There is a fundamental core within each of us where our true nature resides. Our learned patterns of relating to ourselves and the world cause us to get pulled off our center, coming out of alignment with our True Self. While these conditioned patterns were at one time useful, continuing to live from them prevents us from experiencing the ease and beauty of our own true nature. In this remarkable exploration of the human condition, Harmony Kwiker provides a clear and comprehensive map to rediscovering how to live and love from the True Self, including how to come back to wholeness by accessing your subtle energy body, how to embody your alignment in all of your relationships and how to explore sexual intimacy in a sacred way.
Differentiating from Our Conditioning
Our conditioned sense of self develops quietly, in the privacy of
our own mind. We use this sense of self to navigate the world, and
yet it continues to guide us from a cloaked position of obscurity
and dominance all at once. Both incessant in its beliefs about
who we are and anonymous in its voice, our conditioned self can
govern both our inner world and our movements in the outer
world instinctively and impulsively, without conscious choice.
Our conditioned self was created during relational
interactions with others and is rooted in the meaning we
made from the way other people expressed themselves in our
presence. The way others treated us and the way we observed
them treating one another informed the way we learned to be
in the world. At the time that our psychological identity was
formed, we were young and dependent on our caregivers for
safety and belonging. The conditioned thoughts and behaviors
we developed were adaptive and came from a deep wisdom.
We found safety, security, and a sense of power through our
conditioned ideas and strategies. However, continuing to use
the learned patterns that were created in the past keeps us from
experiencing the life we long for in the present.
The conditioned self lives within the mind as an intangible
and pervasive set of misbeliefs that we unconsciously use as
we move through the world. Any moment that we are not
actively choosing how we want to show up for ourselves, our
relationship, and life itself we are relying on outdated ways of
being. The false stories we hold about ourselves and the world
become habitual narratives that seem true because we’ve been
thinking them and acting from them for so long.
To discern our conditioned sense of self from the truth of
who we are is the revolutionary act of claiming ourselves as
whole, sovereign beings. To be sovereign means that we are
autonomous and we have self-authority, where we are not
acting or thinking from antiquated patterns and schema that we
acquired from other people.
Awareness of our conditioned self makes it possible for us
to be in choice about how we relate to ourselves and the world.
When we are aware and in choice, we are able to respond to life
from our sovereignty. Because the patterns of our conditioned
self have been with us for many years, we unconsciously rely on
them to navigate the world. Day in and day out, we stay asleep
to the True Self when we follow the messages and patterns of our
conditioned self around as if it is who we are. We must cultivate
practices to increase awareness of our thoughts, mindfulness of
our emotions, and consciousness of our words and actions.
This deep level of attentiveness to how we are makes
it possible to see the imprint of our conditioned self with
more clarity. This clarity is necessary to differentiate from
our conditioned self, making it possible to distinguish our
conditioning from our essence. Becoming aware of our learned
patterns allows us to get distance from them. This space gives
us the opportunity to be in choice. And to be in choice is what
makes room for transformation and healing.
Until we can clearly distinguish our conditioned self from
our True Self, every movement, every word, every response,
every reaction that we express is influenced by our conditioning.
Since these familiar ways of relating to ourselves and others
were at one time adaptive, they “seem” to work. For example,
if we created an adaptive strategy to keep stability in a family
where one or both parents were emotionally volatile, we might
have a very strong impulse to be a perfectionist. At the time
we were dependent on our caregivers for safety, being perfect
for them gave us a sense of power when we were powerless.
It made it so we could exist in an unstable and unpredictable
environment.
As we grow up, if we continue to use our perfectionistic
strategies habitually, the strategy becomes fixed. We continue
to try to be perfect in all things, even when the threat of
volatility is not present. Because we get a sense of control from
the perfectionist’s voice, we feel more powerful allowing it to
guide us, even when beneath this voice is a fear of not being
enough driving its patterning.
Since our conditioned self is rooted in experiences that
happened long ago, habitually following the patterns of our
conditioning and believing the distorted narratives is easy;
it’s the path of least resistance. It seems normal to believe the
messages of our conditioning because we’ve been doing it
for most of our lives. However, although easy to follow, it is
this aspect of our inner world that is the cause of our limiting
beliefs, relationship challenges, emotional pain, dissociation,
and reactions. Continuing in this manner prevents us from
living in alignment with our true potential.
The Role of Our Caregivers
We don’t come into this life with a sense of self or an identity.
Having just come from Source, the vital energy of divine love
that many people call God, we are deeply rooted in the universal
bliss of loving awareness when we are first born. More in the
spirit realm than the physical realm, we are born in a state of
oneness or confluence, where there are no boundaries between
ourselves and others. Confluence means that our sense of self
literally comes from others, that we are merged with them.
Boundaryless by nature, children only know they exist
because they are seen, and what we are seen for matters greatly
to our developing sense of self. Merged with those around us,
we are dependent on our caregivers to teach us about who we
are, both directly and indirectly. In the first few years of our life,
what people say about us, how they treat us, how they seem to
relate to the world, how they represent their gender, and how
they relate to their own mind/body/spirit becomes our map for
how to navigate the world. We either mirror it, or react against
it, trying to find a way to fit in this world based on what we
observe.
Walking around with an invisible umbilical cord that keeps
us tethered to our biological mother, we begin to explore who
we are as a separate being from her around the age of 18 months.
Even in the case of early maternal death, adoption, or surrogacy,
the energetic cords that tie us to our biological mother persist in
the unconscious development of self, especially as it relates to
our emotional and spiritual sense of self.
Finding our all-powerful will, discovering the word “no,”
and building competency is our task at this time, and the way
that our caregivers relate to us in this process impacts the way
we relate to our own sense of self and our power and will.
Wanting to find a sense of belonging and safety, we
instinctively pick up on social cues and undeclared agreements
about how to relate to the environment. And as we do this,
we begin to make up stories about ourselves and others. We
develop misbeliefs about who we are, and we start to identify
with those thoughts. Our conditioned self informs our identity,
causing our sense of reality to be seated in past experiences.
From our learned sense of self, we collect evidence of where our
worth comes from, and we cultivate habitual patterned ways of
being based on our sense of worthiness.
Our nervous system is affected by these experiences, and we
intuitively control our internal experience in order to find inner
and outer stability. When the field around us doesn’t support
our health and wholeness, it’s common to feel unsafe in our
bodies; this is where dissociative patterns and denial of our
somatic intelligence begin.
In the developing of these patterns, we begin to cloak our
vulnerability and hide our authentic expressions with a wall
around our hearts. The cloak and the wall are invisible defenses
against the pain of conditional love, coercion, and shame.
Having come into this world with an open heart, ready to give
and receive love unconditionally, hiding our vulnerability
is antithetical to our true nature. Although painful, building
walls around our heart seems like the safest thing to do in an
environment that neither sees us for our fullness nor supports
the wholeness of our true expression.
The Ego
From 18 months to 4 years of age, ego development takes place.
This is when we implicitly develop a sense of self. Discreetly, in
the privacy of our own mind, our psychological identity forms.
Significant events that happen during this time have a clear
impact on the way we self-identify. In Latin, the word “ego”
literally translates to the word “I.” The psychological meaning
of ego is about our identity, who we think we are.
We need an identity to navigate the world. The ego is not bad.
It’s not something to rid ourselves of. It’s simply important to
know that in an effort to create an identity that gives us a sense
of esteem and worth, the developing ego clings to information
that gives us the most sense of power, security, and control. No
matter how maladaptive the ego-identity seems, it is rooted in
an attempt at helping us find our place in this world.
For example, when I was 4 years old, my parents divorced
and my sister came in and told me that it was my fault that Dad
left. My developing sense of self was influenced significantly
by this experience. I became self-identified with the idea that
there is something inherently wrong with me and that I make
people go away. The way this sense of self caused me to relate
to the world was through the lens of shame, hiding parts of
myself to try to earn love and safety. Because I had a general
sense of control utilizing this strategy, it “seemed” to work.
It became such an integral part of my inner landscape that I
didn’t even know it was present within me. I instinctively
quieted my truth and hid my pain, protecting myself from more
loss and heartache. Never really showing myself to anyone, I
moved through the world trying to be as small and agreeable
as possible.
We come to believe that who we are is the idea of ourselves
that we created during events that happened when we were first
developing an identity. Our sense of self isn’t stagnant. It’s an
ever evolving and changing process that happens in relationship
throughout our lifespan. However, when we stay fixed in
patterns that are seated in our most formative years, our ego
identity is very young and prevents us from experiencing the
rich, deep relationships we know we’re capable of co-creating.
From 5 to 7 years of age, we develop our superego, which
is the acquired values of social standards that live as the selfcritical
voice within. For example, a superego may value being
self-sacrificing, being “good” and virtuous, thinking of one’s
self first, or making our own way in the world. A superego may
put a value on saving money, achieving success, or finding
security in social groups.
The age of 7 is the phase of individuation where we know
that we are separate from others. Developmentally, this is a
very important milestone as we cultivate the capacity to think
about how to approach a problem of our own volition.
And by the age of 10, our ego and superego are developed,
and we build off of the messages of these constructs to guide
our thinking and behavior. This becomes our patterned way of
being in the world, which is called our personality or character
structure. The root word for “personality” is “persona,” and
in Latin “persona” literally translates to the word “mask.”
The mask of our personality conceals our brilliant essence and
the authentic expression of our vital force. From the age of 10
onwards, until we choose differently, this mask is the aspect
that we use to interact with the environment.
As we identify with our conditioned self and use behaviors
that mask our essence, we interact with the world from the
most limiting, small version of ourselves. Hiding our heart
and behaving as if we are disconnected from Source, we trap
ourselves in learned behaviors. Knowing that there is more to
who we are, we seek a way out of our conditioned ways of being.
Even when we cannot feel the presence of our truest self, we are
always connected to Source. This bond is unbreakable. However,
we can easily forget how to be aligned within ourselves when
our identity is rooted in a false aspect of who we are.
Our ego can distort much of our experience of ourselves and
the world. For example, if we have perfectionistic tendencies,
our ego created a delusion of perfection that gives us a sense
of control and separateness. This delusion was formed as an
adaptable way to find safety in the world; however, as a fixed
delusion we follow our misbeliefs of our ego around as if they
are true, as if there is some perfection to attain.
Unfinished Business from the Past
When any aspect of our life feels incomplete, it lives within us
unfinished. Each one of us has several incomplete, undigested
experiences that influence the way we relate to ourselves and
the world. The culmination of the unfinished business from
the past is what drives the impulses we have in the present. In
an unconscious attempt to complete the unfinished business,
we project the experience onto current realty and relate to the
environment from our past pain and hurt. The thoughts we
had during the original event and the meaning we made of the
experience influences our current reality and prevents us from
contacting this moment with presence and awareness.
The event that remains unfinished matters less than our
relationship to the event and how it lives within us. An extremely
painful event, like the loss of a parent during childhood, could
be an event that feels mostly complete to a person if they had
space and connection to feel the pain and fully experience the
loss while held in love and compassion. Although the pain may
surface from time to time, the relationship to the loss may be
one of peace and acceptance. Reconnecting with the spirit of
the loved one may be useful in saying anything that has been
left unsaid, but the loss will not override the experience of
the present when the person has had room to fully feel and
metabolize the grief.
On the other hand, an event like being ghosted or stood up
by friends in high school could have a more extreme influence
over a person’s way of relating to the world if they were never
able to process the event. If they shoved their pain to the side,
put on a face of indifference, and covered up their authentic
experience, this could have a huge influence over the person’s
adult relationships. Perhaps the person has built a wall up to
keep connection out so that they won’t be hurt again, and they
may even treat others as disposable if they never let themselves
feel the hurt of being treated as if they didn’t matter. They
would do this, of course, not to purposefully hurt others, but in
an unconscious attempt at resolving the past.
When the events that contributed to our sense of self live
within us unfinished and unexplored, we develop strategies
based on the incompleteness of the experience. In an unconscious
attempt to make sense of our past, we utilize the strategies we
developed during those events in an effort to complete the
experience. The unresolved past influences how we engage in
relationships or withdraw from them. It guides how we assert
ourselves or collapse around our will, how we honor ourselves
or betray our own boundaries, how we receive attention or
deflect it, how we acknowledge our own needs or ignore them,
and how we accomplish tasks or procrastinate them.
The impulse that precedes these strategies comes from
the unhealed and unprocessed pain that lives within our felt
experience and prevents us from making contact with ourselves
and the world. It’s a protective mechanism, a defense of sorts,
which is unconsciously intended to secure our place in our
family and social structures. However, these strategies disrupt
our access to our wholeness and to intimacy, and by using them,
we prevent ourselves from experiencing deep contact with our
True Self as well as with the world.
When we try to create a new experience of ourselves and of
relationships, yet keep finding ourselves in familiar emotional
and mental patterns, we are being called to connect with the
place in us that carries the pain from the past. Even if the mind
thinks we’re over the experience, the familiarity of the pattern
tells the truth of what is incomplete. When we relate to the
world embodying our unfinished business, we feel powerless to
create any real change.
The story of the unfinished business is not as important as the
felt sense of ourselves. By accessing the emotional expression
and the misbeliefs, we can begin to metabolize the past. For
example, if we withdraw from relationships because we were
neglected in childhood, contacting the felt experience of
withdrawal is an entry point to moving through the experience.
As you’ll see in Chapter 10, working with our inner young one
is essential in fully moving through the past to completion.
To be present and open to life and relationship without the
influence of the unfinished past inhibiting our connections, we
must feel what we previously were unable to feel. And as we
feel and metabolize all that our system is holding, we must be
patient and compassionate with ourselves. There is no rush to
complete the unfinished business. There’s no urgency to be
fully updated. We can only metabolize that which we are aware
of, and our awareness will only see that which we are ready to
look at.
The conditioned self developed as a means of self-regulation.
In moments of stress and trauma, we instinctively developed
thoughts and behavioral patterns in an attempt to soothe our
dysregulation. We continue to use the conditioned patterns
when we feel the activation of stress in our systems. The patterns
themselves give us a sense of power, control, and safety. When
we consciously stop using our conditioned patterns, we are
choosing to feel and process the stress and trauma response that
lives beneath the patterns.
The Role of Trauma
The word trauma can evoke different reactions in different
people . With the continuum of trauma being so vast, it can
be challenging for some of us to recognize our own trauma.
Through the transpersonal lens, all trauma has us feel split from
our connection from our alignment with Source. This split could
happen at birth, when we were left in our crib to cry it out,
when our experience was discounted, when we were neglected,
when someone violated our boundaries, and so on.
When we have a generally “good” relationship with our
parents, it can be challenging to identify any trauma that
would cause us to feel disconnected from our alignment. With
no obvious traumatic events to point to as the moment our
limiting misbeliefs and patterned behaviors were created, it
might seem like our conditioned self is normal or functional
or just who we are.
Many of us do not realize that we are walking around with
trauma until we dedicate our attention to looking within. Our
habitual patterns are an attempt at regulating our nervous
system, which is an indicator of the stress and trauma that was
present when our conditioned patterns first began. Looking at
the underlying cause of our habitual patterns, we might begin
to see that we felt unsafe in life from a young age. Even if we
can’t recall the traumatic events from our explicit memory, the
experience of not feeling safe is enough to create a movement
into full identification with our conditioning.
Traumatic events are often not easily recalled because they
seemed normal to the child who experienced them. Being
accommodating and accepting of the unsafe, neglectful, or
misattuned environment was the adaptive strategy that kept us
safe. When our parents lacked emotional maturity, discounted
our experience, and/or walked around in a state of stress, our
response was an attempt at creating balance in a system that
was not designed for our health and well-being.
For those of us with a chronic and complex history of trauma,
we have more awareness about the events that shaped us. As a
young child dependent on others for safety, the shock of trauma
teaches us that we need to be vigilant in order to find our way
in the world. This vigilance gives our conditioned self more
power, leaving less attention and energy available to nurture
our higher-level needs.
When we are in a trauma response, we don’t have access to
our alignment with Source as safety. Physical cruelty, sexual
violations, extreme neglect, and near-death accidents can make
it seem as if there is not a presence of divine love within or
without. Emotionally immature caregivers, dissociated alcoholic
caregivers, and abandonment or death of a caregiver can also
contribute to the traumatic wound of being discarded or rejected
from Source. In its place, darkness and loneliness can dim any
perceived potential or hope for a diff erent experience of life.
All patterns exist to ensure our survival. When we have
experienced chronic trauma, we cling to our patterns in an
attempt to keep us safe and alive. However, in using these
patterns we are keeping ourselves fixed in the past, which
prevents us from feeling truly alive.
When we contract around our pain and create our identity
in response to other people’s shadows, the imprint of darkness
can seem too large to overcome. The influence of darkness and
trauma on our sense of self is the first place that needs our
attention. Because we were not given the space or guidance to
move through the traumas, we integrated them as part of our
self-concept as a way to make sense of the experiences.
Trauma that lives within us unfinished will find ways to get
our attention, whether through panic attacks, rage, paranoia,
insomnia, dissociation, social anxiety, physical ailments, lack of
self-trust, and so on. These symptoms are an invitation to touch
the places in us that were violated in the past and bring the loving
awareness we needed back then into our being in the present.
Our ability to explore and move through our unfinished
business shifts our relationship to our conditioned self.
Metabolizing past experiences increases our awareness of how
we cloak our essence and keep ourselves out of alignment.
This awareness affords us the choice to honor our tender
vulnerability, authentic truth, and essential wholeness. People
from our past may have treated us in ways that made it wholly
unsafe to stay in contact with these true and pure places within
us; however, these places are still there. Beneath the layers of
trauma and conditioning, our essence and alignment await.
To be in choice about where we live from, we take our power
back from those who misused their power. We show up to life,
fully expressed and whole. Knowing that there is so much more
to us than what the world has taught us about ourselves, we
get to create the life we want to live. Slowly, over time, as we
unravel the web of learned misbeliefs, we discover that we have
always been free.
Harmony’s Story
I was alone in my room putting a puzzle together, my favorite
pastime. My dad walked in and said, “I’m not going to be
around as much. I’ll be living in a different house.”
Shock ran through my body. I was 4 years old and my family
was breaking apart. He picked up his bags, and I watched through
the front window as he walked to his truck and drove away.
I stood there alone for a few minutes, feeling the emptiness
of my abandonment. Then I walked back to my bedroom and
resumed solving my puzzle. As I tried to put the pieces back
together, my sister ran in and yelled, “It’s all your fault! Dad
left because of you! I wish you had never been born!”
Since she was older than me and knew how to do everything
better than me, I believed her. I went to check on my mom, and
she lay on her bed weeping, “I can’t believe he would do this
to us.”
I recoiled within myself, trying to hide my presence. If my
being born caused this pain, I unconsciously reasoned that
I needed to be as small, quiet, and as perfect as possible. My
conditioned self became accommodating, trying to please those
around me to earn my existence. My habitual thoughts became
centered on my unlovability, and my habitual patterns were
designed to try to find safety and love.
Because everyone else’s pain was so great, I hid my pain
and my truth. The mask I presented to the world was one of
perfection. Part of being perfect included needing nothing and
feeling unaffected by those who hurt me.
Exercise: Identify the Mask
Our conditioning will always be our conditioning. Living
from this place is the path of least resistance. We find a sense
of safety and control when we live from our conditioning. The
conditioned self loops on in certain themes. Getting to know the
themes of our conditioned self is what makes it more possible
to differentiate from it. And differentiating from it makes it
more possible to metabolize the experiences from the past and
discover a new, more generative way of expressing our energy.
Knowing the mask of the conditioned self is essential in
differentiating from it. When we can look at our mask with
curiosity and clarity, we are no longer identified with it. We get
space and distance from it, and in that space we are embodying
a truer aspect of ourselves—our witness mind.
To begin the journey back to the True Self, we must first get
really clear on the conditioned ways we move in the world.
Take a few moments to consider what pulls the attention of
your mind most of the time. What are the main themes of what
you think about throughout the day? What impulses lie beneath
those themes? For example, maybe work pulls the attention of
your mind most of the day, or your appearance, or intimate
relationships. What is the theme beneath those thoughts? Look
deep within the matrix of your mind to discover how your
conditioned values guide the way you currently interact with
the world. Make a list.
Next, take a few moments to consider how you interact in
relationships with those closest to you. Separate from what
you think about all day, consider the way you show up during
conversation and connection with others. Maybe you listen to
others and hide your opinion, maybe you talk about yourself a
lot, or maybe you talk about other people and gossip. What are
the underlying motivations of the way you interact as you relate
to others? Make a list.
Walkaway with Wisdom
The main concepts of this chapter focus on how we develop
limiting patterns that become fixed ways of being in the world.
In early development, children only know they exist because
they are seen by others. When a child is only seen for their roles,
personality, and behaviors, they mature into an adult who
identifies with those attributes. In the absence of an attuned,
safe connection with their caregivers, a person’s sense of self
is limited to learned behaviors and survival strategies they
developed in an attempt to self-regulate during childhood.
Although these behaviors and strategies were once adaptive,
when they become fixed patterns of relating to one’s self and
others, inner peace and deep connection are inhibited.
When an event feels stressful or traumatic, it tends to have
a greater influence over our conditioned self. Because the ego
wants safety and control, conditioned patterns persist to ensure
our existence. When we identify with the conditioned self, we
believe that who we are is what others taught us about ourselves.
With an identity wrapped up in learned ideas and behaviors
from the past, we live from the smallest aspect of ourselves.
In an unconscious attempt to complete the unfinished
business, we project the experience onto current realty and
relate to the environment from our past pain and hurt. To be
present and open to life and relationship without the influence
of the unfinished past inhibiting our connections, we must feel
what we previously were unable to feel.