I spent 12 years of my life as a Buddhist nun in a monastery in England. On the one hand, community life triggered my traumatic memories; on the other, meditation and my focus on inner work gave me great joy and peace.
But… I realised that this did not seem to lead to any resolution of my various issues. It was as if I were stuck, sometimes caught in the vortex of traumatic memories, and cut off from my inner resources; sometimes in a superficial joy and peace, based on a temporary suppression of traumatic energies. Gradually, I came to understand that ‘inner healing’ (I now prefer the term ‘emotional integration’) required that these two experiences coexist, i.e. that I experience the triggering of traumatic memories while remaining connected to my inner resources of presence, peace, and joy.
However, the traumatic vortex being what it is, I only had this experience occasionally, with meditation and mindfulness practice as my only tools. On those rare occasions, I came to understand very deeply that, as human beings, we have the capacity to be fully present, at peace, and even in joy with our experience, however painful it may be. Our heart is much bigger than the suffering that goes through it. For me, this is a spiritual experience that goes far beyond the temporary ‘escapes’ we can experience in meditative states. It is a grounded spirituality that welcomes the totality of our earthly experience, just as it is, without having to change or control anything.
Life then called me to return to France, and then to leave the monastic robe. My strong resonance with The Presence Process by Michael Brown guided me to Transformational Breath®. I found this approach powerful and in perfect alignment with my personal discoveries, namely that it not only enables us to reconnect with suppressed emotions and traumatic charges stored in our subconscious, but it is also a resource that enables us to integrate them until complete and final resolution. In my opinion, the power of this approach lies in the fact that it goes straight to the source of our various issues, without going through the endless mental stories that so often get in the way of our inner healing.
