As I contemplate deep frustration over rapidly falling behind in my writing, I weigh two options. It is Saturday morning, March 5, my dear friend Rae’s final day in San Marcos. I can either spend a final day building memories with her, or I can bury my nose in my writing. The decision is easy; writing will simply have to wait for another few days.
After spending a beautiful morning of talking, packing, and energy sharing, Rae and I hop into a boat headed across the lake to San Pedro. She wants to get film footage of us arriving via boat at the dock in San Marcos, and the only way to do that is to leave and then come back.
While in San Pedro, the two of us enjoy a delightful brunch at a small restaurant with a gorgeous view of the lake. To my surprise, Rae whips out her video camera and proceeds to interview me yet again, capturing even more raw footage of my thoughts and feelings.
By early afternoon, Rae and I share our last boat ride together. As we near San Marcos, she begins to capture final video sequences – people jumping from the diving platform on the side of a nearby hill, our boat coasting through tall reeds as it pulls up to a rickety wooden dock, and a small group of local boys eagerly crowding the boat, seeking to earn small tips by guiding incoming tourists to various spots around San Marcos.
Relaxing Through Chaos
Deep emotional honesty is a huge heartfelt blessing as Rae and I share final discussions and magical energy throughout the short afternoon.
In the meantime, I begin to feel considerable panic. I had asked Rae if she would like to have some sort of going away dinner. We decided that a small quiet potluck here at the house would be fun.
Then comes the dilemma. For very good reasons, Rae does not feel particularly inclined to want to be in charge of her own farewell dinner – and one of my biggest nightmares is trying to play hostess in organizing a dinner party.
After inviting a few guests, our enthusiasm fizzles and we both make a pact to simply enjoy whatever happens – no matter how unorganized and chaotic the evening might seem, we are not going to worry or fret – we are simply going to enjoy whatever unfolds.
My contribution to the small dinner will be quite simple – a pot of beans and some rice. I feel quite insecure about my cooking skills and very self-conscious about my meager contribution. In spite of the fact that my beans take forever to cook, I somehow manage to relax and go with the flow – deciding that no matter what happens all will be well.
File Sharing Worries
For several weeks, Rae and I have planned to share files with each other prior to her departure, but inevitably, we waited until her final afternoon in San Marcos before beginning.
To my frustration, Isaias shows up a couple of hours before the party and completely consumes all of Rae’s time, coaxing her to give him raw video footage for his own computer. By the time the evening dinner party begins, I have not yet had one opportunity to begin sharing files with my dear friend.
In spite of a late and extremely relaxed start, the potluck dinner turns into a beautiful experience – a wonderful teaching opportunity for me, showing me that my earlier worries were silly and that everything turned out amazing without my needing to fret or panic.
But it is during and after the party that my anxiety again begins to peak. Suddenly, several guests express desires to see and to get various copies of Rae’s photos before she leaves. One friend runs home to get a memory stick while Keith whips out his laptop computer with his own intentions. The evening drags on and on as the clock ticks away.
“I will never have the opportunity to do my own file sharing with Rae.” I whisper to myself with a feeling of victimization.
My sinking heart overflows with frustration as I watch what is unfolding around me. I can sense Rae’s annoyance about having her final even consumed by the requests of others, while I begin to sink into shutdown and confusion about my own needs and desires being pushed onto the back burner, most likely to be forgotten and ignored. I feel like an unwanted houseguest in my own home.
After Keith does a quick exchange of files with Rae, he suddenly decides that he wants copies of over forty very-long video files that Rae has on her hard drive – videos that I had already heard him previously tell Rae that he was not at all interested in having. It seems quite strange, but the thought crosses through my mind that Keith is requesting these videos simply to annoy me – simply following his own internal guidance in a way that will teach me a lesson about myself.
As I express my frustration to Keith, telling him that I am flustered that everyone else is taking Rae’s time and that I will probably not be able to copy my own files, his response totally floors me.
“You should have started a few days ago rather then waiting until the last minute.” Keith responds coldly.
I resist my first reactive thought – a deep desire to reach out and slap my dear friend and teacher. It is so obvious that he himself has also waited until the last minute.
“How dare he turn that around on me!” I pout quietly to myself.
Pattern Recognition
As Keith’s files begin to copy, they creep and crawl, progressing ever so slowly. It appears that the process will literally take hours, and Keith casually indicates with a smile that he is willing to wait up until the copies are done.
In the meantime, Rae puts on some music and several people get up to begin dancing. I try to join them, but my heart is in complete shutdown mode, begging me to isolate, to run away and hideout in my room. I am angry, hurt, victimized, and rebellious – yet the observer inside of me refuses to sink to the bottom. I quietly recognize an old behavioral pattern surfacing.
Beautiful Turn Around
I will not allow myself to be victimized; instead I will re-center myself and create a new reality. Almost immediately I isolate myself – but rather than running into my room and closing the door, I lie down on the daybed in the living room, sink into a meditative state, and begin to play with the energies in my hands.
The flow of energy from one hand to the other totally surprises me. As I point the fingers of one hand at the other hand, I can actually feel little energy tickles in the fingers and palm of the receiving hand, even when that hand is a couple of feet away. I feel quite mesmerized by my state of internal peace and by the energy that I feel flowing through me.
As Keith continues to request more files from Rae, I lovingly interrupt and explain to him that Rae and I had already scheduled that we would spend tonight copying files for each other.
“Then I better stop right now and let you do that.” Keith responds with beautiful politeness – a complete turnaround from his previous response when I had complained from a spiritually-disconnected state of frustration.
“No, you continue to work with Rae,” I respond peacefully, “while I begin to clear space from my own external hard drive. Once I clear space, you can stop your copying. If there are files that you don’t have time to get, I will copy them onto my drive and give them to you later.”
The answer seems so easy, so obvious, and so peaceful – an answer that was so utterly impossible only an hour earlier.
Fragmented File Scattering
In the meantime, I feel deeply guided to share a little file system insight with Keith and Rae – explaining to them why their copy process is going so incredibly slow. I even throw in a comment explaining that I worked for many years as one of the primary software engineers in architecting and programming a very complicated network file system during my previous left-brained employment.
“You are trying to copy too many files all at once.” I explain casually. “Imagine that you have a small automatic cannon loaded with one thousand water balloons. Further imagine that you have ten targets and that you want to shoot one hundred water balloons at each target.”
“Assuming that each target represents a file, which do you think would be faster?” I ask, giving them two options.
The first option is to aim and shoot one balloon at a time, switching targets in between every balloon. In the one thousand shots, there would be one thousand intervals where targets are switched and time is taken to re-aim.
The second option is to aim at the first target and then shoot one hundred balloons in rapid succession before switching. Next, the cannon can be moved to the second target and re-aimed for the next one hundred rapid fire shots. The entire one thousand water balloons would only require switching targets and re-aiming a total of ten times.
We soon cancel all of the parallel file copies and instead initiate a serial sequence of only one file copy at a time. Shortly after I have space cleared on my own hard drive, Keith’s first copy sequence finishes. Then Rae and I switch into plan B.
Peaceful Reality Check
Thirty minutes later, well after all party guests have gone home, Rae and I have copied literally everything I want, including virtually everything else that Keith wanted too.
Both Rae and I are delighted to have a final hour of peaceful quiet, energy sharing, cuddling, and heart-felt conversation together before retiring.
I have learned a powerful lesson about myself. When I am in a disconnected energy of chaos and frustration – that is what gets reflected back to me. When I center myself in divine energies – the world reflects love and peace.
There is no doubt that I created my own reality this evening, and that Keith was simply honoring me throughout the entire time, responding to my own energy, showing me my own reflection, assisting me in a yet another powerful lesson of love and growth.
Tearful Transition
After a delightful shared breakfast, Rae and I take a short Sunday morning stroll up a little cobblestone path, winding back and forth between buildings toward the center of town. My heart begins to break as the little tourist shuttle pulls up at 9:30 a.m.. The driver hurriedly secures and covers Rae’s backpack up on the roof rack before encouraging her to quickly take the only remaining empty seat on the back row of the small van.
Before I have even a moment to think, the van is rushing away down the road while Rae waves out the back window.
Another friend, Anjili, had unexpectedly shown up only a minute earlier. As she walks me back to my apartment, my heart unexpectedly aches as tears begin to flow.
“I’m going to miss her deeply.” I whisper to Anjili as I struggle to get the words out between muffled tears.
Even now, as I write about this experience almost seven weeks later, the tears of emotion pour down my cheeks as I again say goodbye to an amazing friend that will always hold a very deep and special place in my heart. I now recognize that on that beautiful first Sunday of March, I had not fully allowed myself to grieve. Those unexpressed emotions are now finding a much needed release.
I love you Rae … I am forever grateful for the amazing seven weeks that we spent together, and I know with all of my heart that our paths will definitely cross again. A beautiful piece of your heart continues to resonate inside of my own.
Instant Manifestation
As Sunday morning proceeds to unfold, I continue to recognize that everything around me seems to be manifesting instantaneously. First, Anjili unexpectedly shows up at the exact moment when I need someone to briefly hug.
Then, more than an hour later, I carry a large empty propane tank to the center of town, desperately needing new cooking gas. Rae and I had only giggled the night before when the propane had unexpectedly run out at the very end of the party.
At the exact moment in which I am contemplating how I will get this very heavy and awkward tank back to my apartment, a beautiful young friend named River walks up, lifts the tank onto his shoulder, and offers to carry it for me.
Both Anjili and River showed up in my life at exactly the moments and places where I needed them. Everything around me in my life seems to be happening in perfect balance, bringing me exactly what I need, precisely when I need it. These last two incidences seem to be added for extra emphasis.
My heart cries out with joy, “This is so much more than mere coincidence.”
Small Group – Perfect Group
As the Sunday afternoon chocolate ceremony begins to shape up, I am shocked by the unusually small turnout – besides Keith, there are only three of us: me, Anton, and Vanessa. Rather than question and be concerned with the small turnout, I immediately look in the mirror and ask: “Why did I create such a small group today, and why did I invite these exact people to be present?” I cannot wait to discover the answers. I will explore today as if the entire experience is created by me, for me.
Silent Struggles
As with last Thursday, the session begins with a very uncharacteristic hour of complete silence.
“Why am I creating this silence?” I ask to myself as the anxiety begins to build.
I take note that silence in a group has often been a deep source of anxiety for me. I want to be doing ‘real’ healing work and silence seems like such a waste of time.
Then I recognize why the silence fosters anxiety. In silence, all of my suppressed inner chaos and chatter is provided with a playground in which to flourish – a playground filled with doubt, negative self talk, and memories of past anxieties. I begin to feel very overwhelmed by the silence, realizing that noise and activity have always been a very welcome distraction to these unwelcome taunting voices.
Meditative Insights
Even in the midst of the silent struggles, I do manage to connect with additional insights. As I contemplate the chaos that I feel, I recognize that I have a deeply rooted fear of losing control – of letting something other than rational mind be in charge of the flow of my being.
“This is why I have been so obsessed with thoughts of perhaps needing the help of a substance to take me into an altered state of reality.” I think to myself. “My rational mind is so rooted in the driver’s seat that it will not step aside long enough for me to have a more profound experience in the right-brained realms.”
Then my mind wanders again into my strange inability to relax and sleep when touching the energy field of another. This too seems to be an issue of fear and control, of being afraid to enter into the world of sleep while another’s energy is so close, so threatening.
I again reminisce that even in my twenty-year marriage, I usually had to demand that my half of the bed be respected. I was so desperate for sleep that I had to set up boundaries to protect my physical space so that I could hopefully relax and doze off into dreamland without being touched.
Eventually, I intuitively realize that if I am creating my own reality, then that reality must be waiting for me to speak. I open my mouth, interrupt the meditation, and explain to Keith where my mind has taken me during the last hour.
Keith listens intently and then takes my sharing to a slightly deeper level, reminding me of just how sensitive I am to the energy of others – that I am able (though I still don’t fully understand how) to read the energy of others.
“When you feel the energy of others around you,” Keith lovingly suggests, “part of you experiences a sense of obligation to be present with that energy, to respond and to attend to it. Perhaps that is why you cannot sleep when attached to the energy of others?”
Hoover Dam
“Close your eyes, walk down a staircase, stroll down a hallway, and step through a doorway.” Keith guides me into a very familiar meditation into my subconscious mind.
“What do you find?” Keith asks, after giving me a few minutes to complete my internal journey.
“I feel as if I am at the top of a large dam … something very tall like Hoover Dam,” I begin. “I feel as if I am at the top of the spillway, snagged on some type of debris or barbed wire. I feel as if water is flowing past me, racing down the spillway before crashing into the river at the bottom far below.”
I explain to Keith that I feel as if the dam and spillway represent my ability to surrender to the energies – to lose control – to let go of the world as I know it and to move on to new territory below.
At the same time, from my present vantage point, I see the process of letting go as terrifying, extremely dangerous – something that could literally take my life and destroy me.
“Find a stairway that leads down the dam, perhaps adjacent to the spillway itself.” Keith begins to guide me in the next phase of my meditation.
“Climb down the stairway and let me know when you reach the bottom.” Keith adds calmly.
When I find myself at the bottom of the spillway, the waters crashing down from above are raging with intensity. I feel the powerful roar of ear-shattering, life-threatening energy – recognizing that if I were to slip into those out-of-control currents that I could easily lose my life.
In The Flow
“Take a short walk downstream, away from the dam, and find a raft.” Keith picks up the meditation. “Begin to float down the river and see where it takes you.”
Soon, I feel myself floating down gentle rapids and calm currents, drifting in the cool afternoon shade of tall and towering red-rock canyon walls. I feel as if I am literally floating into the Grand Canyon itself. I make no attempt to steer the raft. I am simply in the flow, allowing the energies to take me where they will.
“Get off the raft and climb onto a tiny island.” Keith soon guides me. “Once you are on dry land, walk to the upstream end of the little island and sit down in the water, simply allowing the flow of the river to move into you and around you. Relax and allow.”
Receiving Love
As I begin focusing on surrender and allowing, I suddenly feel someone’s hands gently touching my feet. I peek through the slits of barely opened eyes and discover that Vanessa has decided to provide me with loving energetic support.
Almost immediately, I start to feel deeply distracted from my process, beginning to judge my friend for attempting to help me without first asking for my permission. As I am about to open my mouth and lovingly thank her but ask her to stop, the intuitions suddenly hit me.
“This is a perfect example of how other peoples’ energy distracts me and keeps me from being able to focus or surrender to higher energies.” I think to myself.
Then I remember how for five years I made almost weekly trips into the mountains to commune with nature and to connect with divine energies. While I tried several times, I found it utterly impossible to meditate if a friend was on the trip with me. Even if she was one hundred feet away, hiding behind a tree, I could not detach from her energy. I rarely allowed anyone to join me on those sacred outings.
“It is time to allow this unexpected energy guest, and to see just where it might take me.” I ponder while allowing Vanessa to continue sharing her loving energetic support.
Soon I know exactly why I created my reality to include Vanessa in the group today. As I simultaneously continue surrendering to the flow of events in both the meditative realm and in the physical world, my eyes begin to well up with tears of deep emotion.
“I don’t allow myself to receive from others.” I ponder as the tears intensify and begin to gently stream down my cheeks. “I feel such a deep passion about giving, but rarely allow myself to receive love in return.”
Gratitude swells in my heart for Vanessa’s presence on Keith’s magical porch.
An Invisible Shield
Back in my mediation, as I imagine the energetic currents of the river flowing against my chest, I sense the presence of something blocking the flow of energies into my body. I literally feel as if I have some type of invisible shield covering my chest and my abdomen, keeping the Universal energies out, desperately trying to protect me from what something inside perceives as destructive energies. I physically feel as if a huge weight is pressing in on my chest and abdomen, reminding me of the resisted onrush of energy that desires to flow through me.
Almost immediately, my mind is again guided to the metaphor of a scared puppy hiding in my chest, shaking with terror at the energy that desires to enter.
“Allow the waters to dissolve the shield.” Keith briefly interjects.
I Soon feel as if the shield is indeed deteriorating, dissolving and weakening, eroding under the influence of the gentle energetic currents. As the shield disappears, an intense feeling of sharpness seems to stab me in the center of my heart chakra – a familiar feeling that gets ignored for now.
Pride-less Plea
The currents seem to have strengthened, as have the final elements of my resistance – resistance that still hangs on with desperation.
“I don’t know why, but I feel as I am supposed to ask Anton for some more help.” I finally blurt out during a moment of increased helplessness. “I don’t know what he needs to do for me, but I do know that I need to ask.”
Even though I still find myself strongly resisting a deeper re-connection with Anton, I swallow my pride and allow the flow of my Higher Self to guide me.
Dissolving Sand – Shared Pain
Seconds later, Anton is holding my feet. To my utter surprise Anton soon begins to cringe and moan with deep and periodic pain.
Simultaneously, I begin to experience what I can only describe as slightly unpleasant clumps of sand rising in my abdomen – seeming imaginary clumps that quickly dissolve and wash away in the currents of the energetic river that flows through me. My sand-pile-like pain is only moderate, just strong enough to make me aware of its presence – just strong enough to make me want to let it go.
It does not take rocket science to quickly figure out that the clumps of sand washing away in my belly are precisely timed with Anton’s deep expression of pain that is occasionally quite agonizing and intense. I rapidly deduce that Anton is experiencing my own deeply-rooted, stuffed-and-buried emotions. Keith and Anton quickly validate my intuitions.
“With everything you release,” Anton confirms, “I feel a very deep sense of the emotional pain associated with it.”
I am blown away by how powerfully Anton seems to be feeling my own emotional densities. Other than the fact that my little sand clumps are emotions being transmuted, I am clueless as to their nature or their origin. Were it not for Anton’s unique connection to my energy, I might simply discount the entire process as being quite meaningless.
In my confused state of shock, a part of me is somewhat happy that Anton is feeling the pain of my emotions while I am not having to do so myself.
“Perhaps this is the Universe’s way of helping him better understand me and the deep emotional struggles of my past.” I ponder briefly.
No Rational Explanation
But I quickly move beyond the ego-based ‘why’ of this ongoing and unique energy connection that exists between Anton and me. As the process continues, rational mind is completely disengaged. There is no way I could logically explain anything that is transpiring, and I simply give up attempting to do so, knowing that what I am experiencing is definitely real and indescribable.
The powerful and instantaneous feedback from both within and outside of my own body is profound, building a deep appreciation and trust of what is happening to me and through me.
Faster Please
The flow of densities seems to go on forever.
“How much density do I still have in here?” I ask Keith with shock as the emotional densities continue to rise and to release.
“Yeah,” Anton adds with his own version of relief-seeking concern, “how much more will I have to feel over here? This is intense and painful.”
“Ask your Higher Self to help you do it faster.” Keith coaches me.
I make a concentrated effort to connect more deeply with my heart, knowing that unconditional love will most certainly facilitate the ongoing process. I notice that the flow seems to intuitively feel a little faster, but the process continues to go on forever.
“Surely, two hours must have definitely passed by now.” I think to myself as the process drags on and on. I can only imagine the agony that Anton is experiencing regarding how long this is taking.
Deep gratitude flows through my heart as I briefly reconnect with the fact that I am clearly creating my reality. Everything on the porch today seems to be revolving perfectly around my process – and the exact people that I need are here helping.
File System Revisited
“Quit trying to do it one emotional density at a time.” Keith again adds a puzzling comment.
“Lump a whole series of densities together into a file,” Keith clarifies, “and release the whole file all at once.”
As I bring in this new metaphor, further disconnecting myself from the emotional contents of what I am releasing, I intuitively feel another level of ‘speed-up’, but the process still seems to be taking an incredibly long time as Anton continues to moan with frequent pain.
Remembering last night’s deep discussion of file systems, I begin to imagine myself going deeply into multiple file system metaphors – playing with entire directory trees – adjusting block sizes – and the like.
“You don’t need to know or understand each individual density.” Keith interjects firmly and dramatically. “Just let the densities all go at once.”
I remember many times in the past when I desired to clean out the contents of my computer disc. Invariably, I took the time to go down into each individual directory tree, carefully checking the contents of anything and everything before taking the risk of blindly deleting what was nestled inside. I wanted to make sure that I did not inadvertently erase something that I might want back at a later time.
As I continue meditating on the now-rapidly-flowing densities, I imagine myself removing hidden and read-only bits from entire directory structures, then clicking on “yes to all” when prompted as to whether I want to obliterate the entire contents of what lies below.
Still, the densities continue flowing – faster albeit – but still flowing.
The idea of ripping out the entire hard drive passes through my mind, but something tells me I still need the disc drive itself, I simply want to fill it with light rather than emotional density. I then try to imagine myself reformatting the disc with light, blindly removing all contents with pure abandon – trusting my Higher Self to not allow anything that I might need to be unwittingly lost.
Still the densities continue flowing.
Complete Surrender
Finally completely giving up on trying to ‘do’ anything at all with rational mind, I simply surrender; I have tried everything and still the energy continues to flow. In total humility, I merely ask the light to do what it needs to do, giving it no further instructions whatsoever.
For the remainder of an amazing Sunday afternoon chocolate ceremony, I simply sit in mediation, watching and feeling the energies flow through my body, merely trusting that I need do nothing.
A Density Lesson
Eventually, as 7:00 p.m. comes and goes, the energy flows cease.
Today turns out to be an amazing lesson for me that not all emotional densities need to be felt on an individual level.
Yes, Keith reiterates that some of them must be exposed, dissected, and healed in a very tedious manner. These are the ones that contain my biggest growth lessons – the lessons that will teach me to eventually assist others in their own process.
But no, not all emotional densities are of that teaching nature. Some can be released without any trauma drama or fanfare.
Today Keith has guided me into learning that higher energies can indeed be used to transmute huge amounts of density without my needing to have any clue whatsoever regarding the nature or quantity of that density.
I consider it a huge blessing that Anton was there to show me physically how the density being released was indeed real and quite painful.
The World Is A Stage
As Anton walks me home, my mind is again deeply immersed in another round of reality checks. I am blown away by how events in my life continue to revolve increasingly around my individual healing path. Today’s chocolate ceremony is yet another beautiful example staring back at me in the mirror.
After devouring a quick plate of spaghetti, I logon to face book and post a quick status – a status that to this day still boggles my mind:
“Wow – it blows me away how the Universe seems to be constantly showing me what Shakespeare said – that the world is a stage and everyone has their part. On a daily/hourly basis things continue to manifest in my life that seem perfectly orchestrated as being exactly what I need for my healing and growth in any particular moment – I love life …”
Copyright © 2011 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved