Personal Wellness – It’s Personal

Educating Ourselves on Our “Selves”

by Koreen Kimakowich

Welcome to a four part personal wellness conversation. An introduction to concepts entrenched in what we cannot see, and at some level, presents in our daily lives. It reveals as, coincidence, chance, twist of fate, happenstance, even luck There is much more to it, much more to us. As you read, become curious about yourself. There is no better place from which to live.

As you read, you may chuckle, as you recognize yourself. Still, other parts of the read, you may close up, also, because you recognize your “self”. No worries, that’s just you, getting to know you. That’s your energy. It isn’t good or bad energy, rather, what was that about, and what happened in the nanosecond before it became what you and I call, a thought, and our intellect took over with deciding what to do about it. Deny it, dismiss it, minimize it. This time, choose to pay attention to it, there’s important information there. Science has shown us what the naked eye cannot see, that there are energetic properties consistent in all human beings, the world over. It is, the energetic us.

Part One
Who Are We in Thought?

For centuries we have been taught wellness is found/secured outside of ourselves. It comes in many externally referenced packages, including in times of “physical”, “psychological” illness, where we engage in allopathic/therapeutic remedies. Other times where we are simply living our personal and professional lives, wellness is represented in recreational pursuits, physical fitness regimens, eating well, new cars, socializing, pay increases, benefit packages. The list goes on. They are all great and very affective, and, they are incomplete. The satiating properties are only present when it is we engage in them. The satisfaction is only there in the moment when the pay gets deposited. How do you feel during a non-pay week, vs. a pay week? There is information there. Yes we have memories of the sights, smells and sounds, and then, there is nothing quite like real time engagement. When not engaging, what we have left is, ourselves, our thoughts, and the conversations going on in our heads. Living from the neck up.

Psychologists tell us human beings think 65,000 waking thoughts a day, with 95% of those thoughts, being the same as yesterdays. Where did the thoughts come from, and why do we repeat them? Hint, think computer, hard drive, wired in, Central Nervous System. Of those 65,000 thoughts, how many are positive. How many include being less than kind to yourself, or someone else. For those welcoming thoughts we aren’t engaging in, we are left to flounder in the cynicism of the others.

Impossible to list each thought, what we do know is, they are based in our past. Even when thinking about the future, we make decisions based in a similar experience already lived. For example, you are going to meet up with the In-Laws for dinner. As you think that thought, you are most likely relating your thoughts to the previous times you went, to determine how much fun it is going to be or not, this time. Your reference point being in the past. What is it like for you to be with the In-Laws? I quite enjoy being with mine. There is no content in content worth knowing. What’s important is the context in which you hold the experience. These are your personal experiences, how they are represented in your body. They are not coming from anyone or anywhere else outside of you, and how are they affecting your wellness? Biography becomes biology. You are creating your biography, thus your biology. When people suggest that you not feel a certain way about a certain thing, they are basing it on their experience of the thing, not your experience of the thing. Personal Wellness, It’s Personal.

We have an assortment of identities, e.g. police officer, teacher, coach, athlete, mother, etc., and we have this in common, we are all human living systems, with our biological imperative being growth. No growth, no life. Our authentic self, resides within each of us. Who are we inside of us, when we aren’t being any of those things people are expecting us to be? Do you know, and are you nurturing that self? Are you growing?

There are huge implications on how we move through our world, and how we hold ourselves in the context of Identity, our perpetually changing identity. Do I hold myself as Police Officer, or do I hold myself as the identity of Koreen, and all of the other evolving aspects of me, including, being Police Officer? More explorations on this in Part Two, Human Doing, vs. Human Being - Our Beliefs, Values, and Attitudes (BVAs).

Repeated responses, where do they come from? They come from running the program of us. My father, after my mother had her stroke, was home alone for six months afterwards. In conversation with him, he relayed that he couldn’t understand how, every morning at 10:00am, he would begin to cry, uncontrollably. We discussed this, and I asked him how his morning played out. He stated, I get up at around 9:15, get washed, put water on for coffee, break some treats up for Candy (family pet), I make my coffee, walk into the living room and sit down. As soon as I sit, and I look out the window, from nowhere the tears start and I can’t stop. Lasts about ten minutes. Those tears came from somewhere, inside of him, and as habituated response go, they were right on time. Our lives are cyclical, have you noticed? Like a computer, the command comes from outside, once input, it recognizes the command, runs the applicable program, and it spits out the predictable response. In the context of life, we are Signal #1, we reference to our external environment, what am I engaged in, Signal #2, we process with internal environment of us, learned experience of the thing, Signal #3, and then, respond to the world, with Signals 1, 2, and 3 represented. Signal #4, ourselves to the world. Us living folks. Typically in an habituated, way, and the outcome is predictable, and it can all take place literally in seconds. In a WEL-Systems® context, we refer to this as Signals Dancing™. Voila, wired into our Central Nervous System, the hard drive of us. I am not so conversant in computers, ask anyone at IT Desk. What I do know is, that if I’m not introducing new software, the old program will continue to run itself, so that the program gets run, trigger, he looks out the window, and predictable is, as predictable does, he cries. There are times in our lives where habituated response is required, e.g., Use of Force Principals, application, driving my standard car etc. There are times when habits are less useful and may even be destructive.

In the context of your life, consider the choices we make, in the throes of a personal interaction, maybe with a colleague, your life partner. Pick an interaction you had just today. Revisit it, and ask, “did I respond in an habituated fashion, or did I respond differently?” If the response was habituated are you surprised at the outcome? Probably not. It was predictable. What do you need to do to change the response? Here’s the good part, it isn’t rocket science, rather it is about introducing a different response, a pattern interrupt. To introduce a new thought, invite in something different in the real time experience of it. Notice the habituated response, then consciously choose to respond differently. When you do that, as nature goes, at the very least there will be a moment for the other to have to think a new thought around yours, and respond differently back. If they respond the same, be assured, different is going on inside of them, for experiencing you differently. Because as biology goes, new thought, new neural pathway.

The same 65,000 thoughts a day happen, because they are wired into us. How many times do you leave from interacting with someone, lets say a job interview, and now you engage in the internal conversation, about, “darn, I always do that, shouldn’t have said that, or my god, they must think I am this or that.” That engagement with you in and of itself is an habituated response…the interview may have been perfect, and like clockwork your strategy of bad moves in and runs itself, until you find yourself in a cold sweat. And, every response is an intelligent response. In the moment of responding, there is an intelligence behind it. I don’t necessarily mean it’s a resourceful response, rather there is an intelligence, a secondary gain being fulfilled. Like the smoker who quits for a year, and they are out with their pals, had a few drinks, and oh how a cigarette always went so well. So they have an internal conversation analyze, rationalize, (perceptual filters) and then suddenly there they are, a Non-Smoker, lighting up. Were they really a non-smoker? The secondary gain here, may be about identity. Is it possible that they still held an aspect of their identity as “Smoker”? If so, the secondary gain of Identity being “Smoker” is fulfilled, out of your conscious awareness, and fulfilled jus the same.

Introduce something new to the hard drive of you. What is wired into us, isn’t all we have, it’s simply what we have lived so far. New software is created every day. It’s all about our choices, and did you know that you get to choose to respond differently, moment to moment? Some may hold that as indecisive, and if every moment of our lives is a learning experience, then the next moment of choice is based on what I learned in the last moment. Now that you know this, when you know it would serve you to respond differently, do so. If you choose to respond the same, get curious about that, curious enough to go in and ask the courageous question, how did it serve me to run the unresourceful habit, and who do I hold myself to be that I responded that way. You do not have to be the 65,000 thoughts you had yesterday.

In the next edition, we will explore from where these responses originate, Human Doing Vs. Human Being – Our BVAs. I will also introduce you to more WEL-Systems® Models that will put some of the verbiage in context. What you discover may be life altering by virtue of the read alone. Recognizing, that within all of us there lies two degrees of identity, our culturally conditioned self, who you have been taught to believe you are, and your innate Identity, your authentic self. It may be in acknowledging the presence of these two identities where the bumping up starts and ends. The third and fourth submission respectively, Permission – What Does It Look Like, & Whose Giving it To You, and, Vital Human – Vital Self. Stay Tuned!

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Koreen Kimakowich, Founder of Awakening Wave, is a WEL-Systems Catalyst and CODE Model Coach™. Koreen has over 16 years in Law Enforcement and brings both safety and wisdom into her conversations with those who seek to live their lives more fully. She welcomes the opportunity to journey with you as you discover your own personal resourcefulness as it lies within you.