Imprint Journey (eBook)

Introduction

We live in a fascinating time of human development. Our planet and mankind are undergoing a lot of changes and experiencing a lot of chaos brought about by that change.

Governing systems and structures are breaking down. Religious fanatics are fighting wars and killing in the name of God. We experience a daily overload of information. Our news media fails to report with journalistic integrity, but rather, it focuses on sensationalism to get the highest ratings.

Our technology has surpassed our humanity. The Internet has changed the planet's entire communication system, bringing the world into our living rooms, while creating islands of human isolation and escape.

For many, love and intimacy have been replaced by cybersex, sex scandals, sex abuse, and child pornography. We are fighting but losing the war on drugs. Now we have legal pushers: greedy doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and an entire out-of-control healthcare system keeping America medicated. We have become a society of addicts craving instant gratification and instant solutions.

Corporate America, with its lack of accountability, lack of ethics, corruption, and greed mirrors back our own immaturity and irresponsibility, making them the agenda of the day that almost collapsed the entire economy.

Our planet is crying for help and responsible stewardship. Global warming, hurricanes and tsunamis, earthquakes and fires, polluted waters, and dying species have become daily dramas.

Yet, it is all so paradoxical. Out of chaos comes the greatest creative growth. Chaos brings order just as light eliminates the darkness.

We are collectively undergoing a tremendous shift in consciousness. Science and spirituality are meeting, and together they are conquering the new frontier: the mind.

We are starting to understand the power of our minds. Quantum physics, brain studies, new research on brain plasticity, breakthroughs in medical technology and imaging, as well as genetic engineering are producing a quantum shift and leap in consciousness. Spirituality, meditation, and affirmative visualization are transcending religion and blending with science. The new human for the twenty-first century is emerging.

I am fascinated by the speed of discoveries yet profoundly saddened by the pain we are experiencing. However, from my own life experience, I know that pain is my greatest teacher and the catalyst for my continuing transformation.

For some time, my intuition has been nudging me to write. The little voice within me kept on whispering, “Put down on paper your thirty years of clinical work in the field of addictions and family therapy.”

My ego had many rationales and answers for why I should not carry through with that idea. “You are not a writer. You have nothing to say. Great minds have done it and done it much better. You don't have time. You're too old. You cannot polarize your energies into writing. You need to take care of serious business. Writing is not productive.” Does any of this sound familiar?

Well, life usually gets our attention. Some recent movies and the latest research have validated my deep beliefs about forms of healing, transformation, and spirituality. This new validation gave my Authentic Self the necessary push, motivation, and passion to write about and further my lifetime work.

I have been on a spiritual quest all my life. My spiritual path has meant journeying down the road less traveled by doing my inner work for the past thirty-five years.

The pain of addictions led me to a healing process, but my soul's yearning attracted to me the teachers and teachings necessary to transform my life and to shape my life's mission.

I arrived on this planet on September 20, 1938 in Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. Zagreb is one of the oldest cities in Europe and yet one of Europe's youngest metropolises. Its long history began with its founding in 1094, and in 1242, Zagreb was proclaimed a free royal city.

Zagreb was founded where the last hills of the Alps merge into the Pannonian Valley. The city is cradled between the Medvednica Mountain, its highest peak being Sljeme, and the Sava River. The city is at the crossroads of various cultures, religions, and nations.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Zagreb was badly devastated by fire and the plague. The city was rebuilt during the Austro-Hungarian Empire's occupation with its architecture being inspired by Vienna. One of Zagreb's most recognizable landmarks is its neo-gothic cathedral. Begun in the late eleventh century, the cathedral was not fully completed until the nineteenth century. The cathedral's treasury contains priceless treasures and relics dating from throughout its long history. Zagreb is also marked with beautiful avenues lined with chestnut trees and gardens filled with lilacs and jasmine.

According to my parents, my arrival was a happy event. I was the firstborn and would be their only surviving child—my younger brother died two days after his birth and my sister was a stillbirth. For a long time, I was the only grandchild in the family. Then, when I was two years old, World War II erupted in Europe and the Germans soon occupied my country of origin.

Years later, a wise person told me that we choose the perfect environment for our spiritual growth; yes, the perfect environment to learn the lessons we need to learn so we can carry out our life's purpose. I have found that answer to be the logical explanation for why I grew up in the country I did and at that time in history.

My parents were sweet people, who had an important commonality point: their alcoholic fathers. Only when I started my own recovery did I truly understood the impact this simple truth had on their lives and on our family imprints.

You might wonder what are imprints: they are our emotional map, the deep-seated beliefs and values stored in our brain's limbic system. In spite of everything we know, our imprints govern our life at the subconscious level. Let me illustrate.

Have you ever been in a situation you found so painful and embarrassing that you told yourself, “I will never make this mistake again,” only to see yourself a few days, weeks, or months later repeating the same mistake. The people and places may have been different, but the results were the same.

Did you ever, after ending a really bad relationship, swear you will never again get yourself into another such relationship, only to find that your next relationship is the same or worse than the previous one?

Have you said to yourself and perhaps to your friends that you will never be like your parents? You were sure you would never say the things they said, nor act the way they acted. Surprise! One day you hear yourself talking to your child and you sound, look, and act just like your parents—history has been repeated.

Your rational mind knows better; it knows what you do not want to be, to do, or to experience. So you wonder what is wrong with this picture. You ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?”

The answer is imprint. Our subconscious imprints are the deep-seated beliefs and messages we have received and internalized.

Once an imprint is internalized, it becomes a subconscious governing force in our lives. Our imprints form our emotional map, determining our ability to relate to self and to others. Imprints form our perceptions, values, and belief systems. Imprints determine the quality of our relationships with life, God, self, and others. Our values govern our choices as well as our behaviors. They determine whether we are reactive or pro-active.

The limbic system is the seat of our ability to connect with others and experience intimacy and love. It is also the seat of our imprints. Imprints form our emotional intelligence. Consequently, our imprints can enhance or sabotage our ability to connect, to form and sustain meaningful relationships with others.

Imprints can be broken down into two major categories: genetic and environmental. I will explore both in this book.

My purpose here is to take you on a journey of emotional, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious imprinting. In the first section of this book, I will illustrate for you the imprints I have developed during the past seventy-one years of my life; then I will provide you with the information and tools I have learned about imprints and share stories of others who have been successful in overcoming their own negative imprints. By doing so, I hope you will be able to transform your own life, shed the imprints that hold you back, and find your Authentic Self. We will talk more about what is the Authentic Self in these pages as well.

I am very grateful for everything that has ever happened in my life. It does not matter if I have internalized it as good or bad. All of it was necessary to transform me into who I am today. It was the necessary path to my true Identity and Authentic Self. My story is the story of suffering transformed into lessons, gifts, and victories. More than that, it is the story of human spirit rising above circumstances, thereby allowing me to rewrite my history. My passion, my creativity, and my compassion for humanity were all born on that path.

My hope is that this book will be the catalyst of your own transformation and awakening to your Authentic Self. My greatest hope is that children of wars and children of oppression and abuse can find hope, dignity, and a path of transformation. My intent is to take you on a journey of rewriting...