'Avoiding The Void'- Shamanic Guided Shadow & Trauma Healing

This Shamanic-inspired visualisation will walk you through a grounding practice before inviting you to follow a beautiful and gentle, yet powerful guided healing practice.

This healing journey is designed to bring order to where old woundings often bring chaos, by your choosing to invite a shared space with that wound.

Here, you are turning the tables on the normal trauma activation sequence by taking a gentle control of the reins.

Using light-baring gifts, enables you to shine a light upon the edges of the attached suffering, in a non-triggering, non-reactive space of compassionate understanding and kind welcome.

It is when we step out of our old patterns and consciously choose to alter the 'terms', that we action the chain-of-change. And it is then that we can walk our clearer path forward, upon new and abundant land.

With great gratitude to 'Music For Wisdom' for the tracks: 'Radiant Soul' & 'Deep in Nature'
And to Ruly Nurul Ihsan for the stunning image.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Vicky and this is taken from my course Nature's Rebel and the Subtle Art of Discernment.

The lesson is called Avoiding the Void.

Working with trauma response,

Projection,

Shadow work,

PTSD,

Limiting and habitual patterns,

Attachment to old wounds and triggers.

Calling in,

Internal guidance system,

Change of perspective,

Releasing trauma,

Light bearing healing,

Moving on,

New ground,

Transmutation and aligned responses.

Are you finding it hard to know the difference between your habitual patterns of trauma response and your healthy aligned response from your internal guidance system?

Are you feeling that your past negative experiences are obscuring and affecting your ability to see the truth in a current situation?

Are you confused or concerned by what is motivating your responses in certain tricky and potentially triggering moments?

It is time to call forward some clarity so you can better discern what is driving your thoughts,

Beliefs,

Words and actions.

Who or what is in the driver's seat and how can you start to gain control of the reins where and when needed?

We can see this like riddling out the clumps of soil from the potatoes or threshing separating the wheat from the pests and the chaff.

You filter and select only that which is of value and discard or release that which tries to come along for the ride but is in fact no longer of use.

It is best to ground yourself before this practice to bring yourself into the present moment and fully into your body.

This can be done in many ways and if there is a practice that you know works for you then take some time now to step away from this text or pause the recording whilst you ground.

Otherwise you can follow this simple guided grounding practice.

If you are sitting place your feet firmly on the ground hip-width apart or if you are laying bring your knees up again with your feet hip-width apart and keeping your knees slightly parted.

Be sure that the soles of your feet are flat to the surface beneath you.

Now gently direct pressure down evenly with your whole right foot as if you were sinking just that one foot deeper down into the earth.

Then release this pressure and move your focus to the left side sinking the left foot evenly down into the ground or surface beneath you and then release.

Repeat this in a controlled rhythm right left right left like you are taking a very mindful slow stroll.

You can add words like a mantra to the rhythm of your footwork like I am here now.

I am here now.

As you keep doing this begin to feel into how the muscles in your feet your calves your thighs buttocks and tummy activate and then deactivate in response to the work of each foot in turn.

Now start to imagine the impression that your feet leave in the surface beneath them as they press down.

And then how that impression slowly returns to normal as you release the pressure of each foot.

Continue this for just a little while longer I will give you a little time with this.

And bring your feet to stillness and relax.

Now take a deep breath in through the nose and feel as your tummy inflates and then continue to direct this breath upwards into your inflating lungs and hold at the top.

Now release as a long soft blow.

And one more time inhaling into a rising belly and then up into inflating lungs.

Hold at the top and release as a long soft blow.

I invite you to imagine yourself in a beautiful open field.

Full of soft green luscious grass as far as the eye can see.

The birds are singing.

And the sun is shining.

And all is calm.

There are gentle white fluffy clouds floating slowly by.

In an otherwise clear blue sky.

This is a safe and clear space.

And it is yours.

Very gently and graciously.

Invite something into this field that has been troubling you.

Perhaps something that you have been carrying around from the recent or distant past.

A negative incident or happening perhaps that you seem to return to like a flashback in challenging times.

Something that you cannot shake off or out of your body.

A burden maybe that feels like a weight upon your shoulders or back.

Call it gently to meet you in your field.

You may see this past wound,

Trauma,

Mental challenge or event as an object or a snapshot of a scene.

It may present as a patch of colour,

A symbol of a past event.

A smell,

A face,

A feeling or a TV playing out an old memory.

You may of course just simply feel its presence.

It doesn't matter what form it takes.

Just know it has accepted your invite and it is in your presence upon your request.

Please know that you are safe.

For although you share space with your worry,

You are in fact separate from the trauma here.

Be assured that as creator of this scene,

You are in complete control.

And so you can choose to close this space just as easily as you have chosen to open it.

The reason you are both here in this field is so that you can better understand the feelings,

Emotions and patterns that are still connecting you to the trauma of this negative event.

And it is sometimes only with controlled and safe proximity that you can find a new perspective from which you can then start the process of letting go of the attachment to the past.

Letting go of the attachment that you have to the suffering.

Sometimes we need to consciously go there in order to learn how to break the habitual playing out of limiting past patterns.

So that we do not need to go there again at the next unwanted,

Automatically attached trigger point.

It is time to take control of the old that still seems to dictate some unwanted and unhelpful reactions and responses.

Once we have started to release the connection from a past wound into our present day life experiences,

We can begin to learn a new set of more harmonious,

Current,

Measured and aligned responses to life's inevitable.

Ups and downs.

And forward movement will begin to feel less jarring,

Vigilance inducing and stinted.

And instead more natural,

Cohesive and progressive.

Your involvement in this practice is one of conscious and active choice.

Here,

The trauma is not in control.

It is not able to take you by surprise.

It is not turning up uninvited.

This is not an ambush.

Rather,

You have broken the passive automatic response pattern by offering it a welcome invite to share space with you.

You have turned to the tables in order to create a healing and empowering place to do the necessary work.

You are face to face with the trauma scene,

Yet you remain untraumatized.

As the creator of this scene,

You control the length and nature of the time.

You spend here.

Remind yourself that you can close this space as easily as you entered it by consciously intending that you return to your already prepared,

Grounded and embodied self.

If you feel the trauma stands too close to you,

Command softly but firmly that it step back,

Please.

Be clear,

Assertive and non-confrontational.

It will do as you ask.

It is likely to be curious and possibly skeptical of this meeting.

For it has presented itself outside of its normal activation sequence.

This might motivate it to want to take a closer look at you.

A curiosity perhaps to see what might have changed or what you might want of it here.

Whilst its interest is pricked,

Reassure the trauma scene that you are here as a friend and that you mean no harm.

Remember,

This is something that happened to you in the past.

The trauma responses were part of your once needed and once vital self-protection.

A protection that came about through your own love for you.

You are not here to scream and shout,

Nor to judge or penalise.

You are here as a compassionate friend who once experienced something of personal harm and pain.

What your companion in the field does need and will likely not expect is your love,

Your compassion and your willingness to see,

Honour and understand it.

The more you take the trauma out of its comfort zone,

Well,

Its discomfort zone,

Through unexpected and unfamiliar positive attention,

The more its frequency begins to neutralise and the heightened feelings and emotions that were attached to it start to separate themselves from the original trauma experience.

The more you show it love,

Trust and kindness by sitting alongside it without fear,

Shame and reactivity,

The more it no longer holds on to believing itself to be the attacked or the attacker,

The victim or the persecutor,

And the more the once ever-vigilant trauma dares to tell you that you are not alone.

Take a long-held breath out.

This breath out is met by you without an affecting drama.

Rather,

It is met by you with a simple acceptance and an absolute calm.

This is a space of radical acceptance that you are holding for it.

It does not know of this compassion and yet it is all it has ever needed.

It will be nervous at first,

Nervous to let go and trust that you hold safe space for it.

So remind it again that you come as friend,

And by way of gratitude for it accepting your invite,

You bring it a gift.

Growing in interest to this brand new space,

The wound will be intrigued by your potential offering.

And by taking its eyes off its own pain,

Again you are allowing the old emotions to start to come apart from their point of origin.

It releases more breath from its once watertight survival hold by focusing outside of itself.

You bring forward your hand with gift extended.

You bring a light.

Maybe it is a lit candle,

A paper lantern or a small ornate lamp.

It is your choice.

You then tell your companion that in this field of reconciliation,

You are light bearer.

You place the light down between you both as your offering,

Knowing that it will be captivated and transfixed by the gentle,

Rich,

Warm glow that emanates from it.

After a little time,

You let your companion know you have another gift.

You show it a sun,

The size of a tennis ball,

Floating just above your extended palm.

It is the winter sun.

Its rays aren't blinding or too hot,

But they emit the most wondrous radiance of golden oranges,

Golds and reds.

It is deeply healing.

As your companion cannot deny the appeal of such life force light,

It accepts your offering.

And as the sun floats away from your hand,

It begins to orbit your companion's space.

It displays beautiful sunset after beautiful sunrise.

It has been a while since this space has experienced the beauty and hope that only an ever-returning sun can bring.

The promise of a new day with brand new possibilities.

Although the trauma has been shrouded in darkness,

For quite some time,

The cyclical memory of brand new day after brand new day is being remembered.

The sun gift shines its hope into the spaces of darkness.

And as the orbiting continues,

The season gradually shifts from winter to warmer climes.

Opening and softening and beckoning a new space of creation.

And so,

The distracting sense of curiosity builds.

And you have movement.

This curiosity becomes hope.

This hope becomes trust.

This trust becomes understanding.

An understanding that the sunrise will come again and again and again,

After each and every spell of cyclical darkness.

After time spent with this ever-orbiting sun,

The darkness becomes something that need not be feared.

For it is just the necessary space of rest before the newly returning light.

You thank your companion for spending time with you and for receiving your gifts.

Tell your companion that you need to leave the field for now,

But that it can keep the gifts of light.

Remind them that the sun will continue to bring an infinite promise of a new day.

And as such,

It is okay to just rest during the natural times of cyclical darkness.

Now ask the field if it has any wisdoms to impart that are of value to you in the now.

These may be heard by you or not,

But trust that what will fuse within you will be only that which is helpful and meaningful going forward,

For this is the way of things when we work with beauty's way.

Take a deep full breath in,

And hold at the top,

And whilst you do,

Call the whole field back into your heart space,

And release this breath with a HAAA sound,

With each subsequent full breath in,

Hold at the top,

And then HAAA sound.

Allowing yourself to return slowly,

And fully back into your breath,

Now feeling back into the soles of your feet upon the surface beneath them.

Gently begin to wiggle your toes.

Push gently down with the heels of your feet,

And then rocking from heels back to toes,

Back to heels,

Back to toes.

I invite you now to call back the rhythm of footwork that we started on.

Right foot pressed gently down,

Followed by the left foot pressed gently down,

And back to right,

And then left.

Noticing again how the muscles of your calves,

Thighs,

Buttocks and core activate and deactivate in response.

Feeling yourself returning slowly,

Slowly back into your body,

Back into your body,

And coming back now,

Coming back,

Coming back,

Coming back.

If you wish you can open your eyes whenever you are ready,

There is no rush.

This practice can be repeated where necessary.

For instance,

If there are deep rooted or sustained complex traumas,

More dedicated time may be needed in which to build up enough trust for the wound to be open to fully accepting your light bearing gifts.

But know that each time you extend kind invite,

You are showing that you are not angry,

Ashamed,

Reactive or scared to share space with the wound,

And therefore this modeling behavior tells the wound that there is no imminent attack for it to keep protecting you from.

You will leave a light close by each time,

Like a positive reminder,

A symbol of this calm and shared space,

Allowing the illuminating captivation to grow incrementally as the wound looks away from the original trauma for longer periods of time,

Redirecting its attention to the light.

Know that when you are not actively in this working space,

That the sun still continues to orbit the past wound for time needed,

Thus shining its light on the edges of your fears.

So take your light to the void.

Let it rise and shine through space time.

To bring daylight to where there was but endless night.

Thank you for sharing this space with me.