 
The large elegant conservatory is reflecting evening sunlight. A half visible world of green and terracotta is revealed inside. An indoor tree fills the central dome. On either side are brightly coloured flowers and dark green shrubs. People enter through a finely decorated arched doorway between two marble urns. Each urn, topped by small cream leafed shrubs, is set on a cubic marble podium. The glass is reflecting the setting sun like a giant multifaceted crystal.
Your Calling Is Elevated Through The Release Of Pain
If we are to become pure, strong and true, and able to live out our inner calling then our character needs to be cut and polished until it resembles a sparkling attractive crystal. To attain that inner diamond we need to release buried emotional pain. The vast majority of people and certainly those who have not explored personal development for years are full of unresolved pain. Inner pain takes the form of buried emotions such as fear, anger, bitterness, sadness, grief and sorrow. This pain festers away inside us like a sickness, sucking the joy, fun and sensitivity from our lives.
Buried pain blocks us from sensitivity to our calling and explains why so many people find it difficult to get started on a spiritual path of growth and healing. If the call is to be our guide in life and we are blocked from feeling and following its gentle inner prompting, no wonder we feel lost.
 |
TAKING FLIGHT
A Gentle Exercise In Releasing Pain. |
|
|
Find somewhere quiet where you can be alone. Have a pad of paper and some coloured crayons or pens handy. Do a relaxation exercise (See Your Calling Responds To Relaxation). Recall a relationship that is causing you some emotional pain. Close your eyes and sense the buried emotional pain. Feel where it is held in your body. Try and picture it as an image in your mind. What shape does it have? What colour is it? Can this pain be symbolised by an animal, plant or other object? Stay with these feelings and images. Slowly open your eyes and draw what you visualise. When you have finished drawing become aware of any feelings that are surfacing. Sit and feel these buried feelings surface. You may be feeling a bit raw and vulnerable. The origin of these feelings will lie much deeper than the present difficulty you have with your current troublesome relationship. If you can, recall an incident from further back in your past that may be giving rise to these feelings. You may find it difficult to sense your inner pain. If so wait until you have an experience that brings your pain closer to the surface (like a row or vigorous disagreement with someone). Then do this exercise when your pain is closer to the surface.
|
Our pain is held in every cell of our body. This pain is stored from past traumas and hurts dating from adulthood, childhood and even back to our birth experience. To find freedom to be our true, authentic selves, we must release all this buried emotional pain by learning to open our heart. Our calling will help us to do this. We are taken us into our pain, through our pain and out the other side into a new joy filled life by following our calling.
Deep within we know we have business to attend to that we are avoiding. Maybe we know we should be changing our career, forgiving a friend or confessing to a lie we told our partner. Whatever it is we are called to do we know it is right and we know it is difficult. It is made difficult by our buried pain. We fear changing our career, we are angry and do not want to forgive our friend and we are terrified of telling our partner the truth. All of this is buried pain at work. No wonder we find it difficult to be truly authentic by having our intuitions, words and actions correspond.
By following our calling's inner prompting and attending to our unfinished business and unheeded challenges, we are taken into our pain. The art of being healed is to attend to unfinished business and to fully experience buried pain and the associated memories as they surface. So how can we release our pain, and become more authentic?
You could try the more vigorous exercise for the release of pain described below.
|
TAKING FLIGHT
A More Advanced Exercise In Releasing Pain. |
|
|
Find a private quiet space. Become aware of your feelings. Let your awareness of what you are feeling replace what you are thinking. To be successful you must replace thinking with feeling. Sense what your body wants to do and start to do it, gently at first. Maybe you are aware that you are feeling angry. Perhaps you sense that you want to beat a cushion. Get a cushion and start to slap it.
Do you sense that you would like to make a noise? Then make it – again gently at first. As you slap the cushion and growl gently you may sense there is more anger surfacing. So now start to thump the cushion and growl a bit louder. Release yourself from thinking about what you are doing and start to follow your emotions and inner inclinations. Let your movements and sounds take on a life of their own. You are becoming spontaneous. You may find yourself flying into a rage and beating the cushion to bits, followed by a fit of tears, sorrow and grief! This is all very healthy.
By expressing your buried emotions like this they are surfacing to be healed. During or after such an emotional catharsis memories and feelings from your past, including childhood memories, may surface. I always take time afterwards to lie comfortably with a blanket over me and be aware of these memories and feelings that have been locked away. By recalling old memories, and feelings associated with them, I become reconciled with my painful past and the associated pain. After merging with my past memories I then take time to feel loved and cared for.
|
There are a number of other techniques you can use to develop your ability to release pain...
