Your Power, Your Tools: Looking Within to Your Inner Healer
What a powerful moon cycle we've been experiencing this past month. I don't know about you, but the full moon on August 26th really hit home for me. It brought up all sorts of feelings. Feelings of uncertainty, difficulty, a lack of power. Needless to say I was all over the place internally. And the hardest part is that, as the days have gone on and we are now nearing the new moon this Sunday, I am still in a daily internal battle between light and dark, feelings of joy and discomfort and pain. There's not much more to it but for the fact that this is life. It flows, it changes, it pushes you in certain directions and then abruptly pulls you back, knocking you on your ass and leaving you questioning everything you've chosen and worked for. Even the decisions you've made about who you want to be, what you want out of this life, and where your priorities should fall. And the jokes on us, because this rising and falling energy cycles through each and every month.
In the past, my greatest fallback in protecting my energy and ultimately finding peace and comfort within has been looking outside of myself for the answers. For the remedy, the thing or person or words that I need to soothe.
Luckily, I have long left behind the days of turning to our all too prominent pacifier, alcohol. In many ways, my own struggles with health have brought on this significant change in my life. I simply reached a point where this was not an option any more. And although it threw me into a tailspin of madly trying to rebalance my body and energy on my own, I would not change that opportunity having presented itself, or rather forced itself upon me, for anything. As a thought leader in manifestation, Lacy Phillips, likes to call it, these "earthquakes" in our lives are there to guide us to our most authentic path when we have fallen out of alignment.
And this is something that I can completely identify with. The universe has time and time again thrown my life what seems to be off course, when in reality, it was really detouring me from the exhausting and inauthentic path that I had adopted as my own. These "set backs" have called upon me to reevaluate my true calling, my true nature, and in many ways, why I have chosen to identify with those things in the first place.
Continuously, these moments of changing course and reestablishing my own innate energy has knocked me into alignment with my own abilities of healing. No, I am not looking to become a healer for others like so many have chosen in the recent health and wellness explosion. But rather that I have found that all healing simply lies within me. Within my own abilities to create space and truly listen to what both my body and my heart are telling me on a daily basis. The cues that are so often left unattended, and that I have ignored so many times before. Within my ability to get quiet in times of need and stress to fully bring acceptance and acknowledgement to what I am experiencing and the triggered feeling it is bringing up. In particularly challenging times in my life, such as now, I am often meeting an entirely new healing entity and strength within myself. Although it may seem foreign or uncertain, I know that there is no one else that can create the softening that I so desperately need in that moment.
The Tools
1. Yoga
As I am sure many of you have heard time and time again, one of the biggest healers in my life has been yoga and meditation. And no, I don't mean the butt busting yoga inspired workouts that help you burn off excess energy. I also don't mean becoming part of an all encompassing yoga community where you get a high each time you buy that monthly membership or show up with your newest workout gear in tow.
I mean creating an uncomfortably quiet and solitary space to sit with yourself, accompanied by only your breath and the release and discomfort that your muscles communicate to you as you go.
This has been so powerful in my life. At this point, I look to yoga and the moment it creates for solitude as a necessity and most fundamental part of my daily routine. Without it, I see that I have difficulty creating that head space as well as physical space between my ligaments and muscles. Even the personal space I need from the outside world.
2. Eating in Presence
Another moment of strength and realignment has been found in my mealtimes. Since I have begun a self inflicted journey of healing, I have started to incorporate a truly meaningful moment of peace for myself around eating and cooking. One of the biggest improvements in my days has been found in sitting quietly at my dining table, sometimes with lit candlesticks lighting my evening and very often alone. This space that I create for my soul and my food, my source of nourishment, is a chance to sit fully in gratitude and presence with my own personal fuel. This really gives new meaning to the term soul food. And the best part is, there is a new chance to give this gift of presence up to three times a day.
It serves as an undisrupted opportunity to check in with myself and realign in whatever way I need in that moment. It has shocked me to find that upon sitting down and closing my eyes to enjoy a few full breaths before my meal, that my body is kinetically in a buzzing state. Something I don't even acknowledge until this moment of space in my day. This practice truly is so grounding and healing and I encourage anyone to try it, even for one day. Hell, even for one meal!
3. Morning Journal
This one has been life changing for my mornings and its impact on the entire day ahead. Everyone says that a sacred morning ritual is vital to success and personal growth, but I am a deep believer that what that looks like should be different for each and every one of us. Something that has become such a profound tool in my morning ritual is that of journaling in my first hours upon waking.
I make it a point to journal first thing in my day, before checking my phone, emails, eating breakfast, or even doing any exercise. This is because it gives me a beautifully gentle moment to check in with myself without judgement or editing. I usually head to the couch prepared with a warm beverage in hand to keep my senses happy. I sit in a silent room, except for the influx of neighborhood gardeners we've been experiencing lately, and free of music or distractions. It has become such a sacred practice to write about how I am feeling right off the bat and I always begin with a big greeting to the new day (each and every entry begins with "Good morning world!"). It then provides some truly valuable information as you head into the flow of your day. It can easily be the guiding force behind your intentions and decisions.
My absolute favorite part of this practice you ask? Even though I don't intend to use my journal as a gratitude journal, which is the recommendation of many, I somehow always return back to pure and authentic gratitude. Even when I have a lot of negative things to write about that may have occurred in the day prior, I always close my day's entry with why everything is still right and true to my life and what I need in this moment. I have become so much more aware and able to acknowledge and communicate the good that enters my life with each challenge. And I get the benefit of doing this before a few years have gone by and I can then look back on my experiences. I believe that this has strengthened my ability to handle the pressures of my life and make more profound, well thought out decisions moving forward. I urge you to try it!
4. Grounding with Mother Nature
Finally, I wanted to add to this list a practice that I am still very much trying to incorporate into my daily routine. But regardless of how often you do it, when you do it may be the key here. I found the idea of grounding or "earthing" this year. It is the practice of connecting with the earth through bare feet or even your entire body, through sand, dirt, grass, the ocean, or the like. The majority of us are so discombobulated from constant EMFs, electromagnetic frequencies or fields, exposure in our daily lives, that we literally need a chance to reconnect with the natural magnetic pull of the earth. After all, we are in constant rotation with her and her relationship to the other celestial entities that circulate with us.
We can become overexposed to EMFs through almost everything in our modern age, from power lines, cell phones, wi-fi signals, electric appliances such as your hair dryer and clocks, and even from our lighting sources. When grounding directly through the bottoms of your feet, you have the ability to absorb the negative ions generated by the earth, thus releasing the positive charge within your body, and bringing balance back to the electric charges within your system. It really is miraculous, and there is no better time to do it than when you are feeling acutely stressed or in a state of change. Have you ever thought of why many will escape to the beach or a park in times of great stress and decision making? It is our instinct as humans to reconnect and ground to find the calm and answers we desire. It helps to recenter your nervous system and the time outside in nature always helps to ease repetitive or negative thought patterns.
So these are my go-to tools and resources that have developed within me. Each one has been nothing more than a practice that I had to choose each and every day and learn to implement into my life and adapt for who I am. And many times, I don't accomplish these things at all. But I know instantly when I am lacking alignment and how to get back to it.
These tools have helped me unload the demands of the world, check in with myself, and foster fine tuning and adjustments that allow me to better understand myself and show up more authentically in this life. And in a way, they have beautifully helped me to refocus my efforts on a more simplistic way of living. To truly treasure the space in between all that we are doing.
How do you guys heal yourselves from within? What practices have you adopted to foster that intuitive relationship with self? I would love to hear in the comments below.
