Yesterday I was in session with a dear client. We were working with her limiting beliefs, her story of scarcity. A story that is deeply rooted in her grief, sadness and loss. As we were tapping together (doing EFT) to clear this painful story, I came to a very poignant realization. The journey of grief is in fact the Bhakti path- if used as a resource for awakening and opening. Grief is inherently connected to your pain and suffering. It connects you deeply to your losses, to release and letting go. Moksha (liberation) is in fact a process of release, letting go and endings. (You can see what your relationship is with Moksha and loss, simply by looking at the 12th house in your jyotish chart. It's also the house of death and the ancestors because of its connection to transformation.) Release and letting go are natural parts of life. Nature's intelligence shares this process of release and transformation with us consistently. Particularly through the ever-changing seasons. Yet loss is one of the most challenging things you will ever face in your lifetime. Small losses or big, life changing losses, the process of letting go is not easy. Grief is a natural response to the pain of letting go, of releasing some attachment. When you choose to use your grief process for self awakening, for liberation, the journey becomes very different. Grief can become a spiritual resource- one that awakens you from deep slumber. The pain you experience during your loss will show you the places within where you have not been fully conscious. The gift of your pain is the awakening to your unconscious patterns, behaviors and choices. It is the ultimate wake up call. Most people will never use their grief as a spiritual resource. As a tool of self awakening. A way to awaken from their deepest slumbers. Using the grief journey as a path of self realization is a poignant practice. One that I am very passionate about. I've experienced (and continue to experience) the power of leaning in closer to my grief- my inner pain, darkness, shadow and suffering. Please join me for a heart-centered class to help you deepen your inner wisdom and relationship with Spirit. This process of leaning in closer- to your self and your pain- is actually a practice of devotion. Devotion to the self. Your consistent presence, the act of showing up for yourself in your pain, takes bravery, courage and willingness. Something profound begins to shift within your being with this simple, consistent act of arriving. Arriving back to the self- over and over again. This is the practice of Bhakti, heart centered devotion. Devotion of the self. Heart-centered devotion requires that you show up in these ways: - Be consistent. This is a practice which requires you return again and again. Arrive with presence. Your attention to the self is your mantra. - Non judgment. As you notice what is arriving, just honor what is. You are simply bringing your attention to the movement within your emotional body landscape, without labels or trying to change it. - Devotion. Your ability to arrive again and again with presence for your emotional body landscape, is an act of devotion. Remember that your emotional body is a powerful resource. This is also the place of your Divine Feminine wisdom. How to Deepen Your Devotion As you practice showing up for your emotional body, honor it. Be a witness, then lean in closer. What is your emotional body telling you? What is the underlying need? The gift of your emotional body is that it will always share with you a need that is either being met, or not being met. Listen closely. When you can arrive for yourself again and again with non-judgment, with openness and honoring, you can also awaken more loving kindness for yourself. It is likely you have never been mirrored this container of loving kindness during big waves of emotion. Think back to your childhood. How did your parents "manage" your temper tantrums? Your powerful emotional outbursts? This is likely the same way you are still "managing" your emotions as an adult. Through avoidance, resistance, fear, challenge or resentment. The first step to re-patterning this old conditioning is committing to arriving. Showing up is 50% of the process. Don't just commit to showing up though. How to Master the Process of Self Devotion: Can you show up for yourself without judging your emotions? Can you separate the emotional body messages from the mental body stories? Can you harvest the need underneath the emotional body message? Can you show up for yourself with more loving kindness, honoring yourself with non judgment- no matter what is arriving? Can you honor yourself for arriving, trusting that this simple act of showing up is in fact a path of devotion, a process of deepening self love? Self love requires that you show up for yourself- your whole self. The act of self love is devotional by nature. It is a process of accepting, surrendering, honoring and bringing compassion to your whole being. This is the practice of Bhakti. Heart-centered devotion requires that you honor and allow all parts of yourself. That all parts of your being make up your wholeness. This includes your pain, sorrow, darkness and illusion. Your grief. Your ability to honor your grief- as a way to open your heart and awaken your inner wisdom- is the most profound act of devotion you can give yourself. Please join me this weekend for a Bhakti centered practice. I'll be sharing potent resources to support your spiritual and emotional body awakening. This is the last chance to register! Doors are closing!
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I'm in the midst of my 14 Day Emotional Body Challenge. I've been sharing resources and guidance to support your emotional body literacy this past week. It's a very important conversation to have. And one that very few people are willing to talk about, let alone do the actual work it requires. Your willingness to show up for your self, for your emotional body, is courageous. It is the path of the warrior. So few people understand the gifts of the emotional body. In my lifelong journey with grief, loss and pain, I've encountered countless teachers, healers and therapists who aren't walking their talk. The majority of clients I work with are navigating deep loss, grief, and the lasting impact of unprocessed emotions. Undigested emotion will create issues on all four levels of your being- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. The resistance to feeling your pain has dire consequences. Avoidance of your grief and sadness hinders your ability to feel joy. Your willingness to move closer to your sadness, loss, pain and fear will result in an expanded ability to experience the power of happiness and fulfillment. Simply put, the capacity in which you are showing up for your grief, is the capacity in which you'll be able to hold your joy. Often we need support with this process of leaning into our pain. This healing support may need to be personal or communal. But without consistent, safe, non-judgemental holding mirrored to you, reshaping and recreating new possibility for yourself will be near to impossible. This is the disappointment I have felt with countless therapists, healers and teachers. Those who I thought would understand my pain and bottomless sorrow, the heavy weight of my lifelong grief. I thought they would get it. But instead I have often been mirrored discomfort and disapproval, their own unprocessed emotion! This is why it is vital that you do your emotional body work diligently. You will pass on, mirror and express your emotional body literacy (or illiteracy) to others- consciously or unconsciously. The only way to heal the pain, is to walk through it- to move with it. To use it. To create with it. But most importantly to bring your presence to it. Presence is a powerful healing resource. This is the presence you have longed for, that you have always desired- from your parents, friends, family, teachers, healers and therapists. We all long for presence. You can start healing- simply by giving yourself the gift of presence. Often, presence is the simple part. Maybe you can get there, but then what? Once you arrive in presence, what is the next step? How do you know if you are actually hearing your emotional body? How do you extract the wisdom in all the pain and darkness? Building a relationship (like any relationship) takes time. It's your slow, consistent steps that let your emotional body know you are truly committed to the relationship. Big, powerful emotions are messengers from your emotional body that you need to pay attention. You need to lean in closer. You need something. But what? The wisdom of the emotional body is that it will share your needs with you. Your emotional body lets you know when a need is being met, and when a need is not being met. As a highly sensitive person, you have an extra special emotional body. You have more internal receptors to communicate what you are feeling. This can be helpful for getting your needs met. But if you aren't paying attention often enough, you will also experience bigger emotional waves as well. Daily maintenance is crucial- especially for highly sensitive people like you and me. Make sure you're doing a daily four level check-in. Here are some other ways to know if you are honoring your emotional body, or if you're frozen, stuck, avoiding or resisting its messages: -Do you pause to listen to your emotions, to check in with what arrives and then use this to inform your actions and choices? -Can you be present (very present) to others' emotions and navigate which are "theirs" and which are "yours"? - Do you dump your emotions on others as a way to cope with your own overwhelm? -Do you hate tears? Anger? Do you wish it could be happy and "smooth" all the time for your Self and your relationships? -Do you push past your own emotions, trying to skip to the "good stuff"? -Do you cut and paste over your feelings- especially around others- in order to keep things "tidy" and not rock the boat? -Do you allow time and space for discomfort and emotions like sadness, anger, depression, grief and loneliness? -Do you use drugs or alcohol, food and other "feel good" methods to enhance your life? Especially when life feels tough? Read more about befriending your emotions here I'll be sharing more emotional body resource with you in the coming days. Remember that your courage to show up- no matter what is arriving within- is the most courageous thing you can do for yourself. Your presence is the first step to awakening. I'm here to support your journey of emotional body intelligence and awakening to its many gifts. In loving kindness- for your whole being, Swati* Follow along with my 14 Day Emotional Body Challenge here {Space Clearing the Heart} Discover how to transform your emotional body in a creative and embodied way.
Get the Details Courage, Dear Heart. It's not about what you do, it's about how you do it. Showing up for yourself- again and again and again. This is true courage. In the beginning of my grief journey, and a new relationship with my emotional body, I didn't know how this simple act would change me. For the majority of my life, I resisted showing up for my emotional body landscape fully. I didn't have the skills, resources or awareness to show up in presence, to hold myself in the challenges, to find the resources in my pain. Emotional body literacy is vital for awakening- moving away from an autopilot existence. Resistance and avoidance to what is moving through your inner terrain means that important needs are not being met. Repeatedly. This results in longstanding systemic malnourishment- issues, challenges, behaviors and choices that will impact your life in less than fulfilling ways. The resistance and suppression of your emotional body has dire consequences for all four levels of your being- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. But there is another way. A way that takes practice. Patience. Willingness and skillfulness. The act of arriving in presence- presence of your emotions- is the most courageous thing you can do for yourself today. When you show up in this way for yourself repeatedly, your skillfulness increases. My grief journey has been a powerful resource of awakening. Not because it was a joyful or comfortable ride. It has been the most powerful change agent for me because it was anything but comfortable. My grief forced me to keep looking at my emotions- even when I didn't want to. Even when the pain was intolerable. Grief amplifies the emotional body. And if you can skillfully learn to work with the waves of grief, your emotional body relationship will also dramatically shift. It can become a resource for nourishment, rather than only pain. In my grief process, I've learned that the most courageous thing I can do for myself is to keep arriving. Arriving within. I've learned how to keep showing up for myself. For my grief, for my path, for my self, for my needs, for my heart. With practice, this process has become more integrated and easy. My willingness to keep arriving within and leaning into my pain, has been like a mantra, a tuning fork. Turning me inward- again and again. What is arriving now? What do I feel now? What do I need now? The courage to keep showing up for yourself- in your pain- is the warrior's path. This is the path of Karma Yoga. The bravery to continue to step towards self- no matter the weather. No matter what's arriving within the inner landscape. This is your empowerment. It is the beginning of creating deeper self trust. It is a dedication to your own resiliency, to life. Death has slowly taught me how to live again. Through my willingness to face my own darkness, I'm learning how to hold both- life and death together. In the face of your deepest pain and darkness, you can keep arriving home. Use my Creative Ritual below to support this process of arriving home within, deepening your resiliency and inner stability. I'm here to support your journey of coming home. Have courage Dear One. You are on a warrior's path. Swati* Creative Ritual for Returning Home Make a list. What resources do you use for returning home- to stability, self-trust, safety and security? How do you get back home- to your sacred center? Notice what is alive and providing support for you, what is feeling nourishing and supportive, and what are the resources you have been relying on for greater nourishment. The intention of this creative ritual is to spark something within. To solidify your resources and ground you in the sensation of greater self trust. Part I. Coming Home Embodiment Dance. 1. Start your "Coming Home" embodiment dance from standing or lying down. Begin by bringing presence to a body part within you that feels like a resource. Is there a part of your body that provides you with a sense of stability, comfort and nourishment? Can you sense this feeling in your body somewhere? Let this be your primary body part resource for your dance. Then begin to move from this body part. Let it activate and inspire your Coming Home dance. 2. As you continue to move with your primary body part, note how the rest of your body responds. How does it connect to the rest of your body? How does it respond and move with the rest of your body? How does the rest of your body respond to it? Let your dance develop as the rest of your body moves with your primary body part resource. Return to the body part in the close of your dance and note the sensations present by doing a 3 level check in. Take at minimum 10 minutes for this portion of the Creative Ritual. Read more and complete part 2 of this Creative Ritual- the Harvesting portion Join me for a *free* 14 Day Emotional Body Challenge! I'll be sharing resources, tools and extra guidance to navigate these choppy cosmic tides in the coming weeks.Get the Details {Space Clearing the Heart} Discover how to transform your emotional body in a creative and embodied way. Get the Details. Emotional Body Authenticity + Loving Kindness Emotional body literacy is rare. Very few people learn the art of emotional body intelligence, let alone put it into action through relationship with self, relationship with others, and heart centered communication. The ability to attend your emotional body inner wisdom consistently and authentically takes courage, commitment, presence and ongoing practice. But the results are profound. It is vulnerable territory. To show up radically for yourself- to navigate the often choppy and violent inner waters. The emotional body is as wild and untamed as the Divine Feminine. She is your ever expanding Self. She often forces you to look at Her even though you'd rather not. Most people are resisting Her- which means they are also missing her wisdom, intelligence and gifts as well. As you courageously move closer to your emotional body, you gain access to a fuller range of experience. As a human being. Deepening emotional body intelligence increases your capacity to feel, to receive, to get needs met, and therefore be nourished more as well. I've come to the conclusion that everyone has the same basic core need: deeper nourishment. Think about it. To be "nourished" means that you feel safe, comforted, supported. It means that you have moved beyond survival. It means that you are receiving on some level- you are not in resistance or avoidance. Nourishment is life, essentially. When you are able to say yes to nourishment, it means you are saying yes to life as well. How often do you feel nourished? When does this feeling show up? Who does it show up with? Who does it not show up with? What does nourishment mean to you? Where do you feel nourishment in your body when it arrives?! Nourishment is a powerful resource. A tool of resiliency and inner stability. It is a baseline that can help deepen receptivity- so other needs can be met. It is also an important marker for emotional body intelligence. Inner tracking is the first step in honoring what is arriving within. It can open the door of loving kindness- for yourself and others. It can help you show up for yourself in a non judgemental way, a compassionate way. When you can show up for yourself in this way, you can start showing up for others in this way too. You can start communicating from this place as well. (Ill be sharing more about heart centered communication in the coming days). If you're ready to deepen your relationship with Nourishment, see below. I've posted a Creative Ritual to help you honor your inner nourishment and to help you build more awareness with this powerful resource. In the coming days I will continue to share resources that will support your emotional body relationship. I'm honored you are following along, that this conversation is meaningful to you, that you feel a desire to lean in closure to yourself and your inner landscape. It takes courage. But it is a vital part of the healing journey. Your willingness to listen to your inner intelligence will take you far. Looking forward to sharing more emotional body wisdom with you in the coming days as we continue this 14 day journey together. Join me for a *free* 14 Day Emotional Body Challenge! I'll be sharing resources, tools and extra guidance to navigate these choppy cosmic tides in the coming weeks.Get the Details Nourishment Creative Ritual 1) Using craypas, paints or pencils, create an image of your nourishment. What does nourishment feel like for you? Create an image that expresses this feeling using colors, textures and shapes. Allow 20 minutes at minimum for this nourishment image. Title your image. 2) Use your image to inspire a movement exploration. Let your body move in response to your nourishment image with an intention of "moving with your feelings of nourishment". What sensations emerge for you during your dance? What awareness? Allow 5 to 10 minutes for this movement exploration. I encourage you to extend this time frame as you recycle this process. 3) Harvesting. In your journal answer these questions: I am, I want, I need, I sense, I feel, I imagine. What deeply nourishes me? What no longer nourishes me? Where do I feel support in my life? Where do I need more support? What am I opening to? What am I closing to? Join me for a *free* 14 Day Emotional Body Challenge! I'll be sharing resources, tools and extra guidance to navigate these choppy cosmic tides in the coming weeks.Get the Details
The ability to hold both joy and pain equally, is the gift of grief. Grief is not glamorous. It's not popular. Few people want to talk about it let alone do the work that it takes to heal it. Grief is not happy. It's not fun and it requires your greatest patience. Patience with your self and patience from others. No wonder it is so repulsive. Grief asks so much of us and so much from others. It’s messy, chaotic and extremely uncomfortable. It challenges others to witness the ugliness of grief. It disrupts and creates lasting changes that forever shapes how we move forward. The emotional body experiences explosive, violent and disturbing waves. These waves are uncontrollable and unpredictable. It can feel scary and unsafe. When will another wave hit? How will I get back to shore? Can I get back to solid ground? Touching your emotional body through the grief process is a deep relationship with the Divine Feminine- her untamed, wild body of wisdom, strength and uncertainty. Grief is far from popular. Very few people are brave enough to do the work, the tireless work, that it takes in order to use grief as a resource for healing and awakening. Consequently most people don’t grieve fully and the healing does not take place. The gift never arrives. The wisdom is never extracted. Stunting the grief process is damaging on multiple levels and can effect all four bodies- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Grief can be your biggest transformational resource for awakening. So why do most people resist this process? If used properly, grief can heal and transform your biggest wounds, as well as repair your ancestral karmas. In fact much of the grief, suffering and pain you will face in your life time is directly handed down from your ancestors. This is the result of your ancestors not honoring and healing their own grief. From an epigenetic perspective, this unprocessed grief becomes your familial mythology and shapes your personal mythology as well. Grief does not go away. Let me repeat that. Grief does not go away. Grief changes though- and it will change you. Change is inevitable and impossible to avoid. The very nature of the grief process is change, uncontrollable change. These changes must be honored- authentically and consistently. The changes your grief forces you to confront will awaken you- if you let it. Grief is not joyful. It usually doesn't look or feel happy. But it can become your greatest teacher. From a Jyotish perspective, grief is shown by Saturn, the planet of both hard work and enlightenment. This is the story of grief- hard work and enlightenment. From consistent heat, pressure and time, the diamond appears. Saturn supports you with this transformational journey. Saturn also brings resistance. Karmically speaking, the very thing you most desire is often what you are also resisting the most. Saturn shows us our resistance to healing and expresses the simultaneous desire for liberation. He shows us where the hard work must be done. Do you know how to work with your resistance as a healing resource?! In my personal experience with various forms of grief (lifelong grief, acute grief, as well as trauma induced grief) the lack of external support for my grief has been one of the biggest hindrances to my awakening. I consistently see the lack of support with the grief journey as the biggest obstacle to healing and awakening that my clients have. This is also how the grief process gets suppressed and avoided. Without the necessary holding, reflection, witnessing and mirroring during the grief journey, there is a risk of it becoming stuck, stagnant, or even worse- creating disturbing mutations of the shadow. Witnessing and holding clients through their grief journey has been powerfully validating for me personally and professionally. Consistent holding and honoring one’s process of awakening can in fact change personal and ancestral wounding, liberate one from systemic family issues and transform and heal simultaneously. This has also been my personal experience with grief and trauma. It has only been through very consistent, reliable holding that I have had the courage to face my own darkness. The courage I’ve needed to face my own debilitating grief has come through very sacred containers. This includes one on one support and group support. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience containers of support that mirrored to me that I am safe. (But plenty of others that mirrored to me that I was not safe, not contained, that my grief was not welcome or honored). Safety is the antidote to grief. But safety must be rebuilt and re-established after a loss. Being held in a safe and sacred container can help to re-establish the feeling of safety inside and out. Grief is in fact an opportunity to look at your biggest shadows, and your darkest darkness. But the grief journey is not a popular one. It is shunned and so often misunderstood. There is little to no space for grieving in our relationships and communities, resulting in unprocessed grief more times than not. Far too often the grief journey gets stunted or is incomplete. The truth is that the grief process does not end, but we must attend to it very intentionally, with deep presence. It goes hand in hand with life and must be honored as an equal partner in the process of living. Grief is your most powerful medicine, a potent tool for your inner awakening. I’m on a mission to normalize grief, to educate others about its wisdom and power. I continue to be inspired by my grief journey and what I witness in my clients. Grief is a powerful teacher. Join me for a *special* workshop to clear your heart and awaken your emotional body wisdom. {Space Clearing the Heart} Discover how to transform your emotional body in a creative and embodied way. Get the Details Tapping Meditation Use this Tapping Meditation to work through your grief process- when you feel stuck, afraid or resistant to change. Remember that we always start with "truth tapping" by expressing feelings and experiences that feel challenging. This is a vital part of the process and paves the way for transformation and healing. In the podcast below, I share a tapping (EFT) sequence with you that will guide you through transforming and releasing the old stories and invite in more receptivity. Remember, we start with identifying the challenges, then moving into possibility and desires in order to transform our shadow into light. Use this podcast as you tap through these points: Karate chop point (side of the hand). Crown of the head. Eyebrow point (above the eye). Side of the eye. Under the eye. Under the nose. Chin point (crease of the chin). Throat point (collar bone/throat chakra). Heart point (center of chest). Stomach point (above the navel). Side body (nipple line at side of chest). Tap six to ten times on each point and just keep cycling through the points. Repeat the phrases I use aloud. Notice any thoughts, stories, memories or emotions that emerge as you tap. These are important pieces to return to, do more tapping on, as a way to clear blockages. As always, if the words I use don't work for you, change them to support your process more fully. Share your experiences below! What emerged for you in this process? Excited to hear from you! Join me for an embodied grief workshop ~ Space Clearing the Heart. Discover how to work transform your emotional body in a more creative and embodied way. Get the Details
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