For women with fibromyalgia, the present moment can be painful and miserable.
I think we are the strongest people on the planet to bear the pain and suffering that comes with fibromyalgia.
And yet, being in the present moment, can help you to heal, transform and rebuild your health.
May you find peace, 💗Bindu
After 20 years of suffering, there was a name for what was going on with me. I thought that meant that it could be cured. I was sorely disappointed. I found that just because there was a name for what was wrong with me, didn’t mean that anyone knew how to heal it.
So, I pulled up my bootstraps and began applying what I had learned in my explorations of holistic health and consulted with holistic practitioners. By that time, I had given up on medical doctors as they had nothing to offer me that made any significant difference. In pulling it all together, I came to a place where I could manage my symptoms, but not make any real progress on completely eliminating them. I wanted more. I wanted to be healthy and not live within the limitations of having fibromyalgia. I felt like I was living in a box and had to carefully manage my life to maintain a manageable level of pain and fatigue.
My search continued. I slowly began unraveling the underlying causes of my dis-ease. Piece by piece, I began to resolve physical, mental, emotional, expression and spiritual imbalances that were keeping my stuck, unhappy and sick. Realizing that there was not one thing that would fix or heal what was wrong with me, I coined the term the Fibromyalgia Matrix.
The Fibromyalgia Matrix is the interweaving and interconnected physical, emotional, mental, energetic and spiritual imbalances that underlies the experience of fibromyalgia. Each person’s matrix is unique to them, just like a fingerprint is unique. The Fibromyalgia Matrix creates chaos physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically. No foundation, no stability, impaired function, chaos, nothing to stand or build on. Sound familiar?
Recovery from fibromyalgia is a process of identifying and resolving these imbalances. It is quite like putting a puzzle together. You find the right pieces and put them together in the right sequence. Out of chaos comes order and improved function. As the pieces of the puzzle are found and put together, symptoms go away, health emerges, and peace is restored.
Rather than chase symptoms, we find and resolve the underlying imbalances. That is the path to creating true health on all levels.
By moving through the 8-fold process I spoke about last week, we can unravel the Fibromyalgia Matrix, and progressively rebuild our health, reclaim our life, rediscover our joy and align with our purpose. True health is much more than the elimination of physical symptoms. It is embracing the totality of who we are, body, mind, emotions, energy and spirit with love and compassion and reclaiming our uniqueness and our gifts and living successfully, powerfully and joyfully in the world.
That my friends, is what I am about. Are you ready to join me in this grand adventure? I hope so. That is why I am launching the Introduction to the Integrative Wholeness Experience next month. In this program, we can come together to heal individually and collectively. I’m excited about this. I hope you are too.
Stay tuned, look for more information about the Integrative Wholeness Experience.
May you be whole, 💕Bindu
What happens when my body is filled with pain and fatigue?
How do I practice being fully present when I am miserable?
I want to avoid my pain and misery as much as possible.
What then?
What good does mindfulness do me?
This is a challenge for those of us with fibromyalgia.
I understand.
If you take a short time each day to connect with your body, to breath and feel your body, it creates a connection with the innate wisdom of your body.
That wisdom can help you to heal your heart and your body.
❤Bindu
Each time I have set down to write this blog on healing the heart wound of abuse, I feel a sense of fear and trepidation. Today I realized that fear is the energy signature of the heart wound abuse. So, feeling that is perfectly normal as I write this article. I am connected with that heart wound and so can speak more clearly about it by being connected to it.
The heart wound of abuse is a violent Heart Wound. It is an attack on you or another. Whether it by physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically or spiritually. Abuse happens when we are openly criticized, physically abused, sexually abused or emotionally abused. Abuse is a direct statement from the abuser that who we are isn’t OK. It sends the message that who we are isn’t enough; that we need to be someone other than who we are to get our needs met and be loved.
We often feel like life isn’t safe. We never know when the next ‘blow’ will come. We often compensate for this by becoming a people pleaser. If we can just be or do the right thing, then we will receive love and our needs will be met. Yet our inner self is dying for love, attention and expression.
Healing the heart wound of abuse means giving yourself the love and respect that you deserve. Being kind and gentle with yourself. Acknowledging the hurt, sad, angry, shamed and frightened parts of who you are and offering those parts acceptance and compassion.
Seems simple. It may be simple, but can be challenging. Why? When we are abused as a child, physically, mentally or emotionally the scars are very deep and imprinted into our psyche.
Here are some possible protections:
Trying to go too fast can re-traumatize you.
The heart wound of abuse, leaves a mark of fear in your psyche. You may feel frightened all the time. You might have panic attacks. You might feel chronic low grace anxiety. Acknowledge the anxiety and understand that is the result of the abuse.
You might try to change or control circumstances around you, but that will never make the fear go away. It is a way for the part of you who is afraid trying to feel safe. (If you are currently in an abusive situation, it is ok to leave the situation.)
You might feel anger. You might feel sadness and grief.
Notice what triggers fear in you. Do some self inquiry about the trigger. What does it trigger within you? Why? You might want to write in a journal to explore this.
Is the fear or anger exaggerated in proportion to the current situation? Does the current situation warrant that level of fear? If not, that is a sign that a heart wound is involved.
What do you grab onto or push away to try to feel safe? Do you over eat to avoid feeling the fear/pain? Do you lose yourself in work to avoid feeling the pain? Do you use alcohol or drugs to avoid feeling the pain?
Do you try to control others to feel safe? Do you try to control yourself to feel safe? Do you judge and criticize yourself? Do you cling to a relationship that doesn’t make you happy? Do you avoid personal relationships? Do you keep attracting the same abusive personalities?
None of these things are bad or wrong. They are ways that you used to be safe in a dangerous situation. They are ways that you used to protect yourself.
Yet, acknowledge them and ask if they are still keeping your safe or are they holding you back from being free of the heart wound.
Here are some examples: I am a loser. I am not safe. People aren’t safe. The world isn’t safe. All men are bad. Everyone is out to get me.
Exploring the shadow side is an important part of healing the heart wound of abuse.
Acknowledge the wounded parts of yourself and practice meeting them with acceptance, compassion and understanding. Be present with the pain of your abused parts and let them know that the pain can and will end.
Take some time each day, week or month to set down with the 6 steps to heal a heart wound. Which ones resonate with you? Which ones terrify you? Are there ones that bring up tears? Anger?
You can journal about the steps and your reaction to them. Or do a self inquiry and journal around each step.
Create healthy relationships. Spend time with people who you feel good around. And or someone who can give you the space to vent and release emotions safely.
Reach out to someone skilled in healing heart wounds. Acceptance, compassion and support are an important baseline skills for a practitioner.
Sometimes we try really hard to heal our self. We try to change who we are into someone that we think we should be. We try to change our circumstances. We try to change others.
The three A’s of acceptance, awareness, and adjustment can bring about a deep healing. They are about accepting how we are right now. Out of that a deeper healing can occur. The parts of you who are wounded need your awareness, love and compassion in order to heal. To push them away, re-wounds them and keeps them locked in exile and they continue to vibrate in your subconscious sending a fear message to your nervous system.
Awareness – simply acknowledging what is right here, right now.
Acceptance – accepting what is right here, right now.
Adjustment – Out of acceptance comes choice. We can choose to feel. We can chose a different response to an event or person. We can chose new beliefs. And sometimes with acceptance, healing takes place spontaneously and a situation can resolve itself.
If you have heart wounds, the Rejuvenate program is a great place to start. The rejuvenate program is designed to help in the healing of heart wounds. When I began practicing yoga, relaxation, breathwork and meditation, I became more aware of my heart wounds and had the tools to unwind the wounds and reclaim my heart. Click here to find out more or see below.
