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Effective Images Are Personal

Do you have a shadow side? A shadow side is the part of you that you might prefer to deny. The part that feels inept, incompetent, unlovable, not good enough in some way, or any other negative feeling about yourself. This part may be under the influence of a negative age regression. A negative age regression is like an imprinting on the mind from an earlier time in your life when you experienced a conflict shock. This earlier shock event can be triggered by a current event that is a reminder.

For instance a negative experience from childhood, can become a frozen belief about yourself. Perhaps this happened when someone you cared about and respected, teased you, called you names or laughed at you. Or maybe you were with a friend and there were some older kids around who made your friend nervous and he made fun of you in order to look cool. Much later in life without your being aware of it, that shadow of the past could get triggered in a stressful moment and cause you to feel the same hurt feelings. The hurt you feel may well be completely over blown for the current circumstances but you are experiencing the emotions of the past and therefore cannot sort out what really triggered the rush of negative feelings. This is a common event in love relationships, when a previous emotional wound is activated.

An effective use of imagery would be to recreate the earlier scene in your imagination and then make changes in the images planted there. Using the imagination the scene could be changed to include a setting in which you are being accepted for who you are, by the person who once harmed you emotionally. You could imagine this person offering you a friendly gesture like a high five for something you have done.

Since the imagination is the seat of the unconscious mind where the old memory is stored, it becomes possible to rearrange the emotional content of the event.

A difficult concept to understand is that the unconscious mind doesn't know real from imagined. We all have many distorted "memories" stored in our deep inner mind that are still influencing our behavior and our actions. Change the images stored there and you change your emotional responses automatically.

However, to make this effective there is an art to it. First of all you must be willing to suspend all doubt and adopt an "I can do this" attitude. What have you got to lose? Get into your imagination and start shuffling around those old stories about you that get in the way of your happiness.

I frequently take memories from childhood and edit them by letting my imagination show the scene to me in a better way. That is the instruction that I gave to myself.

In an original memory I lost most of my Halloween candy through the bottom of a wet paper bag. (Stupid me) In the remake I used a pillowcase that didn't break when it got wet. (Clever Me) Another time I recalled the scene of participating in the destruction of a grouchy neighbor's garden when she wasn't at home. (Very Guilty) In the remake I helped the neighbor by shoveling snow from her sidewalk without being asked. (Forgiven)

This is a great little tool for your mental health kit. And is how we can change history. The original incident remains intact in the memory, except for the emotional content, which changes as the new images are created and willingly accepted as a remake of an old movie in the mind. Used in a spirit of playfulness this tool becomes super easy and effective, even if the original scene still hurts. I call these my do-overs.

If you find that you need some assistance getting into your imagination you might consider making an appointment for an Imagery session. Often the frozen pictures in the mind are deep in the unconscious and can spring into awareness with a nudge of Hypnosis, the Emotional Freedom Techniques or Guided Imagery.

If you have any questions email me.

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