Understanding Cellular Memory, Emotional Imprinting and the Subconscious
Understanding Cellular Memory, Emotional Imprinting and the Subconscious
Breathwork is a powerful tool to unlock un-serving and illusory beliefs held deep within our subconscious. Through an intentional journey into their being, the breather may illuminate what is influencing and motivating them without their awareness, and meet these textures of self through an expanded state of awareness, where newfound clarity may be born. Did you know that cognitive neuroscience now shows that we are up to 95% directed by our unconscious content! Meaning we are only conscious of about 5% of our cognitive activity— thus, most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behavior depends on the 95% of brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness. Even more so, on average, 70-80% of those unconscious thoughts are negative, disempowering, self-sabotaging and limiting. This is the reason why positive thoughts/affirmations/intention setting alone does not work. Because our subconscious thoughts are far more powerful and have a much more potent creative effect on our lives. We must understand that the universe is not punishing or victimizing us, it’s only responding to the vibrational attitude we are emitting. And where do these thoughts/beliefs come from? The answer is our early experiences, particularly between the ages of 3-7 years, before the cerebral cortex (perceptual processing center of the brain) has developed. During these years, the brain is in what is known as the theta wave, or as Bruce Lipton calls it, hypnosis.
Before the age of 8, as children, we feel long before we think. We are literally sponge-like and internalize our reality, not seeing it as separate from us. We are taught how to be and what to believe by those around us. If there are toxic or unhealthy dynamics at play around us, we take them on. If we are taught poor models of love, we add that in. If there are unprocessed textures like shame, grief, rage, you name it, we absorb that too. If a child is told verbally or non-verbally that they are not enough, this becomes a kind of nucleus of their belief structure. Everything a child internalizes or represses then crystallizes into their “operating system” by the age of 8, and becomes their lens of perception (the way they see the world). Most of this early content is then relegated to the subconscious, yet it doesn’t go anywhere. It simply continues to influences our actions, choices and desires without our conscious awareness. And this content can be difficult to access because it is so deeply instilled.
This is why breathwork is the vital link to its excavation and discovery. Breathwork is one of the few modalities in existence that can access the subconscious domain without the use of plant medicine or hypnosis. In this, it restores the powerful to the individual where they can regain control of their unconscious narratives and begin to become the limitless architects of their experience once more. Remember, one’s unconscious beliefs carry far more power than their conscious mind. And Breathwork is the gateway to shift this at the level of the quantum— where thoughts shape our reality.
Also, did you know that everything that has ever happened to us and up to 14 generations of our ancestors is recorded in our cells, as DNA is 80% memory? A Emory University neuroscience study has shown that the environment impacts the genetic makeup of up to 14 future generations. In this highly unethical study, mice were given electric shocks next to the scent of a cherry blossom, embedding a trauma within them which correlated to scent. Those mice then went on to reproduce, and when their offspring were placed next to the scent of a cherry blossom, even with no other external stimuli, they would still exhibit the same physiological systems of the trauma. Their nervous systems would immediately switch into fight or flight, causing a sudden onset of anxiousness and the release of stress hormones. This can be extrapolated to humans and many of the traumas our ancestors endured via war, hardship, abuse, sexual shame/guilt/repression, degradation, oppression of women and minority groups, poverty, and more. Further, women in particular carry large amounts of repressed shakti and womb trauma, due to the silencing and mistreatment of the feminine, spanning across millennia. Then, there is the matter of past life trauma which is an entirely separate matter.
So, what are the spiritual implications of all of this? Everything lives in our cells and continues to influence us in real time. Everything that has ever happened to us, our parents, grandparents, and much of our ancestral lineage is imprinted deep within our being. We, as a collective, carry inordinate amounts of trauma of generations before us and also as a global people today living in a fast-paced, life-diminishing and consumerist society. Because genetic markers can transmit trauma across generations, still influencing our behavior in the now, it is so important to do the deep ancestral clearing work as spiritual leaders birthing the new paradigm. We, today, right here, right now, can break the link in the chain through conscious awareness, and begin to create a new reality for our lineage, literally changing our DNA through the dissolution of ancestral trauma and embodiment of new frequencies.
When we break the link in the chain by becoming aware of ancestral imprints, we transmute and alchemize the wounds of the past that live within us. We begin to write a different story— one of unity, enchantment, beauty, compassion, integrity and peace. We heal for our bloodlines, beginning to imbue trust where there was once fear, light where there was once darkness, and wisdom where there was once pain. We soon create a new legacy— one that is forged in love, presence, and awareness. So… let us birth a new future together…
Every feeling that is ignored becomes lodged in the body as tension. Every emotion unresolved becomes locked in as pain. And every self-defeating thought of limitation gets recorded as deflation. Failing to meet life with the totality of our being means our reluctance will translate into physical retraction. Hard belly and shallow breath— over and over again— becomes an armoring that shields the tenderness of an open heart. And there is nothing like an armored body to prevent us from softening into the delicious depths of our feelings. Many will spend a lifetime running away from what they are too afraid to meet in the naked fullness of their awareness… but the body never lies.
As Deepak Chopra says, “the biochemistry of the body is a product of our beliefs, thoughts and emotions.” Every unloving thought we have towards another or ourselves gets imprinted as a cellular memory that creates biological disharmony. A body that has learnt to tighten into fear and shape itself around the entrainment of a repetitive story is guaranteed to de-sensitive us from the natural rhythms of life. But neither neglect or control will free us from the inescapable fact that we are bound by physical form in this life, with all of its imperfections and fluctuations.
For only by complete and total acceptance of the full spectrum of human experience as filtered through our senses— from ecstatic pleasure to agonizing pain— can we transcend our density and move into the lightness of being. The body is much more than just a complex arrangement of chemicals and molecules: it is a bio-spiritual portal into the quantum realm of unlimited potential.
It is right here, deep in our visceral experience of embodiment and the tangible evidence of our existence, that we may reconnect to who we truly are. And breathwork is the gateway to this sublime reconnection. ©
— Written by Kaya Leigh, Founder of Sacred Breath Academy
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NOTE: ALL WORDS ARE COPYRIGHTED (and birthed from our mind/heart/soul), unless the source is clearly cited otherwise. Please think again before taking our words as your own, as dozens have been doing over the years. This is our deepest life’s work. Please respect and honor it as sacred.
© 2021 BY KAYA LEIGH AND SACRED BREATH ACADEMY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All content is for your personal reference and is not intended to be shared, copied or otherwise distributed. Doing so is an infringement of copyrighted intellectual property. Small quotes may be shared and cited as 'Sacred Breath Academy' with permission.