The Art of Shifting Your Reality:
4 Deep Practices for Clearing Emotional Blockages and Harnessing the Power of Your Subconscious Mind

BY JOSEPH DRUMHELLER

the keys to altering your reality lie deep within the subconscious mind.

Joy, happiness, excitement, passion, purpose, meaning, peace, contentment, fulfillment, abundance, freedom, etc. How many of us get to experience these words, let alone live them out on a daily basis? Not nearly enough.

A friend of mine once told me, “There are two kinds of people in this world, those who say ‘I can’ and those who say ‘I can’t.’ And ya know what? They’re both right.” The events in our lives are outward projections of what’s lurking in our subconscious mind. That includes our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and beliefs. We are who we think, feel, and believe we are. That goes for the good and the bad. If that’s so, can we intentionally put thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and beliefs into the subconscious mind to create our future? The answer is: You bet! It’s called manifesting.

“Whoever you think you are as person and however you think the world operates will be reflected back to you in the events of your life.”

Manifesting is simply utilizing the creative force of the subconscious mind by directing into the future. Anything is possible! The only limitation is what you can imagine. It’s like applying a powerful subconscious healing technique to the future. It can be applied to almost anything: healing, sports, technical skills, physical abilities, relationships, finances, health, etc. Roadblocks to manifesting show up as resistance and/or subconscious emotional charges. You’ll need to use subconscious healing and reprogramming techniques outlined later in this article to get rid of those.

And that’s why I’m here. I’m here to guide you through the process and help you avoid bumps along the way. The effort you put in will produce noticeable results in your daily life. It will also influence the lives of everyone you come in contact with. So if you’re interested in making your life and the world a better place, then by all means, please join me.

The Conscious Mind—Noise, Noise, Noise!

Each and every one of us on planet Earth walks around in this little bubble called the human mind. On the outer layer of the bubble is the conscious mind, a very important and influential part of our existence that differentiates us from animals. It’s our “awake” state of mind, the state where we spend the majority of our waking hours. It’s the home of our cognitive and rational thinking process and our ability to organize and categorize. Much of our society is steeped in the conscious mind, including science and modern medicine.

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The following list is borrowed from Yvonne Oswald’s book, Every Word Has Power, detailing features of the conscious mind. The conscious mind:

1. Is aware of what it perceives.

2. Contacts reality through the five senses.

3. Gathers and sorts information.

4. Communicates to the Divine through the subconscious.

5. Thinks deductively.

6. Makes choices and judgments.

7. Reviews information and draws conclusions.

8. Makes generalizations.

9. Likes to analyze and categorize.

10. Requests information from the subconscious.

The conscious mind is an incredible thinking machine. It just doesn’t stop. My favorite description of the mind’s activity is written by Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: “Thinking isn’t something you do; thinking is something that happens to you.” Many of these thoughts are unfocused noise and chatter. Mind chatter can range from mildly annoying to downright debilitating. There are numerous self-help books out there that encourage us to train ourselves to think positively. However, due to the sheer volume of thought we have, our control over the human mind and our mental chatter is fairly limited.

Simply recognizing mental chatter and the effect it has on your life is the first step in learning to dissipate its power. If the chatter is excessively noisy, there is likely a strong underlying emotional charge generating it from the subconscious mind.

The Subconscious Mind

Underlying the conscious mind in the human mind bubble is the subconscious mind. By definition, we are not normally aware of this aspect of our being (sub means under). While we are busy going about our day, deeply engrossed in the conscious mind, the subconscious mind lies quietly beneath the surface. It’s the home of the nonphysical realms of the human experience. Some aspects include our dreams, emotions, ideas, and imagination.

The following list is borrowed from Yvonne Oswald’s book, Every Word Has Power, detailing features of the subconscious. The subconscious mind:

1. Operates the physical body.

2. Has a direct connection with the Divine.

3. Remembers everything.

4. Stores emotions in the physical body.

5. Maintains genealogical instincts.

6. Creates and maintains least effort (repeating patterns).

7. Uses metaphor, imagery, and symbols.

8. Takes direction from the conscious mind.

9. Accepts information literally and personally.

10. Does not process negative commands.

In addition to those features listed above, the subconscious mind also holds our perceptions, subconscious beliefs of who we think we are as people and how we think the world operates. In other words, whoever we think we are as people and however we think the world operates quietly lives under the conscious mind in the subconscious. Our perceptions may be wonderful or painful. The subconscious mind does not evaluate or judge these perceptions; it simply accepts them as truth. Furthermore, the job of the subconscious mind is to play these perceptions out in the circumstances of our lives. Creating our perceptions is what the subconscious mind is designed to do. Whoever you think you are as person and however you think the world operates will be reflected back to you in the events of your life.

Whoa…wait a minute! The first time I heard that, two things went off in my head: one good and one not so good. First off, it made sense. Second, it explained why my life resembled a train wreck. I felt doomed from the get-go, helpless to do anything about it. If you feel the same way, hang on a minute. Don’t panic…yet. Keep reading. It gets better.

The Critical Faculty of the Mind

Because the subconscious mind is such a continuously creative machine and the conscious mind is limited in its scope, this puts us all in a very vulnerable situation. If every subconscious perception we experienced were to be acted out in our daily lives, we would be living nothing but the Chaos Theory in motion! Just like traffic in India! Therefore, somewhere in the wisdom of creating the human experience, the critical faculty of the human mind was established to prevent us all from going absolutely nuts.

The critical faculty of the human mind is an invisible, protective barrier living somewhere between the conscious and subconscious minds. Its function is to constantly evaluate perceptions that are projected in our direction: in thought, word, or action. As perceptions are aimed our way, the critical faculty will judge it as yes or no.

“The incredibly strange part of the critical faculty is that it appears to be fully established by the time we’re about four years old.”

Let me give you an example: If I teach a workshop and someone comes up to me and says, “Wow that was great. You’re a wonderful teacher,” my critical faculty will let down and permit that perception to enter. My subconscious perception of I’m a wonderful teacher (i.e. I’m a wonderful person) will grow and continue to manifest in the events of my life. However, if someone in my class is sitting in the back row thinking, Boy, this guy’s an idiot, my critical faculty will remain up and reject that projection as an untruth. It simply does not fit my perception of myself or how I view the world.

the power of the subconscious mind over our perceptions and reality is immense.

The incredibly strange part of the critical faculty is that it appears to be fully established by the time we’re about four years old. What?!? The first time I read that, I almost broke down and cried. What a gyp! You mean, by the time we’re only out of our toddler years, whoever we think we are as people and however we think the world operates is nearly set in stone? And the shaping of us poor little human beings is totally at the mercy of our immediate families and environment? Afraid so. It’s a case of karma. For some reason, who knows why, our immediate environment is the integral foundation of our human experience. It’s where our learning begins.

Negative Perceptions: Emotional Charges

I have seen negative or painful perceptions referred to as “charged emotions” and the “pain body” by Oneness University and Eckhart Tolle, respectively. I prefer the Oneness term because it most accurately fits the healing work I have done. So from here on out, I’ll refer to painful subconscious perceptions as charged emotions or emotional charges.

Let’s take a look at Suzie. She’s a two-year-old girl, and today is a major red-letter day in her life. She gets to drink milk out of a real glass—not one of those little-kid plastic sippy cups, but a real glass container. Suzie’s mom is at the stove cooking dinner. She’s had a hectic day, working a job that barely enables her to make ends meet. She’s been a single mom for the past eighteen months and hasn’t seen a dime of child support for Suzie or her two siblings. Needless to say, mom’s life is on stress overload. As she cooks dinner, low and behold, Suzie drops her glass. Milk and shattered glass go everywhere. Mom, at her wit’s end, spins toward Suzie and screams, “Damn it! You’ll never amount to anything!!!” Blink. A powerful negative perception, or charged emotion, has just been created in Suzie’s subconscious mind. The critical faculty has also built a wall around that perception to protect it. Does that mean Suzie will grow up to be worthless? Of course not! However, if she continues to receive the same message over and over again as she grows up (in thought, word, or action), the critical faculty will continue to let down, allowing that charged emotion to grow—to the point where it will eventually begin to appear in the events of her daily life. Perhaps she won’t be able to hold down a job; she may go from one failed relationship to the next; or it may show up as a physical illness or injury. The subconscious mind is very powerful and can be very creative when it comes to expressing emotional charges, and it doesn’t stop…until the charges are gone.

So you may be thinking, What, exactly, is an emotional charge? Subconscious emotional charges are un-experienced, subconsciously repressed feelings that produce pain. Examples include hurt, rage, anxiety, rejection, shame, unworthiness, fear, depression, and abandonment, and the list goes on and on. These are like living entities in our bodies, and they won’t go away until they are experienced fully.

