Discovering Meaning: A Metaphysical Guide to Healing, Purpose, and Personal Transformation
This heartfelt series, led by holistic health educator and metaphysics PhD Dr. Kristin Wild, guides you into the deeper layers of purpose, consciousness, and healing. Through meaningful exploration, you’ll learn how your thoughts, energy, and lived experiences shape your health and emotional wellbeing. These videos offer clinical and experienced insight, hope, and practical wisdom for women seeking healing from autoimmune symptoms, trauma, or exhaustion and are seeking to step into the life they were born for.
The dark night of the soul is one of the most profound spiritual and emotional experiences a person can go through. In this lesson, we explore what the dark night truly is, why it happens, and how to move through it with strength, clarity, and compassion for ourselves. Below is a breakdown of the teachings covered in the video to help you deepen your understanding and reflect on your own experience.
1. What the Dark Night of the Soul Really Is
The dark night is a period of deep spiritual crisis where everything familiar feels like it has fallen away. It often arrives during intense illness, grief, trauma, or life changes that cannot be escaped or bypassed.
Common experiences include:
• profound sorrow or despair
• disconnection from meaning or purpose
• emotional numbness or emptiness
• questioning everything you once believed
• feeling lost or disoriented in your own life
This is not simply a difficult season. It is a complete internal unraveling that creates space for transformation.
2. What Triggers the Dark Night
The dark night is often activated by events that shake the foundation of your identity.
These may include:
• a serious illness
• the loss of a loved one
• a major life change
• an overwhelming emotional or spiritual crisis
• an experience that creates existential anxiety
Although painful, these events act as catalysts that open the door to deep inner change and spiritual growth.
3. Understanding the Purpose of the Dark Night
The dark night is often described as a sacred initiation. It invites us to:
• release the old versions of ourselves
• confront fears we have avoided
• question outdated belief systems
• discover inner strength we did not know we had
• open to higher levels of intuition, compassion, and wisdom
Just as a caterpillar dissolves into a cocoon before becoming a butterfly, the dark night breaks us down so that something new can emerge.
4. How Transformation Begins Inside the Darkness
As we surrender to what is happening rather than resist it, transformation slowly starts to unfold. Insight forms. Intuition awakens. Resilience builds. Each small moment of clarity becomes a stepping stone out of the darkness and into a more aligned life.
5. Key Tools for Moving Through the Dark Night
Partnering with the Universe
This involves releasing what you cannot control and allowing support to come through intuitive guidance. You take inspired action when nudged, while trusting the universe to handle what falls outside your influence.
Listening to the body
Your body carries wisdom that your mind cannot access. Learning what yes feels like and what no feels like helps you make choices that align with your healing and truth.
Inviting joy and rest
During heavy seasons, joy can feel out of reach. Small moments of pleasure and genuine rest help soothe the nervous system, restore energy, and remind you that softness still exists.
Learning to receive
Many who experience the dark night are natural givers and caretakers. Receiving support is not weakness. It is a necessary part of healing and replenishing your energy.
Seeking help when needed
Strength is not demonstrated by enduring alone. Transformation becomes easier when we are supported, witnessed, and guided through the hardest parts.
6. Moving Forward and Emerging from the Dark Night
While the dark night can feel endless, it does not last forever. Breakthroughs begin to appear. Momentum builds. Life starts to open again in new ways.
Through this process we gain:
• resilience
• compassion
• intuitive clarity
• spiritual strength
• a more grounded sense of who we are
We emerge with a depth of understanding and empathy that becomes part of our purpose and our power.
Change often feels overwhelming, especially when life has been difficult for a long time. Many of us reach a moment where we feel ready to leap into a completely new version of ourselves, only to become discouraged when the change feels too big or too heavy. This lesson explores why large changes are hard to sustain and why small, consistent steps create deeper, lasting transformation.
Below is a breakdown of the key teachings from the lesson.
1. Why Big Changes Often Fail
When we attempt dramatic or sweeping change, our brain becomes overwhelmed. The human brain is designed to conserve energy and prefers familiar pathways, even when those pathways do not serve our wellbeing. Large changes require significant rewiring of neural pathways, which takes time, repetition, and emotional safety.
This is why many people start strong, become overwhelmed, and slip back into old patterns. The issue is not a lack of desire or motivation. It is biological.
2. Why Small Steps Create Big Results
Research shows that people who focus on small, incremental changes achieve their goals more consistently than those who try to overhaul their entire lives at once. Tiny actions require less energy from the brain and build new neural pathways gradually. Over time, these small steps compound into significant transformation.
This is where the wisdom of “one foot in front of the other” becomes powerful. When we can focus on the next doable step instead of the full mountain ahead, progress feels possible.
3. Understanding the Brain’s Role in Change
The lesson walks through how synapses, neurons, and neural pathways work. When we practice a new behaviour, we weaken old pathways and strengthen new ones. This process takes time, and small steps reduce the stress on the brain.
Another important part of the brain discussed here is the reticular activating system. This tiny structure begins searching for solutions, resources, and opportunities the moment we set a clear intention. In other words, when we decide what we want, our brain begins helping us find ways to get there.
4. The Butterfly Method for Transformation
This lesson introduces the Butterfly Method, a simple framework for moving through change:
Stage 1: The Caterpillar
Life feels familiar. We may desire change but have no idea how to create it.
Stage 2: The Goo Stage
This is the uncomfortable stage where old patterns dissolve and nothing feels clear. Our only job here is to stay open, receptive, and willing to notice new ideas and intuitive nudges.
Stage 3: Reconstruction
Information begins to come together. We connect insights, resources, guidance, and support. Things start to click.
Stage 4: Becoming the Butterfly
The small steps create a tipping point. We emerge changed, more aligned, and more confident. This process can be repeated any time transformation is needed.
5. Celebrating Small Wins
Small steps only work when we acknowledge them. Celebrating each tiny accomplishment strengthens new neural pathways and motivates us to keep going. The brain seeks what we affirm. When we affirm our progress, our brain begins finding more opportunities for success.
6. Progress Over Perfection
Lasting transformation is created through small steps taken consistently. It is not about having perfect discipline or never falling back. It is about returning to the next tiny step again and again. In time, these steps lead to life-changing outcomes.
Attachment styles shape how we connect, how we respond to closeness, and how safe relationships feel in our bodies. In this lesson, we explore what attachment styles are, how they develop, how they influence mental and physical wellbeing, and what can be done to move toward healthier, more secure connection.
Below is a breakdown of the core teachings from the video.
1. What an Attachment Style Is
An attachment style is a set of learned patterns that develop in early childhood and influence how relationships are experienced throughout life. These patterns are shaped by early environment, caregiver dynamics, and emotional experiences during formative years.
Attachment styles are not fixed traits. They can adapt and change over time, especially when awareness and education are present.
2. How Attachment Styles Develop
During early childhood, particularly between the ages of zero and seven, the brain is highly receptive. Beliefs about safety, love, and connection are formed based on lived experience rather than logic.
The attachment style that develops is influenced by the emotional availability of caregivers, consistency of care, and how distress was responded to. These early patterns become the blueprint for adult relationships.
3. The Four Primary Attachment Styles
This lesson explores four primary attachment styles and how they typically present in adulthood.
Secure Attachment
Secure attachment is characterized by trust, emotional availability, comfort with intimacy, and balanced independence. Individuals with secure attachment tend to communicate clearly, resolve conflict constructively, and feel safe expressing vulnerability.
Avoidant Attachment
Avoidant attachment is characterized by discomfort with emotional closeness and a strong preference for independence. Common signs include emotional distancing, reluctance to commit, difficulty trusting others emotionally, and minimizing the importance of emotional expression.
Anxious Attachment
Anxious attachment is characterized by fear of abandonment and a strong need for reassurance. Common signs include overthinking, seeking constant validation, difficulty with boundaries, and relying on relationships for a sense of self-worth.
Anxious Avoidant or Fearful Avoidant Attachment
This attachment style combines elements of both anxious and avoidant patterns. It often includes mixed signals, hot and cold behaviour, fear of abandonment alongside fear of closeness, and inner conflict around intimacy.
4. How Attachment Styles Affect Mental and Physical Health
Attachment styles influence nervous system regulation, stress responses, and emotional resilience. Insecure attachment patterns can contribute to anxiety, depression, trauma responses, and ongoing relational stress, which may also impact physical health over time.
Understanding attachment patterns allows for clarity rather than blame and opens the door to healing.
