(As per my post “Finding The Balance”, all of my blog entries up through the end of my Sun Course (Sept 21) will be raw journal entries. I want to continue writing, but will not have the time to do so in my normal polished manner.)
Wednesday, September 8 – 6:30 p.m.
Today has been a beautiful, amazing day. The tears I shed during channeling practice were tears of joy. The realization that there is yet another wall of resistance to transcend merely peaks my curiosity – curiosity that is growing much deeper. Spending a few hours this morning in finishing off that last blog entry was a pure inspiring joy to my soul.
And I have started embracing situations – situations that randomly come up – situations that have frequently annoyed me in the past. Yes, I still get tired, but my heart is filled today with joy. This morning, for yoga, I was the first person in the temple – yet I chose the station that I have secretly hated since my Moon Course. The entrance into the temple is through a small tunnel that opens up into the floor. Once everyone is inside, two folding doors are closed over the horizontal opening in the floor, leaving a spot with a few uneven bumps and a tiny bit of noisy sagginess.
I have avoided this spot from day one, never having sat there even once. The uneven cracks were beneath my dignity, something I did not want to have to tolerate. Today, I intentionally chose that specific seat and loved it.
Then, when I walk into the bathroom (which by the way has no seat – just a cold porcelain rim) I grin as I remember how annoyed I once was when the seat broke and was never replaced – and it doesn’t bother me in the least to “get to” slightly clean up after others who forget to flush, or who dribble on the rim.
Tonight, after an amazing “Om” meditation, I was the last one to step out of the temple. A light drizzle was just beginning to strengthen, and my first reaction was to flip out my trusty umbrella. Almost immediately, I rolled the umbrella back up and put it back in my hand. I walked all the way to my little pyramid bedroom with my face raised eagerly toward the dripping sky, arms outstretched, even as the drops became heavier and more frequent. I felt so rejuvenated, so refreshed.
A childlike exuberance is begging to be released tonight, and I plan on nourishing this beautiful, innocent, playful emotion with love and encouragement – none of that fuddy-duddy old adult stuffiness for me – at least not tonight.
Friday, September 10 – 6:45 p.m.
Today has been another beautiful day. There is so much to say, and so little time to say it. I am exhausted and want to go to bed. I didn’t feel at all like writing last night, and went to bed at 7:00 p.m., and I think I will literally do the same this evening. I have jotted down a few notes, and very soon (perhaps tomorrow), I will catch up on yesterday’s and today’s growth-filled events – some of which are still in progress anyway.
What I will say is that I had a great energy-moving afternoon today. For what feels like at least a week to ten days, I have not even tried to do any energy path-work on my body. I feel as if I had reached a dead end where nothing that I tried to do seemed to work anymore. I had gotten stuck at the point of trying to move energy up into the neck and beyond, and felt as if I had lost my desire to even try any further. I had simply lost interest.
But after having completed last week’s powerful healing journey, deepening my understanding of Temperance, I decided today that perhaps now was the time to try again. As I stretched out on my bed early this afternoon, I had a very difficult time getting started, but finally, after about twenty minutes, I felt a few energy tingles begin to work their way up my abdomen and chest. The going intensified, and was quite easy to control until I reached my upper shoulders near the base of my neck, at which point I felt as if I hit an open abyss across which no energy could cross.
For much of the next hour I breathed slowly and deeply, often holding my breath while I concentrated intensely on guiding the energy up my shoulders and into my neck. Finally I felt the tingles moving up the back of my neck and I eventually coaxed the tingling to go right up into the middle of the back of my head.
But try as I might, I struggled to get any energy to move up the sides or front of my neck. Finally, with intense effort I was able to use my will to gradually encourage tiny waves of tingles up my throat, over my chin, and up my cheeks. It was actually quite amazing and enjoyable. Once the energy reached the area of my eyes, I felt as if I hit another brick wall – but I was able to move a tiny bit of energy up into my eye brows and forehead. I wished I had more time, but my alarm went off telling me it was time for evening meditation. I had been at it for almost two and a half hours. The whole process was exhausting, but I feel as if I opened some powerful energy channels (at least began the process of opening them).
