Please respect that all Fun2beme Coaching materials contained within this website is for your personal use only. Reproduction, distribution, republication, and/or retransmission is not permitted unless prior written permission has been obtained by Marcel Jutzi. Thank you.
Dr Candace Pert
The discovery of the opiate receptors of the cells by Dr. Candace Pert has strongly guided my therapeutic and coaching philosophy.
Dr. Candace B. Pert, Ph.D., formerly chief of brain biochemistry at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), demonstrates in her research “Molecules of Emotion” how our emotions are largely responsible for the way we experience our reality. http://candacepert.com/
Molecules of Emotion. Dr. Candace Pert
Molecules of Emotion
Dr. Candace B. Pert, Ph.D., formerly chief of brain biochemistry at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent 13 years there mapping and demonstrating biochemicals she now calls “physiological correlates of emotion”. Dr. Pert left NIH after developing a new drug for the treatment of AIDS, but the government wasn’t interested.
Dr. Pert believes that virtually all illness, if not psychosomatic in foundation, has a definite psychosomatic component. Psyche meaning mind or soul, and soma meaning body. “It is obvious that the public is catching on to the fact that they’re the ones paying monstrous health care bills for often worthless procedures to remedy conditions that could have been prevented in the first place.”
In understanding Dr. Pert’s assessment that there are, in fact, such things as “molecules of emotion”, one must first understand some of the fundamentals of biomolecular medicine. Receptors, proteins, and peptides are basic components that make up our bodies and minds.
The Basics
The first component of the molecules of emotion is a molecule found on the surface of cells in the body and brain called the opiate receptor. Dr. Pert discovered the opiate receptor in the early 1970’s when she found a way to measure it and thereby prove its existence. Dr. Pert says that measurement is the very foundation of the modern scientific methods, the means by which the material world is admitted into existence. If it can’t be measured, science won’t concede it exists, which is why science refuses to deal with emotions, the mind, the soul, or the spirit.
A molecule is the tiniest possible piece of a substance that can still be identified as that substance. The receptor is a molecule, made up of proteins, tiny amino acids strung together in chains. They are flexible and respond to energy and chemical cues by vibrating. A typical nerve cell may have millions of receptors on its surface. Basically, receptors function as sensing molecules, or scanners, on a cellular level, much like our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, fingers, and skin. These receptors float around in the cell membranes, vibrating and wiggling, waiting to receive messages brought by other vibrating creatures that come through the fluids surrounding each cell. This is called diffusing. The receptors gather into a cluster in the cellular membrane waiting for the right chemical to make it’s way to them through the extracellular fluid and to attach themselves to them. This process is called binding. The chemical that binds to the receptor is an element called a ligand. The ligand causes the receptor to rearrange itself, changing its shape until information enters the cell.
Receptors and ligands are the first components of the molecules of emotion. Ligand comes from the Latin ligare meaning “that which binds”. It is often used to describe any natural or manmade substance that binds selectively to its own specific receptor on the surface of a cell. Once the receptor has received a message, it transmits it from the surface of the cell into its interior where the message dramatically changes the state of the cell. A chain of biochemical events begins. The life of a cell is determined by which receptors are on its surface and whether those receptors are occupied by ligands or not. These minute physiological phenomena at the cellular level can translate to changes in behavior, physical activity, and even mood.
The process of binding is very selective. Only the ligands that have molecules in exactly the right shape can bind to a particular kind of receptor. This is called receptor specificity. The opiate receptor can receive only those ligands that are members of the opiate group, like endorphins, morphine, or heroin. It is this specificity of the receptors that allows for a complex system of organization and ensures that everything gets to where it’s supposed to be going.
Ligands are divided into three chemical types: neurotransmitters, steroids, and peptides. Neurotransmitters are the smallest, simplest molecules manufactured in the brain to transmit information between neurons. Steroids, including the sex hormones testosterone, progesterone, and estrogen, start out as cholesterol that gets transformed by a series of biochemical steps into a specific kind of hormone. The peptides, which constitute about 95% of all the ligands, play a wide role in regulating practically all life processes. Like receptors, peptides are made up of strings of amino acids. Dr. Pert puts it this way: “If the cell is the engine that drives all life, then the receptors are the buttons on the control panel of that engine, and a specific peptide (or other kind of ligand) is the finger that pushes that button and gets things started.”
In the early days of research, it was known that peptide factors were responsible for regulating digestion and raising and lowering blood pressure in the body’s circulatory system. Peptide components were known to be produced by the pituitary, found at the base of the brain. It was many years later that many substances not previously identified as peptides turned out to be just that. Hormones, with the exception of testosterone and estrogen, were peptides, as is insulin. Prolactin, which causes women’s breasts to secrete milk, is also a peptide.
The actual structures of peptides are simple, but the responses in the body that they cause are extremely complex. Because of this, peptides have been classified as hormones, neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, growth factors, gut peptides, interleukins, cytokines, chemokines, and growth-inhibiting factors. Francis Schmitt of MIT aptly named them informational substances, because their common function is to distribute information throughout the organism.
Researchers at NIH assumed that any peptide ever found anywhere, at any time, was potentially a neuropeptide with receptors in the brain. They mapped the location of both the actual peptide containing neurons and the location of their receptors and found that most were clearly shown to have both receptors in the brain and also to be present themselves in the brain. At first, they thought that peptides existed only in the hypothalamus, but were elated to realize peptides existed in all parts of the brain. They found peptides in the cortex, the part of the brain where higher functions are controlled, and in the limbic system, or the “emotional” brain. When they began to understand the distribution of these chemicals throughout the nervous system, they got the first clues that led them to theorize about peptides being the molecules of emotion.
Hofstra University psychology professor Robert Plutchik proposed a theory of eight primary emotions: sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation, joy, acceptance, fear, and surprise. Like primary colors, these emotions could be mixed to get other, secondary emotions, i.e., fear + surprise = alarm, or joy + fear = guilt.
Experts also distinguish among emotion, mood, and temperament. Emotion is the most fleeting, and is easily identifiable by what causes it. Moods may last hours or days and it is more difficult to determine the cause. And temperament is genetically based, meaning that we’re generally stuck with it for a lifetime.
Back in the 1920s, human experiments were conducted to show the connection between emotions and those parts of the brain where Dr. Pert and other researchers were locating almost all of the neuropeptide receptors. Wilder Penfield at McGill University in Montreal worked with conscious, awake individuals during open-brain surgery for severe and uncontrollable epilepsy. He found that when he electrically stimulated the limbic cortex over the amygdala, he could cause a variety of emotions to display themselves—from reactions of grief, to anger, to joy as patients relived old memories. The patients also showed body language and physical actions appropriate to the emotions, such as shaking with laughter or crying. Paul MacLean, a researcher at NIMH, popularized the concept of the limbic system as the seat of the emotions. He believed that there are three layers to the human brain representing different stages of humanity’s evolution: the brainstem, which is responsible for autonomic functions such as breathing, blood flow, and body temperature; the limbic system, which encircles the top of the brainstem and is the seat of the emotions; and the cerebral cortex, in the forebrain, which is the seat of reason. If the idea that peptides and other informational substances are the biochemicals of emotions, their distribution in the body’s nerves has all kinds of significance. This very much reflects some of Sigmund Freud’s thinking in that the body is the unconscious mind.
