Did you know that how your baby is born can have a significant effect on her emotional and psychological makeup as an adult? Everything she registers and feels during her initial entry into the world will be memorised and can influence the rest of her life. Elena Tonetti, an advocate of conscious birth, refers to this as “limbic imprint”. Leslie Temple-Thurston, a teacher of enlightenment, refers to this as “negative or positive imprinting”. The greater the birth trauma, especially through unnecessary or even necessary intervention, the greater the negative birth imprint.

Babies are extremely sensitive, and those born to intervention and rough handling can find the experience extremely shocking and abusive, even if birth attendees consider the handling normal (Leslie Temple-Thurston). While babies may forget their ordeal in the hours and days that follow, the memory of the experience is held deep within them and doesn’t spontaneously go away (Leslie Temple-Thurston). Unless babies are helped to release the stress of this imprinting (Aletha Solter, The Aware Baby), it (stress and imprinting) stays with them for the rest of their lives whether they are conscious of it or not. This is because during birth the limbic system registers all of the sensations and emotions around the experience of birth, and the memory of it lives in the body for the rest of our lives whether we are conscious of this or not.

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When we feel deprived inside we feel easily threatened when resources appear limited and we naturally want to compete, fight and kill to ensure our future needs are met (possible cause of xenophobia etc). If we don’t run the deprived child programme much we probably won’t know what destitution really feels like, or believe in it for that matter. We are therefore likely not to manifest lack in our lives. We know how to live creatively and abundantly as a result. I suppose we only create destitution in our lives when we believe the programmes of lack, destitution and deprivation, even unconsciously, and make them real. Hence it feels important to look at the deprived child (that righteously feels entitled for compensation) inside ourselves because it appears to be a main player in a lot of unrest in the world currently...

My partner and I have been working a square on this...

Desire to be deprived
To have the experience of lack and destitution, abandonment, neglect; to believe that I am the wrong doer; as a form of self-punishment/self-flagellation/self-recrimination;  to feel entitled and righteous about receiving compensation – by being angry, bold assertive, overly confident, strong, intimidating, loud, attention seeking (imposing my presence on others), in your face, over the top, hectic, greedy, grasping, grabbing, stingy, withholding, selfish, self-centred, conceited, inconsiderate, disrespectful, dishonouring, destructive, angry, doing everything in my power to get my needs or perceived needs met at all costs, feeling entitled to compensation however it may look – buying into all ego wants and desires – being fed by consumerism – if I feel down I can remedy that by spending a day at the mall mentality; an excuse to hoard my stuff and never give anything away,   
To be the poor victim; to moan and complain; to pull at the heart strings of saviours looking for action – thus to be pitied, be loved, cared for, compensated; people will generally feel more sorry for you and like you more if you are deprived rather than satisfied
To lead a strict and austere life for spiritual advancement – to suffer and ennoble myself through suffering; to put myself through renunciation in order to wake up (vows of celibacy, poverty), to clear my attachments and addictions; self-punishment; for purity; As an excuse to act out deepest darkest ego – rage, hate, killer instinct etc whilst fulfilling my needs at all costs; to validate survival of the fittest theory To see how much I can do without, and how little I actually need to survive – becomes a game – like the anorexic who starves herself to see how thin she can get and still survive; getting tired of the game and choosing to deprive myself to death
To be motivated to get things done
To not have to feel shame or undeserving feelings associated with actually owning a lot of stuff
For drama; because I’m addicted to suffering, deprivation is a familiar state
To choose the hard life; because as a child I was told I was spoilt that I can’t bear to be labelled a spoilt adult; to not be criticised or rejected for having my needs met – to be loved and accepted
To struggle with a mediocre salary
To be lazy
Because I am scared of a challenge (it’s easier to rather deprive myself than stretch myself); out of a lack of belief in myself (because no-one believed in me as a child, I believe I am stuck with my limitations); out of insecurity and lack of self-confidence I cannot possibly aspire to reaching my full potential; because I believe that: I’m inadequate, inferior, easily intimidated, I lack skills or am in denial of my skills, am worthless, a failure, good for nothing, hopeless, pathetic, inferior; because of all these negative beliefs about myself I do not believe I can live creatively and abundantly and thus manifest a mediocre life for myself where I live in deprivation
Because I am disconnected from my own sense of inspiration; because I don’t have any good ideas to make a break for myself
It’s safer because people are less threatened by me Out of fear of my own success, brilliance, light

Fear of being deprived
[What I see here is that deprivation can exist on many levels – on the level where food and shelter is denied and survival is seriously threatened or on a more subtle note. For example, I may be denied good company one evening if my friends cancel plans, or I may be denied a learning experience by missing out on a session with a spiritual teacher/Leslie, or if I can’t get hold of something “nice” to eat and land up snacking on something less satisfying – all these experiences have the power to remind me of my inner deprivation...]

