Energetic Imprints (Unlocking Our Superpowers)

During this first 6-7 years, most of us experience certain events that we consider “traumatic.” In Liz Mullinar’s epic TED Talk on healing trauma, she defines “Trauma” as “more emotion than the brain can deal with.” The child believes that their life is threatened; his/her brain reacts to this trauma and develops differently as a result.

A key point to make is that the event can appear relatively harmless to an outsider perspective, but if the child interprets the event as very scary, he/she will react in the same way as if being chased by a pack of hyenas or some other intense experience. Therefore it is not the event that determines a Traumatic Imprint, but each person’s emotional and psychological interpretation plus their physiological response.

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“ Nothing goes away until it has taught us what we need to know ”

~ Pema Chodron

I describe this phenomenon of Energetic Imprints from a couple different angles, using a variety of metaphors and terminology. I believe we can grasp the process better by seeing it through a variety of related viewpoints. These have all been helpful for me to understand the process that many of us go through. I number these points as a simple way to organize them. Each numbered Point is an interrelated puzzle piece to the Healing Process.

1. For kids, energy flows naturally and freely through their BodyMind System. Swinging, dancing, laughing, and loving with ease, children are usually vibrant and enthusiastic until society teaches them to “sit down and shut up.” Adults are often amazed at how much energy youngsters have. This is because they have not yet been conditioned to partially block the energy flow through their BodyMind System.

2. From a young age, you learn some things are not allowed, so you block energy flow to that part of yourself. For example if you are singing out loud too much in school, you may be consistently scolded and told to be quiet. This “pacifier” can easily develop into a blockage in your throat chakra. You learn a process of “Resistance/ Armoring” : where you block the natural flow of energy through your BodyMind System.

You are passed down many of the beliefs of your parents and the society you grow up in. I call this “Misqualified Energy”: Beliefs and energetic imprints that ultimately don’t resonate with one’s core truth. It is helpful to imagine these like a bunch of layers of clothing that don’t quite fit you. One day, you may look in the mirror at this Misqualified Energy “clothing” and say “Woah! This is not my style anymore!” Then, the goal is to release and reprogram this Misqualified Energy.

3. A Traumatic Event, often causes you to freeze in time to protect yourself. Rather than the “Fight or Flight” response, this is option # 3 : Freeze. Like a scared bunny that “plays dead,” you shut down your Sensory System during an event perceived as threatening. The key here is that the event is “perceived as threatening.” Trauma is all about Perception. The event could be totally peaceful to someone else in the same situation, but if for some reason you feel in danger, your BodyMind System will react the same way as if a lion was chasing you through the plains of Botswana.

A part of yourself is essentially stuck in that moment, until you go back into it and “coach” your past self through it, telling them it’s okay and they are safe. The key is to “Re-Store” this memory and fully accept that this traumatizing event did indeed happen.

To use a metaphor, imagine you have 2 cabinets inside you. Cabinet #1 is “storing” all of the Fearful, Traumatizing, Unacceptable memories. Cabinet #2 is “storing” all the Positive, Happy, Acceptable memories. In order to achieve Wholeness, we’ve got to Fully Accept what has happened to us, and move the memories over to cabinet #2 (thus Re-Storing ourselves).

There is a concept known as “Soul Retrieval,” which explains that when a traumatic event occurs, we lose touch with part of our soul, and in order to feel whole again, we must reclaim / retrieve that part of ourselves. This usually involves going back into that experience in our imagination, and viewing it from a different angle. Often times, a Healer / Shaman / Counselor will guide you into a “hypnotic state,” so you can access these blurry or forgotten memories.

It is important to note that “Accepting” a memory or event does not mean that you “deserved it.” This would imply that you are inherently bad, which is not true. “Accepting” a memory also does not mean that a potential Offender or Abuser was justified in their actions.

Accepting simply means that you stop resisting the fact that this event occurred. The goal is to realize that for some reason your soul chose this experience on its Journey of Evolution. The big question is : “What is the hidden gift / lesson from this event?” Through Acceptance and Seeing the Hidden Gift, you effectively change your Perception of the event from being Fearful to Neutral. This shifts the energy in your BodyMind System from “dis-integrated” into a state of integration. You essentially say to yourself, “Okay, I’ve been through some crazy shit! I am choosing to be at peace with this now.” This effectively re-stores the memory into Cabinet #2 and a state of Acceptance.

4. The Pain Body as Eckhart Tolle describes it is the total energy field of all our past emotional pain. This includes all the Misqualified Energy, Frozen, and Unaccepted parts of ourselves. It is like a heavy burden we carry, and causes our Mind and Body to feel fragmented. It is comprised of all the “Resistance Energy” that we hold in our Energy field. It gets triggered anytime something shines the light of consciousness upon these unconscious, unintegrated parts of us.

( I highly recommend reading “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle for more about the Pain-Body and how to heal it. Tolle also has many great talks on YouTube. )

5. When we don’t EXPRESS, and instead REPRESS, then eventually we become DEPRESSED.

There are stored emotions, and often Sound Frequencies within us, that we would have expressed if we’d had a supportive, healthy environment. Because we didn’t feel safe to express them, we bottled them up, and/or believed they were unacceptable, so we stored them in the Fearful Cabinet #1.  ( Later in this chapter, I will provide several tools for releasing this Repressed energy. )

6. As a result of all that I just described, many of us have become partially numb, dissociated, and fragmented as adults. The wild thing is what I call the “Acclimation Zone,” where we become so acclimated to our partially numb BodyMind, that it’s nearly impossible to imagine it another way. Often we don’t even know that a part of us is numb because we haven’t experienced full sensation in this area since our childhood.

7. How do we heal all of this pain and numbness? The goal is to do like Humpty Dumpty and put ourselves back together again. In order to do this there are a few different helpful tools:

a. Expressing the repressed emotions / sounds through Catharsis.

b. Sharing your story of what happened to you with a trusted friend or counselor.

c. Retraining the BodyMind System to feel sensation and allow energy to flow.

d. Reprogramming Fearful memories and accepting that they happened, thus achieving Wholeness / Integration. This includes doing Inner Child Healing.

---- It is often uncomfortable or painful to bring energy into these places because they’ve been so stiff / numb for so long. When we bring oxygen and energy into a stiff area, there is a lot of “dust and rust” that needs to be cleared off before we can feel the peace that arises from a fully functioning BodyMind System. The tools outlined in this chapter have supported me tremendously in the process of releasing the Misqualified Energy, Armoring, and other pain that was stuck in my BodyMind, and I am supremely grateful for the state of peace and health that I now experience!

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Thanks for reading. This is an excerpt from my book “Unlocking Our Superpowers.” To get your own personal copy of "Unlocking Our Superpowers," here is the link to my website.

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