Due to the many years of research conducted by Dr. Pert and many others, the emotional brain can no longer be considered confined to the locations of the amygdale, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. There are many other anatomical locations where high concentrations of almost every neuropeptide receptor exist, such as the back side of the spinal cord. This is the area within the nervous system where all bodily sensations are processed. High concentrations of neuropeptide receptors are found in virtually all the locations where information from any of the five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch—enter the nervous system. These points have become known as “nodal points”, and seem to be designed so that they can be accessed and modulated by almost all neuropeptides as they process and prioritize information.
All sensory information goes through a filtering process as it moves across the synapses of the nervous system, finally reaching the area of higher processes, like the frontal lobes. There, the sensory input enters our conscious awareness. The efficiency of the filtering process which chooses what stimuli we pay attention to at any given moment is determined by the quantity and quality of the receptors at the nodal points.
Our bodies use neuropeptides as the cue, and our bodymind retrieves or represses emotions and
behaviors. Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons have proved that iochemical change begun at the receptor level is the molecular basis of memory. When a receptor is flooded with a ligand, it changes the cell membrane in such a way that affects the choice of neuronal circuitry that will be used. This is important for understanding how memories are stored not only in the brain, but in a psychosomatic network throughout the body, particularly in the receptors between nerves and bundles of cell bodies called ganglia. The decision about what becomes a thought rising to consciousness and what remains an unrealized thought pattern is mediated by the receptors.
Overwhelming amounts of information is being thrust at our brains on a continuous basis. In order not to be overwhelmed, the brain has a filtering system that allows us to pay attention to some things and ignore others. While the neuropeptides are directing our attention by their activities, we are not conscious of what is getting processed, remembered, and learned. We do, however, have the possibility of bringing some of these decisions into consciousness through visualization. The decision about what sensory information travels to your brain and what gets filtered out depends on what signals the receptors are receiving from the peptides.
Dr. Pert read Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins and was amazed at his experience. After being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Mr. Cousins rejected help offered by his doctors, left the hospital, and checked into a hotel with Charlie Chaplin videos. He basically laughed himself back to health, having felt that what his body needed was life-affirming, joyous experience of laughter. He believed that the laughter had triggered a release of endorphins which, by elevating his mood, had somehow brought about a total remission of his disease. This was a direct implication of what Dr. Pert had been working on with the neuropeptides, the brain chemicals of mood and behavior, and the chemical pathways by which they communicated with the immune system and every other bodily system.
At one point, Dr. Pert and a colleague thought that perhaps cancer cells were really macrophages,
somehow mutated and gone awry within the body. It was their thought that that explained how they replicated so quickly and traveled, or metastasized, so widely. In their research, they used antibodies that typically bound to macrophages to see if they also bound to the cancer cells. They did. What Dr. Pert found out during testing was that the macrophage antibodies had bound to the cancer cells because those cells were macrophages, or more exactly, mutated macrophages. The cancerous cells had originally arisen not from lung cells, but from macrophages that had migrated to the lung from the bone marrow to participate in the cleanup and repair of damaged tissue. Somewhere, somehow they had mutated and turned into cancers that metastasized and spread everywhere.
Dr. Pert had found that there was a clear connection between cancer, the immune system, and toxicity in the body, and published a paper in the journal Science. She began to believe they had found the underlying mechanism that explains how cancer is a response to toxicity from environmental pollutants in the air and chemical additives in the diet. The paper’s summary stated that data suggested the same peptides found in the brain were also found in the immune system, and that the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are functionally integrated in what looks like a psychoimmunoendocrine network. Neuropeptides, those chemicals secreted by the brain and known to mediate mood and behavior, were clearly signaling the cancer cells via their receptors and causing them to grow and travel to different parts of the body. Therefore, the next question was: Could excess or inappropriate production of neuropeptides released by the immune system, or by the brain, or by any other organ system in the body, promote other forms of cancer as well?
Neuropeptides, the chemicals secreted by the brain that mediate mood and behavior, were signaling the cancer cells via their receptors, causing them to grow and metastasize to different parts of the body. Dr. Pert showed that besides the immune cells, many different kinds of cancerous cells were chemotaxing according to neuropeptide signals. This became their basis for thinking about the mind-body basis for cancer and other diseases, especially those that were part of the psychoimmunoendocrine system. To put it more clearly, cancer cells have neuropeptide receptors. Dr. Pert also succinctly states that peptides are not the only substances important in understanding cancer. Sex hormones also play a part in the network, acting to promote growth that may lead to cancer. Estrogen especially has been shown experimentally to increase the growth of certain breast tumors.
It was known how the mind drugs heroin, opium, PCP, lithium, and Valium entered the network and worked on the receptors, and how the endogenous substance, endorphin, communicated over a wide range. What the chemicals in the body were doing was affecting the emotional state of the person taking them, making him sad or happy, anxious, or relaxed. Thinking more about emotions, then, it is interesting that the parts of the brain where there is a higher concentration of peptides and receptors, are also the parts of the brain that have been implicated in the expression of emotion.
In 1985, Dr. Pert published the key paper on their theory of molecules of emotion in the Journal of Immunology. To quote from the abstract: “A major conceptual shift in neuroscience has been wrought by the realization that brain function is modulated by numerous chemicals in addition to classical neurotransmitters. Many of these informational substances are neuropeptides, originally studied in other contexts as hormones, gut peptides, or growth factors. Their number presently exceeds 50, and most, if not all, alter behavior and mood states, although only endogenous analogs of psychoactive drugs like morphine, Valium, and phenocyclidine have been well appreciated in this context. We now realize that their signal specificity resides in receptors rather than the close juxtaposition occurring at classical synapses.
Precise brain distribution patterns for many neuropeptide receptors have been determined. A
number of brain loci, many within emotion-mediating brain areas, are enriched with many types of neuropeptide recept9ors, suggesting a convergence of information processing at these nodes.
Additionally, neuropeptide receptors occur on mobile cells of the immune system: monocytes can chemotax to numerous neuropeptides via processes shown by structure-activity analysis to be mediated by distinct receptors indistinguishable from those found in the brain. Neuropeptides and their receptors thus join the brain, glands, and immune system in a network of communication between brain and body, probably representing the biochemical substrate of emotion.”
Where do you store your Emotions? Dr. Candace Pert
It may surprise you that emotions are not the sole product of your brain, but are expressed, experienced and stored in your BodyMind, and these emotions can be triggered through body work, meditations, breathing, spiritual practice and many other diverse psychosomatic modalities. Use one you like, or learn something new, as a vehicle to better emotional expressivity and health.
We all have painful memories – failure, disappointments, suffering, loss – hidden away or suppressed- in our BodyMinds, to be retrieved, reformed, and released, or ignored and left to fester, wounds that never heal. What John Upledger called a “somato-emotional cyst”. A primitive body defense response in which the injury, and the emotions therein encoded, are walled off from the rest of the body, and never truly resolve.