As I walked outside, my neck, the back of my head, and my face were tingling and dancing with energizing, joyful vibrations. I literally felt ten years younger as I walked down the path to the pyramid temple.
Now that evening meditation is over, I am simply exhausted from all the effort that I expended this afternoon. Perhaps I will try some more tonight, but first I am slipping into my pajamas and going to bed.
Saturday, September 11 – 12:40 p.m.
My little spider friend is back. I have not seen him since the evening of September 6 when I finished my all-afternoon writing marathon where I wrote about “Loving the Ending.” That evening I made a truce with the little arachnid. Perhaps I should not call him little, since he is probably at least three inches across in his leg span. I promised my little magical spiritual guide that he could live here in my room under the condition that he never set foot on my skin, especially during the night. Shortly after I finished writing, he disappeared and has not reappeared until this morning. He is in a different spot, right up near the glass windows at the peak of my pyramid, directly overhead from where I sit to write. I do believe he is standing guard over my writing process – reminding me that it is now time to write with intensity – time to express my feelings – time to solidify my growth process by finding healing and intuitive words to describe it.
But in order to finish my writing for this week, it is necessary to regress all the way back to Wednesday. As you may recall, I had a very powerful experience in our channeling class – an experience where I realized that I was dealing with varied amounts of fear, pride, stubbornness, and ego – a mysterious and hidden wall that I needed to identify, understand, and then transcend. After publishing my “A Hidden Wall” writing, discussing that beautiful experience in detail, I exchanged written notes with Sandra. She pointed out something else about my wall – something very true – something that had not even crossed my mind.
I was quite pleased with myself when I found the courage and strength to publish a powerful statement a couple of months ago – a blog entry titled “Speaking My Truth” in which I once and for all exposed my belief system to the world. I honestly believe that one of the purposes of my inspired travels has been to get me to the point of internal confidence where I could indeed speak my truth without fear of ridicule or judgment.
Sandra, in her beautiful note, gave me something new to think about when she pointed out to me that I had an incredible gift for writing from the heart, but that “the spoken word and expression holds entirely different challenges.” Yes, I had learned to speak my truth in writing, but what about during impromptu, unrehearsed conversation – especially if what I needed to say involves unpleasant or embarrassing emotions?
Why was I finding myself so terrified to speak up in a channeling class, surrounded by people I love? Why was I having such a difficult time approaching Chaty to tell her about my resistance and my frustrations?
Those two questions had me stuck, and I made up my mind with firm determination that I will no longer be a timid wallflower when it comes to speaking my feelings and my expressing my needs.
A New Start
Thursday morning, during a class discussion about the feelings and experiences that we had during our Wednesday channeling session, I forced myself to open up my genuine heart and to put my struggles out on the table. I explained how I have been feeling quite stuck and abandoned, both by Chaty and by my Spiritual guides. Then I acknowledged openly that I have felt too proud and stubborn to ask for help. I then talked about how, at the start of Wednesday’s channeling session, I had reached out in frustration, begging my guides to please connect with me – to help me in my process. Finally, I briefly shared the beautiful experience that unfolded – the one where my guides gave me some great insight and then continued to communicate with me via the spoken words of Marcel and Sandra.
As I finished my comments, I made loving eye contact with Chaty, again stating publicly that I would love some individual help and attention.
As I finished speaking, I was nearly in tears. It would not have mattered in the least if I had burst out in sobs – but my ego somehow managed to keep the tears under wraps, stuffing the little sprinklers back down for later release.
I actually do not even know if Chaty understood my final words – she often has difficulty comprehending spoken English. But I do know that my classmates heard my emotional truth. I took off my mask and became a little more genuine. I felt such a sense of gratitude that I had found the courage to speak so honestly about my struggles.
I no longer feel a need to approach Chaty to ask for that individual one-on-one chat. I realize that my sense of isolation and frustration have all been part of a well-orchestrated setup by the Universe – a plot to bring me to a point of new growth and learning.
In a second round of discussion during Thursday’s class, Chaty asked us to describe our most recent dream. I told her about my dream with the “Pyramids/Titanic movie poster” – the one with artwork that I was supposed to complete – the one with a white home on a hill, and a lake surrounded by mountains – the dream with Chaty playing with a non-existent granddaughter – the dream where everyone was late for meditation.
