Poisonous Threads Part 1

“We seldom realize that our thoughts and emotions are not actually our own.  For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our ancestors.”

     ~ Alan Watts

Our present is shaped by our past.  The unspoken stories of our past can be seen as a labyrinth, a dark, winding path.  Prolonged trauma, with its roots deeply embedded within, can haunt our lives, casting a shadow that seems impossible to escape.  Look around you!  I see very few creating lives congruent with their essential essence of pure potential for joy, relishing physical flexibility, energetic mental health and sharing their wisdom gained over 70+ years of living vibrantly.  Why is that? 

One possible reason for this lack of congruence could be ancestral patterns that are passed down through our DNA.    Some studies are suggesting this very thing.  Click the previous sentence to read about some fascinating recent studies on epigenetics.  Cellular degeneration, inflammation, genetically inherited diseases are all possible ancestral patterns passed down through our DNA.  May or may not be true but I believe this possibility is on the table.  This opening to new concepts provides us an opportunity to uncover deeper truths that can inspire new choices based on the desire to live a happy healthy life into old age.  I understand that many may find this idea somewhat amusing, even silly, but it opens up new thought on the subject and I consider this the evolution of consciousness.  If we keep thinking the same old thoughts, we will certainly get the same old results.    

Teasing out poisonous threads within the fabric of a childhood that was on track to a continuation of ancestral patterns such as prolonged illness, loss of mobility and distorted physique is a monumental task.  I believe speaking out about this issue is important because there is no need for anybody to remain stuck anymore.  Destiny is not as set in stone as many of us once believed.  It takes work, it takes determination and it takes a willingness to look outside of society’s systems of treating symptoms, but it can be done.  To be clear, there is no instant fix, yet!  In the meantime, we can do the research and make a decision for a different destination during our golden years. 

Since coming across the concept of the Human Potential Movement in 2013 I have been asking the question, how can I elevate my life experience in every way?  What is actually possible?  A lineage of deteriorating health after age 50 leading to prolonged illness then death has motivated me since my teens like a fire under my butt to prevent what most consider the inevitable.  An end-of-life experience similar to their parents/grandparents.  Silence is consent.  Nobody in my family of origin spoke of illness prevention.  I did not hear one conversation growing up regarding the importance of physical fitness or taking action to strengthen our bodies, reduce inflammation and maintain a youthful range of motion that would contribute to avoiding the illnesses my grandparents were suffering from.  My earliest memories of old people had me scared because of how disfigured they were.  Instinctively I knew something was really wrong with who they were and it was showing up in their physical expression.  I now see that I was feeling into the inherited generational trauma of those community members and it was very dark.

The “health care” medical industry reinforces the inevitability of inherited family diseases.  I remember having to check with my sister about our family medical history for my new doctor when I moved to Calgary, Canada in 2002.  What they actually required was the list of how these people I happened to be related to, died.  Why?  Perhaps I was subconsciously being prepared by the system to accept that I would live my end-of-life years with a disease similar to my predecessors.  I was not aware of this possibility in 2002 and did not put two and two together.  At that point in my life, I was determined to mentally leave the “past in the past” and make a fresh start in a new city where I felt like a fish out of water and only knew one person.  I really believed I could willpower myself to positive changes.  In reality I brought every last distortion pattern with me and I continued to struggle despite trying really hard to be a good person. 

Side Note:  After recently retiring from my latest career in the corporate world and deciding to spend some time in Mexico, I was acutely aware that any issues that I had not resolved within were along for the ride.  This time I knew that circumstances would reflect to me where I am lacking, where I am lying to myself.  The tools to release these false beliefs about what I am capable of were packed.

I am sure there are others but looking back at my earliest and most influential role model, I feel that my mother’s last years were particularly tragic in the area of her health.  She had heart problems for the last 20 years of her life, and many of those years could have been lived much more vibrantly and energetically.  Her biggest passion was travel.  Unfortunately, she never felt strong enough to do as much as she dreamed of.  Her energy levels were so low compared to when I was growing up it was hard to witness.  I have come to terms with this tragedy since her death in 2018.  Still, for the 10 years leading up to her death I was consumed with worry for her.  It was a real shock when I found out that the first 10 years of her heart problems were a time where she refused to take action for a procedure with a very high recovery rate, because of the fear due to a poisonous thread of her own.  I think it kept her in a prison of inertia.  I was literally horrified that the woman I loved the most would tell no one of the agony she must have been living in for all those years.  Miraculously, she made it through the lifesaving surgery that saved her life at the 11^th hour, but the damage she had done to herself by waiting 10 years prevented a reasonable recovery.  She lived another 10 years, but the get-up-and-go had gone out of her and she was frail mentally and physically.  That time period really took a toll on my mental health as well, and so the cycle of trauma was passed on.       

Being raised in an unhealthy culture had me unknowingly trotting down the same path as my ancestors.  Poisonous threads consisting of patterns of worry, uncertainty and negative expectations about the future combined with self-sacrifice, martyrdom, high carb diets and sedentary lifestyles after retirement surrounded me like a spider’s web, invisible but oh so powerful.  As a young preschooler, I remember seeing tiny humpbacked shapeless forms shuffling up the isle of the Elmwood Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, my home town, at the end of every Sunday service.  What were they?  I never saw the eyes; they were all in black with heads covered.  Nobody explained to me who they were!  Nobody seemed to pay attention to them.  They didn’t speak English and were probably survivors of war.  “Is this MY fate?”  I asked myself every week.  I felt scared of them and for them and had thoughts that this was what happened to us in the end of life.  Lifeless, formless and miserable.  Unfortunately, these fearful childhood memories got locked deep within where they festered for decades.

Perhaps these vivid recollections could explain why my essential core value is now vibrant health.  When I woke up to the fact that I had the power and ability to choose again, different from what was modeled to me, I made a decision that I wanted to live a healthy vibrant life.  That was 2013 and I was 47 years old.   At the same time, my health had been compromised for years already and the patterns of fear and uncertainty about a dangerous world and the future outcome of humanity created a disconnect from what I was experiencing compared to what I desired.  Regardless, I had struck a core of truth!  Health is wealth.  I clung to this belief despite the ever-present anxiety as I began the journey of researching my personal formula for turning the ship of my life towards this beacon.  I entertained the idea that my struggles did not represent the real me. 

Now, ten years later, I confirm that personal health – body, mind, spirit, is the foundation of all other forms of wealth for me.  Society’s distorted definition of wealth being financial had me striving for security but never feeling safe.  No wonder, since that definition misses the mark by ignoring the fact that security and safety are inside jobs.  I wish somebody would have explained this to me at a younger age, like in my teens!  So many wasted years desperate to compromise my sleep, my diet, my attention on people and issues that went against my essential nature, just to fit in and achieve status quo, the brass ring within the culture I was raised.  I so hated feeling different, looking different, having a brain that did not work the same as the school system said the “smart kids’” brains did.  I really worked hard to squeeze myself into a normal people’s lifestyle that always felt constrictive.

I don’t remember this aspect of health being addressed in my schooling.  The self-hate resulting from looking and thinking differently.  My religion discouraged socializing with those outside our beliefs which just reinforced my conclusions about being a bad fit with every community I found myself a part of.  These poisonous deposits of thought in my mind were never addressed or discussed.  I now see a direct correlation between the emotions of shame, guilt, fear and obligation to “keep sweet” regardless of what was brewing within me and my resulting health challenges later on.  Even my years of therapy in my 20’s did not address these fundamental building blocks of mental health. 

As I transform, I have moments of touching the consciousness of throbbing life force emanating from my core and all my cells vibrate with intensity.  These visceral episodes keep me motivated.

Sometimes I ask myself why I didn’t make changes earlier in my adult life.  Actually, I was desiring change but was very clumsy in my attempts.  I see now that the consciousness level that I lived in was circular in nature and despite my efforts to make changes I was like an addict in some ways.  Good intentions but the familiar kept pulling at me.  A major poisonous thread was what I have coined the “suffering and solving” loop.  It could also be seen as the game of ‘Whack-a-Mole”.  One problem is solved but before you know it another issue pops up.  I couldn’t see it because I was in it and did not have the high-level perspective to be able to look down on the HOW of my thinking.  Now that I have stepped out of that mindset, I can look back and analyze it. One of the biggest problems that kept me stuck in the “suffering and solving” loop was micro focusing on the symptoms.

TO BE CONTINUED