The following prayer-poem penned by Dr. Clarissa Estes, has been put forth at the United Nations, and presented during a tribal women’s coalition in South Africa, as well as carried into session at the parliament in the Netherlands, and given before U.S. Congressional hearings on welfare reform in the 1990s.

This poem, while written for women, is just as applicable to the suppression of the feminine voice – in both men & women.

 

How to Silence a Woman: Retrieving here Voice . . .

When someone says, “We’re saying the same thing.”
Say, “We are not saying the same thing.”

When someone says, “Don’t question, just have faith”
Say, “I am questioning vato, and I have supreme faith in what I think.”

When someone says, “Don’t defy my authority.”
Say, “There is a higher authority that I follow.”

When someone says, “Your ideas are seductive.”
Say, “No, my ideas are not seductive, they are substantial.”

When someone says, “Your ideas are dangerous”
Say, Yes, my ideas are dangerous, and why are you so afraid hombre o mujer?”

When it is said, “It’s just not done.”
Say. “It will be done.”

When it is said, “It is immature”
Say, “All life begins small and must be allowed to grow.”

When it is said, “It’s not well thought out.”
Say, “It is well thought out.”

When they say, “You’re over-reacting.”
Say, “You’re under-reacting vato.”

When they say, “You’re being emotional.”
Say, “Of course I have well placed emotions, and by the way, what happened to yours?”

When they say, “You’re not making any sense.”
Say, “I don’t make sense, I am the sense.”

When they say, “I can’t understand you when you’re crying.”
Say. “Make no mistake, I can weep and be fierce at the same time.”

When they say, “I cant understand you when you’re being so angry.”
Say. “You couldn’t hear me when I was being nice, sweet or silent, either.”

When someone says, “You’re missing the point.”
Say, “I’m not missing the point, but you seem to be missing my point— What are you so afraid of?”

When someone says, “You are breaking the rules.”
Say, “Yes, I am breaking the rules.”

When someone says, “That’s not practical.”
Say, “It’s practically a done deal, thank you very much.”

When it is said, “No one will do it, believe you, follow it.”
Say, “I will do it, I will believe in it, and in time, the world may well follow it.”

When it is said, “No one wants to listen to that.” 
Say, “I know you have a hard time listening to that.”

When it is said, “It’s a closed system, you cant change it.”
Say, “I’m going to knock twice and if there is no answer, then I am going to blow the doors off that system and it will change.

When it is said, “They’ll ignore you.”
Say, “They won’t ignore me and the 100s of thousands who stand with me.

When they say, “It’s already been done.”
Say, “It’s not been done well enough.”

When they say, “It’s not time yet.”
Say “It’s way past time.”

When they say, “It’s not the right day, right month, right year.”
Tell them, “The right year was last year, and the right month was last month, and the right day was yesterday, and you’re running behind schedule vato, and what in the name of God and all that is holy are you going to do about it?”

When they say, “Who do you think you are?”— tell them who you are… and don’t hold back.

When they say, “I put up with it, you’ll have to put up with it too.” Say, “No, no, no,no.”

When they say, “I’ve suffered a long time and you’ll have to suffer too.” Say, “No, no, no,no.”

When they say, “You’re an incorrigible, defiant, hard to get along with, unreasonable woman, Say, “Yes, yes, yes, yes,

and I have worse news for you yet—

We are teaching our daughters,
our mothers, 
and our sisters…

We are teaching our sons 
our fathers, 
and our brothers

to be just like us.

About Clarissa Estes

Clarissa Pinkola Estés is an American poet, psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist who was raised in now nearly vanished oral and ethnic traditions. Estés is a first-generation American writer and Jungian psychoanalyst. She is the author of Women Who Run with the Wolves.

Dr. C.P. Estés’ is a lifelong activist in service of the voiceless; as a post-trauma recovery specialist and psychoanalyst of 48 years clinical practice with the persons traumatized by war, exiles and torture victims; and as a journalist covering stories of human suffering and hope.

 

Poem Credit

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, How to Silence a Woman: Retrieving her Voice

 

Clarissa’s Work: 

Women who Run with the Wolves: https://tinyurl.com/23dtnzkb

Dangerous Old Woman: https://tinyurl.com/5n8p49j9

Untie the Strong Woman: https://tinyurl.com/5n8wc5th

Joyous Body: https://tinyurl.com/2jteu3mc

 

Introduction

Do your fears stop you from moving forward? Do you feel stuck in a survival mode? Are you always moving homes and lack stability in life? Do you struggle with feelings of not enough?

If you said yes to any of the above questions, you might have a blocked Root Chakra. In this blog post, I will share practical tips on healing & balancing your Root Chakra.

 

The Necessary Ingredient for Root Chakra Healing

Before we deep dive into the work of Root Chakra healing, know that the #1 ingredient you need for your journey is your feelings. You can’t touch, feel, or see your chakras. Your feelings are the only way to get present to chakras & their intelligence.

Feelings are generally not straightforward. What you think and feel about a situation can be diametrically opposite. You could live in a mansion & still feel poor inside. You could have a million dollars in the bank and still not feel enough. You could be a CEO and still feel insecure with those lower in the ladder rung. In all these examples, your feelings get you present to how you perceive the world around you.

If your goal is to heal your Root Chakra, then you want to leave your intellect at the door & step into the world of your feelings. You will quickly learn that chakra healing is not an intellectual process.

 

Functioning of Root Chakra

The Root Chakra is located at the base of the spine in the physical body. It is connected with feeling safe & secure, at a psychological level.

The human body has different auric layers. The first layer of the aura houses the Root Chakra, is also called the Etheric body.

The level of mind connected with this Etheric layer (and hence the Root Chakra) is the Subconscious mind, which acts as a hard drive of all your experiences, from this life, and other lifetimes.

 

How do you know if your Root Chakra is blocked?

The Subconscious mind keeps track of all of your memories, especially those of abuse, shock, trauma, and devastation, not just from your current life but also from other lifetimes.

These memories make themselves known through your chronic fears. If a fear shows up repeatedly, there’s usually a story attached to it. Say you died in a plane crash in your past life (a trauma experience). Perhaps, in your current life, you have a fear of heights or a fear of traveling in planes. This is partly how the past painful memories impact you.

Whenever your physical body is holding onto trauma, it colors how you think. Chances are, you tend to see life through the lens of either a victim or a victimizer.

Trauma memories also tend to polarize how you think and process information. You tend to label circumstances as good or bad, positive or negative, higher or lower, rich or poor, and so on. In other words, you think in terms of extremes (think black & white) & usually, there’s no middle ground.

You can become conscious of your thinking patterns by cultivating self-awareness, and become present to the contents stored in your Subconscious mind.

 

How to visualize your Root Chakra

An excellent visual for the Root Chakra is to imagine the deep, penetrating roots of a giant Oak tree.

Using this analogy, reflect on the areas where you don’t feel grounded. Where are you not standing in your full power? Perhaps there are areas where you are seeking external love, validation, and even acceptance. Again, it’s a feeling question and not an intellectual one. So you want to get present to the painful pockets in your consciousness & work towards shifting the dynamics in these situations to heal your Root Chakra.

 

How you build a strong foundation?

Healing your Root Chakra usually involves building a sturdy base foundation. A couple of suggestions:

Number One, learn how to work through your Fears. That is, acknowledging your fears and taking time to FEEL them without disowning them. When your body holds on to fear, your nervous system becomes dysregulated. Learning to soothe & calm your nervous system is paramount.

In my experience, one of the best ways to heal your fears is by #1 Naming them & then second, identifying their root cause

Another suggestion for healing your Root Chakra is to get present in areas where you don’t feel enough. Where are these beliefs stemming from? Confront them so you can change them for good.

Number three, learn to establish healthy boundaries. Work on building your self-esteem so that you have your back in all situations.

The next suggestion is to actively address your beliefs around insecurity, self-alienation, and lack of safety & security. Confronting situations where you are not self-assertive or when your inner critic takes over. These belief systems will weaken your Root Chakra.

 

Characteristics of an Overactive and Underactive Root Chakra

An integral part of healing the Root Chakra involves understanding when this chakra becomes underactive or overactive.