It is almost impossible to heal your heart wound on your own. You have build in protective mechanisms that were created to keep yourself safe and survive the experience. Those protective mechanism will block your healing unless you work with someone with enough experience to successfully navigate the inner landscape.
If you are considering one on one support in healing heart wounds, click here to sign up for a complementary Heart Healing Session. Or scroll down for more information.
May you heal your heart,
❤️Bindu
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We all have habits, mental patterns, emotional patterns that we dislike. How often have you tried to change those habits and patterns only to fail? Maybe it worked temporarily, then the pattern reemerged. Or perhaps it just never worked.
Have you been called weak for not being about to change a pattern or habit? Have you criticized yourself for being weak willed? Have you given up on trying to change and accept status quo, yet still find an underlying desire for the change you envisioned?
Most of the time, when we attempt to change patterns or habits, we are working on the level of the conscious mind and trying to change from the outside in. We give little or no credence to our subconscious mind, which in truth runs the show.
Our subconscious mind holds the memories of our positive life experiences, negative life experiences and traumas. Out of these experiences, we develop beliefs and protections based on our experiences. Our self-defeating patterns are fueled by these subconscious memories. These memories will win in the battle between the mind and the subconscious memories.
In my work in assisting my clients in unraveling their subconscious pattern, I am again and again amazed at the power of the subconscious. Often the need to for safety, security, life, and love, held in the subconscious, is at the root of these patterns. They are not going to go away until getting these needs met is reasonable assured. This is not logical. It is deeply held in the limbic brain which is driven by the emotional feeling body.
Give yourself a break. It is not your fault that your efforts have failed. You just did not have the right tools to work with.
The primary ingredients in being able to unravel negative patterns is Awareness, Acceptance and Compassion.
Awareness. As we become more aware of our body, mind, and emotions, we can begin to see the underlying components of the pattern. The emotions we do not want to feel. The negative beliefs about ourselves and others to escape from feeling our emotions. The protective habits we have normalized to the point that we do not even question them . . . and assume that is just who we are.
Acceptance. Acceptance is the ability to greet that which arises will acceptance. This can be a difficult step as we are often our own self-critic. That is one of the patterns that we need to dismantle. Yet, if we can accept all that arises, even our own self critic, we can begin to discover deeper motivations for our self-defeating actions and beliefs.
By greeting our inner parts with an attitude of curiosity rather than an attitude of criticism, we can begin to understand how the underlying parts fueling the negative beliefs and habits, have our best interest in mind. Yet the beliefs and habits might be outdated, not really needed anymore, and sabotage our health and happiness.
Compassion Compassion allows us to hold our self with understanding rather than blame. Compassion is the ability to be present with painful experiences and emotions without turning away from our self. Compassion is our ability to greet all our parts, positive and negative, with understanding and forgiveness. It is the ability to give to our self the love and acceptance that was previously withheld.
By participating in a cyclic process of awareness, acceptance, and compassion, we can unravel the underlying subconscious destructive cellular memories and trapped emotions that are fueling our self-defeating patterns. As we become more aware of our underlying programming, the patterns begin to unravel themselves and we move closer to who we really are.
While Awareness, Acceptance and Compassion may not be a quick fix, it will provide real and lasting changes. More importantly, it will bring you into a healthy, loving, and compassionate relationship with your Self and all your parts. That is a journey worth taking. That is the treasure hidden within. From a place of Self, you will discover deep the inner fulfillment that your soul craves. That is priceless.
My free Mini Course, Six Steps to Resolve Hidden Stressors, provides a blueprint that can be help bring the subconscious in to awareness. If you use this on a regular basis when you are struggling with a challenge in your life, you can get insights into the underlying factors in self-defeating patterns.
If you do not have the Mini Course, click here to receive it. If you have it, pull it out, dust it off and give it a try. If you have questions about the Mini Course, join my Facebook Group, I Want to Be Healthy which was created to answer questions and provide a place for discussions about the Mini Course. If you have not joined, you can do so by clicking on this link.
