Schemas

Have you ever felt like no one understands you, or your needs? Do you feel like you are not being nurtured, not seen? Do you believe people should sense what you need or what needs to be done without asking them to help you? We all do.  Many of us nurture ourselves by overeating, overspending, over medicating ourselves, when all we really want is emotional nurturance. But others are not aware of their own needs and to expect them to know when we need nurturing is difficult.

Emotional schemas are patterns we all have from childhood that are difficult to change because they have become a habit for us, a coping mechanism we have developed as children. We end up many times repeating the same schemas over and over again even though the prior results caused us pain and the new result will most likely do the same.

Schemas revolve around compelling needs, like safety, connections with others, autonomy and competence and lead us to think and act in ways that keep those needs form being fulfilled.

For instance, we say we want love in our lives, but when love appears, we are so surprised to have found it, or we cannot believe someone would love us, so we sabotage the very thing we seek, by running from it. Success is another thing we say we want and yet there are many people who truly fear success and all the things it may do to change our lives.

We at times believe we would like our world to change, and yet with change we suffer from discomfort. Things no longer feel the way they had before, there is much more safety in the known world, than the unknown one. We sense things are moving too fast and we start to believe we are not worthy on some level. We either leave the situation, or we find ways to find fault with it and create a rift with the other. We blame others for the problem. If we really are in a repeating pattern, we hope they do the leaving, so we can be the "good guy" then we lament our fate. Fear of commitment rules our life and we cannot see our own part we created in the situation.

I read Tara Goleman's book: Emotional Alchemy in 2001 and so did my family. I recommend it highly to everyone!  All of us agreed it was the most difficult self help book we ever read and the one that affected us the most to change our way of dealing with issues in our lives instilled from past conditioning..

If we only see things through the lens of our assumptions, we are not aware of how the lens distorts the reality of our experience. We need to see things more as they ARE and not as we think they are, or appear to be. Take whatever obscures your view and become aware of the clouded view. Anytime you wake up to what you are doing on "automatic" you are bringing mindful awareness into your world and you are able to make conscious change for the better.  To "mitate" or see things afresh, re-see, re-vision is vital!

Pay attention to your emotional reactions to things, your automatic responses, and your re-actions to things. Choose to ruminate on something before you comment. Sometimes, the space between what it is you see, hear, think or feel will be the time you need to come from clarity. Dissolve this propensity to react from an emotional place and observe the subtlety and listen to the wisdom of your intuitive wisdom.It is because of our delusions and misperceptions that we suffer needlessly in our lives. Use your experience, your insights and reasoned clarity to find new ways to envision your life!

Remember:
 
"It is never too late to be what you might have been." George Eliot.

Sending love and healing...