What is Processing?

Excerpt from "Getting to the Heart: Journey of Transformation and Spiritual Enlightenment" Trafford Publishing by Athene Raefiel

We process to help us to let go of old emotional, physical and mental baggage. With processing we can learn to change existing patterns and implement others. We actually are in some form of unconscious process all of the time. By consciously attuning our self, using specialized exercises there can be a great degree of healing and integration achieved. With the help of our new processing tools we can promote the healing of ourselves emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Presently we are little more than the accepted programs created from our pasts. By recognizing this fact we shall begin to change and create a new life for our self. A life that includes mind, body and spirit.

It's time for all of us to become our own therapists. We need to take responsibility for the inner healing that needs to take place so we can manifest the desired result into our outside world.

The following are exercises that are used as a process of healing through the chakras and the subtle bodies. Our chakras and subtle bodies are what make up the Aura that surrounds us. This aura is our life giving force. It is seen through clairvoyance as an emanation of light surrounding the physical body. This auric field of light and energy should be cleansed and aligned regularly for it to harmonize itself to its highest and best purpose, both physically and spiritually. Using your stamina and working on your energy diligently will bring you deserved success and rewards.

Here is an example of how processing works:
You are seeking to become gainfully employed. You have plenty of qualifications, yet it seems that none of the doors are opening for you. You immediately feel as if you are being punished. You mentally beat yourself up and become depressed. You feel as if the world is out to get you.

In this circumstance, you are blocked by feelings of depression, self-abuse, and the need to be punished. These feelings - conditions - exist within you as an accepted way of being. They probably come up in life every time you are forced to change. This past conditioning is what needs to be integrated and healed in order for you to feel free to move forward in life. You begin by identifying each of these feelings individually and working through them.

Where in your life did this feeling originate? What were the circumstances? How old were you when you can first remember feeling this way? Who was involved?

All of these questions help you begin to dig into the buried recess of the past. Here is where the conditioning started and here is where you must heal it.

These first steps of contemplation can be very helpful. By simply taking a little quiet time and allowing yourself to identify your feelings and when they started, helps you to see just how long the have been that way. Remembering who were involved helps you see where forgiveness is needed. And remembering certain circumstances shows you how you have re-created the circumstance over and over again.

Another example:
You¡¦re on your third marriage or live-in relationship. When you met this person, you were sure this would be the relationship that would last forever. Now suddenly your feelings are causing you doubt. Feelings of having made a big mistake begin to surface causing you anxiety and fear. You experience the same patterns coming to life in this relationship as in your previous relationships. You start believing that the person you are with no longer seems to be the person you thought he or she was. You no longer feel safe with this person or with trusting them.

This circumstance presents you with patterning that is deeply rooted inside yourself. If you are ready to admit the problem is you and that you need to change, you can begin to process the patterns and conditions inside that continually draw you to this type of relationship. Experience has taught us that we cannot change another. That is something only they can do. We can facilitate a change but first we must know how to change our self.

Our conditioning from the past can be changed only when we acknowledge the problem or situation for what it is. We must take responsibility for our own feelings admitting another cannot heal them. If we feel the feeling, it is ours no matter who else might be involved. This is a hard concept to grasp. Our learning in life has been to blame someone or something else for the way we feel and perceive. By so doing we eliminate the need to grow beyond this way of being. This is how we stay stuck in the past.

Now lets look at the conditioning brought about by schooling. In school you learned the ABCs, addition and subtraction, history and geography. How to read and write and perform properly in the presence of adults. All of this academic training and etiquette is carried through and defines who you are in your daily life. We are happy to have been taught to do these things for ourselves. They have educated us and hopefully made us capable to care for ourselves financially as well as literally.

Our education is all stored somewhere within our memory, as is all our past experience. Our memory continually plays back the information we have previously stored and we use that information to experience ourselves every day. Our feelings experience things in this same manner. The feelings you experienced as a child, adolescent, teenager and adult, have become accepted patterns within you that you use to identify yourself by. These patterns are your make-up„othe so-called "normal" you, who you know yourself to be, your identity.

As the learning process occurs within the feeling self we are unconscious of it taking place and it just subtly happens. Just as academic information is stored in the mind, so feeling information becomes stored in the body. This is why changing your mind cannot, by itself, change how you feel.

Confused? Yes, this concept may at first seem confusing to the mind, as the mind has been programmed to believe it controls us. Yet we need only to examine the various diseases and illnesses throughout society to see how little control the mind actually has over the body.

Take for example someone being diagnosed with a terminal illness. The first reaction this person has is disbelief. In this person¡¦s mind, it surely cannot be so. The mind refuses to acknowledge the truth, even though it cannot change the fact that the disease exists in the body. Then the emotions take over.

Once this person has processed the shocking news, he or she comes to an understanding within them self about the existence of the disease. Both the feeling self and the rational mind reach this understanding together. However, even though the feeling self acknowledges the truth, the mind may continue to battle in disbelief or vice a versa.

If this individual chooses to not accept this disease as the end of life, then the whole person begins to fight for the right to live a disease-free and healthy life. The rational mind alone does not make this choice, it must be both the mind and the feelings.

We will now examine criminal offenders as an example of an existing condition in society. Many people believe that these individuals have no desire to change. Yet if we are always seeking to achieve a better and happier future for ourselves why do we believe that they do not want the same? Just because someone has had horrible experiences doesn¡¦t mean he or she likes it that way or wouldn¡¦t change it if they could.

Within all human beings is an innate desire
to do well and to have a better life.

