The weekend was extremely intense. Saturday had been an agonizing journey of writing “Hot Sauce Horror” – a journey into understanding and acknowledging the emotional and psychological trauma of what I always thought had been a happy and normal childhood– a journey that finally took me from surface-level mental understanding down into the agonizing depths of pure emotional understanding.
Sunday, still raw with projected childhood emotion, wishing I could simply hide out in the corner, I instead lashed out on Keith’s porch, desperately attempting to take back my power from those who would suppress my right to feel – from those who would judge my right to be an expressive emotional being.
Today, on Monday, December 12, I am finally feeling a sense of renewed spiritual peace – a peace that allows me to spend the day wrapping up the story of one of the most agonizing healing journeys of my life. A sense of deep closure peacefully resonates in my heart as I click the publish button of “Loving The Ending.”
In a desperate wish for a period of emotional stability, I finish that blog by writing: “I only pray that this “temporary breather” is not just the eye of another hurricane.
It seems that the Universe does have a strange sense of humor. Unbeknownst to me, more violent storms are indeed hiding in the near future, just off the radar screen.
What Babies Want
On Tuesday, I allow a state of emotional-processing burnout to consume me – spending the day watching movies, taking naps, and engaging in meditative relaxation. But the more I relax, the more I notice that my body resists – as if a subconscious energy hidden inside of me fights to remain clenched – as if this part of me literally fears relaxation. The simple act of relaxing my hands and arms results in painful aches in my forearms.
Wednesday morning, I continue in the energy of pseudo-rebellion toward emotional processing. Even though I am awake and out of bed at 5:00 a.m., I refuse to meditate. Instead, I pass mind-numbing time on my computer, engaging in random internet browsing and playing games.
Finally, at around 10:00 a.m., I feel an inner urge to watch something from a collection of videos that had synchronously landed in my lap just two mornings ago. As I browse through these yet-unknown mystery videos, one title jumps out at me, sparking my intuitive interest. It is a documentary titled “What Babies Want.” I have no idea what is about to transpire.
Conscious From The Start
The documentary grips my soul from the very beginning. It is a film produced by Debby Takikawa and narrated by actor Noah Wyle. For further information, please feel free to browse the website: www.whatbabieswant.com.
Early in the discussion, Noah Wyle (Dr. Carter on the television series ER) shares personal stories about his own son Owen.
“There’s something about that sparkle in his eyes that I never want him to lose…” Noah shares. “What babies want is to be loved and respected as human beings, right from the start.”
The film does a beautiful job of summarizing knowledge (both scientific and cultural) that paints an intricate image of a baby coming into this world as a living, conscious, creative, divine soul. While a baby’s brain might be still developing, his or her higher consciousness and awareness are fully functioning right from the very beginning.
Deep Inspiring Quotes
As I immerse myself further into the video, I begin to cry as I relive glimpses of my own infancy – questioning everything about my reality and what happened to me during such a tender and vulnerable state – pondering this overlooked period where initial belief systems were formed and deeply imprinted.
I could literally write several blogs about the deep insights I glean from this documentary – but that is not my objective here. Instead, I simply want to share a few quotes that trigger deep thoughts in my process.
“Babies learn very early, children learn very early to not listen to their hearts, to not trust their feelings, to not express their feelings, and they shut down the love that they have to give, and they live in a hyper-vigilant stance, always wondering what should I be, what did they want from me, or what do you want from me, and people spend their lives that way.” Barbara Findeison, MFT.
“From the very beginning, we’re building the capacity to trust, and if the baby isn’t held and treated gently, if the baby is taken away and mom and baby are separated, the very first impression the baby has is: where’s my mom?” Marti Glenn, Ph.D.
“I think for most people birth is a nightmare; it hasn’t been what a baby would want, because we didn’t consider that there was anybody there who could care. But its generally violent, it violates all the senses of the baby, the light is too bright, the room is too cold, there is rough handling, they don’t want to be washed and wiped roughly, they don’t want to be injected with anything, they don’t want to be held up by the foot upside down, they don’t want to be slapped if slapping is necessary to get them breathing, … it’s a crazy experience for a baby … it’s a terrible way to start.” David Chamberlain, Psychologist.
