Four Worlds|A Holiday Healing Activity

4.8 min read

A holiday healing exercise.

What makes you, you?

What are you healing from?
Do you have weight you’ve been trying to lose?
A budget you can’t stick to?
Stressed relationships?

This time of year can shine a beacon onto our vulnerabilities.

It is a time of year when we look toward unity, the miracle of lights, and Christmas; even through the most secular lens, there is a sense of introspection and renewal. For this, I wanted to dive into the Four Worlds.

This time of year is bittersweet for me- that’s why a holiday healing exercise is my weekend plan. My husband has inoperable, incurable cancer. So, every holiday since his diagnosis, I worry that this is the last holiday we have together.

But until his cancer, our holidays were quite busy and felt like a blur. Since his cancer, we have been more present; part of why is that we practice the Four Worlds in our way- he has his way, I have mine, and the two are very different- but meaningful.

The Four Worlds is not unique to any one religion or philosophy. Authors have written books that turned into best sellers (The Four Agreements)

It has been a foundation of the Hopi Native Americans and Kabbalahist Judaism. It is also woven through Christianity and Buddhism. Today, we will reimagine the Four Worlds in a secular space and how it might look for healing trauma.

1.The Divine World

Beneath the trauma beneath your current words and thoughts is just you. The person who thinks these thoughts feels that trauma and speaks those words. What drives this? Your heart and mind.

2. The World of Creation

This takes the divine world and goes more inward; this is thought and only thoughts. What people have said to us, we begin to believe. What we say to ourselves is an even stronger hypnosis. Your thoughts are you, but you are not your thoughts. You can have a thought-

and observe it. Thoughts are the articulation of what is happening within you.

Again, your thoughts reflect an articulation of what is happening within you.

3. The Formation World

Unlike divine, which is you, and thoughts, which are yours but not you, is the contrasting idea of formation. Everything has a time and space, including your happiness, sadness, and trauma that happened to you once—or many times—and your healing moments. I am writing in formation; you read in formation and develop your reality of these words. The more we understand each other, the easier it is to communicate. Without understanding others, it is almost impossible to understand ourselves. This is why so often when someone is judgemental to others, they are even harder on themselves.

4.The World of Action

I want you to think of action as actual. In scripture, which spans many cultures, the actual world is the present space, the space we perceive. Everything carries meaning. We might overlook the meaning, but everything around us has meaning if we focus. Sometimes, that meaning is that we have let things go, overspent, or didn’t create boundaries. Other times, it is that we prioritized, enjoyed, or held a fond memory of something.

So, the actual world is also where we create action. It is the same.

How does this connect to healing trauma?

If we want to take a methodology that seems to have been around for centuries, helping people, or at minimum, guiding them- then healing trauma as a DIY might look like this:

Healing with the Four Worlds

1. The Divine World

Who were you before the trauma, the stress, the betrayal, troubles, etc?

Often, people will say, “I don’t even know- all I remember is pain”.

If that sounds like you- then if you had a magic wand, and it was a humble wand, what would your childhood or last decade look like?

This is closer to your true self than the trauma.

2. The World of Creation

What was said to you as a child? From family, friends, authority figures?

What do you say to yourself?

What is the feeling that comes up when you think these thoughts?

3.The Formation World

How do you behave? Do you step into who you are? Do you hide yourself or diminish yourself for others?

Do you treat yourself the way others treat you?

For instance, if someone treated you like you were without boundary and assaulted you- do you keep a layer of “protection” (extra weight)around you that goes with you wherever you go? Or do you make a point never to get close enough to anyone to be hurt again?

Think about how you treat yourself and the world around you- from your heart to home.

4.The World of Action

With what you’ve learned thus far, you can see how this “action” is actual. Your trauma or stress is the lens through which you see the world.

Reverse engineer:

What can you do that is the opposite– as an action- to alter the actual world you view?
Then, go deeper; what behaviors toward others, your heart, and your home can you tweak?
Go deeper. What self-talk can you say to regain your power? If someone makes you feel “dumb,” can you instead remind yourself how intelligent you are?

With these new tweaks in behavior, thought, and action, can you remind yourself of who you are – or at least what you are not –you are not someone who ever deserved the stress, pain, or trauma.

The Resource Vault, https://thefinancetherapist.com/resource-vault/