Ride the Wave

Ok, you say, rolling up your sleeves, “ I am ready to take on this journey of personal healing”  You are actually inspired and committed to becoming the best and most authentic version of yourself.  And of course, like so many other goals in your life, you want a reliable way to measure your progress.  We are taught to measure our life’s success by all the things we have accomplished, including healing.  This is where it gets tricky.  If you are expecting to check off the little boxes on your TO DO list as you face and work through certain traumas, convinced that you have done the hard work, you will be sadly disappointed.  Healing just does not work that way.  The heart KNOWS you are making strong headway, but the mind is at a loss.  ‘Why was I feeling elated last week, and now I am completely depressed?’  True healing is like the craziest roller coaster ride you have ever been on;  steep climbs, the rush of descending (feeling free after forgiving your father) just to be faced with some more wild spins and loops and climbs that you cannot possibly predict.  This is not to discourage you but to prepare you for a very tumultuous ride.

The great thing is that once you truly commit to this process, there is no turning back.  It may often feel like one step forward, 2 steps back, etc. but you are always moving forward. Don’t be surprised if you re-visit a part of your healing that you thought was done.  This is because you have literally reached a new ‘level’ in your consciousness.  You continue to have a much greater awareness (bigger picture)  which is the foundation of personal evolution.  In fact, what is beautiful about this journey is that it teaches you, finally, to let go of the reins, i.e. to let go of control.  We are conditioned our whole life to be in control.  This is a way the mind tries to protect us based on our fear of the unknown. Even that roller coaster ride at the amusement park is ‘controlled spontaneity’ as we know that we will be safe and sound at the end of the ride.  The heart, when allowed to be truly expressive and not dominated by the mind, loves to be spontaneous.  Many of the most joyful experiences in our lives arise  from spontaneity. 

Healing is what allows the heart to feel safe enough and free enough to have that expression. It starts with feelings, i.e emotions.  Again, because we do not have the proper objectivity, we do not realize how much we are taught to suppress our emotions throughout our lives and just how truly harmful that is.  This is a great inversion.  We are taught that vulnerability is weakness and that holding our chin up is true strength.  It is just the opposite.  There is no greater strength than sharing your vulnerability, both with yourself and others.  I am someone who was quite adept at ‘holding it in’, that is, until I would reach a breaking point.  I remember in grade school, after being reprimanded by my English teacher several days in a row, having a complete emotional breakdown in class in front of all the other students.  Of course, this was devastating to me and taught me to be even more stalwart in the future!  There were many other similar experiences that played out into my adulthood.  Many of my relationships ended this way because I had been suppressing my true emotions so ‘successfully’ in my attempt to be perfect and strong.  To this day I am still struggling with healthy expression of my emotions.

True healing starts by stopping to ask yourself several times throughout the day how you are feeling.  Our minds are so full and we are so distracted with activities that we wait for some kind of ‘trigger’ before we recognize our emotions.  And once we acknowledge the emotion, it is important to look deeper, as there are often many layers..  Let’s take depression.  There are so many people in this world that virtually live in a state of depression.  But often this is where they hang out, not wanting to and even fearful of looking deeper.  That’s because there are so many distorted beliefs around this emotion, the most profound one being ‘I’m not (good) enough” .  There is a famous psychiatrist that has made literally millions just addressing this one question with clients and helping them turn it around.  You don’t need to pay a psychiatrist for that.  You can start now by talking to the small child version of you with great love and compassion and begin the same process of turning it around.  We will do almost anything to avoid pain, so rather than looking at the deeper and more painful cause of these beliefs, which are traumatic, we feel ‘safer’ hanging out in the depressed zone.  In a twisted way it actually becomes a ‘comfort zone’. 

Emotions are the language of the heart.  People often ask how they can cultivate the ‘heart space’ and it starts with having much more awareness and interaction with ALL of your emotions, both positive and negative.  There is always a very important message there.  Let them FLOW.  If you listen to a certain song, or are watching a poignant scene in a movie, and you feel the tears start to well up, let them fall!  Crying is such an amazing release.  We hold it back in so many situations, thinking we don’t want to ‘feel the pain’ or embarrass ourselves, but what it does is release that pain! If it is anger you need to release then do what I did and punch and throw and scream into pillows when you are home alone (pillows you don’t care about too much). A punching bag works great too : ) ! And not just negative emotions of course.  We have all heard that laughter is the best medicine and it is so true!   When we start to let emotions flow through us we are unclogging that beautiful river. Just remember that you need to FEEL it to HEAL it!