Carrying an invisible wound inside of yourself isn’t easy.

When I lost my brother in 2016, I walked around for a long time afterwards feeling like half of my lungs had been ripped out.

I looked whole on the outside. Perhaps if you looked in my face you might see the stress lines and grief in my eyes, but otherwise my appearance showed nothing to indicate the deep suffering I felt.

I learned a lot of things during this time in my life:

Grief is its own strange elixir, which can potentially change us into a new being if we allow ourselves to be rearranged.

Emotions are their own form of intelligence and each feeling state a teacher, if we learn to listen.

Nature, dogs, warm cups of comfort, and home are all anchors to help ease the pain when the heart is broken and lost.

Mostly I learned that my grief journey and the invisible transformations taking place inside of myself were experiences of self that others couldn’t fully understand. I had to learn to make sense of my loss, make sense of my feelings, and make sense of my own experience.

Honoring Our Experience of Self

We all have places inside where we carry invisible wounds. Healing takes place in waves and cycles. Sometimes part of healing is finding a gentle acceptance that some wounds never do quite heal.

I believe an integral part of our healing process is to recognize the vital importance of understanding and honoring our experience of self. It is the singular experience that is going to be most helpful for us, because nobody else can peer inside of our inward world and understand it, except for us!

We are the mapmakers of our own journeys. Only we can know where certain craters, demarcations, and oases reside inside. Only we can chart our emotional range, our understanding of our experience, and piece together how this informs our relationship with the world.

I take self-awareness and self-honoring seriously. I see it as sacred information, and I encourage my clients to treat their voice of self and soul with significance and reverence.

All too often we dismiss ourselves or belittle our emotional experience, because it’s painful to look at what feels vulnerable, shadowy, and tender inside. Yet if we can’t be truly vulnerable with ourselves, who can we be truly vulnerable with?

This is why we need to learn ways to honor the whole of who we are. I believe we need to find perspectives that help us embrace our full experience of self. We need to learn how to trade judgement for compassion and engage with ourselves in fierce tenderness and radical forgiveness.

Mostly we need to listen to ourselves and find ways to make space for the whole spectrum of our experience. So, with that, here are 3 ways to help you make space to embrace your whole self.

Three Mindful Ways to Embrace Our Experience of Self

1. Use Writing as a Healing Tool

Bust out your journal. Allow yourself to free flow write whatever messy, sticky feelings are there. When those feel expressed, write a higher perspective of your story.

You might write down what you would say to a friend going through something similar. You might try and find qualities like resilience, perseverance, hope or courage and write about the ways you’ve shown these qualities. You might even write an inspiration letter to yourself filled with encouragement and faith in your ability to make it through.

The act of writing is a powerful one, and we can use it to create a new narrative that supports our well being. It doesn’t matter what you write; what matters is that you allow yourself to fully express your feelings, then find a way to see the bigger picture of yourself and bring a little light in.

2. Words of Affirmation

Here is a simple exercise that helps you drop into your body and affirm your worth.

Place one hand on your heart and the other hand on your solar plexus. Breathe deep and simply say this affirmation out loud or in your mind:

“On all levels of my being, I fully accept, respect and honor my experience of self. All parts of me are valid and deserving.”

Say this as many times as you like. Notice any shifts that take place inside of yourself. Even if the words don’t feel 100% true, know that self-talk has the ability to help nourish and flourish us. Just like plants, we too respond to words of praise, appreciation and love.

3. Draw a Circle of Self.

This is a super simple, awesome exercise to help you see and understand a fuller picture of yourself. There’s no right or wrong with infinite possibilities of use!

In your journal draw a big circle. Within that circle, write down all the feelings, aspects, and/or experiences of life you currently need to express.

For example, you might use your circle to express everything you’re feeling about a challenging situation in your life. You might start with the prompt, “I feel _,” and then jot down every emotion you have.

The point of this exercise is to acknowledge all facets of yourself and to see all of them as belonging in your circle. There is no better than or worse than, there is just your circle of self. Remember that circles have no sides. They are whole and complete- - just like you.

All of our experiences are valid and true; each has something to teach us. Everything is an aspect of the whole of who we are.

We Are Our Own Experts

The one thing that each of has a unique expertise on that nobody else has is-- Our Self.

I learned this lesson in visceral ways as I walked through my grief journey after losing Brent. I learned that my experience of grief’s pain and grief’s light was personal and holy. I learned that while others may be able to speak wisdom into our lives and help us better understand ourselves, the ultimate authority will always lay with us.

This is an incredibly empowering idea when we realize that being our own authority has nothing to do with being “right” and everything to do with claiming our personal power and owning our story.

I had to fully own my story of losing my brother in order to deal and heal. It’s a story I’m still owning whose pages are continually being written on the contents of my heart as I move forwards in my process of becoming.

You too have pages of stories written inside of you. Some of those stories are still forming, fomenting, and transforming. You are the only one who can fully see, value, and honor those truths of self.

You are your own expert and the sacred wisdom keeper of your own life. Anytime you’re tempted to forget that, drop inwards, listen to your self, and find a way to honor your experience:

Know it is a perfectly, beautiful, valid part of your human journey as you learn to live real and whole.

For more words on grief, love and transformation, you might enjoy reading Lamentations of The Sea and Transformations of The Sun.