In the beginning stages of sobriety, we’re often told to only focus on staying clean and nothing else. While it’s well intentioned, I don’t share the same sentiments.
If our only focal point is our recovery, we miss the bigger picture all together. Because if we don’t start the healing process, we’re not learning how to stay sober.
Having relapsed several times in the past, I can tell you one major reason I started drinking again was because I wasn’t doing the inner work. Now with over five years of sobriety without a professional or emotional support system (not even AA meetings), I attribute my success to doing deep level healing.
Here’s how:
I went into my energetic body to remove the emotional baggage that led to my drinking.
Here’s why:
- Physics says energy can never be created or destroyed. Only converted.
- We store emotions in our bodies (SOURCE)
- We possess the ability to create new neurons in our brain (SOURCE)
What this tells us is that we need to heal the energies surrounding the past to rewrite our present and future.
Energy Healing In Sobriety
As a reiki master and energy healer, I’m going to share how you can implement small feasible steps for energy healing in sobriety.
We’re going to cover:
- How repressed emotions impact us
- Where they get stored
- What you can do right now to clean your energetic body
- Why you want to focus on healing on an energetic level
You’re well aware of maintaining a healthy living situation, especially when you’re on the wagon. But it goes deeper than that because it’s not just with your physical environment. It’s also within your psyche. That includes your energy.
Everything is energy- our thoughts, behavior, actions, and emotions.
You may have heard that your thoughts create your reality. That’s a half truth. Your thoughts create energy and in turn create your reality.
Which means creating the sober life you desire, starts with figuratively looking at your energy. The culprit usually stems from some psychological belief that you’re not deserving of having what you want.
No matter how many affirmations or mantras you repeat, how often you meditate, or how much you try to be positive and have faith, you’re still nowhere near where you wish to be.
We’ve all been there. Myself included. It’s an energetic block (or a few) that hinders your progress.
Sobriety & Energy Healing
Which is why cleaning your energetic field will help you to start living the sober life you want.
Before I continue, I can’t begin to stress enough that this is not a one shot deal. You can’t cleanse your energetic body once and think your life is going to instantly shift.
When we repress emotions (which we know are energy), they can remain in the crevices of our organs and psyche for years before we even notice it.
Because we’ve become so acclimated to living a certain way, we often leave it unattended thinking it’s just the way we are.
Which is why cleansing your energy is going to take time. It’s about peeling away the layers of junk that’s been stored in your body at a level that your mind and body are comfortable with.
It can take a few weeks. Sometimes it takes a few months. Other times, it’ll take years before something resurfaces to the forefront of your conscious mind begging you to release it.
I’ll give you an example. As I was unpacking in my new apartment, I had a flashback from a childhood traumatic experience. This was a long forgotten memory. But it surfaced at exactly the time it needed to so I could heal from it.
I had no idea how deeply this experience from my childhood had shaped my existence until that memory surfaced. I thought I had healed all of my childhood trauma through the inner work I’ve done.
But, like with anything else, sometimes we forget about certain situations or it hurts too deeply, that we shove it to a place we don’t ever want to look again. In my case, it was a combination of both.
However, don’t let that discourage you because it happens to every single one of us. The way I see it, it’s a blessing when past trauma surfaces. Because it’s giving you an opportunity to witness it from a place of objectivity, free of any judgments. Which takes you one step closer to where you’re looking to go.
Now let’s take a look at a holistic approach to energy healing in sobriety and how you can heal yourself.
Energy Healing & Organs
The answers are held in your body. The ancient Chinese and Indians believed we store emotions in our organs and body parts. Recently, studies have been showing this to be true. (SOURCE)
When these emotions remain buried deep within, we become stricken with dis-ease. Which ultimately leads to emotional and physical ailments, including addictions.
The great thing is once we acknowledge our past trauma and current state of suffering, we have the ability to reverse these inflictions and heal ourselves. In getting back to the basics of listening to your body, you’ll be able to cleanse your energetic body. Eventually, you’ll come to a place where you find solace within yourself.
To keep this simple, I’m going to provide you with some of the most common emotions and the body parts/organs we store them in.
How your organs impact your healing
- Liver- holds anger
- Kidneys- stores fear
- Lungs- holds grief
- Heart- holds joy or lack of
- Hips- holds anger
- Shoulders- blame and guilt
You’ll notice the list below incorporates yoga. This is because consistently doing yoga helps to create and strengthen new neurons. (SOURCE)
Work your hips and detox your liver
As you can see, anger is stored in both the liver and hips. A liver detox along with yin yoga to open up your hip flexors would be great to release anger.
If you feel anger arising, allow it to surface. The more you attempt to push it back down, the longer it’s going to take you to heal. On the other hand, when you’re able to feel the anger, you have the ability to release it.
Clean your kidneys
Because your kidneys store fear, a kidney detox which includes a yoga sequence dedicated to detoxing your kidneys, will work wonders. Feeling more adventurous? Do one thing today that scares you. It doesn’t have to be anything of epic proportion like going in a shark cage. But something like gently getting out of your comfort zone will help to alleviate your fears.
Breath your way out of grief
If you’re looking to release grief, your lung health holds the keys. Focus on your respiratory system. Deep breathing exercises will help with this. When you do deep breathing, you’ll start to release all the grief that’s been pent up in your lungs.
Follow your heart
Feeling like your life is lackluster? Your heart is the key to your joy. Eating foods that are good for heart health, doing cardio, a yoga sequence dedicated to your heart, and doing things that inspire you will all go a long way to increasing the vitality you want to feel.
You can also check THIS post out for witchy ways to practice self-love.
Release the tension
Wanna release blame and guilt? This goes both ways. You can be harboring blame and guilt for others, yourself, or others blaming and guilt tripping you. Daily shoulder stretches will slowly release the stored emotions that you’ve been keeping bottled up.
Try this:
- As you inhale, bring your shoulders up to your ears.
- Hold it there for a breath or two.
- On the exhale, quickly drop your shoulders down.
- Repeat until you feel the tension and stress being released.
Want more tips? Check out Witchy Ways To Reduce Stress In Sobriety.
Finding your potential
This is about clearing everything out that is no longer serving you for your limitless potential. Whatever is being fostered within your body can be released when you allow it to. So you can pave a new path for yourself.
Remember, as emotions and traumatic memories rear their ugly heads, be an observer to them. Remain in a place of neutrality so you can release them. The more you feed into the emotions rather than feeling the emotions, the longer it will take the healing process.
More importantly, be gentle and compassionate with yourself. Show yourself the same nurturing you so freely give to others.
Give yourself some energy healing in sobriety. Who knows? You may come to love it. You’ll never until you try it out.
