CHAPTER TWELVE

Tying Things Together

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a clear framework in which to seek out and work with the body deva. The method in some ways is simple: we are engaging with the consciousness of the body to find out what lies unhealed within our physical form and then providing the support to resolve it.

The variations and ways to go about this, as well as what we may find within, are endless. In time, your own direct experience and engagement with the body deva will teach you new ways of working with this material, and offer you a sense of flow that takes you far beyond the ten-step process listed below.

Before the Session

To start, you may wish to draw a body map. This can highlight or show you possible areas to work on, and allow you to see how you are doing with this work over a period of time.

Body maps can be done every time, before doing the work, or you may wish to do them on a semi-regular basis, such as once a week, if you are doing this work on a more frequent basis.

STEP ONE

You will now “call up” your body deva. Visualize it as either an outer symbol, an inner symbol, or by visualizing or sensing your midline and/or heart.

STEP TWO

Set intention or state what you would like to work with. There are a few different ways to pick what you are going to work on in a session. The first way would be to simply think of a topic that is top of mind, or is really calling out for your attention. This can be a specific pain in your body, an emotion, a reaction or interaction that you wish to look at, or something of a more energetic or spiritual nature.

For example:

Physical

• I would like to find out why my (knee, hip, and so on) hurts or feels restricted.
• I would like to work with anything that is creating (a specific disease, discomfort, or imbalance).
• I would like to work with anything that is causing for me to feel low energy, ill, or sick.
• I would like to explore why my body map shows that I do not have an abdomen or legs.
• I would like to explore why my menstrual cycle is so difficult, or what is creating hormonal imbalances.

Emotional

• I would like to explore why I get so angry (or why I get so angry every time someone does “x”).
• I would like to explore: grief, depression, apathy, loneliness.

Energetic and Spiritual

• I would like to work with anything that is causing me to feel blocked or stagnant in my life.
• I would like to understand and heal any self-sabotage.
• I would like to explore why I am not embodied in my lower body (or why I do not feel grounded).

Interpersonal

• I would like to understand and heal my reaction to or conflict with (family member, friend, random person who has caused an emotional reaction).
• I would like to know what is at the root of the dislike I have for my boss.
• I would like to know why I cannot stay in a relationship, and why I only attract a specific type of person to me.
• I would like to heal my relationship, marriage, or partnership. Show me what I am holding in relation to this.

Specific Patterns and Conflicts

• I would like to work on an inner child, ancestral issue, or past life issue. Can you show me where I may hold these energies?
• I would like to heal my issues with money. Can you show me where I hold this imbalance?
• I would like to heal my issues with (sexuality, femininity, masculinity, power, strength, being who I am intended to be in this world). Can you show me where I hold this imbalance?
• What is preventing me from becoming more conscious?
• What is preventing me from being fully who I am in this world without apologies?

The other ways to start would be to have an “open session.” This means that you will simply ask or intend whatever would be most healing for you to come forward in the session. As stated above, you can also use your body map to focus on a specific area of your body that may be out of balance.

STEP THREE

You will now sense or visualize your body deva, say hello and state your intention and ask the body deva what it may have to say about the subject.

STEP FOUR

You will now ask the body deva to show you where you may have unhealed energies in relation to the topic.

• Do a body scan or sense what areas are highlighting or drawing your focus.
• Pick a body part that is the most significant to work with, or is drawing you in the most. You can also ask for the “linchpin,” or the pattern that would provide the most healing.
• Sit with that individual part of your body and notice how it physically feels to you.

STEP FIVE

You will now work with the individual consciousness or “talk” to the specific area of the body that was found. This will relay different information than your body deva. The body deva offers general information and is concerned with preserving your body as a whole. An individual cell would have a very specific focus and consciousness, with specific information to relay. An organ or part of the body (such as the pelvis) will have information mostly regarding itself and the specific area.

Talking to Your Body

After feeling how the area physically feels, you will note whether the area feels full (stuck), empty, or both. Remember that we have many layers, and an area may have different patterns that need to be healed, so a mixture of both is not surprising to find.

• You will note the energetics of the area and create a visual of the emptiness or fullness. What is its shape? Colors (dark/light)? Size?
• Ask the individual body part (or whatever aspect of individual consciousness you are working with) for general information about what it may be holding. How long has the energy been there? What function does it serve? What emotions are present?
• You may choose to work with the individual consciousness of this body part, asking it to reveal its needs for healing and helping it to understand that you no longer need the function it describes. You may also let it know that you are an adult (state your age) and now have the ability to let grief or other emotions arise.
• The body part may not understand that you are now fifty years old, because in its unhealed state it is as if it was frozen in time. Ask your body consciousness to release any unhealed emotions and shift or change to a healthier state.

STEP SIX A

Ask the body deva what you would need to actualize in your life in order to fully heal the area, negotiating if necessary. For example, if your knee pain is coming from sitting at a desk all day, you may be ready to go completely to a standing desk, but you may wish to negotiate instead and offer to get up and stretch. The key to this is to actualize this in your daily life and, ideally, let the body deva know when you do.

If you decide to work on this step (instead of alternate Step Six B), move on to Step Ten after completing this step.

STEP SIX B

You may choose instead to work directly with the trauma, more deeply exploring the root of the pattern.

The individual body part may tell you exactly at what age the energy it is holding happened. It may reveal you have had it since you were twelve years old, or that it is from your mother. If it does not, or you wish to simply sit with discernment, you will slowly offer your body the different options as to the source of the energy:

• Is it inner child?
• Family or ancestral?
• Past life?
• In utero?
• Cultural?
• Archetypal, symbolic, or a part of myself?
• Something else? If so, what?

You will pause after each query—a positive response either being a sense of knowing that one of these areas has more significance than the others, or the individual area you are working with has a heightened or shifting energy.

If multiple responses are offered, it is often best to work with the “root,” or whatever came first. You may also ask your body deva for confirmation as to what need for healing would be best to work with.

STEP SEVEN

You will then ask the body deva to bring forward the source (the inner child, ancestor, past life, and so forth) and gain a basic understanding of the trauma that occurred. What created overwhelm, pain, or difficulty? You want to get a solid enough understanding of what is going on and what may be distressing if you try to move forward. You do not need to engage in an endless saga; the purpose is to understand enough of the basics of the trauma to understand the beliefs or contracts that were created.

You may wish to use the “television screen” technique, working with resistance and using phrases such as, Tell me more and If I could hear the answer to this, what would I hear? in order to access more information.

Fully understand the beliefs that were created as a result of this trauma:

• What beliefs about the self were created?
• What beliefs about the nature of the world were created?
• What beliefs about people were created?
• What beliefs about men or women were created?

Reflect on the beliefs and see how valid they may be for you now. To best of your ability, acknowledge how these beliefs have affected you.

STEP EIGHT

Ask your body deva or the person directly what they would need to be healed. Visualize the person receiving what they need. Some people choose to visualize a white or colored light (what seems intuitively appropriate) to offer healing support. If you are doing cultural or archetypal work, you may also wish to locate and interact with the opposing force.

The session is complete when you no longer notice the person you have been working with (they disappear). If they do not disappear, and you get a sense that the session is over, you will simply say thank you and move on to the integration and release.

STEP NINE

You will now return to focusing on your present-day body and the area where the stuck or empty energy was. This area may have already been releasing, but you will ask the body consciousness of the area if it realizes your current age, and that you no longer need it to hang onto the beliefs and energies from (yourself, your ancestor, and so forth). Ask the individual body consciousness to release, change, or shift, this energy.

STEP TEN

Ask the body deva to help release and integrate this work with your body as a whole. Say thank you to the body deva and take some time to rest before going about the rest of your day.

Aftercare

It takes some time for this work to release and reintegrate, so be respectful of the fact that it is starting a process. In simple terms, this means that it will take the person on average three to five days to finish releasing, and approximately two weeks to come to a new sense of homeostasis. All levels of the Self—body, mind, emotions, and spirit—must accept and work with the changes and shifts that have occurred.

After this work, and for approximately the next three to five days, emotions, memories, strange dreams, physical shifts and possible aches, and other signs of the body processing and releasing are likely to occur. After that time is when the rest of the spiritual and mental shifts occur. If you have done a small session, this may only take a few days. If you have released a core belief, or have significantly shifted something, it can take a month or so. After about a month, you will have the space and perspective to see how much that belief may still be affecting you, or how your body map has changed.

If this work gets to be too much, remember that we do not need to do the heavy lifting on our own. This is where experienced professionals and healers of varying types can help us to lift the proverbial boulder we are working with so we can return to our process of working with pebbles and large rocks. We shouldn’t suffer alone, and we do not heal alone. Shared pain is lessened pain, and by finding another person to do this work with and to chat with, or a healer to help you with tricky patterns (or simply things you are stuck in or overwhelmed by), this process will go a lot easier.

We are so used to numbness that emotions, memories, or physical experiences arising after inner work that do not quickly shift us into more numbness or an outright “feeling better” state are deemed failures, or are quickly numbed. If we have been in a coma lying in a hospital bed for twenty years, our first stretch and walk down the hall is going to be uncomfortable. It is by understanding that this work is a process, as well as being conscious that after this type of work there will be shifting, that any fears of authentically feeling can be alleviated. I suggest telling yourself, I bet that this is from releasing those beliefs in my pelvis with my body deva, so that the body can separate and will even lessen any symptoms experienced.

Feeling is not a bad thing, however. Even if it is grief, anger, or pain, the authentic expression of such things is so repressed in the modern world that we have grown incredibly distanced from ourselves and one another. Many of us are so numb that we are simply living out the unhealed wounds, loops, and stockpiled emotions that we have accumulated or that have been given to us. For anyone to actually and authentically wake up, to seek within, and to release what is held there, is incredibly courageous.

It also takes some effort. This work is cumulative. Accepting that your inner six-year-old may come up during twenty different healing sessions is difficult because we want things to be fixed—now, ideally, with as little effort on our part as possible, and with no difficult emotions or anything but positivity happening as a result of it. Engaging with your body deva does take time, and is like building any relationship. You will know yourself better through this work in six months than you will today.

But know that each belief, each restriction, each aspect of you that is healed creates greater freedom. It creates further embodiment, more joy, more capacity to see and interact with the world with clarity and grounding. It creates wholeness, self-worth, and the ability to move forward in this world, understanding not only the deepest essence of who you are but that you can move without restriction or hesitation.

Prompts

You can work with the body deva on anything you may consider out of balance in your life. Here are a few prompts that may be helpful for further exploration:

RELATIONSHIP TO MONEY: Ask your body deva where you may be holding restrictions or unhealed patterns with regard to money and financial success.

RELATIONSHIP TO FOOD: Ask your body deva where you may be holding issues related to food, such as fears, attraction to specific foods, or even allergic or sensitivity responses. You can also engage the body deva by eating a specific food item and asking or sensing if the body is enjoying that food while you are eating it. The difficulty with this is that we utilize food for anesthetic, in response to unhealed energies, so initially we may find that our bodies do seem to enjoy the donuts or fried food item we are eating. Even in a healed state, we may deeply enjoy an occasional donut. By interacting with the healed and whole body deva, we will be able to discern what our bodies crave in a healthy manner.

I caution you to approach working with food carefully if you have a background of extremely disordered thinking and eating. There is no need to create further obsession, or to use something like the body deva to fuel unhealed trauma.

CREATIVITY AND PASSION: Which area in your body does not feel creativity, passion, or vitally alive? This may reveal many places, and you will inquire as to the one that would be best to work with today, or would provide the most healing.

SEXUAL BLOCKS AND RESTRICTIONS: Where is your body holding any restrictions around sex or the sexual act? Where are you holding wounding in regards to your sexual orientation? Where are you holding wounding in regards to what sexual partners you have had? What parts of you may not enjoy sex?

MIRRORING: The people as well as the situations we react to can be an incredible catalyst to inner work. The thought behind mirroring is that the outer world shows us our wounds, and what we react to shows us where we need to heal. Every person we react to points to something that is “shadow” (repressed or unconscious) within us. Every person we react to can show us which parts of ourselves remain frozen and unhealed.

Mirroring is an incredible tool. Outer experiences and people can be presented to the body deva to find where we hold this energy in our bodies. We would then want to ask the body deva, or the individual consciousness of the body part, how this person represents something unhealed within us.

Not everyone is a mirror for us. If someone harms us, or we have experienced something negative or traumatic in our lives, it does not mean that we attracted it, out of some sort of New Age ideology that seeks to blame the victim. If someone is unkind, violent, threatens your safety, or is just simply a jerk, that does not mean you need to heal your inner jerk.

It is always helpful to use our experiences and how we react to them as a catalyst for inner work, and would be especially indicated if you find yourself ruminating about the person or the situation far beyond when you experienced the friction or annoyance. If we get cut off in traffic, we may momentarily get angry and even want to flick off the other driver, and that would be in the reasonable category of reactions to someone who threatened your safety. If you are thinking about this person hours later, it indicates that they may be a mirror for you, or at the very least may be tapping into your “anger” stockpile.

CAREER AND PERSONAL BLOCKS: If you feel blocked in your life or career, ask for this imbalance to show up in your body. What would this block look like? What is preventing you from being in a career you feel called to or would enjoy? Move to the resistance and blocks chapter to work with any energies that may be blocking you.

OVERALL HEALTH AND WELLNESS: What parts of you feel really unwell? What parts of you feel as if they could never be healthy or well? Where are you holding past sickness or trauma from that sickness? What is interfering with you feeling physically well?

SEPARATION AND TRAUMA: Which parts of you do not want to participate in this world? Where do you hold energies that cause you to feel separate, isolated, or unloved? Where do you separate from yourself? Where do you separate from others and the world? What parts of you are unwilling to offer love to others in fear of rejection, abandonment, or not being loved in the same way you offer your own love? What needs to be healed within you so that you can have strong, stable boundaries? What needs to be healed so you can feel free to say no to others? What needs to be healed so that you can offer yourself nurturing or say yes to yourself? What needs to be healed so that you can truly offer yourself to others?

What parts of me feel disconnected?
What is preventing me from becoming a more conscious individual?
What is preventing me from feeling love for myself?
What is preventing me from feeling love for others?
What is preventing me from feeling joy?
What is stopping me from feeling free?