Brenda's Bicycles

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

Sunday morning, January 8, I wake up shortly before 2:30 a.m., again hacking and coughing with fluid in my lungs. My mind is going crazy. Finally, at 6:00 a.m., still awake, I get out of bed to meditate.

I cycle between peace, chaos, and emotion – not having a clue which inner voices I can trust.

“The voice that tells me to be happy and peaceful … is that ego or spirit?” I ponder in confusion. “Is ego trying to get me to push my emotions down – trying to make me suppress them so that I cannot heal?”

“Then there is the voice that tells me to go into the pain … to explore it so I can ‘know myself’ … is that the voice of masquerading ego trying to scam me?” I slip into more confusion.

“How do I know which voice in my head belongs to me and which belongs to ego?” I sink into the craziness. “I don’t trust anything anymore. I am in complete confusion.”

In The Craziness

As a result of an early morning email to Keith, I have a short appointment at 10:00 a.m. – I only hope I can survive my crazy morning until then. I am up … down … in … out … and all over the place – literally feeling insane and unable to trust anything in my head. I feel like a crazy idiot, being flushed down the emotional toilet – on the verge of being committed to a mental institution.

I ponder how emotionally stable and spiritually strong I was just a year and a half ago when I began doing inner work with Keith – and now I am a puddle of confusion and emotional mush.

If it were not for the fact that I have repeatedly experienced amazing growth and magic while working with Keith, I would have packed my bags many times over – but each experience has led me to a solid base of trust – trust that lovingly reminds me that even in this craziness, I am profoundly progressing in my undoing process.

Powerful Panic

As I walk toward Keith’s home near the eastern edges of San Marcos, I am in the midst of a physical panic attack – my pulse races in high gear, anxiety churns in my stomach like a washing machine on steroids, and my mind feels as if I am watching a high speed video that frantically changes scenes every half second.

As I blubber through tears, sitting in front of my teacher, I explain my craziness, my doubts, and my out-of-control stuck-in-my-head mind games. I know I could use various spiritual “mental” techniques to center myself, but I do not trust those techniques. I want to get out of my head and into my heart – but right now I feel like using my head to get out of my head is simply putting a fluffy blanket of light over the chaos, and pretending the chaos is not really there.

I am in a state of mind where I do not fully trust any spiritual path or teacher. I do not trust anything going on in my head.

Profound But Risky

To my surprise, the first thing Keith does is to grab a deck of Tarot cards. After shuffling them for a minute or two, he uses his guidance to blindly select one card – it is the “Sun card” – a powerful Major Arcana card that, to me, represents a very high state in one’s spiritual journey. In my meditations with the Mystical Kabbalah, I believe that this card represents the journey between Christ Consciousness and Oneness. Soon, Keith pulls another card. It is the Ace of Wands – the highest card in the spiritual suit.

“I’m pulling these cards to give you something else to focus on outside of my own words.” Keith shares with me. “As you already know, these two cards are very powerful cards.”

Keith goes on to let me know that what I am doing is actually quite profound – but also risky – but that these cards confirm that I am actually in a very good place right now.

Soberly Searching

Keith is very serious when he shares that he has had to watch many people that he dearly loves, literally destroy themselves at similar points in their own undoing process. We talk for a few minutes as I begin to understand how incredibly painful it must be to watch someone you love literally destroy himself or herself in a losing battle with ego.

“Am I in danger of going down the spiritual toilet?” I ask Keith, soberly searching for feedback.

“Some people literally do end up in sanitariums, going crazy, and being institutionalized.” Keith responds. “Others do get lost in the ego craziness and end up destroying their lives in one way or another, never returning to their spiritual path.”

“I have never seen anyone crash at this point that has later returned to their spiritual path.” Keith shares a sober observation. “But based on the Tarot cards I pulled earlier, I do not believe that is where you are headed.”

An Inner License

“It is critical for you to understand this state of consciousness and craziness.” Keith further guides me. “Many people in the next few years will hit various stages of such emotional states of craziness. And many of those people will come to you, seeking your assistance, already being in such a state of consciousness when you meet them for the first time.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith continues, “but in order for you to be able to help them, you need to understand this state of consciousness from a place of profound personal experience – you need the inner license of having ‘been there, done that, and got the t-shirt’.”

“And since you are a healer and a writer,” Keith adds, “you have to deeply understand many more types of such experiences than most people will need to go through themselves.”

As I listen, I am so grateful for the email communication I had yesterday with my friend Nancy. I take the opportunity to share with Keith how I had felt the resonance of Nancy’s inner license – her profound understanding, compassion, and encouragement that could only come from someone who has once been there herself in the craziness.

Projection Perfection

“Yesterday,” I explain to Keith, “I yelled out in the privacy of my own home that I would rather die than have to accept help from Paul. Later, I realized that I was actually deeply immersed in my God/separation drama – that the truth was that I would rather die than to accept help from God.”

“I am projecting my anger at God onto Paul – and even a little bit onto you.” I add. “I am angry at the false judgmental God whose representatives were filled with distorted masculine manipulation and fixing energy – at the God who let me down time and time again throughout my life.”

Keith acknowledges that I am projecting a little onto him, but again congratulates me for powerfully manifesting Paul so that I could instead mostly project onto Paul.

“I know from personal experience that if you were projecting all of this onto me rather than onto Paul,” Keith shares the perfection in what is happening, “that you would not be able to hear anything I tell you right now – that we would not be able to have this conversation.”

Trust The Process

“How long do I have to experience this craziness,” I beg Keith for clarity, “and how do I get out of it?”

“There is no formula.” Keith gives me a truthful answer. “You simply get to experience this crazy process until it is done.”

Keith explains that there is no way to get myself out of the craziness – that I just need to go through the process with trust.

“Try things,” Keith suggests, “experience things, experience your projections and judgments, experience the peace, and observe all of the mental voices and all of the states of confusion. Trust that all is well in the flow that brought you here – that this is an experience you need – and that the flow will bring you to an end with perfect timing.”

Divine Order

Before disappearing into his kitchen to prepare for a Sunday afternoon chocolate ceremony, Keith feels guided that I need to read a quote that just barely showed up in his email. The quote is from a book called “Oneness” – a book channeled by a woman named ‘Rasha’ – a book that Keith highly recommends.

“This is the first time in your personal history as an incarnate individual that your conscious awareness has been augmented with levels of energy that enable you to transcend your physical senses. This is the first incarnation in which you have been able to reinforce intuitive knowingness with experiential knowingness. This is the moment you have been waiting for, for eons of existence. For, this is the lifetime that will catapult you beyond all you know to a depth of awareness and understanding you are as yet unable to fathom. Trust that this process, in which you are, by now, deeply invested, is unfolding as it is meant to. And that everything is, indeed, in Divine order.”

As I ponder these words, inner voices whisper that I am indeed on a path to a depth of awareness and understanding that, right now, I am unable to fathom. I do trust this process … I am deeply invested in it … and I do indeed know that all is in divine order.

Kermit Capers

Rather than going home and then returning for the ceremony, I opt to stay and meditate silently on Keith’s porch. My head remains a little jittery, while my emotions continue to bounce around slightly, but WOW, I feel so much better than I imagined possible just an hour ago. I am actually loving and accepting myself for where I am. I have new hope that I am on the edge of beautiful breakthroughs.

During this meditation, I remind myself, yet again (how easily I forget), that I create my own reality – especially on this magical porch. I make a conscious decision that, today I will pay extra close attention to this belief. I will strive to see everything that takes place as a stage play, personally created and directed by me.

Most of all, I will see Paul as being “Kermit the Frog,” the leading actor in my own personal episode of The Muppet Show. With all of my conscious effort, I will remind myself that whatever Paul says or does to trigger me, that he is only a little green frog, a divine actor who is intentionally trying to push my buttons for the sole purpose of showing me what I need to heal on the inside.

PLEASE READ – PLEASE READ – PLEASE READ

It is with great trepidation that I write on. I am skating on very thin and precarious ice as I write more and more about what I (at the time) perceived as the negative actions of another – yet I find it impossible to write about my own process without going into the drama of my continued interactions with my favorite projection-buddy Paul.

First, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. At the time of this writing (five weeks later), I have finally achieved a state of great peace in working with Paul. He is a beautiful being, an incredible man with amazing energy gifts – intuitive and perceptual gifts that continue to astound me. He is in his own beautiful process, playing the other side of my script, and I love him for it. Thank you Paul!

What I write in the remainder of this blog are my perceptions from that bizarre day. I know that I created this reality and that Paul was playing a crucial script in my self-created stage play. I describe events exactly as I myself perceived them. I have no idea how Paul or anyone else perceived them.

“Paul” is not his real name. Anyone who has been on the porch in the last months will likely know who he is, but anyone who has been on the porch will also fully recognize and appreciate the loving projection dynamic we have been going through together – so by writing what I do about Paul, I am not violating any confidences. Everyone on the porch was a witness, so nothing new is being revealed to them.

Anyone who has not been on Keith’s porch recently will have no idea about whom I am writing – so in that sense, Paul’s identity is also being preserved.

Next, I want to state again that as far as I know, Paul could be an enlightened being that I manifested to come here to San Marcos to play out these crazy “dense-energy” scripts for me. If so, he is an amazing actor.

Last, and most important, I love Paul’s contribution to my growth, I love the crazy things he did (at least I do now, that is), and I am grateful. I hold no ill will, and I write the following with purity and innocence in my heart – no judgment remains.

Act One

As the glow meditation gets underway, I am quite emotionally numb. I continue to experience little sharp pains in my upper chest – stinging pains that began instantly, less than three weeks ago, when my high heart center opened up at a beautiful ceremony across the lake. And to my dismay, I am also acutely aware that the fluid in my lungs seems to physically correlate to these sharp pains and to my level of emotional agitation.

I watch with non-attached interest as Keith works his way around the porch in a very weird order. Meanwhile, I observe as Paul continues his unknowing, subconscious attempts to push my buttons. I smile to myself as I observe “Kermit” run around the porch, not doing any of his own work, while being quite noisy, disrespectful, and disruptive of the processes of others. At one point, he is so disrespectful of one woman’s tearful emotional release that I actually speak up with indignation.

“Paul,” I sternly growl, “Stop that and hold space for her process.”

I then return to simply ignoring the green little frog that seems to have pulled out all of the stops in his efforts to trigger and annoy me.

Energetic Medicine

After more than an hour, when my turn to speak with Keith finally arrives, I explain my concerns over my upper-chest pains, and the fluid in my lungs that has again begun waking me up in the middle of the night.

“I know this is energetic,” I share with confidence, “but is there something I can do to work through this faster?”

To my delight, Keith immediately gets everyone’s attention and asks them to focus all of their healing energy on me – telling many of them that they do not yet know they have this ability, but that they can send me an energetic medicine to sooth my high heart and cough.

Less than a minute after this process begins (a process that gives me great hope of another beautiful energetic experience), Paul (or should I say Kermit) returns to action.

Unattached Observations

Kermit jumps out of his seat, runs into the kitchen, grabs a huge bottle of chocolate, and returns to the porch. Soon, he is noisily interrupting everyone, pushing more hot chocolate on them, talking out loud, seeming totally uninterested in what I am doing, and even less interested in allowing others to assist me in my process.

With deep focus, I remain unattached to this blatant attempt to shatter me, to distract me, and to disrupt the energy of the group that is currently focused on me. It is almost humorous how Paul seems to interrupt my process like clockwork.

I watch with surprise as Paul pours a large glass of chocolate for one newcomer on the porch – one that is so large that it could make many people quite physically nauseas to drink so much bitter.

Not wanting to lose my focus, but being deeply concerned for the possible unpleasant ramifications of Paul’s reckless behavior, I tap Keith on the shoulder and point out what is going on.

The Target Is Me

“This is for both of them, Brenda.” Paul angrily lashes out at me when he realizes I am the one who asked Keith to intervene. “I felt inspired to give this to them and mind your own business! You have major control issues Brenda!”

“Whoa,” I think silently to myself. “Not only does Kermit interrupt my process with rudeness and distraction, but he projects all over me for ‘his’ being extremely reckless with pushing excessive chocolate onto others.”

“It’s interesting how this happens when I am deep in my process.” I quietly speak aloud so that Kermit can most likely overhear.

After momentarily losing composure I again close my eyes and ignore Kermit. That little green frog continues to walk around the porch in noisy distraction and in what I perceive as ego pompousness.

Kermit is projecting all over me – I now realize he always has been doing so – and one of my biggest inner triggers is when someone is unjustly projecting onto me.

“This is not my issue.” I silently smile to myself. “I don’t care what he does or says. Kermit can project onto me as much as he wishes.”

An Ongoing Stage Play

To my delight, I watch as Paul does amazing healing work with one woman – my friend that I recently called Marie. I had almost gone over to assist Marie myself when I observed her tears, but I was so deep in process that I did not feel capable. As I waivered in my decision, Paul had jumped in to work with her instead.

I then observe with shock as Kermit interrupts Keith, right in the depths of someone’s process – just to ask casual questions. He does this many times, right in the middle of several peoples’ deep emotional work.

I simply watch as Keith lovingly answers Kermit’s questions before returning to what he was doing. It seems quite obvious that Keith is either not bothered by this behavior, or he is permitting the disruptions to unfold as part of my profound craziness training. I choose the latter answer, and remain completely non-attached, almost laughing at what I am observing. It is so far “out there” that I cannot help but know that this is a self-created reality – one orchestrated to drive me crazy.

At one point, Kermit is actually interfering with some energy-sharing work that Keith is doing with a couple. Keith bluntly tells Kermit to stop and be quiet – but Kermit continues to protest angrily that he is doing nothing wrong. Again Keith simply allows, and I smile inside with non-attachment.

Keith seems to deal with the chaos beautifully, not showing any type of judgment or stress – simply flowing with everything as if it is a normal everyday ceremony.

Tale Of Two Memories

Later my friend Marie is again in deep emotional pain. She is a beautiful older woman (in my age bracket) who I have assisted several times before. The experience has always been beautiful, and I feel a kindred bond with her heart. Even though I am still immersed in a little of my own painful process, I follow my instincts and finally go sit down cross-legged in front of her.

As I sit with her, I first ground the energy in her feet, and then take her hands in mine. As I stare into her eyes, I fill my heart with love while focusing on sending some of that love in her direction. Marie soon goes into deep tears as I continue. Suddenly, I feel deeply guided by two memories.

The first is from a private ceremony across the lake, just two days after Christmas. In that experience, Keith had coached Jill, a woman who was helping me, guiding her to open her heart and to allow me to pull through her precisely what I needed for my process of relaxing my forearms. During that experience, Jill’s deep vulnerability had allowed me to more easily receive the energy that was flowing through her.

The second memory comes from just two days ago. In a ceremony on Friday, Keith shared insights with those on the porch – insights about how he never goes digging into someone’s energy field so that he can push things onto them. Instead, he explained that he allows their energy to direct the show, pulling through him (energetically and verbally) whatever they need at that moment.

“I usually have no idea where the things I am guided to do and say will take someone.” Keith had shared.

A Loving Dilemma

As I begin to imagine Marie as pulling unconditional love through me, it soon occurs to me that I have a huge wall around my heart that prevents me from allowing any outside loving assistance to enter me.

“How can Marie pull love through me,” I ponder with confusion, “if I am incapable of allowing Higher Love to come in? If I desire to assist Marie in this way, I must allow this divine love to temporarily enter my heart while it is in transit.”

Divine Vulnerability

I maintain profound eye contact with Marie as I focus on dropping my walls, on allowing myself to be vulnerable to that frightening outside energy.

As I try to imagine these walls temporarily lowering, I am the one who starts to cry. As the tears begin to stream, I hear loud firework bombs going off repeatedly in the town, just a short walk away. I intuitively recognize how these loud booms seem to be synchronized with my vulnerability and opening process.

Keith is busy elsewhere, preparing to conduct an empath training. I do not need outside guidance. I know exactly what is happening, and it is beautiful.

The more I stare into Marie’s eyes, the more I am staring at a beautiful divine being with whom I can be absolutely vulnerable – with whom I can completely drop my walls, allowing the doors to open and the love to come pouring through.

Before long, I see the energy of God herself in Marie’s eyes. I am observing and experiencing my God/separation drama unfolding in an entirely new way as I experience God as being filled with unconditional love and vulnerability, rather than being a judgmental and controlling being.

Beautiful Support

I start to cry profusely as Keith finally begins to take notice of what is happening with my process.

“You take good care of her.” Keith momentarily stops and speaks to Marie. “She has been working on this for a very long time. Please help her in the same way she has been helping you.”

“Oh,” I hear a friend from Canada speak up across the porch. “I so want to go over there and support her too.”

I am so deeply immersed in what I am doing that I am not sure what happens next. I think Keith reassures my friend that I am in good hands, asking her to stay where she is, as he continues to proceed with the empath training while I work one-on-one with Marie.

Meanwhile, a beautiful young man seated next to me reaches over and places his energetic palm on the back of my heart chakra. I love his energy … I feel his beautiful loving support … pure masculine energy with no invalidation, no fixing, no pushing, just pure space-holding support.

A Perceived Energetic Assault

As Keith continues with all three phases of the empath training, I continue my journey into ever-deepening vulnerability with God. I maintain constant unbroken eye contact with Marie, at times imagining her as my mom, seeing myself as sharing this divine unconditional love with my dear sweet mother.

But mostly, I see Marie as being God – God in a vulnerable and loving state. Each and every time that I burst into another round of tears mixed with sobs, Marie does the same.

In the midst of this process, I suddenly experience the perception of Paul’s energy connecting with me, attempting to push me through this process, attempting to take me faster to where I need to go. I have no idea if Paul is actually doing this, or if my perception is even based on any facet of reality – but nonetheless, I experience this sudden intuitive perception.

Immediately I am yanked out of my process. I say nothing to anyone while I struggle to regain my loving focus – to reestablish my pure state of tearful, joyful, and loving vulnerability – but I find this quest to be quite difficult while I continue to perceive Paul’s energy attempting to “help” me.

Suddenly, just as I am reentering that beautiful vulnerable state, I overhear Paul’s familiar voice “oohhmming” loudly from across the porch. I perceive that he is trying to show his support for me in going deeper – trying to guide me to a place of vocally expressed anger where he wants me to go – but that is not where I want to go. I strongly perceive that he thinks I need to go into anger – that he wants to push me there.

But I am in a space of profound and beautiful loving vulnerability and his energy feels to me as if it is literally attacking me, invalidating me, disempowering me.

Interrupted Vulnerability

Momentarily breaking eye contact with Marie, simultaneously releasing my right hand, I lean back slightly and call out loudly to Keith, “NOOOOOO NOOOOO” while waving my hand back and forth, as if to say, “Please stop him.”

“Paul, you know that your energy deeply triggers her.” I quickly overhear Keith speak up. “You need to disengage and accept that you cannot help her right now.”

When I no longer feel Paul’s energy attempting to work with me, I return to work with Marie, reestablishing eye and hand contact while struggling to regain my deep state of profound and loving vulnerability.

Just as my eyes again water up in beautiful tenderness, I cannot help but notice Paul (Kermit) walk noisily into the bathroom, just a few feet to my right. My first reaction is that Kermit is angry, and that he is again attempting to disrupt my process in a different way. But I am now fully detached – not caring in the least what Kermit does to try to disturb me in the middle of this very interesting (but very real) stage play.

On The Very Edge

Soon, I cannot help but overhear sounds of Kermit vomiting.

“Wow,” I intuitively think to myself. “When I was projecting all over him, nothing I did seemed to trigger Paul to react. Now, the moment that I disengage from my energy battle, he is reacting in extreme ways – even physical ways.

I am quite shocked and intrigued by the dynamics, but continue my process, attempting to remain unattached and vulnerable. This realization is quite profound for me. I honestly do not have any judgment or anger about what Kermit is doing right now. I care about him, but realize that his process is his process, and my process is my own – and right now, my process is deep and profound.

By now, the entire porch is watching and holding space for me while Kermit is in the bathroom, seemingly struggling.

Suddenly, just as Keith is beginning to guide the group into the next step of practicing a way in which empaths might work, Kermit leaves the bathroom, returns to the far side of the porch, and goes into extreme and dramatic trauma.

Meanwhile, I am now at the height of my process, on the very edge of what I know is about to be a profound breakthrough in receiving divine love and in being vulnerable.

A Green Frog Freak-out

“KEITH!” Kermit suddenly interrupts with screaming volume. “I AM DEEP INTO SOMETHING AND I NEED YOU TO STOP EVERYTHING TO HELP ME RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!”

I am absolutely blown away by the bizarre occurrences unfolding around me. For a few brief moments, I am energetically pulled out of my process – but I never break eye contact with Marie. I do, however, begin to break a funny smile – a smile that appears both on my lips and in my eyes.

I visualize a little green frog on the other side of the porch – a little Muppet named Kermit throwing a huge tantrum, desperately trying to make me angry – desperately attempting to make me project and judge – desperately trying to take Keith’s attention away from me – desperately trying to make me feel victimized and abandoned. And it is all happening right at the very peak of my most profound process ever.

I smile, knowing this is all some type of wacky stage play – a beautifully orchestrated example of creating my own reality in all of its crazy bizarre details. The script is so “out of the ordinary” that I have no choice but to see it as my creation, masterfully scripted and acted out in a skillful ploy to try to push me back into ego and victimization.

But I do not buy into it.

Divine Support

While I continue to stare into Marie’s eyes, neither of us flinches. Love continues to flow through my heart – a heart that overflows with deep gratitude at what happens next.

Keith angrily reprimands Kermit for his trauma/drama interruption. He firmly points out the truth of everything I have noticed today – and then some – scolding Kermit for his pattern of interrupting, for his distractions, for his prancing around the porch while ignoring his own work.

“But the moment things get serious, especially for Brenda,” Keith speaks firmly to Kermit, “here you are, creating drama to pull all of the attention to you!”

My heart fills with warm and overwhelming joy and gratitude as I listen to Keith stand up for me. I am now projecting my God/separation drama directly onto Keith – but in a good way.

I literally feel as if “God” is finally giving me what I have always needed and craved. I am receiving loving support at a time when all seems to be falling apart. I am being validated. I am being supported. I am being defended. I am being loved and empowered.

I know that the true divine energies have always loved and supported me. I know that ‘it is me’ who has blocked out the higher energies for various reasons.

But this is profound. At the very moment that I begin to remove the blocks that prevent divine love from flowing through me – at that very moment I am being shown a beautiful sign of loving support that has always been there.

Pulling Out The Stops

Keith continues speaking to Kermit for nearly ten minutes, firmly pointing out nuances of his behavior, teaching him, etc…

Kermit repeatedly responds in anger, rebelling and demanding evidence.

“Give me proof of what you are saying,” Kermit screams out, “any proof, except I want something that has nothing to do with BRENDA!”

I smile and continue to make loving eye contact with Marie, actually beginning to giggle as I realize that I am now being publicly blamed for all of Kermit’s problems – that Kermit is massively projecting all over me.

This little “create-my-own-reality” stage play is pulling out all of the stops.

Remarkably Peaceful

Finally, Kermit lets out a blood-curdling scream of anger – accompanied by a burst of emotional release – then sinks into deep meditation.

I just smile and continue working with Marie. But given what has been going on around me, getting back to my deep state of vulnerability is akin to impossible.

Finally, as exhaustion consumes me, I release Marie’s hands, tearfully and joyfully thank her, arrange a few cushions on the ground, grab a nearby blanket, and curl up to simply rest and integrate. I continue to remain lovingly centered – slightly traumatized and overwhelmed by what just took place – but remarkably peaceful.

“How are you doing over there Brenda?” Keith finally asks when the commotion dies down.

“I’m doing quite well, considering everything that has been going on.” I giggle back to Keith. “I have just been visualizing The Muppet Show unfolding around me, not attaching myself to any external events.”

An Unexpected Request

“Do you love and trust me?” Keith asks an interesting question.

“I love everyone here,” I respond with curiosity.

“Do you desperately need love, Brenda?” Keith continues.

“Oh yeah,” I respond as emotions suddenly swell and tears begin to stream down my cheeks.

“Well Paul needs love too,” Keith shocks me. “Paul is a little boy that desperately needs love. Can you give that same love to him?”

I begin to sob and cough and wheeze uncontrollably as I initially contemplate Keith’s request.

Rebuilding Love

“It is really hard.” I finally begin to speak as my gut stops wrenching. “My heart shuts down with pain as I think about it, yet I know that I want to give him love. I know it might not be received right now given how strongly he is projecting onto me … but I will try.”

As I continue lying here … as my heart softens … I begin to imagine myself holding space for my own love-starved little boy inside. As I do so, I include Paul in that category of a love-starved little boy.

In the midst of some resistance, I also feel increased softening. I find that I can share the love energetically – but I remain totally incapable of contemplating a face-to-face encounter. I stare at Paul’s sad face across the porch. Occasionally, when he glances my way and catches me staring, he quickly turns away – the same thing I have done to him over the last few days.

Turning Tides

“Brenda,” Keith speaks so that the whole porch can hear. “You and Paul have been greatly serving each other. I have known that for two months.”

I do not think Paul’s ego has allowed him to see this wisdom, but I clearly see it. I do not think that Paul is even aware that he is projecting strongly onto me.

Yes, given where I am at right now, I can love Paul, and I can allow him to project onto me as much as he needs to – for as long as ne needs too.

The tides have turned … at least for now.

Opening Sensitivities

As Keith finally resumes his empath training, I feel guided to share energy with a woman seated nearby. I feel a LOT of energy in my hands – sensing a lot of energy movement that I intuitively know is not my own. I have no idea what that energy is, but at least for this moment, I am feeling it strongly.

“Sit up and touch the back of her heart chakra,” Keith guides me.”

As I do this, I begin to feel pains in my heart area.

“Keith, I’m hurting a lot … can you help me?” I interrupt briefly.

“Wait, my heart is not shut down.” I add before Keith replies.

“Brenda,” Keith smiles back, “you are feeling her heart chakra pain.”

As Keith guides this woman to touch her own belly to release some resistance energy, I simultaneously feel a sharp pain in my second chakra.

“Oh,” I ponder with wonder. “I’m reading her energy, more easily than ever.”

Pondering Possibilities

In an unexpected twist, Keith invites Paul to come over to hold this woman’s feet. The woman initially recoils, being quite intimidated by Paul’s recent angry outburst on the porch.

“Paul is now in a beautiful energy.” Keith reassures the woman.

I cannot feel Paul’s energy, other than my perception of his anger toward me, and I can only trust that Keith would not be doing this if he himself were not genuinely feeling Paul’s beautiful energy.

“Brenda and Paul are working together to help you.” Keith guides this woman.

Paul does not look at me. I look at Paul’s innocent boyish face, trying to feel love for him. I feel the energy of his angry projections still aimed directly at me, but I also feel his genuine little boy wanting to be loved.

“I can stop projecting onto him now.” I ponder timidly, not sure if I believe it. “I can send love his way and allow him to do whatever he does. I cannot be friends with him until he stops his projecting onto me, but after today, I see that all things are possible.”

Preacher Kermit

Shortly after arriving at home, while taking notes and preparing a plate of rice and beans, I hear angry screaming coming from the speakers of the nearby basketball court. It is a bible-banging preacher, loudly screaming out a message of hellfire and damnation.

“Oh, Kermit is now preaching in the basketball court.” I ponder with a smile, being totally unattached to what once would have raised the hair on the back of my neck.

A little more than a half-hour later, after repeated visualizations of a green frog screaming into a microphone with super-amped up speakers, I finish my notes and my food.

“I’m going up there to feel and reflect love.” I ponder with a giggle.

Absence Of Malice

By the time I arrive at the religious gathering, the preacher has ceased his fiery tirade of words and is now singing as the lead (and only) singer in a small band of Spanish Gospel music. There are two guitarists, a drummer, and one man playing the marimba on an electric keyboard – plus of course the basic set of fourteen huge speakers cranked up to full volume. I giggle as I contemplate the necessity of so many speakers for a small crowd of worshipers.

To my delight, I realize that the screaming noise I heard was extremely exaggerated by the speaker system. As I watch and listen to the concert, I am dancing along with a giggle in my step. I love the preacher’s energy. I feel love for him as he sings to the crowd. I feel his genuine heart and his love for the people assembled in front of him. I feel his profound love for his beliefs.

I feel no judgment in my heart … none whatsoever.

I bounce and wiggle to the music for more than thirty minutes. This is the first time, in a very, very long time, that I have felt like dancing.

Return Of The Ego

Right before bed, I send an excited email to my new friend Nancy. I share my delight with her – describing how my thirty-six hour bout with craziness has subsided, at least for now – thanking her from the bottom of my heart for the profound support and guidance that she gave me at a time when I so desperately needed help.

But at the instant my head hits the pillow, the ego chatter begins again.

Suddenly, massive slow-motion video clips – clips with multiple ego commentators doing the play-by-play – are streaming by in the television reruns of my mind.

To my dismay, I am observing everything that took place today through mental chattering eyes – through the eyes of an angry and victimized ego – an ego that demands to be validated and heard.

The “Muppet Show” perspective dwindles rapidly as I sink into the mental trauma. I am exhausted from a very long and emotionally taxing day. I feel as if I am literally experiencing “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)”.

I mostly do not buy into this chatter, but end up being obliged to listen to it for hours as it continues to rampage incessantly until I finally fall asleep.

… to be continued …

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

After a run of nearly non-stop emotional processing for several weeks, I experience a sense of relief when a private chocolate ceremony is canceled. I had been scheduled to accompany Keith and one other friend across the lake to assist in a ceremony with a group of yoga students – but now have a much-needed day off to myself. It is the very first Thursday of 2012.

Feeling a glimmer of hope that perhaps I am ready to resume writing, I sit at my keyboard for nearly an hour of aimless distraction, while simultaneously feeling an inexplicable buildup of emotion. Finally, as I open a message from a dear friend – a message of beautiful unconditional love and support – I surrender to bubbling tears, set my laptop aside, and opt instead to return to processing.

Return To The Beliefs

Following inner guidance, I return to my list of thirteen childhood beliefs – deeply rooted beliefs that I found in my Subconscious Book of Beliefs, just yesterday while in deep meditation.

I engage an experiential technique that a therapist friend of mine calls a “voice circle” – but alter the technique to one that I can do in meditation. I imagine myself back in my dark cave, standing in front of my dear mother. As I read each belief aloud, I imagine my mother repeatedly speaking the belief to me, frantically and forcefully trying to convince me of its truth – to convince me of the horrible consequences of abandoning that belief.

As I verbally respond to my mother’s cherished truths, peacefully standing up, and lovingly speaking my own truth back to her, I feel as if my heart is shutting down, being agonizingly squished and squeezed by intense childhood fears of conflict, by fears of trying to defend myself. Attempts to defend always led to my heart being further shut down and invalidated.

