Planting Zen

So many people claim to be on their ‘healing journey‘, ‘doing the work‘, and ‘finding their inner peace‘, but what does it all even mean??

Many people hit a point in their life where they realize they just aren’t happy. Today’s society often leads people to seek happiness outside of themselves through things like material objects, addictions, and whatever ‘instant fix’ feel-good trend that is pushed by the media into our bodies and minds. At some point a person realizes that these things are like putting band-aids on an open wound – its a temporary solution that doesn’t quite get the bleeding to stop. So the band-aid gets ripped off and the self observation begins. It may start out with inquiry such as, ‘how did I get this wound?’ ‘how much am i bleeding?’ ‘how long have I been covering this up?’ ‘how do I get it to stop?’ However, unlike an actual physical wound on the body, the questions that need to be asked and answered are much more difficult to bring to fruition. Sometimes looking at these inner emotional wounds can be so painful that the band-aid almost seems easier to deal with. Almost.

Generally the ‘healing journey’ continues from this realization that something isn’t quite right within us to admitting and accepting its existence. From there we can really begin to feel what we’ve been suppressing. Feeling the pain is a big part of being able to release it. When we resist and push our pain/feelings down, it sinks into the body and/or the subconscious and manifests in various other ways. Physical pain, chronic illness, outbursts of anger, or bouts of depression. The body keeps the score and there is no avoiding what we cling to. To acknowledge and allow ourselves to sit with and feel with painful emotions releases it’s power over us and creates space for grief to come through. Grief is not just something we feel when a loved one dies, it is a loss in general. Like the loss of what we thought life would be, the illusions of others we hold onto, our hopes and dreams that never came to fruition. All grief is valid and heavy, but we do not have to hold on to it forever. There comes a time that we can begin to forgive, move through, and release this grief. They say grief comes in waves and I know this to be true, at least in my personal experience. We can choose to forgive ourselves for allowing the pain to live within us for so long. We can choose to forgive others who have hurt us, even if they never apologize, or have an opportunity to forgive us whether its from death or life circumstance. There are always choices that we can make to move forward and ‘heal’ the emotional pain we have.

To put it simply: The stages of emotional healing can be broken down into seven steps – awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance, feeling the pain, grieving, forgiveness, and moving forward.

This process can be applied to many, many, things in our lives. Little annoyances throughout our day to deeply rooted wounds wrapped tightly around our hearts. When people talk of ‘healing journeys’, it is very often this path of emotional healing they are referring to. ‘The work’ is composed of the choices we make along this process, while the ‘inner peace’ is what we can gain from committing ourselves to it.

This path is by no means easy, but it is absolutely worth it.

Let me know how your ‘healing journey’ is going in the comments or shoot me an e-mail to begin a private conversation on the subject. Don’t forget to subscribe to my e-mail list for weekly insights, healing education & practices, and exclusive promos and deals around my current offerings.

Sending you SO much Love wherever you are,

Kristen :)<3