Your Inner Thorns

When my daughter, Millie, was 7 years old, I took her to Colorado to visit family. During our visit, a dramatic ordeal unfolded when Millie tripped and fell into a bed of sticker burrs. Thankfully, I was able to remove most of them with my hands. However, when I tried to pull out the last two burrs using tweezers, Millie felt pain and dramatically pulled her hand away, refusing my help. I tried everything to persuade her to give me her hand so that I could remove the thorns—everything except holding her down. After a few days, I eventually gave up the battle, and the thorns remained embedded in her skin. Millie chose to protect herself from the pain by not using her left hand for several days.

As long as she could avoid feeling the pain from the thorns, she was content to let them stay in her hand indefinitely.

Millie’s way of guarding herself against the physical pain of the thorns serves as a poignant reminder of how we all deal with our emotional "inner thorns." In his book, “The Untethered Soul,” Michael A. Singer describes these inner thorns. Just as Millie shielded herself from the physical pain of her outer thorns, we often protect ourselves from the emotional pain of our inner thorns.

We all have hidden inner thorns that we struggle with and try to avoid in situations that cause us pain. These thorns are imprints left in us by experiences that create emotional discomfort, such as grief, fear, and sadness. Michael A. Singer refers to these thorns as “unfinished energy patterns of the past” that lie dormant in our hearts, only to be stirred up by situations that remind us of the events that caused the original pain. These patterns can dictate our lives because we often structure our experiences around protecting our inner thorns, frequently without even realizing it.

This tendency to avoid certain life experiences often arises from a fear of re-experiencing the pain associated with those buried thorns. Inner thorns can surface in various ways. For instance, people may harbor inner thorns from feelings of abandonment, infidelity, alcoholic parents, or bullying—and the list goes on.

Have you ever had a friend or partner who seemed overly sensitive?

Perhaps that person is you.

Highly sensitive individuals have many inner thorns that are being triggered. While it’s important to accept sensitivity, it’s equally crucial to engage in the work required for personal growth and healing. Those patterns will linger in your heart until you properly address and release them.

Many people tend to push their pain away and bury it deep within, hoping never to confront it again. However, that pain will inevitably resurface at various points in life. If you allow yourself to feel the pain and process it, you can achieve freedom from these recurring patterns. You might be wondering, “How is this possible?” It takes hard work and consistency. Many people begin the healing process by attending therapy sessions or trying a few meditation sessions, only to quit when they feel momentarily better.

The journey toward healing requires more than temporary relief.

I recommend trying the following techniques to help you let go of your inner struggles:

Awareness: Become aware of your emotions when your “thorn” is touched; this is your moment of being triggered. Notice how the emotion feels and where you feel it in your body. By stopping and stepping back to observe, you can create a separation from the feeling, making it easier to manage.

Write: When your emotional patterns get triggered, write about the first time you felt this pain. This exercise will help you recognize that your current situation may be different from the past, or it might reveal similarities that indicate it's time to break the pattern and make different choices in your life.

Release: Visualize your emotional patterns moving out of your heart and into the universe, and feel the sense of release. Imagine the thorns breaking apart and disintegrating. Write down the pattern, then tear it up or burn it. Trust your intuition to guide you on what method will work best for you.

Reprogram: Enter a meditative state and imagine yourself in the past. Use visualization to create what you need to prevent this pattern from reappearing. For instance, if you feel inadequate due to a lack of support from your parents, envision a scenario where they provided you with the encouragement you needed as a child. Listen to your heart and visualize the changes you must make to reprogram your past. Create a different ending! Though this may seem unconventional, your mind and body cannot distinguish between what you imagine and what occurs in reality. By imagining a new past a few times a week, your body and mind will respond differently. Give it a try!

The most important thing to remember when addressing your inner struggles is that if a pattern has been present for many years, it will take significant commitment to let it go. You must set strong intentions for releasing these limiting patterns. Stay clear and firm about the kind of life you want to create. Also, understand that there will always be something within yourself to work on; this is what life is about—learning and growing through challenges.

You can grow and transform into the person you want to be! Your progress depends on how committed you are and what you believe about yourself.

BELIEVE, and YOU WILL ACHIEVE!

Love,

Sharon