This episode explores the tangle between your defenses and your desire to be free. We will expose the illusion of “feeling good” as a false measure of healing, revealing how defense mechanisms like avoidance, numbing, suppressing, fixing and bypassing often mask deeper trauma loops.
This is a journey from escapism into embodiment, from coping into coherence.
We’ll dismantle the illusion that “feeling good” equates to freedom. Instead we’ll reveal the deeper truth: that coherence is born of presence, and presence demands witnessing what was never allowed to be felt.
Freedom isn’t about feeling better.
It’s about becoming whole.
The awesome thing is that wholeness feels amazing. And it’s possible to create long-term peace, joy and wellbeing.
It’s just that the journey to becoming whole isn’t always pleasant. Awakening doesn’t usually come gently. It requires seeing ourselves in the mirror and facing ourselves with honesty.
And we’re not always ready for that.
That’s actually the most difficult part of the process, which is why it happens in layers and octaves, not all at once.
Yet even so, we may discover resistance and defensiveness along the way, like kinks blocking the flow of water through the hose.
There’s a part of you that already knows this:
The voice beneath the noise.
The knowing beneath the story.
The you who isn’t looking for a fix—
But a return to who you really are.
…
That was my wake up call.
It was time to get serious.
I let go of the guy and turned inward.
As someone who would often freeze then flee out of my body by zoning out or finding some other external distraction, embodiment was my first step toward liberation.
Eventually I realized embodiment is the first step for the inner work of trauma recovery. Because we end up fragmented, disconnected, checked out of the body.
Of course there was an innate intelligence in that response once upon a time.
It was how we survived. It was how we felt safe when there was no other way out.
It was too painful to feel so we checked out.
This is exactly why so many people seem like zombies nowadays. They’re dissociated and living in a functional freeze state due to the unprocessed trauma of the recent years stirring up all the unresolved trauma of the past.
So anyhow, during the plandemic and amidst my mid-life transits, my anxious afternoons on the patio that were previously characterized by the restlessness of resistance, began to morph into surrender.
I started an embodiment practice. That meant allowing my awareness to settle down into my body, to sit with it, instead of escaping the pain.
Eventually I discovered that the easiest way to get into my body was to imagine my awareness settling down in my body, the same way my body was settling down into the chair.
I would settle in, then check out again.
When I’d realize I’d drifted away, I brought myself back to center again.
I would do this over and over and over.
At first beating myself up for making it so hard:
Something must be wrong with me, I figured.
I’m doing it wrong. Why can’t I get it right?
Eventually realizing this was the work: to show up, and to keep showing up for myself in every moment. To trust my process.
It was a blessing that the COVID lockdowns became an opportunity for me to confront my pain instead of running away from it.
Of course, I tried to drown it in alcohol at first, which only led to further disembodiment as I wasn’t taking care of my temple. I stopped working out and became immobilized in fear.
I was caught in the pain of another trauma loop, trying to connect with a person who was escaping through avoidance, which made me realize how I was trying to escape myself, too.
What I had judged in him—and others I’d dated in the past—I was actually doing to myself. It’s a lot easier to put it outside, isn’t it?
I was confusing avoidance with peace.
Suppression with strength.
Emotional numbness with stability.
Escapism with joy.
And eventually I could articulate a truth I didn’t see before:
Feeling good isn’t always a sign of growth or wellbeing.
Sometimes, it’s a signal of escape.
We’re usually trying to fix things in all the wrong ways. There’s a reason we say getting your fix about taking drugs, alcohol or any other substance or activity that distracts you from the feelings.
It’s about avoidance, bypassing, escaping and numbing what we don’t want to feel.
Until the recent years of doing deeper inner work, I didn’t realize that coping mechanisms, even the healthier ones like meditation, binaural beats, tapping, etc. are good for maintenance and self-regulation in the moment… but they don’t lead to long-term progress because it doesn’t get to the root.
Likewise learning and gathering knowledge can be great, yet getting stuck in analysis and data can also be a form of avoiding doing the work. When we know a lot of information but nothing is changing at a deep level, that’s where we see how learning can be another form of escape.
So let’s differentiate between triage and evolution.
Triage is when you’re in a crisis and you need to survive or make it through the day, or a big week, a tough time, by using self-soothing techniques and coping mechanisms.
That can be really helpful for emergencies. Sometimes we need to do that because it’s not the right time to lean in. Yet it’s also a turning away from what’s causing these stresses and crises.
Evolution, on the other hand, is the long game. It’s when you’re consistently, over time, turning toward the things that don’t feel good.
That means you’re willing to get uncomfortable and face your shadow instead of just projecting blame on others and collapsing into shame and self-pity. This requires confronting what you’ve avoided, escaped or bypassed. Not all at once, but little by little, layer by layer.
Coping is delaying the reckoning. Most of what people think is healing and doing the work, is actually just coping.
Evolution is being willing to move through the breakdown into the breakthrough.
You can get access to my FREE Daily Embodiment guided meditation here to help you learn how to presence the sensations and feelings in your body, which is the first step to healing and integration. This is where my inner work began.
And if you need relief because you’re overwhelmed with symptoms, which are draining your energy and robbing your quality of life, you can get your VIBE here.*
*This is an affiliate link and I may earn a commission from your purchase.
Everything is frequency, and frequency is the future of medicine. It’s non-invasive, empowering and supports your medical sovereignty. You can use it on horses, cats and dogs too.
This technology can help you self-regulate, do maintenance and alleviate your symptoms (triage) so you have more energy to do inner work (evolution) and create the life you love.
I recently interviewed the rocket scientist who developed this affordable and effective pocket device. You can listen to the interview here and I also share my experience with it.
Information on this page is for educational purposes only and should not be interpreted as medical advice or for preventing, diagnosing, curing or treating any disease. Consult a qualified professional for any questions specific to your health and wellbeing.
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