Spinning Straw into Gold

I opened up "Simple Abundance" tonight - a book my Mom gave me over ten years ago. Anyone have it? It's by Saran Ban Breathnach. It's a wonderful book. Tonight, I opened it up to the following passage. No joke.

START OF PASSAGE

Spinning Straw Into Gold

"Stories are medicine....They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen. The remedies for repair or reclamation of any lost psychic drive are contained in stories." ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Next to knowing what to do with a few loaves and fishes, knowing how to spin straw into gold is probably the most important talent a woman can possess. It can make the difference between living a life of lack and living one of Simple Abundance. Gratefully, this gift was bestowed on all of us. But, like any other talent, the gift of alchemy must be called forth, treasured, owned, respected, and nurtured.

In the story of Rumpelstiltskin, a poor miller who is given to bragging meets a king who is known for his interest in accumulating riches. Wanting to impress him, the miller tells the king that his daughter possesses a rare talent - the ability to spin straw into gold. Skeptical but intrigued, the king orders the maiden to his castle, where he commands her to transform straw into gold by the next morning or lose her life.

Because this is an impossible task, the young woman succumbs to anguished weeping. What can save her? Suddently, a strange man appears in the room. " I can spin straw into gold," he says. And this strange man whose name is Rumpelstiltskin helps her spin straw into gold every night until the king marries her. (In today's day and age, the reward would be freedom, but in any case, the point is that Rumpelstiltskin helps her realize her dreams. )

Do you know who Rumpelstiltskin represents? He is the young woman's subconscious mind. You can bring into your life more health and happiness....and more joy by learning to contact and release the hidden power of your subconscious mind than any metaphysical principle. Just as there are two sides to the brian, there are two spheres to our minds. The conscious mind is where reason resides and the subconscious, or deeper mind, is where our emotions and creativity dwell.

Once the subconscious mind accepts an idea, it begins to execute it, Dr. Murphy explains. It works by association of ideas and uses every bit of knowledge that you have gathered in your life-time to bring about its purpose. It draws on the infinite power, energy, and wisdom within you. It lines up all the laws of nature to get its way.

If we try to spin straw using only the skills of our rational or conscious mind (i.e. reasoning and experience), it will not work. That's because when we rely solely on reason to manifest dreams, all we end up with is straw. What we don't realize is that we have a strange creative collaborator who knows how to spin straw into gold. It is Rumpelstiltskin, our subconscious mind.

END OF PASSAGE

To give you an idea how powerful the subconscious is, compare it to the rate at which we speak. Our subconscious operates at a rate four times faster than we can speak. This is how we can multi-task and walk and chew gum at the same time. It is also how something we were trying to remember a few days ago suddenly pops in our head out of nowhere. Have you ever forgotten someone's name or title of a movie? You can't think of it and tell yourself that you'll think of it later. When you do remember, it's while you're doing something else two days later? Well, that is your subconscious mind working.

Have you ever started crying when you heard a song that reminded you of someone from your past? That's your subconscious. The subconscious is where all of our emotion and creativity is stored, but we rarely tap into it. Heck, at times we avoid it. I believe if we harness the power of our subconscious we can help manifest our dreams to create a better life for ourselves.

I use both sides of my brain (left & right), why not use both hemispheres (the conscious and the subconscious). In fact, did you know that females process language from both sides of the brain. Men only process language from the left side. This is why women recover more quickly from strokes because we know how to shift and begin using the other side of our brain if we need to in order to process language. Men don't have that ability. They only process language from one side of the brain. Doesn't surprise me. Explains a lot actually. Oh, I just finished reading a great book on this topic called "The Male Brain" by Louann Brizendine. It's fascinating and amazing how differently the brains of men and women are wired. Good read.

In any case, my point is that we all have the power to tap into and engage our subconscious mind. Not only do we have the ability, but we're learning from advances in technology that our subconscious mind is much more powerful than we ever knew.

Jun 10 - 8AM
Klarity Belle
Klarity Belle's picture

Great post and comments

I am a big believer in making the unconcious concious. It is only now that I have started to uncover the false beliefs I held about myself through a lifetime of narcissistic conditioning that I am starting to build true confidence. We need to believe in our own self value ourselves and if we don't build that at a core level, the chances are that we could unwittingly fall into similar situations because deep down we have bought into the lies that were told to us about ourselves - usually starting in childhood but could also be from a pathological relationship, the conditioning runs deep. It is my belief that connecting with the subconcious through dreams, therapy and writing can all bring healing -practicing present moment awareness, being in the now exactly as it is in all it's reality is a rewarding practice too. Learning to stop believing our own inner critic and it's lies is a biggie, and my experience of this has been like peeling back an onion in layers. I have dealt with the obvious stuff but there are plenty of softer criticisms and false beliefs going on too and the subconcious holds the secrets to undoing and releasing every one of them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "The deeper that sadness carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." ~ Kahlil Gibran "That which we do not confront in ourselves we will meet as fate." ~ Carl Jung http://www.storyofmylife.com/KLARITY4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The deeper that sadness carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." ~ Kahlil Gibran

"That which we do not confront in ourselves we meet as fate" ~ Carl Jung

http://www.storyofmylife.com/KLARITY4

Jun 9 - 8AM
Barbara (not verified)
Anonymous's picture

Writing as a Way of Healing

by Louise deSalvo DeSalvo tells us that, “Writing that describes traumatic or distressing events in detail and how we felt about these events then and feel about then now is the only kind of writing about trauma that clinically has been associated with health.” A healing narrative is a balanced narrative. It uses negative words to describe emotions and feeling in moderation; but uses positive words too” It is the translation of emotions into language that does the trick. Although talking about our traumas also helps, it is harder to talk without someone to listen. In general, we have no such compunction about writing without a reader. In fact, believing no one will read it may make writing easier. To impact the immune system, it doesn’t matter whether anyone hears or reads the story, what the trauma was or how long ago. The effect is most measurable, however, when the event hasn’t been talked about. The miraculous connection between writing and the immune system results from cracking through inhibition. It seems that when we don’t speak the truth of our experience, we inhibit our emotions, and that inhibits our immune function. Keeping secrets and maintaining denial require physical energy, energy our bodies could use in healthier ways were it available. Not only does inhibition have physiological consequences, it precludes translating our experience into language. And, it is through language that we organize our experiences into coherent stories making them smaller and easier to deal with. ~~~~~~~~~ Effective Coaching Specifically for Victims of Pathologicals Feelings buried alive never die. - Alice Miller
Jun 9 - 8AM
Barbara (not verified)
Anonymous's picture

Trauma & The Benefits of Writing

By Art Markman, Ph.D. Psychological trauma is bad for your health. The stress of abuse, violence, or the unexpected death of a loved one can cause all sorts of health problems. People suffering after these events may stop working effectively in school or at their jobs. They may lash out at friends, family, and coworkers. They may experience significant illnesses as stress depresses their immune systems. Why does psychological trauma have these long-lasting effects.? One reason for the stress of psychological trauma is that our representations of these traumatic events are fragmented. Psychologically traumatic events are ones that have no good explanation. The sudden death of a loved one may seem senseless. Abuse you suffer is a betrayal of a sacred trust. You have painful facts with no story to bind them together. Because these memories and events are painful, our natural tendency is to avoid thinking about them. We suppress thoughts about these negative events and hope they will go away. But, they don't. The mind is most settled when there is coherence to our thoughts. We seek to resolve conflicting thoughts by remembering them and processing them. So, a dangerous cycle can develop with traumatic events. Because they are fragmented, there are constant reminders of them. But, because they are painful, we do not process them deeply. And so, we suffer the stress of remembering a painful situation without resolving the incoherence. Research by my colleague Jamie Pennebaker and his colleagues suggests that one of the best therapies for this kind of psychological trauma is also one of the simplest: writing. He describes this procedure in a 1997 paper in Psychological Science. People are asked to spend three consecutive days writing about one or more traumatic events. They are encouraged to really explore the thoughts and emotions surrounding the event, and to tie it to relationships with significant others. In studies of this technique, people doing this writing are compared to others who write about unemotional topics like time management. As you might expect, writing about these emotional events was very difficult for people. They did not enjoy the experience, and they found it painful. However, the long-term effects of this writing were fascinating. If you followed the people in these studies over time, they reported fewer illnesses, they went to the doctor less often, and they suffered fewer symptoms of depression in the future. They were less likely to miss work and school, and their performance at work went up. These effects lasted for months and years after writing. What is particularly interesting about this procedure is that it is just an effect of writing about these events. The people doing the writing do not have to believe that anyone will ever read what they wrote. So, the benefit of writing is not in disclosing this personal information to someone else. The benefit is in creating a story that links together the emotional memories. Making these traumatic events more coherent makes memories of these events less likely to be repeatedly called to mind, and so they can be laid to rest. http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/33934 ~~~~~~~~~ Effective Coaching Specifically for Victims of Pathologicals Feelings buried alive never die. - Alice Miller