Tag: Pain

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The Ride of Your Life

kimberleen

IMG-0031Is it really all snakes and ladders? Is it a roller coaster ride? Or is it the hamster wheel of hell? I suppose that all depends on where you are on your journey. It also depends on what are the best choices for you. We all have patterns and any one of us has the right to make there own decisions. Anyone of us has the right to decide what is the best feeling for you. What I can tell you based entirely on my own experience is that we create our own reality. That your current reality might seem like the best choice that you can make at any given time. I absolutely believe you. At any given time you have the access to the best decision possible for you. The thing is that you are perfect just as you are. That the place where you are is exactly where you need to be right now. You can also choose to go somewhere else. Of course this might not be the case if you are experiencing some form of modern slavery. Yes that’s a real thing. Do you feel better now?

You see we can all allow ourselves to be drop kicked into next week. Any girl with PMT (and her unsuspecting partner) can tell you that our physiology, never mind environment or human connections have the ability to fuck you over. Throw you off the playful merry-go-round that we thought we were in charge of spinning for ourselves and leave us bruised, broken and temporarily scarred for a few weeks. If this happens to you then of course we will feel the searing pain of being thrown to the floor, literally hitting rock bottom. Then we can stay there and allow ourselves to bleed to death while picking at scabs at on our elbows. Crying for everyone else around us to help us. Then wonder why they don’t or in fact why they shout at us to get up, causing us even more distress. The thing is that we have the solution, other people can see it and we can’t. That’s fucking scary, I know. That we might not be able to see the obvious. Even more terrifying is that we might not able to feel the obvious. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to feel better. Fuck you for not helping me. Can you see the challenge. Few people want to have to tolerate another person’s pain. You know why? It’s painful. The truth is is all anybody really wants is love. All anybody really needs to heal is love and you can access that at anytime. All you have to do is think of something nice. Maybe it’s sunshine or rainbows or your favourite Death Metal Punk Band. Yes life experiences and your reaction to them (which you can’t necessarily control) can kick the shit out of you but if you can find something to reach for that makes you feel better. You are going to find it easier and easier to feel good.

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The Healing Journey

kimberleen

IMG-0027Where might I begin with this one? That fact of the matter is the healing journey begins with the idea that you might be in search of something better. As simple as that sounds, it can be an incredibly challenging idea for anybody going through an existential crisis. After all many of us have fallen away from the soft doughy comfort that religion has to offer us, of eternal life, or redemption. All we can attempt to cling to is the here and now.

That life is both painful and pointless. That we all die that everyone of us will die. Buildings, communities and empires will decay and crumble. Collapse and decay are the only true values that persist in our material world. These concepts are something that many of us have succumbed to over the process of our human lives, not least when we seem to have be battered by the fates and we realise that despite our best efforts that we are not entirely in the driving seat of our own lives. That life happens. It’s ok to get lost here. In fact it’s ok to live here. You can even preach this doctrine should you be inclined, because it is of course a truth and unrelenting and brutal truth.

On the other hand we live, we breath and it is fair to say that only a sage few would claim to know or understand the meaning of life in it’s entirety. Even less of us might actually believe them. I personally have no idea what the meaning of life is and at my best might only be able to grasp at what it might mean for me. Your meaning and values might lead you to a different, explanation or conclusion entirely. What I do know, for me at least is that with death and destruction there is beauty, deep meaning, fragility and an idea of preciousness. That everything and anything can hold value if only for a spit second and the way that we know this is based on the way we, or, specifically I feel.  I have the power to choose something’s value. I also have the power to change how I feel and I also have the ability to understand things completely differently. If I am able to understand that which any particular moment might give to me. That the gift might not be material and that throughout my life I have always managed to adapt and grow. That pain can be the greatest gift of all. That what we can tolerate, becomes what we can endure and what we can endure becomes our source of strength. If pains become our strength then the fickle nature of life is only here to fortify us. So in the end every trial becomes a game, every test a quiz. We learn that approaching life with a sense of play does far more for our sense of well being than and idea of a predetermined game plan. That just like snakes and ladders winning a losing can be fun.

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Spirit v.s Wound

kimberleen

IMG-9790Did you know that Facebook posts can actually be deeply inspirational and thought-provoking? A few weeks ago I saw a post that read “Are you guided by your spirit or by your wound?” Big fucking question right? And it might take you quite a bit of discernment to figure that bad boy out. This has been a question that has plagued me for years, especially when you feel like you’ve been rocking the wounded healer archetype for a while. Getting jiggy with Chiron can be as complex and messy as astrophysics for
toddlers. Somehow though I think toddlers are better a grasping the bigger concepts. So here I am, figuring that out, and I wonder how my own discussion about it might best serve you…….

We all have pain — emotional pain, physical pain, psychological pain and maybe even spiritual pain. If you’re feeling particularly advanced, you might even hit me with your psychic pain. Wait there a minute! there is more; there may even be collective pain, generational pain, ancestral pain…oh! and even national pain. That is a shit-ton of pain to distinguish between. It’s hard to know what is ours and what is somebody else’s. In fact, it’s a whole story that can probably be reserved for another blog post.

The thing is, no matter what kind of pain you are feeling and how it manifests, it has amazing and incredible ways of guiding us. So for example, if you have been raped, you may opt to work for a rape crisis charity, or with other men or women that have experienced the same. Yet, before the rape occurred it hadn’t really been a topic of interest to you. Following your wound becomes your way of both healing and giving back to society. Which is, of course, very admirable.

If you are led by your spirit, there are things that have always brought you joy, that have always made you happy, made your step a little bit lighter, your laugh a little bit louder and, well, your smile a lot brighter. When you are in crisis it can be hard to think about the things that bring you joy. Just getting down to the deep work of bringing joy back into your own life for yourself is all you can do to lighten somebody else’s burden. You just bring joy by being joyful. How incredible! Yes, you can choose this way to heal too.

Anyways, just so you know, vibrationally, it’s always better to follow joy, and maybe peace for a little while too. Yes, be guided by your spirit and know that your gifts are not your wounds but the things that bring you joy in the face of them. Be yourself and shine to thrive.

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Pain Threshold

kimberleen

IMG-9349I’ve been deep in a mid-winter dirge. It feels like a lot of things have been ruminating and maybe it about time to start letting go.  It’s all good and well talking about healing the emotional wounds of our pasts without addressing that some people are so caught up in their emotional landscapes, that it dominates our physical futures. A lot of people might think that mindset and a wellness are not related to each other. That I might pose this as a concept, is a to put it mildly, a bit suspect to many minds. I believe that humans can and are able to heal from anything if we are willing to do the work, to liberate ourselves from the beliefs that we have been born to.

Our beliefs can be very hard to unpack. Even as someone who has spent a serious a mount  of time in therapy as well as on a long course of self examination it startles me sometimes about how little I know about my own psyche. The healing work that I do on myself alone is a lot to do with leveling up. I think I’ve got it all sorted, that I’m hitting the kerb. There might even be only one single heart beat between me and Elysium and then suddenly I’ve been knocked out into a cold mud coated street, from nowhere. There is literally shit going on in my being I have no awareness of. Or alternatively I do have awareness of and that I grossly underestimate the power of. If something, no matter how trivial is getting your goat, troubling you, drawing your attention then you better believe that it has power over you in ways you can’t begin to imagine.

Yes you can unpack it, yes you can let it go, yes you can scratch it pick at, worry over it and even talk about but only you know when you have begun to fully understand it. No one can tell you other wise and no one can navigate it for you only you know. Maybe it a loosening of your shoulder, a relaxing in your gut, a stretch in your legs. Only you know how when or where you got free of it.

When you are in these moments of pain, deep resentment, anger, discomfort, frustration and even growth, it’s easy to reach for a bottle or a book to ease the irk. It’s also easy to dive into someone else’s pain and prescribe a cure all action. You need to let go of it. When are you going to give this up? Why are you still holding on to this? Don’t give your power away? Why do you give a fuck what they think? Even the more positives of “Live you life” “Free yourself” “Don’t let anybody dull your sparkle”. I mean for fuck sake there are reasons why people sign up to be nuns and monks or even  run of to an ashram in India, or find themselves on a pilgrimage, or lose themselves in an iowaksa retreat.

The fucked up thing is, that no matter what it is and no matter how far you run  you will always have to face it. You might be lucky enough to design the circumstances under which you do but you always will. Look to your pain whether it be emotional or physical  and you will find beliefs and all the ways that they limit you. If you can push through the pain threshold it’s possible to find freedom.

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Self-Sabotage

kimberleen

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First of all Self-Sabotage doesn’t fucking exist. If you’ve been running round with a self-sabotage dialogue in your head? I am here to release you completely from that idea, mantra or path. It’s not true, it doesn’t exist and the idea and concept of self-sabotage actually doesn’t serve you as an idea or in any other way. The idea of self-sabotage, may be, one, of the most toxic, damaging concepts that you have about yourself. It’s like a snake eating  it’s tail. You don’t understand, I just can’t make a million, I just can’t hold down a job, I just can’t have a loving relationship……..the list goes on. I always manage to fuck it up. Everything is there all lined up and then at the last minute I just do something completely inexplicable, like I forget my happy life passport.

There is also the possibility that you have absolutely no idea what it is that ailes you. That you behaviours are fueled by some mystical energy force that seems to come from outside of you. Though you may be able to identify it’s features you have no idea of it’s origin or meaning. It’s OK.

The truth is, and this is the absolute truth, which is even more painful than the idea that you self-sabotage; is that you value something more than money, a steady income or even a loving relationship. There is something deep within you that you refuse to acknowledge, actively ignore, repress, deny and are deeply ashamed of. Yes all of that. You keep it in a deep dark dungeon, you never talk about it and quite frankly it disgusts you.

When you even consider it probably feels like a stabbing sensation in your chest, makes you want to vomit and the mere idea of it probably make you unsettled, agitated, anxious, possibly panicked and nauseous. Contemplate what makes you uncomfortable. Then hold it and stay there. We can’t release pain fully until we understand the cause. Believe me it can be surprising.

Really? I’m not sure you quite understand? I’m caught in a loop of self-destructive behaviour that is far from savoury and you think it’s ok? Yes I do. Growth is far more painful than stagnation. Personal growth is all about diving deep cutting out the distractions and finding new ways to feel that take you to different territory. We need to move past numbing, self-medicating and the beautiful anxiety of stagnation. We have to be brave enough to dare to grow. Growth is painful. So the thing is what ever is going on for you, is protecting you from the pain of growth and you have to decide if you want to keep your hand in the fire. The worst thing that you ever experience can often be the best thing. It’s like trial by fire. Failing is the way through pain….

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Mind Overtime?

kimberleen

IMG-9234For the last few months my sleep has been disturbed. Having gone through a major life change my wee brain has been on overtime to align. Unpacking what I thought should have happened, what actually happened and what is. Even God can’t change the past (Not that I necessarily believe in an omnipresent super being that has the ability to fix everything).

Our mind is a problem solving tool, that desperately wants to fix things. It’s like a massive computer crunching data so that we don’t make the same mistakes, so we can avoid pain and make new choices. In the self-development sector there is a tendency to demonise the mind as the enemy of the soul and a barrier to enlightenment. Like any other part of the human body it has a purpose, which is to protect us. It provides us with memory and allows us to access some kind of logic to avoid pain and even death. Yet when it runs on overtime like it has done for me for that last few weeks the mind can become an unsettling place to own, given that it can be all consuming. Its a difficult thing to deal with and face sitting fully with a painful thought process, especially when we know there is another way of being. Which includes allowing and accepting. Far easier said than done. Conversations are good, they provide insight. We know we need to let go. However often we need a secret piece of information to let go. That is what our mind is doing it’s running the numbers to find the glitch in the system. We have to keep the conversation going.

Having worked on myself for many years and largely operating from the space of the quiet mind it can be alarming to find yourself in a spot you thought you had half mastered. These are only thoughts, these are only images, these are not real, this does not define me. In every pain there is a gift. As we know and understand that life is supposed to be fun. When our body is in pain whether it be our mind, our leg or even out heart our physical being is working very hard to tell us something in order to grow. As humans we must listen, it can be laborious painful, excruciating even. We must sit with it and slowly is will unpick itself. The puss will ooze out and we can see the messy programing and mutated thinking that we have designed to attack ourselves. We keep on getting presented with the lesson until the lesson is learned.

Now that my brain has run every single potential out come and finally realised that everything is in divine order and also manged to unpick some deep and damaging programming. Its time to repair. How do I know? It’s ready to sleep. To slumber and bask in another world of consciousness. It’s just decoded a massive information stream and it is now willing to let go of the work. It’s handed over the project and looking a clean desk and waiting for the next pile of paperwork. Or mind can be an incredible tool and as I deepen my skill set and witnessed the brain going haywire, from an objective point of view I now know that it is working to my benefit.