Tuning In

Old Tapes

“Forms are not just material objects and physical bodies. More fundamental than the external forms—things and bodies—are the thought forms that continuously arise in the field of consciousness. They are energy formations, finer and less dense than physical matter, but they are forms nonetheless.”

                                      Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth)

Thought, that voice inside our heads that almost never stops talking, is quite literally electrical energy. The triggering of thoughts comes in layers, with our most ingrained thoughts being first, and thoughts representing subsequent learning following. That is why no matter how much we've changed our attitudes through education and moral development, our mental tapes play the messages of our childhood. I don't know about you, but I am constantly challenging my old tapes because they contain all the prejudices and ignorance of my tribe. Our most profound pathways are laid down in the first five years of life. The image of a country lane in which the deeply rutted tire tracks have been laid down over hundreds of years is a good one for these facilitated neural networks. As with such lanes, they continue to exist long after traffic has stopped traveling on them.

Carolyn Myss, teacher, mystic and author of Anatomy of the Spirit, Sacred Contracts, and other books, says that when our old tapes play, the ones that contain stupid judgments, we must call them back before their energy goes out into the world and harms the one we judge. Since they are energetic charges, you can see how this might be so. Also, when we entertain negative energy and hold it within us, our own body/mind is adversely affected. Think of it as something like radiation poisoning. Negative emotions like resentment, hostility, and jealousy create a dark energy complex within us that eats away at our vitality. Best to exorcise them in the moment they occur rather than harboring their destructive power within.

We are not likely to get rid of our old tapes, but we can put up a fight when they are triggered. We can contradict and challenge them and call back their ill intent. We can use imagery to do that—like packing them into a bundle and throwing the bundle into a bottomless pit, or burning it in a bonfire. You could even play a little Road Runner scenario in your head and have a giant boulder fall on them. Turn them into laugh-energy. That's the best kind.

In the spirit,

Jane