KEY POINTS:
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Discovering and Healing your True Self is the most important part of your life journey.
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Once you are Awakened, I have noticed that there are 5 stages to healing and living life from your True Self:
Stage 1. Recognizing Your True Self
Stage 2. Building the 6 ACT Skills for Psychological Flexibility
Stage 3. Identifying Your Adaptive Behaviours or Parts/Saboteurs and Shifting back to Your True Self.
Stage 4. Healing the Inner Child and changing the beliefs associated with your adaptive behaviors.
Stage 5. Living from your True Self via Self-Leadership, connected to the universe, and living your life mission with love instead of fear.
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To help move through each stage, there are various tools that can help accelerate your progress.
Stage 1. Reading Untethered Soul: the Journey to Beyond Yourself by Michael Singer, Kristen Neff’s Self-Compassion, and Dan Siegel’s Wheel of Awareness, and The 8C’s of Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Stage 2: The 6 ACT Skills for Psychological Flexibility and Positive Intelligence App (PQ)
Stage 3: PQ Saboteurs and IFS individual sessions
Stage 4: Rescue the Inner Child, RIM, IFS and other therapeutic tools
Stage 5: IFS Self-Leadership, PQ Coaching Tools, Mission Statement, Chopra-Oprah Meditations, The Law of Attraction
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The TSMM Program is designed to take people through these 5 Stages using these tools to help them live life with peace of mind, ease and flow, love and abundance. See below for the before and after experience of when you discover and heal your True Self.
Discovering and Healing Your True Self Is the Most Important Part of Your Life Journey.
According to Eckhart Tolle, who is the most popular spiritual author in the US and one of the most visionary spiritual teachers in the world, becoming Awakened and living your life from Awakened Self or your “True Self” is the most important thing for you to discover during your lifetime, thereby answering one of the three most important questions in life: Who Am I?
“Part of Awakening to this dimension that exists in every human being is the possibility of realizing that there is in you the potential of a deeper dimension of Consciousness in every human and the discovery of this deeper dimension of Consciousness in every human is the most important part of your life Journey here.” Eckhart Tolle
Recognizing and connecting back to your true self is recognized by many as the most important step in your spiritual growth. Michael Singer in The Untethered Soul: The Journey to Beyond Yourself: “There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind—you are the one who hears it. If you don’t understand this, you will try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many changes in the name of “trying to find myself.” They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality, is who they really are. The answer is simple: none of them.”
The Wisdom of Trauma
The wisdom of trauma is that our trauma can lead us back to ourselves, our True Self. By following the path of how we became traumatized, we are able to find out that we are disconnected to ourselves and how to reconnect to ourselves. As Dr. Gabor Mate says, “the wisdom of trauma means, is that our traumas, how they manifest, how we relate to them, can teach us to be ourselves, can restore that connection that we lost in the first place.
Trauma is much more pervasive in our society than we think. When we think about trauma, we mostly are influenced by our thinking of shock trauma, i.e. PTSD, caused by war and people having flashback memories. However, trauma is not an event that happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside of your body and mind. As such, there are many traumas that society is now understanding such as developmental trauma, complex trauma, attachment trauma, and intergenerational trauma. Trauma probably personally affects 95% of all of us. We just don’t know it until we understand what is trauma, and why it’s important to understand the disconnection to ourselves and how do we fix it.
Disconnecting From Your True Self
First, one needs to understand the greatest wound of trauma. According to A. H. Almaas, who Gabor Mate believes is the best spiritual combined with psychology teacher, “the fundamental thing that happened and the greatest calamity, is not that there was no love or support in childhood. The greatest calamity, which is caused by the first calamity, is that you lost the connection to your essence. That is much more important than whether your mother or father loved you or not.” Gabor Mate explains: “In other words, the fundamental trauma was the loss of connection to yourself. And as I’ll be telling you, when I talk about trauma, that disconnection from the self IS the greatest wound.”
When we disconnect from our True Self, we then start relying on our Ego-based or Conceptual Mind. We then start living from a place of fear versus love. Until we discover and heal our True Self, many of us will experience suffering in lost peace of mind or sabotaging our relationships or performance.
Discovering and Healing Your True Self: A Journey Through Five Stages
Discovering and Healing Your True Self is then the most important journey one will take in your lifetime. Generally, the process will start when we become awakened or conscious. There are many ways of becoming awakened. This includes psychedelics, spiritual growth.
Once you are Awakened, I have noticed that there are 5 stages to healing and living life from your True Self. Each stage offers tools and practices to help you connect more deeply with your authentic self, heal past wounds, and live a life of purpose and joy.
Stage 1. Recognizing Your True Self
Stage 2. Building the 6 ACT Skills for Psychological Flexibility
Stage 3. Identifying Your Adaptive Behaviours or Parts/Saboteurs and Shifting back to Your True Self.
Stage 4. Healing the Inner Child and changing the beliefs associated with your adaptive behaviors.
Stage 5. Living from your True Self via Self-Leadership, connected to the universe, and living your life mission with love instead of fear.
Stage 1: Recognizing Your True Self
Recognizing your True Self is the foundational step in this journey. This stage is about listening to your inner voice and understanding who you truly are at your core.
Key Resources:
"Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself" by Michael Singer: This book guides readers towards inner peace by helping them disengage from habitual thoughts and emotions, encouraging deeper self-exploration beyond everyday mental chatter (Psychology Today) (The Berkeley Well-Being Institute).
