Brenda's Bicycles

After a much needed, relaxing morning, I prepare to shutdown my computer before walking over to Keith’s porch for a Friday afternoon (January 20) chocolate ceremony. To my shock and horror, I find a very scolding/slamming comment from an extended family member – one written in response to my innocent Facebook posts regarding my being “Lost And Bewildered” as I journey with the undoing of ego.

I feel quite “kicked in the gut” by the comments – but also realize the words are a call for love. I feel trapped, knowing that I deeply love the person who made the comments, that I need to respond to them, and that I cannot do so in a defensive or emotionally charged way.

But in the moment, I feel body-slammed, having been sucked back into the clutches of a very familiar feeling from my past – an agonizing feeling of being misunderstood and rejected for merely attempting to explain my genuine heart.

As I stroll over to Keith’s porch, I ponder the puzzling dilemma of “how to respond”. It is quite clear that the timing of this comment was a perfect setup for the upcoming ceremony. (For the full story of my journey with these comments, see “Butterfly Wings”, posted January 23, 2012.)

Withholding Judgment

As the glow meditation begins, I am peaceful, quietly pondering where this new trigger might lead me in my healing.

I am completely unprepared for the fact that for me, today will be one of my most bizarre chocolate ceremony experiences ever – a ceremony in which Keith is so busy working with others that he hardly even glances in my direction.

Early on, as Keith begins a round of individual work, I watch what I perceive as Paul and my new friend Jen going crazy in the healing department. Jen has just had her magic validated, and is deeply in her power – yet she does it with such a dramatic flare that I want to scream and run away. I am uncomfortable and can hardly watch. I feel as if I am in the middle of a new age circus. All of my buttons are being pushed as I attempt to find perspective – attempting to defuse my emotions by witnessing everything as an episode of the Muppet Show, designed precisely to trigger me.

At one moment, while Keith has his back turned, Paul and Jen are working on a woman who is lying on the ground. Paul holds her head with his hands while Jen literally climbs all over her, frantically putting her hands here and there, doing so with hyperactive urgency like she is doing CPR on someone who just drowned.

I glance at Keith repeatedly, attempting to make eye contact, desperately trying to withhold judgment, wanting to draw his attention to what is happening, after which I will simply trust his opinion and guidance. Finally, Keith locks eyes with me, briefly observes the situation, checks his guidance, and makes a small hidden “OK” sign to me, while shining a confident glow in his face. I simply watch with horror as the scene unfolds.

Hyperactive Healing Extravaganza

Jen continues to go crazy in her hyperactive healing extravaganza. At one point, Paul impatiently motions to me that I need to come over to help. He wants me to hold this woman’s feet while he and Jen work on her. I ignore his hand motions and continue my detached observations. After Paul points at me and impatiently repeats his hand gestures a couple more times, I verbally respond.

“She doesn’t need my fixing.” I politely decline. “All is well with her, she is fine.”

I will not be pushed into doing something that is totally out of my style, out of my comfort zone. My inner guidance tells me that this woman is indeed totally fine, that she is simply entering the beginning phases of a much needed emotional release process, and that while her energy may indeed be blocked, Paul and Jen are actually preventing her from going where she needs to go at a different energetic level.

Spiritual Doreen

I find the scene almost comical – but terrifying to me at the same time. It is literally my worst nightmare unfolding before my very eyes.

“I cannot and will not work on this porch if Keith is going to encourage and allow this type of new age circus to go unrestrained.” I quietly ponder to myself.

I am projecting big time, and absolutely refuse to join in such a circus.

My thoughts regress to some deep inner work in which I engaged during my Sun Course at “Las Piramides Del Ka” in August of 2010. I had been playing around with metaphors using techniques gleaned from Debbie Ford’s book “The Dark Side Of The Light Chasers”. As I examined a group of characters on a metaphorical bus – characters that deeply triggered me – I had meditatively taken a journey with many of those characters. One of them was an imaginary woman I named “Spiritual Doreen”.

