Transform! Module Four Self-Study

Transform! Week Four Self-Study Vocabulary/Concepts: Energetic Weather Pain Bodies Feel & Process

Understanding Pain Bodies: A pain body is simply any dense emotion or vibration that is not fully acknowledged and witnessed. It continues to live in the body until it is processed and released. Our reason for stuffing these emotions down often dates back to childhood traumas when we were vulnerable and unsafe and didn’t have the awareness or tools to healthily process what was happening to us.

Sometimes these pain bodies are inherited. They are intergenerational and/or karmic, meaning that they have been passed down to us through our lineage, or through other lifetimes.

As we age, we continue this practice because it’s hardwired into the body as what feels “safe.” But the truth is that we ARE safe, most of the time— our fear responses are simply lying to us in most circumstances. By learning how to witness and sit with—and even befriend and send some gratitude and compassion into our pain bodies—we allow for the possibility of overriding our hardwired fear responses and move into more heart centered living.

And we want this, right? We want to grow into trusting ourselves and trusting that we can handle what the body is asking us to acknowledge.

We owe it to ourselves and to our bodies to learn to listen. Our pain bodies will keep getting louder and louder until we do. They will continue to want to feed.

It’s important to remember that emotions are not “good” or “bad,” they just are. They are the body’s attempt to communicate that something is not in alignment with our heart and the truth of who we are. When we are able to witness and get curious about what the material is beneath our triggers and reactions, we allow ourselves an opportunity to bring them into awareness and override our hardwired responses to uncomfortable and challenging life experiences.

Because our unworthiness stories are rooted in fears of being unlovable, “bad,” or “not enough” (which is also “too much”), when we experience emotions that are not readily recognized as “happy” we stuff them down because we are afraid of what we will find out about ourselves. Our “pain bodies” are simply a result of all of that excess of unprocessed, low, dense vibrations in the body. By bringing them into the light they lose their power over us (fear→love).

We want to release these old stories and vibrations from the body to free up space for higher vibrations and our destination vibrations. If we don’t then we will have a “wobbly” vibration—we may be able to manifest and attract what we want for a little while, but the presence of those lower vibrations will ultimately lead us to lose those things, or at least make for a very tumultuous ride. When we purge these vibrations from the body we energetically “uplevel” without the low, dense undertones. This allows the things we are working with in our destination vibration to materialize more quickly.

Practices:

Processing and Releasing Pain Bodies: Take some time to journal about how these pain bodies manifest in your life: • What are my triggers, or in Eckhart Tolle’s terms, my “pain bodies”?

• When and how do they get activated?

• Where do they live in my body? What do they feel like?

In truth, these “pain bodies” are just fragmented parts that we have banished outside of our I-concept, and labeled “bad.” When we begin to get beneath the behaviors and patterns, we can begin to befriend these pain bodies and send them compassion. Once you have identified some of your more notorious pain bodies, consider asking them some questions: • What is it that you are trying to protect me from?

• What is that you need to feel safe right now?

• See if you can add some levity to your pain bodies. Consider giving them a name, or a personality. This can help to make them more identifiable and manageable.

• As they arise, see if you can check in with yourself and ask, “is it true that I am unsafe right now?” If the answer is that you are safe, kindly thank them for trying to keep you safe, and then remind them that you

Feel and Process: The “Feel and Process” method is a way of intentionally working with body scanning as we are triggered. This method builds upon the body scanning techniques we have been doing to bring direct awareness to our pain bodies and strong emotions as they arise within the body. It provides a working tool to process emotional turbulence in real time.

When we allow for the energetic weather to flow through us, witnessing and honoring its presence as an attempt to communicate that something is out of alignment, we allow for the possibility of releasing the vibration with ease. One way to consider it is that the quicker we process it, the quicker

it leaves our field. The longer we repress it, the longer it stays (sometimes to years—or generations).

• Feel in Body (Physical Body): Physically scan the body to notice sensations, note their qualities and where they are living • Acknowledge (Mental Body): Recognize any accompanying mind stories, limiting belief systems, or self-judgment. Notice if there are any old memories this emotion is attached to.

• Accept (Emotional Body): Witness and honor the emotion and what it is try to communicate. Get the data without merging with it.

Grieve and allow any old, repressed emotions and memories to move through you.

• Act (Prana Body): Get curious. Ask what you needed in the context of your original memory to feel safe. Then: 1. Watch yourself decide to do and say what you needed in that moment, knowing that there are no repercussions.

2. Notice how it feels in your body to respond in alignment with what you needed rather than acting from your fear response.

3. Once you have rewritten this memory, turn attention to the more recent trigger and ask yourself how you can meet that same need in the current situation.

4. Watch yourself do and say what you need to stay aligned, rather than playing out an old fear response.

5. Notice how it feels in your body to respond in a way that honors your truth and personal needs.

• Release (Awareness Body): As you witness these wounds from a more conscious perspective—observing and rewriting your responses—you begin to allow it to release from you field, neutralizing the charge. *These steps are theoretical. The practice is MUCH messier. There are emotions that feel too overwhelming and that we don’t want to accept. Sometimes we can’t process in the current moment. Witness what you can, get curious and return later.