Learning to Turn Inward to Heal
Are you looking for solutions to your stress or sense of feeling stuck “out there”? I know I was! Believe me: It took me a lot of trials and tribulations to realize that looking for solutions to my emotional angst “out there” was not working for me. Every time I was feeling down, upset, stressed or even desperate I would turn outward to relieve my suffering. Whether it meant asking for advice from a friend or counselor, distracting myself with chores and mindless activities, reaching for comfort food, going on a shopping spree, getting a spa treatment, considering medication, or even going on a diet, I was looking for someone or something to ease my emotional discomfort and make me feel better. And although I would get some relief from my emotional pain, it would not last. Soon enough, the same emotions and the same thought and behavior patterns would show up over and over, and I would return to the same methods I was familiar with to get some temporary relief.
Don’t get me wrong: many of the methods I was using to cope with my pain are indeed helpful and even necessary for our overall well-being. However, it was only when I discovered ways to turn inward that I realized I might have the ultimate key to my emotional health. It was only then that I realized that no one else has the answers and solutions to my own suffering but myself. I won’t lie: turning inward can be a painful journey. However, it can be one of the most rewarding and empowering things you can do for yourself. Fortunately, you don’t need to figure this out on your own. With the proper guidance and tools, you can learn how to. Some of the tools I have been using to turn inward for my own healing include the ones I am currently sharing with others: meditation, breathwork, and EFT.
Meditation is in and of itself the practice of turning inward in stillness. Meditation taught me that I was more than my body and my mind. Through meditation, I discovered that my negative thoughts, emotions, and physical experiences may always exist, but they don’t need to define me. Meditation also helped me better understand the relationship with myself, God, and the world around me and moved me closer to self-love and acceptance.
Breathwork and EFT have also been instrumental in my healing process. With breathwork and EFT I have learned how to turn inward to come face to face with my emotions and past traumas. While meditation helped me recognize that I was not defined by the limitations of my body and mind, with breathwork and EFT I discovered how to access, recognize, and accept my emotions, and learned how to set the ones that don’t serve me free using my own energy. Both those modalities have taught me that it is safe to feel deeply and that I have the power within me to process and release anything that is blocking me.
While there are many healing modalities out there, the ones we offer are truly client-centered, client-driven, and client-empowering. I invite you to try them and hope that you find them as valuable and transformational as I have!
