Image by Paul C Lee
In this Article
- How the Internal Rule Book influence our behavior from childhood to elderhood.
- What impact do life stages have on the entries in our Internal Rule Book?
- How understanding and adapting our Internal Rule Book can improve our response to life’s challenges.
- The emotional and psychological impacts of the Internal Rule Book during major life transitions?
- How can we prepare for successful aging by adjusting our Internal Rule Book?
Our Internal Rule Book: Friend or Foe?
by Alexandra Leclere.
The process of recording rules in our Internal Rule Book starts when we are very young and continues throughout our lives. Event + rule entry = emotional and physical reaction.
As we live our daily life and go through the many different changes brought about as we age, all of those events are stored in our Internal Rule Book with a judgment added to each event, which in turn triggers an emotion.
When a similar event happens later in our lives, those emotions are triggered, and we act—or react—according to our Internal Rule Book. We follow these rules out of habit and fear.
From Adolescence to Midlife
As teenagers we question everything and, in so doing, we are apt to challenge the status quo. This is when our Internal Rule Book takes a hit. The control of the Internal Rule Book over our emotions and actions is overruled by the huge waves of hormones running throughus. Our emotions become an electrical system that is constantly running near overload and often shorts out.
The result can be incredible mood swings and outbursts, bizarre and risky behavior, and confusion. The difficult part for the Soul is that the physical demands of life seem to cut off communication between the Soul and the physical body. Generally there is some detachment between the two.
Teenage energy levels are also all over the map. Marathons of sleeplessness are mixed with days of never getting up except under duress. This affects not only the teenager but also anyone who has to deal with the teenager. The effect is palpable and radiates out like ripples in a lake, often making other people begin to question their own Internal Rule Book.
During this difficult time there are many rules entered in a teenager’s rule book that are generated by their “loving” parents or caretakers who often inadvertently say and do hurtful things. Unfortunately, words uttered in anger write the more indelible rules in our Internal Rule Books.
Although the parents or caregivers receive their share of negative entries, the teenager gets the brunt of it. Something as simple as “You’re lazy!” will be registered in the Internal Rule Book and down the road will affect the teenager’s self-esteem.
A Parent's Internal Rule Book
When teenagers go through hormonal upheavals and question everything, their parents may be forced to examine things too, but for different reasons. After spending many years raising a child, parents are unprepared for teenagers who challenge their parents’ choices. The chosen method of this challenge is criticism.
Because a teenager is capable of speaking like an adult about adult topics, parents can be fooled into believing that their child really has grown up. This is not entirely true. A teenager is like a rose bush that has many buds, but only a few are blooming now. Later on, the bush will be in full bloom. You also have to watch out for the thorns.
The comments that a teenager can make about a parent’s job can lead a parent to question not only their job choice but also all the choices they’ve made since they were teenagers themselves. As the teenager is becoming an adult, the role of the parent is changing. As all this change and introspection are happening, the Internal Rule Book gets overruled and modified for the parents too.
Due to the physical changes that teenagers go through during adolescence, they can be huge catalysts for their parents to modify their own Internal Rule Book. The problem comes when each of their Internal Rule Books records all the negative interactions between parent and teen. If we aren’t careful these entries can create horrible fodder for the Chatter Mind that can destabilize both parent and child.
After the tumultuous teenage years, our Internal Rule Book becomes more stable. Depending on our previous entries, we can consider that we are doing very well or not. Gradually our Internal Rule Book gets a better hold on our emotions, and we generate habits. The more habits we create, the more we build an Internal Rule Book/Chatter Mind cage.
Facing Internal Rule Book Challenges
By forty we are fairly set in our ways. At this point in our lives, Internal Rule Book challenges aredifficult to face. We are better at outwardly controlling our emotions, but our Internal Rule Book is even more adept at triggering these emotions.
In our forties, early childhood traumas, which have been buried from our conscious mind, may begin to surface. This happens now because we are in a better position to face these significant traumas and gain the understanding that the trauma was supposed to bring us. It’s important to remember at this point that we planned these traumas in our lives. We plan these challenges as learning opportunities.
When I was in my forties it was as though the rose-colored glasses were ripped off my face. The reality of the sexual abuse I suffered as a three- and four-year-old came into my awareness. I believe in my case, I needed to take control of that abuse and realize that I could prevent anything like that ever happening to me again.
At that point I was also opening up to spirit communication, which helped me deal with what I was uncovering. We all have our spirit guides there to help us during this time. Later on I realized that as a healer, I could empathize better with my clients thanks to the fact that I had suffered this kind of abuse.
Why Me? Why Now?
These traumas are revealed so late in our lives because we are better able to deal with them and learn from them. Throughout our fifties there is a continuation of our development and more opportunities to develop our connection to spirits.
There is a sense of needing to live life as our bodies begin to show signs of slowing down. If we don’t learn how to fill ourselves with energy, we are in trouble.
Turning Fifty: Menopausal Wisdom
Turning fifty is an especially important time for women. As menopause hovers, women receive a download of wisdom.
This is a kind of spiritual opening that wasn’t accessible at a younger age. This wisdom helps women to question their Chatter Mind, their belief system, and their Internal Rule Book.
Turning Sixty: Retirement
In our sixties we are forced to change some rules because we have to deal with retirement. As much as we loathe having to change, now we must, for the circumstances demand it. Retirement is usually seen as a wonderful reward following a life of hard work.
In addition to the financial considerations that can dictate when someone might retire, there are emotional components that often are ignored. We know when we’ve had enough of a job, and we feel ready to leave it.
Unfortunately, we don’t always plan our retirement well. Even ifwe are financially sound and have wonderful plans to build our forever home or travel extensively or possibly both, we forget about our Internal Rule Book. The rules in it, which we’ve set up unconsciously throughout our lives, are hardwired to our emotions. This means that even if we are finally vacationing on that sunny beach in Tahiti, something may be bothering us.
Usually we can’t identify it, and we simply ignore it. Our conscious mind convinces us that we’re happy. The pernicious quality of the Internal Rule Book never stops working, however. If our Internal Rule Book has identified success and happiness as a hardworking adult, we won’t be able to be happy without some component of that hardworking adult in our lives. The more successful and well connected someone has been in their life, the more severe the consequences can be.
Those consequences cause dis-ease and illness. We go from being perceived as someone whose decisions make a difference and whose calls are immediately answered to someone less important. Eventually this leads to becoming someone who is ill and reliant on caregivers to survive.
One way to mitigate this outcome is to prepare your retirement by finding some kind of charity organization to join and give you a voice. The best result is when the level of your stature within the charity corresponds to the level of professional responsibility that you had before you retired.
Although there is a huge step between paid work and benevolent charity work, the Internal Rule Book will still perceive the charity work as satisfying its definition of success. Finally, you will be able to fully enjoy that vacation in Tahiti as it’s attached to a Doctors Without Borders outpost that you’re supposed to visit.
Elderhood
The positive side of growing older is that we react more slowly to the emotions triggered by our Internal Rule Book. We might experience an emotion longer, but our physical reactions are delayed—except those triggered by depression, which can creep in. Somehow, we become more philosophical, and we might temper our emotions.
This continues through old age. We have a choice to become bitter; that is, horribly cantankerous if not downright mean, or better; that is, more forgiving and generous. These results depend on the input each individual enters into the Internal Rule Book. It’s a good idea to review the contents of your Internal Rule Book to prepare to be a better elder.
As people live longer, it seems that the key is acceptance of what is. In a sense, this is a newfound ability to not take issue with events when our Internal Rule Book triggers our emotions.
The people who live the longest generally are those who roll with the punches in life. Of course having a strong connection to your Soul and spirits helps in this process.
Copyright ©2024. All Rights Reserved.
Adapted with permission of the publisher,
Destiny Books, an imprint of Inner Traditions Intl.
Article Source:
BOOK: Healing Wisdom from the Afterlife
Healing Wisdom from the Afterlife: How to Communicate with the Spirit World
by Alexandra Leclere.
Sharing insights from her more than two decades of experience as a practicing medium and energy healer, Alexandra Leclere presents wisdom from the spirit world on the cycles of death, life after death, and rebirth and reveals how communicating with spirits can help you navigate daily life and support your Soul’s purpose.
Presenting spiritual Journey Work techniques, Alexandra reveals how to clear the negative traumas and memories that are holding you back from happiness and the purpose that compelled your Soul to reincarnate.
Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book.XXX Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Alexandra Leclere is a clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairsentient medium and energy healer with more than 20 years of professional experience. She is the author of the book Seeing the Dead, Talking with Spirits and also facilitates sweat lodge ceremonies. Visit the Author's Website: AlexandraLeclere.com/Article Recap:
The article explores the concept of the Internal Rule Book, a psychological framework that records rules based on life events and shapes our emotional and physical reactions. It discusses how this rule book is formed in childhood and is continually modified as we age, impacting how we navigate life's challenges and transitions. By understanding and adapting our Internal Rule Book, we can better manage emotions and behaviors, enhancing our well-being and ability to handle life's changes effectively. The piece emphasizes the importance of being proactive about our mental narratives, especially as we approach elderhood, to ensure a more fulfilling and resilient life.