It’s amazing to think of our glands, organs, tissues and cells as storage places for emotion and memory, yet this was given explanation through the scientific research of Dr. Candace Pert, a neuropharmacologist who worked at the NIH and Georgetown University Medical Center. Candace famously stated that “Your body is your subconscious mind. Our physical body can be changed by the emotions we experience.”[1] . Dr Pert explains:
“A feeling sparked in our mind-or body-will translate as a peptide being released somewhere. [Organs, tissues, skin, muscle and endocrine glands], they all have peptide receptors on them and can access and store emotional information. This means the emotional memory is stored in many places in the body, not just or even primarily, in the brain. You can access emotional memory anywhere in the peptide/receptor network, in any number of ways. I think unexpressed emotions are literally lodged in the body. The real true emotions that need to be expressed are in the body, trying to move up and be expressed and thereby integrated, made whole, and healed.
Dr. Pert says “Let the emotions bubble up. Let the chips fall where they may…the process of catharsis is not complete without saying things as the first step to experiencing things…To feel and understand means you have worked it all the way through. It has bubbled all the way to the surface. You’re integrating at higher and higher levels in the body, bringing emotions into consciousness. Once integrated, the natural wisdom of the receptors ( a take on Walter Cannon) will release interrupted healing and restorative and regenerative processes can take over.”
“By simply acknowledging emotions, they are expressed. In being expressed, emotions can be released, even old emotions stored in body memory. Allowing my emotions to surface into awareness and to be able to name my emotions is the beginning of emotional exploration. I am moving forward, trying to find my position within the family, within the community, and in life.”
[1] “Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine”, Candace Pert.
Source: http://candacepert.com/where-do-you-store-your-emotions/
The Research of Candace Pert, Ph.D.
Your Body is Your Subconscious Mind: MindBody Medicine becomes the Science of Psychoneuroimmunolgy (PNI) Candace Pert, PhD, is Professor, Department of Physiology & Biophysics, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington DC, and author of Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine. www.candacepert.com
“Candace has taken a giant step toward shattering some cherished beliefs held sacred by Western scientists for more than two centuries. Her pioneering research has demonstrated how our internal chemicals, the neuropeptides and their receptors, are the actual biological underpinnings of our awareness, manifesting themselves as our emotions, beliefs and expectations, and profoundly influencing how we respond to and experience our world.”
~Deepak Chopra MD, from the Foreword of Molecules of Emotion
Dr. Candace Pert rocketed to fame in the scientific world in the early 70’s when, as a fledgling neuropharmacologist, she took on the daunting task of finding the opiate receptor for her doctoral dissertation at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. For the next decade and a half she headed a laboratory at the National Institutes of Health which published over
200 scientific articles explaining the discovery of numerous “neuropeptides.” The ground-breaking work that Pert did with the opiate receptor was later nominated for a Lasker Award, also known as the “American Nobel Prize,” awarded annually for outstanding medical research.
Pert’s discovery of the opiate receptor started a revolution that would later create profound shifts within nearly every field of modern medicine. It would ultimately unite immunology, endocrinology, neurophysiology, psychology and biology into a cohesive theory about how our thoughts and emotions are capable of creating wellness or disease in our bodies. It would explain and validate what Eastern healing traditions, shamans, energy healers and most alternative practitioners have understood for eons. Eastern philosophy would state that consciousness precedes reality. Western thought espouses the opposite view and has taught for hundreds of years that consciousness, thoughts and emotions are products of the physical brain and have little to do with the body or our health. How many times has the statement, “It’s all in your head” been given when no logical answer makes sense, thus suggesting that whatever complaint is being reported by the patient is not real.
Pert would say it’s all in your “bodymind” and it’s all important. She maintains that theories of psychosomatic illness must shift, as we uncover ever more scientific research validating that consciousness is a body-mind phenomenon.
The New Science of Psychoneuroimmunology: Everything is Psychosomatic.
As a ground-breaking neuroscientist, Pert’s research helped to create the foundation for an entirely new interdisciplinary branch of science called “Psychoneuroimmunology” or PNI. PNI unite s the three classically separated sciences of neuroscience, immunology and endocrinology and their associated glands and organs into a multidirectional communication network, linked by information carrying molecules called (neuro) peptides. Pert provided PNI with a clear scientific language to use, that of peptides and their receptors, also known as “information substances,” thereby helping to legitimize the field. Pert notes that her preferred term was Psychoimmunoneuroendocrinology ” recognizing the inclusion of the endocrine system, but the simpler name of PNI became the accepted term in scientific circles. The more popular name for PNI, soon became “mind-body medicine.”
“Thus, we might refer to the whole system as a psychosomatic information network, linking ‘psyche,’ which comprises all that is of an ostensibly nonmaterialnature, such as mind, emotion and soul, to ‘soma,’ which is the material world of molecules, cells and organs. Mind and body, psyche and soma.”
Dr. Pert’s research provides scientific evidence that a biochemical basis for awareness and consciousness exists, that the mind and body are indeed one and that our emotions and feelings are the bridge that links the two. She explains, “The chemicals that are running our body and our brain are the same chemicals that are involved in emotion. And that says to me that we’d better pay more attention to emotions with respect to health.”
Using Pert’s research as a foundation, we now have a new scientific understanding of the power of our minds and our feelings to directly and profoundly affect our health and well-being.
This new science explains that we are one system; the brain is integrated in to the body at a molecular level and therefore neither can be treated separately without the other being directly affected. According to Pert, our bodies are in fact our subconscious minds:
“In the end I find I can’t separate brain from body. Consciousness isn’t just in the head. Nor is it a question of the power of the mind over the body…because they’re flip sides of the same thing. Mind doesn’t dominate body, it becomes body.”
How Did Modern Medicine Get It So Wrong?
Indigenous cultures worldwide have long been known to honor the mind/body /environment connection. Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda, systems of medicine 3000-6000 years old, still correlate organs and illness with specific mental/emotional states and seek to return the patient to mind/body/spirit balance so that healing occurs organically. And Aristotle suggested there was a connection between mood and health when he wrote, “Soul and body, I suggest, react sympathetically upon each other.” So how did Western Medicine come to embrace exactly the opposite view? Blame it on Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher (“I think, therefore I am”) and what we’ve come to refer to as the “Cartesian Split.” Descartes needed human bodies for dissection studies and he made a deal with the Pope of his era. He wouldn’t have anything to do with the soul, the mind or the emotions, which remained under the Church’s jurisdiction. And modern medicine would take the physical body as its domain, thus dividing the human being into two separate parts that were not to overlap. Descartes declared, “Anything to do with the soul, mind or emotions, I leave to the clergy. I will only claim the realm of the body.”
According to this paradigm, to understand a human being, all one had to do was take the body apart and study the various physical components (also referred to as “reductionism”). Sir Isaac Newton, the “Father of Modern Science,” also maintained through his “Newtonian Construct” that only physical matter was real and that it was all that really mattered. And so the foundation was laid for the several hundred years of relating health an d the curing of disease exclusively to the realm of treating the physical body. This theory is changing slowly, and even today, most modern doctors will ask about physical symptoms and then prescribe drugs or surgery. Using the mind to understand the body is still usually labeled “unscientific” and mind affecting body “psychosomatic” and therefore somehow not relevant.
How Our Emotions and Thoughts Become Our Physical Body
Peptides and Receptors: The Molecules of Emotion.
