Brenda's Bicycles

After a beautiful Monday of writing, I find myself spending Tuesday obsessively reading. I am re-reading a couple of books that I literally devoured just over a year ago – two books dealing with the subject of Sacred Geometry. Even though I have never fully figured out the full nature of my connection, there remains little room for doubt that I have been synchronously guided, via a multitude of symbolisms and events, to pay more attention to this topic. I simply trust that when my inner passions guide me in a certain direction, all I need do is giggle and go along for the ride.

Wednesday morning, I continue with several more hours of cannot-put-the-book-down reading. The only thing that interrupts this passion is the fact that another chocolate ceremony is eagerly dancing on the horizon. Nothing will stand between me and another opportunity at exploring inner growth on Keith’s magical porch.

Carefree And Joyful

There are twelve of us in total, crowded around the edges of Keith’s small porch. After drinking my 1.5 ounces of traditionally processed pure Guatemalan chocolate – mixed with hot water, a little raw sugar and a touch of chili – I sink into meditation, feeling eager to discover where my higher energies might guide me. Soon I find myself experiencing judgmental feelings toward two young boys who are playing in the yard next door.

These boys are free spirits, laughing and giggling with joy as they noisily run around, engaging in enthusiastic, unbridled, and uninhibited play – chasing a soccer ball, running into the street, and even occasionally banging loudly on a metal roof.

“Why am I creating this reality?” I ponder with genuine introspection. “And why am I feeling judgmental toward it?”

It takes only seconds before I sink into memories of my own childhood – beautiful memories of times that were so carefree and joyful that I played with abandon, excitedly laughing and giggling, not having the slightest awareness of what the adults around me might be thinking.

Play Prisons

But those memories suddenly slam into metaphorical metal bars – a prison cell of sorts.

“You are being too noisy, wild, and out-of-control.” I imagine a nearby adult scolding me. “Stop being disruptive and inconsiderate, disturbing the peace … blah … blah … blah.”

I remember time after time in which my tender and joyful free spirit was methodically squashed by fuddy-duddy adults who labeled my fun making as being inappropriate and troublemaking. Each time after my giggling play and laughter were criticized, sometimes gently and sometimes harshly, I struggled to recover from the initial shock of feeling wrongfully accused. Gradually, I surrendered deeper into the clutches of that “Play Prison.” I was determined to stay out of trouble – to please the adults so as not to hear any additional harsh corrective words that might further shame me.

Self Imposed Prison

It did not take long to learn and reluctantly agree to societal rules dictating that joyful play must be thoroughly contained in a well-disciplined box so as not to disturb others – especially those adults who hated such disturbance. In an effort to win praise, approval, and those treasured behavioral blue ribbons, I willingly suppressed my free spirit, submissively taking on the role of a broken-and-obedient horse.

My “Play Prison” quickly became one that was self-imposed with an unlocked door. Fear of disapproval kept me cowering inside. Yes, as we all do, I became my own jailor.

Later in life, as I assumed the role of parent, I too taught my own beautiful children to submit obediently and reverently to societal expectations, encouraging them to remain inside the confines of their own prison cells.

A Shocking Voice

As I again focus on these two young boys playing in the neighbor’s yard, the adult in me wants to jump to my feet and stomp down to the fence, diplomatically demanding to these young peace-disturbers that they conform to societal expectations of appropriate play.

“You need to stop this rowdy playing or go somewhere else.” This robotic adult voice would demand expression. “We are trying to have a serious spiritual ceremony here, and you are disturbing us … we cannot focus.”

As I continue observing my thoughts, I am shocked at the realization that such a programmed adult voice yet remains inside of my head.

An Endless Loop

“Oh my gosh!” I ponder in shock. “These beautiful young boys are simply playing – joyfully giggling as the beautiful free spirits that they are.”

“Am I still suppressing my own inner play with this same demanding adult voice?” I question further.

For more than six months, I have puzzled as to why I continue to take life so seriously – as to why I cannot seem to grant myself permission to even belly laugh out loud. It seems that long-forgotten subconscious voices continue to repeat themselves in an endless recording loop somewhere inside my head – voices silently shouting that all unbridled play must be controlled and suppressed.

No-Play Zone

Rocket science is not required to realize that the Universe has once again provided me with a beautiful and delightfully synchronous metaphor. It all seems so obvious and clear – I will begin my inner journey today by exploring the conditioning process of how I was taught and programmed to enforce the inexplicable no-play zone in my mind.

“Brenda, how is your heart feeling?” Keith surprises me with his first question as he begins working with individuals.

While exploring beautiful insights about repressed childhood play, I have also been energetically focusing on my heart – engaging in one of my favorite meditation techniques – breathing in vibrating higher energies that dance around in my entire heart chakra.

Heart Focus

After sharing insights about my “no-play zone” and about my heart that is overflowing with amazing peace and love, I mention to Keith that my abdomen is prickling with agitation.

“It is a strange paradox.” I explain to Keith. “My heart is alive with peaceful power and my abdomen is painfully poking and churning. Through it all, I am remaining unattached, simply focusing on how I can love and embrace this agitation with peace, non-judgment, and loving patience – asking it to teach me something.”

“Focus on your heart and bring in more energy.” Keith encourages me before quickly moving on to work with the woman on my left.

A Joyful Burst

To my delight, everything Keith says to this woman feels as if it is really meant for me. As he guides her to further expand her heart, I also do the same, bringing in additional energy that begins to fill the upper reaches of my heart chakra. Tiny little pains start to creep and crawl, moving upward toward my collarbones. I feel as if little tentacles of energy are gently expanding in all directions, pushing their way through blockages like growing roots, beginning to flow through energy pathways that were closed and clogged with fallen debris, a very long time ago.

I watch with fascination as these energetic tentacles slowly explore. For a brief moment, I begin to feel quite blissful as I contemplate this new energy – intuitively recognizing the energy as being directly associated with opening up my ability to play with magical, joyful, and unbridled freedom.

Suddenly, tears of joy stream down my cheeks. But within seconds, the joyful burst vanishes, leaving me with a puzzled feeling as the energy expansion gradually continues.

Subtle Conditioning

After a while, Keith returns to work with me. I fill him in with my insights, and then share about how I briefly began to open up to something extremely joyful before abruptly shutting it back down.

“You got a powerful glimpse of what is there.” Keith points out with confidence. “That is perfect … all that you were ready to receive at the moment.”

As Keith again moves on, I continue to breathe new energy into my heart while pondering ever deeper into expanding insights regarding the childhood programming that taught me to shut all of this joyful expression down in the first place.

The process was accomplished in such subtle, innocent ways – both through parental feedback and in the classrooms of church and public schools. I was taught “for my own good” that I would need to fit into societal and religious expectations and rules, or else I would be branded a rebellious misfit. Deviation from such conditioning was out of the question.

Heart Knowing

Soon, Keith asks me to assist as an empath, helping a woman across from me to release some of her emotional densities. As I do so, I continue to feel the vibrating power in my heart expand, and I experience increased tingling sensation in my hands, but my rational mind remains insensitive to the energy movement outside of my own body.

The woman on my left, who is also assisting, is feeling a tremendous flow of external energy. My head attempts to interpret my own continued lack of sensitivity as indicating that I am a loser.

Instead, I surrender to a strong sense of heart knowing. It is a knowing that tells me I am participating in a powerful way. Others have repeatedly told me that they can indeed feel what I am doing. An intuitive calmness reassures me that my own understanding will only open when I quit trying to push it with left-brained intellect.

Confusing Judgments

As I sink back into my own personal heart meditation, I soon begin to feel a strong sense of annoyance.

First Keith asks one of my friends to do some energetic work with a man on the left end of the porch. Then, when Keith moves on to work with a woman on the other side, there are frequently two competing conversations while my friend and this man talk aloud for much of the next thirty minutes.

It seems that unexpected and unwanted judgments are swarming in my mind – judgments at my friend, and judgments at Keith for permitting such a noisy distracting environment to go unchecked.

Reality Check

Refusing to lose myself in this crazy world of projected judgment, I pause to ask myself some powerful questions.

“Why am I creating this reality in front of me? What is it that is really triggering me? Why am I projecting onto my dear friends? What is my real lesson here?”

An Unsolvable Dilemma

Answers begin to flow powerfully into my mind. I clearly see that my judgment has nothing to do with my friend. Over the last year, many such situations have manifest themselves on the porch – times when other healers were also simultaneously talking with someone that they were helping – times when I felt deeply distracted and annoyed by more than one conversation – times when I could no longer hear Keith because someone else was talking too loudly.

In truth, I want to further step into my own planned role of being a healer on Keith’s porch – but if I begin to work with someone in the same way that these others have occasionally done – as my friend is doing today – then I will be the one creating what I perceive to be a disruption. I will be stepping into the role of distracting others.

My cultural programming – the same programming that taught me “proper behavior” and that created my “Play Prison” – will simply not allow me to do this.

I feel as if I am facing what seems to be an unsolvable inner dilemma.

A “Light” Rebellion

With these new insights buzzing around in my head, I continue to fill my heart with peaceful loving energy. I note that my abdomen is no longer hurting – but a new annoyed part of me is beginning to lightly rebel.

“I am not doing my own work today.” Rational mind chatters lightly. “I am not doing real inner work unless I am crying it out. Simply working with the light feels as if I am missing something.”

I know this is not true … yet a part of me feels confused and empty.

Soon, Keith returns to my side, and I take the opportunity to update him on much of my saga – my confusing insights into strong heart energies on the one hand and a repressed ability to play on the other. Rather than working directly with me, Keith congratulates me for my ongoing work and then moves on to the woman by my side.

Profound Rebellion

As he works with the woman next to me, Keith guides her into visualizing a fenced playground with gates on both ends.

“You can take the shortcut through this playground,” Keith shares with the woman, “or you can take the long way around. Which do you want to do?”

As Keith reassures the woman that part of her journey exists inside the boundaries of that playground, I follow along with my own parallel process, envisioning myself walking through my own magical playground. Inexplicable emotions begin to surface. Fears prevent me from moving forward, and tears begin to trickle. The unexpressed emotions are intense and overwhelming, and a sensation of profound rebellion bubbles in my soul.

Rebellion And Sadness

For considerable time, I allow myself to sink into suppressed emotions of intense rebellion and anger at parents, religion, and culture. Sadness soon joins the party – a deep sadness at how my joyful expression of playfulness was systematically suppressed and programmed out of me. Already-flowing tears soon intensify, as a pile of soggy tissue begins to join me at the side.

Even with all the amazing growth through which I have passed in recent years, I continue to force myself to moderate all playtime within the boundaries of quiet, serious, reverence. Nothing boisterous or uninhibited is acceptable for me. I admire such playful courage in some – and continue to judge it in others – while fearfully refusing to partake. The thought of stepping out of this steel-reinforced “Play Prison” brings up terrifying fears of being judged.

No matter how much I try to visualize myself walking through my playground, every step results in increased rebellion and sadness. I am not moving anywhere.

As Simple As That

After a while, Keith turns back to briefly work with me.

“Her work deeply triggered me.” I begin to share with Keith.

After exchanging a few words of validation, Keith again moves on. A part of me feels disappointed that he does not encourage or facilitate my emotional release in any way. I know I want to release this density using higher energies but remain clueless as to how to accomplish this task. Rational mind is definitely not in any position to assist.

All I can do is trust. I have surrendered to a process; I recognize that I create my reality; and I have repeatedly seen amazing things happen when I simply observe and remain in the flow.

Yes, I will trust, believing that whatever I need to further progress will indeed happen. It is as simple as that.

Raising My Vibrations

For the next twenty minutes, I focus solely on bringing in higher energies, while surrendering to “not knowing” what to do. I continue to breathe loving energy into my heart, bringing it in through my crown and from the earth below. I love the peaceful sensations in my heart chakra as the emotions continue to agitate painfully inside my abdomen.

As the tears eventually begin to settle, intuitions guide me to stop what I am doing, even though I do not feel as if I am finished. Instead, I follow inner guidance to sit by Mark (not his real name). He is the same man that angelically cuddled me just a few days ago. Mark is energetically stuck in his own profound process, and strong inner voices whisper that further raising my vibrations to share energy with him will also assist me.

Trusting Intuitions

With Mark lying on his back in the middle of the porch, I feel guided to place my right hand on his shoulder. To my surprise, I feel a strange intuition telling me to ground my left hand on the foot of a dear friend who is also assisting. Within seconds of placing my hand on her foot, my entire hand begins to vibrate, from the wrist down, with intense tingling – as if it is going to sleep, yet it is not. The energy tingling is quite magical and persistent, lasting for more than ten minutes.

The sensation is powerful, one that I cannot explain with rational mind, one that I cannot deny. My friend later tells me that when I placed my hand on her foot that she did not feel my vibrations as I described them – but that she did feel much more connected to her own flow of energy when I did so.

For me, the lesson is one of trusting intuitions, and then receiving beautiful feedback – both physically and verbally.

Building Trust

“Your magic is in a playground.” Keith soon adds his own guidance. “Your head cannot guide you into understanding what you are doing … at least not yet. This is a trust building experience for you.”

After sharing a short story, Keith reminds me of something he told me more than a year ago when I was begging for insights.

“Brenda,” Keith had told me, “the only difference between me and you is that I know I can, and you believe that you cannot.”

For the remainder of the chocolate ceremony, I simply share powerful loving energy with Mark, filling my heart to overflowing and sending the magical energy with my intent, trusting that it knows where to go and what to do. My heart feels extremely peaceful and powerful, and the once-deep emotions are now but an afterthought.

Missing Tears

“Check in with your heart.” Keith guides me as the ceremony winds to conclusion. “Ask you heart how you did today.”

“My heart feels very powerful and content.” I respond a minute later. “But some hidden part of me feels cheated, like it wants to go home and cry more because my emotional release was not complete enough … not fully trusting what I did today.”

“You did great work today.” Keith reassures me. “You simply don’t realize that fact because you did not cry a lot.”

Time To Integrate

Even though I want to resist Keith’s feedback, his words register deeply. Over the years, I have developed profound beliefs and trust in the releasing of emotional densities via experiential processes and deep tears. Yet I continue to have very little practical experience in the area of releasing my own emotional densities in a less dramatic manner. In spite of all the amazing things I have witnessed and participated in over the last year, I continue to dig my clinging fingernails into the belief that I myself must cry before the healing is real. Part of me demands that no healing is complete without the tears.

“This is work that you cannot validate with rational mind.” I have repeatedly heard Keith tell me. “The only way to validate it is to wait a week or two and see how your life changes.”

“Yes,” I think to myself as I now resonate with this thought more than ever. “Just for now I will believe and give it some time to integrate. If I have missed something that requires additional tears, I have no doubt that my Higher Self will bring it back to my awareness very soon.”

Unjustly Accused

The conversation with Keith then takes a different twist – into the realm of left-brain and right-brain.

“As of last week,” I share with Keith, “I now fully recognize that both left-brain and right-brain need to be partners, with neither dominating the other. But my right-brained intuitive side is still very judgmental and untrusting of the logical part of me. I’m not sure how to move past that block.”

After a short discussion, a new insight suddenly floods my heart.

“I think my right-brain has the left-brain all confused with ego projections.” I exclaim with delight. “It is now so clear. From my right-brained perspective, ego and left-brain were hooked together, as being the exact same thing – but they are not.”

Wow. The insights are now so obvious and powerful. I clearly recognize that ego and left-brain are completely separate. Suddenly, logic and structure do not seem bad at all … in fact I love them. In my journey to release myself from the hypnotic effects of an ego masquerading as me, I have unjustly rejected my own left-brain as being connected with the perpetrator.

A Rule Robot

Wednesday evening, after a quick dinner of rice and beans, I am exhausted. I continue to ponder the idea of further meditating into the issues that surfaced today … but sleep instead wins the popular vote.

Shortly before 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, I find myself outside on my patio, deep in meditation, further exploring the profound childhood conditioning that turned free-spirited play into a punishable crime.

After more than an hour of deep meditation, one thing becomes profoundly clear: I was turned into a “Rule Robot” by parents, schools, and religion. All rules, no matter how silly, were created to be obeyed. “Being labeled” as a rule-breaker was a terrifying thought.

Fun Equals Rules

In church, it was all about obedience and reverence, needing to win God’s love and approval, following the rules of righteous behavior. I was conditioned to believe that if I did not take life seriously, I might end up being cut off from God’s loving presence.

Home was an extension of church – a place where I also learned that unbridled joyful expression is bad except under culturally appropriate boundaries. As a family, we loved playing games together, but the rules were revered like a sacred Deity. When someone deviated from the correct rules, I felt devastated. Games had to be played the “right” way.

In school, I became a memorization robot, learning the “correct” way of doing things and becoming an expert at regurgitating the answers that were methodically fed into me.

Sure, I have numerous memories of fun playtime as a young child, with and without family. But those memories are also connected with deep fear of taking my fun too far, beyond all acceptable boundaries.

As strange as it may seem, it appears that in my life the concept of fun has been profoundly hooked to the concept of worshiping rules and doing things the right way. Unless rules are being followed, I simply cannot have fun.

Metaphorical Shakeup

At one point in this deep meditative exploration, I begin to cry and shake with deep emotions of sadness. But the tears do not last long. I am bringing in a great deal of higher energy, basking in divine light. It seems that feeling this brief little burst of emotion “to the core” has been enough to allow the remainder of the emotional energy to dissolve magically into nothingness.

“Maybe this higher energy stuff really does work.” I ponder as my meditation draws to an end.

Unexpectedly, Mother Nature adds her own metaphorical message. At 6:44 a.m., a 4.6 earthquake lightly shakes my apartment for perhaps ten seconds. At 7:20 a.m., another earthquake – one registering at 5.1 on the Richter scale – shakes even more vigorously. This second one lasts for nearly thirty seconds.

“It looks like the world as I know it is being shaken up, yet again.” I giggle.

Giggling Intuitions

In another beautiful example of trust and synchronicity, I have been guided to yet another profound healing experience. Who would have thought that two free-spirited boys, playing loudly and boisterously, could trigger such amazing insights and budding self-awareness?

Once again, by trusting that “I create my reality,” I found the confidence to follow what appeared to be silly metaphorical breadcrumbs, little symbolic metaphors that led me into profound recognition of yet-another reservoir of buried rebellion, anger, and sadness.

When attempting to walk through an imagined magical playground – meditatively striving to open up my ability to play – fear, rebellion, and sadness instead pushed me back with every step. But later, as I worked with Mark, I effortlessly surrounded myself with some of that same elusive magic by simply raising my vibrations, bringing in loving energy, and trusting my heart.

To top it all off, intuitions now giggle inside, as I suddenly understand that I have been manifesting the tears – creating their necessity through a belief system that insists they are necessary for growth. Of course, the future will bring me more tears, but I now no longer need to manifest them as a required part of my healing. Instead, I trust that they will come when they need to come, and they will not come when they are not necessary.

And call me crazy, but I really do believe those earthquakes were meant just for me. My world is indeed being shaken up, taking me to yet another level of understanding and trust.

Copyright © 2011 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved