Offer Your Ache To A Higher Love

Can the medicine, offered to ourselves in the midst of ache, be that which keeps us searching for a cure? Can the voices that encourage us to feel differently than we do be what’s keeping us oscillating between self-healing and perpetual self-wounding? This 30-minute talk and meditation ask us to reflect on *who* is trying to heal us when we feel most separate from Love. Thank you for sitting with me today and for all those who share this work. It matters and I am indebted to you. Love, Sez

Transcript

You know the many voices inside of you that try and help you heal.

They speak the words you need to hear that lift you from the floor,

That pick you up so you can gain control,

So you can show up,

So you can keep on moving.

In those moments of loss and struggle and fear,

These voices,

Your inner choir of betterment,

Echo from deep below the valley of your conscious mind to let you know what you should be doing differently in that moment of unease.

We call this positive self-talk.

We call it self-love.

We call it healing.

But sometimes these voices come from a place that they themselves need saving from.

Sometimes we are trying to fix ourselves with parts of us that need the saving.

The voice that comes to our rescue is sometimes the one that's drowning.

Can the medicine offered to ourselves in the midst of ache be that which keeps us searching for a cure?

Can the voices that encourage us to feel differently than we do be better than we are in that moment?

Be what's keeping us oscillating between self-healing and perpetual self-wounding.

Ego is a sly and curious animal,

A clever chameleon in her truest form,

Shape-shifting and identifying with the many facets of who we think we are on this journey of self-improvement.

Ego can throw on a gratuitous cloak and at the same time make us feel selfish for wanting more than what we have.

Ego can slip into our morning practice.

Call itself devotion and then whisper to us that we should feel more connected,

More present.

And while that devious little creature within us tells us to be vulnerable and we shed our tears and we peel away at our skin,

We are somehow left with that feeling of being an actor in our own theatre of self-exposure.

Be yourself,

It says,

But be better,

It really means.

Spend time alone with yourself,

It says,

But share your experience with everyone it encourages.

Be brave and fearless,

It says,

But only in the confinements of what you know,

It warns.

Be love,

It pleads,

But only if others will have you.

If who comes to help you in your hour of need is a voice that shames you for feeling the way you do or is impatient with you,

Quietly disappointed in you,

Then you may be trying to heal yourself with an ego dressed in love,

Light and spirituality.

A cloak that looks very much like our highest self can be thrown on while we're not looking,

Not aware,

And like an iridescent cloth,

It falls across our shoulders,

And we unknowingly cover ourselves in a part of us that wants nothing more than to keep us small,

Covered,

Draped in a shadow that doesn't want us to be too seen.

It protects us by making us aim for perfection,

Whereas true self-love would never ask us to step away from ourselves,

It would never make us feel less than whole,

Even in our despair,

It would never orphan us by making us work for our place and belonging.

We are our own best medicine,

But only when the wound is not the practitioner,

Nor the practitioner wounded itself.

Far beyond the horizon of our ego and its many convincing garments,

Its many beautiful names,

Its many persuasive voices,

Lies a part of us that knows instinctively how to heal.

She is the light without need of contrast,

Forgiveness without the need of deserving.

She is the unfractured wholeness.

She is remembering without ever having been taught.

She is relentless love,

Unfiltered beauty,

And the healer of all healers.

You can tell if you are trying to fix yourself or heal yourself with just one question.

What is wrong with the way I feel right now?

To fix ourselves takes an immense amount of struggle and effort and self-ridicule dressed in self-flattery.

To achieve a desired result,

Fixing judges our progress and keeps us chasing horizons dawned in perfection.

It defines our success through dramatic befores and afters,

Karmic return,

Manifested material – big change,

Visible progress.

We all know that road,

The one where we wholeheartedly plant seeds of change within us,

But then scrutinize its growth with a microscope,

Measuring it daily against a yardstick.

We beg the sun to shine harder,

Forbidding too much rain,

Blaming the soil for its acidity.

We may grow under these circumstances,

But it will only be compared,

Devalued,

And what really changes,

The important soul-deep transformation,

Will go unnoticed,

Blinded by the next goal,

The next comparable,

The next wellness trend.

There is another way to heal,

And it requires nothing from you.

But ask one thing of you,

And that is to give up the broken fixer within you altogether,

So a greater love has space to do her work.

These days,

Every triggered emotion,

Negative feeling,

Low vibe is seen as a digression in some way,

Like we have slipped off our floating refuge,

Trying to cross the ocean of suffering to reach the other side of joy.

These pieces of wreckage we hold onto are tools.

We've created them,

Forged them from the wreckage of our lives and roped them together to create a little refuge,

A device to wade above the water for a while.

They are the thoughts that tell us to change in some way because those feelings are not the path,

Not considered progress,

Not high vibrational,

Not in residence with our highest self.

But I tell you,

Oh beloved,

That your highest self will never tell you to change who you are or remove yourself from the present moment in order to be well.

It doesn't want you to become love and light in every moment,

Nor rid yourself of your sacred yearning.

All it wants is for you to get out of your own way so it may be allowed in.

It wants you to learn how to swim in those deep waters,

Not fearsomely grasp onto a raft you named healing.

The current must be allowed to do its work with the willingness of your body.

Even the rift,

As scary as it can be,

Will lead you out of these black waters with just a little surrender.

We may float a little higher above the torrents for a while on those thoughts that transform suffering into some form of temporary happiness.

Our triggers may subside for a moment,

Anxiety might ease,

Calm may reunite with our bodies.

But are we healed?

Are we intact,

Whole,

Embraced as we move forward?

Succumbing to despair is not an evolution.

Succumbing is no longer a compass we need to navigate this world by.

So how do we transform?

How do we progress and how does true healing happen?

You offer your lungings,

Your eggs,

And yourself to something greater.

The heart,

Nature,

The water spirit,

The rock being,

The midnight sun,

The thunder god.

Reflections of grand love that not only resides within the kernel of you but that also brushes its feathery bristles against the very mystery of life itself.

This love,

So vibrant and generous,

Is the kind of love that no chameleon can ever blend itself against.

No fabric can conceal,

No shadow can throw itself under.

Surrender your pains and yourself to the flow of life force ever present,

Ever willing,

And eager to take that pain away from you because love does not process ache the way we do.

Sometimes we don't have to search for that kind of perfect love within ourselves to heal.

We can look to where that love exists outside of us too.

As within,

So without.

And ask it to bomb our wounds on our behalf,

Knowing that sometimes the self-improvement cycle must be broken in order to truly heal.

Let us sit now and allow this greater love to do its work,

Letting go of the broken fixer we all have within us.

Close your eyes and settle into yourself.

This body,

This physical place you've been given to experience life through,

This form,

Part of a species that was gifted with sacred consciousness,

To be able to bear witness to life on this earth.

Reach the awareness within you now by anchoring yourself into it through the breath.

Sink deeper into yourself,

Grounding you into this moment,

The most important and empowering place you can be.

Currents will lightly push you away from your focus that is all part of being on this ocean,

But come back to the anchor,

Come back to the gift,

Breathe yourself into the flesh of this moment.

Hold yourself gently.

Hold your body softly around the pillar of strength that is your spine.

Let all else become churned butter,

Breathing yourself into peace.

Find those places still resisting,

Still clinging on to the outside of you.

Bring them in.

Invite them to join this softening body through the folding of the breath.

I'd like you to think about an emotion you might be experiencing in your life right now that is misaligned with your highest self,

That is holding you back in some way.

Disconnect,

Busyness,

Distraction,

Fear,

Loneliness,

Longing,

Envy,

Impatience.

Hold it in your mind as a name,

As an energy.

How does it split you from your wholeness?

What has experiencing this emotion cost you in your past?

What have you been taught about the unwantedness of this emotion?

How should you be feeling instead?

What is it like to experience this negative emotion's antithesis,

Its paradox,

Confidence,

Disconnection,

Certainty,

Success,

Union,

Peace?

How would it change your life if you felt that more?

Watch as the chameleon within dramatizes the gap between your negative emotion and the potential for transformation.

Watch as it makes your difficult emotion feel unwelcomed,

Unwanted,

While amplifying the idea of a more perfect state.

Your potential isn't reached through improvement,

It is reached through self-acceptance.

Breathe into your struggle,

Accepting it for what it is.

Instead of trying to transition through these feelings,

Instead of trying to change them,

Let something greater move through you.

Not replacing your badness,

But shining a light upon everything so that everything becomes the light.

Let us offer your struggle to a greater love.

Imagine that whatever is hurting you right now is held in the palm of your hand.

Feel its weight inside the soft cushion of your hand.

Feel its void,

Its ability to suck everything into itself.

Now imagine you are kneeling in a frosty meadow at dawn,

The twilight hours between darkness and light.

The cold air is dry,

But the earth you kneel upon is dewy and wet.

The first bird's song escapes the early rises as you place your ache upon the ground beside you.

You take your bare hands and begin to dig at the soft soil.

The earth moves easily beneath your fingers.

Your hands look dark,

Peaty gloves with coffee-stained present moon fingernails.

The smell of dirt,

Bitter iron and sweetness,

Like the smell of careless days where grass kissed grazed knees and dirt was cleaned with more dirt.

Take your ache into your hands,

Feel its energy,

Its power,

Its effect it has had on you.

Feel all the feelings this difficulty has given you,

As if it were emanating chaos and smallness and suffering.

Breathe,

Accept it as an entity unto itself,

And in the newly dug hole,

Place this ache into it.

It can be fearsomely brave to bury an ache.

Who are you without it?

Courageously you begin to cover it with soil,

Knowing you are willing to discover yourself without it.

And if it helps,

Call in all those you love to help you bury this emotion deep into the earth.

Allow those who will benefit from you being free to help you.

Hands over hands,

Soft and old,

Eager and playful,

Slow and determined,

We bury this sacred hurt together.

Let all the hands fade away now,

And press down upon the earth.

The struggle lies below the ground now,

In the folds of Mother Nature's skin.

Allow her to make of it what she will,

And rest yourself now.

Sit back and upright,

Breathe deeply into this body that has become just a little lighter.

Watch the sun begin to sip across the horizon,

The dew crystallizing the field in rays of splintering light.

The sun nuzzles the disturbed soil in front of you.

Awake,

She whispers.

Rise,

She whispers.

Light casts its radiant body upon the earth,

Warming to life what has been cold and barren.

A small,

Tucked-in,

Bright green stem peeks its head above the ground.

It unfolds slowly,

Small but sturdy leaves begin to snap out from its sides,

Untwisting soil falling from its creases.

Beautiful small plant pushes itself up from the ground before you.

More and more,

It fills itself out.

Tightly closed buds reach for the sky.

Light rain falls,

Slowly opening them up.

Flowers begin to adorn the splitting stems,

And the scent of new life's perfume fills the air with honey.

A small,

Beautiful plant has grown before you,

Adorning silky petals and deep green leaves.

Butterflies weave their delicate bodies around it.

Honey bees swoop down into the deep pollen with their empty buckets.

The light wind dances against it.

You reach out and pull a stem towards you,

But a sharp,

Delicate thorn pricks your fingertip.

Ah,

You recognize this plant as your egg.

You smile,

Knowing that it can be here,

Can be beautiful,

And you can have a different relationship with it.

Any time you want to grasp it,

You remember it must be honored for what it is and left to the sun and her tears,

To the moon and his magnetic embrace,

To the bugs,

The worms,

And the passing gusts of wind.

Nature,

Love,

The source of all transformation,

The energy that cannot be destroyed,

Only converted,

Knows what to do with this egg.

Let it be.

Leave this place.

Leave a piece of your life's difficulty to the gardener of all hearts while you rest.

Pull that life force,

That breath into your chest,

And release it again.

Here you are,

This body bereft of a struggle.

Let that place be what a greater love wants it to be.

Don't hurry to fill the void with something else.

Feel that emptiness,

That potential.

What does this space left open,

Left unshadowed bring?

Take one last surrendering breath,

Committing to the process of healing,

Not to the process of fixing.

Allow your body to meet you where you are again.

Move your head a little.

Stretch your body from side to side.

And return.

Return.

Return.

You can open your eyes when you're ready.

Growth is natural when we stop casting ourselves over what we are wishing to heal.

Allow the sun to shine upon what you long to transform the most.

Discern what is the true and unyielding sun and what is ourselves cloaked in broken mirrors.

Because healing is a lifelong process,

But fixing perpetual self-improvement doesn't have to be.

What does it feel like to not constantly better yourself?

It feels like life lived.

Healing,

Oh dear beloved,

Is the art of allowing yourself to feel what you feel.

It is the turning toward yourself in that moment that feels unwanted and honoring how this difficulty is expressing itself within you.

You know that you are not this pain.

So give it away.

Send it back to the soil.

Send it to the sun,

To movement,

To song,

To pen,

Back to love.

Transfer your ache to what has the true capacity to heal and all will become a field of blooms.

Reviews

I need to grow into this one. It stunned me a bit. I feel I could grow from it. Thank you 🙏

Incredible, Sez - one I will come back to often✨️🙏🌱

Loved this mediation. Offering out pain the the earth.

Dear Sez, my gratitude for this healing narrative. I am in the mists of grieving the imminent ‘loss’ of my eldest leaving home, and the system shock of it happening sooner than anticipated. It is the natural and rightful thing, of course, of a child fledging the nest. A part of me encourages and urges them on to go live their first forays into independent adult life trusting in all that I imparted to them as they grew up. My initial mother work is complete and now let me, let them, go and experiment, explore, taste, savour, grow, blossom, and flourish. My heart is in joy.

Other parts ache, hurt, and mourn the imperfection of my mothering, the guilt, the regrets. As I grieved, your words fed and nurtured my ‘feel it to heal it’ process. You echoed truths I’m learning to embody. That my focus is on laying to rest in the ground the decades quest of self improvement and instead allow me to self love and accept, for I was always enough. Your presence in my life is a soothing balm I often reach for. Thank you for making yourself available and accessible. Warmest love 💐

I came to this gorgeous meditation by chance and found that it was just what I needed. While I may need to return, to offer more of my aches to love, in order to feel the lightness I seek, I’m so very grateful to have found your guidance and peaceful presence on this healing journey!

You are truly a gift 🙏your approach is on another level of wisdom gentleness and a form of storytelling stitched together into a masterpiece (no exaggeration here) ✨

Beautiful and so moving, thank you Sez, I feel the shift and release. Many blessings and love to you dear friend 💖 x

Thank you for sharing your incredible wisdom. You helped me shift toward my true higher self and I’m so grateful. Namaste. 🙏🏻❤️🌻

Beautiful way to start my day and realise, enlighten and really grasp the difference between fixing and healing.
Thank you. 🙏🏻

My deepest gratitude 🙏
Heartbreaking. Heartwarming and such a release and relief. Thank you ❤️

Thank you so much for this powerful meditation 🙏❤️

As a person who stands in awe of the beauty and power of nature, I find it easy to follow and believe in the intricate visualisations laid before me in this deep & beautiful meditation. Thank you so much for your heartfelt guidance. Namaste 🙏🏼🤍🔥🌟🌵🌳🥀

Really great storytelling and guidance . Glad I stumbled upon her at the right time .

Beautiful. This came up exactly when I needed it. Thank you.

This was such a beautiful & helpful meditation experience for me. Thank you! 🙏🏻

This has come to me at a time when it was most relevant and I am truly in awe of this message. I cannot express enough gratitude for your words and loving voice. My ache has grown from dark soul and a lightness has taken its place. With love and gratitude - thank you

Wonderful so hepful with healing thank you 🕊️🤍🕯️

So very touching and beautiful. I will need to listen again. Thank you SO much. 💕

I’m 75 years old. Married for 48 years when my husband died. Dated over 12 men men, I thought the 12th wouldn’t have to take me to the bakers dozen.

however, I will move forward from this last broken relationship, which I was blessed to have for 2 1/2 years

my heart will heal. It will not ache. I am moving forward to whatever that will make.

thank you again for this beautiful meditation

An interesting perspective on the ego , as someone who is always trying to self heal , I appreciate this.