“I think I’ll just do more emotional processing today.” I ponder in frustration.
It is Saturday morning, January 14, 2012. It seems like years since I have written. I am so far behind that writing feels like a hopeless burden. Suddenly it hits me – an insight that floods me for the umpteenth time in my almost-three-year journey of self-discovery.
“I am not writing for anyone else.” I contemplate. “This should not be a burden … I am writing for me … for my own growth and integration … and I passionately want to go back and integrate what happened to me in December … to pull in the loose ends and tie them up with clarity.”
It seems that by bringing the focus back to my own personal integration, I am suddenly excited about writing again. I spend the entire day typing with passion. Finally, shortly before 10:00 p.m., I hit the publish button on, “Spreading My Wings”. I am tired and exhausted, but an inner spark is again beginning to glow. I am getting excited about resuming my writing.
Who’s Pain Is It?
After a beautiful Sunday morning of energizing meditation, I find myself on Keith’s porch for an afternoon chocolate ceremony. Shortly after the glow meditation finishes, as Keith works with a friend, I lightly tap him on the knee.
“Is this hers?” I query Keith about my intense pains while pointing to my solar plexus.
“Yes, it is hers and not yours.” Keith confirms my intuitions.
Later, as this same woman is working with pain in her heart, I too experience intense pain in my heart region. It seems that today, I am again being given a profound glimpse into the recognition that when I energetically connect with someone, I can sometimes feel their pain in my body as a way of understanding what they are going through. I am grateful that I have not fully opened this ability, because I continue to get quite confused regarding just who’s pain I might be feeling. I still identify personally with every emotion and pain that I feel – finding it quite difficult to remain non-attached, believing that everything I feel belongs to my own inner journey. It can be quite confusing at times.
Exploding Triggers
For the first half of the ceremony, I am energized, holding beautiful space for others, watching, observing, supporting, and sharing magical energy. But then my own work begins.
My magical new friend Jen has begun to send powerful loving energy to the man I called Tom in my last blog – a man who, to me, metaphorically represents a distorted masculine Gestapo energy of spiritual ego and repression – of denial, avoidance, domination, and spiritual superiority.
I am shocked as I watch my stomach revolt, getting somewhat nauseas as Jen continues to shower this very stuck man with loving energy. After doing a considerable amount of energy work on him, she even hugs him.
Triggers explode all over inside of me as painful hidden buttons are pushed everywhere. To my horror, I am feeling disgust as I look at Tom – as I observe this inexplicably-traumatizing scene unfold before me.
It seems that Tom metaphorically represents my own teenage bible-banging holier-than-thou energy … and imagining that part of me receiving love makes me want to throw up.
Hideous Hidden Hatred
As I watch my emotions flare, I realize that my work for today is obvious. I cannot love this man. He creeps me out. I see him as a rejected part of my teenage battles … as my own struggling young boy.
I hate him … until now I had no idea how much I hate him.
I clearly realize that my journey is not with real-life Tom – he is merely an external metaphor for an inside job. This has absolutely nothing to do with Tom. He is an innocent actor playing a role in my personal stage play – a holodeck drama created to show me more deeply unhealed issues on the inside.
With all of my focus, I turn inward. I begin to sense this anger and hideous hatred in its true context as hatred and venom that are safely locked away in that airtight box inside of me – an airtight box camouflaged under layers of white fluffy blankets of light.
The anger first triggers whimpers … then streaming tears … then a shaking jaw and gut-wrenching sobs. Soon, my friend Jen comes over to work with me.
A Shower Of Love
As Jen begins hugging me and tenderly caressing me, my first thought is to push her away … to see her energy as unasked-for fixing energy … to reject her genuine offer of loving support because it is pulling me out of my deep pain.
Then I realize that Jen is a manifested Godsend, and that it is time to allow someone to help me receive love … someone outside of myself. I feel her tender heart loving me like I have longed to be loved my whole life. Her heart is showering me with pure unconditional love.
Soon, I imagine myself forwarding this love to my inner-adolescent boy. Wave after wave of deeply emotional sobs flow through me as Jen showers me with this loving attention. I am receiving what I crave … I feel her loving my little boy.
A Trio Of Energies
As I eventually begin to experience sharp pains on the left side of my belly – on the feminine side – I suddenly realize that my little teenage girl wants love too. I absolutely hated her as a teenager. She took in just as much anger, self-hatred, self-loathing, and self-abuse as did my magical-mutant little teenage boy.
After about thirty minutes of inhaling this shower of unconditional love, filtering it to my genuine masculine and feminine inner-adolescents, a new realization gradually settles in.
“My little teenage boy and girl were not the angry ones.” I begin to ponder. “Yes, they were ruthlessly oppressed and desperately craving love, but it was the third energetic participant – the stuck, angry, self-righteous, bible-banging hater energy – the oppressor aspect in me that slammed me – that desperately needs my love.”
When I begin channeling Jen’s unconditional love to this third teenage-adolescent energy – the one I seem to be projecting onto Tom – things get quite intense.
Stunned Stillness
Suddenly, I begin to cough and dry-heave energy out of my abdomen. Wave after wave of deep gut wrenching pain flows through me – each wave being accompanied by jaw-shaking sobs and streaming tears. The thought of loving this hated part of me triggers me deeply.
All the while, Jen continues to shower me with pure unconditional love and compassionate energy. Eventually, as Jen’s legs begin to tire, she moves back to her seat, leaving me alone to integrate.
As I focus on bringing in more divine light and love, I sit in a state of shock. I feel so much lighter, more joyful, and freer, etc…, yet I am still experiencing the tearful emotions as well.
For the next couple of hours, I simply sit in stunned stillness, bringing in the glow, feeling peace, integrating, resting … and surrendering to exhaustion.
Heart-Felt Hope
Later in the evening, after scribbling down detailed notes and consuming a hurried dinner of rice and beans, I eagerly dive back into meditation. While impossible to describe it in writing, I definitely experience inner energetic differences. I know that something big has begun to shift inside. The journey is far from complete, but those three feuding teenage energetic aspects of me – while still hating each other – are beginning to feel touched by self-love – touched by a glimmer of heart-felt hope and divine acceptance that they have never before experienced.
Prior to falling asleep, while deep in meditation, I remember a strong and powerful thought that once came to me during those agonizing teenage years. While steeped in guilt and shame – consumed in what I believed to be horrendously sinful feelings – I had received a gift of loving inner knowing that I never shared with another living soul. Parents and church leaders would have never understood if I had tried to explain it. It was a divine gift that I buried away and believed to be just another evil thought.
“I need to personally experience ‘sinful behavior’ in order to understand people.” Those confusing Jedi voices had whispered to my tender heart. “This will give me the ability to help people later in my life.”
I did not understand it at the time, but I was being divinely reassured that going through that pain to get my own inner license was an important part of my inspired path.
An Old Ego Loop
Early Monday morning, Keith stops by to invite me to participate in a small private ceremony at 1:00 p.m. As usual, when I participate in such a ceremony, I envision myself simply holding space and assisting.
When am I going to learn that this reality is my own personal holodeck, and that everything that happens in my reality is designed by me and for me – unless of course I am simply allowing it?
After showing up on Keith’s porch, it does not take me long before I make an innocent statement to Paul (who is also participating). It is an impromptu statement – one that I can tell that Paul took the wrong way. I sink into self-judgment, feeling bad for what I just said. During the glow meditation, I finally recognize what I am doing.
“I am deep in an old self-flogging ego loop of trying to be genuine but ‘screwing things up again’,” I clearly recognize.
Curious Timing
At the end of the glow meditation, Keith remains silent, leaving an unusual and very long gap of complete uninterrupted meditation time. I take advantage of this peaceful silence to work through the remaining self-judgments of having launched into an old ego loop. Within moments of returning to a state of self-love and peaceful energy in my heart, Keith suddenly turns to me.
“How are you doing Brenda?” Keith startles me.
I describe my journey with ego and self-flogging and Keith just smiles. I know that he knows he needed to wait for me to rejoin the group … his timing completely blows me away.
“Are you ready to be a powerful healer today?” Keith then asks another unusual question.
“Yeah, I am.” I respond from a state of genuine peace, curiously wondering what Keith has up his sleeve.
Painful And Confusing
I do not see it until later, but from a perspective of hindsight, the entire ceremony seems to have been divinely orchestrated just for me.
