​The Real Journey
​
The journey you actually undertake when you try and return to authentic good health, mental or physical, is ultimately a journey back to your own Source. The real journey is of rediscovering and consciously reconnecting to the very power and energy which created you in the first place, one that presently exists within as a dim spark of its full potential.
 
The real journey begins when you recognise that there is no clear distinction between your spiritual quest and your quest to be successful and happy in life, and that as you recognise and remove more and more of the false notions and layers which you have collected over time, what you are actually doing is revealing something vast and wonderful within, a source of power and awareness which you inherited at birth but then seemingly forgot as your awareness externalised over time.
 
Healing is not about transforming yourself into a new or different person, or traveling away from yourself in search of a new home. It is simply removing the layers that obscure you and finally returning to and reclaiming your own true skin. From this perspective, there is no difference between authentic personality development and spiritual unfoldment, they feed into each other and strengthen your progress hand in hand.
 
The Mechanics of Healing

Lets take a step back. As a newborn, you had an innate connection with the same power that created you. In this connected state, you were content to explore the people and world around you with a fresh lense, without bias or baggage. You were also comfortable expressing exactly how you felt about what you were experiencing, good or bad. (Take some time to reflect and go back in time to find an age where you were able to do this easily and naturally. Are you able to recall the feelings from that early childhood stage or are they too obscured?). By the time you reach adulthood, however, things have somehow changed, and you have instead become accustomed to filtering both your experiences and your self expression based on your environment. You are careful to analyse and judge what light you will be perceived in before acting. There is an undue focus on managing perceptions and managing risk, on making rigorous plans and having back-ups in case of failure. In essence, you have shifted from being in your heart to living life almost exclusively through your head, focused on defining, categorising and analysing your life and your self in an attempt to create a sense of certainty and safety in an inherently uncertain world.

These changes are driven by unresolved feelings and experiences that you have allowed to shape your beliefs and thoughts. Instead of seeing things as they are, you filter everything through these distorted thought patterns, living life through a historic lens instead of first hand. This general trajectory is the same for everyone, what differs is the individual path you take along this journey. (Again if this resonates, take some time to think of events that caused you to change or modify your behaviour. If you can recall, what were you feeling at the time of the event? Do you feel the changes that occurred within you as a result are for the better or for the worse? Are you happy and at peace with where you stand today in relation to these past events? Not easy questions to answer honestly, but crucial in moving forward).
 
The mechanics of reversing this change and returning to your heart, to your own unique natural equilibrium, begin with re-tracing your path through life and accurately, honestly and objectively identifying the experiences that impacted you, identifying the associated beliefs and thought patterns they left behind and actively engaging them to weed them out of your psyche. Surprisingly, a large amount of weight can begin to lift simply by becoming aware of what you carry. Based on the range and strength of belief patterns and held in emotions discovered, various techniques  ranging from affirmations, energetic healing, journaling and reflecting can help release the related distortions. For more deeply ingrained wounds, a more powerful approach might be required, involving bringing the wound to life and reliving it to face and conquer the shadows associated with it. The task at hand is always the same, recognising unwanted thought patterns, weeding them out of your system and replacing them with their authentic counterparts at all levels of your being, emotional, intellectual, physical and energetic.

In theory this sounds straightforward, but the mind is a wonderful creature and challenges appear once you commence your own journey. The initial hurdle is correctly identifying what you are carrying and how it is affecting you. Is your anger driven by sadness or is it bottled up insecurity? Are you really an introvert or is it a mask to hide your shyness and lack of self belief? Does your drive to achieve stem from genuine passion or from a need to prove yourself to someone? Once you have correctly identified the distortions being carried and connected the dots to what caused them, the next hurdle is tougher - facing similar situations and personalities to the ones that caused your initial wounds without relapsing into old patterns. Holding your ground in the face of pain and fear. These tests are to be expected and embraced, with the understanding that the real challenge is not what is happening in front of your today , but what it speaks to in terms of how you have allowed the past to limit and define you within.   
 
The Source of Healing

Another critical piece of the puzzle is to understand the source of all healing and transformation. ​A practitioner only points certain things out and at most initiates a process of change, the rest is carried forward by you, supported by your own inner awareness. Change cannot be forced, you must bring forth and embrace change from within, allow it to manifest and not hold it back or resist it by staying in your own inner prison of fear and inertia. Ultimately, however, even your own self effort can only ever yield limited results. If you observe carefully, it is not your own self effort that brings about change, but simply your dropping of resistance to a higher power or energy within, allowing it to correct what is wrong and reset a more natural balance. Your task, ultimately, is to drop resistance driven by your pain and shadows and allow this higher power within to facilitate the change required, to allow it to heal where required.
 
True healing is always carried forward by the same power that created you, a source of never ending health, joy and radiance within that restores you to equilibrium and fills the emptiness within with the permanence you had been searching for all along. This is where healing takes its true ultimate course – where a journey that started off as dealing with ideas of the intellect and emotions of the mind converges into a process of alchemy, so that the very source that created you can over time express itself more fully once again and in the process restore you to a state long forgotten but yet always remembered. At this stage ideas, concepts, terminology and techniques begin to become less meaningful, and words begin to fail to describe adequately what can only be conveyed by your own first hand experience. On this journey which you initiate, or rather one which life perhaps forces you to initiate, true success can only come when you begin to recognise the source of the voice that prompts you from within, the constant inner reminder of the need to return home to your own true self. 
 
The final destination of healing is not just health but an empowered and inspired state where you have freedom of expression and mastery of experience. The steps towards it begin with seeing how and where you are wounded within your personality today, and having the courage and initiative to begin to unravel these wounds. To face and embrace the unresolved past with love and to stop living life in an attempt to outrun it.

​Defining ‘Wounded’

To understand what it is to heal, we must first define what it means to be wounded. The term ‘wounded person’ conjures up imagery of a broken individual, someone in a dire state who has experienced harsh and unforgiving trauma and carries easily visible scarring as a result, either physical or psychological.
 
It is surprising, then, to be told that wounded in this context actually refers to a state of mind which you and I mistakenly take to be normal, a state of being that you are intimately familiar with in your day to day life!
 
A wounded person is anyone who has experienced something unpleasant in the past and has not been able to fully acknowledge, process and release what occurred to them. This results in impressions from the past that are carried around within as shadows in your everyday life. These shadows exist as unresolved feelings and emotions within your psyche that control how you behave and how you portray and perceive yourself in your day to day life. The experiences that create these shadows can be as simple as an embarrassing moment where perhaps you momentarily felt judged or inadequate to more complex and drawn out experiences such as dysfunctional relationships, where you might have been victimised, manipulated or hurt and disappointed over a period of time.
 
Wounded Behaviour

The result of these unpleasant and unresolved past experiences is a change in your inner dialogue, sometimes easily visible, at other times subtle and sub-conscious, hidden even from yourself. This change gives rise and power to various interrelated feelings such as 'I am not safe', 'I am not good enough', 'I am not loved', 'I don’t belong here' and so on. The consequence of carrying these beliefs is insecurity and unease within, leading to a range of behaviours and actions to compensate for this gnawing feeling of dis-ease.
 
Some distract themselves by binging on mild addictions such as shopping, entertainment or travel, while some embrace fuller addictions of substance abuse to forget what they carry. Some channel their pain into ambition and drive, pushing themselves to excel and succeed at any cost so that they may finally prove their worth, while others give up and walk away from life's challenges, already convinced of their inability to achieve and create. Some close their hearts to protect themselves and begin drawing boundaries between themselves and others to avoid getting hurt, while others do the opposite, opening their hearts without discrimination out of a feeling of lack, turning themselves into doormats and attracting hurt and rejection in dysfunctional relationships in various settings.
 
In all of these behaviours, the initial motivation to act is the same: an attempt to escape fear, insecurity, powerlessness and the underlying feelings of sadness and pain caused by unpleasant experiences from the past. The end result is a seemingly endless and constant search for that one permanent and lasting experience, achievement or acquisition that will finally make us complete, safe and happy. In focusing on changing external factors in our lives or acquiring new things that will make us happy, whether objects or relationships, we fail to see that the limitations and fears that make us feel incomplete are actually within us, and that unwittingly we have been carrying around a mental prison that has been weighing us down by distorting and controlling how openly we allow ourselves to embrace life and be happy.
 
