Stop Retraumatizing Yourself: 3 Tools for Creating Well-Being After Re-Wounding

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):

We can re-wound ourselves by telling the same painful stories over and over. These three spiritual practices can help you shift out of the cycle and back into your well-being.

Did you know that we can wound ourselves by telling our pain stories over and over and over? Think about it. Do you feel a rush of emotion every time you tell the story of the jerk who cheated on you or the best friend who stabbed you in the back?

That rush of emotion is like taking a scalpel and cutting the scar from that wound back open, every time you tell the story. Every time you identify with that past version of you, you are re-wounding yourself.

The great news is, we can stop re-wounding any time we want.

These three shamanic practices can help you interrupt the pattern and support your well-being after re-wounding.

The Practice of Non-Suffering

The Practice of Non-Attachment

The Practice of The Beauty Way

The Practice of Non-Suffering teaches us to:

• No longer write stories about our pain

• No longer tell our pain story

• No longer collude with the pain stories of others

• Listen to the infinite wisdom of our guides and the Universe to stop creating the patterns

The Practice of Non-Attachment teaches us to:

• Maintain our discernment by refusing to go along with other people's opinions

• Acquire a time-transcending sense of ethics

• Allow ourselves to embrace the limitless possibilities of the unknown

The Practice of The Beauty Way teaches us to:

• Begin to perceive beauty even when what we are seeing is ugly

• Realize that others' guilt, fear, unhappiness, anger, etc. is meant as a lesson for us to look within and see where those feelings live in us

You might be thinking, "Wow, that seems like a lot to remember!" And it is. So don’t try to remember it all. Here are three tips to start with. Choose one that resonates with you and start there.

1. Stop telling your pain stories. (For now while you heal.)

   1. When someone else is telling you a story about something awful that happened to them, don't relate back by telling them the details of your similar story. Instead, reframe it into something positive. "I get where you're coming from. I've experienced something similar. But you know what? I learned this amazing thing about what I want in the future from that experience." Reframe the negative into a positive.

2. Focus on what you are experiencing right here, right now. (There is power in presence!)

   1. Realize that you are not your experiences. The you that is standing in your shoes right now is not the you that experienced those painful things in the past. The you that you are now is experiencing something different, right here, right now. Immerse yourself in your now. What's done is done and there's no changing the past.

3. Look for the beauty in your life. (There's is beauty in even the ugliest of places.)

   1. There is always something beautiful in your current life. Always. The sun shines every day to warm our planet and cause plants to grow for us to enjoy and eat. There is an abundance of clean water on our planet. For most of us, that means when we turn on the faucet, there it is. Clean water. Breathe in. Feel that? It's oxygen. Free to take as much as you need right this minute. On a clear night, look up at the sky. All of those beautiful stars and the moon? Find the beauty and revel in it. It is always there when we choose to look.

These practices are part of how I live now. They are also woven into the Quantum Medicine Wheel I teach. If you’re working on creating well-being after re-wounding, this work can help you shift gently and powerfully.

Want more tools like this? Start here.

You can also learn more about the full Quantum Medicine Wheel framework at melodygaynorintl.com/qmw