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WHAT IS HEALING?
There are many thoughts and ideas regarding the nature of healing. For me, several concepts stand out:
*Holding a safe space so that the client may tell his or her story. Many of us have experienced traumas or insults to our dignity that we have never given voice to. When we can tell our stories, shame gives way to grief, outrage and other feelings. As we acknowledge and express our many feelings, we begin to heal.
*Integrating higher aspects of who we are. We all have access to higher voices, or more spiritual parts of ourselves that can offer us guidance, hope, trust, peace and joy. These parts are often overwhelmed or unreachable due to fear, guilt, shame, or even dissociation. In addition to exploration through traditional talk therapy, processes such as deep relaxation, guided imagery and voice dialogue facilitate connection with the parts of ourselves that can allow us to feel more balanced and integrated.
*Increasing self-awareness in the present allows one to become more grounded. This can occur in the realm of the therapeutic relationship by bringing the dynamics of that relationship into the open. How is the therapist impacting the client? How is the client impacting the therapist? This implies an honest and respectful relationship in the service of the client's growth. Increased self-awareness can also occur simply by having attention brought to what is occurring in the client's mind and body in the moment. In this way, one's contact with oneself expands.
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The Psychology of Transformation; Mapping out the Path of Co-Creating a New Reality
I have written this article for people who are in the process of transformation, and who are interested in living out of their own internal compass, rather than following “shoulds” or externally imposed rules. I have created a map to support us as we traverse unknown realms and processes. This knowledge has been gained personally and experientially, through my own growth, the growth of my friends, and the transformations I have witnessed in my clients.
Developed over years, this knowledge began to coalesce after I made a conscious decision to live to my fullest potential. I had just come out of a period of personal fear and wanted to let go of that and the debilitation that came with it. Since then, I have been on a roller coaster of change. The process elucidated by these changes has provided me with an understanding of transformation, and has paved the way for the development of this map. Because change is cyclic, I continue to navigate and re-navigate through these stages of transformation.
At this time, the most important thing we can embrace is transforming reality. In a world rapidly changing, each of us is desperately seeking safety. We are being directed to look inward and create a more spiritual life. Illusions are falling away, and holding on causes suffering. Changing, we confront broken and fearful parts of ourselves, release the ways in which we limit and control our world and awaken to the realm of infinite possibility.
To release our fear of change, we must trust, whether it is trust in God, our sense of guidance, the body’s sensations, or our images of what is possible. I choose to believe that the process of life is purposeful and has intention. I believe that there is more to life than the physical plane, and that I live in co-operation with a greater intelligence and spiritual truths. I do not know it all, but have the ability to open to new and more evolved ways of being. I accept that there are perspectives larger than my own, benevolent forces that willingly assist me, and that I can access divine aspects of my own being. These beliefs are choices I have made that allow me a fluidity that invites change. Consequently, where before fear ruled, now a new courage to explore and understand emerges at the core of every decision I make.
When I am faced with the choice to change, I choose to honor what I know is in alignment with my highest evolution. Whether this knowing occurs through synchronicity or intuition, whether it shows up as a sick feeling in my stomach, a sense of excitement, an image or word in my mind, I trust that what I am receiving is important and worthy of note. I choose to put down the restrictions of linear thinking and allow this knowing to influence me. I re-create myself out of what I intuit and believe possible, rather than out of my fears. As I do this over and over, I build new muscle. I create a new reality.
I trust that I only need to know the next step, and that I will be given knowledge of each future step. I affirm that I am in the right place and the right time and that all is well regardless of feelings and difficulties that emerge. As I exercise trust, a process is evoked that translates into living in present moment consciousness and having the experience of grace, support, love and the knowing that I am changing. I shift into my future self.
The 7 phases of transformation
1) Setting an intention, asking for guidance
To initiate change, we must first discern what we want, and put forth a clear concise view: an intention, the magnetizing force of all our future actions. By setting a conscious intention, we jump start change.
We are announcing to the universe and to ourselves that we are willing to do what it takes to become who we wish to be, opening to guidance and transformation. My intention to release everything that was holding me back; fears, fantasies, wounds, relationships, addictions etc., allowed my life to rocket forward. A process was set in motion where I could see what wasn’t working in my life. Once I could see, I had to take action. As each veil lifted, I could no longer tolerate continuing to be what and who I had been, nor how I had been participating in my life.
2) Being receptive to guidance
We must be open and listening: receptive, to receive guidance. Once receptive, guidance can be received in many ways: through synchronicities, just knowing, various methods of divination, free association, journaling, a casual comment that grabs our attention, or by receiving a new vision. Once we receive and accept guidance however, we must trust what we have received without a guarantee of the outcome, and begin the steps towards manifesting what we envision.
3) Creating through trust: Being in the now, envisioning what will be
As we experience our reality, and look towards what we wish to create, we must hold a trust that this can or will come to pass. We assume the posture that our guidance is coming from a larger and more loving perspective. As we make changes in our lives, we come across situations that are scary, or demand sacrifices of us. We may want to run away, believing that it is too hard or too painful. But we hold the course, witnessing and staying with what is, and painstakingly make our way towards what will be. We choose to endure whatever feelings arise and allow life to work on us, transforming us alchemically. For example, if somebody wishes to be in a satisfying romantic relationship and they realize (hear, are told…) that they are too entangled in another relationship or need to re-locate, enormous fears may be triggered, for the conditions of our lives reflect who we are. We hold our vision, trusting that we will be led to the appropriate outcome. A process of letting go begins.
