Recapitulation and Emotions
Student: In Toltec writings, the word recapitulation is mentioned. Various techniques are described regarding breathing, movement, location. What is the most salient element of recapitulation?
Barbara: Number one, don’t let the number of syllables in the word intimidate you! It is just a word, and it refers to a review of events or people in your life, experiences and conversations in your life, that will be most helpful in order for you to become aware of where and how you have made agreements that have shaped the person you think you are. Where and how you have associated events with meaning, trauma, and rigid belief.
If you don’t see how you have created a belief structure of all the arbitrary events in your life then you cannot modify that belief structure.
Student: So far, we have talked about going back and writing biographies. Many times events spontaneously occur, and we remember something we had forgotten. Is this a good thing?
Barbara: Let’s say, you give yourself an exercise that involves all the relationships you have had in your life, or an exercise about what happened when you were 8 years old. You find your mind produces images of memories that had nothing to do with the exercise that you have assigned it. This is exactly what we want.
Whether or not intellectually you can say that there is an association between one event and another event, your mind will create the association, and your mind will create the association for reasons you cannot figure out, but that are important emotionally.
It is essential to accept the process however it reveals itself, however it wants to unfold. Not to judge it, not to judge the emotions that come up. To feel them. To give yourself time. To give yourself the leeway to stop an exercise when it becomes uncomfortable, or to go on when it becomes uncomfortable. Whatever you choose.
I don’t believe in holding people to techniques of disciplines but I would say that it is so important to know that you need to give yourself quiet space, quiet time, the most soothing meditative environment that you can, so that you can give yourself the healing that you need when certain emotions are activated because of your memory.
But make sure that this is your time, it is private time, that this isn’t time that is going to inflict discomfort on anyone else. Allow yourself to make any associations you want, because this is a discovery process.
Student: You have brought me to another issue. As we become more aware, we may have some experiences in our waking life or in our dreams that seem unworldly, they seem profound. Sometimes we hear things, see things, get “messages”. What do we do with those?
Barbara: Well, understand, first of all, that these things aren’t required. You may not get visions or messages. Nor should you have to! And if you do get visions and you do get messages, this is part of the process of the brain, trying to interpret what it is perceiving, what it is being given to perceive in symbols, in language and vision.
This is what you do when you are asleep at night. Your brain processes all the information that it has gotten from light in terms of symbols and visions and conversations. This is exactly what the brain is doing during the course of the day. Taking the messages it receives from light, and interpreting them according to language and symbols. No more. No less.
The meaning that you give those symbols, and the meaning you give words or visions is part of your story. It is not necessarily the truth. It is just a fantastic process of light being interpreted by matter.
Student: Earlier you were talking about this toddler who is having a chaotic stream of emotions. We also have chaotic streams of emotions, but we don’t usually give credit for the chaos. We like a chain of causality. An explanation. When we get back to seeing the world the way it is, we aren’t done with emotions, are we?
Barbara: No! Emotions are real. Emotions inform us, as I said, and they heal us. It is the story that isn’t real. If we don’t know what story means, just listen to your mind as it thinks its way through any given emotional situation. It will think its way into reasons for the emotion, reasons to feel bad about the emotion, reasons to exploit the emotion. This is all story. The emotion is perfect truth. So, no. We are never finished with emotions. On the other hand, we are finished with what I have just described as the exploitation of emotion.
A child of two years old will feel anger, sadness, and in the next moment, happiness and resolution. There is no reason, or explanation for it, except the fact there is no story present. The child hasn’t given such meaning to the emotion where he has to invest in “story” over emotion. That is to say, keep an emotion going for a day, two days, a week. Which is what adults do. Because the story has taken over the whole process.
Student: In fact, we have a catalogue of explanations handy for when we do feel this spontaneous arising of emotion.
Barbara: Oh yes. And if we run out, somebody else will tell us. And they will charge us money for it!