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The Curious Type

by Jonathan Caflisch (2001)

Always having been the curious type, I have spent a great deal of my life observing myself and in relation to others. In fact, I have made my own personal growth my lifelong passion and goal.

While living my life as a father, mechanic, auto-body man, logger etc., I searched philosophical, religious and spiritual readings looking for clues for ways to grow and become a better person. The pathways I searched were often rough and the experiences and health situations that I found myself in were certainly not what I imagined as my path of growth.

In studying my own thoughts and beliefs about the world and my own ill health I came to know the connection between my own body/mind.

What I do know now is I created it all, even my health problems.What I do know now is that all of the experiences I created for myself were rich fertilizer for who I am now.

Over the past thirty years I have taken personal growth workshops at Cold Mountain, the barge in Vancouver and various eastern disciplines, but one of my greatest influences has been Jane Robert's writings. They are of a spiritual nature with the underlying belief that we create our own personal reality, that our growth comes from taking responsibility for the reality we find ourselves in.

My latest surprise is a book called the Molecules of Emotion by Candace B. Pert. Dr. Pert is a research scientist whose life long scientific study has led her to the connection between body and mind. Her book outlines her study of the bio-chemical relationship between body and mind. In Molecules of Emotion she describes how our thoughts affect our feelings and well-being moment by moment, how our thoughts affect our body's resilience and immune system.

Throughout our life we develop coping skills to survive emotionally in a world which is not always equipped to take care of all our needs. Our coping skills become part of our identity. We long ago have forgotten the difference between who we are and the skills we use to cope with our life.

What skills or behavior we once learned and needed to survive could very well be crucial in breaking down our health physically and/or mentally. For example, if at an early age you set out to prove your worthiness to others and became a tradesman or professional, that belief that you need to prove yourself was at that time creative.

But if you have had your first midlife crisis and you still hold on to this belief, then your health might be in jeopardy. Your subconscious will produce the feeling of never good enough or the feeling of being overwhelmed and also create the appropriate events to support the feeling, so you might try harder and therefore deny your feelings which were supposed to lead you to the cause of the problem.

Dr. Pert's amazing work shows that there is a scientific basis to my own work. My belief is, that we are literally wired for personal growth, that the world we experience individually and en masse is a reflection or biofeedback of our internal processes--processes determined by our usually unconscious beliefs.

We are all inclined to grow by our nature, but in our system of beliefs there is not much attention paid to the internal or subjective world, even though it is the source for everything we perceive around us.

My thoughts are my own, but not entirely new. In the early seventies, Virginia Satir openly declared that illness and disease is a poor way of coping. It is well known that our health system is cracking financially at the seams. We do not have enough money to keep this ever-expanding billion-dollar system of surgeons, doctors, technicians and nurses going.

But what we do have is a choice, to increase the ability to respond to our own needs. To take responsibility for our own well being and realize that we have more of a health repair than a health care system. I think it is desperately needed in our society. Candice P. Pert says,

"Something's so desperately needed in our society, as reflected by both the rising numbers of people on antidepressant medications and the escalating use of illegal drugs. In my mind, both kind of users-the one who gets the drugs from a doctor and the one who buys them from a dealer- are doing the same thing: altering their chemistry with an exogenous substance that has widespread effects, many of them which are not fully understood, in order to change feelings they don't want to have.

My research has shown me that when emotions are expressed -which is to say that the biochemicals that are the substrate of emotion are flowing freely---all systems are united and made whole. When emotions are repressed, denied, not allowed to be whatever they may be, our network pathways get blocked, stopping the flow of the vital feel-good unifying chemicals that run both our biology and our behavior.

This I believe, is the state of unhealed feeling we want so desperately to escape from. Drugs, legal and illegal, are further interrupting the many feedback loops that allow the psychosomatic network to function in a natural, balanced way, and therefore setting up condition for somatic as well as mental disorder." (page 273)

At a time of my life where most people are looking towards retirement and winding their work life down, I have begun a new career and am following what has always been my passion. Over the past 7 years I have studied intensely at places like P.D. Seminars, learned the art of Bio-Energetic and Body Breath and Energy work, some basic knowledge in acupuncture, got certified for neuro linguistic programming and took a workshop to practice Mind Field Therapy with Lee Polos.

Through the Satir Institute of the Pacific under Dr. John Banmen I got certified as a level two practitioner in Satir Family Therapy, and it is the Satir Model which gave me the skills to use all of my knowledge. I highly recommend the Satir Model for anyone who needs to deal on a personal level, be it a parent, counselor, nurses, teachers, doctors or anyone in the social field.

Because of daring people who challenged mainstream beliefs, like Jane Roberts, Virginia Satir and now Candice B. Pert Ph.D. and many others, we now have the tools to process our issues and guide people to their own places of choice and perceptions of their own selves.

"You create your own reality," ridiculous and outrageous thirty years ago, is now becoming a more easily accepted idea. Yes, our beliefs individually and en masse create our reality within a given framework.

To realize that the power of the mind is an integrative process of beliefs and emotions within body and mind, that the brain the powerhouse of chemical production will create the necessary health and good feelings, that should be our doorway to a better future--a future of value fulfillment.

Jonathan

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