I had been to a spiritual conference in Las Vegas, and Doreen Virtue was one of the keynote speakers. I was a first-timer at such a gathering and had no idea who she was, and was completely put off by her external image – an image of flamboyant chiffon angel gowns with long flowing trains – an image of standing on the stage and dramatically working with people in the audience while using language and metaphors that triggered huge judgments in me.

I had vowed to myself at that time that I would never embrace such a flamboyant new age image – that if I were to do so I would be the laughing stock of my friends and family. Being a people pleasing robot, I knew that I would absolutely lose all credibility and relationship with family if I were to ever be associated with such an outrageous image.

Pondering In Shock

Here I am on Keith’s porch, holding my tongue while witnessing a scene that takes me right back into that nightmare about not wanting to embrace any circus-scenario that is on the fringes of the bizarre.

“Brenda, how are you doing?” Keith soon interrupts me in a very brief exchange.

“I’m struggling with the Muppet Show.” I respond. “I’m just trying to remind myself that everything is a stage play for my growth.”

Keith quickly moves on to work with another woman who is being quite stubborn and dramatic in her own form of resistance and being stuck.

“What a bizarre ceremony.” I ponder in shock. “I am feeling horrified. Did I really create this? If so, why? What would I hope to learn from such a scene?”

I know this is my creation – a crazy setup for some type of yet-unknown growth. I cannot wait for Keith to use it as a learning opportunity to point out the craziness that THEY are doing. I wait for him to make his move.

Hating Myself

Finally, after at least another half hour of such ongoing craziness, Keith speaks up while glancing at me.

“I have room for people to be quite dramatic when they are first beginning to open up their healing abilities.” Keith lovingly shares with the whole group.

Oops, this is not quite what I expected him to say. As if on cue, Jen almost immediately gets even more dramatic in her frantic healing, wildly moving her hands around in the air, snapping fingers, making vocal noises, standing up and waving her hands around.

Meanwhile, Paul fills his mouth from a nearby water bottle and begins to spit water all over this woman’s neck, literally saturating her as if she just ran through a waterfall.

I am immersed in a nightmare, steeped with horror and judgment. This feels like a zoo, like a crazy circus … and Keith is taunting me with it. I know he is intentionally permitting this behavior as a trigger for me.

I try to return to my Muppet Show metaphor, attempting to center myself, searching for some self-love – but I am stuck and I hate myself. I am crying and angry, unable to love myself, finding it extremely agonizing to tolerate what I see happening on the porch.

Missing Joy

Finally, Keith begins to do some empath work with the same woman that Paul and Jen had been frantically and dramatically helping earlier. Keith asks Jen to back off and to just hold space, but she continues to do weird dramatic things.

I am deep in my own process, attempting to totally disengage from the porch, trying to desperately see everything as the Muppet Show – trying to not project.

“Brenda, join us!” Keith sternly gets my attention and forcefully scolds me for not assisting.

I sit beside Keith and hold space for this woman while Keith assists her. Then to my surprise, Keith has her turn to me, look into my eyes, and connect with my energy.

“Wow, her energy is powerful and loving.” The woman shares with Keith as she talks about me.

“Can you feel what’s lacking, that if she could be in more joy she would be even more powerful?” Keith asks the woman, again referring to me.

“Yeah,” the woman responds.

“Help her raise that vibration.” Keith instructs the woman to assist me before moving on.

This is the last interaction I have with Keith for the next several hours. So far, we have only exchanged a few sentences throughout the entire ceremony.

Worse Than Death

When Keith conducts an empath training for the entire group, I soon encounter a deep inner fear. I suddenly realize that I shut this empath magic down and refuse to fully feel it because it turns me into a “Spiritual Doreen” … into a new age circus … and is extremely out of the box. I already have a strained relationship with family. If I step out of the box any further, I absolutely know I will lose all love.

“It is interesting how I have divine love (genuine magic) as being hooked and totally equivalent to absolute rejection by family.” I ponder.

I cannot remember when this association was made, but I clearly realize how deeply rooted this belief is. Throughout my life, whenever I have more openly expressed my genuine heart, the result has always been increased rejection from loved ones.

“This must have happened at a very young age,” I ponder with certainty. “The belief is so strong, yet I have no physical memory of when it was implanted. I absolutely know it to be true – I profoundly and painfully know that out-of-the-box activity equates to the end of love for me … the loss of love from family and culture … and it is worse than death.”

Dead In My Tracks

“This part of me would rather die than allow this magical opening to go any further.” I contemplate with shock.

“Some part of me hates this magical side.” I go deeper. “The hatred for this magic has me strangled with paralyzing fear about the complete loss of family love.”

I immediately attempt to bring in self-love, trying to visualize myself floating down a beautiful river in my oar-less raft – but sheer terror stops me dead in my tracks. WOW!

As the empath training is about two-thirds complete, I sink into extreme fear, recognizing that I still have my heart shut down with terror of opening these energies. I continue to cling to a cultural box that makes me appear mostly normal. I am terrified to let go of control – to simply drift downstream in my divine raft, if that raft takes me into such a new age circus.

Setup For Abandonment

In a later experiential portion of the empath training, I attempt to rejoin in participation, but I again begin to cry and withdraw. I am completely unable to embrace this magic or to love myself.

I wish Keith would put me in the middle of the porch to be assisted by others, but this does not happen. The victim-aspect of me pouts and uses this to declare that I am being completely ignored. Everyone around me is receiving Keith’s attention while I feel desperately lost and alone. I realize that I am once again setting myself up for abandonment, just like I did on Wednesday. I absolutely see it coming … knowing it to be an unavoidable fact.

Finally, I realize that I am truly on my own. No one else can take me to self-love. No one can make this journey for me. It is a solo journey. I must do it. I am sick and tired of trying to blame others for not helping me.

Much Craved Self-Love

I go inside, imagining myself in my oar-less raft. On one side of the river is a mountain of judgment, with a jagged mountain of fear on the other. I float in the middle, visualizing a domed force-field above me with love slowly flowing in through a window, while my friends metaphorically hug me. I begin to cry because part of me feels deeply undeserving of this love – but I keep the tears restrained and continue basking in the love.

Gradually, I begin to fill with deep peace as I continue to observe the melting pains in my heart while experiencing gentle energy movements that progressively and slowly bring a loving calm to my soul.

I imagine myself yesterday, back on Keith’s porch when everything was quite chaotic while Keith prepared frozen banana ice cream. Just like that experience, with all of the craziness going on around me, I simply meditate in my self-love. These distractions on the porch have no power to control me. I choose to allow the chatter to scream in my head while I simply love myself for doing so.

For most of the next hour, while further dramas and struggles unfold on the porch, I sit in quiet meditative peace and experience the sensation of much-craved self-love.

A Personal Ceremony

It is getting quite late as Keith begins to work with Jen, who has now shifted into doing her own deep inner work. I am tired and desire to go home – but instead choose to hang around. I want some type of recognition from Keith for the good work that I have done – but at the same time realize that I do not need it. I could walk home right now and feel quite beautiful about myself and what I have done today.

Finally, Keith surprises me when he leans forward, touches my knees, looks me in the eyes, and asks how I am doing. This is the most attention I have received all day.

“Keith, thank you for giving me a personal ceremony today,” I respond with all sincerity.

Yes, I am joking slightly, but I actually mean it. I clearly realize that everything that happened on the porch – and everything Keith said to others – was aimed and directed right at me. I briefly share details of my inner journey and even engage in a short conversation with Paul, who surprises me by congratulating me on my work.

Needed Elsewhere

When Keith momentarily steps into his kitchen, I stand up and follow him.

“Do you need me to hang around and support Jen’s work?” I indirectly beg Keith for permission to leave.

“No, go ahead and go,” Keith lovingly responds. “You are not needed here, and you know that.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I need to go home and continue my own self-love process.”

Synchronous Triggers

After a quick meal and round of taking notes, I contemplate responding to my beloved family member’s scolding/slamming Facebook post, but instead choose to sleep on it. I find it quite amazing how this unnamed family member’s comments were so beautifully integrated in what I did during the ceremony today. Everything that was triggered had to do with a deep fear of rejection and loss of love from family if I further open my heart and shed more of my restrictive box of past conditioning.

I love how the Universe works – I love how the external triggers I need to guide me in my process seem to show up at just the perfect times.

But with all of the emotional activity, combined with loud music from a nearby restaurant, I have difficulty sleeping. Finally, sometime after 10:00 p.m., I briefly disappear into the land of zzzzz’s.

Damned If I Do … Damned If I Don’t

To my dismay, I am hopelessly awake at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Agitated energy is overflowing through all parts of my body. Going back to sleep is an impossibility. Instead, I am lost in the personal hell of “damned if I do, damned if I don’t”. It seems that my agonizing fear of rejection by family has resurfaced with all of its past intensity – moving through me – attempting to suck me back into its clutches.

I begin to contemplate how I might lovingly respond to my dear extended family member. I realize that no matter what I say, no matter how lovingly I attempt to respond, it will likely result in misinterpretation and further alienation and rejection. My lifelong pattern screams that attempting to explain my genuine heart will absolutely result in further fighting and rejection – that there is no use in even trying to share my feelings, no matter how loving my attempts might be.

An all-too-familiar feeling of futility consumes me.

At around 3:30 a.m., deeply allowing myself to feel this anguish, knowing that I must feel it to release it, I finally surrender and let out repeated agonizing wails of this emotional pain, loudly moaning and sobbing in my bed for at least an hour.

Stuck Between Worlds

Finally, around 9:00 a.m., after no additional sleep, I wander out to Keith’s home, desperately seeking assistance and clarity.

“Come on in.” Keith lovingly greets me.

“Keith,” I respond in apology, “I feel like a broken record. I had another night of struggle with energies, and I have been awake since 1:30 this morning.”

As Keith invites me to join him on his porch, I first explain my continued frustration and confusion about how to work with my emotional densities.

“Keith, I’m trying not to lose myself in the emotion as much – at least not getting stuck in the painful drama.” I beg for clarity. “Instead I am trying to bring in more love and light to help. But I don’t feel like it is working. I am just getting more lost in my head.”

“You need to feel it to the core and THEN bring in the love to assist.” Keith reminds me for what must be the hundredth time.

“But I’m still getting lost in the details and procedure.” I share my frustration. “I feel like I’m walking a tightrope between my old way, which was totally getting lost in the emotion, versus a new way that confuses me because I still struggle to even feel the light and love. I am stuck between worlds. My old way is too slow and painful, and I do not yet trust the new way. I still struggle to bring in the self-love.”

An Energy Of Self-Acceptance

“Close your eyes, Brenda, and connect with the love.” Keith guides me into meditation.

“I can’t focus.” I finally respond after several minutes of failed and quite agitated meditation. “I am doubting everything I try to do.”

“Doubts are part of your process.” Keith explains to me. “Rather than invalidating the doubt, go into the doubts and explore their origin. The answer comes from going into your ego loops and learning to understand them, so that eventually you will no longer take the bait.”

“Brenda, bring in some love.” Keith again guides me.

“I can’t bring in love.” I respond with frustration a few minutes later.

“Then bring in self-acceptance for where you are in your process.” Keith changes his guidance.

“I can do that.” I respond with confidence. “I know that I am perfect in my process, right where I am.”

“This self-acceptance is the same as self-love,” Keith adds clarity. “But calling it self-acceptance takes the expectations about how it should feel out of the equation.”

As I meditate in this loving energy of self-acceptance, I gradually begin to stabilize, returning to a calm peaceful state.

Fear Of Grief

“I have this energetic thumping in my nail-in-my-heart spot that will not let me concentrate or focus.” I eventually share with Keith. “It is very distracting.”

“Go in there and connect with it.” Keith guides me. “Where is it coming from?”

After I provide several responses that do not fully resonate with me, I finally speak up with a flash of inspiration.

“It is an energetic part of me that is desperately attempting to prevent me from connecting with my heart.” I respond. “The thump, thump, thump is so distracting that I cannot focus on my heart. There is a buried feeling of absolute fear that further connecting with my heart will cause me deep grief.”