Prior to a beautiful empath training, as Keith works with a young woman, I begin to feel a great deal of pain in my abdomen. I do not want to interrupt Keith, but finally, while experiencing intense pain and confusion, I trust a tiny voice that tells me to ask.
“Keith,” I query after tapping him on the shoulder, “Is this pain that I am experiencing in my solar plexus hers?”
“Yes it is.” Keith responds matter-of-factly.
Wow, I am in totally agony. This hurts … this empath stuff is painful and confusing. I can only imagine how I must have felt as a child without having someone to teach me about it.
Fearful Voices
As I sit continuing to hold space while quietly meditating, I attempt to release the pain to an imagined ball of light in front of me. New insights begin to flood my awareness.
“I have been seeing this wall around my heart as the enemy.” I ponder with clarity. “I have seen this wall as being in the way … believing that I need to tear it down … that I need to put huge cracks in the wall until it crumbles … saying ‘bring it on’ … that it is time to open my magic, etc…”
After yesterday’s huge release of self-hatred and anger, I feel some lighter energy vibrations in the deeply blocked nail-in-my-heart spot at the center of my heart chakra. But something is trembling inside – a faint voice of fear is persistently attempting to be heard. I suddenly get the feeling that I am in denial, my own form of spiritual ego, trying to suppress this fear rather than allowing its voice to come up, to be felt, and to be heard.
“I wonder what this fear is about,” I ponder curiously, as I begin to explore it.
Cowering In Terror
After about ten minutes of allowing this emotion to fester and strengthen, I begin to tremble from the fear that is surfacing in my soul. I struggle to hold back my tears, trying to suppress them. I know that this is a private ceremony, and believe that I am here to hold space – not to interrupt the ceremony with my own work.
As I struggle with this fear, it grows and grows and grows. It is no longer just fear … it is sheer terror of that wall around my heart coming down. I find myself in a state of panic and pain – in the unbelievable confusion of my little inner child – in the fear-filled midst of the very profound reason of why I erected that energetic wall in the first place.
As a tiny child, I was being slammed with empathic pain and emotional agony, and had no support or understanding from anyone. The responses I received from family would have been denial of my feelings, calling me crazy, telling me I was confused, and insistence that I just stop crying and push the emotions down – a complete invalidation of my magic.
“I experienced this same terror as a child.” I ponder with profound clarity. “This is why I built that protective wall around my heart. Now that I am cracking into the wall, allowing love to filter through the cracks, and releasing reservoirs of self hatred … I can feel my inner child cowering in terror of repeating the past.”
These repeated glimpses of empath magic are triggering a complete state of inner panic about reopening the magic – about disturbing what has been the protective stability of my wall – a wall that has kept out the pain and the love as well.
Lost Composure
“This wall is not my enemy,” I ponder. “It has been my protection from complete energetic electrocution. Wow … my blown fuse … could it be? If I do not learn how to recognize and use my inner magic from a positive polarity, it will most certainly fry me again.”
“Help!” I finally interrupt Keith while fighting back sobs and sheer terror.
“Absolutely.” Keith smiles back at me.
I quickly lose my composure, going deeper than ever before into the frantic pain of my inner child. I cry, sob, cough, dry-heave, wheeze, and sob some more. It hurts and I am in a state of utter panic.
Lost In Craziness
“Keith,” I beg for guidance. “I want to do this the easy way … with the light. I am stuck trying to decide if I need to unleash the buckets of tears, or if I need to put a stopper in it and try to bring in more light. I know I am in my head, trying to figure it out … but I don’t know how to do it right … I don’t trust my voices … I’m wondering if this is ego masquerading as my child.”
“I know the pain and fear are indeed real,” I continue my plea for help, “but then I wonder if that little child has already healed and is just holding up a heart for me while I lose myself in victimization.”
I know I need to go into these emotions … that I need to follow and not push … but then again, I don’t trust anything because I am once again feeling crazy, not knowing which voice in my head is real and which is ego.
As usual, in the midst of deep emotional pain, I have forgotten to take the light with me, and am now so emotional that I am incapable of connecting to that higher love.
Stuck In Limbo
“My little child was so confused and frightened.” I whimper unfolding insights to Keith. “The inner voices of doubt are strong and overwhelmingly confusing.”
“Why don’t you just not do anything but hang out with that little girl and watch the show,” Keith surprises me with a beautiful suggestion. “See it like a lightning storm, or a fireworks show. Just watch the wall of resistance to see what comes through it.”
I do this for a while and find some peace, but also feel deeply lost and confused, like I am stuck and simply wasting time.
“I feel like my little girl and I are in limbo.” I tell Keith the first thought that pops out of my head.
“An interesting word,” Keith responds to my rambling.
“Wow,” I think to myself, “limbo … in between two worlds. That is actually where I really want to be, yet I am absolutely not comfortable spending time there. I’m stuck thinking that I need to be doing something to move forward.”
In The Loop
“Trust the perfection of what is happening.” Keith shares as he reminds me of the beautiful synchronous flow that is unfolding through me.
Keith then points out a common and powerful ego loop that I frequently repeat – that as soon as I make a huge breakthrough or reach a profound emotional release or realization, that I go into pushing, confusion, and doubt – trying to do things … trying to figure out what to do next … refusing to simply sit back and watch things unfold … thinking that I have to make them happen, but I don’t know how. Then I go into a state of recognizing what I am doing, which takes me into self-judgment, guilt, and self-flogging. Finally, I exit the loop and return to trusting the next element of the flow.
“Can you please repeat that?” I beg Keith. “I am feeling so much confusion right now that I’m not sure I got all of that.”
I find it quite disturbing to realize that I have again regressed to a state of childhood confusion where I literally struggle to remember something that Keith shared just seconds ago.
“We can go into it later when you are not confused, because you are in that loop right now.” Keith lovingly guides me.
Confusing Rational-Mind Logic
“As a child, I was taught that my intuitive feelings don’t count.” I share with Keith. “I was made to believe that what I knew in my heart was crazy and wrong, and that I had to live in the cultural box instead … yet that box felt crazy to me. It confused me, and felt deeply violating and disempowering.”
“I learned to never trust my inner voice because it got me into trouble.” I continue. “Instead, I learned to please my parents to win approval. My intuitions were absolutely and completely conditioned out of me. I became hyper vigilant of people’s reactions, desperately attempting to please others – doing whatever would win me the most love and praise.”
“If I tried to follow my own inner voice,” I continue sharing the words that flow through me,” my parents hounded me with confusing logic and reason, repeatedly telling me why they were right and I was wrong. The more I tried to defend and explain myself, to express my genuine inner knowing, the more I was slammed, rejected, and reasoned with. Confusing rational-mind logic and reason were used to make me wrong, over and over again, until I finally surrendered, admitting I was wrong, that my parents were right, and that my own inner feelings were crazy.”
“I had no choice but to surrender and give up.” I finish my insight-filled speech.
At Ground Level
“Perhaps you need to go into your subconscious book of beliefs and work with that belief,” Keith guides me. “Find the belief saying you are not allowed to trust your own heart – that you immediately need to question and doubt everything that originates in your heart. You already know how to do that.”
As I focus on this meditation, I struggle for more than thirty minutes. Confusion continues to occupy my mind, combined with constant external distractions – loud music in town, neighborhood noises, and talking on the porch. I am unable to even get past the first few metaphorical steps as the noises distract all of my attention.
I ask little Bobby and Sharon, along with an angel and my Higher Self to go into the meditation with me, but I still get nowhere. I can imagine myself holding hands with my beautiful metaphorical friends, but I am unable to move, unable to feel myself stepping down a staircase into my subconscious mind. No matter how many steps I imagine myself taking, I feel as if I continue to remain at ground level.
Listening To Lies
“I can’t do it.” I finally express my frustration to Keith. “I can’t even get past the first few steps.”
“With a core issue like this,” Keith lovingly encourages me, “there is often too much fear at first.”
“Wow, this IS a core issue.” I respond. “In fact, it is probably one of the most core struggles I have ever addressed. All of my self-doubts about following my heart, all of my confusion and being stuck in my head – all of those dysfunctional patterns originate with this belief.”
“And even now I continue to listen to those lies in my head!” I express in frustration. “Rational mind still doubts and questions everything that comes from my heart.”