Catch The Moment
In trying catch the moment you respond to those points in your life when you sense your buried emotions surfacing. Maybe your partner has said something that has really hurt you and brought up anger or maybe you have just taken on a new job and you are terrified of facing your first day at work. These moments are a precious time when it is easier for you to release pain, so make it a priority to do this, if your schedule allows. This technique is particularly good for people who are new to releasing pain and find it difficult. Catching the moment helps you, because you are releasing pain when it is near the surface and wanting to come out anyway.
Move And Breathe
This technique allows you to release pain even if you do not feel it is near the surface. Find a quiet private space. Start to breathe ever more deeply and strongly. As you breathe start to move by springing up and down on your toes and swinging your arms around. Build up into a strident rhythm of moving and breathing. After about five to ten minutes return your breathing to normal and just stand with eyes closed listening inside for any emotions that may be surfacing. This technique works because it shakes up your buried emotions and helps them to surface. Once you begin to sense your buried emotions surfacing, follow and express them as before. This technique is good for making emotional release part of your daily routine, or to help shift hard to get at emotions.
Write Spontaneously
Pick-up a pen and paper, or keyboard if you prefer, and sit down and write about your painful past. Simply let the words and sentences flow. Put energy, feeling and passion into your writing. If you wish you can make your writing a purely private affair. You do not need to write to be published, or even write for others to read, so you can be as open and personal as you wish. Such writing may bring up your buried pain, which you can then release, as above.
Watch Emotionally Charged Videos
If there are films that make you feel sad, or angry, you can watch these and use them to get in touch with your buried emotions. When you feel them you can release them as before.
Listen To Emotive Music
If you have music in your collection that makes you feel sad or angry you can use this music to bring buried emotions to the surface where you can release them.
Let Go Items Associated With Your Painful Past
Seek out items associated with your painful past and burn or dump them. You may find this brings up buried emotions, which you can then release.
Make Works Of Art That Represent Your Deep Buried Emotions
These do not have to be masterpieces; they are simply tools you can use to help buried pain to surface. Use a method you feel comfortable with. Coloured crayons, paint and clay are good. Be spontaneous. I remember when I was on an art therapy weekend once I made a clay image with sexual connotations. I was embarrassed at the time but it brought up a lot of buried emotion around my sexuality, which I could then release.
Create A Vision
Paint, sketch, write or imagine yourself as a fully functioning, powerful, peaceful, sensitive person, then allow yourself to feel a longing to be that person. This will help your buried pain surface where it can be released.
We know if we are releasing our pain effectively because we will become lost in the emotional experience and will have stopped thinking about what we are experiencing. Do not under-estimate the amount of buried pain that you have. It takes years of work to clear it. You may find as your exploration of buried pain progresses, that more pain exists below the pain you have already cleared, like peeling off the layers of an onion. Also as time progresses, the nature of your pain may change from harsh surface pain to more profound deeper pain.
In my own life I have spent years experimenting with releasing emotional pain. A great deal of pain surfaced when I had my second mental breakdown and thought I would never be strong enough to ever work again. So much pain surfaced that I was completely disabled by it for two years, (see Your Healing From Adversity and Your Healing From Loneliness). However this turned out to be a blessing in disguise because when I eventually began to listen to my calling and, with its help, commit to shedding my pain, so much of it was near the surface that I was able to make good progress.
 |
UNFOLDING
YOUR WINGS |
|
|
If some event in your life has brought about powerful painful emotions, this is a good opportunity to shed your pain using the above methods. It will take some time, and you may feel overwhelmed by the pain, but you will eventually emerge, renewed and full of life!
|
Do not underestimate the value and healing power of the above techniques. You may wish to find friends, a local support group (like an art therapy workshop), or a skilled professional facilitator who can support you with your journey into buried pain or, like me, you may feel called to journey into your pain alone.
As our pain is released we become increasingly sensitive to inner guidance. Our life opens up, we become much more spontaneous and rely increasingly on our feelings to guide our actions. We change to feeling life as well as thinking about it.
The methods in this book and others on A Life Discovered, the web site that supports this book, and throughout Trans4mind as well, are all effective in helping you lead a guided life. In particular talking, meditation and the release of pain work well together as a daily discipline for increasing sensitivity within. You can mix and match these methods, as you feel inclined. You may wish to try some of the simpler methods first like relaxation and questions.
Envoi
I am an emotional being.
I commit to feeling my buried emotions.
As I feel my emotions surface
I find ways of releasing them - harmlessly.
By releasing my pain I become more spontaneous.
By releasing my pain I become more sensitive.
By releasing my pain I am tuning in to the call.
By tuning in to my calling
I am finding the way to a new joy filled life.
|
