Moving From Healing To Healed

I wanted to talk about the importance of recognising whether we are stepping forwards into life or getting stuck in heal-ing. I see this a lot and it is no ones fault!

Possible reasons for this that I see quite commonly: There can be a part of us fearful about re-integrating into life so are avoiding stepping forwards (I had this btw when I was recovering. I was shitting myself about how to do life after being out of it so long). Sometimes there is still some belief about needing to earn/be worthy of recovery or that things will always be hard. Somtimes we are fearful of losing the care we received whilst unwell. Some are still too attached to the identity of 'having' a diagnosis or 'being' chronically ill. Each person is unique as to why and how we can get stuck and all reasons deserve compassion. We are also habitual mammals and condition ourselves a lot in self limiting thoughts, habits and behaviours without realising! There is no blame in this at all. It is however good to be aware of so that we do not unknowingly self protect ourselves into a static place (expectations in the brain are based on the past so getting stuck can foster disempowerment and send us in a hamster wheel to nowheresville. We have to learn to step forwards from this and create new experiences to foster empowerment instead)

While our self healing work is necessary and very powerful, it is important to be mindful not to make it another form of unconscious programming used to workshop yourself to infinity and beyond, or win the perfect gold star for 'working hard' at your recovery or 'earning' it.

The issue with this, other than it feels horrendous, is that if we are in a state of 'becoming' and 'healing' - when do we give ourselves a chance to LIVE what we have become. Also - for those of you healing with a spiritual lens too; the universe will give us what we are being, so we will continue to attract and create ‘healing’ if we do not step into who we have become.

You are not a self improvement project. You aren’t a never ending purgatory version of Ikea flat pack furniture.

By treating yourself as such you affirm that there is something ‘wrong’ with you. THERE IS NOT AND THERE NEVER WAS. So stop communicating to your brain that you are broken. Your hardwiring (your body and innate ability to heal) is fine. You’re just updating your software (thoughts, beliefs, behaviours, habits, emotions, state).

You possess this ability to heal just by existing. Your practice is merely switching that innate ability on, and helping you become aware of what is in its way so you can course correct accordingly. Get very clear that this is actually what heals you. Not any program or anything else. This is important! You have to learn to leave yourself alone and live again - allow yourself to BE.

The resisting what is (resisting reality = a lotta suffering), judging (yourself, symptoms, others, the world) efforting, and working at it like we are a never ending self improvement project can actually stop us from being human and being connected to what is truly alive in us - our feelings, needs and values - which are the true spark plugs for life.

Moving from surviving to thriving and from healer to creator is a shift in energy and state that involves steps (in no order, you can skip a step if you wish as there are no real rules to timing on this - we are quantum after all

1. Separating/de identifying ourselves from the persona of a sick person; of identifying with our symptoms and labels. My preciousssss diagnosissssss needs to be binned at some point otherwise you will get very stuck

2. Separating from the persona of becoming/healing

3. Stepping into acceptance and healed - BEING the personality of acceptance and demonstrating the thoughts, habits and behaviours and emotions of this state of being

This is why the emphasis in our work with neuroplasticity in all its forms/programs/ways of working with it: is the awareness of what triggers our nervous system response

* Thoughts, states, emotions, beliefs, sensations

* Accepting them moment by moment so we can……..

* Learn new ways to respond to those

* Shift into new healthier states, practicing new thoughts, wiring in new emotions, feeling our emotions healthily, priming behaviours and then practicing them, balancing personaity parts

* Over time making this simply part of mindful joyful living that lives and breathes with us dynamically as we stay connected to our mind body with easeful attunement (the opposite of hyper vigilance). NOT about 'healing' or 'getting' somewhere. Just being in a healthier more joyful way than we knew was possible before we got curious about our mind body.

What we have triumphed over is less important than who we have become. And again - that is a question of where we shift our focus to.

So...... If you are over efforting, pressuring, this is not the place to work from. Pressure in the brain is another threat. True motivation comes from empowerment. We have to walk the line between passion and playfulness to recover and begin to live again. This will be a million manageable bite sized baby steps. This is not just recovery - this is life!

Come back to your influence and ask ‘what do I WANT’ and answer ONLY in positive language (it cannot be to get away from….. Or to be without x symptom). Then think of one baby step towards it (examples of this on my instagram @the.healed.tribe) from my own recovery

Getting ready to take that baby step will bring up blocks/protective patterns (worried thoughts, beliefs, emotions, parts of us) that are the elastic band between where you are and your one step forwards.

THIS is your practice! As you stretch and work with what arises to take that one step from a place of CHOICE (with whatever program or way you choose), you then fully celebrate your badass self at your baby step success. Your brain doesn’t know if you’ve made a good cup of tea or you’ve climbed Kilimanjaro naked with a Pina colada - it only knows your feeling of success. So throw yourself a party for each tiny win. This is a heroes journey. Own that title and be that hero of your story.

Then rinse and repeat, with your focus on LIVING and BEING healthier in your mind body in tiny tiny ways. A healthy mind body simply isn’t thinking about sickness as the mind has opened back up to all the possibility that is available when we start to bring our mind to the present. A healthy mind body is able to top up the system with joy, gratitude from being accepting of the present moment and knowing there is deep influence to choose our response to it.

This doesn’t have a time frame to ‘get to’ (yet another trip on a hamster wheel to nowheresville with a stop off at comparingtoothers city) - we have to let go of clock watching to because yes you’ve guessed it that is an emergency in the brain too as it is from pressure.

Acceptance for where we are allows us to take that baby step. Acceptance when taking the next step or even the next stumble (of which there will be many - and your awareness of your response to them is CRUCIAL as fear, frustration and disempowerment will keep our symptons and condition going) allows the step after that. That truly is a happy life. We will always have challenge, always have unexpected things we cannot control, life is tough and we deserve everything but are entitled to nothing. These are tough truths. But if we learn the crucial skill of meeting reality with acceptance and from resource (sitting in our knowledge of CHOICE) and acting on our choices, we will do just fine and be able to hold the challenge whilst also choosing how we respond to them and choose our emotional baseline day to day which will determine our quality of life.

Coming back to present moment influence of what we can choose in this one moment is how we heal. This is a NOW investment. You must be present NOW, mindful NOW, and aware NOW, to reverse this dis-ease — to heal.

So in summary -

1. The cosmic joke on us is that we cannot heal whilst being assholes to ourselves

2. We cannot heal by the self flagellation of perpetual ‘healing’. You have to learn to leave yourself alone and live again - allow yourself to BE

3. Learn to really govern your language and your framing, work with beliefs that might hold you back, learn to feel feelings whilst safely embodied - and step forwards in baby steps facing where you want to go, not facing 'healing' over and over.

4. We learn so much faster when in play - neuroscientifically proven. So go learn from your kids and animals as they are so much more present than we are

5. We do not feel full of life at all when we are practicing being joyless cock wombles. So practice and practice little ways of play and joy. I dare you to look at a baby goat and not feel some small pilot light of joy Start anywhere (again - acceptance of starting point). In full disclosure I was suicidal at one point. So my starting point was very low. Yet here I am, a million baby steps and stumbles later, living a very beautiful life. Ordinary to some and not a glossy influencer life. A real one full of love, pain, growth and simple joys of every day life.

6. You are not a self improvement project. By treating yourself as such you affirm that there is something ‘wrong’ with you. THERE IS NOT AND THERE NEVER WAS. This belief will get your stuck in chronic experiences. Learn what you need to about the nervous system and why your body spoke in symptoms, learn the mind body connection, and where relevant where you learnt you somehow were broken/not enough/something wrong with you (for many this is WAY before illness). All these are under your influence so that you can start to give your brain and system the correct message that you are a miracle of creation in motion.

7. Start living again in baby steps, practice makes hilariously imperfect and it is always enough

8. Please trust me that no one has their shit together. Only narcissists think they do . The rest of us mortals are all just walking each other home. Allowing ourselves the space and grace to embrace life, ourselves and others with acceptance really allows us to ease the burden of suffering on this planet. So truly - your allowance of yourself as you are and starting to live again is more powerful than you realise

9. If your instagram/social media name is your illness -this is an example of where we are way too close to illness as identity......... my precioussssss diagnosisssss. You are a million dimaond facets of personality parts, gifts, and a miracle. How can you step into that when still defining yourself with the 'I HAVE's' and 'I AM's' of dis-ease. Be kind but be firm with yourself as this isn't who you are.

10. Watch and FEEL this. It is beautiful like you