We are now in the season of the heart, and I would like to explore one way we work with the heart in ARCHETYPAL ENERGY PSYCHOTHERAPY. Let’s imagine a client named “Sue” comes in for therapy. She has had trouble manifesting a significant relationship for several years. During the intake I learn that her mother was often emotionally unavailable, and often mean. Her father was an alcoholic. When I have her scan her body and energy field, she reports a tight congested spot in the heart chakra. She also names some sadness and anger.
As the session progresses, a question arises for her mother: Why weren’t you there for me? Sue had a hard time even asking the question out loud. We would pause after each time she said it, and check in with her heart chakra. The pain and contraction initially increased, as it came more into her awareness. There was a lot of sadness, and some guilt. When Sue would remember the good parts of her mother, she felt guilty for asking this question. We worked a bit on understanding that we can have loving feelings along side hurt and anger.
As we continue to work, the congestion in Sue’s heart softenes openes up, so we moved on toward receiving goodness. At this point I had Sue imagine the perfect mother, an archetypal mother. Her perfect mother would be soft, consistent, kind, present and affectionate.
Why do we imagine the archetypal mother? The research in neuro-science has shown that imagining an event activates the brain in the same way as experiencing an event. In this case we are talking about the insula in the brain. The insula registers soothing touch and nourishment, which the perfect mother provides. By imagining the archetypal mother, we actually grow new nero-pathways in the brain, and eventually over-ride the negative mother memories.
Initially Sue had a hard time receiving the touch and attention from this archetypal mother. Since her mother wound was pretty deep, it may take a while for her to fully change her neuro-pathways. However, a lot of the pain and heaviness in her heart chakra shifted. We did make some significant progress in this session, and Sue will continue visualizing receiving nourishment from the archetypal mother.