The Things We Carry: An Excerpt from ‘Spontaneous Transformation’

There is a master within you that has all the answers you have been seeking. I would be so bold as to say you are the master you are seeking. I discovered this truth over 25 years ago through a system of vibrational healing that I developed called Spontaneous Transformation.

The journey that led me to develop the Spontaneous Transformation began with a migraine. It was a beast of a migraine that insisted on coming back over and over again. After years of pain, multiple doctor visits, and no relief, I finally found CranioSacral Therapy—an alternative approach used by chiropractors, occupational therapists, and massage therapists to address and treat issues of chronic pain. This therapeutic process led me on a journey of inquiry that inspired me to study the healing modalities of Polarity Therapy, which is rooted in ancient Eastern philosophies. Its focus is on balancing the natural flow of energy in the body. I also studied Reiki Therapy, a source of restoration that, again, seeks to renew a healthy energy flow through a technique called “palm healing.” Through these studies and transformative experiences, a theme emerged—the body is a miraculous vessel of holding.

The body holds all of our thoughts and experiences. It also holds all the energy and wisdom we need to restore its healthy functioning. There are several ways that the body “holds” for us and those ways can either help or hinder. For example, we have all experienced sleepless nights when we tossed and turned in bed, fretting over the next day’s to-do list. Those “must-do’s” marched across our brain like anxious soldiers on a mission: “You must drop the kids off, then stop by the cleaners, then go to work, then get this project in by ten …” Perhaps this army of thoughts became quite aggressive and anxious: “How will I … when will I … how can I get this all done?” Our hearts raced along to these internal statements, perhaps our chests constricted, as we tossed and turned for hours. We even “toss and turn” through our days. These stressful thoughts, worry, overwhelm, and anxiety that we are “holding” are the very things preventing us from moving forward in many areas of our lives.

Perhaps we have been out on a romantic dinner with our significant other or lover. And even while the restaurant was picked with care and the food excellent, we were too busy dwelling on yesterday’s verbal slight that cut so deep and hurt so bad, that we couldn’t enjoy the present moment. In fact, we could no longer really hear what our significant other was saying now because we’re fuming inside while “holding” onto so much resentment! These are examples of our body “holding” onto emotions from everyday experiences. If it is true that we hold these small experiences in our body, could it be that we also hold key traumas and events we’ve experienced in our body as well? My therapeutic experience has shown that to be the case exactly. Traumas and events from the past fuel the recent resentments and current confusion, all of it ultimately limiting our capacity to enjoy our lives to their fullest in the present.

The bigger issues we face throughout our lives pile on top of our existing daily challenges. We have all faced survival issues at some point in our lives, if not on an ongoing basis. These include financial and health challenges, pain, fear, abandonment, abuse, neglect … and now, on top of all of this, global crises. We find ourselves in the midst of hard economic times, increasing unemployment, global instability and rapid change. We live in extreme times. We face the unknown. And we absolutely need a way to stay centered and let go of all the angst and worry that threatens to throw us off course or pull us down.

Author and Vietnam vet Tim O’Brien wrote a short story called “The Things We Carry,” based on his experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War. This story describes the literal and emotional “things” the soldiers carried with them as they humped through the jungle. Each soldier had something that they held onto as a buffer for dealing with reality. For one soldier, it was letters from a girl he had a crush on. These letters helped to transport him into a world of daydreams in which he was romantically involved. He held on to these daydreams as a way to avoid having his head in the war. Of course, who wouldn’t want to dream about a romantic relationship at home as a way to buffer the horrific reality of the present? This isn’t a judgment. The analogy here is that: what he held onto in his mind affected his experience of reality.

We, too, travel through our lives carrying things, which color our experience. We all carry our experiences of love, and the failures of those who were “supposed to” love us. Perhaps we carry abuse, hurt, abandonment, and anger. Whatever perceptions and judgments, memories, and imagined experiences—positive or negative—we carry around with us, they all shape our vision of the world and the nature of our life’s journey. What we carry with us from day to day in our hearts and in our minds can make everyday life harder or easier for us, depending on how we hold onto it. If we hold onto something that evokes emotional discomfort, it can then be held in the body over time as physical discomfort.

Interestingly, the body sees itself as doing you a huge service by holding onto these things. It holds onto events and the resulting beliefs and thoughts in a subconscious capacity as a form of protection. It protects you from the confusion, upset, and trauma that created energetic crossed wires and confused beliefs so that you can continue on, live, and survive. The body holds FOR YOU in actual partnership with you.

This holding and protecting shows up outside of you as the events and challenges and lower-vibrating emotions that present themselves in your everyday life. These life events and reactions of anger, jealousy, upset, etc., represent the areas of holding within that are ready to be noticed, explored, and nudged into consciousness. Upsets (emotional, physical and mental) show up to get your attention and bring you to the areas within that are READY to be explored. We know that you are absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, ready BECAUSE these events and emotions have shown up. Your body now becomes this beautiful partner beckoning you within to explore these holdings and realigning you into a new, clearer truth of who you are. A truth that the past events clouded with confusion for your protection (and appropriately, I might add).

The opportunity is to move your attention back to these areas of holding to realign the energy and, in the process, release the held energy—moving from surviving to thriving.

When the holding consistently and pressingly presents itself in multiple life challenges and emotional outbreaks, it’s not that you are holding onto it, but that it has a hold over you. Whatever it is that you are still carrying, it is worth discovering so that you can learn from it, release it, and move forward in your freedom.

How do we just let go of all the beautiful and loving, protecting debris we are carrying, so that we can experience more happiness, joy and love? After two decades of working as an energy practitioner, utilizing various therapeutic modalities and eventually creating my own—Spontaneous Transformation—I have found that the most powerful and longest-lasting release of my perceived physical, emotional, and mental upset, in both my life and my clients’, comes from Spontaneous Transformation. It is the practice of feeling into the body’s holding and exploring past traumas and emotional events to achieve understanding and subsequent clearing of whatever has accumulated and created dissonance within the body. This is the essence of Spontaneous Transformation. Engaging with these unconscious aspects of our being, and developing those loving lines of communication, allows us to then shift and transform the nature of any trauma we have carried with us, so that we can live as our authentic selves. One of the greatest gifts that comes when we live authentically is that we attract the life we’ve always wanted. We realize our potential, which means we make it real in the world.

Find out about programs with Jennifer McLean at Kripalu.

Excerpted with permission from Spontaneous Transformation: 7 Steps To Coping & Thriving In Extreme Times, © 2016, by Jennifer McLean.