A Bizarre Dilemma

But it is when I get to the belief regarding sexuality that the agony fully envelops me. I feel as if my mother is literally sitting on my heart while I spend more than a half hour meditatively explaining to her that I honor her teachings, but that I no longer believe the absoluteness of the way she taught me.

It is a bizarre dilemma. These teachings are profoundly intertwined with my lifelong self-hatred, guilt, shame, and social dysfunction. These rigid beliefs feel like dogmatic chains that bind me to judgment, hatred, and condemnation. It is as if the very act of publicly denouncing these chains will surely cause everyone I love to suddenly disown me – to withdraw their love with disgust and disappointment at my act of heresy.

The flip side of this dilemma is that I mostly embrace the underlying concepts of these sexual teachings. I have no desire to go sleeping around, nor do I want to engage in what might be termed as promiscuous behavior. If I ever again enter into a relationship, I would see it as a sacred commitment to my partner.

But the guilt-inducing chains of these beliefs have to go. My heart begs for freedom from the agonizing fears. The very existence of these rigid chains anchors me into judgment and hate that would suck out my very life force – anchoring me to the concept of a judgmental God that makes my stomach turn in revolt.

Energetic Jabs

It is a long and emotional meditation, one in which I am shocked to discover the intense power that some of these beliefs continue to wield. While I may no longer believe them, fear of deviating from these beliefs continues to jab me energetically in the heart.

I have a friend who once put special collars on her dogs – collars that would automatically shock them in the neck whenever they began to stray beyond the unfenced boundaries of her yard. The dogs soon learned that it was not even worth attempting to leave the yard – it was too painful. Even if the sensor-controlled system was completely disabled, the dogs would no longer attempt to stray.

I feel as if my distorted belief systems have now been turned off – removed from my subconscious mind – but a part of me continues to fear the consequences of the electrical shocks that are sure to jab me energetically if I stray outside of said beliefs.

Beyond Beliefs

Late Thursday afternoon I do indeed feel emotionally stable enough to resume writing – but I am so far behind that I opt to write a quick summary of my previous three weeks. It has been three weeks of emotional roller coasters, three weeks of painful lows and beautiful highs, three weeks so jam-packed with inner processing that I have barely had enough time to come up for air before again diving back to the depths of another inner exploration.

Late that evening, I proudly publish my first writing of 2012 – a blog titled “A Universe Of Possibility.”

I am indeed exhausted, but very excited by the “Universe of Possibility” that continuously expands as I take baby steps outside of the confines of my own once-rigid points of view.

Energetic Bruises

Friday afternoon, as I sit on Keith’s porch for an afternoon ceremony, I begin to experience intense pains in my abdomen – as if my entire belly is swollen with painful bruises. The sensation of bruising is strongest along the base of my ribcage, running horizontally along my waist all the way to the sides of my body. The area below my ribs is very tender to the touch.

Keith turns to me immediately after completing the glow meditation. I catch him up quickly on my personal journeys of the previous few days, and then express my deep curiosity.

“I literally feel as if I have been energetically beaten up.” I express my sensation of painful bruising.

“These ARE energetic bruises.” Keith surprises me by agreeing.

A Powerful Object Lesson

“Brenda,” Keith begins to guide me. “There is an enlightened being in front of you … one that you trust … one that has worked with you for a very long time.”

“Connect with that being.” Keith gives me innocent instructions.

With no apparent physical cause, I suddenly feel as if something sharp and painful pokes me, about four inches below my belly button.

“OUCH!” I suddenly exclaim as I place my hand at the base of my abdomen. “That really hurts!”

Keith quickly explains to me that the higher being just poked me, energetically showing me exactly what I am doing to myself – how I am energetically jabbing and bruising myself on the inside.

I could have not asked for a more powerful object lesson.

Self-Inflicted Bruises

Soon I am explaining new insights to Keith – about how I did not have just one childhood shutdown – but two. The first was the religious and cultural conditioning that was done to me, mainly by my mother – a conditioning that painfully slammed me into a box of citizen-factory conformity and people pleasing. After that process, I learned to win the conditional love and approval that made me feel happy, yet I was no longer living by my own internal guidance system – no longer in touch with my heart.

The second shutdown happened around age eleven-and-a-half, when the feminine urges in my heart began to struggle for freedom and outward expression.

“I am the one who angrily beat those feelings down.” I share with Keith. “I abused that feminine side of me with horrible hatred and vile judgment. I was the religious bible-banging preacher beating my innocent feminine self down with a heavy stick. Those bruises were self-inflicted.”

Protective Boundaries

“You learned from your mother how to create such psychic bruises,” Keith adds additional insight, “and then you did it to yourself.

I am just beginning to understand the concept, but I totally see how my mother’s profound love and fear for my salvation could cause her, without knowing awareness, to use inner psychic abilities to energetically jab me when I disobeyed or deviated from the confines of my protective yard. Each time I began to stray, she would use her love to poke me and pull me back into the safety of our beliefs.

I learned at a very young age that it was not “energetically fun” to stray from the boundaries of my conditioning.

A Shocking Discovery

“I hate that part of me.” I share with Keith. “He was worse than a child abuser. The energetic abuse was real. That male-me was a real self-righteous judgmental jerk that slammed the feminine, creative, sexual part of me, pushing me to the bottom of that conditioning box and jumping violently on the lid, deeply wounding me over and over again – doing so throughout my teens and twenties – abusing me physically, taunting me emotionally, and destroying me psychologically. It was brutal!”

As I share these feelings with Keith, and with the group, I am angry, swearing, feeling deep hatred at this distorted masculine part of me. I am shocked that so much bitterness remains bottled up inside.

“I thought I had healed all of this masculine self-hatred a long time ago.” I express to Keith with surprise.

“This part is what has squashed me.” I share new unfolding insights. “It is this distorted masculine energy that continues to bang his bible and insist that I must conform to the rules or I will lose family, friends, and security … it is this part that still attempts to dominate me with my mother’s book of beliefs.”

“These are profound insights taking you to another level of self-knowing and discovery.” Keith soon encourages me. “Sit with those insights for a while. Follow them, follow the meditative breadcrumbs … see where they take you.”

A Manifested Nightmare

My buttons begin to be frantically pushed as Keith moves on to work with others. My (distorted) perception is that “Paul” (not his real name) – the young man onto whom I have projected so much in the last weeks – has suddenly been promoted to star healer and “he-who-can-do-no-wrong-on-the-porch” status.

I observe with shock and disgust as I judge my feelings regarding the things I am perceiving.

I am walking on delicate territory here. Keith has explained to me several times that Paul and I are playing out profound scripts for each other, and that his guidance is to allow things to unfold without his interference. I clearly know that I am projecting deep unhealed stuff from inside of me. I clearly know that Paul (a beautiful man) has Keith’s intuitive blessing for everything he is doing. I clearly know that what is being triggered inside me has nothing to do with Paul. And I know with agonizing clarity that the only way to end these nightmarish judgments is to heal myself.

But this young man that continues to push all of my painful buttons is breaking nearly every rule that has ever existed on Keith’s porch – and he is doing so with Keith’s permission and blessing. This is not right. It is literally driving me crazy, taking me to the edge of judgmental insanity. I perceive that Paul is filled with ego and not doing his own inner work – the he is actually in complete denial that he even has any inner work to do. Instead, I see Paul as an unhealed-healer wanting to fix everyone else – using his magical energetic gifts to fix others while avoiding looking inside.

I am in a self-created nightmare. I know this is exactly what I manifested – exactly what I need to explore inside myself. I know that what I hate right now about Paul is what I actually hate about that distorted masculine part of myself. Throughout my teens and twenties, I was in complete outward denial and repression of my inner issues, while putting on an air of people-pleasing perfection and helping/fixing others.

But I am so lost in this pain, that my projections onto Paul literally take me into a present-day nightmare of recreating past pain.

A Perfect Reflection

As I bite my tongue and suppress my inner rage, I note that Paul continues to remind me of my genuine, pure, and well-intentioned little boy. His heart is authentic and loving – he is trying so hard to do the right thing – to help others, etc… I want so badly to be able to love him, but my projections are simply too intense.

I see him as wearing a false mask and that infuriates my sense of inner self-righteousness. I lived my entire teens and twenties wearing such a false mask, and I hate that disgusting mask-wearing abuser who kept me smugly smashed away in a tightly locked box.

I know this is exactly what I need … but it is too real. I DO NOT WANT IT. I want this nightmare to end.

It is only in later conversation that Keith congratulates me for manifesting Paul so powerfully, again reminding me that Paul is serving me perfectly.

Hidden Hatred

I agonizingly observe Paul as he dances around the porch being a master healer – doing so in ways that deeply trigger me. I patiently watch as Keith slowly works his own way around the porch. Finally, I get to share my latest round of insights with Keith.

“I am projecting onto most any male energy,” I painfully admit to Keith, “but especially onto male energy that I perceive as wearing a false mask of denial of his own issues while trying to help and fix others.”

I explain how I was the ultimate “fixer” in my twenties, wearing a mask of self-righteous perfection while perpetually judging and trying to help others to be more righteous.

“I was broken and self-loathing on the inside.” I continue sharing, “yet, I kept that part hidden while professing to have the ability to help others. That desire to help was genuine – and it is a pattern I tried to live with my heart – but all the while I was being the worst type of inner abuser to my creativity, my feminine self, my sexuality, and my magic.”

“I hate that part of me.” I forcefully condemn my distorted masculine side. “I hate anyone that reminds me of that part of me.”

“Wow!” I again express my profound shock to Keith. “How could so much blatant hatred still be living inside of me?”

Impasse And Stalemate

“I feel like I am going crazy.” I confess to Keith. “All of this inner rage and emotion is so bizarre.”

Keith again congratulates me on my self-knowing and insights, making it quite clear that I am doing a great job.

“Bring in higher energy to assist you.” Keith quickly guides me before moving on for another journey around the porch.

To my dismay, as I begin to feel pleasant higher energy flowing in my crown and heart chakras, I am immediately overwhelmed by intense angry emotions in my solar plexus. Still not trusting my ability to work with this anger using higher energies, I try to suppress the emotion. I cry a little, wiping away my muffled tears – but mostly continue to try to bring in more light and loving energy.

Eventually I am totally numb and stuck – at a point of complete impasse and stalemate.

Awkward Honesty

“Congratulations on your work.” Keith tells me as he finally returns to talk with me.

“Just trust where you are right now.” Keith further guides me. “This being stuck is all part of your process.”

Paul soon interrupts and points out that I have been rejecting him during the whole ceremony.

“Yeah,” I admit confidently, deciding to be mostly honest with what is going on. “I am projecting my little boy all over you. You profoundly trigger my hatred of masculine energy – of someone with a genuine loving heart, but someone that I perceive to have the energy of pushing and trying to fix everyone else.”

I want to add the words “with a mask, and not doing you own work,” but I decide that is being a tad bit too honest.

I again sink into tears and deeply apologize to Paul for my projections, emphatically trying to make sure that he knows I have nothing personal toward him – that I am just projecting my own inner wounds onto him.

I feel deeply sad and embarrassed that Paul has noticed my behavior, and that such capacity to project continues to fester furiously inside me.

Pushy Pushback

After a beautiful discussion, Paul ends up trying to make suggestions on how I should be doing my work and how I can move forward. I immediately shut him down.

“He is right you know.” Keith pipes in.

“Paul might be accurate about how my energy is blocked.” I respond to Keith. “But I am unable to hear advice that does not come with an inner license of understanding and compassion – I can’t hear a voice that implies ‘this is where your problem is, now just fix it’.”

Again, I feel deep guilt for what I perceive as my own confrontational rudeness. I am so outside of my comfort zone in this conversation, but recognize that speaking my truth is part of my process.

My biggest trigger with Paul is that he is deeply gifted in seeing what is energetically wrong with someone’s inner energy flow – but I perceive (rightly or wrongly) that he uses that energetic gift as a way of pushing and fixing rather than following. I perceive him as trying to drag people where he thinks they need to be rather than following their own flow to where their soul is taking them. No matter how well someone can see an energy blockage, I will not allow myself to be fixed in a pushy way.

Lost In Confusion

At the end of the chocolate ceremony, in a brief conversation with Keith, he again congratulates me for my powerful manifestation of bringing Paul to the porch – making it clear that my own energy brought him here to trigger the lessons that I need to learn and heal.

To be truthfully honest, my projections are so strong right now, my anger and resentment so triggered, that I cannot separate truth from fiction. I believe there is much truth in my actual perception of what Paul is doing – but Keith continually pulls me back, repeatedly reminding me that it does not matter what Paul does or does not do – that my issue is to look at my projections.

“It is not about Paul, It is not about what it is about, and Nothing changes until you do.” Keith firmly reminds me.

As I walk home, I cringe with pain inside, but a huge part of me wishes that Paul would just go away from the porch and never return. I am also quite frustrated and bewildered that Keith does nothing to rein in Paul’s behavior. I am confused. I feel guilty for feeling such judgmental emotions. I know Paul’s presence is my creation – but he is my nightmare. I know he is my biggest teacher, showing me deeply painful things that I continue to carry inside of me – but I am frightened to look inside.

A Reverse Model

All projections aside, whether they are accurate or not, I am learning powerful lessons about ways in which I will never be a healer. I am learning how critically important it is to follow the energy of the person I am working with – to never push, unless guided by their own Higher Energies to do so – to have deep compassion for their being stuck, for their fears, for their doubts and inability to trust themselves, and for being stuck in their heads, etc…

It seems that I am learning this lesson the hard way – taking the not-so-fun bus – learning by example about why I refuse to ever again perpetrate such fixing and pushing onto another. Just because I observe what is going on in a person does not give me the license to confront them with it. My job is to shine my magical light, to offer a butler tray of divine love and guidance, and to allow their energy to pull whatever they need through me. They are free to receive or ignore what I have to offer.

In spite of feeling that I am in a manifested nightmare, of one thing I am deeply grateful. I am being shown just how unhealed I truly am right now. I cringe at the thought of trying to help others while I continue to have the capacity to project such crap all over them. I think I understand now, more than ever, why my inner healing energies have not yet fully woken up. I have too much integrity to open all of my magic before I know that I am healed enough that I will not use it to harm others.

A Personal Savior

I have no idea just who this “Paul” person is. Perhaps he is doing everything from a beautiful and positive polarity, and my own filtered lenses are simply using him as a cloudy mirror to show me my dark shadow issues. Perhaps he really is acting from a negative polarity and Keith is simply allowing it because it serves us both.

Of one thing, I am absolutely sure. I am not in a state of intuitive clarity where I could know the true answer to the above questions.

“A Course In Miracles” often refers to someone who deeply triggers us as being our “Personal Savior” – a gift to show us where we need to dig for healing gold.

A part of me (the part not lost in my projections) begins to wonder if Paul might actually be an enlightened being that agreed to magically show up on Keith’s porch for the sole purpose of playing this very dense role – a painful script being acted out just for me.

A Tangled Web

As I walk home, feeling exhausted and emotionally rattled, I ponder a few words that Keith had shared with me during our final discussions before I left the porch.

“Brenda,” Keith reassured me, yet again. “Some time ago, I checked out my guidance on the interactions taking place between you and Paul. What I am guided to tell you is that all is perfect, exactly as it should be. Paul is playing the other end of your script – a profound role for you – one that serves you well.”

I take great comfort from this statement, knowing that there is a rhyme and a reason for everything, one that is indeed leading somewhere productive in my healing.

Ego, however, also finds comfort – wanting to gather new projection ammunition from this statement – believing that this confirms that I am right, that Paul’s behavior is indeed inappropriate.

Oh, the tangled web my inner voices weave.

Confused In The Craziness

After a quick Friday evening meal of bland rice and beans, I attempt to quietly rest, putting my distressing day aside – but the voices rage on, refusing to quit.

I clearly recognize that I am lost in ego, because if I were coming from a place of love, I would not have such a strong emotional charge regarding what Paul does or does not do.

But then I go into a profound head game, remembering earlier lessons about how ego can masquerade as any thought or voice in my head – even as an inner child. Confusion swirls as I ponder all of the possibilities – knowing that ego is capable of deceiving me in ways never before considered.

I am so completely confused in the craziness.

Two Choices

By 10:00 p.m., I am going cuckoo in my non-stop ego story telling.

Paul has made it very clear how much he loves Keith’s porch, and that he is not going anywhere. Keith has also made it very clear that Paul is on the porch for a reason, that he is serving me, and that I need to let go of the idea of something outside of me solving the problem – that nothing will change until I do.

Right now, I see two choices in front of me.

The first option – to run away from the porch – is something I absolutely refuse to do. I have a pattern of running away from such social nightmares when I see no other way out. If I were anywhere else in the world, doing anything else, I probably would walk or run away. But at least for now, I am not quite ready to do that.

The second option is to face this nightmare head on, to trust Keith when he tells me that this is my creation, that it is something inside of me that I have powerfully set up for my learning, that the only way to heal this core issue is to dive right in and trust the process.

Right now, I deeply wish I were not so committed to the concept that I create my own reality. That would make it so much easier to run away.

An Interesting Turnaround

As I finally lay down in bed, I begin to see things through a slightly different perspective.

“My teenage boy went through absolute hell to protect me.” I ponder. “He kept me smashed down in that box, not to abuse me, but to keep me safely hidden so that others would not abuse me. If I (my feminine self) had come out and expressed myself, we would have all been destroyed – possibly put in straight jackets – for sure being run through the ringers of church discipline, shame, judgment, psychological intervention, shock treatment, or even a lobotomy. That genuine young man was not out to ‘get me’ –instead, he threw himself on a landmine to keep me safe.”

“All the while,” I continue this line of pondering. “I remained hidden inside that box, hating him as being my jailor, as being my abuser. He hated himself for being a loser. He saw me as the source of his horrible sin – but his biggest pain came from having to keep me secret – in wanting to release me but knowing that such an act would surely condemn him to hell. He abused himself because of me – seeing himself as the pervert. It was me that drove him to that agonizing self-abuse.”

What an interesting turnaround. Both sides are true … both perspectives are accurate … both masculine and feminine did the best they knew how to simply survive … both felt horribly victimized … both felt kicked and abused … and both were me.

Questioning My Reality

Keith has told me that working with masculine and feminine energies inside of myself is big time, advanced work. My ultimate goal here is to get both aspects of my energy to see each other with unconditional love rather than hatred.

“But each of them is projecting onto the other.” I begin a new line of thought. “If they are projecting, does that mean they are also in ego? Can a real aspect of myself project, or is projection itself a sign of being in ego? Is all of this inner battle simply an ego ploy, a smokescreen to hide the real truth?

Again, I begin to doubt myself … to doubt my ability to perceive what voice in my head is real and what might be ego.

As I drift off to sleep, late on Friday night, I am deeply confused and questioning my reality in many different ways. I know that questioning my reality is a good thing, but I am beginning to feel quite insane.

Pattern Recognition

Early Saturday morning (January 7), I am awake at 4:18 a.m., again hacking up fluid from the base of my lungs. As I cough and wheeze through the inner panic, I realize that I am in a showdown with a lifelong pattern. I am playing chicken with an ego that wants to derail me from my process – and I am desperately trying to turn to my head for answers that only become more confusing.

I can clearly see how Paul is brilliantly playing the role that has been played for me many times before in my life. It is a script where I have a very good thing going, I am growing and progressing, getting lots of loving attention and validation. All of a sudden, someone comes along and upstages me, stealing all of the attention, making me look bad, taking all the glory, etc… — and I get pushed out of sight, eventually overlooked and forgotten. Usually I give up, pull up my roots, and start all over again.

This pattern has repeated itself in high school, many job situations, friendships, and nearly everywhere else.

Who Is The Seer

Early in the morning, as I browse Facebook, I come across a quote that profoundly peaks my interest.

“The question isn’t when will you see what the Universe sees. The question is when will you finally trust that you’re the one who sees it.” Facebook page: Sacred Heart Wisdom From Matt Kahn.

“It is time for me to start believing that I really am the divine consciousness behind my own personal self-created reality.” I ponder with wonder. “When am I really going to quit doubting that all of the reality I experience is either something I create or allow?”

“If I am the creator of this reality, then it was all perfectly designed by me and for me – truly having my best interest at heart … including my interactions with Paul.” I continue deeper. “But how do I heal myself so I can quit creating such nightmares?”

Confused And Powerless

“If I have to go through this painful lifelong loop of manifested humiliation and abuse one more time, I would rather kill myself right now.” I ponder with fright.

There is nothing more frightening to me than repeating another one of my painful nightmares from the past. Lost in this panic-ridden fear, I begin to use my head in an attempt to figure out what I am doing and how I might stop doing it. The only method I seem to trust right now is my rational mind. I am desperate to find my way out of this self-created nightmare, but the more I try to figure out what is going on using my head, the more confused, helpless, and powerless I feel.

I start seeing everything in my head as a suspect thought. I start to feel even crazier.

Going Crazy

I spend Saturday morning looping in and out of crazy ego-story loops – repeatedly reviewing and re-experiencing my angry feelings, both about Paul and even a few about Keith. Many times, I burst out in vocal tirades (in the privacy of my own home), telling Paul what I think of him, letting my angry feelings have an expression that I would never allow in public.

Then, at other times, I find that space between anger and projection where I am able to stop, calm myself, clearly recognize ego’s role in all of this, and pull myself back to momentary centering.

“I see you ego.” I speak out when I catch myself in this state. “You are not me. I’m onto you.”

But then, after being quite peaceful for a short while, I again cycle right back into the angry voices and stories of victimization.

I see my crazy looping pattern – it is obvious – but the emotions are so powerful that they overwhelm me. Finally, I return to my bed and attempt some meditation. The only thing I achieve is an extremely agitated energy and a mind filled with more out-of-control chatter.

Help Equals Hurt

“I desperately need help.” I write in a nearby notebook. “I want help, but not from Paul.”

My biggest nightmare now is that the only help that will be offered by the Universe – the help that I will end up having to humble myself and accept – will need to come from Paul.

“I will go to hell first, before I accept help from Paul.” I blurt out angrily.

“Wow!” I ponder in shock. “This is one charged issue! It seems that I have help rigidly linked together as being equivalent to disempowerment, giving up, losing control, and being manipulated – and I see Paul as someone who will do all of that to me.”

“I will not allow someone who is not healed to hurt me.” I again blurt out.

It seems that I continue to have deep issues with unhealed healers – with people in my life that tried to help me feel better, but who only further disempowered me in the long run.

The Space Between Thoughts

Right in the middle of my craziness, I check my email and find a surprise gift. A woman I have never met, one with whom I have never exchanged ongoing communications, sends me a beautiful one-line response to my most recent blog post – one titled “A Universe Of Possibility.” In this writing, I had summarized my crazy difficult journey of the previous three weeks. Her beautiful words are short and intriguing.

“Take a dive into the space between thoughts. There is the portal.”

If I had received this comment from anyone other than “Nancy” (not her real name), I might have ignored it, simply going on with my process. But this comment intrigues me, partly because of what it says, but mostly because of who it comes from. Nancy is an amazingly gifted and creative artist, one who lives elsewhere in the world, one who wishes to remain mysterious and anonymous, one who has done extensive inner work with Keith, and one who I sense truly knows and understands me, even though we have never met.

It seems that my cry for help has been heard.

An Inner License

I quickly reply to Nancy, thanking her, expressing my deep gratitude, and sharing brief details of my “psycho crazy” day and state of mind.

Sixteen minutes later, she responds as follows (many parts omitted):

“I do so ‘get’ what you are going through … I was caught in such a loop until it finally (gratefully) just shattered to pieces … Ego roars loud when it is in danger of losing ‘you’ … and its control over you. As for losing your mind … GO FOR IT!!! I am gratefully learning to be out of my mind … hehe … very freeing.”

As I finish reading the remainder of Nancy’s email, I feel deeply relaxed and peaceful, filled with profound gratitude for her loving support and help.

It is strange, because Nancy’s beautiful words are nothing but that – just words. However, energetically resonating and radiating just beneath her words, I feel a strong vibration of “I have been where you are, I deeply understand what you are going through, and I am here to energetically hold your hand.”

I deeply understand now, what Keith means when he talks about an inner license. Nancy’s communication contains this magical energy – an inner license energy – an energy of “been there, done that, and got the t-shirt”.

Channeled Words

Fifteen minutes later, I respond, feeling deep peace, thanking her and explaining that I am just going to take a mental break and lose myself in some movies for a while.

Just over ten minutes later, I get a surprise response:

“oohhhh watch out for that escape into the videos … it occupies, entertains, and pacifies the mind … keeping the shift level of discomfort from reaching its climax and breaking through. Almost like if you were in labor … and just turned on the TV so it would go away … hey, there is a baby!!!! This journey is one that requires a real undoing of the ego network … and that is not fun!!!! DIVE right to the center of your craziness … go into it, it cannot understand the Light of your Seeing!!! … turn off the frigging videos.”

I giggle as I read Nancy’s email, not only turning off the video, but completely deleting it from my computer. Nancy later apologizes for the bluntness of her words, telling me:

“wow … I sounded kinda bossy there … sorry … the words just channeled out of me without my consent :) LOL … and I pushed ‘send’ without reading it … but I felt the Light. I support you in your process…”

I just giggle, because I can feel the power behind her channeled words. I know they came through her in a very profound way, and I dedicate the remainder of the day to simply sitting with my craziness. I am so grateful for my new friend.

Powerful Possibilities

Soon, I am sitting on my bed, in the darkness of my bedroom, meditating for most of the afternoon. I remember almost nothing other than that I was deeply immersed in relaxing, peaceful, and pleasurable energy. It is a profound meditation that is almost between worlds – between thoughts. It is so deep that the moment I stand up to get some dinner, all conscious memories simply vanish.

By 9:00 p.m., I am back in a crazy state of being numb and lost. When I finally lay back on my pillow, mental ego chatter again consumes me – but this time I have a new attitude. Rather than fighting the chatter and getting upset, I simply observe it, as if I am watching a movie without caring about the plot. I drift in and out of the non-attached craziness for hours, until I finally slide off into what will turn out to be a very short sleep.

This journey is indeed proving to be on par with my worst nightmare – but I am also beginning to experience a feeling of hope – a hope that just maybe I am not going crazy – that I might really be doing something quite powerful – that I really might be in the process of undoing another layer of ego.

… To Be Continued …

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

After a morning of local food shopping and errands, I find myself seated on Keith’s magical porch for a rare Tuesday afternoon public chocolate ceremony. For this week only, our regular ceremony day of Wednesday has been swapped. For me, the timing is perfect.

After guzzling my chocolate, even before the glow meditation begins, I am already experiencing crazy and agitated emotions in my solar plexus. My stomach is extremely nauseas, my head swirls in pressure, and I am stuck. I desperately invite the light to connect with me, to fill me, to assist me – but nothing happens. I am unable to consciously flow any energy on my own.

Pushing And Fighting

During the glow meditation, as Keith encourages others to let the smile in their heart find them, I am so nauseas that I slip into the bathroom. I do not know if this is energetic or physical, but I desperately want to purge or vomit something out of my body. As I kneel on that cold and hard concrete floor, I eventually realize that the release I need to do is an energetic metaphor – nothing physical is even close to moving.

I want to bawl my eyes out, to scream and sob, to heave this stuck heavy energy out of my body – but nothing will release the inner agony. These energetic blockages are no longer welcome in my body, and I am impatient to get them out. Not feeling especially loving right now, I simply want to push and fight this energy.

After extensive coughing, streaming tears, and unsuccessful dry-heaving attempts to push energy out of my throat and solar plexus, I surrender. The physical agony in my abdomen is intense, and my forearms ache as if I have been clenching for hours. Finally, in painful defeat, I stand up, exit the bathroom, return to my cushions, and curl up miserably.

Moments later, the glow meditation ends.

Meeting With Resistance

“Brenda,” Keith quickly begins talking to me. “You are experiencing the strong resistance of your inner energies not wanting to allow the light. They are fighting you, refusing to permit the light to help you.”

“Don’t fight this resistance.” Keith guides me. “Instead, go deeper into it … allow it to consume you.”

“But I’m trying to remain connected to the light.” I whimper in confusion. “I feel like I have maintained a tiny connection.”

“Yes you have … and you are,” Keith validates my confused statement, “but the resistance is now up, and it needs to surface so that you can work with it. Invite all of the resistance energies to join you at the table in your inner conference room.”

Finding Trust

As I sit in that conference room, my abdomen shakes with pain, fear, and agitation. I breathe sporadically and feel emotionally out of control. As Keith works with me for a while, I quickly sink into my familiar loop of self-doubt.

“I don’t trust the energies.” I beg Keith to help me. “I can’t seem to connect.”

“Put a bucket on the conference-room table, in the middle,” Keith guides me, “and allow it to fill up with some of your trust.”

Refusing to allow doubt to control and occupy me, I determinedly visualize this metaphorical bucket.

“Where is that trust?” Keith soon asks.

“It is in my heart,” I respond weakly, “but my heart is deflated right now.”

As I hear these words pass from my tongue, I begin to breathe slowly and deeply, filling my chest with loving energy, breathing energy into my powerless heart.

Resistance To Light

Gradually, slowly, loving energies begin to return to my heart center. At the same time, I feel the energy in my head start to stabilize and experience a sensation of peace beginning to flow throughout my upper chakras – but my solar plexus continues to agitate and churn.

“There,” Keith soon interrupts the silence, “your bucket is filled with the trust.”

Just as Keith speaks, I too sense that trust is now overflowing in my calm and peaceful heart.

“Take some of that churning energy in your solar plexus and drop a spoonful into the bucket to see what happens to it.” Keith provides more meditative guidance as he quickly moves on to assist someone else.

As I imagine a spoonful of this yucky resistance energy being dropped into my bucket of truth, I intuitively sense that it all dissolves and magically transforms into peaceful white light.

Power Relays

“Hey Bobby and Sharon,” I create a meditative game, “let’s do a little relay race with spoons.”

Soon, my little inner children are carrying tiny little teaspoons, making trips to and from my solar plexus, bypassing the blocked energy channels, bringing tiny drops of that yucky resistance energy back to the conference room, taking turns dropping it into this bucket filled with loving trust.

As I allow this fun metaphor to continue, I pay close attention to the profound inner-work taking place across the porch. Keith is working with a woman that is into her own struggle with shutdown – dealing with the pain of having surrendered her own power to her parents as a child.

“Don’t do that to my nieces and nephews.” This woman shares words that she often says to her parents when they demand that the grandchildren ‘rein in their happiness, active play, joy, giggles, and laughter’.

As I overhear these words, I feel the pain of my own mother forcefully telling me to “rein in my childhood magic, my creativity, my power, my sexuality, and my joyful essence” and to instead be “serious and reverent”.

I find it quite profound, that at this very instant, my little inner children are assisting me in restoring trust in my own beautiful power.

An Invited Assistant

While Bobby and Sharon continue their relay game of bringing teaspoons of resistance energy to the bucket of trust on the conference room table, I soon feel intuitively guided to add another twist to my metaphorical journey.

I invite a three-year-old angel to come down from above and to stand with me up on top and in the middle of that conference room table, right beside the bucket. But I am not my adult self, I am instead my eleven-and-a-half-year-old self. I see this little angel as a metaphor of non-threatening outside energy that I would like to assist me.

Seconds later, as Keith begins to guide a woman across the porch in some soul-retrieval work, I intuitively realize that I need to make my little angel a tiny bit less threatening. Rather than seeing her as something outside of myself, I imagine her as my own magical energy – energy that I pushed outside of myself at age three for safekeeping. It is my own forgotten magic that I am inviting to stand beside me – to assist me – to help me face all of the frightening resistance that keeps me from thriving.

Surrounded By Faces

As I begin to imagine myself standing with this magical little girl beside me, looking around at the conference room, I intuitively realize that I need to give a visual face to this resistance energy.

To my shock, I am suddenly overwhelmed with the image of my mother, perhaps ten or fifteen of her faces – faces that occupy every one of the seats all around the table. I am deeply stuck, feeling frightened by the fearful emotions that surface as I intuitively see my mother’s stern and serious face controlling me, manipulating me to obey, scowling at me from every possible angle.

“All of this resistance energy comes from my mother’s voice.” I ponder with new clarity. “These crippling belief systems came from her well-intentioned teachings.”

I freeze in my tracks as I stand on that metaphorical table. I am a powerless young boy, frightened and unable to progress, having surrendered all power to the dominating voice of my loving mother – a devoted woman raising me in the only way she knew.

Toying With Anger

To my surprise, the next woman with whom Keith works also engages in profound processing that is childhood/mother related. Her work continues to inspire my own. Finally, Keith returns to work with me.

“Congratulations for where you are.” Keith tells me after I fill him in. “Now just stay there, standing on that table, experiencing the emotions and feelings.”

Keith quickly moves on to someone else.

As I again visualize myself as a young boy at age eleven and a half, standing in the center of the table, confronting my mother’s resistance with simultaneous love and anger, I begin to realize that allowing this anger to strengthen and surface is the only way to take back my loving inner power – to force the voices to release their clenching grasp on my heart.

(Keith later confirms that anger at this point is very important, effective, and necessary … that I needed to get angry at the voices.)

Proxies For Love

Soon, I become so overwhelmed and stuck in the pain of this child trying to throw off the voices of my mother that I lie down, curl up on my large pillow, pull a blanket over my head, and quietly whimper while tears trickle down my cheeks. I have no more strength and just want to give up.

“I wish I had a stuffed animal to give her.” I hear a friend speak quietly to Keith.

Overhearing this heart-felt suggestion drives me deeper into sadness and tears as I long for the feeling of curling up with the unconditional love of a teddy bear. I never before understood why I have always had such a profound love for stuffed animals. I can share love with them, and they do not care who I am, what I do, or how I feel – they simply love me back.

A Roomful Of Resistance

As I lie on my side, hiding under my blanket with tears still trickling, I begin to whisper quietly.

“I take back my loving power.” I quietly and repeatedly speak to the faces of my mother – faces that are sitting all around the conference table.

The power I am taking back is not protection, nor is it ego power. Instead, it is a self-loving power – a power that proclaims, “This is who I am … I love you but I need to follow my own heart … your beliefs are not working for me … I must live my own life … I will allow myself to live, to breathe, and to play with passion … I will trust and believe my own inner truth.”

As I continue this process with a focus of deep love, I am shocked when the number of visualized mothers gathered around the table skyrockets to more than one hundred – each face firmly and frantically insisting that I obey, hold to the straight and narrow path, and do as she says, or else I will be judged by God, sent to a lower kingdom, and eternally separated from those I love.

I know these faces are my resistance energies that are metaphorically taking on the visualized image of my mother’s face. They are not my real mother, but are merely representative of the energies that I acquired from her.

The more mothers that I feel in this conference room, the more intensely I cry. The more I attempt to take back my loving power, the more helpless I feel.

Strangled Roots

As Keith begins to work with a woman next to me, they begin to talk about emotional densities as being physical things with long branched root systems that grow and cling everywhere.

As I listen to this metaphor, I feel my mother’s voices sinking their roots into me, with long and tangled stringy filaments anchored throughout my body. Her lovingly instilled voices are the primary source of the root-like beliefs that maintain a stranglehold on my inner power flow – deeply entrenched clogs that prevent me from regaining, embracing, and expressing my power.

“I’m going to work with Brenda now.” I suddenly hear Keith tell the woman next to me. Seconds later, I am sitting up, wondering what magic Keith may have up his sleeves.

An Unearned Love

“Congratulations for the profound insights.” Keith tells me after I again bring him up to speed with my process.

As Keith validates that what I am experiencing is real and right-on, eagerly encouraging me to continue what I am doing, a couple of people stand up, needing to leave the porch. I watch with a smile as one beautiful young woman walks over to give me a hug on her way out.

As her arms wrap around me, I suddenly grab on tight and begin to sob. I feel her beautiful unconditional love – a love with no motive, no manipulation, no control, no expectations, and no conditions – a love that I do not need to earn. I do not want to let go of her embrace, and continue to sob and squeeze tightly.

Finally, I lightly release my squeeze while lifting my head and looking to Keith for guidance. When he encourages me to continue the embrace, I grab on even tighter, continuing to sob in this beautiful and genuine sharing of divine love. It is so therapeutic … so beautiful … so desperately craved.

“Look around the porch,” Keith taps me on the shoulder to get my attention.

Glowing Unconditional Love

As I glance around, every single face is radiating this same glowing, vibrant love in my direction.

I feel somewhat unworthy, and have a hard time maintaining the eye contact, but I receive the abundant love anyway. It is not until this beautiful young woman gets quite physically tired from squatting and leaning into our embrace that I release my squeeze and she sits down on the ground next to me.

“Look around you again.” Keith encourages me to take in the pure love from others.

As I inhale the sensation of unconditional love, I realize that I could sit here all day, all month, and all year if that were possible. Soon, my connection to this love fades as most of the porch clears, leaving only a few of us behind.

Crazy Confusing Metaphors

As Keith briefly works with another woman, I begin to experience sharp pains throughout my body, beginning in my lower abdomen, running up the middle of my body, and reaching all the way to a sharp pain between my eyebrows.

“Follow the metaphor.” Keith suggests after I ask for advice. “Simply watch and see where it leads you.”

As I sink into observation mode, I am overwhelmed with mind chatter and doubts. I am having a difficult time simply watching and trusting. Thoughts that “I need to do something” and “I need to fix something” swarm through my mind.

Finally, as I watch my projection-buddy ‘Paul’ begin to cleanup the porch and put all the pillows away, I become quite annoyed – as if he is energetically invalidating my continued processing.

A Distracting Loop

It is only after I express my projection to Paul that I realize he just served me greatly – showing me my tendency to sink into doubt, confusion, and even projection after having passed through such an amazing growth experience.

“Were all of these pains in my body just a setup for this distraction?” I ask Keith.

Keith smiles and acknowledges that I just caught myself entering a self-destructive loop – going into a lot of stuck pain at the very end of a ceremony, feeling helpless to proceed, and then feeling as if I was not going to get the help I need to tie up all the loose ends – once again being shortchanged by life.

In the last few months, I have often felt stuck and abandoned at the end of a ceremony, not reaching full closure, feeling doubtful that I can continue on my own. I suddenly recognize that this is a lifelong loop that has manifested since childhood, doing so in many creative ways.

“This is powerful work.” Keith congratulates me. “You are beginning to recognize loops that used to be unconscious. Now you are aware. It does not even matter if you go into the loop this time or not. Just the fact that you are aware of it will make a huge difference in your learning process. You can exit the loop anytime, but regardless of what you do, you will never again see this loop in the same way.”

Subconscious Book Of Beliefs

“How do I address all of these dysfunctional beliefs that keep me powerless?” I engage Keith in a short discussion before walking home. “Is there something I can do that will help me let go of these persistent beliefs that came from childhood?”

Keith soon gives me some homework – a task I have done before in his presence, but never on my own. He suggests that I can take a walk deep into my subconscious, locate what he calls my “Subconscious Book of Beliefs”, and find the pages containing the beliefs that I took on from my mother.

“When you find those pages,” Keith guides me, “actually read them energetically. Each belief will be a full paragraph. We have a right to know everything that is in our ‘Subconscious Book of Beliefs’, so you will be able to read the paragraphs in some way – perhaps visually, perhaps intuitively.”

Keith tells me that there could be multiple pages, and that I need to read and understand every paragraph – that I cannot destroy these beliefs until I fully understand them first.

When this initial discovery is complete, then my job will be to meditatively walk up to that book, rip out the pages involved, and find some creative way to destroy them – repeating this process for a total of three times.

A Mother’s Love

“Brenda,” Keith shares before I walk home. “You are writing a book about ‘A Mother’s Love’.”

“Yeah,” I respond. “I love my mother so much. I need to be clear in my writing that in spite of everything I am healing, that I do not blame my mother in any way. I was not a victim. Everything was a perfect and chosen setup for what I am now learning so that I can eventually help others through similar undoing processes.”

“There is no doubt that everything that took place in my childhood was because my dear mother loved me very much. She did everything in her power to teach me to follow in her footsteps. She deeply believed in what she taught me. She desperately feared for my eternal welfare if I were to stray from those teachings. Yes indeed, this is all about my mother’s love.”

Tantalizing Clues

“You’re mother’s voice is definitely related to your blown fuse.” Keith shares some tantalizing final comments. “Her voice is not the blown fuse itself, but it is part of the bread crumbs that closely surround it. The blown fuse is likely something that was energetically detached and needs to be reconnected in some way when the time is right.”

As I finish typing up my notes for the day, I am again graced with sharp pains in my solar plexus – pains demanding that I surrender to doubts and confusion – pains trying to pull me back into a dysfunctional loop after an amazing day of self-discovery.

“What will I do?” I ponder to myself.

“I will just smile and thank the pains, saying thanks, but no thanks.” I respond.

The pains soon dissolve to nothingness as I drift off to sleep.

Going Down

Wednesday morning, I debate if this will be a writing day or a processing day. I feel tired and unmotivated to write, continuing to delay my decision.

Finally, at around 10:00 a.m., I sit back for a minute to ponder this still-unmade decision. As deep emotional release suddenly surges inside, the decision is made for me. It is time to do my homework – time to find that ‘Subconscious Book of Beliefs’.

As I go into meditation, I connect with a very peaceful energy. Soon I imagine myself walking down – first down many flights of stairs, then sliding down a fireman’s pole, then stepping into an elevator and pushing the “B” for basement button.

The deeper I go, the more fear begins to surface. Quickly, as the fears increase, I ask Bobby, Sharon, and a few angels to join me for moral support.

Fear Of The Light

“These beliefs define who I am.” I ponder the profound fears that surface. “Without them, then who am I … what am I?”

“These beliefs give me stability, boundaries, definition … I don’t like them, but they are a known entity that has protected me in the past.”

Tears begin to stream down my cheeks.

“I don’t want to do this.” My fears grow louder. “I can’t do this … it is scary. I am afraid of my own light shadow … of who I will be without all of these restrictions.”

A Flow Of Words

When my meditative elevator doors open, I step out and find myself at the top of a spiral staircase. I feel as if I am in an old castle as I continue to step downward, circling, and descending. Bobby and Sharon run playfully in front of me. I step more slowly.

Finally, I feel myself at the bottom of the stairs. I want to keep stepping down, but can no longer feel the intuitive sensation of stairs below me – just solid ground. I intend to go exploring through a maze of hallways and rooms, but know that I am already exactly right where I need to be.

I am not a visual meditator, but I clearly sense a small pedestal in the middle of the room, on top of which is an open book – with the pages already opened to the beginning of the distorted beliefs that were taught to me by my mother.

As I begin to meditate, focusing on energetically reading this book (a book that I cannot visually see), I am surprised by the ease in which the words just start flowing. I write rapidly, attempting to keep up with the flow of words that effortlessly zoom through me.

A List Of Beliefs

I need to clarify that these paragraphs were not channeled to me word for word. The understanding and knowing magically opened up inside my awareness – and the words then flowed as an interpretation of that knowing.

Belief Number One:
“You must obey the rules. God will judge you if you break the rules – if you sin. There is only one way to do it and if you don’t do it right, you will fail, go to a lower kingdom, and not be with God and family. Even if the rules do not make sense, follow them. That is the only sure way – follow leaders even if they are wrong!!! Sacrifice your pride; humbly follow and obey.”

Belief Number Two:
“Play must be restrained and reverent – reined in. When we are too loud and joyful, it disturbs others. It is not God-like. God is quiet and reverent. If you want to earn God’s love, you too must be quiet, respectful, and reverent – sacrificing your joyful desires – they are selfishness that will distract you.”

Belief Number Three:
“Don’t question authority. Respect your parents, church leaders, and elders. They know more than you do. Your foolish desires are childish folly that will lead you astray. Blind obedience to church leaders is the safest path. You will never be condemned by following a church leader. If they are wrong, the mistake is on their heads. (In other words, suppress your creativity and simply be a sheep.)”

Belief Number Four:
“Honor your ancestors. Do not shame or embarrass them by foolish behavior. Tow the line to protect their name – the family image. Do not be different. Do not attract judgment – even the appearance of evil – because that dishonors our ancestors.”

Belief Number Five:
“Sex and sexuality are sacred, forbidden outside of marriage. Any exploration or confusion in this area outside the boundaries of marriage is akin to murder, cause for great shame and sorrow, breaking up families, excommunication, loss of love, and loss of spiritual blessings.”

Belief Number Six:
“Creativity will not support a family. Suppress out-of-the-box behavior and develop education and intellect. Earning a living is what matters – no need to enjoy what you do. It is your responsibility to sacrifice your heart/creativity so that you can carry the burdens of caring for others. The more money you can earn, the more content and secure will be your family. Risk is bad. Failure is bad. Always take the safe, guaranteed route – intellect/ planning/ insurance/ responsibility/ no debt/ burden/ work/ sacrifice. No one can be in unbridled joy – that is selfish!!! You need to sacrifice yourself for those you love.”

Belief Number Seven:
“Power is not God-like – it is ego and selfishness, the source of sin and rebellion. Obedience demands sacrifice of personal power. Power is a fast track to trouble. It is better to be a humble servant than to have power. Let others have the reins; simply be a good, obedient, follower of God. Power corrupts. Wealth corrupts. A powerful man cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Power and pride are entangled, inseparable. Humility means absence of power.”

Belief Number Eight:
“Self expression (throat chakra) is prideful. It is best to tie your tongue and say nothing rather than to speak your truth and possibly offend others. Suppress your differences – both in physical and in verbal expression.”

Belief Number Nine:
“Magical/energetic abilities are evil and of the Devil – unless they come through the ordained priesthood. If not through proper channels, it is potentially deception by Lucifer himself. Magical things happen, but are evil and wicked – appearance of good, but deception of evil. You cannot receive guidance or spiritual messages for others. This is evil, evil, evil – you must not allow this type of horrendous danger to manifest in any way. You must not allow the Devil to deceive you!!!

Belief Number Ten:
“Imagination is childish, head in the clouds silliness. It will get you nowhere in the real world. Rules, hard work, and obedience are the only recipe for success and heavenly reward.”

Belief Number Eleven:
“Scriptures, prayer, and fasting will help you overcome evil thoughts and feelings. Repentance for evil behavior is the only way to achieve forgiveness from God. If you don’t repent, you are condemned and judged – an outcast for eternity, separated from family – some sins are unforgiveable – murder and adultery/ sexual perversion (me).”

Belief Number Twelve:
“Hold to the iron rod. Do not dilly dally – do not loiter – it is hard work – you must push forward, never straying or deviating – it is serious business – there are life threatening consequences for disobedience.”

Belief Number Thirteen:
“If you break the rules, you deserve to be punished – for you own good. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Grace spoils. There is no allowance for gray areas. You must be hot or cold. That which is lukewarm will be spewed out of the mouth. (This is a reference to a scripture.) A full commitment to seriousness is required to achieve salvation.”

Endings And Beginnings

Wow, I am amazed at how easily these beliefs flow – and equally amazed by how the flow suddenly ceases when the thirteenth paragraph has been transcribed.

I have ended up with five pages of hand-scribbled paragraphs, so I imagine that I am dealing with five pages in this ‘Subconscious Book of Beliefs’.

It is now time to tear these pages out of my book and to destroy them in a creative way – doing so three separate times.

Flaming Transmutation

When I first imagine myself grabbing onto these pages, slowly tearing them out, I am shocked by the sensation that no matter how much I tear, the page goes on forever. I cannot remove it from the book.

Finally, I grab the pages tightly and give them a firm and forceful meditative rip, yanking them from the book with all the effort that my imagination can create.

Soon, I am pouring metaphorical gasoline all over them, then soaking them in a pan of gasoline, and finally placing them on the ground in front of me. As I toss a match on this pile of no-longer-needed beliefs, I watch them burn and burn and burn. After what seems like forever, I get the sensation that the beliefs transmute into a puff of pure white energy.

Speaking My Truth

For the second time, I return to the book of beliefs to take hold of those five pages. As before, I again feel as if I have to yank the pages forcefully from the book – they do not come easily.

Without any forethought, I find myself standing on the table in my inner conference room. In front of me is a bucket filled with truth – the same bucket from yesterday’s meditation.

Surrounding the table are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of resistance energies, each bearing the identical face of my mother.

“These beliefs no longer resonate with me.” I speak my loving truth to all gathered in the conference room. “They are distorted truths that propagate fear, separation, judgment, hate, and lies – denying the divinity of all of us – denying who I really am. These are not my truths; they are distorted lies, teachers of smallness and separation, judgment and duality. I will no longer embrace them.”

Into The Truth

As I prepare to drop the pages into that bucket of truth, imagining them being dissolved, I suddenly am intuitively aware of the sword of Archangel Michael – the spiritual sword of truth. I feel as if it is suspended in midair, directly in front of me, with the blade pointing upward.

Taking the five pages in my hand, I stab them downward onto the point of the blade. I then grab the handle, turn the blade so that it is pointed down, and push the tip, pages and all, down into the bucket of truth.

Soon, the pages dissolve. The distorted portions of these beliefs are gone, leaving behind only the portions that are compatible with divine truth.

This beautiful experience very much reminds me of several spiritual teachings that, when loosely paraphrased, state that you don’t release densities by shining light in their direction – but that you must bring those densities into the light – into the truth.

Intuitive Role Reversal

Feeling so immersed in this beautiful meditation, I surrender and attempt to further connect with that genuine and innocent boy of eleven and a half years. I attempt to immerse myself in the divine love of my mother’s true essence. When that metaphor falls flat, I imagine my own Higher Self and Future self, loving me, filling me – but I am stuck, feeling very little energy.

Suddenly, the “nail-in-my-heart” spot begins to hurt with deep, sharp pains. I intuitively realize that I am still unable to receive such love – that perhaps my blown fuse is my utter inability to receive the power of pure love – both from outside and from within.

I meditate deeper and deeper, asking all of my various inner children to help me. I soon turn this all around and ask young eleven-year-old Bobby to do whatever inner work is necessary, with me simply holding a powerful loving space for him.

A Frightened Boy

Soon, I connect with the intense self-hatred/ self-judgment/ and shame of this beautiful young boy. I send my future-self back in time to hold and hug him with unconditional love. This struggling boy has a very difficult time receiving this love.

He is in my childhood bedroom, feeling deeply shameful while home alone, secretly dressed up in his sister’s underwear and slip. He does not understand why he feels this crazy gender confusion. He hates his male body parts and tries to squish them and flatten them out of existence using a tight belt.

Suddenly, he experiences extremely pleasurable energies that he immediately assumes must be related to horrible evil sexual perversion – something he has never before experienced – something that pleasures yet terrifies him – something that screams “You are going to hell for what just happened – whatever it was.”

Life-Force Confusion

I attempt to comfort that young boy, but he is unable to feel my love.

“Is my blown fuse also related to the flow of divine life-force energy, that if held in the second chakra manifests as sexual pleasure?” I ponder with shock.

At that tender age, I had received no formal teaching about sex and sexuality. I had almost no understanding about the sexual act, or about physical orgasms – nothing, nada.

In my bliss over imagining myself as actually being a young girl, my body had reacted in a physically pleasurable way that triggered intense self-hatred for the divine energy that accompanied the experience. The result was a labyrinth of gender confusion, sexual fear, religious self-judgment, and a completely distorted understanding of divine life force energy.

Confused And Curious

After meditating in this painful space for a very long time, I energetically hug this little boy in his slip, bra, and panties. I lovingly smile at him, gently observing his short boyish hair, his confused facial expressions, and his terrified eyes. I cry with him as I feel his intense inability to love himself – or to receive love from any source, not even from me.

I imagine both of us jointly receiving pure unconditional love, quickly envisioning myself on the porch yesterday, being hugged by a magical and angelic young woman – receiving the pure love that radiated from all directions.

Eventually, I ask if this eleven-and-a-half-year-old boy will stand with me in that dark meditative cave, together in front of our loving mother – being his pure and innocent self – proud to be who he is, and to feel what he feels – confident that he is neither evil nor perverted for simply being confused and curious.

This beautiful inner child of mine hesitatingly stands with me, holding my hand – for the first time in his life beginning to believe that maybe he is not a pervert – that he actually deserved to be treated with love and acceptance – even when wearing a slip.

Creative Mystery

Finally, after a long-but-meaningful diversion, I know it is time to destroy those distorted beliefs for the third time. I ask young Bobby if he would like to help me, and he courageously volunteers to do so, still dressed in a slip, bra, and panties.

Slowly, he tears out the first page and places it to one side – then the second, the third, and so on. With the five pages in his hands, he holds them over a small bucket, tediously tearing them into tiny little pieces, as small as he can get them. Soon, he adds flour and water to the bucket, creating a paper-mache mixture of flour paste and paper scraps.

I begin to wonder what Bobby will build out of this sticky gooey paper – perhaps something to destroy … perhaps an image of the Devil … or something else? I am not directing this meditation. It is flowing as if out of nowhere, and I have no idea where it is going. My intuitive guidance tells me to just sit back and watch.

Soon, to my surprise and delight, I intuitively sense the image of a small paper-mache heart being held up by two small hands in front of me.

Loving Power

I break into loving and joyful sobs as I feel my little boy wanting to transmute those painful distorted beliefs using love – not destruction.

I envision a brilliant light consuming the paper-mache heart, radiating from within so brightly that the heart itself is transmuted – disappearing into the light – into pure love.

“Love is my power,” Intuitions begin to grow, “and my blown fuse prevents that love from flowing.”

I still find it nearly impossible to consistently receive such unconditional love from anyone – especially from myself. But that wall is eroding, and healing is on the way.

After this beautiful experience concludes, I continue to meditate for several additional hours, drifting in and out of joyful tears while experiencing beautiful energy flow throughout my body, especially in my hands.

Disappearing Beliefs

For many years, I have been aware that childhood conditioning and beliefs continue to influence and hinder my ability to move forward along my spiritual path – but I have never been able to identify fully just what those beliefs might be.

In a twist of beautiful synchronous flow, on these two exhausting days just five weeks ago, I found myself experiencing stiff inner resistance – resistance that soon took on the face of my mother. After following those breadcrumbs, I was guided to a ‘Subconscious Book of Beliefs’ that continued to hold me back – to prevent me from receiving true divine love. While many of those beliefs contain elements of the truth, they did indeed bend that truth into separation, judgment, and other various distortions.

As I surrendered to deep subconscious meditation, I bonded with a frightened young boy who then helped me transmute those beliefs using the truth of his magical being – using pure unconditional love.

There is no doubt that these beliefs have been completely removed from my ‘Subconscious Book of Beliefs’ – but there is also no doubt that I yet have much growth ahead. Many of these beliefs have been engrained into everyday habits – habits that will likely continue to manifest – but habits that are rapidly on their way out.

Best of all, I continue to grow ever closer to understanding that mysterious blown fuse.

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

After I write regarding three days of meditative cave spelunking, a journey of searching for the capacity to shine my own unique inner light, I begin to wonder if perhaps I might be scamming myself. I am thrilled when Keith reassures me that my emotional journey is indeed genuine, that ego is not simply masquerading as my inner children.

He teaches me a few things about ‘aspects of self’, confidently reassuring me that the beautiful and healed little inner child that gave me a tiny metaphorical heart is a very real aspect of my inner child, one that was fully present during that Christmas weekend of adventures with inner dragons.

Then Keith validates the healing I am now doing in this metaphorical cave as I find the courage to shine my unique inner light in front of a beautiful mother – reassuring me that the emotions I feel during this experience are indeed very real, coming from a different and yet-unhealed aspect of my inner child.

“Brenda, this is not something you can figure out with your head.” Keith again reminds me, leaving my rational mind somewhat puzzled.

Earning Love

Early Friday morning, December 30, 2011, I find myself feeling a great deal of energy during a delightful meditation. New vibrations continue to tantalize me throughout my body.

But as I meditate in this beautiful energy, I am tired.

“This meditation feels like effort.” Parts of me beg to slow down. “I just want to BE the love … I don’t want to try to create it … I don’t want to have to work for it.”

Suddenly, new insights flash into my mind.

“I have a subconscious belief system.” I ponder with intuitive surprise. “It came from my mother and religious teachers, and tells me that I have to ‘earn’ my love … that I will not get love unless I deserve it based on my actions, effort, and worthiness.”

Even today, with all of my inner work, I still do not feel worthy of receiving divine assistance if I am not first working hard and doing my share. My childhood religion was quite firm on this point, strongly conditioning me with the absolute belief that God will only help me after I have first done all that I can do for myself.

Worthy Of Love

“What a load of crap.” An inner part of me suddenly rebels.

“Please, God,” I beg in meditation. “I am tired right now. Please help me anyway. I am exhausted from trying to be worthy of your love. I just need to feel the love that I already am.”

Tears of emotion stream down my cheeks as the sensation of being loved without conditions momentarily overwhelms me with joy. But soon, my walls go back up and the tears cease. This belief system of “first needing to do my part” is strong. I seem to feel guilt about asking for the love … and then simply receiving it. These crazy childhood beliefs continue to taunt and influence me.

A Reverence Robot

“I wonder what I will manifest today.” I smile as I walk toward Keith’s magical porch for a Friday afternoon ceremony – the final ceremony for 2011.

To my delight, a dear friend – a friend I love to hug – one I am calling Angela – has finished her yoga retreat across the lake and joins us for the ceremony today. Momentarily sinking into unbridled play, I hug and squeeze Angela tightly. Both of us giggle while we spin and dance around the porch for a couple of minutes.

Several of Angela’s friends have also joined us. As we begin the glow meditation – a meditation that actually encourages smiling and giggling – I note that this fun group of friends joyfully giggle and talk amongst each other. After the meditation finishes, these beautiful people continue to play amongst themselves, creating disruptions and distractions.

I watch this scene before me with pure non-attachment … but I simultaneously observe that a myriad of childhood judgments surface inside of me, doing so with a vengeance, demanding to be heard. I calmly detach and observe these judgments as they insist that I get involved – that I project blame – that I get upset – that I speak up and call the porch back to order.

“This is a spiritual gathering.” The dissenting voices argue loudly in my head. “It is now time to calm down and be reverent. They need to take this ceremony more seriously.”

“These voices are insisting that I be a Reverence Robot.” I giggle to myself as I continue observing with non-attachment.

Boisterous And Distracting Play

“This is my creation.” I ponder with loving peace. “For some reason I wanted this to happen in group today. I wonder how this will unfold.”

To my delight, I easily remain the observer, fully present, knowing that everything is perfect, listening to this “reverence robot” voice, but simply smiling at it – not buying into it – not engaging in these childhood and adult projections.

Most people simply ignore the commotion, but I do notice one woman who acts slightly annoyed. Keith simply allows everything to proceed, unchecked, in its strange form of perfection.

This whole experience causes me to ponder deeply into childhood experiences at church – questioning the times when reverence was lovingly pounded into my tiny innocent head as an absolute rule that goes hand in hand with spirituality – a time when I believed that if I was not reverent that I would not be worthy of receiving God’s love.

“Spirituality is serious.” The voices again scream inside my head. “Life is serious. This boisterous and distracting play is inappropriate and unacceptable!”

Back To The Cave

As this scene unfolds I begin to literally feel as if my dear sweet mother is sitting on my heart, trying to squash and kill this new form of unconditional love that I am allowing – trying to tell me that I must intervene and stop this frivolousness or I won’t be loved. This intuitive realization is profoundly strong.

Immediately, I unplug from the events around me and slip into meditation, returning to that dark cave with my two inner children, standing in front of my beloved mother. As I focus on shinning my own inner light, I silently express my intention to return these judgmental/conditioned voices back to my mother. I ask a metaphorical angel to act as an intermediary.

“Brenda,” Keith interrupts my meditation as he begins a round of individual work. “What’s up for you right now?”

Serious Business

A quick look into Keith’s eyes tells me that he already knows what I am experiencing.

“Wow,” I respond with surprise at Keith turning to me so quickly, “I’m exploring the shutdown of my childhood ability to play – to feel and experience unbridled joy and love. I am dealing with a projection that spirituality is serious business. I am dealing with repressed anger at how my parents and religion shut down this joyful side of me, forcing me to conform to the seriousness or I wouldn’t feel loved.”

“And right now,” I add with confusion, “I feel as if my mother is sitting on my heart, squashing me.”

Before anyone can misinterpret me, I quickly turn to this group of giggling people and thank them repeatedly for being so joyful and playful, for helping me to trigger this childhood issue.

“I love you for it.” I reassure all of these beautiful people.

Mind Is Not The Tool

By now, I am quite emotional, but do not verbally express the emotions. I want to find a way to involve the light, to use higher energies to move and transmute these emotions. Several people quickly jump in to give me mental advice about how to “just let in the joy” or to “just go for it.” One woman even tries to coach me into simply forgiving.

“I appreciate all of the mental advice,” I express lovingly, “but this is something that I have to go into and explore in my subconscious … something that intellectual and head understanding simply cannot resolve or heal.”

I explain to Keith that part of me wants to be angry, and push this emotion out of me, but that I want to try to do it with light and love instead.

Soon, as I resume my cave meditation, Keith turns back to me and interrupts.

Missing Pieces

“Brenda,” Keith guides me, “you had it right before.”

“Huh?” I query, feeling quite confused.

“About the anger,” Keith responds. “You need the anger to help you overthrow this belief.”

Immediately I grab two cushions and begin punching to stimulate my repressed anger. As agonizing sobs start to burst out, I begin to cough and wheeze.

“I can’t cry anymore.” I pause and ask Keith for advice when the fluid in my lungs suddenly surfaces. “My throat and lungs cannot take it. This type of crying is taking a physical toll on me.”

“Don’t forget to take the higher energies with you.” Keith gives me the missing puzzle piece.

Unfolding Intuitions

Soon, I am back in my meditative cave, this time feeling the profound depths of this anger, while at the same time trying to release the anger and beliefs to the metaphorical angel that stands between me and my mother. I do this for a while, but seem to be getting nowhere. Keith soon interrupts again.

“It is not about pushing, Brenda.” Keith coaches me. “Back off, and bring in more love.”

Soon, Keith is working with another woman, coaching her through an energetic release process. She talks about the emotional pains that are moving through her, but she has a huge grin on her face.

“Duh,” I think to myself as I observe how I am supporting this woman’s process. “For years, I have been gifted at holding loving space for others … at silently cheering them on when they finally popped the cork on their density … then sharing supportive heart space with them, holding a loving smile on my face while encouraging them to continue and go deeper if they can – all the while I remained completely unattached.”

“This is what I need to do with my own density.” I ponder. “I need to cheer on this release process while holding space for it, and encouraging it with love.”

No Rules

Immediately, I switch into this new space, putting a loving smile on my face, breathing deeply while raising my vibrations into profound loving energy, and then radiating this beautiful love to my little inner child.

“I am holding space for my own inner child.” I ponder with delight. “I am simply radiating love and support, while trusting that little Bobby knows exactly what he needs to do. I do not need to be in charge. I can simply hold a tray of loving support and allow him to do his own work.”

“Wow Brenda,” Keith eventually turns back to me. “That is beautiful what you are doing.”

“I’m confused as to whether I should just be holding space,” I question Keith, “or if I should be trying to come up with metaphors to assist with the process.”

“It is different every time.” Keith reminds me. “There are no rules … you have to follow the metaphors and inner guidance … and you have to listen.”

Paying Attention To Details

“Remember my metaphor of one of my favorite teachers?” Keith gently nudges me.

“Love is paying attention to details, to untied shoelaces and snotty noses.” Keith repeats the metaphor again.

“I have heard you say that many times,” I speak honestly, “but I have never related to it. I thought it was stupid, and does not at all relate to how I see unconditional love. But now, for the first time ever, I actually see what you are trying to say.”

“It is not just about radiating love to this part of me … or to another person with whom I am working.” I share new insights. “It is about listening and paying attention to all of the details of our communication and energy exchange, and responding to those details appropriately.”

As I further ponder, profound insights continue to unfold about the magical power of paying attention to details.

A Giggling Toddler

As someone else on the porch begins to explore childhood abuse issues, I begin to feel his pain and cry with him.

Soon, as I explore deeper into the cause of my own tears, I feel that my little inner child Bobby desperately needs to cry. I fill my heart with deep love and hold energetic space for him, encouraging him to trust this emotional release process while I simply observe with love and joy, and while thinking, “Yes, go for it.”

Bobby is not physically crying, but I feel the power of his energetic release. My abdomen is shaking and churning as I intuitively experience his inner sobbing. I support the process. I cheer it on with love … I hold space for it … I bless it … but I do not get lost in it.

After about a half hour of this amazing process, Keith interrupts to tell me about the beautiful energy he is observing in me.

“I just tried to visualize my fourteen-month-old toddler laughing and smiling, and I could actually feel it.” I express newfound delight to Keith.

Rewriting History

“This is literally going back in time and rewriting history,” Keith reminds me, “bringing that rewritten history forward, so to say, so that it is literally your new reality in the present. By changing and healing an inner child, that energy radiates healed energy into the present day.”

I soon move through memories up to my six-year-old school photo. Again, rather than experiencing the usual sensation of self-loathing and awkwardness, I sense new loving confidence. I wish I could just giggle, but part of me will not yet allow that.

This new lightness is real, but just a beginning. Soon, I am visualizing my third-grade photo, again feeling the self-love.

But when I reach around age eleven in this gradual process of rewriting history, I am suddenly stuck, unable to make any progress.

Future Whispers

“It is like I am in three separate parts right now.” I explain my process to Keith. “First, there is the observer consciousness that is holding a pure loving space. Then there is the future-self of this little child (me) going back in time to share the loving truth. And finally, there is that young boy himself.”

“Gradually I have literally felt the shifting energy of my childhood self as he moves more into a space of loving empowerment.” I share with Keith. “This has felt quite magical. But I am now stuck. When I focus on age eleven, I am unable to make any progress.”

This is not really a mystery to me. It was at around age eleven when my agonizing gender struggles began to completely dominate my experience, filling me with self-loathing, shame, guilt, and inner self-hatred. Intuitively, I recognize that working with my traumatized teenager will require a great deal of pure love and compassion.

“You are a beautiful and magical boy.” I whisper from the future to a frightened young boy.

But as I attempt to instill hope to that broken-hearted little eleven-year-old, a sense of futility overwhelms me.

A Healing Model

“You’re doing great.” Keith congratulates me with the group watching on. “I have nothing to add at this point.”

He validates that I am using higher energies and making it an adventure – an adventure where my inner child is doing the release work while I simply funnel the loving energy like a butler, making the love and light available for the child to draw from, trusting my child to do what he already knows how to do.

“You are not pushing or fixing,” Keith adds more praise, “you are simply following the same healing model that you are already following in your outer reality.”

“Wow,” I ponder to myself, “It really is not about being the all-knowing healer. It is about holding space, serving a tray of beautiful loving support, and trusting the client (my child in this case) to do all of the work with my unconditional hand-holding and support, allowing whatever energies and guidance that might be needed to simply flow through me.”

Personal Experience Is Key

“Congratulations on a whole new level of work and new adventure.” Keith shares after the ceremony is over.

“How can I possibly write about this?” I beg Keith for guidance. “Is what I did today a process that will work for others?”

“There are no formulas for this type of work.” Keith again reminds me.

“You can’t tell people how to do their own work, but you can talk about your journey with being stuck in your head.” Keith gives me examples. “Talk about how you were unable to even crack a tiny hole in that wall of resistance to outside help. Talk about your inability to understand metaphors such as ‘love is paying attention to details’ until you actually experienced the metaphor in a personal way. And talk about your inability to trust higher energies until after you processed through much of the resistance – about how you only began to understand the concept after actually experiencing some higher energy assistance yourself.”

Much Needed Distractions

As I stroll home, my mind is overloaded with the intensity of all my processing. I want to push this inner journey beyond age ten or eleven – but realize that pushing is not an option. I am mentally fried, and can only imagine that my inner energies would also deeply appreciate a break.

Shortly before 7:00 p.m., I stroll over to a local hotel/restaurant in search of pizza and an old friend who is in town for New Years celebrations. The social time is a much-needed distraction.

Likewise, Saturday turns into a day of processing burnout, low motivation, and even inner rebellion. After keeping my mind busy with three movies, I spend a delightful evening with friends, first sharing dinner at a local restaurant, and later enjoying a midnight New Year’s Eve meditation service at “Las Piramides Del Ka” – the pyramids meditation center where I spent four months in 2010.

But when others opt to go dancing at 1:00 a.m., I instead choose to let my tired head dance with a soft fluffy feather pillow in the privacy of my restful bed.

A New Start

Sunday morning, as the sun rises on the new year of 2012, I remain in a state of burnout – feeling some higher vibration energies, yet being unmotivated, lethargic, and downright exhausted from inner work. I have not responded to emails and Facebook messages in a while, and have now fallen three weeks behind in my writing. Both giving up the quest, and simply not caring seem like viable alternatives … but something inside continues pushing me forward.

By noon, on this sunny New Years Day, I am sitting on Keith’s porch, attempting to get an early start on meditating into the journey of that stuck eleven-year-old boy who is facing one of the most difficult decades of his life. The only thing I know how to do is to raise my vibrations, hold a space of love, and hope that something in this adventure of self-discovery intuitively shows me my next step.

Stuck And Waiting

I remain in this “stuck and waiting” energy while meditating with my metaphorical child, holding space and sending love, but feeling clueless. As Keith slowly works his way around the porch, it seems that most everyone is on the edge of deep emotional release while also being quite stuck. After what feels like a couple of hours, Keith finally turns to work with me.

Keith suggests that I focus on the task of bringing the power of my third chakra up into my heart. As I visualize this energy flow taking place, I begin to feel slight pains manifesting randomly on the left side of my abdomen, all the way down to the bottom of my second chakra, with a dull ache throbbing in my bladder region.

“These pains feel like isolated pockets of density that are stuck.” I share intuitive feelings with Keith.

Related Processing

“See if you can connect the energy channels so that this stuck energy can flow.” Keith gives me another suggestion.

I focus really hard on trying to coax this energy to flow downward, out of my root chakra and into the Mother Earth. As I listen to Keith work with a friend sitting next to me, coaching her to pull the plug on her reservoir of density so that it can drain, I again focus more effort on attempting to drain what I see as my own stuck energies.

As Keith encourages this friend to allow her power and her sadness to energetically touch each other, my solar plexus suddenly erupts in churning revolt. Without skipping a beat in working with my friend, Keith reaches out his hand and assists me in releasing some of this swirling energy.

It seems that my friend’s work is also my own. Her stuck-ness is my stuck-ness, and her process is literally my process.

Squashed, Blocked Energy Flow

Again, a visual of my mother, seated on my abdomen, overwhelms my emotions. I am experiencing extreme energetic blockage, and I intuitively know it is because of all the citizen-factory conditioning lovingly given to me by my dear mother.

Seconds later, I am spelunking back in my dark cave, asking my young inner eleven-year-old to release these blockages back to their higher evolvement while I hold loving energetic space for the process.

As I overhear two other people use the metaphor of blocked pipes in their lower chakra energies, I visualize the same metaphor, suggesting to my young boy that he might ask the angels to help clear out these clogged pipes so that they can drain to Mother Earth.

All the while, I continue to maintain a weak connection to the light, being both the space-holding observer, and my young boy doing the processing work.

A New Perspective

“You are trying to move the energy in the wrong direction.” New Jedi voices suddenly whisper to my heart.

“My creativity, sexuality, and power centers are blocked.” I begin to ponder. “I don’t want to get rid of these energies by having them flow out to Mother Earth. I want to do exactly what Keith suggested at the start of my work today … I want these energies to flow upward, into my heart.”

Quickly, I begin to visualize these painful blocks, not as being emotional density, but as being my own power and creativity that have been walled off, rejected, and blocked from flowing.

“Pain is resistance.” Keith always says. In this case, my pains are resistance to allowing my own beautiful energies to flow freely.

Flowing Bubbles

As I focus on this new metaphorical perspective, I feel tiny waves of these energies slowly moving upward, some of them making it all the way to my heart and even into my high heart and throat regions.

Soon, I am back in my dark cave, again standing in front of my mother. As I visualize her loving face, I ask her Higher-Self essence to help me restore my ability to flow this power and creativity upward to where it really needs to go.

Working with my mother’s energy in this way seems to help slightly, but the energy flow continues to be quite slow and weak. I sense the presence of horizontal walls attempting to isolate energy flow, both around my belly button and just below my rib cage.

But nonetheless, I do feel some undeniable trickles of energy bubbles that make it through these walls, all the way to the throat chakra.

Even though the flow is quite weak and slow, for me, given where I am starting from, I am elated … the sensations are profound.

A Blown Fuse

When the chocolate ceremony nears completion, Keith finally turns back toward me and makes eye contact.

“I have found that everything you have been doing with others has beautifully contributed to my own process.” I share with Keith. “Everything you have said is precisely what I needed to hear.”

I am again blown away by how – even when Keith is working with others – that it seems as if I have manifested the timing of their individual processes to fully serve my own.

“There is one thing I would like to know.” I beg Keith for any information he can provide. “A story that you shared earlier makes me wonder just what might have happened to me … about how this power connection between my heart and solar plexus became so blocked and walled off.”

“Brenda,” Keith lovingly responds. “I cannot tell you what happened to you. It would be disempowering if I could tell you. Your own learning process will take you there … you need to find the answers yourself. But do pay attention to that ‘blown fuse’ metaphor. You are on the right track in following that clue.”

Two Shutdowns

I already have a great deal of inner intuition, telling me that this “blown fuse” exists between my power center (the solar plexus) and my heart – that when I am able to restore the flow of energy between these two chakras that I will have made great progress in restoring power to the magical theme park in my heart.

Something tells me that “age eleven” is a key turning point in my life – a time when I began to experience out-of-control energetic overload – a short circuit between gender struggles, religion-based shame, citizen conditioning, social dysfunction, and empath/mystical magic – all frying me at the same time. What else could I have done but to unknowingly sever that connection in a desperate attempt to save my life?

It all makes so much sense now. I went through two major shutdowns in my life … the first occurring at a very young age through standard societal and religious conditioning … the second as a result of absolute panic when my gender and social struggles suddenly intensified, as if out of nowhere, at age eleven.

It was indeed around eleven years old when I lost all social and creative confidence – when I began to clench, walk, and talk funny – when I became a frightened puppy hiding under the sofa of a world in which I simply could no longer function.

Physical Loathing

After gobbling down a plate of rice and beans, I am so physically and emotionally drained that I am asleep in bed by 7:30 p.m.. Monday morning, as I am awake at 5:30 a.m., I again cough up a storm with the fluid back in my lungs. It is so obvious now that heavy emotion triggers bronchitis symptoms, and profound release clears them up.

As I meditate further into this mystery age of eleven, I am suddenly guided back to vivid memories of a severe bicycle accident that happened in the same timeframe – right before Halloween, at age eleven and a half.

In that accident, I was knocked unconscious as I was thrown from an out-of-control bicycle going down a steep hill at thirty miles per hour. My front teeth were knocked out, my nose severely broken and bent, and I ended up with ugly bruises and lacerations over the majority of my body. The aftermath of that accident also left me feeling physically ugly, as I spent most of my teens with a badly broken nose and two front teeth that the dentist put back in my mouth, but which remained dead, yellow, cracked, and ugly.

It seems that scorpions, meditations, and intuitions are repeatedly guiding me to age eleven.

An Utter Turnaround

Yes, my life took an about-face in nearly all areas at that tender age. What is the mystery of my “blown fuse”? Only future meditative adventures will reveal that answer … yet I know I am getting warmer.

Prior to age eleven I was indeed a conditioned people-pleasing rule robot – but I was a mostly happy one. I was confident and socially outgoing, mostly fitting into and being comfortable with the norms of the world around me.

After age eleven, I remained a people-pleasing robot – continuing to portray an outward appearance of excelling – but struggling with extreme self-hatred on the inside. Among the factors leading to this self-hatred is the fact that I lived with a feeling of revulsion at the physical image that stared back at me in a mirror. At this same age, I started stuttering and talking extremely fast. I lost literally all social confidence. I began to walk pigeon toed (with arm and leg clenching). And most strongly of all, I considered myself essentially equivalent to the Devil himself, a result of extreme shame and self-loathing due to my secret gender struggles.

The newly discovered wildcard factor is my empath abilities. I now realize that throughout my childhood and teens, I was consuming a steady diet of the emotions, judgments, opinions, and feelings of everyone around me – whether those feelings were expressed or not.

Love That Just Is

I find it quite interesting that during meditation in the past two mornings, energy surges have sent intense itching energy through my nose – one of my most hated physical body parts during that period of my life – second only to my sexual organs. It seems that the Universe is gradually leading me to a healing energy flow in both my face and my lower chakras.

As I ponder back to meditations of the previous few mornings, I am again reminded of how I suddenly recognized that I feel unworthy of receiving love unless I worked hard to earn it.

When I combine this belief with the horrible self-loathing and self-hatred of my teen years, it is no wonder that I have been unable to receive and feel true unconditional love – love that just is.

Behind the scenes, I knew that everything I felt and did in my secret world of gender struggle made me a shameful hypocrite and sinner, utterly unworthy of divine love in any manner. How could I feel such love when my own heart was devoid of all worthiness to receive?

In retrospect, I now clearly see that I was beautiful and loveable all along … that as a young boy I was always genuine, loving, doing the best I knew how, desperately trying to fit in to a confusing and alien world. I now clearly see that I was indeed loved unconditionally by Source and by a Universe of Higher Beings who always held my hand through difficult times. It is so beautiful to realize that this love did not have to be earned. It was my birthright; it is a birthright for each of us.

I love the grace of pure unconditional love … a love that just is … a love that always has been and always will be. But why is it so difficult to remove my blocks to the awareness of its beautiful presence? Why is it so difficult to allow such pure love into my life?

I am so close … the inner walls are starting to crumble … I am beginning to get beautiful glimpses of this love … and it is amazing.

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

The confusing emotions of an intense six-day journey with inner dragons continue to fester and settle, as do the beautiful and profound healing insights that resulted. Most of all, I still giggle at how a beautiful little heart fell out of a calm blue sky, landing in the palm of my hand to remind me of the wonders of childhood magic.

But having time to integrate this menagerie of opposing and whirling emotions is only wishful thinking.

On the very next morning, Tuesday December 27, 2011, I am up at 5:30 a.m. scurrying around in preparation for another long and exhausting day. I will be assisting in an early morning private chocolate ceremony on the other side of Lake Atitlan. A sense of confused exhaustion continues to vibrate in my consciousness.

Radiating Love

After meeting up on the San Marcos boat dock at 6:20 a.m., our little group of three arrives in the town of Santiago shortly after 8:10 a.m., just in time to be picked up by a friend for another bumpy ride in her SUV. Our final destination is a beautiful little retreat center, nestled among the trees on the shoreline of the lake, graced by gorgeous views of the San Pedro volcano as well as the mountains that rise above San Marcos on the far side of the lake.

By 9:00 a.m., we are gathered in a small outdoor gazebo, drinking pure traditionally processed chocolate with a new small group of friends. The energy-filled waters of Lake Atitlan ripple calmly, less than seventy-five feet away.

For the first half of the ceremony, I remain quietly centered, bringing in abundant loving light, radiating that space-holding energy to others in the group.

Painful Confirmations

As Keith prepares to conduct a short training for the empaths in the group, I begin to feel sharp pains in my solar plexus. Intuitively, I feel as if these are my own pains – pains that have been well preserved by my Higher Self – pains that I need to move using the assistance of higher energies rather than trying to do it the old way.

I briefly interrupt Keith, mention my pains without sharing my intuitions about them, and curiously ask, “Are these mine, or am I empathically reading the pains of someone else?”

“These are your own pains.” Keith responds. “They are coming up now so that you can practice using the higher energies to assist you.”

I am blown away by how my own intuition so profoundly matches that of my teacher.

Concrete-Like Clenching

As the empath training unfolds, I begin to feel a slight headache in my third-eye chakra – but most of my attention is drawn to the stiff resistance and aching in my forearms. My arms are strongly clenched in what I intuitively know is fearful resistance – but it is not me consciously doing the clenching. I attempt to relax by placing my forearms on the table in front of me, consciously releasing every muscle. The more I attempt to relax, the more my forearms pulse with pain.

I have had a long journey of confusing pain with these forearms. As a child, my only emotional outlet – the only way I could safely release the reservoirs of emotion in my tiny body – was to play the piano. I used to sit on that piano bench for hours at a time, losing myself in the emotions of the songs I would play. As an adult in my twenties and thirties, my forearms began to hurt when I played for extended periods. I noticed that the muscles were knotted up like lumps of concrete – painful, hard, and swollen. Not knowing anything different, I simply assumed that my extra-large forearm muscles were the result of years of piano playing and excessive typing (as a software engineer).

In my forties, I spent years receiving weekly massages. While my forearms were not the main focus of these massages, I frequently asked for assistance in releasing the large painful knots just below my elbows. Two different massage therapists were unable to make any headway in relaxing those knots in my forearms. In my late forties, the pain became so great that a chiropractor and acupuncturist friend treated me for tendonitis in my right wrist – eventually relieving the pain, but making no headway with the knots.

It is only in the last few months that I now realize that all this clenching in my forearms has been a desperate attempt to prevent the energy flow in my hands.

Profound Resonating Metaphors

But we are not here to focus on me or my forearms. While continuing to observe my unfolding painful dilemma, I remain focused on the empath training, continuing to radiate heart energy to those around me.

At the very end of the training, Keith asks one woman to meditatively and metaphorically walk into her “personal and private version of inner hell.” He then asks the group to meditatively find her and join her, and to then walk out with her, showing her that there is a way out. When she eventually recounts her experience to the group, I am fascinated by the metaphors that she shares. They resonate profoundly with my own process.

An Intimidating Image

This woman describes that her personal hell felt as if she were at the depths of a very deep and dark cave – a cave with no light. When the group began to walk out, not pulling her, but simply showing her the way, she began to imagine herself turning on her own inner lights, brilliantly shining that inner light from within so that she could see her way.

“As I walked out of that cave,” this woman shares with all of us, “I noticed that all of my old teachers were standing along the edges of the rocky walls.”

Immediately, my intuitive imagination takes me into my own such cave – a dark cave lined by parents, church leaders, family, teachers, and other people who have tried to teach and encourage me to suppress the inner light of my own being. As I imagine all of these people lining the walls of my own personal hell, standing between me and the place where I want to go, I feel intimidated by their intense power – as if their love is attempting to grab onto me, to invalidate me, to control and manipulate me, to tell me that I am wrong and evil to shine my own unique inner light.

Passionate Homework

At an appropriate moment, I mention my deep affinity with this woman’s process (I will call her Tina) – describing how profoundly her metaphor resonates with me.

“Brenda,” Keith guides, “sometime after you go home today, I want you to return to this cave, and have Tina’s higher essence go with you. Have her help you to turn on your own inner light switch.”

As Keith utters this beautiful guidance, both Tina and I are in tears, deeply feeling the emotions of this moment.

This is one type of “homework” that passionately calls to me.

Energetic Puzzle Pieces

Later in the ceremony, as I continue to focus awareness on the aching pain in my forearms – forearms that simply will not relax – I find an opportunity to request feedback.

“Keith,” I ask with deep intuitive curiosity, “is it possible to store emotional density in your forearms?”

“Now you’re starting to get it Brenda.” Keith grins a huge Cheshire-cat-like grin.

All of this time I have believed that I was clenching to prevent energy flow, but now I realize that I am also storing vast reservoirs of dense energy in my arms as well.

“And in your calves too,” Keith quickly adds.

My attention immediately shifts to the fact that for decades I have felt embarrassed by the swollen muscles in my calves, between my knees and ankles. Not only do my calves seem out of proportion to the rest of my legs, but I continue to experience almost no energy flow in and out of my feet.

Evil And Of The Devil

“What happens to a young child with extreme energy sensitivity, and magical empath abilities, when she touches someone and they suddenly heal, get better or perhaps feel a strong burst of energy flowing into them?” Keith surprises me with his next question.

As I listen to Keith’s question, I ponder back to several such healing experiences in the past year – experiences where I have shared energy with someone and they suddenly felt physically better – one of those happening unknowingly over the telephone to a friend thousands of miles away.

“They get the feedback that this is evil and of the devil.” I respond. “They intuitively experience the disapproving emotions of those around them; they shut all of their magic down, and are made to feel guilty and shameful for something that they do not even understand.”

“Even if there is no verbal feedback, they intuitively feel the fear and shock of those around them,” I further ponder out loud. “They learn that what they did was bad.”

Lightning Memories

“You were not just blocking the higher energies from coming in,” Keith guides me, “but you were blocking energy from going out as well.”

I love these new insights – insights that resonate profoundly in my heart – insights intuitively reminding me of how much confusing trouble I encountered as a tiny child.

“Remember that time last year when you had lightning bolts of energy flowing out of your hands?” Keith brings up something I had almost forgotten. “That little child had energetic lightning bolt abilities inside of her, and probably unknowingly let them out a few times. Imagine how that would affect her.”

“Imagine also that you empathically experienced the shock and fear of the people who sensed your lightning bolt energy.” Keith continues.

“Wow,” I respond, “that would really shut me down if I empathically took in such judgment and fear.”

(For anyone wanting to read about this experience, it happened on November 28, 2010, and is fully documented in a blog titled “Lightning Bolts”, published December 16, 2010.)

Trapped Lightning

This new realization shakes me to the core. It makes perfect sense that if I experienced these powerful lightning energies just over a year ago – as a profound and early part of my undoing and awakening process – that surely I must have also experienced them before shutting down all of my magic as a child.

As I begin to ponder further, I suddenly recognize that the painful pressure in my upper forearms literally feels like trapped lightning bolts, painfully pulsing, desperately wanting to be released.

Trust And Allow

“You want to do something, don’t you?” Keith talks to another woman in the group, a beautiful soul I will call Jill.

“Yes,” Jill eagerly responds with love, “I would love to do some energy work to help with Brenda’s forearms.”

Soon, the two of us are sitting, facing each other. She holds my palms in hers, and begins to focus on sending me energy.

Keith makes eye contact and nods his head at me, telling me this is not “fixing energy” and that I should trust and allow. But his words are unnecessary, as my intuitions have already confirmed this beautiful fact.

A Divine Butler

To my delight, Keith quickly begins to coach Jill in the intricate subtleties of fixing energy, teaching her that rather than using her energy to help me heal, that she can instead see me as her energetic teacher.

“Follow Brenda’s energy.” Keith coaches her. “Allow her energy to pull what she needs through you … with you simply being an available channel to help provide her with what she needs.”

Keith teaches her that she is like a divine butler who is holding a silver tray of available healing energy. It is not her job to push or convince me to receive what she has to offer. Her job as a butler is simply to hold the tray, to make available what I need, and to let me choose whether to partake or not.

Soon, both of us are in tears as Jill experiences the profound vulnerability of opening up her heart in a way that allows me to bring what I need through her, rather than her giving me what she might imagine that I need.

In this beautiful process, I sense her powerful vulnerability, and am therefore able to soften my own subconscious resistance enough that I begin to feel some of the pain in my arms start to flow out of me.

The process is slow and gradual, with just enough of my bottled up energy flowing out so that I feel it – giving me an opportunity to build trust in outside assistance as an outer layer or two of my density begins to dissolve.

Vibrating With Love

Gradually, by the time the ceremony concludes in a beautiful way, I can definitely sense a noticeable shift in my energy. Intuitively, I know this is just the beginning of the process with my forearm resistance and densities.

As I ponder just how much might have been released today, the number “thirty percent” pops into my head out of nowhere. But numbers do not matter to me. I am thrilled with the insights and growth and excited to see where the journey continues to guide me.

As I return to San Marcos, I have a profound new metaphor – one of a dark cave in which I must shine my own inner light and lovingly face those in my life who were once quite influential in coercing me to turn that light off. I also have deep insight into the wonders of my forearm and calf clenching – an unfolding process in which I am eager to continue.

I vibrate with love all the way home, and for the remainder of this beautiful day.

Trusting Physical Metaphors

For the sixth day in a row, I wake up early Wednesday morning with a hacking cough while again spewing little droplets of fluid from my lungs. To my surprise, the little pains in my high-heart chakra – the ones that felt like alcohol on open wounds when my high-heart opened last week – also continue to mildly sting. As I meditate through this experience, I am awake for just over an hour before I am finally able to fall back to sleep around 3:00 a.m..

Intuitively, I strongly trust and believe that this is an energetic metaphor – a reminder to allow higher energies to assist me – a message that each time I try to cry things out without inviting participation of higher energies, the process is literally taking away my ability to breathe. This trust is further strengthened by the fact that whenever I center myself and begin to bring in higher energies, the symptoms of fluid in my lungs fade away.

Emotional And Physical Exhaustion

Finally, after a restful-but-broken sleep, I get out of bed around 8:00 a.m., still feeling emotionally drained. Even though the last three days have brought great emotional clarity, I am exhausted from what feels like weeks of nearly nonstop emotional processing, combined with the ongoing physical manifestations.

With low motivation – feeling somewhat resistant and rebellious – I do nothing even close to productive all morning, at least not until I take a ten minute stroll out to Keith’s magical porch for a Wednesday afternoon chocolate ceremony.

Feeling Versus Doing

After a relaxing glow meditation in which I feel tingling energy in my crown, I begin to experience sharp pains – as if a line of pain runs horizontally across my chest, right above my heart. I see this metaphorical wall of pain as indicating that my heart is blocked and wants to open or expand. My attention is also drawn to that painful nail-in-my-heart spot at the very center of my heart chakra, where I have often felt as if my heart were metaphorically crucified in the name of a judgmental and conditionally-loving God.

For most of this beautiful ceremony, I simply meditate quietly while exploring head doubts about whether “simply sitting in the love” is enough, or whether I should be “doing something” that would facilitate more growth.

At one point, late in the ceremony, I am able to achieve beautiful energy flow in my upper chakras, while feeling the lower chakras hinting that they are trying to do the same.

Exploring Opposites

After Keith finishes his first round of individual assistance, he looks in my direction and I express the doubts of my ongoing inner debate.

“Brenda,” Keith coaches me, “Hold out your hands. In one hand, place the voice of “I can simply sit and bask in the love.” In the other hand, place the voice of “I need to be doing something more.”

“Get to know those two voices, and then focus on where that ‘doing something more’ voice comes from.” Keith advises me before quickly moving on.

Searching For Courage

Almost immediately, I realize that the voice of “doing, doing, doing” came from childhood conditioning – namely from my devoted parents. As this realization sinks in, I quickly find myself meditating back in that deep dark cave – the beautiful metaphor that surfaced yesterday across the lake.

I had tried to meditate back into that cave late last night, but as I attempted to imagine myself illuminating my own inner light while standing in front of my mother, I hit deep emotions and had made no progress. A sense of deep fear of rejection had left me standing still, frozen in my tracks, facing crazy fears of agonizing rejection.

“I need to find a way to work with my dear mother in a truly unconditionally loving way.” I ponder my task at hand. “I need to be in the divine power of my own self-love while processing and releasing all of the emotional charges that I continue to project in her direction.”

“But how do I do that?” I begin to search. “How do I find the courage to turn on my brilliant inner light in my mother’s meditative presence?”

A Partnership With Light

Soon, I am standing back in that cave, this time holding the hands of my dear inner children – little Sharon on my left and Bobby on my right. Together, the three of us face my wonderful mother, standing perhaps five feet away. I begin to imagine that I am turning on the power to my inner divine light.

Fears of rejection and shutdown immediately consume me in inexplicable ways. But rather than sinking into that overwhelming emotion, and thus losing my connection to the light, I consciously imagine myself holding onto a thread of higher energy light while simultaneously allowing myself to experience the pain of those fear-based emotions.

I visualize an angelic presence standing between my mother and my little group of three. I allow myself to feel all of the agonizing fear and rejection-based emotions that surface, while simultaneously asking those densities to float out of me, directing them to that angel in front.

“Please,” I ask the metaphorical angel, “send this energy to its higher evolvement – whether that is to transmutation, or perhaps going back to the person who originally gave it to me so that they can process it.”

Chains Of Energy

For more than forty-five minutes, I sit in this beautiful meditation. The experience is profound. I feel a combination of loving vibrations in my heart and painful emotions in my solar plexus, all at the same time. The clenching tension in my forearms again seems to relax, just a notch, as feelings of lung congestion and a need to cough temporarily disappear completely.

Finally, as I feel intuitively guided to ask the release process to “step it up a notch,” I am again surprised by extremely sharp pains that spread in a horizontal line directly on top of my heart.

“This feels like an energetic chain wrapped tightly around my chest.” Jedi voices suddenly whisper in my mind. “This chain is restricting me from breathing and preventing me from expanding or sharing my heart energy.”

For at least twenty minutes, I attempt to meditatively release this energetic chain to the angel in front of me. Intuitions whisper that it is a real energetic blockage that was psychically placed there. It is not something that can be dissolved so easily.

Protection And Empowerment

Eventually, I capture Keith’s attention and share details of my journey.

“Congratulations for your beautiful work,” Keith surprises me, “and for identifying the very real energy that keeps you from breathing, and from sharing or receiving more love.”

“It is that definition of empowerment that I uncovered on Sunday … isn’t it?” I share with Keith. “It is these protective chains that are keeping me from being hurt by outside love.”

“And these chains also keep you from being hurt or rejected by sharing too much love outwardly as well.” Keith confirms my statement.

“It doesn’t matter who put that tight painful chain there.” Keith reassures me when I bring up the question of origin.

“I think it was me.” I respond. “I think I did it at a very young age as a matter of protection and empowerment.”

“Go work with that in the cave again,” Keith encourages me, “this time with the idea of sharing genuine unconditional love.”

Lowering Walls

As I take the metaphorical hands of my little inner children, I again return to my cave to stand and shine my inner light to my devoted mother. I try to imagine myself receiving her love – her pure unconditional love without all of the earthly distortions.

But I am deeply afraid. I do not know if I have ever truly felt her unconditional love, directly from her, without other energies coloring it through filtered lenses. I have had far too many walls protecting me, keeping me safe from painful distortions. Lowering these walls triggers a sense of inner panic.

As I attempt to receive this love, strong resistance continues to consume me while tears stream down my cheeks. Finally, I imagine an angel, who I ask to filter the love, allowing only the unconditional elements to flow through to me … just a few drops at a time … something that will not overwhelm my fears.

Emotions increasingly consume me as I expand this metaphorical process, imagining my mother’s pure divine Higher-Self essence standing above her, etc…

I am only able to receive small drops of this love, a few at a time, as my emotions continue to overwhelm me.

Synchronous Reality Creation

Soon, I shift the angel metaphor to one of a ball of light in front of me. The ball catches everything, only forwarding the unconditional love to me while sending the rest to its higher evolvement. As I imagine this image, I feel the chains around my heart begin to slightly relax … but they are still there.

But my process is cut short as one of the people on the porch launches into deep inner-child work that is quite dramatic. My continued processing will need to wait for another day.

I will not publicly share details of this person’s work, but it seems that I am watching a fascinating mini-drama, one in which I recognize powerful similarities to my own Christmas Eve ego/inner child struggles – struggles of wanting to be validated, to have my needs met, to be helped in the way that I wanted to be helped, feeling resentful, feeling my needs are ignored, shutting down, and going home angry and dejected.

It is a fascinating mirror in which I am given the gift of seeing my own ego struggles from yet another vantage point. I could not have asked the Universe for a more powerful and personal reflection of me. I love how synchronous reality creation works.

Spelunking For Love

Thursday morning feels like the first time in a week where I do not wake up hacking with fluid in my lungs. Yes, there are a couple of tiny coughs here and there, but nothing like before. Intuitive voices tell me that my energies are shifting my reality in more ways than one.

During a morning meditation, I return to my metaphorical cave, desiring to find some type of closure, really wanting to be able to imagine myself shining an inner light in front of my dear devoted mother without feeling the powerful emotional triggers of childhood conditioning.

I resume the image of me standing in front of my mother in this dark cave, with a brilliant ball of white light between us. I focus on two things … allowing myself to receive the unconditional purity of her love, while simultaneously asking higher energies to assist me in releasing the emotional charges that continue to surface in my heart and solar plexus.

Unattached Release

In the latter half of this meditative journey, I start to again experience the restrictive heaviness and pain of those energetic chains around my heart. With pure unconditional love, I express my intentions to release whatever dysfunctional elements of my childhood conditioning that might be ready to go, whether those parts are belief systems, emotions, shoulds, oughts, musts, have-tos, expectations, responsibilities, duties, obligations, seriousness, role expectations, or whatever.

Then with no attachments or expectations, I simply allow and surrender, asking the higher energies to assist me in releasing (or not) whatever energies may (or may not) be ready to be released. I then focus on sending and receiving unconditional love to and from my beloved mother.

As I do so, I feel considerable flow. I sense the presence of unconditional love while simultaneously noting the sensation of angry hatred that is exiting from hidden vaults from somewhere in my solar plexus. Intuitively I know it is the anger of a tiny frightened child who could not turn on his own magical light in the presence of his mother – anger that is now surfacing in my awareness because it needs to go.

As I prepare to end this meditation, a new lightness and tingling consume me, covering my entire backside from crown to tailbone, while also peacefully vibrating in front, from the upper reaches of my solar plexus all the way up to my forehead.

The fact that much of my lower chakras, especially in the front, continue to feel energetically dead, gently reminds me that I am only beginning this layer of my healing process.

Integration And Understanding

Given the fact that I am finally feeling a sense of emotional stability, I experience a desire to resume my writing. Shortly before 10:00 a.m., I sit down with intentions to do just that. But as I review my notes, I realize that I have a daunting emotional task ahead of me – in order to write I must first I must re-watch the video “What Babies Want” (as documented in the blog post: “Spreading My Wings” published January 14, 2012).

It seems I have another deep emotional journey ahead as I again watch this profound video from a new and more healed perspective. Emotions repeatedly consume me to the core as I ponder the journey of a newborn infant – one who comes into this world already being a conscious and magical being – but because I appear on the outside as a tiny helpless body with an undeveloped brain, no one can see the magical being that I really am.

But a beautiful difference is quite obvious as I engage in this healing journey. When I enter into deep emotions – and I do that a lot during this process – I also take a beautiful connection to the light with me, making the process no less emotional, but much easier.

The rest of Thursday becomes a gentle and loving day of processing – of riding the roller coaster of unfolding integration and understanding.

Return Caving

I return to my meditation cave several times in the afternoon, bringing that tiny newborn baby with me, releasing emotions, sharing love, shedding tears, and experiencing loving vibrations.

It is a gradual and gentle process. By mid afternoon, I know I am not done, but I also know that I have done enough for today. Allowing exhaustion to consume me, I sleep for much of the long afternoon, and then retire early, getting a beautifully restful sleep – a night with no coughing whatsoever.

Filled With Wonder

These last three days have been beautiful, yet exhausting. I continue to process deep emotions and to meditate into powerful inner journeys, but I am doing so with a new magic wand – one consisting of a thread of light that I hang onto as I venture into the inner darkness.

My magical and synchronous journey has repeatedly taken me spelunking into a daunting pitch-black cave. It is a cave that I desire to exit, but one in which my own divine inner light must illuminate the way.

There are obstacles along those dark corridors, the first being my beautiful, loving, and devoted mother. In order to pass by her, I must first find the courage and capacity to brightly shine my own inner light while standing in her metaphorical presence.

My mother was always doing the best she could. She trained me in the only way she knew how, doing so with deep devotion and love. There were indeed frequencies of beautiful unconditional love in her radiance, but as a tiny child, I was overwhelmed by the conditional frequencies that were dominant in my perception.

Each time I attempt to meditatively turn-on my beautiful inner light in her presence, I suddenly re-experience elements of the childhood pain, fear, lack of validation, sense of rejection, and anger that were all very real emotions to a tiny magical child whose own unique light was not understood or valued. Already, the healing is profound … but emotional charges continue to surface.

It is only five weeks later, as I finish this writing from a whole new perspective, that I begin to wonder if perhaps ego continues to masquerade as me and my inner children. Could it be that all of this is already healed – that this little child is indeed handing me a magical heart – that I can just turn on my inner light, fill myself with unconditional love, walk up and hug my mother in that cave, thank her for playing her beautiful role in my life, and then move on?

I am filled with wonder as I eagerly anticipate where the flow might take me next.

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

Note: this is part three, the final piece of a three-part story. If you have not yet read the other parts, you may want to read them first …

After what turns out to be a very unsatisfying sleep, I awaken on Christmas morning feeling that I did indeed receive some type of magical gift during my dreamtime. I intuitively know that something at an energetic level is quite different inside me, but rational mind is unable to put a finger on it – and I do not even try.

At 11:19 a.m., my apartment rattles quite forcefully for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds. Earthquakes are becoming so common lately that I do not even bother to look up the details for this one. I simply take it as a powerful metaphor, telling me that once again my world is being shaken up.

As I contemplate the option of heading out for a chocolate ceremony in just a few minutes, the fiery dragon of ego rears his ugly head, insisting that I do not want to go – instead demanding that perhaps I should just stay home and sulk today – or perhaps, better yet, I should pack my bags and get out of town for a short trip, one that might just become permanent.

I am back in the space of feeling like a frightened child who was just deeply invalidated by loving parents. I absolutely do not trust Keith right now. I have no desire to submit to any meditative journeys, and I continue to struggle with the doubt of whether I will ever again be able to trust him to help me.

More Light Please

I am quite proud of myself for even showing up on Keith’s porch. As I sit glumly on my pillow, waiting for the Christmas Day chocolate ceremony to begin, I ponder a few words that Keith had shared with me in the last couple of days.

“Brenda,” Keith had lovingly told me. “You need to balance your work with more light. In between going into the dark-shadow emotions, it is very important to also bring in the light and love to help you remain balanced. ”

I am puzzled by Keith’s guidance. I desperately want to bring in more light and loving energies, but I am following the flow of my being. My intense journey into dense emotions has been overwhelming in the last week. There is nothing I want more, than to bring more light into the flow of that journey – but I continue to stare down the throat of an invisible dragon that just will not permit me to allow the light to assist me. I am simply flowing with the river of my soul.

A Confusing Dilemma

As the chocolate ceremony begins, I again feel like a scared puppy hiding under the sofa. I do not want to make eye contact with anyone, especially Keith. I still see him as holding a huge stick. I do not trust him. My inner child (or is it ego?) continues to cower in fright, projecting that Keith has betrayed us, and that before we will allow him to help, we must first rebuild our trust.

It is a very confusing place to be. I remain quite empowered and confident in my assessment regarding what took place yesterday, yet I also remain quite stuck in the role of being a frightened and projecting child.

On the flip side, I do want to explore the ego angle of all of this, but I simply do not trust that anyone can possibly help me, especially not Keith.

Perfect Perceptions

“I don’t need to be right.” I lovingly reassure myself. “I don’t need Keith to agree with my perception of yesterday, of seeing it as a beautiful stage play.”

“In fact, if he did agree with me,” I ponder with clarity, “that very agreement might invalidate and discount the empowerment that I acquired. He would never have been so convincing in a projected parental role-play if he did not fully believe in what he was doing and saying.”

“Yes,” I further ponder, “everything was perfect yesterday. It had to happen exactly the way it did.”

Resistance Honored

At the start of the ceremony, Keith announces that since we are a small group who have all done ceremonies many times, that we are going to skip the glow meditation and jump straight into individual work.

“Brenda, how are you doing today?” Keith immediately turns to me.

“I really just want to hold space for others today,” I respond glumly. “I do not want to go into any emotions or do any processing of my own.”

What I do not say is that I am that frightened puppy, desperately wanting to simply observe and try to rebuild my trust. I need to observe Keith working with others. I need to restore confidence that he really is a caring man who is profoundly guided in inspired ways.

Keith honors my request, does not push, and quickly moves on. In not pushing me to perform, Keith has already taken a tiny step up in the ‘trustworthy’ category.

Inner Searching

“Well, let’s go around the circle in the other direction then.” Keith turns to the man seated on his right.

When this man expresses his desire for the glow meditation, Keith guides the entire group through our usual meditation of finding the inner smile in our heart, and letting it glow through every cell.

I am not glowing. I feel a certain amount of love and light, but remain deeply stuck. I observe myself as this scared and victimized puppy, still hiding and shaking under the sofa.

“Could this really be ego masquerading as my pain?” I begin to ponder. “Is ego really demanding that it must be heard and validated before it will allow me to continue forward – before it will allow the help that I want? Is ego attempting to derail my entire process?”

Building Trust

As Keith works his way around the porch, I continually ponder, while frequently congratulating myself for even having shown up today on this magical porch. Inner voices continue to protest that it is time for an extended break – time to consider a different path.

By the time Keith completes his first pass of individual work, he again asks how I am doing, but holds back somewhat, continuing to honor my request that I do not want him to focus on me.

“I am a frightened puppy, trying to build trust.” I respond briefly. “I’m still projecting, having a difficult time separating projections from reality, still feeling as I have been beaten by a stick.”

Slammed And Invalidated

A few minutes later, Keith turns and briefly checks in with me again.

“I’m trying to decide if my scared puppy is my little inner child,” I humbly admit, “or if perhaps it might really be ego.”

After quickly moving on to work with others, Keith soon looks back in my direction.

“How are you doing now, Brenda?” He asks.

“I am profoundly numb and stuck.” I respond glumly.

“You took back your power yesterday, and this is where it left you.” Keith quickly pushes my buttons. “Just what is your idea of empowerment?”

As I hear those words, a surge of anger punches me in my belly. I want to pick up my stuff right now and simply walk off the porch. In my perception, Keith just slammed and invalidated me, yet again. Yet I choose to remain seated, sitting with the anger while further contemplating Keith’s words.

Pulling Out The Stops

Finally, after an eternity of swirling in my anger, a new recognition surfaces in my awareness.

“If I am this upset and angry, lashing out in so much projection and judgment, then I really must be drowning in ego.”

“It is an offended ego that wants to lash out.” I further ponder. “My little inner child is happy and loving, and ego is the one trying to separate me from my teacher. Ego is terrified, and pulling out all the stops.”

Empowerment Equals Protection

Much later, as Keith has finished several rounds of individual work, he returns to his seat with a glow in his eyes, and looks around the porch with a huge grin.

“Anyone else?” He asks casually.

“Yeah,” I respond humbly, fully knowing that Keith is already aware of my need. “I am ready to do some work. I would love some help now.”

“My definition of empowerment seems to be a form of protection from the actions of others.” I begin to explain to Keith. “Empowerment seems to be my way of keeping myself from being hurt, of not allowing myself to be helped by those I see as unhealed healers or fixers, from people who might do me more harm than good. It is protection, protection, and more protection. Empowerment has turned into a form of ego survival.”

“My empowerment wall protects me from things that have hurt me in the past, but it also keeps out those things that I desperately want and need now.”

“Your last verbal jab really got to me.” I thank Keith. “The huge emotional charge that pounded in my chest gave me the power to recognize just what I was doing.”

Pure Unconditional Love

“I don’t know how to do this … to drop this wall.” I beg Keith for guidance. “I don’t know how to bring in the love. I am stuck … lost … and clueless.”

“Good.” Keith glows back at me with a huge grin.

“Look at her.” Keith points to a dear woman I have called Marie in a previous blog – a woman whom I have helped several times.

“She is sending you pure unconditional love.” Keith guides me. “Look at her and receive it … no conditions … no manipulation … no agenda … just pure love.”

I stare at Marie for a long while, and I feel her genuine love. I feel peace flowing in my soul.

Divine Motherly Love

“Brenda,” Keith resumes his guidance, “I want you to imagine that she is your mother … not the personality mother that couldn’t love you this way, but the higher divine essence of your mother. She is sending you the love that you deserved as a child … the mother’s love that was unconditional.”

Uncontrollable tears flow down my cheeks as I make continuous eye contact with this dear woman who represents my beautiful mother. Muffled whimpers frequently consume me.

I am feeling the profound validation that I have been so desperately seeking from outside of myself – from Keith and others. I know that this is the type of pure validation that can only come from a divine source. No one can give such validation to me. It comes from a direct connection to the truth of who I really am.

The tears grow increasingly stronger as Keith occasionally adds more loving guidance and insight – reinforcing what I am doing and experiencing – talking about the purity and unconditional nature of what I am feeling.

“You recognize this type of love.” Keith gently reminds me. “You DO know how to receive it.”

Radiant Love

“Your little child is receiving some of this love as well.” Keith shares his insights with me. “She is uncertain, hesitating somewhat, but she is indeed receiving some of this love.”

This process of beautiful loving vibration goes on for what feels like a very long time. At an appropriate moment, Keith invites the entire group to join into the process of sending love in my direction.

“Just ask your Higher Self to filter any energy that is not pure if something different comes your way.” Keith guides me.

I feel the group’s beautiful love. I am alive and radiant with this love, feeling powerful and peaceful.

Basking In The Glow

“Disconnect from Brenda.” Keith eventually instructs the group.

“Now bring in your own love, Brenda.” Keith guides me in a new direction. “You can bring in this unconditional love from any source that you choose.”

I embrace this process with pure loving power.

“Now fill with the love so fully that you overflow with this energy.” Keith continues.

I bask in this loving glow for a very long time.

Leap-Frog Light

“Brenda, in no way does this invalidate that little girl’s pain, which was very real.” Keith begins to share beautiful validating feedback with me.

“In no way does this make you wrong for going into all of the profound emotional release that you have been doing.” Keith continues. “In no way does this question your absolute dedication to the process of clearing out your densities.”

“But as we said yesterday,” Keith refers to a recently-used metaphor, “there needs to be a leapfrog balance in your process, one of bringing in more light after working with emotional densities, one of using that light to work with the densities.”

Recently, Keith has used this leapfrog metaphor several times with others – a metaphor of a childhood game where participants take turns hopping over each other like a frog. In this case, Keith encourages me to be sure to take a hop with the light after each hop with the densities.

Fear Of Fixing

“But when I bring in light, it confuses me when that actually triggers the recognition of more profound sadness.” I share a confusing example. “Like last Tuesday during the yoga retreat when I was literally overwhelmed by unbelievable reservoirs of sadness. When I brought in more light, the sad emotions became so powerful that I got lost in them – that I could not find my own way out.”

“Do I need to resist that emotion so I can stay in the light?” I beg for clarity.

“No,” Keith responds gently, “you need to go into that emotion, but you need to do so with the light as a partner on the way into it.”

“I think I have been so dedicated to going into the emotion the old way that I get trapped in it.” I express new clarity to Keith. “By that time, I am so lost that I am unable to connect with the light. Instead, I find myself ‘flipping the light off’ with middle-fingered rebellion, feeling like it is now my duty to feel this pain to the bottom, all by myself.”

“I am partially fearful that if I hold hands with the light on the way in,” I express new understanding, “that the light will fix me, that it will invalidate and take away from my release process. From now on, however, I will try to trust the light more as I take it into the densities with me.”

A Glowing Soul

Keith again provides much needed verbal validation of my process and dedication.

“You continue to do amazingly well in recognizing and working with ego, etc…” Keith congratulates me. “Just use the light. Take it with you into the sadness. Balance yourself. If you need to, put the pain on hold sometimes so that you can balance yourself before diving into the densities.”

I feel as if my whole soul is glowing right now – glowing in loving vibrations and profound peace.

In The Wake

Soon another group member launches into a process of profound connection to higher energies. As I watch and hold loving space, I begin to feel a great deal of energy activity at the front of my crown chakra. Then, the strong sensation of a painful energy blockage in my third-eye chakra startles me.

“I get the feeling that more of this sixth chakra wants to open,” I share my intuitions with Keith, “and that the pain is telling me that I continue to harbor a great deal of resistance.

“You are following in his wake.” Keith reassures me while referring to the man now doing work on the porch. “Just keep allowing with no attachment about the pain, without judging what the experience should or should not be.”

A Lesson In Manifestation

“Keith,” I later ask for additional understanding, “I know I cannot push my process, but is it OK for me to manifest or intend something that will help me go through the process with more ease, elegance, and grace?”

Keith soon helps me come up with the wording to a beautiful intention that I then put out into the Universe.

“I intend that I will get all of the beautiful lessons that I want to learn from this process … and I intend that I can do it as easily and elegantly as possible.”

“This takes the pressure off of the third-eye needing to perform in an expected way,” Keith guides. “It involves no manipulation on your part, and puts your loving intention out there.”

“Your job now,” Keith continues, “Is to observe, allow, and follow any inner guidance that may or may not come – having no expectations.”

Trusting The Flow

After forty-five minutes of peacefully observing the unusual energy movements that I feel in my forehead, darkness is approaching and I have a hunch that I want to go home while others are still in their own processes.

“If I leave now, will this interrupt my progress?” I ask Keith for advice.

“Whatever you want and believe is exactly what will happen.” Keith counsels me. “You have said ‘yes’ to this process. If it stops tonight, it will continue again in the future, because this is part of your flow.”

As I slowly dance my way home, I continue to feel forehead energies moving around, still being met with some pulsing pain and resistance in my third-eye chakra. I trust that all is well, that all will continue in beautiful synchronous ways, exactly on time.

Intuitively, I feel that this continued blockage in my third-eye chakra is related to the pain and resistance of a tiny child that remains somewhat afraid to open up to “love that hurts.”

An Amazing Gift

After a quick meal of rice and beans, I revel in a quiet evening of continued meditation, peaceful relaxation, and a delightful energy of beautiful unconditional love.

I cannot think of a more beautiful way to finish off what has turned out to be an amazing Christmas Day – a Christmas gift that will forever bless my life.

A Chattering Boat Ride

Early Monday morning, I find myself in a 7:30 a.m. boat, speeding across the lake to run errands in Panajachel.

While sitting on a hard fiberglass bench, splashing across the smooth glassy waters of Lake Atitlan (as they often are at this time of the morning), I begin to replay recent loving events in my mind.

Suddenly, to my dismay, the loving peace is interrupted by additional ego stories that are sprouting in my head, begging for listening ears. Immediately, I focus on bringing in love to keep those crazy stories from germinating. But the mind chatter is persistent, coming in slow waves. Each time that I focus on more love, the mind soon counters with another story of: “But wait … this shouldn’t have happened … that … he … it … blah blah blah”

A Magical Message

About five minutes after withdrawing cash at the bank, I am walking up the main shopping street in Panajachel. Again, waves of mind-chatter are attempting to pull me back into ego judgments.

Suddenly, as I intuitively glance up, I notice something shiny and glimmering, falling out of a calm, windless, cloudless, deep-blue sky. As I continue taking a step or two further ahead, I gently extend my hand. To my absolute surprise, the shimmering message lands effortlessly in the palm of my right hand.

Tears begin to form in my eyes as I examine the synchronous message – a metaphorical message magically delivered by my little inner child.

In my hand, I hold a very unusual seed – a type that I have never before seen. I am walking along an asphalt street surrounded by concrete and block shops and restaurants. There are no trees nearby.

The seed is encased in a natural transparent film that glimmers like a crystal, the shiny film being perhaps about one inch across and a half inch in the other dimension. Directly in the middle of the transparent film, as if it had been laminated in plastic, is a small cream-colored heart-shaped seed, perhaps three-eights of an inch across. In the center of this heart-shape is another darker tan-colored heart.

A Seed Of Love

As a few joyful tears begin to drip down my cheeks, I look for a place to sit and contemplate, and I soon spy a bench across the street, in front of a small western market. As I sit in meditative glow, I allow the tears to trickle while feeling the love of a magical little girl radiating joyfully in my heart. All former signs of mind chatter have evaporated.

I feel guided back to a time, perhaps thirty-six hours ago, when I sat on Keith’s porch in frustrated and rebellious meditation – a time when I suddenly visualized a happy little inner child reaching her hand through an opening in a basket, holding out a tiny little heart for me to share.

Her message to me then was that she is no longer a victim – that she is happy and loving, that she loves me unconditionally. Her message to me now is one of profound and amazing synchronicity – a message that this entire journey of the last few days has indeed been a beautiful synchronous setup to help me find the birth of a new type of love – a love that comes from divine sources – a love that needs no outside validation – a love that shines and glimmers without condition or control.

And to have this message come in the form of a seed! How beautiful is that! This new seed is tiny, but if planted, watered, given proper amounts of divine light, and nurtured – this seed will continue to grow beyond my wildest imagination.

Magical Giggles

To make the day even more magical, as I return to San Marcos shortly after 1:00 p.m., I find a small note stuck in the handle of my patio door.

A Mayan family has come down from the mountains to visit Keith. The extended family, including two Mayan Shaman (Priestess) women, their parents, siblings, and children, are all over at Keith’s porch – drinking chocolate – and I have been invited to join them.

To my further delight, as I prepare to rush out of my door on my way to visit them, I encounter this large Mayan family walking up my outside steps. The children giggle and run to hug me, as do many of the adults that I dearly love. I visited this amazing family a few times last year, having built a magical connection with the children.

It seems that several of the adults, and all of the children, have never before been on a boat ride.

A Fluffy Feather Pillow

Ten minutes later, over fifteen of us are crowding onto a public lancha (boat) headed for the nearby town of San Pedro. Two of the young boys nervously ask me “Is this going to be scary?” I simply smile and reassure them that it will be a lot of fun.

I almost have to eat my words when strong headwinds come up, bouncing the boat and splashing persistent spray in our direction.

After a delightful stroll through San Pedro, we all crowd onto another lancha, return across equally bumpy and wet waters, and enjoy a yummy traditional Mayan meal at Keith’s house.

I begin to panic as I realize that there is a strong possibility that this large family might want to spend the night at my apartment – as nine of them did one time last spring. I loved that experience, but tonight I am exhausted, wanting to retire early, to simply crash – and tomorrow morning I am off to participate in yet another early-morning private chocolate ceremony across the lake.

I am quite relieved when they decide to return to their home in the mountains, just a few hours away. It has been a beautiful day after an incredibly difficult journey of profound and deep emotional processing – but as happy as I now feel, I have no extra energy for entertaining others.

My fluffy feather pillow never felt so good.

Unexpected Closure

Yesterday, as I wrote “A Dragon Quest, Part 2” I continued to feel quite unsure of myself regarding the discrepancies between how I perceived my own experiences on that Christmas Eve that seems like lifetimes ago – and how I believed that Keith still perceived them. In a very real way, I remained quite concerned that I was “just not getting it” – still missing a huge puzzle piece of understanding.

Through an unexpected synchronicity, I needed to run out to Keith’s house at noon to deliver a small message for a friend. That quick trip magically turned into a half hour of Spanish translation for someone with whom Keith was talking, followed by an impromptu discussion about my difficult writing task for the day.

I was thrilled when Keith shared his perspectives with me – feeling absolutely delighted to discover that he could see the beautiful wisdom in how that experience unfolded in the multi-layer way that it did. All of these weeks, I had still believed myself to be defying Keith in my deep claim that the experience had served as a profound role-play with my projected parents.

Keith lovingly reassures me that, even though he was not knowingly role-playing, that he clearly sees how that experience profoundly served me as a role-play with childhood parents – and lovingly acknowledges that it is now quite clear that everything unfolded in my process perfectly, exactly the way I needed it to happen for my growth. Keith reminds me that he always just follows the flow of inner guidance. Quite commonly, he has no idea where that guidance might be leading.

I glow as this deep understanding settles in. During that crazy Christmas Eve afternoon, I did indeed experience two completely different realities. I profoundly relived the reality of how I felt as a little child, when lovingly invalidated through the counsel of well-meaning parents – AND – I profoundly experienced the reality of an adult ego who was continuing to use the need for validation and empowerment as a mechanism to block the very love I so deeply desire. Both realities were true.

Puff The Magic Dragon

Shortly before Christmas, I synchronously stumbled onto a YouTube video of “Peter, Paul, and Mary” singing “Puff the Magic Dragon.” At the time, I intuitively knew this song needed to be integrated into my blog, but I had no idea how or when that opportunity would present itself. It seems that the opportunity is now.

Even though, as a child, I never really focused on the meaning of the beautiful words, this special children’s song has always opened up a special place in my heart. Today, however, those words touch me with profound and deep meaning.

The lyrics were based on a 1959 poem by Leonard Lipton – words that Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, and Paul Stookey then added to music and recorded in 1962. The song reached number two on the charts in 1963, when I was eight years old – the very year that the final portions of my own magic were snuffed out – the year when a young neighbor boy named “Brad” told me that Santa Claus was not real.

Quite the interesting synchronicities!

Over the years, many have speculated that the song was referring to marijuana, but Peter Yarrow has frequently explained that the song has nothing to do with drugs, that it deals with the hardships of children growing older, and the “loss of innocence in children”.

To me, the song is a profound reminder of how the magic in our childhood is gradually snuffed out and forgotten, eventually being replaced by a world of adult conditioning and responsibilities.

Following are the words to this beautiful song:

Puff the Magic Dragon
Words by: Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow
Performed by: Peter, Paul and Mary

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff, oh

[chorus:]
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff’s gigantic tail
Noble kings and princes would bow when’re they came
Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name, oh

[chorus]

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys
One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane
Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave
So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave, oh

[chorus]

Dragons Everywhere

It seems that I suddenly find myself surrounded by dragon metaphors. First, a dear friend compares my journey to that of going through a gate, knowing that a dragon guards the other side, but being more interested in my journey than in protecting myself from the dragon.

Second, one of my favorite childhood songs, “Puff the Magic Dragon”, drifts into my consciousness – it is a beautiful song about a young boy losing his magic and moving into an adult world.

Then, just eight days ago, at midnight on January 23, 2012, Chinese New Year celebrations around the world ushered in the “Year of the Dragon”.

While western cultures often think of dragons as frightening fire-breathing creatures, I find it fascinating that many eastern cultures, including the Chinese, view the dragon as having profound magical and spiritual significance.

After a six-day journey with what felt-like fire-breathing inner dragons, I clearly see that those scary dragons were simply layers of fears that blocked me from being able to feel and experience the awareness of the real spiritual magic hidden underneath.

My journey is not a quest to overcome evil dragons – it is not a journey with a final destination – but it is instead a grand adventure that continually grows ever more magical and spiritually satisfying.

I cannot wait to see what magic unfolds next.

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

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

Anxiety and fear pulse in my veins as I contemplate going back in time to write about emotionally traumatizing experiences from Christmas Eve. As I sit with my laptop on my daybed, I feel an imaginary dragon towering above my head – a frightening dragon so close that the heat of his disgustingly smelly breath nearly singes the hairs on the back of my neck.

“How can I possibly capture the events of that crazy afternoon without distorting them … without making me sound crazy … without giving people a negative opinion of Keith?” I ponder. “Even now, as I review my notes and re-experience the emotions of that day, just over five weeks ago, I do not yet even fully understand what actually happened … and an emotional charge continues to thump away in my solar plexus.”

“The only way to do it,” my heart responds, “is to describe the events exactly as I perceived them on that day – through my own confused eyes. Further understanding will unfold only through this writing and integration process.”

A Subtle Refusal

Shortly before 3:00 p.m., on an emotional Christmas Eve that feels nothing like Christmas, I engage in a long, slow, depressing stroll out to Keith’s porch. I do not feel understood by my teacher. In fact, I feel like a frightened and wounded child, desperately craving an opportunity to be heard, to feel validated in my struggles, to simply do things my way – just this once. My biggest fear is that my needs will be rejected, brushed away, and ignored.

I have asked my friend, a woman I am calling Susan, to join us in my chat with Keith. I want to do some deep emotional processing, a type of experiential processing that I trust, and I want to do it with real, physical, “stand in” parents. I love Susan so much. I know she will be a beautiful part of my process.

As I near Keith’s house, I again review the beautiful words Keith had written in his email response to my request for a private session. As kind as his words are, I interpret them as a subtle refusal to honor my feelings. Following are those words:

“I feel for you. I am listening and hearing … however your need to be in control of the situation is quite strong. It isn’t mind not allowing. It can’t be fixed at that level as it is not on that level. So do come over and talk. Perhaps we can take a walk into the place where these issues are.”

Wishful Thinking

I am excited as I begin to share my tediously-obtained overnight inspirations with Keith and Susan. I quickly explain how I have identified a profound mental loop that keeps me trapped, a loop that says:

“I will not allow help from higher energies until I understand.
I will not understand until I have the actual experience.
I will not have the actual experience until I allow the help.”

“Please, Keith.” I beg Keith while verbally explaining these insights. “Please just help me understand at the only level that I fully trust right now – at the level of my mind. Then maybe I can move beyond this loop, getting my mind out of the way so I can actually move deeper into the experiences I need and crave.”

A Painful Standoff

After a brief rational-mind level conversation – one in which I lead the way – I explain my desire to do an experiential emotional release process – a process to give my little inner child a voice – a process in which I can finally express my repressed and never-publicly-expressed emotions in a powerful way – a process in which Keith and Susan would simply listen and hold space as my proxy parents.

“Brenda,” Keith firmly shares a strong counter opinion. “The voice you want to express is not that of your little child, but is one of ego, masquerading as that child. Such a process will not lead to the love you seek.”

I vehemently disagree with Keith, trying to explain that I have done and participated in such processes hundreds of times. Just as in any emotional release process, I know that such wounded-child voices, when expressed, are not the real truth – that they are the “truth with a lowercase-t.” I know such painful voices originate from ego, but my profound long-term experience is that until those repressed pains are released and expressed, that those deceptive ego lies remain hidden inside.

A Question Of Empowerment

“Once those voices are expressed,” I try to explain to Keith, “then I will have space inside to bring in the loving “Truth with a capital T” that I desire.”

“I have seen such processes before.” Keith strongly warns me. “And my experience with them is that they simply further empower the ego.”

I know that Keith has never seen such processes done in the way that I was taught by an inspired and intuitive therapist. Whenever I have done them, I always come away with another emotional layer being deeply healed, and filled with pure love.

Yes, I have to admit that I have seen a person or two walk away from such processes with a more empowered ego – one that had an “F-you” attitude toward people who might try to re-victimize them – but that is not what I want to do.

I have repeatedly experienced absolute proof that my type of process usually results in genuine release and pure loving growth. I feel devastated that Keith will not trust and respect my experience in this matter.

Patronized And Defiant

“I feel that engaging in such a process is definitely an expression of ego.” Keith again insists. “But let’s go ahead and do it if you still want to. Then we will see over the next couple of weeks how the love opens up.”

I feel deeply patronized by my teacher’s statement. In my current state of mind, I interpret his words as saying “Since you feel so strongly, I’ll let you mess things up. Then, in a couple of weeks, when you can finally see the error of your ways, you can come crawling back to me and I will help you do it the right way.”

I want to scream in defiance, but instead, I simply pout. My heart pounds in rebellion. I feel deeply misunderstood, not heard, manipulatively invalidated, and absolutely shocked. It seems that I can say nothing right – that all of my desires are being made wrong.

An Unknowing Role-Play

“This is exactly what happened to me as a child.” I speak back to Keith. “My parents would not hear me, and they would not validate my feelings, they would not allow me do things my way – instead they lovingly smothered me with their all-knowing version of the truth.”

“You’re just role-playing with me again, aren’t you?” I beg Keith for clarity. “You’re just participating in this craziness to show me how I felt as a child.”

“No, Brenda,” Keith shocks me with his seriousness. “We are not role-playing. This is real, and I am just trying to help you.”

To make matters worse, Keith turns to my friend Susan and asks her to express what she is observing and perceiving. To my shock, she fully agrees with Keith’s assessment.

This experience is so profound and bizarre that I continue to believe it to be an elaborate setup – a stage play recreation orchestrated at a higher dimensional level, even beyond Keith’s awareness. If Keith were to acknowledge awareness of this, I know it would diminish the effectiveness of what is happening.

Keith and Susan are literally doing to me what my parents did to me. They are playing the role of loving parents who are absolutely convinced that they know what is best for me. I feel like a powerless little child, sitting in front of my real parents. They are condescending and invalidating my genuine heart, telling me that I am wrong, when I know I am right, telling me that I am confused and need to just listen to them and do things their way.

Confusion And Doubt

“Close your eyes, Brenda.” Keith guides me into meditation. “Find a basket and let me know what is inside it.”

By now, I am quite shutdown and meditation is the last thing I want to do. I want to talk. I want to be understood. I do not trust my ability to connect with anything at the subconscious level. But realizing that this session is not going to proceed in the way I want – that my wishes will not be met – I surrender and attempt to trust, hoping for some type of positive outcome.

Immediately, confusion and doubt consume me. I cannot meditatively see or feel a basket, or anything in it.

Shut Up And Listen

“If you can tell me that your statement about me being in ‘ego’ is coming out of divine guidance then I will trust and submit to your way of working.” I express my genuine doubt and fear to Keith.

I desperately want what my little child never had. I want the right to doubt the “truth” of my parents, to have my own feelings, without being invalidated and made wrong.

“I am doing things the way I have always done them.” Keith responds.

In reality, Keith is reassuring me that his guidance is every bit as powerful as it has always been, but to my little child, this feels like an answer telling me, “No, I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear, I’m not going to tell you how I know what I know … now just shut up and listen to me and trust me because I’m trying to help you.”

“Why can’t you just tell me what I need to hear so I can have the confidence I need to back down from my resistance and allow myself to listen to you?” I beg Keith.

A Freudian Slip

“Brenda,” Keith then further infuriates me. “That last statement was totally from ego.”

Keith goes on to explain that the very words ‘backing down’ came from me speaking as ego, indicating that ego feels cornered and is lashing out.

“Keith,” I reply with frustration, “You are twisting my words to mean something that was completely different than what I genuinely wanted to communicate. Why won’t you believe me?”

“That Freudian slip was real.” Keith insists. “It may not have been your intent, but it is exactly what came out of your mouth.”

No matter how I attempt to convince Keith otherwise, he insists that my words are proof that ego is running the show here – that ego is lurking in the shadows behind my words.

A Loving Heart?

The fact that Keith is being so loving and gentle with me only serves to drive me crazy.

He is behaving so like my kind and wonderful parents. They were so skilled at lovingly correcting my folly, at invalidating my attempts to stray from their guidance with a condescending hug, at respectfully telling me to quit resisting and to simply comply with their wishes – with their version of God’s truth. Of course, they knew their job was to train me to ignore my natural instincts and to follow them – and of course, it was all for my own good. I was only a tiny child. What could I possibly know?

From my perspective, I feel as if Keith challenges everything I try to say, confounding me, pointing out that everything I say in disagreement with him is coming from ego, sternly warning me that I am going down the wrong path.

“Everything you are doing and saying only further proves to me that your negative ego is fighting for survival.” Keith lovingly pokes me.

“My heart wants to say F#ck you Keith.” I share my deep frustration.

“Your heart would never do that.” Keith responds with a loving smile.

I do have to agree, that such angry swear words do not come from a loving heart, yet once again, I feel as if Keith is twisting every word that comes out of my mouth and turning it around to confuse and invalidate me. I feel so much like a child being lovingly reprimanded by devoted parents.

Pressure And Coercion

Finally, I submit to Keith’s request to again close my eyes and attempt a previously requested meditation into the subconscious – one where I am supposed to find a basket.

I fight intense emotional resistance and huge doubts as I attempt to comply. I know that what I am experiencing is exactly how I felt as a child being raised in a loving home. In the midst of this swirling mental confusion, I cannot find any meditative clarity.

“As a child, my mind was so confused and resistant to well-meaning adults who could not listen to my heart, that I was unable to find any type of inner stillness and peace.” I ponder with increasing clarity.

As I search my feelings, attempting to find this metaphorical basket, the only thing I feel at this very moment is unwanted pressure and coercion from someone in authority who is supposed to be my teacher.

A Mysterious Newspaper

I struggle, but cannot visualize anything. Finally, a single word pops into my mind out of nowhere – the word “newspaper.”

Feeling pressured to perform, I finally blurt out, “I’m getting a very weak thought of a newspaper in the basket … but I have no confidence whatsoever.”

I do not believe what I am saying. I literally feel like a confused child simply trying to please my parents so that they will back off and leave me alone.

“What is printed on that newspaper?” Keith pushes me to go deeper.

“I don’t know.” I respond in frustration. “I can’t focus. I can’t see it. You’re just pressuring me to perform, twisting my words against me, and not believing what I tell you.”

Keith reassures me that he is only following my energy, and pointing out inconsistent things that I say. To my dismay, my dear friend Susan agrees. As for me, I feel profoundly manipulated and invalidated.

Moving On

“What is your opinion of newspapers?” Keith guides with a different twist. “What do you think of what newspapers print?”

“In the world today,” I respond easily, “I believe that much of what is printed in our media is trumped up ego dogma, lies and distorted truths, societal conditioning that those in power and control want the masses to read and believe.”

“Look at the newspaper again,” Keith lovingly pushes, “and see if you can tell me what the headline says.”

I still feel incapable of visualizing or meditating, but finally a frustrated idea pops into my head.

“Brenda Larsen once again learns that her teacher will not help her, and she hits the road to find another path.” I blurt out in rebellion.

Somewhere Productive

“That headline sounds like trumped up ego dogma to me.” Keith again calmly points out that ego is directing my show.

“You’re being deceived by ego,” Keith gently warns me. “You are heading down the harder path.”

“Now find another headline.” Keith encourages me. “Tell me what it says.”

“Ego Exposed.” I finally blurt out after a very long pause filled with resistance and emotional confusion.

I feel as if I am making all of these answers up out of thin air and I continue to see what is occurring as an incredibly frustrating role-play. I have too much experience in working with Keith to walk away now. A powerful part of me encourages me to keep going, reminding me that all of this is leading to somewhere productive.

My Prime Directive

I again express my frustration and inability to meditate while I am steeped in these intense rebellious emotions – but Keith does not stop, continuing to push me into further meditation.

I am so utterly confused that I feel as if I am a frightened puppy hiding under the sofa, and that Keith is lovingly beating me with a big stick to get me to come out. This metaphor is one that Keith often uses as an example of what NOT to do with our fears – yet part of me feels deeply frightened and attacked right now, seeing Keith as the stick holder.

“Find something else in the basket.” Keith gently nudges yet again. “Perhaps it is a door that needs to be opened, or something that your inner child wants to give to you.”

“I am connected to your inner child,” Keith surprises me with his next words, “and she is in a very different place than you think she is. She doesn’t need to do any emotional release at all … in fact she is very happy and loving.”

My strongest prime directive rule is now being directly violated. I perceive that an authority figure (Keith) is telling me that my genuine perception of my inner child is wrong – implying that I need to invalidate what I believe and feel, and that I instead need to simply trust his guidance.

“Surely, this has got to be a bizarre role-play.” I silently beg for some thread of sanity onto which I might cling.

A Crystal Heart

“Now connect to that little girl in meditation.” Keith again guides me amidst my continued distraction and confusion.

To my bewildering surprise, as I continue what are futile and frustrating attempts to meditate – to comply with Keith’s instructions – I intuitively experience something quite unexpected.

“I feel a small hand holding a tiny crystal-like heart through a small opening in the basket.” I humbly share with Keith.

“What does that mean to you?” Keith queries.

“Love … trust … innocence …” I reply.

I do indeed feel this heart very strongly in the meditation … yet a part of me insists that I am still fabricating “right answers” based on logic – trying to tell Keith what he wants to hear – feeling pressured to perform. Behind what I see as his mask of calm and guiding love, I perceive Keith as trying to drag me to where he thinks I should go. I want to go somewhere else, and he refuses to follow me in that direction.

A Masquerading Ego

“I know I am projecting big time.” I respond to Keith in agonizing frustration. “I know this is all a lie … but today I am perceiving you both as my parents … literally shutting me down … refusing to hear me … lovingly slamming my version of the truth and trying to coerce me into embracing your version of truth. This is all so clear to me. I am trying to believe you … trying to see it your way … to see that this is an ego lie.

“But I am projecting my parents onto you so strongly that I am unable to move beyond this lie right now.” I beg Keith to stop pushing. “I cannot meditate.”

“Your little child is loving and peaceful now.” Keith reassures me. “What you came in here wanting to process today is actually an ego projection.”

Keith goes on to lovingly explain that ego has been masquerading as my dear sweet inner child, trying to convince me that my little child is continuing to suffer, but that she actually is, in fact, quite loving and happy.

Keith adds that as a child, like most children do, I internalized all of the adult conditioning energy of my parents, taking it all inside of me – that as I grew up, I then took over the role of rule-enforcer, becoming my own judgmental inner parent. He also adds that I used my empath abilities to absorb much of this adult conditioning.

Five weeks later, as I write and integrate, it now seems so clear that this ego-conditioned-parent part of me is frightened to see a magical little child starting to wake up. This ego is in survival mode, doing anything and everything it can to shut me back down.

No Joke

To my comfort and delight, Keith’s non-emotional rational discussion of ego actually settles me greatly. Just talking about the emotions from this mind-level is what I really wanted all along.

As I breathe a sigh of momentarily relief, I express that I still feel like this whole scenario today is a huge joke-like role-play setup to show me the truth of what happened to me as a child – a child who was raised by wonderful loving parents – a child that was turned into a mini-me parent in the citizen factory of life.

But as Keith responds, I sink back into surprised shock.

Keith insists that this is no role-play, that there is no joke being played – that I am wrong – that right now I am on very dangerous ground, on the edge of losing myself in ego.

I again reel back in frustration when Keith further twists many of my own words around to show me how I have actually agreed with him that I am deeply and dangerously stuck in ego.

Word Dancing

“Keith,” I beg, “I am teetering on the edge of emotional insanity … I need guidance … I want guidance … but I also need validating, to be heard, and to be understood … I need something from you that will help me trust that all this is actually taking me somewhere productive.”

In his response, Keith dances around his words, skillfully pointing out my ego while consistently avoiding any words that would validate my need for validation. I feel frustrated and betrayed by what I perceive as Keith’s refusal to validate my feelings – when in reality he is refusing to validate ego.

Repeatedly I express my dear love for both Keith and my friend Susan. Over and over I apologize for how deeply I am projecting my parents onto them.

“I feel like my projections are a profoundly real experience that is being given to me to show me how things really were for me as a child.” I again share with confidence. “I am seeing how hopeless I felt as a child, trying to defend my genuine knowing heart around loving parents, while repeatedly being badgered to deny my own truth, to simply give up and embrace their version of truth.”

The End Of My Rope

“Close your eyes and sit down next to that big fat ego lie.” Keith tries to guide me back into meditation.

“I know that I am projecting,” I respond to Keith in frustration. “I know I am dealing with ego, but I am absolutely unable to meditate right now. I feel so victimized and overwhelmed by emotions right now that I cannot focus.”

“I know I will be able to center myself, to pull myself back to the loving truth,” I beg Keith to please back off, “but I absolutely cannot do it right now in your presence. I need more time, and I need some alone space, since I am projecting so strongly onto YOU.”

“Brenda,” Keith does not take ‘no’ for an answer, “go connect with your little girl (in meditation) and make fun of those big lies while she is standing there next to you, … jump up and down, flap your arms around, make goofy faces, stick your tongue out and make blubbering sounds, whatever … help her to expose the lies for what they are. Bring yourself back to the truth.”

I feel even more frustrated, like I am being pushed in a direction that is simply impossible for me to go, given my present emotional state. I am at the end of my rope.

A Profound Gift

“Please humor me,” Keith nudges, “go into meditation. Ask that little girl to expose the lie for you. She will do it.”

I close my eyes for about ten minutes while nearby fireworks blast away near the center of San Marcos. Gradually, I begin to relax as inner peace begins to spread.

The more peace that I achieve, the more my heart declares that my intuitions are right – that this has all been an elaborate stage play – that Keith and Susan may not be “in the know” regarding what is going on with me – but that they have indeed been unknowingly role-playing for me in a very profound way.

As I look back on my behavior throughout our four-hour session – a session in which my friends have done nothing but try to lovingly guide me – I see how vulnerable and genuine I have been, struggling to understand and to be cooperative, confused at why no one will validate my feelings, and desperately attempting to comply with their wishes while consistently feeling that my own words are twisted and used against me.

“I have been given a profound gift today,” I ponder. “In a fantastically created stage play on my little child’s behalf, I have re-experienced firsthand how helpless, frustrated, and powerless that I felt while trying to explain and defend my innocent and genuine heart to dedicated parents who loved me very much.”

Thanks But No Thanks

When I explain the deep peaceful insights of my final meditation to Keith, my heart resonates with confidence and power. I am almost giggling as I feel new hope beginning to form inside – new joy bubbling in my heart.

“You are going off into dangerous ego territory.” Keith immediately warns me. “This is not real peace, it is ego’s peace. What you are doing will only deceive and delay your progress.”

“I totally understand how ego has played a huge role in the session today.” I confidently respond to Keith. “I have learned a great deal from our discussions. I believe that my little inner child really is loving and peaceful – that I have been playing the domineering parent role for that child, doing so from a space of ego – that I have been projecting onto that child.”

“But I now feel deeply and lovingly empowered from this whole experience.” I defend my feelings. “This has been profound for me. This whole experience is exactly what I wanted today. It has not happened in the way I expected, but my little inner child has now regained much of her power. She is now confident and trusting of her own genuine truth … she is able to say thanks but no thanks to the truth of her parents.”

Standing By

A profound awkwardness permeates the air as Keith again warns me of how I am in very dangerous territory with ego – at grave risk of going off course and getting permanently lost in ego traps.

“Keith, I believe that you are now projecting your own past experience and frustration onto me.” I respond firmly and confidently to my teacher. “I believe that you and Susan have unknowingly played into what I needed today, and that you are now lost in your own roles as my projected parents. I am quite clear that I was shown exactly what happened to me as a child.”

“I have never been more clear than I am now regarding how loving and genuine that I was as a child, that I was “crazy made” to deny my own feelings and to believe that I was wrong, that I grew to be so confused that I finally gave up and just went along with the crowd.”

“I stand by my experience.” I share with Keith. “It has been extremely profound for me to empower that genuine inner child in a loving way – not in further entrenching her with ego victim pain, but in empowering her to know the genuine loving truth of who she really was, and the conditioning through which she actually passed. I would not take this experience back for anything.”

“You came here wanting to do an experiential role-play with your parents so that you could take back your power.” My dear friend Susan smiles and congratulates me. “It looks like you got your wish after all.”

A Complete Jerk

A new round of awkwardness suddenly overwhelms my heart.

It is now 7:15 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and Keith’s incredible worker and my dear friend, Isaias, has invited three people to join him at a Christmas Eve family gathering in the home of an extended family member – a gathering that starts in just a few minutes at 7:30 p.m..

As fate would have it, those three invited people are Keith, myself, and my friend Susan. I have just spent over four hours in painfully projecting my parents onto these dear friends. I have just stood up and confidently defied Keith’s dire warnings and told him that I am taking back my power – that I believe him to be wrong about today – that I believe my perceptive experience to be the one that I needed – and that he is the one who is now projecting onto me.

I know this experience to have been a profound role-play for me, but the fact that my friends continue to disagree with my genuine perception leaves me wondering if I will ever be able to fully trust and/or work with Keith again.

“I feel like a complete jerk.” I express to Keith as I give him a quick hug. “I am not really sure if I am emotionally capable of being around you socially right now.”

“Of course we can still be social,” Keith responds with pure love. “I don’t take any of this personally.”

Love And Peace

As I run home for a quick change of clothes, I know that Keith believes the warnings he gave me – telling me I am in dangerous territory with ego.

“Perhaps that is true.” I ponder with genuine sincerity. “But if it is true, the issue will definitely come up again on another day. I can let this go for now because my empowered growth today was quite profound – exactly what I needed.”

Of one thing, I am deeply clear. I was projecting my parents all over Keith and Susan … and they are both fully aware that I know I was only projecting. I fear for our friendships because I deeply love both of my dear friends. In spite of my projections and angry defenses, Keith remained totally loving and transparent (non-attached) throughout the afternoon. We may strongly disagree regarding what happened, and what my lesson was – but there remains ample unconditional love to share on this beautiful Christmas Eve.

As I face my fears and share in a delightful Christmas Eve evening with Isaias’s beautiful extended family, it is indeed an evening filled with love and peace.

Facing Dragons

As I drift off to sleep, shortly before midnight, wondering if Santa Claus might bring me new spiritual gifts, I am nervously wound up in knots.

Today I faced the dragon of childhood confusion and powerlessness. In the face of overwhelming love-based pressure from my dear friends, I found the courage to stand up for the trust of my own inner knowing – to take back that power which was not given to me as a child.

But in order to do this, I had to stand up and lovingly defy the advice of people I deeply love and trust. I confronted the projected face of my loving parents and reclaimed my ability to have a genuine and personal inner connection to the divine – one that is quite different from what they wished me to embrace – one that they sternly warned me against embracing.

As I sink into dreamland, I experience profound peace and confidence that I am indeed on the right path … yet I experience crazy doubts about whether I will ever again be able to do inner work with Keith.

In this confusing moment, I continue to project my parents onto Keith. I continue to view him through a childhood filter – as being someone who wants to simply push me along into his version of the truth without validating the fears and needs of my genuine heart.

And then there is that other fearsome dragon – the dragon of ego. I know he continues to lurk in the shadows, continuing to deceptively run portions of my show. This dreaded dragon is insisting that I can never again trust Keith to assist me with inner work. He is very close to getting me to pack my bags, to skip the chocolate ceremony tomorrow, to follow that daunting headline reading:

“Brenda Larsen once again learns that her teacher will not help her, and she hits the road to find another path.

… to be continued …

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

I remain in a state of semi-shock. Last night was grueling and exhausting. The unexpected surfacing of toxic anger had caught me completely off guard. Much of the boiling pressure has been drained away using meridian pressure points – but the vastness of this buried reservoir of childhood emotion continues to frighten and astound me.

I faced a dragon last night, and now I am about to burst through another unknown gate on a new quest of self-exploration. As I sit quietly on Keith’s magical porch, awaiting the beginning of a Friday afternoon chocolate ceremony, on the day before Christmas Eve, I nervously ponder just what type of new dragon now awaits me in the shadows.

An Unusual Message

“Brenda,” Keith shares with me even before beginning the glow meditation, “I am being guided to tell you that there is some very sweet energy waiting for you if you can just receive it today.”

Smiling at this unusual pre-ceremony guidance, I immediately close my eyes in meditation, hoping to get out of my own way, to allow myself to allow and receive the gift that I so desperately crave. I so need such beautiful energy in my life right now. I focus all of my heart on trying to locate and receive it.

A Slamming Perception

After the glow meditation concludes, I ask Keith for assistance in finding this coveted sweet energy.

Almost immediately, after Keith begins to guide me, I perceive his responding words as if an alien is speaking to me. Keith’s guidance confuses me. I feel as if my memory and ability to understand were wiped clean – his words leave my head spinning in frustration.

“Can you please tell me again what you just told me?” I beg Keith for clarification.

I am in such a state of confusion as I hear his subsequent response that I cannot remember what he says. As I attempt to explain myself, to talk about what is going on in my head, and about why I would like more clarity, I perceive that I am badgered and slammed.

Childhood Confusion

“Brenda,” Keith firmly responds, “you’re not listening … you’re being resistant.”

“But I’m just confused and simply want you to repeat and clarify.” I beg for understanding.

After what I feel is “ragging on me” for a few minutes, Keith turns to a friend of mine and asks for her perceptions of what is going on. To my shock, she agrees with Keith that I am being difficult and rebellious. I am baffled.

With all of my genuine heart, I am simply begging to be heard … just wanting my feelings to be validated … just wanting a chance to explain myself before further instructions are given. I feel so misunderstood and attacked.

As Keith again comes down hard on me, I immediately smile in rebellion and call his bluff.

“You’re just back in that ‘domineering parent’ role for me again, aren’t you?”

Crazy-Making Confusion

Keith immediately backs down as his eyes light up in seeming agreement. He knows exactly what I am talking about, and I perceive by the look on his face that I caught him red-handed. I am proud of myself for being so aware that Keith was playing an old role for me.

On April 15, 2011, during a very bizarre and confusion-filled afternoon, Keith had felt guided to play the domineering parent role for almost an entire chocolate ceremony. It was not until the very end that we both figured out the magic in what Keith had been guided to do. In the midst of that crazy-making role-play (I did not know it was role-play at the time), I was given a first-hand, deep and personal understanding of what had frequently happened to me as a child. I wrote details about this experience in a May 26, 2011 blog titled “A Question of Sanity.”

“Keith,” I had confidently declared at the end of that April 15 ceremony, “I feel like you are crazy-making with me, and that I am the only sane one here.”

“Brenda,” Keith had eagerly responded with a grin after admitting that he was role-playing. “Apply that statement to your inner child.”

“Apply that statement to mean that your little child was the only sane one,” Keith had clarified, “and that everyone else doing the bombarding, programming, and crazy-making of that child were themselves the insane ones, trying to program the sanity out of the child.”

That strange experience had given me a completely new perspective on my childhood. Yes, I continue to slip into confusing confusion at times, and still do not fully understand why.

Resistance Was Futile

“I was the only sane one as a child.” I blurt out in this Dec 23 ceremony, as I reflect on the powerful lessons from last April.

“Everyone did crazy-making on me when I tried to defend myself – to express my genuine heart. In my honest and sincere attempts to be heard and understood, I was repeatedly told I was being rebellious, defiant, uncooperative, and refusing to listen.”

In reality, my heart did not understand or agree with what was being fed to me as “conditioning and teaching” and, under the guidance of loving and well-meaning parents, my attempts to protect myself from such conditioning were futile.

Repeating A Pattern

But to my shock, Keith does not fully back down in this Friday afternoon ceremony.

“Brenda,” Keith insists. “What you are doing right now is a pattern from childhood. It is a pattern that you need to find and recognize … a pattern where you refuse and reject the help that you desperately crave.”

“Can you please not use the ‘you’ word, and instead refer to me in parts?” I beg Keith for clarity. “I can accept that a stronger part of me is subconsciously running this pattern, being difficult and refusing the help, but my conscious mind absolutely wants to accept this help. When you refer to me as a conglomerate whole, I feel somewhat attacked and find it confusing to figure out what part of me you are talking to.”

Keith explains that it is a pattern that short-circuits me into confusion and resistance every time that real genuine help is offered.

I still believe Keith to be crazy making with me, and I express my feelings confidently … but based on the feedback of my friends, I begin to trust that I might really be doing what they say I am doing. Perhaps it is something so deeply engrained in my behavior that I am completely blind to it.

In this painful moment, I am unable to see how I am sabotaging the very thing I want – guidance in connecting to the sweet energy that Keith earlier mentioned. It is only weeks later that I am able to clearly see that this entire situation was a setup created by my own higher energies. I needed to want something really bad – I needed to want the divine higher energy assistance that a part of me would simply not allow – I needed that subconscious part of me to rear its ugly dragonhead in utter blatant self-sabotage.

An Unknowing Instigator

As I listen to Keith’s words, I ponder a lifelong dilemma.

For years I have struggled to explain myself to others (especially family members), to be understood, and to have my genuine feelings validated. Yet, to my complete bafflement, in certain circumstances, no matter how hard I sincerely attempt to explain myself, the process only gets me into more confusing trouble and resistance with those to whom I am simply trying to clarify my genuine heart – with those from whom I desperately seek love and understanding.

This is exactly what happened just a few minutes ago. I feel that this craziness was done TO me. I am defensive and unable to see my participation in the loop, yet Keith insists that he was not role-playing, that I am the instigator of the resistance and of diverting the help that he genuinely offered.

Perceived Attack

“Keith,” I beg, “can you please help me understand what I am doing?”

“This understanding will not come from rational mind.” Keith frustrates me with his response, implying that he will not discuss the issue in normal logical conversation.

I respectfully disagree. I feel attacked, rebellious, and cannot understand why Keith will not explain what I am doing in a way that I can understand. In my perception, I had simply been confused, asking him to pause and to clarify a few things before continuing with his guidance. For the life of me, I cannot understand how being confused and asking for clarity can be misinterpreted as refusing to be helped – I cannot understand why we cannot discuss it with logical mind.

“Brenda,” Keith bluntly says what I then perceive as an attack. “If you were serious about going into this, and understanding what you do, then you would….”

“Keith,” I cut him off in confused frustration, “If I wasn’t serious about looking inside, I would have walked off this porch five minutes ago. You just re-awoke my childhood anger at how my parents (loving parents that did the best they knew how) used rational mind to attack and confuse me. If I did not know and trust you … If I did not want your help … I would not still be sitting here right now.”

Surrender To Trust

I do trust Keith, and I begin to wonder if perhaps he might still be role-playing with me in that parental role, but I believe he is actually speaking as Keith, trying to help me understand something that I simply cannot grasp.

I know Keith would never deceive me in such a matter … and I also know that, for whatever reason, I repeatedly struggle with the fact that no matter how hard I work, no matter what techniques I try, a subconscious part of me absolutely and stubbornly refuses to allow higher energy assistance to help me.

As I surrender to Keith’s guidance, I try to meditate into some type of non-rational mind understanding.

“I suggest you work with your little inner child.” Keith lovingly encourages. “Ask her to help you understand what you do, how you do it, and why you do it.”

An Impermeable Wall

As I meditate, I intuitively feel Sharon, my little three-year-old inner child, standing behind a huge wall. It is a thick wall of resistance that refuses to allow any type of outside help.

Sharon is emotionally wounded, and is extremely apprehensive about people trying to invalidate and fix her. She does not know who or how to trust. She has been bombarded by adults professing to represent God – adults who tried to heal what they saw as her craziness, making her own genuine feelings wrong. But none of those people really understood her heart – none even tried to see things through her magical eyes. Instead, those adults insisted that she submit and conform to a version of truth that did not fully make sense to her, lovingly pressuring her to destroy her own personal heart connection to the divine.

Finally, in frustration, Sharon erected an impermeable energetic wall in a desperate attempt to keep out that invalidating fixing energy – to reject anyone or anything that would invalidate and make-wrong the feelings of her heart.

