Steven Barnes presents the final five steps of an emotional healing program. Accept relapse as inevitable and prepare techniques beforehand. During setbacks, collapse inward through meditation or journaling. Cultivate faith in yourself, others, or something higher. Celebrate wins without getting intoxicated by them, and support others while continuing deeper work.
Now this is the second part of healing the wounded heart. We're at step six. Step six addresses the inevitability of relapse. In other words, no matter how good you're feeling, at one moment you're going to be back down. Forget about being able to maintain a constant, never ending arc upwards. It's always going to be cycles. So you have to learn how to deal with the relapses, anticipate them before you get there. Learn from your past mistakes. Accept failure and breakdown as part of the core process. This means that before you relapse, you have to have techniques and resources in place. This might be the time to have a little ice cream. It might be a time to arrange, to have a hug. Write yourself a letter when you're in an up mood, anticipating that you're going to be in the down mood. And you only open it the next time you're feeling depressed. But understand this is going to happen. It's just part of the process. The seventh step in healing the wounded heart is that when you collapse, when you have that relapse, you have to collapse to your center. Whether you envision that center as being an inner child or white light, or your heartbeat or something divine inside you, your meditations, your journaling, your inner work needs to be structured so that when the pressure comes off the outside, instead of just shearing you, twisting you, torquing you, it compresses you. Remember that pressure and heat create diamonds if the crystals are properly aligned. This is what you have to do. Set yourself up so that the stress in life compresses you inwards, towards your center. The eighth step in healing the wounded heart is faith. This is critical. Faith is always faith in one of three things. It's either faith in yourself that you're stronger, better, more deserving a love than you've ever known. Faith in your companions, that they are strong, that they care about you, what they see in you is real. Or faith in a higher power. However you conceive that God, a power in the universe, flow of energy, higher light, it doesn't make a difference. Faith in one of these three things will get you through the times when it feels that all of your personal resources are expended. The ninth step in healing the wounded heart is to remember that when you're up, when you've had your victory, enjoy it, but don't go too crazy. Remember, the higher your highs, the lower your lows. So you work to maintain a pleasant and consistently increasing equilibrium. It feels nice. Joy, but ecstasy and losing yourself is the flip side of depression. So you enjoy the ride, but don't get drunk on it. Once again, these are things to be aimed towards, worked towards. You will fall off the horse from time to time. The 10th step in healing the wounded heart is to support others. Teach, Share, Create a support group blog. Share the light when you have found it. Then begin deepening your sense of peace and work on the next emotion in the chain, the next emotion that you need to deal with. There's always more. There's always a deeper level to go to. So once you start the process, remember how hard it was to get started and keep going. This is Stephen Barnes. I'm so happy to have had an opportunity to share these things with you and spend a little time with you. Over the course of my life, I've helped thousands of students to heal themselves and find their way to peak performance and I'm delighted to do whatever it is that I can to help you in your journey. You can find more about me at my websites. I have several of them, but my favorite currently is www.diamondhour.com. you can also find me on Facebook. Once again, this is Stephen Barnes saying, have a wonderful, wonderful day and the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within you. Namaste.
