The Journey of Discovering Inner Peace – Book Excerpt

Hello friend! Today I am chatting with author, Christina Samycia, about her non-fiction book, The Journey of Discovering Inner Peace. Let’s meet her and learn more about the book. You will also find a book excerpt after the interview.

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Get to know the author: Christina

Welcome to Armed with A Book, Christina! Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!

My life’s purpose is to help evolve the consciousness of the planet through my writing and guiding others along their path of personal and spiritual growth. I am an artist, idealist, humanitarian and truth seeker.  I have a doctorate in clinical psychology, a masters degree in kinesiology and 15 years of experience as a psychologist and as an intuitive healing guide. As an intuitive observer, I use a psychological and metaphysical lens to explore the deeper layers of our reality.  Acting as a translator between the spiritual and material world, I am able to synthesize complex information and present its essence.  As an empath, I am able to help others find words to express their inner truths. Being an old soul, my life journey has not been an easy one.  I have endured many challenges, which has led me on the path of personal and spiritual growth.  My strength lies in my vulnerability and openness in sharing my life experiences and my unique view of life. I have travelled an unconventional path and hope to inspire others to live a life of authenticity and adventure. I believe that we are creators of our universe and our purpose here is to explore, learn and grow!

What inspired you to write this book?

The main inspiration for writing this book is that often times clients ask me for book recommendations. I thought it would be helpful to write a book that summarizes key points that I have learned along my personal and professional journey of self-discovery and healing. This book summarizes my unique approach to therapy that I have been refining for 15 years. 

What makes your story unique?

My book is unique because it combines psychological theory, spirituality, quantum mechanics, trauma research, eastern philosophical thought, various hands-on exercises and information regarding popular therapeutic modalities to assist in the process of personal growth and emotional healing. It is practical, hand-on and easy to read. This book can help the reader become the author of their life by understanding and rewriting their story and healing their emotional pain. 

Who would enjoy reading your book? 

My book is for anyone who is starting or continuing their journey of self-discovery and emotional healing. It has some basic information for a beginner and some great reminders for those who are more advanced. This book is also great for a psychotherapist, an alternative health practitioner or any other practitioner as a tool to recommend to their clients.

What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?

This book also assists one in getting a better understanding of why one is in pain and some suggestions on how to transcend one’s suffering and find inner peace by changing conscious thinking, understanding and changing subconscious beliefs, clearing trauma that is stored within the body and energetically detaching from subconscious programs that are preventing self-actualization.  

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Book Excerpt from
The Journey of Discovering Inner Peace

Introduction

We are all wounded. No matter who we are, where we come from, what our stories are, we have all endured emotional pain and carry the scars from our life journey. No matter what our gender, race, socio-economic status, we all suffer. We all experience sadness, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, resentment, and health issues. Our wounds are what we all share. Because we are spiritual beings having a human experience in this material world, we all have a duality. As humans, we experience emotional and physical pain. But we can transcend our suffering by healing and rewriting our story and reconnecting to the feelings of love, connection and peace that are spiritually inherent in all of us. 

On our journey here, we are all trying our best to cope with the suffering that comes with the human experience. All of us, to some extent, seek to escape our pain either through maladaptive coping mechanisms, such as the pursuit of pleasure, avoidance, minimization, or distorting reality. But no matter how much we try to escape, our pain is still there. However, some of us have this inner voice; this inner knowing that speaks to us. This voice compels us to dig deeper and to look at our pain and dysfunctional dynamics because on some level, we know we can transcend them. Hopefully, this book will help you along your journey of discovering inner peace. I applaud you for being so brave and taking this huge step toward self-discovery and healing. By doing your work, you are not only healing yourself, but you are also healing the world around you. 

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the path.

—Buddha

Introduction to Part 1

Welcome to the First Step of Your Journey!

We all have a story that we tell ourselves. When we were children, we created a belief system about ourselves and the world based on our childlike perspective, limited life experiences and the beliefs of those around us. Based on our childhood experiences, we also endured emotional pain that we haven’t fully processed, which is stored within our physical body. This story and the emotions attached to it becomes the building block of our cognitive and emotional foundation. We also have other information from our ancestors, parents and past lives stored in our DNA that reinforce our story. Most of us rarely question this story about ourselves or the beliefs that we hold. We do not always understand that there is an inaccurate script that is playing in our subconscious mind, which defines who we are, influences our lives and motivates our decisions. This story shapes our perceptions, triggers emotional pain and we attract experiences that reinforce it. Unless we understand this story, process our emotional pain, and rewrite it, we are trapped by it. However, we can become the authors of our lives by understanding and rewriting our story. This book can help you get a better understanding of why you are in pain and some suggestions on how to transcend your suffering to help you find inner peace. This book combines various theories and practices, both psychological and spiritual, to help you along your journey of self-discovery and healing. I am so excited to be able to provide you with some wisdom to help you as you travel along your journey of discovering inner peace.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

—Carl Jung

Chapter 1

Your Journey Begins

We come into the world with a blueprint of perfection.

From the moment we are born, our journey in this lifetime begins. Because we are spiritual beings entering into a material body, theorists speculate that we already have basic information and a set of belief systems that we bring into this world. We carry knowledge of our spiritual selves as well as a blueprint for optimal health. Some of these beliefs include that we are wise, whole, connected to all, safe, unconditionally loved and immortal. Our body knows how to functional optimally and has information of how to grow and heal. We also bring in additional information that is encoded in our DNA from our ancestors, parents and past lives as well as information as to what we are to learn, accomplish and experience in this lifetime. However, we don’t usually have conscious access to this information.

Our childhood experiences create a highly inaccurate foundation of how we view ourselves and the world.

Although we have an original program of perfection, once in the material body, this information becomes distorted. We begin gathering information through the experiences we encounter. We are receptive to our mother’s, father’s and other’s feelings about us, their situations and views of the world. This is the beginning of the framework of how we view ourselves and the world. For example, if we had a narcissistic parent, we may learn that we 

are conditionally loved. If our parents had anxiety, we may learn that we are not safe in the world. These ideas conflict with our innate spiritual beliefs of being loved, safe and connected. 

During our childhood, because of our limited cognitive capacity, we create egocentric fantasies about why things happen. These speculations become the foundation of our belief systems. For example, if our parents were conflicted about our birth, we might form a belief that we are not wanted. Or if there was animosity within the household, we may blame ourselves. Many of these concepts are inaccurate. Although some of these beliefs may be conscious, most of this information gets stored in our subconscious mind. In addition, part of this subconscious mechanism are the biochemical and neurological response systems such as the fight or flight response attached to these experiences. These mechanisms all play a role in how our beliefs are shaped and how we respond to our environment. 

As we continue to develop, we add to this framework of inaccurate belief systems and patterns of thinking and behaving, and it colors the experiences we have as we continue on our journey. These belief systems and patterns influence every aspect of our lives. They influence how we think and feel about ourselves and the world and motivates our behavior. Additionally, we have unresolved emotional needs created by our formative experiences, which also becomes part of our subconscious emotional framework. We become energetically attached to these dynamics that were unresolved in childhood and they replay in our lives. For example, if we felt conditionally loved, we may spend a lot of time and energy trying to get love and approval by overachieving or pleasing others. Or if we grew up in an unstable household, we may be overly preoccupied with needing to feel safe, which can possibly manifest in obsession and compulsive behaviors.

As we go through life and encounter situations, whether we consciously realize it or not, we appraise these situations based on some of these inaccurate belief systems. We continue to use these inaccurate paradigms, which distorts our reality because we are applying past experiences to try to explain our present reality. This is problematic because our past experiences have nothing to do with our current reality. Therefore, we do not see reality as it truly is because we use our past experiences to interpret our current reality. 

Unprocessed emotions and unresolved needs from childhood are stored in cellular memory and the subconscious mind. 

Our childhood experiences may trigger emotional pain such as fear, sadness, abandonment, shame, frustration, and anger. This information conflicts with our original program of feeling happy, safe, connected, and unconditionally loved. Researchers speculate that even as early as in the womb, we are receptive to the emotions of others within our environment. As an infant, when we were sad, angry or scared, we freely expressed and processed our emotions. As we grew older, we were taught to hold our emotions in. Researcher and theorists suggest that these suppressed emotions do not go away. These emotions become encoded within our physical body as cellular memory. When we encounter situations that resemble these experiences, whether we are conscious of it or not, this triggers emotional pain that is already there. For example, if you felt that your mother was emotionally unavailable and you did not feel as though you received her love and approval, whenever you perceive rejection or abandonment, it triggers this scar. This original scar may create a lifetime of chronic depression. If you had a significant trauma at birth, such as being born with the umbilical cord wrapped around your neck, this may create a lifetime of chronic anxiety and create a belief system that the world is scary, and I am not safe. 

Suffering is internal because it is how we appraise reality and the emotions that it triggers that causes our distress. 

As we travel on our life journey, we encounter situations that trigger an emotional reaction. These situations are neither “good” nor “bad” in themselves, but it is how we appraise these circumstances and the emotions it elicits that creates our distress. Although we usually blame our distress on external events, it is how we appraise these situations, consciously and subconsciously, and the emotions it elicits that cause our suffering. For example, if we do not get a job we want, it is how we appraise this that causes our suffering. We may become upset because we may misperceive that we didn’t get the job because we are not good enough or because nothing ever goes our way, which triggers emotional pain. Therefore, the situation of not getting the job did not lead you to feel upset, it is how you interpreted this situation. Whether we are feeling sad, anxious, angry or whatever else is disrupting our peace, it is how we are perceiving our current life circumstances that is triggering an emotional response which is only amplifying unprocessed pain that is stored in our body. Therefore, our suffering is internally created. 

Because suffering is created internally, the goal is to make changes to our perceptions, not to blame or fix external situations. External circumstances are neutral in nature. It is not until we judge them that they have meaning. These appraisals, rooted in a past reality, then triggers subconscious emotional pain; this pain is already there eliciting an emotional as well as a physical response. Again, we do not see situations as they are, but color it through the lenses of our past experiences. Because unprocessed pain amplifies this experience, it is important to process it. 

Here is a Buddhist proverb to illustrate this. This proverb asks us to imagine that we are a glass of water and that there is a layer of sediment at the bottom that represents past painful emotional experiences that we haven’t fully processed. External situations are the spoon that stirs up the water making it become cloudy. We believe the spoon clouded the water, but it didn’t. If there were no sediment on the bottom, even when the spoon stirred the water, it would remain clear. Therefore, we need to clear out this sediment by working through, as much as we can, our painful experiences. We can also work on understanding that external situations may be triggering past emotional experiences in the moment and minimize our reactions, as well as process this trigger from the original trauma, which will be addressed. 

We are spiritual beings having a human experience. 

As Teilhard de Chardin said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Because you are a spiritual being within a human body, you, the essence of who you are, is what we can define as consciousness, your spirit or soul. Therefore, you are wise, connected to everything, unconditionally loved and immortal. 

We all have an ego, which represents the physical or material aspect of who we are. Part of this ego is the belief system we created about ourselves based on how we interpreted a collection of events that happened to us. Our ego is a collection of thoughts, conscious and subconscious, about who we think we are, which is largely based on our childhood experiences that are highly inaccurate. However, who we are is not a collection of thoughts. Because we are not our thoughts, we are not necessarily who we think we are. This is quite a profound shift in how we probably think about ourselves because we tend to identify with who we think we are. However, if you were your thoughts, would you really be able to change your thoughts? Exactly, so, who is doing the changing? You are. You, then, are not your thoughts, if in fact you can change them. You have thoughts, as well as feelings, but they are not who you are. This may be a hard concept to grasp because we tend to identify with the thinker. You may also believe that your thoughts and feelings control you, but this is not true. You can control your thoughts and feelings because you have the power to change how you think and feel. 

You can look at this concept as though the ego is the participant, and you are the observer. Here is an example to illustrate this idea. You receive an email from your boss who wants to meet with you. It may be that your first reaction is to get nervous and automatically jump to the worst-case scenario. You may begin to think that you did something wrong and will be punished. This is part of your ego or your story. However, you as the observer, have the ability to slow down this experience and catch this thought and think and then feel something else. You can rationalize that chances are everything is ok and even if it isn’t, you will be able to deal with it. You can control the thinker, who, by the way, is the one who is making you miserable. You are something much greater than who you think you are. Identifying with your thoughts leads you to be trapped in certain ideas about yourself, but at any moment, you can choose to just be who you are. And because you are not your story, you have the power to re-write it because this story keeps you trapped in suffering. 

Most of us don’t realize that this spiritual part of us can be the navigating force in our lives because we tend to identify with our ego self. Inner peace is found when we allow the essence of who we are in the driver’s seat, not the ego. Although we need an ego to navigate our world, it is important to not allow the ego to define who we are. Part of the work we will do is reconnecting you to your spiritual self instead of being defined by your ego self and making corrections to this ego construct you created. Being more connected to your spiritual self is helpful in transcending emotional pain and helping you in changing belief systems to one’s that are more positive and empowering.

You have the power to change your belief systems, heal your emotional pain and rewrite your story. 

The good news is, you have the power to change these belief systems on both a conscious and subconscious level and process the trauma that is stored in your cellular memory and feel at peace, which is inherent in all of us. You have the power to change how you appraise your reality and to determine better ways of coping and responding to these situations. You are probably not aware that you created belief systems based on your childhood experiences, which are highly inaccurate and that you can change them at any time. It is so important to understand that many of the stress producing beliefs about yourself and the world are not necessarily true because these beliefs were created in childhood with your child-like lenses and limited life experiences. 

Although you created a story about yourself and the world, you have the power to rewrite your story and update your beliefs. I will be offering you tools to help you understand your story, detach from it and how to rewrite it. I will also provide you with some suggestions for new belief systems you may consider adding to your life as well as how to heal your emotional pain. Rewriting your story and changing your belief systems will be addressed on both a conscious and subconscious level. Because many of these beliefs are subconscious, we will work together in identifying and bringing them to conscious awareness and then offering new ways of viewing yourself and the world. In order to make changes in your life, it is important to understand and change these subconscious programs as well as heal and detach from subconscious trauma. I will also provide some tools to help you process trauma that is stored in cellular memory. This book is focused on helping you take ownership of your thoughts and feelings and make life-altering changes. And in order to take ownership, it is important to understand why you think and feel the way you do. 

Reflection

We come into the world with a blueprint of perfection. Because we are spiritual beings entering into a material body, we already have basic information that we bring into this world. During our childhood, we begin to form belief systems about ourselves and the world and experience emotional trauma, which become the building blocks of our cognitive and emotional foundation. This becomes our story or our ego, which is a false sense of who we are. We carry these belief systems, patterns of coping and stored emotional trauma into our present and they color our experiences and influence our lives. The situations we encounter trigger emotional pain that is already there. Because many of our beliefs about ourselves and the world are not accurate, it is important for us to understand and change these belief systems as well as process unresolved emotional trauma.

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Interested?

Find this book on Amazon and Goodreads.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us today! Connect with Christina on her website, Goodreads, Youtube, Facebook and Instagram.

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Cover Photo on Unsplash