I found it quite interesting as Chaty told me that she is building a new spiritual center here in a different part of Lake Atitlan – and that she has named the location “The Ark” (a very big boat). She then told me that they are building a white house for her up on top of a hill – and that everything is indeed very much behind schedule. Hmmm … quite the interesting coincidences … I wonder? As I think more about that dream, the second photo of a lake surrounded by mountains did indeed resemble Lake Atitlan.
Early Morning Panic
My new focus on dreaming seems to be paying off. Excluding Wednesday evening, I have been remembering portions of around three dreams every night. None of those dreams have been lucid, but they are getting closer to that state, and I do believe I am learning about myself through this exercise.
Friday morning at 2:00 a.m., as I woke up from my second dream of the evening, I hurried to scribble what few details I could remember. After a quick restroom break and lying back in bed for thirty minutes, I began to feel quite frustrated that I was unable to go back to sleep (even though I had gone to bed shortly after 7:00 p.m.).
As 3:00 a.m. came and went, I remembered that another one of my primary goals for my spiritual travels has been to break my stalemate with the early morning hours – to make an effort to actually get up when I am woken up – to actually try to connect with my spiritual guides during these prime quiet hours.
I have been quite aware for a couple of years now that my spiritual guides are often waking me up early in the morning – wanting me to make an effort to meditate and to connect with them. For those same two years I have consistently refused to get up nearly 99% of the time. Instead, I fight my way back to sleep.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I as usual made up a lame rationalization and tried to go back to sleep. Finally, still being wide awake shortly after 4:00 a.m., I decided that now was the time to confront my resistance regarding this issue. What happened next caught me completely off guard.
As I sat up on the side of my bed in my cold, dark room, I began to wrestle with a deep sensation of panic. I felt disconnected, separated from spirit, incapable of attempting to connect with my guides. The last thing I wanted to do was to be spiritual. I felt like a complete fraud. My entire journey has been dedicated to deepening my spiritual connections to my guides – yet the thought of doing so during a cold dark morning – even after having received seven full hours of sleep – was terrifying to me. I felt like Jonas in the Bible, wishing I could simply run away from my fears – from the responsibility and expectations that came with that responsibility. I imagined myself inside the dark belly of a cold moist whale.
Such a visualization was actually quite easy to make, given the fact that I was sitting in a cold, moist, and dark room.
Repeatedly, I began to cower in fear, trying to convince myself to lie back down and hide under my covers. Courageously, I forced myself to continue sitting on the side of my bed.
“What if I’m wrong?” thoughts began to flood my mind. “What if I can’t do this, and I am a failure? I have felt so safe while in pursuit of such connections, but when faced with the possibility of actually solidifying such a connection I seem to freeze up with fear and panic.”
At 4:15 a.m., I finally grabbed my notebook and forced myself to begin speed-writing – nothing planned – nothing channeled – just allowing my mind to flow unobstructed. Through written words, I began to analyze my life-long struggle with the early morning hours – my literal hatred (and fear) of getting up too early.
Following are a couple of the passages that I wrote:
“I don’t know how to walk the walk. I am terrified to be found out as a fraud. I have all this amazing spiritual intuition and guidance, but when I hit the 3:00 a.m. wall, it is like I am the Jeffrey Dahmer of spirituality – the serial killer of my soul. I avoid facing these frightening hours because I know that these hours are the do-or-die hours. I don’t feel capable of connecting during the morning hours. I am terrified at the thought of failure, of coming up empty. What will I do if I actually do what I know I must – and if I fail? I will hit rock bottom – I will be the joke of all jokes – the failure of all failures – the fraud of frauds.”
After analyzing my fears and life-long habits of procrastination, I desperately wrote the following:
“Why are these fears so great – so intense? It is as if someone has a gun to my head, threatening me – laughing at me. I don’t think I can face these fears – my worst nightmares.”
“Is this my wall??? Is 3:00 a.m. my real wall? Is this the demon that I need to overcome? My Achilles heel? “
“Even as I write, I want to turn off the lights, crawl back in bed, and hide from what I am doing. It feels so incredibly uncomfortable … three o’clock in the morning is terrifying. It laughs at me, taunts me, and calls me a fraud and a failure.”
“I feel as if someone locked me in a room with a deadly snake – a snake that is invisible, hiding, just waiting for the right moment to strike.”
As I finished writing and finally went back to bed, I realized that I had indeed found my “real” wall – the actual source of my stuck-ness and inability to move forward.
But I still had no idea as to the depth or thickness of the wall, and had no idea how to transcend it. I knew I needed to write about it, but the whole experience was simply too new – too raw – too tender. I needed to first get some rest and search for more clarity.
Channeling For Answers
Friday’s channeling class was amazing. Chaty asked us to each bring a clear glass of water, which she then instructed us to place in front of us during our session. We did not find out until later what the water was for.
During this session, others were simultaneously talking and or singing, creating convenient background distraction, giving me the courage to speak my truth and to talk out loud as well. Throughout the session, I still fought mild fear and resistance. I focused my entire effort on attempting to hear my Higher Self as I asked with all of my heart for help in tearing down this huge wall of morning fear that I had faced in my dark room barely four hours earlier.
The session was amazing. Afterward, I sat on my stool and wrote the following:
I am the stillness … I am the emptiness … I am the tree … I am the flower … I am the water … I am the air … I am the fire.
I had a breakthrough today after my morning silence nightmare – my refusal to face the emptiness. Sitting up at 4:15 a.m. and writing was terrifying – being alone with myself – something I thought that I was an expert at doing. But in reality, being alone with myself is my wall – my deepest fear. That is why I have such a hard time connecting to my guides, and with connecting to structured meditation.
When I connect with Spirit, I do so actively – my mountain time is filled with journal writing, singing, listening to music, hiking, reading, etc… Yet every time I reach a point of “nothingness” I run away – and I now realize that I run away in fear.
I AM NOTHINGNESS.
This is a terrifying thought to Ego. As I tried to channel today, I realized that I am afraid of me – the emptiness of just me. Yes, I said emptiness – the stillness, quietness, complete absence of doing, the complete absence of needing outside stimulation or confirmation. For as long as I can remember I have been emotionally terrified of nothingness, of simply being.
I don’t think I ever realized before today that my beautiful goal of “simply being” is the very same thing as my worst nightmare – “the thought of nothingness”.
Simply being actually is the same as nothingness – yet it is also “all-ness” at the very same time.
I realized that I AM that quiet, still, firmly rooted tree that simply sits there. I AM the flower simply growing and blooming, not depending on any outside confirmation of my beauty. I AM the swallow. I AM the bee. I AM the rock that just sits there – simply being.
Do not fear the being. Embrace it. It will not harm me, for it is my core essence – that which I truly am.
As class ended, Chaty instructed us to drink the water that had been sitting in front of us. As I slowly sipped every precious drop of my water, it felt like pure life energy flowing across my lips and down my throat. In many ways, I felt as if I were drinking myself, pure spirit – the essence of everything we see in this holodeck universe.
After class on Friday, I spent the majority of my remaining day simply watching my breath, imagining myself as a tree, or a flower etc – embracing fully my desire to learn to meditate in the quiet stillness of an empty mind.
That Terrorizing Wall
This afternoon, as I have attempted to adequately “capture into words” yesterday morning’s experience with the terrifying emptiness, I had new insights flood through my soul.
I began to remember many petrifying sleepless mornings, lying helplessly-awake in bed, struggling with mind-boggling fears and terrors – fears caused by confusing and intense transgender struggles. These sleepless mornings began as early as around age ten or eleven, and had persisted well into my older adult life. Even after finally discovering the internal courage to begin making incredibly difficult life changes, my fears continued on, simply shifting form, morphing into new insurmountable obstacles.
These horrible-feeling sleepless mornings were invariably joined by unexplainable emptiness, never-ending nothingness, intense loneliness, terrifying self-hatred, deep hopelessness, and un-resolvable despair. But they were also filled with a pure, genuine, innocent and profound longing for the freedom to simply be loved and accepted – accepted as me, the beautiful person that I really was – that I still am. But the thought of acceptance and peace was fleeting – an impossible fantasy that I dared not to dream.
Even today, while trying to write about these terrorizing early morning encounters with hopelessness, the pressure valve of deeply buried emotion has burst open in my soul, sending huge tears down my now-wet cheeks. I had no idea that these tears still remained inside of me. I had the mistaken belief that all such past trauma was resolved. I now stand corrected.
So there you have it. I believe I have finally excavated the underlying truth – the real gut issue behind my wall – the powerful reason why I continue to consistently refuse to get up during the early morning hours, to more meaningfully connect with my divine guides. With all of my heart, I now believe that this huge intimidating wall is based on a subconscious association with unhealed and unreleased past emotional fear and terror – feelings of hopelessness that nearly destroyed me – paralyzing fear that held me fast in its clutches.
* * * * *
I am starving and the afternoon is late. I think I will go grab a couple of yummy vegetarian burritos.
I feel so relieved to have finally uncovered what my heart confirms is the real underlying cause of my current spiritual roadblock. This is bound to be a tear-jerker as I dig into the pain and emotion – but nonetheless, I cannot wait to begin.
But first I must eat.
Saturday – same day – 6:30 p.m.
I had every intention of finishing my writing after my 3:00 p.m. late-lunch break – but I can only presume that the powers-that-be have different plans for my evening.
As I returned to my room shortly after 4:00 p.m., my stomach felt deeply bloated and uncomfortable so I took a rest. I had planned to skip meditation tonight and just plow right through my healing followed by more writing – but since I did not feel capable of either, I decided to go meditate instead – not especially a good idea either. While I found spiritual peace during the long meditation session, my body was physically rebelling through what felt like a quiet eternity.
As I now sit back at my laptop keyboard, I feel as if the wheels of the Universe may be working on a new secret plan. I’m going to bed right now. I must give my body a rest – sufficient time to heal. I have no idea what will happen tonight, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be awake and processing intense emotional baggage during the early morning hours – and I may indeed be purging emotion in more ways than flowing alligator tears and jaw-shaking physical release. (LOL)
I am ready, willing, and able to tackle whatever comes up (or out) – and I am anxious to have this unexpected emotional processing behind me (no pun intended). I am so grateful that I have learned such powerful techniques for releasing buried emotions.
Bring on the rain – and I probably won’t even use an umbrella.
Monday, September 13 – 7:00 a.m.
I’m skipping yoga this morning – I still don’t feel quite up to moving and stretching.
Wow, what an intense 36 hours this has been. After going to bed at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night, my body was in full rebellion mode. The nausea was mild but threatening – quite enough to get my attention. The bloating and cramping were intense from the start. The diarrhea increased progressively throughout the night, and I also experienced fever with cold chills all night long. Oh, and then there was the severe headache right smack dab in the middle of my forehead.
Ego wanted me to feel miserable, to wallow in my pain and suffering, to place the back of my right hand against my forehead and to cry out in despair: “woe is me.”
But two very powerful memories again guided my long night to a very peaceful outcome. The first memory was of my Olmec Shaman friend, Jose Manuel, when he uttered those now-engrained-in-my-soul words “Brenda, there is a big difference between pain and suffering.”
Immediately upon remembering those words, I decided that “yes, my body is indeed experiencing a great amount of pain and discomfort, but no, I do not need to suffer. No, I will not suffer.”
The second memory was more recent. It was words that Keith (the Chocolate Shaman) had uttered during our first encounter – my group session with the rest of my Sun Course. He told one of my fellow “Sunnies” something like “The door is wide open. You don’t need to live in these lower energies until you have them all cleaned up. You are free to leave anytime – to walk out of that doorway – to move to a higher-energy living space where you can then process your emotions with more love and clarity.”
Yes, my body was completely miserable and in full rebellion, but I decided right then and there that my Mind and Spirit were going to remain calm, loving, and peaceful – regardless of whatever might unfold in my upcoming nighttime experience.
By 8:30 p.m., a flash of insight hit me in a powerful way. “Brenda, you are very severely dehydrated, and your body is filled with toxins. DRINK LOTS OF WATER … AND DRINK IT NOW.”
As I pondered on the issue of dehydration, I realized that I had indeed only drunk perhaps one glass of water and 16 ounces of lemonade – this was my entire consumption of fluids all day long. I also realized that I have been feeling quite sluggish in yoga for about two days – two days in which I have really been pushing myself with hip opener exercises – desperately stretching the limits of my hip muscles while trying to further increase my flexibility.
Yes, my body was filled with toxins from stretching locked-up muscles. But why was the sudden physical rebellion happening now? Then I remembered the emotion that I uncovered right before going to my late lunch – that powerful burst of tears accompanied by incredibly intuitive insights telling me that my intense fear of the early morning – a fear that has lasted for perhaps 45 years – was based on childhood terrors of the loneliness, the emptiness, the nothingness, the hopelessness of sleepless nights – nights where panic and fear ruled my feelings of emotional helplessness.
Then I thought of my dear spider visitor and realized that perhaps he has been reminding me that my morning panics began right around the same time that the spiders first visited the basement bedroom of a confused, tired, and scared ten-year-old little boy – so very long ago.
Even after years of powerful healing of intense emotional issues, my fear and discomfort with being awake during the dark morning hours has continued to inexplicably plague me.
It was only on Saturday afternoon when the light bulb had finally flashed brilliantly – when the final subconscious link was connected – when I realized that my inability to tolerate the dark moonlight hours was based on a lifetime of hopeless-feeling nights.
While the tears I had shed on Saturday afternoon were not long-lasting, I believe that the powerful subconscious realization – the realization of from whence my morning fears originate – had indeed released heaping boatloads of toxins into my body. They were more than enough toxins to push me over the hump into experiencing flu-like symptoms.
Immediately, I began gulping down water as fast as my dehydrated body could tolerate. I drank an entire liter in less than an hour. For the remainder of the night I was up making restroom runs, often as frequently as two or three times each hour.
As midnight approached, I told myself that if I was still awake at 3:00 a.m., that I would indeed get up and begin some serious emotional processing in an attempt to uncover whatever else might be buried deep inside. But for the time being, I was just too exhausted to even think about it.
Even at 2:30, my commitment to this plan was still intact – but I was drained from a complete absence of any sleep, none whatsoever. Even so, I remained calm and submissively peaceful.
Amazingly, the time between 2:30 and 4:15 a.m. disappeared into nothingness. Perhaps I actually fell asleep, perhaps I was just in such a deep meditation that it didn’t matter – but when I realized that I had missed the magical 3:00 a.m. hour I felt a slight sense of relief. “Perhaps the Universe is giving me permission to simply rest” I told myself as I continued to lie quite uncomfortably in my hard bed.
When daylight finally lit up the interior of my little bedroom, I felt physically drained, utterly exhausted – but remarkably peaceful. As I lay there meditating, I was intuitively reminded of a faint image that seemed to have been with me throughout much of the night. Something told me that the image was important – that I needed to remember. As I pondered more deeply on the blurry photo in my mind, a sense of intuitive clarity finally settled in, resonating powerfully.
During my more meditative pauses of that long difficult night, I had been visited by a mental image of the “Temperance Angel”. What was engrained in the lens of my subconscious mind was the spitting image of the angel portrayed on the Temperance Card of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Again, Temperance means the ability to find peace and love in any situation.
Monday, Same Day – 11:45 a.m.
My memories of Sunday are simply a peaceful, headache-filled blur. Aside from necessary restroom runs, I only left my room a few times – purchasing much needed water – dropping off laundry and later picking it up – two small bowls of rice at a nearby restaurant – and a short sit in the sun.
I had hoped to have more strength, but continued instead to focus on “loving what is” – reminding myself to have Temperance. My body simply cried out for bed rest, and that is exactly what I gave it. I even skipped evening meditation without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt.
Throughout most of Sunday, my Spider visitor again took up post at the very top of the small glass windows of my pyramid room. Saturday, while eating my veggie burrito lunch, the little eight-legged spiritual guide had quietly retired to his hiding place. But on Sunday, he reappeared to watch over me during what turned out to be a very long day of peaceful loving rest.
Listening to Chaty’s advice – advice that was well engrained in the back of my mind – I ignored my desire to flip out my IPOD as a mental distraction for the seemingly never-ending day. Not once during this experience have I done anything except to be present – to be a tall silent tree – to be me, being with myself, with no outside distraction.
My stomach remained very weak and my forehead still felt as if something were firmly pressing against every sensitive nerve – but I remained in peaceful Temperance.
Finally, by Sunday evening, I mustered enough physical strength to try something – hoping that just maybe it might relieve the intense feeling of painful pressure in my forehead. I was intuitively reminded of my discovery several years ago that my headaches seem to originate with the muscles of my neck. Not believing that such an intense ache could be coming from so far away, I resisted the intuition – but finally I moved my fingers to the tight muscles on the right side of my lower neck.
Digging deeply with my still-weak finger, while turning my head just so, I managed to barely slip my right thumb tips between the muscle and the bone. As I began to gently press and massage, the pain in my forehead suddenly increased ten fold, sending a lightning bolt of pain throughout my forehead. Realizing that I had hit on the mother-lode of buried tension, I continued to work the muscle while ignoring the ever increasing, almost unbearable pain in my forehead. Soon my forehead felt relaxed and free. The debilitating pain was gone, and a feeling of hope returned to my weary body – hope that I might actually get some sleep – hope that I might have turned the corner in my physical healing.
Amazingly, I was able to acquire considerable rest through most of the much-shorter darkness last night. When I awoke for the final time this morning, I felt completely rested and alert with absolutely no headache – none whatsoever. Yes, my stomach is still constantly reminding me that it is still on the mend – and it presently questioning whether I really should have eaten that oatmeal with fruit just a little while ago – but my emotional and physical energy seems to back at 100%. I know that the physical will follow.
* * * * *
Throughout this long process of healing and self-discovery, I have often been intuitively reminded of a phrase spoken by Ronald Reagan during the 1980’s when he uttered those famous words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.” As I imagine these words, I have simultaneously felt my Higher Self intuitively speaking to me, saying, “Brenda Larsen, tear down that wall.”
In the process of these past several days, I have found and destroyed a couple of spiritual walls. The first had to do with “Speaking my truth” during face-to-face, in-person encounters while plowing through fears, pride, stubbornness, and Ego. The second wall blindsided me out of nowhere – somehow having managed to remain completely invisible – transparently hidden from my conscious awareness.
I cannot honestly say whether my “3:00 a.m.” wall is destroyed or not. Only time will reveal that answer. What I can say is that I feel like a totally different person. I no longer feel panic at the thought of getting up during the early morning hours. I no longer experience unexplainable resistance to the idea of meditating or writing while the moon still shines.
As it turns out, I don’t think I needed to dredge up any still-suppressed tear-jerking emotions in order to blast this wall to smithereens. Those emotions seem to have already been taken care of. All I needed to do was to complete the subconscious dots – to shine a bright light on my crazy fear – to realize that it was based on nothing at all – nothingness. It was all simply a lingering subconscious association with pain already resolved and dealt with.
Channeling For Peace
This morning we had our final channeling practice. As Chaty announced what we would be doing, my heart froze with momentary panic. She told us that we would be taking turns speaking whatever comes to us – one person at a time.
“I cannot do this.” I told myself with panic.
“Yes I can and I will.” I responded with confidence.
Within a minute or so, I decided that not only would I do it, but I would go first. As it turns out, someone else beat me to the starting gates, but I took second position. I found myself completely connecting with feelings and then expressing them – the same thing I do everyday while engaged in inspired conversation or while writing. For my first round, I didn’t have a lot to say – but I said something that was deeply connected to my present journey – something that had simply come to me earlier during meditation.
“When we shine a light on our deepest fears,” I began, “we discover that they are merely butterflies waiting to show us the way that we can fly home.”
I was done. One by one, everyone else began to speak similar truths – some quite short – and a few more lengthy. Having broken through my unreasonable fear, I quietly waited for the next words of wisdom to flash into my mind. Then, when no one else was talking I took another turn. I must have done this at least ten times, with no feeling of fear – none whatsoever. The process felt so incredibly peaceful – so natural.
It is amazing how simply shining a bright light on my fears this week has indeed shown me that those fears were indeed simply butterflies, guiding me on my amazing path of growth, showing me the way to heal so that I can fly ever so much closer to my divine home.
What is even more amazing is that “I AM that butterfly” guiding myself home.
Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved