Healing Through Presence, Not Intellect | Amber Hawken Dip. Mindfulness CBT

You cannot fix your feelings.

Our negative behavioural patterns are only a reflection of our nervous/energetic system response that remains active due to unresolved pain/hurt/trauma. ⠀⠀

This is why you cannot ‘fix’ with the mind what needs to be *felt* and released within the body. ⠀⠀

Your nervous systems primary responsibility is to keep you alive. ⠀

It’s there to protect you from pain. ⠀⠀

When an experience is perceived by the filters of our mind as dangerous, it will either fight/flight or freeze in order to distribute or avoid the pain – so to speak. It’s either, “on” in over-drive or “on” in under-drive. ⠀⠀

You might not physically run, but you might disassociate and shut down. ⠀

You might not physically fight, but you may verbally lash back. ⠀

You might not physically freeze, but you may go limp inside and fall into compliance or people-pleasing.⠀

You may also have physical responses too. ⠀

Whatever it was, you did it at a primitive level, to survive. And it worked and your entire self remembers it. ⠀⠀

The thing is, it works so well to avoid/protect you from feeling the pain, it remains unresolved and the behavioural/nervous system reflex remains in place even when the threat is no longer present. We are so interconnected. Our mind, energy, nervous system patterns, emotions and thoughts all impact each other. ⠀

I work with the wiring of the mind to open consciousness and shift emotions and energy BUT – I am doing it to get INTO the body and resolve and dissolve.  The shift in perspective mentally can sometimes be enough for it to surface and in the moment trigger to dissolve.

 I always recommend body first, coherence in breath, always and it opens all channels to do the work without forcing.

AND, I work with the body, sometimes using cognition as the gateway in at times, to drop in, contact the point of pain, use presence, breath and feeling to resolve the pain so that the patterns of the nervous system that were activated as an initial protective response and remained active in order to protect us from that pain, can return to normal and healthy functioning.⠀⠀

I also remind them that this is why each day we must practice our presence, our breath, our sitting with discomfort, our leaning away from the safety of analysis and leaning into feeling, intuiting, surrendering and trusting. Because when it arises, these skills you’ve been building will serve you. ⠀

There are so many variables, ifs and buts. And I want to write another 5,000 words to explain this better. I don’t want you to grab onto some of this and think “I’m fucked” or begin to freak out that you have trauma to resolve etc. ⠀⠀

News flash – we all got it, loves. It’s okay. I say to my clients, “You don’t need to go digging for your shit, life has a perfect plan to trigger you, and when it does, you take note and you get to work”. Or, if you’re doing or feeling something you’d rather not, you can also get to work. But PLEASE, do so compassionately, gently and lovingly. Imagine a traumatised two-year-old self, locked up in your heart afraid to be abandoned or unloved and you go at it with the intention to “fix” or get rid “of” your “shit”. ⠀⠀

It’s not shit, baby, it’s you at some point protecting yourself, not yet realising you can feel what was too much for your heart and mind back then, you can release it, you can see the world in a different light, and your nervous system response to a situation similar or not even similar, just triggering to you, can dissolve and return to normal function. ⠀⠀

I got distracted giving context, as always. My point here is.⠀

If you notice you are a little ‘off’, feeling mentally noisy, emotional triggered, sensitive to all things, afraid, insecure, or in the midst of a sabotaging cycle, please, get the heck out of your head and drop into your body. You are SO much more intelligent than you realise or your mind will tell you that you are. Use your breath to re-centre and OPEN your energy. Take minutes, hours if you need to do this until whatever is buzzing below the surface, surfaces. And then with all your might and courage, let it move through you. You might have the urge to cry, scream, shake your body, or simply hold yourself. Do not judge the process of release. ⠀⠀

TRUST YOUR BODY. It’s coming up to come out. And every little time the pain arises, go into the portal. ⠀⠀

Go into your body. ⠀

Use your breath.⠀

When it shifts, for which you will know as it will feel in your being different. The same same, but different, I promise you. ⠀

There will be space for you to choose a new pathway in your life, where before it felt impossible to change. ⠀

You will have clarity on a situation that was once distorted. ⠀

You will feel liberated, coherent and grounded in your body. You will feel more settled, yet alive – more YOU. ⠀⠀

This process comes in spirals. It’s not linear and can open and close and shift and purge and move and arise over the years. ⠀

It can also happen in an instant. Each persons’ journey is their own. ⠀

There’s no first prize for speed and there is no winner for being ‘centred’. ⠀

Embrace your humanity. ⠀

Love your evolution and enjoy the damn journey 6 inches from your head to your heart. ⠀ ⠀

Ambs