A community building project,
Something that will reduce suffering in hospitals,
Or a healing business where you see awakening bloom in your clients.

Whatever it is, this dream has been dancing on the shelf, trying to get your attention for years.

Cause you’ve been busy taking care of business. Your own healing journey. The family and the material needs of a human life. It feels like there’s never the time to begin the thing. Or never the support to parent And build dreams. I know it, baby.

And what I know is, there are clear steps to moving from “I cant” to “I’m fucking doing it and it’s awesome!”

So here is the First, most important step:

BELIEVE it’s possible.

If you don’t actually think that this thing is possible for you. If all the reasons “why not” are bigger than the deep calling to do it anyway… you wont take a step and you’ll stay safe and small (and squirming).

But you can build your belief in simple and effective ways.

1. Stoke your fire. Remind yourself why you love this thing. Let yourself feel the pull to it. Tolerate the discomfort of the contrast between what is now and what you see is possible. Let your passion for it build. Give yourself to what you’re passionate about. Remember WHY this thing pulls you. If you can, write that down. Often.
2. For this exercise, suspend any thoughts about why it won’t work, why it’s not possible for you, why there’s no time or energy. That’s none of your business (truly!)
3. Gather supporters. When we’re fumbling in the dark for something we’ve never experienced before, we need some external hand holds. Humans who’ve been there or are doing it already. Find people who inspire you, who are doing the thing you’re doing. Contact them, reach out, get in the energy field of people who already know (believe) this thing is possible.
4. Gather evidence. Find images that look like the thing happening.. surround yourself with them and look at them regularly. Anytime something Vaguely along the lines of your dreams happens WRITE. IT. DOWN. (this makes it more concrete and tangible). Surround yourself with a new dialogue about what is actually possible in your world and don’t back down.

Fight for your vision. Be like a bulldog with a bone and fight for your souls longings. Don’t wait for someone else to do it and don’t let yourself collapse here. You Can do it. You’re worth it. Miracles are possible. Be the bird who flys.

Want to begin your evidence and support gathering right now?

Well let me share with you, when I first wrote this article, I’d had my own dance with a burning dream for years. A dream to help women land more in their gifts, in their bodies and in their power. To bring the heart, in female and male bodies, back to the centre of things. To heal the disconnection and disease so rife on our planet. My dream was that leaders with heart rise up and create a better world… there was so much Light in this dream! (and.. for years it felt like it was already done, with you and me and the whole shebang of intelligent consciousness at our back).

At the time I was giving 1:1 sessions doing just this. I was apprenticing in a Conscious Development Essence school.

This evolved over time into people coming to me asking for me to share my wisdom and the last 5 years now of giving training, Certifications in my method and mentorship to practitioners who share my dream.

And please know… in amidst this was a lot of messy, human fumbling, doubt, fear, scramble and all the rest. Life finds a way my love, even and including your imperfections.

SO BELIEVE. You can have it

And if there’s any way I can support that, I would LOVE it!

Check out my courses here:

and my Sessions here:

To continue this exploration, I want to name an important factor from brain science that can influence this body Knowing, and then give you a tool for how to work with this.

Fundamentally, when given the time and space for it, life will innately move towards health and well-being. Your body and Being gravitate towards life, vitality and harmonious, healthy connections. We are literally built (in the brain, the nervous system, the biology) for connection and love. This is why we listen deeply to the body’s cues. But, there is also something called “implicit” programming in the brain that can come into play and over-ride healthy impulses towards connection or life-giving choices in order to have us do what the body knows how to do.

This “implicit” memory, (essentially unconscious brain programming) can override appropriate responses in the moment. So, we can find ourselves feeling clear, powerful and strongly guided from within, and then suddenly, an old trigger comes up (a relationship pattern, a life situation) and we are habitually responding in a way that Doesn’t serve our health and well-being. We are essentially responding from past programming that worked Before but is no longer relevant to this present moment.

Implicit memory arises from the “older” parts of the brain, the limbic system, and the instinctual/animal brain. The behaviors that arise out of this unconscious part of the brain are designed to be immediate and pre-programmed, so we don’t need to *think* through all our responses. These pre-programmed responses were mostly laid down in the unconscious at an early age to help us survive and thrive in our family of origin. These are often very fast and unconscious responses to particular situations.

Basically, our body holds memories and programming that tells us how to respond to the world in a particular way. If we are looking to our Knowing around a topic that was fraught in our early life, the feelings and emotional cues we get can be laden with the old story, which is often also linked to long held beliefs like “I’m not loveable” or “they always leave”, or “all big animals are dangerous”.

So let me give you an example of this is:

If you had a bad encounter with a big dog as a kid, your body may have a big fear and retreat response anytime you see a big dog, regardless of how friendly it actually is.

Or if you had a dismissive mother who couldn’t tune into and meet your needs, you may automatically move towards caring for others when you yourself have a need. This is when your implicit memory is taking over from present moment awareness and correct attunement/response.

So how do we work with implicit memory?

We make the unconscious conscious.

We work with implicit memory by creating safety, space and time to make these responses conscious, and to feel those old emotions and sensations in the body, so that they can begin to move out of the unconscious and into your conscious awareness.

Once these implicit memories are more known and met in the consciousness, if/when they do come up again, they don’t hold as much sway over your decision making and you can more authentically feel into the present moment truth for yourself. Into your Knowing.

