Does it pain you to witness the disputes and disagreement in the world right now? Does all the pointless arguing cut you to the core?

When you want to stay out of the energy of division and separation, but you also know it’s reflecting the state of the collective, it’s hard to decide to abandon everyone…right?

It doesn’t seem to matter whether you stay on the sidelines or get dragged in, you still feel the separation, and sometimes you want to scream, “Why can’t everyone just love each other?”

You don’t understand why people can’t allow space for contrasting opinions.

You know it doesn’t make logical sense to make someone wrong just because they hold a different point of view.

But if you focus on harmony and world peace so you can feel at peace inside, you’re trying to fix your external reality instead of dealing with your internals.

You’re also buying into the illusion of brokenness, and the idea that humankind needs ‘fixing’.

Which means that if you’re conflicted about whether you should direct your attention towards healing the rifts between others or staying focused on you, you’ve got caught in the dichotomy.

For several years, I didn’t realise I was caught in a belief that the world needed healing. I used to agonise about people who were avoiding dealing with their stuff. I used to worry they would be left behind as humankind ‘ascended’.

When people didn’t take up the opportunity to confront their pain, face their inner demons or work on their shadow, I took it personally.

I imagined being on a train slowly pulling out of the station, with me gesturing wildly, calling, “Hurry, don’t miss the train, it’s leaving! Get on!”

I was so caught up in a habit of sacrificing my needs for the benefit of others that I thought I was entitled to feel let down by and disappointed in anyone who avoided dealing with their triggers. I thought my frustration was justifiable, and that I could rightfully shame people into boarding the Awakening Train.

Although my intergenerational blueprint is ‘never surrender’ (or ‘surrender and die!’), it took surrender – a willingness to go into uncharted territory and feel the uncomfortable sensations in my body – to realise my desire to fix others was rooted in my dysregulated nervous system.

Although awareness of the problem didn’t resolve my issue, it provided me with a starting point. Even doing something I didn’t think I was capable of, because my intergenerational history was stacked against me doing it, helped me trust that I had the internal resources needed to befriend the sensations inside me that compelled me to fix others, to create harmony, and to experience peace.

I felt dragging, pulling sensations deep in my abdomen, which, as they pulled, pulled at strings attached to my throat, pulled at my jowls, down, down, down lower, apparently trying to bring my viscera to my belly. The intensity of those sensations continued while my mind flashed stories of tortured individuals who could not manage without my assistance.

I had to feel the wildly uncomfortable, rigid and immoveable wall inside me when I attempted to make a boundary. After I felt the wall, I felt intense pangs of guilt rise almost simultaneously, but instead of allowing my mind to be carried away by memories and stories of my guilty conscience, I went back to feeling the wall within.

When I could be fully present to what was driving my behaviour, I could clearly see the unconscious pattern driving my nervous system. And when I found that pattern in my body, and unravelled that, I was no longer enslaved by the need to fix others.

THE TRAP MOST HEALERS FALL INTO

In my work with healers and spiritual practitioners, I’ve observed they often ignore their physical body entirely or diminish its importance. They might accept their body is the vehicle for their soul, but don’t see it as spiritually equal to their soul.

The more embodied a healer can be in the face of trauma, the more they can connect to their spiritual essence.

The deeper they go within, the greater they expand up and out. My shamanic training taught me that.

My nervous system training taught me that a master healer uses their nervous system to create the conditions for both client and practitioner to:

Evolve into their Highest Expression of Self and
Fulfil the potential of their Soul

However, if a healer ignores the body and favours the soul, they fall for another dichotomy. They ‘buy into’ the body-soul dichotomy, just like they ‘bought into’ the illusion of humans being broken and needing fixing.

One of my favourite modules in Expansion Training examines the Shadow of the Helper and looks at the fears that drive over-giving and over-helping. It also explores embodiment practices for resolving unconscious fears.

In the first round of Expansion Training, back in 2018, it seemed almost miraculous to me that when my students allowed their body to become their best friend and they paid attention to the messages their body wanted to share with them, they stopped over-giving and over-helping. They ceased sabotaging themselves and felt worthy enough to ask for their needs to be met.

Self-compassion and forgiveness is one strategy to re-align yourself when you’ve allowed your fear to take you off-track. But you still need to move it into the body.

When you acknowledge that a misalignment caused you to forget that embodying your divinity requires embracing your humanness, you reconnect to your empowerment, reclaim your sovereignty, and can call forth your desires without judgement, fear or guilt.

Then you allow that to flow through your nervous system and create change!

THE POTENTIAL OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

Here’s what you can change when you observe and stay present to heightened activation in your nervous system:

You let go your need to please others and be liked by them at any cost (change the FAWN response).
Being seen doesn’t terrify you (resolve the FREEZE response).
You don’t have to stay alone to stay calm (renegotiate the FIGHT/FLIGHT response).

Instead, you choose how you want to feel because you're not responding with your nervous system stuck in survival mode.

But you can't choose when your rational brain isn't online.

I love sharing about 'choice' and the limited choices we have when our trauma patterns are in charge.

Read more about expansion here.

In my trauma-informed group program for healers and neuro-sensitives, I teach methods to eliminate overwhelm and rewire patterns of protection, banish procrastination and self-sabotage and metabolize trauma that's holding back neurodivergent practitioners from thriving. All set within a safe container of shamanic wisdom practices.

Expansion Training for Healers is a 10-week group program for just 12 healers and neuro-sensitives - with plenty of individual support.

Doors are now open for the next round of Expansion Training for Healers, starting Tuesday 9th May, 2023.

If you're curious how healing and expanding your nervous system can help you, book a co-regulation call to explore whether this somatic trauma therapy training is for you.

Is focusing on you 'selfish' or wise? Should you use your gifts to dissolve the tension in the world ?