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This work was inspired while Glenda was writing her article – “the Benefits and Joy of Doing Selfless Service”

We are living in unprecedented times and many of us are on accelerated paths of transformation. Selfless service is becoming not just “a nice thing to do” but certainly a regular necessity as we trudge along on our paths. Some days feel really heavy and hopeless and one way to get some spiritual lift off is to be able to give unconditionally. How well we can do this “giving without reward” is determined by how much faith we can muster up at any given time to give selflessly despite all the fears that make us safe guard against potential loss. It is these fears that hold us in place and limit our transformation. Personally I feel I could give more – more of myself - my time, energy and money - and I would like to stop buying into my fears of loss and not getting my needs met. I have done a square below highlighting some of the fears that prevent me from giving without reward. For more information on the processing technique called “squares” please see http://2ndmiracle.co.za/web/innerwork/process.

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I have been thinking about the nature of sexual abuse the last day or so. It’s in part a follow up to the blog piece that I posted a few weeks ago on Sexual Shadow. The discussion that follows was triggered by the recent conviction of a paedophile paediatrician in the US who sexually abused his young patients. I felt quite disturbed by this and realised that I needed to look into the “paedophile condition” a bit more deeply. It occurred to me that sexual abuse is a “dominator” energy, and that in order for it to exist it needs the presence of “victims of abuse”. We live in a patriarchal era rife with dominance and its polar opposite submission and I have become interested in delving deeper into why anyone would choose on some level to take on any of the two positions. I decided to use a processing technique called a square (for more info on squares see http://2ndmiracle.co.za/web/innerwork/process) to help balance and clear this programming on behalf of the collective. The polarities I chose are “being a perpetrator of sexual abuse vs being a victim of sexual abuse” and have posted it below.

 

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I am full-time mom to a 19-month old. I look after my little boy alone every day without help. Evenings his dad shares the load, and that’s about it in the way of support for the three of us. We don’t have a nanny and our little boy doesn’t go to play school. Although we attend play groups together, the days can feel very long and I often feel quite frazzled by evening time. I don’t think it’s healthy for children to spend full days with one person at a time. I think it’s healthier for children to be cared for by a number of familiar and loving caretakers who take turns offering the best of themselves. However he has me day in and day out and on bad days I often wonder what that is doing to his emotional well-being.

I know I would cope much better if I had help. Some days I feel like I need someone to step in and give him undivided attention on my behalf, just for an hour or two till I get myself feeling “together” again. Some days I feel like I need to empty the dishwasher in my own head space without little hands tugging at my trouser legs. Some days I want to be able to make a call or send a text message without it creating protest. Having a bit of “me time” in the day would certainly help to keep the negative feelings at bay...but I realise on a deeper level that is why I have this set-up with my child right now - to acquaint me with what’s really lurking inside. Because the clearer I get the better a job I will ultimately do raising him. But it’s a tough deal.

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This square is a follow on from the previous square posted on the 20th December by Ruth. Ruth and I both worked this one together as we did the previous one. The world would be a much more peaceful and functional place if we all owned our own innate God-given authority and stopped projecting it onto others.

Please feel free to add to it if you feel called to.

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Hi Everyone, 

You are probably getting Avaaz updates in your mailbox but I thought in case you aren't I have pasted the latest one here below.

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Hi Everyone

I posted a summary from Avaaz regarding the Copenhagen summit.

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We had a constructive meeting today. People present were Ruth, Dale, Ansuyah, Prem, Barbara and Dom.

Personally, I (Dom) felt an energetic shift in the group about 2/3rds of the meeting – like an unravelling that allowed a unifying of intention. It feels like we are all on the same page now. We ended off feeling inspired.

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The pace of modern life is intense and many of us are overwhelmed by a load of responsibilities and constant demands placed on our time and energy. We feel we have to push harder, do better and squeeze more out of that last drop just to get through the day. And the demands continue relentlessly and seem never ending. We feel stretched and drained, yet the pace of life is on the increase. Whatever happened to breathing space? Whatever happened to leisure time and balance? In times like these it is becoming increasingly harder to stay ‘together’, and many of us feel like we’re on the brink of insanity.

I have had numerous meltdowns the last couple weeks. For someone that is generally quite level headed about situations I have lost my rag with people and situations. I have been reactive, nasty, depressed, angry and crazy. Not cool for someone dedicated and committed to a spiritual path. I’ve been in fits of rage so intense that all I’ve wanted to do is scream obscenities at everyone around me. Not quite the behaviour of a balanced and normal person I would think. But then again, more and more normal people are being faced with challenging situations bringing out the worst in them. I don’t condone destructive behaviour but what I’m illustrating is that the crazy and raging people aren’t necessarily all ‘out there’.We all have it in us to crack. The point is what do we choose to do in these times?

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