Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about alchemizing old pain. So what do I mean by old pain? Well, these are the trauma patterns, the trauma experiences we might've had earlier on in our life, painful experiences in general, that continue to linger and show up for us in our adult years, often at the times when we really wish they wouldn't. And they can keep us in the fear-based responses. So I'll offer an example.

Let's say you're have to navigate a relationship breakup and the part of you just knows that it is important, but another part is fearful. You know, what, if I'm alone? Will I find love again? You know, these are often the parts of us that are related to younger versions of ourselves, wanting to attach and feel safe and feel okay and feeling like we need the presence of another person to have that safety. And so just the idea of separation, even though we might know it's dysfunctional in a lot of ways being in the relationship, still the fear of separation can trigger these older wounds that might be there around separation and cause us to get, to, to feel a lot of extra fear, a lot of worry. Maybe I can make this right.I don't know if I'll be okay. So that's an example of old pain arising in response to a situation that's involving your adult self.

And when it comes to helping to transform that pain, being present with it is a powerful first start. But it's not always enough to, to alchemize it. It's definitely better than disconnection, but we often need something more. What we need is to meet that old pain with a more resourced adult part of us, in a very active way. Now, the part of you that's able to be present is a resource part.

So I'm not dismissing that. But like you can imagine maybe in these moments of feeling like, let's continue with the same example of there being a breakup, a lot of fear arising, it's just like, okay, I'm present with the fear, present with the fear, present with the fear. Sometimes that can be enough to say okay, I'm safe with this, but other times it's like, okay, I can feel it, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it. That's where coming in as a parent to yourself and what I'm calling, the more resourced part of you can be powerful. And this is where you would talk to yourself from a different perspective and say, yeah, Hey Cory, like, I know this is tough right now, but you're safe.

We know why this is an important thing to do. We've seen this pattern over and over again, and I know there's fear and I know there's worry, but we've got this. We can move through this together. What that is doing is bringing in a new, different energy into the system, the energy of groundedness, steadiness, and it's meeting this ungrounded, fear-based energy that is related to older patterns. And when you bring those two together, the wiring in the brain begins to shift and we're no longer caught in the soupiness of that emotion of fear, fear, fear.

We're actually able to locate a more steady, grounded, resourced version of ourself so that we can communicate with that part and this part doesn't take over. Because I'm sure you've also experienced those moments where that older pain, that fear-based part is so strong that we just get lost in the soup of it. It's like, I don't even, I don't even know where the wiser me is in this moment. I just feel like this is right, like, of course I can't do that. Or I can't do this thing that I know is right because it just doesn't feel true anymore.

That's how strong these younger versions of ourselves can be. And that's where we really want to come in with that more adult version of ourselves and talk to ourselves in a compassionate but steady way. So this part can see we're held and we are safe. And sometimes just being present with the pain isn't enough to help shift it and move in the direction that we're trying to move. So see if you can bring this into those moments when they arise for you.

It's not like these moments arise every day. Sometimes they can. It's often in those bigger decisions that we need to make, where some of these, these core wounds get activated. But there is a way to meet them from the more resourced part of you. Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.