Communicating your Painful Stories to Others

This is the time to give expression to your stories – to communicate the details that were revealed in prior chapters through intuitive self-reflection. Sitting with your listening partner in a comfortable position, share your first painful experience, including each of the aspects you wrote about in your journal:

1)  Communicate the context of the painful experience.

2)  Communicate the full range of feelings generated by this experience.

3)  Communicate your unmet needs.

4)  Communicate the clues available to you that you denied.

5)  Communicate how your denial served you.

When you have shared your story from these five perspectives, ask your partner to respond by saying the following three phrases to you:

Thank you for sharing your story and feelings with me.

I’m sorry for the pain you experienced.

I offer you my love as a balm for your wounded heart.

Using this framework, share each of the painful experiences you’ve identified from your past and, after each five-part sharing, ask your listening partner to respond as above. This ritualized way of expressing your pain may sound contrived, but I encourage you to follow this script. I’ve witnessed the power of this process and want you to experience the benefits for yourself.

If you are doing this process on your own, take a few minutes to quiet your mind by practicing breathing awareness and meditation. Using your power of imagination, envision yourself in a place of safety and beauty. Perhaps it’s a lush mountain ridge overlooking a verdant valley, a tropical beach with azure water lapping up against white sand, or a natural hot springs in an old-growth forest.

Upon arrival at your sacred place, imagine a powerful tree of wisdom with its roots in the earth and its branches reaching to the sky. Envision a being of love and compassion sitting beneath this tree. It may be a religious figure such as Jesus, Moses, Buddha, or Krishna. It may be a wise old man or woman, or perhaps a celestial being of light. Visualize sitting in the presence of this divine being and allow their serenity to fill your heart.

In the same way that you would express your story to a human being sitting next to you, communicate to this sacred archetypal entity the experiences and episodes that caused you pain. With your eyes closed, share your painful stories, speaking aloud as if you were there with this being in person.

After each story, imagine your inner healer saying these three statements:

Thank you for sharing your story and feelings with me.

I’m sorry for the pain you experienced.

I offer you my love as a balm for your wounded heart.

David Simon, M.D.  is the Co- Founder, CEO and Medical Director of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing. Dr. Simon is dedicated to catalyzing the evolution of the prevailing health care system into a healing system that encompasses the emotional, spiritual as well as physical health of the individual. His new book Free to Love, Free to Heal: Heal Your Body by Healing Your Emotions comes out on June 25, 2009.

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