What exactly is a molecule of emotion? The first component is the one Pert discovered thirty some years ago that launched her scientific career—the complex molecule known as the receptor, and more specifically—the opiate-receptor. She developed a method to measure it and therefore, in a backwards sort of way, prove its existence. This discovery would explain the mechanism by which such opiates as heroin or morphine create their powerful effect on the body, the mind and the emotions. Coincidentally, Pert had a personal experience that had birthed a growing fascination about how these substances caused such a powerful effect on the body, mind and emotions simultaneously.
After a bad fall while horseback riding, she found herself in the hospital, being given a morphine derivative to relieve the pain of a compressed lumbar vertebra. She marveled at the combination of both pain killing effect and the mental and emotional changes induced by the drug.
Pert noted the euphoria and blissful altered state she experienced every time she received an injection. She so liked the opiate’s “wonderful feeling of being deeply nourished and satisfied” that she considered continuing on the drug for her pain when she was released from the hospital. Although she eventually decided against that option, her intense physical and emotional experience intrigued her and she wondered about this overlap of physical and emotional effects from a single drug. In this fascination she no doubt had a great deal of company. Many have wondered how such drugs as heroin, marijuana, Librium and cocaine are able to create such intense emotional shifts. This hospital experience would later trigger an interest in proving the existence of the opiate receptor as Pert’s doctoral focus.
Receptors sit on the surface of cells and number in the hundreds of thousands on the average cell; specialized cells such as neurons might have millions of receptors surrounding them. These receptors act as tiny scanners and sensors which wait patiently until the exact chemical key comes along that will fit into them, much like a regular key is made to only fit into one specific lock. These chemical keys are called ligands and the most common of these is known as a (neuro) peptide, accounting for nearly 95% of known ligands. Pert describes what happens next as “quite amazing.” The peptide delivers its chemical message to the receptor, which then transmits this message deep within the cell, triggering a chain of biochemical reactions which can create huge changes within the cell—of either a positive or negative nature.
Pert calls the peptides the second component of the molecules of emotion. She offers an analogy: “If the cell is the engine that drives all life, then the receptors are the buttons on the control panel of that engine, and a specific peptide is the finger that pushes that button and gets things started.”
Pert then asked the logical question: If we all have the opiate receptor present on the cells within our bodies, then must it not follow that our bodies have the ability to make our own endogenous version of morphine? Why else would these receptors already be present on our cells? Within three years she was proved correct when the natural opiate substance manufactured within the body was discovered and eventually became known as an “endorphin,” a shortened version of “endogenous morphine.” The implications in this discovery are profound and suggest that we may in fact have a “natural pharmacopeia” potential already present within us. Perhaps someday we will all be capable of manufacturing our own natural bio-chemicals at will– in effect orchestrating our own healing. According to Pert, this concept is not as farfetched as it sounds and perhaps not so far off either.
Implications for Disease and Healing: The Power of Unhealed Feelings Emotions are real—they exist in time and space and are located throughout our minds and bodies. If we accept the concept that peptides and their receptors are the actual bio-chemicals of emotion, then their presence in the body’s nervous system and nerve cells shows us that the body can be thought of as the unconscious or subconscious mind.
Pert explains further: “As investigations continue, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the role of peptides is not limited to eliciting simple and singular actions from individual cells and organs systems. Rather, peptides serve to weave the body’s organs and systems into a single web that reacts to both internal and external environmental changes with complex, subtly orchestrated responses. Peptides are the sheet music containing the notes, phrases and rhythms that allow the orchestra – your body – to play as an integrated entity. And the music that results is the tone or feeling that you experience subjectively as your emotions.”
Can the kinds and numbers of emotion-linked peptides at receptor sites on our cells influence whether we will stay well or get sick? Pert suggests yes and offers the example of viral illness: “Viruses use these same receptors to enter into a cell, and depending on how much of the . . . natural peptide for that receptor is around, the virus will have an easier or harder time getting into the cell. So our emotional state will affect whether we’ll get sick from the same loading dose of a virus.” This would also explain why some people get much sicker than others from an identical exposure to a virus.
Pert considers…. might an elevated mood of happiness, positive expectation or hope offer some protection against a virus? She answers by telling us that she’s never gotten a cold while skiing—a sport she obviously loves. What does this suggest about the process of developing cancer and an individual’s potential for healing? And further, what is the relationship between the mind, the emotions and a cancer patient’s state of health? Pert suggests there is a profound and direct connection: “We are all aware of the bias built into the Western idea that the mind is totally in the head, a function of the brain. But your body is not there just to carry around your head. I believe the research findings….indicate that we need to start thinking about how the mind manifests itself in various parts of the body and, beyond that, how we can bring that process into consciousness…the neuropeptides and their receptors are the substrates of the emotions, and they are in constant communication with the immune system, the mechanism through which health and disease are created.”
“Think of (stress-related disease) in terms of an information overload, a situation in which the mind-body network is so taxed by unprocessed sensory input in the form of suppressed trauma or undigested emotions that it has become bogged down and cannot flow freely, sometimes even working against itself, at cross-purposes.” Your Brain is Not in Charge.”
In a July 2004 interview with New Dimensions Radio (www.newdimensions.org), Pert and her husband and research partner, immunologist Michael Ruff, discussed the highly complex psychosomatic communication networks of information molecules we are all made of. They explain that we are not “brain centric” at all and that a state of mind is in actuality a state of consciousness in the body as well. The origins of illness really are within us. Science and medicine have long been convinced that thoughts and emotions originate in the brain. In an interesting twist, Pert and Ruff disagree and suggest that “thoughts and emotions bubble up from the body to the brain, where we can process and verbalize them according to our expectations, beliefs and other filters—some get through and others don’t.”
And then, Pert says, the frontal cortex of the brain creates stories and assigns meaning around those thoughts and emotions that do get through. Our Immune Systems Can Learn and Respond Pert tell us that neuroscience has now proved that immune cells can be conditioned to respond to stimuli, much like Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell. Psychologist Robert Ader, at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, gave laboratory rats an immune-suppressing drug flavored with sweet-tasting saccharin. Eventually the rats became so conditioned to the effects that giving them only the saccharin and no drug at all caused their immune systems to become depressed—at the unconscious and autonomic level. Pert comments: “We know that the immune system, like the central nervous system, has memory and the capacity to learn. Thus, it could be said that intelligence is located not only in the brain but in cells that are distributed throughout the body, and that the traditional separation of mental processes, including emotions, from the body is no longer valid.”
Later, in pivotal studies at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, scientist Howard Hall proved that the immune system could also be conditioned consciously using self-regulatory practices such as self-hypnosis, biofeedback, guided imagery, relaxation and autogenic training. Using several control groups, Hall demonstrated that with conscious preparation, through using one of the types of practices noted above, individuals could consciously control the stickiness of their white blood cells, as measured by both blood and saliva tests.
Pert then asks the obvious question: “If the immune system can be altered by conscious intervention, what does this mean for the treatment of major diseases such as cancer?”
Can suppressing anger or other emotions contribute to the development of cancer—a theory proposed by Dr. Lydia Temoshok in her chapter on this website? Since expressing emotions contributes to a free flowing network ofn peptides and cellular communication in the body, Dr. Pert says yes — absolutely.
