Note: This is a continuation from my previous blog titled, “Taking Out The Trash.”
After a magical relaxing morning of meditating, playing with crystals, watching a movie and checking out airport taxis, I finish this Sunday morning, February 24, 2013, in the same way I begin almost every day here in San Marcos. I take a stroll out to Keith’s magical porch to make preparations for an afternoon chocolate ceremony, doing so from a state of expectancy – of expecting that something magical is going to happen, having no attachment to just what that might be.
As I sit in my usual spot by Keith’s kitchen door, a new friend, a woman I will call Sarah, sits down on the cushion directly to my left. I enjoy a short conversation with her before the ceremony gets underway.
A nice flow of energy graces my body as we engage in the normal “Glow Meditation.” But soon, I note that I feel resistance and tightness forming in my heart. I begin to assume that this is a metaphor of fear – fear of further opening – and I begin to focus my inner journey with this premise. As I attempt to relax, I feel a wall at the bottom of my ribcage, preventing energy flow between the heart and lower chakras. I bring in my grandchildren (metaphorically) to climb and giggle all over this wall, but even with all of this loving attention, my heart grows increasingly cramped as pains in my abdomen gradually increase.
Meanwhile, I observe with deep compassion as I can tell that Sarah, sitting to my left, is in deep pain.
Return To Eating
For the majority of the ceremony, I continue to hold space and radiate energy to others as these confusing pains in my heart and solar plexus continue to taunt and tease me.
Finally, as Sarah seems to be in ever-increasing pain, I follow guidance to place my left hand behind her lower back. As I focus on engaging my confusing empath abilities, I do the usual – filling my heart with love, imagining a white bird helping me to effortlessly focus that “energetic assemblage point” out in front of me rather than taking things inside.
As I do so, I note that my fingers (held just a few inches above Sarah’s lower back) are tingling with intense sharp energy – much sharper than normal. Intuitions whisper that I am actually sensing the difference between high vibration energy and dense painful energy – and that what I feel right now is very dense and painful.
Finally, at around 4:30 p.m., I ask Keith for a tiny bit of guidance and/or feedback.
“My heart is really hurting today, and I have experienced lots of pains in my abdomen,” I briefly fill Keith in. “I think I am just reading energy, perhaps reading Sarah’s heart pain or something. Can you confirm what I am doing?”
“Brenda, I don’t need to tell you what you are doing,” Keith smiles back at me. “You know what you are doing.”
At first, I conclude that Keith is implicitly confirming that I AM reading Sarah’s energy, but after a while, the real insight comes.
“I am and have been eating emotional garbage from Sarah,” I ponder with shock. “I feel a deeper connection with her, and have opened my heart to helping. In the process, I automatically slipped into a lifelong pattern of filling my belly with her pain while my heart begins to painfully resist and shut down.”
The Payoff
“I did so much work last week to empty many old stored pains from my abdomen,” I continue following intuitions, “and now, with all of this empty space, the energy packrats in me are starting to fill up my storeroom all over again.”
“This is my God drama stuff, trying to keep me dysfunctional, small, and not in my magic,” I ponder with clarity.
With this new insight, I immediately ask the angels to come back with empty boxes and to carry away this new room full of emotional density. As I do so, I recall words that Keith usually shares near the end of every “Empath Training.”
“If you continue to eat emotional garbage from others,” Keith tells people, “then call in some angels, clear it out again, and go inside to find out why.”
As I ponder the dilemma, I am quite clear that I have been a lifelong packrat, not only with physical and sentimental things, but with energetic things as well. It seems that I am uncomfortable if my inner storeroom is not full of pain. That inner agony is what keeps me from embracing the light shadow, from owning my joy and power … and most of all, from risking painful rejection by others – rejection that will surely come if I step into that power.
Dancing With Validation
After the ceremony ends … after post-ceremony straightening up … I get a couple of minutes to share my experiences with Keith. I am delighted when he not only congratulates me for the insights I am having, but also suggests that I will continue to have many new insights as I let this growth unfold.
“Brenda,” Keith grins at me as I start to meander home.” You are getting more and more fun to have on the porch.”
I giggle at these words, recognizing that I am finally beginning to lighten up, to allow a little more joy into my path.
As I slowly walk toward town, I remember how, late in the ceremony, I increasingly doubted myself, wanting external help and validation, but not receiving it. Several times, I recognized the inner storytellers who attempted to derail me … and each time I had to say “no” to them.
“I have this knowledge inside of me,” I had told that inner chatter. “It is better if I find and trust my inner knowing, rather than asking Keith or others to give it to me.”
And again, I experience the feeling of guilt and self-judgment insisting to me that this sense of inner knowing – an inner wisdom and power – is a form of ego, and seems wrong. This dysfunctional teaching from childhood runs deep, telling me that the very divine connection I seek is the “root of all evil.”
But in my heart, I know the opposite to be true – that the voice telling me to be guilty and small is the message of ego – and that the voice of self-confidence, love, compassion, and inner power is my light-shadow, the transparent and loving Brenda.
Earthly Metaphors
After the ceremony, during a delightful dinner with friends, someone mentions that the volcano across the lake has been erupting. Several of us walk down to the public boat dock to look out across the lake. Sure enough, a thin orange glow of what appears to be active lava is visible near the very top of the cone-shaped peak. Later, on Facebook, I find photos taken by a friend from a different angle, showing significantly more orange glow on the opposite side of this towering mountain.
(Note: Even though all evidence appears that this is a real lava flow, and local residents across the lake were talking about it, to this day I have been unable to find any news of this eruption on any media outlet.)
At 1:08 a.m. on Monday morning, a 4.2 earthquake shakes the area, with the epicenter only twenty-five miles away, centered on the far side of the volcano, between it and the pacific coast.
As the rumbling wakes me up, I can only giggle as Mother Earth makes her presence known – a presence of power – a presence of shaking and opening the depths that have been solid and firm, allowing new energy to flow.
At just after sunrise, I walk back down to the lake for another view. The lava is no longer visible behind a layer of smoke that clouds visibility of the towering peak.
Mirrors Of Stuckness
Early Monday afternoon, in a workgroup ceremony of about fifteen people, I again start to realize that I am eating the emotions of others as my heart begins to hurt, cramp, and shut down. I visualize my white-bird metaphor and attempt to fill my heart with love, relaxing and trusting higher energies to help – but I find no relief. I focus on asking higher friends to assist me – but again, I experience no relief. Through it all, I simply surrender, continue meditating, and ask the light to show me.
Meanwhile, Sarah, who again sits directly beside me, goes into deep stuckness and emotional struggle – talking about not knowing who she is, and discussing profound fear about taking the leap into her real life.
I deeply relate and resonate with Sarah’s process. She is magically giving me a mirror of my own inner struggle.
Soon, a magical friend on the porch feels guidance to speak up, reminding Sarah that she has huge multidimensional support, that this struggle was set up by her at a higher level, and arranged as part of her process, and that she is NOT alone.
“Yes,” I ponder with excitement. “I am often stuck in my head … and almost always have been. But in spite of this, beautiful and magical things HAVE happened to guide me every step of the way – things that I could never have done with the mind.”
Beyond Rational Mind
Soon, another dear friend verbalizes her own deep stuckness, a core issue preventing her from moving forward.
“Wow,” I ponder with giggles. “I deeply … deeply … deeply relate to this process. I am again at the bottom of an unclimbable wall of glass, wanting to move forward on my own path, but trying to use my head to do so. I am in a state of not knowing and not trusting anything but rational mind. My head wants to solve this unsolvable puzzle, and is not content to just sit back and trust. This part of me is impatient and convinced that not using logic will surely result in failure.”
“Wow,” Keith soon speaks to the whole porch. “We have one person who doesn’t know who she is, and one who doesn’t know how to go forward.”
“Keith,” I briefly express my own feelings. “I deeply relate to the processes of both.”
Suddenly, the porch is ablaze with storytelling as another woman goes into a ten-minute description of how she too relates. Then several others interrupt to add their rational mind descriptions – all of which are quite pertinent to the issue – but all of which does nothing but throw words around the porch. I get the clue.
“This is not something that will be solved by talking or discussion,” I giggle silently. “I will only get to the other side of this wall by surrendering to an experience beyond the rational mind.”
But for now, I simply sit in meditation at the base of that tall glass wall, or in my case, at the top of my impassable switchback – feeling helpless to proceed under my own power.
Differing Perspectives
Soon, Catherine engages in her process, taking it right back to what happened on Friday evening – to the experience where she was deeply triggered by me, and where I found magical transparency while ignoring what I perceived as her attack on me (see blog, “Taking Out The Trash.”)
I giggle as Catherine talks, because she gracefully dances around the need to share specifics as she goes into details of how those events had taken her back into childhood situations where she too was attacked for speaking her truth. I begin to sense a deep camaraderie with this magical woman playing the other end of my script. It is clear that she suffered the same type of agony and punishment for not being able to speak her truth. The main difference being that we dealt with it quite differently, shutting down in different ways. I had simply surrendered and become a people pleaser, while I perceive that she had become more insistent and vocal in her need to be heard. Wow, I love this new sense of understanding.
Recognizing these deep similarities further allows me to soften my resistance to certain of her behaviors that have often continued to trigger me.
In our ongoing interactions, her need to speak her loving truth to me has usually triggered my feeling of being attacked. My newly developing power caused me to no longer surrender as a people pleaser, but to instead resist and stand up for my self. This caused her to feel attacked by me. In reality, we were both dealing with the exact same issue of learning to speak our truth, only from different perspectives.
I can now clearly see the truth behind her words to me. But her delivery was tainted by her own pain, as my response was tainted by my struggle.
A Meddling Mind
I can only giggle as the ongoing rational mind chatter continues to consume the porch for much of the remainder of the ceremony – with people giving advice to others, people in nonstop discussion of various issues at a head level.
I have already found one magical lesson in the new insights regarding my confusing relationship with Catherine. Now, in a bizarre and strange way, I see myself sitting at the top of my impassable switchback with new clarity. I am actually grateful that Keith allows this incessant mind chatter to continue for several hours.
Somewhere deep inside, a profound inner truth begins to bubble. While it has frequently guided me in my life, this truth usually remains locked in a room somewhere in the basement of my abdominal area. It is not a truth that I am able to access with rational mind. In fact, my head is lost, clueless, and even resentful as it struggles to uncover that truth. I now know that using rational mind to open this hidden vault is impossible.
“I finally get it,” I ponder with a giggle. “I finally understand that the rational mind is just a tool, and that it cannot take me where I want to go.”
Soon, I again imagine myself sitting at the top of that impassable switchback, the one from my recent dream where I want to descend a cliff to the beautiful beach below, but the trail is so treacherous that trying to continue forward will surely lead to my death.
As I sit on that cliff edge, terror and frustration continue to consume me. I desperately want to figure out how to go on, and my head insists that it does not trust that other part of me who surely knows how to do so.
“The only way to go on is to surrender,” I ponder in clarity. “But how does that work? What does that mean?”
The mind just doesn’t want to back away.
Rational Ramblings
I sink deeper and deeper into meditation, at times cycling into tears, and occasionally allowing brief episodes of intense emotional release. I periodically ask angels to surround me on the edge of that cliff. Each time that I do this, distractions swarm me and fear overwhelms my peace.
Each time that I ponder how I do not know how to return to this heart-truth part of me, I feel deep sadness. There is some anger, but the emotion is one of overwhelming and profound sadness about how I once had this connection, but now have no memory of it. My rational mind overflows with understanding and belief at a head level, but the inner experience continues to elude me.
One thing is quite clear.
“None of that head knowledge and storytelling means diddly squat!” I ponder over and over. “All of the debating and arguing with others over whose version of the truth is correct … well all of that is crap. At this level, it does not matter which religion or politics or belief system is correct. All of that is meaningless when thinking about where I want to go. None of those belief systems can steer me from here.”
“This is an inner journey that I alone must make.” I ponder with clarity. “No teacher or belief system can do it for me.”
“Yes, my rational mind knowledge is beautiful, and helpful,” I again remind myself. “But it is worthless for this part of the journey. It cannot take me where I want to go.”
Stuck And Alone
Still sitting on the edge of that cliff, I repeatedly ask angels to surround me, begging the light and Higher Energies to help.
The more I do this, the more I cycle in and out of fear and sadness. I trust this … surrendering to the emotions. In the background, I overhear Keith remind a dear friend of something I clearly know.
“Love yourself for exactly the stuck place that you are in,” Keith tells my friend. “You wanted to be here in this stuck place. It is part of the journey that you designed to teach you compassion, etc.”
As these words drift into my awareness, I focus on self-love, still feeling clueless, simply inviting higher assistance while observing my feelings.
Repeatedly, amidst head distraction, I return to that cliff, overlooking that switchback below, inviting angels to hold and surround me. Then I pull out the stops, asking my Fabulous Four to join me, then inviting giggling grandchildren to climb on me. I feel a great deal of beautiful love from all of these metaphors, but continue to feel stuck and alone, unable to open the door to that magic.
Going Deep
Suddenly, I remember a new meditation from last week – one where Keith suggested that I invite one of my grandchildren to bring me something in meditation. Immediately, I engage this flow as I visualize each grandchild, approaching one by one, bringing me some type of toy or trinket. Each makes me giggle. Each item goes straight to my heart. I begin to feel strengthening energies filling my heart – energies that begin to flow between my belly button and heart.
But each time that I begin to feel this flow from lower chakras to my heart, I suddenly break down into tears – mixed tears of fear and joy. I know something new and profound is happening. I recognize that something is softer and flowing differently. And I experience feelings of fright and peaceful expectancy at the same time.
Several times in the middle of this long silent process, Keith briefly interrupts, one time encouraging me to bring in more light to help me, another time just letting me know that people are holding space for me. Each of these little acknowledgments of encouragement goes a long way toward allowing me to go deeper, helping me to further release doubts and head chatter.
Finally, as I do bring in more light, I reach a nice place of inner smiles. When a nearby friend laughs, I even manage to externalize a few genuine giggles.
Perfect For Now
Through all of this, the porch chatter continues to run rampant, but I simply ignore it all. Finally, Keith feels guided to interrupt the group’s incessant talking, and asks everyone to please support me, and another friend in our processes, holding space for us.
For the next thirty minutes, I remain with eyes closed, continuing to sit at the edge of that cliff, following threads, bringing in love, experiencing sadness and joy, occasionally sinking into deep release.
I sit in that confusing space of knowing there is nothing that I can “do” to get to where I want to go – but knowing that a part of me does know how to get there. In meditation, I am surrounded by a plethora of angels and parts of me that DO know, and that will help me if I can somehow stop resisting and get out of the way. I clearly recognize that I am deeper in a state of surrender than I have ever been, but I also know that rational mind still has a foot firmly lodged in the door, trying to call the shots.
Nevertheless, I am in a beautiful state of being – one that rational mind continues to narrate as not being anything like what others describe when they reach a state of oneness. I see the silliness of this realization. I can only giggle inside at how my mind so relentlessly refuses to let go.
I am in a magical place of clarity where it is so obvious that rational mind beliefs mean nothing at this level. I feel deeply connected in my heart and know that thoughts and beliefs feel quite silly and insignificant.
It is a beautiful and peaceful state – yet quite ordinary at the same time.
“Drop expectations of what this should feel like,” I tell myself. “Just love and enjoy where you are at, trusting that this is perfect for now.”
Where Is The Joy
Finally, I open my eyes and look around the porch, feeling deeply relaxed and peaceful.
“Hi,” I speak to Keith when he glances my way.
“How are you doing?” Keith asks.
“I don’t know,” I respond with true not knowing. “I have been on a really intense journey. Lots of deep things have been happening, but I really don’t know what it all means. I really don’t even feel a desire to try to describe it with rational mind.”
A few minutes later, a friend goes into laughter as part of her process, and I ride her wave, beginning to laugh myself. As usual, this belly shaking causes me to go into another few waves of deep dry-heaving emotional release. There is so much locked away inside my abdomen – so much waiting to be shaken free and released.
“Do you have any suggestions for my process?” I ask Keith, still not having shared hardly anything about my journey.
“Yeah,” Keith responds. “Where is the joy?”
Resistant Rejected And Resentful
Keith’s question catches me off guard, and I initially go deep inside to explore. Soon, I open my eyes and begin a bantering conversation with Keith, one in which we both agree that the joy is inside of me, but that it is just locked up and repressed because it got me into so much trouble.
I remember still having access to much of it at age ten, but what remained quickly disappeared when I realized that my feminine personality and playfulness got me into so much trouble.
“Go back into childhood and explore what happened to your joy,” Keith guides me.
“My joy was considered too rowdy,” I blurt out a few minutes later. “It was rejected and got me into a lot of trouble.”
As Keith and I talk further, the word “rebellious” surfaces strongly when we discuss how I felt as that rowdy joyful behavior was disciplined out of me. As we continue to throw words around, a few friends join in, wordsmithing a possible blog title – words like “resistant, rejected, resentful, reverent (or irreverent). We talk about how I was repeatedly forced to see spirituality as serious business, and that there was “proper” behavior that needed to be obeyed and adhered to.
Refusing Rebelling Robot
Suddenly, my mind flashes to the ongoing opening of my repressed empath abilities – and how I feel when the pains begin to return to me.
“As an empath,” I blurt out to Keith, “I took in pain, and it HURT. I cried, and rebelled, refusing to take any more of that pain into me.”
Keith again reminds me of conversations we have had in the past, where as a child, I had an implicit energetic agreement with the family to take in the emotions of others so that we would all be happy together – an agreement made at another level. Keith helps me to understand that when I refused to take in other people’s stuff, that I was punished for my refusal to cooperate with the subconscious plan, causing me to surrender, to cry, and to then take in all of that pain once again.
“I was a robot for the pain of others,” I share a new flash of understanding. “There was no joy in that. It made no sense to me. I cried and cried and cried for no reason. No one beat or abused me. I was inexplicably and profusely sad.”
Slow, Stunned, Silent, And in Shock
Keith gives me homework to continue pondering this, “Where is the joy?” idea. Then, as we continue bantering thoughts around, he expands my homework to further ponder these repressed empath patterns as well.
As the ceremony eventually dissolves, I feel stunned … kind of in a happy shock. I am humble, joyful, quiet, and deeply pensive.
As others begin to leave, many come over to hug me. I share much of my journey today with a new friend from Texas, including the basics of my life story – something that used to terrify me to share, but now something that is no longer anything but an afterthought.
“I don’t know how you keep going with so much inner work,” my new friend gives me a new compliment.
“I don’t have a choice,” I respond with passion. “An inner imperative will not allow me to do otherwise. I have to keep doing this work, deeper and deeper.”
As I later walk home at around 7:00 p.m., I remain slow, stunned, and silent. I had quickly hugged Keith, telling him that I do not know how or what, but that today was somehow really significant in my process.
“You continue to do really deep work, ceremony after ceremony, layer after layer,” Keith had encouraged me as he confirmed that he is keeping an eye on me, even when we are not talking.
Later, as I finish scribbling notes for the day, I remain in a state of stunned shock. It is a very nice shock, mind you … but shock just the same.
As For The Joy …
Tuesday, February 26, I wake up still slightly in that state of shock, searching for balance in this new state of knowing less and feeling more. Eventually, after a slow start, I immerse myself in the passion of writing, and I finally publish, “Magical Motherly Mojo” at just after 6:30 p.m.
I spend the evening in giggles and conversation as I reconnect with two dear friends, one of whom will be landing at the Guatemala airport in less than a week.
These last two chocolate ceremonies have been profound, confusing, and healing, all at the same time.
On Sunday, I more clearly began to understand how to recognize when I am innocently eating the emotional garbage of others, understanding how there is a dysfunctional payoff to all of this. Part of me absolutely knows that going into my power is the worst thing I can do, and so I eat and fill myself with repeated emotional densities, keeping that storeroom full of pain so that I will not get too powerful. Through recent understanding, I clearly know that too much power will get me into big trouble, and that it is much safer to remain small, insignificant, and hiding in the trauma of my dark shadow.
Then came the undeniable metaphors from a volcano and earthquake, making it quite clear that inner realities are beginning to shake and flow, with hidden and blocked energies beginning to surface from the depths.
I could not have imagined a more perfect backdrop on Monday, than to manifest a ceremony where profound stuckness is first mirrored for me in two different and very deep ways … and then the porch “erupts” into several hours of rational mind chatter, discussion, and debate, while I go deeper into the crumbling depths to explore my fears.
Never in my life have I been more profoundly clear that while the left-brain is a profound tool, that it is NOT the tool to take me where I want to go – that at the level of trust, surrender, and allowing the real guidance, logic and words are utterly meaningless. In the process of this profound mediation, I experienced a beginning level of oneness and awareness that was perfect for now – leaving me silent, speechless, and pleasantly stunned.
As for the joy … well I know it is in there. It has come out again and again in recent weeks … and the blockages that prevent it from fully surfacing continue to crumble and flow like the lava from a slow moving volcano.
… to be continued …
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved