Bring In Your Trusted Angel

Dear Awesome Woman,

Guided imagery is a really nice way to experience healing nowadays.   Here’s one that I enjoy playing with.  I bring in my trusted angel.

Ok, I know this may sound a bit woo-woo (and it is), but I invite you to play along with me.  

We all know that we have an inner critic – that character or part of ourselves that is usually pretty loud and outspoken. It may criticize, complain, point fingers and shout.  Mine actually jumps up and down when it’s really bullying.

How do I know this?  

Well, I see it.

In my imagination.

 In my mind’s eye, I bring up a sort of hazy picture of my inner critic and notice what it is saying (or screaming) at me.  Then, after a few seconds of experiencing what this feels like in my body, I bring in my compassionate and trusted angel.

It goes like this.

I’ll feel triggered about a situation – either past, present or even future. By triggered, I mean that I’m experiencing a lot of emotional charge – sadness, grief, anger, fear, shame etc.   As a Mind-body coach, I know what to do with this emotional charge.

I allow it.  I acknowledge and bring awareness to whatever emotion is surfacing.  

Remember from past newsletters the importance of allowing emotional energy flow?  By doing this nothing gets stuck and we are even capable of hearing intuition and messages from our body when we do this.

So, I notice the physical sensations that arise – a tight jaw, clenched shoulders, a constriction in my chest, a sadness that’s felt as a heaviness in my stomach – whatever it is, there’s something happening in my body.  

The naming of the emotion is not as important as noticing the physical reaction my body is having to a situation, but I’m usually able to name the emotion by putting my attention on the physical sensation.  A single word – fear, anger, vulnerability, shame may pop in my mind.

Whether a word pops up or not, I sit (or stand) in awareness of what is happening in my body for a few seconds.  This is allowing energetic flow. It doesn’t have to take long.

Then I go into my imagination.  I bring up a scene of my inner critic sitting across from me.  It’s usually pointing it’s finger and telling me that “you shouldn’t do this or that” or criticizing me for ‘doing this or that’. Or warning me ‘not to do this or that’.  It has something to say about the situation and the emotion that I’m feeling.

Lots of advice there.

In sitting across from that inner critic, I feel what it feels like to be spoken to this way.  I let my head droop if it makes me sad or I lean away from it if it scares me.   It’s really acting like a big bully.  But as we know in real life, most big bullies are just way scared themselves. This inner critic is the scared part of me that is craving safety.

In this exercise,  I’m using my imagination to conjure up these different parts of myself in order  to get clarity around a certain situation. I get to visually ‘see’ what’s really happening inside of me.

After a moment of being in the scene of my inner critic doing ‘its thing’ across from me, I bring in my trusted angel.  I bring into my imagination this compassionate presence who comes and sits next to me, usually on my right hand side.  

She is only looking at me and not at the inner critic. I imagine turning towards her and asking for guidance.  She knows what the inner critic is saying to me and how that makes me feel.

My angel always has some kind words to share and often times, some words of wisdom as well.  That’s why she is trusted by me.

When I feel a bit of relief in my body, I know that I have received a gift from my intuition, my ‘Soul Speak’ as I like to call it. 

In this self- guided imagined scene, I have accessed my intuition through bringing in my trusted angel.  I like to jot down in a journal the words that I have heard.

But whether you write down the messages that you have heard or not, you carry that sense of relief in your body.

In this exercise, you have allowed emotional energy flow as well as receiving intuitive kindness from your soul self.

Try it and see.  You have given attention to your inner critic and allowed its fear to be heard, and yet you are choosing a different path.  You are not allowing it to control you and dictate your being and behavior.

Instead, you are bringing in your trusted angel and allowing for the blessing that occurs.