Brenda's Bicycles

Note: this is conclusion of a two-part story. If you have not yet read “Part 1,” you may want to read it first …

At 4:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, I awaken with a start, as one emotional story after another flows through my head. This raging river of regressed childhood emotions continues to overwhelm me, further causing me to wish I could isolate and withdraw in rebellion.

Briefly surrendering to my inability to sleep, wanting to record insights that are passing through my mind, I get up and write a short paragraph.

“Whenever I get into these childhood shut-down emotions, especially now, they take me to a place of anger, powerlessness, and hopeless separation. When I buy into them, identifying with them (which I am still doing), I lose my connection to God and the Divine. This is deep in my God/separation drama. When I lose my connection (as I have done right now), I do not reach out to God for help, because I am in so much separation and pain that I want to say ‘F@ck you God’. It seems that I am stuck here until I break this cycle.”

Lost In ‘The Force’

Finally, after getting a little more sleep, I get back out of bed around 8:00 a.m. and begin to meditate … and meditate … and meditate. Still feeling rebellions, struggling to feel even the tiniest of connections to Higher Energy, I simply observe the raging river rapids of crazy non-stop emotions and stories.

Over four hours later, when meditative rebellion sets in, I give up in frustration. I have no desire to do anything except hide – and I do so for the rest of the day while watching the first three episodes of the Star Wars saga (episodes 1, 2, and 3).

Finally, at around 9:00 p.m., I crawl back in bed. I made it through the day. I have escaped a little, but I have NOT gone crazy. In fact, it is clear to me now, that losing myself in the magical “Force” of the movies has been deeply therapeutic.

Do Or Do Not

Friday morning while still continuing my state of emotional rebellion – of checking out from the physical world – I watch episodes 4 and 5 of the Star Wars series – with episode IV, “A New hope”, being the first movie released originally in 1977. In episode V, “The Empire Strikes Back”, as Luke is being trained by Yoda, Luke is deeply frustrated when his ship sinks into the marsh … and when he fails in trying to use “The Force” to lift it back to dry ground. In this sequence, Yoda gives Luke a series of beautiful teachings about “The Force”. Following is a tiny snippet of this scene that takes place just over half way through the movie.

“Oh no … we’ll never get it out now,” Luke complains, referring to his ship that is now covered with murky water.

“So certain are you.” Yoda responds. “Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?”

“Master, moving stones around is one thing,” Luke responds in deep frustration. “This is totally different.”

“No … no different … only different in your mind.” Yoga responds. “You must unlearn what you have learned.”

“Alright, I’ll give it a try.” Luke turns to face the marsh.

“No … try not … do … or do not … there is no try.” Yoda guides Luke.

Soon, Luke begins to lift his ship, partially succeeding, but then giving up in failure.

“I can’t … it’s too big.” Luke speaks in out-of-breath exhaustion.

“Size matters not.” Yoda responds. “Look at me … judge me by my size do you? … Hmm? … and where you should not … for my ally is the force, and a powerful ally it is … life creates it … makes it grow … its energy surrounds us … and binds us … luminous beings are we, not this crude matter … you must feel the force around you … you, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes, even between the land and the ship.”

“You want the impossible.” Luke expresses his frustration and walks away.

A minute later, Yoda calmly and confidently closes his eyes, reaches out his arm, and uses “The Force” to lift the huge ship out of the marsh and onto dry land.”

“I don’t … I don’t believe it.” Luke expresses with surprised amazement.

“That is why you failed”. Yoda responds with a sigh.

Perfect Delivery

“Wow,” I ponder to myself while watching this scene, “this is so exactly where I am at. I know this magic exists … and I know it is inside of me … yet my own doubts and lack of firm belief continually cause me to repeatedly succeed at failure.”

I love how even when I am just watching movies out of sheer withdrawal and emotional rebellion, that the ideal message – exactly what I need to hear – is delivered to me at a perfect time.

As I prepare for an afternoon chocolate ceremony, I realize that I am still believing that my emotions are me … buying into the lie that ‘what I feel’ is ‘who I am’. I am now in the process of learning not to identify with my emotions … to observe those emotions without being or becoming them.

Bizarre Beginnings

As I sit on Keith’s magical porch, waiting for the afternoon ceremony to begin, I am shocked, and somewhat amused at what I observe. It is a bizarre beginning by any standards.

A woman asks Paul to walk with her down into the garden. A minute later, Paul yells out in anger and defensiveness.

“You’re so resistant!” The woman calmly barks back at Paul. “I was just trying to give you honest feedback.”

Again, Paul lashes out in anger. I simply sit in my chair and smile at the woman, who then smiles a frustrated smile back at me. I know exactly what she is feeling – only I no longer attempt to give such feedback directly to Paul.

As the ceremony finally begins, a woman who is on the porch for the first time is quite pushy and defiant, constantly interrupting Keith, challenging him on everything he says, and then not giving him an opportunity to respond fully before she interrupts again. She seems to be insisting on a group discussion rather than allowing Keith to talk while she listens.

Repeatedly, she asks “prove it” types of questions, creating havoc and chaos without allowing a moment’s peace for any of us. Then, when Keith attempts to answer, she does not listen, instead turning to her neighbors and loudly stirring up more validation for her cause.

To make matters even more interesting, there are four or five men present, who are also here for the first time. Several of these men feel this woman’s energy and join in, siding with her, insisting that her behavior is valid … that inquiring minds want to know … that her doubts need to be listened to and answered. Even Paul jumps into the mix, defending the woman, and insisting that Keith should be more responsive to her.

A Rebellious Stage Play

I watch this unfolding scene with observant surprise and wonder.

“This is my creation.” I ponder to myself. “It is my stage play, my Muppet Show, showing me my own rebellion at authority.”

After a chaotic hour in which interruptions prevent Keith from fully delivering his normal introductory discussions, we finally begin the “Glow Meditation.” As Keith guides the group, this same woman constantly continues to interrupt, making loud noises, and engaging her neighbors in disruptive conversation. Keith makes several loving-but-pointed comments aimed in her direction … talking about how some people are so afraid of going into their own issues that they use distraction as a defense, etc…

Finally, Keith feels guided to ask this woman to leave. Paul again comes to her defense, later lashing out at Keith with a burst of anger at how Keith did not do enough to work with her.

Keith lovingly explains to the group that three types of people are welcome on his porch … those who just want to observe … those who want to do their own work … and those who want to hold space for others if their own work does not surface.

“But there is no room for today’s distractions, where one person’s behavior interferes with the ability of others to do their own work.” Keith explains his action to the group.

As the next half hour unfolds, several others on the porch end up leaving as well. Strong intuitions tell me that this rebellion at authority is all part of my personally orchestrated stage play.

Paradoxical Pondering

“This is bizarre,” I ponder with amazement, “it is perfect to show me another part of myself … that being my judgment toward those who rebel at authority.”

I realize that, as a child, it was engrained into me that rules must be followed. I never had any tolerance, none whatsoever, toward those who refused to follow the rules. In fact, I judged such people quite harshly in my tiny mind. It seems that I was so angry at having to follow those horrible rules myself, that I believed everyone else should have to follow them too – no matter how little sense the rules made.

“It is quite the paradox,” I ponder, “that here I am trying to undo all of that childhood conditioning – trying to undo and break all of those conditioned rules – yet I still feel such judgment toward anyone who defies authority.”

A Run Of Rebellion

“How are you doing today?” Keith quickly turns to me after the glow meditation ends.

“I am still in that same process I was in when I left on Wednesday,” I respond pensively. “I remain stuck in regressed emotions, trying to not identify with them, and still not feeling connected to Higher Energies. Today, I am feeling emotions of rebellion flowing through me … rebellion at rebellious people.”

After discussing my state for a few minutes, Keith reassures me that I am in a perfect place – that I should just continue to sit with those emotions and trust my process – that he has nothing more to add.

I observe with love and gratitude as I watch Keith work with a young woman across the porch, spending a full focused thirty minutes with her – telling her that her process is so important that he was strongly guided to pull in the reins to prevent others from interfering.

Soon, as one man leaves because he is too afraid to address the inner metaphors that are surfacing in his body, Keith gently tries to explain what is happening, and reassures the man that if he stays, that he can find some answers. Again, conflict erupts as a couple of first-time men on the porch rebel and accuse Keith of pushing. I just smile, because I can see the love from which Keith is operating, and I – the queen of sensitivity to pushing energy – see absolutely nothing but pure guided ‘following’ on Keith’s part.

“Why am I creating so much conflict and rebellion at authority in my stage play today?” I again sink into deep pondering.

Conflict Craziness

By the time Keith moves on to work with the next few people, I now clearly realize that my deeper issue for today, one that is wildly churning in my abdomen, is my lifelong terror of conflict and passive-aggressive anger.

When I briefly interrupt Keith to share my unfolding insights, he clarifies that this is also triggering how I picked up the energy of my parents when I tried to be my magical self.

“When you tried to speak your truth,” Keith guides me, “not only did you pick up on the conflict that was generated in physical responses, but you empathically picked up on their energetic judgment.”

“Wow,” I share new insights with Keith, “conflict was totally terrifying to me as a child. I learned that speaking my truth was a sure way to be slammed by the conflict … that I would surely LOSE if I tried. The cayenne pepper on my tongue was not just for mouthing off with inappropriate words … it was for futilely attempting to defend myself during my shut-down process.”

Experiential Education

As Keith does beautiful work with another woman on the porch, I observe from afar, deeply riding her emotional wave. Soon, I move in closer to hold space, further connecting to her childhood journey.

I sink deep into tears surrounding the childhood agony at facing helpless conflict with the adults around me – into the agony of not being allowed to speak my truth – of being painfully punished for trying to defend myself in the only way I knew how.

As my friend sinks deeper into her own journey, I am profoundly experiencing the emotional energies that caused my terror of conflict. I feel myself as a tiny child, a magical being who is not being understood, not being validated for what I knew, judged for being different and rebellious, judged for crying all the time when I empathically took in the pain of others … and I absolutely learned at a very tiny age that any type of confrontation was sure to create agony for me.

A Bubbly Bounce

After Keith guides my friend to bring in light and self-love, he turns and talks briefly to me, sharing that the whole porch is now riding her wave.

“Do what she is doing,” Keith guides me. “She is bringing in self-love.”

As I immediately focus on doing the same, I begin to feel glimmers of joyful love for that child that was me. I almost want to giggle at that tiny fourteen-month-old baby whose image is implanted in my mind. I can feel a bubbly bounce in my baby … I can feel myself really shifting in subtle ways.

Eventually, still in this beautiful energy of self-love, I return to my seat and glow.

A Perfect Review

As another friend begins to do some deep emotional work, Keith surprises me by giving him the same speech that he gave me earlier in the week, during the yoga retreat. Keith explains to my friend how he too is regressing into the experience of deep childhood emotions – explaining how he needs to allow himself to feel them without identifying with or attaching to them as his now.

I am blown away, because when Keith first explained this to me a few days ago, it was all so new to me. I had never heard him tell anyone any of this information. I am so grateful for the personally manifested review – a beautiful opportunity for me to relive and further understand the process through which I myself am passing.

Finding The Joy

As the ceremony fades, I mention that Bobby and Sharon are begging me for a burger and fries. When a friend asks if he can join me, Keith jumps in and indicates that he would love to join us as well.

The three of us engage in delightful inner work conversation for two hours. It is the perfect opportunity to clarify and further understand my process – to tie several loose ends together.

“You cannot take the wrong bus.” Keith reminds me when I beg for clarity about why I continue to slog through emotional things in the hard way. “It is all part of your process.”

“How do I get on the easy bus … the one with joy?” I beg for answers.

“But joy seems like a scam,” I interrupt before Keith answers. “With where I am right now, it feels like joy is just throwing a blanket of light over my pain, and pretending it is not there.”

“Joy means still feeling the emotional pain, but not identifying with it, not being attached to it.” Keith shares a beautiful insight.

“Keith,” I beg for clarity, “last Tuesday morning, when you told me that you could feel my emotion so strongly that it was making you cry … and you had tears in your eyes even before I did … do you feel such deep emotion so personally all of the time?”

“Much of the time I do,” Keith acknowledges nonchalantly. “Lately, I have felt a ton of emotion on the porch, but I know it is not mine … I do not attach to it as my own … I do not identify with it … and I remain in my joy.”

“Wow, what a concept,” I ponder. “And doing all of my own painful childhood regression is preparing me to do the same … not only with assisting others, but with my own past lives and parallel lives in other dimensions.”

An Inner Light

Saturday evening, after spending the day writing, the electricity flickers on and off several times over a five-minute period. Finally, the light goes off one last time, and remains off – leaving me giggling in the middle of editing my blog titled “Lost And Bewildered”.

An hour later, as pitch-blackness continues to consume the outdoors, I cozily enjoy peaceful meditation in my living room while several candles providing glimmering light all around me.

I am suddenly shocked to see something I have never seen inside of my apartment – something I rarely even see outside my apartment. A little lightning bug is turning his inner light on and off as he crawls on my wall just inches away from my right shoulder. Each time I blow a tiny breeze of air in his direction, the little bug again lights up.

“What a beautiful metaphor.” I ponder with delight. “For more than a year now, I have been exploring a magical theme park with no power, a blown fuse, and many other profound emotional metaphors of disconnected powerlessness. Now, here I am, surrounded by physical pitch-black powerlessness, and a little bug with glowing inner light stops by to visit.”

It seems so obvious to me … I am being shown in a very profound and clear way that my true source of power and light is not external, but is instead a beautiful and loving inner glow, an inner connection to source that needs to be developed and nurtured.

Ice Cream Giggles

Just recently, last night in fact, I bought twelve ice cream sandwiches – little motivating treats that my inner children love to gobble down after a long day of writing or inner work. Knowing how electricity works (or does not work) in San Marcos, I realize that the power may be off for so long that my freezer might completely thaw. Seconds later, I begin gobbling down three of those luxurious frozen treats.

Just after 8:00 p.m. I hear sounds on my steps as Keith’s voice calls out. He has stopped by to tell me about a fascinating light show he just observed – of how he was with friends down by the lake and saw huge fiery orange flashes across the lake near where a power substation is – of how with each flash the power in all surrounding villages would go dark. Then, as the lights came back on, more huge balls of flame would flare out, until finally, after several repeats of this flickering scenario, everything went black.

“I just stopped by to tell you,” Keith talks with excitement, “that based on what I observed, we could be without power for quite some time, perhaps for three or four days. If you do not have any, you might want to run over to a store and buy a bunch of candles just in case.”

“Then I better eat more of my ice cream sandwiches.” I giggle to Keith. “Would you like to help me?”

For the next half hour, before Keith decides it is time to move on to his next stop, I pick his brain regarding my process while we combine efforts to gobble down another seven of my precious ice cream treats.

I love how even an extended power outage can turn into inner-light metaphors and fun giggles.

A Subconscious Quest

Early Sunday morning, February 26, 2012, my apartment is eerily black as I use a flashlight to check the time. Noting that I still have time for a few more hours of sleep, I close my eyes and go through the motions. But by the time the sun’s faint morning glow is peaking across the distant horizon, I am up, cross-legged on my daybed, meditating with a passionate purpose.

I have recently realized that deeply rooted inner beliefs and self-doubt continue to stifle and muffle my ability to trust and follow my heart – and I plan to go deep into my subconscious beliefs to find out why. I just recently wrote, on February 7, about a similar process in a blog appropriately titled “A Subconscious Book Of Beliefs”. If you want to further understand the mechanics of this process, please read that blog.

After meditatively journeying down all manner of staircases, elevators, ladders, and fireman’s poles, I then meander through a maze of hallways until intuition tells me I am at my destination. Not being a particularly visual meditator, I use my intuitions and inner knowing to read the metaphorical book that part of me somehow knows is already open on a pedestal in front of me.

Intuitively, I begin to read the energetic content of the pages of that book – with each paragraph laying out the rules as to why I must not trust and follow my heart. Most all of these beliefs stem from deeply engrained religious teachings.

Restrictive Heart Rules

“Your heart is not to be trusted,” the first belief flows intuitively through my knowing. “It cannot help you earn a living or survive in this world. Your heart is beautiful, but it is filled with fanciful thoughts that will lead you astray from the Kingdom of Heaven. It will distract you, confuse you, deceive you, and cause great heartache in your life.”

“Use your heart in your future marriage,” the second rule flows, “but do not let it deceive or distract you in other ways. Instead, trust the scriptures, church leaders, and the Holy Ghost to guide you.”

“If inner voices come and they do not agree with the counsel of the church,” the third rule firmly dictates, “then ignore them. They are Satan trying to deceive you. Inner voices cannot be fully trusted. They must be compared to gospel teachings. True inner guidance will never lead you away from the church.”

“The heart is sentimental,” another rule reveals itself, “subject to great folly and distortion. Do not follow it to your destruction. Following your heart is the pathway to destruction. You must work and be responsible, provide for your family, and keep the commandments. There is no room for the heart in all this.”

“The heart is play,” rule five further spoils the fun. “You must work, work, work. You must grow up and live in an adult world of responsibility.”

“Your heart only gets you in trouble.” Number six takes me into how I have the concept of ‘love’ hooked with pain and rejection. “No one honors your heart. You must suppress it in order to be loved by others, to not be rejected, to not be in pain. Following your heart will result in deep rejection and pain.”

“Your heart is defective.” Number seven gets deeply personal. “Trust other people’s hearts more than your own. Your heart is evil. It wants you to do things that are sinful.”

Raging River Of Emotion

“I hate my heart because it gets me in trouble.” I ponder with deep gushing emotion.

At this point in the meditation, I realize I have left the book of beliefs and am now deeply regressed into a bottomless pit of childhood emotion – feeling the emotions of myself as a little child – a little child who was methodically taught that his pure and genuine heart-based feelings were invalid and troublesome.

“I am bad because my heart doesn’t fit in.” Another emotional wave overwhelms me.

For at least fifteen minutes, I allow myself to slip into a fit of profuse sobbing, coughing and dry heaving. This meditation has touched on the taproot of heart-based pain – at the pain-pressurized point of having my own heart knowing invalided and punished.

This emotion is so powerful that I know it is a real substance – one that I have tapped into – one that is causing real physical reactions. I know this emotion is not me in the present, and I do not identify with it in any way. It does not define me, but it runs through me in an agonizingly physical way.

I watch, I feel, I cry, but I do not identify. Once I sense that I am at the bottom of this pain, I invite the light to assist and show me what it would to with these emotions. Soon, the flow subsides and I am stable enough to resume my meditation.

Page Removal

For the next half hour, I meditate through the process of destroying these pages from my subconscious book of beliefs – ripping the pages out of the book and uniquely obliterating them three separate times.

In the first meditation, I rip out what feels like three pages of the book, visualize myself cutting them into tiny pieces, and then very carefully mixing them up with a small block of C4 explosive clay. I place this explosive on the airtight box (from previous inner work – a box where distorted Gestapo-like masculine energy ruled over my dysfunction). Running around a metaphorical corner, I push an old-fashioned detonator plunger and “kabooey” – that airtight box explodes to smithereens, along with all of these heart-limiting beliefs.

Next, I rip the pages for a second time and place them on a funeral raft piled high with carefully stacked firewood – like you might see in the funeral scene of a medieval movie. After the raft is pushed out into a lake, I launch a flaming arrow from a bow, arching the flaming ball out over the lake. As it lands on the floating raft, the oil-soaked wood explodes in a ball of whooshing flames, cremating the raft, the pages, and everything else on the raft.

Finally, I rip the pages out one last time, slice them up into thin confetti using a razorblade, and then throw them into the air above an Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool filled with gasoline. From a distance, I shoot a flaming arrow into the pool, which explodes into a hot fire that burns and burns until the pool is finally empty. Those beliefs are obliterated.

Need To Know Basis

As I finish my profound and deeply emotional meditation, I feel guided to check the light on my nightstand. Low and behold, it glows with brightness. It is 10:00 a.m. when I check the two remaining ice cream sandwiches in my freezer. As suspected, they are total mush.

After quickly finishing the editing and posting of my latest blog, I scurry over to Keith’s porch for yet-another round of chocolate journeying.

My heart feels connected and peaceful as I hold loving space through most of the ceremony. I watch with unattached interest as little emotional densities move around in my abdomen, but do not identify with them, simply allowing them to flow and release.

As Keith works with a woman next to me, I suddenly feel deep pains in my abdomen. Intuitively, I know these pains are not my own, but turn to Keith for confirmation.

“Yup, they are hers.” Keith smiles at me, giving me the confidence to keep doing what I am doing.

As my upper chakras remain lovingly connected, I observe and hold space for the porch for several hours, watching small pains come and go in my abdomen. I do not know if the pains I feel are mine or if they come from others, and at least for now, I realize I do not need to know. I just allow.

Perfect Guidance

Finally, Keith turns to talk to me. I quickly fill him in with descriptions of what I have been doing and feeling.

“Can you give me some feedback?” I ask.

As Keith begins to respond, giving me supportive feedback, we are rudely interrupted.

“Brenda,” Paul pompously and smugly scolds me. “You already know what you are feeling! Quit pretending that you don’t.”

I would love to smack Paul across the head, but I restrain myself, ignore his rude behavior, and then watch with surprise as Keith stands up to go work with someone else. Keith tells me later that he did not even realize that he had abandoned me at that moment … and says he was just doing what he always does, following guidance to move on. As I look back, I can see how his guidance was perfect.

Meditative Turnaround

As I ponder how I was just deeply invalidated and disempowered, I begin to experience churning and angry emotions in my solar plexus.

“This is not about Paul,” I remind myself over and over. “This is not about what it is about. And nothing changes until I do.”

“Then what is this about?” I ask myself with genuine desire.

Soon, I am meditatively exploring childhood invalidation done to me by what seemed like pompous ego-based adults who absolutely knew what was wrong with me, told me what was wrong, and told me what I needed to do to fix it – all without having a clue as to what was really going on inside of me.

“This is my God/separation drama.” I ponder as I take it deeper. “Keith represents God and Paul represents those who used ego to act in God’s name. Paul is showing me how the adults in my life lovingly slammed me with pompous fixing energy that made me feel stupid, invalidated, and disempowered – all because they did not understand me.”

A while later, when Paul comes over to work on a woman seated next to me, I quietly speak my truth.

“Paul, please stop interrupting Keith when he is working with me.” I speak sternly. “That is out of line when I am working with him.”

Saying nothing more, I return to allowing these painful childhood emotions to flow through me. The emotions of my little child are intense – ranging through anger, sadness, and deep feelings of invalidation and victimization. Through it all, I lovingly remain unattached to these emotions, not identifying with them as my present-day now, and mostly maintaining a peaceful loving space in my heart as the observer watching it all.

Withdrawal and Observation

As Keith prepares to guide the group in an empath training, one man, who is deeply stuck in his rational mind, begins to panic and create agitated conflict and confrontation over his inability to understand the non-logical guidance that Keith is sharing with the group.

Again, this intense quasi-conflict triggers my core issue-of-the-day quite deeply – taking me right back into the heart of my terror at confrontational situations. I observe the situation as it is lovingly resolved by others, but again sink deeper into childhood regression over the panic that any situation of conflict has always triggered in my soul.

During the actual empath training, however, I am so triggered and into my own space-holding-for-myself process, that I completely check out and do not participate in any of it. As the training unfolds for much of the next hour, I stew in contemplative observation mode, holding loving space while watching my child repetitively cycle between anger, sadness, victimization, and powerlessness. Throughout this process, my heart remains strong and unattached to the painful drama while my abdomen twitches wildly and angrily, all over the place.

Triggered Past, Tangled Projections

“Anyone else have anything they want to work on?” Keith asks when the training is over.

“Keith,” I quietly respond, “I would love some help.”

“What’s up?” Keith glows back at me.

I briefly explain the crazy emotional saga of my day – of how I am dealing with childhood disempowerment that has been triggered by events on the porch.

“I am doing my best to separate my projections,” I beg Keith for guidance,” and to deal directly with the childhood cause of these emotions. But I am having a hard time doing that.”

“I am deeply triggered by adults in my life who profess to be healers, yet who would come from a place of ego while disempowering others,” I share bluntly with Keith. “Then, without understanding what is going on in someone’s process, they throw fixing statements at them in a condescending way.”

Keith smiles at me as I share these words. Seconds later, I make direct eye contact with Paul. As I observe the look on Paul’s face, there is no doubt that he knows exactly what I am referring to.

Crazy Creations

“What do I do?” I ask Keith for advice. “Can you help me work with these emotions?”

“The first thing to do, Brenda, is to quit trying.” Keith responds with compassion.

Almost immediately, I quit trying to suppress my emotions, to keep my feelings at bay. As I do so, I sink into deep gut-wrenching, jaw-shaking sobs. Keith quickly asks all of the empaths in the group to support me and assist in this emotional release. This emotion runs very deep.

Like clockwork, I am not the least bit surprised by my “create my own reality” creation when Paul jumps up and begins to inflict multiple distractions, folding blankets, putting away cushions, talking out loud, etc… Within a few minutes, just one woman remains focused on supporting me. She immediately takes in a bunch of my emotion and begins to store it inside of herself.

Keith quickly turns to work with her while I continue my own emotional release.

“You need to be helping Brenda,” This woman cries as she lovingly scolds Keith.

“No, I need to be here, helping you.” Keith reassures her.

I could not agree more. I am doing just fine on my own, and I would not be able to release any more emotion if I thought she were taking it into her. I am grateful that Keith is assisting her.

Candid Conversation

“I need a few minutes alone with you.” I share with Keith when he finally checks in with me.

“Fine,” Keith responds, “I’ll walk home with you later.”

The woman who was helping soon gives me huge hugs, which causes me to cry some more. She shares amazing feedback about how strongly she perceives my heart energy, and of how I remind her of her mother’s powerful loving energy. She makes my heart metaphorically melt with love.

Finally, Keith begins walking into town with me. I am craving this opportunity for candid conversation.

First, I engage in a brief and honest conversation regarding my ongoing triggers with Paul. I am filled with sanity and gratitude as Keith validates my perceptions while reminding me that Paul is in his own unique process, that he (Keith) is following guidance, and that I can trust that all I need to do is continue to work on my own inner triggers.

“Nothing changes until I do.” I repeat to myself out loud … wondering how strongly I really believe this statement.

Non-Validating Validation

“How do I tell if I am actually moving density?” I ask Keith to teach me. “And how do I tell if it is my own or if it belongs to someone else?”

“Brenda,” Keith patiently responds, “you will only get that knowing when you quit trying to figure it out with your head. As long as you try to figure it out, the knowing will not be there.”

I scratch my head at how Keith can share such clear wisdom in ways that make my mind want to scream.

“I had that knowing for most of the ceremony,” I respond, “and I stayed mostly out of my head. I just feel like I want some validation for rational mind – validation that will help me continue to trust that I am not scamming myself.”

Without actually validating me, Keith does agree that everything I have told him about what I believe I was doing today makes sense … that there is no reason to dispute my intuitions. Again, I love how Keith can validate me without actually validating me.

But believe it or not, I actually love this short conversation. It leaves me realizing that my head really cannot validate any of this … and I need to quit trying to validate it at that level. Thinking I need outside validation is a major part of my childhood loop – one that I worked on with my subconscious book of beliefs just this morning – one that stems to the core of my shutdown – one in which I was taught to not trust my own inner knowing … the inner knowing of my heart.

The Proverbial Emotional Swirling

Late Sunday evening, as I check emails before bed, I find another beautiful quote from the “Oneness” book channeled by Rasha. As do most of the quotes from that amazing book, this one speaks to me deeply, being exactly what I need to hear right now.

“Be conscious of what you are feeling and how you are responding in the dramas of your daily life. Be honest with yourself in your acknowledgment of your emotional responses. And be not so hasty in rejecting, within your own repertoire of sensibilities, the poignant feelings that you might have yourself believe are “beneath you”. Your emotional response mechanism is very real. The key to all you would accomplish in this lifetime hinges upon your willingness to embrace all that you are, for the chance that you may come to experience – in Oneness – all that you truly are.”

I love how this quote validates that the emotional feelings that continue to surface in my process are not beneath me … that these emotional response mechanisms with which I am dealing are very real.

It often feels quite discouraging to return to such emotions over and over again. But each time I give myself painful permission to do so, I clearly recognize that this time is much deeper – that the healing and understanding that are coming to me are indeed worth all of the humiliation that comes from repeatedly appearing to spin ever deeper down the emotional toilet that it sometimes feels like.

Feeling The Spray

This last week has been a painful and wildly-emotional river run – a rafting trip down rushing rapids that began at a yoga retreat center as I became overwhelmed and consumed by inexplicable emotions – emotions that Keith lovingly helped me to understand were actually very real emotions experienced during my pre-memory years as a tiny child. The emotions were astoundingly real – so much so that as I felt them, separating from them as my adult-self was initially quite difficult indeed.

Since launching my raft into the raging river on Monday, February 20, I have repeatedly regressed – into one stage after another of agonizing emotions – each of which I experienced and recognized as correlating to various stages during the gradual shutdown of my childhood magic.

Just a week ago, I had no idea that a present-life regression was even possible. Now I have experienced such truth time and time again. What is even more amazing, however, is that I am gradually learning to do it with more grace and less attachment. It seems that as I recognize what is really happening – that these emotions are not really me in the now – that I can actually watch these emotional memories surface, feel them to the core, and let them flow through me and out of me, without attaching to them as being me, without identifying with them as being my present-day now.

It has indeed been a wild river run, rushing down the rapids as unexpected regressions greeted my experience at every bend. But to my delight, the journey no longer feels quite so relentless and raging … in fact it is growing increasingly easier and more fun with each experience.

Once I understand the process, it is somewhat exciting to feel the splashing spray of the upcoming rapids.

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved