BreakFree The Human Journey
The Aspect Illumination Method (AIM) is the culmination of Pia Lindgren’s life work, encompassing potent knowledge from psychology, Eastern wisdom, neuroscience and biology. It is based on Drs Hal and Sidra Stone’s ‘Voice Dialogue Method’. Voice Dialogue operates, at its core, on the understanding of one universal law – which is the force of Polarity. We experience this force in all of nature, for example, night/day, north pole/south pole, up/down, happy/sad etc. Polarity also exists within our personality, for example, perfectionist/slob, procrastinator/action taker, fantasist/realist, however, when this is not understood and worked with, the Aspects of us which hold oppositional ideas and worldviews conflict within, and we can sabotage ourselves or feel stuck in life.
The AIM differs from Voice Dialogue because it incorporates, not only the cosmic law of polarity, but also universal principles of Mind, Body and Spirit. Through the AIM you will learn how to operate in the world both psychologically and spiritually so that you can realise your true nature. The AIM also works somatically, as life is lived through our body and our Aspects affect our body and vice versa. Therefore, AIM embraces a somatic stance, psychoeducation and is delivered within a person-centred therapeutic approach.
When you become aware of how your Parts or Aspects operate in your life, you will acquire the ability to live life with true compassion and love for yourself and others. In this way, AIM delivers true healing because you begin to live your true nature. Your true nature holds all the wisdom and knowledge you need for guidance in your life. In other words, you hold the key to heal yourself and the AIM provides a pathway for that to happen.
The AIM meets you where you are at on your Human Journey and facilitates you through each of the steps until you finally discover who you truly are. When applied by a trained facilitator, the AIM will help you to experience the current reality of different parts of your personality. When these Parts or Aspects are made conscious and acknowledged, Illuminated, they no longer make choices for you. The aim of AIM is to empower you to create the life that you’ve always seen for yourself, in alignment with your True Nature and Values.
The Human ∙ Being Journey in Story Form
In the Mythology of different cultures from around the world, there are several versions of the “Hero’s Journey”.
The difference between the Hero’s Journey and the Human Being Journey (i.e. the AIM Process) is that in the AIM Process, the Dragon must not be slayed. It must be loved. This is because when we learn to Love Our Dragon, we enter into a state of Being – the state where life is Created.
The following story is an example of how the AIM Process may play out in a person’s life. Of course, it will be a different story for everyone.
STEP 1. Baby is Born
Baby Julia is born. She comes into the world as her “true nature” – simply herself. She has no concept of past or future and experiences life moment by moment. For this reason, when she is not attended to when she is hungry or needs care, and left crying for too long, she can only feel fear, she doesn’t know yet that her caregivers will come soon (future does not exist) she only feels the fear of the present moment. She experiences helplessness as she is unable to fulfil her needs and is reliant on her caregivers. Mum and Dad, however, are burdened and busy with their own survival stresses for their family. This stress is unwittingly passed on to Julia, through delayed care, lack of attention or forms of neglect. The need for warmth, care, food and comfort are Julia’s basic needs that must be fulfilled in order for her to survive and continue to grow. Fortunately, these needs are met for her… just enough.
STEP 2. Small Child Needs Validation & Acknowledgement
In order for Julia to thrive and flourish as a growing child, she must know that she exists, is welcomed, belongs and is loved. She needs to be seen, heard and validated for who she is. The only way for her to receive validation, is through her interactions with her caregivers. She learns that being seen, heard and validated feels good, while negative interactions result in her needs being unmet – this feels painful and intolerable. Her caregivers enforce Julia’s ‘good’ behaviour by rewarding her with positive attention and her ‘bad’ behaviour is punished by sending her to her room. There she is not seen, heard or validated, as she is alone. Quite the opposite – she is dismissed and must navigate painful feelings alone without having learned how to do so.
Child’s drawing that mother found while cleaning her room. “Liseen” – the child was trying to write “Listen”. The child has not been heard, seen or validated and is left alone in her room. The mother had a heartfelt conversation with her little daughter and Mum is now more aware of their need to connect.
STEP 3. Unmet Needs Create Wounded Child and Beliefs are Formed
Through this experience, Julia learns she must change or discard some of her natural emotions and impulses and ways of being because if she acts from them, she will be left alone with intolerable emotions. This discarding of her natural ways become “childhood wounding” that translate into beliefs unconsciously carried throughout Julia’s lifetime – beliefs such as: “I am flawed and therefore a bad person” or, “I must change or fix something about myself in order to be acceptable.” “I am dumb – I am not good enough”, “I am not pretty enough”, or “I am incapable” etc.
STEP 4. Mind Sets Up Strategies to Compensate for Wounding
Childhood wounds and unconscious beliefs that repeat in Julia’s head are so uncomfortable and frightening that she unconsciously sets up a new way for her to be in the world. Her ‘Ego’ sets up strategies to compensate for the pain and discomfort. For example, Julia learned early, as a baby, “If I smile more, I am adored more. I get the attention I need.” That is, being seen, heard, validated and acknowledged. She learns the ‘exchange’ of being good and doing for others translates into being loved and feeling safe in the world. As she grows, she learns to be “a good girl”, doing more around the house for Mum and Dad, attracting more favourable attention. If she doesn’t do as she is told, she is punished, often with parents going cold and withdrawing attention, sometimes with them shouting in anger. Julia has now developed a way of being in the world as a People Pleaser.
This primary unconscious strategy of being a People Pleaser becomes a way for Julia to meet her needs for love and belongingness. However, in such an exchange, she becomes so preoccupied with doing for others in order that she feels safe and loved, that she does not ever learn how to meet her own needs – she doesn’t even realise she has needs. As Julia matures into a woman, she finds herself tired and/or overwhelmed by too many commitments and is often unwell. How does she cope? She discovers that she can experience some relief from her uncomfortable thoughts and feelings by compensating with food and a few glasses of wine in the evening. For a while, this compensating behaviour releases ‘feel good’ hormones (serotonin and dopamine) into her brain receptors. However, after some time, Julia discovers this behaviour can only provide limited relief from her pain.
STEP 5. Suffering
The food and alcohol soon create more problems in Julia’s life that they are worth. Julia is now overweight by 30 kgs and warned by the medical profession that if she doesn’t lose the weight, she is at high risk of diabetes. Now what? She has no known resources for coping with the immense discomfort that has built up over her lifetime. She is suffering from a painful body and relationship, due to her past compensating behaviours, and she is tormented by her core beliefs that are continually playing out in her life, proving over and over, that she is a “bad person” or “not acceptable or worthy” and “has to be fixed”. She is pushed to a place where she is so sick and tired of being sick and tired. She knows that she has to stop overeating and taking her frustration of hopelessness out on the kids by yelling at them. She has tried everything, but nothing has been sustainable. Does she continue to compensate for painful experience with behaviours or addictions or, decide that she has suffered enough and is willing to explore beyond what she already knows?
Let’s assume she decides the latter of these options…
STEP 6. Awakening
By sheer coincidence, at her lowest ebb, Julia stumbles upon the “BreakFree Institute”. Something inside her, tells her to explore this offering further. The information and videos resonate enough with her that she decides to give one of the courses a go. In hindsight, she will look upon this ‘coincidence’ as the beginning of her ‘awakening’ or coming back to her ‘true nature’. She doesn’t know it at the time, how could she? But she has come into contact with new knowledge and wisdom that will change her life.
STEP 7. Love Your Dragon – “Know Thyself”
In the course of her ‘initiation’, through the Aspect Illumination Method (AIM), embedded in all of the BreakFree Institute’s courses, Julia realises that she has been living her life primarily from a “Parts” or “Aspects / Parts” of herself – mostly, her “People Pleaser”. She also learns she has many more Aspects / Parts of herself – parts of herself she judges as good, bad, ugly and even shameful. However, gradually she becomes familiar with these Aspects / Parts – learning to love each of them for how they have helped her to survive in the world. She learns to “Love Her Dragon”. Julia realises her Aspects / Parts have only come about because she never learned to properly look after the pain of her childhood wounds, experienced in early life. This is only because she never had the resources to look after her pain. No-one was ever there to help Julia address her painful feelings of abandonment, bullying, shame and loss. Her parents, though doing their best, found her pain confronting because, unconsciously, it brought up their own pain. Therefore, they couldn’t hold her in just being still to connect with her, to hear, see and validate her without judgment long enough to settle her nervous system. Julia was just left alone to deal with it the best she could. Her “Aspects / Parts” were born in each one of these moments – every Aspect with its own way to help Julia cope. “Keep yourself busy” they said. “Strive for perfection!” says another. “Just help everyone else’s pain and you will forget about your own.”
STEP 8. Alchemy – Create From True Nature (Not Ego/Mind)
After some time, working with the BreakFree Institute, Julia finds a place within herself, where she is aware of the voices, actions and compulsions of her Aspects / Parts/Parts. From this awareness she develops the capacity to choose to act from these compulsions or to make another choice for herself. With practice, Julia begins to tune into what she really wants. She begins to create a life that reflects what she chooses, not from her Aspects / Parts’ choices, but from her own choices. Soon her life feels good, it ‘fits’ and she feels content. She learns that life has its own rhythm and she learns to navigate her life by feeling into it. By no means is her life free from adverse events or hardship, but Julia learns to tune in to the best actions she can take at each moment. When Julia is in pain, she doesn’t try to escape it but acknowledges it and looks after the Aspect of herself that has been triggered – she can now take care of her ‘wounded child’. Life is good and Julia is happy. She is no longer identified with being a People Pleaser. The Aspects / Parts are no longer running her life! Something within her starts to bloom. The attachment to who she thought she was falls away naturally and she is now in contact with her inner most Essence – her True Nature.
STEP 9. Joy of Living – True Nature Shared With the World
Julia is now living from an inner knowingness of what she TRULY needs and makes life choices that fill her with long-lasting aliveness. She makes a decision to change career. She realised that her striving to be an entrepreneur, working long hours, owning and promoting her own business was not giving her the satisfaction she sought. That decision came from an Aspect of her that was helping her to be seen, heard and validated. What she realises is that she would like to have an occupation that serves her community, where she has set hours so she can enjoy her family and something that provides a stable income. Julia has always loved to drive, so she decides to become a bus driver! Julia loves her new occupation and her community gets to know her. As each person steps onto her bus, Julie cannot help but greet them with a warm smile, asking how they are doing and acknowledging each passenger as they walk onto her bus. The effect of this is that her passengers look forward to her greeting every day. If she is absent from work for some reason, she is missed. Julia’s mere presence, even for a short time, becomes a warmth in the day of every person she comes into contact with. Julia loves her work… She is happy and content. She feels the sparks of the original Joy she came in with as a baby. She has learned to look after herself and her energy. Her life feels full and her cup is overflowing. And what is Julia’s secret in all this joy?…
She has simply come back to her ‘True Nature’. She lives from the present moment. Just like she did when she was born, but this time with awareness and choice.
“If you can relate to anything you have read above, you might want to explore what we can offer you. Go and check out all our courses and choose the one that resonates with you. Whichever one you pick, you can’t go wrong.
My greatest wish is for you to be able to live a joyful life.
From my heart to yours.
Pia x”
