I’ve been contributing to a discussion on a forum I’m part of : Schizophrenia: causes and treatment, and today I just had to share the following.  It is what I teach in my authenticity programme and what comes up for discussion generally in the groups that I run.

I realise as I look around and try and find some ‘real’ people that the world generally has become very outside referenced, very directional, analytical, superficial, external, competitive, animalistic ie: masculine while the other half of humanity, the sensing, intuitive, the creative, the vulnerable, the moody (as are the seasons) ie; the feminine has become deeply devalued.  I was talking about this just last Friday on my authenticity training day.  How do we learn to trust this deeper intuition?  Externally referenced ways of working are constantly looking for social proof and social approval, whereas the intuitive way of working doesn’t need it.  Sadly though, it also therefore, doesn’t gain much cudos or credibility in this external world we live in.  My mission is to pull together those that work authentically and intuitively, or who suspect that this is really where it’s happening, so that we too can contribute meaningfully to social interpretation of ‘reality’.  Quite difficult to market because essentially, we are simply saying we’re fine as we are.  We don’t need extra knobs and whistles to make us into something.  All we need to do is explore our deeper selves and actualise our realisations.  This transformation itself causes others to transform. (Richard Rohr – Adam’s Return).

One thing that strikes me is that our reality is dictated by our own thoughts and experiences.  Bruce Lipton and Rupert Sheldrake discuss this beautifully in this video, which if you get an hour or so to look at is well worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXpndnjHvqw

They discuss the nature of consciousness and debate how the materialist view tries to look for the objective reality in the world, without realising that they are deeply influencing how they experience that by their line of enquiry. I remember an old adage that I occasionally incorporate into my teachings: “change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change”.  Traditional approaches to mental ill health make a range of assumptions from: it’s untreatable, you’ll have it for the rest of your life, without drugs you’ll relapse, to,  you just have to work through the worst of it and accept you’ll always have the tendency, and even that it’s a genetic inheritance that you’ll just have to put up with. If we come at mental health cases with this attitude then, guess what, that’ll be what happens.  Put a few hundred thousand health care professionals together who believe the same story and you’ll create a reality that, for those at the point when they are the most vulnerable in their lives because of a personal or indeed spiritual crisis, is very difficult if not impossible to escape. The experimenter effect here is happening on a world scale and the experimenters are still not aware of it!

Bruce Lipton and Rupert Sheldrake both advocate that the genetic argument is dead in the water.  And the reason they argue that is because their observations are different.  They observe how genetically identical material can have vastly different expressions and that the gene is just responding to the environment it finds itself in. If that is so, reality is up for grabs! Whatever reality we want to believe in will work for us.  So why don’t we believe in a reality that proposes hope?  Why don’t we believe in a reality that understands that we can heal and become well without drugs?  Probably because health care professionals haven’t experienced hope and faith in themselves as being able to find their own peace, let alone the poor patients they work with.  They do not know how to overcome their own fears and anxieties.  They do not know how to talk to themselves kindly and approvingly.  Because being externally referenced, and seeking social proof and approval outside somewhere, leaves the idea of going inside as the last thing that ‘feels’ right for them.  What feels right is the need to gain academic recognition and be part of the club.  What feels right is to talk the ‘lingo’ and join the never ending debate on whether human beings, who were born completely well, have the capacity as adults to regain their health without drugs.  This intellectualism is safe.  It provides identity and belonging on an external level, regardless of who they are on a human level.  And this disregarding of their own personal stories and experiences is what causes burnout.  This need to tether, harness and sublimate our internal realities in order to conform with some external idea of how it should be creates internal dissonance and is exhausting at the very least.

I believe profoundly in our ability to make a full recovery from mental and indeed physical illness.  And I believe that because I have experienced both.  If I have experienced it, then I know it is possible.  When I know it is possible I make it more probable.  I understand our deeper conflicts and what causes people to wake up.  And my clients get well, not through years and years of working it our with their heads, but by experiencing how it feels to really get it with their hearts. And they are able to experience that more because energetically I give them permission to, merely by the fact that they witness someone who knows how they really feel deep inside.  My transformation causes their transformation.

If this were the collective attitude we approached serious mental health issues with, I wonder how our treatment models would reflect that?

If we are not working on our own personal realities and our own transformations, we are conning not only our patients/clients but also ourselves.  If we are not doing this, we are merely paying academic lip service to what we think some external, objective reality is about.  We cannot evidence any of it effectively.  And to then maintain that our reality is everyone else’s is a profoundly abusive approach to the most vulnerable people in our society.

If you resonate with this and would like to work with your guts more (intuitively) instead of your head (techniques or protocols) consider joining one of my mentorship groups.  There’s one in Edmonton, London and Great Dunmow, Essex.  You’ll find more about them on the home page.