Inner Peace
Learn the Craft of Meditation and Use It as Medication
Catherine Scherwenka
Copyright Catherine Scherwenka, 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.
Published 2020
DISCLAIMER No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or transmitted by email without permission in writing from the author.
Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretations of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional.
Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Throughout this book I have used examples from many of my clients personal lives. However, to ensure privacy and confidentiality I have changed some of their names and some of the details of their experience. All of the personal examples of my own life have not been altered.
The information provided in this book is not intended to provide nor replace medical, legal, or other professional advice. The content this book is designed to support, not replace, medical or psychiatric treatment. Please seek professional care if you believe you may have a condition.
Cover Design: Amit Dey
Editor: Cory Hott
Authors photo courtesy of: Kristina Muller
Contents
I dedicate this book to all who have been touched by hurt, pain, and trauma. To those people who have made a commitment to not only heal thyself, but to have taken on the role of guiding and supporting others on their paths of healing and transformation. To serve those who have suffered from trauma and survived. May all beings find true inner peace, be happy and free, remembering, that this is your birthright.
How to Help People Heal from Trauma When You Dont Feel Qualified
I nside of us there is a deep desire that burns. The desire to love and be loved, to nurture and be nurtured, to help each other in times of need. Oftentimes, this desire grows after youve experienced a life-changing incident that left a profound imprint.
For me? It was 9/11. For my client Julie? It was 1 October, the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
Yet so often what I see and hear is that you dont believe you have what it takes in order to help or you dont know what to do or how to even begin. And so you end up doing nothing.
You dont feel as if you are qualified to support another human being while they heal from their trauma because you dont have a degree in psychology, a masters in health, or a PhD in integrative medicine. But what about a degree in life experience? What if you could take your life experience along with the education you received throughout your years and use this book as a guide, as a tool on how to begin bringing meditation into your practice as another form of medication for your clients and/or patients? That is what this book is about.
Julie and I had been working together for over a year. She was a massage therapist at the Four Seasons Spa in New York City for more than eighteen years and during the past three, she was inspired to broaden her tool belt by learning various healing modalities to help expand her capacity to be able to help a person heal not only their physical body but also their thinking mind as well as the connection to something greater that is, spirit. She had completed her Reiki certification three years ago and was now titled a Reiki Master, and just about a year ago, she completed her training in EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing). Julie wanted more and was looking to add meditation to her repertoire of what she could offer to her clients as an alternative way for people to heal from trauma and in some cases, PTSD.
Over the past year, Julie and I had been working on the hurt and pain that she was experiencing in her marriage. She grew up in the Midwest and had one daughter when she was twenty-two years old, and now at forty-four, she felt like she was done with her husband. When she came to me, she wanted a divorce. She could barely look at her husband and blamed him for all of the hurt and pain that she felt he caused both her and their marriage. As Julie worked through her blocks, resistance, and blame, ultimately coming to a space of forgiveness, a burning desire emerged from a well deep inside her, of wanting to give to others what had been given to her. She wanted to help.
She had gotten her life back.
She felt a strength from deep inside of her that she hadnt felt in years and was no longer looking outside herself for reassurance.
She found her courage, inner strength, resilience, and self-respect that had been hidden from as far back in her childhood as she could remember, yet as she grew more fully into herself, this passion of wanting to help others grew.
There was no more denying this passion to help.
She was feeling such a huge a sense of fulfillment from her healing and transformation, and now she wanted to guide and help others to be able to do the same.
When you receive the calling of wanting to move from solely focusing on your healing from past hurt, pain, and trauma to instead wanting to assist others in their healing, you make a shift in your consciousness and a commitment to the betterment of the greater whole. You take a stance as a healer, nurturer, guide, and facilitator to help others be able to find that space of calm and connection deep within their well of being. You help bridge the gap from separation to connection.
The world needs calm, connected, centered people who act as guardians for humanity, people who have done their inner work. Oftentimes what I see is that you then get inspired by what you experience throughout that process and feel motivated to help others heal and grow as well.
But like Julie, what I witness over and over again are people who do their inner work and get to a place of feeling like life is back on track yet then dont know how or what they can do to pay it forward.
Trauma meditation is way to pay it forward; its a way to give back. You live in a world laden with trauma, anxiety, depression, and fear, and it is not changing anytime soon, so the more people we have committed to the vibe of calm and connection, the better for humanity and Mother Earth.
As you grow, your family grows. As you grow, your community grows. As you grow, humanity grows. As you grow, Mother Earth heals.
The goal of this book is to awaken in your heart and to embody in your life the skills of being a more sensory based human being as well as a teacher (if that is what you so desire). You are not here to simply learn more teachings, exercises, and meditations. You are here to deepen your practice, your commitment, and your presence as a human being first and then, if you choose, to do so as a teacher. You are here to discover all the implications of just what that word, teacher, means not only sitting in front of a class, but also in reference to how you show up in the world.
An important piece to remember as you begin this journey is that first and foremost, you must commit to yourself. If you do not take on the challenge to respect and care for yourself, who will? There is no trick, no shortcut; it is up to each one of us as an individual to become still and present, commit, practice, and allow the natural urge of consciousness to transform you to full awareness.
In order to learn something, it is important to not only read about it but also write and then teach it. Only then will you begin to embody the practices taking you deeper into the wisdom of the teachings and the practice.