“My research has shown me that when emotions are expressed….all systems are united and made whole. When emotions are repressed, denied, not allowed to be whatever they may be, our network pathways get blocked, stopping the flow of the vital feel-good unifying chemicals that run both our biology and our behavior.”
A general theory of cancer suggests that we all have errant or mutated cancer cells created in our bodies every day, yet only some individuals will go on to develop the disease. Normally our immune systems destroy these errant cells, yet in individuals whose immune systems are severely compromised, this mechanism fails. If the immune system is influenced by the “molecules of emotion” and the peptide/receptor system in the body, then what happens if the free flow of peptides is interrupted on a continual basis by the repressed emotions of a lifetime?
Pert says it’s not too hard to figure out what might happen in such a case: “Let me begin to answer by saying that I believe all emotions are healthy, because emotions are what unite the mind and the body. Anger, fear, sadness, the so-called negative emotions, are as healthy as peace, courage and joy. To repress these emotions and not let them flow freely is to set up a dis-integrity in the system, causing it to act at cross-purposes rather than as a unified whole.
The stress this creates, which takes the form of blockages and insufficient flow of peptide signals to maintain function at the cellular level, is what sets up the weakened conditions that can lead to disease.””All honest emotions are positive emotions.
Health is not just a matter of thinking ‘happy thoughts.’ Sometimes the biggest impetus to healing can come from jump-starting the immune system with a burst of long-repressed anger. How and where it’s expressed is up to you—in a room by yourself, in a group therapy situation where the group dynamic can often facilitate the expression of long-buried feelings, or in a spontaneous exchange with a family member or friend.
The key is to express it (appropriately) and then let it go, so that it doesn’t fester, or build, or escalate out of control.” How to Use This Information to Heal: Dr. Candace Pert’s Eight Part Program.
Pert suggests a program of eight ways to use the information in her ground-breaking book to stay healthy, or to heal if a disease state is already present. Not in the list below is the foundational concept for all that follows: acknowledge and claim all your feelings because they are the entrance point into the bodymind’s communication network.
If we can learn to communicate with our body-minds, we can tap into our body’s own language to better understand and facilitate healing. Pert has come to believe that emotions are the key to coordinating all the parts of us into a harmonious and healthy whole.
New Paradigm Medicine: Healthcare of the Future In November 2002, Dr. Pert and her research partner, Dr. Michael Ruff, were honored for their scientific contributions by The National Foundation for Alternative Medicine at an awards ceremony in Washington DC. They were asked to submit a summary of their views about the future of healthcare and excerpts are taken from this summary below. Pert calls this view “New Paradigm Medicine.”
“We have coined the phrase ‘New Paradigm Medicine’ to reflect the fact that it uses the established scientific method and will require quantum physics to understand the scientific underpinnings. The terms alternative, integrative and complementary are political, not scientific terms. We believe that New Paradigm Medicine will be fully scientifically validated one day. ….We are not a collection of separate organs or systems, but an information network in which our cells are constantly moving from one location to another as they are being formed or replaced, regulated by the molecules of emotion. … Thus cancer, in particular, will be appreciated as a disease of the mind as well as the body and treated at centers…where body, mind and spirit are considered. One day, cancer will be cured by interventions that release emotions in a controlled fashion such as guided imagery, art therapy, animal therapy, massage and bodywork, neurolinguistic programming, energy psychology, chiropractic and last but not least music therapy. These will be used in combination—“cocktails”— scientifically optimized and validated protocols by skilled practitioners, and will actually cure or prolong high quality life in many cancers. Whatever the pain, it’s actually the brain where it is perceived. Sophisticated biofeedback methods instead of drugs or surgery will be used to treat it more successfully, along the methods above—and more.
Nutrition will be taken extremely seriously. The fact that most of today’s crops are grown for appearance and are seriously depleted of essential nutrients will be appreciated, and supplements and super-foods will be used, based upon controlled scientific clinical data.”
The Spiritual Connection Pert was one of the scientific experts interviewed in the highly acclaimed Bill Moyers PBS series, “Healing and the Mind.” At one point, she asked Moyers, “Can we account for all human phenomena in terms of chemicals? I personally think we’re going to have to bring in that extra-energy realm, the realm of spirit and soul that Descartes kicked out of Western scientific thought.”
She describes this spiritual viewpoint in her book as well: “Yes, we all have a biochemical psychosomatic network run by intelligence, an intelligence that has no bounds and that is not owned by any individual but shared among all of us in a bigger network, the macrocosm to our microcosm, the ‘big psychosomatic network in the sky.’ And in this greater network of all humanity, all life, we are each of us an individual nodal point, each an access point into a larger intelligence. It is this shared connection that gives us our most profound sense of spirituality, making us feel connected, whole. As above, so below.”
Words of Wisdom: Aim for Emotional Wholeness Pert concludes her book with the following simple recommendations, gleaned from all the scientific data she has included in describing the tenets of Psychoneuroimmunology and their implications for healing: “Aim for emotional wholeness. When you’re upset or feeling sick, try to get to the bottom of your feelings. Figure out what’s really eating you. Always tell the truth to yourself. Find appropriate, satisfying ways to express your emotions. And if such a prescription seems too challenging, seek professional help to feel better.” “I believe the alternative or complementary therapies are a form of professional help much less likely to do harm and more likely to do good than conventional approaches. They work by shifting our natural balance of internal chemicals around, so we can feel as good as possible. They are often particularly helpful for alleviation of the many chronic maladies that currently have no good medical solutions…. …” “Last but definitely not least, health is much more than the absence of illness. Live in an unselfish way that promotes a state of spiritual bliss that truly helps to prevent illness. Wellness is trusting in the ability and desire of your body-mind to heal and improve itself, if given half a chance. Take responsibility for your own health – and illness.”
Marcel Jutzi
A few thoughts on what goes on in this world … and my place in all of it.
The dance of Yin and Yang
The dance of Yin and Yang.
In all there is, where all and everything is contained, let’s call it Source Energy, the equilibrium of yin and yang is one.
In that eternal space there is an equal amount of yin as there is yang, there is as much light as there is dark. Therefore there is as much ‘good’ as there is ‘bad’; yet because there is no one judging, everything just is.
Whether something is good or bad therefore remains then simply in the eye of the beholder, who obviously must be separated from oneness, otherwise s/he would not judge.
However, oneness cannot experience itself without duality, creating the mirror, becoming the observer. Oneness needs to separate in order to look in that mirror of self, to recognise itself. That’s why I exist by looking at you, … therefore at myself.
Oneness just is, has no consciousness, doesn’t need to. Where there is consciousness, there is also unconsciousness and that can only be in duality.
In that duality of yin and yang, the feminine yin creates the masculine yang; and in return the masculine activates the feminine. That’s the tune to which they dance with each other.
The 50% dark as well as the 50% light has to be somewhere at all times in all there is; yet consciousness is reflected through many different shades of grey, therefore manifesting in many differnt realities in the multiverse. However collectively there is never less nor more. Light would not exist without the contrast dark offers … and neither would we.
The dark side does not need to be conquered, turned off, or eliminated. That’s not possible, as it would inflict a fight towards oneself. On the grand scale of everything, all is in perfect harmony and always has been. Creation makes no mistakes!
