Time to nurture, listen, love and BE is time that is well spent when we are on a path to inner freedom. The quiet of nature, inner connection, and rest allows us to notice what is arising, listen to the messages from our bodies and choose how to navigate through them wisely. When we get to busy in our day-to-day life, overwhelmed by our to-do's piling up, stressed that things aren't going as planned, we often resort to our habitual numbing – ways of coping. We tend to move away from the uncomfortable feelings in order to avoid them.
Sometimes these feelings do not have enough space to be felt, listened to, or even healed.
Shooting for SELECTIVELY NUMB is a coping skill many of us buy into - often without even realizing it. You know... choosing to feel the good stuff, while ignoring the bad.
It is temping isn't it?
It IS tempting, because who wants to feel those old negative or traumatic or stressful feelings that seem to weigh us down? The ones that curl us up in the fetal position in our beds, make us nauseous, or even trigger our past trauma.
As we adventure down the pathway to freedom, it is often found that those old icky beliefs and feelings from the past can come up for a couple of reasons:
First, to be felt and listened to in a way that they were possibly never honored before.
Second, so they can be released, cleared, dumped from our energy bodies altogether.
The truth is SELECTIVELY NUMB does not exist.
When we turn away from suffering, ignore our pain, or just simply numb ourselves out with our usual vices – food, alcohol, busyness, or a variety of other addictions – we actually numb ourselves completely.
Our level of pain and suffering may feel numbed in the moment, but so is our joy, bliss, and happiness.
The path to freedom teaches us to embrace it all. To sit in the uncomfortable and to also expand into our pleasure and bliss (both of which can be challenging).
Here are my favorite personal strategies (the ones I use regularly) for more FEELING, FREEING, and FINDING my power so that I can expand into my FULLEST. Perhaps some of these will work for you as well...
Breath
When we build our life force or prana, in any awareness practice, we enliven whatever is already happening. Prana is non-discriminating.
Strong feelings of stress, anxiety, overwhelm, sadness, or fear can be daunting and we surely do not want to exaserbate what already exists in the mind-body if it is unpleasant of challenging.
When you give yourself time to sit, center, breath and calm your system, you are in fact strengthening the calm.
Balancing our your breathing so that the inhale and the exhale mirror each other in length and quality will in fact calm your entire system, engage your parasympathetic nervous system, slow down your brain waves and tame your strong emotional feelings.
Breathing is often thought of as the vehicle into the subtle body in the yoga practice. The ancient yogis believed that if you can regulate your breath, you can regulate your mind.
**I find a quiet space to sit for 10-15 min and practice balanced breathing. I focus on the quality and rhythm of your breathing.
Somatic Serenity
One of the most effective tools I use when strong emotions arise for me is doing a body check in. Once I can see where my body is holding the emotion I place my hand over this area.
Often when we experience strong emotion our bodies experience physical sensations such as tingling, clenching, or heat. There is wisdom here.
When we tap into the bodies physical sensation, we are able to get out of the mind spin and drop into the body. This practice is calming, nourishing, and helpful in our inner listening.
*I find a quiet place and do a body check in or body scan, searching for strong sensations associated with the emotion at hand. I then place my hand over that part of my body in a gentle and nourishing way. I return to the breath and ask for any information that my body is ready to reveal regarding this emotion. I ask for healing, peace and calm.
Become a Flower Fairy
Flower remedies are used to work on the emotions of the body bringing back balance and taking us out of a fight or flight stress response.
There are a wide array of flower remedies available in your local health food store. Each remedy is designed to support a different emotional imbalance restoring equilibrium and balance back into the body and soul.
**I venture to the flower remedy section of the wellness area of the health food store or natural pharmacy and I ask for the best remedy for my current emotion. I hold the bottle and ask myself if this is a good remedy for me. I may try a few before I decide. I keep the remedy in my purse and I use whenever the emotion arises. I also use it in my daily meditation practice.
Take a Ritual Bath
Aside from the warming and relaxing qualities there are also deeper support from certain types of baths. Just like you make yourself that intentional cup of herbal tea, you can soak away your sorrows in a intentional ritual bath with herbs and tonics that will fine tune your energy and emotional bodies.
You can always resort to the simple Epson salts bath if you like, but here I am going to provide you with some specific and unique baths to use to cleanse your energy and emotions – mind, body and soul.
*Sweeten up your mood with a “sweet like honey” bath. Add a cup of raw honey to your bath and watch your sweetness return. Honey baths remind us of the sweetness of life.
*Purify your energy body with lemon juice in your bath. Add one cup of lemon juice to your bath for a gentle clearing and supportive shift of old beliefs and emotions.
Get Naked with Nature
One of the quickest ways I know to clear my mind and reset my thoughts is taking myself right into the foothills of Boulder.
For 20 years now, I have lived here in Boulder CO, and I have to tell you I will always be in awe of these mountains. Over the years, nature has held my sorrow, my pain, my trauma, my confusion, my self hatred, my heartbreaks and everything else that I have gone through.
These mountains truly hold a blueprint of my life.
So, when I say 'GET NAKED' with nature, what I really mean is to shed all that is not serving you, and SHE will hold it for you. Reveal your truth, and SHE will guide you. Let go of what is blocking you, and SHE will lead you into the light.
*I go into the woods and hike with the intention of nature holding a healing space for me. I give myself time and permission to heal, and I let go into the great mother earth. This is a time of surrender, release, trust, and clearing for me.