Today, lets talk about overlays, how they work, what they are, how they energetically keep us trapped in a never ending loop cycle in our relationships; romantic and platonic.
Ready? Here we go!
First just some personal perspective
What I have been noticing is that when there are old unhealed wounds inside of our emotional bodies, we tend to project an overlay, a template for our wounding cycles and patterns onto those closest to us.
If we are in a healing cycle, this overlay tactic will not be fully launched until we have first made ourselves vulnerable then experienced a real or perceived wounding.
The real trap is how sneaky this template building can be. Perhaps at first we only feel the injustice of the moment, recover quickly, and simply assign the individual with a new outline, a shadow boundary we lay over our perspective of them.
This shadow, knowing its previous form and shape with another, who say was the originator of abuse or trauma, then begins to slowly shift and grow. Seeking to attain its own fuller actualization in the mind of the wounded.
For what is perceived becomes real. As time goes on, smaller and smaller woundings are taken in as large, poisonous wounds into the self, the shadow overlay grows in intensity, becomes more and more tangible.
Eventually, we begin to “see” the other person inside of the new relationship. Maybe we start to uses phrases like “you’re just like so and so!” or begin to pull completely away whenever a perceived wounding is happening,even when it is small, maybe we begin to hammer points home because we cannot leave them be, whatever it is, we start to operate more fully on the old trauma cycles in our daily life.
We begin to look for them, wait for them, and be tensely ready with our weapon of choice at the first signs – silence, anger, grief, sorrow, tears.
This overlay then begins to turn on more triggers, exasperate trauma responses, it knows your moves, your patterns, it feeds on these. It is much like the parasitic construct but of our own design, a parasite of our own summons.
We begin to allow the overlay to take over our entire perspective, narrative, and experience base with this new person, whether they be a friend who is now taking the brunt of an old friendship gone sour, or a romantic partnership that is is now finding itself more often than not in failing waters. This goes on.
This patterning grows until even small, temporary discomforts are magnified until they become day long, or greater, wounds that are more permanent for all parties involved. We learn to take any small discomforts and allow them to create cavernous wells of despair.
We begin to live there all over again. Allowing a five minute disagreement to become a daylong battle to the end. At this time, the overlay cycle is nearly complete.
The template then becomes its own living, breathing trauma pattern. Actualizing itself within the instability of the emotional body of the wounded, it is now projected onto the living specimen before us, who may or may not feel the cycle beginning in their own wounded emotional body, perhaps they too begin their own process of overlay systems at this time.
The craziest thing is, if two people have similar triggers, especially if they have complimentary wounding cycles, these overlays will mutually play out, exasperating the cycle, causing havoc and eventually destruction of the original relationship dynamic.
This is our story of loss throughout our lives. It happens all the time. Good relationships gone bad.
Leaving both parties to wonder what happened, how it could start so good and end so poorly. Leaving whatever prosperity, hope, and life accomplishments lying wasted in the rubble of this system designed to constantly tear us apart from our joys, happiness, and centered selves.
The answer
The answer is healing the wounded emotional bodies before the cycles become toxic. Identifying the patterns that are out of alignment in the new relationship, the new healing cycle. Does this pattern serve the bigger goal, vision, mission, or desire?
If the answer is no, then it is time to start clearing out the old emotional poison. This can be hard once the overlays have reached near their full actualization phase. If we have already devolved into seeing our new relationship in the context of the old, this is an extremely hard pattern to break, but an extremely important pattern to pay attention to.
It will tell us EXACTLY where healing is needed. It is there to show us the exact wounds that need our attention. This can be hard while we are in the relationship, especially if our partners are not willing to talk about or work through the wounding cycle to find healing. We can still achieve this on our own.
Recognition of the overlay process along with negative old wounding patterns gives us power to change them. This is in direct opposition to what most people believe about this process though. So first we have to get past ourselves. Change our mindset about this. If we believe that “this is the way that I am”, then it is.
If we believe that we are infinitely malleable, godlike creators of our own infinite universes, masters of our domain, capable of massive amounts of healing, shifting, and can conquer anything, then we can.
Just depends on where your thoughts are. If we are allowing the creation of these overlay systems into our new relationships, then we can unmake them, too.
The newness of awareness
This is a brand new system to me, one of which I have just recently, in the last week become aware. It is tying in nicely with my new awareness of others’ egos, the infinite “I Am” and its projection outward. These overlays are a part of the ego construct that is new to me, but which I can now feel the outward projection of, both in self and coming from others.
Part of the psychology of the mind is that the first time we perceive something it takes us longer as we take in all of its pieces.
Later though, any time we come across something similar, our minds will relegate some of the old details to the new construct to save time and the computation space needed for our awareness and larger biological functions required for survival. We only take in a small percentage of what is actually around us.
In fact, our minds will take in the LEAST amount of information and back fill in the rest based on its former findings. This says a lot about our current awareness. Sometimes what is needed to shift is to stop and really take in the present moment/situation, to find the minute details, to overcome.
I believe that with the overlay system, this biological process is heavily exploited, on an energetic and emotional scale.
Having begun making the intensely thorough study of trauma, tools, spirituality, and energy this past few years, I am absolutely convinced that anything we can perceive we can achieve and overcome. If you have any thoughts, feelings, or additions you would like to make to this, it is a work in process and I welcome all of your words.
I will get back to as many of you as time will allow, please understand that if I am negligent in returning your responses it is not for lack of wanting, simply lack of time with so many children. I often am nursing when I respond, so many of my responses are shorter than I would like.
However, I do read each word you share, hold it in my heart, and welcome all new ideas for incorporation into my everyday practices.
Thank you, each of you, for taking the time to read this and share your wisdom and insights.
From my heart to yours,
with Love and Light. (via Facebook)