Core Level Awakening:A Practice You Can Do Right Now

When so many people are seekers and healers, why is deep healing so rare?

The truth is, well-meaning mental health professionals give us tools to effect incremental change. We learn how to “reframe,” cope, resource, regulate, and transcend. We try to counteract and override our emotional realities. We re-narrate, revise, and bypass our lived experience.

These strategies have the potential to be extraordinarily effective. But they keep us stuck when they’re used to cover up core wounds. And they can be harmful when used as weapons against ourselves.

As long as we are striving to fix ourselves or force our conditioned selves into submission, we will remain disintegrated and embattled. We are always the same distance from our pain. From our triggers. From our patterns.

The only way through is within.

Emotional pain is like a Chinese finger trap. We keep trying to pull away from our pain only to become further entrenched and frustrated. To push your fingers towards one another — that is learning to feel emotion, sensation, to feel into memories, beliefs, and assumptions about reality. It’s a new skill set.

Those who are ready for Core Level Awakening learn to cultivate an inner space large enough to incorporate pain. They are no longer seeking relief from pain. Deep down they ache to become whole.

How Do We Begin?

The following practice will guide you into your first experience of Core Level Awakening. Take your time with it. Don’t rush. Let each step land before moving to the next.

The Practice

Recall an issue in your life that has agitated you or sucked energy from you — currently or in the past. If you’d like, write it down on a piece of paper to bring it out of your mind and into a tangible form.

Close your eyes and breathe deeper. Place one hand palm flat on your lower abdomen. Place the other hand flat over the center of your chest.

Take a long breath in. As you exhale, soften your abdomen. Take 3–4 breaths like this. On each exhale, continue to soften.

Begin — say each aloud, then pause

Right now the sensation I am most aware of in my body is…

As I become more aware of this sensation I notice…

As I feel this sensation, the thoughts that arise in my mind are…

If this sensation had a color it would be…

If this sensation had a texture it would be…

If this sensation had a motion it would be…

And if this sensation, color, texture, motion were to speak without censoring itself, it would say…

Say that phrase aloud with more emphasis 2 or 3 times. Then complete: This is true because…

Breathe deeply again and soften the abdomen. Then identify the age of the part of you that spoke aloud.

Continue

What was happening at that time in my life is…

What I really needed then that I didn’t receive is…

If that younger part of me could speak about their needs they would say…

What this part of me really longs for is…

Feel yourself embracing the younger you. Marinate in self-compassion for a minute or so.

Finally

The most loving, caring thing the current me could say to this younger part of my nervous system is…

With this process, you have entered into Core Level Awakening.

By repeating this process, you exercise your ability to feel into and through your pain. As a result, you will feel a deeper sense of connection with all of life — not just the luminous, exalted spiritual realms, but the dark realms that are full of unintegrated life force.

This awakening feels incredible. It feels natural. It’s an embodied presence. You find yourself at ease with whatever emotion or sensation moves through the body. You feel at home.

If, as a result of these prompts, you didn’t have an experience of discovery, or if your experience doesn’t match what’s being described, you may need help laying the groundwork. Luke’s guidance can help you discover self-compassion and stronger connection to your own innate healing wisdom.

— Dr. Luke Adler
Author, Born to Heal