Healing is an ever-deepening process. However, we can often fall for the illusion that tells us, “one day I will be healed.” This little controlling voice starts driving you towards perfection, taking charge of your transformations. Our society has very few accurate definitions of what a truly transformed life looks like, so this little, “one day I will be healed” voice imagines all kinds of scenarios of wellbeing: waking up to sun-filled mornings, craving green drinks and super foods instead of caffeine and sugar, days that have plenty of time to workout and meditate before you skip to your dream job… and of course, you are “awakened”. You never have fits of rage, jealousy, or inconsolable grief, and never any physical pain or social isolation. In a nutshell, being “healed” is some version of “perfection”.

Ultimately, these are all illusions. What real healing is remains in the dark, unspoken—and, sadly, rarely seen.

Instead of true healing, we as a society sell these illusions of well-being, offering up some middle ground of functioning in the world and containing our depression and pain as the model of health. As a culture, we have greatly miscalculated how deep the human capacity for healing is. We continue to underestimate the real power of full transformation that every one of us has at our disposal, regardless of the depth of our pain.

In my book, Tools for Sanity, I wrote the formula for transformation—four essential steps that have to be taken, and taken in a specific order, for transformation to occur. And that means any transformation: internal, external, physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever.

Every one of these steps is profoundly simple and available to each and every one of us. The steps are simple, but not necessarily easy. Especially if one or two of those steps happen to land in your particular blind spot. So I want to outline the stages of healing, what that full journey looks like, beginning to end.

My version of the stages of healing is less than traditional, so we’ll call them Kiran’s 5 Stages of Healing”. My real intention here is walk you through what is truly possible. If you understand what you can achieve, my hope is that you will be inspired to keep going.

Stage 1

This sucks! I can’t live like this! It all has to change.

Here is the truth: you don’t start a real transformation until you are 100% willing to abandon the pattern that is causing your suffering. Ironically, to even begin the journey, you have to first be totally over it. Easier said than done!

Being over it feels different than wanting to be over it, as I wrote about in my blog post, A Human Dilemma. Being totally over it feels more like your whole system is echoing, “ENOUGH!” It sounds like, “I’m so done with this!” 

Although we may be in searing pain, many of us actually feed off this pain. As horrible as it sounds, we all do it to some extent. Part of us wants the pain. We have built huge identities around our own “failure to thrive”. We stay in cahoots with the pain and feed on it through a subtle unwillingness to step into deeper peace, or we stay in cahoots with the pain because we need to remember the injustice, the lack of support, or the fighting: fighting for justice, fighting for visibility, and fighting for change. If you are fighting for it, or fighting it, sadly, you are still hooked by it, and I’m sorry to say that you are not yet ready or ripe for any real transformation. 

Being hooked by pain is super juicy, dramatic, and passionate, and it makes for awesome politics and social media stories, and even better books and movies. Nevertheless, Stage 1 only really begins when you have truly sobered up to the feeding-off-pain pattern, and are starting to see if all differently. For most humans, this happens when the pain gets so bad that they hit “rock bottom”. But for some lucky humans it means they are just finally over it: they just can’t get hooked by the injustice or worthless or unloved parts, and instead it feel like, “I am so over all this mess. I am not playing. I will not engage.”

Usually, when I’m talking with someone I can tell if there is a real willingness for healing and transformation within five minutes. But you can too… you just don’t trust it.

In summary: it is only when there is a willingness to find another way, that you find another way. And that marks the first step towards real healing.

Stage 2

I have been at this forever and the pain is still here. What the fuck?!? I should just die. 

(Around 40% down the transformation highway.)

This is a really brutal stage; it’s super, super uncomfortable. You may enter this stage 20 minutes or 20 years into your journey—the latter would be because you’ve spent 19½ of the past 20 years fooling yourself into thinking you were working for change, when really all you were doing was fighting for your unworthiness or fighting the injustice of your pattern. 

Regardless, ever since you entered Stage 1 (being totally “over it”) you have been changing, shifting, and transforming. But now the pain is looping back in to try and hook you again, with the most hooky voice ever: “I have been doing this forever, and nothing has changed!” This is the voice of injustice, and it’s very tempting to believe in it. But this story is not true. It’s never true.

When someone tells their “I’ve been at this forever and nothing is happening” story to me, 100% of the time I can point to some change and transformation that has already occurred, because this voice shows up after you’re already 40% of the way down the road. In other words, 40% of your fight, your drama, your foolishness has been transformed and is behind you. 40% is a lot! But this story will make you pause, and make it really hard to see these changes. 

Stage 3

It’s okay. This is life. You just gotta live with it. I can accept this, and I work to manage it. Heartbreak is required for our hearts to grow.

(Around 60% down the transformation highway.)

This is a really tricky stage, because our culture and society thinks this is the final stage: the end of the road. So when this story starts playing in your head, the world totally agrees with it, echoing the voices in your head: “Yes, the tragedy of your patterns and life situations are big, and you have come a long, long way. Time heals, and the pain is less intense, but some part of you will never be the same… Yup, that is how life is!”

Again, this is great for books and movies—it’s like a happily-ever-after with realism and the gritty truth of the human experience. 

What makes getting past this stage a little tricky is that we haven’t been real about what the healing journey really is; we fake it, and we fake the truth of what it entails. News and social media blast us with totally false, delusional story lines: “Keep depression at bay by going for a walk every day.” “Feeling blue? Volunteer and serve others, and that will get you out of your rut.” “Anger is poison; forgive and get on with it.” We as a global culture still think it disempowering to be an indoor gal focusing on healing, keeping journals and making daily inquiries and inventories. Therefore, there are very few honest and mature expressions of what the journey is.

When you get to this stage of healing, you understand that the pain is diminishing somewhat and it’s okay overall. You don’t need to go for a walk, throw forgiveness at it, or make the world a better place. You’re at a powerful place. To finally accept your pain, and accept your life as it is, is very powerful stuff. This is 60% of the way towards a full transformation. There is a lot more peace in comparison to the suffering in Stage 1. But the good news is, you got a shit-ton more healing and peace coming for you if you keep going.  

Stage 4

This is my gift. I know this is my hero journey. I get it.

(Around 90% down the transformation highway.)

This is a great place to be. There is a lot of willingness to look, and a lot of willingness to change. Your life feels very different.

Now, there is a bunch of social pressure for people to pretend to be at this stage when they’re really at Stage 2. You are still really angry and heartbroken inside, but you decide to throw a bunch of forgiveness at it as a balm to calm down, thus repressing your pain and suffering. Perhaps you are working really hard to see the other point of view, but it’s still pretty easy to get triggered and you lose it—rage kicks up and you start the cycle over again, by throwing some forgiveness balm on it, giving it to God, and trying calm the fuck down… once again. 

But when you are legitimately at this stage, you are in love with your anger, with your heartbreak. Not in an indulgent way, desperately hoping to be seen and heard, but in a real way: you actually like it, and you kind of want to love all over it.

At this stage, you don’t have to practice accepting or forgiving. Nobody needs to tell you or remind you to do that; it’s actually all you want to do.  You kind of want to say “No” to the invites to the beach BBQs, or friend’s birthday, or even a romantic getaway, because you’ve got this sweet intimate party already happening inside. You just want to sit in the bath, or on the couch, or alone in the dark, and cherish all the pain in your system—I don’t mean indulge in, I mean savor. 

Weird, I know, but oh so delicious.

Almost nobody is talking about this stage. But it is a sure sign that you are near the end. It’s not THE end—there is a little bit more to go—but you don’t care, because you’ve got this sweet, sweet love going on inside. For all the juicy wounded bits, you’ve got a real tenderness flowing. That feels like peace, not pain. So who cares what is happening? You only want to keep discovering this legitimate tenderness that is in love with everything inside of you. 

Stage 5

OMG, this wasn’t even about my beloved’s death / my health crashing / my violent childhood / cultural and systemic endorsement of sexism & racism / my awakening / ______. Nothing I thought was even true.

This, my friends, is the final stage of transformation. It is rare to see, but only because we aren’t talking about it. Our “experts” don’t know about it, mostly because they haven’t walked it directly. And our society so loves to think the 60% mark is the finish line.

But a full transformation brings you into total dissolve of the issue, and laughing about all that drama that you thought was real. And I would wager there are a few things in your life, small things, that you have gotten to this stage with. Ironically, you know something is totally over in your life when you suddenly know for a fact that none of it was what you thought it was—none of it!

You can’t fake this stage. Even reading about it sounds preposterous: I mean, of course my beloved died, of course my family is dysfunctional, of course there is huge injustice in the world. However, at this stage of healing, you directly see through all of it.