“Ironically, the hospital, which we consider the safest place to have a baby, can implement protocols that in fact impose certain threats to the baby’s healthy development. Many experts believe that separation of mother, family, and baby, unnecessary procedures, and a lack of sensitivity, disrupt bonding and are all serious concerns.” Noah Wyle, actor, narrator.
“It’s only in the last decade or so that we’ve been serious about the fact that newborn infants can actually have pain. We used to stand and watch them scream and yell and smile about it in a delivery room.” David Chamberlain, Psychologist.
“These processes that happen early on, sometimes in utero, sometimes before birth, or during birth, or right after birth, set up a pattern that we live over and over and over again until we discover what it is.” Marti Glenn, Ph.D.
“This feeling of belonging is so important to everyone. Cutting edge research is revealing that infants are awake and aware, and they know if they are wanted. They need a nurturing environment. They want to know that they are coming into a place where they belong, where they are loved, and where they can give their own love. We see the psychological damage in too many adults who are not met in this way and who have spent their adult lives searching to heal their loss. If we offer babies and children a world that wants them, believes in them, and trusts them, if we change our own ideas about what babies want, about what people want, perhaps we can bring more hope, more love, and more healing into the world.” Noah Wyle, actor, narrator.
Backwards, Cut Out, And Abandoned
As I prepare to walk out to Keith’s porch for a Wednesday afternoon chocolate ceremony, my mind overflows with whirling insights.
“My mother used to tell me that I was born breech, positioned bottom-first in the womb.” I ponder early memories of conversations with my mother.
“I really did come into this world backwards, in more ways than one.” I tease myself with new clarity.
“My brother reminded me that I was born Caesarean section.” I reflect on a conversation I had with my older brother, just this past summer when I was home in Utah.
“And I had been scheduled for delivery on the next day.” I contemplate something I once learned while scanning old family letters. “There must have been some type of trauma that caused us to be rushed to the hospital on the night before that scheduled surgery. There must have been fear, excitement, urgency, and a sense of heightened emotion all around.”
“My mother and father told me several times how, in the 1950s, women used to be required to stay in the hospital for extended periods after delivering a baby.” I ponder more faint memories. “In fact, my father told me that my mother had to stay flat-on-her-back in bed for two weeks after I was born.”
“Just exactly how did I feel as a consciously-aware baby, stuck backwards in my mother’s womb, being cut out of her tummy using a knife, in a cold, sterile, brightly-lit surgery room?” I ponder during my slow stroll to Keith’s porch.
“How did I feel being grabbed by nurses in masks and gowns, roughly washed and scrubbed, poked with needles, and whisked away from my mother’s presence while she was most likely in deep pain … then being isolated away from her for most of the first two weeks of my life during her recovery?”
An Energetic Journey
When I arrive at Keith’s porch, I am on the edge of sobbing – but I hold the overwhelming emotion inside, not wanting to allow the floodgates to burst prior to the beginning of the chocolate ceremony.
As the glow meditation unfolds, a sense of nausea consumes my abdomen, and my solar plexus feels as if I was literally kicked in the gut. Soon this kicked-sensation migrates to my belly button. As I ask the light to fill me, to show me what it would do with this painful emotional density, the pain begins to move again, first migrating to the center of my heart, and then into the lower regions of my second chakra, well below my belly button.
It is a crazy journey with the metaphorical pain – but a profound one as well. The transitory nature of the pain leaves no doubt that it is energetic and not physical.
As Keith finally turns to work with me, I fill him in on my unfolding journey – every detail.
An Empathic Baby
“Where was I during those two weeks?” I ponder out loud. “Who was I with, and what was I feeling?”
“Right now I am experiencing crazy, overwhelming, inexplicable emotions.” I share with Keith. “There is intense anger. There are feelings of having felt deeply traumatized, fighting for survival in a frightening world … feeling powerless … and feeling the agony of an abandoned and broken heart.”
“Close your eyes and go inside.” Keith interrupts my sharing. “Think about how your being an empath contributed to what you felt with your mother.”
“Ouch!” I begin to cry more profusely. “That hurts! I was deeply connected to her, at an energetic level, and as a newborn I was not just traumatized by the birth and separation and sterile instruments and needle pokes etc…, but I was connected to and feeling my mother’s pain as well … and I was feeling guilty for her pain. I felt like I was the cause of why she was suffering.”
