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The Emotional Body as a Gateway to Metamorphosis

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Every midwife knows

that not until a mother’s womb

softens from the pain of labour

will a way unfold

and the infant find that opening to be born.

Oh friend!

There is treasure in your heart,

it is heavy with child.

Listen.

All the awakened ones,

like trusted midwives are saying,

welcome this pain.

It opens the dark passage of Grace.

Rumi

I am inviting you this day to begin a process of feeling and engaging with your emotional pain, instead of resisting it…so that you no longer turn your back to the doors that open you up to more joy, love, balance, power, peace and passion and the changes you need to make to BE in alignment your essential authentic self.

How do you know if you are resisting your emotional pain?

  • When “stuff” comes up, you feel isolated, too “sensitive” and like something is wrong with you
  • The areas of your life where you are “stuck” don’t ever REALLY change
  • You become stressed when feeling low, look for a meaning to your pain and excessively analyse it
  • You think witnessing your pain and healing it are the same thing
  • Once you feel emotional pain you enter a downward spiral and/or depressive vortex
  • You think you can get “rid” of feelings without purging them…yeah right! E’motion’s are energy in motion…they need breath sound and movement or they are held in our nervous system and we get sick or stuck. Trust me, Ive had enough sickness in my life and enough organs removed to get this one.
  • You are addicted to temporary alleviators of pain; external medicines, drugs, facebook, food, socialising, keeping busy with work and/or play
  • You constantly search for outside validation and approval and are concerned with what other people think
  • You prefer the heights to the depths, and constantly chase the heights

Any of this sound familiar?  Then please read on.

Pain and pleasure are always going to be in the flow of life, so if we resist pain and attach to pleasure or some ideal version of ourselves, we resist life and cannot come to a place of balance with it. We can only try to control it, which NEVER works. Today I want to offer some support and guidance to anyone who resists their emotional pain and then finds themselves blocked in their life force energy and flow.

Next time you hit the pain body consider actually working toward transforming your emotional state by coming down into your body instead of up into consciousness. It seems safe up there, above the illusion, the matrix, witnessing the pain body or trying to track it, analyse it, without actually engaging it. This is what I would refer to as spiritual bypass rather than deep, embodied work. if we don’t let our shit go, out the body and purge it out of the nervous system, our lives become constipated…and those shifts we would like to see in our lives, never happen.

So how do we do this?  How do we release pain out of the body so something new can take root?

1.  Identify your feelings, validate them instead of resisting them (fair enough Im feeling this way), then FEEL THEM ALL THE WAY by expressing them and releasing them.

How often in life do you stuff down negative emotions or feelings about something going on in your present life or about something that has happened in the past by either going into spiritual bypass, finding an external blame, distracting yourself, turning to addictions, going “up” into the heights to avoid the depths, or keeping busy.  It’s such a common human pattern to keep emotions trapped in our nervous system.  We do it because we are conditioned to do it, and we do it to protect ourselves.  You’ve done it, I’ve done it, our parents have done it, people do it on a daily basis.

The challenge is…

As we continue to stuff things down in our lives, it accumulates and causes more and more problems for us.  We continue to have money problems because we don’t want to address the emotional body which is guess what?  In the same charka as our material abundance – sacral chakra. The sacral chakra is our Center of balance.  It is about Vitality, Fluidity, Flow, Health, Wealth, a strong, relaxed body, harmonious relationships and ACCEPTANCE OF OUR EMOTIONAL BODY.

Emotions need to be released.  Emotion, or energy in motion, needs to flow through us.  I’m not gonna lie… to truly feel and release emotions takes courage and discipline because from such an early age we are taught to shhhhhhhhh…..to not throw tantrums….to stop crying.  Our parents either rush to fix us, shove something in our mouths (dummy or food) or basically just find a way to get us to shut the hell up!  The child who has an emotional release and has the response of those around him being one of non acceptance will grow up to believe that his emotions, particularly anger, should never be released. He may believe that he is never supposed to ever feel anger and will then start altering his behavior to keep his anger hidden. This is just one example of how we alter our behavior in direct response of how our emotions were responded to as we grew up.  And why?  Because our emotional body confronts our parents emotional body!  Which they do not want to look at.  We are raised in a world that has taught us that to feel any pain is somehow not “acceptable” which creates a society that seeks to detach from the symptoms felt and find “instant” relief. This pushes the emotions deeper into body and results in anxiety, stress, and many diseases.