May you discover the wealth of the Self within,
Bindu
Mindfulness means being aware of what is happening now in this moment. Paying attention. Our body, our heart and our soul and our mind is talking to us all the time. The body sends us messages through the vehicle of sensation. Our heart sends us messages through the vehicle of feeling. Our soul sends us messages through the vehicle of “knowing.” Our mind sends us messages through the vehicle of thought.
In our society, we tend to listen to the mind/thoughts over our body/sensation, our heart/feelings and our soul/knowing. We value the mind over the feelings of the heart and the sensations of the body and the knowing of the soul. Unfortunately, the mind has a limited perspective and so if we only listen to the mind, we don’t see the whole picture. It would be like cutting off three of your fingers. Your hand would be much less useful with only a thumb. That is how it is when we only listen to the mind and not the body/sensation, heart/feeling and soul/knowing.
The body, heart and soul have important and very useful information for us. We need to learn how to listen and respond favorably to these messages and balance them with the thoughts in the mind. The question then becomes, how do we do this?
Here are some practical ways to exercise the muscle of mindfulness. Listen to your body when you eat. How does it feel after eating a certain food? Listen to your body when you exercise. How does your body feel after exercise? Self-inquiry is a tool with which you can deepen your connection with the body, feelings and knowing. Taking a two-minute breathing break is an important exercise to stop the habit of being only in the mind and reinforce the awareness of the breath and body.
In our busy lives, it is often difficult to slow down enough to pay attention to the messages from within. We are used to being guided by the mind and by listening to others through news, media, magazines, books internet. We are overloaded with information from the external world. In terms of balance, we also need to “hear” what our internal world is saying. So, once again, how do we do this?
Mindfulness is the practice of slowing down and paying attention to what is happening in the moment as you are moving through life. It can be as simple as taking deep breaths and feeling your body. It can be really paying attention while brushing your teeth. It can be taking a deep breath and feeling an emotion rather than distracting yourself with something or pushing the emotion down. You can ask yourself, what is happening right now, physically, mentally, emotionally in any moment in any situation.
Here is a mindfulness exercise that you can practice sitting or lying down. Perhaps at the end of a busy day. Or a night before you fall asleep.
1. Sit quietly and close your eyes.
2. Simply feel your body.
3. Become aware of your breath and notice how you are breathing. Watch the breath move in your body. Where does the breath move? Where is it restricted?
4. Allow the breath to lengthen and deepen. Lengthen the inhalation. Let the exhalation fall out of the body.
5. Continue to feel your body and the sensations within the body. Are you energized, fatigued, tense, relaxed? Are there areas of tension, areas of relaxation? Allow yourself to move if you feel drawn to do that.
6. Notice your emotions. Are you happy, sad, joyful, angry, frustrated? Are you neutral? Imagine there are many flavors of emotions, just like flavors of ice cream. What flavor are you today?
7. Then begin to notice your mind. It is busy or quiet. Is it slow or speedy? Notice the nature of your thoughts? What is the content of your thoughts?
8. Notice if there are judgments of right or wrong. Let them go. This is just about being aware.
9. Now, bring your attention to the part of you that is watching the body, the breath, the emotions and the mind. We will call this The Witness. The witness is the stillness within the body, mind and emotions from where you can watch yourself and the world. It is always there, we just have forgotten it in the business of our lives. The breath helps us connect to The Witness. Spend a few moments with this process. See if you can anchor yourself in the awareness, the witness.
10. Now, staying in touch with the witness, open your eyes. Keep your attention focused inside while watching what is happening outside of you. Look around the room. Notice whatever you see. Notice the sensations in your body. Notice the emotions. Notice the commentary by the mind. Notice if you lose touch with the witness. If so, close your eyes again and anchor you focus inside.
Bindu
