For those of us who know the flick of switch that tolls our darkest moments; when those we love and reach out to for care and nurture turn against us. For those of us who know that place within – that place we retreat to when the lights go out (and still do) upon our childhood. For those of us who have touched the pain, fear and loneliness of abuse, how do we find the strength to overcome our traumas and live the life divine?
These little lives we lead; seemingly insignificant sparks of some mysterious fire that rages ever onwards. Humankind has created a rather turbulent relationship with its spiritual source over the millennia. Sacrifice in the name of the divine, be it through ritual, war, or social stigma, is the legacy left to us by our ancestors. The journey from innocence to a deep understanding of the suffering that can take place in life often results in the questioning of this Universal source – if she, he, they or ‘it’ are so omnipotent, why is there so much hatred? Why does a force so benevolent not put an end to the terror and abuse that taints our lives?
The abuses and hurts of the past are in the past, however, for many of us, we can still perceive the effects in our everyday lives. The twinge of emotion at the odd shadow, a hint of sabotage in our actions when we near completion, an unquestionable dread at certain thoughts, or the frustration we feel when inexplicably unable to understand why we feel and think the way we do. Nonetheless, in each of these moments we are never closer to the divine – not out in the world, but inside of us. When we are in the presence of our fears and darkness, we can literally step onto our path to healing and utter joy.
People have always had a sense of something greater than themselves. For many this incomprehensible force is perceived as the divine. For others it is known as ‘the Universe’ or simply ‘energy’. Whatever your personal view of the entity from which we are all created and within which we experience the entirety of our fleeting lives, there is no denying that there is a force that is essential to our very being.
With a shift in perspective and paradigm we can learn to connect, once again, with the divine – and when we do, we touch something so deeply profound and exquisitely loving in essence that it changes us forever. This transformation is not something we experience ‘out there’. It does not happen in the world beyond ourselves – the world of action and reaction – our enlightenment is a state of integrally personal experience.
This experience for many of us is one of ‘synaesthesia’ – light, sound, vibration, and other forms of energy (most of which defy the limitations of language). It is these fleeting glimpses of something more – something enchanting and delightful beyond measure that pervade our lives when we choose to notice them. It is when those fragile and capricious glimpses catch our attention that we truly begin to understand that we are never alone.
Any adult who was taught to feel damaged or worthless as a child and brings those innate ‘programs’ with them into maturity, knows how the ‘bigger picture’ of abuse translates into the little things we do in life. It is in our behaviour, beliefs, and what we choose to focus upon in daily situations that affects our health, wellbeing, and emotional integrity. We literally filter out the wonder and joy, because we have learnt that we are somehow ‘not good enough’.
It is in these little things that we also glimpse the divine – in the minute changes that permeate our lives. And for many, these changes are brought about in the discover of ‘energy work’ – literally ‘working with the divine’! Practices such as Tai Chi, Yoga, Celtic Reiki, and the Viridian Method can shift us to a place of enchantment and delight, where the hurts of the past (which manifest in the moment) are altered. Here we see the amazing power of energy – for the past is never ‘washed away’ or ‘wiped from memory’ – why would we want to spend so much time hurting from the past, unless it was an investment in some awe-inspiring future?
Energy therapies change the ‘tapes we play’ in our heads so that we glimpse a view of our past from degrees of greater expansion. Teaching us to recognise the context and dynamics at play, whilst learning to forgive – not only our abusers, but ourselves. Contained within the synaesthesia we experience in the use of energy practices are wisdom, strategies, and innate methods of change, all of which combine to help us through those little moments of sabotage.
Creating a closer connection through energy work is literally like a conversation with the divine, through our inner-world. This in turn floods out, into the outside world around us. The hunched stagger through life becomes a dance and we can learn how to celebrate life as the precious gift it is. And just as somebody, somewhere flicked a switch that cast us into darkness – you too can learn to flick that switch back on, casting a light on yourself and from yourself to the child that you once were.