Acknowledgment

Last week's article covered "Awareness" from the 3 A's (Awareness, Acknowledgment, Acceptance). This week we will take a deeper look at how to use "Acknowledgment" in our health and healing.

When you practice awareness, you become conscious of the facts of a situation or circumstance, without analyzing or assigning any meaning to it. When we acknowledge something we give its existence validity. We say that it actually has an impact on us and in our lives. In doing this, we begin to delve into the story we have constructed around the situation, and describe how we relate to it.

When we observe the story that we have about the situation or circumstance, it is important to look at the questions you ask about it. The level of consciousness of your questions will dictate the impact that the situation or circumstance has on your life.

Questions we may ask ourselves:

Why will this not end? What's the use? No one can help me.
Who is to blame? Who can fix this?
Why do I keep repeating this same stupid pattern?
What can I do to make sure I stay in my power?
I know I've been a afraid to go further, but what else is going on here?
What can I do to really be ready for whatever is next?
How can I resolve this situation once and for all?

In Network Spinal Analysis (NSA), there are 12 Stages of Healing (as described by Donald Epstein in his book with the same title). Each stage has a different level of consciousness. The questions above ascend in levels of awareness from stage 1 to stage 7 accordingly.

Stages 1, 2 and 3 belong to the Season of Discover (see Volume 2, Issue 10). When our awareness is in this season, we need to discover more about the situation or circumstance because our consciousness and questions keep us looking at it as a problem that needs fixing if it is even possible.

If we are in Discover with respect to the situation, we may be feeling

helpless, like nothing works and no one can help
blame, like we'd be better off with something we don't have or without something we do have
stuck in a pattern that we keep repeating and cannot seem to stop

Acknowledgment in Discover involves the awareness that we view the situation or circumstance as a problem that is messing up our lives. All we can do here is keep observing how we maintain this relationship to the problem and noticing the impact it has on our energy, movement and breath.

We stay in the season of Discover until we have the realization that the situation or circumstance is different than the way "I" view it and the choice of action "I" take with respect to it. Once we make the decision that there is also a "me" involved, we can choose to stop giving our power away to something external to us. This choice brings us into the Season of Transform which includes Stages 4, 5, 6 and 7.

When we acknowledge the situation or circumstance in Transform, it moves from being a problem to a challenge. We are now motivated by a goal that we are working towards. That goal has to do with what we WANT in our lives, not, what we don't want. We still want to change our situation and we do not like the impact the circumstance has had on our lives, but now our focus is in the present. We want to know what we can do now to create the future we want.

When we are in Transform with respect to the situation we may be feeling:

Like we will never give our power away to this again
Like we'll take the step we've been unwilling to take even though we're afraid
Like we'll do whatever it takes to make this dream real
Like the way we lived was an "old me". It's time to leave behind all the things that were important to that "old me" because they are irrelevant to our lives now.

Transform is the season where acknowledgment can really make an impact. This is the place we want to move our awareness so that we can truly take action in our healing. That way we can move into the third A: Acceptance. This does not occur until our consciousness moves into the season of Awaken, which includes stages 8 to 12. This will be discussed next week.

If you find you are in Discover with respect to your problem, review last week's article and definitely attend or re-attend the Intro to SRI workshop. If you are in Transform and the problem is now a challenge, look for one of our Advanced Workshops.