Human Suffering and the Power of the Mind

Let’s take subconscious emotional charges one step further and journey into the world of suffering. First, it’s essential to understand what suffering actually is. Is freedom from suffering the end of pain, anger, and unpleasant emotion, replaced by everlasting bliss? Sorry, but no. That wouldn’t be very realistic or very human. Suffering is not pain, but the avoidance of it. Let me say that again: The definition of suffering is the avoidance of pain. Pain demands attention, and when it is avoided, it repeats itself over and over again. Suffering is the experience of the same repeating pain. Herein resides the grand paradox. In order to overcome suffering, you must experience your pain fully.

Human beings are designed for growth and experiencing life to the fullest. That includes all of our emotions. Pain, jealousy, anger, enthusiasm, joy, contentment, etc., are all part of the human experience. Look at small child who drops his/her ice cream cone on the sidewall. A few moments of intense agony are guaranteed. However, in just a few minutes, after the emotion has been experienced, the tears dry, and the child is back to experiencing life in the moment. When emotions are experienced fully, they dissipate. The problem arises when we avoid experiencing unpleasant emotions. We essentially put them in the closet to reemerge at a later date…and they do.

“Human beings are designed for growth and experiencing life to the fullest. That includes all of our emotions.”

How many of us know someone who has gone from relationship to relationship, experiencing the same problems? How about the person who avoids conflict with authority to the point of becoming seriously ill? They are just avoiding unpleasant feelings. We’ve all done it. In fact, it’s a natural response. Unpleasant emotions tend to get repressed into the subconscious mind without conscious knowledge or intention on our part. When that happens, they get stuck in the subconscious. The subconscious mind then continues to recreate uncomfortable circumstances in our lives so that the repressed emotions can be experienced. Without awareness, this saga can last a lifetime.

Repeating Patterns—Props in Your One-Person Drama

I’m a fairly sensitive guy. I have emotions running through me all the time. When I first became aware of my internal process, my big question was: How do I know if I have an emotional charge or just a random feeling? The answer is simple: repeating patterns. If you have difficult emotions repeating themselves in similar circumstances, regardless of the people you are dealing with, it’s a subconscious emotional charge. Examples may include a woman from an abusive family who keeps finding an abusive partner or a man with an impoverished father that can’t ever seem to get his act together with finances.

The combinations and possibilities are endless. There’s a potential charge for every difficult life circumstance. It takes a certain commitment to honest self-reflection to discover that your repeating patterns are actually your own subconscious invention! Emotional charges are never about the other person. They are your creation and experience only. Other people who trigger your emotional charges are only props in your own one-person drama.

Tragic Events

Let’s dive straight into an atheistic argument, a question that can rack the faith of even the most devout believer. What about suffering caused by birth defects, starvation, tsunamis, landslides, earthquakes, and disease? How does this nifty little subconscious mind and suffering theory explain random cataclysmic events of tragedy? The truth is, it doesn’t. Remember, for some reason, pain is part of the human experience. However, learning to experience pain prevents it from recurring over and over again. Sometimes it’s not easy, but as we will discover, it’s the road to the Divine.

Suffering Is Not Real: The Illusion

When we begin to grasp the notion that suffering is repeating patterns caused by subconsciously repressed pain,the light bulb should go on that says, ”Hey, wait a minute… if suffering is just repeating patterns, then it’s really based in the past.” Ding-ding! We have a winner.

In a way, suffering isn’t actually real. The past doesn’t exist. Suffering is from the past. You do the math. How much of our behavior and decision-making is based on something that technically isn’t real? A lot! Every time someone reacts to a recurring difficult situation, it’s just a response to the past. It’s like fighting ghosts; there’s nothing there but a mental image and a feeling. The problem is that those images and feelings can be extremely strong.

Here’s a fairly typical scenario I’ve seen a number of young adults go through. In fact, I was guilty of it myself throughout my twenties. For entertainment’s sake, let’s call this young buck Hugo. He was a recent transplant from Florida to my little town in the Pacific Northwest. I met Hugo through my circle of paddling pals, so we went out a few times and hit the river together. Getting to know him, I discovered he came from an extremely abusive past. He hated his old man and, as far as I could figure, with good reason. That was why Hugo picked up and moved to the Northwest, “to get as far away from that son-of-a-!!!!! as possible.”

I also heard Hugo talking about his employer. If I hadn’t known the context of the conversation, I would have sworn he was talking about his father. It wasn’t too long until he moved to another town about 150 miles away, stating something to the effect of “My boss is a jerk” and “I’m outta here.” A few months later, he moved to Alaska. Last I heard, Hugo was in Australia, still fighting the same issues with authority figures (i.e. his father).

This is a case of repeating patterns caused by a powerful subconscious emotional charge created in the past. The most effective way for Hugo to break his repeating pattern of misery is to go into the subconscious mind and heal his emotional world.

Childhood — It’s Not Your Fault

Most emotional charges are programmed into your subconscious mind by someone else or some outside event. When? When we’re most vulnerable, of course. Emotional vulnerability is at its peak before the critical faculty of the mind is developed. As you may recall,that takes place in very early childhood, when the subconscious mind is completely exposed.

We enter this world as pure vessels, wide open and absorbing life like a sponge. This includes the good, the bad and the ugly. Hey, nobody said life was fair. The stork settles a few of our darlings into lovely, cushy feather beds.

“We enter this world as pure vessels, wide open and absorbing life like a sponge. This includes the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Others get dumped into this world under absolutely horrendous circumstances. Wherever we land is where our journey begins, like it or not, and our emotional charges develop at the whim of our surroundings.

It’s not a difficult stretch to come to the conclusion that I can’t emphasize strongly enough: Your suffering is not your fault. You did not create your problems, dysfunction, or disease. You are only responding to circumstances at your given level of awareness.

Let’s take it one step further. In regard to the person(s) who planted charges in you, it’s not their fault either. They were also responding to their charges at their given level of awareness. Take it as far back as you need to go. Who is ultimately responsible? Nobody. Suffering isn’t anybody’s fault; it just is. You may not believe it now, but suffering is actually what paves the road to the Divine.

Ancestry — It’s Truly Not Your Fault

We inherit all sorts of stuff from out family: appearance, size, shape, character, behavior, mentality, and if we’re lucky, a little money. We never asked for any of it. It’s just what’s on the menu. We also inherit from our ancestry through the subconscious mind, including emotional charges.

We all know someone who’s a spitting image of their parents, a regular clone, or a chip off the ol’ block. I knew a girl in high school whose mother’s maiden name was Smith.

She later married a guy named Smythe, who ironically (or maybe not so ironically) resembled her dad. Her mother had three kids, all girls. She had three kids, all boys. Listing the similarities between those two would take all day. If you take a look within your own family or your friends’ families, recognizing generational parallels will begin to be surreal.

For some, inherited ancestral traits can skip a generation. I have an acquaintance whose grandfather was a bit of a bigwig powerbroker, married three times. My acquaintance never met him and resented growing up in his shadow.

Oddly enough, he’s at the beginning of his third marriage and his life is moving onto a significant public platform. His level of influence was born into him. He’s had to do quite a bit of soul-searching and forgiveness to accept himself as a part of his heritage. The more he has accepted himself and his pedigree, the more his destiny of success has unfolded.

“So what’s the point? We inherit traits from our families. Everybody knows that.” Not only do we inherit physical and behavioral characteristics, but we also subconsciously inherit emotion. And what does that mean? It means we also inherit suffering. Some of our suffering is caused by an unusual subconscious connection to our heritage.

Understanding this possibility opens the potential for subconscious healing to a whole new level. So far, we’ve learned that suffering is basically not our fault. Furthermore, if we inherit suffering from ancestors who were dead and buried long ago, then it’s really not our fault.

Gestation

“I’ve always been close to my mom, but I never knew how close.” Before birth we are our mother. We’re connected physically, physiologically, emotionally, and subconsciously. It’s not uncommon to absorb our mother’s subconscious emotional charges while we’re in the womb, especially if the contributing events are traumatic.

Here’s a hypothetical scenario I’ve seen repeated is a variety of situations. Since most of us have had spouses and lovers at least once or twice in our lives, I’ll use the context of an intimate relationship, something we can all relate to.

A young woman came to see me for recurring anxiety attacks that were happening at an accelerated and stronger rate. They exploded into her life whenever she crossed some ambiguous line of going from a romantic to a committed relationship. It had ruined several previous relationships.

“Before birth we are our mother. We’re connected physically, physiologically, emotionally, and subconsciously.”

She was now involved with a man she genuinely loved. The attacks were becoming so frequent and so strong that she could barely function. She was desperate. This was in the early days of my practice, back when I took more of an analytical approach to subconscious healing.

Over the course of a few sessions, we probed into the events of her childhood and had some initial satisfactory success. However, the anxiety attacks still came back, albeit with less frequency and intensity. I couldn’t put my finger on what was behind this. We just didn’t seem to be getting to the core of the problem.

In conversation, I asked about her parents, and that led to the topic of their divorce. The split happened rather abruptly, and it was rather grueling on her mother. I asked her how old she was when her parents broke up, to which she replied, “Oh, I wasn’t born yet. I was still in my mom’s tummy.” Flash! Maybe she picked up emotional charges from her mom while she was pregnant. By the next session, her anxiety attacks gone… permanently.

Family, Societal, and Media Conditioning

“All of us Kennedys are politicians… To get a good job, you need a good education…My TV would never lie to me.” Family, societal, and media conditioning is lathered upon us from the moment we enter this world.

What is conditioning? It’s received input through word,thought, or action that influences our behavior. When we receive a message over and over again (especially when we’re very young), it enters the subconscious mind and will eventually be acted out in our lives. It’s not necessarily good or bad. Problems arise when the input received from our surroundings (family, society, media) doesn’t fit who we areas people. This creates internal conflict and puts us at odds with ourselves and our world, which is — you guessed it —a powerful subconscious emotional charge.

Family

“We’ve been lawyers in this family as long as I can remember. My dad, his dad, his dad’s dad. We go back generations. By God, you’ll be one too!” That may be fine for my brother Seymour, but I’m just not wired that way. I need to beat to my own free-spirited drum. For me, becoming a lawyer would be a straight shot to hell.

Families can be blown apart by adherence to family conditioning, especially if it supersedes genuine needs. How many of us know someone who has gone into the family business and hated every minute of it? How many of us have been crushed by family disapproval over something we were genuinely passionate about? If we are to grow and mature into the people we are meant to be in this life, we need to listen to the voice within. It may or may not be in accordance with family approval. Blind adherence to family conditioning, at the expense of yourself, can produce a lifetime of suffering.

Society

“Man is mad.” That’s one of my favorite quotes I picked up at Oneness University. Because each of us projects the circumstances of emotional charges into our lives, many societal values are tainted with the spewing of these charges. It can be a vicious cycle that propagates even more suffering.

“In order to transform our world, we must transform ourselves on the inside. As we do, our values will shift.”

Collective values get filtered through the charges and chattering minds of millions. Ideals behind a societal system can easily be polluted into the perpetuation of things like needless war and excessive corporate greed. It’s no wonder the state of affairs can get so messy. As each of us goes, so goes society. In order to transform our world, we must transform ourselves on the inside. As we do, our values will shift. Emphasis will then be placed more on the quality of life and less on the trappings of the conscious and subconscious mind and unresolved emotion.

Media

Technology? Talk about a runaway freight train. Don’t get me wrong, I love it—or at least parts of it. I can’t denounce technology as I sit here pecking away on my laptop. Let’s admit it: we’re hooked. What’s worse is that our kids are hooked. Most kids nowadays are more familiar with some flat, illuminated screen than members of their own extended families. If I were to ask my sixteen-year-old stepdaughter today, “What was the weather like this morning?” or “What phase is the moon in right now?” she would probably answer, “Uhh… I don’t know, but I have thirty new friends on Facebook!”

We are absolutely hammered every day with electronic media. The media tells us what to do, how to be, who to be with, where to spend our money, and that violence is acceptable. And, boy, is it effective. When we watch TV, surf the web, or play on our phones, we go into a mild trance state. When we’re in a trance, our subconscious mind is open. This allows images, sounds, and emotions to come right in and attach themselves to the framework of our belief system.

It’s extremely difficult not to be subconsciously influenced by media. It is creating and shaping our era. Let’s face it: We wouldn’t have cell phones without Star Trek. Again, this is neither good nor bad. The question is, “Does this influence produce suffering in our personal world?” This question falls back on the awareness of powerful subconscious emotional charges.

Past Lives

A couple years ago I visited India, a country steeped in the belief of reincarnation. That pervasive belief permeates their entire society, but it’s a bit of a two-edged sword. In many instances, a person from India wouldn’t bat an eye over things Westerners get completely stressed about. On the other hand, there’s not a lot of motivation to get things done. You can always do it in your next life!

I’m not sure about where I stand on reincarnation, but as a healer, it doesn’t really matter. Can suffering originate in a past life? Maybe. However, entertaining the notion in subconscious healing provides some enormous benefits. It allows clients to step completely outside of the context and mental framework of their present-day lives and gain an entirely new perspective on their own suffering. It’s a way to detach in order to let go.

Let’s imagine a young man came to me for a chronic condition that stumped medical doctors. There was no logical explanation for the incredible pain he felt in his body. When he finally arrived at my door, he had been through numerous examinations and a treasure chest full of medications.

Between his work with me and another local alternative health care professional, he was able to heal about 90 percent of the pain over the course of a year. His biggest breakthrough came during a past-life regression session. It was huge. The experience gave him the opportunity to completely reframe the context of his life. It was absolute freedom. Somehow, in the context of that liberty, he was able to free an enormous amount of physical pain. The connection between his stored subconscious emotion and physical pain was released.

Trauma

As previously mentioned, emotional charges can enter the subconscious mind before the critical faculty of the mind is formed in early childhood. Charges can also enter when the critical faculty is let down. This can occur in times of shock and excessive trauma. Examples may include sudden physical injury, surgery, or receiving unexpected shocking news.

When we’re stunned, we enter a trance. The critical faculty relaxes, allowing negative emotional information into the subconscious mind. In my experience and for reasons I don‘t completely understand, traumatic events are not uncommon around the ages of two, fourteen, and twenty.

The Unknown

Sometimes, understanding the cause of an emotional charge can powerfully accelerate subconscious healing. However, every now and then, you can psychologize, analyze, and snoop around for sources of pain without ever finding the source. Luckily, in terms of alleviating subconscious pain, finding the cause isn’t absolutely necessary. As we’ll learn later on, simply locating the feeling of emotional pain in the body is enough.

Noteworthy Emotional Charge Issues

Before we dive into the process of freeing yourself from subconscious emotional charges and the suffering that accompanies them, let’s take a peek at a few charges that many of us experience. The list below includes issues I’ve had significant firsthand experience in helping people overcome.

Abandonment

Because we’re born absolutely dependent, the fear of being left alone is almost instinctual. We’re not designed to be isolated. We can’t survive by ourselves. In a way, being alone isn’t really human. Ironically, we come into this life alone, and we go out alone.

We must also face every life transition by ourselves. Sooner or later, everyone gets kicked out of the nest. To fully mature, we have to stand on our own two feet, and it’s not always easy.

“Because we’re born absolutely dependent, the fear of being left alone is almost instinctual. “

In regard to abandonment, subconscious emotional charges can be created when there isn’t a loving presence to guide us through early phases of childhood. We’re too vulnerable, innocent, and ill-equipped to understand or handle initial life transitions on our own. When we’re forced to do so, the resulting subconscious fear can cause debilitating circumstances in our adult lives.

Imagine a young man whose father was not around when he was born. In fact, he wasn’t around much at all. As a boy, he was frequently told, “Go play outside,” and he wasn’t allowed to come back inside until suppertime. The time of year or weather conditions didn’t matter. He was left unsupervised and alone all day. Fortunately, he lived near some woods, so he wasn’t turned directly out onto the streets. Instinctively, he secured hiding places for food and money, in case he wasn’t allowed to return back home for good someday, and he grew up tough and afraid.

Two things happened when he matured into an adult. First, he developed incredible independence and resolve. He could take care of himself in any situation. Second, he couldn’t bear to be on his own for any extended period of time. The subconscious emotional charges he carried from his youth produced absolute terror when he was left alone.

He eventually became very successful in a business that required extensive travel. However, he had multiple lovers stashed in different cities, just like the food and money he used to hide in the woods. He was never alone.

Unworthiness, Rejection, and Insecurity—Lack of Love

This one is a biggie because most of us get at least one helping of it. None of us get enough love. It’s just not possible. We enter this world completely dependent on someone else, physically and emotionally, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There hasn’t been one set of parents in all of human history who has had the ability to satisfy the insatiable needs of an infant. It truly does take a village to raise a child. Add another kid or two into the mix and forget about it.

We grow up competing for love and attention. We’ll do anything to get it. We’ll be perfect, troublesome, depressed, sick, hurt, or even a superstar. Throwing some parental neglect and abuse on this ravenous need can produce some deeply seated emotional charges.

Unworthiness can be expressed in a variety of ways but tends to gravitate into two extremes: under- and overachieving. This is not only limited to jobs and careers; it can also spill into relationships. Examples may include the workaholic executive who is always vying for supervisor approval or someone who continues to sabotage seemingly healthy intimate relationships. The underlying subconscious message is the same: I’m not worthy.

The Broken Heart — Grieving

Life is a never-ending parade of hanging on and letting go, letting go and hanging on. In fact, to be happy, healthy, and well adjusted, we need to learn the art of letting go. It’s imperative to learn how to grieve.

At some point in life, we discover that being human means being brokenhearted. We love and become emotionally attached. When we lose someone or something we love, it can be very painful, resulting in deep grief. It can be over anything: a person, an object, our innocence, a pet, a part of ourselves, circumstances, etc. It arrives in waves over a period of time. Just when you think you’re finished, along comes another wave. It can take weeks, months, or even years. The timeframe is different for everyone.

“To be happy, healthy, and well adjusted, we need to learn the art of letting go.”

A variety of emotions are experienced during the grieving process. They may include shock, denial, sadness, loneliness, depression, anger, and at some point hopefully, acceptance,a decision to move on, forgiveness, and peace. Problems arise when we don’t allow ourselves to grieve. This can be due to lack of awareness or flat-out refusal to experience difficult emotions. In either case, the suppression of emotion will create an emotional charge in the subconscious mind. The charge will then continue to repeat itself over time, until it’s experienced.

There are times when life can be difficult. Grieving is one of them. In the framework of spiritual growth, grieving is not a time to shy away from the work that needs to done. It’s a time to allow yourself, as gently as possible, to feel the feelings of loss and let them go. It’s an act of honoring yourself and what you have lost.

Physical Illness — Cancer

Subconscious emotional charges can be felt in the body.

Perhaps you feel stress in your stomach, rage in your head, or sadness in your heart. The charges need an outlet, a way to be experienced and released. When suppressed, they can find that outlet through the body in the form of illness, instead of just through life circumstance.

I’ve worked extensively with cancer patients over the past decade, and both of my parents died from the disease. When someone is diagnosed with cancer or any serious physical illness, everything changes… immediately. Decisions on treatment must be made, family members need to be notified, finances become a concern, and questions of death come to the forefront. Priorities come sharply into focus. Emotions surface, sometimes powerfully.

My job has been to assist patients through the subconscious emotional mine fields that come up during cancer treatment. Some want healing, both emotionally and physically. Some want to connect to their God. There are those that I must prepare for death. At times, I’ve seen nothing short of miracles; at other times, I’ve seen people go very quickly.

Working with cancer patients has shown me the resilience and frailty of life. I’m constantly reminded who is in charge: the Divine. Cancer patients are some of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. Survivors of a life-threatening illness will be forever changed. Whether they seek therapy or not, those who recover go through an enormous internal transformation. With a massive amount of courage, they face their darkest demons.

“Many of us have emotional charges concerning unworthiness because there wasn’t enough love to go around in childhood, even in the midst of a loving family.”

I’ve noticed one common subconscious theme among several cancer patients. It concerns issues around unworthiness and lack of love, but at a whole new level. As mentioned above, many of us have subconscious emotional charges concerning unworthiness because there wasn’t enough love to go around in childhood, even in the midst of a loving family. Some cancer patients have experienced a lack of love not only through circumstances, but also through actuality.

They simply were not loved as children; they weren’t wanted. The realization of that truth can be a very bitter pill to swallow.

I’ve also noted parallels of those who survive cancer. Many have a very positive attitude and a willingness to be involved in their recovery. Some see cancer as the best thing that ever happened to them because it brings wonderful new people into their life. Others view it as a wake-up call, teaching them what is really important. Many learn about healing, and some connect to the Divine.

I’ve seen too much success to doubt the powerful connection between the subconscious mind and illness in the physical body, especially when it comes to cancer. When forming a comprehensive plan for the treatment of a life-threatening disease, it’s an extremely good idea to incorporate the healing of a potential contributing factor: the subconscious mind.

Exercises for Healing Emotional Blockages and Harnessing the Power of the Subconscious Mind

Preparation for Clearing Emotional Charges From the Mind

Take a few moments to sit and contemplate. You can journal, if that’s your style. Think of the most significant difficulties you’ve had in your life or troubles you may be experiencing now. If you hit a snag, you needn’t look far. Most of us don’t need to search any farther than our own immediate families. Can you see any repeating patterns? Are you aware of any emotion that has been repressed?

Healing the Mind Exercise 1:
The Curious Mind—Feel the Charge until It’s Gone

Note: Before diving into specific subconscious healing techniques, it’s important to develop the proper state of mind in regard to emotional charges. It’s referred to as the Curious Mind. The Curious Mind naturally cultivates a certain level of necessary detachment between you and the emotional charge. All of a sudden, it’s not your anger, hurt, depression, etc.; it’s only an emotion you’re experiencing. In other words, your emotional charges are not you, but are only something that’s happening to you. As you will experience, this creates a beneficial space between you and the emotion—a very helpful gap that enhances the release process.

Try This: Start with a clear-cut intention to heal a specific subconscious emotional charge completely. Sit or lie in a comfortable position and enter a deeply relaxed state. Next, feel the emotional charge in your body, as related to the area of life you’re trying to heal. It may be rage in your head, heaviness in your heart, tension in your stomach, etc. It should come readily. If it doesn’t, just pretend you can feel it (remember, imagination is real, so pretending works). If you get bombarded with mind chatter or distracting thoughts, just let them come and go, like watching clouds drifting by in the sky.

Next, simply pay attention to the charge as you experience it. Be curious. Say to yourself something like, “Oh, isn’t that interesting. I feel rage in my head. How curious.” As you focus on that experience, you’ll begin to feel a weakening, softening, or letting go of the emotion.

Now, here’s where everyone begins to differ, so you’ll need to develop your own method of experiencing and releasing charges. You may feel the emotion as it begins to spin or swirl and move out of your body. It may start to dissolve or let go. It may create interesting sensations in your body like tingling, warmth, or deep peace. Whatever happens, keep your focus on what’s taking place. Don’t wallow in the emotion, but stay with it until it’s gone.

That’s it! Subconscious emotional charge gone. If it returns, it will come back with less intensity and less frequency. If that happens, just go through the process again. It’s like lighting a log on a fire: Keep burning it until it’s nothing but ash.

Healing the Mind Exercise 2:
Flower or Sacred Object—General Emotional Release

Sometimes when using the Curious Mind approach, charges get stuck. They just won’t go away. You end up flailing and wallowing in unwanted emotion. It can be a very frustrating experience. However, we have help. After all, it is the subconscious mind, and we can imagine whatever we want to come to our aid. The Flower or Sacred Object is a technique I’ve used countless times on clients, with immediate, successful results. Here’s how it works:

Try This: While relaxed and feeling your subconscious emotional charge, imagine a beautiful flower or some sacred object hovering above you. Let it be big and powerful. Feel its presence. Recognize the fact that it has enormous healing powers and actually pulls emotional charges out of your body. At this point, you don’t have to do anything! Let the flower or sacred object do all the work by pulling the charge out of your body. Keep your focus on the process until it’s finished.

Healing the Mind Exercise 3:
Self-Forgiveness—Unloved and Unworthy (It’s Not Your Fault)

This is probably the most powerful technique I’ve come across. It can mend and fill an eternal abyss of feeling unloved. Reaching very deep, it can transform an entire life of suffering.

Try This: Settle into a meditative state. Imagine yourself going back into time, just before your conception. You have no body, and you are nothing but energy. You’re about to be conceived in an act of absolute unconditional love between two people who are the embodiment of that love. Sink deeply into the experience that as you grow in the womb, your arrival is eagerly anticipated. People are excited! You are wanted!

Imagine you are born into the arms of a perfect parent. It can be someone you make up or an actual person you know. Feel unconditional love exuding from them like sunshine.

Have them look deeply into your eyes, connecting heart to heart, and hear them say, “It’s not your fault. It has never been your fault. It will never be your fault.” Sink into the experience fully. Don’t just hear the words, but receive the impact of that unconditional love into your psyche. Take it in deep because this sensation can lead to a very positive, life-changing transformation.

Healing the Mind Exercise 4:
Forgiveness—It’s Not Their Fault

Forgiveness, in this context of subconscious healing, is a little different than the human virtue. I discuss the importance of that in my book The Subconscious, The Divine and Me. Here, let’s focus on a technique to release a subconscious emotional charge.

Try This: Get relaxed and think of someone whom you need to forgive. Feel the emotional charge when you think of that person, and take note of where you feel it in your body.

Now, imagine yourself standing somewhere: the woods, a beach, at home, or anyplace that comes to mind. Next, imagine a small child approaching you, maybe three or four years old. As the child nears, recognize that s/he is the person you need to forgive. Observe the child as vulnerable, innocent, and at the mercy of life — the same way you were when you were that age. Be aware that the child has been a victim of his/her parents’ emotional charges and understand that it’s not the child’s fault. Sink into that experience and feel it and then let your own pain go. Use an above mentioned technique to release your charge or just send it back to the child. Then let the child go to dissolve into the cosmos. Or, you can pick the child up and say, “It’s not your fault.” Feel it deeply and remain focused on the process until it has run its course.

The piece on the subconscious mind was excerpted with permission from The Subconscious, the Divine and Me: A Spiritual Guide for the Day-to-Day Pilgrim by Joseph Drumheller.

About The Author

Joseph Drumheller is a spiritual healer and an author whose mission is to assist people in healing all forms of suffering and open the doors to the magic of their own spirituality. He has successfully helped leaders in business turn their finances around; assisted professional women through grueling divorces; helped elite dancers bounce back from career-ending injuries and discover themselves anew. Most everything he does has been inspired by healing and/or mystical experiences. Joseph is also a visual artist, musician, geologist and an avid whitewater kayaker. He lives on transecting ley lines in the evergreen state of Washington, USA, with his twin flame and high school sweetheart. Visit his website: josephdrumheller.com