Brenda's Bicycles

As I stroll toward Keith’s porch on the final Sunday of October, I am energized and eagerly anticipating the unknown growth that lies ahead.

Repeatedly, personal experience has profoundly shown me that I either create or allow everything in my perceptual reality, yet my logical mind continues to stir up waves of doubt and resistance, attempting to derail my awakening journey in subtle ways.

One thing is certain, however. On a daily basis, I continue to gain more experience and trust. When I am on Keith’s magical porch, those rational-mind doubts easily take a back seat. Time and time again, I have watched with awe as the perfect combination of people and situations guide me to exactly where I need to go. I confidently trust that the chocolate ceremony today will be no exception.

Cuddly Puppies

To my delight, as I embrace the glow meditation, none of my all-too-familiar solar plexus pains seem to manifest in any way. Instead, I feel a sense of budding power in my heart chakra. Yet I do have some metaphorical pains – mild-but-prickly little pains jabbing me slightly in the far right regions of my chest.

As I ponder peacefully, feelings of self-love seem to congratulate me, telling me that I have made great progress in the area of balancing my heart chakra with love and power – but the gentle metaphorical pains hint that more heart integrations remains in my future.

“I wonder what heart growth will soon grace my presence.” I smile inside as I begin to imagine the little pains as cuddly puppies that are yapping for my love.

Warming My Heart

But my inner work is soon interrupted as I observe the profound energetic growth journey through which an older gentleman is passing on the porch.

“Your job right now is to hold space for this man.” Little Jedi voices whisper silently inside.

Soon I am sitting cross-legged on a pillow, just a couple of feet away from him, breathing energy into my heart while experiencing a strong sensation of balanced love and power. As rational mind remains clueless about what I am doing, I use my overflowing heart to radiate supporting love and light toward this man.

For the next hour, I watch and learn while observing the beautiful growth that unfolds in front of me. In a very physical way, the gentleman is experiencing a metaphorical “coldness” and has asked his beautiful wife to hold him, helping to warm his freezing body. Lying on the ground behind him, she warms his blanket-covered body with her own body heat, lovingly attending to his needs. Her love also warms my heart.

No Accident

Finally, as Keith finishes his first extended journey around the porch, he comes over to sit by my side. Still perched cross-legged on my pillow, I continue holding a powerful loving space, not only for this man, but for everyone else on the porch as well.

To my surprise, Keith quickly rests the palm of his right hand on my back, directly behind my heart. As I feel the warm flowing energy of Keith’s hand on my spine, I suddenly recognize that this area is swarming with intense pain. My first thought is that I have been sitting in an awkward position for a very long time, and that this pain is merely physical. Then, remembering that pain is resistance, I begin to question my experience.

“Is this physical or is it a metaphor?” I ask Keith with deep curiosity.

“I’m getting that it is a metaphor about receiving.” Keith soon responds. “It has to do with the back, or receptive side of your heart chakra.”

It is only later that I recognize the placement of Keith’s hand as having been no accident.

Instant Rewind

Almost immediately, Keith again moves on to work with someone else.

For a while, I maintain my cross-legged position, continuing to hold loving space for others on the porch. As I do so, I simultaneously focus on sending increased love to my own heart and back regions. While attempting to relax, I envision the sharp pains as dissolving and moving out of me – but the aches continue, and the muscle tightness does not even begin to lessen.

Finally, after deciding that it is time to focus on me, I return to my pillow by Keith’s kitchen door. I seem to be in two places at once. On the one hand, I watch as Keith engages in rational conversation with a group of four individuals. On the other hand, I curiously rewind an imaginary video tape of the previous two hours, reviewing “my creation,” wondering why I might have orchestrated those events, and pondering what the healing message might be for me.

Held Like That

The message of “blocked receptivity in my heart chakra” is loud and clear. I am still incapable of allowing myself to receive the type of loving support that I so deeply crave.

Immediately, I remember my divine circle of friends – a group of higher beings that I first discovered during a profound meditation last spring. Visualizing myself as being in their magical presence, I begin to ask all of them if they will please surround me, touch me, embrace me, and cuddle with me.

