The Wound Cycle
By Edward Kopp
May 3, 2004
The discovery of the wound cycle is a collection of information I have been studying for several years as well as personal insights. The information began coming through while I was driving a cab for a living and had to pick up incredibly drunk people from bars and take them home. At first I was angry that part of my job was to literally carry some of these people into their homes, until I realized theses “drunks” were mirroring a part of myself I had disowned. The disowned part was the part of myself that literally wanted to die because it was in so much pain. These “drunks” were mirroring the part of me that had decided life was too tough, there was too much pain to deal with and that I didn’t have the skills to cope.
When I began to own up to the fact that part of me didn’t want to be here anymore because I was in so much pain, I began to look around and see that many other people were also “suffering through” life with little happiness or joy. The way most people (as well as myself for most of my life) were coping with their pain was to acquire any number of addictions (T.V., food, drugs, sex, exercise, gambling etc). Seeing that the addictions only numb the pain and create problems of their own, it became clear to me there must be another way. This is when the information on the wound cycle began to come though.
The wound cycle is a method or way of examining the unconscious wounds within ourselves that in essence run our lives. Life throws us many challenges and often we are unequipped on how to deal with them, especially as children. Our mistakes, failures, rejections are all stored away in our unconscious and then resurface as mirrors in our life circumstances. The feelings of rejection we feel as a child will resurface by others rejecting us for something later in life for something else. Because we have not dealt with the original wound it keeps resurfacing. Once we get to the original wound and heal it, then the mirrors (in this case rejection) will cease.
The wound cycle also goes further to get to the “original karma” that caused the wound to resurface in the first place. Karma is cause and effect. What we experience is the effect of some cause that has occurred previously. In this moment we are the summation of all of our ancestors (Parents, Grandparents so on and so on) and each life has had it’s share of success and failures. These are all recorded into our DNA and then play themselves out in this life.
The good news is we have an opportunity to clear the karma. By clearing the karma we take our power back by taking responsibility for our life and for the lives of our ancestors. As we clear karma we are consciously choosing to change our life by forgiving the past allowing a new future to be born for ourselves. Karma is cleared by intending it so. By intending to forgive all sides of a given issue the issue (karma) can be cleared allowing us to move on and create a more joyful experience for ourselves.
That’s what the wound cycle allows us to do, to go and investigate our painful experiences, see how they are unconsciously affecting our lives and then go in and clear the wounds, change the old worn out patterns and be free from the past allowing ourselves to be more in the present to create a new future for ourselves.
If one were to visual the wound cycle it may look something like this:
pdf of Diagrams
WHAT IS A WOUND?
In the case of the wound cycle we are primarily talking about emotional wounds. I wish to share a wound from my childhood and then work through the wound cycle to see how many different layers may be uncovered which may help explain how many of our old wounds are still managing our lives this very moment. By getting to the old wounds one can clear them and unleash a new day for one’s self in the present and future.
My Childhood Wound - My parents fought often when I was a child and the fights were often very dramatic and intense. Although no hitting occurred they were scary to experience. This caused me to feel unsafe at home, never knowing when the next flare up would occur. It is not my intention to blame my parents, It is in the examination of how I experienced their arguments that I wish to explore. Through the examination I am able to have more compassion, honor and forgiveness for them and myself.
Wound - To hurt the feelings of; to pain by disrespect, ingratitude, or the like; to cause injury to.
Wounded – suffering from emotional injury
Since most emotional wounds appear intangible they are more difficult to “get at” as often they become part of our personality and we then assume they are just part of who we are. Because they are not visible per say but are seen often only when they themselves “act out” they remain hidden from most of us. The purpose of the wound cycle is the assist in identifying where our wounds are and where they come from so we can clear them before they act themselves out again.
We also bury many of these wounds so that we don’t have to deal with them. Often these incidents are scary and we do not wish to relive them, as the original pain from them was enough why go through it again? The object is not to have to necessarily relive all the past trauma of our lives in minute detail, but to bring the incidents up so they may be brought to consciousness and then forgiven and cleared. One may experience some discomfort as an old wound resurfaces but that is actually a good sign that one is reintegrating a lost part of one’s self. Once the integration is complete not only will the discomfort go away but one will feel lighter, stronger and more joy as more of one’s self has come “home”
NUMBING OUR PAIN AND ADDICTIONS
Examining old forgotten parts of our unconscious is not what western culture sells to us. We are sold on escaping from our pain through movies, T.V., entertainment, sports, vacations, etc. or to numb our pain through alcohol, drugs, sports, pornography, workaholism, and many other distractions. The increased amount of media over the past few decades only causes more distraction, more titillation and more searching outside of self for answers.
It takes courage to go within and bring light to the dark, scary parts of ourselves, but that is where the gold is, not on T.V. The huge corporate conglomerates pray on our weakest parts by offering temporary relief from our pain. This is looking externally to fix an internal problem. Our pain can only be relieved by ourselves, by investigating why we are in pain in the first place. These companies know that if more people begin to examine why they are in pain then many changes are underway, people will begin to wake up and demand current circumstances and inequalities be rectified and this is something the huge companies don’t want. They would rather have a pacified population who is over worked and just wants to “vege” in front of the television before going to bed, things are much simpler that way allowing the companies to exude much more power and control.
Working with the wound cycle will make you more aware of why you are the way you are and why you do the things you do and hopefully will get you out of some of the “automatic pilot” ways of being we all fall into. By looking within you will gradually gain greater control of your external reality as all external realities are a reflection of one’s internal state within.
I wish to explain each layer of the wound cycle and how they may affect our present day life experiences and I then will discuss how to work with each piece to heal the wounds themselves.
Original Karma or Original Wound
As stated earlier karma is cause and effect, what comes around goes around. One cannot experience something without being at cause of the experience. Likewise one cannot cause something and not live to experience it in some way. For any current experience in present time there is karma for it. The piece many may not realize is that we are a composite of all of our ancestors and we also carry all of their karma.
This is why clearing the original wound is so powerful. It takes us back to the original cause of why something is not working in present time. Our ancestors have done everything we can imagine and we hold in our DNA the record of all actions taken by our ancestors. We also carry their unexpressed dreams and desires. By getting to the original karma and forgiving it we can free ourselves by being held to ancient experiences that no longer serve us and we also allow our ancestors to learn from the experience.
Clearing the karma means clearing all sides of a given situation. One can intend to clear the karma and run the Language of Light tone of Forgiveness (see Language of Light for more information) throughout all the tapestries of one’s ancestry clearing the karma. One can intend also to run one’s kundahlini to burn off the cords of attachment between ancestors from the karma. This will leave one feeling freer with the situation as one will not be bound by the old agreements held in place by the karma.
With my wound I must forgive my parents and their arguing and I must also forgive my ancestors for any time they have been the arguing parents causing discomfort for their children. In this life I don’t have any children, yet my ancestors have been mothers and fathers in millions of lifetimes. To clear karma completely I must forgive all the lifetimes where I was a mother or father and argued violently affecting my children. We may not want to look at that side of ourselves but in reality our ancestors have done all things and the events would not present themselves in this life if they weren’t karmic meaning we caused a similar experience and are reliving the effects of it.
There may be many layers of karma to clear before we get to the original karma, but each layer released allows greater freedom for ourselves in present time and for our ancestors as well whom learn from our lessons.
As far as the original karma to be cleared that has to do with the war between the male and female which is ancient karma and karma that SSOA is examining this year. So I cannot say I have gotten to the original karma but my intention is to do so as well as to heal the wounding and separation between the male and female within and in my relationships.
Wound or Violation in This Life
When we are wounded or violated as a child we go into fear, pain, sadness, despair, depression or any other emotions the run through us at the time. These emotions often get buried and repressed and sent into the unconscious causing them to be mirrored back to us later in life by those around us. We also may attract people in our life whom also mirror to us the unhealed wounds. If we start looking at our mirrors as hints to our unconscious then we are able to make changes.
From my childhood wound I then viewed relationships as dangerous and to be avoided. Although I desperately wanted to be in love and find my beloved the thought of recreating what occurred in childhood was too scary so I ended up manifesting relationships that didn’t last and were also very volatile. I then blamed the other person for their mistakes, and not being the “one” when in fact I was unconsciously manifesting relationships based on fear.
If we view life from the point of view that there are no accidents, one is not a victim and that one’s life is a creation of one’s own making then this gives one much more power to change any circumstances life presents. If we also take into account that we in present time are the result of all of our ancestors before us and that our ancestors have done everything then our wounds become greater opportunities for self examination, growth and clearing of karma. When something, “Happens to us” it is the result of ancestral karma that has yet to be cleared. As a child we do not know this and generally feel powerless and irresponsible for things that other people do to us.
We then look to blame and point fingers at others that, “They did this to me”. When in fact we have done all things to all others through our ancestry. These wounds are opportunities for us to heal.
The other difficulty is that we often don’t remember many of these emotional wounds and they get buried into our subconscious where they then act out in our life. Once again as an adult we may point fingers at others claiming we are innocent when in fact we are more likely having our own unconscious wounds mirrored back to us from other people. As we take responsibility for the mirrors around us we are able to begin to see our unconscious more clearly. This is the gift of consciousness, life is constantly mirroring back to us our own self. When we begin to accept this, life becomes more of an adventure and the people around us become our teachers.
UNMET NEED CREATED – out of the pain and suffering from our wounds there is another cycle or series of patterns than may occur which I have called the “Unmet Need Cycle” or the “Co-Dependent Dream Cycle”. Out of the wound we then feel less than whole. From this sense of lack we then may feel we don’t have the ability to fulfill or manifest whatever it is we need in the moment. We then may attempt to arouse sympathy from others in attempts to get our needs met. We then create a story we are needy and unworthy which creates a co-dependent identity who intends to manifest co-dependent dreams.
From my wound I was in desperate need of peace and harmony. Playing the guitar in my bedroom gave me some peace and allowed me to begin to explore musical “harmony” and self expression. My need for peace and harmony got fused with my need to heal that wound which was music. I then began to need music. For much of my life I didn’t go a day without playing guitar. I now can see that was my way of getting peace and harmony. Playing the guitar does relax me but I became reliant on the guitar to provide that for me.
Music then became my passion as I felt it had healing powers for myself and when I performed for my family, plus it was fun and made me feel good. The only problem was I wasn’t addressing my wounds. Music became my medicine, my healer and my guru. My musical idols were my own “False Gods”. Many of the famous musicians are called “Guitar God” or “Drum God”. I idolized and worshipped many throughout my life as I felt they gave me something to shoot for, but I was always less than they as I was a nobody and they were huge some bodies. This caused me always to be in a less than position with music which lead to disharmony, comparison and competition. I then went into the starving artist mode where I played on being someone who was struggling and wanted to be admired for it. I wore this on my sleeve for many years wanting people to feel sorry for me because I had chosen something difficult and I was having a rough time.
Once a co-dependent identity is created to meet our unmet needs then the identity goes about filling those needs, but how do they do it? Primarily the identity learns a few patterns that work – seducing, controlling or manipulating another or sabotaging, or being needy may be a few of the ways the identity fills the needs. I mixed a few together. I tried to seduce through creativity, control my creativity and the people I was performing with as well as perpetrating the needy starving artist to get attention. None of these patterns lead to an authentic expression of joy. I always wondered why I was trying to write happy positive songs yet people didn’t respond in a joyful manner most times, it was because unconsciously I was seducing, controlling and being needy which energetically didn’t allow for freedom and authentic joy. Also my songs tried to be positive but there was an underlying sadness of the hurt inner child trying to be healed by the music and by the audience.
Out of my unmet need for harmony and peace I began to need audiences to heal me. What good is playing music alone if I can’t hear the praises of others? This then created an unhealthy dependence on my reactions from my audiences. I slowly became increasingly angry that they were not healing me, or that I had to be a certain way for them to be happy and therefore appreciate me. Music as a healer was slowly becoming what I believed to be the source of my unhappiness and I then blamed everyone for not understanding me or appreciating my talent and music. I never put together that my search for harmony between myself and my audience was mirroring the search for harmony and peace that I wanted to experience as a child and that I needed to find within myself. I was looking to heal those childhood wounds in bars playing rock n roll and it took me many years before I realized it could not be done that way.
Emotional Pain From the Wound
When we are hurting we want to escape, numb, or pass the pain, suffering, despair or other emotions away from us. When we are young we don’t have the tools necessary to deal with these emotions and therefore we often go into survival mode where we search for anything to take the pain away. These emotions then often cause a part of ourselves to fracture off and leave and we then become less than whole within. Because we have less of ourselves to deal with our issues it is natural that we look to others to help us deal with our pain. These people are usually our parents but may be others as well. For me since I viewed my parents as “part of the problem” I went to music and my musical heroes to “save me”. My guitar became like a pacifier of sorts, well into adulthood and my musical heroes were the ones I went to for comfort and inspiration. They became my “gurus” and could do no wrong. Again I was looking outside of myself and to others to fill painful voids in my life.
The following steps are an example of what may happen from an emotional wound during childhood:
The following is a possible way that a child may go through the emotions of a wound. There are many possibilities. We can look at this process as an adult and see if there is any relevance to how we still react when certain things are triggered in us.
Step 1 – Pain/Suffering – as a child seeing their parents fight is traumatic and painful. What do we do with our childhood pain? There are many options but often we either feel/express it or we numb it. I attempted to numb my pain with music and then other things and eventually I was convinced it was music that was causing me pain. Our addictions and numbing or coping techniques only work for so long before they wear out and then we have to begin to look underneath or else we will continue to suffer needlessly
Step 2 – Express our anger/rage – most children don’t get angry at their parents (not until they are teens or adults usually) so often the anger has to go somewhere which usually gets internalized. We are also taught as children not to express our anger so we may be more manageable for the adults. We may also take on the anger of our parents as a means of being a “peacekeeper”.
Our unexpressed anger when internalized can lead to despair, depression and even suicidal tendencies. This also can lead to disease later in life as the rage has been turned inward and our body has no where to vent the anger except against itself.
We also may develop a fear of our own anger. Anger is a useful emotion and can help us with our boundaries and effect change. Yet if we are afraid of our anger we may become afraid to stand up for ourselves. Anger can cause us to say we’ve had enough and finally put our foot down. When we are afraid of our own anger or afraid of what we are possible of when we are angry or afraid of others disapproving of us when we are angry we lose a valuable emotion and tool.
Our parents may be very fearful of their children’s anger as well and may sabotage it. If their child is angry at them it may mean the parent isn’t doing a good job, or that they may have to look at their own behavior and how it affects their child which the parent may not wish to do. It may be helpful to return all anger one has taken on from others as a child and retrieve one’s own anger and one’s ability to get angry if it has been taken so that one can process and work with only their own anger.
Step 3 – Going into Fear/Loss of Power/Loss of Confidence – when one acts out of fear one cannot be in their power, one has given their power to the one they are afraid of. In this case I was afraid of what would happen to my family if a fight got too intense or if my mother or father decided to leave. This fear caused me to lose faith in relationships and family which I believe is part of why I feel so passionately about working with the inner family. When I began to take responsibility for my life and allow for forgiveness I can now see that my parents were also representing the war between the male and female which was also representing my inner male and female that were at war with each other. When I began taking responsibility for my healing I could no longer blame my parents for who they were as they were reflecting those parts of myself that were at war. We are all related and anything one experiences is a mirror of what is happening within.
What also comes into play is the fact that the child may not know if they can prevent themselves or others from doing the same thing again. This causes a sense of self doubt and mistrust of self and others mainly due to an inability to establish or hold one’s boundaries. The lack of confidence causes one to be less sure of themselves and one then may feel they need to rely on someone (usually the parents) to take care of them. Adults act out a similar pattern by giving much responsibility and power to those in public office to “run things” and then rely on the few elected officials to take care of everything.
The loss of power and confidence also allows one to be more easily manipulated by others. If one is in fear most of the time it may be difficult to stand up for one’s self when necessary, or one will blindly trust those taking care of us as always doing what’s best for us when in many cases that may not be so.
The following are a few ways one may act when one has gone into fear:
Fight or Flight – we are going to stand up and defend ourselves or run away to avoid harm.
Allow the future or past determine the present - our fear will take us out of the present moment and put us into the past or future. We will either relive our past mistakes and the consequences thereof and spent huge amounts of time and energy trying not to repeat them or we will be petrified of what the potential outcomes of potential circumstances will bring. Either way we are frozen into non-movement and paralyzed. Out of the fear we are letting both the past and the future affect the present.
Become repressed or passive - retract, recoil, become less expressed and allow others to do things for us
Overcompensate – we may go into the opposite mode and if we are feeling powerless try to manipulate and control
Search for Protection – seek out someone we believe is bigger, stronger and who can take care of us against the attacker
Become easily controlled and manipulated – when in fear one often doesn’t question or object the actions of those in power. This leads to one who may blindly trust another out of fear, or falsely believe that the one in power has their best interests in mind
Mistrust – we may begin to mistrust ourselves and others, close up and become one that is always suspecting themselves or another that they are doing something wrong or that they are to avoided at all costs.
Lose Confidence/Self Esteem – our fear may paralyze us or freeze us into non-movement where we are afraid to be ourselves, take chances, interact with others. We may become paranoid that everyone is out to get us
Avoid dealing with life – out of fear we may just want to hide from life, other people and the day to day issues of our life or find ways to go into fantasy and escape.
Self Defense and the need for protection – out of our fear we often will get defensive and look to others for protection. The defensiveness may include a closing of the heart center which may have been shattered due to the pain of the wounds. Our physical bodies often express this defensiveness in how our posture is, how we breathe, how we speak, and many other ways that we have stored this fear into our bodies.
Our personalities will likely reflect this as well. We may become shy or overcompensate by being loud and aggressive. We most likely will find some ways to make our wounds work for us whether we become overly controlling and manipulative or shy and needy to get our needs met. It is natural to develop these “personality devices” to survive in the world as we know no other way. But as we grow into adulthood these devices may not serve any longer and they certainly do not lead to being empowered, harmless and living a life based on joy and fulfillment. So as we begin to uncover some of these personality devices and identities we can forgive ourselves for creating them and have compassion for ourselves and then begin to release them. We can also begin to have more compassion for those around us who did the same thing and knew no other way. As we release these devices and retrieve our wounded parts of ourselves we can release the need to act out of fear and act from our soul created a more soul directed life which will bring much more peace, joy and fulfillment.
Another helpful piece to look at is who have been the gurus in our life dance up until this point? Who have we gone to for nourishment, inspiration and protection in the past? What do gurus do for us? Why do we put others on a pedestal above ourselves? The following may be a few things that we look to gurus/saviors to do for us. If we have any gurus in our life dance we may wish to look at what we have given over from ourselves to make them appear so “special”. As we retrieve what we have given over to these people we can retrieve our lost gifts and talents and become more of an equal in all areas of our life. We may have gurus in different areas of our life: career, love, sex, money, power, spiritual etc. What do gurus do for us?
Take care of us – we go to our savior to take care of us as we are needy, weak and have no power to do ourselves. There are many ways we can be taken care of. For myself my parents have helped me many times financially as often I barely had enough money to pay my rent of which I have been very grateful. As I retrieve my power and parts of my wounded self I am not needing to have my parents save me financially any longer.
We also can have a savior be our partners who “love us” and have our partner’s love be what saves us. The only trouble is if the relationship breaks up what do we do then? Who is there to save us? As one learns to be sovereign in their relationships one can co-exist in relationships in equality and noon-conditional love allowing each to be equal and having no one being the savior to the other
Give us knowledge/wisdom – many times we need information and go to others to receive it. We all need teachers whom help us along the way. The problem comes when we then become reliant on or teacher to tell us our truth. I was “Mr. Metaphysical Book guy” and bought hundreds of books telling me this or that and I would take it on as my truth. I also bought hundred of records and CD’s believing I should play guitar this way or that way. As I sold the books and CD’s I was able to tune to what my truth was/is and allow my own uniqueness to flow through, which is an ongoing process
Give us pleasure – we resonate with certain individuals based on karma and any individual we have declared as a guru may feel comfortable or good to us because we have been through this relationship many times in the past. We are attracted to certain people’s talents, knowledge, personalities etc. and when we have the chance to be in their presence we feel like we have witnesses or been part of a “special event” and this makes us feel special that we can be in the presence of someone we look up to. This is based on comparison and greater than/less than and in this paradigm we always end up on the bottom. As we retrieve our power and see ourselves as equal then all interactions will become blessings as we perceive ourselves and everyone around us as equal.
Provide a sense of community or family – being a follower of any guru will given one a sense of belonging to the family, community of like minded followers whom all have the guru in common. This causes a bond to be created between the followers and often the guru will then use the joint energy of the following to puff themselves up to appear greater and above the following. The followers then may find a new sense of purpose within the guru family and it may feel warm comfortable and cozy and may be enjoyable to share with others something in common (love of the guru). But this is a false sense of family and community as there is not equality but one exalted one and the rest are the lower followers. This leads to where the gurus gets all the money, fame, adulation, and the followers get to worship their hero/heroine. The followers never get to lead as they are too busy following and so the guru has final say over most matters, leading to a dictator like position often having the followers accept every word spoken as truth. Real community is created between sovereign individuals sharing equally of their gifts and talents. This is where real community will be born from
Provide leadership – someone wouldn’t be a guru if they weren’t leading someone in some way. It may be as we are wounded and lose parts of ourselves and our power that we are drawn to certain leaders to provide leadership and power where we feel we have little or none. In learning to retrieve our power from those whom have taken it as well as retrieve the fractured parts of our lost and wounded selves we will come more greatly into our power and be able to govern our own lives attuning to our guidance to lead us. The more we become whole the more of our own selves there is to connect to and listen to. It is as we are so shattered and scattered about that there is so little of our own truth to tune into. As we learn to separate the guidance of others from our own and collect our own truth we will release the need for anyone else to lead us, we will lead ourselves to wherever our soul want and needs for us to be in each moment.
Be an example of perfection/goal to strive for – the guru is often proclaimed as best, most gifted, highest attainment of whatever position of authority they may be in. People may be in awe of their talents, skills, abilities and crave to be that great at whatever it is they are envious of doing or having. This putting another on a pedestal always leaves one feeling less than, not enough, or unworthy of being equal with the guru. No matter what one tries they just can’t do it the same or as good as the guru. This is comparison and competition based thought-form which there is a winner and a loser. The guru wins and the follower loses. The follower hopes someday they will be as good as the guru but deep down they know they won’t be because no two people can ever do the same thing equally as well. We all have our own gifts and talents and when we retrieve our power and abilities from those we have idolized we can begin to create our own unique path of self-expression without the need to compare ourselves to another. This is when real joy and self expression can emerge as we are expressing our own unique truth in our own unique way.
The Story Created from our Wounds – our wounds affect us deeply and on many levels. As we get older we begin to make decisions about who we think we are and how we are to function in the world, many of these decisions are directly related to the wounds we have suffered in early childhood and into adolescence. Our wounded self has to develop some means to cope with the pain and still be in the world, and many of these coping mechanisms become our personality in our mid teens.
Our “Story” or our “Interpretation of Self” is the life script that we write for ourselves. According to this script we then become the lead character in our own story. Since we are writing it we believe it is all true, yet much of our characters background is in our unconscious buried in these wounds. We begin unconsciously creating our story filled with self limiting and self sabotaging beliefs about who we think we are due to many hurting parts of ourselves we haven’t healed. We then believe we know everything about ourselves and that is all true and we then create our own self sabotaging belief system which works perfectly because we follow it to a tee! How else would we be able to validate what a victim we are unless we proved we were living our story out perfectly.
For example as a child I felt it was my job to make their family laugh as I hated to see my family members fight and argue so I ended up creating a script calling for me to become an entertainer and musician. Since I had received praise for my music and humor I interpreted that to mean “this is who I am and what I should do.” I later went to music school so I could play music for a living and help “cheer up” my audiences to make them feel better. This is a form of co-dependence which I as the performer is dependent on the audiences reaction just as when I was younger I used my family’s laughter to help me feel good about myself and make me feel I was doing a good thing. This is all well and good as long as I was pleasing my audiences. But things changed as I got out in the “real world” and was met with indifferent audiences. These audiences went against my story and were not participating like they were supposed to. They were not feeling better after I performed and often I couldn’t tell if they had heard me at all. This reeked havoc with my story of who I was supposed to be, and what my mission was causing me to go into anger, despair and confusion. I had a life script and it wasn’t working what was I to do. I chose to blame my audiences for not responding like I thought they should. Then I blamed myself for not being a good enough musician. If I were as good as all my famous idols I would be making people happy and getting paid to do it.
It wasn’t until I began looking at how angry I was at the audience and then realizing they were reflecting back to me my own anger and indifference I had at them for not making me feel validated that things began to shift. Once I realized a big part of performing was to make me feel like I did when I was a boy did I forgive my audiences and myself. This freed up my music, my performances and allowed much more joy to come through since I could just play music and not have to have music be a therapy session. Music has it’s own healing powers I don’t have to be a therapist on top of it. It was the pressure of having to save my audiences that made my music preachy and boring. Once I was able to change my story of who I was as a musician and who my audiences were music became a lot more enjoyable for myself and my audiences.
So the good news is our story is changeable and does change as we change our beliefs and thought-forms. This is where self- examination is so powerful as the pillars on which we believe ourselves to be shift and often crumble once we realize that they were never made of anything other than our own scared and frightened parts of ourselves. In order to really change one’s life, one has to begin to get to what lies underneath the surface of who we are.
the identity and thought-froms created from our story – the story I created naturally then bore a whole set of identities that went along with it. In order for me to be a musician and performer I had to then become immersed in that lifestyle. I went in all the way: buying records, buying guitars, going to clubs and concerts, hanging out with other musicians, being in many bands, performing, drinking, doing drugs, being the starving artist, making demo tapes and sending them to record companies and many other actions created out of the identity of “musician”. I also idolized those famous musicians that I resonated with and tried very hard to be like them and I pursued the dream of fame for many years thinking that the more famous I got, the more people I could make happy and therefore I would be happier and happier as well.
The musician identity affected how I dressed, grew my hair, talked (musician slang), what jobs I got, the friends I had and the people I hung out with, where I lived etc. Within the musician identity are many sub-categories (folk, rock, blues, jazz, heavy metal, rap, classical etc) and each sub-category would have it’s distinct identity machinery distinguishing you from another or displaying you were of a certain category. I was in several (rock, jazz, singer-songwriter) and each felt different.
This identity also affected who I became in my family. As a boy I was the one who I felt was “saving” my family from arguments and fighting to as an adult I was the one who needed financial saving as often I could barely make ends meet. I also became the “weird one” within a conservative family and for some time felt like I didn’t fit in. I also felt it was my job as an “artist” to push the boundaries of my family and challenge them on certain ideas and principles. I wasn’t loving them I was doing what I thought all artists are supposed to do and challenge the status quo. That’s what my musical heroes supposedly did, so why shouldn’t I as well.
My mood and persona also was greatly determined by how well my career was going. If I had a great gig or a step closer to getting a record deal I was happy, if I was met with a lousy gig, a rejection letter from a record company or some other negative consequence I was miserable and made those around me suffer as well. I was my career and my career was me and since I did not have much success for most of it I was unhappy much of the time. I was also always looking for my “big break” and doing what I could to meet the right people, be at the right parties, schmooze this person and that person. I never knew if whom I was talking to could be a potential “lead” so I was fake much of the time. I felt it hard to be honest with people because I felt they may be able to help my career so I became a seductive liar.
I also became very possessive of my creativity. Since it was my greatest asset (or so I believed) I was very insecure about letting others have it. I would save it only so the “right” people (record company executives/audience members) would hear it. I came to believe that as a musician I was competing with all other musicians for a piece of the fame pie and there was not enough to go around so I had to conserve my creative output for well timed sporadic bursts. This lead to me not being able to enjoy the gifts and talents of other musicians as I was constantly comparing myself to see if they had a better shot of “making it” than I did. It also didn’t allow me to have any freedom with my music as I was always looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was judging me, or I was being overly critical of myself because no one was banging on my door to sign me to a record deal. No fun, no fun at all.
To deal with my lack of success I used drugs and sex to escape. I was borderline alcoholic two times in my life and used marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, and pornography to escape from the disaster of a career that was my life. These were all band aids (pun intended) to help me cope with how depressed and miserable I was that I was still a starving artist.
Many of these thought-forms have shifted as has my story about who I am as a person, musician, and family member but until I began examining what I had created for myself due to the story and identity that went along with that story
THE DREAM FOR ONE’S LIFE – the dream is an energetic system as well as the intentions and actions taken in one’s life to manifest what one wishes. One can think of one’s dream as the message that one sends out to make manifest. Many people consciously know what they wish to manifest. I had to a dream to be a famous musician and it never manifested which for many years made me angry. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong, to make my dream come true. The problem is that for almost all of us there is more occurring in the unconscious than in our conscious reality which means that consciously we may intend something yet it never occurs. One possible reason this happens is that there are parts of our unconsciousness (inner children etc) that don’t want it to happen. So there is a push and pull between one’s conscious self and the unconscious and since the unconscious is generally much larger than the conscious self (until one reaches full consciousness) the unconscious wins most times. The wound cycle helps to get at some of the unconscious parts of ourselves and bring it to consciousness so that more of our conscious intentions become a reality.
After looking at the proceeding materials one can see how the dream for one’s life can be affected by the karma, wounds, stories, and identities that may be in the way of creating what we wish to create in this life.
Energetically our dream is worked with through the four subtle bodies (Mental, Emotional, intuitive, and Creative) and then relayed to the sun where it is then captured back again through the subtle bodies and brought into manifestation. This process quickens the more one ascends but if our mental and emotional bodies are filled with anger, despair, and indifference what kind of dream are we going to manifest?
Nothing occurs in the physical without a dream, yet most are unaware of the power we have to alter our dreams to become more joyful and fulfilling by examining our deeper inner self. One can learn to become the dreamer and the dream where one lives a life that is of one’s creating that brings one joy but one has to go through where we are still sabotaging ourselves in the unconscious. I thought I was consciously doing everything I could to make my dream of being a famous musician into my life, I did not know how powerful my unconsciousness was in working against me and how powerful the unhealed wounds were in affecting my current life.
As one begins to heal the past one heals the present and future bringing all together in oneness and wholeness. As we come into greater wholeness our dreams can come true. I know now that much of my dream for fame was based on a wound. The need to be famous has subsided as I know that playing music is enough, I don’t have to save the world with my music. I just have to play music, the rest will sort it self out. Music is to be enjoyed not made to be a therapy session. It’s best to do the inner work off stage in the comfort of my home and allow the healing to come through the music. The dream to heal others through music has now become one where I heal myself and allow the music to reflect that healing and the joy and healing is shared with others through the music. That is a huge shift one that allows joy and fulfillment for myself and those who may share in the melody, harmony, and dance of rhythms.
SUMMARY
One potential way to view who we are is as a collection of inner male and female members who are constantly reminding us that they are hurting and in need. This translates into our day to day life as being one where we are often acting from a wounded place or feeling that we are not enough. As we begin to work with and heal these inner family members we can resolve the grief, pain, anger and fear and the neediness and move into wholeness and fulfillment and come to greater peace within which will be reflected back in our outer experience.
I hope this information is useful in your journey into wholeness.
Namaste,
Edward Kopp
Edward Kopp is in our Group Mastery Program and offers one to one healing consultations over the phone along with workshops in the Pacific Northwestern United States. For more information, see his biography for healing services.
WOUND CYCLE WORKSHEET
Part I Getting to the Wound
o A good place to start is with our parents, we often have many issues with our mothers or fathers. My mother never did … for me or My father was always… to me
o Another good place is to identify something we have never had or always wanted to have and were envious of others having
o What’s not working in our life dance? Or has never worked? There are bound to be wounds and unmet needs surrounding those issues
o What are the emotions or situations where we go for our creature comforts (sweets, coffee etc) that help ease our discomfort
o What do we still feel guilty, ashamed, depressed, sad, or any other emotion about?
If possible identify original karma
o If we don’t know intending it will peel away the layers and keep intending to clear the many layers of karma in regards to this original karma
Intend to clear all sides of the karma
o Intend to run the Forgiveness tone throughout all our tapestries of ancestry as well as through the ancestries of those whom have wounded us in this life and intend to forgive those and their ancestors whom we believe have wounded us as well as forgive ourselves and our ancestors any time we have wounded others in the same way
How do we deal with the pain, fear, anger and need for protection from the wounds?
o Have we taken on any pain, fear, anger from others, if so we can return it and retrieve what is ours
o Intend to retrieve any and all fractured parts of ourselves that may have left during or after any of the wounds involved and send them for recasting in the aurora and bring them into present time after they have been recast
o Are there any habits or addictions we use to numb our pain? If so what are they at what do the addictions numb out for us?
o Do we have any gurus/saviors that we go to when these wounds or needs pop up? Who are they? What do they provide for us that we feel we can’t provide for ourselves?
