I honestly didn’t know where to start with this post, because the topic of grief and trauma is so expansive and has so many layers. In this space, I am sharing from my personal experience and healing, but also the collective experience of others I have worked with and met along my healing path.
Some parts may resonate with you, and some may not. Please take what applies and leave the rest behind, because all of our experiences are so highly individual and complex, it’s impossible to capture it comprehensively in a blog post.
So, today I am starting at the ‘beginning’. Where we are in the deepest shadows of our experience and we wonder where the light is, and if it is there at all.
I say ‘beginning’ but honestly, you can feel like this many times over, even when you have done lots of healing, even after years have passed. So maybe it’s not necessarily the beginning of your experience or healing, but rather taking things back to the beginning, no matter where you are in your healing journey. A reminder that the central point of healing stems from your awareness, your inner knowing that you can find your light and reconnect with it, not matter how deep or for how long it has been buried.
Feeling that your inner light has dimmed or gone out entirely - where it feels like the light within has been buried under the weight of your pain - is something deeply personal yet universal. It’s also so completely natural to feel this way because you have been disconnected from yourself through a traumatic and painful experience.
Some people get stuck in this nowhere state for years and it carries on so long that it just becomes part of how they live and experience themselves. Because of the desire to push it aside and just carry on is strong (it’s so easy to try and side-step the hard parts!). Because of societal and cultural pressure to ‘heal’ with talk about closure and finding acceptance, or the tendency to sweep ‘bad’ experiences under the rug…… which to many means putting the experience aside, leaving it behind and moving on.
And often, there is a feeling of something missing. We love to ignore these uncomfortable feelings, but they are like guiding beacons showing us where we need to focus our attention, love, compassion and healing energy. Our emotions are messages from our higher self. We need to listen to what they are telling us!
The ideal behind healing is to integrate our experiences into our story with love and compassion; to integrate our experiences into who we are and how we show up in the world. They don’t get left behind and they don’t get ignored. They are acknowledged as valid, we own our experiences and they are part of us. They inform how we view ourselves and the world and we get to choose how they sit within us.
I have a saying on my kitchen wall: ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s learning to dance in the rain.’
It reminds me that we always have a choice. While we cannot control the thing(s) that happen to us, we can ALWAYS choose how we move forward. We can wait around for the storm to pass, or we can choose to drop into the present moment and start to connect with our Light Within.
The light at ‘the beginning’? It’s your choice, your intention. And each new day is a beginning. And each new day you get to choose to step into healing. Its intentional. It’s a commitment to yourself. The only way to get to the other side of the storm is through it.
How do we start to transmute the pain and suffering of our experiences? We choose to do so.
When we are so deeply buried in shadows and we don’t even know where to begin to find the light….. I want to remind you that what we focus on expands; where our attention goes, energy flows.
So today, no matter where you are in your healing journey, I invite you to go back to the beginning. It’s easy to lose sight of the basics that create a foundation for healing. And if you’re at the start of your healing journey, maybe you don’t even know what those basics are.
Its cultivating safety and security so that you can begin to nourish yourself and nurture your healing space. And it’s doing this with a huge dose of unconditional love.
How does this translate into real life? It’s in the small steps that you take consistently. These are some of my favourite (tried and tested) ways to start stepping out from the shadows of grief and/or trauma and opening to reconnecting with your inner light👇🏻 👇🏻
1️⃣ Create a healing ritual
Rituals can be incredibly powerful in the healing process because they create a sense of safety and stability. Create a daily or weekly ritual that honours your journey and nurtures your soul. There are many healing tools available to us, and different ones will feel right for you on different days. Tune into what will work for your emotions and general state of being each day.
Some days it could be lighting a candle and setting the intention to connect with your light (or whatever you feel is right for you in that moment). Or it could be doing some breath work to connect with yourself, which can be really helpful, insightful and uplifting. Or it could be anything that resonates with you. The point is to create time and space for it in your life, that it becomes a part of your daily activities.
2️⃣ Daily quiet time/meditation/visualisation
Sometimes, just sitting quietly and listening to your own thoughts can help. Meditation doesn’t mean you have to have a completely clear and blank mind (well to me anyway). Its more about intentionally creating some space in your mind so you can focus on your intention.
Visualisation is an extremely powerful way to activate healing and transformation. I invite you to find a quiet space, sit or lie comfortably, and focus on your breath. Visualize a warm, healing light entering your body with each inhale, and releasing any negative, dense or heavy energy with each exhale.
While you are visualising your light, holding it in your awareness, notice what your inner voice says or if the light is showing you something. Maybe you could ask it what you need right now.
You could also close your eyes and imagine your inner light. What does it look like? Is it a soft glow, a bright flame, or something else entirely? Notice how this light makes you feel. What can you do to help this light shine brighter, especially during times of darkness or uncertainty?
This may take practice. But trust yourself—you have an incredible amount of inner strength and knowledge to help you on your healing path! These practices can help centre your mind, body, and spirit, and reconnect you with your inner light.
**If you find yourself tumbling into your trauma or too deeply into your grief emotions when you meditate, this practice may not be for you at this stage.
3️⃣ Daily writing /journaling
Writing/journaling can really help you to integrate your grief and/or trauma experience because it helps you take ownership of your story and experience. The process of writing also encourages right and left brain crossover, which helps you to integrate any experience much more beneficially. This is because by writing about your experiences, thoughts and feelings, you are helping to integrate your left (logical) brain experience with your right (emotional) brain experience, which in turn helps you to process the whole event in a more balanced and effective way.
Journaling is one way to create a safe and private space to explore your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. By writing them down, you externalise your internal world and gain a different perspective. This act of self-reflection allows you to examine your thoughts and emotions more objectively.
Journaling can help you tap into your intuition and inner wisdom. As you write, you might find yourself connecting with deeper insights or gut feelings that are otherwise drowned out by the noise of everyday life. This intuitive guidance can provide valuable perspectives and solutions to challenges you may be facing.
Journaling acts as a bridge between the conscious and subconscious mind, allowing you to access and explore the deeper layers of your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. By engaging in this practice regularly, you can develop a stronger self-awareness and gain valuable insights into yourself, leading to personal growth and transformation.
One of the most helpful exercises is letter writing. You can write a letter to your past self, to a person who you are grieving and missing, to a person or people who are a part of your trauma experience, and you can just be brutally honest about how you feel and say exactly what you need to without concerns about judgement or response. When you are done writing your letter, you burn it (purification and release) with the intention of letting go energetically of everything that no longer serves you that was written in the letter. This a beautiful exercise to open up your throat chakra (around communication and speaking your truth).
4️⃣ Move your body (and your energy)
Again, there are many, many documented and researched benefits to moving our body. There are tons and tons of ways to move your body and shift your energy, so if gym or running or hectic exercise doesn’t work for you, you can take a gentle walk, do some yoga, Pilates or somatic exercises, have a dance party – take your pick. But move your body!
5️⃣ Therapeutic healing practices
You can listen to healing music that aligns with where you are at in your healing journey and what you need to nourish yourself with in this moment. You can go for talk therapy/counselling, energy healing, chakra balancing, crystal healing, reiki, reflexology……the list is endless. I have done all of the above at various stages of my life, depending on what I have needed, and they have all helped to heal different layers of my experiences.
The foundational step to reconnecting with your Light Within is creating the space for healing and nurturing yourself, and it doesn’t matter what that looks like for you. Go with what feels right, and that can change all the time.
Believe in your capacity to heal and grow. You are stronger than you know. I want you to know: that inner light of yours? It hasn't disappeared. It’s still there, just waiting to be uncovered. It's just waiting for you to recalibrate, reconnect and find it again. And uncovering it and reconnecting with it is a fundamental part of the healing process.
Channelled message: The Light Within never fades, never disappears. It just gets blocked and buried, shrouded by the shadows of our experiences. It’s always there for you, and you can always reconnect with it. It symbolises the essence of who you are.
Supportive card pull for today’s post: The Akashic Tarot deck
MAJOR ARCANA
There are many levels of meaning in the Major Arcana, mainly speaking to your essence of being, your spirit, your soul, your Higher Self and the Divine Source.
21 Uriel and the Sphinx
This card shows that it’s time for you to do the most important (and possibly the most difficult work) in your life: the digging and inner discovery that takes you to your deepest self and deepest power. Even the great Sphinx had to be dug out many times from the blowing desert sands that buried it up to its neck. And you must dig diligently too. You may have to chip away at the rock-like substance of your old beliefs and histories so that you can get the truth inside. But don’t worry, you have begun already and you’ve made considerable inroads.
There is also someone here to help you: Uriel whose name means “Fire of God”. You can work directly in your meditations with this Archangel for self-understanding, transformation and guidance. Also be on the lookout for someone in your daily life who Uriel has sent. This could be a teacher, a mentor, or even a new friend who shares a kinship with you about this inner quest. It is a relationship of great value that comes in a time of profound power. Don’t diminish the importance of this phase. It is this work that leads you to your initiation and to your higher power.
With love from my soul to yours,
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PPS: If you ready to explore your own healing journey and reconnect with YOUR Light Within, book your FREE Radical Soul Reading to unlock your inner healing wisdom and open yourself up to soul truths, blocks and limitations. And if you are ready to dive straight into healing, I invite you to see how I can be of service to you on your journey.
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