The Transformative Power of Letting Go and Remembering We are Life-
We are bodies, creatures. To be human, alive, we are bodies. WE ARE CREATURES NOT CREATORS. We do NOT create life. Life creates US. When we choose life IN OUR BODIES we become whole. There is no 'mind' without a body.
Early in my work as a clinical nutritionist, 45+ years ago, I became aware that some of my clients had difficulty selecting and eating foods that were good for them. When these clients were asked to 'listen to their body' they did not understand. They could not tell if the food they were eating made them feel good or bad. They could not tell if they needed more sleep or exercise. They did not know if or when they were hungry or thirsty or what foods might satisfy their hunger, if they were able to recognize they were hungry.
Each person has the ability to know what is right for him or herself. My intent is to educate (v.-educare-to draw forth [inner knowing]) the natural wisdom of the client. I make available to the client knowledge that the client already has. It is within ourselves, our BODIES (not our minds), we find the information we need to take care of ourselves.
The more out-of-touch one is with the messages of his or her own body, the greater their dependency on the authority of others and the less able they are to take care of themselves. Such persons do not know what they really want, do not believe they can know what is best for them and do not believe that if they knew they could get what they want and need.
In 1983 I began working with adult and child victims of physical and sexual abuse. All victims exhibited the same lack of awareness and lack of ability to respond to the body's messages that I had seen in some of my clients. They could not ask for, or even know, what they wanted and needed and they were unable to refuse what they did not want.
This unexpected involvement with abuse victims recalled earlier experiences I had had in 1974 working with Peter H.C. Mutke, M.D., Psychosomatic Medicine, and Barry Goodfield, Ph.D. Of many unusual cases I was able to observe, two stand out as indicative of the probable causes of injury and the direction I feel healing must take.
During a session of hypnotic recall, a lawyer in his late 30's was put before a thermography machine (liquid nitrogen imaging). While remembering a beating he received from his father at 9 months of age heat patterns appeared and we were able to see hand prints clearly on the client's body. I believe memory is more than in the mind. Clinical evidence suggests it is concurrently stored in the body. The memory of the beating had been stored within his cells.
The second case involved a individual born with a club foot. At age 40 an operation was performed to correct the condition. The foot continued to cause pain and disability. Using thermography the foot's temperature was found to be significantly cooler than the rest of the body and the other foot. No medical cause could be found to account for this discrepancy. When the man was instructed to "love" his foot, to forgive the foot for the pain it had caused him, to incorporate it into his thought in a positive way using focused attention, the foot healed and the temperature normalized without further complication.
An abused or injured person "leaves" his body where the memory/feeling is located. This removal of one's consciousness is done automatically whether the original incident of abuse was intentional or unintentional. This separation occurs to relieve the pain. Psychology calls this disassociation. The mind and body must be reunited. If the memory continues to contain the original feelings of fear, anger and/or pain it becomes difficult or impossible for reunification to occur.
We do not cause ourselves to be abused (whatever some may say) but are responsible for continuing to feel associated rage, self-pity, anger, fear and pain. We often believe that remembering and discussing our victimization or screaming or crying or expressing our anger, pain, fear and rage will get rid of this awful chemistry. It has been my experience that until clients willingly forgive and forget, old fear, anger and pain reflect into current events. Therapy aimed at expressing or feeling your pain, reliving the incident, simply further imbeds and petrifies the memory.
Most of us have not been taught that we have the ability to choose our feelings. Some will "bury" past negative incidents or feelings. Others will express over and over their discomfort and victimization. Family members, friends or society may encourage the burial of incidents/feelings because the feelings are too frightening to be expressed. Others continually express their sorrow and pain, endlessly to everyone and join groups or visit therapists who encourage them to do so. In some families, all members will bury their feelings "successfully" until one member becomes the "actor" for the group. Repetition of events will continue to occur until associated feelings are changed by free choice. I did not say until feelings are expressed.
If a child has been raised in a critical, abusive or neglected environment by parents who see the world in a negative, frightening or hopeless way the child will feel that that is the way of the world and discount positive experiences as exceptions to be overlooked. Likewise the loved and nurtured child sees negative experiences as unusual occurrences quickly passing.
It is clear that the actions and attitudes of parents, other family members and school personnel towards the child influence the way the child will perceive him or herself and the world. However, no matter what our original heredity or environment, we can consciously alter that conditioning.
There are no perfect parents, perfect societies, perfect schools, bosses or jobs. It is important to encourage good parenting and societal values but even our best attempts will at times cause offense to our children. It is necessary that all of us, adults and children alike, learn the true value of forgiveness -- the physical, cellular, forgetting of the envy, greed, anger, fear and pain associated with the past and the freedom of living a life from within.
The value of forgiveness is not in its power to grant freedom to the offender but in its power to give wholeness to the victim. Forgiveness does not mean the offender is not brought to account, though they may or may not be, but that the victim is fully restored to a state of mind and body that is without wound or scar.
Victims do not deserve to be victims but the damage can not be repaired by the offender, nor is it repaired by punishment of the offender. The victim is healed, made free, by his or her willing removal of the feelings associated with the victimization. This change of feeling may be helped by the action of others but the work of change must be done by the victim.
One stops being a victim by refusing (rejecting, deleting) the feelings of being a victim and allowing healing to begin.
We understand the need to change our feelings of victimization and some persons try to over come these feelings by becoming victimizers. It appears that "getting the other guy" is better than "being gotten", but appearances are deceiving. This technique does not work because the victim's core feelings have not been changed.
The human "way" appears to be "power over others". The higher way is power within. When a personal conceptual reality is shifted to a knowledge of having this power within, personal peace abides.
Only when one is at peace with oneself is peace with others possible.
When we discover that we have personal choice in our feelings and begin to use this free will, no situation, however harmful, fearful or painful, past, present or future can have any lasting effect on our being. This ability has been discovered by every healthy, happy survivor of any great disaster or tragedy.
A real survivor is one who can walk through the fire and not be burned. They retain no physical/chemical memory of the incident. The mind is free, the body memory unmarked. This may only be achieved by forgiveness. The prisoner in the most terrifying and abusive prison in this world is free if he completely rejects his imprisonment, if he refuses to see his captors as captors, if he refuses the anger and hatred, and refuses to see himself as victim.
Focus attention within your body and mind. Use any relaxation technique you like. You may sit or lie down. When you are fully relaxed, no discernible tension in any muscle, allow your mind to drift over historical (your own) events. Search for feelings associated with past situations you assume to have a negative influence on your current life. Such feelings could include being unwanted, being neglected or abused INTENTIONALLY OR UNINTENTIONALLY, accidents, illness or surgery, difficulties during puberty, ill-matched relationships or any other incidences of perceived victimization bringing envy, anger, fear, pain or sorrow; anything up until the present moment.
Do not focus on the incidences, focus on the chemistry, the feelings.
Tell your body "I don't want this feeling anymore." Tell your body you are ready to be free. Find the feelings that filter your view of reality. You could currently have a feeling you would rather not have that was created by a letter, phone call or meeting within the past day or week or by remembering an occurrence or relationship from many years ago. Repeat - I don't want this feeling anymore. Each time you experience any negative feelings throughout the next days, weeks and months, repeat again "I truly don't want this feeling anymore." Allowing your body permission to fully and freely FORGET (forgive) frees the abundant life within you.
In less time than you imagine, the feelings you no longer want will be gone, for ever, if you meant what you said (silently or aloud). Your body does the work, you do the choosing.
When I first became aware of this wonderful gift I spent several weeks offering my 'junk'. There was so much to be rid of. I believe most of us need to do one comprehensive past history forgiveness to clear out a lifetime of junk feelings (about as profitable as junk bonds to carry around and like junk bonds others pay the price) and then do daily forgiving to keep us on track.
PAST EXAMPLE: A thirty-five year old woman with chronic headaches from childhood remembers her mother trying to stop her crying when she was about 18 months old by choking her. CONCLUSION- If I ask for what I want I might die. DECISION- I will get a headache to remind myself to not want and not ask. It was a great survival mechanism for the infant but lousy for the adult.
Day and night she consciously rejected, over and over again, the old feelings (told her body she didn't want that feeling anymore) and began to experience and allow the feelings of being loved, nurtured, protected and safe. Shortly the cell memory was deleted and the new feelings became strong as the old disappeared. Her headaches permanently disappeared. In addition she found it possible to know and to ask for what she wanted.
CURRENT TIME EXAMPLE: A client received a phone call informing her of a deadline she had missed. Her immediate feeling was fear and helplessness. She immediately rejected the feeling, "I don't want this feeling" and not only was she free from the negative emotions, she was able to find a way to achieve the desired outcome.
In present time surrendering feelings always changes actions. You want a cigarette. You tell your body 'I don't want this feeling anymore'. You are sincere. To the extent possible you don't smoke the cigarette. You are not saying you don't want the cigarette, this would not be true, but are saying you don't want the feeling of wanting a cigarette. I have personally seen this completely remove the desire for a cigarette within three days and this state remained permanently. Without the feeling the action will not occur. Whatever the feelings promoting behaviors against self or others they can be completely and permanently removed.
Cellular changes related to forgiveness may take days, weeks, or even months. Don't stop. Do not give up. Keep rejecting the old and allowing the new. During this time your body is repatterning your cell memory to fit your new life. Soon you will begin to see things differently and find your life changing in wonderful ways.
This process is not based on mental, intellectual ability. You do not and should not tell your body how you want to feel. You need only tell your body how you do not want to feel. As you become adept you will find yourself able to recognize and surrender feelings, by choice, at will. Only what you decide about how you FEEL counts. Once your body realizes you have the authority to keep or let go of the feeling, and that positive feelings feel better than envy, pride, hatred, anger, greed, lust, fear and pain, it will quickly respond.
We are what we believe/feel ourselves to be. For most, actions spring from feelings. Our current beliefs and actions are drawn from what we believed/felt to be true in our past, a compilation of hereditary and environmental input. The cells of the body are not accurate in their memory or understanding but they are faithful in generating expected chemistry. They register things like abandonment, life threat, abuse, REAL AND IMAGINED, INTENTIONAL AND UNINTENTIONAL, as personal and eternal. We expect these feelings; they are familiar to us; they and situations associated with these feelings reappear with frequency in our lives. From our past we bring forth 'evil', hereditary and personal. Evil is simply the lack of good.
Initially our parental and cultural beliefs/feelings/expectations are the seeming appearances in our lives. Later we continue to reaffirm those same beliefs/feelings/expectations and carry on the cell memories. Memory is retained as cell-memory chemistry (feeling) by consistent re-experiencing of the feeling. This is the limitation of the material self.
When we choose to change our feelings, choose love instead of fear, anger and hate, we allow our body to remake the past, present and future. The greater our commitment to choosing feelings of love, joy, peace, mercy, kindness and justice and rejecting the rest, the sooner these become our new personal truth. Personal truth is made up of the beliefs and associated feelings which have total control over the way in which we see the world. Where our old beliefs and feelings were affirmed by and in our environment (the without in), our new 'chosen' beliefs will soon out-picture in our environment (the within out).
We are called to substitute beauty for ashes, joy for mourning and praise for despair. Where there was abandonment, support and comfort. Where there was abuse, gentleness and understanding. Where there was fear, feelings of safety and love. Where there was lack, abundance. Where there was ugliness let your eyes be opened to beauty. DO THIS FOR YOURSELF AND OTHERS. To substitute means to replace one for another. One is removed; the other is added. The situation has not changed but the feelings have changed and outward change will follow as the dawn follows the night.
For real WHOLENESS, real healing, only FREE WILL CHOICE. We must choose to love our bodies, as is, to connect to life/regeneration.
Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and Earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
LIFE IS A CHOICE
Life is not well. The Earth is not well. In 2020 DEAD things made by HUMANS out-weighed all life on Earth. We are not well. We have poisoned our air and soil and water with MANMADE CHEMICALS and so we continue to poison ourselves. Drugs legal and illegal, foods processed and preserved to survive years on a shelf (dead), the TRILLION dollar so called Health Care System may keep us alive but we are not WELL, we are not WHOLE.
Rapidly or slowly, over time, we experience loss of our humanity, barren, abandoned, hopeless, helpless. No one and nowhere is safe. There is no rest. We have become dis-embodied, cut off from our true self which is IN OUR BODIES connected to all LIFE.
We begin to believe in the god of 'man', of the power of technology, with all of its destruction, destitution, killing life, killing ourselves. We (yes we, no one else) destroy the air and water and land. We believe in our 'inventions' though they, each and every one, take us further from truth, hardening our hearts, ravaging our bodies and destroying our minds.
And in that place there is no healing, no hope, no wellness and no wholeness. It cannot be fixed by medications nor supplements nor diet nor exercise. Breathing, yoga, meditation, the latest guru NONE will bring us WHAT WE ALREADY ARE AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN. We are creatures, bodies, bits of
SACRED life.
We are encased in protective armor, heavier by the day. Unable to feel joy. Unable to know restoration, regeneration, DEEP sleep, WHOLENESS.
We follow the false gods of power, money, success, FAKE beauty. We worship DEAD THINGS. We eat dead food. We take dead drugs. We buy and hoard dead things. There is no joy in them, no LIFE. We are told our distress is that we do not have enough _______(fill in the blank) and if we pay, follow the rules, listen to the lies, we will finally get what we need.
Disembodied humans feed our pain and fear with so called news and so called science bleeding us, destroying us and asking us to pay for their cure, their solution to our pain.
So we have bodies, we are bodies, creatures. Bodies (NOT YOUR BRAIN) collect memories, some of which associate with danger, fear, grief, loss and pain which turn on the sympathetic and thereby the ISR, Integrated Stress Response. This causes us to withdraw from our bodies leaving us vulnerable to more danger, fear and pain. Not only does this lead to 'our worst fears' it allows others to rule over us, to tell us what is right for us, to ENSLAVE us to their code or product or belief.
REJECT DEAD THINGS. TURN WITHIN AND REMEMBER WHAT YOU ARE, WHO YOU ARE, WHO WE ARE.
From Wendell Berry's "What are people for?"
Healing
I
The grace that is the health of creatures can only be held in common.
In healing the scattered members come together.
In health the flesh is graced, the holy enters the world.
II
The task of healing is to respect oneself as a creature, no more
and no less.
A creature is not a creator, and cannot be. There is only one
Creation, and we are its members.
To be creative is only to have health: to keep oneself fully alive
in the Creation, to keep the Creation fully alive in oneself, to see
the Creation anew, to welcome one's part in it anew.
The most creative works are all strategies of this health.
Works of pride, by self-called creators, with their premium on
originality, reduce the Creation to novelty-the faint surprises
of minds incapable of wonder.
Pursuing originality, the would-be creator works alone. In loneliness
one assumes a responsibility for oneself that one cannot
fulfill.
Novelty is a new kind of loneliness.
Rest in Rest. Faith not fear. Life not death. Love not hate.
Many have lost their ability to rest in rest. They are trained or traumatized as children to deny/ignore their body, their feelings, their 'self'. When out of body we are ruled by others. We believe the lies. We buy the 'latest thing' to make us happy and find we have stuff but no joy. We find ourselves living in fear, in a chronic state of fight/flight/freeze/please. We do not belong there. It is NOT our destiny. Choose LIFE. All that you are and all that you need, YOU ARE. Go in, find your whole, our whole, life's whole. Free, no charge, without cost, you are WHOLE and connected to ALL LIFE. Choose LIFE.
People, news, ads selling false solutions for our fears, political parties, anything that enhances your fears, these are not your allies. Anything that causes new cell memories relating to fear, sorrow, pain, these are to be rejected, always REJECTED.
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. -- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
©Krispin Sullivan, MS CN 1995 Last modified on: 24 September, 2025