The Method: Path 1 Integration
It’s time to really put the Connect the Dots Method into action! You ready?
NOTE: If you’ve haven’t read The Method: Path 1 post, head over there and read through that first! That post gives you an overview of using the CTD Method with your Gene Keys profile whereas this post will go deeper into the step-by-step process.
Review
Path 1 of the CTD Method is for anyone who wants to use their personalized Gene Keys profile as their guidance system to navigate their limiting survival patterns. Because the Gene Keys profile is generated from your birth information and therefore, contains info drawn from planetary placements and astrological influence, this is a scientific and spiritual path to revealing and retraining your patterns.
As you review the CTD Method below, I highly advise to take your time but trust how you learn information. You may want to read it all first and then go through each step this week one day at a time in depth. You may want to simply read the first couple of steps today and let it sink in before moving on. There’s no right or wrong! But whatever you do, reach out to Chrissy in the chat thread with any questions or thoughts… the only “wrong” thing you can do is avoid, isolate, or procrastinate going all in on your growth through this method 🧬
The CTD Method
Step 1: Identify the life theme you want to shift — Life Purpose, Love & Relationships, Career, Money, Health & Wellbeing
First, get in touch with what you desire: an emotion, experience, or embodied state?
Examples:
I desire to feel deeper safety in all of my relationships.
I desire to have an aligned career path that lights me up.
I desire to feel energized and healthy at baseline every day.
I desire to have the freedom to travel the world on my terms.
I desire to sustain financial abundance without sacrificing my wellbeing.
Given what you desire, what area of your life is either creating the most distress in relation to that and/or what area seems to be the most influential to create the change you want?
Check out the CTD podcast episode How to Choose the Gene Key You Need for a helpful strategy to determine your “Most Valuable Priority” area to create the change you desire.
Examples:
I desire to feel deeper safety in all of my relationships = Love & Relationships
I desire to have an aligned career path that lights me up = Career
I desire to feel energized and healthy at baseline every day = Health & Wellbeing
I desire to have the freedom to travel the world on my terms = Life Purpose
I desire to sustain financial abundance without sacrificing my wellbeing = Money
Step 2: Specify the focus area you want to change or get clarity in
Within the life theme, what change or clarity are you looking for?
Consult the Focus Area Finder from The Method: Path 1 post in order to help you get specific.
If you’re not sure, simply choose your Life’s Work or Evolution gene key to start with as they’ll apply across all areas of your life.
Step 3: Select the gene key that corresponds with your specified focus area
Your focus area will lead you to a specific sphere within your profile. That sphere contains the gene key that you’ll be using to shift from a state of surviving to thriving in the life theme you decided to prioritize!
Review —
Learn about the shadow, gift, and siddhi states of this gene key. Seek to simply understand the dynamic of the patterns on their own first before applying it to yourself.
Recommended resources to familiarize yourself with that gene key:
The Gene Keys audios by Richard Rudd — you can buy one by one or as a set
CTD Podcast & CTD Learn — there will be breakdowns on each gene key on the podcast and in near-future posts [will link here when available]
Ask Chrissy for guidance in the chat thread or monthly Q+A call if you can’t make sense of the shadow, gift, or siddhi of your gene key!
Step 4: Explore your survival pattern
The “shadow” of your gene key is a survival pattern in your genes from ancestral trauma, your past life experience, and/or general human evolution. This pattern exists to protect you; however, as you evolve beyond the need for that protection, the pattern begins to limit you and therefore, has served its purpose and needs to be retrained subconsciously to help you thrive.
The time you spend in this method with your survival pattern (shadow) is only to help you connect the dots around its role in your life journey, not deepen any limiting beliefs:
Reflect —
1. Contemplate how this pattern is showing up in your life either via journaling, conversation with trusted support systems, or however you process info best; notice the role its been playing in causing pain or discomfort.
2. Get honest with yourself, dig deeper, look at the situation with a fresh perspective, and notice what past experiences have strengthened or reinforced this pattern to keep you safe or loved; ask yourself why this pattern exists.
Re-evaluate —
Notice how this pattern shifts you into the Yellow Zone or Red Zone of your nervous system (aka - survival mode).
Reframe —
Commit to seeing that this pattern isn’t who you are, but rather what you learned to protect yourself; detach and let go of the meaning you’ve assigned to this pattern and allow it to transform in the next step of the method. Always come back to seeing the pattern as protective.
NOTE: In this method, you’re advised to spend ~10-20% of the time reflecting and focusing on this shadow and ~80-90% of the time reflecting and focusing on the gift/siddhi in Steps 5 & 6 below. We tend to do the exact opposite naturally, and the over-analyzation and hyper-fixation on our shadows and limitations reinforces their presence and the subconscious perception that the shadow defines us, which isn’t true. When contemplating your shadow, simply give it space and attention to reveal its role in your life and connection to your past and present experiences.
Step 5: Retrain your brain
The “gift” of your gene key is the remedy or antidote to retrain your brain out of patterns of fear for survival and into the states of being that enable thriving. Lacy Phillips, an expert on science-backed manifestation, always says a sentence that rings true for this inner work and that is: “the opposite is the medicine.”
The gift is the opposite state of the shadow. Retraining your brain to default to this gift state as opposed to your shadow state will open up your approach to life to be trust-based instead of fear-based. You cannot get past the limitations of this survival pattern without retraining your mind and body to feel safe to experience the uncertainty, unknown, risk, or vulnerability related to your dreams/goals/desires that its trying to protect you from.
Retrain your brain to associate safety in your mind and body with embodying the gift and to release the fear fueling the shadow:
Retrain —
1. What does dysregulation in your nervous system look like with your survival pattern (shadow)? This helps you know what kind of self-regulation strategy to use in the next part of the retraining process.
Example for the 29th Gene Key (shadow of half-heartedness): Since I feel unclear about my next step in career, I am procrastinating on making a decision to change my career and the underlying pressure to address my current job dissatisfaction is weighing on me and causing stress (in Yellow Zone of nervous system). Also, when I’m half-hearted while I’m doing work that I don’t really feel aligned with, it’s such an energetic drain and it makes me moody, exhausted, resentful, frustrated (in Yellow Zone).
2. Retrain the shadow/gift pattern subconsciously using two strategies.
Proactive strategy = heal the root cause of this pattern by revisiting core memories and re-experiencing them safely
Example for the 29th Gene Key (shadow of half-heartedness & gift of commitment): In a guided meditation, I will revisit a core memory of me learning from my parents that it was unsafe to follow creative dreams and only safe to follow traditional career paths. I will fully feel the emotions that come up with that memory and reparent my younger self to learn that was just a projection of my parents’ fear, not the truth. I’ll help her see that there’s so much possibility by sharing an example of someone who disspells that limiting belief and specifically highlight how this person’s commitment to their authentic path has led to success and safety. This will allow me to let go of the source of that survival pattern narrative.
NOTE: The CTD Toolkit will have guided meditations, visualizations, somatic exercises, and more to retrain your brain. For now, simply focus on grasping the method and how it works!
Reactive strategy = choose a self-regulation strategy to use in the moment based upon the zone of your nervous system you’re in (revisit this post to remember the ladder effect of your nervous system)
Yellow Zone = requires a calming strategy in order to shift to the Green Zone (safely decreases heart rate)
Red Zone = requires a stimulating strategy in order to shift thru the Yellow Zone to the Green Zone (safely increases heart rate)
Example for the 29th Gene Key (shadow of half-heartedness & gift of commitment): Whenever I am in the Yellow Zone due to the pattern of halfheartedness, I will use the calming strategy of yoga flows combined with eucalyptus essential oils to shift to the Green Zone. Once I’m in the Green Zone, I will reinforce the gift pattern by taking aligned action steps as advised below.
NOTE: The CTD Toolkit will have suggested self-regulation strategies to integrate into your daily life to make this easier to apply. For now, simply focus on grasping the method and how it works!
3. Reinforce the gift pattern thru taking action:
Proactive strategy = make the choice to embody the gift pattern little by little as opportunities present themselves to do so
Example for the 29th Gene Key (gift of commitment): Since I’m not ready to commit fully to change my career just yet, I’ll start by committing to exploring my career interest in graphic design by doing a class online once a week. I’ll energetically commit to finding a new direction for career within the next 6 months, which will allow me to commit to my current job with more authentic energy since I know it’ll come to an end soon.
Reactive strategy = continue to apply the self-regulation strategy to your daily life as you’re retraining the patterns within you
Example for the 29th Gene Key (gift of commitment): As I commit more and more to changing my career and increase my self-trust, I will lean on a daily dance and yoga practice to shift me out of the Yellow Zone and distract my mind away from thoughts that will make me question myself as I grow.
Step 6: Reinforce your thrive pattern
As you self-regulate and retrain your brain to experience a new normal, you’ll naturally start to experience the siddhi state as a byproduct. In The Gene Keys system, the siddhis sometimes feel more abstract and aspirational. In this process, it’s important to recognize that the gift and siddhi of a gene key are BOTH thrive patterns to embody, so as you start to familiarize your body with experiencing the gift and tap into the siddhi, both states are evidence that you’re nurturing a Green Zone state of safety in your nervous system.
To reinforce the Green Zone and gift/siddhi states in your mind-body connection, you can intentionally engage in activities or practices in your routine that reinforce those states. This can look like one thing or many things that you do each day or week.
Example for the 29th Gene Key (gift of commitment & siddhi of devotion): As I work to feel safe embodying greater commitment and devotion in my life, I will reinforce this by devoting myself to a consistent nourishing morning/evening routine. I also make the promise of deepening my devotion to my close relationships, so when someone I love is in need, I will prioritize supporting them to the best of my ability.
Recap
Whew! 😅 …it’s quite the process, I know. What’s reassuring is knowing upfront that while it takes time to grasp the process at first, it’ll start to work so well and enhance your life so much that it’ll integrate much more quickly than it may seem. The CTD Method is just that — a method. You’ve likely engaged in some or all of the practices within the method before, but it’s the unique combination of these particular systems, concepts, tools, and structure that make it as powerful as it is.
From here, we’re going to reinforce and enhance the application of this method with the supplemental supportive resources in the CTD Toolkit and CTD Podcast! It’s rolling out incrementally so that there’s minimal overwhelm with all the information.
So for now, you’re invited to familiarize yourself with this method above and start understanding how it works before expecting it to begin working right away. What questions do you have? What does or doesn’t make sense? Is any part of the method familiar to you?
Hop over to the CTD community chat thread and fill us in on what’s coming up for you!