Chapter 4. The Bracelet Called Background- How it Binds

Gini enters the room and says, “Welcome back to Lumera. Today we will focus on the importance of understanding your background. There are some pain and shadow that Genies share resulting from being captured.”

“Genies at times can feel angry, panicky, withdrawn, numb or fearful. They may also feel jealous of seeing other people’s happiness or freedom if they have not yet found their own,” continues Gini.

“Many of these reactions are the fallout of having been captured. Humans sometimes call this experience, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Throughout the course, you will learn different techniques to deal with some of this pain. Know you are not alone in your feelings,” Gini says soothingly.

“Your childhood background holds clues about your shadow,” Gini continues.  “The more you know about the shadow, a hidden piece of yourself that can harm or sabotage, the more clarity you will develop.”

“My friend, Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers, (www.coachingflowsuccess.com), a seasoned and empathetic psychologist and Super genie, once told me, “Beliefs are entities unto themselves, with great intentions.” And it is true. Your beliefs although often hidden, govern many of your reactions, actions, and approach to life,” says Gini.

“If you do not know your subconscious beliefs, you will not be certain which entities are running your life. How about we take a look and explore? Your background holds many clues to your beliefs. It is important to know what your subconscious is up to. This involves digging into your past. This can be painful at times but yields much gold. Also, if you are ever overwhelmed find a therapist to help guide you,” says Gini.

You may wish to enter Lumera’s, Room of Mirrors while developing your self-awareness. You can get there by saying, ‘Lumera, Aremul, Mulare, three times and picturing moving through a mirror, to another dimension. Practice the following exercises which focus on growing your self-awareness when you arrive.

 

Genie Lesson # 21

Clarify the Root Issues Stemming from Your Background

In myth, Genies stay stuck while their bracelets are on them. In other words, they are in positions of servitude, as long as they are bound to a person, situation or belief. Their bracelets both symbolize their capture and keep them enslaved.

In human genies there are deep, fundamental scars, often subconscious that keep them trapped. Both the wounds suffered and the conditions that create them play a role in how human genies treat themselves and others.

People, situations and beliefs bind human genies to behaviours and attitudes. To get clarity, identify which circumstances, from your past caused your wounds and reflect on how they limit you.

Tracking how you now inflict similar conditions and pain on yourself and others leads to significant insights. It can be a lot to take in. Sometimes it is easier first to spot these patterns in others. In our natural healing classes, I call these deep-seated, often subconscious behaviours and beliefs, stemming from background, root issues.

They form the root of dysfunctional behaviours or mindsets. They are sometimes afflicted upon one at a very tender age, often from inside the nuclear family. People often glimpse some of their root issues when they engage in self-reflective, or therapeutic work.

15- tree being Learning how to understand these root Issues and the multiple ways they affect your life, is one key that loosens the bracelets of servitude and gets you closer to freedom.

Root issues or Patterns and Your Background

Genie Lesson #22

Do Not Abandon Yourself

Abandonment is related to the fear that people will leave. This concern can manifest from real childhood experiences of being forsaken. Examples of abandonment are the death of a caretaker, adoption, and divorce.

The fear of being left alone stirs up sadness, anxiety, and panic in those who have been abandoned. The younger the age of abandonment, the more familiar the scar may be.

Tara Bennett-Goleman, in Emotional Alchemy, says, “When young children face this situation, they tend to cling harder. There may be a constant seeking of assurance that someone will stay or be dependable.”

Adults with this pattern end up wanting much reassurance. Bennett- Goleman says, “and it has the sad effect of driving people away, as the assurance is rarely ever enough.” The Genie aspect of this pattern is that you hold back your truth and are worried that if you upset others at all, they may leave.

Much like fighting for approval you end up, says Tara Bennett- Goleman, pgs. 75-77, “compromising yourself in various ways, working too hard to please the other, giving up pieces of yourself others criticize so that you are not abandoned again. People with this pattern may put up with bad relationships longer than they should, or conversely leave the other, before the other leaves them.” This pattern can manifest even when the loved one goes away for only a short time.

