This post really is aimed at people going through the integration of their spiritual awakening, but I think most of you will find a lot of helpful ideas here in dealing with fear, anger, sadness, and other issues. In this spirituality post, I’m going to talk a little bit about going within the uncomfortable feelings.
For most people, this seems like an insane thing to do. Most of society has taught us to avoid discomfort, but to truly release most issues, we have to go within them. In a way, we see them for what they are, and then we can dissolve the issue from inside. This is opposite how many people have been with their issues, usually choosing to avoid, run away from, or build a barricade around the problems. So this may be a brand new way of thinking about healing and facing your issues.
The Wave Comes and Overwhelms You
In a spiritual awakening, it can feel like one or many different waves of intensity wash through you. That energy is you. That is the fullness of you coming home. But you’ve got a lot of junk inside. You have no space for you. But the good news is that this wave can help dislodge that stuff and clear things out. That can make things intensely messy for awhile. The unconscious ego will say things like, “I should have just left it all alone. I was better off before.” But I ask you, is it better to keep popping painkillers and walking on two broken legs or would you prefer the intensity of the pain of setting the bone and healing so you can truly run?
Walking on broken legs while eating painkillers is the status of most of society, and because many of us have not been taught about the healing process, we avoid the very thing that we need. In awakening, that which we need most is now here. So we have to learn how to be with this amazing opportunity
The Flood, the Confusion, the Opportunity
Some people have a lot of trouble getting oriented to this intense energy and what’s going on. If there was a bliss stage that came with the spiritual awakening, that’s been replaced by all this mud and debris. Where does one begin?
With the breath.
Breathing will always be the simplest way to come back to the body and the reality of the present moment. There are a lot of helpful spiritual awakening tools to assist you in clean up detail, but the breathe is always here. It is often one of the most helpful ways to breathe into the pain or discomfort that you are feeling. It’s kind of your little needle that can delve into the heart of darkness and find its way into the center of the thing. Then you start to breathe there. You breathe in this discomfort. You look at it. You feel it surrounding you and trying to overcome you. But you don’t need to overcome it. You let go of that idea of struggle so that you can be with what is here. This in and of itself may be enough to dislodge an issue.
Being in this space is also bringing all of your awakened self in there too. It can act as the fire of presence and awareness, slowly dissolving the hardness and density that’s entrapping you. I won’t lie to you. This isn’t fun. On the scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is waking up in open heart surgery and 10 is having amazing sex after skinny-dipping in a tropical paradise and having the most amazing meal of your life, this can rank between about a 2 and 5, depending on the issue.
However, it is one of the most amazing feelings to have an issue release, as I’ve described in “The Process of Releasing Pain From Your Energy Body.”
Reviewing the Many Stories You Are Carrying
The other side of spiritual revelations and realizations are all the horrible lies we are believing in. These are often their own kinds of revelations, but they probably weren’t the ones you were looking for. You may want to not believe a lot of what you learn about yourself, but to do the healing that you need to, it’s imperative that you do believe in what you now see. This is part of healing the mind, which tends to be the first thing that has to get healed in this process. It is not, however, the last thing. This bears some repeating because a good portion of our society thinks that it can think its way out of anything. It’s mind over matter and all that junk. Don’t misunderstand me; the mind is a powerful, powerful tool. That’s why we’re doing so much work on it, and why I write so much; to help people re-train their minds. But the heart, body, and energy need to heal in their own ways. That’s why for some of you, you have to learn how to set aside your mind and the stories that it may weave around the pain and discomfort. By putting aside any additional stories, you can simply feel what is going on and allow the spiritual healing that needs to happen.
Really? So I Just Sit Here
Sometimes, presence and awareness does mean just sitting there and being aware of your inner misery. As I said, it’s not fun. But you brought most of this pain into your energy body. You’ve carried it around, and you’ve ignored it for most of your life. Did you think you were going to get a free pass to lala land? Sorry. That’s simply not how it is. How long you sit with discomfort and breathe into intense fear, victim identities, rage at your parents, or whatever else is in there is not a matter of time either. So I can’t say such and such an issue will take 3 hours, 3 days, or 3 years. But I can tell you that it will leave. Because just as you were powerful enough to bring it into your life, you are powerful enough to release it.
The Call to Action and Assistance
Some issues do require delicate and focused action. Some will require you to get outside support. It’s not that your awakening energy isn’t able to heal everything in you; it is. But it can be nice to get a little outside support. That’s part of what I do as a spiritual teacher in my sessions. I connect with my student, and our combined energy gnaws on these issues for awhile .When they get pushed up into the student’s consciousness, they can be released through this beautiful, sacred shared connection. This process works regardless of if the other person is awakened partly because I am sharing my awakened energy. That acts like a tuning fork for the other person’s energy, which ultimately does the heavy lifting. So while I and other spiritual healers and teachers have a role to play, it ultimately all comes back to the individual. It all comes back to you.
So if you do find that you need help, then ask for it. It is there.
Breathwork and Meditation Healing Techniques: Sitting in the Internal Fires
As you feel a wave sucking you under and you’re feeling despair, anger, paralyzing fear, this is a great opportunity. Remember this, and go into it. Here’s a brief outline of how you can use meditation and breathwork to release these old issues:
- The feeling of discomfort of some kind takes you.
- You remember that this is a feeling.
- You remember that it is temporary.
- You take a deep breath.
- You sit down or lie down to meditate.
- The discomfort may intensify.
- Something may move. If tears come, allow them. If vocalizations come like screaming, allow them.
- Then breathe more deeply again.
- Notice if there is a little more space between your awareness/true self and the uncomfortable feelings.
- Cultivate more separation between you and the issue. Learn to see that the feelings are not you.
- Let go of your fear of being uncomfortable.
- Breathe in again.
- Imagine yourself surrounding the issue like a parent holding a child.
- From this space of awareness, begin to dissolve the sense of separation.
- Breathe into a sense of unity.
Yet More Remains to be Healed
You may feel dismayed when you notice more dark ickiness still in you. This is okay. I recommend going into these spaces regularly but with rest in between. If something has released, I encourage you to allow yourself some time to stay in the space of release before drawing your awareness back into the issue in a deeper way or into another set of issues. Releasing pain can become incredibly addictive because of how good it feels to get rid of 7 tons of karma. It’s such a wonderful feeling that you want more. How could you not? But take it slowly. This can take a lot more energy than you realize. That’s why many people can have a lot of fatigue in awakening. This kind of deep healing can be like running 3 marathons simultaneously. After you’ve completed a marathon, take a break. If you are already in an awakening shift, you are probably still running two others.
Spiritual Healing and Deep Realizations of Yourself
With this work also come deep realizations of who you are. It’s pretty amazing. Things can simplify, and pretty soon, you truly don’t want to ever go back to the way things were. You may even laugh at the unconscious ego that tried to dissuade you from this spiritual path. And this is wonderful. This is part of claiming who you really are, and you’ve been sitting right here in this moment the whole time.
So I encourage you regardless of if you are in awakening or not to pause and sit when uncomfortable feelings come up. Breathe into them. Let the beauty and love of your inner awareness melt away these feelings and issues. Let your own inner healer do the work that it already knows how to do, and claim the life that you truly want to live.