Suddenly I remember my warm feelings of watching a woman cuddle her husband, helping to warm him – a beautiful experience that was created right on the porch in front of me.

“I want to be held like that.” I beg my circle of higher-being friends. “Please hold me. Please cuddle with me.”

Subtle Resistance

As I drop my own resistance to being held and loved, tears begin to stream down my cheeks like tiny waterfalls.

I imagine a beautiful feminine angel holding me, cuddling me, gracing me with her unconditional presence. I begin to feel quite vulnerable as I envision myself being loved in a way that I rarely receive. Even though “craving” such love is one of my biggest fears, I surrender to the frightening realization that I do indeed crave it. Other than beautiful and frequent hugs with friends, physical touch is a rare event in my life.

“It is interesting that I am envisioning myself as being held by a female angel.” I suddenly ponder with insight. “Even though it is very subtle, I am still resisting masculine energy.”

Rejected And Feared

Immediately, I envision a handsome bare-chested male angel as being the divine presence that is cuddling me. This new ‘forbidden’ visualization triggers an increased wave of tear-filled emotional release and vulnerability.

After a while, I begin to ponder thoughts of my own inner masculine and feminine energies embracing each other. As I do so, the intensity of my tears again rises.

By now I am deeply engulfed in the pain of craving physical touch – in the inner conflict of wanting physical contact, but not allowing it – in the dysfunctional belief that I am defective and not worthy of such physical love. The emotions are powerful and overwhelming.

I continue to observe myself with awareness, allowing the emotions to flow, while not losing myself in them. The emotions come from a deeply suppressed craving that has shadowed me through most of my life – a rejected craving that has been profoundly feared and never fully healed.

Deeply Rooted

Eventually I recognize the core essence of my God/separation drama – the core belief that I will never get this kind of love – love that I crave and want. This dysfunctional belief dictates that I will not get human love from anyone in this physical plane, and that I will never receive true divine love from Source. Instead, I have to be tough and do it all alone, always unselfishly giving to others, but never receiving anything back.

“No matter how hard I try to prove myself worthy, the Universe will never fully reward me for what I desperately seek.” Those clever voices unceasingly taunt me.

Yup! I am right back experiencing the emotions of my inner conflict with Deity – feeling as if I have been abandoned by Source and that nothing I do will ever change that.

Giggles fill my heart as tears continue to flow down my cheeks. I clearly recognize the absurdity of this separation drama – but the roots of this illogical belief run very deep.

I am in a state of muddy clarity. My heart and mind both know the truth, but the unleashed emotions – emotions that I choose to allow and experience – are powerfully screaming the exact opposite.

Emotional Floodgates

In the middle of my silent journey with ever-deepening tears and piles of tissue, I watch and sniffle as Keith conducts a powerful “empath training” with a woman directly across the porch. She too is incapable of allowing love, and is frightened by the life-long experience that being loved by someone means that you get to eat and internalize all of their emotional garbage inside of your own body.

I observe with detached interest as tissues continue to pile up beside me. My emotional release is so overwhelming that I half expect Keith to involve me in the final part of the training – a part where the woman would practice assisting me to release my own deep emotion. But that never happens.

Instead, Keith turns toward me, congratulates me for moving to yet-another level, and begins to press his fingers tightly into the upper center of my heart chakra. This intense focus on the energies in my heart causes the emotional floodgates to open wide.

Lightness And Coolness

As Keith again moves on, I feel as if he has given me permission to just, “go for it.” Further surrendering to the emotions, I feel the buried loneliness consume me. I clearly recognize that what I am experiencing is NOT present-day emotion – but is instead emotion that has remained suppressed and unhealed for years and years.

I feel it to the core, letting myself sink into the experience, craving to be held, desperately needing to be validated, simultaneously feeling the futility, and believing that all hope is lost.

The tears flow on as I clearly begin to recognize that I subconsciously continue to equate love with pain, sadness, and difficulty – of eating the emotional garbage of others. Part of me does not yet feel safe with the thought of being loved at such a deep level. This subconscious part continues to block the reception of love. These buried fears are intense.

Finally, after nearly an hour, the tears dry up and I return to present-day reality. With a sense of new peace and clarity, I sink deep into meditation, bringing in light and higher energy. A pleasant sensation of “relaxed cool breeze” permeates the back of my heart chakra, letting me know that something is opening.

Pity Party Invitation

As I prepare to walk home, a doubting part of me does not believe that I have cried enough – telling me that I need to go home and bawl my eyes out all night until every last drop of this emotion has been released

This pity-party invitation feels quite inviting, but is quickly sidetracked. Before leaving, I instead spend twenty minutes assisting Keith in putting away over two-hundred pounds of drying cacao beans. By the time I arrive at home, the emotional sadness is gone, my heart is energized, and I fully recognize that I have already accomplished everything I needed to do, at least for now.

I felt the unreleased emotions to the core, I allowed them to flow through me, I brought in the light to assist, and I trust that if there is yet more to do then it will come up another day.

A Lost Encounter

Monday turns into another documentary marathon. Likewise, after spending Tuesday morning sorting through (and cutting up) chunks of foam rubber for my new over-stuffed pillows, the remainder of Tuesday turns into the beginning of a new marathon of sorts.

While in Cozumel during the fall of 2009, I had begun using television as an occasional pastime for learning Spanish. Reruns of the television series “Lost” quickly became one of my favorite Spanish-study diversions. For some strange reason, the metaphysical twists of the show captivated me, intriguing me, luring me to watch more.

During the early weeks of 2010, while recovering from a third degree burn in Valladolid, I had spent several weekends watching back-to-back marathons of the first five seasons of the television series “Lost” – in their entirety. In mid-February, just as the new season six was beginning, I found myself heading south toward Belize.

“Someday I will watch season six.” I reassured myself, knowing that this would happen with perfect synchronous timing.

Last week, to my delight, I stumbled onto the ability to do just that. As I spend the remainder of Tuesday watching the first several episodes, I am intrigued, once again.

Noisy Nuisances

After a Wednesday morning of more “pillow-foam cutting” and “Lost episodes,” I head out for what turns into another very unusual chocolate ceremony.

There are only three of us present – Keith, me, and another friend. She is a friend who, like me, is quite accustomed to doing her own inner work by herself, in complete silence.

Before beginning the ceremony, I find myself giggling as we discuss my ongoing journey with noise – a journey that began in Mexico and has continued right here in San Marcos. For fifteen minutes, I share about how I have learned to tune out earth-shattering noises such as an array of thirty huge speakers aimed right at my home during the town festivities last April.

And I have long-since acquired the ability to hardly even pay attention to loud church services that often compete with each other via loudspeakers – usually for several hours duration on at least four or five evenings each and every week.

Then I confess that there remains one noise here in San Marcos that is capable of occasionally driving me crazy. It comes from an old man in a wheelchair that sits at a small vendor booth, right below my bedroom window. He loves to whistle and to play the flute – and he does both very loudly and off key, nearly nonstop whenever he is working, which is often until late into the evening. (In fact, as I write these very words, this sweet man is whistling quite loudly, LOL.)

My Favorite Walls

This first Wednesday ceremony of November begins in an impromptu manner. As Keith abandons our usual glow meditation (since we are all quite familiar with self-processing), our ceremony jumps directly into individual meditation.

It takes me nearly an hour of silently enjoying the energies before I begin to get serious about “what to work on.” As I start to focus, intuitions suddenly remind me of the “noise” discussion that preceded the ceremony.

“When I was young, I desperately needed noise and distractions to keep me emotionally safe.” A new memory suddenly flashes into my mind.

I was terrified that people would discover my secret – my inner struggles with gender identity – and as a result, I erected huge walls and barriers around my inner thoughts and feelings. Noises and distractions were among my favorite walls. When other people or noisy activities were taking place, I could simply drift into the background, disappearing in the shuffle, safe from inquiring minds and eyes.

Strange Paradox

During my teens, I was terrified by the thought of being in a long-term one-on-one conversation with anyone. During my adult years, especially in my thirties, I made a specific point of never allowing myself to be alone with my parents. They would have too much opportunity for awkward and prying questions. The only time I allowed myself to be in their presence was when others were around to distract and divert.

