The Phases of Transformation

Life sometimes throws you unexpected circumstances you never imagined to find yourself in.

Disruption to the flow of your life can impact you in subtle or extreme ways, changing the way you respond and experience life. Drastic change removes you from your well constructed comfort zone and forces you to face uncomfortable hurdles of adversity, strengthening your adaptability and gifting you wisdom.

In my own experience I have found when life plunges you into the unknown, or darkness, the key is to explore it without remaining there and find the hidden lessons; shifts in perspective which I refer to as light.

The gift of light is a tool to ascend out of the dark and rise into the inner power we hold. Healing is not a beautiful process, it is messy, real and unavoidably raw.

Through the many submersive plunges I've taken, I recognized the patterns of healing, discovered the gifts in each phase and created the Process of Emergence.

The Phases of Ascension explain the process of emerging from dark emotional/mental spaces and healing the self to a place of self love and inner power. The journey of healing pain is one of courageous vulnerability and relentless honesty, for the attainment of relief and security within yourself.

Healing is self awareness wrapped in doses of tough self-love, encompassing tender self-love, patience and compassion.

The Plunge Into Darkness

We have all experienced painful things, but some affect us more than others and forever change the way we operate in daily life.

A Plunge into Darkness is best explained as an overwhelmingly negative event that causes a lasting impact on the mental and emotional body. Feelings of shock, a momentary paralysis or freeze response and dissociation, space out or disconnection from reality can be caused by the unexpected plunge.

The events could be something you yourself caused to happen, something that happened to you or something you witnessed happen around you. It can range in severity from a personal life change such as losing a job, house, family pet, family structure, moving, romantic breakup, loss of a friendship, to more extreme events like experiencing tragic accidents, death or abuse.

Carrying a lot of pain kick starts the subconscious mind into safety mode to cope with what’s been experienced. As you are submerged into your "internal safe space" you lose some of the details of the events or incidents you found harmful.

Of the many plunges life gave to me, the most abrupt and shocking of them, was the morning I woke to find my mother after her successful suicide attempt. Time seemed to stand still as my world felt like it began to cave in on itself. I felt myself shut down and recoil into my safe space, becoming emotionally numb and unavailable, while drifting through the following hours as a shell of a human.

The mind can shut the event out until you are in an environment, or moment, where it is safe to become consciously connected to reality and begin to process the facts. Something that lingers in your past or something you've just recently experienced surfaces this pain, either way it disrupts a sense of inner peace and stability.

Losing her was my deepest Plunge into Darkness, shattering my inner peace and removing any presumed stability in life.

Chaos and Confusion

Chaos and Confusion is the most immediate phase we may connect to and feels exactly like it sounds, chaotic and full of confusion.

With a past, or recent, event there are so many mixed emotions here it can be difficult to say which ones you feel since they tend to feel muddled together.

Many people experience an abundance of fear and anxiety, internal arguing or blame about what really happened, or denial of the entire situation that made them experience any adverse feelings in the first place.

A painful emotional storm can be very dark, containing a lot of unwanted thoughts which seemingly swirl around you with no signs of relenting. One may feel like they are suffocating or drowning on the inside with an overwhelming company of hopelessness.

The year after my mother’s passing was just that, a blur of overwhelming hopelessness. The days were filled with my aching heart, exhausted mind, constantly questioning where my life would lead. Emotional breakdowns swallowed me whole.

There was no way to define how I felt, it was every emotion all at once; sadness, grief, anger, confusion, blame, guilt, anguish, hollow, numb, sensitive, closed off, self loathing. I was a full blown storm.

I was stagnant.

Not only confused by how I felt, I was unsure how to move on from the pain. However, what I did discover is this too has an end. But first, I needed to be aware of my inner storm.

Fuel to the Fire

Just when we think the chaos and confusion would never end, there’s a break in the storm clouds. But to our surprise it’s an all consuming, blazing fire.

Emotions have been swirling within an internal storm for some time now, they are becoming more clear on the horizon and we can finally put names to them; ie. blame, fear, anger. Fuel to the Fire is very much about our inner burning anger and outpouring of any bottled up emotions.

The storm did its job creating momentum behind the emotions and now they rise to the surface to be expressed. The anger you feel is the acknowledgement of the event which caused you pain and the recognition of the harm done.

As an important piece, if not the most important piece of the healing process, recognition is where we acknowledge that the event matters because we ourselves matter. Right around this time we may find we no longer blame ourselves for the actions of others or for not having known better.

Recognition is a turning point. It sounds very much like "Something happened, it hurt me, and I'm angry about it". It may not feel this clear for you.

Often times the Phases of Ascension overlap and bleed into one another. Recognizing the move into another phase happens after we self reflect on where we once were.

A key identifier is becoming exhausted by how confusion of feelings, and slowly adopting a scope of seeing most things with impatient aggression. We move toward expression instead of the swirling storm.

Now burning up with emotions, potentially lashing out, we respond in a short manner, or quick to jump to an argumentative defense. As they say anger feels better than the sad pain you were just experiencing, so even though it seems counter-intuitive to embrace the anger or outpouring of emotion, that’s exactly what must be done.

My fire hit hard with no intention of being tamed. Words slid quickly from my lips soaked in misplaced anger, I so desperately sought to expel the pain from my being and I did it by projecting to the people around me.

I was so angry at her for leaving me here, but also angry at myself for feeling so helpless and unable to control myself through these feelings. My emotions were all consuming. Realizing the more time I gave in to feeling intoxicated with emotion, finally, I was making progress.

Choosing anger and expression is releasing emotions and preventing them from storing in your emotional cavity. Using constructive ways to express anger and other emotions, just as I had done, is the last thing you want to add to fuel your fire.

Pools of Reflection

Stepping in and out of the raging fire, we notice a creeping sadness in the distance beckoning to come closer.

The blaze once fueling rage will soften as we tire of the anger. Feeling open to the loss hidden behind your anger, we now come to sit in Pools of Reflection.

Reflecting, and sitting with our new found willingness to feel the pain of loss, tears will flow and cleanse the wounds.

Reflection was a major part of my healing journey of my mother wound. Allowing me to cry and howl from missing her so immensely, the release of such deep emotion was a comfort all its own.

Sometimes the mind will play a bargaining game and prevent acknowledging the depth of the pain or will seek blame for not carrying out different actions to avoid the pain.

The tears allow expression and release, of the sadness so it doesn't become a block in the emotional body. Tears indicate the realization of the inevitable; the loss of something irretrievable, or have been unjustly wronged.

We may experience different types of crying during this phase and cycle between them all as the progression of feeling deeper into the pain.

At first we may find it difficult or painful. Holding our breath. Often refusing to make noise or shame our self for needing to cry.

As the tears persist a deep sense of loss arises and can present feelings of severe loneliness, making one feel like a small child or the pain is endless and will never heal. Lastly, the tears bring a feeling of cleansing and releasing of pain, a sense of wholeness or coming together, an overall relief.

The gift submerged in the pools is the loss of attachment to the life we had before the event. Allowing an attachment to the past fade away as we cry, grieve and mourn is a major component in healing and grasping the power of our life back and moving on.

The crying carried me down the mourning stream, in and out of emotional rapids and calm pools of grief, to a place where I felt like I could breathe - if only for a moment.

From sitting in reflective sadness one gains strength and a sense of readiness as we make a commitment to heal and resolve past pains. The cool feeling of relief is just around the bend.

Testing the Waters

Like a child testing which rock shape best skip across water, we begin to explore different realistic solutions to soothe the pain.

Testing the Waters is about discovering and experimenting constructive ways to cope, vent, or provide an outlet for ourselves.

Most often the solutions are things never considered or tried before, but feel inclined to try because of the desire for relief. Some of these tools may include: Mindfulness habits and meditation, talk therapy, therapeutic groups or accountability partners, new hobbies, implementing new daily routines to combat and deter destructive mental and emotional habits such as physical workouts, self-care action plans, self help audio books or motivational videos, regular journaling or writing letters of loss.

I tried nearly everything. Seeking a relentless dive into discovering a greater understanding for life itself. If my world was to be shaken so drastically by one event surely there must be something to grab for stability. Testing the waters was the beginning of the expansion of myself as an individual being, the experimental soothing of my soul.

Uncovering the rock that skips the best across the water is unique to the individual, what may work for others may not work for you, that’s why exploration, discover, and experimentation are so important. What soothes your pain is as unique as the pain itself.

Suddenly, interests begin to surface, similar to childhood curiosity, and feel it pull along to more peaceful feelings. We may experience moments of flow state, forgetting the world around us exists and be fully in the present moment enjoying ourselves. Testing the Waters is a phase full of momentum, allowing us to stand more steadily on our own two feet amidst life’s rapids.

Lumination

Lumination, or the emission of light, is the final phase in your healing journey.

Here we accept that the past cannot be changed, and we no longer focus heavily on the pain or sadness, anger, resentment or fear. We no longer run from painful truths or get caught up in them.

Acceptance is recognizing what we have felt and expressed. Our emotions around the event and have been placed into proper perspective, and now finally found the way forward. The event, and the thoughts and emotions surrounding the event, no longer hold a dark place of hopelessness, making us feel helpless or stripping of your inner power.

Lumination sounds like "something happened and I have healed from it" or "I respect myself, care for myself, accept myself, and show myself compassion and affection".

For me, it sounded a lot like “ She’s gone now and it will always hurt because I love her, but I’m happy to love her and myself, I can move on”.

Now, with a re-framed perspective, I found my relationship with myself felt improved, courageous, wise and actually, serene. This inner strength and power of self comes from facing life "head on", in my healing I didn't back down, I carved a way out of the darkness and emerged as a stronger, more evolved version of myself.

Remember, before a Phoenix can emerge as the radiant, magnificent being it is, it must burn, so be sure to Burn Bright.