Karen Virdi-You Shine + Glo when you Connect!
(Spiritual Healing Coach + Reiki Master)
8 Steps to Help You Feel Peace and Find Acceptance in Tough Times
Step 1: Feel To Heal.
“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.”
David Richo
When adversity strikes, our first instinct is to run away from it and fight the denser feelings and emotions such as sadness, anger, frustration, anxiety to name a few. This is because our brain interprets it as dangerous and leads us to want to protect ourselves from what seems unfamiliar and stressful. It is easier to shove things under the rug rather than deal with them consciously and faithfully. We have been taught in some ways to not address or understand our emotions and feelings as a result we judge them in a negative way and in turn ourselves, leaving us feeling inadequate and forgetting our innate ability to heal ourselves and sift through adversity by turning to our higher self to act as a flashlight to a deeper understanding. Further, I feel we are afraid of feeling vulnerable and let our ego convince us that we are weak in doing so. This only pushes you away further and further from finding restoration and peace in tough times. You end up in a dense circle of repetitive struggles carrying the same story on your back day after day, affecting the quality of your life. Unresolved emotions are also linked to disease in the body and can manifest accordingly. That is why it is important to feel to heal, release and allow the experience to show you what it needs to without judgment.
Try to look at this from this perspective, that if you were not meant to feel what you are being guided to feel, you would not come to know better and find new ways to navigate through relationships, life, to understand more of who you are and be guided to make choices differently.
Also, you can try to look at your feelings during adversity as guides reminding you of what is happening in your inner world and that you are being called to understand why you are feeling or triggered as you are. This will eventually help you deal with future moments of adversity feeling more solid and confident. In terms of feeling to heal, I am encouraging you to cry when you feel, turn to someone you trust when you feel congested within to release and express yourself, let your anger come out, let yourself feel it all as needed until you feel lighter and lighter within. You are going through the struggles for a reason grander than you allow yourself to remember or accept in those harsh moments.
The feeling is also receiving and when we are receiving we are starting to express ourselves differently, becoming aware of new possibilities and this is where life starts to shift for us in more meaningful ways. Remember you are human and you are created to feel to understand. If you are struggling right now, you can use this affirmation or create one of your own to help you unpack and feel more comfortable during this time. You may repeat this simple yet activating affirmation as much as you like until you feel calmer and safer within.
“I am remembering I am safe and supported during my struggles”
Step 2: Invite In Your Pain(s), Struggle(s) with Compassion.
“Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn't been working. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” - Louise Hay
Rather than continuing to fight with your heavy emotions, painful memories, or experiences, which only create more of that, try when you feel calmer in your day, to invite in those heavier parts of you and hold compassion for them. You may say how is that possible to do when I am feeling like I am suffering? Well, it is possible. When you consciously shift from fighting to love/compassion, you are beginning to use different energy and activate a new level of awareness that invites healing and acceptance in the forms and ways it needs to come through for you. Also, you free up energy within to connect to the meaning of your experiences. Imagine how much energy you're giving and using fighting the old? You just need to have a strong level of faith in the power of love and compassion and be present. Being present means being more of a witness than re-actor, which creates awareness and the space to bring in the love and compassion as needed. This will help you deal with any future adversity with more ease.
As you become more comfortable inviting in your pain(s) more lovingly, rather than like being on a battlefield with them, you will eventually gain more clarity to understand why it is happening for you. Specifically, ask your challenge(s) what it wants you to see. The more you ask you shall receive. As you ask your hardship(s) to present you with the wisdom you are meant to receive, pay attention to the inner nudges, guidance, inner voice, new words and work with them gently and presently the best you can to follow the aligned action. They will make you feel more hopeful, like a light bulb moment. This will move you through the hardship(s) allowing you to unpack them rather than continuing to pack them on you.
I have come to learn, accept and understand in my human journey, that things happen for a reason and will continue to reoccur until we have learned what our soul wants us to. This may mean going through a period of nonstop adversity, sometimes that's what it may take for you/us to finally get to the roots and begin healing and growing. It is important to know that once you feel more peace with something, you know you have healed or are in the process of healing.
Self-judgments are a part of adversity and we can be our harshest critics during those times. But here is something to remember, you don’t have to stay in a judgmental consciousness, rather you can choose to relax a bit and move with some softness. Excessive worrying and self-blame never helped anyone or made a situation more pleasing. As I said earlier, it's absolutely fine to feel it all, which means the negative thoughts and words come to the surface during adversity but what if you remembered that during and after those times that feeling better was always available? It is like knowing that someone is there to lean on? Take a moment to think of this.
Step 3: Take Aligned Action.
“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”
Tony Robbins
When you are wanting and willing to understand your hardships differently you are saying yes to wanting to feel better and you may not be aware of this consciously, but you start to step more into a co-creator role or shifting role versus being a submissive sufferer. This acts like a domino effect where everything seems to line up better and differently for you one after the other, opening up space for you to receive ongoing support. It’s hard to take new action and find a fresh perspective when you feel like you are suffering, but within, you hold the awareness that things can feel better during those turbulent times, press into that awareness and turn up the volume more and more on this.
This comes from the place within you that doesn’t rationalize rather surrenders, trusts, knows and allows. This is connected to your higher self, the part of you that is designed to help you move through adversity with ease and grace. As you hear more of the inner niggles, trust best you can to follow it/them and take the best aligned action(s) you feel called to. For example, in your whirlwind of chaos, you may receive this inner nudge to simply move your body more to release the pent up stuck energy within. You may not be aware initially of why you are being guided to do so, but you would follow it and observe what you felt in doing so and what it may be providing you with. Or another example is you may be called to journal which will help you release for the first time during your hardships, you would start there and just keep moving with this calling until you feel the value of this prompt.
One last example, you may be called to turn to prayer and reconnect with your spirituality as you may have forgotten the strong influence and guidance it naturally provides during stressful periods. I encourage you to keep moving through your days in aligned action(s) stemming from the inner nudges, which help balance your energy and tether you to more moments of hope in your struggles.
Please remember, you don't have to be fixated on your struggles, you can still find joy and feel optimistic during those times. The key is to remember it’s available and to take those aligned actions that feel like glimmers of hope that will help you to keep unpacking the issues.
Step 4: Create Your Own Wellness Tool Box.
"It’s when the well runs dry we appreciate the worth of water. Don’t let your well-run dry.” - Hellobombshell.com
When we are going through tough times we really do feel like we are sinking and it is hard to believe we can feel better. Well, we sure can, and having something meaningful to turn to regularly can help find the warmth and motivation to keep going in the cold moments you may experience in your daily struggles.
Having said this, I highly recommend that you create a wellness toolbox for yourself. This acts as a call to action for you that is not far away, easily accessible. By creating a wellness toolbox and committing to turning to tools that will help you move into peace and feel better, you will start to see shifts of many kinds. When I am referring to a wellness toolbox, I am not necessarily alluding to an actual box, you can of course find use with one to perhaps add in written positive daily reminders, it is more a set of energy shifting tools you can turn to in times of distress that help you see clearer and get recharged again. With continued commitment, they will eventually become a part of your lifestyle.
You can create your own personal wellness toolbox and it can have 1 to 10 things for you to turn to no wrong, it is yours and it needs to make sense only to you no one else. Some examples of what your wellness toolbox can consist of are daily journaling, a yoga class, 15 minutes of meditation, using the power of words to create and repeat affirmations, going for a walk to release anger, lying in your bed uninterrupted to gain clarity, etc. The important thing to remember is that you have something(s) you can turn to easily, to get refocused to help you release during the stressful moments or after the moments if needed.
By remembering this you step more into understanding what is happening and then can move towards inviting in equanimity and some divine answers versus feeling like a hamster on a wheel running the same circle feeling exhausted and hopeless.
Creating your own wellness toolbox puts you more in the driver seat of your life when you don’t want to feel stuck and need some air to breathe. Also, by connecting to a strong consistent toolbox, you keep yourself in check and more emotionally connected. It is up to you to tune to it consciously and practice it regularly to see the results. We always need ongoing support to help us.
Step 5: Try to Get Comfortable Reframing.
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Dr. Wayne Dyer
It can be hard to see another opportunity is available when we are engrossed in a high-stress-causing situation(s). Also, we quickly forget in our survival mode or repetitive pattern of coping and dealing with life situations that we can choose another belief. I am not suggesting that you ignore or run away from adversity or suppress raw feelings. Remember you need to feel to heal. Rather, I want to remind you that you can find and experience moments of reprieve to help you feel less stressed in divine timing as you feel the struggles. You don’t have to live from your pain points, they can be alchemized and used to build new life experiences.
I am a firm believer that things happen for us, not to us. It can be hard to see and accept this at first, but if you are willing to see things this way, your recovery time shifts in those high strung experiences, you don’t allow yourself to suffer unnecessarily and you begin to tap into new levels of understanding of your lingering or new challenging moments. The more you give yourself permission and have the courage to want to see things differently, the more situations begin to change for you. This again doesn’t mean that you can’t feel upset or hopeless about something, rather, you are being reminded that you have the opportunity to evolve and feel better. We typically deal with adversity from the conditioned parts of us but once we can look at it from a higher lens, we can begin to filter things out.
When you notice you start to feel lighter and calmer in your days, that is a good time to tap into this energy and begin to reframe the situation(s), as the stress hormones are not activated at those times, making you more open to receiving new information to reframe with more clarity. You can start off by asking a simple question of why such and such can be happening and how can I begin to shift this lingering experience? It seems very simple, but let me assure you, it invites in a lot of important information that you may be missing because you have been sinking deep in victimized beliefs. From here you can receive some answers immediately or in days to come, follow as I said earlier the inner niggle(s). Trust it is what you need to hear and know, trust wholeheartedly. This is where the reframing starts, shifting the old story to the new, which creates new experiences. Once you feel you have received wisdom in due time, make it a point to express gratitude for those tough moments, for without those you would not be where you are in the future and have more capacity to move through life with greater awareness.
Please remember, there is no rush to reframe, it will happen when it is meant and feels authentic to do so. You just need to plant that seed, be open to it, and hardwire it in your mind. Re-framing really helps you feel clearer in tough times, stay grounded and help you move to accept the trials and see other perspectives. It also begins to reprogram your mind and body for the new. In no time you will have made it a habit to automatically reframe as needed and have more time for the things you love in your life. Reframing is precisely asking what is this doing for me?
Step 6: Remember You Are Being Supported By A Higher Power.
"The universe has your back.” - Gabby Berstein
One thing I can say I know for sure is that there is a higher power around you and I and it is on our side. We are connected to it and can turn to it as much and often as we feel called to. I know once I began turning to it more post collapse, life became clearer and easier eventually in that time. I felt more loved, seen and because I was trusting this higher power more than ever, I began seeing the miracles in doing so. Things in my outer world began lining up differently, more pleasing for me. It was as though I opened up a door that was right in front of me all along. I find that it is in moments of hardships we are being guided to remember whom we are connected to and this puts us back into alignment with this source and to ourselves.
What I am alluding to is remembering that loving invisible force is with you and will show you evidence that it is with you once you allow it to. Feeling inundated with stressful moments, people, triggers and the unhealed/shadow parts of us can block us from remembering that we can turn to the higher powers for support by communicating with them. This can be in the form of a prayer, through meditation, or a holy conversation.
By keeping our awareness, connection, and communication open with source energy we allow ourselves to be open to receiving helpful guidance, and from here little to big shifts begin to manifest in divine timings. Life and those repeating pressuring experiences will start to feel less stressful and easier to navigate through. It is easy to give up and settle with how you are feeling, but by allowing yourself to trust in the higher powers during difficult times you are beginning to use a different compass to navigate life with. This practice helped me so much during and after my collapse and continues to this day. I went from feeling defeated to hopeful, much more aware, and feeling alive after many years of not being. Your faith muscle starts to become stronger when you turn to source energy, we all have one, and that will show during tough times. This also activates the part of you that has a higher level of awareness than the ego and the human you. This is the part of you that just knows and can’t explain how, it just is again a deep knowing, keep tuned into it. Source energy, boosts your life force energy. Also, as you strengthen your communication with the source, ask for signs of you being supported, this could be in the form of an image, numbers, or a meaningful song. There is no wrong sign to ask. Receiving these signs will boost your confidence and can help you feel safe in turbulent times, knowing you are supported.
Some ways to strengthen your connection with source energy are through daily meditation, prayer, and movement. This is where you begin to reconnect with spirituality.
Step 7: Try To Stay Away From Negativity
"Protect your spirit from contamination. Limit your time with negative people.”
Thema Davis
When going through tough times, one of the greatest acts of self-care in my opinion is to stay clear from negative people the best you can, or outlets that contribute to stress and anxiety in your mind and body. This is not to say that you can eliminate it entirely, rather, I am directing you to be cognizant of when in the presence of negativity, make it a conscious habit to walk away for your well-being if it does not resonate or make you feel better. Let’s face it, when we are going through tough times we feel like we are drowning and our energy levels are deeply affected, leaving us feeling depleted, having just enough energy to “get by”. Paying attention to who is around you and what you watch during those tough off moments can really help to preserve your energy levels and prevent you from spiraling downward more. Let me remind you that it is easier to not be affected by others' negativity and certain social media outlets when you are in a healthier mindset and much harder to untether from when you are not. Why position yourself to feel worse than you need to?
Any that makes you feel worse, sick, out of sorts can affect your nervous system, overall quality of health, energy, receiving guidance, and your connection with self and source energy. You are more vulnerable as you deal with competing thoughts and experiences which is not a bad thing, but in that headspace, you are more likely to believe things that are not true. This can act as a bolder stopping you most times from taking aligned action from higher guidance that is trying to help you to unpack your stress and help you gently move to more acceptance and inner peace.
Try your best to be in uplifting spaces, activities, around encouraging people and watching things that help you feel some relief as you move through your adversity. This helps raise your energy levels, gives you more hope, and helps you feel refreshed again.
Step 8: Keep Repeating.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Aristotle
Some great minds of the world have said we are what we repeatedly do. If that is the case, which I do believe, then you must pay attention to what you are repeatedly doing in your tough times. Are you willing to find meaning in them/it eventually or are you positioning yourself to create a life of unconscious suffering from this?. Having said that, repeat the steps in my guide to help you find the sunshine or light in the darkness. What I am having you do is to connect to steps that will help you feel more in charge, safe and action-oriented in tough times. Further, they will allow you to enjoy life more and help support you to stay consistently afloat, as you experience those moments of hardships. You can do it!
In closing, I want to say that the collapse I experienced back in March of 2011, was what we call a “dark knight of the soul” experience for me. Many souls have their version of it. This is a term used to describe a collapse of a perceived meaning of life. It prompts you to begin to question life and you automatically are positioned to face your shadows and begin healing and move into soul alignment. I recognize and fully accept that I was meant to have that experience and it put a flashlight on my life and helped me understand myself more, the people around me, my choices, and helped me get back into my spiritual knowing. It was the beginning of a new me that I believe I was subconsciously craving, which I am eternally grateful for and would go through the same experiences to be where I am today. Thank you, God.
I also want to express my deep-running gratitude for you being with me in my journey and how you have decided to opt in to read my mini-steps to help support you to find the light in the darkness. We are here to support each other and it is through our struggles and vulnerabilities that we can do so. Take care of yourself and remember you can feel better and things can change read this mini-guide as often as you need to until you feel more at home within your adversity.
Thank you and may the Wellness Glow Life Community continue to see the light in the darkness and help others do the same.
Many blessings and love to you, Karen Virdi.
Website: https://www.psshineandgloon.com/
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