Has The Lower Self Taken Over After Trauma?
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Trauma—whether physical or psychological—leaves a mark on a person’s psyche for an entire lifetime. These experiences will shape the perceptions of the individuals who survived them. Traumas usually buried in the background script of the subconscious mind empower lower-self tendencies. When we speak of the lower self, we don’t mean to pass judgement, we are merely using it as a reference to distinguish between energy that is empowering and uplifting and what feels heavy and draining. The lower self’s energy weighs a person down.
In the majority of cases involving physical trauma, the body will heal, but the psychological impact of many traumas is usually overlooked or not appropriately treated. People who’ve endured physical trauma will not relive it physically, but such traumas can leave imprints as its energetic signature remains in the energy field causing psychological problems until it is released. Triggers generated out of abuse, accidents, serious illness, dis-ease, and shock can themselves evoke traumatic responses.
Anxiety, deception, fear, greed, inflexibility, insecurity, jealousy, lust, manipulation, violence, and the like, all stem from the lower-self. It is not the higher self who feels separate of others or wants to be stuck in destructive patterns resulting from particular traumas or of generational wounding. The higher self aspires to transcend duality and all its limiting beliefs and expand its consciousness.
The lower-self is in power when we function with, or witness arrogance and conceit, disharmony, lack of appreciation and trust, victimhood mentality, to name a few. The lower-self operates out of any aspect of our life that binds us to low frequencies. Repetitive negative patterns are born of the wounded lower-self. These aspects are often rooted in—and cultivated—following trauma because it is so easy then to lose touch with the wonderment of life. They don’t originate from Soul the highest aspect of us that came here to experience joy.
Aspects of the lower-self have been given names of archetypes by some scholars. Just like there are two sides to every coin, these aspects have both empowering and disempowering frequencies. Some people call the lower aspects of self their demons. Transforming lower aspects is possible if a person is open to recognize the patterns blocking their connection to the higher-self/Soul. The victim can transform into the warrior. There are times when the rebel archetype may be needed, but there are times when the rebel should concede.
Whether we call aspects of our self archetypes or not, these energy patterns are nonetheless active in our lives. Many people wounded from trauma have a difficult time recognizing their disempowered state. It is believed that by age 35, 95% of our thinking has been automatically acquired and is past programming. Reiki can help us uncover the underlying energies active in the background.
The part of us that is there to keep us alive, the ego, is usually over-inflated if it is mostly sharing space with the lower-self.
Everyone has a shadow or darker side. There’s just no getting around it. Everything has an opposite. The question is; which self is running our life? If it is the lower-self, our experiences will be less than joyful. If life is filled with perpetual chaos and drama and there’s no compassion for self and others, no getting out of destructive patterns or perceived comfort zones, we can bet the lower-self is in charge. We can’t run away from our lower-self, we have to embrace our shadow. It serves to teach us, but it isn’t supposed to take over.
Attending to our spiritual nature is especially important after experiencing trauma to help restore balance. This is when energy healing with Reiki is extremely helpful as Reiki brings us within. It is in a place of openness and stillness that we reconnect with the spiritual aspect of us waiting to be discovered. The aspect of us that’s never been separate from Love is whole and healed is found within.