From Survival to Choice by: Adena Shepherd
For so many years, I was in fight or flight survival mode. I was running from a past of many traumas that I had severe PTSD from. I could not relax in enough to sleep during the night with insatiable taunting thoughts of attack based on experiences that had haunted me. I spend the better half of my life not sleeping through the night until ten years ago.
Last night, I was taking care of the Thrive Collective building and the insane thoughts of adolescents were coming forth. It seems that the PTSD wants to creep in around certain hours that I had experienced attacks and assaults. If awake during these times, the old script will try and run itself. I am so grateful for Neurosculpting and my practices because I have ways to interrupt the loop and flip myself to my reprogrammed scripts. It is not without effort and it gets easier with time. So here I was in my testing ground, I was alone until five am working my tail off and exhausted…, all barriers down. The lights were on, I could feel my senses heighten. I was a sitting duck for attack right?…Well there were plenty of memories to pull from.
Then the reminder, I had reprogramed this. I could breath, so I started breathing. “Adena, bring your awareness to your breath, its predictable and constant.” Ah, Lisa Wimberger, here in my head at three am. I am breathing. “Go with what you know and can create, I said to myself”. What are you fearing right now? “Anything separate, is something I am denying in myself,” I thought as my teacher Earl Raj Purdy, would say. Tap, tap, tap, my Neurosculpting meditation,” I am safe, I am safe.” “I Neurosculpted through Fear, I got this.”
I searched inside myself, “where I am I the attacker?” Maybe not on the physical form, as I judged every memory I had. My identification was big with being kind and loving. Back to the lessons, what you resist persists. Anything we deny, we have an aspect of. “Go there Adena, try something new.” my internal dialogue said. Identifying with in the fear that was trying to take over.” Where was I in resistance of identifying myself as an attacker? It says that once you stop denying aspects of your self, separation and fear cannot exist. I was clearly the student not a master trying to navigate. Then, I saw it everywhere, where I had I resisted? Where I had wanted to be right in conversations, arguments? There were times, I was so upset about the state of the world, I wanted to yell at the world to be conscious. There were people I wanted to hold accountable for my feelings at one time or another. “I have been angry, still am angry and wanted to attack and it was okay,” I heard myself say. “What, it was okay?” I would not have even admitted this before, holding myself to some ideal. Breathing, tap, tap, tap, “the choice was in the action, not the thought, but rather how we react to the thought,” I thought. A breath, I saw where I had been limiting and attacking myself based on perfection, over and over, daily. “I had been afraid of myself, well that was an easy fix”, I thought. Another breath, tap, tap, then I heard it, “Can you forgive yourself, Adena?” “Can you except all of you, Adena? ” Breathing, tears pulled forth, I get to choose how I respond and how I interact.” Adena, “I forgive you for being an attacker, I said outloud!” Memories flooded in where I had shamed myself, minute by minute, year by year.
Breathing, tapping, I decided ” I am a powerful creator, excepting all aspects of being human and showing compassion for myself and other.Yes, I am! “This thing out there, that I had kept secret, to look strong, was in me. I have had attacking thoughts, I have had desperate thoughts, insecure thoughts. It used to be that these ruled my actions to places that took days, maybe weeks to recover from. Last night, in the dark was an opportunity to see just how far my practices have taken me. When we move from reaction, to choice of creation, we are in Thrive. How appropriate it happened at Thrive Collective!
Thank you Lisa Wimberger, Earl Raj Purdy and Soulful Breathwork with Ally Baker for the practices that made me shift from survival to choice. I had the most empowering, wee morning, five am sunrise! I can’t forget about Escher VanKorlaar for the honest and sometimes daunting reality of being human revelation we had, which leads to all separation, ones insecurity and not willing to speak the truth to it! Much love!
Written by Adena Shepherd 5/18/15
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Look for my next classes I teach with Neurosculpting!!
Adena Shepherd
Adena Shepherd is a Neurosculpting® facilitator, and a personal coach who also utilizing the practices of A Course of Miracles and The Way of Mastery. As a Neurosculpting® consultant and facilitator she can assist you with powerful practices to help rewire thought patterns and even emotional patterns that may be limiting. Adena does this through one-on-one private sessions, or in group sessions by teaching a wide range of introductory Neurosculpting® classes.
Neurosculpting® is one of the most powerful, effective tools that is affordable and easily accessible. Neurosculpting is also an incredible tool, which offers the realization of choice in every given circumstance. A choice to be affected by your old stories or access the new map you have sculpted, offering you the tools for your own empowerment, through a simple guided meditation process.
Adena received her training at the Neurosculpting® institute in Boulder CO, www.neurosculptinginstitue.com. Via Lisa Wimberger herself.
After taking these classes for her own personal growth, and witnessing all the change in her life, Adena felt called to offer this to the world, because it’s accessible, easy and empowering.
Coming from an extremely abusive and traumatic background, stuck in patterns of flight or flight, Adena dedicated her life to discovering and practicing several healing modalities in which she was no longer a victim of her past stories. It was clear to her with the gifts offered through these modalities she had the desire to set up a foundation to support the empowerment of others and realization of Self. When she found the practice of Neurosculpting® to her delight she found peace and transformation on levels she never thought possible. She was able to access general topics that didn’t require her to revisit the old stories but rather the general program around the stories. This is not a therapy it’s an individual meditation practice.
As a facilitator she was trained to hold space for each individuals’ process, which is uniquely empowering to each experience. You are the creator.
Adena has a background in Business, Coaching, Fire Fighting, Neurosculpting®, and Nutrition.