Equally, there is cosmos and chaos, another aspect of duality. Where there is order, there has to be disorder. When order becomes too orderly it becomes rigid, is controlling and lacks flexibility. So is it then surprising that chaos is rising to destabilise that condition? Till eventually too much chaos has no longer any direction and invites order once again; and so it keeps going. This juggle we can easily observe in today’s world.
Yet still, that leads me to question the reason for all those aspects in my human reality, which sometimes are so hard to accept, to which I can still oppose and react. Without having to specifically mention any, to me, it has become obvious that so much is dictated and misguided by today’s extreme emotional addiction of greed, which leads to corruption and the hunger for more power.
Regardless however, I have to acknowledge and accept that I am the only creator of my reality and therefore all is nothing but a reflection of myself. So if I am true to my philosophy and with respect to myself, I have no choice but to accept that all these, let’s call them darker vibrations, are still coming from within. So it is my shadow side showing itself as facets of the collective human consciousness.
At the same time I know it all has to be right, otherwise it would not be. As a reflection of human consciousness, I hold the darkest of dark, as well as the lightest of light.
To put it in perspective, lets quote Einstein here: Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.
Beyond my reality, there is nothing that I can nor would need to change, because beyond nothing else exists. It is only my reality, where the ‘I’ (ego/mind) in me still identifies with what is out there. The pressure is off, I don’t need to safe the world.
Now, the focus needs to be only on my immediate reality, my stage, the playground where I experience myself and my emotions. That’s the only space where I can have direct influence.
Yet let’s remember, as I transform and experience more light in my reality, it does not mean that therefore there is more light and consequently less darkness in all there is.
Yet, this is not an invitations to sit back and do nothing, because there is an amazing play going on and every one of us is part of it.
So where does that leave me? Because of those disharmonious aspects mentioned before, I personally have an natural urge, a deeply felt need to seek light, to fully reconnect with god, spirit, Christ/Buddha-nature, source energy, that cosmic collective consciousness, my higher self. And everyone who is on that journey creates more light energy. That’s the profile of a light worker, regardless of the personal circumstances.
However, there are also those who represent the shadow side of life and by doing what they are doing, they create more dark. But that does not make them the enemy of the light, they simply hold the contrast of what still is within this reality. They are natural reflection of the collective human consciousness, making us aware of the still existing disharmonies. Let us accept, there is no light without dark.
Both parties are simply creating a true reflection as an emotional experience, a vibrational field to maintain and assure the continuous evolution of human consciousness. So I can stop taking it and myself so serious and above all, so personal. Let’s just focus on the immediate reality.
By understanding this, I can relax, because now I do recognise that even when I change something in my limited ego-reality, yes I can enhance the qualities, yet in the multidimensional omnipresence of all there is, all is perfect. There is nothing to heal, nothing to achieve nor change, nowhere to go … yet it is my choice to which tune I dance.
Marcel Jutzi
Wisdom from two thousand years ago, as relevant today as it was then, is offering you insight into who you are and how you relate to yourself and others. Through each mirror, you heal your fears and develop more love, compassion and acceptance for your true self.
Introduction
Our everyday life with its interactions and confrontations with others mirrors us our present personality. The way we react in those moments reveals how we feel and think about our self and offers a deep understanding into the disharmonious and unhealed aspects within.
The Seven Mirrors have been given to us by the Essene. Wisdom of more than two thousand years ago, as relevant today as it was then, is offering insight into who we are and how we relate to ourselves.
Looking back on the experience of many years as a coach and therapist I expanded the reflections of those mirrors by including some important insights from meta-physics, quantum physics and psychology.
Each one of the seven mysteries is sequential, building upon the realization of the previous one. Through each one, we can heal fears and develop more love, compassion and acceptance for our true self.
We can not have a better relationship with anyone in the outer world than we have with our self. Therefore: Whenever we react with negative emotions to a situation indicates where we are still in disharmony … not healed.
Accepting such opportunities, by consciously recognizing and acknowledging those challenges, offers personal transformation at the most subtle levels. Learning to master the wisdom of the seven mirrors will guide you to a life filled with joy, love and compassion.
Every thought is triggered by an emotion and then expressed through attitude … easily turned into words … those manifest through our action … reflecting our character and consequently form our destiny.
Like it or not, your reality always presents itself as an honest mirror of your emotional conditions and your attitudes towards yourself and therefore life. These seven mirrors are your opportunity to recognize emotional, thought and behavioral patterns by examining others and yourself in a kind and non-judgmental way. In doing so, you become the observer of You, the human project.
Gently and patiently develop the skills to be open and honest about your patterns. Stop taking them and yourself so personal. Even though perhaps difficult at first, as awareness grows the emotional charges will soon stop at their roots. Soon thereafter you forget them and they will cease to exist. This gradually creates true evolution.
Take your time and contemplate upon the emotions that are challenging you. Looking into the seven mirrors and accepting the wisdom and truth of their reflections has the ability to transform you and the quality of your life.
1st Mirror - Reflections of the Moment … offer an immediate understanding of the now through the interaction with others,
Through the interaction with others, this mirror offers an immediate understanding of the now. In such a moment what do I reflect to others and how do I experience what these people mirror back at me? The interpretation of my reality reveals my present emotional, thought and behavioral patterns on the journey to my true self.
Ask yourself:
Michelle is very particular, very neat and clean in the way she manages her household. On the other hand, her partner Isaac is very easy going. He doesn’t mind if for example the dishes are not done or his cloths are lying around.
So every few weeks the problems are escalating between them. She can’t stand his sloppiness and he can no longer endure her constant pickiness. So for her he is too disorderly and for him she is too orderly.
This is a typical example, where one needs too much of something and the other has not enough. Of course it can also happen that both have too much, or not enough of the same pattern, yet when recognized in the other, consciously or not, one reacts with disapproval, because one actually dislikes that trade in oneself.
The fact that Michelle and Isaac share this experience and react towards each other, offers to both the same learning and healing, even though from opposite perspectives. It is therefore not surprising that they attracted each other. So really, it’s the perfect relationship to grow and learn from.
She requires too much structure in her life and he has not enough. She fears to not be in control when things are in disorder and he fears having to take some control, both fearing the consequences thereof.
This couple is now in the perfect position to recognize and communicate the simple fact that they are both together to point out each others disharmonies. It is therefore in both their interest to learn and grow with each other. One has to let go of needing so much order, whereas the other obviously can do with more of it.
In general we relate and react to each other through equal imbalance and if recognized with kindness, it offers to both parties the same very needed progress. Because of the same learning, both hold the same fears and are operating within the same level of consciousness … which has brought them together in the first place.
This means, I choose to accept that I only react to a situation where I am in disharmony with. Therefore, I will attract someone who, through their own imbalance, ‘provokes’ me until I have recognized and learned my lesson.
It is important to understand that we all need a certain order in our lives. Order in Greek is ‘cosmos’ of which ‘chaos’ is the opposite. We live in a cosmic world and only through harmonious and guided order can life flow with ease. However, if order becomes too strict, the natural flow strangulates it self and chaos grows, yet not enough order lacks direction and creates chaos.
2nd Mirror - Reflections of Judgment … demonstrate who you are in total opposition to others.
Contrary to the first, the mirror of Judgment does not complement or reflect similarities, but rather demonstrates who I am in opposition to others. The contrast of these situations makes it so very challenging to accept and not judge.