Kristin Neff’s work on Self-Compassion: Neff emphasizes the importance of being kind to oneself. Self-compassion involves treating yourself with the same kindness and care as you would offer to a good friend, fostering a nurturing and non-judgmental relationship with oneself (Psychology Today).
Dan Siegel’s "Wheel of Awareness": A mindfulness tool that helps individuals gain insight into their mind’s activities, fostering a deeper connection with their True Self (Psychology Today).
The 8C’s of Internal Family Systems (IFS): These qualities; calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness are essential attributes of the True Self (Psychology Today).
Stage 2: Building the 6 ACT Skills for Psychological Flexibility
The second stage focuses on developing psychological flexibility through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This involves cultivating six core skills: acceptance, cognitive defusion, being present, self as context, values, and committed action. These skills help you navigate life's challenges with greater resilience and adaptability.
Key Components:
Acceptance: Embracing thoughts and feelings without trying to change them.
Cognitive Defusion: Perceiving thoughts and feelings as what they are, not what they say they are.
Being Present: Maintaining awareness of the here and now.
Self-as-Context: Recognizing that you are not your thoughts or feelings, but the consciousness observing them.
Values: Understanding what truly matters to you.
Committed Action: Taking action based on your values, even in the face of discomfort (Psychology Today) .
Key Resource:
The Positive Intelligence App (PQ): Provides exercises and tools to strengthen mental fitness and build psychological flexibility, enhancing the ability to handle life’s challenges (Psychology Today).
Stage 3: Identifying Your Adaptive Behaviors or Parts/Saboteurs and Shifting Back to Your True Self
In this stage, you identify and understand your adaptive behaviors or "parts" that have developed as coping mechanisms. These behaviors often include self-sabotaging patterns that stem from past experiences and unhealed wounds. Shifting back to your True Self involves recognizing these parts and working with them compassionately through techniques like PQ Saboteurs analysis and IFS individual sessions. This awareness allows you to realign with your authentic self, free from the constraints of these outdated protective mechanisms (Psychology Today).
Key Tools:
Positive Intelligence (PQ) Saboteurs: Helps identify and weaken the inner saboteurs that hinder your true potential.
Individual IFS Sessions: Through therapy, one can explore these adaptive parts and learn to integrate them in a healthy manner (Psychology Today).
Stage 4: Healing the Inner Child and Changing the Beliefs Associated with Adaptive Behaviors
Healing the inner child is a crucial step in transforming deep-seated beliefs and emotional wounds. This stage involves reconnecting with your younger self and addressing the unmet needs and traumas that have shaped your current behaviors and beliefs. Tools such as Rescue the Inner Child, Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM), and other therapeutic modalities are beneficial for this healing process. By nurturing and integrating your inner child, you can release old patterns and create new, empowering beliefs that align with your True Self (Psychology Today).
Key Tools:
Rescue the Inner Child Techniques: Methods that help in connecting with and healing the inner child.
Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM): A therapeutic tool to resolve emotional pain.
IFS Therapy: Helps in understanding and healing the inner parts.
Other Therapeutic Tools: Various methods to support emotional and psychological healing (Psychology Today) .
Stage 5: Living from Your True Self
The final stage is about embodying your True Self and leading a life guided by love, purpose, and connection. This involves practicing self-leadership, staying connected to the universe, and living your life mission with a sense of peace and abundance. IFS Self-Leadership, PQ Coaching Tools, creating a personal mission statement, and engaging in practices like Chopra-Oprah meditations and the Law of Attraction can support this ongoing journey. By living authentically, you can experience greater joy, fulfillment, and harmony in all aspects of your life (Psychology Today).
Key Tools:
IFS Self-Leadership: Fosters internal harmony and leadership from the core self.
PQ Coaching Tools: Aid in maintaining mental fitness and self-leadership.
Creating a Mission Statement: Clarifies your life’s purpose and guides your actions.
Chopra-Oprah Meditations and The Law of Attraction: Practices that align your intentions with the universe and attract positive outcomes.
True Self Mind Mastery Program
The TSMM Program is designed to take people through these 5 Stages using these tools to help them live life with peace of mind, ease and flow, love and abundance.
Moving from your false Ego based self to being your True Self will enable someone to experience life much differently. See graphic at the beginning for the transformed experience.
Conclusion
Starting the path to find and repair your True Self is incredibly fulfilling and transforming. Through these five steps and with the help of the suggested tools, you can heal old traumas, become more authentic and fulfilled in your life, and discover your true nature.
References
"The 5 Stages from Betrayal to Breakthrough" - The PBT Institute. Retrieved from thepbtinstitute.com.
"Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself" by Michael Singer.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Retrieved from contextualscience.org.
Dan Siegel’s "Wheel of Awareness". Retrieved from drdansiegel.com.
Gross, G. (2024). The Individuation Process: Finding Your Authentic Self. Retrieved from Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/philosophy-and-the psyche/202403/the-individuation-process
Internal Family Systems (IFS). Retrieved from ifs-institute.com.
Kristin Neff’s work on Self-Compassion. Retrieved from self-compassion.org.
Seven Qualities of the True Self. (2024). Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-true-self/202404/seven-qualities-of-the-true-self
The Berkeley Well-Being Institute. (2024). How To Find Yourself: 5 Steps To Finding Your True Self. Retrieved from Berkeley Well-Being Institute Seven Qualities of the True Self. (2024). Retrieved from Psychology Today https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/how-to-find-yourself.html
The Positive Intelligence App (PQ). Retrieved from positiveintelligence.com.
Mark Hugh Sam
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