“It is hard for you to look at your own repressed pain. It is hard for society to look at the pain of its outcasts. But this must be done.
Everybody lives in a prison of reactivity until the wound is made conscious. It is not just the criminal who is behind bars. The men and women who put him there live behind different bars. If you don’t bring your unconscious material into awareness it will express on its own distorted terms. If you don’t work intentionally with the criminal to help him come to LOVE AND ACCEPT HIMSELF, he will re-enter society with the same anger and vindictiveness” – Paul Ferrini
Our limited personal experience informs our own subjective reality and, unfortunately, our personal and collective trauma and wounding holds significant sway over the integration of that experience. Our subjective reality is nothing more than the meaning and labelling we give to everything, and in return, that meaning and labelling reinforces our experience in an ongoing feedback loop of virtual reality.
More simply stated, our personal belief systems create our reality. And yes, it is completely subjective. Most have at least some awareness of this inconvenient truth as we observe ourselves, and others, engage in confirmation bias with the information and opinions we choose to digest, versus those we choose to ignore. We somewhat knowingly put ourselves into echo chambers that reinforce the way we see the world because it makes us feel safe. The ego always feels safer when its belief system is confirmed. That is why the ego always needs to be right no matter the cost.
Some of this is happening at the level of awareness. That is, we “know” what our belief system is, and we are choosing the “safety” of ignorance. But what Ferrini is talking about is the belief system that is below our level of awareness and that resides in our sub-conscious. The repressed pain, childhood trauma and wounding that underwrites our limiting belief systems. Beliefs like “I am not enough”, “I am not worthy of love”, “I always fail”, etc. This personal belief system also creates our reality and given that our subconscious mind drives 90% of our mental output, this unconscious belief system creates much of our reality. And because the ego needs its belief system to be true, that is the reality that will be created and experienced.
The only way past this is to look at our own pain, or illuminate what Jung called “the shadow”. If we don’t know what our limiting beliefs are and have not done the work to integrate them into our lives, then we will remain unconscious regarding the ways we don’t fully love and accept ourselves. If we don’t fully love and accept ourselves then we will project a reality that is full of limitations and scarcity and rob ourselves of the experience of unconditional love.
Our own minds are the prison, but the door is unlocked. All that is required is a desire to open the door and to have faith that we will be safe when we learn that most of our beliefs are wrong. To accept that we deserve unconditional love. That it is our birthright.
We are here to help.
The Way
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