Resistance and the Healing Crisis

Why do you resist your wellness practices when you know it makes you feel good?

I think it’s because our society is heavily programmed to stay mediocre. Consistently practicing what makes you feel good and reaching for your most extraordinary potential requires risk. When you conform to the mediocrity of life, you create a functional illusion of safety and security.

Feeling really good for a consistent time can actually be quite scary or even threatening to the nervous system. That may seem preposterous, but that’s the power of mental/emotional programming. Have you ever been in a situation that brings you extended elation, but after a while you think it’s “too good to be true” or you start waiting for “the other shoe to drop”, so to say? That’s your ego and your nervous system communicating caution when you start waking up, because you’re entering the previously unknown (and often unpredictable) territory of your own empowerment.

When you start to take care of yourself consistently, you begin to feel empowered, more in control of your experiences and your anxieties will usually fall away. Of course you think that’s what you want. It’s easy to believe that once you get into the flow and the habits, that your life will start falling into place and you’ll live happily ever after as this improved version of yourself. But it’s rarely that quick or easy.

The more common pattern is that you only stick with your commitment to self-improvement for a few weeks or months. For a period of time you get high on it, and in that honeymoon phase you think you’ve finally reached your goal of living the way you really want to.

But as soon as things start to normalize, the inner-demons show up. The voices start to whisper worries in your thoughts, wondering when or how you’re going to fuck it up for yourself, crafting excuses or finding one little anomaly that occurs in your routine so everything unravels and it’s like you’re starting at square one again.

Or maybe it’s not even that clear. Maybe you’re feeling good with your practice when suddenly you fall ill, or you get injured, or someone in your life starts demanding attention and you decide to drop everything and tend to them.

These things are not coincidence.

The occurrences are what’s known as a “healing crisis”. It happens when you’ve brought your body-mind to a transition point - a threshold of healing - that either came up too fast or is too daunting for your ego. When this happens, things pop up to block you from going forward anymore (usually it’s your mind-chatter, your health or a seemingly unrelated/uncontrollable event).

It’s easy to forget that, when you’re working to heal or improve yourself, wherever you started from is a comfort zone. Even though it doesn’t necessarily feel good to be in that “comfort zone”  (chronic depression, anxiety, physical pain or whatever it is) that’s what you’re used to. You know exactly what to expect when you’re in that state. So naturally - unless you’ve cultivated a very strong mind and will - your body and your ego will often push back against your progress when you start to make it. Sometimes this will happen over and over again on the spiral journey through your healing.

This isn’t something to get frustrated or angry with yourself about. This happens in order to keep you “safe”. We’ve all been conditioned to believe that our full aliveness is wild, chaotic, untrustworthy or too much to handle. That’s usually a pretty deep subconscious limiting belief which you may not even realize is dictating your patterns. But if it is, your nervous system will respond accordingly and as soon as you start feeling the positive effects of your efforts, something will happen to distract you from continuing or will seem to pull you backward.

But you’re not really going backward and you’re not really stuck. Healing happens in a spiral. It’s not a linear process. It’s not a board game. There are no clear steps to an end goal, and there’s no rules that will send you back to start. To the wise and initiated, these pauses and set-backs will act as guideposts, full of information to help you carry on your healing journey. You can notice what’s happening, discover wisdom and then keep going.

If you find yourself feeling down because you think you’ve regressed or become stagnant, please take some time to reflect on how far you’ve already come. Take note of what you’ve learned about yourself so far. Every step of your healing journey contains information, even the steps that seem off track. Periods of rest and reflection are very necessary as you shed what isn’t serving you and rebuild a stronger foundation.

Change is constant, so you can be assured your situation will shift and evolve eventually. Have patience. Be gentle and present with yourself. Whenever possible, seek the support of trusted healers and therapists to guide you through the process.

How I can help you navigate a healing crisis:

- Therapeutic Massage for letting go

- Psychic Reiki or Tarot for energy balancing and insights

- Guided Inner Journey for self discovery and reconnection

- 6 Week Healing Protocols combining all of the above *by request only, contact me if interested! I’ll send you more details and you can ask questions via email or an arranged phone call.)

Heal You Soon

Blessed Be, Amber Renee