Pain as a Path to Insight

Anyone who has ever suffered knows the challenge of finding meaning in the pain. Initially we seek a cause - we blame others - we blame ourselves - we blame inanimate objects or God. It must be someone's fault. Ow!! Once we get tired of that, we resign, man up, bear with it, or get going trying to alleviate the pain without ever recognizing the gift of it's presence - and there is a gift...always a gift underneath.

There is a way to relate to the energy of pain that is far more effective - one that increases our abilities and gives clear meaning to our experience. This interactive workshop will explore the yogic path of the nature of pain as a path to insight.

“Once one has committed to wholeness, all that is not that will step forward to be healed” says the Mystic.

Whether your own experience is with physical, emotional or psychic pain, you can learn new skills and open to insights that offer a clear framework for transformation. If that sounds too esoteric, just think of an ice cube melting into a puddle of water. It is not a mystery because we can observe and understand it.

All energy that is frozen in time and space can be refreshed with the warmth of new light, and that includes pain.

The gift of pain is insight, and we will shift the paradigm of mindless pain relief to one of keeping the baby while throwing out the bath water. You will come away with new and powerful insights for yourself and the world around you.

This is the essence of trauma therapy no matter how big or how small the event. No one is left out of the grace of relief - it's built into the framework as part of your energetic anatomy.

Welcome!

For more information and to register for the day at Yoga Polarity Center in Malverne Long Island, contact Lizzie Ferrara at mzliz@aol.com or call 917-288-6162.

Author and Yoga Therapist Gael Chiarella Alba ERYT is founder of The Yokibics Way and blogs on the topic throughout these posts and at www.yokibics.com.

Please tell your New York friends about this opportunity...Give yourself or a friend this gift of freedom and join us.
 
Namaste with love...
Gael

Emotional Freedom for Everyone

My friend and fellow mystic writer Edie Weinstein just published an article in Wisdom magazine that features an interview with Dr. Judith Orloff on the topic "Emotional Freedom" and I realize more clearly every day how very significant this information has become - and will continue to become - for all of us as we evolve into the people we are growing up to be. 

I think you'll love Edie's interview (read it here) and the clear awareness that Judith Orloff has on the subject can only benefit your own deepening instincts about who you are and how you are becoming. 

I believe that emotional freedom - the sister topic of emotional genius - is the new frontier in human consciousness.  Daily we are gifted with new ways of knowing the body - and our investigation into the realm of the mind has fascinated us for eons whether through investigations of the unconscious, conscious or super conscious mind, the study of psychology and the intellect, or the delving fascination we have with psychic and intuitive abilities. But recognizing the source and purpose of emotions? In my experience we have misunderstood their role more completely than all of our misconceptions about body and mind put together.

Emotions are the gateway into how our energy circuits are running - a soul connector - and there isn't a bad one among them.  There is plenty of inappropriate or misguided response though (response-ability) that gives the emotion itself a bad name.

Here are a couple of examples from my work in the territory of the emotional genius...

Feeling angry?  That's a popular one to misunderstand. One might be coached to "get over it" or sided with by friends who are on your team with "yeah you're right! The rest of the world is against you/me/us!!"  But here is where anger is your guide and teacher. Where are your boundaries about the subject? Really.

Are you doing all you can to create clear words and a strong will in the area? Are you willing to make the changes you are being called to make in order to co-create a different outcome? So much easier to be "angry at the boss" than to get up and out and create a different life.  Yes, the answer to the presence of anger might be that drastic. 

No wonder we don't "understand."

Anger serves to tell us change is required.  Listen to it well.  Be honest with yourself.  Be honest with others.  Be willing to be the change you wish to see. 

The emotion of anger will always involve your will and your word.

What about grief? There is indeed great reason for the expression of it in the world - more than enough to go around.  Death itself has been built into the program of life. There  is no escaping the powerful appearance of grief in your life at one time or another. Yet like all emotions, grief is meant to ebb and flow. Deep sadness when caged is like sinking into the bottom of a well. It serves to bring us deeper and deeper into awareness of what we really value - and it holds the potential of letting go. A more authentic version of our former self becomes the gift.   

How many survivors of even the worlds worst atrocities have come out on the other side helping mankind in a way that only they could when fully embodied and fully charged?

Grief stimulates the 3rd chakra and is the harbinger of a more genuine you.

Fear? A natural request to place your faith wisely.
Pain? What insights are you being given?
Apathy? What get up and go is necessary for you to care about something greater than yourself?

How about the emotion of joy?? Ahhhh....

Joy is inherent in the system just like all the other emotions. It is not reserved only for the special few, yet joy too is meant to ebb and flow - to rise and fall - to sing it's song in your life - in every life! It doesn't do well if you try to hang onto it.  It was never meant to sit static like a crown jewel.  Joy arrives unbidden as a result of transforming the entirety of your emotional body into a functioning alive system - not despite it.

What practical key then can I leave with you? What wish for your success?

• allow yourself to change outdated beliefs about how miserable things are.
• stop brushing off your feelings as if they don't matter.  They do.
• be willing to learn to identify what feelings you have
• become able to develop good discernment about what choices are available to help you transform your emotions rather than stuffing them away.
• become able to pause when a feeling arises and recognize it without judgement
• validate validate validate yourself
• be willing to let go
• recognize the the joy you seek is already there
• know that becoming an emotional genius is an inside job unrelated to circumstances outside your control.
• be willing to be new. 

If you are a conscious journeyman into the subject, read Edie Weinsteins' interview, buy Judith Orloffs book Emotional Freedom or download one of my audio programs Fundamentals of Emotional Freedom or Meditations for Emotional Freedom to help guide you.  You can achieve more clarity, greater ease and a deeper connection to your own interior through the process of honoring your emotions than you might ever have imagined. 

We are all destined to become masters in this life. Whether or not we can achieve that destiny depends upon the clarity of our objective.  May you be blessed in yours.

Namaste,
Gael
 .
Photo credit: Bob Alba
Exiting Mammoth Cave, Kentucky