By Matt Nettleton
We are literally hardwired to seek deeper connection to life. We are hardwired to belong, to love, and to share. Our inherent nature is to cooperate. Deep in our hearts we know this. We know we are not meant to feel separate from each other and be in constant competition. Disconnection from our true nature is where the deep longing, seeking, and feelings of lack come from.
Along the way, somewhere in human history, our survival instinct got out of control. Our body’s survival instinct is supposed to protect us when our lives are threatened, like say when we see a tiger and we go into fight or flight and our system tells us to run.
Our survival instinct has become like a hummingbird in the background of our lives, constantly on red alert. Not because our lives are threatened, but because our identity is threatened.
This is what happens when we are identified with thinking. We create a pseudo-sense of self that needs protecting. And because we carry large amounts of unprocessed pain and trauma, the imaginary threat is intensified. The feeling of unsafety goes off the charts.
Everybody knows that feeling of impending doom, of danger, lurking in the background. Even when we are just sitting at home and there is no REAL threat, our system believes there is. Most of the time it is playing out unconsciously on a loop, or simply as a feeling that something is wrong. What if I lose my job? What if I don’t make enough money? What if this… what if that… Most have this experience, the difference is the degree of intensity.
This came about due to ancestral, collective trauma, personal trauma, and a complete misunderstanding of our true nature. We carry all of this within our systems. We are born into a society that floods us with trauma, fear, and anxiety. Our whole system is based on this fear. It has become our God. We worship it, believing that it will…and is… keeping us safe. But ultimately it is destroying us and bringing us to the brink of extinction.
Our true nature is one of love, but the way humans have been living for centuries has literally re-wired our system for protection. Trauma is the driver behind all of our dysfunction.
Imagine a world where we didn’t feel we needed to protect ourselves from each other, where we didn’t fear each other at all.
Notice what your mind says about that statement, the arguments may be along the lines of “But what about rapists, murderers, drug users, pedophiles, kidnappers etc”.
That is trauma speaking, that feeling of unsafety that’s lurking in the background. The reasons the mind gives that we should worry is due to a trauma loop playing out, keeping us safe from true connection.
As we peel away the unconscious layers, we see that most of our protection is actually not rational, it’s irrational and protecting us from an imaginary threat, protecting our identity most of the time, and not actually our lives.
It’s not enough to try to love each other, to try for connection. We must first remove all the blocks to this love. Connection, love, belonging, and a new world will be the natural result.
Matt Nettelton is a Senior KI Facilitator and Trainer. Read more at mattnettleton.com or contact Matt here.