When the Root Chakra is underactive or blocked, you tend to see life through the lens of a victim. Your predominant thought patterns are thoughts of survival, feeling unsafe, or feeling disconnected from the material world.

An overactive Root Chakra manifests as bully/ bullying energy. You tend to have an intimidating energy. And your predominant thoughts are still colored with fears of survival and not feeling safe & secure.

Ideally, you want your Root Chakra to be in balance. Neither too open nor blocked.

 

Reasons why the Root Chakra becomes blocked?

There are two key reasons that add to imbalanced in the Root Chakra. First is false beliefs around safety & security that get passed on through the generations. The second is embodying distorted masculine energies.

 

False sense of safety & security

In our culture, what we are taught about security means more money, a big house, and material possessions. You can have a billion dollars in your bank account and still feel insecure. Your ultimate security comes from trusting god & spirit. It comes from knowing that your supply is limitless.

 

Wounded Masculine Energies

Regardless of your gender, you have both masculine & feminine energy inside yourself. When the masculine energy becomes predominant, we call that wounded masculine.

Your biological father is the first introduction of masculine energy in your life. Your early interactions with your father forms the blueprint of your masculine energies. If you didn’t receive adequate love & nurturing, then it is highly likely your masculine energies have become distorted or wounded.

Across most cultures around the world, men are taught from a young age to gain power & control, to deny or minimize emotions, or to use intimidation or bullying to get their way. Some religions even normalize violence. Recognize that such beliefs are passed down from one generation to another.

Reflect on your relationship with your biological father, and ask yourself which aspects of that relationship weren’t peaceful? What did you wish was different about your relationship? What are the things you didn’t receive as a child? And most importantly, how can you give those things to yourself?

Because as you start healing the dynamics in this relationship, the inner masculine & feminine energies will come into balance. And you’ll correct the imbalances in your Root Chakra.

 

Practical steps to heal the Root Chakra

• Actively working on addressing any pain, fear, or trauma you have experienced in this life. So you can go beyond it & learn to trust yourself and others again.
• Learning to balance your masculine & feminine energies. This includes inner child healing and healing the relationship dynamics with the primary male figure in your life. You must also commit to bringing your emotions into neutrality.
• Cultivating harmony within & with others. So that you don’t feel threatened/ bullied, or victimized by others.
• Changing your belief system so you are not looking for safety & security in material things but in your connection with god & spirit.
• Consciously developing virtues of goodness that guide the way in your life. These could include virtues of Purity, Generosity, Patience, Kindness, Discipline/Conservation, Diligence, and Humility.
• Consciously working with the positive polarity thought forms of love, safety, gratitude, abundance, ease, and connection with the spirit and material world so you build an inner sense of safety & security.

 

Additional Resources

• GSF Behavior: https://tinyurl.com/mrsf4wz8
• The tree of life: https://tinyurl.com/3922fnrm 
• About Root Chakra: https://tinyurl.com/6ac7cn43
• First chakra: https://tinyurl.com/34mzzvvv
• Three Layers of Ego: https://tinyurl.com/52k8huc5
• Internal Structure of Ego: https://tinyurl.com/2p9rrey6

Introduction

Have you recently had a heart opening? Are you feeling drunk in love? Are you experiencing an overdose of happiness, love, ecstatic all at the same time?

Congratulations! This ‘bliss state’ often marks the first phase of unblocking the Heart Chakra.

What follows the ‘Bliss State,’ is the Dark Night of the Soul. While the first phase feels light, uplifting, expansive, and almost addictive. In contrast, the second phase is dark, gloomy & depressive.

In this article, you’ll learn how to heal your Heart Chakra without getting stuck in the Bliss state.

 

Two Distinct Phase of Healing Heart Chakra

Unblocking the Heart Chakra entails two distinct phases. Most people don’t register or acknowledge this fundamental fact. They equate heart opening with love & light.

Clinging to the ‘bliss state’ is the quintessential rookie mistake. If you reject anything that feels heavy or uncomfortable, you are bound to get stuck in the bliss trap.

During the Dark Night of the Soul, you’ll feel sad, remorse & miserable. You’ll likely get triggered over the small stuff. Your feelings will get hurt. The second phase is ‘dark’ for a reason.

Majority of us are not taught how to embrace our uncomfortable feelings. We usually tend to reject the negative feelings bubbling to the surface. And try to latch on to & recreate the bliss state, either with weed or addiction or finding a new partner.

The dance between bliss & despair derails most people from their spiritual growth & integration.

In my heart opening phase, I became addicted to meditation. In retrospect, my obsession with spiritual growth & evolution was a disguise for escapism.

I believed if I meditated long hours, everything in my life would magically work itself out. I can laugh about it today, but not too long ago, that’s how I operated.

The truth is, I had become ensnared in the Bliss Trap & worse, was unaware of it.

 

The Purpose of the Dark Night of the Soul during Heart Opening

The Dark Night of the Soul is a legit phase in the spiritual journey, and none of us can bypass it.

It serves a greater purpose, of ensuring your spiritual maturity.

At some point in your healing journey, you have to learn to

• Take accountability for your behavior,
• Take responsibility for your life & the quality of your relationships,
• Learn to go beyond surface level emotions,
• Become emotionally balanced & develop a strong mind.

These attributes together made your spiritual body strong, resilient & mature.

When you strengthen your spiritual body, you experience divine love.

 

What happens to Emotions before & during the Dark Night of the Soul?

The two chakras connected with your emotions are the Second & the Fourth Chakra.

Second Chakra = Sacral Chakra = Called the Lower Emotional Body = Home of Lower Emotions.

Fourth Chakra = Heart Chakra = Called the Higher Emotional Body = Home of Higher Emotions.

Lower Emotions include:

• Addiction / Lust,
• Wrath / Rage / Vengeance,
• Greed / Avarice,
• Envy / Jealousy,
• Gluttony / Waste,
• Laziness / Discouragement,
• Pride / (+/-) Self-Importance

Higher emotions include:

• Unconditional Love,
• Joy,
• Forgiveness,
• Kindness,
• Compassion,
• Gratitude

Before the heart opening, the emotional pain in humans is anchored in the second chakra. You are usually unaware of the pain and act it out in your relationships.

During the Dark Night of the Soul, your emotional pain moves from the Sacral Chakra to the Heart Chakra. You start becoming conscious of your emotional pain, and at some level, can no longer deny how you feel.

Until you have opened & healed your heart, one doesn’t know what love is.

In relating to others, we confuse love with lust (which operates out of the Sacral Chakra).

In the beginning stages of your heart chakra opening, consider a simple exercise. See if you can discern if you are experiencing emotions out of the Second Chakra or the Heart Chakra.

To unblock your heart chakra, you must bring the pain stored in the second chakra up into the 4th chakra. And dissolve it through unconditional love & forgiveness.

 

The REAL Reason the Heart Chakra becomes Blocked

The key reason why so many of us live our lives with our hearts closed is heart wounds.

Your heart can become wounded for many reasons, including:

• Previous trauma,
• Pain suffered in childhood,
• Accumulated emotional issues from other lifetimes,
• Our physical bodies also carry core wounds from being born on planet Earth.

Core wounds are abandonment, betrayal, and lack of trust, fear, cosmic rage & unworthiness. How these wounds play out in your life depends on your upbringing, your soul mission & so on.

The bottom line is we all carry wounds in our heart. When you deny or disown these emotional wounds, you close your heart. And you act from a place of woundedness & fear.

A wounded heart is a traumatized heart. Think of a feral cat. She only knows survival.

She has no reference of love, nurture, caring, and belonging. So it’s no surprise why she acts the way she does.

Similarly, a wounded heart becomes cold, cunning, cruel & calculative.

 

Tending to Physical vs. Emotional wounds

When a person has physical heart ailments, they make it a point to see a doctor.

They believe if they take medicines, they will find relief.

Do you tend to your emotional wounds like your physical wounds?

Where do you go when your heart is emotionally injured? What meds do you take to heal the ‘abandonment’ or ‘betrayal wound’?  Denying the existence of the emotional wounds doesn’t make them disappear.

 

Practical Steps to Healing the Heart Chakra

Here’s a list of practical steps you can take to heal your heart chakra.

 

Suggestion #1

Number one is tapping into the sensation of ‘warmth,’ which is like god’s food for a traumatized heart.

Warmth can include spending time, energy & money on things that warm your heart. It means hanging out with real people who nourish your soul.

The two big enemies of warmth are: Conformity & Complacency. So you want to be mindful that they don’t sneak up on you.

 

Suggestion #2

Number two is find people with whom you feel a heart resonance. That is, people with whom you don’t have to put up defenses.

 

Suggestion #3

When the heart is wounded, it’s packed to the brim with pain. Consider creating tiny pockets of breathing space.

Where your heart can breathe deeply, and relax. Overtime, these tiny pockets add up, creating more space & openness in your heart.

 

Suggestion #4

If you want to unblock your heart chakra, you will need to face any buried and unresolved pain in the second chakra. This means, facing your shadow, and addressing emotions of grief, sadness, and despair.

 

Suggestion #5

The mental matrix of the Third Chakra & the Heart Chakra are usually disconnected. That is, the Conscious mind is not aware of the contents of the Astral Mind & vice versa.

You can set intentions to restore communication between these chakras.

 

Suggestion #6

Unblocking the heart chakra means to devote yourself to learning how to be in love. You can’t love others unless you love yourself first.

The bravest thing you can do in your healing journey is to never forget what love feels like. That’s how you preserve the divine spark in your heart. And that’s how you unblock your heart chakra.

 

In Summary

To heal Heart Chakra,

• Don’t deny or disown your heart wounds & commit to healing them.
• Create tiny (atomic) moments of solace & comfort that offer relief to your Wounded Heart.
• Embrace warmth in all shapes and forms.
• Dare to know what pains your heart so you can transmute it.
• Learn how to be in love. First with yourself & then others.
• The bravest thing you can do is to never forget what love FEELS like.

 

Additional Resources

• Traumatized Heart – https://tinyurl.com/mrynv24x
• Healing our Heart – https://tinyurl.com/36cuerf4
• Male Heart Wound – https://tinyurl.com/yckk3a4n
• A 42 yr old follow-up of the Harvard Mastery of Stress Study on Perception of Parental Love by Linda Russell & Gary Schwartz – https://tinyurl.com/5bcnxnn4
• Soul Psychology – https://tinyurl.com/y5wc5r3b
• Multi-dimensionality – https://tinyurl.com/mvuduu7e
• Astral Bliss – https://tinyurl.com/3bjzwk7a
• Preserving our Heart – https://tinyurl.com/5t3r9kab

Books:

• Healing the War between the Genders (The Power of Soul-centered Relationships) by Linda Marks
• Touching (the Human Significance of Skin) by Ashley Montagu
• The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff

Introduction

What’s the secret to maintaining healthy relationships? Why do relationships that start with the best intentions turn sour? Why do people become clingy, needy, and desperate in relationships?

The Chakra that is the home central of your relationships is the Sacral Chakra. And so, any imbalance in the Sacral Chakra will manifest as relationship issues.

Do you know your inner child is intertwined in all your relationships? When your inner child is wounded, the unaddressed pain will unequivocally color your relationships.

The ‘Love’ sculpture, made by Alexander Milov, was first featured in the 2015 Burning Man festival. It represents two humans at odds, but each has an inner child attempting to reconnect with each other.

How do you heal the pain in your relationships? That’s what this article will discuss.

The inner child work will help you change your relationship dynamics for the better. And it will also help in healing your sacral chakra.

 

Visual for the Sacral chakra

Imagine your Sacral Chakra’s structure resembles the internal layers of Earth. The four main layer of Earth’s structure are crust, mantle & the core.

Using this analogy, let’s say the outer layer of Earthrepresents emotions. The mantle represents relationships with others. The outer core represents sub-personalities & archetypes. And finally, the inner core of represents the inner child.

There are other themes connected with the sacral chakra. But for the context of this discussion, let’s stick with a basic model and visual.

 

What is Inner Child?

Your inner child is the child aspect inside you.And it forever stays with you, no matter which stage of life you are in. The inner child is usually associated with your spontaneity, creativity, intuition & curiosity. 

The inner child part includes all the stages of child’s life – from newborn to infant, toddler, preschooler, school age, teenager, and young adult.The first seven years are the most critical. This is when your core relationship patterns get formed.

Your inner childholds the blueprint of all your relationships. That includes how you relate to yourself, others, and members of the opposite sex.

 

What the Inner Child Needs to thrive?

Unlike animals, a human child can’t survive on their own.  So it makes most sense to talk about the inner child in the context of the parent-child relationship. Children are most vulnerable in the first seven years of their life because they are dependent on adults for their survival.

Like adults, children also have Physical, mental, emotional & spiritual needs. At a physical level, a child needs a safe house, enough food, and clothes so it can grow. At a mental level, a child needs access to books & education to grow at an intellectual level. At a spiritual level, a child needs a connection with the divine & higher power that can guide it through its life.

Let’s say growing up, you didn’t have enough toys, or books. Chances are you’ll have a visceral memory of things that were lacking; mainly because these are tangible things.

 

The Emotional Needs of Inner Child

The emotional needs encompass the need to be loved, seen & heard, acknowledged & validated. From a social standpoint, a child needs to know they belong to a family & community.

When the emotional needs go unmet, they are not easy to discern.

When the emotional needs go unmet, the inner child becomes wounded. Same for when a child experiences abuse or trauma, especially in the first 7 years.

 

What do these inner child wounds look like?

Abandonment, Lack of Trust, Guilt, Neglect, Rejection, Betrayal, Injustice, and the like.  

At an energetic level, these emotional wounds weigh you down. They keep you stuck at an unconscious level in destructive patterns and behaviors.

Abandonment wound colors the people you partner with and choose. You’ll likely to choose emotionally unavailable people. Or you’ll end up in codependent relationships.

When there’s an inner lack of trust, you’ll need a lot of external reassurance & validation. The guilt wound will ensure that you ‘feel’ that anything that goes wrong is your mistake. The neglect wound leads to low self-esteem. Together, these emotional wounds make you feel & act like a victim.

 

Inner Child & Relationship Blueprint

Your inner child holds the blueprint of your relationships. Including your self-relationship. And as you can imagine, this blueprint gets formed in the first seven years of your life.

When your inner child carries emotional wounds, the relationship blueprint becomes distorted. This is the key reason why you keep replaying old patterns in your partnerships.  

 

How the Inner child gets your attention?

Your wounded inner child gets your attention through:

• Through emotional dysregulation,
• By immaturely reacting in stressful situations
• By choosing unavailable partners,
• By putting on different personalities depending on the situation,
• And by creating chaos in your relationship. (both in familial and platonic relationships). 

Your inner child will go to all these lengths to meet its unmet emotional needs.

 

Case Study: Dr. Gabor Mate

Dr. Gabor Mate is a world-renowned expert on addiction. In his bestselling book ‘The Myth of Normal’ he shares a personal anecdote.

One time he was flying home to Vancouver from a business trip, and expecting his wife to pick him up from the airport. When his plane landed, he received a text, ‘Sorry! I haven’t left home. Do you still want me to come?’ He messaged back, ‘Never mind,’ and decided to a take a cab home.

Dr. Gabor shares how this insignificant event triggered him. So much so, he didn’t speak with his wife for the next 24 hrs. As you can imagine, this wound goes back to his childhood.

Dr. Mate was born in Hungary in 1944 during the World War II. When he was a year old, his mother gave him to a total stranger in the street. Because she didn’t know if she’d be alive the following day.

Dr. Gabor say this one incident birthed a deep sense of abandonment. Of not being wanted in the world.

He says, he doesn’t have a conscious memory of this event because the part of the brain that stores long term memories is not fully developed in babies. And yet, the emotional implicit memory of abandonment lives deep in him.

 

Big & Small Trauma of Inner Child

People often assume that the inner child work is for a select few. For those who have experienced abuse, violence, divorce or loss of a parent in their early life. Yes, these are traumatic events that you only wish no child has to experience.

But ordinary events that are less memorable but hurtful can be negative impact you.

For example, being bullied by your peers, or repeated harsh comments from a parent. Or the lack of emotional connection & attunement with nurturing adults.

These experiences are obviously not stressful & yet, can still cause disconnection. We never equate our emotional needs with air/water/food/shelter. But what-if our emotional needs were as important as our survival needs?

