Taking the time to heal the past is something that will keep coming up in your life, it's a never ending journey.

Even when you feel balanced and regulated you will find yourself experiencing things that don’t seem to make any sense. This can show up as resistance or an unease about something. Most recently, I can tell you a time when I was experiencing this very thing - that is actually what is prompting the conversation around this topic.

I can say I feel pretty well regulated in my journey since quitting drinking. I spend lots of time tuning into my body, caring for my emotional regulation, listening to the signs of when I need to rest. I hold a very high value of stability and ease, I have set the intention for calm and grounded-ness after a lifetime of anger, overwhelm and very dramatic highs and lows.

Recently, I have been tuning in around a certain resistance that I have had in my business to creating a group coaching program. I have the outline for the program and have been building out the specifics in the background for months now, and all of that felt safe and ok. But as I approach my launch date I am finding myself avoiding doing certain tasks that will actually determine the success of this launch. I know in my heart that it will be so valuable to the people who join me, that this transformation is life changing, that there is nothing better than a life free from alcohol.

- So why am I feeling so much resistance when it comes to committing to the market research and the marketing of the program?

During my own coaching session - yes I too have a coach!! - I wanted to explore this resistance and see if I could sort out how to get through it. That right there is a sign I was minimizing the value of the lesson underneath. There is no “getting through it”, there is only deep understanding and compassion that can bring peace to a painful emotion. With some somatic guidance I was able to bring myself into the fear, for me it was anxiety, overwhelm and a fear of not having control over my schedule. I was deeply afraid of losing the balance I have worked so hard for and putting myself back into a position of impossible deadlines and a nonstop schedule. The pressure of a past work circumstance was the culprit of my current resistance.

During this meditative somatic exploration I was able to see that my anxiety and fear was trying to be witnessed, it needed forgiveness and acknowledgement. When I was able to allow my heart-centered whole self to lovingly listen to the needs of this fear with compassion, I was able to see clearly that it just wanted me to bring awareness to the things I value in my life now compared to then. That it wasn’t so much a fear of success but a healing of the past wound that I was still trying to bury and hide from.

I had moved past this circumstance but never took the time to heal the wound it had left in my life. When I opened up to it and allowed it to be fully expressed in my body I was able to see the connection to what it was trying to warn me about. Within that space I was able to recognize the impossible pressure and unattainable deadlines I was putting on myself in that past version of my life.

My fear was actually trying to tell me to recognize my own weaknesses and ensure I have the proper support. To allow myself the time and space I need, in order to feel good in the work that I do, while keeping to the way more realistic deadlines I have now set for myself.

This opened the floodgates of possibilities for being gentle, understanding and communicating with myself about the needs I have for this program to feel good, easy and have the most benefit for the people who join me in the container. It was all about setting boundaries.

Sometimes when we are on this healing journey we think we have it all figured out. That we have done the work to get past certain feelings of shame, overwhelm and anxiety. I guess this post is really about explaining that once this journey starts, it's a never ending one. That we are living in a spiral and that these lessons, if unhealed, will come back in different ways to show us a place to send some extra love and understanding.

I want you to know how much power comes from the feeling of sitting with your emotions and working to understand them more deeply. That however we start doesn’t really matter, it’s just important to listen to the calling and move towards it.

During this experience I can see that there was a part of me that needed to feel heard and wanted attention because it was feeling a similar circumstance coming on. That’s really all our emotions are. They are a story we have learned from our past experience and those similar emotions come up to warn or invite us to do that again, depending if the outcome was perceived as good or bad.

Everything we do is based on the feelings and emotions we have learned from our past.

That’s the good news! When we can move through our emotions without making them wrong and just bring compassion and understanding, when we start to listen more deeply to what these emotions are trying to tell us, we can find the freedom of working with them instead of against them.

When we understand that, we can begin to change the story, having a new level of compassion and grace for our behaviours, and then sort out exactly how to move in a new way that honours the lesson of the past without getting stuck in the repetitive cycle of it.

The reality is, there is no hiding, burying or shutting down an emotion, it will come back again and again to tell us it needs to be heard. It's the story we attach to it that keeps us stuck. I had a fear of feeling anxious, overwhelmed and out of control. I was hiding from it, avoiding it and definitely not listening to what it actually had to say. When I allowed it to be heard I got a new understanding for what it was trying to tell me and can now use that to move forward in a new and more resourced way.

If you get the feeling of anxiety, guilt, shame or regret around your drinking it’s easy to try and ignore it. To numb it away with more of the same, hoping that somehow things will change and it will get better.

The truth of it is that we get these feelings for a reason!

It’s our innate wisdom coming to tell us something we need to hear. I find that embodiment practices like yoga and meditation and going into these internal spaces of our emotions with the help of somatic exercises facilitated by a trained coach are a deeply integrative approach to profound transformation.

If you want to change the way you are living your life and change unwanted behaviours around your drinking, I can tell you that the most powerful tool that I have found on my journey to becoming more wholehearted, less angry, more joyous, calm and regulated has been all about turning inward.

Tools like yoga, meditation, pranayama (breathwork practices) and smudging daily have totally transformed my life for the better.

When I was drinking I had no idea what I liked, what felt good in my body - not even what kind of music I really enjoyed.

I didn’t know what JOY was… and that’s because what we don’t realize when we are drinking daily (like I was) is that alcohol doesn’t only numb all the bad stuff, but it actually numbs all the good stuff too.

So knowing that the healing journey never REALLY ends, helps me to relax into the knowing that there is nothing wrong with me. I am not damaged or BROKEN.. this is all just a part of life, and to be honest, moving through the pain really feels good. 

So don't fear the healing. Call it in. Our bodies are speaking to us in wild and wonderful ways.

Are you listening?

xx D.