I remember a day that I was undergoing a root canal and had planned to use self hypnosis to deal with the pain of the surgery instead of chemical anesthesia. My dentist had become so accustomed to me using hypnosis for minor dental procedures that he assumed I was ready to go before I had put myself in the necessary mental frame. With a mouth full of dental devices and an approaching drill, I felt a moment of "not ready!" panic and then let it go in order to find a place in my body that was pain free and as far away from my mouth as I could get. I intuitively dove as if off a high dive in my mind down to my ankle and observed the operation from that perspective. I knew what was happening, I could hear and feel the vibration of the drill, but I was not "in" the experience of the root canal surgery. I was in the pure "observer" place, away from physical and emotional pain.

This is an interesting example of how our mind creates the reality of our experience. While you may be thinking that you could never have a root canal without anesthesia, I assure you it is possible if (and this is a big if) you were willing to believe that you could do it and took the time to learn the skills. Perhaps the most difficult part is the willingness to suspend our limiting beliefs, especially the ones that are unconscious. Research clearly shows that beliefs affect outcome. What people expect to happen tends to happen, in clinical research and in everyday life. Learning to use this human phenomenon to our advantage and becoming aware of our limiting beliefs allows us to expand our possibilities for change and growth. 

The position of "observer", a place of detached attentiveness, allows us to notice things that might otherwise go unseen because of  emotional reaction or ego or cognitive involvement. There is no judgement, no fear, no ownership, but simply a pure state of awareness. It is a surrender to what is, an allowing of things to be, and allowing them to be okay. I was not actively participating in the experience of the root canal; I had stepped outside the event to have a different experience of the event. This process created an altered reality for me, one with no pain.

In Native American tradition, medicine men often fast in preparation for training experiences because of their belief that you can only take in new information when you are not already full, that fullness is a form of distraction that obscures our ability to observe and learn. And so an exercise to obtain wisdom might be to sit still in a meadow or on a hilltop for a day or two and just notice what goes on around you. We may not be willing (or believe ourselves able) to create the necessary arrangements to sit in a meadow for a day or two. Our lifestyles tend to be very full of distraction and busy-ness that seem to preclude taking that much time "off" to observe. But we can utilize smaller chunks of time and shift our perspective to a place of observation in a way that encourages the practice and can free us from unwanted pain. Next time you are sitting in your car at a railroad crossing or standing in a line, instead of distracting yourself with what is next on your list of things to do or being annoyed at having to wait, use that time to just notice what is around you. Stop thinking for a few moments and just observe, just notice, just breathe. Cultivate this practice at intervals when it is convenient to the situation. Then cultivate it daily, making time for it for a few minutes in your day. For many people, this process of observation serves as a powerful tool to seek wisdom and understanding in order to solve a problem, decrease pain, or gain new awareness. 

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In order to change a behavioral pattern it is necessary to address the mental and emotional habits that support the status quo. We tend to think the same thoughts, reenact the same emotional scenarios, and do the same things over and over. Neural pathways become well established highways and the unconscious mind continues to repeat the sequence for the comfort of familiarity and the illusion of safety. I learned this as a psychotherapist and am learning it again in my Alexander Technique lessons as I continue to focus on the interaction of body and mind and spirit. 

 If our pattern involves an object we develop electromagnetic circuitry in the exchange of energy. Often we give that object (whether it is a person or a substance or a role) power by believing we need it, that it will make us feel better. With over-identification,  we can become dependent, passive, lose connection with our intuition and our self esteem. It is more our emotional needs that drive the addictive pattern, and they are often unconscious. As an example, many of us who felt out of control in our past developed habits of being right, doing things perfectly, winning, or controlling / caretaking others only to find that these patterns took control of us. And sometimes when the stress of these driving patterns became too intense, we often medicated ourselves with alcohol or food or sex and then became controlled by these addictions, again manifesting the very thing we feared. 

The easiest way I know to make the unconscious more conscious is via observation without judgement. In Alexander lessons we pay attention to how we sit, how we move, how we think and feel. We inhibit the undesirable old pattern of misuse and re-direct in a new way to restore ease of use and motion. If we notice that fear triggers an automatic response pattern of crunching shoulders, what happens to our body if we consciously choose to think about opening and widening the shoulders? To take it a step further, what happens to the fear if we make the unconscious energy conscious and re-direct it to a new  pathway? Stephen Wolinsky in his book Quantum Consciousness, wrote "in order for anything to exist in the physical universe, it must have energy". So our real power lies in recognizing and re-directing that energy into pathways that better serve us. Our real power lies in the choices we make in this moment about where we put our attention and what actions we take in response. It is not so much about what happens to us in this life, but rather how we choose to deal with it. 

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