As these words come out of my mouth, I cannot explain my feelings and emotions with rational mind, but another part of me knows these insights are real and not just fantasy made-up feelings. Deep gut-wrenching sobs again burst from my soul.
Doubt Patterns
“Bring in the light and let it help you with this process.” Keith guides me as I continue to sink deeper and deeper into this bottomless pit of pain.
As I try to feel the light, I do feel some mild energy tingling in my crown, but huge doubts quickly consume my mind.
“This is stupid.” The doubts scream in my head. “How could I possibly remember my emotions as a newborn? I am just imaging all of this, making it up.”
“Bring in the light and see what it tells you about those doubts.” Keith again coaches me.
As I ponder Keith’s words, and try to follow his guidance, I remember many past experiences where I was able to move beyond the doubts – experiences that repeatedly taught me that such doubts and self-criticism are one of the ways that ego sucks me into a loop that prevents me from moving forward.
“I am having powerful meditative experiences.” I lovingly reassure myself. “The experiences don’t make sense to rational mind, but I do know they are real.”
Resistance To Light
“Now, connect with that newborn.” Keith resumes his guidance. “Bring in the light and allow it to assist in releasing some of that pain.”
Even with all of the profound and beautiful inner work that I have done, I feel like a child on the first day of kindergarten. I struggle to bring in higher energy assistance – to get out of my head – to stop “trying to think” and to simply allow myself to surrender to a state of “not knowing.”
I relax, focus on my breathing, and imagine watching some of the emotional pain magically flowing out of me into a ball of light about two feet in front of me. As I do so, I notice many people around me beginning to cry. I am profoundly aware that my deep work is triggering others, enabling them to go into their own issues – but I continue to focus on my own process.
I work with this energy, employing the standby “fake it till you make it” technique. The more peaceful I become, the more energy I am able to feel beginning to fill my body, and the more intense become the waves of tears that also flow through me. It is as if the comfort of the energy simultaneously gives me permission to go even deeper.
Popcorn Popping
After Keith moves on, I feel intuitively guided to bring in a metaphorical three-year-old angel to visit my little newborn self. As I try to imagine this tiny innocent angel sitting in the hospital with me, comforting me, I visualize the nametag on my sterile, metal, nursery bassinet. To my shock, I suddenly feel a surge of intense resistance and profound stomach churning – a sensation of wanting to hold up my middle finger to “flip the angel off.”
I feel the energy of that brand new baby saying “Go away … I don’t trust you … this hurts too much … I can’t do this … I don’t want to do this.” As bizarre as it seems, it is clear to me that even as a baby I was already frightened and blaming higher energies for the emotional and physical pain that I was feeling.
As the meditation proceeds, the real physical pain in my adult body is intense and agonizingly painful. I feel as if angry popcorn is popping wildly in my abdomen.
Trusting The Flow
I repeat this meditation over and over while listening to Keith work with others. Quite frequently, the words I hear elsewhere on the porch trigger me into more profound emotional realizations – causing me to go into additional waves of tears, approaching ever-nearer to the core of my own pain.
Eventually, after what must be at least an hour or more, I grow frightened of the intense abdominal popcorn that continues to agitate my belly. I recognize that I am forcefully trying to push my process forward – to push the healing of that tiny innocent newborn.
As I recognize this metaphor of “pushing the river versus trusting the flow,” I intuitively sense my three-year-old angel as she takes me by the hand and guides me into a peaceful waiting room. This precious little angel is metaphorically reminding me that I simply need to wait and allow … that everything is unfolding with perfect synchronicity and timing … and that pushing will not get me there any quicker. It will only make me feel crazy.
Much-Craved Feedback
When Keith finally completes his first circle around the porch, returning to work with me, he guides me into doing more emotional release with higher energy assistance – but he also guides me to do it as my adult-self, while my newborn-self simply watches.
“Observe and pay attention to that newborn’s reaction.” Keith coaches me.
“I cannot expect my newborn to do this if I as an adult am not even able to do it.” I ponder quietly. “By doing it this way, I am building trust with my little inner child, setting an example of unconditional love rather than one of pushing.”
As I slowly flounder with the process of mentally trying to surrender, I experience a gradual and progressive lightening of my energy. With my sensitivities being quite blocked, my confidence spikes when a woman next to me comments that she can indeed feel my emotional pain flowing out of me – quite a lot of it in fact.
Baby Steps
Throughout this process, I ponder an ongoing dilemma. I desperately want help in getting out of my head and opening up my energy sensitivities. I crave higher-energy assistance. Yet a subconscious part of me absolutely refuses to allow such help. I am engaged in an inner battle, crazily fighting that which I crave.
What I am doing right now with Keith might be compared to allowing in tiny drops of such higher-energy help as an introductory step in building whispers of trust. I do indeed feel energetically lighter – yet it is clear these are baby steps, in more ways than one.
Unanswered Questions
When the ceremony ends, I am far from complete, yet I know I am done for today – that I simply need to rest patiently in that angelic waiting room. My forearms literally hurt. I intuitively feel myself as a baby, clenching, clenching, clenching – trying to stop the flow of higher energies. My newborn baby remains angry, bitter, pushing energies away, trying to stop all the energy flow because it simply hurts too much.
“I’m honestly getting that much of my shutdown occurred during that first two weeks.” I share with Keith during a short post-ceremony discussion. “It was such an intense experience that I did not want do be here on this planet … I didn’t feel that I could do what I came here to do … it terrified me.”
“Perhaps you were born with this intense resistance to higher energies.” Keith throws out something new to think about. “Perhaps you brought this resistance with you from a past life.”
“How much deeper can this go?” I beg Keith for clarity. “I’m blown away by the depth already. I am now at the day of my birth. Will I go back into past lives, or is this far enough back to resolve this?”
Keith simply smiles and does not give me the easy answer that I seek.
“Trust the process.” I remind myself as I walk home. “I am in a beautiful flow of self-discovery. I continue to be astounded by how each step unfolds so synchronously and so effortlessly.”
A Peaceful Waiting Room
Thursday morning, I awaken with a beautiful peaceful energy in my head – a sensation of mild loving vibrations gently massaging my mind and heart. The differences are vey subtle, but I definitely feel a distinguishable increase in peaceful energies flowing throughout my body.
In meditation, I imagine myself being held in the unconditionally loving arms of higher energies – not doing anything, just receiving the love that I have always wanted. I am in that peaceful divine waiting room, feeling the light tingling, sensing a tender three-year-old angel nearby, simply trusting that all is well.
After spending a couple of hours writing, a new friend from Canada stops by. We end up visiting until nearly dinnertime – the writing will simply have to wait. I love this newfound sense of peace.
Emotional Surrender
As I get up early on Friday morning, December 16, I continue to feel nice peaceful energy, but something is off. I am in a weird and unusual mood – feeling extremely resistant to meditation – having no desire to try to further connect with higher energies. What little meditation I manage is empty and quite meaningless.
Likewise, as I attempt to resume my writing on the morning of what will be our first Friday chocolate ceremony of the season, I sink further into those confusing rebellious emotions. The sensations are profoundly weird. My arms are again tightly clenched, and there is a feeling of slight external pressure on my third-eye chakra, accompanied by inner headache. I am simply not into writing.
My old tendency would be to follow society’s conditioning – to invalidate my feelings and emotions – to push them back down – and to force myself to feel better and get on with my plans. But I now believe with all my heart that such behavior is equivalent to throwing a blanket of light – a fluffy disguise – over my best possible teacher.
No, I will not push this negativity down. Instead, I surrender to the emotional rebellion, set my computer aside, and meditate further into my dysfunction.
An Agitated Ride
By 10:00 a.m., I feel guided to choose another mystery video selection. The one I watch turns out to be extremely chaotic and agitating. I love some parts, while others trigger me deeply. By the time I prepare to stroll out to Keith’s porch, I am in an extremely weird energy state – filled with emotional instability. The crazy thing is that my agitated emotions make no sense. I have no idea what they are about – I just know they exist and are ready to explode. I want to distract myself, to simply push the feelings down, but instead continue to surrender to the crazy dense ride.
“It’s going to be an interesting chocolate ceremony.” I ponder as I sit on my usual pillow.
Stay Put
“I don’t want to be here.” The rebellious emotional voices scream in my head as I attempt to focus on the glow meditation. “I am F-ing tired of emotional processing. The emotions I feel right now are stupid and unrelated. It is crazy to simply surrender to them. I just want to be happy and PUSH THEM DOWN. There is absolutely no reason to feel them.”
“This is just driving me crazy,” I further ponder the absurdity of allowing unknown emotions to consume me. “It is taking me down the vortex of an emotional toilet.”
My societal conditioning (ego) begs me to run away, to put on some cheerful music, and to stuff the emotions back down.
My heart tells me to stay put – to remain right where I am.
A Conditioning Twist
“Keith, help me.” I beg when the glow meditation is finally over. “I’m feeling extremely rebellious and resistant to the emotions raging inside of me.”
I quickly fill him in on my crazy journey with emotional surrender … of my desperate desire to suppress and bury these emotions that make no sense.
“These feelings of rebellion and resistance to emotion come from your societal conditioning.” Keith tells me the obvious. “As a child, you were taught and conditioned to push them back down.”
“I am getting that what you are in the process of moving is that conditioning and belief system itself.” Keith throws in a profound and unexpected twist of wisdom.
Love Equals Pain And Rejection
Keith quickly turns me loose to work by myself. With newfound motivation, I imagine a ball of light in front of me, while pretending that these conditioned belief systems (or at least portions of them) are moving out of me. To rational mind, it is all silliness, but part of me whispers that this is very real.
While doing this, I listen to Keith work with a woman who is obviously an unknowing empath. As Keith explains to her how she has the concepts of love and pain hooked together, as love being equivalent to pain, light bulbs flash and sirens sound in my intuitive receptors.
“This is my true issue for today.” I immediately recognize. “I have hooked the concept of love with deep pain – with being rejected by those that should love me back – with feeling misunderstood and alone because I will not conform to the confines of my birth box.”
A Perpetual Pattern
“I thought I had healed these emotions seven years ago.” I beg Keith for clarity.
Keith confirms that I healed a major layer of this pain, but that what is coming up today is a new and even deeper layer. The emotions I now feel are real, profound, and powerful – and I go into them with full surrender, completely ignoring any urge to stuff them back down.
Keith goes on to work with others, while I take my meditation a notch deeper.
Immediately, I intuitively feel myself as a newborn, back in my hospital bassinet. I sense the empathic connection with my mother – and I feel guilty and responsible, knowing that my love and my birth is the cause of her pain.
I begin to recognize a seeming perpetual pattern in which the moment I stepped out of the box – the moment I showed my genuine loving authentic self – I met rejection, shame, pain, guilt, or some other reaction that reinforced the mandate: “conform or be harshly judged.”
I can see the pattern in childhood, youth, school, marriage, work, and family relationships. Even just recently, as I wrote my blog “A Profound Reality Check” I found myself cringing with fear of rejection when a couple of extended family members sent me comments.
Agonizing Regression
It does not take long for me to sink into the vulnerable pain and heartache of absolute “truth with a lowercase t” that surrounds my lifelong victimhood. I temporarily suspend my knowledge of the real “Truth with a capital T” and instead allow myself to feel this anguish to the core. I want to heal these buried emotions, and the only way to do that is to dive right into the swirling cesspool with my observer-eyes wide open.
Keith briefly turns to work with me, encouraging me to bring in more light to see what happens. As I focus on more light and love, my sense of painful victimization intensifies greatly. I feel as if I am having an emotional breakdown, as if I belong in a mental institution, but I courageously swim forward, further into the swirling cesspool.
When Keith engages the group in an empath training, I completely ignore my surroundings, continuing to focus on what I am doing.
Soon, I curl up in a fetal position on my large pillow, literally regressing into that hospital bassinet, allowing waves of tears to flow through me. My forearms are again so tightly clenched that they ache. I am not the one doing the clenching. I desperately attempt to relax them – yet my subconscious mind, my little newborn infant-self, responds by clenching harder than ever. I have no choice but to just observe.
A Dance With Deserving
As I remain curled-up in fetal position with a shawl over my face, I hear Keith ask if I would like to move to the middle of the porch for the final phases of empath training.
For at least thirty minutes, I sit in the middle and allow the group to assist me in releasing the emotional densities in an easier way. Gradually I begin to feel a beautiful and peaceful energy replacing the dark and dense emotions of agonizing victimization. I am beginning to feel free and light, vibrating with inner love when I finally speak up with my new story.
“Keith, I’m fighting a feeling of ‘I don’t deserve this.’” I expose the next layer or resistance.
“I have a lifelong pattern of sharing love and service to others,” I add, “but I have a history of sabotaging the receiving process – of not allowing myself to receive such love, unless it is from people I deeply trust.”
“Never in my life have I received so much unconditional love from a large group like this,” I continue, “where I feel that everyone is so genuinely connected and coming from a place of pure compassion.”
A New Dilemma
“Look at her.” Keith points to a woman in front of me.
As I stare into the eyes of my new friend from Canada, I see her tears of deep love for me, for what I am going through, and for how I am helping her. The pure love is overwhelming and I again burst into tears – but these are now tears of joy.
As I further immerse myself in the joy and gratitude, I feel my inner densities moving out of me even faster. Eventually, all of the current layer of my victimization and sadness has left my body. The original emotions are now totally gone, but a new dilemma – a new metaphor – suddenly consumes me.
“Keith,” I proclaim with confusion, “Now that the emotions are gone, my heart feels like it is deeply squished and scrunched up. It physically hurts … it really hurts.”
A Broken Heart
“Brenda, this is big time.” Keith congratulates me. “You are now experiencing the broken heart of that tiny child that felt so rejected and betrayed by life. It is the broken heart that accompanied your shutdown.”
Immediately, I focus on releasing the emotional pain of that broken heart … but nothing moves … nothing changes … except for the fact that I now have an even sharper pain focused directly on that nail-in-the-heart spot, right in the center of my heart chakra.
Keith quickly diverts me away from this new metaphor, assuring me that all is perfect as he instead begins the next experiential exercise of the empath training – a phase where the group energetically joins me in my private, personal hell.
Conditional Control
With the group’s energetic space-holding support, I imagine myself in a personal hell of absolutely knowing that love is equivalent to pain, rejection, and heartache. I do not visualize a specific place, but instead imagine myself lost in this belief.
At the appropriate moment, Keith asks the group to energetically begin walking out of my hell, inviting me to join them as they show me the way out, but not pushing, pulling, or disempowering me in any way.
At the thirty-percent mark, Keith stops the process and asks me to energetically turn around and look back at where I have walked from. I already feel quite different, experiencing a sense of deeper recognition that the love I experienced in that place was not even love at all. It was a fraud – a fake counterfeit of love – a tool of conditional acceptance, manipulation, and control – a statement that “If you do what I want then I will love you back.”
Unconditionally Connected
As we reach the eighty-percent mark, Keith has the group stop again, this time asking me to walk back into that personal hell all by myself.
As I go back into the heart of that crazy belief system about love equaling pain and rejection, I have a very different experience. That old belief no longer has much power. In fact, it seems quite absurd. I know that the only thing that matters is my own pure unconditional love for self and others, regardless of how they might respond to me. Pure love has no attachments or conditions.
“Keith,” I then speak up. “This is beautiful. As I begin walking back out, a part of me is trying to convince me that leaving this place behind means that I have to cut all ties to the past in order to move forward. Yet I am getting profound clarity that cutting these conditional ties in no way affects the unconditionally-loving bond that connects me to family and friends. The two are completely unrelated.”
Hope Fills
“Thank you for being here.” Keith speaks up at one point near the end of this process. “Thank you for letting us all share this energy of you making a huge crack in the profound wall of resistance to higher energies that has been surrounding you.”
Keith’s words fill my heart with deep, genuine gratitude. It was not too long ago that I put a tiny crack into this wall during a small private ceremony across the lake. To hear Keith now describe it as a huge crack is a welcome and much-needed confidence builder.
I have no illusions of having reached my goal. I know there is a significant difference between a huge crack, and actually tearing down a wall – yet hope fills my heart.
A Protective Bubble
A new metaphor suddenly fills my imagination. I see a scene from the final hour of the last Harry Potter movie – a scene where a huge force field bubble was erected around Hogwarts in a last ditch effort to protect the magical school from the dark forces of Lord Voldemort.
I imagine my magical little self, as a small child, using my own inner magic to erect such a force field to shield me from the heartache and pain of having my loving magic attacked by an unknowing world. That force field served me well, keeping me alive and sane in a world of muggles, but it also prevented me from connecting to the magical world outside of my protective bubble.
A giggle momentarily fills my face as I imagine a large crack in that force field, knowing that a large crack is the first step toward a major crumbling.
She Is Me
For the next hour, as Keith makes another pass around the porch, I silently meditate with my new metaphor, imagining a tiny bubble-like force field around my heart.
It is a very slow process, but every so often, I feel a tiny drop of light and love squeeze its way through a crack in that bubble. I try to make the cracks and holes larger, but realize that I am pushing, that the process does not work, so I return to simply allowing tiny drops of love to filter through as they are able, trusting that the rest will happen with synchronous timing.
Slow and steady, I feel my energy gradually rise. I connect with my little three-year-old angel and again visualize her sitting with me in my hospital bassinet. Soon, a new intuitive awareness tells me that this little angel is not something outside of me. In fact, she is the magical side of me that I pushed away. She is me.
Patience And Trust
As I listen while Keith guides someone in a soul retrieval process, I ask this little angel to rejoin me in my heart. I first attempt to visualize her simply entering my body, but that does not work. Then I attempt to imagine tiny parts of her energy flowing through the small cracks in the force field around my heart.
My efforts result in the intuitive knowing that a few drops of her essence do make it through into my heart, but my wall remains quite strong, quite resistant. I cannot push the river.
After one last attempt to metaphorically wave a magic wand, trying to force the process, I feel guided to cease and desist, to take the little angel’s hand, and return to my metaphorical waiting room. I am starting to get the hang of this. I remember that patience and trust are the keys to remaining in the flow of my own being.
Confidence Building
For the remainder of the ceremony, I simply sit in the loving glow, peacefully meditating in this magical waiting room. Eventually, Keith stops by to check on me. When I ask for advice, his response warms my heart.
“Just keep doing what you are doing.” Keith reassures me with confidence. “You are doing really well. There is nothing more I could add.”
I remain behind after the ceremony finally fades, hoping to touch base with Keith regarding a few group-related issues – hoping to pick his brain and learn from a master.
“You really did put a huge and important crack in a foundation wall to your resistance.” Keith again reassures me as I prepare to walk home.
I never tire of such feedback.
Intuitive Insights
It is rare these days for me to get my tarot deck out, but prior to today’s ceremony, I felt guided to do just that. To my surprise I had pulled three cards that all dealt with emotions (cups) – one representing new emotional messages, one representing powerful new beginnings in the area of emotions, and one representing emotional celebration.
Having had such a beautiful emotional journey today – one that did indeed bring new messages, profound new beginnings, and peaceful celebration – I decide to pull three additional cards after finishing my notes for the day. I am blown away by the cards that come up. The first two are both sixes, one representing spirituality and the other the mental realm. To me (and in the Mystical Kabala), sixes represent the heart center of Christ Consciousness. The message is one of balancing both spirituality and rational mind, uniting them in an unconditionally loving heart. The third card that I pull represents powerful new beginnings in the area of spirituality.
I do indeed feel profoundly hopeful that I am beginning a new level of heart opening today – a powerful step toward balancing the spiritual and mental sides of my being – one that I hope will indeed open new beginnings of spiritual awareness and transformation.
Bird Magic
Saturday, December 17, becomes my first fully peaceful day since leaving the eye of that hurricane on Wednesday morning. I spend the entire day writing a blog that ends with a story of two beautiful and innocent little birds that came to visit me – two magical little winged beings that simply wanted to fly and explore.
I had mistakenly seen them as being trapped in the cage of my apartment, and had hastily chased them away. Now I realize that they were simply coming to visit me in my own cage of conformity, trying to motivate me to spread my wings, to break through my walls of resistance, and to fly into the magical realms that await me.
Could it be that one of them was masculine and one feminine, trying to tell me that it is also time to bring balance to my masculine and feminine energies – to equally embrace the magic of both my rational mind and intuitive/creative sides?
It has been a crazy-but-beautiful week of inner growth – a journey that took me back into hurricane-force winds – that has taken me to my very beginnings in this physical existence. I would like to think that I am in the process of learning how to spread my wings a little wider – but full flight will need to wait until the hurricane season is over. Unbeknownst to me, an even stronger emotional hurricane looms in the not-to-distant future.
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved