As long as we identify ourselves with the body we live in, we cannot experience reality as it is in this world. Our bodies are not equipped to process the vast amounts of information around us. We are not able to navigate and communicate like dolphins or birds, nor do we have the brains of an elephant, to give some examples.
Body-Mind System, supporting Survival as a species
All living beings, have their own way of experiencing life.
The processes, needed to make this possible, are happening at an unconscious level, directed by the central and automatic nervous systems.
In essence, these systems have but one task: to ensure the body’s survival. This is what humans have in common with animals.
Survival and identification
When we are born, we depend for a long, long time on the care of our parents or caretakers. We have to accept, take over, and adapt to the way they approach and care. Much, much later, we believe we get our own ‘free will’, by which we can think, choose and behave the way we want.
Totally overlooking that we all are living in a body that is trained and conditioned during the first period of our lives. A conditioning that taught us when to eat or sleep, how to behave and think, what to believe, who we are and so much more.
Becoming aware of this fact and growing more conscious of patterns of conditioning is of great help in living a more authentic and spontaneous life.
From there it is easier and with less effort to discover the identifications behind these patterns we started to believe as if we are the human we are born in. In the meantime we can give it a try and work our way towards being more authentic.
Model of the World & the Model of Neurological Levels.
Unless we become aware of our own individual identifications, the survival programs of our body-mind systems will direct our lives and limit our growth toward our full human potential. Without awareness we keep repeating the programs we learned in the past— just like animals do.
What can support the discovery of identifications is to learn about the so-called Model of the World, a model that shows the programs that keep our identifications going on. It refers to the complex processes that enable us to perceive, understand, interpret, react and respond to reality. And like our fingerprints, each of us has his/her own Model or Map of the World.
To find our identifications within our Maps of the World, it may help to use the so-called model of Neurologicals Levels, developed by Robert Dilts, based on the work of Gregory Bateson, who dedicated his life to find answers on the question: “What is the pattern that connects the crab to the lobster and the primrose to the orchid, and all of them to me, and me to you?”
‘The Map is Not the Territory’.
Identification with conditioned programs is the main hindrance to developing the insight that how we perceive our experiences is not the reality: ‘The Map is Not the Territory’. and the realization that we are more than the seed we are born in.
As soon as this is understood and accepted as true, we realize that we are more than the seed we are born in, an adventure can begin that lead us to the path of transcendence, beyond our biological destination.
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Discovering Identifications