Saturday, January 12, 2013

Subconscious- First steps


Subconscious- First steps

 

If we want to talk about the subconscious, first we must understand what it is.

Scientists and many intellectuals studied the subject, and we gathered some of their conclusions:

 Sigmund Freud divided the human mind into three parts:

Conscious daily thoughts such as simple or complex tasks, concrete information about the reality in which the person lives, for example:" I have two kids, I love my wife", and changing daily thoughts, desires and feelings.

Preconscious is referring to thoughts and memories from the recent and more distant past. They are not repressed and are therefore available for recall and easily capable of becoming conscious and can be easily drawn. When it comes to memories from the recent past like a month ago, they may be recalled very clearly. As for memories from a more distant past and especially from childhood, specific memories will be sent to the conscious and will focus on particular details of the event in question.

The unconscious is a reservoir of memories which functions defensively. In there, will be memories the person is not willing to deal with on a conscious level and therefore are stored in the area from which they cannot be recalled. Events stored at an unconscious level shaped the personality of the person as a child, especially in early childhood. They directly affect the behavior and feelings of the person.

Carl Jung one of the disciples of Freud expanded the concept of unconscious and talked about the collective unconscious. It is proposed to be a part of the unconscious mind. Carl Jung emphasizes on the effects of the society in which the person lives and how this can affect its psyche as well as its unconscious. Jung also organized this concept into different archetypes and collective representations.

Viktor Frankl was also a student of Freud, expanded the notion of unconscious and added to it the spiritual dimension of the human mind. He addressed differences between good and evil, the bright side and dark side of the soul and pointed out our constant need to experience both parts as well as our desire to connect to the divine source within us. 

Joseph Murphy- American psychology researcher, named the subconscious "the infinite intelligence", and suggested that a man has the power to create his own reality through his thoughts along with the unconscious mind.

Milton H. Erickson claimed the subconscious to be an inexhaustible pool of resources, a source of creativity responsible in a large part for our daily activities as well as the person's personality.

Arian Lev deeply investigated the subject and discovered that people are characterized by certain behaviors and events that repeat themselves without the person understanding why this is happening to him. According to this approach, beliefs have been burned in the subconscious by the person as a child until ten years old. As an adult the person is still driven by these same beliefs.                                                                                                                                   As children we look at the world and burn behavioral and emotional settings. The child learns primarily settings from his parents as well as from the society in which he lives. These settings will be related to main issues such as sexuality, love and basic needs, as well as secondary issues.

Those same beliefs that were burned in the child's memory will create conditionings. Conditioning by definition is an act carried out automatically, when something triggers it. That is to say: a specific event = specific behavior or emotion. If a particular emotional experience was burned in the subconscious following a certain event, each time a person will encounter such an event, he will unconsciously experience the same emotional and behavioral pattern.

An example of conditioning known to everyone is related to relationship. Today many people are experiencing difficulties in this area. The following belief may be common to a lot of people saying: "Every time I love somebody, he does not love me back, and every time that the other part is interested, well I am not."

This pattern may be very frustrating since a person wishes to be in a relationship although is not able to. The source of this pattern lies in the subconscious.                                                   As For example, this same person may have wanted when he was a two-year-old boy, something simple – he wanted his mother to take him in her arms. At this same moment the mother was cooking, and replied softly: "My darling mom is busy right now, I will hug you in a bit"; the boy insisted, pulled her leg and so she took him away. The child then has learned that Mom (symbol for love from a woman) actually rejected him. He felt her love and experienced it as rejection. When the child grew up, became a man, and experience the same situation with women, the same pattern which has been burned at two years old will appear as a conditioning: love = rejection.

Another example of a prevalent conditioned behavior is related to eating disorders. For eating in childhood is related to basic needs. There is no living without nutrition and during our childhood the food comes to us from the circle of people surrounding us, as the most significant figure in this regard is of course the mother.

There is a basic need in helping the child to live. For example a girl goes in the morning with her mother to the kinder garden. As sometimes happens to a child, she does not want to separate from her mother, and the teacher takes her up and tell the mother – “It's okay I'll take care of her, you can go”. The mother leaves and at that moment the little girl felt abandoned from the first person she expects to be provided with basic needs, she feels love for her mother, and her experience is about abandonment. As a result she engraved into her subconscious a conditioning called- Love = abandonment. The teacher then gives the child a biscuit, just a little something to distract her. The child eats the biscuit and then really feels distracted.

This same child might suffer from eating disorder when she grows up since this behavioral pattern has been burned in her subconscious and is related to the conditioning- love = abandonment.

Whenever she’ll experience this conditioning she will compensate it by eating. She won’t be aware of the cause but will unconsciously repeat this pattern again and again and experience additional events in which she will meet with feelings of abandonment which will lead her to food. She’ll quit many work places and won’t be able to settle down, she will feel like a failure-and then will eat. In love relationship, men may either constantly leave her or she’ll leave them first. She will then feel disappointment and loneliness-and eat.

She’ll be really fearful and anxious that people around her may constantly leave her as an additional pattern resulting from this conditioning, and then calm herself with food. She’ll feel that her world is totally collapsing when it happens, and then feel strong emotions of guilt and anger every time she won’t be able to overcome this emotional eating habit.

She won’t understand why this is happening; she’ll only feel enchained in this emotional pattern, nor will she be aware of the primary event that has been burned in her subconscious as being the source of it.

The Arian Lev Method knows the way to release these conditionings. It enables to get back in time directly to this initial event. This same child that experienced this initial memory is located in the deep levels of the subconscious.

It is possible to go back to this memory and uncover this targeted memory that is locked in the depths of the subconscious, withdraw the information for it to become conscious, by guided imagination, when the patient is in a state between sleep and wakefulness (alpha waves), when connected to his entire body. The patient is all focused on the initial event, through sensory experiences such as taste, shapes and colors.  She is then capable of reviving the memory from the child's emotional point of view. She expresses it and thus releases it from his defensive system.

Following this, we change the child's screenplay and reprogram the subconscious. It is like "teaching" the child that the event had happened differently.

For example a child experiences rejection from his mother. The event will be "fixed" by seeing the event in his mind's eye when her mother responds to her needs- holds her and kisses her, saying she loves her and accepts her. The subconscious programming will switch the conditioning from love = rejection to love = acceptance.

It is important to note-When the patient leaves the session he remembers what happened in the initial event. He remembers the emotions expressed, he remembers that he "fixed" the image, according to the method, and then will concentrate on the reprogrammed event in order to accelerate the implementation of the new conditioning.

After a short period of time (each has its own pace), we start to note a significant change in the patient's life. The new conditioning love=acceptance is now burned in his subconscious.

He starts to experience more and more events related to acceptance. He accepts himself as he is; he is able to attract into his life the love of a woman since he is able to accept it and let her love him back. The change then appears in other domains of his life such as in the economic sector, he'll gain more money, since he is open to receive. If he is looking for a job, work places and companies will want to hire him. The person will experience love and acceptance from others, like family and friends. He is now open to accept love and won't reject it no more.

The four steps

The connection phase: This is the first phase of therapy by the Arian Lev Method. In this phase the patient will connect to himself, to his body, to his feelings his thoughts and then become more self-conscious. This step is essential so the patient will be able to get to the next phase in which he will release the conditioning by connecting to his deepest emotions.

The releasing phase: Only after the person is connected to himself, can he start the releasing process and release the root conditioning.

The discovery phase: The patient discovers his new self when driven by the corrected conditioning, realizing the way the change operates in his life such as how differently he behaves, feels and responds to life situations.

This step is very important to the healing process since the person goes through a significant internal change in a relatively short period of time.

The implementation phase: The last step in which the person applies his real inner desires. He is able to summon to his life the reality he wants when behaving and feeling safe and connected to himself. The inner conversation with himself will be easy and clear. The internal blocking conditionings don't define him anymore and they don't rule his life. The patient is in controls of his life.

We assume that he will behave to himself and his surrounding the same way we behave to children as adults.

When the child learns negative settings, these ones won't serve him and he will live out of a gap between his desires, his inner potential and his reality.

In this phase the adult learns to love and accept himself, even though various events from his childhood may say initially otherwise. He is now open to giving and receiving love from the Universe.

Here lies the secret.

Along the ten last years, The Arian Lev Method was applied on around than 5000 patients who completed the process and went through the four phases of the therapy. Their lives changed significantly.

In addition, Arian Lev also wrote a thesis on the subject.

The Golden Rule- "Love thy neighbor as thyself"

It is only possible to truly love when the love comes from within.