholeness. The awareness of ourselves as Love extends far beyond who and what the ego thinks we are. From a multi-dimensional viewpoint, the ego is an illusion of separation; the ego mind (which stores patterns in the subconscious mind) holds the defenses people build throughout their interlocking lifetimes (embodiments) that create resistance to living in the fullness of Love.
(Many of these behavior and emotional holding patters are strategies of defense that appear to develop in childhood either in reaction to the adults in authority or by imitating them. Defenses actually hold the wounds in place and keep the old pains (that we didn’t want to feel in the first place) re-circulating into our experiences. One of the defenses I developed in my childhood, because I wanted to be accepted by others, was to doubt the validity of my own perceptions and intuitions and believe what the adults around me said. It’s not too surprising this pattern of defense arose again in this situation. I was in a weakened state and the people treating me were the supposed “authorities”. Not only did I want to be accepted, I wanted to trust them because I needed their help. I had to be willing to face this old pattern, (without judging myself about it) but with a willingness to accept my feelings about abandoning myself to feel “safe”. The lunacy of the old strategy (defense) was clear and as I faced it I got the information I needed. I also knew I had to take action in the outer world before I could have a good healing relationship with Dr. S. I had to tell her my truth: that the cupping was much too strong and was therefore detrimental. When I did that I would learn how they valued my feedback and also acknowledged my experience and my knowing about myself.
I have found this inner communication technique very powerful for moving through most kinds of resistance and for releasing defense identity patterns. Since this incident I have since used it with much success with my clients as well. The truth does set us free, but it helps to have a compassionate non-judgmental attitude to be able uncover it.
Inner Communication
It is both wise and practical to learn a variety of ways to communicate with different aspects of our consciousness. We can find answers and solutions to problems, get helpful information and also correct errors that foster more suffering, fear and pain. The more you experiment and explore doing this the better you will get at it. At first it is generally easier to communicate with yourself in meditative and hypnotic states because in those states the different areas of the brain vibrate in a frequency more conducive for communication and healing. In meditative states it is also easier to connect with the “non-local mind” and the Higher Self. It takes practice to learn to either quiet the chattering mind, or lower its volume and develop the observer mind. The observer mind just observes everything, inside and out, without any judgments. It is pure and open awareness. In this observing state it also possible to notice the ego’s defense strategies and games. Just like in my story, sometimes the ego will resist our getting information that is needed for healing or some other purpose that would make (the ego part of) us uncomfortable. But since both the ego mind and the needed information is in everyone (unless they are fully enlightened and the mind is no longer split), it is just a choice away. Everyone can choose to discover the knowledge, compassion and understandings that will heal pain and suffering. This kind of inner inquiry can be very important in physical healing. (When the ego is in service of the higher Self it is no longer distorted, but watch out, it likes to pretend it is doing that before it really is.)
We hold information in different aspects of our split mind so it is helpful to understand what each part does (When we are fully enlightened our mind is no longer split.) There is the:
- Conscious mind
- Subconscious mind,
- Body mind,
- Unconscious mind,
- Super conscious or Higher Self (This is also called the Holy Spirit and sometimes the I Am Presence. (See link for descriptions of these)
Sometimes as people open up multi-dimensional awareness they with also receive helpful guidance from their guides, the ascended masters, angels and even ancestors or other reincarnations. This happened to me. (See the Paranormal Family Therapy article for one adventure with multi-dimensional awareness)
Ego traps
Another challenge in working with inner communication is that the critical and/or judgmental internalized parental voice sometimes will masquerade as some other voice, like the voice of wisdom. (In psychology this branch of the ego is called the super ego). It is important to recognize what you are communicating with or from where the thoughts are being generated. (If you notice that a seemingly authoritative voice is telling you are not good enough, not deserving or is creating feelings of shame you are probably listening to this type of internalized voice. If you observe this, be aware that it has probably become a part of your distorted ego and is not helpful. For people who have been abused I call it the abusive mind. Think of it as false advertising and put on the mute button.) You can also communicate with your body, emotional body, intellectual mind, and your organs in many different ways.
Tools
Inner Communication Tools
Getting Answers
Working Through Defenses
After I developed this tool on myself and also found it very helpful to use with people who were stuck to get unstuck. It seems to work at whatever level you are working within yourself. You can ask questions and get answers. But first:
- You must be in neutral, or as close as you can get.
- You must hold one thought in the mind while asking the question.
- There are a variety of ways to receive the answer. You can use muscle testing or learn to listen to the energy inside yourself, use a pendulum or, use a finger signals, or hear the answer or just know, or get visions and pictures etc. It depends on your consciousness, as you grow, how you listen and hear answers might shift and change.
To Start
Go into an inner relaxed meditative state. Come into the present moment and allow the mind to quiet. One method is to just focus awareness on breathing instead of thinking for a little while until the chattering quiets. ( If you need help relaxing and quieting your mind, you can use the Moonscreen Guided meditation to take you into a deeply relaxed state)
Put your awareness on your breath, feel the rise and fall of your chest as it expands when air comes in and relaxes as air goes out. Let your mind focus on you chest and your breath. As your breath slows down, feel yourself sinking into the bed or chair, feel gravitity hold and support you. Enjoy the relaxation for a few moments.
Then, when you are comfortably relaxed and your mind has slowed down, focus your awareness even more by thinking of your question and intention. Intend to open your intuitive guidance system (or your Higher Self) ,then ask the question. And be aware of what comes to you, as a feeling or thought or sense or energy. Sometimes it will come later in the day or in a dream. I usually get it right away now, but in the beginning it would come later because I was not pushing so hard with my mind to get it. I often find that if it is a yes my body and chest feels expansive and if it is a no my chest contracts. A good thing to do is to practice asking questions you already know the answer to and then say the truth and then a lie and feel the difference in your body.
Working Through Defenses.
If no answer comes or not one that really serves you, then ask yourself—Is there some part of me that doesn’t want to know the answer?”
If there is a “yes” (or no answer which usually means yes) then communicate with that part of you. Maybe say—I understand you don’t want me to know the answer for some reason, and I accept that but I would like to know the reason you don’t want me to know the answer. (You can also ask what part of you that is, but sometimes this can get in the way and slow you down. Sometimes it is helpful to know because it is an aspect of the subconscious and the inner child that is still caught in the past.) In other words ask: Is it okay to know why I don’t want to know? Often you will get information that may be something like. “It might make me uncomfortable,” or “I’ll have to do something about this that I may not feel comfortable doing,” or “that I don’t want to do.” Or you may have to face something difficult and/or deal with some feelings of shame or pain of some kind. But then if you determine you are willing to look at and handle whatever it is, you will then usually be able to get the information. Sometimes you have to keep the line of inquiry going until that part of you is willing to communicate with you. If fear arises it is usually a sign of a defense pattern, something that is being protected and is an attempt by the ego to get you to stop investigating. If there was severe trauma it is generally wise to get professional help to work though those issues.