Stuck In The Lies
“Rational mind and ego are not the same thing.” Keith quickly reminds me. “When you are struggling with ego doubts, you have a strong tendency to blame that struggle on rational mind … but it is really ego masquerading as your rational mind.”
“My mind is not the problem,” I quickly ponder what I keep forgetting. “It is these confusing ego lies that pretend to be my rational mind. It is my parent’s conditioning voices now turned into my own inner voices, repeating lie after lie to keep me stuck in that childhood suppression.”
I love and honor my parents. I know that they raised me with love in the only way they knew how, genuinely filling me with the teachings of their religion and culture – but this love does not diminish the agonizing results of having my inner voice invalidated and squashed – no matter how well-intentioned the process may have been.
Master Of Lies And Disguise
“Brenda,” Keith asks an unexpected question, “If I were to lie repeatedly to you, what would you do?”
“Wow,” I ponder the absurdity of this vivid example. “I would quickly learn to stop believing you, and would probably end the friendship if the lies continued.”
“Now,” Keith continues, “if you have a voice inside of you that you know is repeatedly lying, what do you do?”
The answer is again obvious, but as I further ponder, I sink quickly into my craziness, wondering just which of the voices in my head might be that liar … just who is masquerading as whom. I know that ego is a master of disguise, capable of cleverly masquerading as spirituality, intuition, rational thought, almost anything.
“How do I know?” I ponder in frustration.
A Beautiful Heart
Finally, I decide to simply give up the mind games, realizing that I am pushing the river. Instead, I go into meditation and begin to watch the fireworks show with my inner child Sharon. I start by imagining Sharon and I lying on the ground. We are at Hogwarts, in the magical world of Harry Potter, in the last hour of the final movie, watching a massive force field dome above us – imagining this force field to be the wall that we have erected around our heart to keep the magic out.
But soon, we have changed scenes. Now we are in a beautiful meadow behind my heart – watching the same force field above, but doing so from the beautiful grass and flowers of this peaceful meadow.
Sharon and I are not trying to do anything. We are simply enjoying each other’s company, watching and just being. She is not fearful, terrified, or confused. Instead, she holds out a beautiful heart for me.
Trusting The Flow
“Keith,” I beg for clarity, “How do I know if I am scamming myself … if I am simply denying this childhood emotion, or if it really is already healed. I know the emotions were real, but this little girl is intuitively telling me that all is now well – that what is important is for me to understand why I built that protective wall in the first place.”
“Brenda,” Keith responds, “if you are scamming yourself, it will come up again and again until you get the lesson. Trust the beautiful flow that you are in. If you miss something, you know it will surface again.”
I spend the remainder of this beautiful ceremony meditating in peace with my little girl, doing nothing else. Later, as I engage in parting conversation with the young couple who had scheduled the ceremony, they give me beautiful feedback that participating in my process is exactly what they needed for their own growth – that instead of taking away from their ceremony, that I greatly added to it.
“I invited you today because you needed to be here.” Keith reinforces the feedback.
Keith then smiles and reminds me that everything is my creation.
Stir Crazy
Later that same evening, after watching a fun movie, I attempt to meditate before going to bed. But to my dismay, I am going stir crazy. I try to go back into the meadow with my inner children, but first decide to actually ask them if they are OK with that plan. However, when I go inside to ask the question, I cannot get a straight intuitive answer. I find only confusion and resistance.
“Is ego masquerading as this resistance?” I ponder in craziness. “Or are my inner children actually refusing to hang out with me?”
I really do not know the answer to this question. I attempt to go into observer mode, but as I do so, I feel my thoughts begin to ping-pong all over the place, energetically bouncing around with force inside of my skull. I literally feel like I am going crazy.
A Mystical Mutant Metaphor
A new image flashes into my mind – that of the character “Mystique” in “X-Men: The Last Stand”. She is a blue-skinned mutant who can shape-shift to match someone’s appearance, successfully masquerading as literally anyone.
“Mystique is a beautiful metaphor for ego.” I ponder with clarity. “Just like her, ego could literally be pretending to be anyone or anything, and actually get away with it. Ego is all over my head, possibly masquerading as everything.”
“If I knew someone was lying to me constantly, what would I do?” I ponder Keith’s earlier metaphor. “Is everything in my head potentially a lie?”
