Intelligence of the Heart

Intelligence of the Heart Intelligence-of-the-Heart Coaching help brings awareness to your unconscious childhood trauma

05/13/2023

🎹 “Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.”—don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

🌈 What kind of art are you creating with your life?

07/21/2022

Annoyed?
While it is true that there are annoying people out in our world, it is equally true that they trigger something within us that we can heal.
In the psychotherapeutic 'industry' there is a saying that "what is happening is not what is happening." It is a code that while we perceive that people annoy us, what is really happening is that we are 'remembering' being annoyed - over and over again throughout our lives.
So what to do? You can either try to get away from annoying people. You may or may not succeed, but even if you succeed, you haven't fixed the fact that you have a tendency to respond to annoying triggers.
The remedy, of course, is to go back in your own life and figure out what was it that you really needed when you were being annoyed for the first time. So imagine yourself a kid who wanted an ice cream cone in the hot summer and for whatever reason your parents didn't get you one. And your siblings or friends made fun of you, or annoyed you. What did you really need?
It's not rocket science. There are specialists who talk about nothing else than human needs. For children there are five major ones. You needed to be acknowledged. You were hurt, as you are now when you meet annoying people, but did anyone tell you life is rough? Did anyone hold you, as a child, when you were annoyed? Did your mother gather you into her arms and tell you that you were safe with her?
I am sure you, like we all, were loved by your parents and they had compassion for you, but when you needed love and compassion, did they come and embrace you with love and compassion?
Chances are not. Not when you specifically needed these. The result is that you developed trauma when you did not receive love and compassion when you had a need for these. Trauma is not what happened. Trauma is a separation after something happened, where you were not acknowledged, not loved, not hugged. What separated? Your consciousness from your emotional development.
You've heard the expression some people say, that their husband is acting like a seven-year-old. These women give their husbands a lot of credit, because their husbands are more likely acting like a two-year-old child. That is where most of us lost our ability to continue our emotional development. Instead, we learn various coping mechanisms through which we fake our emotional maturity. Pretending we are mature works only until we become annoyed. Or pi**ed off.
There are Compassionate Inquiry practitioners 'out there' who are trained to help people reconnect to their emotional development. Just look up Compassionate Inquiry Practitioners and talk to one. They won't be interested in who annoys you. They will help you figure out why you are annoyed and help you live among annoying people quite contently.

04/17/2022

Time out for some Humour:
Each day I listen to a short Gabor Mate video and each day I get sucked in to listen again, then write an article about it because he unravels so many of my habits and belief systems. My attention and interest are drawn to these Module 9 videos because I did not have my one, basic need met when I was an infant: I was not held (enough).
I didn't know there were so many 'angles' to wanting to be held! Of course, the key is that, like children, we still look to the outside world to be held, and then realize (or not) that when I am held, it may soothe the immediate need, but does not satisfy it for long.
As Dr. Mate explains, the 'holding' has to come from the inside.
Is this some Buddhist conspiracy, like clapping with one hand, to hug youself from within? How do you solve such a mystery? (-; Perhaps the next video..., and the next....
OOOPS, I have become addicted to watching Gabor Mate
videos!!!!

01/24/2022

While I can’t always control my circumstances and world events, I can manage how I respond to them. Listening to myself breathing is one of many ways of handling stress.

11/02/2021

The mutual responsiveness of the adult-child relationships is the most important influence on brain development.
Dr. Gabor Maté

10/11/2021

"Violence is a program people learn from birth."
Shame keeps us from telling each other how bad our childhood was. We tend to whitewash our experiences, yet, anger, hate and often violence drive us in our relationships. Because the cause of this violence is unconscious, our own actions are confusing. Of course they are!

A child who is abused believes that that abuse is love.

That belief accompanies us unconsciously throughout adulthood. That shame of childhood abuse and the consequent vulnerability of being easily triggered into violence need not be permanent! We can become aware of when we are triggered into violence. That awareness, in turn, leads to self-compassion, the foundation of our healing.
Most human adults act out their childhood emotional lives. Watch yourself interact with people you love. Hear yourself, especially listen to what comes out of your mouth. Note that you will feel good for a while, having visited violence on someone, someone usually weaker than you, or helpless; sometimes your own children. Your good feelings, similar to the good feelings addictions bring, don't last long. Your pain returns and you start the cycle again, needing to hurt someone because you are hurting. But that pain is a childhood memory, and that child you were is waiting to be acknowledged, to be heard, to feel safe: to be held with love and compassion.

The above quotation is from Fritzi
Horstman in an interview with Zaya & Maurizio Benazzo, creators of the Wisdom of Trauma film and the accompanying discussions about emotional wellness. See wisdomoftrauma.com DAY 7 – Talk 1 Replay, "From Incarceration to Compassion"

10/07/2021

"You developed a belief that nothing can touch you. What happens when you get sick? That belief is now destroyed."
I can add to that quotation because it also works the other way. What happens when someone loves you and you want nothing and nobody to touch you? Your fear of vulnerability shuts you off from healing, separates you from your need to be connected with others, shuts you down and separates you from your authenticity.
You lose your connection with your emotions, you lose your feeling within your body. The bottom line is that you still don't feel safe. And sometimes the thought crosses your mind that you want it all to end. And why? Because you were hurt as child and that pain is with you as if it happened a minute ago.
But that hurt is a memory that can be accepted, the pain can be embraced with love and compassion, and it will be resolved. The key is to have someone help you to step out of the fortress you have built around yourself, defenses that are stifling your healing.
The quotation is from Dr. Gabor Maté, who is featured in The The Wisdom of Trauma movie, accessed at
Watch The Wisdom of Trauma Movie & The Trauma Talks Series, Part II on October 4-10
WISDOMOFTRAUMA.COM
Watch The Wisdom of Trauma Movie & The Trauma Talks Series, Part II on October 4-10
Watch The Wisdom of Trauma Movie on October 4-10, Featuring DR. GABOR MATÉ Plus The Trauma Talks Series, Part II, a 5-day teaching series on trauma with leading experts!

09/16/2021

Do we have to worry about Karma?

Karma comes from Hinduism and, at its most practical level, is the constant cycle of repeating the same mistakes. There is a remedy, to step out of the karmic cycle and take responsibility for what you are doing. Learning to take responsibility for yourself and practicing it brings you out of karma and into dharma, 'learning'. Trauma, as it is used by Dr. Peter Levine, above, starts in early childhood, sometimes in the womb, and is not subject to karma, although unresolved trauma is the cause that most of us repeat the same mistakes throughout our lives.

08/25/2021

Here is what one client said of our Compassionate Inquiry work: "Thank you so much for the time and attention to my message. I feel a great generosity from you as you share your teachings. I most appreciate the homework assignment you gave me.

"The exercise I am doing several times daily, of touching into the pain of that hurt child in me and bring that embodied sense of feeling held and holding him at the same time, feels like a really key practice to me. I am confident that my tendency to unconsciously dissociate will gradually lessen with time as I continue with this practice and use the approach you have provided.

"With this practice I feel like you have done your job and my work is now to continue with it."

08/19/2021

When we react thoughtlessly throughout our life, driven by emotional pain, and lash out to hurt others so we can feel that someone else is also feeling our pain, a very basic tool will help: a breath, a pause and a repeatedly harmful lashing out turns into a considered, even compassionate response.

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