{"id":30115,"date":"2015-02-09T12:44:45","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T20:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=30115"},"modified":"2015-02-09T12:48:24","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T20:48:24","slug":"3-ways-to-heal-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/3-ways-to-heal-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways to Heal Yourself – What’s In the Way IS the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What would it be like if you understood that the deepest of challenges in your life are for<\/em> you?\u00a0 They are not here because you have done something wrong or God fell asleep on the job.\u00a0 Challenges are a part of life and they will keep on coming: too many things to do, miscommunication in relationships, health issues, financial difficulties, a stress-filled job, anything that causes you upset.\u00a0 Discovering that your challenges are for <\/em>you is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself.<\/p>\n

In this journey through life, you have and will come across challenges that seem almost impossible to bear.\u00a0 Rather than seeing them as something that you must fight with, you can learn to bring the power of compassionate attention to each challenge as it comes and learn to trust that your soul knows what it’s doing.\u00a0 You can use your challenges as an opportunity to see more clearly all the parts of the fear-based storyteller in your mind.\u00a0 It is a process and it takes practice.<\/p>\n

\"Pick<\/p>\n

1. Unhooking From Your Storyteller<\/h1>\n

You can learn to use your mind as the wonderful tool that it is rather than being lost in reaction.\u00a0 You are not the stories in your head.\u00a0 They are conditioned beliefs you took on when you were very young.\u00a0 The storyteller in your head \u2013 that commentator that talks all day long \u2013 is always trying to do<\/em> life and do it right<\/em>.\u00a0 It constantly struggles with life, cutting you off from the meadow of your own being.\u00a0 It manipulates, tries, expects, wants, rages and resists.\u00a0 It generates all sorts of feelings such as fear, sadness, self-judgment, anger, doubt, confusion, irritation and despair.\u00a0 It is happy when it is getting what it wants, and when it doesn\u2019t, the stories run rampant.\u00a0 This is where most people live … lost in their stories about life rather than the direct experience of it.<\/p>\n

The storyteller believes that everything will be okay when we can get rid of the parts we don\u2019t like and hold onto the ones we do.\u00a0 We have the strange idea that we are the only ones with these undesirable parts, but we all have them.\u00a0 We are just very good at pretending that we don\u2019t \u2013 both to ourselves and to others! \u00a0There is nothing inside of us to be ashamed of!\u00a0 We can begin to get to know our storyteller and learn to relate to all of its parts.\u00a0 They deserve kindness just like we do when we have had a difficult day.<\/p>\n

As you begin to unhook from your storyteller, you become more spacious and open\u2014the opposite of the low-grade struggle that you are accustomed to.\u00a0 In the unhooking, you discover how to use your mind for the exquisite tool that it is rather than letting it run you.<\/p>\n

2. Getting To Know Your Fear<\/h1>\n

Most people guard against their fear and will do anything to get away from it.\u00a0 Fear can be very subtle.\u00a0 It can be a chronic unsettled feeling or it can totally take over our lives.\u00a0 We all have fear.\u00a0 Even when our lives are going well, it is still there, concealed in the core of our inner story that is running us from underneath our everyday awareness.\u00a0\u00a0 We fear the unknown.\u00a0 We fear failure.\u00a0 We fear the darkness within us.\u00a0 We fear what others think of us.\u00a0 We fear death.\u00a0 We fear life.\u00a0 We fear it all.\u00a0 When fear in our minds really gets going and we are lost in it, the sympathetic nervous system gets stronger and more receptive to the fear, which feeds the fight or flight response, and we get caught in this painful world of fear.<\/p>\n

Getting to know fear is a powerful part of your awakening.\u00a0 It is one of the core teachers for waking up to life.\u00a0 Notice how fear runs through your mind all day long.\u00a0 It is powerful when you begin to notice it and say \u201cOh, that\u2019s fear.\u201d\u00a0 You can get to know fear without trying to fix or change it.\u00a0 This is where the healing is.\u00a0 If you think about it, 99.99{54c12dad2cc2b53ae830e39915b1a3e70288dbcbbeb8bbf8395437c5dc3c512c} of the fear-based stories you tell yourself never happen.\u00a0 Look back on your life and you will see that they just don\u2019t come to pass.\u00a0 If you can allow a little bit of space around the fear and see it for what it is, even for just a moment, you will realize that it\u2019s just a story.\u00a0 That is a moment of consciousness.\u00a0 Eventually, you will come to be with the fear and you won\u2019t be run by it anymore.\u00a0 It will just pass through.\u00a0 This is the ease and peace that we all long for in our lives.<\/p>\n

3. Breathing Yourself Back into Life<\/h1>\n

The benefits of belly breathing are profound.\u00a0 To breathe deeply into the belly brings your center of gravity out of your head and back into the safety of being grounded in your body.\u00a0 When your attention is mainly in your head, you are like a top-heavy tree that is vulnerable to the winds of life. When you ground yourself in your belly, you discover a wellspring of deep knowing, wisdom, and trust.<\/p>\n

Deep belly breathing will calm you when you are agitated, help heal you when you are sick, open the door to wisdom when you really need it and energize you when you are tired (more powerfully than caffeine and no side effects!).\u00a0 Deep, conscious breathing turns on the calming aspect of your nervous system, allowing you to rediscover, over and over again, the place within you that knows how to respond to life rather than react.<\/p>\n

When you are caught in your mind and you relax into your breath, you can feel how calming it is to pull your attention out of your busy mind and invite it instead to simply ride the waves of your breath.\u00a0 You can actually relax into its rhythm enough that you allow yourself to be rocked by your breath.\u00a0 And, you can make one more radical step \u2013 let go of breathing and allow yourself to be breathed by Life.<\/p>\n

In my new book, What\u2019s In the Way IS the Way<\/em>, there is a wonderful saying that is a reminder\u00a0that our challenges in life are for<\/em> us:<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is set up, to bring up, what has been bound up, so it can open up, to be freed up, so you can show up for life!\u201d<\/p>\n

Your challenges can became doorways back into an intimate, open connection with life.\u00a0 What\u2019s in the way IS<\/em> the way! When you can stay open to your challenges, no matter what is going on in your life, there is always a doorway.<\/p>\n

————————————————–<\/p>\n

Mary O\u2019Malley is an author, counselor and awakening mentor who resides in Kirkland, Washington.\u00a0 In the early 1970\u2019s, a powerful awakening led Mary to begin changing her relationship with her challenges, freeing her from a lifelong struggle with darkness.\u00a0 For over 30 years, Mary has been helping others heal their fears, anxieties, shame and confusion.\u00a0 Eckhart Tolle says, \u201cThank you Mary, for your contribution to the evolution of human consciousness.\u201d\u00a0 www.maryomalley.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would it be like if you understood that the deepest of challenges in your life are for you? They are not here because you have done something wrong or God fell asleep on the job. 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