Perhaps the conditions surrounding such people did not teach them a way in which to create patterning that would allow them to do good things. If the opportunity were present, along with a means of accomplishing the end, these individuals might jump at it.

Criminals are a symptom of what has gone wrong in the world. Like we show symptoms of a cold or disease so does this show us symptoms of systems gone awry. We could see it as life being off kilter, knowing that all feelings dwell within each and everyone of us we must ask why some choose to use them to hurt and destroy when others do not?

Now let us examine the pattern of abuse. Studies in the USA tell us that most people who abuse have themselves been abused. Now rationally, if you had suffered abuse in your life, would you knowingly wish to inflict it on anyone else? People who inflict abuse cannot find a rational reason for doing so. They act out of an unconscious need to express their own pain and suffering; they rarely consciously choose to hurt others. This shows us how powerfully imbedded conditioning and patterning can be. Changing patterns of abuse take great effort and determination. When a child has been beaten, verbally or even sexually abused the damage is buried deep inside. Often they have blocked it out not even allowing themselves to remember it consciously.

The feeling self does remember though and like a sore not tended to it becomes infected and festers. This person often finds themselves acting out in a dysfunctional manner and wondering why. They feel as if they have no control over themselves and often believe themselves to be mentally unbalanced. They develop phobias such as obsession and paranoia and often try drugs and alcohol to subdue them. This person can easily become an abuser of either them self or another.

It is during the early formative years of life that our strongest patterning and conditioning takes place. It was during our growing up years that we were subjected to family and societal conditioning. We modeled ourselves to develop these patterns and this is who we know ourselves to be. It was in this way that we became a product of our environment.

As children we were like open sieves absorbing all the emotions and thought patterns surrounding us and receiving them as our own. If our parents, family members, and/or caretakers were filled with unconditional love and acceptance, so probably are we. If they wholeheartedly accepted themselves and others for who they are, so shall we. Unfortunately being brought up in an environment such as this is unusual if not unlikely. Even if there is a lot of unconditional love in the home the outside world still holds a great influence.

In life there is always a paradox. Without the depth of pain and sadness we can never really understand true joy and happiness. It is the two of these together, pain and joy that bring the awareness of harmony. No matter how much goodness we experience, we must also experience its opposite to truly understand and appreciate it.
Now consider the conditions in your own life. If you could change how you feel about yourself and the world, would you do it?

The two most elusive things in life are love and happiness and yet they are absolutely free. When we are missing these important elements in life, we tend to become morose and despondent. We find ourselves living a kind of robotic existence, never really knowing or caring to understand why we feel so detached and separate. We lose hope.

To change this, it becomes imperative to discover your true inner self, the natural you. The being that resides inside you who remembers what it is like to be unencumbered by conditioning. The being who wants to cleanse them self of the many robes they have worn this lifetime and open to a new way of creating and living life. The inner being who wants to remember its purity and love unrestrained and alive in a renewed manner.

Tapping this inner self is how we get off the merry-go-round of life where we have been simply going through the motions and become a full participant in life. We can now become the creators of our own reality.

In modern society, so much of "life" takes place in the movies and on TV that we have become accustomed to observing rather than initiating. We see and experience so much drama in daily life that it has become accepted as real and normal. Many people have no awareness of living outside turmoil and chaos. Their existence has become so painful that they feel they must escape. Many of them turn to drugs, alcohol and violence, while others find solace in food or exercise. Some people become "couch potatoes" while others lose themselves in religion.

Trying to escape our soul experience by hiding or losing ourself will not work; we cannot deny the existence of our soul by escaping a life we do not like nor understand. Just as we are physical beings, we need to acknowledge that we are soul beings and begin nurturing our soul and feeling self. In this way and this way alone can we achieve living a healthy and happy life.

Your body and feeling self-need to be heard, acknowledged, and experienced; they need to feel alive and be allowed to express themselves, just as the mind does. By processing you allow this expression to take place and to now become consciously aware of what is happening within you.

To be truly happy and a participant in life, we all need to mentally and emotionally process. We do unconsciously "process" anyway, but to be unconscious causes us confusion and the feeling of helplessness. Taking a personal and conscious initiative puts you in the position of mastering and changing your destiny.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines process as "a series of actions, changes, or functions that bring about an end or result." You process to attain a desired result.

It has been said that Rome wasn¡¦t built in a day and neither were your accepted patterns and conditions created overnight. Be patient! It will take time to create the new you. The uninhibited natural being has to surface first and once you begin employing a change, it will gather momentum. Even though you may not know exactly when or how the new changes take place, they will simply just begin to happen. We all have been designed to live happy and fulfilled lives. This innate desire dwells within each of us.

The Natural You
Much of what you will discover as you process your learned responses has to do with who you are naturally. The American Heritage Dictionary defines natural as "present in or produced by nature; not artificial or man-made. Pertaining to or produced solely by nature, or the expected order of things."

Our natural being is a pure unaltered state of who we are. As humans, we are each quite an exceptional being with a great uniqueness and beauty. We also have a great deal of untapped creativity just waiting to be explored and used!
Sticking to and using process techniques can unclog the drain and get you running smoothly again. You all know what it feels like to be blocked and backed up. There comes a time in life when we all get tired of watching everyone else attain the in life those things we can¡¦t seem to reach. Much like viewing what we want through the window but unable to enter through the door.

Processing is a major door for those who wish to use and develop with it. The natural you, is waiting inside to be re-discovered. The natural you has been perhaps stuffed away and hidden but not discarded.