Live Life By Design, Not By Default

By Deborah Lindemann C.H.T.

Do you feel like you’re in a constant defense mode, reacting to whatever life dishes your way? Right this very moment you are consciously and unconsciously attracting and manifesting events and situations into your life. For the most part, most of us are pretty unaware of how and why we must deal with the issues we find in our lives, but it’s no accident.

I clearly recall the morning Margaret (pseudonym) came in for her first session with me. Margaret was angry. She also had difficulty trusting people. She seemed to carry anger and distrust around with her everywhere, and based on the law of attraction she kept drawing situations and people into her life that continually reinforced her anger and lack of trust. Margaret was on a never-ending loop, which she didn’t know how to stop. She was unaware that she was the cause of the angry situations she was experiencing.

Negative emotions like anger, sadness, fear, etc., and all limiting beliefs such as distrust have a root cause. The root cause might be in this lifetime, or begin during the birth process, in the womb, in a past life or even passed down from the life of an ancestor. It’s interesting to note that most people don’t have a conscious memory of where the root cause really began, partly because memory can be faulty, and because it may have happened a long time ago. What’s important is that even if you’re unaware of the root cause, you’re still reacting; and your unconscious mind is still attracting life events that mirror the negative emotion or limiting belief stored at the unconscious level.

Much of the time you are not consciously aware of your thoughts or emotions. On a conscious level, you may be voicing what you want. You may be meditating on affirmations for your dreams, your desires and your intentions, until you’re blue in the face. But your conscious affirmations and intentions are competing with the content of your unconscious mind; and if the unconscious negative emotion or the limiting belief is stronger, guess which one wins? In psychotherapy, we call this being "incongruent" or not in alignment. You’re literally in an inner tug of war between your conscious desires and your unconscious mind.

Through hypnosis, Margaret found a root cause for both her anger and her distrust. Her anger originated during the birth process when she was pulled out with forceps. She recalls feeling forced before she was ready and she felt angry about it. She discovered that her distrust began in a past life when her husband in that lifetime abandoned her. The good news is, once we cleared and released these old sources that weren’t relevant to her current life, Margaret began attracting trustworthy people into her life. It takes a lot of physical and mental energy to keep unconscious memories suppressed, and with the release of the originating anger, she felt lighter. Margaret freed up her energy and psyche for more productive and creative endeavors. Now she can begin to live her life by design and not by default, because her conscious mind is in alignment with her unconscious mind.