Guest Column: Johnathan Brooks JOINING THE DOTS

http://www.spiritbearcoaching.com/

Joining The Dots: 

The Spiritual Purpose of My Life

It has become popular in counselling for clients to be encouraged to write their story and so come to recognise how detrimental experiences can be used as opportunities for living life to the full.  In a sense this could be called allowing oneself to move into new situations, places or environments where this can happen.

I believe adoption and fostering offers a unique opportunity for adopter and adoptee for personal growth and the healing of the wounds we all carry, and may have to re-experience several times in order to except the wisdom of their lesson and move on. Before we are born our spirit/soul chooses the particular set of circumstances and the environment that will give us the greatest opportunity for growth into self responsible adult instead of remaining a victim.

When we are born we are totally dependent on others, but if we are unable to bond with a parent or nurturing figure with any degree of closeness, we may find it difficult to become self reliant and free to create a life of our own.

We may allow the values of others and the culture to dictate the patterns of our lives and try to fit in, or equally restricting, being constantly at war with that culture instead of freeing ourselves to fulfil the reason for incarnation.

In my own case I can now look back and recognise certain significant sets of circumstances that have led to being able to heal sum of my earlier wounding. My birth mother was a Native American of the Cree tribe which was not compatible with my birth fathers Northern Cheyenne. The Catholic Church arranged for my adoption after a few months old by an American Jewish man and Austrian/German then Protestant wife, at least four different types of cultural influences.

This was at a time when it was popular to adopt little Vietnamese orphans and babies from countries where America had been involved in destructive wars. While I was not from the Far East it could be said that White Americans had progressively destroyed my birth parents culture. I was never able to bond with my adopted mother, nor do I feel she was able to nurture me in any way. I felt very unclear who I was, felt deeply insecure, and separate from those around me. It is I think significant that when I married it was to a South Korean girl who was also adopted as a very young child and also had problems with bonding.

As I see it now part of my life task is to heal the wounds inflicted on First Nation peoples through myself as a First Nation individual and learn to recognise the Unity of Humanity, we are not separate.

The next significant event was when at age five my adopted parents moved from the USA to England. I was eventually sent to a Steiner school where both teachers and pupils were multi-national so being one of two Native Americans there was no big deal about my race. However, by this time I had become so inhibited and unable to express or be myself in any way to my adopted mother I was considered a bit slow and unresponsive. In fact, I still felt lonely, imprisoned and separate from the love of anyone who understood me, and I believe I was re-living a prison like isolation experience when the Cheyenne’s were split into two and vanished from their tribal grounds.

When I was later able to find my birth parents and was enrolled as a Northern Cheyenne I achieved a healing sense of belonging, and a cultural philosophy with which I could resonate. I began to feel who I was.

However, before this took place I was sent to live with foster parents during term time. These were an Austrian/Australian and his English wife together with their son who was in the same class at school, and was four days older than myself.

This son’s name was John to my Johnathan in a sense we were like dissimilar twins finding each other after a long separation. My foster parents never regarded me as anything but a welcome second son, and frequently said “How lucky we are to have two such good boys” and missed me when I was away.

My foster mother regarded the extraordinary world-wide travelling experiences on both our parts that had brought us all together as a sign of a beneficent and supportive universe, pointing to the fulfilment of the cosmic plan for Humanity. To Unify everything and return to Source through the magnetism of Love.

It was my foster mother who discovered I was Dyslexic. Dealing with this problem and wound led to me studying acting and later to become a NLP Master Practitioner. So a wound became an asset.

I remained with these foster parents for over 18 years before moving to London and training and working in several jobs which while I did not find particularly satisfying at the time were all useful in helping me on my way to a recognition of my sacred contract as Caroline Myss puts it [www.myss.com].

A greater understanding of this contract was given me by a tribal elder when I was working in a home for under privileged children on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. He remarked on the number of mothers I had, had. I slowly began to realize the importance of mothering, of grounding, of security on Mother Earth and bonding of all humanity.

During the summer of 1985, I had been given the Right to build and lead sweats in England by the Northern Cheyenne Sacred Hat Keeper, he’s a bit like the Pope.  When I got back, I built a sweat lodge in the garden and invited my foster brother to our first sweat not knowing that the covering of this place of purification creates feeling of returning  to the dark womb of Mother Earth, where we can safely release all the negative conditionings we have acquired and re-emerge re-born. I was, much later, to understand the value of ritual for impressing our minds in a learning/healing process.

A further opportunity to develop the theme of mothering, security and bonding when my daughter was born, at the same time of night on the same date as my foster mother 81 years before.

Circumstances arose that it became necessary/convenient for me to become a full time house father while still seeing clients. This has made me more and more conscious of the feminine, nurturing life and each person’s uniqueness while the male role is to encourage and give support for change and progress.

When Father Sky and Mother Earth unite, life can become an adventure, instead of something to be endured while every wound is seen as a valuable sign post and opportunity for becoming Whole or Healed.

 

In A Nutshell:

I feel my sacred contract is to help others recognise their legitimate and unfulfilled needs or wounds as the reverse of the positive qualities they are here to manifest.

Life is a paradox and unless we are able to recognise both opposite poles in ourselves we cannot make life meaningful, adventurous or creatively joyous. If we do not achieve this recognition or healing we will pass the problem onto the next generation.

This is a particular time of a return to the Great Mother.

‘Walk in Peace;

Walk in Beauty.’

Johnathan

Johnathan Brooks, PG Dip, MAC, CBT, MNLP, EFT is a Cognitive Behavioural Coach who has trained in a wide range of treatment methods including the “Power Therapies” (CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (post grad), EFT Emotional Freedom Technique, Master NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming) and has a Post Graduate Diploma in ‘Coaching and NLP’ - passed with a ‘Commendation’ from Kingston University.

Is a registered Gold member of The Professional Guild of NLP and is a full member of the Association for Coaching UK.

Thank you Johnathan for starting us out in 2012 with inspiration! Trace