Using Belly Dance to Heal Our Deepest "Emotional Core" Wounds - Part 1
This post is not for everyone.
Really.
This is for "mature audiences only" - reader discretion advised.
(And let it be said, at the outset, that this by no means constitutes medical advice, that I am strictly sharing personal experience, and that if you are at all in doubt before you begin - should you choose to do something similar - consider asking for guidance from a licensed medical or therapeutic professional. And perhaps have a trained counselor with you as you do this particular form of "inner journey.")
What Is a "Core Wound"?
A core wound is the psychological impact from an experience (or set of experiences) that we have when we are young, or are otherwise exceptionally vulnerable. This (these) experience(s) occur when we are still shaping our basic worldview; our concept of whether or not the world is a "friendly place."
Core wounds most commonly come from experiences with our immediate family. In particular, they come about with those whom we identify as essential to our survival.
To the best of my knowledge, all of us carry with us some sorts of core wound. We often have them no matter how much we do psychotherapy, seek "spiritual enlightenment," or just plain "work on our stuff."
We can have breakthroughs, and often do. But still, these are the "core." They go right down to how we believe that the world works - in our favor, or not. Dangerous, or safe and friendly.
How Can We Determine What - In Ourselves - Is Our Own Core Wound?
Core wounds feel like psychological "hurt." In fact, they "hurt" a lot. So as a result, we try to bundle them up and isolate them away from our conscious awareness.
Core wounds never really go away on their own. They stay inside us, with tremendous power - mostly because we try to contain and control them.
Often, our core wound show up as "blurts." These can be phrases that we say to ourselves. Sometimes, they even slip into our conversations! Or, we show ourselves (and others around us) our core wound by voicing strong opinions about how a person (or certain group of persons) always does something that is "bad."
Core wounds feel intensely private. We rarely - if ever - discuss them with others. Often, if we do psychotherapy or have a life coach or a spiritual counselor, we may work for months before we tentatively allow our core wound area to be broached. This is because, of all the parts of our inner world, our core wound feels most sensitive, most vulnerable, most "ouchie"!
And yet, if we do allow a core wound area to "come into the open," we may be surprised to learn that our coach, counselor, or therapist really knew about it all along. (And so, for that matter, did our relationship partners, and possibly our boss, co-workers, family, and friends.) This is because our core wounds affect us so much that we "give them away" all the time!
Mother Henna writes about her experience of seeing her "pain body" as separate from her "light body."To be continued (in next posting).
Who Else Talks About Core Wounds?
Eckhart Tolle writes about core wounds in The Power of Now. He calls them our pain-body.
Core wounds never really go away on their own. They stay inside us, with tremendous power - mostly because we try to contain and control them.
Often, our core wound show up as "blurts." These can be phrases that we say to ourselves. Sometimes, they even slip into our conversations! Or, we show ourselves (and others around us) our core wound by voicing strong opinions about how a person (or certain group of persons) always does something that is "bad."
To be continued (in next posting).