Ask yourself:
Marc being an excellent driver can easily have an issue with someone’s slow or timid driving style. He often finds himself reacting with anger, inappropriate language and even some hand gesture towards that person. Not surprising he continues to invite such situations into his life for as log as he is able to judge so forcefully.
Who or what we strongly judge, will be presented to us over and over again until we realize that with our reaction we keep the lesson alive. By reacting we feed the situation with emotions, a form of energy, until we learn to let go of our unkind attitude. This of course needs to be recognized for every situation where we
participate emotionally.
I would never be like that person … I would never do this …
… what is this person thinking? … don’t they know better?
The mirror of judgment teaches tolerance. Therefore, I choose to tolerate and acknowledge that I am not in a position to understand everything and therefore
surrender to what is. I also accept that others have the right to be and do what they need for their own personal growth … as much as I have the right NOT to react! It is indeed a choice!
It deserves to be understood that, as long as I judge others, I still judge myself. For as long as I judge myself I don’t offer myself the love and acceptance I seek and deserve. The same intolerance I show others I still hold for myself. So once again the outer world just allows to recognize how I treat myself.
Only when compassionately accepting others, will I accept myself unconditionally and therefore be free. This does not mean that I have to agree with everything. I can disagree through my personal conviction, yet without any emotions. Learning to be tolerant with myself is the key here. In that process I consequently recognize that in fact I and all is right as it is … otherwise it would not be.
3rd Mirror - Reflections of Loss … show the pieces of your self which have been lost, given away or taken by others.
Throughout our lives, parts of our self have been lost, given away or taken by others. These losses are reflected by our emotional sacrifices, decisions and compromises we have made in exchange for surviving the experience of the moment.
Ask yourself:
Christine and Alex have been married for a long time and have raised two children together. Their relationship was always ok but never very harmonious. Two years ago the children have moved out and since then the couple have started to realize how little they have left in common. But more important, it has become a painful experience to recognize how much they have lost themselves during those years. Not only have they become strangers to each other, but to themselves.
It can happen that, for example at work, on the street, or while shopping we are attracted to a complete stranger. We somehow connect with a feeling of familiarity, often we can even experience a body sensation. This can happen everywhere and there might not even be the need to make verbal contact.
So what is the connection and attraction with that person? What can you feel? Can you recognize how this person fills and complements you with an emotion, perhaps very subtle? That person embodies what you seek. Does that situation and the feeling remind you of something you have lost, given away or has been taken? Often you can reclaim that piece by simply recognizing the void. A true gift.
This mirror can be the reflection of a short or long term relationships. That which is lost, given or taken away, attracts a connection where we see something in others that we can’t see or find in our self. Something that we desire to acquire again, because without we feel that we are not complete; and very often it is our child-like innocence.
The rediscovery of the lost self and making those pieces your own again, can become one of the most important missions of personal development. Yet in doing so, close relationships consequently will be redefined and can only continue to exist by accepting these new conditions, or they will become obsolete.
4th Mirror - Reflections of your most forgotten Love … show your addictive and compulsive behavior patterns, your greatest fear.
This is a very interesting mirror to observe. It shows our addictive and compulsive behavior patterns. Please don’t judge too quickly, thinking that you might not be addicted and/or compulsive. We all, without exception, demonstrate such behavior in various ways, there are not only alcohol, drugs, sex and money.
Take the time to contemplate on situations in your life where you repeatedly needed to be perfect, be right, had to rescue, fix someone, were subservient, or needed to remain in control to hold power.
With our addictions and compulsions we give away little by little of what we hold so dear in our heart. So why do we have and maintain an addiction to a substance or a certain behavior? Why do we have to protect our self in this rather unkind and often very destructive way?
The need to feel safe and loved overrides every logic and demonstrates our deepseated fears. Being hurt, vulnerable, unlovable, unacceptable, to not have the right to be here in this life, are all emotions that come from our inner child.
The inner child indeed can feel all those different forms of fear and therefore has a strong need to somehow compensate with an addiction and/or with compulsive behavior patterns.
The little one within still expects to find love and acceptance in the outer world and makes others responsible to provide. Yet ultimately, unconditional love and selfacceptance can only be found and experienced from within.
Ask yourself:
Peter has been a persistent alcoholic for seven years. He uses liquor to create that warm cozy feeling the first few drinks offer, compensating for the very similar feeling love can evoke in us. After a few more, the emotional pain of not being good enough disappears and with a few more, he can forget how much he dislikes himself. He knows that if he continues to drink, he will lose his wife and children, but the need to silence his emotional pain is bigger than the conviction needed to overcome his addiction. Eventually he will loose his family and get what he feared most, being
completely alone.
In those moments of abuse and self sabotage, because of our fears, we are not acting from our true self and therefore are missing out on creating and experiencing our reality in its highest form. Holding onto our fears will consequently manifest what we fear most.
Be willing to discover your deepest fears. Those you have chosen to remember the least, yet in your subconscious hold so close to your heart. Addictions and compulsive behavior prevent you from living life as you deserve it. Grant yourself what is most dear to you. Love and accept yourself and live your destined life.
5th Mirror - Reflections of father/mother/creator … mirror the ways you hold on to expectations and beliefs towards the mother/father figure and the heavenly mother and father.
To understand the wisdom of this mirror requires first an exercise. Please take a piece of paper, divide it in half and name one side ‘mother/female guardian and the other father/male guardian. Through the eyes of the child in you (before 12Y) list for each person/guardian all the negative traits, values, behavior patterns etc. and then all the positive. This offers valuable information so please take your time (even a few days) to feel and write down as much as possible.
Ask yourself:
Do yourself the favor … do not continue to read further until you have completed this task.
Maria has grown up in a sheltered house and even in her marriage relied on her husband to do many things she thought wasn’t capable of doing. It was just normal for her that there was always a male figure in her life she could depend on. And so also in the prayers to her god, she expects, in a way even demands, that he provides her with what she needs, especially love and happiness.
This mirror has usually been held by our parents or guardian during our time with them. There is a great possibility that the words you have chosen to describe your parents /guardian have little to do with the person they are, but much rather show the reflections of the sacred relationship with our female and male creator and consequently our self.
Because of that, you will find many great parallels between the way you hold on to expectations and beliefs towards the mother/father figure and the heavenly mother and father.
More than likely you can recognize how you have maintained a view on how you believe your creator and higher self sees you, and also shows your needs and expectations how you still would like to be looked after.
The child personality in us maintains a little boy/girl attitude, avoiding to live without fear and becoming mature; often referred to as the ‘princess attitude’. This requires the letting go of those ties to our parents, where underlying beliefs of not being good, clever or old enough stop us from taking on a certain mature roll, a challenge, or even a life-dream … etc.
By healing the relationships of the past with your parents/guardian, by cutting that symbolic umbilical cord and leaping out of the nest, you will also heal your perception of the heavenly guardian and can become much more emotionally and spiritually independent and self-sustainable.
6th Mirror - Reflections of your dark Side … offer the insight where your fears have held you back from moving in the right direction.
Who has not been confronted by their dark side? A place and time where the lack of self-worth, the fears of being abandoned, or not being lovable nor acceptable have held us back from moving in the right direction. Possibly an emotional roller coaster that brought your whole existence into question, a life-experience that revealed your worst fears.
