Healing: The Foundation Run.
If you want to understand a person, try to discover what their personality is built on. For some, it’s a bedrock of feeling of being loved, accepted, cherished and wanted. This generally produces people who are happy, successful, and at peace with themselves.
For others, it’s precariously perched on an unstable tripod of longing, loathing and loss, and produces a person who struggles to feel happiness, thinks poorly of themselves, and has a hard time finding their place or some peace in this world.
The soil doesn’t determine the type of tree, but it sure makes a difference to how it grows.
But accessing the foundation of a person is not easy. Sure, there are fast ways to do it, with sleep deprivation and a focused encounter, a careful cocktail of chemicals or an incredibly powerful feeling of fear, but none of those are kind, respectful or easy to manage the fallout from.
If you really want to get to the depths of someone’s soul in a way that helps rather than hurts, then your best chance is a little process I like to call ‘The Foundation Run’.
But buckle up buttercup– because this one gets real, really fast.
There’s just a few things you need, and like any good meal, your outcome is only going to be as good as your ingredients. You start with a huge spoonful of desire, because unless the person wants to do this, and really understands a deep personal need to get this done, they’re never going to give you access to the core.
But if they really want to change, then you’re ready for your second ingredient.
A guide you can trust.
Because running the core of a broken foundation is tricky, and it’s sure as hell going to hurt someone, if not both of you. If you don’t have a guide who knows how to fly this particular brand of trouble, the chances are that you’ll crash and burn.
But in the hands of someone who drives compassion with wisdom, and kindness with knowledge, you can start the run into someone’s very own heart of darkness.
Which means all you need now is time, and a safe place to scream.
The questions start the process, lightly touching the exterior, gently probing to see the reactions, focusing on the breathing, the tone, the wording of the answers, and the micro-expressions of the body and face.
Modulating intensity with intrigue, you enter the soul, the questions coming faster now, from odd angles, tangential shifts designed to confront from strange angles, succeeding in stealth where strength could never get through.
And the closer you get to the core, the greater the resistance, and the harder and more painful the answers become.
This is where you turn up the wisdom, melding intuition with intention, guiding the person past the wasteland of unknowing, and running right into the defenses of fear, pain and rejection, as their inbuilt desire to avoid the agony of all that is buried inside of them tries to shut them down, and shut you out.
And in that moment, when they’re hurting and lost, feeling their past rather than understanding it, struggling against the tears, the heartache, the loss and the cruel reality of all they have suffered, you execute the final dance of the run.
You challenge the meaning of all that is holding them in pain, help them to see it differently, and in doing so, let it go.
If you’ve done it right, then they’ll likely feel an intense pain that rocks them to their core. It’s like you’re pulling out a splinter that has been lodged in their heart for as long as they can remember.
They may cry, they may scream, and they might even throw up. This is the real pain that they have been suppressing for so long that they feel like a part of their soul is being torn away. This is primal, terrifying and horrific.
This is the soul naked to the universe; broken, bleeding and screaming for the pain to go away.
Which is when you need some pretty powerful people skills, and the ability to hold them in compassion with the absolute and complete absence of any kind of judgment.
People heal when they are accepted, and do not have to alter who they are or what they feel for fear of the opinions or emotions of others. When you can accept another in their entirety of their soul, you can be a light helping to guide them out of the darkness.
And it can be a long journey back.
Because even when you’ve opened the wound in their soul, and hopefully cleaned it with love and acceptance, it still takes a long time for them to heal, learning new patterns of behavior and understanding.
This is when you are needed to most, to hold them in the times when they still struggle to grow and become the person they always wanted to be.
But if the run was done correctly, the rest is just a matter of time and tears.
What are you hiding in your foundation?
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings