Note: This is a continuation from my previous blog titled, “Giggling Gorilla Games.”
I am up late on Saturday night. When I finally do rest in bed, a lot of new, lighter, Higher Energy flows through my body – an energy that is becoming increasingly familiar in recent days and weeks. When I wake up several times during the night, I realize that I have been doing a great deal of dreaming, and that the magical energy continues to flow, even more intensely. But I am too tired to focus on remembering the dreams.
I finally crawl out of bed at around 8:30 a.m. on Saint Patrick’s Day, Sunday, March 17, 2013. I am still quite tired, somewhat confused by how I could feel so drained when so much energy is running through me. It makes no sense to rational mind, but I somehow know that inner changes are being made by the energies – changes happening outside of the waking dimensions – and that it is natural to be tired in such a situation.
As I attempt to use the internet for Skype and emails, it is either extremely slow, or completely down. I get the message. It is time to relax into my process a little more, with less mental involvement.
Empath Nightmares
As I finish setting up Keith’s porch for a Sunday afternoon chocolate ceremony, I engage in several fun interactions with many in the large crowd that gathers. Through it all, I feel almost dizzy from the intense energies that consume me.
As Keith guides the “Glow Meditation,” I go inside and try to follow along, but the dizzying energy in my head is so overwhelming – and pains in my solar plexus become so intense – that I am unable to focus. Eventually, I intuitively figure out that these pains are not even my own – that I am again reading the energy of others. It seems that the more I process and release my own blockages, the more I open up my energy sensitivities. And the more I open to the energies, the more I regress to the reasons why I shut them down in the first place.
“Wow,” I ponder with clarity. “If this is truly how I felt as a tiny child, it makes perfect sense that I would have done everything I could to clench and block these energies from flowing – doing everything I could not to feel them, desperately trying to be normal.”
As these pains bombard my solar plexus, I repeatedly note that my heart is happy and open. Nevertheless, my abdomen feels quite traumatized by the experience. Intense focus is repeatedly required to disengage from rational mind chatter – to not identify with the feeling of victimization, to not reenergize past shut-down traumas, and to instead focus on a higher perspective of what is taking place.
One thing is certain – well make that “almost” certain. I am not eating this emotional density – I am only reading it, doing so quite intensely. I sit with a tiny bit of doubt while focusing again on my Harry Potter metaphors, filling my heart with deep loving memories and feelings while imagining a magical white dove dancing around the porch, effortlessly assisting while all I need to do is be in a state of Higher Vibration.
As I do so, a great deal of fear continues to surface. I also feel some type of energetic expansion at the top of my forehead, as well as new energetic flow through my arms and legs – but those flows also trigger more fear.
Relaxing Into It
When Keith eventually glances my way, I explain that I think I am reading energies again, doing so quite intensely, and experiencing sharp pains and panic. Keith says a few words that, in a round about way, seem to confirm what I am saying, but his message seems cryptic.
“Are you confirming that I am reading this?” I then ask for clarification.
“Yes,” Keith responds with a simultaneous nod.
“Do you have any suggestions on how to relax into this and to make it easier?” I beg for help.
“You just answered your own question,” Keith responds. “Relax into it. Use this as another educational experience, just learning by feeling and observing.”
Keith’s words make sense, calming me a great deal. Soon, I am doing just that … relaxing, observing, and feeling … all with no attachment or judgment.
Increasing Compassion
Brenda, how is your abdomen?” Keith surprises me a while later as he briefly interrupts his work with a woman across the porch.
“Ouch,” I respond, almost in tears. “It really hurts … there are lots of intense pains. Are you sure I am just reading this?”
“Yes, you are actually reading her energy,” Keith confirms as he nods at the woman with whom he is working right now.
“Wow,” I giggle into my pain, feeling grateful for the support and understanding, feeling increasing compassion for what I repressed as a child.
