How Overload Occurs
Overload occurs because stressors are piled on top of stressors before there is an inclination or understanding of the importance of clearing it, or the time, skill and resources to do so. Other matters may take priority especially if there is a crises.
Furthermore, it is difficult, not impossible, to heal what you don’t know about. Therefore, you should be grateful (“thank you for sharing”) when a upsetting memory arises, even one of minor importance, because it indicates that it requires resolution regardless of what action you took previously. What is unfinished and unhealed acts as a powerful magnet for more of the same. It consumes your vital life force, robbing you of the energy needed for health, happiness, goal achievement, and solving problems.
Triggers
Such memories can arise when there is a recent, similar event, or by anything present or associated (triggers) with the original event. Being in the same place at the same time, with the same people, doing the same thing are all triggers. Anniversaries trigger memories–pleasant and unpleasant. Focusing on a problem also attracts–one of the liabilities of anyone writing or speaking on an issue.
For example, when I speak, teach or write about how to work with smokers, I have a huge intake of people wanting to stop smoking. When I was teaching another class on secondary gain and the shadow, it was no surprise that I soon after attracted someone with these very issues. It was a reminder to practice what I preach, and just to witness rather than take an attack personally.
Memories are Linked
Imagine that you see a friend on the street, and that greeting is initially happy. However, if the last time that you saw that friend was at the funeral of a loved one, the current meeting will be tinged with the sadness of the previous event. The memory of that loss may trigger memories of all the other people you have known that have died.
Also, a thought, belief or judgment made at the first event will be triggered, whether conscious or not, and affect mood. The earlier judgement that “people are there to support me emotionally in time of need”, or “I am loved”, “I was so blessed to know this person (now deceased)”, will in the present create a very different mood than if the judgment was “life is cruel and unfair”.
Witnessing Instead of Judging
Why don’t you just notice a person’s character or behavior without emotional reaction? Just be a witness. If you go the zoo, do you get upset with the animals? Do you become fearful hearing a lion roar? If you are out in the wild, that roar might indicate that you are vulnerable and in danger. But, from the safety of the opposite side of the zoo bars, you can notice, and even enjoy it without feeling threatened. The lion is being itself perfectly. Same is true of the rats, snakes and skunks. No need to be upset because they are who they are. Their nature has nothing to do with who you are. Learn to respond with detachment, interest, or curiosity as to what made them that way.
Questions to Ask Yourself:
- Am I threatened by this person’ s behavior?
- Is it threatening my own sense of self, my confidence, my ability to earn a living or to obtain anything else that I want or need?
- What is the truth of who I am and my ability?
- Does what this person think of me invalidate my essential worth?
- Does my happiness and the meaning of my life depend upon pleasing this person and receiving his approval, his permission in that I am on this planet, being and doing as I am?
- Is this behavior/experience reminding me of other unpleasant experiences? If so, then know that they have surfaced in order to be healed. Jot them all down, and work on them as quickly as you can before they fade once again into the abyss of the unconscious.
- What are the thoughts, beliefs and judgements behind my emotional reaction? Are they serving or limiting me? Do I need to change them? What beliefs or judgments do I now choose to hold?
- What can I learn from this?
- Were there any signs, any intuitive prompting that I was not acknowledging that would have safely negotiated around this problem or avoided it completely?”
Copyright by Roxanne Louise. However, this article may be shared in other free online sources only if this copyright notice and link to http://www.roxannelouise.com and http://unlimitedpotentialhealingcenter.com are included with the content.
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