*Amended post* Allowing nature to wash away your thoughts, concerns, unexpressed emotions, grief and resentment. This is a practice I've often done for myself and with many clients as a practice of release, and it can be done for any range of issues. Sometimes we have anger sitting deep inside. Fears, worries, concerns. Sometimes wounds and pain that others have caused us that we never had a chance to express to them. Some of those, perhaps parents or others, may no longer even be alive to receive our internalized feelings, and we feel... stuck. The more we hold inside, however, the more we suppress and repress, the greater the drain on our internal resources. It takes a lot of energy for the body and the mind to keep things held inside. Energy that's diverted from healing and repairing. From maintaining strength and resilience in the immune system, nervous system, from creating new cells, manufacturing hormones, digesting and assimilating nutrients. Left unexpressed, it may create subconscious programs and blocks that then further sabotage us and prevent us from living our fullest lives. I've often spoken about the need for somatic release, using the body to fully express and release stored emotion (e.g. exercising, shaking, screaming, crying etc.). But sometimes, we just need to express verbally what we're experiencing, or have experienced internally, in the past. We need vehicles of expression that allow us to transfer what's inside into the outside world. Writing is for this very reason one of the absolute best tools for doing just that. But I encourage you to pair this with a symbolic act of release and letting go. The subconscious operates in images, its very language is symbol. Water is that universal symbol that we collectively recognize as an agent of "washing away," a solvent that dissolves, and cleans. So write. Write what you feel. Write what you wish you had said. To a past lover, coworker, family member. Whoever it was, whatever it was, whatever it IS (it can be used for any CURRENT situation that you may be struggling with as well). Similarly, you can write any fears you may be holding. Any stresses, concerns, anxious thoughts. Get it all on paper and move it from the mind into the external world. *Find a rock and bind the paper to it. Avoid using material that is not eco friendly or could potentially harm wildlife* If no solution is present, simply crumple it around a smaller rock best you can, or into a ball, on its own. Go to any body of water: a beach, lake, river, even a stream. Close your eyes while holding the rock and set the intention that you are releasing it and handing it over to be dissolved and washed away. Open your eyes and throw it in, fully letting go. The beauty of this exercise is the act of physically (somatically with the BODY) throwing the thoughts that were produced onto the paper (a mental act) into the water that operates as that (subconsciously understood) archetypal cleansing force. A ritualized act that engages the totality of the person. Let go and symbolically give it over to a power outside yourself. Know that you don't have to bear it on your own. And rest in the unburdening yourself of what had weighed you down. The clarity in mind and the lightness in body that follow? Absolutely liberating. I hope you find this a useful practice and can apply it to yourself with things you're working on and working through! (Did this myself just a couple of days ago)

Posted by Tom - NeuroArkitect Guide at 2022-06-10 22:39:53 UTC