Early childhood trauma can leave us feeling disconnected from ourselves, unable to know how we truly feel or think. We can’t evaluate what our real needs are for connection and a felt sense of safety.Cognitive learning meaning instead, we think we need a bigger house or more prestige to feel good about ourselves. We eat or drink too much, trying to calm a dysregulated nervous system.Cognitive learning meaning we go along with the group’s needs rather than our own out of fear of rejection. We can’t look at our mistakes because of the harassing voice in our own head.Cognitive learning meaning we do what we can to get through the day, making whatever attempts we can to fill up the hole in our soul because we don’t know what else to do.Cognitive learning meaning

I have looked at many frameworks for recovery from trauma. Each one has a valuable perspective that helps us step back to a safe distance from our scary places and look at them with both detachment and compassion.Cognitive learning meaning I was truly inspired by one in particular called the four consentsfrom the video series, the spiritual journey by fr. Thomas keating.

The first consent is to the goodness of our own being and is the foundation on which our entire spiritual, mental, emotional and physical being rests.Cognitive learning meaning this consent affirms our inherent goodness from the moment we are conceived until the moment we die. We don’t have to do anything to deserve it.Cognitive learning meaning we are born in oneness with the goodness of god.

The second consent is to the goodness of our abilities, our creativity and our capacity to do.Cognitive learning meaning without the consent of the goodness of our being, the second consent replaces and overcompensates for the first. I had turned into a human doing, desperately trying to pull up over feelings of worthlessness to justify my existence.Cognitive learning meaning my life had become death by a thousand errands because I couldn’t recognize the goodness at the core of my being.

The third consent is to letting go of the things that have previously defined us.Cognitive learning meaning without the first consent to lay a solid, healthy foundation for the second, there can be no real consent to letting go. We hang onto our previous accomplishments and possessions because they are giving us permission to exist.Cognitive learning meaning we have to be willing die to our old self in order to transform into the next stage of our spiritual being.

The fourth consent is to transformation.Cognitive learning meaning human beings are infinitely adaptable but we bitch like crazy whenever change is forced on us. If humanity had not been willing to leave their caves and learn how to build shelter, they would never have been able to follow their food sources.Cognitive learning meaning to let go of their caves meant having to have faith in their ability to learn to adapt to new climates. That kind of faith requires a felt sense of oneness with the environment, your tribe and yourself.Cognitive learning meaning

All of these consents are steps as we accumulate a bigger and bigger consciousness. We never complete any step but rather conquer the hesitations to fully accept them.Cognitive learning meaning we must little by little, take back our inherent goodness in order to be able to express our true selves, which in turn allows us to let go of our past and embrace the future.Cognitive learning meaning we don’t go through these stages, one by one, completed and done. We make progress on one, which gives us room to make progress on the next.Cognitive learning meaning but we are always going back to the first consent. Everything, all mental, emotional and spiritual growth rests upon first consenting to the goodness of our being.Cognitive learning meaning

In love your wounded child, I explained how young children’s needs are existential. They are their physical and emotional needs because they have no cognitive functioning.Cognitive learning meaning they don’t know they are hungry and need to eat. Their loving caretakers teach them not only how to meet their needs but that those needs are worth meeting.Cognitive learning meaning when a baby’s needs are denied, the baby’s existence is denied and it experiences this as toxic shame, “I don’t deserve to live.” I believe this is the genesis of the denial of the first consent.Cognitive learning meaning when a baby doesn’t feel safe and loved, it cannot have a felt sense of its own goodness, a goodness that it doesn’t have to earn by complying with the outside world.Cognitive learning meaning this is a goodness that comes from god who gave us and all other mammals this mutual emotional exchange called love.

A baby who doesn’t feel safe cannot consent to the goodness of its own being because connecting with itself and the outside world is disrupted by toxic shame.Cognitive learning meaning and toxic shame doesn’t allow us to look at our mistakes and make corrections. The first consent is the fertile soil into which we plant the seeds of growth.Cognitive learning meaning shame is the salted earth of survival trauma. The first consent connects the emotional, love, to the physical, feeling safe, to the spiritual, the ability to connect, to the mental, the ability to learn.Cognitive learning meaning this surely is a golden cord.

How do we dig down to that wounded place that says we aren’t good enough? We have to examine the ways that we are denying our true needs.Cognitive learning meaning we have to stop listening to the voice in our head that is criticizing and shaming. We must find ways to connect with our inner sensation, our body that harbors not only the physical connection to our emotional self but warehouses our needs and experiences.Cognitive learning meaning it is our experiences that lay the groundwork for future learning.

Meditation is one of the best disciplines to slowly chip away at our hesitations to consent to our own goodness.Cognitive learning meaning in silent meditation, we are shutting out the tiny symbols of compliance with the outside world, language. We are shutting out the critical voice that sabotages our innate ability to connect with our physical and emotional needs.Cognitive learning meaning we are demonstrating to ourselves by gently sitting in silence that we don’t have to do anything to feel our own self-worth. We are sitting with our sensations and emotions that define our true self without judgment or fear.Cognitive learning meaning

In I am, I described my favorite form of meditation, centering prayer, but any meditation that you feel comfortable with will do. It is only the regular, disciplined practice that will begin to form the basis of a felt sense of well being and groundedness.Cognitive learning meaning beyond the spiritual explanations, we are rewiring our plastic brains. This process is not quick and easy. It takes a lifetime.