– Heartwood Path Waypoint 1.113 –

Circuity

Unlock Your Subconscious Mind
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The following activity is a way to experience the benefits of building the circuitry between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Doing so will show you a simple yet effective way to unlock barely noticeable memories, notions, and information in your subconscious mind. Use this activity to increase your creativity, evoke relaxation, and help you to fall asleep. It will also help you deal with low to moderate traumas and nagging feelings of depression. For serious depression, for mood swings that last longer than a month, or for any psychological malady beyond mild post-traumatic stress, seek out the assistance of a psychologist (to obtain a diagnosis and begin psychotherapy) or, if needed, a psychiatrist (if medications are needed).

The following activity involves a do-it-yourself method of EMDR--Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. This psychotherapeutic method helps with emotional healing and lack of creativity. “When the process is complete, the brain has discarded the distorted subjective experience that had overwhelmed and remain frozen in the patient and replaced it with a positive perception of present reality” (Grand, 2001, p. 35). EMDR’s hallmark is the movement of the patients’ eyes from left to right repeatedly. This helps the patient because as the eyes move from left to right and right to left they simulate both sides of the brain. The “alternating bilateral stimulation enhances communication between the left and the right brains” (Grand, 2001, 24). This bilateral stimulation allows “the brain to reevaluate information frozen in a system that was overwhelmed at the time of the traumatic event” (Grand, 2001, 24). 

Try it even if you are not aware that you need such healing. Doing so may reveal buried wounds that are adversely affecting your life, even if you are not presently aware that they exist.

I have tried EMDR and have found it to work amazingly well at revealing hidden sources of stress. It also was a good way for me to relieve the low-grade but persistent physical symptoms of emotional trauma. 

EMDR helped me with an unnoticed trauma that I was not aware was affecting my life. After six one-hour sessions of eye movement therapy, I discovered that I had buried emotional trauma from some neglect I experienced in my early childhood and, to make up for my feelings of being neglected (and, therefore, not mattering to my parents), I have overcompensated by being a persistent nurturer in an attempt to matter, after all.

​Be sure to do the following activity. EMDR will help you recover from  emotional and psychological trauma (which many people have, perhaps subconsciously). Uncovering such trauma may be a critical step towards achieving success in your life. Doing the following EMDR activity repeatedly may also prepare your brain circuitry for any future samadhi meditations (like those at Waypoint 55 in the next Heartwood Path course). 

To Repair Your Feelings…
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​HumaNatureConnect Activity
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If this is not a day when you prefer to spend time in nature without an agenda, do the following activity:
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Start-up Protocol
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• Read The Text — Use your literary sense, your mind sense, and your reason sense to move towards happiness and sustainability by reading the Heartwood Path text but also go outdoors to the backyard or to the backwoods, where the higher levels of negative ions in the air will improve your mood and well-being.
• Attention Restoration — With a pen and journal in hand, go to a natural area that is attractive, has a variety of plants and animals, and is tranquil enough to leave room for reflection.
• Source — Spend time wandering without an agenda in nature or, if you don’t have time to receive nature’s magic in this way, follow the instructions in the text at each learning station.
• Attractive Natural Being — Once you are in a natural area (the wilder, the better), look to find a natural being that is attractive to you and remain near that being until the end of the activity.
• Appreciation And Gratitude — While communing with your chosen natural being, appreciate it as you inhale and show it gratitude as you exhale.
• Consent — Once you find an aspect of nature that is attractive to you continuously for at least ten seconds, think of your continued attraction as your consent to have a connection experience that will help you function optimally; receive information, guidance, and healing; and establish in your mind a more helpful egalitarian relationship with the natural being.
• The Natural Senses — Beyond seeing, hearing, and the three other commonly recognized senses, use as many of the fifty-four Natural Senses as you see fit and prepare to document the ones that you use in your journal.
• Great Trustable Truth — Experience what is happening at the present moment in nature, paying particular attention to the role of both beauty and balance; remember that the impressions you form about attractive natural beings and natural areas, coming from your experiencing of them in the Now, are trustable; and recognize that the natural processes and features witnessed are a source of special, substantial, and irreplaceable truthfulness about both nature and yourself.
• Recall — Place the great trustable truth and any other insights that you discover in a mental lock-box so you can later record them in your journal.​

Healing Emotional Wounds
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Do not use this activity if you are in a deep, acute, or lingering depression.  Continue only if you need enhanced creativity or if your physical or psychological symptoms are moderate, low, or outside of your awareness. This activity is suggested for those who may have nagging but minor aches or pains or for someone who is only mildly out of sorts but who cannot identify the source of the problem.

To uncover traumas buried in your subconscious mind that may be blocking your success:

1. search throughout your body for what we shall call a negative target experience (a “pain” that results from a subconscious memory of a negative event, such as an unexplained pain or tightness in the chest);
2. imagine that your chosen attractive being is an emotional healer;
3. begin the series of eye-movements, moving the eyes to a natural being to the left and then to a natural being to the right, back and forth for about about ten times;
4. after each set of eye movements, tell your healer where in your body you are feeling a nagging pain, tightness other target experience;
5. each time rank the degree of the discomfort of the target experience on a scale of  1-10;
6. assign what is for you an unpleasant color to the target experience;
7. continue doing the sets of eye movements, always telling your emotional therapist where the pain is located, it’s numerical degree of unpleasantness, and its color;
8. about halfway through the eye-movement sequences begin to replace the assigned unpleasant color with a preferred attractive color you associate with a discomfort-free part of your body;
9. after one of the last sequences, focus on the bridge of  awareness between yourself and your chosen attractive natural being until some symbol—perhaps a mental image, a memory, or a sign—emerges that tells you what unpleasantness was buried;
10. note whether your degree of discomfort is declining or perhaps has disappeared as you continue with the eye movements and perhaps come up with a plausible source or cause of the target experience; and 
11. discuss with your emotional therapist what using EMDR therapy to identify and diminish a buried trauma will likely do for your life.

Answering questions about the nature of the discomfort will activate the memory of the target in the occipital cortex, which controls sight in the brain (Grand, 2001, p. 26). Make sure your two objects (beings), one to your left and one to the right, are horizontally aligned. Keeping your head still, move your eyes slowly and gently from one object (being) to the other, repeatedly in a smooth, flowing fashion. If you are seeking relaxation, move your eyes even more slowly. After moving your eyes back and forth for a few seconds to a few minutes, re-ask the questions described earlier. Do not ask any questions during your back and forth eye movement sequences. Ask your questions before, in between, and after your eye movement sequences. Make sure your answers are honest. Give credence to all of your responses. After a few eye movement sequences, imagine replacing the unpleasant aches or feelings of tension you had in a part of your body with the positive feelings (and associated color) you feel in another part of your body. Instigate this replacement periodically as you do your eye movements and answer the questions.  

“Once the negative has been resolved and cleared through, the positive more easily replaces it. And the force that drives this movement, the bilateral stimulation itself, came from nature” (Grand, 2001, p. 247). 

​In all but severe cases, you will unlock the reasons for your aches and tensions and replace these negative feelings with positive ones. If, after a few weeks of repeating this activity, you do not find emotional or physical relief, or if you do not improve your creativity, you are encouraged to seek the help of a professional EMDR therapist or a clinical psychologist. 

After your last eye movement sequences, tell your chosen attractive being what you believe to be the cause of the target experience, noting the severity of the target feelings on the 1-10 scale. Give thanks for this connection experience. Either enjoy your newfound creativity and lack of distress or seek professional help.

​​​​Follow-up Protocol
Natural Systems Reflection Process
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     For best results, write down your impressions of this activity in your journal using as many of the following components as you see fit, afterwards, share your interpretations with others.
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Journal Components
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• Date — Write down the date of your outdoor nature-communing experience.
• Activity — Write down the waypoint title and number each time each you do an activity.
• Location — Write down the location of your outdoor nature-communing experience.
• Natural Being Indicator — Draw a picture or write down in your journal a nameless way to remember your chosen attractive Natural Being; for example, call it your “____  ____ Connection Experience.”
• The Natural Senses Used — Write down all of the Natural Senses you used for this activity.
• General Description — Write a general description of how you did the activity and what happened.
• Freeform — Write, in freeform, what you found attractive about your natural being.
• Three Qualities — Write down three qualities you found attractive about your natural being.
• Three Learnings — Write down three things you learned from this activity.
• Self-esteem & Trust — Write down how, if at all, this activity changed your self-esteem or trustfulness of NNIAAL (Namelessness, Now, Intelligence, Alive, Attraction, and Love).
• Changes To Self — Write down what aspects of your Self, if any, were changed by this activity.
• Honor Yourself — Praise yourself and your commitment to making another stop along the Heartwood Path good for yourself and the world.
• I’m A Person Who. . . — Write down three different so-called “G/G Statements” using the following format: “This connection experience tells me that I am a person who__________.”
• Feelings If Activity Taken — Write down a sentence about how you would feel if you lost your ability to experience this connection.
• Nature Compared To Self — Create a sentence that reads: “I love this (insert words that identify the attractive natural being) because it is (insert words that refer to the qualities you like about the natural being); then, create a parallel sentence that reads: “I love (insert the word “myself”) because I am (insert the same qualities as before).”​
• Integral Immersion — Improve your journal writing by addressing what is, what could be, and what ought to be.
• Love Letter — Write a letter of gratitude to and from a natural being.
• Two-word Summary — Write down two words that summarize your response to this activity.​

The Heartwood Path Exchange:
Swap Your Ideas, Impressions, Photos, And News With Others
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• Comment — Post your impressions and photos in the Comments section of this waypoint—the place for on-going discussion regarding this waypoint.
• Join — Engage with others in a Heartwood Path course or salon.
• Create — Start your own Heartwood Path salon that meets regularly online, by phone, or in person.
• Talk — Share your impressions with trusted family members and friends.
• Network — Post your impressions and photos on our EartHeart Networking Forum.
• Post — To see what conversations you can ignite, upload on social media your photos and impressions about anything pertaining to your journey down the Heartwood Path.
• Connect — Follow our account on Instagram, Like our Page on Facebook, Subscribe to our Channel on YouTube, and use hashtags such as “#heartwoodpath”, “#eartHeart”, and “#waypoint(insert course)(insert waypoint number) i.e.“#waypointkosmos5”).​

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Your input is vital. Enjoy sharing!

Heartwood Path Axioms:
Key Assertions From Waypoint 1.113

1.113.1.
Unlock your subconscious mind.

1.113.2.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a psychotherapeutic method that helps with emotional healing and lack of creativity. 

1.113.3.
Uncovering  trauma buried in the subconscious mind may be a critical step towards achieving success in your life.

Dreaming Time Activity

For best results, write down your impressions of each night’s dreams in your journal, a vital part of your EartHeart Chronicles. Make your Dream Tending elaborate (so you get the most out of it) but do not make it cumbersome (as this could prevent you from continuing). Use as many of the following components as you see fit. Afterwards, where appropriate, share your Dream Tending with others.
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Before Dreaming Protocol​​

• Dream Prep — Prepare yourself for productive dreaming by decluttering your mind before sleeping. ​
• Journal Ready — Prepare to record your dream impressions by placing your journal so that you can make initial recordings in it without changing your dreamtime sleeping position.

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Dreaming Protocol​

• Remember This — Look to your dreams to tell you what you need to remember.​
• Open To Dream — Be receptive, fluid, interactive, and grounded as you dream.
• Wake-Back-To-Bed — Wake up after six hours of sleep, staying awake for twenty minutes, then go back to sleep.
• Shape-shifters — Watch characters that change in your dream to see into the possibilities of your own transformation.

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Nocturnal Pilgrimage 1.113

Go over what you learned about Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.  Sleep.  Tend to your dreams. 
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After Dreaming Protocol​

• First Off — Recall your dream by staying in your sleeping position as you make your first attempt to remember your dream.
• Book Of Dreams — Create an entry in your dream journal using the following linguistic tools: 1) talking in the present tense, 2) using verbs ending in “ing,” 3) removing articles such as “an” or “the,” and 4) using capital letters when naming the Dream Characters—which can be any notable people, places, or things that show up in your dream.
• Title — Give your dream a memorable title. 
• Date — Write down the date of your dream. 
• Description — Write down a short, general summary of your dream.
• Mood — Write down how the dream affected your mood upon waking.
• Life Event Affecting Dream — Write down any events in your life that may have influenced your dream.
• Dream Characters — List all remembered notable “actors” in your dream, whether they are people, places, or things.
• Setting — Describe the location of your dream.
• Statement Of Problem — Write down the complication, challenge, predicament, situation, obstacle, plight, quandary, or misadventure presented in your dream. 
• Culmination Or Response To The Problem — Describe what you or another Dream Character did in your dream to respond to the problem presented in the dream.
• Conclusion — Describe how your dream ended.
• Beings Revealed — Write down how your dream seemed to be, if at all, linked in some way to your chosen attractive natural beings.
• Freud’s Approach —  Associate the actions of your Dream Characters with latent, infantile, repressed, or sexual drives.
• Jung’s Approach — Amplify your Dream Characters into Archetypes that are global in scale, symbolic, pervasive, positive, and helpful.
• Hillman’s Approach — Recognize your Dream Characters as animated, living beings by honoring their presence, place, and body.
• Right Information — Ask yourself the two main questions for Dream Tending: “Who is visiting now?” And “What is happening here?”
• The Richest Treasures — Do not force narrow interpretations upon the natural being impressions that reappear in your dream by condensing them into limited signs when it is more fruitful to simply engage with them as living beings that reside in your dream, possibly with infinite symbolic value.
• Privacy — Store your dream journal in a safe place and, where appropriate, share your dream with others.​​​

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Dream Council Protocol​

• Create Dream Figures — Periodically create physical representations of select Dream Characters using natural materials, give them some form of identification, and gather them together.

When ready, move to the next waypoint: “The Solution Beyond Yourself.”

Kosmos: Inception: Universal Principles Of Integrity (Course One Printed)

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​Kosmos introduces how eco-psychology and communing with nature provide information, guidance, and healing.

​Kosmos includes 117 learning stations, each with an outdoor activity. This combination package includes: the Kosmos course in a printed book format, a matching online version of the Kosmos course, and one-on-one guidance for as long as you are engaged in this course.
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Heartwood Path One-On-One Guidance (60 minute Session)

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Don Pierce will move you to an extraordinary awakening of personal happiness and ecological sustainability. 

By signing up for guidance (by phone, internet, or in person), you will have Don at your side to answer questions, provide encouragement, and avoid wrong turns. One complimentary Guidance session when you sign up for any our courses.

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