1. Whenever you become aware of negative thoughts and emotions arising, rather than ignoring them, or setting them aside for later, identify, acknowledge, and honour them, these are your intuitive voices from within struggling to be heard.
2. Become very clear on what the specific upset is by identifying the exact thoughts that are bothering you. Are they self-judging, bad memories, or anxiety about future events? Any thought that causes us to be ill at ease in you, regardless of past, present or future is applicable.These thoughts are clues to the deeper triggers we are constantly stuffing down and trying to ignore.
3. Next, identify the specific emotions that arise in you as a result of said thoughts. What do they feel like? Is there tightening in your chest? Is your stomach turning or is there a throbbing sensation in your head? Again, any emotion that causes us to be ill at ease is applicable.
4. Once you’ve clearly identified the thought(s) and emotion(s), close your eyes and explore the imagery they subsequently create in your mind (once you’re familiar with the practice, you won’t always need to close your eyes—i.e., if you’re driving, or in public you can still do this.) Do your thoughts and emotions create colours, shapes, figures? Are they abstract or clear? The important thing is to let our thoughts and emotions create the imagery while we simply become aware of what they are.
5. Breathe. We’re at the half way mark and I’d like to offer you a sincere congratulations on completing the first half! Our natural tendency is to suppress these uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, often telling ourselves that we’ll deal with them later—but honestly, does later ever come? Unfortunately for most of us, it never does. So even just by taking the time to become conscious of, and identify these unpleasant thoughts and emotions is a huge step! Let’s not stop there however, because here’s where the real healing starts to happen.
6. This stage is where everything begins to change! Once you have the mental images of what your thoughts and emotions look like (and even if there’s no image at all, this practice still works), picture ourselves holding the image (or lack thereof) in the same way a mother holds a newborn baby our child within. Picture the image of your painful thought and emotion wrapped in a warm blanket, being held with very loving care closely to your heart, your chest, as we extend it very sincere compassion from our heart centre. (We can also use the imagery of wrapping the thought/emotion in a warm blanket and placing it in a baby carriage, and rocking the carriage back and forth.)
7. Next, mentally (or verbally) say to the image that we know it’s there and we promise to care for and hold it with compassion until it’s ready to go. Doing our best to say these words from a very sincere place in your heart.We really start to care about ourselves.
8.Through bringing our attention to the image of our painful thoughts and emotions, and tending to it with an open heart, we’re doing the most natural thing we can—expressing love to our hidden child within. Instead of ostracising our child withins uncomfortable thoughts and emotions and their unpleasant effects, we show them pure, complete and inclusive love. It’s a love and reassurance the child within has never known before, and a love many of us have never known before either.
9. The thoughts and emotions will often subside very quickly. Sometimes, however, they aren’t ready to go so fast, and that’s fine. When we initially told them we’d be with them as long as they needed us, we were sincere in that intention. So if/when the thoughts and emotions call us on it, we honour our words and hold them dearly in our heart for as long as it takes.We give ourselves that most precious of all commodities time
10. So that’s the stages practice. It truly is that simple . This practice can be used on everyday minor things all the way to heavier memories and triggers of our most difficult life experiences. It’s all relevant, it all needs re-programming by you ,your the perfect child within and it can all be healed, into a gentle loving-kindfulness that rests and nurtures our perfect child-within.This is our daily child within practice not our Ten Stage Course.
The Ten Stages is a studied recovery course. It is a source of reconnection a method of unlearning and a reintroduction to our child within which leads us back to our one true intuitive voice.We start to learn and come out of our protective dysfunctional shell and reclaim our lives. #childwithin#10stages
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