What is our story surrounding our wound?
o What has become our belief system surrounding our wound? Who have we created ourselves to be from the wound? How do others see us? How do we see ourselves?
o We can intend to erase the old story and rewrite a new one more in line with our current truth and evolution and intend that our new story supports our ascension, truth and the good of all others and the Earth Mother as well.
o We can intend to change any story whenever it is outdated
Out of our story what is the identity created and what are the habits, patterns and thought-forms this identity follows
o Who are we according to our story? Is it really us? Does it still serve us and our life?
o We can intend to dismantle this identity, releasing it and replacing it with more Soul, LOL, and LOO.
o Dismantling old worn out identities gives us new found freedom and we can release any fears of change we may have in releasing the “Old Me” and replacing it with the “New Me”
What are the dreams and intentions and actions for our life that we have manifested due to the old identity?
o What have we wanted to accomplish and haven’t been able to?
o What part of ourselves has been getting in the way?
o Do our dreams still match up with who we are?
o Are our dreams old identity based and no longer serve?
o We can intend to realign our dream with our I AM, Soul, Oversoul and Source along with the Earth Mother so that it serves our continued ascension and the ascension of the whole and no longer serves the wounded inner child or bruised ego
Part ii Getting to the Unmet Need
o From our wound, what do we feel we have never been able to receive?
o What part of us feels empty, lonely, uncared for due to these wounds?
o Where do we feel others have let us down, abandoned us, forgotten us, or left us to fend for ourselves when we thought we may not have been ready?
o Where are we aching, hurting from something that was promised and never delivered, or something we expected and never received, or we believed there was an agreement to be provided something and the agreement was never honored?
o Where do we still blame others for screwing up our lives? Where do we blame others for not being there when we needed them or not doing what they were supposed to?
Where have I convinced myself I am unworthy of getting my need met and unworthy of receiving?
o Where do I still play the victim/martyr? And what is the payoff for being the victim/martyr?
o What need is filled by being the victim? Does it still serve?
Identify where we may be denying our responsibility to meet our own needs
o To deny is to: declare untrue, to contradict, to refuse to believe, reject, to refuse to recognize or acknowledge.
o Where have we given others the power and responsibility to take care of us, or to fill our needs? Intend to clear the karma and retrieve our power.
o What part of us wants to believe we can avoid being responsible?
What is the story we have created around getting our needs met?
o Are their beliefs that we are needy, unworthy and don’t deserve to be fulfilled?
o Do we like having others take care of us?
o Do we feel this is how others show their love for us by taking care of us?
o We can change this story and rewrite one that empowers us to fulfill our own needs allowing us to become more sovereign in our life
What Co-Dependent Identity may have been created out of our story
o If we can’t fill our needs someone else has to. Who do we go to fill these unmet needs?
o What do we give over to have our needs met?
o Release those patterns, karma and agreements
What Co-Dependent habits, patterns, and thought-forms are used to get our unmet needs filled?
o Do we use control, manipulation, seduction, sabotage or other means to get what we want?
o We can intend to begin to release all CSU co-dependent patterns that underlie getting these needs met and intend to manifest what we need working with our I AM, Soul, Oversoul, Source, and the Earth Mother to manifest what we need in accordance with our truth, our ascension and Earth’s ascension in each moment
What does our Co-Dependent Dream look like?
o Who do we believe is essential in order for our dream to manifest? Who have we given our power to manifest away to? We can intend to retrieve all power to manifest our own dreams we have given away to others
o Is our dream our own or someone elses? We can intend to return all dreams that are not our own and retrieve what is ours
Intend to align our dream with our I AM, Soul, Oversoul and Source and with Earth
Inner Wound Worksheet
Inner Male Wound
Inner Female Wound
Age
Age
Original Karma
Original Karma
Karma to clear in this lifetime
Karma to clear in this lifetime
Fractured parts of self?
Fractured parts of self?
Addictions to deal with the pain?
Addictions to deal with the pain?
Gurus or Saviors?
Gurus or Saviors?
What is the wound story?
What is the wound story?
Identity created
Identity created
Wounded Dream
Wounded Dream
Inner Male Unmet Need
Inner Female Unmet Need
Who do we still blame?
Who do we still blame?
Where do I feel unworthy of getting need filled?
Where do I feel unworthy of getting need filled?
Where am I denying responsibility to get my needs filled?
Where am I denying responsibility to get my needs filled?
Story around getting my needs met
Story around getting my needs met
Co-dependent identity created is
Co-dependent identity created is
Co-dependent patterns to get needs filled
Co-dependent patterns to get needs filled
Co-dependent dream
Co-dependent dream
Messages from Group Mastery | Nature Articles | Transmissions
Copyright © 2004 Edward Kopp. All Rights Reserved.
