I used to be afraid of cats and dogs and driving. Those were old patterns inside my deep inner mind.  Fortunately, these patterns, also called “samskaras” in Sanskrit, no longer exist in me.  They are healed, and I will soon show you how. I must say that Goldie the dog who always smiled and Velvet the cat who knew how to bring comfort to distress, played a role—as did the nice old red convertible that someone gave me a long time ago and that beckoned me to finally drive it!  But there is much more to releasing these old habits of the mind.

We have many of these patterns, these samskaras, that hold us back. They make you think you’re “less than” and limited, convince you that you don’t have enough, and so much more. They make you choose the same kinds of partners, foods, habits, and thoughts over and over again.

 These “samskaras” live in our deep inner minds. They aren’t really real, but they feel real much of the time, like the “bogeyman” who lived under our bed when we were little. They’re in the deep inner mind, which is like a database, like Google. They can be called up and triggered by something similar to them. They can be found when we put them on “search.” Sometimes, they show up when we don’t really want them to.

Many of these samskaras have been there for lifetimes, waiting for us to heal them and see that they’re not really real. And we are not powerless over them. We can pay attention to them, release them, and heal them. We came here to do this. It’s one of our life’s purposes—to heal and transform the bogeymen and women of the mind so we can live in enlightenment and freedom. We’ll talk more about this soon. The remedies are on the way in future posts!

 Why These Mind Problems Exist

One of the reasons for these self-defeating thoughts is that they are patterns or habits of mind or thought forms on “tape-loops” inside you. You probably have carried them within you your entire life and perhaps in all of your lifetimes.  Many people believe that you bring these patterns of thought with you from other lifetimes. In this case, babies are not the innocents that we think they are. You carry scripts inside of thought forms, neural pathways and habits of mind that will determine what kinds of thoughts you’ll think. If you have a strong critic inside, it will do its critical dance. If you have a strong self-defeated voice inside, it will show up as self defeat. The possibilities are endless.

Another Reason for These Habits of Mind

Your patterns can also come from wounds, whether old or recent –of seeming failures and old hurts. Maybe someone influential in your life had these old hurts as well. Some people have hurts in love, some around money; others have them around feeling healthy. So you keep on recreating the old patterns because your being is seeking to heal them.

Samskaras Show Up Whenever They Want To

It’s almost as if they have a mind of their own. Suddenly you may be feeling like you’re not good enough to do whatever possibility is in front of you—even if you’ve been planning to do it for a long time. Or suddenly, you may begin to feel sad about losing a friend—even if you’ve come to terms with that a long time ago. Or suddenly you may feel angry at something you thought you had dealt with years ago. The samskaras keep popping up. The first thing to do is to make them   conscious instead of unconscious. Pay attention to them—not wallow in them—but watch them from the state of the Witness or the non-judgmental “Watcher” within. Just look. You will be able to say, “So that’s what I’ve been experiencing, feeling, or seeing all these years.”  There are more steps, and we’ll look at those very soon.

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