The dark side of our ego provides situations which offer the opportunity to redefine our beliefs of the universal primal fears we still carry deep within. Not permitting or ignoring such darkness can hold us back for a long time. Yet it can become a great opportunity to heal those aspects of ourselves that we choose not to look at, or want to experience.
Ask yourself:
Marc absolutely loves his career. He has a natural and exceptional feeling for the subject and demonstrates that everyday. Yet, on many occasions he refused to speak and lecture a bigger group or hold workshops when asked. In his opinion, there is always someone better suited to do the task. He has a paralyzing fear of public speaking. By making a possible mistake, he expects to be humiliated, judged, rejected and therefore punished with ‘love-withdrawal’. Better to be safe than sorry. Consequently Marc missed out on promotions and also the well deserved selfrecognition of his amazing talent. But foremost, every day he is living his life in his own shadow.
The dark side comes from our immature personality; our child aspect which, out of fear, cant trust and growing up. Whereas the wise old aspect in us actually would know and could deal with the challenge, yet has not established the necessary relationship to our little girl/boy. So once again, it is through the fears of that inner child that we are held back from fully living our true potential.
Yet these fears of change, of the unknown, can be our greatest allies guiding us through transformation. To find harmony within, we deserve to acknowledge and embrace the extremes of our dark and light sides. Only this can reveal our true emotional nature.
Surrendering to your challenges can take you to the very edge of who you are; and if need be, pushes you over that edge, leaving you to find your way out all by yourself. This then is indeed your opportunity to shine as your true self. So with the right approach and attitude, what you have avoided in the past, can become the joyride of your life … and you will never be the same again.
The Essenes teach us that one will not enter the dark side of the soul until one has found all the wisdom and tools to move through the experience with grace. Once again confirming that we are never challenged beyond our abilities.
7th Mirror - The Mirror of Self ...asks you to welcome and accept perfection in every aspect of your life-creation.
Only when we have mastered all other mirrors will we be able to embrace this one.
The Mirror of Self compassionately asks you to welcome and accept the precision of every aspect of your created life situation. When we talk about precision it requires to recognize and accept that what ever has manifested, always offers the absolute best possible learning and growing; and therefore in that sense is perfectly correct. It can not be any different.
By accepting the present conditions in every aspect, you then no longer swim against the tide of your natural flow. You can surrender with absolute faith to the journey you are on and no longer judge yourself nor others. This promotes unconditional love, compassion and acceptance in the here and now for your being as is. After all, in every moment you are the perfect expression of creation!
Also this mirror invites an exercise. Please rate your general core purpose and values in your life with: Unsatisfying, average, good, excellent … and why?
Please contemplate, … how can anything less than at least good or excellent be good enough for you?
I have not met anyone yet who has demonstrated all those qualities it requires to be One with everything and therefore cannot offer an actual example here. However we know of a few who have acquired those skills. Jesus and Gautama, the Buddha, were two who held the qualities of being one with all there is.
So the story where Jesus was nailed to the cross and remained full of love and compassion for himself and those who did not know any better, is a most wonderful example of accepting one’s reality as it is.
Even though at present your life might challenge you with an illness, a difficult relationship or any other provocation or disturbance, you and your reality are perfect because the current life situation always provides the very best setup for you to evolve. How could it be really any different or better?
Seeing yourself and your life any different still reveals the fears and the lack of trust you hold towards your existence. Reality holds always an impartial mirror reflecting the extension of your soul. Therefore with kindness practice to love and accept your self unconditionally, that’s what you indeed deserve!
William Tiller
Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, Stanford CA.
He is also the author of Science and Human Transformation, a book about concepts such as subtle energies beyond the four fundamental forces, which he believes act in concert with human consciousness.
More White Papers by Professor Tiller can be found here https://www.tillerinstitute.com/white_paper.html
The Law of Cause and Effect
My working hypothesis is that we are all spirits having a physical experience as we ride “the river of life” together. Our spiritual parents dressed us in our biobodysuits and put us in this playpen, which we call a universe, in order to grow in coherence, in order to develop our gifts of intentionality and in order to ultimately become what we were meant to become — effective cocreators with our spiritual parents.
read more … The Law of Cause and Effect
Tools for Understanding Both the Coarse and the Fine Levels of Physical Reality on Our Spiritual Journey Home
As we reflect upon our world and upon the humankind that populate its surface, one soon
perceives that there are several categories of phenomena, energies and information wherein we need
to gain reliable understanding in order to understand our life’s journey. These might be classified as (1)
things of the physical, (2) things of the psyche, (3) things of emotion, (4) things of the mind and (5)
things of the spirit. In addition, we need a meaningful perspective or reference frame (RF) from which to
view these different categories of entities. Ultimately, our understanding of all these various
phenomena must be internally self-consistent with each other. Since we are an evolving species,
growing in understanding via a bootstrap process, a useful metaphor for what we need is a “ladder of
understanding” that guides us from the simple to the more complex.
It Is Time for a Consciousness-Inclusive Science
A long, long time ago in human history, there were two accepted and compatible pathways to the acquisition of knowledge. This applies not only to the historically well-known cultures but also to
the not so well-documented indigenous cultures of the world. These two pathways were called Mythos and Logos(1), with the former designating the human inner path of revelation and the latter designating the human outer path of logic applied to external observations of Nature. For the many separate indigenous cultures an intimate inner connection appeared to develop between the humans and the Earth prior to any massive cultural transformations that took place. However, in those early days, these two paths might have been looked at as two loosely intertwining and meandering rivers of thought.
read more … It Is Time for a Consciousness-Inclusive Science
What is Human Consciousness and How Do We Significantly Increase Its Magnitude in Our World?
Most dictionaries of this distance-time world provide an overly-simplistic definition of the word consciousness as “the quality or state of being aware or awake”. This definition seems so bland and insignificant for something that we all intuitively know to be extremely important to humankind. Let us look deeper for a more meaningful description.
In Aurobindo’s “The Adventure of Consciousness”(1), he stated that “a change of consciousness is a major fact of the next evolutionary transformation, and the consciousness itself, by its’ own mutation will impose and affect any necessary mutation of the body.” These words suggest that we are dealing with a process of nature, a dynamic developmental process, perhaps even one driven from a genetic level that creates structural changes in the various subsystems of our “total self”. These manifested changes in human appearance and human behaviors we label as developmental changes in human consciousness.
read more … What is Human Consciousness and How Do We Significantly Increase Its Magnitude in Our World?
Dr Quantum
The double slit experiment shows the fundamental limitation of the ability of the observer to predict the outcome.
Now, if this is as demonstrated in this experiment, we can start to understand how we might influence our personal reality by our usually never neutral perspective to a situation.
Our attitude towards a situation is most of the time filtered by our conditioning, our expectations and the fear of possible consequences.
As we are in a constant flux of emotional expressions, which are connected to every thought we have. We can’t help but emit a perpetual electromagnetic field of intentions based on those emotions.
And like in the double slit experiment we influence those molecules of possibilities to manifest as we subconsciously desire.
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
OKLearn moreWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, you cannot refuse them without impacting how our site functions. You can block or delete them by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website.
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy Policy