(This is the eleventh and final installment of a series of posts describing my experiences in San Marcos, Guatemala from November 7th up to the present time.
Yippee … I’m caught up! Photos will follow very soon.)
It was Thursday, December 2, when I finished my last certification massage, successfully completing the final steps of Nadia’s holistic healing course. My early resistance to participating in Nadia’s course had originally been quite strong. I simply did not want to sacrifice two months of my life. Left-brain logic saw no useful purpose for what seemed like such a waste of both time and money.
I am so grateful that I ignored my stuffy analytical side, choosing instead to honor strong inner guidance – guidance that resulted in huge and powerful internal growth.
Later that same afternoon, after finishing my final massage, I sat meditating on Keith’s porch while exploring a relatively new adventure with my three-year-old inner child. In the midst of that ongoing exploration, I began to struggle with a persistent and irritating cough – something that had seemingly developed as if out of nowhere, only few hours earlier.
My first inclination was to speculate that the feeling in my throat was related to the little toddler locked away inside of me.
“Perhaps this tightness in my throat chakra is a subconscious metaphor.” I pondered, “Perhaps my little inner child is telling me that her voice is not being heard.”
Dreams Are Calling
It was the wee hours of Friday morning as I patiently rested, lying wide-awake in bed, staring quietly at a dark ceiling. Memories of a recent dream had already completely faded while meditative insights began to filter into my mind.
I was trying to simultaneously meditate and return to dreamland, both at the same time. Perhaps I was somewhere in between the two worlds when I returned to consciousness with a start. Enthusiasm swelled in my heart as new intuitions surfaced with clarity. To my surprise, a series of seemingly insignificant events from Thursday morning suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
The memories were now quite profound.
As I began that Shiatsu certification massage I had felt quite healthy, not having even the slightest sensation of throat irritation. My client, on the other hand, entered that session feeling tired and serious – quite emotionally drained.
Suddenly, in the middle of the massage, my client seemed to come alive with enthusiasm, becoming extremely talkative and joyful. It was at almost that same moment that I had noticed a scratchy cough beginning to form in my own throat.
When I had mentioned the scratchy feeling to my client, she responded by saying that she herself had been coughing earlier. Now, halfway through the massage, she was energized, bubbly, and happy – and it was I who felt like coughing.
“Could it be?” I asked myself with deep wonder and curiosity. “Is it possible that I subconsciously did something energetically in the middle of that Shiatsu massage … somehow healing my client while simultaneously absorbing her cough into my own body?”
My heart answered “Yes.”
Believe in What Your Heart is Saying
I knew such things to be possible. Several years ago, after a powerful crystal healing session with my friend Mont in Salt Lake City, I grilled him with questions. He shared many stories with me about how, when he first discovered his healing abilities, that he had inadvertently absorbed many of his clients’ illnesses into his own body. His guides had only later shown him how to stop internalizing the energies that he was releasing from others.
I never before imagined that such an ability might be buried somewhere inside of me.
Wide-eyed wonder filled my heart as I pondered the events. Peaceful happy feelings confirmed to me that I had indeed been given a glimpse of a gift that is buried somewhere inside – perhaps a gift being carefully guarded by a vigilant inner child.
Excitement filled my soul as I began to believe in the possibility of new magic opening up inside of me.
“I just need to learn how not to absorb someone’s illness into my own body.” I giggled as I dreamed of drifting back to sleep.
A Dreamer Long Ago
I was not quite eight years old when a neighbor boy, Brad, unwittingly destroyed my final beliefs in magic. It was right before Christmas when my young friend innocently wounded my heart with his teasing words.
“Santa Claus is not real.” Brad had blurted out, proudly boasting that he knew something that I didn’t.
I ran home in tears, begging my parents for answers.
“Please, tell me that Brad is lying!” I had demanded of my parents.
I still remember the thick emotion as if it were yesterday. While looking into my parents’ eyes, waiting for them to tell me the truth, their happy expressions gave way to instant sadness. A huge lump formed in my tiny throat as I looked pleadingly into my parent’s melancholy faces. I could feel their emotions as if they were my own.
The tension in the air finally snapped when my mother admitted glumly: “No, I’m sorry, there is not really a Santa Claus.”
Yes, the remaining magic of my heart melted away in that instant.
It was time to grow up – time to get my head out of the clouds – time to live in the real world. On that disappointing day so very long ago, my final beliefs in magic joined the realm of silly childhood fantasy.
Believe in what you feel inside
As I continued lying in bed early on that Friday morning, exactly four weeks ago today, powerful intuitions began to dance around in my soul. I decided it was time to explore my newfound magical beliefs – time to quit being a wallflower and to get out on the magical dance floor – time to actually try to heal myself.
As the clock approached 3:00 a.m., I noted that I was beginning to struggle with sinus congestion in addition to that persistently growing cough. For the next several hours, I lay awake meditating, using every ounce of internal energy that I could muster, visualizing a comfortable throat, imagining clear and perfectly healthy sinuses, filling my heart with deep love and gratitude for the overflowing health of my body.
But as my heart spun around on that mystical dance floor in this genuine effort of artistic mastery, my entire body was simultaneously overcome with fearful resistance.
“What if I succeed at healing myself?” I asked with trepidation. “What will that mean in my life? How will it change things? Am I ready for this?”
“And then again, what if I fail?” I also pondered with fear.
Intuition powerfully reassured me that I was oh-so-close to succeeding – that I had indeed made a huge physical difference during my meditation. The sinus congestion had ceased. But for whatever reason, I also intuitively knew that my cough would not be going away until my deep-rooted fears were exposed and healed.
Yes, there would be much more personal growth through which I must first pass.
On that same Friday afternoon, while sitting on Keith’s porch, I shared my morning insights and meditation journey, asking for assistance and feedback.
“Could my intuitions be right?” I asked for Keith’s confirmation. “Is it possible that I really am in the middle of uncovering new magical gifts?”
“Yes, Brenda.” Keith told me lovingly after having himself briefly meditated on the issue. “This is indeed a gift from the Universe to help you explore your inner magic – and the throat discomfort will probably linger until you have time to fully integrate the lessons.”
Yes, the budding magical beliefs have indeed captured my attention. I cannot wait to explore such magic even further.
Reading Energy
Nearly a week later, on the day after joyously reawakening my passions to write, Keith helps me to begin exploring one of the first aspects of my buried magic.
“Brenda,” he coaches me confidently. “You may not recognize this yet, but you have a built-in ability to read other peoples’ energy.”
“Unlike an empath,” Keith continues to clarify, “you do not internalize the emotional baggage of others into your own body – but you do have the ability to sense it, to feel it, and to actually experience it in your own unique way.”
A sense of anticipation excites my heart as Keith adds that this is just the first of many energy gifts that I will likely begin to experience and understand in a more profound way as I progress down my path.
Keith points out that one of the reasons I struggled so much during my teen years is that I could intuitively sense the judgmental energies around me – I knew what would happen if I were to expose my shameful struggles. I internally experienced the disappointed feelings of parents and church leaders at a very deep and personal level, even though such feelings were rarely, if ever, expressed verbally.
Another clarification that Keith quickly adds is related to the fact that I have often experienced considerable difficulty in meditating and writing when others are nearby – even if we are in silence together. The reason now seems so obvious. I do in fact read the energy of people around me, and that energy can be downright distracting when I am not in a healed and centered space.
I feel deep peace as Keith clarifies one additional point.
“The more that you heal and develop your ability to read the energy of others, giving your gift a healthy and useful outlet,” Keith coaches me, “the more you will be able to find inner peace while sitting in and around their energy.”
As I walk away from that beautiful session on Thursday, December 9, I feel quite skeptical.
I want to believe – in many ways I do believe – but the concepts are still so new, so difficult to grasp.
The ideas do bring great clarity to many of my past struggles – yet my rational mind still begs for something concrete onto which I can grasp.
Hear the Melody That’s Playing
Over the next two weeks, I focus a great deal of time pondering over these magical feelings – feelings that are still barely in their infancy. I have only two priorities, the first being my passionate writing marathon, the second being to spend as much time as possible sitting on Keith’s magical porch, receiving guidance from my favorite intuitive teacher.
As I begin to pay more attention to this faint inner music flowing through me, a feeling of increasing validation gradually builds – reaffirming that what Keith has told me does indeed seem to be immersed in strong threads of truth.
While I still do not fully grasp and understand these melodies that play deeply in my heart, I can indeed hear the tunes, ever so faintly.
Just two days ago, on Wednesday, December 29, I participated in a powerful chocolate ceremony. In that circle, there was one particular young woman who seemed to be experiencing a strong and prolonged emotional struggle – an intense struggle causing her to experience considerable anxiety-based pain in her lower abdomen.
From about five feet away, with no coaching from anyone, I took it upon myself to connect with this woman’s energy. I first imagined myself connecting with her Higher Self, asking for permission to assist in any way that might be appropriate. I then focused my connecting energy in the woman’s direction.
With the power of my mind, I requested that her excess emotional densities be channeled through me and into mother earth, where I knew they would be transmuted into light. To assist myself with this mental metaphor, I held the palm of one hand focused in this young woman’s direction, with my other palm directed at the earth below.
While sensing a mild energy flow in my hands and arms, a strong feeling of intuitive knowing guided me to firmly believe that this woman’s excess emotional energy was indeed flowing in one hand and out the other – passing through me, but not remaining with me.
But soon, I noticed a very unpleasant side effect. My own abdomen began to feel the intensely familiar sensation of anxiety – causing painful cramping and blockages in my second chakra. For as long as I remained energetically connected, I continued to experience this intense and annoying physical sensation. The pain felt as if it was real, as if it was literally in my own body, yet I intuitively knew that this was not my own pain – that it would disappear when the magical practice was completed.
Another powerful experience in that same healing group is that several other women began to experience profound physical exhaustion. To my surprise, I began to feel extremely sleepy right along with them – yet I knew that there was absolutely no reason for me to be physically tired. These ceremonies always leave me bubbly and energized.
As the session reached an obvious conclusion, I observed with amazement as four or five exhausted people excused themselves, gave a round of hugs, and wandered off in their various directions.
I stayed behind, hoping to discuss what I had just experienced. To my surprise, my own physical sensation of profound tiredness disappeared as soon as the other women left, right along with the intense pains in my lower abdomen.
“Brenda, you’re not done yet, are you?” Keith speaks confidently with a huge grin on his face.
“Nope” I reply with an equally large grin.
In the conversation that ensues, I am thrilled to learn that Keith sometimes feels the same types of physical sensations when working with the emotional densities of others. In fact, Keith eagerly admits that today, he too felt the same pains in his own abdomen when working with the woman with whom I had energetically connected.
As I walked home that evening, the healing melodies of my heart began to take on a little more inner harmony.
Fear of Heights
Just last week, while meditating in another beautiful Chocolate Ceremony, I found myself precariously perched at the top of a frightening water slide – one called “The Jagged Edge” located in a popular water park in Provo, Utah.
As I stare at the steep drop off directly below me, I powerfully re-experience the fearful adrenaline-filled emotions of searching for the courage to take that frightening leap. I know that I will love the experience once I let go of my tight grip – yet the hole in my stomach terrifyingly urges me to turn around, to climb back down the tower using my feet rather than my childlike playfulness.
In my visualization, I find myself gleefully screaming for joy as I release my fears, push myself forward, and zoom down the steep drop-off before being carefully cuddled by the edges of the waterslide that guide me to a graceful stop on the earth far below.
While meditating, I repeatedly find myself back at the top of this mind-boggling waterslide – but each time I intuitively know that the slide has grown taller. I am sitting even higher above the ground far below, facing even greater feelings of adrenaline-filled terror as I anticipate yet-another leap into the unknown.
Soon, my mind floods with memories of other previous adventures to frightful-heights – memories of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, of walking along the top of Hoover dam, and vivid memories of inching along a slippery-gravel trail in Northeastern Utah – a rugged trail that skirted just above a two-thousand-foot drop-off to a deep canyon below.
In this meditation, I began to realize that I am literally facing fears of rising to new heights – fears of my light-shadow – fears of what my life might be like if I achieve new growth.
Keith soon guides me through an exercise where the group assists me in letting go of my fears – fears that stem from childhood programming – fears saying that I must maintain a perfect image, and that I must win the love and approval of others.
Next, I find myself standing at the edge of a cliff, re-enacting “The Fool” card from the Tarot deck – a card where a young and innocent magician-to-be is about to take the leap off a tall cliff into an unknown world – fully trusting that there is nothing to fear and everything to gain.
At the end of the visualization – one in which I let go of the old childhood programming and then ask my Higher Self to bring in new programming, I begin to envision myself as Julie Andrews in two of my favorite childhood movies: Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Both movies deeply inspire me to embrace the childlike magic that resides within my soul – both urge me to return to that state of magical innocence and trust.
It is time for me to destroy the old restrictive rules of my life – time to embrace even more of the magic, without attempting to squish the magic into the shape of those old stodgy rules.
Wings to Fly
The more I embrace the growing feelings of magic, the more I feel as if my wings are beginning to spread – that perhaps maybe I actually can fly after all.
I am eternally grateful for the incredible opportunities that Keith continues to bring into my life. On just the day after Christmas, my special Christmas gift was the opportunity to travel across the lake with Keith, assisting him as he facilitated a beautiful and profound chocolate ceremony at a nearby Yoga retreat center. During that amazing sunrise-to-sunset day, my confidence leaped for joy as I continued to spread my new-found wings, taking little baby steps toward trusting my budding intuitions as a healer, following tiny intuitions that seemed to produce great results.
Trusting Starlight
Just two nights earlier, on a beautiful Guatemalan Christmas Eve, Keith and I had made tentative plans to share company over a relaxing dinner at a local restaurant.
Imagine my delight when Keith shows up and tells me that we have instead been invited to spend Christmas Eve with a beautiful Mayan family – the extended family of Keith’s young helper Isaias – an incredible young man whom I love with all of my heart.
When Keith asks if that would be an acceptable change of plans, I nearly leap for joy at the amazing opportunity.
For me, the first highlight of the evening is in playing with the children, watching and helping them light their noisy firecrackers.
Yup, I said firecrackers. It seems that fireworks are a huge part of celebrating Christmas and New Years here in Guatemala. My heart overflows with joy as I stand out in the beautiful starlit night, giggling with the children, holding their hand, feeling the magic of their joy and excitement flow through my own veins.
As we sit down at a small table with Isaias and his young wife, beginning to devour our delicious tamales, my next delight comes in the form of a beautiful seven-month old baby named Luli. My heart swells with joy at the opportunity to hold this little angel – to giggle and play with her for nearly a half hour before her mother comes to scoop her away.
While sipping on a steaming mug of “Ponche” (a traditional hot fruit drink), I can not help but glance at a television just a few feet away. Of all the movies to be playing on Christmas Eve, there could not have been a more perfect choice – The Polar Express. The fact that it is completely dubbed in Spanish makes the experience even more delightful.
There are two or three songs in this beautiful movie that always steal my heart – but it is the movie’s magical message that captivates my fancy – reminding me with deep emotion that the magic is still there – that it has always been there. To reconnect with that magic, all I need to do is to return to my childlike innocence and genuine beliefs.
My heart nearly melts with joy as I steal a glance at the face of my magical teacher. Keith is focused intently, watching one of the closing scenes where a young boy rediscovers his own belief in the magic of Christmas.
I cannot say for certain, but I remain absolutely convinced that Keith’s eyes were filling up with bubbling and joyful tears.
I am so deeply grateful for the skilled guidance of this amazing and intuitive man in my life. Keith’s loving help has given me such a profound boost in discovering my own inner magic – magic that has been buried for so very long – magic that is just now beginning to dance under the dim light of the stars above.
If You Just Believe
Today marks an amazing conclusion – the last day of an incredible year – and the joyful conclusion of a three-week marathon of writing. Yes, as I hit the publish button on this New Years Eve, I am indeed finally caught up and current in my writing. There is nothing left unsaid, nothing remains unexpressed regarding this divinely magical and unforgettable year.
I know that I highlighted this beautiful song just a year ago, but I cannot resist the urge to end this segment of my writing by quoting again the inspiring words of one of my favorite songs – the theme song of “The Polar Express” as sung by Josh Groban.
If you want to listen along, I found this beautiful video on youTube at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn0_I_GDGpg
As I sit with Isaias’s family on Christmas Eve, I remember how I too used to be a dreamer so very long ago – but then I had to grow up – the magic vanished into an adult world or rules and responsibility.
Those forgotten dreams are calling me, gently playing a soft and familiar melody – urging me to believe in what I feel inside – to believe in what my heart is saying – to rediscover the magic that once slipped away so very long ago.
Yes, even though I often feel as if I am still navigating under the dim glow of starlight, I will trust my heart – I will spread my wings and fly. I know not where my dreams will guide me, but with all of my heart, I know, without any doubts, that I must believe.
Believe
Words and Music by: Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri
Sung by: Josh Groban
Album: The Polar Express (Soundtrack)
Children sleeping, snow is softly falling
Dreams are calling like bells in the distance
We were dreamers not so long ago
But one by one we all had to grow up
When it seems the magic’s slipped away
We find it all again on Christmas day
Believe in what your heart is saying
Hear the melody that’s playing
There’s no time to waste
There’s so much to celebrate
Believe in what you feel inside
And give your dreams the wings to fly
You have everything you need
If you just believe
Trains move quickly to their journey’s end
Destinations are where we begin again
Ships go sailing far across the sea
Trusting starlight to get where they need to be
When it seems that we have lost our way
We find ourselves again on Christmas day
Believe in what your heart is saying
Hear the melody that’s playing
There’s no time to waste
There’s so much to celebrate
Believe in what you feel inside
And give your dreams the wings to fly
You have everything you need
If you just believe
Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved