Warm rays of sunlight radiate from the azure blue sky as I traverse the narrow paved road toward the eastern boundary of San Marcos. Only three short days have elapsed since my last visit with Keith, the Chocolate Shaman, but even still, intuition is clearly guiding me back to request yet another session.
During my Monday visit with Merrill, “The Crystal Lady”, I had come away quite puzzled by her question, “Brenda, what is all of this sadness, anger, and energy of victimization that is radiating from your heart?”
Merrill was quite confident as those words had flowed from her tongue. My initial reaction was one of conditioned ego resistance, reassuring me that Merrill was crazy, and that no such lower-vibration energy existed anywhere inside of me.
“I would be the first to know if such emotions were still raging within,” I had gently pondered.
Yet as I listened honestly while Merrill explained to me what she was sensing, I had to admit to myself that I too began to intuitively detect the buried presence of another layer of hidden darkness whose presence had skillfully evaded my former detection.
Spending Tuesday in an all-day writing session had been an extremely healing process. During that long day of inspired writing, the mysterious energy’s presence had seemed to evaporate from my awareness. Nevertheless, on Wednesday morning, October 6, I found myself faithfully honoring a previous Jedi voice that had told me to go see Keith again. Putting on my walking shoes, I began the short ten-minute walk.
Searching For Doors
As expected, Keith responds to my impromptu visit by pulling out two comfy green camping chairs, placing them on his small outdoor porch, and telling me that “Now is as good a time as any.”
“I want to explore the energy that Merrill told me about.” I tell Keith while simultaneously stating that I have no clue as to the nature of the unseen and mostly-unfelt emotional energy that remains buried inside of me. In fact, ego is still trying to convince me that the mysterious emotions are merely a figment of Merrill’s imagination – telling me that such emotions do not really exist at all.
“Close your eyes and connect to your Higher Self.” Keith begins to guide me. “Pay attention to the sensations throughout your body, and let me know when you feel something that you suspect might be significant.”
Seconds later, I notice a mosquito uncharacteristically biting me on the neck. For some reason, these little winged vampires rarely feast on my neck or facial skin. As I explain my “thoughts of neck-itching” to Keith, I intuitively know that this is just a random act of distraction – knowing that the innocent little mosquito has no relationship whatsoever to the quest that lays before me. Redoubling my meditation effort, I again focus on bodily sensations. Several minutes seem to pass – minutes filled with absolutely no intuitive sensations whatsoever – before I finally open my mouth again to speak.
“I’m beginning to feel a tight anxiety-like cramping in my upper chest, right below my heart area.” I explain, while searching for words to describe to Keith the confusing sensation that is just starting to manifest itself in my body.
Keith immediately responds, congratulating me, confirming that his guides indeed are telling him that the focus of our session needs to begin with my heart.
Keith soon asks me to close my eyes again and to re-enter my meditation, instructing me to search for a door somewhere in my heart, asking me to speak up and to let him know when I locate it.
For five or ten minutes I simply sit with my eyes closed, focusing with genuine intent but sensing and seeing absolutely nothing. Finally, as I am about to give up, an image presents itself to my inner eyes, as if appearing out of nowhere. While what I see is not quite photograph-quality, it is clear and vivid enough to make a firm impact on my memories.
“It is a heavy wooden door with a rounded top.” I begin to explain to Keith. “The door is already swung wide open, and the room inside is pitch black.”
As I stare at that eerie open door, a sensation of fear begins to grip my soul. Even though the intent of my meditation is to identify and to lovingly explore what is inside of that room, a major part of me becomes suddenly resistant to the thought of continuing forward.
“I feel like I don’t want to go inside.” I mumble to Keith while continuing to visualize that menacing doorway. “I know I need to go in … I know I want to go in … but at the same time I feel an uncanny fear.”
Keith begins to talk, encouraging me to find the strength to enter the room. With my eyes still closed, I try to listen, but instead, my attention is powerfully drawn to another image that briefly flashes into my mind’s eye.
On the ground, directly in front of that “wide-open wooden doorway into darkness”, I catch a sudden glimpse of a small basinet in which I see two small babies. Intuitively I know that one is a baby boy, the other being a tiny girl. The image only remains in my mind for a brief second or two. Surprisingly, as the image fades back into nothingness, I intuitively know the meaning behind the two twin babies. My mind quickly flashes to an unexpected memory – a memory of a profound story – a story that completely captivates my imagination – a story about which I had not thought in quite some time.
Approximately five years ago I attended a few social gatherings in the home of a woman named Helen. In the course of several close healing conversations, I had felt confident enough to reveal to Helen a few details about my transgender journey. As fate would have it, Helen and I were both quite busy at the time and our friendship never really evolved beyond the occasional email encounter. But to my surprise, she one day sent me an unexpected communication – a long and loving email in which Helen shared a unique story that had been given to her on my behalf.
Oddly enough, the circumstances of how Helen received this story are clouded by my forgetfulness. I don’t remember if she dreamed the story or if it was given to her in some other intuitive way. I vaguely recall Helen indicating to me that she has some psychic abilities. Regardless of the story’s origin, however, I clearly remember the general details that Helen related in her beautiful email. Her words told a story that had touched me very deeply at both the emotional and spiritual levels. Following is the theme of what Helen shared so long ago.
“Two little angels, a little boy and a little girl, were sitting on a cloud looking down at the beautiful earth below. The two were destined to be twins, and were waiting excitedly to be born together. But then, during their mother’s pregnancy, something had unexpectedly happened to the little girl’s body. The fetus had died during the early stages of pregnancy and only the little boy’s tiny developing body remained. The two little angels lovingly discussed their shared dilemma, debating each of their futures while discussing the missions they had hoped to accomplish on earth. Then, in a pure act of unconditional love, the little boy angel looked at his planned sister-to-be and told her with loving emotion, ‘Your mission on earth is much more important than my own. I want you to take my body and go to earth in my place so that you can fulfill your mission.’”
As I quickly recall this story, I patiently wait for Keith to finish his words of encouragement as he tries to build my resolve to enter the dark room. As soon as I feel it appropriate for me to speak, I quickly interrupt and change topics, explaining to Keith what I just saw. I then share with him a quick synopsis of the above story.
“Could that story be literal?” I eagerly ask with a sense of deep curiosity. “Could what Helen shared with me have been what really happened?”
After a few seconds of pondering, Keith responds confidently, “No Brenda, I’m getting the intuition that this story is indeed true in a metaphorical sense, but not in a literal sense.”
Keith’s answer resonates true in my heart. With many clues darting around in my curious mind, I am anxious to discover just where this emotional journey might take me next.
Into The Dark
With my eyes still closed, Keith guides me to begin walking toward the entrance of the dark ominous room, the image of which is still clear and vivid in my mind’s eye. Without taking a single meditative step, still feeling quite anxious and tentative, I feel myself being pulled into the energy of that forbidden space. Keith asks me to look around and to describe what I can feel or see. The room is so black that I cannot visualize a single image, but in spite of the darkness I intuitively feel the energy around me. The emotions are thick and intense – emotions of fear, sadness, anger, and victimization. Amazingly, I clearly recognize that, rather than experiencing these feelings myself, I am instead the conscious observer, observing the dense emotions of something or someone hiding in that room.
While exploring the mental darkness of this eerily black room, I begin to contemplate the metaphorical story of a little girl angel taking over the body of a little boy angel. The whole story begins to make deep intuitive sense.
Suddenly, I feel the presence of an angry energy representing the voice of that little boy angel. It is my own emotional energies from around age 25 to 30, during an intense period of my life in which I genuinely struggled with all of my heart trying to squash the feminine feelings that surged unexplainably within me. The male energy is angry. He doesn’t remember the agreement made before coming to earth. He doesn’t remember that he had asked the feminine energy to take over his body so that she could complete her mission on earth. The only thing that this male energy is willing to feel is his anger and victimization.
“How dare you push your way into my life,” the energy lashes out in my mind. “You just waltzed into my body like a bull in a china closet, pushing me out of the way, squashing me into a corner and locking me away.”
“I had dreams.” The internal voice angrily continues. “I could have fulfilled them … I would have fulfilled them. I was well on my way to having a happy, normal, and comfortable life. I wanted to grow old with my wife and family – to be a normal husband, father, and grandfather – to have a close and loving relationship with my children and grandchildren – to have them climbing and giggling on my lap. I wanted to serve in the church, to relax, to be normal, to have a house with a white picket fence, and to simply live out my peaceful happy dreams.”
“But then you ruined it all!” The male energy screams at me again. “How dare you! How dare you! How dare you! You shattered my dreams. You devastated not only my life but the lives of everyone I love. How dare you!”
Without saying a word to Keith, I begin to engage this angry voice in an experiential therapy session, allowing it free reign to rant and rave regarding the horrible victimization to which I had forced him to submit. Keith had previously turned me loose to deal with whatever comes up on my own, simply instructing me to connect with my Higher Self. This is exactly what I proceed to do. Yes, I know that I can open my eyes and ask Keith for help if I get stuck, but I am determined to face this issue on my own – to develop the confidence that I can do this type of work without external assistance.
For what feels like at least thirty minutes or longer, I allow this voice to angrily rage inside of my head, freely expressing his intense sadness, anger, frustration, and victimization. I lovingly listen to the constant dribble of “woe is me” emotions flowing through my mind. I literally feel as if this is a separate energy living inside of me – a separate entity that is poisoning me with his vitriol and spiteful feelings. I am quite amused by how I actually feel as if I am a counselor, and this voice is my client.
While maintaining this degree of “professional separation”, I give myself permission to cry real tears of emotion as I deeply understand and truly empathize with the story of how Brenda came into his body and choked away his very life. I try to explain to him how he had agreed to give his body to Brenda – how her mission was his ultimate destiny – how he had actually chosen this path before being born.
He is not interested in any of that. He acts like he understands what I am saying, but the second that I let him speak again, he goes right back into the same angry arguments.
Unconditional love radiates from my heart as I continue to engage this voice in silent conversation. With Higher Self as my partner, I listen, I love, and I cry – but I never validate victimhood nor do I engage in false empathy.
Finally, after nearly thirty minutes I reach what feels like an impasse. I have reached the limits of my abilities and knowledge, having done all that I intuitively know how to do. I have lovingly listened to this raging energy, allowed it to emotionally express through freely-flowing tears, embraced the validity of its hurt feelings, and then tried to help lovingly re-write the outcome – but the angry voice is still there, as if it were a sleeping fire-breathing dragon that had finally awoken from a 25-year mystical trance of suppression.
“Are you following what is going on here?” I ask Keith inquisitively, as I begin to ask for feedback and assistance.
“Yes I am,” Keith begins, “and I can sense that you are making great progress.”
“Do you know precisely what has been going on in my mind?” I again query.
“No, I don’t know the exact process that you are going through,” Keith volunteers, “but I am very connected to your energy. You have been doing a wonderful job in dealing with it on your own. My promptings have guided me to simply sit here while holding the space for you.”
“One thing I do know and trust, however,” Keith continues, “is that I will know exactly what I need to know and say, exactly when I need to know or say it.”
For several minutes, I take this opportunity to engage Keith in a fascinating question and answer dialog about his intuitive therapeutic process – picking his brain about exactly how much he knows and when he knows it. It has always been my experience that Keith does indeed know exactly what to say and when to say it. His energy intuitions continue to amaze me.
Parallel Dimensions
As I fill Keith in on the internal journey through which I had just passed, I end by saying “But that energy is still there, and it is still very angry at me. I don’t know what else to do.”
Seconds later, Keith guides me to again close my eyes and to begin visualizing a part of myself in a parallel dimension – a dimension in which that unhappy male energy had succeeded in living out his normal traditional life.
“Connect with that part of yourself.” Keith tells me. “Describe his life to me. Tell me what you feel.”
The process is much easier than I expect. Seconds later, I am telling Keith exactly what that angry male voice had hoped for. In this other dimensions, that male energy is indeed living his dreams. He is happy, fulfilled, and content – yet a little puzzled by something deep inside of him that he can not quite identify.
Then the conversation becomes quite difficult for me to embrace. Keith begins to explain that this other parallel dimension is real – that this other part of myself did indeed split off during my younger years – and that this part of myself really is living his dreams in this other parallel dimension.
For the next twenty minutes or so, I grill Keith with questions about parallel dimensions. I am very familiar with many of the space-time theories of quantum physics – the ideas that an unlimited number of possible parallel dimensions exist, and that the dimension that we actually experience is the one on which we focus with our conscious mind.
But to my logical mind, this is all “mumbo-jumbo” – it is stuff around which I can not wrap my limited brain. I can understand “in concept” that at each decision point in our life, our consciousness follows the decision that we actually make. But my logical mind can not grasp the concept that the other decision possibilities (the ones that we didn’t make) also continue to unfold in parallel dimensions.
I think of it as kind of like a movie with an unlimited number of endings – endings that grow in exponential numbers with each decision process. In such a movie, the story would be created by the viewer. All possible endings would be pre-filmed and available for selection, but the actually movie experienced by the viewer would depend on interaction with the viewer’s consciousness during various decision points as the plot gradually unfolds.
I find it kind of fun to envision my life as this amazing collection of movie endings, with each ending playing out in different dimensions – fun yes, but I still can not wrap my logical mind around the process, even though I want to believe what Keith has told me.
Finally I unexpectedly remember a state of peace that I reached after a past-life regression during my Moon Course – a past life regression where I later stated to myself that “I do not know if this was real or simply an imagined experience that was presented to me by Spirit – but regardless of which it was, the healing was amazing and I could never have thought of this on my own.”
Surrendering to this realization, I finally convince myself to fully embrace Keith’s approach even though my left brain still believes it to be just plain silly.
Keith instructs me to release the energy of that angry male voice inside of me – allowing it to happily live out its own life in peace – trusting that it will indeed experience everything that it ever hoped for in that other parallel dimension.
After about twenty minutes of further discussion with Keith, I finally reach a point where I can allow my imagination to fully embrace Keith’s words. Amazingly, as I do so with genuine belief, I feel the angry male energy inside quietly fade away as it simply disappears from my awareness. As if by some act of unexplainable magic, I intuitively know that the bitter victimized energy has totally dissolved – it has totally vanished.
Somehow, as I recognized and embraced the possibilities of parallel dimensions, this energy simply let go and went off to live its own happy life – a separate life where he could happily follow his traditional Mormon beliefs – a life of peace and conformity – a life of loving family-life, of normal jobs, and of happy retirement. Yes, I can now continue to live the passions of my present day inspired journey while that other part of me is free to live out his own dreams. Neither of us needs to be energetically tied to the other.
Proving the Imagination
Beginning in late July and early August, during my earliest sessions with Keith, I often found myself asking him, “How can I know if this is real or if this is simply wishful imagination?”
Several times over those first few months, Keith had repeatedly explained the answer to me – an answer that his own guides had taught to him. In the logical left-brained world, much of the spirituality intuitive work that we do literally does feel as if it might be just a silly imaginary procedure.
“The proof is in waiting a few weeks to see the actual results of the intuitive work that you do.” Keith has repeatedly emphasized.
This is exactly how the trust in my own intuitive process has developed. Years ago, I believed that all of my intuitions were just plain silliness. But little by little, as I began to cautiously follow my biggest of intuitions, the process of extended time always had a way of showing me that those intuitions had been spot-on perfect. I gradually began to notice amazing synchronicities everywhere around me. The more that I started trusting those unexplainable intuitions, the more the synchronous events seemed to show up in my life at just the perfect moments.
As I learned to rely on those bigger intuitions, I began to develop trust in similar feelings that were smaller, those bringing less energetic intensity. It was then that I began to feel more frequent guidance. But even still, my intuitive awareness was not fully tuned. I often went days or weeks between “trustable” intuitive feelings.
My intuitions always come with a little burst of energetic knowing and awareness – something that is difficult if not impossible to for me to explain – but something which I can now easily recognize if the feeling is strong enough. Somehow, I just know that a feeling is true.
Gradually, especially during my travels, I have fine tuned my awareness to increasingly smaller and ever gentler intuitive vibrations. Now, as I frequently work with Keith, I am beginning to distinguish and trust even tinier bursts of intuitive feelings.
As Keith coached me to embrace the concept that my male energy could indeed be living out his dreams in a parallel dimension, my left brain was laughing in disbelief. Yet, in the midst of that resistance, I recognized a tiny intuitive confirmation telling me that I needed to explore what Keith was telling me – telling me to trust the process, to forget what I thought I knew, to lower my defenses.
Today, as I finally write about this experience, eleven days have already zoomed by – ample time for me to convince myself that what I experienced on October 6 was indeed real – real enough to bring many true healing results into my life.
As I walked away from Keith’s home on that beautiful Wednesday afternoon, I felt light and free. The first thing Sandra said when she saw me was “Wow, you look different – younger, more feminine, and happier.” Over the next several days, I received several such unsolicited random comments from others.
The real shocker came four days later when I was talking via Skype to one of my nieces in San Diego, CA.. After I told her about my experience with Keith, Carol paused and then said me something like, “Brenda, that is amazing. Just yesterday I was looking at your blog photo, and I had to do a double take. I suddenly realized how much lighter and more feminine you looked … and that was before I heard your story today.”
But my real healing confirmation has nothing to do with comments from others. I literally feel different. I no longer feel the buried guilt and pain of that suppressed part of myself that had to die in order for Brenda to gain life. I literally feel freer, younger, more social, and more childlike. A forgotten part of me that was dead is now stepping back out into the beautiful light of healing and growth. Yes, with all of my heart, I know that what I did with Keith some eleven days ago was real enough to cause great healing, and that is all that matters to my left brain.
As I attempt to write about parallel dimensions, I have to emphasize that I am extremely far from being an expert in the study of Quantum Physics and the concepts of parallel dimensions. While I have read several books and attended many seminars discussing such topics, I have never seriously studied nor meditated on the same. The idea of parallel dimensions had always made conceptual sense at a very abstract level, but I had never before considered it to be important for me and my own healing.
Today I am finally beginning to grasp at a little more concrete understanding. For many years I have accepted the concept that we create our own reality and that this Universe is indeed a dream-like projection originating in the Mind of our Divine Source. As I contemplate my recent experience with Keith while pondering this concept, the idea of parallel dimensions suddenly makes so much more sense to me.
If the Universe really is a sophisticated mental projection, then allowing for parallel mind thoughts to simultaneously live out their existences in other projected realities is actually quite a simple concept to grasp – mind boggling yes, but it is indeed quite simple.
Revisiting the Energy
To my surprise, before we finished our session together, Keith again asked me to go into meditation and to connect with the male part of my energy that is now living out his life happily in another dimension.
As I connected with that distant part of myself, I was surprised to feel an even deeper sense of contentment. His puzzling sense of hidden confusion was gone, and he was even happier than I remembered.
“He feels as if an angel visited him and transformed something in his life.” Keith told me with confidence. “He doesn’t know what it was, but he feels lighter and quite grateful.”
Intuitively, I knew that Keith’s words were true.
Deep Surrender
As I left Keith’s home after that amazing mid-day experience – on a day that now seems so very long ago – my afternoon was far from over. The next thing I did was to walk over to Nadia’s home with intentions to sign up for her two month healing course. For two weeks since hearing about Nadia’s course, I had rejected the idea with firm resolve. Suddenly, two days earlier, the resistance had softened to firm gelatin. That afternoon, I completely and joyfully surrendered to intuitions guiding me to eagerly jump in with heart, mind and soul.
The course has two main goals – the first being for me to personally experience two months of therapies, cleanses, healing, and growth – the second being to teach us the basics of many different therapies, including Neuro-Lymphatic massage, Reflexology, Shiatsu Massage and meridians, Teishin, Auricular Therapy, Reiki (levels 1 through Master), Chi Nei Tsung, Crystal Healing, Acupressure, and Sacred Geometry.
While I still have no idea what many of these procedures entail, I am actually excited to broaden my horizons, to learn how to do them myself, and to expand my intuitions. The latter is my deeper goal – rubbing shoulders with Nadia’s amazing intuition for two full months of in-depth training. Nadia’s teaching is deeply entwined with her Spiritual philosophies which seem to line up in profound ways with my own deeply held beliefs.
For the next week, my life suddenly expanded with additional busywork commitments. I had books to read, questions to answer, and a need for quick cash. In the middle of three separate day-trips to an ATM in Panajachel, I also participated in a Kriya Yoga breathing class while attempting to maintain and develop new budding social relationships.
I became so busy that, before I could blink, another week had passed, and my classes were about to begin.
Unexpected Tears
It was Tuesday morning, October 12 – the day before beginning my next journey into the vast unknown. As part of our suggested reading for Nadia’s course, I was devouring the book “Anatomy of the Spirit” by Caroline Myss. As I eagerly neared the end of the book, I stumbled upon a story that unexpectedly caused the floodgates of my emotions to open wide.
On page 272, Carolyn was relating portions of the true story of a man named Jim Garrison. Jim was born in China as the child of American missionary parents. At age five, Jim’s internal spiritual outlook on life was profoundly changed when he wandered into a Buddhist temple and observed a monk meditating while a fly continually landed on his face. Beginning at that time, Jim became deeply drawn to Eastern spiritual traditions and could not fully embrace many of the Christian teachings as they were being taught to him.
At age seven, after being sent to a Protestant boarding school, Jim reports being severely beaten because he would not agree with what the missionaries were teaching about God. At age nine he came to the defense of a Catholic girl who was also a student at his boarding school. Other students were harassing her because of her Catholic beliefs. As a result of his standing up for the girl, Jim tells of being put into solitary confinement for two weeks.
Shortly afterward, one of the dorm mothers gathered all the other children together in a room to give them candy. From the next room, Jim heard the woman tell the children that they could have more candy if they would agree not to play with Jim until he accepted Christ.
As I read these shocking words, tears began to stream down my cheeks. The story triggered emotions buried deeply within my own heart – emotions that I thought I had already healed. I now realize that I had indeed already healed my understanding of my daughter with unconditional love, but that I had never healed some of the buried emotions from the experience itself … but I am getting a little ahead of myself.
A Story of Love
It is with extreme caution that I publicly share the following story. This is a story involving my family, especially my oldest daughter, a beautiful woman whom I love with all of my heart. Sharing about family emotions has such a potential for misunderstanding. I deeply apologize in advance if my words offend or open raw wounds for anyone who may read this. My intention is pure. Mine is an intention to share a story about love – a story of how I allowed myself to feel wounded and how I have since experienced profound healing.
Nearly fourteen years ago, when I first transitioned to my new life as Brenda, I was the unexpected recipient of an amazing display of unconditional love that emanated from the heart of my sixteen year old daughter. In a time where I had already fully embraced the possibility that I may lose contact with everyone that I love, my daughter’s deep Christ-like love and involvement in my life came to me as an amazing and cherished blessing.
During that period of my life, I intuitively knew what I had to do to remain alive – but my confidence was lacking. After years of fighting with myself, in a desperate act of self preservation, I pushed my entire life out onto the poker table in front of me, fully recognizing that I may lose everything with the next deal of the cards. But I knew that if I didn’t take the risk that I would certainly die. Even if I somehow managed to not kill myself, I was already dying an emotional death, perpetuating depression that would eventually decay my body through overwhelming sadness and stress.
I half expected all of my children to reject and to hate me. The older two boys were already living away from home, and I feared that I may never regain their love and respect. But my daughter’s amazing support and beautiful unconditional love literally made it possible for me to have the courage to reach out in an attempt to maintain contact with all of my children, especially the three younger ones.
Then one day, after two or three years of basking in that beautiful loving connection with my four younger children, I suddenly realized that my daughter was no longer talking to me. I asked her questions, trying to understand what might have changed – but received no answers, simply blank stares. At the same time, I also noticed that the younger three children also seemed to be more distant than they had previously been.
I begged my former wife to share any insights that she might know. She had only sketchy details herself, but reluctantly shared with me the disturbing news as she interpreted it. To this day, I still do not know the truth from my daughter’s viewpoint. All I know are the few bits and pieces that I was given second hand – those being the story of how someone in the church told my daughter that loving me unconditionally as she had been doing was actually trapping me in my sins – keeping me from repenting and returning to the fold. Someone had given my daughter the notion that the only way to really love me was to temporarily withhold her love until I repented.
As I heard these devastating words, I was heartbroken. My emotions remained in utter turmoil for several years. I felt as if my daughter and I were both victims of the judgment of a well-meaning but misguided church leader. From today’s perspective, I now realize that what happened was part of a process that needed to happen and to unfold exactly as it did. But at the time I felt as if my entire life had once-again been ripped out from under me. Ironically, I was at the time, pursuing rebaptism in the Mormon faith – but that is another long story for another day.
I never judged my daughter for what happened, but I feared that she judged me greatly. I felt that she was as much a victim as was I, and I longed for the opportunity to heal the relationship. One day, just over six years ago, I did indeed achieve much of that healing in a way that rocked my world. I was not able to heal my daughter’s pain, but through one of the therapeutic emotional healing workshops where I volunteered, I benefited from a profound experience that gave me deep personal insight into the pain that my children must be feeling – seeing our relationship through their eyes rather than through my own.
At that time in August of 2004, my entire life perspective changed. I began to understand the difference between conditional and unconditional love, and I set my goals on a new standard. I developed a profound desire to learn how to love my children unconditionally – loving them with no hopeful expectations – shining love in their direction with no ulterior motive or hidden desire – ignoring events that seemed to figuratively stab me in the heart – simply doing the right thing for the right reason while expecting nothing back.
In the process of that amazing healing I shed boatloads of tears that resulted in me feeling more energized and alive than I had felt in years. Almost immediately, I noticed a profound energy shift in my relationship with most of my children – even though they had been completely unaware of my processing. Whether they shifted at the same time as me, I do not know. I only know that my personal shift caused me to see the whole relationship dynamic in entirely different ways.
Since that time, the journey of the past six years has been a roller coaster ride of unexpected joys and scary nail-biting curves. I would be greatly deceiving myself if I were to try to say that my relationship with family is perfect and healed. A huge gulf of awkwardness still exists between us. I have no doubt that my children love me profoundly, and I know for a fact that my love for them is deep and unconditional – but the little details about religious and value differences still seem to create an ever-present elephant in the room. My children cannot relate to the many changes and shifts (both physical and spiritual) that I have made in my life, and I know that I could never go back to the beliefs of my past – beliefs that are still an integral part of their lives.
So for now, I still choose to simply live my life in the most genuine way possible while continuing my quest to send love through my heart and other energetic pathways.
I do have to admit, however, that as I write these words, my eyes are again tearing up. There are obviously deeper emotions that I still need to bring into the light so that they may heal.
Triggered Trauma
So now you have the background – the details of why the brief story of Jim Garrison in Caroline Myss’s book had such an emotional impact on my soul. Tears began to stream down my cheeks when I read Jim Garrison’s own words saying “I heard her tell the children that they could have more candy if they would agree not to play with me until I accepted Christ.”
I was shocked by the intensity of my triggered emotions. I really had believed my past pain to be healed and behind me. The fact that my pain was still so raw caught me completely off guard.
I now understand that I tend to process my emotional pain in layers. At any given time, Spirit guides me to process what I am capable of handling. But if I don’t keep at it, the remainder stays stuffed and buried until further events trigger another encounter. The emotions that came up for me this past Tuesday were different – at a much deeper level – than those that I processed six years ago.
Immediately on recognizing the process through which I was passing, I isolated myself in my room and read Jim Garrison’s words over and over. Each time I read those words I paused while I burst out into a new round of tears, allowing another layer of emotions to come up and out. Finally, after what must have been nearly an hour, I was able to read those words without experiencing the same depth of triggered emotion.
After a brief rest, I returned to my closed-door room to do some experiential emotional processing. I used to do this type of emotional work using teddy bears, but I have no such squishy animals here in Guatemala. Glancing on the floor by my bed, I noticed a large bag of wax candle refills. Grabbing seven of them, I arranged them in a semi circle on the bed in front of me. The seven candles represented emotional placeholders for my former wife and each of my six children.
For most of the next hour, I poured out my genuine love to my children and former wife, one proxy-candle at a time. I deeply apologized, cried alligator tears, sent unconditional love, shared feelings, and expressed my deepest joys and sorrows.
Even though my words did not reach the physical ears of my family, I believe with all my being that the energy of my heart-filled intentions was successfully transmitted instantly to their souls.
As I finally exited my bedroom on Tuesday afternoon, I felt as if my emotional backpack was another hundred pounds lighter. During my emotional processing I had reached a state of new understanding that had previously eluded me.
I suddenly found the hidden treasures in everything that has taken place with my children. First of all, I clearly recognized that my daughter’s early unconditional love was directly responsible for my present day ability to have some type of continued relationship with my children.
A deeper realization that surprised me beyond words, however, was my unexpected recognition that my daughter needed to pull away from me exactly when she did. It was an inspired process – something that had to happen.
As heartbreaking as that experience was in my life (and I am sure it was devastating for her as well), I now realize that I might not be here on my spiritual journey right now, doing what I am doing in Guatemala, had that gut-wrenching experience not happened.
I still resist admitting it, but I feel deep intuitive guidance telling me that my spiritual path will continue to take me on journeys that lead me further away from my family and their ability to follow. While I continue to hang onto the hope of closer, more genuine, and more frequent connections with my children and grandchildren, I also realize that I may not have been able to embrace my current spiritual journey had my relationship with the children been more deeply bonded at a physical level.
In a bizarre and confusing paradox, my intuition also tells me that the act of living my own life with no attachment to my children’s love is exactly what will eventually strengthen my bond with my children.
For this reason, I am deeply grateful for the lessons of love that I have processed this week. There is no doubt that I feel a profound love for my children. There is no doubt that I will always love them unconditionally, and that I will be there for them in any way possible during difficult times in which I may be invited to participate. But there is also no doubt that my path is taking me in directions where my children cannot currently follow.
I must follow my heart. I must listen to and be true to my intuitions. I can only trust that everything happens for a reason – reasons that are still beyond my wildest imagination.
But most of all, I will continue searching for the hidden treasures in everything around me. In amazing ways, the discovery of these hidden treasures has a profound way of shifting perceptions – a profound way of healing past wounds. All it takes is recognizing that everything happens for a reason, and that wonderful growth always seems to make itself available when we approach pain with an open mind and heart.
Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved