How to sustain your Healing Journey when things get tough?
- Apr 1
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 5
Before continuing our exploration of personality patterns and childhood wounds, I wanted to pause and discuss resources so that you have some foundational tools to navigate potentially challenging material with greater safety and ease.
We will see that everyone embarked on a healing journey greatly benefits from digging into this topic. But if you are highly sensitive or empathic, it is even more essential that you know what sustains and nourishes you.
In this article, I explore what resources are and what they aren't, how they work across your nervous system, your needs and your energetic system, and how they can serve as both a guiding light and an anchor on your life journey.
What are Resources and why do they matter?
Essentially, resources are what help you come back to your centre and replenish. They can be anyone or anything that supports and nurtures a sense of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.
They may be internal (e.g. your qualities or some nice memories) or external (such as safe relationships or places that feel like home). Both types of resources can be cultivated and are important to navigate life.
If you are consciously trying to grow, they will become even more vital. Deep healing work — especially working with childhood wounds — can bring to the surface experiences that had been buried deep inside and are now ready to be healed. This can lead to feeling intense emotions, body sensations and energetic perceptions. Being resourced means having enough inner and outer support to be able to tolerate what arises without being overwhelmed, retraumatized or going into a healing burnout.
What resources are not: numbing and compulsive behaviours
It is worth making a difference between what truly replenish us and other strategies of self-soothing that may cause us harm.
For instance, using substances, excessive or compulsive behaviours can offer relief in time of distress. However, they are doing so by disconnecting us further from ourselves. To avoid the difficulty, we use them to stop perceiving our body, feelings or emotions, in other words, we are numbing. The "feel good" effect is actually more of a "not feeling bad effect".
On the contrary resourcing means becoming even more present through our sensations and emotions by focusing on an experience that does intrinsically feel good. It is also important to notice that one activity can be a resource if done with mindfulness and can become numbing if done compulsively. For example, eating chocolate can be a pleasurable experience that helps us ground in our body. Or it can become a numbing one if we are binge-eating and not really appreciating it.
We all numb at times. It's not wrong or right, it is simply how we may deal sometimes. Holding with compassion what brings us to this point, my intention with this article is to simply start drawing your attention on to how you cope, and exploring through our resources what other strategies may be available. Perhaps discovering and practising some that are not as harmful for ourselves -- and that might fulfill us at least as well if not better.
Resourcing and your Nervous System
Your nervous system is designed to flow between states of activation and states of rest — giving you the ability to mobilise your system to face hardship, and to enjoy life when the danger has passed.
When trauma lives in us, our nervous system may not be able to return to a regulated state. Instead it tends to get chronically stuck in states of activation such as fight or flight, freeze or shut down. From these places of overwhelm, it becomes difficult to process information and the charge of energy held in our system. This is why trauma is often described as "too much, too fast, too soon" — reflecting the fact that the experience went beyond the body's capacity at the time.
To move through this, Peter Levine — one of the leading experts in trauma healing and founder of Somatic Experiencing — recommends titration: approaching difficult material drop by drop rather than all at once. Levine observed that healing happens most safely through pendulation — a natural rhythm of moving between what is painful and what is nourishing.
Applying these principles for safe healing & transformation means that when intense material comes to the surface, we allow ourselves to experience it as far as it is tolerable for us. When you notice that things get too much, that you are getting overwhelmed, dissociated, or unable to tolerate the charge in your system - it is time to pause and connect to your resources!
Working this way gives your system a chance to come back to a more regulated state where assimilation can take place. Once you are back in flow with life and resourced, you can titrate another piece of the difficulty without creating accumulation in your system. This increases the flexibility of your responses as well as trust and self-confidence, and over time expands your resilience.
All of this may look obvious from an abstract point of view, but it often isn't when we are in a stressful situation.
For example, one of my clients* has high responsibilities in his workplace and is going through conflicts with several colleagues. During the day, he is able to ignore the conflictual behaviours, put his energy into his work and complete all the tasks that need his attention. When he came to me, he hadn't been able to sleep more than a few hours for weeks : at night, his mind couldn't stop replaying the nagging that happened during the day and worry about the future of his company. From a nervous system point of view, his body was running high on adrenaline all day long. He was effectively in fight or flight most of the time and although he tried to unwind before bed, the accumulation was such that he found it very difficult or impossible. After our first session we made a plan to have several mini-breaks during his busy day -- 5 to 10 minutes each -- to connect with some tools that we practiced together and help his body calm down. This allowed him to assimilate smaller amount of stress as they arose during the day. When he came to the next session, he reported being able to sleep again. This allowed him to experience more of his feelings and we could start working more deeply on the energetic aspects of his situation.
Resourcing, your Needs and your Energetic System
Resourcing is not just a way of regulating, it is also a way of meeting your needs, replenishing your energy and expanding your capacity for life!
This matters more than it might seem - especially if you consider that wounds, traumas, & illnesses can all be seen as resulting from chronic or acute unmet needs. Addressing your needs -- in itself -- is a profound and central part of your healing. It is an offering of loving kindness to yourself and to those around you.
In Brennan Healing Science, we often speak of “growing your container” -- meaning building your energy field, reinforcing its structure and balance so that more life force can move through you, enhancing your presence and every dimension of your life experience.
In this model, the human energy field is composed of seven levels of consciousness, each operating at a different frequency and associated with specific needs. With the right resource, you can begin to nourish each level — making your system stronger, healthier and more vibrant.
1st level of the field: associated with physical health & body sensations - needs physical activity, comfort & pleasure.
Example of resources: receiving a massage, playing sports, or outdoors activities.
2nd level of the field: associated with personal feelings - needs self acceptance & self love
Example of resources: appreciating your innate qualities.
3rd level of the field: associated with thoughts - needs clear, rational understanding
Example of resource: reading inspiring and instructive books or engaging in a rich debate of ideas.
4th level of the field: associated with relationships - needs loving interactions & relationships
Example of resources: spending quality time with loved ones, or taking care of your pet.
5th level of the field: associated with universal order and higher will - needs congruence, expressing & following your truth
Example of resources: applying for a job in the field of your dreams while also letting go of attachment. Owning your responsibilities while knowing you are held.
6th level of the field: associated with higher feelings - needs divine/ unconditional love and spiritual experiences
Example of resources: feeling part of something bigger like Nature, meditating, praying, taking part in a ceremony.
7th level of the field: associated with higher mind - needs connection with greater wisdom, experiencing serenity and recognizing the perfection within imperfections.
Example: studying wise teachings, meditating to find your own wisdom.
Of course, this is neither an exhaustive list of needs nor of resources, but simply pointers to help you get started on your exploration. As you begin to think of your resources and needs, you may notice that some feel more natural or accessible than others. This is often a reflection of which levels of your field are most nourished — and which are most in need of attention.
Conclusion: Resources as a Foundation for Healing
From all that we have covered, it is clear that what you do between healing steps matters greatly: the deeper you wish to go on your healing or developmental journey, the more essential resourcing becomes.
It is therefore a good idea to get to know your inner & outer resources and come back to them often. Not all resources are immediately obvious or accessible, and that is perfectly normal.
This is why, I am currently creating a free playbook designed to help you identify and cultivate your resources, step by step. It will include reflection questions, practices and a personal resource map to build over time.
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*some details have been changed to preserve anonymity.
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