I got a splinter in my finger the other day and it hurt. I left it alone and didn’t try to remove it because I knew the additional pain that would ensue if I were to perturb it any more than it already was. At times over the next day or so it wasn’t a thought but then I’d bump it and the throbbing reminder of its presence was definitely noted. Such a tiny sliver caused so much disruption to my whole being when I agitated it. I finally decided that the only way to once and for all relieve this discomfort was to intentionally cause myself more pain whilst I had a go at it with needle and tweezers. I breathed through it, endured the intensity of the process, and when it was over felt a multilayered relief wash over me. Whew!

So in order to relieve my pain I had to cause myself more pain. Hmmmmmm. I couldn’t think it away or wish it away or distract it away because until it was removed it wasn’t going anywhere. This is true for emotional splinters as well. In order to relieve the pain and sadness that you wear on your heart and spirit you have to cause these splinters to intensify until they burn out of your energy field. The attachments (triggers, agitations) that you carry throughout your life were caused in the past but remain in your energy field as emotional splinters that control your overall being and when they get bumped by a wrong comment or break up or something else they continue to fester because you have not taken the time to get to the root of the pain/sadness because the only way to do that is by giving it your full attention by intentionally going towards it and nobody wants to do that. You don’t want to feel sadness or pain because you are so afraid that if you do it won’t ever go away and you will stay stuck with that feeling. Newsflash: You Are Stuck With That Feeling And It Controls Your Life. If this wasn’t true then you would not be reactive or fearful or worried about…..at all.

Yes, the reason that you repeat patterns, stay stuck and unhappy, keep searching for the right location, job, car, dress, physique…. is because they are all distractions that you manifest in order to avoid staying with your discomforts. You heal your pains only by feeling them fully until they no longer need to be felt and by noticing what the deeply ingrained roots are to these patterns and by breathing through the whole thing without running or distracting from it. All these triggers and attachments can be traced back to childhood and pre-childhood. I know this now because after Jillie left her body almost 3.5 years ago all my pains showed their full expression at once. Fear of abandonment, being alone, why didn’t I, I should have done something different, who’s going to love me, how do I know I’m good enough, safe, okay, how will I live without her, who am I without her, what am I missing…

I wasn’t the person I am now before Jillie left her body and before I began my process of healing. I was existing on the treadmill of life; fearful, worried, desperate for attention, needing to be loved even though I couldn’t actually feel. Minutes after I stopped them trying to resuscitate Jill I asked my friend Charlie his thoughts about suicide and told me two things: 1- that no feeling is good or bad or right or wrong and that if I find that there are patterns in my life that no longer serve me then maybe I will make a change, or not and 2- that Jill is now in a place of peace and love and joy so why don’t I try to meet here at that frequency while I still have a body. At that point I didn’t hear him but something in me did and I’m grateful, so listen up because I might be your Charlie talking to you right now.

I had spent 43 years in my own way and it didn’t serve my heart or spirit so I began the process of allowing my feelings their full expression without judging them or stopping them no matter how rough they got which included suicidal wailing at the kitchen counter with a butcher knife and laying prostrate on the kitchen floor with dried throbbing lungs from sobbing so much. I began to notice things the more I allowed these waves to have their way. I learned that no matter how much I tried to escape my sadness I could only elude it temporarily. I noticed that my emotions were like wind gusts or ocean waves crashing on the shore; no matter how much I tried to put up my defenses to stop them, they always found their way to me and tossed me about but the interesting part is that when they were done tossing me about I was okay. Bruised and exhausted but okay.

The process of healing emotions is a practice just like joining a gym, it takes commitment and practice. So in order to strengthen your heart/spirit you have to be willing to become completely vulnerable to all your feelings without judging them as good or bad or right or wrong. Vulnerability is not weakness but instead the foundation of a spiritual warrior’s strength because he or she who is willing to feel it all and be okay with it is the one who knows peace. As I allowed my life process to unfold kept reminding myself to stay and breathe, stay and breathe, sip some water, stay and breathe. This practice, along with writing about what I was learning was the key to feeling and healing my emotional splinters and finally allowing all parts of my being to be okay and peaceful.

Wishing you peace, love, friendship, and joy. Namaste :o)

I like the word practice. It means still working at, doing, learning, not done with. The practice of yoga is something I began in 2012. It is one of the top two decisions of my life; the other was Jill who left her body in 2011. I have gotten “good” at yoga and will participate in a teacher training sometime this year so I can begin leading practices. It feels like it is on my path. It’s interesting that anything that is a practice is something that requires daily dedication, mindfulness, heartfulness, awareness, willingness to keep trying, and “failing and succeeding” albeit I often hear in yoga practice that the beauty of falling is getting back up. I agree. Take note of other areas also labeled as practice; law, medicine, religion, karate… I once wrote a piece title “Life’s Yoga, A Practice Of Being” about the dedication required to heal emotional wounds and to learn to let go of patterns that no longer serves you.

Well what I want to know is do you practice life? Do you have a daily dedication to mindfulness, heartfulness, awareness, and non judgment? How is your life? Are you living peaceful and content or existing dramaful and worried? Do you think that by merely changing thought patterns or eating habits or adding exercise or prayer or affirmations that everything will get better? If that were true then the world would be a different place wouldn’t it? A better job or haircut hasn’t done it either, right? There isn’t any external fix for an internal emotional scar and you can’t think your way to happiness and peace. A white knuckle approach to your existence will not create peace and contentment. It will create temporary distractions to your embodied pains and sadness. Do you worry, are you always thinking, is your mind restless and your body always needing a fix? Did you give up one temporary distraction for another; booze for attention, for sex, for yoga, for running a marathon, for religion, for money, for Facebook likes or comments…….? Is your heart and spirit crying for something that you desperately want to fix but can’t seem to find the “answer”? These are all signals from your guides (angels, higher self, god….) that perhaps it’s time to make a dynamic shift from existing to living and that the only way to do so is by beginning your practice of life. Life’s practice is just that, a practice. And it requires your willingness to learn a new way of being, to stop thinking your way through, and instead feeling your way through.

I remember how terrified I was of everything. I wanted to be liked, approved of, noticed, have a lot of money, and most of all not feel all my sadness I had been carrying around my entire existence since birth like a leadened cloak on my back. The thought of feeling my sadness scared me so much that I did everything to avoid it. Drugs, alcohol, sex, work…. anything to not acknowledge my pains that self perpetuated more pain through misdirection. Even in all my years with Jill I wasn’t peaceful and content. I knew great love with her but was unable to truly and healthily participate in our relationship of it because I was carrying all my unresolved baggage around with me and she had hers as well. We are best friends and soul mates and we still had our own life scripts to play out.

After Jillie left her body I became so broken and at the very bottom of my being that I could no longer contain my pains in this vessel (they wanted out) so I went back to drugs and alcohol and suicide thoughts as well for awhile until at some point I decided that I wanted out of these self imposed chains that were killing me. It was at that point that I began the practice of life. It wasn’t neat or pretty or easy in any way and I spent many days and weeks on the kitchen floor sobbing at all my loss and sadness and abandonment. But I will tell you that I would do it all over again if necessary so as to know the peace that is me now. No more worries or fears of any sort. I am like a lily pad on the water; no matter how much the waters churn up and down and around I float without permanent disruption. Everything I write is everything that I practice and know and after a certain point in your own life practice the practice of practice becomes less necessary because the triggers that once held you hostage and misled your life are no longer there. Perhaps you’ll notice this one day yourself.

The practice of life begins with breathing and noticing. Take notice of when your mind is noisy and you are constantly thinking, worrying, or obsessing about something and then you suddenly take a gasp of breath or say just let me catch my breath. When you are in your head you are not breathing. Don’t judge yourself for this, just notice it. By beginning to notice your patterns you can recognize when you are in your head and playing that same old tape and repeating the same pattern in a different color. All your childhood patterns are still present in your adult body and your attachment and reactivity are programmed into your psyche which is there to keep you out of your heart space. Your heart knows love and peace, which is its natural state. But your mind (ego) knows drama and chaos and wants to keep you reeling through your existence. Begin to notice how you make decisions. Do you feel one way but instead listen to the noise in your mind and decide counter intuitively? Perhaps it’s time to begin to feel your way through decisions. Your mind has many choices about something but your heart always knows the one true decision. As I’ve written before, you know when you meet someone and instantly your hairs stand up on your neck literally or energetically but your mind says give him or her a chance, or you need the money, or ……. And afterwards when it doesn’t work out you say “I knew it!” That is it. Heart centered guidance is always the choice because it is in alignment with your guides and the flow of life.

The next time you find yourself having to make a decision stop, pause, take a breath and feel into it. See what your heart and gut are telling you and follow it. Don’t worry about what may or may not be the result and just follow your guidance. This is a beginning to life practice and it stems from your breath which emanates from your heart space. Close your eyes and through your nose slowly inhale and pause at the top and then slowly exhale; three times. Wishing you peace, love, friendship, and joy.

Namaste

Ian J