Unconscious patterns of belief and programmed reactions can be triggered throughout our daily lives; a repeating of our habitual emotional responses to certain types of situations or thoughts we encounter.
This unconscious living, just going through the motions, instead of living in self-awareness; opens us up to reacting to situations that trigger us with an overly emotional fear-based response. This can lead us to ruining good relationships, reaffirming feelings of low self-worth, or hurting the ones we love the most as we act out our trauma in unhealthy ways. Fear is the underlying core issue of all suffering, but we can break free from fear by understanding more about why we respond and react the way we do. We have all experienced some type of emotional trauma or abuse that got buried inside our psyche and helped form our inner worldview. It becomes a part of our personality and defines us in some deep way that we might not even be aware of at the conscious level.
Growing up in this world is not easy for anyone. We are subjected at birth to our cultural, religious, political and familial influence that shapes our inner worldview as we grow into adulthood. We learn unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with what we are facing, just so we can survive. We may have even done harmful things to ourselves or others as a result of these traumatic experiences. When we are living in an abusive environment, we are subjected to existing in an almost constant state of fear which causes the brain to become trained to respond in a certain way. You learn how to cope and find a new normal just to get through it, trying to protect yourself or your loved ones from the abuser as best you can. During this time, your brain creates strong neural pathways that conditions an automatic emotional response whenever you feel fear. Maybe you withdraw, maybe you have anxiety attacks, maybe you get depressed or even angry and violent, but you will have a pre-programmed emotional response from the abuse even if you have left the toxic environment.
Just because you are no longer in an abusive situation, doesn’t mean those fear-based responses just go away. Even after getting out, we’ll still find ourselves reacting to fear-based thoughts and perceived threats by spiraling into anxiety, panic, depression, self-harm or even abusive behavior towards others without consciously being aware of why we are having that emotional response. If abuse has been a common theme in your life since childhood, you might find that you drift from relationship to relationship, seeking someone to love you, and end up being with another abusive partner. We can find ourselves constantly attracting relationships and situations that continue this abusive pattern, repeating over and over again with seemingly no end in sight – different people and faces, but same patterns of abuse.
While this certainly seems unfair and unjust, it’s simply a vibrational response to where your own personal vibration resides. By growing up in an abusive environment, we are attuned to the vibration of fear from an early age. We will continue to attract similar vibrational experiences that reinforce and match our own. This will continue throughout our whole life in a repeated cycle of traumatic and abusive experiences until we learn how to change our fear-based pattern of response. Most people are completely unaware that they are acting out their former traumas in emotional responses based out of fear. They are perhaps aware on some level of what they would call their personality flaws, but they don’t understand the root cause of why they act the way they do.
Like attracts like as they say, and this is especially true when dealing at the vibrational level of our bio-energy fields and the vibrational Universe we live in. On the surface level, we know we don’t want to be in another abusive environment, and yet we continue to vibrate with fear at the energetic level which keeps us locked into a cycle of trauma (attracting the same types of situations) until we learn how to reprogram and rewire our brain. This is achieved by learning to raise our personal vibrational set-point out of fear and into love. Recognizing these patterns that no longer serve us is another step and pathway towards healing and wholeness. Epigenetics tells us we have control over our own biology and like neuroplasticity has shown us, we have the ability to form new neural pathways and rewire our brain to react differently – even with firmly ingrained fear-based responses.
Learn How to Raise Your Personal Vibration
Practicing mindfulness in whatever modality you choose (meditation/yoga/journaling/prayer etc.) will help you become more self-aware. In turn, being more aware of yourself will allow you to catch fear-based thought patterns before they start spiraling out of control and trigger your habitual emotional response. It can help to take a breath after being triggered and ask yourself the question, ‘Why am I being triggered right now?’ or ‘What am I thinking about right now?’ This can immediately create awareness and shed light on where your thoughts are, allowing you to choose a different emotional response. Don’t worry if you don’t catch it right away, it takes practice and dedication to reprogram your brain to react differently when you are triggered. If you experienced years of abuse, then you have very defined neural pathways that are your go-to response for fear-based thoughts and you’re gonna need to love yourself through this process.
Before going to bed, take a moment and reflect on your day.
Were there times you were triggered?
Did you experience any fear-based thoughts?
If so, journal or contemplate your reaction and decide whether or not it was old programming that re-surfaced or if you chose a new and healthier response. This time of self reflection is so important to your overall growth.
A cool strategy you can use to help reset the vibrational frequency of your thoughts when you feel yourself starting to spiral, is to clap really loudly a few times. Now, I get that this sounds super weird, but at a quantum level, it’s disrupting the lower vibrational frequencies of fear by introducing the frequencies of the sound of your clapping. This creates an energetic interference in your vibrational field at the sub-atomic energetic level, which breaks the hold of the fear-based pattern response that is currently firing in your brain. This allows you to refocus your awareness, take a few breaths and consciously choose a self-loving and self-affirming thought. You may feel crazy trying this at first, but I think you will find that it is an extremely helpful tool to help you re-align your vibration back to Love.
Be kind to yourself and forgiving of your mistakes and unconscious responses. You have been through a lot and it’s totally normal for your brain to behave this way. Just the act of creating self-awareness around what triggers you, will help you overcome them in time. We are often quick to forgive others that we love, but frequently do not extend that same compassion and love to ourselves. This is a huge mistake, because to truly be set free from the past trauma in your life, loving yourself when you mess up is crucial! Over time, you will find that it gets easier and easier to respond with self-love and that you can catch those fear-based thoughts before you act out any habitual emotional responses or start to spiral. There is hope after leaving abusive environments, you can choose a different path besides repeating the same cycle over and over. Find the lessons of what you have experienced and make a conscious choice to GROW from all that you have faced and overcome.
You are a powerful, Divine being and learning to love YOURSELF first, will create a new vibrational set-point in your personal energy field. Take it one day at a time and eventually you will cultivate a new vibration of Love that will attract good, loving experiences and relationships into your life. You MUST love yourself first, and that takes time and patience to work through the darkness of all your past trauma, but if you’re willing to put in the self-work the rewards are immense!
Remember dear One…
YOU are worthy of healing.
YOU are worthy of forgiveness.
YOU are worthy of respect.
YOU are worthy of happiness.
and most of all, YOU are worthy of Love.
Choose Love as your guiding force and take back control of your life, so you can FULLY embrace your path and manifest your ideal future.