The abandonment sensitive genie may have a jealous streak, fearing the other is always on the verge of leaving them for someone else. To help this genie trait one must know in their bones they are alright alone and that they are competent adults, who do not need someone else to survive.

Margaret Paul, the author of Inner Bonding, talks about the many ways people continuously abandon themselves. One of her sublime suggestions is to learn to treat your abandoned child part like you would a real child with authentic needs. Attend to it, listen to it and do what is necessary to keep this precious piece of yourself, safe. This is not a onetime fix. It takes awareness of what the inner child wants and deliberately and repetitively care for their needs, day after day.

Abandoning your own needs and wishes is a massive problem for genie people who are taught from an early age to attend to others first and put off their own. One consequence of that is you end up not even knowing what you want, even when you do have the opportunity to speak up. If you have been abandoned, identify what you want and find a healthy way to obtain it. If you do not recognize and attend to your abandoned inner child, you will continually expect someone else to soothe you and meet your needs, while you focus on theirs. This expectation ends up being both disappointing and futile.

Genie Lesson #23

Treat Yourself with Love

Abuse is another pattern, identified by Tara Bennett-Goleman that too many genies have had to suffer. Abuse comes in various degrees. Trapping a genie and enslaving her is a tremendous abuse. Beating or sexually violating someone is a colossal trespass, which may cause ongoing, often lifelong, distress.

Constant criticism, on the other hand, is also abuse, although not of the physical variety. Criticism is distressing and can cause ongoing anxiety and psychological trauma. It is a low level of verbal abuse; one everyone has experienced.

Abuse does have degrees of severity, and someone who has been a prisoner or kidnapped or beaten daily will likely have much deeper scars.

Mythical genies also suffered abuse. Both Gini and Trua were kidnapped. Being mindful and consistently treating yourself and others you love with caring thoughts and actions loosens this oppressive bracelet. If you have suffered abuse, be sure to be kind and loving toward yourself, if you find the pattern triggered.

Genie Lesson #24

Pay Attention to Your Own Needs

Genies hate being ignored and neglected. Think of it, a Genie, yelling up through a bottle at the world, and no one answers, but yet Genie is always responding to someone else’s needs, however trivial, immediately. Feeling continually unheard and unattended to is distressing.

Some human-genie’s start life without having their needs met. Their first memories often revolve around them being the caregivers. But they received little nurturing.

Human genies often realize that if they do not become free, their needs will never be met and this incredibly distressing news, gives great incentive to work for freedom.

Baby genies may have grown up in an environment where their parents were self- absorbed and not responsive to them. Thus, adult genie people, having endured a lifetime of neglect are understandably, as adults still hyper-reactive to being deprived.

16 Black & White Genie Children who are left unattended experience “sadness and hopelessness due to a deep belief they will never be understood or cared for.  The feeling is from the neglected child part, the adult feels angry that their needs are being ignored,” writes Tara Bennett-Goleman.

Genies with this pattern either get angry and resentful, or despondent when they are let down. Or in typical genie fashion, they may go out of their way to be helpful to others, yet few people reciprocate.

Bennett- Goleman writes, “The person with neglect in their background, may not make their needs known to others. The first strategy involves being very demanding, the second very hidden. Either way, disappointment may result.” Another result Goleman points out may be that the person starts “overspending on themselves trying to fill their own needs.”

Another coping strategy is to keep others at a distance, fearing their needs will not be met anyway. “If you find yourself resonating to this pattern,” writes Bennett- Goleman, “Learn to identify and articulate your needs to yourself. Give yourself appropriate amounts of what you need. Learn to express your needs to others. Watch for any patterns of anger, resentment, going out of your way for others, and keeping others at a distance.”

Genie Lesson # 25

Include Yourself!

Exclusion is not always a personal pattern, as it might be applied to a whole group of people, but anyway it happens it hurts. The human-genie feels that they are not good enough, or important enough to be included. Bennett-Goleman says people in this position, “develop a mindset of being outside of the main group. It can cause anxiety, loneliness and a fear of being rejected.”

When people feel excluded and hang out at the edge of a group, rather than being part of it, the situation gets worse, as their defiant stance signals to others that they are outsiders.

Genies are especially vulnerable to this feeling of being excluded, while other people seem to be living in clusters, they are alone, in a lantern, on the outside edge of life. It can be painful and lonely. Finding one’s tribe is not an easy task. In some cases, it never happens. The more unique or wounded the person searching, the harder it can be. It is worth the struggle to find a real home. Of course, some of the hardship is internal, and it takes self-acceptance and allowing others also to be imperfect, but enough, for bonding to take.

Genie Lesson # 26

Trust Yourself

Children who are exposed to deception learn to believe that others cannot be trusted. There is a quickness to anger and rage. There is vigilance in relationships, fearing others will take advantage of them and betray them. Because they are so wary of people’s intentions, writes Tara Bennett- Goleman, (pgs. 81-83), “they have a hard time getting close to others or opening up.”

This pattern often stems from being abused or mistreated. If the abuse was emotional, the genie may react by being hypercritical, demeaning and nasty, then swings to a seductive or kind stance. There is a suspicion that everyone has ulterior motives.

Genies who have the mistrust pattern are strangely drawn to relationships with people who mistreat them. Break this curse and instead find people who treat you well! Witness how unproductive your patterns really are and then make a clean break from them. Try some healthy choices.

 For women, breaking background patterns connected to relationships may mean not always going for the bad boy type. Other women continuously gravitate to childlike men that need rescuing. Observe when your choices don’t work and make new ones. Learn to trust and value yourself, before you delve into a relationship where you may lose yourself. You can also change your mind and choose differently, at any time. You are never permanently stuck. Your first loyalty must be to yourself.

 

Genie Lesson # 27

Know the Gifts and Shadow of Your Background

Your background is ripe with possibility. Where you came from gives you your best values and gifts. Your history is also the birthplace of your old beliefs and behaviours.

Your upbringing, where you witnessed your parents treat themselves, each other and you in a certain way, is also the place your triggers get planted. These triggers are commonly attached to root issues of, abuse, abandonment, neglect, mistrust, or exclusion. These traumas wire your brain in a certain way. They become what you are familiar with, your emotional circumstances. Emotional terrain is a magnetic force, however, unhealthy, it feels recognizable, and the familiar has a strong draw.

Because of early wiring, you may default and treat yourself, or other people in your life, much like you were handled. Or you may go the polar opposite way your caretakers acted, with both your awareness and behaviours.

Most commonly, however, one will alternate between inflicting the root condition they were exposed to on themselves and others and then swing far away from it.

When you act as your parent or captor did toward you, a situational or a location dependent response may be triggered. It can be shocking to find yourself acting out a captor role, previously thought implausible.

To reiterate, if there was punishment, such as abuse, abandonment or neglect in your background, you might carry out the same pattern in your life. “It was done to me, but now I do it to myself.”

We rarely carry out this shadow work consciously, but it nevertheless binds us.

How it manifests depends on your root issues. For example, when you have the abandonment complex, you may continue to react to anyone sending signals about leaving. You may not stand up for yourself, as you fear the other’s anger gives them a reason to go. You may not put your needs, creativity or projects before others, as you learn to abandon, what is important to you. You surrender yourself and your plans but expect someone else to be present for you, as you have done for them.  The pattern has self-defeating consequences.

If the root issue were mistrust, you would be suspicious of others. You may not trust yourself deeply and always search for an expert opinion, only to dismiss it also as unworthy. Those with the mistrust pattern may push others away and end up struggling through stressful events alone. The atrocity of root conditions as a whole is that the dysfunction created continues long after the captor has left, but the suffering continues.