INNER WORK
Continued from page 11
historical trigger impact your narratives and behaviors ?
• Future : What narrative gets projected into the future as a result ? What is the worst case fear ? How likely is that fear to come to fruition ?
• Present : How are you likely to react when triggered ? If you did not catch it happening , what are your patternistic behaviors , e . g ., are you likely to snap at the child for violating the rules ? What are your alternatives ? What understanding and compassion do you need to extend to your past self ? What will help you to calm your future projections to be present now ?
• Emotion : What emotional charge alerts you to a pattern being activated ?
• Body : Through what sensation , and where in your body , is your intuition speaking to you ?
The brain time travels to the past and to a predicted ( and , usually , awfulized ) future . When our brain is activated , the neurowaves mimic those when we were first exposed to the threat , often in our childhood , and just as often from our ancestry . This phenomenon requires our awareness to avoid taking control and our compassion to avoid dismissing our subconscious needs ( Swartz , 1995 ).
When we are actively engaged in this practice of our own inner work , we are more self-aware , self-compassionate , curious about others ’ experiences , and empathetic . In doing so , we connect with our inner child and our lineages , and we are reminded that everyone has their own history driving their behaviors . We remember anger masks fear , fear drives behavior more than any other emotion , and how we respond to that inner child and experience matters . When another person is angry or acting irrationally , we can try to remember that they are afraid , and that fear comes from somewhere , potentially childhood and / or generational trauma . Instead of judging oneself , we can be curious about what may have happened to result in the reaction .
The crises of this time are activating our brains , and in doing so are pulling a catalogue of memories up to the surface ; some of these are memories of grief and trauma from our own lives , and from the epigenetics of our ancestral lineages . Our brains are also projecting awfulized future narratives in response to the current context , e . g ., “ What if I / my loved ones get sick ?” “ What if I lose my
“ When we are actively engaged in this practice of our own inner work , we are more self-aware , selfcompassionate , curious about others ’ experiences , and empathetic .”
Page 12 Fall 2020 CSEE Connections