No Manipulation, No Pushing

Keith and I engage in a long and much needed rational mind conversation. He explains to me that there is an energetic part of me that I asked to be in charge of keeping me shutdown, keeping my power turned off, keeping my fuse in a blown state.

“You put that part of you there for a reason.” Keith guides me.

“Yeah, I would probably be dead or in a mental institution by now if my magic had not been shut down.” I respond. “I shut this down to protect me.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true.” Keith validates my statement.

“But I want it open now!” I beg Keith for assistance.

“Brenda,” Keith guides me to back off. “No manipulation … and no pushing. Connect with this part of you and ask it what it needs you to do before it will open. Figure out the reasons why it won’t open up. Then make the changes it asks you to make … perhaps working with more densities or learning more lessons, etc…”

“Then, when you have done that,” Keith continues, “you can ask this part of you if it would like a new job description. This is a powerful and loyal part of you. You do not want to get rid of it. You need this part.”

Keith further explains various traps that might come up in working with this part of me, reminding me that this must be accomplished by loving partnership with this part of me – through peaceful negotiation and with the involvement of Higher Self.

Red Alert

“This energetic part of you is in emergency alert.” Keith continues to teach me.

He explains that part of what I have been doing in the last few sleepless nights is building trust. When I open up more divine energy during the day, increased craziness is erupting inside during the night. It is the same concept of “when the good get gooder, the bad get badder” – that when I bring in more divine light into my inner projector, that whatever is still dark inside will be projected even stronger onto my external reality.

A very real part of me is terrified to open my heart any more. This part is definitely on high emergency red alert.

Ending With An Accent

In a quick discussion about unfolding “issues” on the porch, I find great closure in Keith’s reassuring words. While validating most of my perceptions, he also confidently reassures me that he is following higher guidance in allowing things to unfold as they are. Somehow, just knowing that I am not crazy in my perceptions – while being reminded that I create this reality and need to simply allow and heal my own triggers – brings great inner peace, allowing me to again focus on my own work.

After nearly four hours of beautiful conversation, the strongest earthquake I have ever experienced suddenly shakes the ground at 12:47 p.m. – it is a 6.2 earthquake situated offshore in the Pacific, a little over one hundred miles to the west and a little bit north of Lake Atitlan. The ground rumbles quite forcefully for more than thirty seconds as Keith and I grin at each other. I love how the Universe is ending our healing conversation with such a strong exclamation point.

Emotional Regressions

After rewarding my inner child with a yummy hamburger and fries at a local restaurant, I finally return home. Feeling exhausted, I lay down on my daybed for a short rest.

Suddenly I am awakened with a start at 5:30 p.m., feeling dazed and confused. I was in a crazy vivid dream involving me as a teenager, a potential bubble bath, a female authority figure, an attacking conflict initiated by two friends, self-defense, and vindication.

As I sit up in groggy confusion, wild and agitated energy shakes in my abdomen. It is the same type of angry restless energy that woke me up in recent nights – only this time it is 5:30 in the evening.

I do not fully understand this until weeks later, but apparently, I am methodically regressing through various stages of childhood emotion, and as I bring in more self-love and light, more of this emotion is beginning to release. The key is in not identifying with or attaching to this emotion, but in simply allowing it to surface and flow through me, recognizing that it is from the past, that I need to feel it so that I can release it, and that it is on its way out.

A Friendly Attack

Sunday morning, January 22, I awaken after a beautiful restful sleep. Feeling tired of inner work and emotional processing, I take the morning off, watching a movie, browsing the internet, and just resting peacefully.

To my shock and dismay, precisely as I am preparing to post a loving Facebook response to my extended family member, I receive a scolding and critical Facebook comment from a former friend – a friend who has found my extended family member’s comment and has taken the opportunity to slam me once more.

I am again blown away by the timing, and would be giggling with delight at the recognition of how I am creating my own reality if the buried emotions that are triggered were not so agonizingly painful.

A huge emotional charge immediately consumes my abdomen – a charge of wild and pulsing victim/judgment energy. Immediately, being unable to function, I shut my computer down and walk out to Keith’s home an hour early.

A Disempowering Interruption

Even before the glow meditation begins, I am already deep in my process as I begin to sink further into the understanding about how I have the concept of love hooked together with pain and rejection.

“It is not about them.” I repeat silently to myself. “It is not about their Facebook comments. It is about my dysfunctional subconscious beliefs that love and pain are hooked together … that I cannot receive divine love … that the only love I get is conditional … and that conditional love is used to shame, to manipulate, and to attempt to pull me back into the box with guilt and slamming attacks.”

As I venture deeper into this self-exploration, tears begin to stream down my cheeks. Keith makes an offhand comment to the group encouraging people who feel emotions to allow them to come up during this meditation.

“And if you can bring in that pure divine love,” Paul unexpectedly interrupts, “that really helps too.”

Knowing Paul as I do, I intuitively know that his comment is aimed directly at me. I see it as disempowering – as coming from a place where he has no clue about my current emotional state – as saying “just get over it by bringing in love … there is no need to feel it to the bottom first.”

A Motherly Reminder

Five minutes later, as my process has now switched from powerful emotional exploration to one of feeling deeply annoyed and even angry at how Paul’s comment has taken me out of my process, I lovingly interrupt Keith at an appropriate moment.

“I feel like when someone tells me to just bring in divine love and light,” I express to Keith, “that while it may be a true principle and goal, that such a statement invalidates the process I must go through to get there … essentially shutting me down.”

“You are projecting your mother onto Paul.” Keith reminds me of something I had figured out earlier. “You were not allowed to feel your emotions as a child … not allowed to process them … and were just coerced by your mother to get over it.”

Keith’s words resonate deeply. There is no doubt that I created Paul’s interruption to show me another part of my deep inner issue – an issue of resentment at those who invalidate emotional expression, something my beautiful loving mother frequently did to me (having the best of intentions).

Emotional Dumping Ground

As the glow meditation ends, I am stuck, my process is not going anywhere, and I simply sit in peaceful silence.

“Are you available to help?” Keith soon asks me.

“Well, I’m no longer in my own process, so I would love to assist.” I respond.

I hold a powerful space while Keith assists a new woman on the porch in releasing her stored pain. As he does so, he talks a great deal about the journey of an empath, helping her to understand her own energetic gifts. He is saying things that I have heard a hundred times before – but as I listen closely it suddenly hits me how deeply I have love hooked together with pain, rejection, and abandonment. As if I am hearing it for the first time, I intuitively receive profound new insights into how I have sucked in the negative emotions of others throughout my life, even when I did not have the awareness that I was doing it.

I suddenly remember a powerful example of how, when in conversations with the very friend who had synchronously slammed me on Facebook this morning, I used to listen for hours while she had unloaded her angry emotions onto me. When the conversation was over, she was all happy and bubbly, and it would take me days to recover – to let go of the emotions she dumped on me.

Explosion Of Understanding

“Keith,” I briefly interrupt. “All of that deep emotional charge that I suddenly felt this morning after opening my friend’s comment … was that my own emotional stuff … or did I unknowingly suck in her emotions from thousands of miles away?”

“What do you think?” Keith asks, making me find my own answer.

“It wasn’t mine at all. I did the same thing with her this morning that I did throughout our friendship. I connected with her – I felt her judgment, anger, and pain – and I sucked it inside of my belly, believing it to be my own.”

“Now you’re beginning to understand.” Keith grins back at me.

As Keith continues to lead the empath training, I attempt to participate, but my emotions swell so deeply that I cannot focus. Multitudes of memories begin to explode in my mind – memories of being a people pleaser who was terrified of conflict and anger, because I took it all into me – memories from throughout my life. Until today, I had believed all of that pain to be my own. Now I clearly see that I was inhaling it from others.

Puppy Love

I sit integrating, on the edge of sobbing for a while. But instead of losing myself in tears, I begin to focus on bringing in self-acceptance for being where I am at in my process. Even though my process is slow, tedious, and frequently excruciating, I am actually quite proud of the deep inner work that I am doing.

Meanwhile, a young puppy wanders over to my cushion. She is a temporary young visitor making her debut on the porch today. I crave the feeling of unconditional love, and pick up the little puppy, holding her to my heart, hoping to share love with her. As I do so, I begin to cry a muffled cry. I cannot feel this little puppy’s love. Even that is blocked. The wall around my heart remains strong – protecting me from pain, but keeping out the love as well.

As the little puppy soon wanders off, I meditate in deep self-exploration, focusing on attempts to access and allow more self-love.

An Unwanted Image

Near the end of this powerful chocolate ceremony, Keith asks everyone present to close their eyes and to visualize a basket in front of them. He explains that as they visualize the basket, that an object, an energy, an image, or a reality will appear in the basket – that they will either see, feel, or sense what appears.

What first pops into my head is the image of a Phillips screwdriver. I try to reject this metaphor as silly and stupid, but I cannot get it to go away. The screwdriver is perhaps eight inches in length, with a black handle and a one-quarter-inch diameter shaft. I cannot explain how, but I do not see the image visually. Instead, I sense it intuitively – but nevertheless, the image is very vivid.

“Keith,” I soon ask for guidance on my image. “I feel like this screwdriver is what is stabbing me in that nail-in-my-heart spot of my heart chakra. It represents the fixing energy – a sharp, jabbing tool designed to fix things – being stabbed into my emotional center, not allowing me to feel in my heart, shutting down emotional processing with strong invalidation and fixing.”

Twisting Pain

Keith confidently congratulates me on my insights and explores the metaphor with me further.

“What happens when people try to fix you?” Keith queries.

“My screwdriver gets twisted.” I respond intuitively.

“Grab it and do that.” Keith instructs me.

Imagining myself grabbing the handle of a real Phillips screwdriver that is stabbed into the center of my heart chakra, I place my hand over that painful spot and twist.

“Ouch.” I begin to cry deeply as I feel real physical and emotional pain.

Keith soon adds another unexpected twist, telling me that I am the one that turns the screwdriver inside of myself – that it is my own inner enforcer.

What To Do?

“What do you do when you have a screwdriver stuck in your heart?” Keith asks a surprising question.

I hem and haw for a few minutes, providing several lame answers, never having thought much about what to do with a screwdriver in my heart.

“What do you do?” Keith again encourages me to answer.

“You pull it out.” He finally answers for me.

“Duh.” I respond, feeling quite silly.

“Typically, when we work with something like this,” Keith coaches me, “it needs to be done three times. The first time you need to pull it out yourself.”

Too Much Fear

“Pull it out, Brenda.” Keith soon guides me.

With my right hand still grasping the imaginary handle of that screwdriver at the center of my heart chakra, I try to imagine myself pulling it out. My right hand is frozen. No matter how hard I try to imagine myself pulling, my hand remains physically stationary.

“I can’t do it.” I begin to sob as I feel the intense fear of trying to energetically remove this stabbing metaphor.

I cry for a while as Keith explains to others about the intense fear that often surfaces around such core issues. As he talks, I realize that this is another issue right at my very core.

“Use both hands and try again.” Keith encourages me.

I place my left hand over my right and again imagine myself pulling. I cannot move my hands. The terror and stuck-ness are too great.

“When there is too much fear, we back off and wait for another day.” Keith guides me.

But I don’t give up. I hold my right hand on that imaginary screwdriver for the next thirty minutes while Keith moves on to work with others. Suddenly I realize I am clenching my right hand so tightly that my entire arm hurts profusely.

“Is this the source of my clenching?” I ponder.

Painful Intrusion

My abdomen begins to hurt as Keith is working with someone else.

“Mine or his?” I quietly ask Keith while pointing to the pain in my abdomen.

“Yours,” Keith responds. “Allow and go deeper into the pains.”

“Keith,” I soon share at an appropriate moment, “I have this metaphorical hand reaching out of my solar plexus. My power center is the one suppressing my heart with the screwdriver, cranking it each time I begin to access my heart.”

“It is obviously not a real hand,” Keith shares for the benefit of others, “but the energy is very real. Keep following these threads and bread crumbs.”

As I observe, the pains in my abdomen gradually increase in both agitation and pain.

“My lower chakras are where I store much of the emotional density of others.” I soon share new intuitive insights with Keith. “They are the energies preventing my heart from opening, because if it does, they will be slammed with increased density, overwhelmed by the painful intrusion.”

Energetic Contributors

As someone on the porch begins to process through various lower-chakra energetic blockages, I recognize with clarity that I am not feeling any energy coming from Mother Earth up through my root. Absolutely nothing is making it through my abdomen into my heart.

“Hmmm,” I ponder to myself, “no connection to the Divine Mother … combined with the feeling that the ‘mother fixes’ me … combined with the forbidden shameful divine feminine energy of the sexuality chakra of my body … combined with the distorted understanding I had at age eleven. I took on tons of shame and judgment during those tender years.”

“It was at age eleven when I first began to walk pigeon toed, to talk excessively fast, to hate my face and body, to lose all self-love and self-confidence etc. My second chakra sexual energies were a major contributor to the energetic hand that continually twisted that painful screwdriver in my heart.”

A Divine Flow

Immediately I begin to relax my root and ask the Divine Mother energies to begin flowing upward. I gradually feel as if a cool breath of air begins to rise gently through my second and third chakras, from the base of my spine right up to the base of my rib cage in front. But the energy does not make it all the way to my heart.

Intuitively, I recognize an ongoing inner struggle of anxious energies – and I do not push. Gradually I become quite calm and peaceful. I recognize that the Divine Feminine energies have been rejected and guarded against throughout my entire life. It is time to ask and allow those feminine energies to flow, but I must take it slow. The energy I feel is peaceful and supporting. I love this energy and am unattached as to whether this is a temporary glimpse or a permanent opening.

After a very late ceremony in which I remain to hold space for a friend who does some very powerful work, I finally arrive back at my apartment around 8:00 p.m.

Passionate Writing

Monday morning, I spend a beautiful energy-filled hour meditating in a delightful flow of energy. It is obvious that changes are happening – gradual but steady. It seems that after every major density release, I become increasingly sensitive to the energies flowing in my body.

Finally, I have a full and uninterrupted day to return to my passion of writing – but rather than writing about the past, I take the opportunity to tie up loose ends with the recent beautifully timed struggle with the belief that love equals pain and rejection. I spend a delightful energy-filled day writing “Butterfly Wings.” To my delight, by the time the evening is over, my dear extended family member and I have exchanged several loving messages – and we do the same on Tuesday. I love how responding with unconditional love creates such beautiful results.

As Tuesday, January 24 also enters the history books, I have spent two full days in a row, following the passion of my writing. I may be five weeks behind, but I am loving the integration that takes place as I dedicate the time to go back and write.

A Powerful Exclamation Point

These five days have been an intense journey showing me various facets of how I have love hooked together as being equivalent to pain, rejection, and abandonment. I have deeply explored hidden fears about how becoming a magical healer will only cause those I love to judge me as being part of a new age circus – causing further abandonment and rejection. Synchronously timed comments from extended family and friends have beautifully triggered this painful eye-opening saga.

It has been a journey reminding me that the person I need to depend on is me – that the path to self-love is a solo journey, and that no one else can fix me or make this journey for me. I have learned that when I am unable to bring in that much-needed self-love, that I can indeed look at my life and find profound self-acceptance for who I am and what I am doing. And, as if by magic, this self-acceptance suddenly transforms into that deeply sought-after self-love.

It has been a journey of deeper understandings into how I have indeed been an unknowing empath throughout my life, inhaling the emotions of those around me and stuffing that emotional pain down inside of me, making it my responsibility.

I have learned that as much as I give lip service to my desires to bring up the energy of the Divine Mother Earth into my heart – that a very strong aspect of my energy continues to block such a flow – that whenever I attempt to further open and fuel and express my genuine heart, that my own blocking energies turn an energetic screwdriver, clamping down a painful restraining screw into the center of my heart, preventing me from accessing my own magic.

And I love how that same Divine Mother Earth energy frequently adds a powerful exclamation point to my process – shaking the very earth below me to get my attention.

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved