Healing for me, among other things, involves somatic release and processing 24/7. It requires a complete surrender to something intelligent that moves through me but is not me. I call it life-force. I recognize it in every living thing. It manifests in infinitely diverse ways following its own natural law which defies intellectual understanding. I watch in awe. (fb)
The above were words I posted on Facebook. A reader toId me it made her think of welcoming prayer. So I googled that and found this a description of what mystically oriented Catholics call welcoming prayer and was flabbergasted in the most beautiful way. It’s very much like what I’ve developed with the help of many different mostly eastern sorts of meditative practices. I love finding new ways to talk about my experience.
Here is a brief description.
When you have an overly emotional experience in daily life, take a moment to be still and silent and follow these steps.
Focus, feel and sink into the feelings, emotions, thoughts, sensations and commentaries in your body.
Welcome God in the feelings, emotions, thoughts, commentaries or sensations in your body by saying, “Welcome.”
Let go by repeating the following sentences:
“I let go of the desire for security, affection, control.”
“I let go of the desire to change this feeling/sensation.”
This is very close to what I’ve been practicing for several years, without saying these precise words, it is none the less what I’ve been doing. The heinous sensations from the iatrogenic injury and all the trauma from my life needed tending to and I intuited a practice that has been healing me. It’s very much like this one. I’ve explored many different ways of considering what I do and when I do that the different methods and traditions further inform what I do. This process has become my own…and has been developed in an organic fashion in response to my practices. I think that these practices are always in the end very personal. My experience, I find, can be explained and expressed in many different ways and a lot of different traditions overlap with similar things. This is the nature of our internal experience of the all, I think.
Here is a post on how my meditation practice began when I was very ill, because I did, indeed, have to start all over the drug damage was such a complete rupture: Life as a meditation: my contemplative adventure
Here is another nice welcoming prayer written by a practitioner, Mary Mrozowski:
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment
because I know it is for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions,
persons, situations and conditions.
I let go of my demand for security.
I let go of my hunger for approval.
I let go of my insistence on control.
I let go of my blind desire to change any
situation, condition, person, or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God
And the healing action and grace within.
This too is like Rumi’s guest house, a favorite of mine I’ve published on this blog before:
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi ~
I think that Focusing, written about here by Will Hall, is essentially a secular description of the same thing as well. I, in fact, don’t attach belief to my experience. I’m personally most comfortable calling that which I get in tune with simply life-force. I also resonate strongly with Focusing and in fact read the book many years ago. It also influenced what I do today. I am happy to use many different frames to understand this so often ineffable human experience we can all have and try to talk about in so many different ways across all cultures.
Here is an extra little treat:
Other body oriented methods of meditation or therapeutic technique discussed on Beyond Meds:
- Trauma, Fixation and Reactivity – (Somatic Experience)
- Trauma release exercises (or tension release too) — the body speaks
- Body-Centered Inquiry
- Inhabiting our bodies in meditation
- I wrote a new story for my nervous system” — neurosculpting, neuroplasticity
- Restoring the Body: Yoga, EMDR, and Treating Trauma
- Yoga for trauma: reclaiming your body
- The body keeps score — scroll down for many posts on this important book
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For a multitude of ideas about how to create a life filled with safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs visit the drop-down menus at the top of this page.
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Everything matters 