Seth, whom Jane Roberts channelled, spoke of an innate body optimism that we are all born with. Both Jan and I immediately had the thought of birth trauma, the body’s welcoming birth committee of perinatal challenges, that Stan Grof has so thoroughly delineated.
Almost immediately, our query was answered when Seth gave the analogy of a child’s birth being equivalent to the first opening of the petals on a flower.* Regardless of the effort or trauma experienced in arriving at new life, that innate impetus toward life propels us to open to it. We are born optimists.
Seth goes on to suggest that this innate body optimism always moves toward health and healing. What brings in disease, issues from the mental plane of existence in the form of thoughts that limit our inherent optimism and instruct the subconscious mind to generate feared states of being.
These limiting beliefs are derived from the overarching socialized belief in the inevitable breakdown of the physical body, which is marked by the occurrence of predictable medical conditions throughout the course of the life cycle. In fact, many diagnostic tests are indicated to be performed as one reaches certain ages, subtly reinforcing the inevitability of decline. These are the suggestions that often manifest disease.
Medicine has yet to discover the power of the mental plane to both generate and cure disease. In fact, it remains staunchly prejudiced by a material perspective in its healing prescriptions. A typical course of treatment requires some form of pharmacological medicine or surgical intervention to restore health.
Psychology suffers a similar prejudice in its approach to healing. For instance, no academic discipline for the mental healing professions teaches dreamwork. Dreams are the messengers of the soul, which deliver to us the cause and cure of our ailments. Psyche means soul in Greek. How can one learn about psyche if they don’t consult the soul?
The soul, like the body, is inherently optimistic. Dreams are the soul’s attempt to keep us in balance, as they take us deeper into our mystical journey of life. Our mental rejection of the value of dreaming largely emanates from the ego dimension of the mental plane.
The mental plane is the spirit plane, and the ego is the part of that plane that is largely identified with the physical body, which it is primarily assigned to navigate. The soul, which issues from a much more subtle dimension of the spirit plane, views life from a far vaster energetic perspective, which includes both body and soul. Thus ego, though itself a part of soul, actually identifies itself with the body and therefore rejects its life on the spirit plane.
Learning to think in new ways begins with linking to our inherent optimism of both body and soul. The ego, through its internalized limiting beliefs, coupled with the ever-present drone of its internal dialogue, constantly bombards the subconscious mind with negative suggestions. For healing to progress, ego must align its intent with the optimistic healing powers of the body and soul.
The subconscious mind is also part of, and located in, the soul on the spirit plane, right at the crossroads of spirit intent and material energy. The subconscious is a magical factory. It transforms spirit suggestions into material objects and reality. Therefore, it might take a negative thought suggestion as its building plan, from which it emotionally manufactures a depressed mood that then registers in the body as physical inertia.
Negative thoughts, over time, become strong habits that are reflected in the posture and condition of the physical body. Dreams, in their unique symbolic language, offer commentary and solutions to overcome the detrimental impacts of these diseased mental habits. Dreams can restore the innocence of one’s inherent optimism, which is bathed in the energy that anything is possible.
When we open to our dreams and take responsibility for the quality of our internal dialogue, by presenting optimistic suggestions to our subconscious mind, we realign both our body and soul with the optimism of health and healing.
We must understand that, yes, when we came into physical incarnation we had an intent to explore a facet of life that would likely land us in adversive circumstances that would traumatize our body and soul. Trauma is a necessary entree into deeper life exploration, which must be transgressed. However, beyond trauma is the much greater energy of body and soul optimism, which always points toward the true north of health, growth and fulfillment.
When we view all circumstances in our life with the equanimity of an underlying optimism, that is sure of mastery and ultimate fulfillment, we indeed learn to think in new ways.
Value your dreams and optimize your optimistic suggestions. May this open you to pure innocence and awe, and one hell of a fulfilling life.
With great optimism,
Chuck
* The Way Toward Health by Jane Roberts, A Seth Book, p. 69