Tips for Transmuting Pain into Love
As I often write about difficult transits or natal chart aspects, I realize that having assistance in working through difficult feelings and traumas these situations unearth would be beneficial. The following are some tips for transmuting painful energy into loving, productive energy that helps us grow and become more authentic, healed, and whole, offered in loving kindness.
Living in the past traps the self in a state of unreality, where unresolved emotions, regrets, or nostalgia continually replay like an echo. If this state becomes powerful enough, you are living in a hologram in your own mind that takes you away from the present moment, blurring the line between what is real and what is merely a shadow of what once was. The self becomes ensnared in a cycle of reflection, unable to engage with the possibilities of the present moment or the future. This "haunting" occurs because the past is gone, yet we resurrect it mentally, keeping its emotional weight alive. These memories are often distorted, seen through the lens of time and selective focus, which further separates us from actual reality. When we live in this unreality, the self cannot grow or heal, as it remains stuck in situations that no longer exist. Only by releasing the attachment to the past can the self fully inhabit the present and evolve freely.
Identify the Pain: Reflect on emotional wounds that still need healing. Identify areas of self-delusion and unhealthy emotional attachments. Write down areas where you feel stuck in pain, victimhood, or disappointment.
Embrace Vulnerability: Give yourself permission to feel and express what hurts, understanding that this vulnerability is the first step toward transmuting pain.
Forgiveness as Liberation: Forgiving yourself and others for past mistakes and emotional wounds frees you from the cycle of pain. Forgiveness is not necessarily forgetting, but choosing love, often just for yourself, over holding onto resentment or bitterness. Create a ritual of writing down the record of the wrongs that have been done to you and that you have done to others. Consciously release each of these through burning the record (can be on paper or on bay leaves) and creating offerings of forgiveness.
Forgiveness Ritual Suggestion:
Prepare the Space: Create a calm, quiet space where you won’t be disturbed. Light a candle or a fire and set your intention for the ritual —whether it’s self-forgiveness or forgiving someone else.
Choose Your Herbs: Select the herbs that resonate most with your intention (e.g., sage and sweetgrass for cleansing and inviting love, or lavender and chamomile for emotional healing). Lavender invites peace, calm, and emotional balance making it a great choice for releasing pain and opening the heart to forgiveness, both of oneself and others. Rosemary is associated with memory and clarity, which makes it useful for reflecting on past pain with a clear mind and releasing old grudges. Use It to help restore emotional strength and compassion, key elements for forgiveness.
Using Bay leaves: Write the name of someone you want to forgive (or a situation you want to release) on a bay leaf and burn it, visualizing the pain leaving your heart. Bay leaves are used in rituals to release negative thoughts and emotions. They are believed to carry your intentions, making them ideal for forgiveness and emotional release rituals.
Burn the Herbs: Light your smudge stick or herbs in a fireproof dish. As the smoke rises, move it around your body and space, focusing on releasing any pain or resentment you're holding onto.
Affirm Forgiveness: As the herbs burn, say affirmations aloud, such as “I release this pain,” “I forgive myself and others,” or “I choose love over anger.”
Conclude with Gratitude: Close the ritual by expressing gratitude for the release and inviting love and peace into your heart. You may want to sit in meditation for a few minutes to ground the energy.
By burning these herbs with intention, you can create a powerful ritual for releasing pain and inviting forgiveness, fostering peace and emotional healing. To make this ritual have its fullest sweetness, ask for forgiveness from all of those you have wronged no matter how slight, these regrets are holding you to the past.
Through releasing the past, we have the opportunity to live more fully in the present.
What habits can you put into place to support this?
Consistent self-care rituals show that your body and mind are worthy of love and attention. These habits reduce stress and improve emotional well-being. Dedicate at least one night a week to a self-care ritual. This could include taking a warm bath with essential oils, reading a good book, journaling, or pampering yourself with skincare. Treat your self-care night like an unbreakable appointment. Light candles, play soothing music, and immerse yourself in activities that rejuvenate your spirit.
Challenge yourself to wake up daily and journal for gratitude. Using a gratitude journal is a powerful way to shift your mindset toward positivity and well-being. By regularly reflecting on what you’re thankful for, even in the smallest moments, you train your mind to focus on abundance rather than lack or scarcity. This simple practice rewires your brain, boosting happiness, reducing stress, and enhancing emotional resilience. When you write down what you're grateful for, you create space for positivity, helping to diminish anxiety and negative thoughts. It also fosters greater self-awareness, allowing you to better understand what truly brings you joy and fulfillment. Over time, this habit builds emotional resilience, helping you handle challenges with a more balanced perspective. Additionally, gratitude journaling improves relationships, as you become more aware of the love and support in your life. Overall, this practice nurtures a more optimistic outlook, paving the way for deeper self-love and personal growth. Be specific and be consistent. Do this every day for the next month upon waking to get the full effect.
Want help with this? As you bring your physical, mental and emotional systems into coherent alignment, you begin to experience increased access to your heart’s intuitive guidance, this app is wonderful at rebuilding the heart mind connection: https://www.heartmath.com/
Affirmations
Create Affirmations for Self-Love
Positive affirmations nurture self-worth and help rewire your brain to focus on love, abundance, and growth. Repeating affirmations reinforces a loving inner dialogue. Here are five outstanding love affirmations to nurture self-love and attract love into your life:
“I am worthy of love, and I welcome it into my life with an open heart.”
“I am surrounded by love and attract loving, supportive relationships.”
“I choose to give and receive love effortlessly and unconditionally.”
“Love flows to me effortlessly, and I radiate love wherever I go.”
“I love and accept myself fully, and that love attracts the best into my life.”
Loving Kindness Meditation
A favorite meditation or mantra is the simple, but effective “Loving Kindness Meditation,” that goes like this:
May I be filled with loving kindness; may I be well.
May I be peaceful, present, and at ease; may I be happy.
May (he/she/they) be filled with loving kindness; may they be well.
May they be peaceful, present, and at ease; may they be happy.
May we be filled with loving kindness; may we be well.
May we be peaceful, present, and at ease; may we be happy.
Focus on Personal Evolution
One key to transmuting pain into love is focusing on your personal evolution. Feel yourself being pulled toward a higher, more authentic version of yourself. Use creative tools for transformation by journaling, making artwork, drumming, or dancing; explore ways of moving the stuck energy of the past into new forms. Reassign your energy into new creative forms. What is it that your heart desires that you have been blocked from? Use this energy to have a new creative beginning. To make these actions part of the new cycle, assign time each week to allow for your creative projects. Add this to your calendar and make a date with yourself to live your creative and artistic dreams.
What version of you is emerging from the lessons you’ve been learning? What does it look like to fully love yourself? As you shed the layers of past pain, relationships, or outdated beliefs, what new identity is coming to light? How far have you come and how have you changed and grown in the last six months, year, 5 years? Write your thoughts about these questions down in a journal and begin to consciously explore how you are changing and evolving into your most authentic self.
Make “Pain Cakes” – Visualization Exercise
As you sit in either a chair or on the floor, imagine sending the energy of your pain down through your body and out through an energetic root you visualize coming out from your root chakra (perineum) and down into the core of the earth. This can be visualized in the form of a beam of light or a root, whatever mental image works for you. The Earth knows what to do with this energy and, in fact, thrives on it. All life comes from the Earth, from Gaia, and is transmuted from the billions of years’ worth of death, decay, waste, and recycled matter that she transforms for us through her body into nutrients, fertilizer, food, sustenance, and new life. Imagine that this energy is being transmuted into productive energy that you can use in a more positive manner, like giving ingredients to happy subterranean spirit chefs who are thrilled to receive your negative energy so they can transform it into “pain cakes” they joyfully make to nourish and feed you with loving, productive energy. Allow yourself to receive this blessing. Allow them to take your pain with no guilt or reservation, knowing they are ecstatic to receive it and transmute it for you into energy that fills you with life. This transaction of negative energy to positive fuel takes place as you visualize the energy flowing down deep into the earth and then back up into your body, lighting up your spinal column/chakras and nourishing you with loving kindness and supportive energies.
You can even imagine them handing you the dough to knead yourself and can feel the immense, expanding energy between your palms as it grows into an unfathomable size as the love and support of the universe and your spirit guides is endless. Recognize that you always have this support within yourself and that you always have the power to transmute your pain into love this way.
Once you are filled with loving “pain cakes,” you can release your guides and thank them for helping you transform your energy into loving, expansive awareness.
Photo credit: Laura Whitfield, 2022. All rights reserved.
Need more help with this? Consider Internal Family Systems.
Book recommendation: No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D.
This book is an excellent start to understanding how pain and trauma trap part of ourselves in the past. To get the most out of this, work with a therapist that is trained in this technique.