Discovering Our Natural State

If the above is what it means to be wounded, to be healed then simply implies the opposite! Living life with a sense of empowerment, joy, hope and positive anticipation for what will unfold next, at all times. Meeting life with love and acceptance at all turns, without placing conditions on the experiences that come your way. Embracing all aspects of your life and of yourself without feeling the need to filter out the ‘unpleasant’ parts. Being fully aware of the experience that your self-worth and your power to shape your life are not dependent on any external, transient factors and that there is no need to seek validation from outside of who you are.
 
To be healed is to know and feel that good health and adventure beckon at all times and that your own love and inner strength is a power that can see you through all the ups and downs of life. The ability to live life in the moment, without fear, hate or pain colouring your judgement, with a natural acceptance and ease with all that is, where the past remains in the past and isn’t dragged with you to poison your today, is the embodiment of healing and living without wounds.
 
At first glance, this sounds unrealistic, idealistic and also unattainable, but this is only because we have spent such a long time living with our shadows and catering to them. The above stops sounding incredible once you recognise the real journey that underlies true healing, the final destination that you and all of us are heading towards...

Unpleasant feelings, the root of disconnect

As you navigate through life, with its different stages and eventualities, its contrasting experiences and personalities, you encounter unpleasant situations or unsavoury interactions which appear to drain your energy, to take a little something out of the spring in your step in life.
 
Something someone said or did which at the time you were vulnerable to, a plan that didn’t eventuate as you had thought it would, a sudden or unexpected loss that left you blindsided and questioning why. Any one of these can cause you to, perhaps without even realising, put on a mask; a defence mechanism that distorts your natural personality in order to avoid getting hurt or receiving pain form people or situations you feel vulnerable to. In essence, a negative feeling arises inside you and is felt as a tangible, vibrational presence within, even if fleetingly, and the instinctive reaction is to categorise this sensation as something to avoid in the future.
 
Initial strength to eventual weakness

When first faced with trauma or repeated setbacks, putting on a brave face or ‘getting on with the job’ does initially help to survive and keep moving on with life. However if the initial reactions related to the trigger are not fully & correctly processed and resolved by you, then the foundation on which you will build the remainder of your life can easily be undermined. What appears on the surface to be a healthy response mechanism slowly creates a rift and a rot within your core that over time spreads and begins to colour all areas of your life.
 
Conflict at work can flow on into how you behave with loved ones at home. Unresolved pain caused by loved ones in the past can drive you to restrict the happiness & freedom you allow yourself to experience with your friends and family in the present. Hurt from the past can make you become closed hearted and hard headed in your interactions with people you come across in new situations or scenarios.
 
In effect, you end up carrying around unresolved feelings which create baggage that begins to drag down on you in more than one area of your life. The need to avoid dealing with these unresolved feelings, seen as too painful and overwhelming to confront or difficult to overcome, creates a subtle but ever present distortion in your thought process moving forward. You move from thinking clearly in life and processing objectively to being unduly affected by your fears and dislikes, leading to a subjective, biased and distorted filter on life.
 
Becoming the victim

Comments or judgements that might have been made on you, or ones you have made on yourself, labels you have attached to yourself due to past shortcomings, emotional wounds that have not been addressed and continue to fester away; all of these scar your thought process and affect your ability to think clearly and live joyfully.
 
Not only do feelings impact your ability to think, but coloured thinking stops you from facing up to underlying fears, perpetuating a cycle of reactionary behaviour which adds on to the weight being carried as time goes by. This distorted thinking leads you to react unnaturally to anything your psyche might perceive as a threat, creating a victim mentality that can eventually drain you of your power and ability to live freely and happily.
 
Repeated reactionary cycles can go on to eventually begin shaping the very experiences you call to yourself in life, as you begin to attract similar personalities and situations to those that caused your initial wound into your life in more arenas. The same story begins to repeat in life, as you draw the same challenge to yourself regardless of where you might try and run or hide.
 
You might have allowed yourself to become cynical because of broken promises in the past, attracting even more unreliable people into your present circumstances. You might have closed your heart because of anger or pain from the past, which actually results in calling to you more people and situations that will disappoint again. Moving cities or changing jobs, breaking old relationships & beginning new ones, all of these will fail to bring you the fresh start you yearn so long as the underlying disconnect continues to go unaddressed.
 
The wake up call

​This is life sending a clear signal that change is required at some level to move beyond the past and reset into a more natural state. Life is calling on you to grow into a new, stronger and more authentic person who is no longer controlled by labels, actions or attitudes that belong in the past. A person who does not need to hide from inner conflicts or external confrontations any longer, a person who will not live life as a victim any more.
 
What might appear as a daunting if not impossible task at first: addressing what appear to be very concrete burdens that you are carrying within you, becomes easier and sometimes even enjoyable once you begin to apply a greater understanding to your challenge. A mistake that is often made is to focus on the external (the person, the place, the time or event etc.) instead of shifting the focus onto your own inner self. This seemingly simple but actually very powerful change in perspective, when executed with correct guidance, allows you to look within and begin working with what is closest and most important to you in your life, your own personality.
 
Looking within begins the process of taking back the power you have given to external circumstances and people, while bringing the awareness that the scars you are carrying exist solely within and not with an outside power. You always exercise the choice, consciously or unconsciously, to give these wounds control or power over you. The shift from victim mode to empowerment allows you to confront and overcome negative feelings and emotions by taking charge of your psyche and consciously choosing what you allow yourself to give your attention to.
 
At Synergy Healing, I can help you initiate this process of discovery and empowerment in your own life. If you feel you are facing blocks that are either hard to define or daunting to confront, or if you are ready to look within and begin to mould the person you would like to become and live a more vibrant and fulfilling life, then contact me to discuss or to book a session.

​The driving force behind Synergy Healing’s approach is the understanding that as human beings, we operate and base many of our decisions and life choices on feelings and emotions, even when we think that we are making what appear to be rational decisions.
 
 
Biology & Biography

We often process our experiences and interactions in life as feelings first and thoughts second. Sometimes the difference is so minute that what appear to be choices made using logic and rationale are often coloured by conscious or subconscious feelings related to the person or decision we are confronted with. These are often driven by unresolved past experiences with either similar personalities or similar situations which we are still holding onto within us. Leading medical intuitive and author Caroline Myss refers to this as ‘biography becoming our biology’, meaning that life experiences and points of weakness within ourselves which we have not yet mastered and continue to avoid or run away from end up tangibly shaping both our physical & mental health, as well as our life experiences.
 
The Disconnect

The rift that this phenomena causes, forcing us to make decisions and behave contrary to who we really are and what we resonate with within, creates a subtle fracture in our psyche which we mistake to be a normal human experience – that of living our lives driven by fear, confusion, stress, anxiety and dissatisfaction.
 
This is in complete contrast to who we actually are and how we should feel in our skin when centred in our true personality – empowered beings able to enjoy the vibrancy and love of life regardless of the environment or circumstances we find ourselves in!
 
What is commonly referred to in general terms as stress, at Synergy Healing is recognised as a symptom of the disconnect between our unresolved past and our present reality... between our thoughts and our feelings... between who we really are and what we have become... between head and heart.
 
Healing

This disconnect, which we generally avoid addressing  either because we don’t have the tools to or because we are not aware of it within us, creates stress and friction within, which once over a critical threshold, can easily manifest as a range of psychological and physical ailments.

A true path to healing, therefore, is one that addresses this disconnect in all spheres of our lives and treats us at our physical, psychological and spiritual layers, recognising that in our natural state our bodies contain access to innate wisdom that can allow us to heal and overcome and that we are masters of our creation, not victims of it.
 
I would encourage you to read more related articles to get a deeper understanding of some of the dynamics which affect our lives and get in touch if you have any questions or would like to book a session!