5. Common Relationship Dynamics and Patterns
A key dynamic discussed in this lesson is the anxious and avoidant pairing. One person seeks closeness and reassurance, while the other pulls away to protect independence. This cycle can feel deeply painful and confusing, especially when it repeats across relationships.
Recognizing these patterns early helps prevent becoming emotionally entangled in dynamics that undermine wellbeing.
6. Early Signs to Notice in Dating and Relationships
The lesson outlines early signs of avoidant attachment that may appear in dating, including emotional distance, discomfort with intimacy, inconsistency, vagueness about commitment, and resistance to emotional support.
Awareness of these signs supports more conscious and aligned relationship choices.
7. How Attachment Styles Can Change
Attachment styles are learned and adaptable. The first step toward change is education and self-awareness. Small, consistent shifts in behaviour create meaningful change over time.
Professional support from someone trained in attachment theory can accelerate the process and help move insecure attachment patterns toward greater security and emotional safety.
Ho‘oponopono is a simple yet profound practice rooted in ancient Hawaiian wisdom. In this lesson, we explore how forgiveness, responsibility, and inner reconciliation can create powerful shifts in emotional, relational, and even physical wellbeing. While the practice is simple to learn, its impact can be deeply transformative.
Below is a breakdown of the core teachings from the lesson.
1. What Ho‘oponopono Is
Ho‘oponopono is an ancient Hawaiian practice of forgiveness and reconciliation. At its core, it is a method of restoring harmony and unity within ourselves and in our relationships.
This practice is not limited to resolving conflict with others. It is a way of healing the relationship we have with ourselves, with past experiences, with ancestors, with the natural world, and with life as a whole.
2. The Philosophy Behind the Practice
The foundational philosophy of Ho‘oponopono is responsibility. It teaches that what shows up in our external reality is connected to what exists within our inner world. This does not mean blame. It means empowerment.
By taking responsibility for what we experience internally, we gain the ability to create change. When we clean and reconcile what lives within us, the external world often reflects that shift.
This is sometimes described as “as within, so without.”
3. Unity and Reconciliation
Ho‘oponopono is built on the principle of unity. It assumes that separation is an illusion and that healing occurs when we return to connection.
The practice restores harmony by addressing unresolved emotions, memories, and beliefs that may be stored within us. Through reconciliation, inner conflict softens and clarity emerges.
4. The Four Core Phrases
At the heart of Ho‘oponopono are four simple phrases:
• I love you
• I am sorry
• Please forgive me
• Thank you
Each phrase serves a purpose.
“I love you” restores connection and unity.
“I am sorry” acknowledges responsibility and opens the door to healing.
“Please forgive me” invites release and reconciliation.
“Thank you” allows for completion and transformation.
These phrases are repeated with intention, directed inward rather than outward.
5. The Story That Demonstrates the Power of the Practice
The lesson shares the story of Dr. Hugh Len, a psychiatrist who used Ho‘oponopono while working in a Hawaiian state hospital for the criminally insane. Rather than treating patients through direct interaction, he worked internally by reviewing patient files and practicing Ho‘oponopono within himself.
Over time, patients began to heal. Staff morale improved. Eventually, the ward was no longer needed and was closed. While extraordinary, this story illustrates the depth of transformation that can occur when inner responsibility and forgiveness are practiced consistently.
6. Ho‘oponopono as an Inner Practice
One of the most powerful aspects of Ho‘oponopono is that it does not require the participation of anyone else. This is an inner process.
When something triggers anger, sadness, resentment, or pain, the practice invites us to ask where this pattern exists within ourselves. Even a small reflection is enough to begin the process of release.
This makes Ho‘oponopono especially effective for unresolved relationships, lingering emotional wounds, and recurring inner conflict.
7. How to Practice Ho‘oponopono
To practice, bring to mind a situation or person that evokes a strong emotional response. Gently ask where this experience may live within you. Then repeat the four phrases slowly, allowing their meaning to settle.
The goal is not to force forgiveness or bypass emotion, but to create space for reconciliation and inner peace.
8. Why This Practice Creates Change
Ho‘oponopono works by softening resistance, releasing stored emotional charge, and restoring coherence within the nervous system. Over time, repeated practice can shift how situations feel, how memories are held, and how relationships are experienced.
Small, consistent practice leads to profound internal change.
The heart is often thought of only as a physical organ, yet modern research shows it plays a much deeper role in how we think, feel, and regulate our emotional and physical wellbeing. In this lesson, we explore the science and practice of heart brain coherence and how aligning these two systems can create calm, clarity, and healing.
Below is a breakdown of the key teachings from the video.
1. The Heart Has Its Own Intelligence
The heart is not only a pump. It contains its own neural network, often referred to as the little brain of the heart. This network communicates with the brain through feelings and physiological signals rather than language.
Research shows that the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the body. The heart also generates a much larger electromagnetic field than the brain, influencing both internal regulation and how we interact with the world around us.
2. Understanding the Mind, Body, and Consciousness Relationship
Human beings are psychosomatic by nature. Psycho refers to the mind and soul, while somatic refers to the body. Together they shape how we respond to our internal and external environments.
Thoughts are not who we are. Consciousness is the observer of thoughts, emotions, and sensations. When the mind dominates without connection to the heart, people often feel overwhelmed, anxious, or disconnected from themselves.
3. What Heart Brain Coherence Is
Heart brain coherence occurs when the rhythms of the heart and brain become synchronized. The brain operates through different frequency states such as alpha, beta, theta, and delta. The heart also has rhythmic patterns that influence emotional regulation.
When the heart and brain are aligned, the nervous system shifts into balance. This state supports clarity, emotional stability, and physical healing.
4. The Science Behind Heart Brain Coherence
Research from the HeartMath Institute, spanning over three decades, demonstrates measurable benefits of heart brain coherence. Peer reviewed studies show improvements including:
• increased focus
• improved sleep
• greater calmness
• reduced anxiety
• reduced fatigue
• reduced symptoms of depression
This coherence helps calm the nervous system, move the body out of fight or flight, and create conditions where healing can occur.
5. How to Create Heart Brain Coherence
The practice itself is simple and accessible.
Begin by sitting or standing quietly with legs uncrossed. Place your attention on the heart area. Gently resting a hand on the heart can help focus attention. Allow thoughts to pass without engagement and repeatedly bring awareness back to the heart.
Practicing for three to five minutes is often enough to create coherence.
6. Accessing the Wisdom of the Heart
Once coherence is established, the heart can be asked questions. The heart communicates through clarity and felt truth rather than mental chatter. Questions may include:
What do you want me to know
What do you need from me
What is the next aligned step
Answers are often brief, precise, and carry a sense of inner truth.
7. Using Heart Brain Coherence in Daily Life
When life feels overwhelming, the mind often races and seeks distraction. A simple check in can help restore alignment.
Ask whether your mind, body, and consciousness feel in agreement. If not, gently investigate what is missing and return attention to the heart. This practice supports ongoing self regulation and alignment throughout daily life.
Healing rarely happens all at once. More often, it unfolds in stages, with a space in between intention and outcome that can feel uncomfortable, uncertain, and emotionally charged. This lesson explores that in between space and how learning to surrender within it becomes a vital part of transformation.
Below is a breakdown of the key teachings from the video.
1. The Moment After the Decision
There is a powerful moment when a decision is made. A commitment to heal. A commitment to change. A commitment to move forward no matter what.
While this decision is often empowering, it can also trigger anxiety. The mind knows that life will not remain the same. Familiar patterns begin to dissolve, and the future feels unknown. This is a natural response and not a sign that something is wrong.
2. Why the In Between Feels So Difficult
Once a decision is made, what stands in the way begins to surface. Old patterns, unresolved emotions, limiting beliefs, and unhealed experiences rise to awareness.
This phase often feels uncomfortable because the nervous system is accustomed to avoiding pain. When discomfort appears, the instinct is to resist or escape it. Yet the in between exists to illuminate what must be faced in order to move forward.
The only way through this stage is surrender to the process.
3. Healing Is Not About Avoidance
Modern culture often teaches avoidance of discomfort. Yet healing requires presence. When emotions surface, they are not obstacles but signals pointing to what needs attention.
Each experience that arises is an opportunity to release what no longer serves. Avoidance delays healing. Presence allows it to unfold.
4. From Doing Healing to Becoming Healing
Early in the healing journey, effort often looks like constant action. Appointments. Protocols. Strategies. Doing everything possible to fix what feels broken.
Over time, healing shifts from something that is done to something that is embodied. The work becomes integrated. Healing becomes a state of being rather than a checklist of actions.
When this shift occurs, the process becomes more natural and less forced.
5. The Layered Nature of Growth
As major challenges are addressed, subtler ones appear. Large obstacles give way to smaller ones. What once felt overwhelming becomes manageable.
This does not mean progress has stalled. It means refinement is taking place. Each layer builds resilience, capacity, and self trust.
The path does not disappear. It becomes clearer.
6. Choosing the Narrow Path
True transformation requires intention and commitment. It is not the easiest path, but it is the most rewarding.
The path forward is often narrow, requiring consistent small steps, even when the mind resists or the body feels uncomfortable. Staying present and aligned through the in between creates lasting change.
7. Surrender as Strength
Surrender does not mean giving up. It means releasing the need to control the timeline and trusting the process.
By allowing the in between to unfold, space is created for integration, insight, and deep healing. What emerges on the other side is not only relief, but growth and clarity that could not have been reached otherwise.
Authenticity is often talked about as a personality trait, yet in this lesson it is explored as something far deeper. Authenticity is presented as a measurable energetic state that impacts relationships, health, and the way life unfolds. This lesson brings together psychology, nervous system awareness, and the mind body consciousness connection to show why being yourself is not only freeing, but powerful.
Below is a breakdown of the key teachings from the video.
1. Why Authenticity Is an Energetic State
The foundation of this lesson begins with the idea that human beings are made of energy, frequency, and vibration. At the deepest level, what is experienced as a physical body is also a field of information.
The key point here is that emotional states are not only felt internally. They are also expressed outwardly as frequency. This matters because the energy being carried becomes part of what others sense and respond to.
2. The Science of Emotional Frequency
A research model referenced in the lesson describes emotional states as measurable frequencies, with accuracy high enough to identify specific emotions based on what the body is emitting.
The most important takeaway is this. The most powerful measurable frequency is not love. It is authenticity.
Authenticity is described as having significantly greater energetic amplitude than love, making it one of the strongest states a person can embody.
3. What Authenticity Means
Authenticity is defined as being true to personal values, beliefs, and inner truth.
It requires:
self awareness
courage
vulnerability
Authenticity is not performance. It is alignment. It is the fullest expression of personal essence without distortion.
4. Why Masks Develop
Masks are described as a survival strategy. They form innocently through fear of rejection and fear of abandonment.
In early life, belonging was linked to survival. The nervous system learned to adapt by shaping behavior around what felt safest in the environment.
Over time, these layers can become so familiar they are mistaken for identity.
5. Signs of Being Out of Alignment With Authentic Self
The lesson highlights several clear signals that authenticity is being obscured:
Seeking external validation as a primary source of worth
Feeling like life is being lived on autopilot or for others
Suppressing true thoughts and emotions, even when they feel right internally
These are not moral failures. They are indicators that the inner self is asking to be heard.
6. The Two Components of Authenticity
Authenticity is described as having two essential components:
speaking the truth
believing what is being said
This is integrity in action. It is why authenticity cannot be faked. When words and inner truth do not match, people sense it.
This is also linked to intuition. Human beings can feel when something is off, even when everything looks right on the surface.
7. What Changes as Authenticity Increases
As layers of masking dissolve, life tends to reorganize.
Expect shifts in:
relationships
career and purpose
living environment
belief systems and worldview
Some relationships strengthen. Others fade. New aligned connections often appear because the frequency being emitted has changed.
8. Bottom Line
This lesson ends with a simple framework:
Truth equals love
Truth in action equals authenticity
Authenticity becomes a path of inner alignment and awakening
It may not be easy, but it is clear. The more truth is lived, the more authentic the self becomes.
Boundaries are often misunderstood as walls or ultimatums. In this lesson, boundaries are reframed as flexible, responsive tools that protect wellbeing, foster respect, and support healthy relationships. When used effectively, boundaries do not create distance. They create safety, clarity, and connection.
Below is a breakdown of the key teachings from the video.
1. What Boundaries Really Are
Boundaries are personal limits that define what feels acceptable and what does not. They are rooted in emotional awareness and are often signaled by discomfort, tension, or a sense that something feels off.
Boundaries are not rigid. They can be temporary or long term and can evolve as trust and respect are built within a relationship.
2. Why Boundaries Are Essential
Healthy boundaries support respect, trust, and individuality. They allow relationships to function without resentment, fear, or emotional exhaustion.
For many women, difficulty with boundaries is learned. Generations of social conditioning emphasized self sacrifice, compliance, and caretaking. As relationships and roles evolve, boundaries become essential for balance and mutual respect.
3. Boundaries in New Relationships
New relationships offer the clearest opportunity to establish boundaries early. This requires knowing personal values and being willing to communicate them.
Early conversations may feel uncomfortable, but they set the tone for future dynamics. When values are shared openly, alignment or misalignment becomes clear before deep attachment forms.
Key practices include:
being clear about personal values
communicating honestly and gradually
listening to and respecting the other person’s boundaries
Healthy relationships grow through mutual disclosure and respect over time.
4. Boundaries in Existing Relationships
Establishing or redefining boundaries in ongoing relationships can be challenging, especially when patterns are already in place.
Persistent discomfort, walking on eggshells, or fear of emotional reactions are strong indicators that boundaries are needed. Without boundaries, the nervous system remains in a state of threat, contributing to emotional and physical illness.
Reestablishing boundaries requires:
honest and respectful conversation
consistency in follow through
willingness to tolerate discomfort in the short term
Growth often depends on addressing what has been avoided.
5. Healthy Responses to Boundaries
In healthy relationships, boundaries are met with care and curiosity. Even when there is disagreement, there is a willingness to understand and adjust.
Signs of a healthy response include:
listening without dismissal
validating feelings even when they differ
supporting autonomy and individuality
Boundaries in healthy relationships strengthen connection rather than weaken it.
6. Codependency and Blurred Boundaries
In codependent relationships, boundaries become unclear. One person’s needs are prioritized at the expense of the other’s wellbeing.
Common signs include:
excessive need for approval
neglecting personal needs
fear of abandonment
loss of individuality
Codependency is widespread and learned. It can be unlearned through awareness, support, and consistent boundary setting.
7. Boundaries in Toxic Relationships
In toxic dynamics, boundaries must be explicit and paired with consequences. Stating a boundary without enforcing it does not create safety.
Examples include:
stepping away from aggressive or dismissive behavior
physically removing oneself from unsafe environments
limiting or ending contact when respect is absent
In these situations, distance is not punishment. It is protection.
8. When to Seek Support
Support is essential when a relationship shows no interest in respect, reconciliation, or emotional safety.
Individual professional guidance is recommended over couples counseling in toxic or abusive dynamics. In more severe cases, external support services may be necessary.
Seeking help is not failure. It is self respect.
9. Bottom Line
Boundaries are expressions of love and respect. When boundaries are honored, relationships feel safe and sustainable. When they are dismissed, harm follows.
Healthy boundaries support autonomy, nervous system regulation, and enjoyment of life. They allow people to express needs without fear of rejection or retaliation.
Healthy relationships aren’t built on “saying the right thing once.”
They’re built on patterns. How we speak, how we listen, how we repair, and what we tolerate.
Today we’re looking at five communication styles so you can:
- recognize what’s happening under the surface
- understand your own patterns without shame
- choose a response that protects your peace and your health
Because when communication is chronically unsafe or unclear, the nervous system stays on high alert. The body pays the price.
The 5 Communication Styles
1) Assertive Communication
Assertive communication means you express yourself clearly and respectfully, without shrinking and without attacking.
What it looks like:
direct and honest language
calm, firm tone
clear requests and clear boundaries
respect for yourself and the other person
Why it matters:
This is the healthiest style. It reduces misunderstandings, builds trust, and creates the best chance for real connection and repair.
2) Aggressive Communication
Aggressive communication is about power. It prioritizes “winning” over understanding.
What it looks like:
raised voice, intimidation, harsh tone
interrupting or talking over others
blame, accusations, “always/never” language
little interest in compromise
Impact:
It creates fear, resentment, and emotional damage. Even if the point is valid, the delivery destroys safety.
3) Passive Communication
Passive communication avoids direct expression, often to prevent conflict, rejection, or escalation.
What it looks like:
minimizing your needs
apologizing excessively
avoiding eye contact or speaking vaguely
saying “it’s fine” when it isn’t
Impact:
It can keep the peace short-term, but long-term it creates:
unmet needs
confusion
resentment
emotional build-up that eventually erupts
4) Passive-Aggressive Communication
Passive-aggressive communication expresses anger indirectly instead of clearly.
What it looks like:
sarcasm
backhanded compliments
subtle digs disguised as jokes
“I’m fine” energy that clearly isn’t fine
Impact:
It creates confusion and tension because the message is hidden, so nothing gets resolved.
5) Destructive Communication
Destructive communication is harmful and abusive. Its purpose is to wound.
What it looks like:
insults, mocking, belittling
name-calling
emotionally cruel language
humiliation or threats
Impact:
This doesn’t just damage a relationship, it damages the person receiving it. Over time it trains the nervous system into chronic fight-or-flight.
What Healthy Communication Requires
No matter what style you grew up around, you can build healthier patterns.
Active Listening
Listening to understand, not listening to respond.
This means:
letting someone finish
reflecting back what you heard
checking your assumptions
Empathy
Empathy isn’t agreement. It’s understanding.
It tells the other person: “You make sense to me.”
Clear, Simple Language
Clarity reduces conflict.
Instead of long explanations, aim for:
“This is what I feel.”
“This is what I need.”
“This is what I can do.”
“This is what I can’t.”
Nonverbal Cues Matter
Tone, posture, facial expression. These often speak louder than words.
If someone’s words say yes but their body says no, trust what you’re sensing and ask directly.
When You’re Dealing With Unhealthy Communication
You can’t control how someone communicates.
But you can control what you participate in.
Stay Calm (Protect Your Nervous System)
When things escalate, your body shifts into survival mode.
Breathe. Slow down. Don’t rush your response.
Set Boundaries
If someone’s tone becomes disrespectful, you can say:
“I’m willing to talk when we can do this respectfully.”
“I’m not continuing this conversation in this tone.”
“I’ll come back to this when we’re calmer.”
Avoid Escalation
If someone is trying to pull you into chaos, you can use a “neutral” response (often called gray rocking):
-brief
-calm
-emotionally unreactive
This often stops the cycle because there’s no fuel.
Seek to Understand (When It’s Safe)
Sometimes asking one grounded question changes everything:
“What are you needing right now?”
“What are you hoping I understand?”
“What outcome are you wanting from this conversation?”
If the person can self-reflect, this helps.
If they can’t, it gives you clarity.
Know When to Disengage
If the conversation becomes disrespectful or unproductive:
it’s okay to pause
it’s okay to leave
and it’s okay to protect your peace
Bottom Line
Learning communication styles helps you do two powerful things:
Understand what’s happening, without taking everything personally
Choose a response you feel good about, one that supports your health, your boundaries, and your self-respect
Because healthy communication isn’t about perfection.
It’s about clarity, repair, and emotional safety. Again and again.
The words we use are not neutral.
They shape how we interpret our experiences, how our nervous system responds, and how we move through challenge and change.
Most of us were never taught how deeply language affects the body and mind. We speak on autopilot, repeating phrases we learned long ago, without realizing how much pressure, fear, or limitation those words can create.
Today we’re looking at how language works beneath the surface so you can:
notice the words that quietly increase stress or self criticism
choose language that supports regulation and clarity
and use words intentionally to support healing, growth, and direction
Because the body listens to what the mind repeats. And over time, words become beliefs. Beliefs become patterns. Patterns shape how we feel.
How Words Shape Experience
Words are how the mind organizes reality.
They give meaning to what we are going through.
When language is rigid, critical, or fear based, the nervous system tightens. When language is flexible and choice based, the system softens.
Small changes in wording can create measurable shifts in how we feel.
Shifting Pressure Based Language
The Words “Should” and “Need”
These words often create internal pressure rather than motivation.
What they do:
They imply obligation, expectation, and failure if unmet.
Examples:
“I should be doing better.”
“I need to fix this.”
The body often responds with tension, shame, or urgency.
A simple shift:
Replace should and need with want.
“I want to feel better.”
“I want to take a small step forward.”
Why it matters:
Choice feels safer than obligation. Want restores agency and reduces internal resistance.
Replacing “But” With “And”
The word but often cancels what came before it.
“I wanted to rest, but I couldn’t.”
The first part gets dismissed.
Replacing but with and changes the experience.
“I wanted to rest, and something else needed attention.”
Why it matters:
This allows two truths to exist at once. It reduces self judgment and keeps the nervous system out of all or nothing thinking.
Words During Difficulty Matter Most
Language becomes especially powerful when we are in pain, uncertainty, or transition.
The words we choose in those moments determine whether we move forward or shut down.
When something is difficult, the mind will naturally look for meaning.
Words become the lens.
A situation can be framed as:
“This is proof I’m broken.”
or
“This is part of a process I’m moving through.”
Why it matters:
The second framing keeps hope, action, and resilience available.
Speaking What You Want Into the World
Many people hold their desires quietly, afraid of disappointment or judgment.
But words create visibility.
When you speak what you are moving toward:
Others can support you.
Opportunities can meet you.
Paths become clearer.
This does not mean oversharing.
It means intentionally naming what matters, with people you trust.
Choosing a Word as a Guide
One powerful practice is choosing a single word as a focus or theme.
A word becomes a filter for decisions, energy, and attention.
Examples:
Clarity
Joy
Trust
Peace
Stability
Expansion
Each choice subtly guides behavior, boundaries, and priorities.
Why it works:
The mind looks for what it is focused on.
A word gives direction without pressure.
Bottom Line
Words are not just expressions.
They are instructions to the nervous system.
When language becomes more conscious:
The body feels safer.
Decisions become clearer.
Healing feels more possible.
You don’t need to control every thought or phrase.
Just noticing and choosing more supportive language is enough to begin shifting how you feel.
Because when words change, experience follows.
Defining Pain and Suffering
Pain
A physical signal
Information coming from the body
Suffering
The story around the signal
The fear of what it means
The fear of what comes next
Pain is what the body feels.
Suffering is what the nervous system does with it.
When pain becomes chronic, the mind learns to anticipate it.
To brace.
To scan for danger.
To stay alert.
Over time, this constant vigilance becomes its own form of injury.
Chronic pain doesn’t just affect the body.
It reshapes thought patterns.
It trains the nervous system to expect threat.
Fear of the future.
Fear of worsening symptoms.
Fear of being trapped in this state.
These fears tighten the system.
Tight systems struggle to heal.
Why this distinction matters:
Pain may arise without permission.
Suffering often comes from resistance.
Resistance to what is.
Resistance to uncertainty.
Resistance to the reality of the moment.
The mind says:
“This shouldn’t be happening.”
“I can’t live like this.”
“What if it never gets better?”
The body hears danger.
And responds accordingly.
When awareness replaces resistance, something shifts.
Not because pain disappears.
But because the nervous system receives a different message.
“I am here.”
“I am safe enough right now.”
“This moment is survivable.”
That message changes chemistry.
It changes breath.
It changes tension.
What Reduces Suffering
Presence
Returning to what is happening now, not what might happen later
Acceptance
Not approval, but acknowledgment
Self-compassion
Meeting difficulty without judgment
Support
Allowing regulation to happen together, not in isolation
Even small moments of safety matter.
Even brief relief teaches the body something new.
Laughter helps.
Connection helps.
Gentle attention helps.
Not because they erase pain.
But because they interrupt the loop.
The loop where fear feeds tension.
Tension feeds inflammation.
Inflammation feeds more pain.
Bottom Line
Pain is part of being human.
Suffering is a learned response.
When awareness replaces fear:
The nervous system softens.
The body feels less threatened.
Relief becomes possible, even before symptoms change.
You do not need to conquer pain to feel better.
You only need to stop fighting yourself inside it.
Because when suffering eases,
the body finally has space to heal.
More to Explore
Clinic Hours & Contact
Office Hours (Pacific Time)
Monday: 11:00am - 5:30pm
Tuesday: 11:00am - 5:30pm
Wednesday: 11:00am - 5:30pm
Thursday: 11:00am - 5:30pm
Friday: 11:00am - 5:30pm
Holidays & Weekends: Closed
Location
1735 Dolphin Avenue
unit 120
Kelowna, BC V1Y 4N6
Contact
ph. 1 (365) 363-6642
email: [email protected]