More to the point, you can’t pretend that those old story lines that had you in such a grip are true. All you can do is laugh at yourself, and at this stage, it’s a full belly laugh. A full Buddha laughing at how the illusion seemed so real, and how you got all spun up over it. 

Bonus: Stage 6

Wow… can I do that all over again?

This sounds pretty shocking to anyone who is in stages 1-4. But here’s the thing. When you get all the way to a full transformation and continue down the road in amazement of what your life is like now—which is ironically very simple and very normal, only with a tremendous tenderness towards yourself—you feel a deep aliveness. You feel a real hunger for all the ups and downs of life. It feels like you are so happy to be you, and to be you on planet earth. At this point, an extra bonus stage opens up under you.

The funny thing is that you would sign up to do it all again. Because now that you see that it wasn’t even true to start with, you kinda want to watch the whole thing unfold again, knowing what you know now. Like when you see a movie with a shocking twist ending that you didn’t see coming but then changed everything about the film and you’re like, “Show it to me again! I was totally hooked by the storyline and I missed the truth.” Like in the movie Fight Club, where you’re so totally amazed at the truth behind the surface plot line that you want to watch it again, but slower, so you can see where the truth was winking away at you the whole time! And that is what the bonus stage of transformation is: the part where you actually want to do all the drama, pain, suffering, and fight all over again.  Ironically, then, is when it is really over. 

This is what is possible for you. I can promise you that each step is simple and straightforward, and everything you need is right under your ass. But it will not be easy. It will challenge every single illusion you are fighting for. 

But if you are ready… join us for Embodiment, the first class in my three-class series where I walk you step by step through this process. The next session starts September 16, 2019.

If you haven’t read Tools for Sanity, you can get your own copy right here. 

And if you suspect that you are not even at Stage 1 yet, read Jill Blakeway’s book Energy Medicine… it will help you get there! 

XOK

As a woman terrified of full-blown intimacy – a legacy from a childhood where it was terribly unsafe to let anyone into my bubble, but I still yearned to be loved, and in love – life offered up a spectacular solution: I have been gifted an unending parade of platonic soulmates.

Because of this mysterious and baffling gift, I have the great honor of being a serial platonic soulmate. I have been blessed with love that transcended all my terrors, and kept me in great company during the deep darkness of my early life. I am totally aware of what a rare privilege that is, and have learned something inexplicable through this experience.

Now, we humans have a tendency to hide or feel guilty about the gifts that are offered up to us in seemingly discriminatory ways. However, I believe that if we inhabit and share our privileges, we can inspire others to begin to inhabit those same privileges. After all, we are one.

Personally, I love being inspired by the greater privileges of those who appear to have something I don’t, and if I can stay clear enough to not get threatened into a story about “not me” or “left out” – or the stickiest for me, “injustice” – I am invited to rise up to claim those same privileges as my own, realizing they are in fact indiscriminate.

And so, I would like to share my experience, with the invitation that you could rise up in 2019 and claim some angelic love for yourself through this very extraordinary and rare privilege of mine.

A soulmate is someone you love, madly, the instant you meet.

Plato defined this type of love as a love that goes beyond the personal self: a mysterious recognition of what is good, beautiful, and true.

My first platonic soulmate walked into my life when I was 16 years old. She was standing in the doorway on my first day of work, and I felt this mysterious transcendence, a presence that rocked through me. I tried to push past it, as I had first-day appearances to keep up. But at the end of the day, as I was just about to pull out of the parking lot, she approached my window. I had forgotten something at the office, and as she leaned into my car window to hand it to me, it was palpable that she saw me as unearthly beautiful and would love me forever. It was something much louder and clearer than a ‘normal’ or even ‘great’ friendship, and gratefully our feelings were mutual.

We were inseparable for years. She was engaged to her college sweetheart, but we were young and the love between us was confusing. I didn’t know how to make it something other than platonic, and she didn’t know how it could be platonic. So every evening she would tuck her boyfriend into bed, laying with him until he fell asleep, and then come and sleep with me in the other room. He knew our love was not something he could fight, that it was totally platonic, and that if he pushed it he would lose her. And I think it was as awe-inspiring to him as it was frustrating. In our youth, all three of us were too awkward and immature to handle these gifts with any diplomacy or grace.

On her wedding night, she slept with me. She caressed my face like I was an angel, descended to earth to remind her that we are just made of stardust and love. I never felt so wholly seen as when I was with her. Our love was sacred, holy, and innocent. But in the end, I had to move away, and her husband, so relieved to finally be the sole focus, encouraged us to cut ties when I moved, which we did.

Within two years, her missing space was filled in my heart.

I came late to the theatre lobby after my performance. I was slow to change costumes and I never loved slipping into the lobby to say hello to friends and family after a show; I was always too raw and too open after I stepped off the stage. It felt awkward and strange to collect pleasantries, but it was expected, and my boyfriend was waiting for me. We had a deeply fulfilling relationship, but even in the depth of its sweetness, it didn’t have the same signature as that of “soulmate”.

She was near the exit, where I usually stood. And from a distance, I didn’t know her name, or who she was, but I knew I loved her madly.

As our eyes connected, I could see that she felt the same thing; she didn’t know who I was, but she was feeling a love sweeping her open in a way she had never known.

For ten years, we were inseparable. She got married and later became a mother. My boyfriend became a serious contender for “husband”. And through those years, we were each other’s recognition of what was good and beautiful and true.

This love landed us beyond all our personal entanglements, and even though I was an emotional basket case everywhere else in my life, with her, my inner storm calmed. She knew how hard life was for me, but she never had much direct experience of that, because in company of each other, a kind of safe haven opened up, and life was smooth, simple, and expanded.

In hindsight, I can see that it was the platonic nature of these friendships that made it possible for me to transcend my own pain and suffering into a love so deep and mysterious. Soulmates don’t get jostled by the bullshit of the other. Patterns and preferences that irritate and aggravate normal loving relationships mysteriously slide away from soulmates, while the beauty and truth of the other remains brilliantly clear. It is something like a presence, a deeper connection, that you never have to work for; it keeps you in sync, and you never feel as whole, as good, as seen, as in each other’s presence.

I remember being at a party, and while I was enjoying talking to everyone, my soulmate became irately jealous; she wanted to be in my bubble with me alone. But all I could feel was love. All I could see was how adorable she was. If my romantic partner was this jealous, I would have been angry and felt the possessiveness instead of the love.

Soulmates deliver to us a kind of transcendence of our personalities, habits and painbodies.

And yet they end, in much the same way as all relationships do.

With her and I, our lives simply went off in very different directions, and it stressed the relationship too far. In our last phone call, I told her it didn’t matter how long we were apart, I have always loved her forever. It was the truest thing I knew.

Almost immediately, my third soulmate came along. And if it could be said, it was a love even higher, even more transcendent, than I’d ever experienced before. It so blazingly clear that our love was always here, regardless of who we have been in our many lifetimes. Our love was a solid anchor that could never not be, it didn’t even need us to be together.

Sadly, it was a very tough time in both my life and his. Because of our own struggles, we tended to be heavy and bitter, and we couldn’t always be lifted up in the other’s company. We could have some big battles together, although behind those fights were huge smiles and this impenetrable love—something smooth, calm, and pulsating with purity. But we were both so mired in our own challenging situations that we could not push it aside, regardless of this love’s invitation to do just that.

In the end, I left him. Ironically, it was because the love was too big, too hot, too much. I didn’t know how to sustain such engulfing love. When we were together, I couldn’t even hear what he was saying sometimes. His preciousness and beauty would just take me over, and I would be kind of swept into worshiping every cell of his body. His perfection touched me so deeply that I could barely speak to him. I couldn’t bear to be away from him, and yet I was totally blown out around him. I didn’t know how to love another person as if it was always a god before me, and I didn’t know how to be seen in that same light. I didn’t know how to be One brilliant flare of love, transcendent of all human foible and all separation.

It had nothing to do with what he looked like, or who he was, or how he made me feel. It was transcendent of all of that. Some kind of presence just connected, and knew itself as whole. And with him, there was no need even for personal connection; it was just this whole brilliant love that shone beyond our lives, beyond a thousand lives.

On the day I left him, in that last call, I said that our own pain is just too much to sustain our connection. He and I were one, and he was always inside of my being. But we couldn’t find harmony as humans. It was all too much for me. He asked me not to walk away, but I knew the love was bigger, and I knew I didn’t have to be with him to be held in that love, and so I hung up the phone, ending the blazing heat of it.

Yet when I hung up the phone, a pain ripped through my being, tearing me apart. As it tore open, the love burst forward. There was a storm blowing wildly outside, and the neighbors dog burst through my gate and began scratching and gnawing frantically at my door, but I was  unable to move. The old version of myself undid itself, and I was never the same again. I had learned an invaluable lesson from the love of my platonic soulmate, and I was transformed by it.

❧

Soulmates continue to walk into my life. When one ends, another one will grace me with angelic transcendence the next day. That mysterious pattern remains true for me, but I am better at keeping my soulmates now.

The very next day, after the storm passed, I went to a friend’s house for consolation and understanding. And K was there. He came up to me at the end of the night, and I loved him right then and there. I didn’t know his name, or who he was, but I loved him, and I could sense that he was in love with me.

Neither of us are perfect people; we certainly both have annoying habits and deep imperfections. And from the human perspective, we don’t necessarily get on well together, but soulmate love doesn’t really trip up on that. However with K, it was a softer love, and I knew what a soulmate was by now, which made my relationship with this soulmate more manageable and more sustainable.

❧

The funny thing about soulmate love is that it is so beyond the personal self.

I often say that it wasn’t until I had my first major boyfriend at age 25 that I learned that I was capable of loving someone. Until that point, I really didn’t know that I could do romantic intimacy—the key being that “I” could love another. I was already two soulmates deep before that lover came into my life.

But soulmates are angels, although strangely only we can see the angel in the other person. Seeing it, we can’t help but be madly in love. It goes beyond ourselves, beyond how we love our mates, and later our children. It is something beautiful and good and true, something instant and obvious and always present—that beyond our human suits, we are pure love, just as Plato described it.  A soulmate is someone who you effortlessly see, beyond their human suit.

I remember a dream I had when I was eight years old. There was a line of girls vying for a boy’s attention. The boy stood at the head of the line, and as each girl approached they batted their eyes or made alluring postures. When it was my time to approach, instead of flirting or trying to win his attention, I just pulled out my inner self and laid it down on the floor, inviting him to do the same, so that side by side we could see if our insides fit together.

It is so lucky to find another who fits together with you—making you greater, making you one pure expression of Love—regardless of your jagged human edges. I can only tell you that it is possible, and that you are intrinsically just as lucky as I am. And when your soulmate shows up, it won’t matter how long it took, because clearly they were always here anyway.

I can’t offer you a pathway to find a soulmate. I don’t know why I have been gifted so much angelic love. I don’t know why some people don’t get to have this experience of mirroring so directly that we are just pure love under all our human foibles.

All I can do is offer you this invitation. I invite you to reach for fulfillment, instead of lingering in that subtle fear that you ask for too much, that you desire too much, or that you must settle or you will be left out. Don’t get caught in Fear’s narrative that there is something rotten about you and you are just not going to make the cut. Don’t get hooked by the myth that you are alone, separate, and not good enough.

2019 is going to be a year of actualization for each and every one of us. This is a year for risk and for courage and to know that you are pure love. And that will find its own expression.

Be bold. Be unmanageable. Be clear that you are pure love, regardless of how painful or challenging or stuck your human suit seems to you.

XK

Kiran describes this as a tool for energetic “tune-up.”

This tool provides energetic support to your own integrity, regardless of the field you are in and regardless of the collective energy. We can use it for:

• Fatigue
• Injured places
• Walking into dense areas
• Public spaces
• Movie theaters
• Concert halls
• Airports
• Public transportation

Even though this “Grounding and Shielding” technique can be helpful, it is important to remember we are not separate from Source, and we are not fragile or unprotected. We can sometimes mistakenly believe we are, and feel vulnerable, and then get a little precious or over-bearing with energy tools, thinking of them as more important than mere hygiene supports.

In this chat, Kiran is inquiring about why we hold on too long, and how we can let go in a way that creates a new agreement that remains friendly and loving moving forward.

In this talk, Kiran speaks about the conversation nobody is having around sex. Recorded at the 2018 Science and Non-Duality conference in San Jose, CA.

In this conversation with Kiran Trace, recorded in 2016, she reviews her teachings of Delicious Yes, and how we can implement this to find fulfillment. She also speaks very vulnerably about sexual misconduct from her personal history, as well as the greater politics and what we can do to heal ourselves and our collective story.

We hope you enjoy this talk. Want more? Kiran’s classes include 1 hour dialogues every week, plus awareness practices and a community of international partners to help you with accountability towards your goals. Unprecedented liberation is possible. Check it out.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Vanessa and Brooke, hosts of the Bliss + Grit podcast, for a much-needed deep inquiry into resistance – specifically, the impulse of suicide – and how that can captivate a person right out of all sanity.

I hope you enjoy the conversation, and learn how to support yourself better when resistance wants to fight for its survival!