We spoke a lot about subconscious content and reality. I am now going to share a simple trick if you want to know whether it's imprints that are driving your life now. Do you find yourself in repetitive trigger situations that make you react in a same way over and over again? You must pay attention to those situations and your reactions. Most probably, it is your imprints that are at work. The first step in finding a solution is acknowledging there is a problem. Isn't it? It is simple common sense that all of us know. And let me be honest. It is a relief to know where the challenges in life are coming up from. Thank God! It is not destiny, fate or unseen hand playing chess with life. The issue is in our own subconscious. And it is a bigger relief to know there is a simple heart centred solution to come out of these challenges.

I had a client whose case demonstrates how imprints work. It is a typical situation in most families. She is happily married to a wealthy business man for few years now. They are a loving couple except for one dark cloud over their happy blue skies. Her husband's large family, including some of the relatives, ask financial assistance from him quite often. Since he has money to dispose, many relatives expect him to help them financially for any of their issues or ventures in life. Husband is of helping nature, so he extends help whenever asked. He knows the money will not come back. Since my client wants him to be happy, she tries not to interfere. She wants husband to be happy, but the lady herself is not happy giving money to relatives. She knows it is his duty to help family and it is his wish who he can help. So she tries not to react but in spite of telling herself not to react, she is upset about it. Whenever someone asks for help, it ends up in an argument between husband and wife. And she reached to a helpless stage where it started feeling like a never ending cycle.

When someone is driven by their imprints, they find themselves in such repetitive situations and tend to react in same way in spite of their best intentions not to react. The entire situation including their own reaction gives them quite a helpless feeling. It is like a frightened child put on a giant wheel. The child feels dizzy and nauseous exactly at the same height and fears it but he can neither stop it from going on and on nor jump down from it. Do you feel this way about any of the issues in your life? Then definitely this particular situation in your life is being created from the subconscious imprints. Do you feel you had enough of it and very badly want to get down the giant wheel?

Congratulations. This is the first step. The feeling that you had enough of it and you are willing to step out of that situation is the critical first step. You make such a commitment only when you care for yourself. And the good news is, caring for you is the most apt solution to any of your life issues driven by past imprints. It just involves honouring yourself and all your feelings. Does it sound too simple? Heart is simple. Feelings are simple. Hence a heart centred solution is simple. It's only the mind, or as in this case, the subconscious mind, that complicates things in life. Isn't it?

So how does it work? We have seen in our last articles, how past painful experiences leave strong imprints. But how do these imprints get stored in the subconscious and stay there so long? Even for several lifetimes! When we faced painful emotions in our past, mostly as a small, helpless child, we were afraid of the pain. We do not know how to handle the pain in that experience. So we suppressed all of them and tried to push away the memory of that experience. But all of it is still present in our subconscious as imprints. So what keeps imprints in place is the unfelt and unresolved pain from that situation. In fact, all our memories of past have some emotional response attached to it, either painful or pleasurable. Without any emotion attached to a situation, it will not get stored in our memory in the first place. Imagine, you have experienced millions of situations in all these years of your life! How many of them do you remember or can recollect now? When you do recollect, can you recollect anything that doesn't have an emotion attached to it? That's the reason the solution here is to heal the unresolved pain sitting on top of the imprints in your subconscious memory. It is like a giant paper weight that is kept on a stack of papers. You just remove the weight and papers just fly away with even a simple breeze. Just paying attention to your feelings in any painful situation will heal all the past pain that is keeping the imprints in place. When the past pain is healed, subconscious memory of the past experience just melts away. That is why it works so well.

In the case of above example, when I asked my client to enquire within herself, what is the exact feeling/s that the present situation triggered, she figured out fear of poverty underneath the pain. It is based on a childhood memory. She had that fear because of a bitter experience that her father had faced with his relatives about money. As a child, she just felt helpless in this situation. As a child, she didn’t know how to deal with that insecurity when she came to know about father's financial troubles. She was just afraid they will all end up being poor. All that unfelt and unresolved fear and insecurity is sitting now in her subconscious. So I asked her to honour and allow this feeling of fear when she is in my office. And to allow herself to feel all there is to feel in her present situation with finances. Just by doing this, it allowed her past pain to be healed. Once it is healed, she is able to acknowledge, that as a mature adult and in her position now, there is no need to feel helpless and be in fear. Now she doesn't feel the pinch when her husband helps anyone. Not just that, even the calls for help has come down like a miracle.

It is really a simple solution. Even you can do it easily by yourself. Just honour all your emotions without any judgement. When in pain, do not make yourself wrong for it. Instead, recognize that it is past pain that is coming up now for your loving attention. Treat all repetitive painful situations as triggers. The feelings triggered in the situation help you to identify and resolve the past unresolved pain. Of course, we will take a deeper look at how exactly you can use this in your life in our upcoming articles. But make sure you honour all your feelings and emotions from now on, they hold the key to a happy, light filled life.

Ramakrishna Maguluri
Engaging with Life
ELAI
engagingwithlife@yahoo.com