I continue to hold space and allow myself to learn by feeling and observing. I am clearly experiencing intense energy flowing through me from the densities of others. I feel it as a painful, energetic heaviness. And I clearly feel Higher Vibration light-energy flowing in my head, arms, and leg areas.
And waves of fear continue to swarm me during the most intense periods when the energies are especially overwhelming
A Powerful Protection
I glance at my dear friend Nancy, who is sitting right beside me. She smiles at me, and I feel her love, energetic support, and encouragement.
Suddenly, I begin to cry as an intense wave of heavy energy passes through me. I am surprised to realize that rather than feeling this wave emotionally, I am feeling it more energetically.
Each time I try to relax and further open to the experience, I surrender to increased waves of fear.
Eventually, I feel so panicky and overwhelmed that I opt to disengage from everything around me. As I close my eyes, I am extremely distracted. The distraction is not coming from external events or sounds, but is instead originating inside me – from an inner panic attack and from what I could only describe as jerking shifts in consciousness, with energies in my head pulsing back and forth, all over the place.
The eerie thing is that I profoundly recognize this state of mind. I experienced it frequently as a struggling teenager and at many other times in my life – so many times that I could not possibly remember them all.
“Wow,” I ponder, “it is more clear than ever before that this distracting energy state IS my curtain to hide the gorilla –a gorilla that represents my magic and light shadow (see my last blog, “Giggling Gorilla Games.”
“Right now, I cannot find the magic, joy, and power, because the intense inner distractions are doing everything in their power to protect me from going beyond that curtain.”
Overwhelming Craziness
I sit in this intense craziness through most of the ceremony, constantly cycling through pain, fear, panic, and intense distraction – doing so in varying waves of intensity, constantly trying to remember my giggling baby gorilla, trying to find love for that once rejected part of me.
But I cannot maintain focus for more than a second or two. The inner distractions are far too intense. It is a bizarre, crazy, mind-boggling experience.
I am learning a great deal.
Repeatedly, I actually consider standing up and leaving the porch. The experience is overwhelming, borderline crazy making. I want to run away and come back later when I am not so frightened. I clearly recognize that this is some type of core issue – that I am bumping into something where the fear is too strong to continue in the journey. Over and over, I ask the angels to take and transmute any of the fears that are ready to be released, carefully adding the caveat that if the emotions are important to my process right now, that I do not want them to be taken just yet.
Through it all, I wish I could just break down and sob – but I keep most of this intensity bottled up inside, only allowing the occasional tear to flow.
A Nightmare Of Anger And Fear
Finally, in desperation, I step into the bathroom and force myself into quiet laughter. Doing so immediately triggers a few rounds of quick-but-muffled emotional release. As the emotion rages quietly out of me, I recognize the flow as a combination of intense repressed anger as well as fear.
“For as long as I can remember, this inner fear and anger are all I have ever known,” I ponder with clarity. “My body clenching, which has dominated my life, was a massive protection – a defense attempt to keep these energies from overwhelming me. Now, as I begin to relax the clenching, the fear and anger are screaming for me to stop.”
I soon return to the porch, still feeling the craziness, still desperately wanting to run away. Repeatedly, I use kinesiology to check my guidance, each time getting the answer to stay.
“But if I stay,” I ponder my worst fear, “I will simply be ignored and will then go home feeling even worse.”
Nevertheless, I trust my guidance to stay put, continuing to observe and learn from this inner nightmare, knowing that something is going to happen that will bring clarity to this whole experience.
Frantic Freak Out
Near the end of the ceremony, Keith conducts an empath training. As he asks us to invite a Higher Being (one that we have worked with our entire lives) to begin sending us real emotional density, I try to follow along.
Within seconds, I freak out. I cannot do it, and quickly disengage. This is more real than ever before, and I am in a state of panic. I retreat and hide myself in more waves of inner distraction. I am increasingly understanding why I do not want to be powerful, and why I prefer to remain small and hidden.
“Being powerful got me into so much trouble,” I ponder in the panic. “I have so much fear of what this magic will create in the trouble department – of how it caused so much ridicule … fear … pain … panic … shutdown … anger … etc … to literally body slam me.”
