You are not your pain!
Are you stuck?
Do you ignore your intuition?
Are you trying to move forward, but no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to break away from your pain?
Do you cyber stalk your ex, and wonder why you’re trying to see profiles on social media when you really don’t care anymore?
Are you inside the house when you should be out socializing and meeting new people?
Have you convinced yourself that there is no one new to meet, grouping everyone into the same category of bitches, bootie chasers, and losers?
This, my friend, is your pain in motion. If you feel stuck, your reptilian brain has chosen “freeze mode” to deal with your fear of getting hurt again.
Is there drama all around you?
Do you, after repeated efforts to avoid it, continue to attract those dragging behind heaps of baggage?
Do you attract cheaters?
Is your money situation a disaster?
Are you late paying rent, car payments or insurance regularly?
Do you leave the room when there is a disagreement?
These examples happen when our reptilian brain is constantly in “flight mode”. We’d rather run away than face what’s right in front of us.
Are you in a state of confrontation on a regular basis? Traffic, line-breakers, family drama, kids that won’t behave?
Do you catch your spouse or love in online chats, emotional affairs and lies, but you won’t leave/you’d rather confront it?
Is work an uphill battle? Are you overlooked for raises and promotions? Do deals fall through?
When there is any type of disagreement, do you knee-jerk react, scream, and throw a tantrum?
Are you physically violent?
Are you a chaser? In other words, when someone walks away, do you follow?
In these scenarios, our reptilian brain is in “fight mode,” and it usually happens so quickly that you don’t think about your actions before you react.
Part of finding the magic inside of you is understanding that on some level we create our story.
Jeanie, a client of mine, came to me with a broken wrist and a black eye from a husband that wouldn’t stop putting his hands on her no matter what she tried. She was in a state of emergency and I wasn’t her person. It was out of my area, and I told her so, but I did impart one thing. “You created this, and you have the power to change it.” It’s what her angels told me to say, so I said it.
You may think it’s a terrible thing, but here is the truth: She stood at their wedding altar knowing she shouldn’t marry him. Does that justify him beating her? Absolutely not! Does it make her stupid? No! She was innocent and he needed to go to prison. My point is our pain has a pattern. It repeats itself whether we like it or not.
Jeanie sat across from me for two reasons. First, she wanted to see if I saw her dead, and second, she wanted to know if I saw her free from him and living her own life. Jeanie knew her husband would continue to beat her if she stayed. She convinced herself she was stuck…until the day she met me. When I shared with her that I saw her free, living in another state, with new people around her, and a completely different life, she broke into tears.
Jeanie had enough police reports to wallpaper an entire living room. Her friend was holding onto a photo album containing dozens of pictures of bruises, burns, broken bones, missing teeth and hair, but no one cared.
“Allyson, he’s a cop, I can’t leave,” Jeanie stated in a cold stone fashion. “I’ve tried everything. Where am I supposed to go? How am I supposed to leave? And, if I did leave, how can I do that when he’s convinced our neighbors that I’m crazy and to call him if they see me leave the house?” She lowered her head.
I could clearly see she was in “freeze mode,” and my internal mama bear kicked in. “How did you get out today? Why isn’t he sitting here at my house?”
Jeanie looked at me. “Well, I told him that I had a doctor’s appointment for the wrist he broke, and he’s remorseful right now, so he let me leave.”
Everything inside of me rose up to meet her pain. “Jeanie don’t go back! Check your daughter out of school right now and start driving. Don’t go anywhere he can find you. When you get out of state, find a battered women’s shelter through social services. Explain to them that your husband is a police officer. Don’t worry about the photo album, clothes, or anything else. It’s time to run!”
At first, Jeanie resisted. She argued that her daughter needed to finish school. She had the cash to give me, which I didn’t take, and twenty dollars in her wallet. I gave her all the cash I had, which wasn’t much, but better than nothing. I convinced her to leave her phone at her daughter’s school, and get on the road, without looking back, as quickly as possible. I’d never dealt with anything like this before, nor since, but I felt the power of God and her angels at work.
Seven years later, I was sitting at my desk preparing for a trip to Los Angeles when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway.
“Hello, this is Allyson.”
“Allyson, it’s Katherine Wright, but you may remember me as ‘Jeanie.’ I came to you—”
“Oh my God! Jeanie! Jeanie! I think of you all the time!” Tears came easily. “How are you? How’s your daughter?”
She went on to tell me that she did exactly as I instructed and that it was a long road of healing, but a good one. Her husband took his life in their garage after the authorities in a new state went to arrest him. He barricaded himself in their home for twelve hours, and when the task force sent a robot into the house, he was found dead from a single gunshot wound to his head.
Due to the nature of her story, and to other facts regarding her husband, Katherine (not her real name) was allowed to change her name and start her life over. She was only calling me to thank me for helping to save her life, and the life of her daughter. It was the last time I spoke to her.
What is your story, my love? What pain is permeating through your veins? After reading about Katherine, you may feel that your problems are small in comparison, and go right to your gratitude list, but remember that is spiritual bypassing. Remember, minimizing issues will only slow down your process of healing.
If you are in pain, you need to figure out if you are fighting, fleeing or freezing. Jeanie was in real danger when I met her. Her husband probably would have killed all of them eventually. But you don’t have to be in danger for your reptilian brain to be in active mode all the time.
You have a primary way you deal with pain. Sometimes your natural reactor will step aside, and another will take over, but primarily you are either a Fighter, a Fleer, or a Freezer. You can begin to solve the mystery by going back and taking a second look at the questions I posed at the beginning of this chapter. You can also think of the major stressors in your life and how you deal with them.
Your truth is not your first response unless you’ve done some deep work. Seeds were planted for Jeanie along her path for years. She saw me and other helpers, as well as energy healers, shamans, and therapists. I didn’t save her life, she saved her life. I can’t change your life, only you can do that. My job is to hold up a mirror, a mirror of truth, so that you can begin to see the truth of your pain and your response to it.
Jeanie’s pain didn’t start with her husband’s first punch. It was going on long before then. Her intuition was screaming at her at the altar and she chose to ignore it. The last time I saw Jeanie, at the beginning of the appointment, was in “freeze mode,” but by the end of it, she was in “flight mode.” Why? Because she realized in that moment she held the power to change her life. Was she scared? No. She was terrified. I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed someone more afraid. But she ran anyway.
Pain is powerful! Pain will repeat itself. Pain will seek out the least healthy person in the room and say, “Pick me!” Pain will convince you to turn a deaf ear to your intuition. Pain will involve you in groups of people, or with a single person, who tells you how to think, where to live, what to wear, when to eat, and who can love you. Pain is a bitch!
It will hang around long after the physical injury itself is healed.
Your wounded inner child will cling to that pain until your adult self gives it the attention it needs. You see, your inner child, before you came along, didn’t know how to handle any trauma. Trauma is no place for a child. Children should be laughing, learning, loving, and living. Trauma robs that.
If you are fleeing, you are running from your pain. You refuse to look at it. You want to be rescued. You’ve convinced yourself that avoiding it means it doesn’t matter. Inside your heart is broken and you feel lost and alone. Your physical symptoms may include severe stomach issues, asthma, skin issues, and knee and joint issues.
If you are a Freezer, you have walls around your heart. You have convinced yourself that no one will love you the way you deserve to be loved. You live with a smile on your face, but inside things don’t feel good. You feel misunderstood a lot, and your throat chakra is completely shut down. Your physical symptoms may include weight issues, thyroid problems, liver and kidney disease, and vision challenges.
If you are a fighter, you feel empowered but it’s a lie. You’re entitled. You carry a chip on your shoulder, and no one can get close to you. You may have to admit to yourself that you can be a bully at times. You will harshly defend those closest to you one minute and terrify them the next. Your physical issues are blood related, hand and wrist related, and you may suffer with gout.
If you want a drastic change in your life, you must begin making sense of your emotional pain. Ask yourself:
When did it start?
What story was created around it?
How does it play out in my life today?
What are my thoughts?
How do I feel? (glad, mad, sad, afraid)
You also must begin right now accepting responsibility for every single part of your life. Let me explain how this works.
I’m the survivor of child abuse, and if I’m honest, adult abuse, too. My parents never changed their behavior just because I grew up, and their mistreatment of us all never ceased. During deep soul retrieval and profound inner-child work, I realized the victim I portrayed, lived, and breathed. Nothing was my fault. Everyone else, especially my parents, were to blame for every mistake I made, or would ever make, in my life. My list of their shit was long, detailed, and ingrained in my life.
I wanted to get well. I wanted to live an outrageously free life! We can’t do this and breathe blame. The two don’t go together.
My coach instructed me to make a list of every mistake my mother ever made that I perceived as directly affecting me. Once that was complete, she had me do the same for my father.
What mistakes has God made in your life? Again, trust the process. (Examples: He didn’t stop the bus from hitting Johnny, I didn’t get the “big” job, I can’t have children, etc.)
Next, list the mistakes of any and all significant people in your life where you were directly affected (grandparents, spouses, children, teachers, etc.)
Remember when I was talking to you about responding vs. reacting? With each mistake, write whether or not you reacted, responded, or both. You’ll know by the way you feel. A reaction feels like a trigger where a response feels self-assured and calm.
Do you see any patterns? If so, what do they look like? Do you see someone else’s mistake repeated in your life, even if by different people? For example, one of my clients has been raped four different times by four different men. Another client married four different men who all seemed responsible until six months into the marriage when each husband up and quit his job for no reason. “Coincidentally,” her father's job hopped every six months to a year.
If the patterns aren’t so obvious, meditate and see what Spirit reveals to you.
You’re big why for wanting to do this…it breaks family cycles of abuse, mistreatment, and dysfunction by breaking unhealthy patterns in you. Everything has a ripple effect. Before you can heal the world, you must heal yourself first. This is a step in the process.
Congratulations on completing this exercise. Hold onto it, you are going to need it a little later in the book.
Flow is a major benefit of finding the magic inside of you. When you deal with your pain, understand it, recognize its effect in your day-to-day life, and begin to surrender the process of healing, your magic becomes more apparent. When your magic is more apparent, you are calmer. With this new state of calm, you begin to breathe in life itself. When this happens, your human nature shifts. To understand this deeper, we need to talk about nature itself.
Nature has its own rhythm. Flowers face the sun, ferns grow in the shade, animals know their purpose and act accordingly. Nature is perfect. It all flows together exactly the way God intended.
Your magic is exactly the same way. When it emerges from the depths of your soul, and it is in there, your life will begin to flow in a perfect rhythm. You aren’t perfect, but your magical flow is perfection. Your magic is the closest part to God. Your magic is not your soul. Your magic is what you do with your soul. When you’re in massive amounts of pain, your magic usually can’t be found so easily. Once you clear your emotional dysfunction, your magic comes to life.
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