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