I sit quietly squirming in my seat. Even though I know this experience is a profound part of my process, I feel abandoned by Keith, left all alone in my panic. Logic and trust both tell me that Keith will jump in at the perfect moment, if his guidance tells him to.
Painful Payoffs
Later in the empath training, Keith explains about group empaths … about those empaths who work with the emotional densities of entire groups. As he does so, he unexpectedly leans toward me, briefly touches my left shoulder, and speaks.
“This one is a powerful group empath,” Keith tells the others.
Just this tiny bit of being validated and noticed raises my spirits, causing me to pay more attention to the remaining discussion. Still, I continue to fidget and distract myself, struggling to remain focused.
At the very end of the training, Keith discusses my least favorite topic – a part where he explains that our training is now over, and that if we choose to continue eating the emotional densities of others, then we should go inside, figure out what the payoff is, and then work with it.
This stage of the training is one that has baffled me. I know that I am an empath … I know that I still occasionally eat, and painfully read the densities of others in an intense, dysfunctional way. But I have felt helpless to discover and release the payoff, beginning to believe I will never succeed and heal.
“Some people seem to immediately get it and embrace their magic,” I flog myself with comparisons. “Here I am two years later, and I still cannot get it.”
As Keith discusses various forms of what a payoff might be, he mentions that one of them is, “remaining small and insignificant, because you are afraid of your power and what it will mean if you embrace it.”
An Opportunity For Understanding
As I listen to these words, I recognize the core of my God drama – realizing that this is what continues to make me dysfunctional with my empath abilities. I begin to shake and shudder, letting out a huge sigh, as I realize the circular nature of this painful payoff. My God drama keeps me from embracing the light … not embracing the light causes me to struggle and suffer with my empath stuff … and my empath struggles are a major contributor to my God / separation drama.
“Brenda has been doing really well on working with that one recently,” Keith grins at me.
“I have been intensely working with it all day today,” I immediately respond, still deep in emotion.
I suddenly feel Keith’s beautiful support, validating the intense journey on which I find myself. I share brief details of the overwhelming distraction and panic that have bombarded me all day today, and excitedly talk about how it has been a profound education into emotions from childhood.
“I have spent the last hour just holding my teddy bear, representing my inner child, loving her for what she went through,” I add through emotional tears. “I now clearly understand that this all began when I was a baby, before I could even walk or talk.”
Keith smiles, as if in agreement.
Embracing The Light Shadow
For the next twenty minutes, Keith and I have a discussion in front of the group, talking about my intense process today, validating the childhood agony and how the fear I experienced was a combination of both regressing to what I felt as a child AND of present-day fear about going back there again.
“There is intense fear of going back there,” I validate Keith’s words.
“It is more like sheer terror,” Keith adds new emphasis.
As the discussion continues, I point out that I am really working on the Marianne Williamson quote – the one pointing out how it is our “light shadow” that most frightens us.
“I think you are doing extremely well on your smallness versus brilliance issue,” Keith soon validates.
“I clearly do not want to be small anymore,” I discuss with Keith, “but each time I take another step into the power, I bump into more intense fear.”
It is so clear to me now that smallness kept the peace – that my people-pleaser behavior kept me safe in a world where power was my worst nightmare. But that has NOT been fun at all. I have allowed powerful people to squash me, and then believed that it was being “Christ-like” to simply turn the other cheek and thank them for squashing me.
The act of embracing my power always felt prideful and extreme. But I had inner power confused with external power. I knew that I would rather be humble in being squashed than to fight back with the world’s definition of external power. I just never understood before that there is an inner power that is not prideful nor extreme, and that it cannot be squashed by anyone, in any way (unless I myself give it away to them).
Releasing Distraction
“How do you get rid of distraction,” I ask Keith later in the discussion. “Do I just focus on “knowing myself” and learning more about what I do?”
Before Keith answers, I quickly talk more about how I see my distractions as the curtain, and that I see the gorilla as my magic that has been kept hidden all these years by the constant distractions.
“And your magic looked like a monster to you, so you were terrified to go there,” Keith adds his own comment regarding the gorilla.
I smile as Keith validates something I had already begun to recognize.
“Earlier today, I was trying to resist the distractions,” I explain to Keith, “but that did not work, because what you resist persists. And then, I just began loving my child, just learning about myself and observing the energies while remembering the childhood panic.”
“No wonder I have had so much painful clenching in my feet, legs, hips, arms, shoulders, jaw, and forehead,” I continue pondering aloud. “No wonder I have had so many crazy panic attacks when I have tried to relax the clenching in any way. The clenching seemed so normal and familiar, and there was inner terror at letting it go. This clenching was my protection, keeping me distracted from the inner blocks.”
Shell-Shocked Peace
After cleaning up the porch and putting things away, I quickly thank Keith for leaving me on my own today, allowing me to get a profound education.
“I know it is exactly what I needed for another level of awareness,” I thank Keith.
“Brenda,” Keith smiles back, “with your journey, and your writing, this is exactly what you need … to continue getting deep experience … that been-there-done-that-got-the-T-shirt experience about what happened to you as a child, and throughout your life, so that you can write about it and help others.”
“Wow,” I ponder as I walk slowly home.
I am in a very nice mood … a very peaceful and content mood … but am still somewhat shell-shocked from the journey. In fact, I might describe it as a “hang over” from the fear and panic – a sort of numb, PTSD type of feeling.
Alone And Abandoned?
I absolutely know that today was extremely profound and powerful for me. As I review the day, I remember telling Keith of a perception, telling him that for me, being powerful means that I will always be alone and abandoned.
“It seems that as I make this journey,” I had explained to Keith before walking home, “that some powerful people that I love are ignoring and pulling away from me.”
“You will continue to manifest this until you heal it,” Keith had validated in that final conversation.
I know this is true. I have perceived that several magical people have seemed to withdraw in some way, one or two more dramatically than others, but several keeping a slight buffer of distance from my process, one not even allowing me to hug her, even though I know this is her process and not mine.
But I also know that “nothing changes until I do.” Being alone and abandoned in my power has been a lifelong pattern. That is why I was such a people pleaser, desperately giving away my power to be loved. I feel very close to healing this pattern, and in many ways, believe that the insignificant manifestations in the present day are merely opportunities for me to own my power with unconditional love, learning to trust that if I do, that everything works out beautifully.
As I ponder this same “alone and abandoned” pattern, I fondly recall how two beautiful young women had walked up to me at the end of the ceremony, giving me huge loving hugs, excitedly thanking me for sharing my process today, telling me how profound it was for them as empaths, trying to heal their own payoffs. And then, my friend Nancy had also given me a huge hug before leaving as well.
“I do have incredible love and support,” I giggle on my pillow. “This ‘ignored’ nonsense is my projection, just bringing me imaginary perception so that I can heal that belief.”
“And I did feel alone and abandoned by Keith through most of the ceremony today,” I ponder the absurdity. “But that was all perfect and profound, and I was deeply validated and assisted at the end. When I needed to be alone in my process, I was right there. But when I needed that validation and assistance, it magically came out of nowhere.”
Fearful Feelings Of Failure
Monday night, I take my black obsidian globe to bed with me, placing it at my feet. I am amazed by the amount of energy that I feel flowing into my feet from that little four-inch solid sphere of obsidian. That magical energy continues to flow all night long.
When I wake up Monday morning, that same energy is still flowing. I sit meditating on my daybed for a while as new insights begin to surface. Suddenly, I remember a haunting fear that has never fully left me. I have a history in my life of getting so very close to what I might have termed success, at least at the time, and then every time, without fail, something would always surface that would pull me back into dysfunctional fears and feelings of failure. In fact, when I began to travel in June 2009, I was absolutely giddy with inner knowing that I was being guided on the magical adventure of a lifetime – but I also knew that if something did not change, that I would eventually fail, yet again.
