“AVOIDING YOUR TRIGGERS ISN’T HEALING. HEALING HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE TRIGGERED AND YOU’RE ABLE TO MOVE THROUGH THE PAIN, THE PATTERN, AND THE STORY, AND WALK YOUR WAY TO A DIFFERENT ENDING.”~VIENNA PHARAON
This was a timely reminder I came upon last week when I was super triggered. What’s a trigger? It can be physical (like the weather, an old injury), emotional (a person who gets on your nerves or a past trauma) or even spiritual (ex: a current event triggers the memory of an event from a past life, feeling triggered by other belief systems/religions/lifestyles that don’t align with yours, ). There’s an infinite amount of triggers and they all have a story.
AND
It’s ok to not be ok….. and sadly our culture doesn’t think that’s ok.
Sit with the physical pain.
Sit with the emotional pain.
There’s a lot of amazing information there to understand on deeper levels.
There’s a lot of avoidance that can occur even with meditation and yoga given the wrong intentions. The same goes for acupuncture or any healing modality. True medicine isn’t about fixing, it’s about integrating.
I did the avoidance thing for a really long time. I used it as a way to get temporary relief and avoid what was going on on deeper levels…something only a handful of healers or teachers were capable of helping me with because they didn’t know how to do it for themselves. I’m not saying receiving relief from your symptoms is bad. It’s a welcomed relief. But there’s power in going deeper than just symptoms. What’s causing those symptoms? In classical Chinese Medicine physical symptoms are manifestations of emotional imbalances. This includes the stories we tell ourselves.
Now I utilize bodywork, Chinese Medicine, meditation and yoga as tools to help calm my nervous system and calm my mind so I can be with the discomfort like a parent is compassionately present with their upset child. I can take those fragmented parts of myself and integrate it into my whole Self instead of pushing them away.
This question might trigger you……pun intended
Why do you want to heal? Is there a part of you that wants to heal that goes beyond functional mobility? What is that part? What are you avoiding to prevent those parts from being healed? How do you compensate for that avoiding behavior (like excessive worrying, eating too much or too little food, working more, blaming, shaming, drinking, smoking, binging tv)? How can you embrace those parts with compassion? What are they saying?