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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 4 months ago
Is it possible that your physical body's symptoms are offering you valuable feedback on how to be authentic in life? With over five decades of research, I am certain that there are many correlations between authenticity and wellness, and inauthenticity and illness.
The correlation between your perceptions and authenticity
When you meet someone, it can be quite challenging to remain completely neutral. In fact, in most instances, upon meeting someone, you tend to form an initial assessment of them in under a minute.
- When you compare yourself to others and EXAGGERATE their qualities, you tend to minimize yourself in return by the law of contrast. When you exaggerate others, and in turn minimize yourself, you’re not authentic.
- When you MINIMIZE their qualities, you might self-righteously believe you're smarter or more successful. When you exaggerate yourself, you’re not authentic.
When you have an imbalanced perspective on someone, even though you believe your perception/judgment to be accurate, it’s really just a subjectively biased opinion formed from your past experiences. As such, you tend to create an imposter - an exaggerated or minimized version of self – which is not your authentic self. This is often referred to as “imposter syndrome”. It is a mask, persona or facade you wear as a reaction.
Authenticity is most likely to emerge when you bring your perceptions into perfect equilibrium, where you neither exaggerate nor minimize them or yourself. This is something I have taught hundreds of thousands of people to do, and something I am inspired to speak about and write about whenever I can. Why? Because it is one of the keys to transforming and mastering your life.
It may surprise you to learn that what you see in others is a reflection of you.
In Romans 2:1, of the Bible, the verse cautions against judging others since what you judge in them, you also do. It's a form of projection, where you resent or admire something in others because they mirror a quality you're ashamed or proud of but reluctant to admit.
In reality, you display or demonstrate and can own all of the many traits, including those you admire or resent in others. I would encourage you to read that again. The traits you admire in others, you possess. The traits you resent in others, you possess. You own all the traits – those you perceive as being positive and those you perceive as being negative.
The moment you exaggerate or minimize your perception of yourself - when you're become too proud or too humble to acknowledge the traits you perceive in others within yourself - you undermine your authenticity, which often results in feelings of inner emptiness. However, when you embrace and own the traits you observe in others within yourself, you help level the playing field.
In doing so, you’re more likely to have equanimity within yourself, which is authenticity; and equity between yourself and others, which allows you to have more effective and sustainable communication and transactions.
When you tend to exaggerate yourself, you also awaken your more narcissistic persona and tend to want to get something for nothing.
On the other hand, when you minimize yourself, you also awaken your altruistic persona and tend to want to give something for nothing.
Both extremes are unsustainable. However, when you level the playing field and have authenticity, you are most likely to have sustainable fair exchange, which is a win-win situation for both parties.
Win-win situations are healing to the body, while win-lose situations tend to trigger autonomic responses and symptoms in the body.
Let me explain further: When you INFATUATE with someone, it activates the amygdala's prey response in the subcortical part of your brain. As such, you’re likely to impulsively seek them out, engage with them, and desire to ‘consume’ them – similar to a predator seeking prey.
In doing so, you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and digestion. This system also promotes anabolic processes, fostering growth in your body. It triggers mitosis, promoting bodily growth, and enhances alkalinity while initiating chemical reduction in enzyme pathways.
The result is symptoms that are characteristic of the rest and digestion response: a lowered heart rate, increased digestive secretions, accelerated bowel movements, and changes in your skin.
These physiological responses signal that you're likely perceiving more positives than negatives, more upsides than downsides, and are attracted to an individual or situation. Your brain responds by activating the primitive part of your brain, the amygdala, which sends impulses, prompting you to seek it.
On the other hand, when you RESENT someone, you activate your sympathetic nervous system. This system is catabolic, breaking things down, and often leads to an acidic, oxidative state that can trigger cell apoptosis or cell destruction. The result is symptoms that are characteristic with a fight or flight response: elevated blood pressure, decreased digestive secretions and reduced digestive function, amongst others.
These symptoms are valuable feedback mechanisms to let you know that you’re likely exaggerating others and minimizing yourself, or minimizing others and exaggerating yourself.
When you feel challenged, you can become resentful and independent, while when you feel supported, you can become infatuated and dependent. One response is fight or flight, while the other is rest and digest. The former promotes an increase in blood sugar, while the latter lowers it.
You may also experience a variety of other symptoms, including a change in blood pressure, salt secretions, and fatty acids – all signs and symptoms that you’re likely judging someone instead of balancing your perceptions so you are conscious of both their upside and downsides simultaneously. And prolonged judgment can lead to autonomic dysregulation.
The longer you cling to judgments, the more inauthentic you tend to become. While judgments can be valuable alerts for emergency situations - capturing prey or avoiding predators – living in survival mode is not necessarily the wisest way to live your life on a day-to-day basis.
It is wiser to have more objectivity, centeredness, and authenticity because, if you’re like most people, you likely want to be loved for who you genuinely are. However, if you’re not being who you are, how can you be loved for it?
One way to balance your perceptions
In my signature two-day Breakthrough Experience program, one of the exercises I have you do when you resent someone, is identify the specific trait, action, or inaction that you perceive them displaying or demonstrating that you resent most.
For example, it could be something like verbal criticism. You then trace back to a moment when YOU displayed the same or similar behavior toward someone else.
Initially, you might resist the idea, thinking you would never do that. But if you hold yourself accountable, you’ll likely find that this initial resistance to owning a particular trait stems from pride and a tendency to disown that part of yourself because you’re ashamed of it. In other words, you're likely upset with them because they remind you of what you're hiding and disassociating from - a trait your are too proud to admit you have.
This is why, to resolve it, you pinpoint when and to whom you displayed that behavior and fully own it. This tends to calms down your pride and helps you realize that the individual you resent is actually your TEACHER. They’re bringing into your own awareness something you've been denying in yourself – a disowned trait - which can help you appreciate them for being a teacher as opposed to judging, resenting, and avoiding them.
Next, you explore a moment when they exhibited the same behavior, and consider how it BENEFITED you. Initially, you may perceive this behavior as negative, evoking a fight or flight response. However, once you again do the work so you can recognize that there is an equal number of benefits, and your autonomic responses will balance, and your judgment of them will tend to dissolve.
Likewise, when you examine moments when YOU displayed this same behavior, consider how it served others, and find the upsides to what you perceive as downsides, you’ll likely realize that feeling guilty is the result of assuming there were drawbacks without benefits.
The same goes for resenting someone. In this case you are perceiving drawbacks without acknowledging the benefits. These imbalances are what keep you inauthentic and you experiencing an imposter syndrome.
Think of an imposter syndrome as a carryover from the animal kingdom, a survival mechanism that involves changing your appearance to avoid being seen by predators or prey. In human life, these impostors, facades, and personas tend to emerge when you have primitive autonomic responses. They most likely manifest because you either seek food, rest, and digestion or want to avoid being eaten, activating fight or flight responses.
Symptoms are there to alert you to your judgments, which you store in your subconscious mind or subcortical brain.
Your physical symptoms offer you an OPPORTUNITY to balance any judgments and free yourself from emotional burdens, so you can return to authenticity. Authenticity expresses an equanimity state, bringing equity and allowing you to love and appreciate others and yourself equally.
This shift from autonomic dysregulation to regulation promotes wellness, ultimately affecting your physiology and well-being.
In other words, you can choose to live in a state of wellness and love rather than illness and judgment. It depends on whether you choose to listen to the feedback your symptoms are giving you, as opposed to taking a pill for every ill in an effort to suppress or cover them.
Similar to a young child trying to get your attention when you ignore them, your symptoms will likely escalate in an effort to get your attention and provide valuable feedback you.
That's why I emphasize the importance of the Value Determination process in the Breakthrough Experience program, and living by priority. When you fill your day with high-priority actions, you tend to become more objective and balanced and less concentrated in your lopsided judgments.
For example, if you've had days where you've been highly focused and stuck to your top priorities, you likely feel on top of the world, and more governed capable of handling outer others emotions and situations without strong reactions.
On the other hand, when you spend your time on low-priority tasks, you tend to become more irritable and reactive. Low-priority activities activate the subcortical region of the brain, while high-priority ones engage the executive center in the cortical area, promoting foresight and objectivity over subjective bias.
Your intuition constantly works to bring you back into equilibrium, wellness, and authenticity. What often happens though, is that you get caught in your judgments, perpetuate your stories, and settle for therapies where you can rehash these narratives year after year. In doing so, you’re more likely to become a victim of your history instead of master of your destiny.
I believe in taking the time to ask quality questions because the quality of your life depends on the quality of the questions you ask.
Asking quality questions, such as those in the Demartini Method that I teach in the Breakthrough Experience, helps you promote reflective awareness, balance your perceptions, stabilize your hormones, and regulate your brain. This is far more likely to result in an authentic state, with your intuition constantly guiding you in this direction of greater homeostasis.
Following your instincts and impulses resulting from imbalanced judgments lead to emptiness, unfulfillment, and ingratitude. By prioritizing your actions and listening to your intuition, you are more likely to wake up and develop a gratitude attitude, which is the key to healing and wellness.
I've witnessed numerous cases in the Breakthrough Experience where individuals had illnesses and symptoms that dissolved when they balanced their perceptions. Issues like irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, and skin conditions have been transformed or eliminated once they brought their perceptions back into balance.
If you're dealing with a chronic illness and haven't found the source, it is wise to remember that sometimes you store imbalances in your SUBCONSCIOUS mind or subcortical responses. By using the quality questions of the Demartini Method, you can potentially change your life. You have more power over your body and life than you might realize.
To Sum Up:
- When you meet someone, staying truly neutral can be quite a challenge because you often form initial judgments within moments.
- If you infatuate with someone, exaggerate their qualities, and place them on a pedestal, you likely minimize yourself as a result. On the other hand, when you minimize them, you tend to exaggerate yourself as a result. Both scenarios leave you inauthentic and create what's sometimes referred to as “imposter syndrome”.
- Authenticity most likely occurs when you find that equilibrium, where you neither exaggerate nor minimize others or yourself.
- What you see in others often reflects how you consciously or subconsciously perceive yourself. As Romans 2-1 in the Bible cautions, what you judge in others, you possess yourself.
- To be truly authentic, it is wise to embrace, appreciate, and own the traits you perceive in others and in yourself, leveling the playing field.
- When you infatuate with someone, you activate the rest and digest response, which promotes anabolic parasympathetic symptoms. In contrast, when you resent someone, you activate the fight or flight response which promotes catabolic sympathetic symptoms indicating that your perceptions are imbalanced. When they are balanced you awaken autonomic regulationresilience and wellness.
- Prolonged judgment can result in autonomic dysregulation, which may lead to illness and dis-ease. These symptoms are valuable feedback to let you know that you’re likely living inauthentically and have imbalanced perceptions.
- Balancing your perceptions fosters authentic, sustainable fair exchange, likely creating win-win situations that are healing for the body.
- Living congruently with your highest values and living by priority can help you become more objective and less judgmental.
- It is wise to ask quality questions, such as those in the Demartini Method, to promote reflective awareness, balance your perceptions, and stabilize your hormones.
- The Breakthrough Experience has shown that balancing perceptions can alleviate chronic illnesses and symptoms stored in your subconscious mind.
- If you're dealing with a chronic illness without a clear cause, it's worth considering that imbalances may be lurking in your subconscious. The Demartini Method and the power of asking quality questions can potentially change your life. You have more control over your body and life than you may realize.
If you’re ready to go inwards and do the work that will clear your blockages, clarify your vision and balance your mind, then I would love you to join me at the Breakthrough Experience, where in two days you’ll learn how to solve challenges, transform your emotions and reset the course of your life for greater achievement and fulfillment.
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