A Fixing Paradox

“The rational-mind conscious part of me desperately wants help,” I ponder to myself. “In fact, I would love for true divine energies, or someone representing those energies, to literally ‘fix’ me – to just show me what is wrong and to make it all better.”

“But this subconscious little-child part of me remains terrified.” I further ponder. “She is walled off and holed up in her reality of protection and absolute isolation.”

I know Sharon is a lonely child who has isolated herself because of past pain. I am an adult who has struggled to understand her pain – an adult that desperately wants her to receive the help from me that she continues to block.

I wish I could reach inside and bring her to her senses, to fix her – but I know this is the exact recipe for further withdrawal and rebellion. Part of her still sees me as the enemy, as her oppressor.

She is a part of me, my equal, a real energy with whom I must earn trust. My trying to fix her is the last thing she needs.

An Unconditional Ultimatum

“But if I just love her unconditionally, while trying to build her trust,” I begin to panic, “what if she never responds? What if she refuses to do what I need?”

Part of me wants to be angry at a stubborn little brat that would throw a tantrum and prevent the help that we both crave. Another part of me knows that unconditional love is the only answer. This frightened little child only needs what I have never allowed myself to receive – she needs unconditional love – she needs unconditional validation and understanding – she needs exactly what I wanted from Keith earlier this afternoon before I would allow him to continue guiding me.

“That is what my little girl demands.” I ponder with clarity. “She wants unconditional love and validation from me before she will allow help of any kind.”

Heartfelt Conversations

“Keith” can I briefly interrupt you?” I beg for clarity a while later. “I’m trying to understand if I should be angry or loving with this little inner child … or perhaps some combination of the two. Right now, I am feeling both angry and fearful, yet I know that the only thing she actually needs is unconditional love.”

“How about if you do both?” Keith suggests. He then spends the next several minutes explaining, via a sample conversation, how I could meditatively sit with this little inner child, expressing my anger and frustration, my doubts and my fears, my love and confusion, my emotional healing journey, my desire to work together and to cooperate, and my unfolding understanding of why she continues to deny us the opportunity to receive divine help.

“Ask her to help you understand what she needs from you before she can learn to trust you enough to allow the help in.” Keith guides me before again moving on.

Distraction Dilemma

Soon, I am back in meditation with my little inner child, but begin to feel totally distracted. I am unable to focus more than a second or two at any given time. A few minutes later, Keith turns back to me, and I explain my distraction dilemma.

“This distraction is part of your ‘confusion and not allowing help’ loop.” Keith points out.

“And that is not necessarily the little girl’s role … it could be your own.” Keith adds with blunt honesty.

“Who is the one running this resistance?” I question myself. “Is it her, or is it now me? Am I the only one who is confused and distracted here … or is she doing it too me?”

I am driving myself bonkers with confusion and distraction.

Suppressed Projections Revisited

As Keith continues to work with me, I am suddenly being driven crazy by additional judgmental projections onto my little projection buddy – the beautiful man I call Paul.

As I try to focus on Keith, Paul is acting like a distracted little boy, giggling, moving and swaying around in his energy, not paying any attention to what is happening on the porch. I am feeling so much projected annoyance that I actually ask Keith to move over so that I do not need to see Paul behind him.

While doing this work with Keith, I suddenly realize that in observing Paul, I am watching a real, live, happy, bouncing, empowered young boy playing in his own little detached world. I perceive his energy as intentionally focused on me, trying to send playful child energy my way. But this perception causes me to resist and fill with additional projected judgment – all of which I desperately attempt to suppress and reject.

Sharon’s Other Half

Finally, profound insights flash through my heart. Last year, I had a dear friend named Sharon. Her stubborn, refusal to conform, her profound creativity, and her “don’t get in my way” personality literally drove me crazy. This all happened in the same timeframe when I suddenly realized that Sharon represented my dear little inner child – something I compared to the “Maria” energy from “The Sound of Music.” She was a magical being who refused to obey the stodgy old rules of the convent. Details of that heart-opening experience can be found in a Dec 19, 2010 blog titled “Sharonski.”

“Paul is the masculine equivalent of Sharon!” I suddenly recognize with clarifying agony. “I am projecting hate onto his very existence because he is a magical little boy that refuses to be suppressed, that refuses to follow someone else’s rules, and who reminds me of exactly what once drove me crazy with Sharon.”

A Perfect Trigger

I am in a feud-like standoff with this little inner child. We each have something the other needs. We are on the same team. We need to cooperate with each other. But we are projecting so much frustration onto each other that neither of us will lower our defenses.

“My job is to learn how to love both of my inner children – both Sharon and Bobby.” I ponder to myself. “It is in their best interest to receive divine help, and I simply need to trust that when they feel validated and loved, that they will then cooperate and allow what they too desperately crave.”

Yes, it is obvious to me that Paul is indeed playing a profound script for me … that his presence on the porch, no matter how much it agonizingly raises my blood pressure, is exactly what I need – exactly what will trigger the painful inner issues that I so wish I could run away from and avoid.

My Worst Nightmare

As the ceremony concludes, I remain behind, hoping for five minutes of Keith’s alone time. To my frustration, Paul also remains behind, not budging an inch – and to make matters worse, Keith goes into his house without saying a word, leaving Paul and I alone together.

“Keith, can I get five minutes alone with you before I go home?” I call out, hoping that Paul will take the hint and leave.

“Yeah, I’ll walk with you into town in a few minutes.” Keith responds.

Paul remains behind, and Keith stays inside of his house – for the next hour.

As much as I have suddenly achieved newfound gratitude for Paul’s presence, a huge part of me continues to react with judgmental and angry projections. I literally find myself in my worst nightmare, awkwardly alone with the beautiful young man onto whom I continue to project judgment and downright hatred.

I think about leaving – about literally running away – but the little Jedi voices inside tell me to stay right here, right now. I can only imagine that Keith is inside giggling, having set this all up.

Difficult Truth

The nightmare only gets worse when Paul opens his mouth and innocently begins to ask why I was reacting to him the way I did today.

For the next awkward hour, I try to converse openly and honestly … repeatedly pointing out all of the annoying and downright rude things he has done and said to me over the last month.

With each statement, Paul turns it around, pointing out that he only did or said what his heart guided him to do or say.

With agonizing humility, I force myself to admit, that as much as each event triggered me deeply, that in a strange and bizarre way each had served me. I am unable to come up with one single criticism where I can find real justification for blaming him – for pointing the finger outside of myself.

I hate this “inside job” and “create my own reality” stuff. It sucks when your own internal truth meter will not allow you to project blame onto someone else. As much as my insides scream that they want to be right, I repeatedly end up eating humble pie.

Somehow, when I am alone or in a group, I find it easy to project. But when I am sitting face to face with the target of my wrath, I have to admit that everything that has happened between us, no matter how annoying and aggravating I may have found it, has indeed served me in some painful way.

No Satisfaction

Finally, Keith steps out of his kitchen and announces he is ready to walk into town. In the ten minutes that we spend chatting, Keith again validates some of my perceptions and feelings about Paul’s behavior, but again reminds me that we are playing a profound script for each other, that all is perfect.

“Brenda, it is not about Paul, It is not about what it is about, and nothing changes until you do.” Keith bluntly rubs it in.

When we stop at the bottom of the steps leading to my apartment, I make a quick attempt to engage Keith in a brief rational mind discussion about my “confusion/domineering parent” loop – but Keith has other commitments and suggests that maybe we can talk some other time.

I desperately want to discuss my crazy childhood loop at a rational-mind level – one where I can maybe understand what I am doing. A huge part of me just does not trust that I can fully understand what I do in any other way.

As Keith walks away, I again feel rejected, dejected, and annoyed that he will not give me that satisfaction.

Why?

As I finish my notes after this long and difficult day, I ponder a little poem that for some reason, Keith felt guided to send me this morning. I can only guess that he composed or channeled it, tailored just for me.

“Full of pain and fear
In all the confusion and craziness
The child finally could take it no more
Gave up, submitted to the onslaught
Allowed the magic to die … killed it

Be there with the child in that place
And with the spiritual adult in witness consciousness
And in inviting the light/ love
To allow some transmutation”

This has truly been a confusing and crazy day. It is only now that I recognize how this little poem is indeed the theme for the quest I began today. I once again lost myself in that confusion and craziness, feeling the unexpected emotional trauma of a magical child growing up in a loving religious home.

I tried to defend my magic from the loving onslaught of adults, but those who would make my heart wrong caused me to simply give up and allow my heart connection to die.

“But why can’t I be there with that child in that place?” I ponder with frustration. “Why can’t I allow in that light and love that I so desperately crave? I need answers.”

Sleepless Thoughts

After going to bed, my mind will not quit. I am obsessed with this process. I am repeatedly forced by my head to get up and take notes. Following are things I write down before falling asleep.

“If I feel unjustly accused or misunderstood, my rational mind rebels, driving me into defense and confusion.”

“The act of blindly following others has caused me repeated heartache throughout my life. My heart demands understanding before I will blindly comply with someone else’s wishes.”

“This loop of confusion and rebellion is my child’s only means of survival, my only way to protect – to protect from a false judgmental God, from parents and teachers who do not understand me – it is survival.”

“It is about survival from adults who do not understand and who will not give me the courtesy of explaining myself if I have any doubts.”

“I want the truth, but it WILL NOT BE FORCED on me by man or God. I require understanding and buy-in before allowing my wall to be lowered.”

“I will not allow that which I do not understand.”

A Foolproof Paradox

With those last two statements, I think I am finally getting closer. For my own protection, my rational mind will not allow anything to come in if I do not first understand at a logical level. Throughout my life, logic has been used to hammer me into compliance, and it seems that my inner child will do everything she can to prevent that from ever happening again.

It seems that I am very stuck in a foolproof paradox … a three-part loop with no way out when it comes to working with higher energies.

“I will not allow help from higher energies until I understand.
I will not understand until I have the actual experience.
I will not have the actual experience until I allow the help.”

With these words recorded, I am determined to talk to Keith and get some rational mind understanding. I want to break out of this loop, but do not believe I can until I get enough understanding to get my mind out of the way enough to allow me to move forward.

I send a quick email to Keith, begging for a private appointment tomorrow on Christmas Eve, explaining my deep desire to simply talk at a head level.

The Ultimate Lie

Saturday morning, December 24, I awake at 1:30 a.m., again being overwhelmed with feelings of anger and resentment. Within seconds, I launch into another coughing fit as new droplets of fluid spew out of my lungs for much of the next hour.

I am feeling scared and alone.

Shortly after 3:00 a.m., still wide-awake, I begin to take more notes about my process.

“No one can or ever will be able to help me, not even Keith.” I write in painful frustration. “I am on my own, abandoned, and stranded once again to try to figure out my own spiritual path all by myself.”

It seems that my God/ Deity/ separation drama is back. A very real part of me is angry that God has once again abandoned me, leaving me to fend for myself.

I know this to be the ultimate lie of Ego, but right now it feels very real.

Unmet Needs

Finally, after very sketchy sleep for the remainder of the night, I drag myself out of bed at around 8:30 a.m.. I am tired and deeply connected to the process of working with my little inner child.

“What that little girl really needed was to be heard and validated.” I remind myself. “She needed to be allowed to interrupt adults, and to be honored for her need for clarification. She deserved to be seen as a genuine soul … to be heard … to be understood.”

“How F#cking dare they not do that for her!” I lash out as I allow myself to directly access my little inner child’s perceived pain.

(Remember, I love and honor my parents. They were beautiful, loving parents who always did the best they knew how. In this writing I am doing deep inner child processing that requires accessing the pain of that child – regardless of how victimized and unreasonable it may seem to a loving and forgiving adult.)

Finally, a few hours later, after consciously allowing myself to deeply experience the emotions of this little inner child, I retire to my bedroom and give her the voice that she never had.

A Trusted Fallback

Back in 2003-2005, I worked extensively with an amazing therapist, both as a participant and as an assistant. While working for several years in these amazing forty-hour weekend workshops, I learned to do profound experiential psychological work – work that involved accessing buried trauma in the right-brain rather than simply ‘talking about it’ in the left-brain – work that involved various techniques that allow one to re-experience and heal psychological trauma in a very real and safe way where the traumatic emotions can be released. The therapist I worked with was deeply intuitive and always helped people to then fill up the emptied emotional space with loving healing. In many ways, it was exactly the same thing I now do with Keith, only at a physical and psychological level, rather than at a spiritual, subconscious, and divine higher-energy level.

This type of work, when done properly, with love, is something that I very much trust – something that in my logical mind I believe in deeply.

Trusting The Process

For several hours, I hide out in my bedroom, engaging in my own self-made solo version of this type of experiential therapy. I become my little child and speak out to my visualized parents, expressing emotions and feelings that I was never allowed to express.

Deep tears pour from my eyes as I experientially explore the heartbreak of a genuine child who was not heard, but was instead conditioned, programmed like a computer, lovingly broken like a horse, and coerced to comply and conform to the worldview of my loving parents. I feel all of the emotions of a child who had no choice but to sacrifice her heart and to simply obey.

As I work thorough this painful process, I achieve more understanding about my buried sadness and anger than ever before. But in the midst of deep tears, my lungs again become extremely congested, causing me to experience real physical fear.

As the process ends a few hours later, I meditate with myself as a newborn, metaphorically holding that innocent child, showering that child with unconditional love and acceptance.

Together, we understand how we chose our beautiful parents, how being shutdown and programmed by society and religion was a necessary part of our learning path. The process is powerful, bringing clarity and release – but somewhat unsatisfying doing it completely by myself.

Dragon Fire

Meanwhile, Keith has responded to my email request for an appointment with the statement:

“I feel for you. I am listening and hearing … however your need to be in control of the situation is quite strong. It isn’t mind not allowing. It can’t be fixed at that level as it is not on that level. So do come over and talk. Perhaps we can take a walk into the place where these issues are.”

As I now write and integrate, I can clearly see the beautiful wisdom and understanding in Keith’s inspired response. But on Christmas Eve, in the moment of my confusion, I feel quite resistant about what I perceive as Keith’s continued resistance to simply talk at a mind level with me.

Unbeknownst to me, I remain subconsciously immersed in my childhood loop. I feel invalidated and not understood in my desire to simply talk things over. I want to chat, regroup, and rebuild a level of head trust before I will go any further. I want to take personal control of my process, just this once. I want my insights, fears, and doubts to be heard and validated. I want to do a form of trusted experiential emotional release involving Keith, but doing it my way.

Just before 3:00 p.m., as I walk through the metaphorical gate on my way to Keith’s home, the fiery dragon hides in the shadows, perched and ready to let out his first roaring breath of flames.

… to be continued …

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

It is Wednesday, December 21 – just a few days before Christmas. As I sit lightly meditating at 5:00 a.m., I revel in the memories of yesterday. I ponder the magic of actually feeling an energetic flow in my high heart region. The prickly pains continue to consume my entire upper chest region, reminding me that the whole experience was not simply my imagination, reminding me that real physical changes took place as well.

But I am in a weird emotional state as I ponder back on events in my life. I love and honor my parents, and I absolutely know they loved me … but I can only access one memory, at around three or four years old, of ever receiving such beautiful unconditional love (love having no underlying agenda) in my relationship with my dear mother. And there are only a few times with very close friends where I was able to receive such profound love.

Love for me remains hooked to (equivalent to) pain, control, manipulation, obligation, judgment, hurt, and fixing. I can give and give and give, but something inside of me refuses to receive that same pure love. My heart tells me that such pure divine love is readily available, just waiting for me, but in order to see it, to receive it, I must first undo the inner blocks that prevent me from allowing it in.

Sadness Revisited

As I again reflect on the intense heartache and sadness that I experienced yesterday, intuitions tell me that I did indeed tap into a reservoir of my own buried childhood pain – a huge reservoir of deep emotional sadness that could never haven been expressed to parents who would not understand. It was this overwhelming and inexpressible sadness that caused me to literally pull the plug on my energy sensitivities – that caused me in desperation to psychically sever the channels that reopened yesterday.

Ooooohhh the sadness hurts. As I meditate, I again begin to experience additional waves of sadness that want to pull me back to the depths. I cycle in and out of a yes/no/yes/no agitation … part of me wanting to sink back into the emotion … part of me terrified to go there.

In the midst of my emotional confusion, I wander over to Keith’s porch thirty minutes early. I do not want to wait for the chocolate ceremony to begin. I need to be around people, now!

Projection Pity Party

While waiting for the ceremony to begin, I have a deep headache and my solar plexus is painfully swollen. While staring at the ground in emotional agony, I simply ignore all who arrive on the porch. I feel no desire to attempt social interactions.

When the glow meditation finally gets underway, I am not glowing, but instead want to cry. I am again projecting onto a young man that I will call Paul. He is the same man who showed up a month ago wanting to “fix” everything that happens on Keith’s magical porch – the same man onto whom I have had such a fierce journey with projecting.

I know that I create my reality. I know it is all an inside job. I know that it is not about Paul, and it is not about what Paul is doing. And I am painfully aware that nothing will change until I find and release the triggering source of these projections inside of me.

But I am painfully human. I feel angry at myself for doing so, but today, I again project that Paul’s presence makes it unsafe for me to cry. A huge part of me wishes he would simply disappear from the porch and fade away.

An Emotional Wreck

During a brief discussion about releasing emotional layers, someone innocently mentions, “Yeah, but the more layers you peel away, the easier it gets.”

“Yeah, right.” I sarcastically respond in a partially audible voice. “The deeper I go, the closer I get to my core issues, the more frightening and painful each layer seems. The outer layers were the easy ones. It takes real guts to go deeper to the core.”

I am an emotional wreck – feeling a mixture of sadness, anger, resentment, self-flogging, and self-hatred.

Wipe The Blackboard

“Brenda, what’s going on today?” Keith asks near the beginning of his individual rounds.

“As if you didn’t know,” I respond glumly, before answering his question so that others on the porch can understand my process.

“I’m deeply stuck and clueless as to what to do.” I answer with confusion. “I’m trying to sit in a loving space with my inner child, but my head aches profoundly, I am swimming in swirling heaviness, and I am unable to focus or think clearly.”

“Brenda,” Keith responds. “Wipe that mental blackboard clear and stop thinking about what you should do. Quit trying to do anything and instead, just feel the love.”

Keith reminds me of the “Welcome to real love” connection he guided me into yesterday evening, guiding me again to ask the angelic love, when I am ready and able, to back me up with higher energy assistance. He suggests that the divine love knows what to do to help me – that I simply need to express my intent and to then surrender and allow, getting out of my mind chatter, and trusting that something outside of me knows how to help me in my state of stuck-ness.

How easily I forget!

Resisting The Process

Keith continues to work with me for a few additional minutes as I again stabilize back in this loving space. Gradually, my heart becomes more connected, while peace and relaxation begin to spread.

As I continue to observe Keith work his way around the porch, I pay close attention to everything that occurs. When he begins to work with a friend of mine, her work deeply triggers my own issues and I again lose my loving focus.

“Brenda,” Keith turns back to me, “quit trying and thinking, and go be with your headache to see what is next.”

As I attempt to meditate, visualizing myself sitting down next to my headache, I am still trying to love and relate to everything around me. I just want to be loving. I do not want to feel deeper emotions – to get angry, or cry etc…

Festering Self-Judgment

But try as I might to focus, I cannot help but observe and project all over my young projection-buddy that I am calling “Paul”. As I continually observe Paul’s behavior, his actions trigger reactions in me that make me want to scream. I watch him dramatically run all over the porch to do energy work on people. I project fixing energy onto all of it, not believing that he has the slightest real understanding of what it means to be a healer – of what it means to follow what someone really needs versus using ego to take them where he thinks they should be. (Please remember … these are all MY projections.)

I struggle to push down angry feelings of annoyance and judgment. In the midst of this, I have my hands under a scarf on my lap, each hand angrily sending a middle-finger salute in Paul’s direction.

I hate myself for these feelings. They are driving me crazy. Angry self-judgment festers.

“Why am I projecting so violently,” The festering self-judgment silently screams out.

I suddenly realize that Paul reminds me of how I might have been if I were male. I feel intense hatred toward an inner teenage boy inside of me, one who was judgmental, wanting to fix others, while hiding his own inner struggles.

Raging Projections

I try to connect with my little inner child, fourteen-month-old Bobby, while visualizing one of my childhood photos. To my shock, I feel intense judgment and anger toward that little boy. I cannot love him. I despise that toddler, and I despise Paul. Paul reminds me of that “hated child” all grown up.

“The first half of the ceremony today was really boring.” Paul speaks to Keith near the end of the ceremony. “But I focused really hard on meditating and raising the vibrations on the porch. The last half of the ceremony has gotten a lot better since I did this.”

I am shocked by the intense inner anger that again begs for release as I watch Paul while he claims responsibility for having saved the energy of the porch – while he simultaneously implies that my work at the start of the ceremony was a boring waste of his time.

“F#ck you Paul.” I silently rage with my eyes facing the ground. My projections are again going wild.

Angry Confessions

“I should not be judging and projecting.” I flog myself again and again while trying to suppress the emotions.

But my inner guidance says that “I AM angry and judgmental … I need to feel and explore these emotions rather than push them back down.” I choose to follow the flow of my guidance. I know that the emotions I feel are not really about Paul – that they run much deeper and that the only way to work through them is if I will allow them to surface into the light.

To my delight, many people soon leave the porch, including Paul, and I feel like I can express my struggles without directly offending Paul. When Keith turns to me, I confess my angry projections while tears stream down my cheeks. I confess my middle finger salutes and my anger at being told that I am “boring.”

As the ceremony fades, I quietly cry on my cushion, feeling stupid, embarrassed – seeing myself as a total jerk.

Implied Permission

When everyone else leaves, I remain on the porch, hoping to discuss my craziness with Keith, but he goes into his house and begins quietly engaging in his own evening tasks, pretending to ignore my presence.

“Is there anything you might suggest to me before I go home?” I eventually call out to Keith, begging for some type of guidance or feedback. “I don’t want to go home still being so deep in my process. I will be a functional wreck tomorrow if I do not find some closure. I am so tired of emotional processing. I want to be able to write again.”

“Maybe you do just need to cry.” Keith quietly hints. “Maybe what you need to do right now is to allow yourself to get really angry.”

I take Keith’s words as not only permission, but as encouragement to go for it – to let my anger out. It seems that I have been stuck in the misguided assumption that “now that I am trying to use higher energies to assist me in emotional release – that I should simply be all love and light – that I should not need to feel things so deeply anymore.”

Exhausting But Therapeutic

While sitting alone on Keith’s magical porch, I grab a couple of pillows and begin angrily punching away, accidently driving my fist into the concrete floor on one occasion.

I punch, cry, sob, cough, wheeze, and dry-heave angry energy out of my throat. As the energy releases, I feel the presence of angry hatred and judgment – not aimed at others, but at my own sweet and innocent inner child – at a bad, stupid, disruptive, disobedient, awkward, rebellious, defiant, dishonest, and troublemaking little boy.

It seems that I have unknowingly taken sole ownership of the adult responsibility to perpetuate this internalized and buried self-hatred.

Shock overwhelms me as I experience the intense hate that boils inside me. For nearly thirty minutes, I continue to punch, sob, breathe, punch, heave, breathe, cough, blah, blah, blah. The process is beyond exhausting, but very therapeutic.

Turning It Around

Finally, I can do no more. Intuitions tell me that I have done enough for today.

During a much-needed conversation that ensues, Keith actually validates many of my projections and perceptions – but makes it very clear that his guidance tells him that all is perfect right now – that Paul and I are playing profound scripts for each other – that there is nothing that needs to be changed on the porch.

I want to fight and resist when Keith lovingly reminds me that “It is not about Paul,” “It is not about what Paul is doing on the porch,” and that “Nothing will change until I do.”

I so wish Keith would just clamp down, put restrictions on Paul’s behavior, and make the porch be what “I want it to be”. I find it quite agonizing to turn the mirror around, to remember that I would not feel triggered if this were not really my own issue – one that I need to change inside of myself. I so badly want to project responsibility onto Paul, and even onto Keith.

A Terrified Ego

“Ego is in a panic right now.” Keith further coaches me. “The deeper that you get into the process of bringing in higher love and light, the more panicked that ego feels. Ego is very likely to try to sabotage you, to increasingly throw more wrenches into your process.”

Keith advises me that it is quite common at this stage of an “undoing ego” process for ego to “wham wham wham” someone with intensely self-sabotaging situations in an attempt to get them to cease and desist the undoing process.

“Congratulations for how minimal your projections have been onto me this last year.” Keith provides additional feedback. “I am actually quite grateful that Paul is here so that you can project all of this onto him instead of doing it to me. If you were projecting so strongly onto me, you would not be able to hear what you need to hear from me.”

Reliving The Past

At 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, I lie on the daybed in my living room and meditate for three hours. I continue to have sharp headache pain in my third-eye chakra, but I do not fight it. Instead, I simply focus on relaxation and love. The pain reduces to half intensity, but I continue to feel overwhelmed by a feeling of emotional cloudiness and physical dizziness. I am so exhausted and swirling that I resolve to take the day off from everything.

No, there will be no writing today. Instead, I spend the day watching movies, doing some crying here and there, as emotional movie scenes further trigger me. I have noticed that ever since Tuesday – when I opened my high heart – that those sharp pains throughout my chest have persisted. Any crying at all is now accompanied by intense bronchitis-like coughing, and my intestines are beginning to rebel as well. Intuitively, I know that these symptoms are all energetic manifestations – that there is no reason for physical concern.

I am intuitively reminded of all the intestinal problems I had as a child, constantly cycling between extremes. During my young years, I also had frequent headaches, as well as frequent sore throats and coughing episodes.

“Are all of these symptoms what happened to me as a child when I experienced these inexpressible emotions?” I ponder. “Am I now re-experiencing them because I am going back in time to heal them?”

Dizziness, Buried Anger, and Synchronous Advice

Around 4:30 p.m., I suddenly notice an email from Keith. I had forgotten that we were scheduled to bag a new batch of freshly ground chocolate tonight. As I stand up to prepare for my walk across town, I nearly fall over with extreme dizziness.

“Am I even capable of walking out to Keith’s home?” I ponder. “And once I get there, will I be able to help … will I even be able to walk home?”

By 5:00 p.m., the dizziness has relaxed enough that I begin my short stroll. Five minutes later, I bump into two friends, one of whom is an amazing acupuncturist. They ask how I am doing. I respond honestly, telling them details of my process and of all the intense inner anger and rage that continue to remain buried inside.

“I’m being guided to tell you about a pressure point on your foot,” My dear acupuncturist friend volunteers. “The liver is associated with the storage, processing, and release of toxic anger, and if you press on the L1 (Liver 1) pressure point on your foot, it will help you to release the angry energy.”

I smile at my friend and thank her for the advice, but do not give it a second thought.

Projected Nightmares

As I arrive at Keith’s “chocolate bagging” porch, I briefly ask about my physical symptoms.

“You have to relive all of this in order to move through it and to release it.” Keith confirms my intuitions. “What you are going through physically is all a part of your process.”

I find the evening of bagging chocolate to be an extremely awkward one. Paul is helping as well, and I am in a supervisory role of double-checking the weights – making sure that the edges of the bags are chocolate-free, and that there are exactly eight ounces or sixteen ounces of traditionally processed chocolate in each bag. Several times during the evening, I try to provide innocent feedback about a problem, and Paul defiantly barks back at me.

I feel the projected animosity between us. I feel his judgment toward me, and his avoidance of me. I simply pretend that all is well, while going about my tasks feeling marginalized and rejected. I am again reliving an old childhood pattern – projecting my inner nightmare all over Paul.

A Beautiful Setup

Later, after finally going to bed at 10:00 p.m., I can do nothing but lay awake while meditatively time traveling back to my teenage years.

I suddenly realize something else that is really being triggered. I am experiencing deep social anxiety and hatred – a feeling of being marginalized and ignored by peers – a feeling of wanting to withdraw, to hide in a closet, and to cry. I realize that, as a young teen, I was not free to withdraw and isolate, because there were always people and family around, and too many questions would have been asked. I stuffed my emotions of social dysfunction deeper and deeper, having no outlet to express them or to heal them.

Yes, I am reliving my teens, the feelings of being rejected and judged by the popular kids, the socially confident crowd. I felt as if I were “boring” and an insignificant waste of time and attention.

As I meditate deeper into these emotions, additional layers of self-hatred rear their ugly dragonheads. These are layers of horrendous self-loathing shame, anguish, and believing that “I am the Devil” incarnate. Throughout those years, I hid my pain so that no one could see the truth.

Tonight, all of my interactions with Paul are a beautiful setup. I recognize that I have been reliving huge loops of this painful pattern in the last couple of weeks.

A Social Nightmare

To my horror, as I continue to meditate, I begin to realize that if my buried shame and self-hatred were underground fields of black yucky tar and oil, that there would be enough fossil fuel to supply the entire United States for years. There is an unbelievably huge reservoir of pain – pain that still exists buried inside me.

The thought of having to cry out this huge reservoir of emotion in the old “do-it-myself” way is daunting – seemingly impossible.

Sitting in tears at my computer, I type the following:

“I literally would rather die than face that wall of impossibility. This is something with which I desperately need help. I do not know how to do this. I am terrified and wish I could run away. If I were not writing about this in my blog, I might be tempted to bolt and run right now.”

I clearly recognize how, even during my recent travels, I have repeatedly played out these social nightmares. I have mostly managed to withdraw, to ignore, or to run away from the “popular kids” that trigger me. But with Paul, I face a new nightmare. He has made it clear that he is not going anywhere.

I will have to face him in every chocolate ceremony for months to come, and I do not think I can survive the emotional torment of doing so. I honestly would rather run away than face this triggered dysfunction.

Physical Breaking Point

At 11:40 p.m., still wide-awake, I begin to cough uncontrollably. As I do so, droplets of watery spray come out of my lungs. I continue to believe this to be energetic in nature, related to the opening of my high heart, but begin to go into a physical panic, wondering if I have bronchitis or pneumonia. I can hear the fluid in my lungs, rattling as I breathe in and out.

“I know this is just energy,” I try to remind myself. “Water represents emotions. The fluid and pain in my lungs are energetically forcing me to realize that I am at a point where my overload of emotions is no longer allowing me to breathe.”

“This emotion is going to physically break me if I have to process through it as I have done in the past.”

Following Synchronicities

In desperation, unable to relax, I pile up pillows on my daybed and lie down in a hammock-like position with head and feet elevated on the pillows. At some unknown point in time, I finally reach a state of relaxation where I drift into semi-consciousness.

At 2:22 a.m., after my body forces me to take a quick restroom break, I am again wide-awake and coughing violently. Anger, shame, self-hatred, and self-loathing are swirling around wildly inside of me. I am feeling desperately alone and frightened. As I am about to give up in terror, intuitions suddenly remind me of the synchronous guidance given to me by my acupuncturist friend.

I quickly locate the L1 (Liver 1) pressure point on my foot, situated on the top side at the center of the “V” of the bones that connect the big and second toes.

Mosquito Madness

I primarily focus on the right foot, since the liver is on the right side of my body. The tenderness and sharp pain shock me as I begin to press on that spot. Very soon, I sense a current of energy moving from my liver area, down my leg, and out of my foot. Simultaneously, I experience a gradual draining of intensely agitated emotions.

My physical senses further get involved when I begin to experience profound itching in the right foot – itching that feels as if hundreds of mosquitoes are simultaneously biting just below where I am applying pressure – as if the some of the energetic toxins are literally leaking toward my little toe.

I continue this physical draining of energy for more than an hour. At 3:33 a.m., as I lay back on my pillow, I feel amazed by how free I feel. That putrid anger is gone, my entire body is relaxed, and I am happy again. Sometime around 4:00 a.m., I slip into a semi conscious state where I am half in dreamland, but aware that I am dreaming. At 6:30 I get up, convinced that I will remember, but before I return to bed, all memories have vanished – other than the memory that the dream involved surrender to a flow that was taking me where I needed to go – and that I felt confident and trusting that all was well.

A Dragon Behind The Gate

To my delight, as I arise and browse through Facebook, I find a beautiful message from a friend in Michigan. I had told her that I was struggling and could really use some positive space holding. Her reply blows me away. Following are the first three sentences:

“You got it girlfriend. Have been doing that for you but will specifically amp it up! Feels like the dragon is behind the gate on the path you need to travel and you want to travel the path more than protect yourself from the dragon. I am with you in spirit as you open that gate, uniting my positive energy and faith with yours!”

Left Foot Leftovers

At 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning, as I jot down additional notes about my overnight struggles, I begin coughing violently, yet again.

“I refuse to surrender to sick.” I lovingly encourage myself. “This is energy, not physical illness.”

I again repeat the pressure on my “L1” points – this time focusing on the left foot. To my delight, the leftover energy again drains powerfully, and I begin to have wild itching sensations on the left foot.

Sobering And Validating

I arrive a full hour early for the Friday afternoon chocolate ceremony. I am anxious to discus my journey and concerns with Keith.

“You are in a very powerful place.” Keith congratulates me. “And the realization that things are beginning to manifest physically is giving you major motivation to allow the higher energies to help you.”

Our conversation is both sobering and deeply validating at the same time. I come away feeling hopeful and peaceful, believing that maybe I can connect with more light and peace.

“Try bringing in the love from your own heart.” Keith gives me a little tidbit of advice. “It might be a little less threatening if you see the loving energy as coming from inside of you rather than from something outside yourself.”

An Inner License

When I explain to Keith that I literally feel that I am going psycho, his response is equally encouraging.

“This is all a necessary part of your training.” Keith shares with me.

Keith assures me that I created this entire situation to help me get this painful understanding so that I will have compassion, so that I will be ready and able to help others in the future that may go through similar processes of feeling crazy during their own undoing and inner work.

Keith has often pointed out that by doing this painful work myself, that I will acquire what he calls an inner license – a license that comes from having “been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.”

A Dragon Quest

As I sit on Keith’s porch, peacefully waiting for another chocolate ceremony to begin, I briefly review the agonizing events of the previous two and a half days – a brief moment in time that feels like an entire lifetime of emotional trauma.

I have gone into agonizingly painful projections, knowing that the issue is inside of me, but angrily wanting to project blame onto a beautiful man I am calling Paul. The dragon-like anger and rage is beyond intense – so intense that by late Thursday night I feel as if I could literally spit fire out of my mouth.

Due to a beautiful synchronous suggestion by a friend, I find temporary relief and profound feedback through the use of physical pressure points.

I am indeed bursting through the gate, and there are no doubts that my desire to travel this frightening road is far greater than any fear of silly dragons that might block my path.

With blind trust, I prepare to burst through another gate in my path. How could I possibly know that an even bigger dragon lurks nearby in the shadows?

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

Much needed Christmas music floods my apartment as I revel in the glow of peaceful energy. It is December 18, the final Sunday before Christmas. The emotional journey has been intense in the last several weeks – so intense that Christmas is the last thing on my mind.

A Loving Space

Later in the afternoon, as I sit on Keith’s magical porch during the glow meditation, nervous sensations begin to dance in my abdomen. I feel lots of little pains beginning to dance in my tummy, and as I do so, I visualize a ball of light in front of me as I meditatively express my intent for the prickly emotions to be released to that light so that they can be sent to their higher evolvement. Gratitude swells in my heart as I watch the prickly sensations dissolve and disappear. As new pains randomly appear, they too quickly flow out of me to that ball of light in front of me.

Soon, my heart feels so powerful and connected, that I imagine my ball of light expanding. I visualize that a small thread extends from my ball of light to a woman across the porch who is crying. I then feel guided to quickly expand the metaphor, imagining that my ball of light is connected to every single person on the porch, each via his or her own individual thread. My intent is that my heart will serve love like a butler with a silver tray, serving love to anyone who chooses to partake, receiving densities from anyone who is ready and willing to release.

As I hold this loving image in my mind, I simply breathe with deep focus. Each breath feels as if I am increasingly filling my heart with more love and light.

I am alive and in my loving space.

Tears Of Joy

After a while, I notice a beautiful woman from Europe, I will call her Marie, shedding a few tears. Something in my heart whispers “Go sit and work with her.”

Glancing quickly at Keith, I use hand gestures to express my intent and he nods his approval. Soon I am seated on a cushion, directly in front of Marie, grounding energy in her feet while gazing into her tear-filled eyes.

For more than thirty minutes, I share an amazing experience of heart connecting and emotional release with this beautiful woman. My energy sensitivities are still weak, but my heart radiates with loving confidence and power. As I energetically connect with Marie, synchronizing my breathing with hers, supporting her heart while she passes through her profound emotional release process, my own heart sings as tiny tears of joy fill my eyes.

“Bring in the light to fill the space where those emotional densities used to be.” I eventually whisper to Marie as her tears subside.

Soon, we are both glowing with inner light and peace. How could I possibly know that in just a few weeks, Marie will do something similar for me?

Loving Confidence

After returning to my seat, I resume my ball of light visualization, again looking around the porch and imagining a thread extending from my ball of light to each and every person on the porch.

Soon, I lock eyes a woman across the porch that I have just barely met. With a look of wonder on her face, she begins to communicate from afar using hand gestures. After making a circle motion with her hand, she then points at every person on the porch and then points to my heart. Then she again draws another circle and indicates with her facial expression and gestures that she can feel what I am doing.

Wow! What powerful feedback!

While in this deep heart space, rational mind had been quietly chattering away, in a very low voice, whispering that I am making all of this up. But this beautiful woman, with whom I have not communicated in any physical way, can feel exactly what is happening with my heart. Immediately the ego chatter ceases and my loving confidence locks in ever stronger.

My head has no idea what I am doing, but my heart absolutely knows that the experience flowing through me is real.

Migrating Pains

Soon, as Keith assists someone with deep inner child work, my stomach and solar plexus suddenly swell and ache. The waistband of my skirt feels extremely tight and pinched.

“Keith,” I tap my teacher on the shoulder, and point to my tummy. “Is this pain mine or his?”

“Both,” Keith confidently responds after checking his guidance. “You are reading what is going on with him, finding the same issue inside of you, and working on it in yourself.”

As Keith moves on to work with a few other people, my migrating pains continue to grow wilder and more intense – pains coming and going through various places of my solar plexus, heart chakra, and high heart region.

“Mine or hers?” I again interrupt to ask Keith a question about pain in my heart as he works with my friend from Canada.

“Hers” Keith replies.

Empath Craziness

I do not like feeling these pains. They hurt and are very confusing. My solar plexus remains quite swollen and uncomfortable.

“Wow,” I ponder with shock. “Is this what I have been doing my whole life … taking in the emotional pain of others and believing it to be my own?”

“Release all of this density to the ball of light in front of you.” Keith resumes working with me in my confusion.

Immediately I am stuck in my head, “trying” to use rational mind to perform the task. Finally, as I resume focus on simply trusting my heart while taking deep relaxing breaths, I feel the pains in my solar plexus suddenly decrease.

“There!” Keith quickly exclaims at the very moment my pain diminishes. “You did it.”

It never ceases to amaze me how Keith can tell what is going on energetically inside of me before I give him any feedback whatsoever.

“You let a lot of it go,” Keith praises me, “but not all of it.”

Pain Or Fun?

As Keith again moves on, I continue focusing on my inner journey – a journey of bouncing in and out of head doubts while simultaneously releasing more and more of the pains.

“You must have let something go because my solar plexus sure feels a lot better.” I overhear Keith share with my friend from Canada.

As Keith provides this feedback to my friend, I too suddenly feel much more profound peace in my own solar plexus.

“Does Keith really feel these same types of pains as intensely as I am feeling them today?” I ponder with curiosity. “If so, how does he do it without going absolutely crazy?”

I am just learning to trust myself, to realize that not everything I feel inside is even my own issue. I have so much fear surrounding this ability that I still keep it mostly shut down. It seems that today I am being given another profound glimpse about where I am headed – a glimpse that is impossible to deny – a glimpse that shows me how confused and frightened I remain.

“Wow,” I think to myself. “I can fight this empath stuff with fear and pain, or I can accept that I am doing it … and I can turn it into a fun adventure – an adventure of not taking the pain personally or seriously – an adventure of learning to find the joy in feeling what someone else is feeling so that I can help them.”

A Profound Glimpse

To my delight, as I process these new insights, my pain and anxiety disappear, and I soon return to a powerful ball-of-light connection to the whole porch.

The remainder of the ceremony is beautiful, filled with additional confidence building experiences of following my heart and recognizing the fun adventure of holding a tray of unconditional love, making that love available to others, but being completely unattached to outcomes.

As the ceremony flows to conclusion, several people congratulate Keith on the beautiful experience.

“I could not do this alone.” He comments. “I want to express my deep gratitude to those that helped.”

As Keith speaks these words, he momentarily makes eye contact with me. Silent giggles of joy fill my heart as I humbly recognize that today I was given a profound glimpse of where my healing journey is taking me. I have no illusions of having arrived. I know I am immersed in a profound process, and that today I was given a golden carrot to give me the loving courage to keep going deeper into the blockages that hold me back.

A Strange Paradox

As I finally rest my head on my pillow, I overflow with profound trust in the synchronous flow that continuously guides me in my process. A sense of peace resonates in my heart as I realize that I am unattached to where the flow takes me – whether it be into more intense tears, or into the glow of loving peace and light.

As I meditate in bed, I feel amazing bursts of beautiful energy in my head and pleasurable vibrating in my neck – both in the front and back. I have no memories of every having felt such strong energetic vibrations in these areas of my throat chakra.

Shortly before midnight, I wake up with the feeling of being a tiny child spitting up, while simultaneously, a few drops of vomit make it all the way into my now-burning nose. The sensation is extremely uncomfortable – an experience that has not graced my path in a very long time. As I attempt to drift off to sleep, a pack of extremely noisy dogs bark and yelp at each other outside my window.

“Love yourself as a beautiful and innocent little child,” The dogs seem to be telling me as I remember a metaphor from nearly a year ago – a metaphor of love-starved junkyard dogs energetically hanging out in my abdomen.

My whole body is twitching with new and somewhat uncomfortable energies. Yet I do not fight them, because I am intuitively guided to imagine the metaphor of a sleeping foot waking up. I trust that something is energetically happening in my body that is taking me to a new place. It is something that Keith often refers to as the “Goddess’s operating table.”

I am stuck in a strange paradox: Relaxation is impossible, yet peace continues to consume my soul. I simply “allow.” Eventually, after a few hours of unattached cooperating and trusting the energies, I am able to relax and drift back to dreamland.

Emotional Exhaustion

After a beautiful Monday of writing and hiking with a dear friend, I awaken very early on Tuesday morning. Even though my energetic experiences on Sunday were profound and beautiful, I feel deeply exhausted. I am slightly rebellious and hesitant to engage in additional inner work of any type.

So what does one do in such a state of emotional and inner work exhaustion? Why you say, “Yes, of course, I would love to” when Keith asks if you would like to participate in two long private chocolate ceremonies on your normal day off.

A Hug Addict

At 7:15 a.m., I walk down to the San Marcos boat dock, where I meet up with Keith and another dear friend – a friend I will call Susan. Our first ceremony of the day is at a yoga retreat center across the lake.

The morning air is fresh and clear, and the views of picturesque Lake Atitlan are breathtaking. Our second boat ride takes us along the base of the San Pedro volcano, while simultaneously giving us gorgeous views of two other towering volcanoes just above and behind the small town of Santiago. Shortly before 9:00 a.m., we arrive at our destination, a small eco-friendly retreat center on a quiet bay, nestled beneath the southern edge of the San Pedro volcano.

I cannot wait to see two dear friends that I have not seen in a very long time – both of whom have come back to the lake for this retreat. One is co-teaching the advanced teacher training course at the retreat center. This beautiful woman left everything to follow her heart, and is now co-owner of a retreat center on the beaches of west-central Mexico. The other friend is a teacher-trainee student that I will call Angela – a name I will use because she has since become a metaphor for my inner “hug-angel.” From the moment I first met Angela a year ago, we have been addicted to each others’ hugs – and I have not had a “hug-fix” since March of 2011.

Surrounded By Love

My first “hug-fix” occurs within minutes of stepping out of the boat onto a large wooden boat-dock that doubles as a morning meditation center.

Giggling hugs abound as I embrace my two long-lost friends. I am indirectly responsible and/or connected with the process of introducing each of them to Keith and the magic of pure chocolate. I am delighted when they surround me at the start of a new magical adventure, one sitting on each side of me as the chocolate ceremony begins. I have not felt this much love in a very long time.

Because of this outward display of love, I already feel a deep loving bond with the others who are also gathered in this large, round, thatch-roofed covered patio area, less than fifty feet from the rippling lake waters.

Confusing Emotions

The ceremony begins with a deep energy of being stuck … of “I don’t know if I trust going into my issues.”

Early on, Keith asks both Susan and I to assist one woman, simply sitting with her and holding a loving energetic space. Soon, Keith asks us to do the same for another, and then another.

Then, as I am sitting behind one woman, with the energy in my hands radiating perhaps a couple of inches from the back of her heart chakra, I experience deep confusion. For thirty minutes, I sit behind this woman while Keith talks to the group about various empath issues.

As I watch and listen while holding space, I cycle in and out of intense emotional waves – emotions of overwhelming broken-hearted sadness – emotions that make absolutely no sense to me. My heart is alive, I am centered and focused in a state of unconditional love, yet I simultaneously feel as if my heart were deeply broken.

Bursting At The Seams

I do not think these emotions are even my own, yet they are so strong that I want to go find a dark closet. I want to close the door, curl up in a corner, and sob for days and days. I have not felt this level of emotional intensity in a very long time.

Finally, I take a break, walk up a path to use the restroom, and bump into my friend Susan as I begin to return. As I share my crazy emotional sensations with Susan, I begin to cry. Soon, I am back on my pillow, again sitting behind the woman from before, and the same overwhelming emotions consume me.

I do not want to interrupt the ceremony. I believe that I am here to assist and hold space – not to do my own work. But holding back my tears is extremely difficult. My inexplicable emotions are bursting at the seams.

My Turn

“Go into it Brenda,” Keith suddenly turns toward me. “Allow it to surface.”

I cry briefly, in short sobbing waves, and then I go back into the inexplicable broken-hearted sadness.

“What is this about, Brenda?” Keith queries.

I quickly explain my confusing journey with emotions that I do not believe are mine. To my shock and amazement, Keith suddenly stops everything else, asks the entire group to come closer and to surround me in a circle, and begins to focus entirely on me.

Ready To Move

“Connect with and focus your energy on Brenda.” Keith guides a woman seated to my left.

“Brenda,” Keith begins to work with me. “How old were you when this happened?”

“I feel like I was three or four when these emotions were like this.” I respond a minute or two later.

My response makes no sense to rational mind, yet my heart tells me I am feeling how it felt as a tiny child when I inhaled the emotions of those around me. I could not handle the experience. It literally broke my heart.

“Brenda,” Keith again guides me, “look at this woman on your left. She does not know it yet, but she knows how to help you. It is not in her conscious awareness, but she knows how to do psychic surgery.”

“I’m getting that your high heart was literally severed.” Keith continues. “Not by someone else, but by you. I have been watching for months, and now feel that you are ready to move forward.”

High Heart Explained

I have often listened as Keith explains just what the high heart is. It is a minor chakra located at the center of the upper chest region, half way between the normal heart chakra and the throat chakra. Keith has been taught that this energy center is the one associated with what he refers to as Cosmic consciousness or Christ consciousness – adding that Jesus and Krishna were two of the best-known representatives of this divine unconditionally-loving energy, but that they are not the energy itself.

Much later, days after the fact, Keith will explain to me that he has long been watching me in my frustration over not having sensitivity to the energies – and that a severed high heart breaks the flow of energies, literally blocking my awareness and feelings. During that ceremony, he just suddenly knew that it was time to address this issue.

Just A Glimpse?

“Help Brenda to reconnect this energy flow,” Keith guides the woman to my left. “Help to give her a glimpse of what it looks and feels like to have a high heart.”

It is only in writing about this experience that I connect the dots. I have often been confused with the difference of doing energy work on someone versus having them do the inner shifts themselves. When we energetically assist someone by removing a block for them, we are giving them a temporary glimpse into what it is like to be without the block. Yet, in order for the changes to stick, to become more permanent, that person must change their life, making new choices. If the person does not make the necessary internal shifts, the blockages usually return within a few days.

In this case, Keith asked this woman to use her unknown ability to give me a glimpse of how it feels to have a connected high heart. The task of keeping it repaired and connected is up to me.

A Knowing Heart

As I point out a sharp pain by my collarbone and another pain at the center of my heart, Keith adds more insight.

“Your high heart is completely isolated.” Keith confidently shares. “It is cut both above and below.”

“Your head doesn’t know how, but your heart does know.” Keith again guides the woman to my left. “Help Brenda to reconnect the energy connections that were severed.”

Keith soon guides everyone at the ceremony to energetically assist.

Surrendering And Releasing

I desperately attempt to embrace the technique-less technique of surrender. I breathe deep slow breaths, quiet my mind, and stare into the eyes of this woman to my left. My heart feels her pure love.

Something hidden in me fights, resisting – yet I continue to focus on simply allowing. At Keith’s request, I also stare into the eyes of others, connecting with their loving supportive energy.

Finally, after what must be at least fifteen minutes of surrender, allowing, and simply being, I begin to feel sharp pains right down the center of my chest, running between my throat and my heart. It feels as if a tiny filament of stinging antiseptic has been poured on an open wound.

Some hidden part of me is now terrified. I begin to sob and go into gut-wrenching dry heaves – feeling agonizing energetic resistance literally being invisibly vomited out of my throat.

Moments later, the stinging between heart and throat has now widened, feeling perhaps an inch or two in diameter.

Painful-But-Amazing Awakenings

“There is one more layer that wants to be released in order to further open.” Keith guides me with loving confidence.

As I “surrender and allow” for another few moments, I suddenly flash into a deep and agonizing emotional release. I again go through intense and involuntary dry-heaving motions as I metaphorically vomit additional energy out of my body. I literally feel intense pain, centered in my high heart region, surfacing as if out of nowhere before being thrown out of my body in an unbelievably physical way.

As the emotional heaving subsides, I suddenly experience painful prickles that begin to spread rapidly throughout my entire high heart region, as if my entire chest cavity is a sleeping foot that is now painfully waking up with new energetic flow – as if new life force is suddenly entering areas that have been dead for eons of time.

The prickly vibrations are quite painful, sharply painful – but they feel delightfully amazing at the very same time.

Shared Growth

For a while longer, I continue in and out of a few more waves of emotional release, but I am mostly integrating between joyful and fearful bursts of further opening and realization.

In the midst of this process, while experiencing a few deep sobs, a beautiful little dog named Emily jumps into the mix and begins to paw and lick me, adding her own beautiful and innocent unconditional love to my process.

Soon, Keith spends considerable time with the group, discussing what we just did, helping everyone to integrate the events that just transpired, each in their own way.

I express my feeling of guilt at having literally taken over a large portion of their private ceremony. The feedback that returns my way is that of deep gratitude for giving each of them a huge gift – for helping them to open up and to have their own experiences through participating with mine.

Integration And Feedback

After the ceremony ends, I exchange a huge round of hugs with everyone involved. I am blown away, speechless, flabbergasted, and simply basking in the light that I am now experiencing in my high heart.

I feel as if portions of that little three-year-old angel – that magical and metaphorical part of me that I pushed out long ago – have returned to their proper place in my heart. Intuitions tell me, however, that this process is only partially complete.

I am further shocked when I enjoy post-ceremony “hug fixes” with Angela. She surprises me by telling me that ever since she was young, she has been able to see energy grids around people. She explains that during the ceremony, she was pumping huge amounts of energy into the woman that was helping me so that she could pass it on to me. She could see all of the energy – energy flowing from everyone – she could see it all moving through that woman and into me.

Wow!

What About Me

After a quick late-afternoon lunch, Keith, Susan, and I set off for the second half of our day, being carried back to San Marcos in a small private boat. My high heart feels amazing, but I continue to feel sharp little stinging pains throughout the region.

The next forty-five minutes are a busy rush as we scurry to prepare for the next ceremony – a group of women participating in a beginning yoga teacher training course, right in the heart of San Marcos.

As the small ceremony begins, my high-heart euphoria quickly fades into mild abdominal nausea. Ten minutes later, during the glow meditation, I am struggling. My head wants to go to sleep as I swim in a thick, cloudy, distracting energy; and the discomfort in my tummy grows increasingly stronger.

After a while, when Keith finally turns to check on my status, I explain my energetic dilemma.

“You had a powerful opening in the high heart today.” Keith acknowledges. “Now your other chakras are loudly saying ‘What about me?’ … ‘When is it my turn?’”

Lost In Stuck-ness

Immediately I focus on attempts to connect with the protesting energies in my third-eye region and in my solar plexus. I feel pleasurable hints of new energy vibration in my forehead, but I simultaneously begin to experience strange emotional sensations of deep fear, anger, and resistance.

The more I try to push this opening process, both in my forehead and in my solar plexus, the more unexpected emotion I experience. Eventually I start to physically shut down and reach a state of being deeply stuck. I do not want to feel these uninvited emotions. I cannot handle any more emotion today.

Again feeling guilty for not holding space for the group, I begin to quietly sob and shake while energetically heaving out more energy from the blockage point in my solar plexus. As Susan comes over to support me, to hold space for me, I begin to deeply experience the sadness and agony of having shut everything down as a child.

Ping Pong Hatred

As Keith guides the group in a training about relationships, I suddenly realize that I am in the middle of a love-hate relationship between heart and solar plexus. My love hates that dastardly masculine power, and the power despises that weak heart that brought in all of the emotional pain. These two energetic centers are projecting all over each other.

It now seems clear that my goal is to support these inner energies in each healing themselves while letting go of their hatred and projections, one toward the other. Any attempts to fix will only meet resistance. Love is the only answer. But how?

When Keith eventually checks in with me from afar, he congratulates me on my insights.

“That is ‘ping pong hatred’,” Keith jokes with me, further explaining that both want to fix the other, and the process just continues cycling back and forth.

A Disinterested Cat

Feeling confused, in my weird emotional state and not wanting to bother others, I leave the group and sit by myself, leaning against a wooden post about ten feet away from the group.

Soon, a cat comes loudly meowing onto the patio area where we are holding the ceremony. As I quietly observe, many of my former animal metaphors rush back to awareness.

“The junkyard dogs in my abdomen are calling out for self-love.” I ponder. “An energetic scared puppy under the couch doesn’t want to be chased out with a stick, he needs love.”

The cat quickly becomes my scared puppy. It is a scared and prowling cat – a cat searching for love and affection, but extremely skittish and hesitant to trust anyone.

“I cannot grab this cat and force it to love me.” I ponder.

“Nor can I force it to accept my love.” I further reflect as I watch several women try to do just that.

I soon attempt to get the cat’s attention, to coax it to come over and visit with me.

“My solar plexus is like this cat.” I continue pondering. “It is roaming around, craving love, but disinterested and untrusting of my love. It knows I am not genuine … that I am just trying to fix it … etc…”

Fixing Versus Being

I recognize that I need to back off in the fixing department, that I simply need to use my newly opened high heart capacity to radiate pure unconditional love.

“But what if my solar plexus never responds … what if it never accepts that love?” I ponder with panic. “I need this energy to heal. It hurts me. I do not want to wait. Yet if I push and try to fix, it will probably rebel even more.”

I feel the fear and powerlessness of knowing that my inner energies are not listening to me, not wanting to cooperate with my greater good.

Soon, I am able to transcend and release that fear, and sink into a peaceful state of just being. As I begin to feel delightful energy flow in the upper chakras, my solar plexus begins to relax as well.

To my shock and amazement, the little cat soon wanders over to me and crawls up on my legs. As she peacefully cleans herself, I gently and lovingly stroke her back and neck while loving tears stream down my cheeks. After about twenty minutes, the little kitty finally jumps up and resumes her independent journey.

Inexplicable Sadness

I am very emotional as I move closer to rejoin the main group. As I sit slightly behind Susan, I feel peaceful but isolated. Part of me is suddenly feeling very sad. The sadness is overwhelming, all encompassing – and I am not even sure now if it is my own sadness.

When the group joins hands for a little closing ritual, I continue to sit slightly behind Susan. She reaches back and invites me to join hands and I lovingly push her away.

“No, I’m fine.” I reply, trying to avoid connecting. This inexplicable sadness wants me to disconnect and run away, to dig a hole, to climb in, to pull a lid over the top, and to simply sob.

Keith moves over to make room for me, and insists that I join the group. I reluctantly comply. As I hold hands and connect with the love of this beautiful group, the inexplicable sadness in my soul soars exponentially.

Intuitively, I recognize that I am connecting with a previously hidden gigantic reservoir of childhood sadness. The sadness is so intense and overwhelming that I feel as if the life force is being violently sucked out of me – as if I were Harry Potter having his energy sucked out by a Dementor.

A Bottomless Pit

In this moment, I observe myself as two separate people.

On the one hand, I remain loving, confident, and peaceful in my heart and high heart. I radiate that love and hold space for this little child’s process.

On the other, I literally am my own little child actually experiencing that overwhelming sadness. It is excruciatingly real, causing me to lose all sight of the loving adult who is holding space for this process. The intense sadness is beyond my tolerance level. It is like inescapable quicksand. I sink into it. I get lost in it. I flounder in hopeless, in the feeling that no one understands me, that I cannot express my feelings, and that I have no hope of letting this sadness go. I am in a state of unbelievable emotional agony.

I know that I have dived into a bottomless pit – one that has been stuffed and repressed for over fifty years. I feel unsure as to whether I can get back out of this pit – unsure if I even want to try.

Bring In The Light

After everyone except Susan and Keith leave, I continue to sit on my pillow with my head down, crying and numb, lost in the overwhelming sadness – yet an observer part of me continues to maintain a glimmer of loving power.

Susan first comes to support me. I begin to cry more intensely as I attempt to explain what is happening. Keith soon joins and listens to my powerful saga.

“Congratulations.” Keith surprises me. “These are beautiful insights. Now bring in more light.”

An Impermeable Wall

As I struggle to focus and allow higher energies to assist, a huge hidden part of me resists. I am unable to meditate. I do not want to meditate. I am feeling this emotion so profoundly, and so deeply, that I do not want to let it go. I do not want to lose it. Part of me absolutely insists that I “need” to feel it even deeper, that I cannot let it be taken from me, that I have to feel it to the bitter end until it is finally released.

The part of me that absolutely abhors “fixing energy” insists that the light will simply disappear the emotion, that it will invalidate me by just “fixing it”, and that I need to experience this emotion in order to heal it fully.

I continue to be stuck at the bottom of a huge impermeable wall that absolutely will not allow me to receive assistance from higher energies.

Higher Energies Equals Fixing

Keith and Susan both remain and work with me for a while, but I feel stuck, and we are all exhausted. We have gone through two long ceremonies with over eight hours of sitting on the ground. It is now after 8:00 p.m. and we are all tired.

I am encouraged when they both volunteer to walk me home, and even more encouraged when they come in to further help me to ground myself.

“This is the opportunity to connect with higher energies and allow them to help you in your process.” Keith gently nudges me.

As I express my hopeless feelings of doubt and uncertainty, Keith explains that I still have higher energies tightly hooked as being equivalent to fixing energies – that I am unable to separate the two from each other.

Angelic Love

“Close your eyes, Brenda.” Keith guides me in a little meditation. “Go inside … hold and comfort that child … just you … by yourself …without any higher energies involved.”

As I meditate and feel myself holding this sad and innocent child, I feel the emotions relax slightly.

“Now, ask an angel to come and do just the exact same thing, not with the child, but with you.” Keith guides me further.

As I invite the angelic energy to hold me, I feel the additional support, and I recognize that there is no attempt to fix. It is just pure love. I like the feeling.

“Now have the angel double the love.” Keith nudges further.

I feel slightly more alive and peaceful. Pure unconditional love is beginning to return to my heart. Fixing energy is nowhere to be found.

“Now have the angel love you while you continue to love the child.” Keith takes me one step deeper.

As I visualize this scenario, I physically feel a warm power supporting my back and shoulders with what feels like a cool breeze of loving energy.

“Now have the angel double that love.” Keith again nudges.

Wow, I am resonating in powerful peace, feeling amazing and centered.

Love At Last

“This is enough to show you the love.” Keith congratulates me. “There is no fixing in this type of love.”

“Now, how is that child feeling?” Keith then queries.

“Validated and understood.” I quickly respond with confidence. “The sadness is mostly gone. That little boy is feeling like he finally received what he never got.”

I feel so clear in the realization that I have been loved my whole life, but that love was always given with conditions, with subtle manipulation, control, and expectations. This love, the love I feel right now, is absolutely unconditional.

Real Love

As my friends leave me alone shortly after 9:00 p.m., I satisfy my famished hunger with two quick peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I do not have the strength or the desire to cook. It takes me until after 10:00 p.m. just to take notes for this writing. I cannot wait to crash on my pillow.

It has been an amazing day of profound growth, understanding, and clarity. I have deeply experienced empath energies in undeniable ways. For the first time in conscious memory, I actually feel a beautiful flow of energy peacefully vibrating in my high heart, and I have gone deeper into my childhood sadness than I ever imagined possible.

To top it off, I was actually able to allow some higher energy to assist me. It was not much, but I received a profound glimpse of what it is like to be loved unconditionally.

As I finally drift off to sleep, I ponder something Keith said before he left.

“Welcome to real love, Brenda.” Keith had gently shared with a glow in his eyes. “… not just giving it to others like you already do, but allowing yourself to receive it.”

Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved