Welcome to Chuck’s Place! This is where Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R, expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Currently, Chuck posts an essay once a week, currently on Tuesdays, along the lines of inner work, psychotherapy, Jungian thought and analysis, shamanism, alchemy, politics, or any theme that makes itself known to him as the most important topic of the week. Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy page.
This is an interactive blog. Read it to yourself or listen to it. Do not listen to it while driving. This is also my last blog post until Tuesday July 9, 2024. Listen to it as often as you like, and each time you do, you will go deeper.
I safely close my eyes and withdraw my attention from the outside world. My conscious mind observes passively the effects on my body of suggestions I give to my subconscious mind. I stress: my mind and body are completely passive, they needn’t make anything happen. They are present to experience the magic and independent ability of my subconscious mind to manifest my suggestions.
Before I knock on the door to my subconscious with my requests I remind myself that I, as ego architect, must initiate through suggestion, then get out of the way, as my subconscious mysteriously fulfills my suggestions. I am confident and direct as I deliver my suggestions.
I speak to you, my subconscious. You are the master of my body’s functioning. With love and gratitude I firmly present to you my intentions. As I state them I passively observe their fulfillment.
My feet feel deeply relaxed.*
My ankles, my knees and my hips feel relaxed and comfortable.
My solar plexus and the whole central part of my body feel relaxed and quiet.
My hands, my arms and my shoulders feel relaxed and comfortable.
My neck, my jaw and my tongue feel relaxed and comfortable.
My forehead feels relaxed and smooth.
My eyes are quiet and relaxed.
My entire body feels quiet, comfortable and relaxed.
I am quite relaxed.
I feel quite quiet.
My mind is calm and quiet.
I feel serene and still.
I trust my body, it will never let me down.
I notice now the impact of these suggestions upon my body and mind. I am deeply calm and relaxed. I know that I have been delivered to a resting place that will deepen every time I repeat these suggestions.
I realize that I am in the presence of creation. My conscious spirit stimulated my subconscious soul body to manifest the calm I now feel. Their sacred union gave birth to my present state of being. This is the loving relationship that brings forth new possibilities of me.
I am grateful and I am thankful for this loving relationship as it delivers me to new life.
If I am ready to launch into rejuvenative sleep, off I go.
If I am ready to return to outer focus and activity, I suggest that my subconscious restore me to fully engage waking life.
Having attended to the ultimate relationship of self love, I launch.
*These Autogenic Phrases are abstracted from the work of Elmer and Alyce Green while at the Menninger Foundation. I am grateful to the late Dr. Eleanor Eggers for her documentation of these phrases on her website Help For Stress Disorders.
We live now in an age of extraverted influence where the mind is preoccupied with the narratives, messages and suggestions of outside influencers.
The energy that sustains these entities is largely drawn from the mental and emotional attention we supply them with, in our reactions to power dynamics exercised by the various players. It’s like a sport, where we identify with, and root for, our chosen team. The subtle energy of emotion powerfully shapes the creative outlet of its manifestation in physical reality.
My recent blogs have focused upon the power of self-hypnosis to generate change on the physical level of reality. The conscious exercise of autosuggestion allows one to assume personal responsibility for the creation of one’s own purely physical reality.
While it is true that outside influencers have infiltrated and saturated the news, social media, and atmospheric thought space with their intentions, everyone is free to think beyond these outer scripts and suggest to the subconscious a reality in harmony with their own personal intentions.
Predetermination must be accepted as a probability among all the permutations of all that is. Perhaps the interplay of formerly repressed historical autocratic forces, now unleashed throughout the globe, is so great that we cannot avoid the tide of its destruction. However, despite the potential of that possible reality, the freedom to create still rests with each individual.
My predilection is for a world where truth, not manipulation for personal gain, is the guiding force. I seek not to influence anyone with this intent other than to awaken them to their own latent power to create. May they exercise that power with heart, whichever way that leans.
Evolution requires of us to evolve, not to simply follow. If, as a species, we must relive and remake the past before we can move forward, then that truly is where we are and what we must live through. I can be in acceptance of that probability. I see no alternative but complete acquiescence, with equanimity, to all possible outcomes for evolution to advance.
The truth is that life in time/space offers such an opportunity for the refinement of the love we possess, so that, regardless of the drama of our given time here, we can grow. Learning to love all, with detachment, is the highest form of spiritual love. This is the definition of a path with heart.
I am convinced that a sizable portion of humanity is aligned with the intention for the greater good of the planet. This can very well be the silent majority. To be in alignment with this intention is to suggest it to the subconscious, without revealing it outwardly. No need to be an influencer. When we peddle our wares, we awaken the algorithms of descent that then drag us into the mud of doubt and despair.
Instead, find spiritual companionship in the rightness of a path with heart, and in the subtle dimension of dreaming as well, where teachers readily support evolutionary intent.
Hold dearly to your inner truth as your guiding spirit. Never surrender your power to intend, your innate birthright. Become the loving outcome of your own evolutionary suggestions.
Hold space for possibility beyond influence, Chuck
The source of our creative, and therefore healing, power is the subconscious mind. If the subconscious mind believes something to be true, it will do everything in its power to make it physically happen.
The subconscious mind is a completely receptive mind. It receives suggestions that it may then manifest in physical reality. Its suggestive sources originate internally—from instincts, genetic code, archetypal rules that govern the human species and, most prominently, the ego—with its beliefs and internal dialogue of thoughts, which incessantly barrage the subconscious mind with their many proposals.
Externally, the subconscious mind is flooded constantly by a marketplace of messages from well-funded sources seeking to influence one’s pocketbook and behaviors. What is glaringly made apparent, especially at this point in our political history, is that influence is gained primarily at the subconscious level of the mind, through receiving incessant repetitions of a version of reality, not necessarily the truth of it.
The subconscious mind is the moon, the ultimate feminine magnetic force, both in our solar system and in our personality. In her hands lies the ability to reshape physical reality beyond the laws of Newtonian physics. She can perform true magic. Her power to manifest is unparalleled. However, she turns to her masculine partner, the ego, to initiate her creative process via suggestion.
Firm suggestions may attract her attention to manifest creatively, but beware the karma of manifestations that violate her deepest nature. Be firm and definite with a suggestion, but honest with intention, in order to achieve lasting, sustainable change. Illusions can become physical reality, at least for a short while, but nature demands ultimately the truth.
Once the subconscious mind accepts a proposition, it backs it with the full power of its creative potential. Even the most irrational proposition, such as an out-and-out lie, will be believed with the full force of one’s subconscious mind.
This manifests as powerful emotions that staunchly defend one’s beliefs, independent even of reason. This kind of contagion has its roots in the subconscious mind being in complete rapport with the suggestion it adopts. Oftentimes, the ego, with its capacity for rational thought, can be so swept away by the emotive power of a belief that it either suspends its reasoning ability or adjusts its logic to support the belief it is under the influence of.
These mesmerizing dynamics are in extreme force in the world currently, and, though they threaten the future of civilization, they most aptly demonstrate the psychodynamics of hypnotic influence.
Internally, the ego is our chief navigator for the life we are in. Its reasoning ability, as applied to the physical world, has worked tirelessly to understand and control nature, to provide for our basic survival needs and ability to have a fulfilling life.
Currently, its dominant logical perspective largely dismisses the inherent powers of the subconscious mind to influence material reality. This dominant doubting belief from the ego suggests impotence to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind does not reason, it creates, based on suggestions it adopts. If it is told that it’s powerless it manifests powerlessness.
The ego is actually the main internal influencer of the subconscious mind. Consequently, the subconscious mind may adopt the suggestion that it is not capable to heal itself, despite the fact that it actually has total command of the physical body. In this scenario, the subconscious mind simply passively runs well-established programs in the body, essentially its default position.
To activate new possibilities the subconscious requires faith in its possibility to heal itself. That faith can only come from suggestions it receives from outside itself. In the case of autosuggestion, that source would have to be from the ego itself.
Can a doubting ego inspire the subconscious mind to have faith and confidence to heal, using methods that defy the ego’s strong rational sensibility? Yes! By employing the same rote method of repetition employed by political figures, the ego can inspire the subconscious mind to exercise its latent innovative healing powers.
It is not necessary for the ego to believe it, but it must be willing to state incessantly, “My subconscious mind has the power to heal.” Eventually the subconscious mind will get the message and become all that it can be.
It is critical to not attach to outcome. Individual thresholds for the subconscious mind to pick up a suggestion vary considerably. Don’t allow doubt to demand outcomes in a particular timetable. Present suggestions when calm and sleepy, as the subconscious mind is most readily available to receive suggestions when the running of daily life is largely offline.
Once an underlying confidence begins to be felt, hone suggestions to achieve specific physical results, such as with desired physical changes and healing concerns. It goes without saying that requested changes ought be in alignment with the greater good of self. Be firm and definite. If something appears cloudy, demand, “Clarity Now!”
Just as outwardly we are witnessing changes of highly questionable morality, we must realize that we too are capable of abusing our power. May all assume responsibility for creating for the greater good of self, and other.
As the doubting ego witnesses the facts of the subconscious mind’s creative abilities, it will expand its limited rational horizons to include the facts of these magical abilities and become a true collaborator with its equal partner, the subconscious mind. Until then, let it doubt, but state the suggestion nonetheless, “My subconscious mind has the power to heal.”
In a conversation, I joked that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a doctor. I knew immediately that the die had been cast. Send out a message like that and you’ve invited a stream of subliminal thought forms, with contrary suggestions, to compete with your own intent. What inside me was being so careless, or so determined?
Days later, I noticed a tickle and niggling cough throughout the day. By the end of the day a dizziness set in, an intense vibratory disorientation, coupled with a chill that had me wear a wool vest and wrap up in a blanket, despite the 80 + degree temperature of the day.
I consented to a thermometer, which revealed a heightened temperature. Suggestions of covid, flu or, at the very least, the onset of a course of a lengthy cold emerged. It was clear to me that these were all genuine possibilities.
A chain of associations began to present themselves to support and prepare for a healing process of several days. Although this would be a quite legitimate course of care, I seized upon this unusual opportunity to test my soul’s ability, via autosuggestion, to alter the natural course of my recovery. And so, I’ve decided to share how I practice what I preach!
My stated intent was to completely resolve these symptoms so that I would be present, in optimal physical health, with maximal clinical and intuitive acuity, for a full day of meetings starting at 7 am the following morning.
I instructed my subconscious: “My body is healing, my body is healed.”
I repeated it incessantly, coupling it with an eight count breathing pattern, saying the first part of the phrase with a four-count in breath and the latter part with a four-count out breath. By 7 pm I was so tired and disoriented that I collapsed into bed.
A restlessness slowly crept in and I knew there would be no rest if I remained in the bedroom. I relocated myself to the living room, which was quite warm, yet I shook with chills and knew that air conditioning was not an option. I considered an ibuprofen. I flipped a coin and got tails: No, to ibuprofen. If I was to be sincere in my commitment to a clean experiment, my only intervention could be: “My body is healing, my body is healed.”
I began to experience a throbbing headache that came and went, seemingly for hours. I did allow myself to utilize a well-anchored healing suggestion: “My headache is healing, my headache is healed.” Though effective immediately, the duration of relief was no more than a couple of minutes before its vicious return. I finally decided to recite only my eight count breathing and body healing suggestion.
I attempted to lie down but was continuously bombarded with a smorgasbord of pain sensations and dizziness. I could not find my calm center. I felt myself on the acute edge of annihilation. My only momentary glimpse of a potential grounding was noticing the autonomous playing of the synchronous rhythm that had been established by my incessant eight count breath.
For the next four hours I caved to the relief of restless shifting: laying one way on the couch, then the opposite; changing pillows, throwing pillows, no pillows; collapsing onto the floor, turning over, feet up on the coffee table, the contents of which became strewn about the room. I’d sit momentarily in different positions, in different chairs; nothing offered a moment’s peace.
A sensation of nausea flirted in the background. It invited the suggestion of immediate relief through facilitated release. I refused. “If that is to happen, let it happen on its own,” I insisted. Despair and futility dragged me into the underworld of self-pity and fraudulence. I began actually to wonder if I needed the rescue squad to bring me to the ER. Thoughts of physical death seemed a genuine possibility.
Eventually, I was so despondent that I sat and silently cried out to my High Self and teachers for help! No one came. I sank to the rock bottom depression of, “Why have you forsaken me?” I was sitting curled up in a chair when I noticed that I might have dozed off for a moment. An inkling of constancy of presence appeared. “Might I be able to sleep?” I pondered.
It was 1:30 am. I knew that in order to be able to practice in the morning I’d have to be 100% healed by 3:15 am. This seemed utterly impossible. I hadn’t slept at all, my symptoms were all still fully present, but I had had a calm moment. I closed my eyes. I awoke at 2:30, no change. I told my subconscious, which never fails at a wakeup request, to wake me at 3:15. I drifted off immediately.
I next awoke to Jan checking on me at 3:30 am. Wow, my subconscious had not responded to my 3:15 am suggestion! I let it go. The room was a mess, but I wasn’t! No temperature. No headache. No dizziness. No nausea. No vibratory shakiness. Full calm breaths. Utter clarity. Well rested.
We went for a walk, did some reading. My thinking and intuition were clear as a bell. I showered, had some breakfast and started my day at 7 am, finishing at 5 pm, without a glitch. Subsequent days were equally symptom free.
My medicine journey, initiated by the active substance of my self-important comment, showed me how far the soul could potentially go to accelerate the action of the innate healing archetypes latent in the physical body.
I arrived at the experience of total transformation, as my subconscious led me rapidly through the stages of healing at light speed to meet my stated deadline intent. Mine was but one dark night of the soul.
The physical body is its own entity, separate and distinct from its companion soul. Often, when the soul has decided it’s time to leave this life, the physical body resists, clinging to life for extended periods of time. The soul cannot fully break the cord and be free until the body acquiesces to its own physical death.
The soul body entered and attached to the physical body before birth. Both bodies agreed to a relationship for a human lifespan for reasons which benefit each individually. For the body, the conservative evolutionary archetypes that rule it are introduced to new possibilities through the soul’s suggestions. For the soul, the depth of its experience gained through a drama lived in a physical body deeply enhances its knowing of all that is.
The body has a powerful set of rules that independently govern the course of physical life. The body is prepared to live the stages of life, grow old and die. The soul, through its subconscious mind, assumes full control of the human body, though it generally acquiesces to run the body’s evolutionarily established healing programs.
However, the soul, which operates under different rules than the physical body, can think and suggest outside the instinctive box. Thus, the soul knows that beyond heredity and the rules that govern physical life, a suggestion such as I made, to heal from an infection, within hours as opposed to days, is possible.
Of course, the soul cannot change the fact that, ultimately, the physical body will die. Some shamans, called death defiers, have been able to delay death for generations, but ultimately have had to eventually surrender their physical counterparts to death.
Nonetheless, the soul can contribute greatly to the health and healing of the physical body, particularly through the use of autosuggestion. At times it can indeed achieve miracle cures. Modern medicine has yet to discover this healing potential, as it remains almost exclusively focused on the material workings of the physical body.
The most important variable to approaching the subconscious mind with healing suggestions is to have faith that anything is possible, to swiftly release any doubt and stay focused on the intent. This guarantees nothing, but without it, suggestions lack the potency of conviction needed to attract the subconscious mind’s attention.
No attachment to outcome. No shirking of the responsibility to also explore the best that mainstream medicine has to offer. Assume full responsibility for life. Explore your fullpotential. See what happens!
We are conceived as human beings by our greater Soul, which already resides in infinity. The intent of our life is thus our Soul’s intent, which is that life be physically lived on the stage of our three-dimensional space/time world.
Our Soul asks us to play out its dream question, with free will, in the drama of our human life. When we leave human life, we bring our experiences and discoveries home to our greater Soul’s enrichment, enhancing our personal evolution as well.
We enter human life with a blank-slate amnesia as to our royal ancestry as infinite beings. Our Soul heritage is masked by an ego that must discover and live the drama it has been cast in. This is the part of us that seeks the meaning and purpose of our earthly life.
Beneath our groundedness as physically aging beings, we are still soulful beings who return to our true homeland in infinity, out of physical body, as we sleep and dream each night. The memory of our nightly dreams is the download of our greater life in infinity.
Generally, however, we reenter our physical bodies upon awakening with the same kind of amnesia we experienced when we were first born into this life. Much of what we remember in the morning is distorted by the filter of the ego, who clothes its experiences in infinity with the mindset and images of material reality.
Nonetheless, our waking life experience for the coming day is enriched by our previous night’s dream, where we explored our daily experiences and made new discoveries with our greater Soul in infinity. I am always excitedly aware that the theme of my downloaded dream has already set the stage for the waking adventure to be physically played out in the new day I was just born into.
Attention to, and analysis of the dream, gives me a heads up as to my oncoming waking drama. My subsequent contribution to infinity will be in the outcomes of my decisions and actions as the plot unfolds. Infinity does not know in advance what choices I will make, and thus awaits my findings in our nightly exchanges.
Thus, our waking ego state, beneath its materialist fixation, is actually well acquainted with non-physical living, through its nightly out-of-body journeys in the sleep and dream times of our physical lives. So much so that when we make our final out-of-body departure, at physical death, in our untethered, freed energy-body state, we will actually land in a very familiar landscape.
As we physically age, the veil between dimensions thins, as locales and acquaintances we’ve made in infinite life begin to cross waking boundaries. Oftentimes, what is experienced during Alzheimer’s disease reflects the soulful integration of ego with its greater Soul life in infinity. This indeed generates much confusion for self, and for all in waking life, but it is nonetheless a natural phase of a major transition.
Bob Monroe’s* discoveries of our multidimensional soul states led to his use of sound science to enable explorers to discover that they already lived in states beyond the physical body. Not only does such exploration reduce the fear of physical death but also opens channels to greater conscious integration of ego with Soul states while still living in a physical body.
This was the message that the shaman don Juan Matus imparted to his apprentice, Carlos Castaneda: Evolution for human beings is no longer physical, it’s energetic. The energy body soul state, that runs our physical body in waking life, is evolving in its conscious participation in life beyond the physical body, in what is called the astral dimension.
Bob Monroe visited the future of our planet in a permutation of potential evolutionary trends, where human beings lived primarily on Earth in their energy body state, with the creative power of their intentions shaping the world, devoid of reliance upon physical manipulation of the environment to survive.
We are currently living through a developmental leap of merging potentialities from subtle energetic life with physical life. Our current struggles on Earth are intermingled with both the light and dark forces of the astral realm, as we dream the human dream forward into a whole new dimension. The confusions of Earth life now resemble the course of Alzheimer’s disease on a mass scale, as we struggle to integrate it all.
Our greater Soul has assigned us the task to discover the path to sustainable balance, as we collectively advance the Earth dream. The knowledge accrued through the myriad of experiments we all perform in the daily dramas of our lives is ultimately manifesting that path of heart.
Dreaming it forward, with heart, Chuck
*Robert Monroe, Founder of The Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia
