The Teacher Inside Us All.

It’s hard to decide where to even start with all that I want to share with you about my past weekend experience taking a Meditation “Teacher” training.  I put “teacher” in brackets with a smile on my face because when I signed up for the training I had this expectation that it would be a course on styles of meditation, scripts, and different guiding tools ect.  I’m certain that there are classes out there like that, but this was not it.  Before you think that this means I was disappointed let me stop you.  This training far exceeded any expectations that I had.  It was indeed a teacher training but not in the sense of what I and many of the other participants had thought.

I’ve had a bit of experience over the last few years with various styles of meditation and have felt the benefits first hand.  But this weekend took it to a whole other level.  This was an incredibly beautiful transition into a deeper meditation, free from the scripted words and the pretense of what a lot of people think meditation is. It transcended just the calming relaxing benefits of meditation into the true realm of self-discovery.

Meditation for me is about connection to yourself and the greater universe, freedom, exploration, understanding, clarity, expansion, and discovery. It’s about going deep and peeling back the layers that have been covering the true you and your limitless power and potential.

I’ve said the words many times about discovering yourself, building self-love and self-trust, and reclaiming your power.  It’s literally the description I use for my “Full to Fulfilled” coaching program. These words however felt disconnected because I was trying to make the understanding of them in my conscious mind without consideration of the source.  The source is me.  It the truest purest most beautiful essence of who I am.  That’s where the words originated and that’s where they make sense.

Finding the Light.

If you’re new to the spiritual realm or the meditation practice then you might be feeling a bit confused.  First of all that’s ok.  It’s a learning that will grow over time and maybe this story will help you understand.

Many years ago I was trapped in an abusive relationship.  We were together for 6 years roughly and it was awful and horrific.  The most prominent abusive behavior was the emotional trauma inflicted upon me, reducing me and covering me with negative beliefs and fears about myself and my worth.  This period of my life was like living in a prison.  I always thought that prison was the physical and external barriers that kept me chained in that life day after day, but the prison as I see it now, was the heavy layers of darkness that had built around and over my inner light, my true self, my pure essence.  It was lost, out of reach, and it felt in the external world that it would be impossible to ever feel alive again.  I wanted to take my life, to escape in the only way I thought possible.  Thankfully that light inside was stronger than I was even remotely aware of.  One cold November morning, in an almost out of body experience, I picked up the phone to call my mom to ask her to come help me get out.  She saved me that day, but the other truth is that I saved myself.  I never quite knew what gave me the strength to call her.  I thought possibly divine intervention, but I had this feeling that it was something else even more powerful.  I now know without any doubt, that the power that set me free, was me.

Feeling Lost.

3 years ago when I finally admitted a truth inside of me it created a lot of questions, and I see now as my journey unfolds, that many people have the same questions.  We look around at all of our accomplishments and wonder what it’s all for? Is this it? What’s missing?

I too searched. I thought first it was my lack of spiritual beliefs. And so I explored and found a belief that resonated with me and begun a sporadic meditation practice to try to connect with an external source. The unfulfilled feeling improved but was still lingering. Then I looked at my relationships, then my career, but no matter how many changes I made it still wasn’t enough. Something was still pulling me to find something more… but what. It was frustrating and angering and sad. Then I started to feel like maybe there was something wrong with me that I felt this way.  I felt depressed and so lost. It was an all too familiar feeling I’ve had over the course of my entire life. Until I realized that all this time the answer was staring right back at me. It wasn’t something that I needed to change or achieve. It was me.  It was the deeply covered me that was screaming and crying to be recovered.

Sitting With Sadness

I’ve done a lot of work dealing with my sadness and grief that has existed in me for as long as I can remember, but the goal has always been to make it go away. To resolve it and live my life without it.  I see now that this is not the right approach to take.  We can’t “fix” how we feel because we aren’t broken.  So much of my life I have felt that there was something wrong with me and people were consistently trying to fix me.  This is something no one should ever have to feel.  To feel broken and flawed because of a belief our mind and society’s collective mind has created. And this belief is the recipe for receiving a label in our society that further contributes to a greater level of self-hate, self-pity, worthlessness, hopelessness, and “attempted” destruction of our true authentic selves. I’ve been there, for so many years I lived this belief and it buried who I was.  But by being honest with myself and curiously asking the questions instead of hiding in my minds creation of doubt and fear I’ve found many answers.

This past weekend if I had to guess, I probably spent at least 10 of the 22 hours there in meditation. Every time I found the light in me it brought profound sadness with it.  My light will never extinguish, it’s forever, as is yours, but it’s gets hidden and buried and can feel lost forever.  I decided through meditation to attempt a different approach and have a conversation with my sadness to find out what it wants from me (my true me, not my mind).  Here’s how that conversation went.

After singing mantra for what seemed like a long time with tears streaming down my face we reached the quiet meditative time, and so deep inside of me I asked the question… Sadness, what do you need from me? The answers came clear. Sadness responded, I don’t want to be hidden anymore, I want you to feel me and welcome me, I want to belong with you and have a voice, I don’t want to feel shame and be tucked away, I am crying to be set free.  After a long pause, amidst tears and a heavy sensation I responded. I am so sorry that you have been burdened this way, and I want you to know that I too feel the same.  I also have been hidden and lost for a long time. With a warm softening of the weight I asked, what do you say we both link arms and be free together? I am taking back control of this kingdom and everyone will have a voice, no one will be shadowed any more.  Sadness smiled and said, we should probably take anger with us too. As we moved freely towards the surface together I felt happiness, excitement and peace join us.

With Answers Come Questions.

It was a profound experience and gave me so many answers, and so many more questions. The lightness of knowing is what we are all seeking.  To relieve the burden of needing to have answers and a plan to letting go, finding security and trust in our true selves to guide our way.  The connection this entire weekends experience has had to those words I mentioned that I speak so frequently has been incredibly affirming of where I’m headed.

So, if you are out there wondering what’s missing you can stop looking, because the answer is right there shining brightly inside of you.  The process to find it is about rediscovering yourself, rebuilding your love and trust in yourself, and reclaiming the seat as the Ruler in your life. It’s all there for you. You’re asking the questions for a reason and the answer comes when you start listening.

If you’re unsure about how to get started with Meditation please reach out and allow me the honor to help guide you to get your daily practice started. It only takes 5 minutes a day to uncover your deepest truest self.

When a Dream Dies

I have a strong belief that absolutely anything is possible and that we all live with a limitless potential to create a life that we desire. But sometimes the vision that we have does not play out exactly how we thought.

I wrote a couple weeks ago about resilience and how I had built my emotional strength over the last years. But what’s come to my attention lately is that some traumas break open wounds that have multiple layers, and even though I have built my emotional muscle there will be times when dusting myself off and getting back up again is more challenging.

Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard you work no matter what you do, you just can’t shake it and you just can’t let it go. I couldn’t understand why this particular experience had taken such a strong hold on me.

I think I equated the word grief with having lost something significant and I couldn’t see how losing a possibility, or feeling like a dream for your life was stolen, could create such emotional trauma.

But it can.

I acknowledge that writing about a situation without giving details can be frustrating for a reader but this, like many traumatic situations, involves other people, so I choose to leave out the details in an effort to sustain the positive work I have done.

The predominant feeling I experienced was anger which shifted between sadness and loneliness and then a bit of acceptance back to anger back to sadness and back to loneliness. It seemed like a vicious cycle I just couldn’t break.

Grief

The word grief had been coming up so frequently that I took a moment to think about what I had learned as a nurse about it. I recalled that it was a cycle where you moved between different emotions in a non-linear step by step process.

A quick Google search will give you Kuhbler Ross’s 5 stages of grief and loss as:

1. Denial and isolation;
2. Anger;
3. Bargaining;
4. Depression;
5. Acceptance

It was like a huge lightbulb went off as I realized that was exactly what was going on with me. After even more reflection I realized I’d even participated in the bargaining stage by trying to come up with alternatives and different solutions to keeping my dream alive.

I’m not trying to compare the grief someone experiences when they lose someone they love to my experience but rather to paint a picture that grief can show up in the strangest places.

The Path to Acceptance

The path to acceptance in the face of this type of grief is forgiveness, gratitude, love and belief. Belief that I’ll be OK even though my dream may not look the way I envisioned. Forgiveness and love for everyone involved including myself. And Gratitude for my life and my family and everything that I have. The anger, the shame, the sadness, the depression and the loneliness can’t survive in the face of forgiveness, gratitude and love.

Steps to Take

With these answers in mind I am making a promise to myself to take the steps to truly find forgiveness, let go of my negative emotions, and to practice gratitude.

So I ask of you. Is grief showing up in your life? Is there an anger or another emotion you are struggling to let go of?

If so I encourage you to try these steps along with me and see what happens.

1. First of all I’ve learned forgiveness isn’t excusing someone who has wronged you or even forgetting about the incident. The relationship may need some work to move forward after forgiveness or you may choose to not have that person in your life. Either way it’s not about the other person. Forgiveness is for YOU to remove the heavy negative emotional burden from your life after you have fully identified and felt the hurt and expressed and released your feelings and this requires a willingness to process and let go of trauma. When we don’t release our negative emotions they remain trapped and can begin to express themselves as physical, mental and emotional ailments. So give yourself permission to feel everything you are feeling.
2. Write a letter in your journal and acknowledge fully the situation. Be honest about your feelings and how the situation has impacted you and your life. Accept your involvement, your mistakes, any hurt you have inflicted as well as your growth from the experience. Allow yourself to be unedited and fully expressed in this letter. Remembering no one has to see this except you.
3. Reread the journal letter. Try to step outside of the memory and see a new perspective of the situation, yourself, and the others involved. Try to find compassion and understanding.
4. Practice stress management during moments of anger and resentment. An aroma reset can be a helpful technique.
5. Don’t go to sleep angry. Every night make a gratitude for at least 10 things you are grateful for. Reframing your life in a positive view is the best way to fall asleep and feel more joyful the next day.
6. Look for other ways to build positivity and joy into your life rather than persistently focusing on the negative. Look for love beauty and kindness and refuse to let the negative swallow you up.
7. Decide if the relationship needs some work.  This may mean you have to follow Brene Browns advice and Rumble through some vulnerability.  Meaning you may have to show up and lean into an uncomfortable unpleasant situation.  To truly let go may mean you need to find closure on the situation or the relationship itself. Look for mediation or a relationship counselor if you feel the situation requires it.
8. Practice emotional release techniques.  We can stuff our anger, sadness and fears deep down for a long time but eventually the energy they hold will start to manifest in different ways.  There are a variety of energy therapies or emotional release modalities available to you.  My choice is Aroma Freedom Technique.  To learn more or to schedule your own session click here. Schedule
9. Lastly find forgiveness for yourself.  Accept that as a human you will make mistakes.  Owning our errors and holding yourself accountable is important and then offering yourself grace, love and forgiveness is essential to denying the hold the negative emotions may have over you.
10. Reach out for support.  You’re never alone in this world and there a whole list of people who are here to support you and guide you through.  Isolating yourself and feeling alone is a symptom.  Getting support is a big part of the solution.