Please note: we are talking about powerful biological survival drives here.. so I’m not inferring this is a quick fix strategy! This is an ongoing, deepening, empowering relationship with yourself and your animal programming.

So, for example:

This can look like recognizing the fear response in your body as you see a big dog, taking a moment to notice the other things on the scene, like a friendly owner holding the dog on a leash, and soothing yourself by checking for the exit. It can look like being able to choose to hold your fear and notice the dogs eyes are soft and it’s tail is wagging, and move towards it as a safe animal. Or it can look like noticing this dog is a little shifty, so choosing to move away. The point of this is that you are able to take in more of what is actually here, rather than just responding based on your body memories.

Or in the case of relationship, it can look like noticing yourself “over-giving” to another and feeling disconnected from your own experience. You may take a moment to listen in to yourself and notice some sadness and step back to give yourself some empathetic listening. You may even speak your needs to the other person.

The point of this is that you are able to take in more of what is actually here, rather than just your body memories, and respond more authentically in the moment.

………………….

Action step:

To explore one of the areas where implicit memory over-rides your appropriate present-moment responses, I invite you to take a moment to write down what happens for you.

What thoughts do you have, what body sensations,

And then how do you speak or behave when this is active in you?

Please give yourself some good space and time to explore this and allow feelings to arise.

If you want to explore some deep or strong body memories I highly recommend doing so with a safe other.

Implicit memory can be particularly strong for people with early trauma (unsafe environment in childhood) or people who have experienced threatening situations in life.  Working with implicit memory can be done in gentle self-inquiry or ideally with a trained therapist in a modality like Somatic Experiencing or the Hakome method. You can see how you can work with me if you feel drawn below.

If you are interested in bringing more awareness and choice to your unconscious responses, you can find out about the sessions here

with love and warm wishes,

x Amanda

If you’re like me; a Ms “Fix-it” from way back, you’ve probably tried many ways to change your story; counseling, workshops, bodywork, processing, diet changes, learning more, trying harder, Making An Effort.

But probably, like me, your story just keeps repeating on you. You may have gone to the depths of your despair in that last workshop or counseling session and came out feeling reborn, and then, What?! 2 months later, you’re feeling the same feelings and living that Same Story.

Why is that??

One thing I’ve seen across the years of “fixing” my story is that we don’t Change the story, we Wake Up inside it.

You see our early life experiences, way back to our time in the womb, literally set up a biological map or energetic imprint that is ours to walk and become conscious inside of. The dynamic between our parents, the key experiences of our childhood (belonging/exclusion, love/abandonment, friendships/loneliness etc) all create an energetic imprint and neurological track-work in the brain that then helps to form our personality and psyche and how we respond to the world.

It is possible to change this imprint and the pathways in the brain, in fact that’s a large part of what we are doing in a Somatic Experiencing session. So we may Wake Up to these pathways, and thus have more options, more choice, more flexibility, but generally these make up the terrain of our life. Your life story may not change, but You change in relation to it.

For example:

The first time you experienced being seriously ill as a child it was too overwhelmingly scary for such a little person to handle. So you learnt to disconnect from your body and live from your mind, denying your feelings and unaware of your body processes. Now as an adult, when you become ill, you have the choice to disconnect from your body, or to Feel the terror that illness invokes and become present to the sensations and experiences in your body. As you become present, you can begin to identify less with your “story” (“I’m always sick, I have no control, I cant trust my body”) and wanting the pain to go away, and you identify more with the part of you who watches it all.

Illness may always be something that you have a strong reaction to, but as you build your ability to stay conscious with whatever your story is, there becomes no Need to “fix” it. When you can be conscious with it, the emotions, the sensations and the experience of your story just are*. They may be uncomfortable, but they just are as they are. You notice the fear that arises, the movement towards disconnecting from your body, and you can choose something different, because you are more awake inside your story. And in Being awake, your capacity to experience more pleasure and good-life-force increases as well. As you are probably aware, shutting out pain also shuts out pleasure and reduces your range of feeling both ways.

(*Please note, Im not inferring that this is easy, just that it is the way to go in order to bring light and change to “problems” in your experience.)

When we wake up inside our problems, they are not “problems” anymore, they are opportunities for consciousness here and now. And consciousness is a very yummy thing

I like to imagine that we are all walking our own unique Life Maze. As we “wake up” inside this maze, we start to explore new areas and directions, and the specific qualities of our life story begin to bring particular gifts, like treasures hidden amongst the hedges. These may be humility, compassion, patience, kindness, life force, love. But to glean these treasures from your well trodden maze, you mustn’t be fooled by the story and you must be willing to try something new.

Often, when you are lost down the alley ways of your maze, its not as easy as “choosing” to find a different way. Especially if your Life Maze has some truly scary corners. Like a child lost in a maze, sometimes you need another person to come in there and take your hand, helping you see new options and guide you out. In a therapeutic or an intimate relationship, we can get to know each others’ track-work and become more present and conscious for the other when we know they are navigating tricky areas. We can befriend their maze with them and help to expand the range of feeling that is possible.

Your Life Maze is your burden or your gift for waking up. What ever your story is, it is Your story. The less you fight with that simple truth, the more you will be available to Be Here for your life and for the hidden treasures in it.

I wish you well dear traveller!

Over to you:

I’d love to hear what you think about waking up inside your problems rather than fixing them.. Have you experienced “fixing” your story, or have you had it repeat on you again and again?

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