When it comes to expressing and releasing, the importance of feeling and really connecting to what’s going on is critically important.  It’s all too easy to go into emotional release without any real presence, just going through the motions of beating some pillows, screaming and while you can certainly benefit from that since just expressing itself calms the body and nervous system, if you take the time to really breathe into your body, to stay relatively centered and grounded (healthy masculine) your going to feel even better.

Try it now, even just for a minute or two.  Pick a challenge you’re facing.  Identify what you feel exactly.  An emotion, not the story, evaluation or mind construct – JUST THE FEELING.  Anger, rage, sadness, grief, shock etc.

Now try one or more of the following EXPRESS AND RELEASE techniques:

1. Hand Scream (screaming into your hand.  Great for frustration)

2. Pillow Scream (screaming into a pillow.  Great for frustration, anger, resentment)

3. Power Stomping (standing and reaching to the sky while stomping feet into the earth.  This is awesome when you want to get into your power, especially out in nature)

4. Wailing/Grief Ritual (arms back, open chest, cry, wail.  This is when you feel like you are on the cross, why me, cant take anymore, sadness, grief, betrayal, stab in the heart, Im taking on someones pain or a collective pain)

5. Pillow Pounding  (when you are angry try bringing your lower arms onto a pillow in upward forward open motion.  Punching the fuck out of a pillow in a controlled way in other words)

6. Pelvic Thrusting with Pillow (Thrust your groin into a pillow as though you are “entering” the pillow – great for sexual frustration and claiming power back)

7. Tantrum (lay on the floor and throw a tantrum.  Great when you are not getting what you want)

8. Shaking (shock trauma negative energy being thrown at you)

9. Dancing (awesome for everything – imagine you are a hollow bamboo and let the music move you)1.

In order to heal we must release our emotion, for emotion was never designed to be anchored within the body, it was designed to FLOW and move. It is conditioning that tells us to not express, even though releasing is a cleansing and clearing higher frequency. As the frequencies are released and the emotions are experienced then clarity can begin to unfold.  As this happens and you find some relief from the story and stress, continue to pay attention to your emotional experience.  Now its time to bring the witness and chill, but stay centred in the heart and in the body.  We’re a “head-centric” society, trying to think our way out of our challenges, our grief, our fears, our stress – when we bring the body in, through this physical express and release process, when we take the time to FEEL the emotions, that’s when we can see dramatic change happen in our lives.

Whilst I am suggesting you acknowledge and validate the emotions, I am NOT suggesting you relive the trauma of the experience itself. By acknowledging the emotion, validating it, FEELing it and responding to the emotion itself we can begin to release it and heal from it.

2.  Make a choice to change what you don’t like – and stop hurting yourself!  

I know from my own experience that living a lie is the worst kind of hell there is, for you and for others.  Telling yourself you can keep working through this, when clearly it isn’t frigin working!

Get real with what you want and what you don’t want and have the courage to let go of what is no longer serving you or what is no longer in alignment with who you are. Knowing which changes are best for you comes, always, from feeling your feelings.  Some feelings are expansive and some are contractive and while the contractive ones have their gifts and call us deep into the centre of our bodies and souls to feel, they are also there to speak to us.  If a certain person or situation or place keeps creating lots of contraction and not a lot of expansion, you can keep doing the “work”, keep expressing and releasing, witnessing, coming back to love but if you are doing this all the time, the question must be asked:  Is the “work” now to make an empowered choice and let this person/situation go?  This takes enormous courage, much more courage than to hold on to what is familiar.

It is only when we let go of what no longer serves however, that we can truly make room for what does. In other words, If you want to get out of hell, try honesty and see how your life begins to rewire itself in your favour.   For instance, “Fuck Ive been expressing and releasing grief and rage over this dude for years now…hmmmm maybe time to make an empowered choice?”  One of the most hurtful acts you can do to yourself is continually ignoring and putting off dealing with the things in your life that cause you pain, misery and suffering. Some of us are in so much pain and struggle that we’ve learned to cope with it by telling ourselves we just need to keep working on ourselves, by pretending that it doesn’t even exist or that we are ok with it.  By getting real with our emotional bodies, we soon see, no we are fucking not ok with it!!!  I just pounded a pillow and grieved for over an hour…again!…thats the fourth time this week!! It gets you very real…much more real than the witnessing process or disappearing into the heights.  Of course everything is perfect there.  But we live here, in our bodies!!!!  Give the body some respect.  Give the emotions some respect.  They have powerful messages for you if you FEEL them.

It’s up to YOU to change. And to fully commit to that process.  Nobody can do the work FOR you. Not me.  Not God. Not drugs.  Not Facebook.  Not another Healer, book, you tube flick, baby, partner, circle, workshop.  You have to WANT your suffering to end badly enough to let go of what no longer serves.

3.  Accept that change brings discomfort, and resolve to truly just allow that change to bring its own forms of discomfort.

I can assure you, wholeheartedly, that much of the pain you currently live with will dissipate. You simply need to resolve to accept the discomfort that change brings by staying commited to your own evolution. By expecting, accepting and embracing the discomfort of change, for it brings with it gifts that you deserve.  The butterfly cannot emerge from the chrysalis without some discomfort…but when it does emerge….ahhhh what power and beauty in her flight!  Be ok with the cocoon.  By being ok with the uncomfortable, you set yourself FREE.  We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely do admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

4.  Embrace being alone.  Once you embrace solitude, you dont “need” anyone but you can certainly enjoy them…much much more.

I’m not saying you need to go meditate and abandon society, what Im saying is that once you learn to enjoy your alone time,  you also feel the benefits that come with it.  You get more time to recharge, restore, reflect, know your own emotions, express and release without projection, learn what you love to do and….you will be far more productive without any distraction.  My most creative moments are always when I am alone.  Lately, Im so inspired by all the goodness my relationship is giving me, and so inspired by feeling this magical force of true love, that when I am alone I can let the creative juices flow from that inspiration. Taking time to be alone (which can also happen in togetherness but thats another blog) means you become more independent, you learn to be still and silent and you become powerful in all areas of your life.   Embracing solitude does not mean distracting yourself with technology and addictions.  Embracing solitude means truly being with yourself and listening to your body, your wisdom, your intuition and your heart.  And perhaps learning new things  that you enjoy and that life your vibration, like an instrument.  Last night I experienced how we can really drop into our body whilst playing an instrument..and then feel so cleansed! I was playing my beloved’s Yidaki (which is very similar to a didge) that I borrowed from him and I could feel so much emotion being poured into it.  At one point I just let go of the mind completely and I was releasing through sound so much energy from my body.  The vibrations of it pulsed up and down my spine and into the room, the magic of creating music and sound delicately spinning open my heart, the spirit of the instrument dancing with my soul…the whole playing led me on inner journey of discovery.  Wow!  Play music, pick up an instrument, sing, dance…feel the incredible healing power of sound move through your body.  It helps you to feel (great to play music while you express and release by the way), it helps to calm you, boost your energy and SO much more..!! It can even help regenerate nerves and pathways in your brain.  Just laying down and listening to high vibration sound can feel so good and make a difference.

5.  Allow love in as your new medicine – it i the most powerful medicine there is!!!

When its true love, the lovers smile is medicine.  The lovers touch is medicine.  The lovers words are medicine.  The lovers advice is medicine.  The lovers song is medicine…and when you make love….ahhhhhhh, mmmmmm,  you breathe, sound, move…FEEL everything including contraction, including expansion, including pleasure and bliss… and you HEAL.  If that is not your experience then maybe its time to ask yourself, why not?

Sometimes, another persons energy feels like excess baggage that constantly leaves you feeling drained.  This is not the love I am referring to.  This is co-dependency and more like one of those situations I was referring to in point 2.

What I am referring to is a love that eases the load.  That is mutually supportive.  That inspires new possibilities.  That makes your heart open and sing.  Even if your mind has forgotten, a love like this is always remembered in the heart for it is true union.  It is the love nourish you.  It is the love that when brought to the bedroom, makes sex and spiritual practice the same thing.  The body is temple that when used to penetrate or receive penetration with loving presence, transforms emotional energies.  Love and sex heal the body.  Look at anyone after they have made love to a man or woman they adore and who adores them.  We look brighter, we have more spring in our stride, our skin glows and for women, our breasts and faces become filled with some kind of magical youthful voluptuous spirit.  If there was more loving, conscious, joy filled sex in the world, there would be a lot less war and a lot more love!!!!!

In closing, I will say this.  It is difficult to keep facing, feeling, expressing and releasing the stored-up pain that we all carry. It takes courage to let go of relationships situations that no longer serve.  It initiates a true Inner Warrior to keep being real and authentic and in our bodies.  But always remember the butterfly.  Always remember that being in the chrysalis, being with the uncomfortability and the pain/struggle, is a core part of emerging and flying in the world….a core part of truly loving yourself and receiving love – unconditionally! Just as you would never abandon a suffering or frightened child- neither must you turn away from the pain inside you.  Metamorphosis is the butterfly emerging from the dark moist cocoon!!!

Spread your wings and fly!!!!

Best wishes on the magical journey flying Home.

Namaste

Dakini Chantelle

Embodied Awakening Academy

Embodied Awakening Academy