Life Challenges

Creative Ways to Transform Challenges:
Healing the Wounded Selves

Exercise: Calling Your Spirit Back Caroline Myss, Ph.D.

By no means is it easy to retrieve your spirit from days gone by, not only because genuine hurt is involved, but also because dwelling on sad or anger-filled memories can become a habit.... We become accustomed to dwelling in yesterday's junk mail simply because we are used to it. So easily does our spirit go to our historic burial grounds that its energy bypasses our conscious mind and then simply alerts us that it has taken its position in our past. Thus, over time, we no longer even have to consciously activate our unhappy past; it is activated automatically.

The process of retrieving this energy from the past begins by making a shift in awareness and vocabulary...Learn to become conscious...of what you are thinking about and where your energy is. When you feel yourself drifting back into the fog of a memory, command your energy to return to the present moment by saying, "I am not going in that direction any longer. I release it once and for all." And don't make heavy weather out of the act of releasing. It isn't always necessary to beat up pillows on the floor while screaming in rage. Release can also be accomplished with a bit of humor, such as, "You again? Beat it! I haven't got either the time or the energy to think about you any longer." Lighten up, and don't allow your past to frighten you....

Speak more in the present tense about your life. You can certainly recall your past, but make it a habit to recall the good times. When someone asks you how you are, give them a positive answer...If you are genuinely coping with something that recently happened to you, go ahead and share that, but don't dwell on it.

From Why People Don't Heal And How They Can by Caroline Myss, Ph.D., Harmony Books, a div. of Crown Publishers, Inc., 1997, pp. 26-27.

| Healing the Wounded Selves | Creative Ways to Transform Challenges |