I feel insanely agitated as I try to step back into pure observer mode. I know the observer itself cannot be faked … or can it?
If I am merely observing this battle in my head, could I still be duped? I know my mind cannot figure it out … that I cannot use rational mind to undo ego. I want to use rational mind to help, I want to use it as my partner, but I know that thought is not the tool for this job. The problem is that I do not trust the alternatives.
“My heart knows the truth.” I remind myself. “But right now, can I even trust my heart connection? Aaaarrrrgh!”
Drop The Lies
As I slip further down the rabbit hole, I suddenly remember a quote that Keith frequently mentions during chocolate ceremonies. It is a quote from the textual description of “The Burden Card” as found in the Osho Zen Tarot deck.
The short quote that Keith often paraphrases is as follows:
“The truth has not to be achieved… it is already the case. Only the lie has to be dropped… Striving after truth is a distraction and a postponement. It is the lie’s way to hide.”
“The truth is inside of me.” I ponder with increased clarity. “I don’t need to find the truth … it already is … my heart is connected to and knows the truth … the answer is to stop believing the lies. And the biggest paradoxical lie is that I have to doubt and question everything that my heart tells me is true.”
“The lies hide in all of my emotional densities … in all of my dysfunctional beliefs and patterns … in my blockages and fears.” I ponder. “I need simply continue my inner work, trusting my flow, removing layer after layer of these lies that cloud my true vision.”
“There are so many spiritual teachings,” I ponder quietly, “so many contradictions, so much truth, so much mistruth. Is it all true? Is any of it true? Is it all just a cosmic riddle? Is my reality really just my own private holodeck that will allow me to manifest whatever I need … Keith, the porch, literally everything in my daily life?”
“Is the answer to literally stop seeking?
The Burden Card
Before proceeding, I feel guided to include the full written description of the Osho Zen Tarot Burden Card. It overflows with so much wisdom that I am obsessed to quote it all. The following comes from: Osho This Very Body The Buddha Chapter 6.
“A man’s true life is the way in which he puts off the lie imposed by others on him. Stripped, naked, natural, he is what he is. This is a matter of being, and not of becoming. The lie cannot become the truth, the personality cannot become your soul. There is no way to make the nonessential the essential. The nonessential remains nonessential and the essential remains essential, they are not convertible. And striving towards truth is nothing but creating more confusion. The truth has not to be achieved. It cannot be achieved, it is already the case. Only the lie has to be dropped. All aims and ends and ideals and goals and ideologies, religions and systems of improvement and betterment, are lies. Beware of them. Recognize the fact that, as you are, you are a lie, manipulated, cultivated by others. Striving after truth is a distraction and a postponement. It is the lie’s way to hide. See the lie, look deep into the lie of your personality. Because to see the lie is to cease to lie. No longer to lie is to seek no more for any truth—there is no need. The moment the lie disappears, truth is there in all its beauty and radiance. In the seeing of the lie it disappears, and what is left is the truth.
The truth has not to be achieved… it is already the case. Only the lie has to be dropped… Striving after truth is a distraction and a postponement. It is the lie’s way to hide.”
Following is additional commentary that goes with the description above:
“When we carry a load of shoulds and shouldn’ts imposed on us by others we become like this ragged, struggling figure trying to make his way uphill. “Go faster, try harder, reach the top!” shouts the foolish tyrant he carries on his shoulder, while the tyrant himself is crowned with an imperious rooster. If life these days feels like just a struggle from the cradle to the grave, it could be time to shrug your shoulders and see what it feels like to walk without these characters on your back. You have your own mountains to conquer, your own dreams to fulfill, but you will never have the energy to pursue them until you release yourself from all the expectations you’ve gathered from others but now think are your own. Chances are they exist only in your own mind, but that doesn’t mean they can’t weigh you down. It’s time to lighten up, and send them on their way.”
Wow, I love these words of profound wisdom. I especially love the reminder that “in the seeing of the lie, it disappears” and “…you will never have the energy to pursue them (dreams) until you release yourself from all the expectations you’ve gathered from others but now think are your own.”
Wake-Up Call
Finally, after a very late night, meditatively journeying with these ego lies, I drift off for a few hours of broken sleep. Early Tuesday morning, for the first time in many days, I wake up at 4:30 a.m., hacking and coughing up fluid from my lungs. The fluid had dried up several days ago, but is now back, seemingly synchronized with new emotion.
I want to go back to sleep, but an intuitive feeling in my heart tells me that this is a wake-up call – that I need to honor this intuitive feather tickle rather than wait for something louder to shake up my world.
I sit up on the corner of my bed, meditating for two and a half hours. It is a beautiful meditation, one bringing profound insights into my view of this upside down world.
Contemplating Conditioning
It seems quite clear that magical connected babies are born into a world of adults who are asleep. The baby is tiny and fragile, with an undeveloped brain, so the sleeping adults assume that they are the teachers and the baby is the student – when in reality the baby is fully conscious and aware, continuing to maintain connections to higher energies. By the time the baby can talk, the adults have already squashed out most all of the signs of magical connection. If any remains, what magic is left will be squashed even more by additional training that comes from the sleeping adults.
In my case, by age seven or eight, the citizen factory training was complete. All semblance of a unique soul had been turned into a people-pleasing robot, hyper vigilant in the role of pleasing parents and winning their approval. It was not very long before I took over as chief enforcer of that conditioning voice, becoming my own inner bible-banging preacher of self-criticism, self-judgment, and enforcement of society’s rules.
It is no wonder that a famous spiritual teacher once taught that the way to the Kingdom of Heaven involves becoming as little children.
Heart Journey
By age eleven, my heart was yearning and screaming to get out of the box. My feminine self begged for release. But I was in absolute crisis to push all of the “heart-craziness” back down, at all costs. I desperately fought to preserve my image of conformity and obedience. I believed that my salvation depended on it. As a result of the extreme inner dissonance, the emotional densities began to pile up – the self hatred, shame, guilt, anger, and self-loathing – all of it just piled higher and higher.
By age twenty-eight, my genuine heart was screaming for expression, but I found it impossible to push through the layers of conditioning at that time. My feminine self was a tiny bud with too many layers of dense soil pounding down on me, demanding that I stay in my proper place.
It was not until age forty-one when, in an act of desperation and self/heart-preservation, I leapt out of the box, risking it all – knowing that I had no other choice but to follow my heart. I was waking up to a new me, a heart-guided me, and those I loved dearly could only see the craziness – the craziness of someone who would choose my heart over the safety and comfort of a box that was literally killing my soul. It broke my heart to know that they could not follow, but it literally would have physically killed my heart to remain stuffed away in that restrictive box where my soul could no longer breathe.
A Question Of Sanity
I am guided back to a memory of a crazy chocolate ceremony last spring when I first relived the confusing craziness of my childhood shutdown – a magical child, intuitively and energetically connected, being forced to conform to a sleeping, citizen-factory-conditioned, logical-minded world.
“I really was the only sane one as a child.” Keith had helped me realize at the conclusion of that bizarre experience.
Yes, I was divinely connected, being forced to deny and forfeit that connection in order to fit into an alien world of sleeping people. I made the choice to have this experience before being born … and after being born, I had no choice but to comply.
Wet Snotty Tissues
As I further ponder the conditioning process, I realize that my protective force field, my bubble, my wall of protection, was based on fear and confusion – but even more so, it was based on anger at a fake God. Nearly all of the teachings that shut me down as a child were done in the name of a conditionally loving God. All of the adults in my life led me to believe that God would judge/condemn/punish, blah blah blah, if I did not sacrifice the magic in my heart for the distorted beliefs of this alien world.
I could only be loved if I obeyed all of the rules, many of which made no sense to me, some of which taught exactly the opposite of what a truly unconditionally loving God would teach. I killed my magic to fit into this world of conditioned lies.
By 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, as I scribble a few notes about a difficult night and morning of nearly non-stop meditation, I am lost in the angry world of confusion and rebellion – lost in anger at an upside down world that taught me so many lies – lost in anger at a world where I don’t know what is a lie and what is truth.
I do not know where to place my feet, who or what I can believe, and I am again consumed in a frightening state of not knowing what is up or down. Jaw-shaking sobs consume me as I melt into a growing pile of wet snotty tissues.
License Please
By mid morning, I step out into the beautiful sun to go buy fruit, bread, and drinking water. As I do so, I bump into a casual friend who seems to be in an especially sunny and chipper mood today.
“How are you doing?” She asks with a cheerful smile.
“I’m having one of those crazy undoing of ego days.” I respond, trying to be honest without being too glum or depressing about it.
“Oh,” she jumps in with giggling rational-mind advice. “You need to figure out what you want to do with your life. Just remember that you can create a beautiful day today if you choose.”
“Bullsh#t”, I think to myself as I wish I could punch her.
But instead, I smile graciously, thank her for cheering me up, and quietly walk away as I return to my emotional not-so-cheerful journey.
I wish I could have responded, “It’s interesting how you think you know right where I am at, and that the solution is to cheer me up … but you don’t have a clue as to what I am really going through.”
Her words are wise, expressed with loving intent … but there is no energetic inner license backing up her words. No matter how good or true the advice, it falls on deaf ears when not energetically carried by an inner license of “been there, done that, got the T-Shirt”.
Just Bee
I do not feel guilty as I return to my apartment. I was very polite to my friend, but I also recognize that simply forcing a smile on my face is not the answer to undoing ego. I am fully aware that I must take the plunge … to dive into this craziness. There is no time for wading and wishy-washy decisions about whether or not I really want to go swimming in the cold, uncomfortable water. I simply jump in … returning to the crazy meditation of not knowing anything.
At 11:00 a.m., a lone honeybee begins to fly around my head. A similar bee had done the same thing yesterday morning – and these are the first two bees I have seen in my apartment since the fall of 2010, when an entire swarm took up residence in my bedroom window.
“Why is this bee flying around inside of my apartment?” I ponder curiously. “Is this a metaphor? If so, what is it trying to tell me?”
What I have learned is that the Universe often communicates with obvious and very literal metaphors. The thoughts that pass through my mind resonate profoundly.
“Just one bee,” I begin to play with words. “Just be … just be one … prepare to fly.”
Yes, I know it is time to simply be with my craziness, to surrender and just ‘bee’.
Lost And Bewildered
A few minutes later, I decide to give up my meditative attempts to do something and I follow a little hunch to check the internet. I am delighted to discover an unexpected quote from a man whose words have recently inspired me deeply. The quote that jumps out at me is from a man named Matt Kahn, from his Facebook page titled “Sacred Heart Wisdom from Matt Kahn”.
“The spiritual journey has nothing to do with following the map of another person’s findings. It is the simplicity of realizing, those who are willing to be lost and bewildered are the ones who find the truth.”
Loving this quote so much, deeply relating to the concept of being willing to be lost and bewildered, I share this quote on my Facebook page, and add my own comment at the top: “Today, I am right back in that space of being lost and bewildered … I love this quote. It gives me a little hope and sanity.”
Later, in response to a query by a friend, I add the comment: “Yeah … it is all part of my deep processing to learn about the voices in my head and to unravel the ego loops that trap me. I got into a place last night where I realized that from day one (as a newborn) I had been taught and conditioned by people that invalidated the true voice of my heart … I got into another crazy state of questioning every voice in my head and questioning reality ever deeper. I’m doing much better now.”
At the time of these innocent comments, I have no idea how much deep emotion will be thrown into a dark muddy blender by the end of the week. (For details, see a blog titled Butterfly Wings, posted January 23, 2012)
Magical And Peaceful
Feeling much better after a “bee metaphor” and a beautiful inspiring quote, I soon walk out to Keith’s magical porch to participate in the private ceremony of a new friend. I am amazed how fast a depressed mood has switched back into loving peace.
During this ceremony, as I hold beautiful loving space for my friend, I clearly recognize that a “Gestapo-like” energy continues to reside inside of me, beating me up with heavy self-abuse, shutting me down between heart and solar plexus. The energy remains a heavy, dense mystery that continues to provide stiff resistance at any attempt I make to bring in more self-love to my lower chakras.
When I eventually return home, late on Tuesday evening, my energy vibrates in a state of deep peace. I truly am in a state of “just bee-ing” … of allowing myself to be lost and bewildered without judging myself for being there.
There is something magical and peaceful about not knowing, about simply trusting the flow to take me to where I am going.
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved