Have you ever stopped to consider the idea of consciousness? And what part it plays in your recovery journey? If you have, you will have been using your consciousness to do it! But what is it? What makes us aware that we are aware? Neuroscience is around a hundred years old now and has helped us make massive strides in our understanding. One of the most puzzling discoveries being that our consciousness is not created in the brain.

Since our brain contains the matter in which consciousness resides it has seemd obvious to most that the brain is also the creator of the phenomenon. New theories are now emerging that include relativistic understanding, reminding us that it is the position that we observe from that is key to our understanding. This is the basis of the observer position that I will be looking at in this piece. But first you need to understand more about the difficult position of having to use our consciousness to explore our consciousness!

“This is quite a mystery since it seems that our conscious experience cannot arise from the brain, and in fact, cannot arise from any physical process.”
Dr. Nir Lahav

Relative Parts?

The new theory claims that past notions of consciousness have been wrong because they have not taken account of the observer position. That consciousness is not an absolute or an illusion, but is in fact a relativistic phenomenon. In other words it will be understood differently from different positions. I suppose this is another way of saying that consciousness is best understood by other consciousness! Certainly your consciousness will not make any sense to unconscious beings.

Whether you understand consciousness as arising from God breathing his spirit into Adam (Genesis 1:26) or the natural step for us in our evolutionary journey, it is obvious that consciousness is the start of everything human. It gives us our appreciation for great beauty, love for others, and the pain and suffering that comes with addiction, among other things. In this piece I am not going to go any deeper into the question of consciousness itself, rather I am going to offer you a way of using your consciousness to help you to make progress. Remember that we recover by outgrowing our problems, not by defeating them. 

The Profound Observer 

The Bible gives us the original statement about this observation of consciousness. In Psalm 42 verse 7 it says that “Deep calls out to deep”. Reminding us that our recognition of God and his creation is the greatest miracle of all. Even if you don’t have any faith in religious ideas, you will probably have a deeply felt appreciation for the mystery of your consciousness. Now that we know that the brain cannot produce consciousness by itself, well, it has to come from somewhere, right?

If we develop too wooden a religious understanding then we will tend towards a more ‘parental’ or ‘judgemental’ view of our profound observer. A bit like an angry parent looking over our shoulder at everything we do, leading to regrets and guilt, shame and depression. This will naturally connect with our vulnerability which will either have us acting out addictively or feeling overly responsible for others (addiction and reverse addiction).

Of course, if the voices or parts lead us towards an unhealthy, selfish or otherwise criminal or immoral direction, then the Church would deem them to be ‘evil spirits’. Which would then need exorcising or, at the very least, prayed out of us. But this is not the only view we have been subject to. Science, through the medical model has added another perspective.

The External Observer 

The medical model offers us a more psychological idea of the observer. Seeing these ‘voices’ or ‘parts’ as introjects, strong influences from our parents or care givers that we internalise. And there is no doubt that these influences are hugely important in our development. Including the idea mentioned above in the way we can blend the idea of God with our parental relationship. No less a figure than Freud was the first to introduce this idea but the fact is that this view was challenged pretty quickly by his colleagues in the field.

Taking the medical position, the ‘parts’ influences are then understood as mental illnesses or problems. Constructing them once again as things we need to be rid of. Ultimately, whether we demonise or pathologise our parts, the same position is reached. That we need to be rid of them, albeit for very different reasons. The main effect of these influences which have been around for several hundred years, is to prevent people from creating a good starting point in their recovery journey. So much of your behaviour, attitude and thinking will make sense to you once you understand that the multifacted self is the normal and healthy human condition.

The embarrasing Observer

So, the Church and science have culturally soaked us in these ideas for hundreds of years. As a result, most of us would hesitate to admit to having anything like an inner part or a voice that was not us, or did not agree with us. But have you ever said “I don’t know what came over me”? Or “I’m in two minds about that”? What about when you talk to yourself? Who is talking to who here? The truth is that our brain sometimes takes over, and not always in a way we appreciate. Have you ever had to say sorry after “I just saw red”? In order to make real progress in your recovery journey you need to see these occassions as just one of many ways that your brain attempts to protect you. It takes over when danger is perceived.

Even though the medical and religious approaches attempt to reduce you to one thing, neuroscience has now shown us that the idea of the human condition as more complex and, in effect, multifaceted. How many times have you been driving on the motorway and your brain has seen some sign of danger that you have not? Taking action which is designed to save you from that danger. Your brain is watching at all times and is always concerned for your safety. When it perceives you to be threatened it shuts you down and takes over. This doesn’t happen because you are somehow broken, mentally ill or possessed. It happens because your brain is working fantastically well!  

This doesn’t happen because you are somehow broken, mentally ill or possessed. It happens because your brain is working fantastically well!

Your brain is your friend

So a big step in your understanding comes when you get the idea that your brain is always trying to help you! It’s not trying to screw up your life or damage you. One more point, if this threat came from when you were very young, then there are two things you need to know. Firstly,  you will not always recognise the threat from your adult experienced position. Remember that the threat your brain is reacting to is a threat to your younger self, not to you. Secondly, The brains reaction is to reproduce the feelings, experience and attitude of when this happened. So you will often notice changes in your thinking as well as in your state.

Consciousness defined

The Real Observer Position

So how should we understand and use the idea of the observer position in relation to our consciousness? The first thing as I said above is to understand that your multifaceted nature is normal and not a result of anything abnormal. The second thing is to realise that your consiousness has two functions. Firstly it is the filter through which all meaning is made. This includes how you ‘hear’ your parts and understand their feelings and protective nature. Secondly it is the potential to be you! It can be truly you, the authentic you, including all your natural resources of calmness, clarity, creativity, curiosity, confidence, courage, connectedness and compassion.

So the way to use this more accurate understanding of the human condition is to raise awareness of your state. Once you have described your state, the next step is to acknowledge that the part of you that is doing the observing is calm! This can be quite a revelation, even though your state might be confused the observer is often clear. This is your ‘true’ or real self which includes all the resources you have to manage yourself.  

So work with your parts from this ‘observer position. Speaking to them as someone who is willing and able to manage the situation, if they will let you. Remember, request, never demand. With practice, you will develop better relationships with your parts and they will trust you to handle situations in which they took over in the past.

A vast majority of the collective is traumatized. It’s our secret, unrecognised, epidemic. Trauma extends far beyond the ‘big’ events. At its core is disconnection from the true self. It presents as depression, as deep lonliness, and anxiety.  All of us have healing to do. All of us are guiding each other home – back to the mind, body, spiritual connection we had at birth. “Broken” is the illusion created by trauma. Wholeness is the truth.

Dr Nicole LePera

Fighting with your ‘self’ is not the best way

One of the most important differences that neuroscience is helping us with is the idea that there is a better way to recover than fighting with yourself.  Never have we been in such a position to understand our inner workings. All the research results we have point towards working with yourself rather than against yourself as the best way forwards.

Traditional, medical based approaches tend to encourage fighting with yourself as a way of recovering through strength and determination. But this is a fight that most people lose, for two reasons. Firstly it is your core self (from your mind) that is figthing your brain. But your brain does not like to be pushed around.  Remember that your brain is programmed to take over at moments of threat. Secondly, your brain is only doing what you have trained it to do. Don’t attack the brain for working really well!

Neuroscience research has shown that hating your addictive nature is for most people counter-productive. This may be a new idea to you and so I want you to take some time to consider it. Remember that we have all been a little brainwashed by the idea of ‘spiritual diseases’ and the Demon drink. What makes it more confusing is that there are some people who have acheived a recovery doing just that! Well, it may have worked for them, but working with yourself is much more liklely to succeed.

We now know that this experience is completely normal. For most people this can involve very useful conversations and progress for us. The main thing to consider if you have any doubts, is where any ‘voices’ come from. If you experience them from outside of yourself, hearing them as you would hear anyone else talking to you, then this is something to investigate with a psychiatrist rather than talking therapy, as it is a sign of an issue with the brain itself. But if the voices are heard within the mind as influences or strategies, then you are talking about a perfectly normal experience. And one that can bring enormous benefits for you in your journey of recovery.  

Anxiety and Depression are not diseases that need medicine

The medical approach always starts with the same idea “what’s wrong with you?” Think of anxiety and depression more like warning signs that there is something in your life that needs attention. Dr Caroline Leaf says these feelings are real but not in need of a medical label. Something needs attention, there is a challenge that is not being faced.  I can’t tell you the number of times someone has come into my counselling room and told me that there is something wrong with them because they are depressed or anxious. But after some discussion I have told them that their depression/anxiety is evidence of their sanity! In other words it’s normal given their situation. If they were not depressed there would be something wrong! 

Addictions, particularly substance based addictions, come about mainly because we develop ways of avoiding feelings. Over the years a belief develops that painful feelings are firstly to be avoided, then that they are dangerous and finally, that they will kill you. This belief continues to strengthen over time and has to be challenged and courageously faced by anyone serious about wanting to recover. Once you begin to think of yourself as working well rather than needing to be fixed, you can start to work with yourself more. Understanding that you have trained your brain to intervene at these times. Taking the time to get to know your self and how your brain intervenes when it perceives a threat to you is a much better way of developing your recovery journey.

There is another important aspect of trauma that you need to understandand is one of the reasons it may have confused you up to now. Remember that it is your younger self that was traumatised, not your mature grown up self. This is important because it means that the threat your brain is reacting to and protecting you from may not be threatening to you as an adult! So you don’t recognise it because it was only threatening to you as a child. This is one of the many ways that trauma can be confusing to us. Common sense does not usually get you there. Especially when that common sense is based upon the medical model.

Trauma is much more common than we think

In the First World War or ‘great war’ as it is known, the phenomenon of ‘shell shock’ was noticed. Soldiers returning from war would stare vacantly for long periods and not speak. I have a memory of my Uncle Johnny who fought in the war, but no memory of his voice. I never heard him speak. Before we understood this better, we tended to think of trauma as being down to the size of the explosion. Now we know that it’s not the size, but how the experience affects us that is the important factor. Clearly this leads to the idea that all sorts of things can cause trauma, not just explosions. The other important factor is that little children are much easier to traumatise than adults. They have little or no knowledge of the way the world works and can be made to believe things very easily. Their brains are not fully formed and their security can be threatened by the smallest things.

This means that there it’s highly likely that you have been traumatised as a youngster. For some of you, this will be obvious and you will have a memory of some bad experience. For others, you will not neccesarily remember anything. This is generally because the event does not seem threatening to you now or that you were very young when it happened. The good news is that neuroscience shows us that we do not have to go down the medical (psychotherapy) route and understand all the causes and conditions. We simply need to talk around these things and show our brain that this ‘threat’ is no longer dangerous. This is called rewiring.

Try this little experiment now. As you are reading this, ask yourself how you are feeling. Can you identify any or all of these eight resources? You may not have access to all of them but you will probably feel the presence of most. This is because you are in your core self. In other words, your brain is trusting you to handle this situation. If you can identify with things like calmness and confidence, clarity and connectedness, then take a moment to imagine this with me. Imagine if you could stay in this state all week, no matter what happened! If you could find a way to remain in your core state all the time you would be recovered! This is because you would be following the beliefs and aims of your core self, which is to not drink or act out on your addiction. It’s that simple. The work is to understand and learn to manage yourself in this way.

Remember, it’s a matter of getting your brain to trust you in situations that you have trained it are dangerous. There are certain techniques for this that are very simple, just the fact that you have read this has already started the process of rewiring. If you want to consider this approach to recovery further, call for a free consultation. 07764996223. You can bring your questions and you will get enought time to consider if you feel you can work with me in this approach. Here is a link to an interview with a client who had spent a small fortune on traditional approaches prior to coming into the A2R treatment. Thanks for taking the time to read this. 

In this piece you will learn what validation is and how it can be problematic when your source of validation is external rather than internal. I will then talk about the connection between validation and recovery as part of self leadership. Let’s go!

Definition

I want you to think of validation as a form of acceptance, a way of knowing who you are which helps you know how you are. The Dictionary defines the form of validation we are concerned with as; 

recognition or affirmation that a person or their feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile. 

 In this approach to recovery I use the metaphor of a ‘Captain’ and I say that you are the Captain of the good ship ‘you’. But it is worth remembering that you are also the ship, the crew and the cargo! When you are not recognised as valid or worthwhile, it’s like sending a message to your brain that “I’m the Captain but the cargo is not worth much”. Just imagine the effect of this message over several years, or decades! 

What this often means is that you may have tried very hard to achieve your recovery but didn’t realise that you had one hand tied behind your back the whole time! Without a well developed understanding of, and method of validation, progress in your recovery will always be an uphill struggle.

External Validation

So where does your validation come from? Often the bulk of our validation comes from outside of ourselves. It takes the form of what job you do, what achievements you have, how successful you have been, or how much people give you feedback that they appreciate your qualities. Now this is not necessarily bad in itself because your achievements may be great and people may well genuinely appreciate them. 

The problems start to mount up when external validation is the only form you are getting, or when the validation is something you feel you have to have, even if you feel you do not deserve it. This is made worse if you are manipulating it out of people or are stretching the truth in order to get it! So what is the main drawback of this form of validation? 

The main drawback is that it can hold you to ransom, you can be blackmailed through it. Think about it, if you need the approval and good opinion of others in order to build your character and worth, then you will probably live in fear of them removing their approval. Likewise, you may find yourself bending over backwards just to keep them happy. You can see how bad it might get, and I know that some of you are identifying with this as you read it.

Validation is often more noticeable by its absence. In other words you don’t often recognise it when it is still provided. Think about going to work. You may be loving your job or you may be resentful and hate it, either way you are receiving validation every moment you are there just by taking on that role. As soon as you acknowledge that this is your role and how to do it, validation is supplied. It’s the same when you tell someone what you do, or when you talk about your hobby or your passion. You aren’t usually doing it to be validated, which is why you don’t always recognise it.

Internal Validation

The recovery journey can be described and defined in many ways. As the journey from indirect to direct communication. As the journey from private to public. As the journey from the dead world to the living world. It can also be described as the journey from external to internal validation! So what does internal validation look like?

Unlike external validation it does not come from what your job is or what you do, your hobbies or your achievements. It comes from an understanding and a belief that you have worth. It is built on the application of embodied principles. In other words it’s not about what others think of you, it’s more about what kind of person you want to be and are willing to work at being. 

So this brings us to the big difference that often occurs between external and internal validation. External validation can be bought, manipulated or just based on doing things. Internal validation cannot. In fact, people around you may not always appreciate the effect your internal validation is having. You can upset the very people that were externally validating you by being more honest and authentic. When we practice principles like honesty and authenticity, humility and generosity, we have to commit to managing these relationships while we are developing our character and this can be one of the biggest challenges of making this part of the journey into recovery.

Using validation in your recovery

Do you find that there are certain times of the day when you always feel worse than others? Are there times when you know it will be difficult to get through it without your ‘support’? It is at these times when you may be switching from external to internal validation. If your internal validation is poor then this transition will be very difficult. It will sometimes feel like you just became a different person. It is at these times that the fridge may call your name! Or the pornography channel, or the gambling web site. This is not a random event, it is to do with how you feel about yourself.

It may be experienced as an acute discomfort that has no real explanation, you just know that it is often at this time when it starts. It’s no accident that this acute discomfort most often happens at around 9pm. It’s at this time that you are most often left to your own devices. It’s often when you are left on your own, if your family has gone to bed. Or it can be a day off, or a weekend with nothing to do. I have worked with people who simply feel that they cannot be on their own, it’s like they disappear when there is no one telling them who they are. You may also recognise the idea of ‘relationship hopping’ in yourself.

I don’t know if you have ever read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I remember realising that all the examples they give of people returning to drink happen when the person was left to their own devices. When they had finished their work. When they were no longer being externally validated! 

So now that you know this you may feel that you understand yourself a little better. Think of these times as opportunities to work with yourself better. Remember that you (and life) trained you to be this way and you can retrain yourself to be different! We learn through difficulties and so I want you to consider facing this challenge. If you have times of day like this please do not fight yourself or hate yourself because of it. Think of it as training and develop a new training program. 

Congratulate and celebrate

Working to produce a harmonised self as opposed to a conflicted self takes time but it is quite a simple process. Think of this difficult feeling as a younger part of you that needs help. Offer that help by first accepting the part as it is. Try to avoid talking with yourself as needing to change, rather accept that this is the way the part feels. The idea is to train the part to trust you by assuring them that you are able and willing to handle this situation. 

How often do you congratulate yourself for doing something well? How often do you celebrate your success with your partner? I want you to know that these processes are so good for your internal validation! Tell yourself many times each day how you are pleased with what you did and how well you did it. Remember, no fantasy! Always use an actual event, it can be as simple as washing up the dishes. When you do this you are sending a message to your brain that you want more of this and your brain will rewire around these ideas.

Self Leadership in recovery

So internally validating is improving your relationship with yourself. And improving your relationship with yourself is the beginning of self leadership. When you realise that you are a ship and its Captain, and that the ship and its cargo are valuable, you are leading yourself into a better future. You are setting a course for a recovered lifestyle. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I wish you all the best in your journey.

It’s at this time you might hear the fridge calling your name