The healing journey isn’t black and white, it’s full of many shades of grey

The healing journey isn’t black and white, it’s full of many shades of grey, revealing themselves one layer at a time 

I used to think I would do this one thing and reach some idea of enlightenment where i would never have to feel pain again. But I don’t believe enlightenment means you don’t feel pain, I feel that it’s more connected to how much we suffer. There’s a saying that goes “pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice”

On my journey I continue to discover deeper layers of the wound that tells me I’m not enough as I am. Just when you think you’ve got to the core of it, you realise you’ve only just scratched the surface. That dreaded feeling of I thought I’d dealt with this, will this ever go away, will I ever heal/release this. 

Now that I work with people supporting them on their journey what I’ve heard time and time again is the desire to get away from pain but pain is inevitable, it’s the suffering that is a choice. 

You see, the emotions you feel, that we all feel are not bad. And they’re not good. Labels are just how the human mind tries to make sense of things but it’s not real. Emotions however are simply energy in motion, they’re designed to move, and they’re temporary, if you allow them to flow that is. 

What I’ve discovered to be the cause of much of the suffering people experience is the relationship you hold with your emotions and the stories you are choosing to believe and hold onto. 

I had a conversation with a client about anxiety and this was incredibly enlightening to me and a real eye-opener to how far I’ve come on my own journey…

Anxiety is not bad, it may be uncomfortable but it’s not bad, it’s not here to hurt you, it’s here to alert you. It’s your alarm system screaming danger danger, the challenge is, when the threat is coming from inside not outside. What I mean by this is that when there are unresolved traumas and emotional experiences from the past, any small thing in your present that may not seem like a big deal can trigger that deep wound, and it’s triggering that wound to offer the opportunity for integration to return you to wholeness.

This part of you inside that’s being triggered is frozen in time as your younger self and feels the same fear, and hurt as it did when it first happened, it doesn’t recognize that time has passed and so to your present self this can cause a lot of confusion. 

I used to struggle immensely with anxiety and panic attacks especially special anxiety and fear around speaking and expressing. Funny how nowadays my work is all about expressing myself and supporting others to express themselves. 

What I realized when in conversation with my client is how profoundly my relationship to anxiety has changed. Anxiety is no longer this bad, horrible, uncomfortable experience that tells me there’s something wrong with me and I’m under attack. It’s now a part of me that is ringing the alarm to alert me of potential danger or threat or something inside that needs my attention.

It’s part of my support system and I would never want to get rid of that part… think of it like having your house burgled and after this experience deciding to remove your alarm system… just doesn’t make sense. Anxiety is here to support you, but it’s your relationship with anxiety and your stories that are keeping you trapped and causing deep suffering, affecting the efficiency of your alarm system. 

So what do you do???

Start listening.

Listen to your body, your sensations, your emotions, the triggers, the stories, all of it.

Don’t wrong yourself or your experience, become aware of it and allow yourself to become deeply intimate with it.

Remind yourself you are safe to be with this and feel this, we numb and distract ourselves when we don’t feel safe, and this often becomes a habitual, automatic, and unconscious way of coping and protecting.

You must learn to feel again and through this process, you will be able to shift your relationship to your emotions and begin releasing the stories which will allow you to move into the integration phase and return to wholeness. 

This is what I guide my clients and students through in a number of ways.

Book a call to explore the best route for you in alignment with your desires and intentions 

In my upcoming masterclass, EMBODY, a 3-Part Series we will be delving into this and so much more, giving you the tools to build inner safety and expand your capacity to feel again so that you can truly LIVE your life.

For if you cannot feel, if you are constantly numbing out and distracting yourself, you’re not really living, you are disassociated from your life, your aliveness and your missing out on so much.

EMBODY offers you a safe space to explore the layers that have kept you stuck in the protection mechanism of numbing and distracting and brings you back into your body, into the here and now, guiding you into deep self-acceptance, love for self and love for life.

You can find all the details and get registered here: https://embody.moniquecarmela.com/masterclass