We call it a practice because it is something that will serve you best when done consistently, and because practicing something makes us skilled at it, allowing us to use skill effectively. Setting up a healing and/or spiritual practice starts with finding and experimenting with tools and methods to see what you have an affinity for, and getting into a routine with them. Regularity is far more important than quantity of time spent, if you do something every day it can be built into a habit. It’s up to you whether you do better with always doing the same thing, or setting a fixed amount of time or not, but making sure you do some sort of practice each day is key. The basic necessary components, as discussed in the previous section, are some for of embodiment/movement, breath work, and mindfulness. These can take many forms, and to them you can add lots of other tools to be used when needed. The purpose of building these skills is so that you can combine them to directly face and release your pain and emotions and experiences stored in your body. Practicing regularly ensures you keep skill building and focus on the path.
Before one can go deep we have to satisfy our basic needs to healing and facing the difficult things, this includes both internal and external safety. Our bodies will send things to the surface that are ripe for processing, but will only do so when it is safe. In this way we do not have access to a lot of things we are carrying until we have the space to handle them. External safety comes from physical security as well as relationships where we are accepted and loved as we are. Internal safety comes from developing self-compassion and self-trust, and deepening our self-awareness. Giving ourselves grace, avoiding judgement of our emotions and thoughts, and learning to actively love ourselves and send love to our present and past selves is the action of self-compassion. We can also connect to an inner guide who can offer us comfort, unconditional love, advice on how to handle the intense moments, a way to integrate into a new self, and more. As we practice we develop a relationship with ourselves, get to know our inner landscape, and in so doing grow self-trust over time. The more we respond to ourselves with compassion, the more we will feel safe with ourselves and trust we will make loving choices for ourselves and others.
The importance of movement and getting in touch with our bodies is because our experiences and emotions are somaticised, or stored in the body. Listening to our bodies through movement allows us to feel where we hold tension and pain, and allow them to communicate with us, sometimes we have to tense further to fully express what is there. Breathing directly works with our nervous system, and learning to watch and control the breath allows us to move it around intentionally. This allows us to regulate our nervous systems directly, and work with pain and intense emotions and memories when they arise. Mindfulness, however we practise it, is a way to develop both awareness and focus. This is needed because we want to get some distance from our own internal processes so we can observe them and not be overwhelmed, and also to be able to bring our focus where we want. We have a natural aversion to pain, so to feel it deliberately takes focus.
Other tools to use, add, or develop, are listed here, and you may research them to see if they are of interest to you.
- Internal Family Systems, or parts work
- Glimmers (opposite of triggers), joy, and wonder
- Journaling and dream journaling
- Play (we learn much more quickly if we use play)
- Asking within and self-inquiry
- Pendulation (moving focus to handle difficult emotions and pain)
- Psychological distancing and story
As we discussed at the beginning, by far the most important element is getting in touch with love, the feeling and experience of it, and isolating it to create safety and to use as a tool and send it to the parts that needs healing. This can be done in many ways, but to begin it an be useful to find a memory that has a strong feeling of unconditional love to it.
Generally you also want to care for yourself in other ways, take it easy, allow yourself to rest, and build your tools and awareness gradually. Experimenting with new things, even simple things like a new recipe, walking path, or artistic medium, can expand your window of tolerance which will be needed for handling the bigger and deeper emotions. As you keep practising you will develop your internal conversation and trust. While you develop your inner world, start watching your external world as well, bringing that same mindful awareness with you and see if you can identify patterns and cycles in your life, both of events but also of your own psychological responses. Over time your ability to discern what is going on for you will improve. As you get deeper into your practise and into your own internal world, try to keep an open mind as you never know what we might find when we are willing to let go our pre-conceived notions.
While we do want to face pain and trauma directly that is ripe and has surfaced to feel, release, and love ourselves out of it, it is best to avoid digging for more things. We. May come across things we are not yet ready to handle, or perhaps don’t have the energy for at the moment. Once experienced we can gently ask ourselves internally about patterns we notice and things that are coming up, returning our focus to things that are presenting themselves without asking for trouble. This is done within a developed relationship with ourselves that must be founded and continued on a basis of care and consent. The world acts as our mirror and will give us ample opportunities to address our stuff if we pay attention.
When we get going for the first time in a practice, or if we are returning after a hiatus, things can seem quite chaotic inside our heads and bodies. It is important to be patient with ourselves and the process, all of this takes a lot of time and consistent effort. Work on developing and maintaining focus and awareness, and the ability to listen within and to your tension and pain. In watching the thoughts and other things that arise, see if you can differentiate between the things that are daily and inconsequential, or relate to random and mundane or unrelated subjects, from the memories, feelings, and thoughts that are recurrent or carry emotional weight. These heavy ones are the ones that are pointing somewhere and asking for your attention to heal, whereas the surface ones are the ones we want to be able to calm so we can attend to the pain.
It may happen naturally that things start to surface and present themselves directly, or they might surface in some other way in your life or emotional state and you’ll feel prepared to go face it. It’s a good idea to check in with yourself to make sure you do feel prepared and have the energy, otherwise you can gently ask for the thing to come back, even at a specific time when you can check in with it again. If you are ready, go for it! Get yourself connected with your body, listen and find, ask what is going on (only if you want to, but even then sometimes you don’t get to find out why something is there) or just breathe into releasing the emotion, validating it and expressing it. Follow up with care, often you will learn something about it, and love yourself or the part of you that has been carrying this. This can include thanking it for doing its job, apologizing for that had to be endured, or acknowledging what had been wrong and agreeing to understand better the next time. Things don’t always dissipate right away, they many take multiple rounds and time to integrate, or the deepest reason has yet to surface. For many things though you can sense right away if there is a shift by recalling the memory again and seeing if it carries the same emotional pull.
Some things that arise will be trickier than others, you’ll likely learn more and more about what works for you in this process and things will still sometimes need new approaches. Try not to judge yourself, but also be forgiving of the habit of judgement, it’s easy to get into a shame loop where we are ashamed of feeling shame or judgement. Try simply to watch and understand how and why it is these feeling exist and allow them to be before responding. Nothing really likes being pushed on or made to change, resistance breeds resistance so up against pernicious things like shame we need to be extra caring. Response doesn’t have to be a request for change, in fact that is very rarely what is needed. Listening to ourselves and coming to understand will naturally pave the path for release and a shift. Don’t worry if things do not resolve right away, this work is very hard, and you may come upon something you thought you’ve dealt with before and feel bad, but that’s normal. We sometimes go in what seems like a circle but is actually a spiral, each round is different and is not necessarily indicative of stuck-ness. If you do feel stuck, try to accept where you are without trying to move and gently ask what is needed. Sometimes upon resolving something you will gain knowledge about yourself, the situation, or even what can seem like sideways wisdom, other times it’s just energy or emotion that releases and is followed by a little peace and relief.
Remember to pace yourself through the specific processes as well as the longer arc of the practice and path, rest and don’t force anything, remember that gentleness, even if insistent and intense, will yield results that violence will not. Overall you will go around and around, watch for progress from a step back rather than getting lost in the non-linearity of each particular segment, which sometimes do feel like they’re all over the place or even going backwards. Doing this work is very hard but it is also incredibly rewarding!