Transformation Awaits You!

First a brief context to this column... I've had a flurry of teaching activity over the past couple of months. A quick glimpse this flurry: First, I led my 7 day Shake Your Soul/YogaDance teacher training at Rhythms, then I zoomed over to Ottawa to lead a 4 day SomaSoul training, then around the corner to Kripalu for another 5 day SomaSoul training, then beamed over to Hartford Family Institute to teach for the weekend, then up up and away to Washington DC to shake some souls, and finally put on my bat wings to teach a workshop in Toronto over Halloween. Phew!! I worked with a wonderful group of people (maybe you!) in each of these events and had very full and deep experiences. Now, before all this took place I heard this pained voice inside with a tinge of dread asking, "Do I have the energy to do all this?" I felt the excitement and I felt my foot on the brakes at the same time! So I shared this fear of "can I do all this" with a colleague of mine where I teach at Hartford Family Institute's training for Body-Centered Gestalt Therapy. His response simply was, "Sounds like a victimizer to me!"

My first thought was "Wait a minute that's alot of stuff I'm doing! Where's your understanding?" Then I reflected more about his comment and realized how true it was. First, for those of you new to the term victimizer, it's a pretty vivid one used in Gestalt therapy and more kindly put is the inner gremlin as many people refer to. Let me break it down just a bit and make it relevant to your life. So here I am, ready and excited to do what I love to do and whoaa!! the breaks go on, doubt sets in, "can I really pull this off", "do I really know what I'm doing", "do I have enough energy to do all this"... blah blah blah. In other words, wrapped around my passion, power and creative energy is this destructive energy that leaves me doubting my worth, my capacity, my connection to what I truly enjoy doing and what gives my life energy and meaning!! In fact it's at work right now. As I'm enjoying writing this and experiencing clarity I feel this energy creep in where I start to doubt myself, my writing, my thoughts and then blurrville. How wierd is that??!!! Wierd and so normal at the same time!! Why would we sabotage ourselves in this way? And more importantly how do we stop sabotaging? And most importantly, how do I reconnect with my passions and interests and bring them forward into life and sustain my energy in the process? Are you ready? Here it is in 5 "easy" steps to stop the sabotage and get your ship back on course: 1. Hug the place inside that feels sabotaged or gremlinized. The wound inside us needs love, lots of love! 2. Now step into the cage with that gremlin. Time to wrestle that wild thing to the ground. Here's how your wrestle with that energy: a) First get it out of its ninja clothes by making it visible and audible. 1) Draw a picture of this destructive force for yourself. Does it have arrows? Does it have lightning bolts? Does it poke you or pull the rug out from underneath you? 2) What does it say to you? In a previous e-news I explained how to do this part. Every "I" statement convert to a "You" attack. So instead of "I'm dumb" its "You are dumb". Instead of "I don't feel good enough" it is "You are not good enough". Write this down so its not circulating destructively in your brain. Just by changing the belief from I'm dumb to realizing there is an internal judge (victimizer) who's at war with your power saying "you're dumb" is a healing step. (In my trainings we work more in depth with weeding out these energies as we discover their origins) 3. Embody the gremlin and own its/your power (since it lives in you). Here's how you embody that bugger and own its power: a) imagine you are the gremlin-victimizer-saboteur-ninja. Feel within your body how it feels to have that kind of power--feel it in your muscles, notice how your posture and breath changes. b) If you feel comfortable with this next idea try moving the image you drew--move out the victimizer energy so that its not so held in your body. Feel the power or energy within your movement. So move out the arrows, or start poking or pull the rug out. Also you can include your verbal statements as you express your movement. 4. Ground the negative energy Once you've sensed its power, moved its power, now imagine you have roots growing down from your feet and could breathe the power all the way down into your pelvis and legs and send it down into the earth through your imaginary roots. Transformation is happening as you've alchemized the destructive power into simple power. 5. Go forth into the world having recouped your power. Feel how you can walk with this power out into the world and return to your passion in action. Give this a try and see for yourself how transformation awaits you! Stay tuned for an upcoming recording where I guide you in this process. Warmly, Dan