"Transforming Pain into Power" by Kristina Todorova, Founder of The Co-created Hub

This article is part of Kristina's Blog Rubric. 

Every year, usually at the beginning of the New Year, I write about the previous year and the key lessons I learnt in the past twelve months. This year, having faced one of the most testing years in my life, I decided to tweak the January article tradition and write about a topic that resonates deeply – transforming pain into power.

To everyone who is celebrating Christmas, this time of the year is meant to be a season of love, joy and festive gatherings. But how can we experience these emotions when dealing with loss and the grief that comes with it? We can, and in this article, I will share my experience with alchemizing pain and choosing emotional states that bring balance, healing and confidence; the confidence to have strength and stand tall in the face of any adverse situation.

Facing loss

I always ask myself – how can I write about this lightly? The answer is – I can’t, and in typical Kristina’s fashion, I will say things as they are, write from the heart and, hopefully, you will find a few lines that will help you handle a difficult moment and realize that you are stronger and more powerful than you think you are. Because you are.

On 7^th July 2024, my father made his transition to the non-physical realm after a yearlong battle with mental health. A few months before his transition, my uncle departed and a few days ago – my Godfather. Having lost three people one of whom was and still is the person (besides my mum) I love the most, dealing with cumulative grief has taught me that we can’t and shouldn’t try to bypass heavy emotions, but we need to learn to sit with them, feel them and work consciously with the emotions in our bodies.

Transforming pain 

Working with your body

When thinking about grief, if I am to describe the feeling, I feel it in my stomach and chest and what I feel is a mixture of pain, deep sadness, anger or sometimes – complete numbness. My initial copying mechanism was to work as much as I could so that I could keep myself distracted but then I realized that I could not just keep my mind off what had happened and bypass it.

A technique I started to use was to sit or lie down every time I felt intense emotions and keep taking deep breaths without thinking about what I was feeling but being present with the emotions, letting my body experience them. This showed me that we have a built-in capacity to hold intense emotions and, if we were to allow ourselves to become the observer, the emotional energy would naturally begin to transform its density and the pain would become less intense, making space for feeling relief.

Seeing emotions as energy helps me do this exercise more effectively. David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D, a world-renowned author, psychiatrist, clinician, spiritual teacher, and researcher of consciousness, outlines the various frequencies emotions vibrate at in his book Power vs Force where he introduces us to the Map of Consciousness. Based on his findings, each emotion corresponds to a specific frequency, showing us that energy can be transformed. And, we have a choice of the frequencies (emotions) we cultivate in our bodies. 

Having done this exercise does not mean that you have healed from the loss and the pain will not be felt again. It means that you now have a tool that enables you to handle the pain more consciously without it leading to a more permanent state of depression. 

Working with your mind

This is a big piece and probably – the hardest; at least for me. When I think about the multiple losses we've had, I go into a state of anger, thinking about my family and my mum, being physically based in Bulgaria (where I'm from) whilst I spend most of my time in London.

The thoughts that circulate through my mind, like a loop, are: when is enough enough, Source?  Does it ever stop? Having experienced all sorts of challenges over the past five years – from serious health conditions to multiple business setbacks, I go straight into a victim state, thinking: why is this happening to us? All of these thoughts, as human as they are, are only perpetuating the loop of pain and anger.

Being aware of our thoughts and the emotions they trigger and realizing they are not helpful is the first step to changing your perspective. I know it is easier said than it is done and here’s my approach to making tiny mindset shifts that are helping me to stop the loop:

I no longer believe in a brighter future because the future is not up to me to control.

What I choose to believe in is a brighter today and my ability to create and experience it. Because, if I can cultivate a brighter today today, I can use the same skills to create a brighter tomorrow, hence taking ownership of how I perceive the challenges I'm facing and how I let them affect my body and mind. It is important that I transparently share I am not always there, fully embracing and embodying these shifts. There are days when I would spend a day in bed revisiting the old loop, but I am aware of this mental loop tendency and take steps to snap out of it when it returns. 

From a purely energetic perspective, opposing frequencies (sadness – joy) can co-exist in our bodies. One minute we could be feeling sadness and, in the next moment, an experience or simply a thought can transform the frequency into joy. This is how powerful you are when you consciously choose your perspective and transform the energy to a lighter vibrational frequency that will feel less heavy and dense in your body.  

Working with your consciousness (spirit)

Speaking about energy and consciousness, I am a firm believer that every obstacle we face exists to teach us something and help us evolve not only as a person but as a Consciousness.

I have said this many times on social media and in some of my articles in my rubric on the blog - this platform and hub would not exist if I had not experienced what I did. These experiences showed me the importance and necessity of adopting a more holistic approach to handling setbacks, which is how we transform pain into power, as we work on all the layers of our being without bypassing, bottling up or ignoring. Incorporating this approach into how we handle setbacks in our businesses can have a profound impact on our health, performance and leadership as founders and business leaders. 

I believe that each one of us is a master of energy. But to master energy, since everything around us is made of particles of energy in motion, we need to master the mind, the body and work in alignment with our spirit that is always paving the path to our highest expression and the highest and most impactful expression of what we are creating through our businesses and the work we're doing. 

Final thoughts

Accepting and learning how to live with a loss, especially losing an immediate family member, is a process. I have come to terms with the fact that it will always hurt when I think of my father and realize he isn’t physically here to share a life with me; however, in those moments, I have the choice to choose the presence of my love for him versus the thought of not seeing him again and this gives me the power to handle the pain without letting it derail me from my path, and without letting it deprive me of the moments that I still can share with those I love the most, who are still with me on Earth.

There's power in the pain for it teaches you how to become who you are meant to be.