You're Invited:Coming Home To Ourselves.
Updated: Mar 10, 2021
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Healing has this way of moving us towards consciousness.
When the nervous system is strong enough and the subconscious mind is ready to release, it will show us what we ought to be paying attention to. What was once unconscious is now being brought to the surface. This can be frightening, and we may want to turn away from what is asking to be looked at. Sometimes we avoid what is asking for our attention because we are busy and we don't have time to be upset, sad or overwhelmed. There are so many things to do in a day that it is often inconvenient to stop and make time for our pain.
Giving ourselves space, implementing supportive practices, helps us to feel safe when we are shown what wants to be healed. It is working our tools repetitively that brings healing to our nervous system. If we have the tools to move through complicated, even disturbing images and sensations, we can create a connection where there was once perhaps dissociation.
I had a moment this morning when I just waking up, there were images, flashbacks from my early childhood. I felt aware that these images needed my attention, and I noticed that my subconscious was presenting this flashback in a more embodied way. I had also noticed that for the last few days my body was presenting symptoms. I know to pay attention to the language of the body. My neck was out, my body was fatigued, and I felt like I needed to cry. I repressed that cry because I was busy. I didn't make time for this sadness. So this morning was no surprise. Of course, it made sense, my subconscious wanted me to become conscious about what needed to be seen and heard and it was going to show me as I was coming out of sleep. Through Hypnotherapy and healing work, I have grown a connection where there was previously dissociation. This morning I was conscious and noticing where I felt the flashback in my body as it was happening. This felt important to me. I was able to feel sensations in myself rather than the images just playing over and over again like a movie on a big screen.
A healing journey can bridge our inner child, to our now adult selves. This is a sacred bridge where integration can happen. Integration is important. It is the action that brings the puzzle pieces together, to make one whole picture. Without integration, many parts of ourselves have often been pushed aside, repressed, and even forgotten. In Shamanism, it is believed that the soul leaves the body when trauma occurs. We call it Soul loss. Connecting to those lost pieces and bringing them back into the body allows for wholeness. This is why it is so important not to bypass. We can bypass parts of ourselves that need to integrate with the whole; forever being separated from primal parts of ourselves. Without that integration, our unconsciousness will run the show. It will make choices for us out of safety and protection, and that can lead to repression. Repression is the denial of what is. It is the opposite of acceptance.
When we make the unconscious conscious and work our tools, we make it safe for the parts of us that left, to come home. And isn't that what we are all really craving? Just to come home to ourselves.
The process isn't always comfortable. And I don't think we were ever meant to do this work alone. Reaching out for support is so important.
This morning I was able to write through my experience, even before the coffee had finished brewing. I sent my writing to a friend so that I could be seen in my suffering and also seen in my maturity. I was taking responsibility for my pain, and creating the field for my inner child to be heard and seen. Though the pain caused was not at all my fault, it is by taking ownership of that pain now that I encourage wholeness within myself. My child self was never seen or heard by the adults in my life. It was much too painful for them to witness, so it was often dismissed. I was left to my own survival tactics to get through. I turned towards perfectionism, denial, dissociation, and reckless behavior; like many who grew up in abusive and neglectful homes. And at some point, though helpful for a time, those tactics stop working.
The only way out is through.
This means we have to continue to work the tools that bring us into consciousness, strengthening the nervous system, to finally be able to see and hear what was for so long repressed and dismissed. That awareness is what brings us into our wholeness.
Some of the most profound work I am doing with clients right now is inner child work. And so I was reminded this morning while in the shower to work this profound tool I share with so many others, on myself.
I then in my imagination, invited my adult self to visit the scene which was presented this morning. I met my inner child, there under that street light on that dark and scary night. She was in her bare feet, in rage, and in fear. I took her into my arms and loved on her. I swept her up like the child she was and I gave her the love and attention she needed. Through my subconscious mind, I made a new memory in what has been a repetitive flashback for over thirty years. I inserted my adult self into the past, to love on my ten-year-old little child self. This is what I love about Hypnotherapy, you can jump timelines and bring in healing, and shift the old situation, permanently. Over time I will integrate my child self. The more I pay attention to her, the more I use the sacred bridge between my adult self and my inner child, the more I create the atmosphere for deep healing. Making the time for the pain to present itself, allows for acceptance.
Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool. I am finding more and more just how life-changing it is. When we can work our tools, we can create the field to call all parts of ourselves back home.
In healing and revolution,
Patricia MacNeill R.H.N, C.CHT