 

The Journey to healing the Inner Child

The journey to healing your inner child starts with befriending your emotions. Because that’s the only way your inner child can communicate with you. It can’t pick up a phone and explain why it’s hurting.

Where there’s charged memory, there you’ll find heightened emotions. When you deny your emotions, you are keeping the memory of painful experiences intact. Learning to work with your emotions is non-negotiable for inner work.

When I first started working through my emotions, the one emotion that came up the most was anger. And I often wondered if I had an anger problem. At that time, I wasn’t aware of the inner workings of Sacral Chakra. Turns out, I didn’t have an anger problem. I had a wounded inner child problem.

 

Wounded Inner Child and Dysregulated Nervous System

Children can’t fight with adults. There is no way a five-year-old can overpower a thirty-five-year-old.

When the instinctual response of fight or flight isn’t an option, what’s left is the freeze response. Their nervous system becomes frozen in time.

When the nervous system becomes dysregulated, it becomes challenging to stay present. Occupying the body means reconnecting with the old emotional wounds.

Most prefer to numb their pain with distractions. Including social media, porn, food, video games, etc.

 

Why Inner Child healing takes time?

Reconnecting with your inner child means reassuring the child part in you that you will not abandon, ignore, hurt, dismiss, or devalue him like his biological parents.

It is high likely you treat your inner child like your parents treated you. Yeah, that’ll have to change.

Spend time with your inner child. Shower him with unconditional love and your inner child will respond.

 

Reconnecting with Inner Child

• You connect with your inner child by doing things you enjoyed as a kid.
• Reflecting on your adult patterns and discerning your unmet emotional needs.
• By learning to re-parent your inner child. By ensuring your physical & emotional needs are always met. By learning to be kinder with yourself, especially on rough days.
• By engaging in activities where you get to express your emotions. For example, painting, singing, coloring, doodling, or playing an instrument can help you channel your emotions.
• If you are a beginner to the inner work, consider working with a Counselor or a Somatic therapist.

 

The Gifts of the Inner Child Healing

When you commit to healing your inner child, the quality of your relationships will exponentially improve. It will become easier to let go of dysfunctional people. You’ll find it effortless to communicate your wants & needs to others.

Best of all, you’ll get to experience healthy and progressive relationships with others.

You might wake up one day and realize, you were never the problem. Or you are not afraid anymore. And, most of all, you are worthy of the same love & kindness you show others.

 

A Gentle reminder

The best advice I could offer is healing your inner child is a feeling phenomenon. You can read thousands of books and educate yourself. And yes, that’s a great start. But implementation is where the runner meets the road.

Your inner child lives in the Sacral Chakra. The only language it understands is the language of emotions.

And this emotional work you can’t outsource. Only you can heal your soul and it begins with healing your inner child.

 

In Summary

• Your Sacral Chakra is the home of your relationships.
• Your Inner Child holds the blueprint of all your relationships. And it gets formed in the first seven years of your life.
• When the emotional needs go unmet in childhood years, your inner child becomes wounded.
• Healing your inner child means acknowledging the unmet childhood needs. Also, addressing any pain/trauma you might have experienced.
• When you commit to healing your inner child, your relationship dynamics will change. And so, you will also heal your Sacral Chakra.

Do you want to access higher chakras with ease & grace? Do you want to evolve spiritually? Are you committed to your personal growth & transformation? Are you willing to put in the inner work to cultivate a high self-esteem?

If you said yes to any of the questions, you must commit to healing your Lower Chakras.

The three lower chakras form your energetic foundation. When you have a strong foundation, you can easily weather the storms & the vagaries of life. You become like a magnificent oak tree that knows its place in the world.

 

Introduction

Working with the lower chakras, is like embarking on the hero’s journey. Once you say yes to the adventure, you go through a series of predictable events. Such as,

• Diving into the unknown (world of your psyche),
• Enduring a period of trials & tribulations,
• Discerning friends from foes,
• Slaying your demons, 
• Finding your treasure,
• And then you return home (as an evolved human).

The hero’s journey from start to finish is at the heart personal growth & transformation. And it also forms the foundation for healing your lower chakras.

 

 

What are the Lower Chakras?

The lower chakras are Charka 1, 2, and 3. That’s the Root Chakra, the Sacral Chakra & the Solar Plexus Chakra respectively. Together, these three chakras shape & color your human experience.

The mind matrices connected with the three lower chakras are the Subconscious mind, the Instinctual mind, and the Conscious mind. Collectively, these three matrices form your personality. As in who you think you are in the world. Another common synonym for personality is the ego.

Every single human on this planet has an ego. And that ego is made of three layers (Subconscious mind, the Instinctual mind, and the Conscious mind). Of these three layers, the conscious mind is what you are usually aware of – b/c you live in the 3d reality. But the other two mind matrices – not so much.

 

The First layer of the Ego

The first layer of your ego is your SC mind. It acts like a hard drive of all your experiences. From your first kiss to buying your first car to losing a loved one, every single memory of your life, good or bad, is stored on this hard drive. The happy memories are a non-issue but the unpleasant & painful ones often impact your downstream

 

The Second layer of the Ego

The second layer of your ego is your Instinctual mind – it’s the HQ of your instinctual drives & addictions.

Think of your instincts as that which you do w/o thinking. An example would be the instinctive drive to procreate or to soothe a crying baby. These Instincts are inbuilt. You are born knowing them.

Then there are learned instincts, which we pick up from our environment, especially during/ after unpleasant experiences. For example, a learned instinct would be to retract around a bully, after being beaten up at school. Or to minimize yourself around those who are more wealthy or successful. Or the instinct to dissociate when feeling overwhelmed. Or you become defensive if someone challenges your authority.

Between the ages of 0-7, a child’s brain isn’t completely developed. And thus, depends on its parents for its physical, mental, emotional & psychological growth. Say, during your childhood years, your home environment was less than peaceful. Chances are you likely developed unconscious instincts to protect yourself. And to this day, in moments of stress, you still might be acting out those responses.

The bottom line is that your ego’s #1 job is your survival. And if that means keeping you dissociated/numb/ stuck so you can function in the world & feel safe – then so be it. The only way to change your instinctual responses is by addressing the painful memories stored in this hard drive.

If for any reason these painful memories are not cleared, then at an unconscious level, you start putting up emotional walls. This is how you start shutting people out. When the pain stored in the subconscious mind is not cleared, your ego will create ego defenses to minimize this pain.

Over time, these emotional walls morph into persistent negative thoughts & emotions that you simply can’t brush off. Meaning when you engage with the world, your predominant feelings regardless of the situation are, unworthiness, shame, guilt, betrayal, enslavement, anger, etc.

 

The Third layer of the Ego

The third layer of your ego is your Conscious mind. This is generally – who you perceive as the self or a personality. If you pay attention to your thoughts, you’ll know which type of thoughts you entertain. Are those thoughts happy, sad, or depressive thought?

When you have built emotional walls, it also affects how you think. Your default thinking becomes colored with envy, jealousy, laziness, discouragement, greed, & the like. And this way of thinking is further bolstered when you judge yourself & others.

Thoughts & behaviors go hand in hand. When you struggle with negative thoughts, you are bound to struggle with negative behavior. If you over indulge in negative behaviors, a demonic spirit can attach itself to your aura. When you have too many negative thoughts & emotions, it is very easy for the mind to form addictions.

 

Case Study: Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry, the actor who played ‘Chandler Bing’ on Friends, struggled with a lifelong addiction to drugs & alcohol, something he candidly shared in his best-selling book, Friends, Lovers & the Big Terrible Thing.

Looking at Matthew’s life through the backdrop of the 3 layers of ego, at a conscious level, his behavior was telling of an addict. He couldn’t help but drink & take drugs even if that meant sabotaging his relationships, his career, and everything else in his life.

But how did Matt get this way? He sure wasn’t born an alcoholic. Then what triggered this behavior?

In his book, he shares many traumatic childhood incidents. For example, his parents divorced when he was only nine months old, and he felt his father had abandoned him & his mother.

Then at age 5, he flew from Canada to Los Angeles to see his father but did so, without any adult oversight. He share this event made wonder if he was alone.

When he was only a few days old and wouldn’t stop crying, his parent took him to a doctor who put him on Barbital (which is a narcotic & a sedative).

In addition, he talks about constantly having to fight for his mother’s attention. He shares feeling lonely as a child. Feeling as if his job was to entertain others & take care of others.

Now imagine all these painful memories, including the happy ones, of course, are stored in the first layer of his ego, his Subconscious mind.

Based on his childhood experienced, his core emotional wounds in the Instinctual mind – were abandonment & feeling unwanted & unloved. Perhaps, his early exposure to Barbital, primed his brain for addiction. But what flipped that addiction switch was the lack of emotional nurture growing up.

Throughout his book, Matt shares stories ranging from auditioning for Friends to dating Julia Roberts to filming with Salma Hayek and about the time he wanted to take on Tennis professionally. However, his emotional issues remain the same.

• I’m not enough.
• I am too needy.
• I need love but I don’t trust it.
• If I show you the real me, you might leave me.
• Before you can reject me, I will reject you.

It wasn’t until he addressed the painful memories (in Layer 1) that he found respite. But that relief came after decades of enduring physical, mental, emotional and spiritual abuse.

A lesson we can all learn from Matthew Perry’s life is, if we are to successfully tread the hero’s path, then we must get a handle on our addictions. Else they will constantly undermine our efforts for personal growth & evolution.

 

What constitues Addiction?

We generally tend to limit the scope of addiction to drugs, alcohol, food, and sex. But it is just as easy to become addicted to social media, fame, success, and money, plastic surgery, getting tattoos & even traveling. This list of addiction is endless in the 21^st century.

 

The Secret to healing your Lower Chakras

In our modern world, most of us are cut off from our feelings & emotions. But what happens when you lose the ability to feel? You can’t access the first two layers of your ego mind (Subconscious mind and Instinctual mind). In other words, you can’t get to the root cause of your pain & suffering.

This is also why people get stuck in their negative thoughts because the keys to their freedom are tucked away in the first two layers of their ego mind.

The hero’s journey through the underworld is about deep diving into the emotional realm. That’s how the hero gains awareness of the content stored in the first two layers of his ego mind. And so, if you want to complete this journey, you must make your emotions your allies.

Perhaps the billion-dollar advice I could share to heal the lower chakras is that anytime you encounter negative thoughts, beliefs, emotions, or behaviors, ask yourself, but why?

• But why do I think this way? Feel this way?
• But why do I sabotage my efforts?
• But why do I reject people?

Finding the answer to these questions is at the heart of healing the lower chakras.

 

Personal Experience with healing Lower Chakras

When I first learned about chakras, I was awe-struck by the higher ones & don’t judge me, but felt disdain for the lower ones. I so badly wanted my higher chakras to fully open. Because I thought it would put an end of my suffering. It’d magically resolve all my problems.

In retrospect, what I really wanted was to find ways to escape my reality. As you can imagine, my delusional thinking didn’t last long.

Because after years of a consistent meditation practice, I couldn’t fathom why:

• I still had deep self-esteem issues,
• I struggled in my relationships,
• And I didn’t know how to handle my intense emotions.

The truth is opening your higher chakras doesn’t exempt you from your responsibilities. You still have to live on this planet, pay your bills & interact with the systems set up here.

Learning to work with the lower chakras has been one of the most fulfilling and humbling experiences in my life so far.

 

In Wrapping up,

The lower chakras form our energetic foundation. And if your foundation is weak, you won’t be able to sustain higher levels of consciousness.

Think of your lower chakras as the foundation of a skyscraper. The taller the building, the deeper & stronger the foundation it needs. For example, the Petronas Towers in Malaysia are 452m high. And guess what? Its foundation is 120 m deep. That’s roughly 26% of its height.

I hope by now you realize the importance of healing your lower chakras, not just for personal growth but also building your energetic foundation.

 

Additional Resources

• Personality Matrix: https://tinyurl.com/bbv6vhz6
• On the 3 layers of ego: https://tinyurl.com/mve5pc6b
• Dissolving the 3d Personality: https://tinyurl.com/ms6dh4d6
• PTSD in Combat Veterans: https://tinyurl.com/uf374mjz

 

Videos to Watch

• On healing the Root Chakra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wln0KTqGKhc
• On healing the Scaral Chakra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbZIh7OdBHY
• On healing the Solar Plexus Chakra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znnxL5DAkLU

Do you wish you could tap into your intuition at will? Wish you could predict the future like a world-renowned psychic? Do you wish you intuitively knew how to navigate your life? Are you sincere in your desire to develop intuition? Are you willing to commit to developing your intuition?

If you said yes to any of the questions, you are in for a treat. In this article, I am sharing practical tips on developing your intuition. And, I am also sharing the story of how I went from being highly intuitive as a kid, to almost losing this skill and then developing my intuition again.

 

 

My Story

As a kid, right up to high school, intuition came natural to me. At that time, I didn’t know it as intuition. Strange as it may sound, I was one of those kids that talked to themselves. For example, whenever I felt stressed during my school exams, I’d intuitively calm my nerves by talking to myself.  No one taught me how to comfort myself, but I knew.

In college, I studied physics. I was trained to be analytical, and I was putting analysis to everything I was doing. Even to things and situations where no analysis was needed or required. College is the time when my intuition took a serious hit.

Upon graduation, I thought the #1 skill that would help me succeed and thrive in life was my ability to analyze. And boy was I wrong. Fast-forward, life happened. And despite following my very ‘logical’ approach to decision-making, I felt miserable. On paper, my life looked great and yet, I was the unhappiest I had ever been. Worse, I didn’t know the root cause of my unhappiness.

In retrospect, at that time, I was living a life disconnected from my heart & my intuition. And overtime, I turned things around. 

People usually advise, just follow your gut. But as you and I know, it’s easier said than done. Even when we know our gut response, we often lack clarity or courage to act upon intuitive guidance.

 

Practical ways to develop your intuition

Suggestion #1 (Educate yourself)

Most analytical people struggle with intuition, and ironically it’s these folks who want to develop their intuition the most. Highly analytical folks also have an overdeveloped mind. If you are mentally overactive, then the best way to teach your mind about intuition is to educate it. Teach your mind how intuition will improve the quality of your life & well-being, and then your mind will surrender.  

I taught my mind why it was necessary to develop intuition.  The book that helped me see intuition in a new light was ‘Seth Speaks’ by Jane Roberts. ‘Seth Speaks’ was first published in the 1960s and is as relevant today as it was back then.

Reading this book ‘normalized’ intuition for my over analytical mind, and I understood that intuition is not a skill reserved for psychics or a mighty few. Every single human has can develop their intuition. I was enamored by what I learned from this book that I decided to put it into practice.

 

Suggestion #2 (Experiment)

I set out a one-week challenge to follow my intuition.

The way I went about my experiment was, I promised myself that for one week I’d follow my intuition, aka, my inner voice.

By the end of my experiment, I was shocked at how effortless my week went. I felt as-if an invisible force was guiding on a moment to moment basis, telling me when to wake up, sleep, yoga, or go shopping. I didn’t have to do any thinking; I would show up & things would work out, miraculously! Almost to a point, it felt spooky.

You would think that given the results, I would continue my experiment. Right? But I couldn’t. The reason was my analytical brain couldn’t fathom how my intuition knows so much? It is hard for the analytical mind to comprehend that when we are dealing with intuition, there is no thinking. There is instant knowing. You just know it in your heart. We all have had that feeling.

 

Suggestion #3 (Step aside your logic)

If you want to develop your intuition, understand that intuition is unlike logic. 

Logic dictates if you study, say, engineering for four years. At the four years, you will be an engineer. With logic, there is a well-defined start and a finish line. The path between the start and finish line is clearly laid out. But when you follow your intuition, there is no guarantee if you will reach the finish line. And that makes people uncomfortable. Most of us, crave certainty in life. We are afraid of the unknown.

 

Suggestion #4 (Go all in)

When I started working on developing my intuition, I’d only follow & trust my intuition only when it was convenient. Like for mundane activities, I would act upon on intuitive guidance right away. But when it came to making big decisions, like changing jobs, moving cross-country, I’d hesitate to trust my intuition. Because what my intuition was asking me to do triggered a lot of fear and anxiety. And at some level, I wasn’t ready to make that leap of faith.

 

Suggestion #5 (Developing a relationship)

In my experience, one of the best ways to develop your intuition is to develop a relationship with it. And it is a slow process. It didn’t happen overnight. Like any relationship, trust has to be earned.

That’s how my story went.

It felt as if my intuition had to gain the trust of my analytical mind. And it wasn’t too challenging. Every time I went against my intuition, things didn’t work out. After many painful outcomes, I finally understood that my intuition is always working in my favor. I needn’t be scared of it.

And this realization was the turning point in my journey in developing intuition.

 

Suggestion #6 (Discern the voice of ego vs. intuition)

I often get asked – how do you know what’s an intuitive nudge & what’s not? I know it’s my intuition talking when I keep hearing the same message for a few days in a row.

For example, when it was time for me to change my career, my intuition kept giving me the same message for months! I didn’t want to hear this message because it triggered all sorts of fears in me, such as, fear of the unknown, fear of how I’d support myself, etc.

 

Suggestion #7 (Acknowledge your fears)

Most people know in their hearts what actions we need to take to move forward. What stalls us is the fear of the unknown and the what-if’s. What will happen if I leave my job? I hope I can pay my rent. Could I pay my loans?

We get stuck because we don’t know what awaits us on the other side of a new experience. And so, if you want to develop your intuition, you must commit to working through your fears.

 

The gifts of developing intuition 

I am forever grateful that I took time to develop my intuition because it has infinitely improved the quality of my life and relationships, in general.

A while back, I got an intuitive nudge to take time away from LinkedIn.  Logically, this made no sense. But when my intuition kept sending me the same message, I surrendered. And a week later, I got a new project that left no bandwidth to create content for LinkedIn.

Understand that you won’t always know the ‘why’ behind your intuitive guidance. Overtime, the reason will be revealed to you. For the interim, you got to trust that inner voice. Trust that it knows the path and is leading to your highest potential. That’s the key you must remember when developing your intuition.

 

Summary

Here’s a brief summary of practical ways to develop intuition.

• Educate yourself on what intuition is and how it works so that your over-analytical mind will not challenge your intuitive impulses.
• Take on a 7-day challenge on listening to your intuition. Keep a journal on how things unraveled for you.
• Learn to step aside your logic when learning to trust your intuitive guidance.
• I challenge you to dare to trust your intuition even when it is not convenient. Start with small decisions and gradually build up.
• Build a relationship with your intuition so that you can trust and act upon your intuitive guidance, no matter the situation.
• Learn to discern the voice of your ego vs. the voice of your intuition. Pay attention to how they differ. Do you have a different quality?
• Acknowledge your fears. Write them down. The more you can pinpoint your fears, the easier it will be to address and overcome them.

 

Additional Resources

• Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts

We are much likely to commit to inner change if we understand the Why. In this post, you will learn 101 reasons for why you must commit to mastering your emotions. If some of the reasons feel out there or a bit woo-woo, that’s understandable. My only request is to please keep an open mind.

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us – Albert Einstein

 

1. Master your emotions to develop a healthy self-esteem so you can thrive in life
2. Master your emotions to cultivate self-awareness
3. When you master your emotions, you can access inner stillness and inner peace on demand
4. Master your emotions so that you can heal & nurture your inner child
5. Master your emotions to heal the blockages & imbalances in the Sacral Chakra
6. Master your emotions so that you can access the negative memories lodged in your Root Chakra
7. Master your emotions to hone your creativity
8. Master your emotions to heal the wounds of betrayal, abandonment, disappointment, lack of trust & self-doubt
9. When you master your emotions, it helps you clear the negative thought patterns lodged in the Solar Plexus Chakra
10. Mastering your emotions helps you clear the intergenerational trauma in your genetic line
11. Master your emotions so that you can cultivate & trust your intuitive guidance
12. Mastering your emotions enables you to heal the polarity archetypal thought forms. Such as, victim/victimizer, master-slave, famous-insignificant, greater than – less than, etc.
13. Mastering your emotions helps you to heal the wounded masculine & feminine energies inside yourself
14. Master your emotions so you become inner directed. So that you are no longer seeking approval or validation from others
15. Master your emotions to cultivate a beautiful inner world that nourishes & sustains you
16. Mastering your emotions assists in cultivating discernment
17. When you master your emotions, you start to live your life from a place of ‘want to’ and not from ‘should’ or ‘have to’ 
18. Master your emotions to heal your ancestral lineage (also called the 777 healing). Wherein when spiritual work has a positive impact on 7 generations – forwards, backward and diagonal
19. Mastering your emotions helps you cultivate self-acceptance
20. When you master your emotions, you start trusting your own mind. You start trusting your own thoughts, perceptions, insights & guidance. Above all, you start trusting yourself
21. When you master your emotions, it helps you live life from a place of engaged detachment
22. Mastering your emotions helps you harmonize the working of your three minds. That is, your conscious, subconscious and super conscious mind
23. Mastering your emotions helps you to heal and align the workings of your four bodies. That is, your physical body, mental body, emotional body and spiritual body
24. Mastering your emotions empowers you to speak your truth
25. When you master your emotions, you move from self-sabotage to success with ease & grace
26. Mastering your emotions will help you in transmuting your fears and failures
27. When you master your emotions, you start embodying stoicism
28. Mastering your emotions will help you heal your father issues. That is, you will get to heal the root cause of anxiety, perfectionism, and lack of stability
29. Mastering your emotions will assist you in healing your mother issues. That is, you’ll get to the root cause of lack of self-love, self-doubt, and self-confidence
30. Mastering your emotions helps you release your subconscious blocks for good
31. Mastering your emotions boosts your telepathic & clairvoyant abilities
32. When you master your emotions, you get to heal your masculine and feminine energies
33. Mastering your emotions will enable you to change your brain waves on demand. You’ll know how to move from a hyper alert state (beta waves) to a more relaxed state (alpha & gamma waves)
34. Mastering your emotions will help in releasing blockages from your body. Often the blockages in the physical body stem from emotional imbalances
35. Master your emotions to heal your DNA. When you change your attitudes, beliefs, thoughts & actions, your DNA evolves
36. Master your emotions so you can make sense of the dreaded ‘dark night of the soul’ experience
37. Master your emotions to establish healthy boundaries (with yourself & others)
38. Master your emotions to change your relationship dynamics & learn relationship mastery
39. Mastering your emotions will assist you in becoming a wise parent to your inner child
40. Master your emotions to heal your physical body. That is, healing your body’s organs, bones, ligaments, tissues and any/all physical ailments
41. Master your emotions so you can hone your knowingness
42. Master your emotions to tap into your highest destiny potential in this life
43. Master your emotion to attune yourself to your soul’s purpose & mission
44. Master your emotions to transmute your lower emotions
45. Master your emotions so you can communicate with your body’s innate intelligence
46. Master your emotions to develop high emotional intelligence (EQ). Your high EQ will bolster your growth in every area of your life
47. Master your emotions to attract progressive, harmonious & loving relationships. That is, you attract soul relationships and not karmic relationships
48. Master your emotions to heal perfectionism
49. Master your emotion to experience safety & security in your relationship with god. Versus finding safety in materialistic things
50. Master your emotions so you can thrive despite your inner critic
51. Master your emotions to learn how to let go & surrender
52. Master your emotions to heal your mind so that it is a place of ultimate comfort
53. Mastering your emotions will help you access parallel lifetimes and realities
54. Master your emotions to heal your physical body at an etheric & blueprint level
55. Mastering your emotions will help you heal your addictive tendencies
56. Master your emotions to uncover & heal the root of unworthiness
57. Master your emotions to cultivate neutrality in your thinking & emotions
58. Master your emotions to open & balance your chakras
59. Master your emotions to align with higher virtues and the spirits of Christ in your body, mind & spirit
60. Master your emotions to heal any/all trauma experienced in this life and any other lifetime
61. Mastering your emotions will help you become spiritually activated
62. Master your emotions to birth advanced souls on planet Earth
63. Master your emotions so you raise children with high IQ and EQ
64. Master your emotions to release cultural, religious, familial and environmental overlays from your mindset
65. Master your emotions so you can cultivate sustained self-love
66. Master your emotions so you can discern the root cause of your emotional pain & suffering
67. Master your emotions so you know how to individuate and stand in your own power
68. Master your emotions so that you can experience unconditional love
69. When you master your emotions, you build the emotional resilience muscle
70. Master your emotions so you can bounce back from setbacks
71. Master your emotions so you know how to exit the planet peacefully. So that when you drop your body, you are no longer stuck in the lower realms
72. Master your emotions to resolve compatibility issues from your relationships
73. Master your emotions so you are not rattled by stress, fear or anxiety
74. Master your emotions to sublimate your ego mind to the divine mind
75. Master your emotions to cultivate authenticity and authentic self-expression
76. Master your emotions to develop HSP (higher sensory perception)
77. Master your emotions to learn the language of the heart
78. Master your emotions to make peace with your life and its challenges
79. Master your emotions to experience spontaneous joy and wonder
80. Master your emotions to embody your soul’s purpose & mission for this lifetime
81. Master your emotions so you can receive intuitive guidance, access higher wisdom & knowledge
82. Master your emotions so you can control your mind. And hence, control different states of consciousness
83. Master your emotions to become grounded in who you are.
84. Master your emotions to become ageless & timeless. This is a side effect of aligning & working with the divine mind
85. Master your emotions so you give more to the world than you receive from it
86. Master your emotions to heal from heartbreak & heal your heart and soul
87. Master your emotions so you dance to the beat of your own drum in every aspect of life
88. Master your emotions to thrive in your life on all levels. That is, at a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual level
89. Master your emotions to practice spiritual deliverance
90. Master your emotions so you can connect with the mind of the planet
91. Master your emotions to serve & uplift humanity
92. Master your emotions to learn how to quiet down your busy mind on command
93. Master your emotions to release black & white and catastrophic thinking
94. Master your emotions to become your own energetic/etheric surgeon & healer
95. Master your emotions to heal emotional wounds for current/past/future lifetimes
96. Master your emotions to cultivate self-discipline & control your lower impulses
97. Master your emotions so you can neutralize negative energies from other people
98. Master your emotions to reclaim your divine essence from current & other lifetimes
99. Master your emotions so you stand in your divine right power and light
100. Master your emotions so you become a messenger of god
101. Master your emotions so you can ascend this planet. After all, ascension is 99% emotional healing

 

Resource

Do you want to learn how to master your emotions? Check out the ‘Master Your Emotions Blueprint‘ program.

There are no set guidelines to define boundaries. No clear demarcations to watch for. No 5-step process you could follow that will help you establish healthy boundaries. And that’s good news! Because then, you get to create for yourself.

What are boundaries?

Your physical body has a well-demarcated edge. We can say the ‘boundaries’ of your physical body are well-defined. All physical objects have precise boundaries. Plus, the boundaries are visible to the naked eye, so there is no ambiguity.

The same can’t be said about the human psyche.

When we talk about setting boundaries, we are usually referring to emotional boundaries.

We can touch, smell, see, hear and taste our physical world. But, we can’t say the same for our emotional world, which we can only access with our feelings.

Our emotional world is invisible to others. So we have to communicate our boundaries if we want others to know what’s acceptable to us and what isn’t. The onus of communicating our boundaries falls on our shoulders. 

Physical boundaries: Visible

Emotional boundaries: Invisible

Emotional boundaries when communicated: Visible

 

 

Resistance to set boundaries in our relationships

Quick question, how often do you communicate your needs, your boundaries to others? Never? Or once in a blue moon?

So, what do you think other people do? They assume. They guess. Take their best shot at what you want & desire. People usually treat us exactly as they’d treat themselves. And then, we resent the relationship dynamics. We complain about the lack of respect in our relationships, hoping, someone would see us for once.

No one can swim in your head and find what you want. You have to inform others what your boundaries are.

There may be situations when, despite your best efforts, your boundaries aren’t acknowledged. People with low self-awareness usually struggle to stay present in their conversations. They may hijack and attempt to weaken your boundaries. Again, you have to reaffirm and uphold them.

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes repeated intervention before people retreat. So stay put and hold on to what’s right for you.

 

Emotions and Setting Healthy Boundaries

Pay attention to your emotions when your boundaries are not respected. Chances are you might feel angry, frustrated, confused, anxious, and even afraid. In those times, you might wonder what happened here? That’s understandable.

There is a reason why so many of us struggle with setting boundaries. Growing up, no one showed or taught us what it means to have healthy boundaries. We may think, shouldn’t other people know what’s deemed as acceptable and what’s not? Actually, no, they don’t.

Most times, we ourselves are unclear on where to draw a line. That’s an even greater challenge in learning to set healthy boundaries.

 

Visualizing Boundaries

Think of your boundaries like a house fence. The fence around your house demarcates your property, so others know that the house is yours, and they can’t barge in.

Think of setting boundaries as putting a fence around your emotions. By establishing boundaries with others, you are also giving a form to your Emotional Body (which is invisible).

Without a clear, defined fence, others will not know what’s acceptable and what’s not. Plus, you’ll struggle in saying no.

 

Why you need an emotional fence?

There is no magic formula to establish boundaries. But, I will share a few guidelines that have worked for me.

Pay attention to your emotions. Our emotions are not binary. There is a whole range of color between these two extremes.

How you feel for your spouse vs. your kids is going to vary. The same holds for your feelings about your parents vs. work colleagues. Your emotional boundaries will differ based on your relationship.

You may choose to establish strong boundaries for strangers? Again, the specifics can depend on various factors.  The beautiful aspect about setting boundaries is that you call the shots. You get to choose where to draw the line in each relationship. You decide if you want to let someone in and how much. You dictate where the fence goes; in every single relationship.

Excited? I’d imagine, though.

Here’s my first suggestion in how to set healthy boundaries. Start paying attention to your feelings in every interaction.

As an example, say you struggle in establishing boundaries with your sibling. Next time you are having a conversation with them, pay attention to your feelings. Ask yourself, how does this interaction make me feel? I know, it sounds simple & yet, so many times, we rarely check in with ourselves at an emotional level.

Do your interactions (with your sibling) feel easy and effortless? Then consider setting flexible boundaries. If your interaction feels rigid, then consider setting firm boundaries.

Your feelings are the first signpost to guide you on where to draw a boundary.

The billion dollar advice I could offer is, make your feelings your best friends. Trust how you feel (without judgment). That’s your barometer of where to establish boundaries with people

 

Making mindful commitments

Here’s another suggestion for setting boundaries in relationships. Anytime you get asked to commit your time or energy, ask for a time-out. Don’t say yes immediately. Tell the person you’ll get back to them in 2–3 days.

Over the next few days, contemplate on whether to accept the proposal or not. Reflect on your motivations for wanting to say yes.

Is it an authentic yes (something you feel called to do)? Or are you agreeing out of guilt or obligation? Or you want to agree, so others will see you as a nice person. 

It’s a good idea to be honest with your true motives behind your actions.

 

Discerning between Should and Have to

‘Should’ & ‘Have To’ are your biggest enemies when establishing boundaries.

You want to say yes to invitations and requests because you ‘want to’ and not because you have to. I am obviously not referring to the daily chores we all have to do; regardless of whether we like them or not.

 

Stay mindful of your consent

Another barometer to help you establish boundaries in your relationship. Pay attention to what you are consenting to.

Does your inner self aligned and consenting to the request? Let your inner self be your guide.

 

The importance of staying true to yourself

The cornerstone of establishing healthy boundaries is staying true to your inner self. The more authentic you are to yourself, the easier it will be to develop healthy boundaries. Being authentic means, staying true to your feelings. Acknowledging them, and not overriding with your logic.

Instead of saying, I shouldn’t be feeling this way or another, be honest. Accept what-is, even if you dislike it. You can’t change your thinking patters & behaviors without first witnessing them.

 

Being patient with yourself

Please know that learning to establish healthy boundaries is a process. Don’t expect to start saying no in a blink of an eye, when all your life you have been a people pleaser.

You are changing your values, beliefs and attitudes. So please practice being patient and compassionate with yourself. 

Eventually, you’ll learn that you can have firm boundaries and also be a nice person. They are not mutually exclusive.

 

Summary, how to set healthy boundaries in relationships:

• Lean into the wisdom of your feelings
• Make mindful commitments
• Discern between should, have to’s, and want to’s
• Mindful of what you are consenting to
• Staying true to yourself
• Being patient with yourself

 

Additional Resources:

• AG Link – https://ascensionglossary.com/index.php/Healthy_Boundaries
• Blog post –
  1. 4 bodies
  2. Nice girl syndrome

Do you want direct access to health & wellness? Want to understand your true being? Want to learn how to establish balance, integration and harmony in all parts of your life? Then you are in for a treat.

In this article, I share the Four Body System Model. It is a foundational model for balancing the four bodies of our energy body. That is, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. When the four bodies are in balance:

• we have a clear pathway to health & wellness
• we understand our true being
• there is an exponential increase in our self-awareness
• we learn to respect & listen to each body without over-identifying with any one body

As a society, we tend to over-identify with our mental or physical body, at the detriment of other bodies.

The Four Body Model shows us how to balance and integrate all four layers of our energy body. Through the Four Body System, we can understand & experience the multidimensional components of our consciousness.

All humans have 4 separate energy bodies: Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Body.

Physical Body

The physical body is our most obvious aspect. It is the densest of all the bodies & hence, also visible to the naked eye. When you look in the mirror – it’s the body you see reflected

Our Physical body grows from the moment we are born, and it keeps growing until our very last breath. It needs minimal intervention for its growth because it is preprogrammed in our DNA.

The physical body mirrors the functioning of other bodies. E.g. if a person has a stomach issue, this usually has to do with some emotional imbalance. Headaches have to do with issues of control. Illness/ dysfunction is a sign that there is an imbalance somewhere & we need to pay attention.

In the description below, I have added a link to a book by Louise Hay titled, You Can Heal Your Life. In this book, she discussed different physical ailments and their energetic causes.

Practical ways to increase physical body awareness

• My first suggestion is to commit to things that support your physical body. These could be through nutrition, supplements, foods, cleanses & detox
• You can support your Physical body with exercises such as Yoga, Tai Chi, Running or any movement
• Breath work can be beneficial.
• And so is spending time in nature & getting enough sunlight.
• Non-invasive healing therapies & modalities like acupuncture, massages or chiropractic, can be supportive
• An easy way to bring awareness to the physical body is through sharing love & intimacy with others.
• In general, making your health your #1 priority will draw attention to your physical body.

Perhaps the best advice to increase your physical body awareness is to make your body your friend. Talk to your physical body like you’d talk to your best friend. Your body can communicate. It has innate intelligence. It will tell you exactly what it needs, provided you form that bond of trust with it.

 

Mental Body

The Mental Body is usually the most developed of all bodies. And this body helps us acquire new knowledge through intellectual pursuits & explorations. The 21st century education primarily focuses on the development of the mental body. 

In today’s society, development of this body is encouraged & well compensated.

The Mental Body works best when we have a healthy physical body, a mature emotional body and a wise spiritual body. On its own, the mental body has no strength.

Our Mental body grows as long as we are learning new things. For example, a new graduate who is learning and upgrading his skill set will have a robust mental body.  

A developed mental body is not necessarily better. What matters is how well it is integrated with other bodies.

Practical ways to develop mental body awareness

• My first recommendation is increasing your “witness” conscious awareness. In other words, becoming a Neutral Observer in your life. Being able to observe external events in your life without emotional shutting down.
• Actively working towards increasing mental focus. Getting rid of distractions. Reducing scattered thoughts & tendencies
• Identifying triggers & thoughts that take you off course.
• Make a list of things/situations/people that almost always bring you down. You start doubting yourself when you interact with them. Identifying them is half the work because when you can see something – then you can heal it.
• Staying connected & present in your physical body awareness as much as possible.
• Creating a set of tools that help you refocus mentally. Especially when feeling weak or frustrated or even depressed. This could be mantras or affirmations that you have at hand to gain rebalance & focus
• Training your brain to turn off at will is also a potent technique. That’s how we tap into the non-linear mind – which is the source of genius ideas, thoughts & even healing.

•  

Emotional Body

The emotional body makes us sensitive to music, arts & dance. It is also the least developed of the four bodies. Especially in people who are mentally overactive.

When our emotional body is unstable, it’s as if being tossed around by our emotions. Or feel we can’t get off the emotional roller coaster rides 

Not having emotions does not indicate a developed motional body. Neither is being uncontrollably emotional. We don’t want to be void of emotions, but rather feel deeply without letting our emotions rule us.

We need to feel to have empathy, love and care for ourselves and people around us. The Emotional body grows when you learn how to manage & master your emotions.

Practical steps to develop emotional body awareness

• Learn how to connect your emotional feelings. To be able to feel your emotions inside your body & connect them with your cognitive process.
• Learn to integrate your emotional self to connect into your physical and mental self.
• Learning to express what you are feeling in the now moment. For example, being able to identify & name the feelings as they are arising within you. When you can say, I am feeling angry, or sad, frustrated as you are experiencing them.
• Learning to express your emotions without becoming stuck or over identifying with them. A lot of time we get stuck in anger or guilt. What we need to learn is to be able to see the emotion, name it, acknowledge it & let it be. Being able to say, I am feeling shame vs I am shame.
• Identify the source of your negative thoughts & emotions. Being able to identify the source of causation is half the work.
• Committing to removing and clearing all unproductive or damaging thought patterns. For this, you’ll need to clear your fears, limitations, insecurities.
• Identifying all emotional conflicts, bring them to surface awareness and resolve them. When people repress their emotional conflicts, it creates emotional blocks. When the emotional blocks go unaddressed, they start weighing down the emotional body.
• Eliminating dross, such as guilt, obligation and emotional vampires from your life. Eliminating all emotional drama or any person who feeds into this type of relating.

A signpost of having a developed emotional body is: when you feel deeply and only respond from a position of calmness, with a balanced core and wisdom.

 

Spiritual Body

It is through our spiritual body that we connect to God, the divine & our higher self. Through this body, we can experience we are inter-connectedness of all things. The spiritual body encompasses all other bodies. If our other three bodies are not developed, our spiritual body will suffer.

This layer has little to do with religion or culture – but rather it’s about your connection with the spirit. When you tap into your intuition & trust it, you are strengthening your spiritual body. Active imagination is a by-product of a robust spiritual body.

The spiritual body grows to the extent you spend time connecting with God and your Higher Power. And the health of this layer will depend on your initial conditioning and the culture you grew up in.

The hallmark of a developed spiritual body is wisdom.

Practical ways to develop spiritual body awareness

• A good place to start is studying the law of one practice. I will put some links in the description for you to explore.
• Using mediation as a tool to quiet your mind so that you experience inner peace with all things.

Resolving conflicts in your relationship to self & God/Source/Universe. Making a spiritual commitment that you will be a knower of god source. That you will know god as a direct experience rather than through any intermediary.

•  

The four bodies are interconnected

The four bodies are interconnected, and they help & support one another. As an example, if our mental and physical bodies are developed, but our emotional body is not developed, then our spiritual body will be held back. Because it is our wisdom that guides our other bodies into further development. Without wisdom, the mental body will go astray.

Without wisdom, the emotional body will not know when to restrain itself from explosive outbursts. The knowledge of what food to eat to better our physical health is an example of our mental body supporting the physical body. Likewise, our physical body helps the mental body deal with stress through exercise.

All four bodies are interconnected. So if you want to improve your EQ, we can’t focus on the emotional body in isolation.

 

Use the Four Bodies Model as a foundation for healing

Once you start working with the four body model, you will start embodying your innate wisdom. Disease results when there is an imbalance between the four bodies.

Anytime you feel unwell, start discerning which layer your pain is stemming from. And you need to do to heal it. That’s the gift in this knowledge.

 

Summary

• We have four separate energy bodies, Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Body.
• The mental body is usually the most developed body and the Emotional body, least developed.
• The four bodies are interconnected. If you want to develop your Emotional Intelligence, then work with all four bodies.

•  

Video

If you are a visual learner, then you’ll enjoy the following video on the Four Bodies. Scroll down on the page to watch the video on the Four Bodies.

 

Additional Resources

• Learn more about the Four Body System Model here
• The Four Body System
• Book: Soul Psychology by Dr. Joshua David Stone
• Book: You can heal your life by Louise Hay