4) Embracing the unknown: Descent into fear, activation of doubt
As we move towards creating new conditions and ways of being, fear of change, and attachment to what is, are activated and emerge. As these fears are worked through and released, we “fall” into the depths. Like Persephone or Inanna, we descend into the underworld, confronting our monsters, our attachments, and our fantasies. We plunge into our wounds and our brokenness: our small self, not trusting that we are safe. We experience this descent as an eternal and static hell, forgetting that it is momentary: part of a process. We cannot grow without living through; we cannot live around that which is not healed. We struggle to find a context for our pain and experience asking why? What? How?
5) Riding the wave: Witnessing our process
Perspective comes from seeing a larger vista. As we witness our struggle, answers come; we have moments of clarity and joy. We remember our commitment to change and our vision, and then lose perspective again. We trust, we hope. We lose trust. We lose hope. The process becomes visible. We start to understand that something is occurring.
6) Navigating into the new: Support
We need to navigate and support ourselves as we ride this up and down process of becoming. Of the myriad of possibilities available, some examples follow:
When we are feeling good and trusting, we can chose to find gratitude and enjoy this time, remembering that we are in flux, and not attach to staying in this condition. This time is not the goal, but a more pleasant moment in the journey of becoming. To over-identify with the “up” position is to denigrate the more difficult “down” position and to cut ourselves off from our full experience.
When we are fearful, it is our task to develop a compassionate witness, and allow our experience to inform us. It is helpful to remember that we chose change, that this experience is part of it, and find ways to anchor and support ourselves.
We can call in any source of love and hold that in our hearts to help ourselves move into a feeling of safety. Or we can seek out a supportive friend or therapist and allow their perspective and love to help us. In the difficulty of intense feelings, we can choose to trust and receive support.
7) The new reality
Eventually we find ourselves standing on new ground. We see our bigger needs or the bigger picture. What we let go of is now clear and makes sense. We have released fear and control, a particular wound and corresponding fantasy, so that something larger could be birthed. We are more able to participate, and more evolved. Creating ourselves through this process, the form of our life shifts accordingly.
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Finding home
There is sometimes an ache inside. A restlessness almost, like a dry wind chaffing, haunting in its persistence, its unnamable precision. The busyness of life, the running here and there, the acquiring of new things, does not quiet, does not soothe or soften our longing. It cannot be forgotten or ignored for it is our yearning for home. We are being urged to notice, to seek, to find a new place: a home in ourselves.
How do we find this place? What is it? Where does our truest life reside, the heartbeat, the underbelly, the moist dark earth of ourselves? How do we move from a breath half breathed and hardly noticed, our attention focused outward, to the slow turning back towards ourselves? Yet, when we do, a gradual awareness of our richness, the complexity of ourselves emerges. We sink down into ourselves. We ripen.
This slow deepening is healing, for we cannot honor whom we are until we notice, until we gaze upon ourselves. There are different ways to do this, different paths. These include writing, dream work and group work. In our stories and imaginings we find ourselves. We find threads crossing, connecting, weaving together larger patterns of ourselves. We find the poetic, our myths, where our lives have meaning.
Writing allows us to notice the whispering places inside us, to pay attention to the undercurrents, the deeper flow of life beyond our everyday routine. When we write, we notice actual moments of our lives, how we felt rushing down a street, lost in thought, as a cool wind blows down from the hills, rustling dry leaves, the stillness of night settling gently over us. We notice also the flow, the patterns, how the pain of a relationship, the throb of it, lessens, softens, finally fades away, how we ebb and flow through our own lives like tides, pulling inward and out. We notice the larger story of our lives, gravitational forces that are bigger than us: the moon shifting the ocean, the heavy waters of our own bodies. We breathe deeper, for we are finally noticing how our lives actually FEEL. We claim the life that is ours. We become more alive. Life becomes sacred.
Working with the imagination is another way of noticing, although the focus is somewhat different, perhaps more on the interior space than the space we are embedded in, however the two are intertwined. In dream work for instance, an image may call to us, and if we stop and stay with the image, play with it, become it, we began to experience the part of ourselves that is in the image. We may have a cathartic experience, or simply move deeper into an aspect of ourselves that we usually do not experience. So focused on the external, what to wear, buy, eat; going, moving, doing, we do not spend the time tending to the quieter parts of ourselves, the whisperings, saying, “I am here, look this way, look here”. We trudge by our own inner landscape, stepping upon, crushing the delicate hidden blooms that we do not see.
Essentially these two methods do the same thing, but in different ways. And both of these ways of honoring the self can occur in a group.
Groups are a valuable part of any healing path. A group allows support and connection to develop among its members. As the members of a group hold space for each individual and his or her experiences, they come to know parts of themselves that are similar, and ways that they are different. As we come to love those around us, we struggle with the aspects of ourselves that are critical, judgmental, unloving. The trust developed in a group is sacred and the group space then becomes a sacred space. For it is a space created with the intention of honoring the process of becoming, of accepting all of ourselves.
As we honor ourselves and those around us, we become aware of our inner beauties and complexities. We can no longer ignore ourselves. As others listen to and are impacted by us, we realize that we are part of a community. The shell of our aloneness cracks, shifts, slides away. No longer alone, we become part of a process that is filled with the richness and beauty of connection, support, sharing and learning. We develop a sense of home within ourselves, and in connection to others.
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