Prior to this moment, I have never understood this point so clearly. Noise and distraction had indeed become protective safety nets.

It was a strange paradox – I hated crowds of strange people because I was such a social misfit – but I craved crowds of familiar people because I was such a social misfit. How else could I blend in and hide?

Recipe For Confusion

As I suddenly start to feel mild aches popping up in my stomach region, I begin to search for inner guidance to this new trail of metaphorical breadcrumbs.

“Should I ask the light to come in and help with this pain?” I begin to ponder with doubts. “Or perhaps I should bring in angels to help me do something.”

“Maybe I should ask the angels to hook up a hose to the emotion and drain it off into a hole like I did last year … or maybe I should see these new pains as puppies that merely need my unconditional love and support.”

“But what if I just love them and they never heal.” I ponder with fright. “I don’t want to be stuck with these pains. I want them out of me.”

“I want to push the healing process.” I ponder with confusion. “Yet I know that I am not supposed to push the healing process.”

God Drama Perpetuated

“I want help and guidance.” I ponder with frustration.

More than an hour of silent meditation has passed peacefully. When I glance over at Keith, I note that he seems deeply immersed in his own inner journey. I hesitate to interrupt him when I know that I am simply filled with silly doubts.

“I shouldn’t ask for help.” I chastise myself. “I should already know how to do this on my own.”

“But what do I do?” I bite my lip. “I am lost.”

Suddenly I recognize that by not asking, I am perpetuating my God/separation drama. I am afraid that I will be a pest by asking – that I don’t deserve the help – that I have already been told how to do this countless times, and that I will reveal my stupidity by asking yet again. I am lost in the belief that “I cannot do this alone, and I also cannot get the help I need.”

Unattached Following

Minutes after recognizing my separation drama at work, I set aside my resistance, interrupt Keith, and express my dilemma. Keith responds with something I deeply crave – a great deal of loving and patiently delivered rational-mind coaching.

“Inner work with the energies is just like manifesting.” Keith reminds me. “You simply intend and then allow, making your wishes and directions known, trying certain things, and then allowing the result to be whatever it is.”

He explains that above all else, I should simply follow inner guidance without attachment to outcome. I am on a learning journey, and everything I do will take me down that path in one way or another. In the absence of firm guidance, I can just try things that feel right. There is nothing wrong with bringing in light and asking the higher energies to remove a painful block. It is absolutely fine to request that metaphorical angels hook up a fire hose to drain emotional energy from my abdomen. The key is to follow my intuitions – to lovingly try something – and then see what happens.

If what I try or ask for is not in my best interest, it will simply not work. If the method seemingly backfires on me (as it has a few times in the past), that is merely a teaching opportunity about the subtleties of healing. There is no right and wrong, and I cannot miss something. Everything is simply a beautiful learning opportunity.

The only thing to avoid is attempting to push a process with an intention of fixing a problem. When following the flow, motivated by love and a desire to grow, having no attachment to outcome, I cannot go wrong.

Left-Brain Bargaining

Our conversation further spreads to the importance of the left-brain in general. Again, Keith reminds me that he has never once heard an enlightened being put down the rational mind.

I giggle as I share several experience from my life where I have literally bargained with my logical mind, asking for permission to try something in the intuitive/right-brained realm while reassuring the rational side of me that we can always fall back on logic and structure if the intuition fails to be accurate.

This strategy has worked repeatedly throughout the last eight years, making it possible to follow intuition without the logical side of me throwing up huge roadblocks. To this day, I cannot think of one incident where the right-brain intuition failed to produce beautiful results.

Got The T-Shirt

As I return to silent meditation, I overflow with deep gratitude. This discussion further helps me to balance my growing partnership between head and heart, between logic and intuition, between left and right brains.

I recognize that my particular life path has literally taken me deep into the quicksand of being lost in the left-brained world of logic – an event that was profoundly important to my mission in this life. Because of this deep rational-mind focus, when I do get through this transition to a heart-based world, I will be profoundly qualified to assist others in doing the same.

Keith often explains to people that when working with others, they cannot get the learning and experience they need by simply reading a book. He often jokes that to earn your “inner” license, you have to have “Been there, done that, and got the T-shirt.”

It seems like I am definitely preparing for my future – and I can proudly proclaim that I do indeed have that T-shirt.

Serious Business

Shortly before 5:00 p.m., my friend (I will call her Sandi) and I exchange hugs with Keith and begin walking together back toward the center of town. As we reach her hostel, Sandi and I look at each other, smile with joint intuition, and decide that for the second Wednesday in a row, we are going to dinner together.

While munching away on a delightful burger and fries (my inner children are craving them), Sandi and I discuss a myriad of life and spiritual issues – starting out by conversing about “serious stuff.”

In the middle of this joyful-but-somber spiritual conversation, I mention that one of my goals is to learn how not to take life so seriously. Suddenly, the two of us shift into nonstop humorous sarcasm – making joke after joke about how serious our lives are. For the majority of our three-hour conversation, we enjoy one sarcastic giggle after another.

When I get home, I of course must repent, because, after all, life is indeed “serious business.” NOT!

I have not had this much fun in a long time – and most of the joy comes from the profound realization that even a spiritual path is meant to be joyful and playful.

WOW

Late Wednesday evening, and most of Thursday (after a much-needed cash/grocery run to Panajachel), I find myself glued to my computer screen as I watch the remaining episodes of “Lost” season six.

“Wow” is a profound way of describing my reaction to this amazing television series. I do not know if others will feel the same way – that does not matter to me in the least. Perhaps the whole series was created just for me (after all, I do create my own reality). I cannot imagine a more powerful and enlightening way to spend a few days of my time – and the synchronous timing of it all could not have been more perfect. Even just a few months ago, I was not yet ready to internalize these profound insights.

I hesitate to say a great deal in writing. I do not wish to ruin the series for anyone who may yet choose to watch it. Throughout the first five seasons, I had been fascinated by the intriguing metaphysical threads. The sixth season did not disappoint me in any way – taking the series to what I see as a deeply spiritual and meaningful conclusion.

Flowing With Giggles

Even the name “Lost” now makes profound sense to me. While I originally believed the name as simply indicating that the people were lost on the island, I now see it with a profound second meaning – that they were deeply lost in the illusion that we call this physical life. In one episode near the very end, one man suddenly has a near-death experience that literally wakes him up.

It is not obvious until the final episode, but this man had woken up in the dream – he suddenly realized that it did not matter what he did – because none of it would make any difference in the outcome – a loving outcome that was assured. This beautiful man went about joyfully assisting others in gradually waking up to the truth as well – no longer being attached to the results. Because he knew a bigger picture, he was filled with trust, smiles, love, and peace.

As I watch, I am overwhelmed with continuous insights into creation of reality, parallel realities, love, releasing attachments, following synchronicities, and in simply having fun through it all.

Many times during the final episode, I find myself in joyful tears as I ponder the metaphorical realizations that are bubbling and waking up inside of me – an ever increasing understanding that I too can simply love and trust – flowing with joyful giggles from one experience to the next – filled with the peace that all is well.

The Fun Bus

It is so easy to get “Lost” in the serious business of this place we call Planet Earth. I have been lost there for the vast majority of my life. Yes, I now see more clearly than ever that I need not do or accomplish physical things in order to merit enlightenment. All I need do is to undo all of the lies (beliefs and emotions) that trap me in the illusion while simultaneously doing things that bring me meaningful joy.

For many months, I have been keenly aware that it is time for me to learn how to stop taking life so seriously – to start taking the fun bus on my journey toward enlightenment. However, regardless of what I have tried, I have found myself still stuck in the seriousness of it all.

This week, through several totally-unrelated-but-synchronous experiences, I have profoundly learned – at a deep heart level – that joy and love are indeed what everything is all about.

I am of divine origin (as are we all) and a safe return to that divine Source has already happened. I am simply playing out the journey in linear time – on the Holodeck of physical reality.

I know that I will most certainly stumble and fall into additional illusory traps of “serious business,” but right now, I can only giggle. I think I might be holding a ticket to the fun bus.

Copyright © 2011 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved