Client: I have been fiddling with trying to get greater insight into models, at least my own models that are out of date, and I realized I had an expectation of myself that I would always be able to handle everything, know exactly what to do and be very calm, collected and cool about it. And right of course. And that is a model that is not sustainable in this world. Where did that model come from, I ask.
Orion: Where did you think it came from?
Client: Well, I always, of course, first go to childhood but I sometimes wonder if I didn't 'come in' to life thinking I could master everything. [laughter] I think it came from my mother's too early demands of things that I wasn't physically capable of doing.
Orion: To us, that is not where the model came from. Rather, that's the part where, in certain cases, the model is undermined. So the model came from two things. One, it did come from external expectations. But it also came from 'I want to be the one who takes care of me.' One of the things with your mother was that the caretaking had distance in it. To the child, there is always a feeling that 'I am not really being taken care of'; a feeling of a conditional element – 'If I'm not a good girl, mother won't take care of me. If I'm sick for too long, mother won't take care of me. If I cry too much, mother won't take care of me.' And this can happen with anyone, because socialization is an exchange - it is a reward system, it is conditional. 'If you do this, I'll do that.' Different people have different experiences which mark this in a different way.
On one hand, there was a high expectation of certain requirements, which you met. And on the other hand, there were times when you didn't meet them – where you were sick 3 days instead of 2 days, etc. You'll notice how a lot of your own adult issues have to do with duration – when things continue for too long, longer than an internal model. 'I'm not depressed if I feel low for 2 days. If I feel low for 4 days, uh oh, I need to worry that I am depressed, this is too long.' You have a lot of inner models about length of time which we feel are rooted in your distillation of the childhood experiences. So part of the heightened 'competency ideal' is not just to please the other. The power in the energy is 'I will take care of myself, in fact, I need to take care of myself in case I don't meet the conditions of the other.' You can see how that was a very strong energy throughout your life. 'I might like someone in my life but I will take care of myself' and unconsciously you hold 'because I might not meet their conditions and they might not take care of me.' As you matured, the 'taking care of' aspect got translated into 'they will not care about or care enough for me.'
Let's talk a little bit about 'what you came in with' and we're going to address it lightly, considering can there be something from another life expression that resonates with this life expression. We're not saying this energy 'came in' like a destiny, but in the couple of life expressions you've explored, there is the quality of actions for righteous reasons, as in higher, purpose, which also involve a high degree of competency. The core Templars were of a high degree of competency and were chosen to go on an idealistic, let's call it righteous in the most positive way, journey. These were the leading idealists, not the opportunists who later emerged. The Joan of Arc energy also has to deal with the idealist finding strength and competency to forward the ideals. You can see this quality in varied ways has been present in your life. All of which you can see can coalesce to create a very deep subconscious model, deep subconscious ego-ideal that 'It is my job and perhaps an expression of my being to be knowledgeable, competent, outspoken in all things.' This ideal isn't exactly the same as 'I should know the answer to everything', but it is an inner requirement that you should be knowledgeable and can easily become, 'I should know all things.'
What undermines this model is that some of this ego-ideal also has as part of it the defense that others will not do their part, that others will not care for you if you do not meet their condition and that therefore, you have then discern 'Is their caring for me what I actually need?' Or 'Can I do it myself?' That then moves you in a later stage of development when the conflicts arose with mother of you vis a vis her idealizations of what you should do and be. And you discover, 'You know Mother, these are your ideals and not mine.' On one hand the child is defiant and we see that outer behavior, but underneath it, Mother -this main, essential person- does not see me. She is holding an ideal that you may not be capable of, that you do not match, that really wouldn't fit. A more mature consciousness might say, 'Well, forget it Mother.' and proceed as one wants. But underneath there is still the very young child that has the sense that 'Mother should see me, does see me and will choose right for me.' We mature and all these things integrate and the child goes their own way. But when we are vulnerable or feel vulnerable, what can come up is the earliest sense. 'I am not as competent as I thought. I might not meet the other's conditions.', etc., etc. and it brings up the feeling sense and the fear quality of the young child, that perhaps an actual young child should have.
If you think of it in a neutral way, recognition that the parent was somehow not truly aware of and congruent with the needs of the child, may lead to useful information, in spite of emotional wounding. Perhaps the child actually does have to take care of itself. Perhaps the child will do best to get support or help from a different parent or another person. So if you take it as a whole and more neutrally, and even though individuals are left with a wounding, it is all of a piece.
These are ways that are early models continue to percolate in and permeate our life and again, what is often not remembered is to considering placing today's experience in the context of the past. 'Today I am feeling as vulnerable as a 3 year old.' To recognize that there might be a model you carry influencing how you are feeling right now. Recognizing our own inner models is so important because it gives us an emotional pause, that emotional 'take a breath', the emotional pause for an energetic cup of tea, that lets one say, 'That was then and today must really be resonating with those feelings and where am I, for real, right now.'
That's why the concept of 'models' can be explored over and over again, because it is quite myriad and our inner models are very permeating. The idea that one can just replace a model is not fully accurate. Yes, we can turn our attention to different models, make conscious different models, but our view is that we may not question the models we hold most deeply and therefore often most unconscious and not yet accessed. Conversely, we may think we have 'changed' and filter out and ignore times when we are still being influenced by our unquestioned model.
We do understand that people really want the past to be past and the unconscious to be in their direct and ready control. Rather, 'unconscious' is most often just that – things we simply are not aware of and that even inquiry can only orient us toward the idea that there might be something there influencing us.
Our principle is that one does not have to deeply uncover or re-experience every element of our past. Rather, we find that the simple acknowledgment that there may such an influence shifts or allows the shift of our action and attention. It is useful for many people to probe and try to discover the details of our inner drivers, but what we find is that it is often more useful or efficacious to just acknowledge the possibility that it could be.
Simply put, there is a possibility that you are making choices or operating from a dynamic you do not fully understand. The newest studies in how the brain operates is reinforcing that the brain has many things that it does and holds that a person may not be conscious or cognizant of.
You wonder 'what did I come in with' and in that phrase, you let us know that in some sense you have recognized the possibility of antecedents or undercurrents to today's situation. In a practical way about today, you ask, 'Do I have models about myself that interfere with being myself in my life as it is and perhaps, enjoying more of my life?' That is the only relevant question. You don't have to undo every model but when you get to a sticking point, which is of course a very nice clue that something else may be seen, ask, 'Ok, what is going on with this? What am I comparing myself to? Do I know? Is it valid? Do I even want to be or do how I've been or did?' An interesting thing about our inner models is that often they are something we would no longer chose or have, in the simplest term, outgrown. 'I really don't want to do a certain thing. I really don't want to eat the foods I used to eat.'
When the unconscious model is resonating, we do not feel at peace with today's choice. Rather, we feels loss, as if the choices I made in the past have been taken away from me, rather than focusing on the sense that I have made a new choice. We don't see it as, 'Oh I don't do that any more. I want to do something else or this suits me better now.' Instead, we tend to give a lot of power to our earlier models because they've had a lot of time in our lives - we've lived them and they have become more engrained or they evolved at more emotional times and so on. So when we find something has changed and we look back to 'Oh I used to…' Yet, we notice that in most cases, although people express loss of what they used to do, they actually don't chose to make the effort to do it now.
We see that people carry the model that change 'happens' to them, almost with the energy as if it was against their will. [Client: Absolutely. I feel that exactly.] Yes, and part of that is because we 'forget' how we are part of the vastness of All There Is and how we are part of our own All We Are. So it is true that the way our mind looks at change is as if something has been taken, but is that how our Essence, our Wholeness, really experiences growth, development and evolution?
Does our body say 'I'm on an unnatural path and my natural path was taken away from me?' Are all the autonomic processes and the aspects we might refer to as Soul or Essence saying, 'I should be in 1980 or 1990?' We do not feel that the 'Wholeness' of one is comparing itself and connecting itself to other ways and times. We think the one's Wholeness is present in today's being; is today's being.
It is interesting that we can use our ideals, our ideas, our models of ourselves to support or engage the Wholeness to express differently. 'I might be 83 but most of the time I feel healthy and okay..' There is a model that says, 'I am not accepting other peoples models of 83. I'm not an old granny with a kerchief and black lace-up shoes.' So you don't accept that model or the old Crone model. In fact, there are many models you don't accept. Your own sense of self is 'I am this and that's how I am.' And that is very useful and helps you express your life fully in that moment.
But when you get to the comparison model, comparing remembrances of your own life, your own models, your own past is when you get into the feeling of 'I have been robbed. It's been taken from me. I'm not me.' And that comparison element is what gives you stress. Instead, try this - begin with 'Of course, I'm me. How can I not be me because this is me? And in fact, what I was, what I've done and where I've been is part of me. So what do I need to do when my own comparison model isn't supporting me but rather, it is robbing me.'
Client: 'I have an idea, perhaps a fantasy even, that when I was more active in the world I was less vulnerable.'
Orion: We don't think it's a fantasy. We do think that in your life 'activeness' demonstrated to you 'capacity'. That is the earliest model and that was really the model of your family. The model of the family was not contemplation and consideration of things. It was, 'We're action takers.' But in actuality, that wasn't totally true. Although your father was an action taker, he paid attention to the actions he was taking. Some of the frustration with your brothers in the family was that they took action without considering all the variables and thinking it through…
What is interesting for you is that you have an identification with action meaning being competent as well as a caution that if it was not thought through there may be problems. But models evolve. Somewhere along the way, the appeal of spirituality emerged for you. The world of a kind of non-action attracted you. You did not define it as 'contemplative' because you already a model for that and your experiences were not matching that idea. You liked the idea that you were an active person in your explorations and discoveries.
Your spirituality includes phrases such as synchronicity, 'Let go and Let God' or 'Go with the flow' - all of which imply that you are not the action agent in all things. It implies that you are part of Life's action. To us, the core of it is that a part of you that really understood that and that very part often took you to action. You got a sense and you made things happen, but the truth was that the original impetus was this kind of receiving, a synchronistic event.
Yet, the prominent model you carry is 'Action is me.' Although your own experiences have been more than that, what you have filed as important is how you manifested the impetus, rather than the strong sense that had you received or recognized an impetus. So the early model shapes your awareness of your own direct experience and the strength of the early model limits our sense that we should even question it.
So again, let us consider that it is useful and supportive to recognize that we carry inner models. When our ideas of ourselves, our wants, our preferences, our desires become challenging, it is useful to wonder how can I attain, do or have those things. But it is just as useful to ask, 'Why do I want that? Why do I feel loss? Why do I feel less?' What model may lie underneath my sense of the situation? And then further, it is useful to remember that our earliest models also can shape how we understand our own direct experiences. It may winnow our knowledge or look only at one facet of ourselves and miss another.
And finally, remember that our models are usually built upon or around cultural models, from the family, from the school, from our traditions, heritages, etc. Every aspect does not to be constantly questioned, but when we find ourselves questioning and find ourselves in conflict or dissatisfied, then a tool to use from our toolbox of awareness, is to remember to question the models. Orion