“I am now right in the middle of facing the core of those haunting fears that have always pulled me back into the smallness,” I ponder with clarity.
When I am honest with myself, the fears are still there. The feeling whispering to me that I am going to fail in my smallness – well that feeling yet remains.
Frightened Dementor Puppies
“There is a hidden vault inside of me,” I ponder with clarity while remembering recent Harry Potter metaphors that have been quite profound. “That vault is filled with terrifying, joy-sucking, life-force draining Dementors. What I am now facing in this haunting fear is that core vault of Dementors.”
As I sit meditating, my abdomen shakes with stark terror. The squeamys in my legs, forearms, and belly are on red-alert. But I am not buying into the fear.
“Right now,” I ponder with a giggle, “the fear of being small and of failing again is actually greater than the fear of further opening to the power, and to facing these inner Dementors.”
I recognize that this Dementor energy continues to suck my joy, my hope, my confidence, and my trust … and that it is waiting to come out even stronger if I get too close to it.
“I am getting very close, and it feels as if those Dementors are preparing to attack,” I ponder while focusing on sending love to the intense panic attack building in my body.
“This panic energy has kept me safe and small through most of my life,” I ponder with more giggles. “But it is time to visualize it like a herd of terrified puppies – puppies that need my love.”
Laughing In The Waves
As I focus on sending magical self-love to every puppy, to every place in my body where the panic is manifesting itself, I begin to feel energy tingles all over my body, especially in the areas where the fear is greatest.
Soon, I feel guided into a little belly laughing. In response to the laughter, intense waves of emotion begin to flow almost instantaneously. Each wave consumes me with coughing, tears, and dry heaving. Once the wave passes, I invite the light to transmute what I have felt. Then, as I laugh again, another intense wave hits me. After the second or third wave, I quickly retire to my bedroom in an attempt not to alarm the neighbors with the sounds of intense emotional release.
As the waves flow freely, I recognize the underlying emotion as a mixture of deep agony and all-consuming sadness. Some of the waves last for a few minutes. All of them end with bringing in more light and love … although with some waves, the desire to surrender and get lost in the emotion is intense. A great deal of trust is required to invite the light to take some of these layers, and to then allow them to be transmuted.
Finally, after nearly an hour, I feel much lighter, and the inner panic attack is nonexistent. I have no way to explain with rational mind what just happened. All I know is that I released a huge reservoir of repressed agonizing sadness, and that I did in an hour what may have taken years or decades on the hard bus.
Quote Magic
As I soon check my email, I discover a comment from Keith, one that he had posted on my blog, “Take Out The Trash,” just last night. It was a blog in which I discussed having reached beautiful transparency in my interactions with a woman I am calling Catherine. It is a beautiful quote from “Oneness.” I soon find the exact same quote in my inbox directly from Rasha. It is from the email series, “A Moment of Oneness, quote #125.”
“When you speak, know that you speak for yourself alone. Your truth cannot be the truth of another being, for each of you perceives the experience of life through a lens that has been designed to deliver a vision custom-made for your eyes only. The opportunity in encountering the contradictory perceptions of another is to regard, with fascination, those differences. For the different perceptions of another do not invalidate your own, they merely add the richness of contrast to the composite vision that is Oneness.”
As I read these magical words, I again find new validation for the understanding that the truth I need to follow is the truth that resonates from my own heart … in the world experience that is custom-made for my eyes only. I love the idea that the perceptions of others can be seen with fascination, enriching my own experience, but not in any way invalidating it.
Later, after setting up Keith’s porch for a Monday afternoon workgroup ceremony, I am quite surprised when Keith brings up this same quote in open discussion. Seconds later, Keith brings his computer out, and we spend the next hour reading and discussing many such beautiful words of wisdom. It is a very different ceremonial beginning – one that might have triggered me in the past. Today, I see it as perfectly magical.
Opening Expansion Pains
It is around 2:00 p.m. when we begin to do inner work. I begin by holding space for others in the group. After my meditation from this morning, I am feeling powerful, in a very nice energy.
As I hold space, I begin to feel what I sense as “opening pains” that are quite strong in the general area of my collarbone. And sharp pains in my solar plexus are again surfacing. I believe the pains to be my own, but intuitions tell me they are related to what a friend of mine is doing in his process. In some profound way, I am sharing his wave.
I giggle a while later when I notice my friend place his hand on his own collarbone area. As I watch my friend in his expansion process, I experience more sharp tingles all over my upper chest and throat regions. They are different from the usual density pains – quite similar to the types of pains I had a year ago while my high heart region was going through an initial layer of opening.
As I trust and surrender, intuitions remind me that what I am experiencing is quite comparable to the pains of a sleeping foot mildly beginning to wake up. With this realization, I increasingly surrender to the uncomfortable tingles, focusing solely on raising my own state of self-love.
I again giggle as I realize that I feel no fear about further opening right now. In fact, it is only when I think about remaining small, insignificant, stepped-on, and betrayed that I again feel fear. I genuinely believe I have reached a point, where, at least for now, the fear of NOT going forward is much greater than the fear of remaining small.
I have had enough joyful transparency experiences recently to show me, beyond doubt, that I can indeed be powerful without having my life collapse around me.
With each inner intention to further surrender, I feel more expansion pains. New ones are intensifying in the solar plexus area, while others are more gently tingling in the forehead. But all are somehow pleasant and encouraging. No fear exists.
A Boiling Buckling Belly
My friend Nancy soon leans over and asks if I would like some help.
“Yes, I would love some,” I respond with appreciation.
“I sense your opening in the high heart region,” Nancy tells me,” and I feel it coming together with the energies below, in your solar plexus. It is beginning to swirl together.”
Nancy asks where I would like her to share some energy. When I tell her, “wherever you are guided,” I am quite surprised when she starts by placing her hands on the middle of my upper thighs.
“Of course,” I ponder silently,” she is feeling guided to help me relax blockages in my legs that are still keeping me shutdown to a flow of energy from the Mother Earth.”
Eventually, Nancy asks permission to move one hand to my lower belly. As I focus on total surrender, I feel my entire abdomen begin to boil, churn, and buckle inside. It is not especially painful, but is extremely active.
Green Fire
“I’m getting the strong intuitive feeling that I have a huge ball of black tar clogging up this entire region,” I tell Nancy, referring to my abdomen. “I sense deep hopelessness, as if all of that sticky, tar-like density is more than I can possibly release in multiple lifetimes.”
“Try asking fairies to help you release the density,” Nancy first suggests.
Then she shares a few new metaphorical ideas that sound fascinating as ways to work with the subconscious.
“Or, find your inner alchemist,” Nancy then adds. “Try transmuting the tar into different elements, such as fire, wind, earth, or water. Let your heart tell you which elements, and show you how.”
Immediately, I feel guided to try playing with fire. For a long time, I imagine my heart helping me set fire to that clogging tar in my belly. It is not a destructive fire, but is instead a transmuting green flame. It is only later that I realize that green is the traditional color associated with the heart chakra.
Swamp Fires
As I PLAY with this fire metaphor, I occasionally see it as an entire “tar swamp” lit up in green flames, but I usually imagine it as a column of tar from the root chakra at the base of my spine, up the front of my body, all the way to the heart. In this latter metaphor, I begin to feel real, painful energy movements churning in that imagined line. As pains reach the top center of the solar plexus region, many seem to get stuck in the area of my biggest blockage – an area that is physically hard and often tight and painful.
“This solar plexus blockage really is like thick, gooey, energetic tar,” I ponder with clarity. “And as stuck as it is, I really do feel some of it seeming to dissolve in this green fire.”
I feel this energy movement as it continuously trickles upward along this center channel from my root up to the heart. It is prickly, churning, and painful … but I remain in a state of joyful giggles while observing these very real pains. I stay with this metaphor for a long time. At times, the pains are quite sharp, but I DO feel a column of energy flowing slowly up this front centerline.
Perfect Parallel Processes
Soon, the friend for whom I was holding space earlier goes into deep painful processing. It is the same friend whose pains I was magically paralleling in my own collarbone region.
Without revealing much about someone else’s process, this beautiful man is facing deep terror over the huge problems that will be created in his life if he opens to a new level of power that is beginning to return to him.
“Wow,” I giggle inside, “talk about perfect parallels with my own process.”
As I observe, I ride my friends energetic wave, and I suddenly lunge deeper into my own pain.
“Am I just reading this from him?” I ask Keith a few minutes later, “I am thinking this is probably my own pain, but now I am starting to wonder.”
“It is your own process,” Keith soon confirms, “and yes, I believe it is triggered by parallel issues.”
I totally resonate and go back to work on the inside.
Painfully Following Along
For the next hour, I follow along in my own way as Keith guides my friend who is in painful agony with his own opening process.
“I am so tired of being small,” I remind myself repeatedly. “If I am unable to release my blocks for myself … then perhaps I can move them while riding and sharing my friend’s energetic wave, making the wave bigger, allowing my own opening to help him.”
In meditation, I quickly ask our Higher Selves to work together, sharing energy in whatever way is for the highest good, whether that is assisting with density or sharing light.
We do not talk or coordinate in any verbal way. He is in his own process, and I am in mine. But I find it fascinating how often my deep physical pains correspond to what I observe during my friend’s process. When he is more in agony, my deep pains greatly intensify.
Joy Amidst Pain
As was happening before, most of my sharp pains are in that centerline from the base of my spine, up the front of my abdomen, and into the heart. Remembering something this same friend had once told me, I keep imagining how my beliefs make this hard or easy.
“This is easy,” I remind myself. “I CAN just let these pains go, and now is the time to do that.”
Again, I remind myself that being small is what has caused all of the anguish in my life, and that the few experiences of true empowered transparency have been joyful and easy.
“I want this loving joyful power to return to me,” I tell myself with giggles. “It is not the joy and power that are frightening. It is remaining small that is frightening.”
Through it all, I maintain a huge joyful smile on my face. The inner pains are intense, as what feel like gas bubbles agonizingly twitch and pop in the centerline of my abdomen. My intestines feel as if they are tied up in knots (but only in that centerline region) – as if something inside is kicking me with steel-toed boots.
Love, Compassion, And Gratitude
Soon, I feel guided to bring up more energy from Mother Earth. I do so by relaxing and allowing while expressing a meditative intent.
Then I begin to feel a gentle, breeze-like energy that comforts and gradually consumes my legs. A while later the energy begins to form a cushion beneath my hips, before slowly inching up into my root region. This energy feels cool, comforting, healthy, life rejuvenating, and magical – bringing a sense of vitality that has been forever missing … never recognized until now.
As I continue surrendering and allowing, the energy gradually fills the second chakra, but seems stuck, unable to go much further above the belly button. Soon, I follow intuitive feelings guiding me to invite love to come down from my heart. Ever so slowly, I feel loving energies descend downward, meeting the other energy.
While this process unfolds, I begin to feel a deep and profound love for this part of me – for an abdomen that painfully continues to hurt. In the past, loving such intense agony has been extremely difficult. Today, I feel genuine love, compassion, and gratitude for these energetic parts of me that have endured this difficult and frustrating life journey.
Through it all, I am constantly reminded that I designed every bit of this, that I wanted this journey, this blockage and shutdown – that I wanted to get lost in it so that one day I could wake up and help others do the same. Gradually, as I continue to relax and invite energies to flow from above and below, most of the pains disappear, leaving only a small sharp pain at the top center of the solar plexus.
Eventually, feeling as if there is some density that wants to release, I force myself to quietly belly laugh, intense dry heaving and some coughing spasms consume me. I do this several times, bringing in light between waves. By the time I finish, dizzy energy swirls in my head and the pains are gone.
A solid, vibrating, cool loving energy consumes my entire solar plexus.
Magical And Profound
Later, I hold space for another friend, while the rest of the group dissolves into social chatter. I feel such a connection with her, and with so many others – with beautiful people that I get to hug when the ceremony is over.
As I give Keith a quick thank-you hug at the end, I briefly chat.
“I feel as if I moved a huge part of my God drama today,” I giggle with delight.
Keith responds by congratulating me for not needing any assistance and for doing better than normal, all by my self. In fact, I had only interacted with him briefly. One time I had explained where I was at, telling him that I felt complete, but wondered if I might be missing something.
“No,” he had responded, “I’m getting that you are doing very well and right on track with your process. Keep it up.”
And I had done just that, in profound and powerful ways.
As I later ponder before bed, I clearly recognize that something really heavy has left me. A tiny bit of pain has returned, but I sense that somewhere inside of me is a new capacity for power and joy … and that there is less dread, less emotional heaviness, and less certainty of eventual failure.
Later, as I meditate in bed, I experience a huge amount of tingling and pleasurable energy flowing around in my body, vibrating for nearly an hour from my neck down, curiously only touching my head in a small way.
Only time will tell … but this inner shift feels both magical and profound.
Elaborate Defense Mechanisms
Tuesday, March 19, 2013, I wake up and get an early start publishing, “Surrendering To Silence.” Feeling guided to end and publish the blog early, I quickly begin a second one, nearly finishing it before stopping just before 7:00 p.m.. It seems that whatever has shifted, has also given me more joyful motivation to write.
I was blown away by the intensity of the pains that I felt in the ceremony on Sunday. The pains were so overwhelming and intense that they took me into a profound emotional understanding of why I have been terrified of further opening to my light shadow – of my joy and empowerment – because doing so would surely take me deeper into such overwhelming and agonizing pains – and doing so has historically been a sure recipe for HUGE trouble and chaos in my life.
Yet, recent processes clearly reminded me that the pains I was dealing with were, in reality, part of an elaborate inner defense mechanism that I wrote about in my last blog – one involving a curtain of distraction and a cute baby gorilla. It is a curtain doing everything possible to keep me from seeing the truth that the light shadow is, in fact, the key to joyful and transparent liberation from such pains; it is NOT their cause.
In fact, the whole experience helped me to realize in a magical way that parts of me are now more afraid of NOT opening my light shadow than they are of more fully embracing it.
Hope And Magic
Monday, after more intense overnight energy, magical meditations took me into several realizations – that I have a huge vault of frightened “Dementors-turned-into-frightened-puppies” hiding inside of me – and that I have a hidden fear, a “certainty of failure,” that looms over me, no matter how much healing I do. Then, in huge waves of emotional release, another massive layer of such old beliefs and densities disappeared into self-love and transmutation.
Nothing could have prepared me for the intense-but-extremely-magical opening pains that I experienced later in the Monday afternoon ceremony. In a deep and agonizing process, I worked with pains that formed a thin column up the front of my belly, from the root of my spine to my heart. And the boiling, belly-buckling, tar-like densities moved upward, metaphorically burning with a green transmuting fire, gradually dissolving blockages and allowing a new level of expansion.
As usual, I have no way to predict the long-term effects of processes that, to the rational mind, seem quite silly and ridiculous. But in my heart, I profoundly know that I really did make huge progress in these last two chocolate ceremonies – progress in releasing more major blockages that have prevented me from embracing the light shadow – progress in letting go of the God / separation drama in ways that much of the stiff resistance is now fading to nothingness.
I choose to ignore the rational mind logic and trust my heart – and to trust the amazing energies that I have felt physically flowing in my body as of late. The energies have been at both extremes, with extremely painful densities, uncomfortable openings, and delightful magical swirling intertwined with newfound joy and optimism. And all are filled with hope and magic.
… to be continued …
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved