Bliss Talk: Embracing The Healing

You go through the waves of life. You wonder how much more, and how many more times until this is healed. You find yourself in good company - let's gather and tune into the ways through our healing, back to our innermost wisdom. If this serves you, let me know your feedback - I love hearing from you!

Transcript

Welcome to the blessed talk on embracing your healing. Take a moment to fully arrive here. Take a slow deep inhale starting from the bottom of your spine inhaling all the way up to the top of your head and then exhale let it go and another one slow deep inhale bottom of your spine to the top of your head and exhale let it go and then a third one slow deep inhale hold and exhale release good and then allow yourself to tune into what's present for you right now be with what is. Maybe there's some underlying unease today or anxiousness maybe there's some grief maybe there's some anger maybe there's some restlessness and all of that can be embraced into the practice. There's no need to shut any of it out even though a lot of the time we're so good at resisting the things that we'd rather not feel so that's what this talk is about about embracing the healing that can only take place when we're willing to feel the things and first I have three traps that we sometimes get caught in and then I have three things to embrace that may support you in your personal practice around healing and that healing can include physical ailments as well as mental challenges and emotional challenges and for those of you who may be slightly skeptic about how we can do there is peer-reviewed evidence in this book that I'm currently reading by Dr. Shamini Jain healing ourselves and she has put together all the medical studies on this topic we're not gonna talk about the peer-reviewed studies today though we will focus on the personal practice and we will start with what are the things that are not gonna help so when you notice that that is what's going on to maybe allow yourself to ease away from that and I base this on actually also some scientific evidence evidence namely a work of Brene Brown who you may know and a little bit of Esther Perel's work as well and some traditional grief work let's start with that piece the first one of the traps for how we get in the way of our own healing is that we would like it to go faster we would like to put a timeline on it and say I'm gonna work through this now I'm gonna feel through this now and then I want to be done with it and it doesn't necessarily work that way we may have all had experiences where we did hang on to a situation or a challenge for way too long I've certainly been there where I had a really hard time letting go of something and because I was clinging it took way longer to heal yes there are those cases and when we go through significant grief if we try to rush it that means we're not going all in and if we don't go all in we're not doing all of the work we're not doing all of the feeling and being with it so that it can move through us and pass on it's a little reminder by Trevor Hall is you can't rush your healing it's a song by Trevor Hall that I really like and so sometimes when I catch myself wanting the process to go faster I remember that piece you can't rush your healing so how does that compare to the when do I hold on for too long how do I differentiate those for me what is a pretty good indicator is when I get caught with the stories in my head when I mull a story over and over then I know this is my my mind being attached to it when it's about the feelings that pass through my body then I'm still in the healing process and of course they are connected so I do my best to feel the feelings as they come up and to not follow the mental storylines yeah so allowing yourself to be in the process and to not request of yourself that something be healed within a matter of a week or a few weeks that allowing ourselves to to take some time is a good one and to not go for any bypasses and I have noticed in the past that if I focus very much on a specific way to heal something that I may be starting to bypass it so let's say I had a really tough breakup and then I try to meditate my way out of it the meditation is a super beneficial personal practice and then I get to ask myself well what's my intention of practicing my meditation today if it is to be more present with all the things that are going on that's good if I use it as an escape for not wanting to feel things and for pulling myself out of the weeds all the time then maybe I'm bypassing so it is not then about not doing that practice because it's beneficial practice it is about finding the right intention to do it and being in the right mindset and heart set for it so first piece can't rush your healing and something one of my mentors says is the ghosts may always be there they may fade and still be around for a long time so especially if we may have lost somebody that can be around for a very long time and maybe it's not as haunting anymore and it will still be there so holding that paradox of allowing ourselves to heal and still holding loving memory or a grief is one of the many beautiful paradoxes of the human experience human experience is all about paradox so let's allow the paradox to be here second trap is comparative suffering when we talk down on ourselves for not feeling good because other people go through so many worse things then we shame ourselves then we are not kind to ourselves and so comparative suffering is a way of how our mind can instigate us to treat ourselves really harshly and that treatment doesn't do us any good like that make doesn't make us heal faster it makes us feel worse and if we feel worse overall then we're not going to heal better so how do I acknowledge that by putting it in perspective that it's still hard for us so instead of talking down to myself that this is not a big deal and that I shouldn't feel the way that I'm feeling I can acknowledge that this is hard whatever I may be experiencing or going through to honor that and I don't need to tell myself that there are people who have it worse I already know that there's no need to repeat that to myself it's not helpful in that situation what is helpful is to place a hand on my heart and say this is hard right now acknowledging that and often doing that out loud seems to make quite a difference and the third piece the third challenge is when other people do that when we have chosen to confide in somebody who is not very skilled or practiced at holding space and they may say something along the lines of but look how good you have it focus on all the things that you do have and that person is super well-meaning in that moment and they're not helping so either a shaming of oh other people have it so much worse look at like my water even complaining about like that may be the worst flavor of that and also the but you have so many things to be grateful for what was that tiny little word that I just used but so there is a big piece around that but invalidating the experience so for example I had a friend who went through a very rough giving birth experience very traumatic and she heard way later from many people when she would eventually open up and talk about how hard this was and how she was still suffering from it but at least you have such a wonderful child and her child is wonderful and those comments to her completely invalidated her experience of suffering she said I know I have a wonderful child and I'm super grateful that that is the case and that doesn't make that other thing go away I still have to go through that I still have to deal with that and so while it's well-meaning in that situation it's not helpful that can always be an and yes I'm suffering here and I have this beautiful thing over there in my life that I'm grateful for and maybe that's not the moment to bring that back into the conversation maybe the only thing that needs to happen at that point is to say I hear you that sounds really hard say more and that is one of the magic formulas I would call it that Brene Brown uses a lot say more and I call it a magic formula because a lot of the time it is about holding space I can't fix anybody's challenge that they are going through most of that is for them to feel through and the only thing I can actually do is to be with them to hold space to witness so that they can be seen and heard and it's very easy to want to provide a comment that provides some solace after somebody briefly describes a challenge that they're going through at the moment and maybe what would be the most healing to them is a say more so they can dig a little deeper and maybe something surface that otherwise wouldn't even come up sometimes when we say things out loud they can unfold sometimes we have further insights that way and we know that the biggest gift that we can give somebody is our undivided attention and when we are the one that suffers sometimes we can even say that that all we need is somebody to listen in this moment especially when we already know that the other person may not be the best listener and I would like to work on that relationship with that person then I can tell them I'm having a bit hard time right now and I would like to tell you about it and can you simply listen I don't need advice I know that there are so many other things to be grateful for and it would really help me if I could process this with you and you listen it's vulnerable maybe the person is able to follow up on your request if we don't ask maybe they'll never know what they're doing that makes it so hard for you so those were the three traps or challenges number one rushing number two comparative suffering and number three sharing with others and then getting the comparison from them or getting premature advice and once we have seen those three clearly we can pinpoint them a bit earlier we may be able to catch them a little earlier doesn't mean they won't happen anymore and we get better at navigating them so let's come to what does help allowing it to be there it's the first piece so we know it does take time and most of all it does take feeling it there is no way around it and it can become dark for a while may have to go through a serious stretch of darkness until we see light on the other side and to allow ourselves to fully be in that process can be a really good thing especially with some of the emotions that we'd rather not feel we'll feel them a little and then as soon as we're able to stop crying we pretend we're done with it which may or may not be the case and I remember going through a couple of challenges in my life where I got to the point of just being so sick of crying about it I was wondering why it took me so long and I noticed that because I had such a resistance around grieving because my rational mind made a story about how it was completely okay with how things developed and that it was better this way anyways I took that as an escape to not fully grieve and it was a really important insight for me that there was still a part of my heart that needed to grieve deeply even though I had already come to the conclusion within my rational mind and even within my higher self or with my higher self that it was completely okay how things turn out I needed to grieve to allow my heart to process what had happened and so instead of telling myself how sick I was of crying every time it happened I would make a quick assessment of okay can I really give myself some time to do this right now can I take half an hour or an hour to grieve now or is it at a completely not good timing and I need to take care of a couple of other life things first and then give myself some space later that day the second piece is tying in very closely with that around kindness giving myself that kindness so instead of talking down on myself oh there she goes crying again to say yeah yeah tears again because this is hard this is challenging right now yes of course I'll be okay at some point because I know how committed I am to growing from my challenges and how committed I am to make the very best of this beautiful life that I've been given so I know that eventually I'll be okay and this is hard right now and it's important to say that first piece to myself of I know eventually I'll be okay not in the sense of a comparison in the sense of reassuring myself because the mind loves to spin those stories of I'll never feel good again if this is always gonna continue like that and we know it doesn't it may challenge us for quite a while for some long time and we know that if we are diligent about our practice and how we treat ourselves eventually we'll come out on the other side so kindness it's a second one that can help and support us a lot and the third piece is compassion for ourselves and also for others whatever the process that we're going through to give ourselves compassion to show ourselves some love to say hey what do you truly need right now and if that is curling up on the couch wrapping myself in a snuggle blankie and having a good cry that's maybe a good way to spend an hour tears are a very healthy emotional release and when we swallow down tears they come out sideways at some inopportune moment trust me I've tried it so let's be kind to ourselves it is so easy to fall into the trap of shooting ourselves whether it is I should be over this already or I should be getting these other things done it's life there's so many things that we are not in control of can we roll with the waves can we hold with the waves and can we be ourselves a very good friend because yes sometimes we don't give ourselves the kindness that we would give a good friend so when we go through tough moments then can we remember how we would be there for a really good friend right now and then be there for ourselves like that and maybe the holding space and the say more means I journal about it I find journaling a very reflective process and it often helps me to go a little deeper into my own reflection as if I do it just in my head because in my head sometimes my thoughts will go a million miles an hour and then start racing in circles which is not so helpful whereas when I write things down that will slow the flow and I will often come to new insights so these are the three bridges to embracing your healing feeling all the things allowing ourselves to feel acknowledging any resistance we may hold and allowing ourselves to feel giving ourselves kindness and space to do so acknowledging this is hard and in showing ourselves the same compassion that we would for a good friend holding that space say more I want to thank you for investing this time in yourself for taking time for your practice the better we take care of ourselves the better we also take care of our community the better resourced we can show up and the more we will enjoy we came here to experience contrast and that is sometimes really challenging and if we fully allow ourselves to experience the dark parts of that contrast and we also notice the light so much more thank you so much for joining in reach out if you have any questions and I hope to see you soon be well

Reviews

Very powerful and timely for my life. Thank you.

Thank you 🙏🏼

Such words of wisdom & an offering of space to heal ourselves and to the world at large Thank you 🙏🏼