When I first hear Keith talk about traveling with a young Mayan friend of mine (I will call her Rosa) to Guatemala City, my ears perk up with interest. She is interested in expanding her ability to cook – something she enjoys and something that will increase her ability to earn a little extra money. Keith is taking Rosa to a modern bookstore to let her choose an assortment of cookbooks, and he is generously picking up the tab.
“I would love to tag along on the journey.” I share my interest with Keith. “An intuitive feeling tells me I need to get more familiar with Guatemala City, and this would be the perfect opportunity. Would that be OK?”
I am delighted when Keith encourages me to join in, pointing out that Rosa would likely enjoy my company, and that my assistance in translating would be greatly appreciated.
Getting To Guate
It is early Monday morning, February 27, 2012. I am up at 3:50 a.m., scurrying around my apartment to cook a quick bowl of oatmeal and pack a small backpack before Keith and Rosa meet up at my apartment.
Soon, Rosa runs up the steps to let me know they are both here. Seconds later, we begin a rushed thirty-minute walk to a neighboring village. There are no Tuk-Tuks at 4:45 in the morning, and we are hoping to catch a bus that passes through San Pablo around 5:20 a.m.. The skies are still black when we arrive at the center of nearby San Pablo with just a few minutes to spare. I am almost wheezing from the rapid walking that took us up three steep hills. These are the first hints of asthma symptoms that I have experienced in nearly three years of travel. In my pre-travel days, my exercise-induced asthma would surely have acted up much worse from such vigorous walking.
A few minutes later the chicken-bus from San Pedro to Guate pulls up to the curb where we are eagerly waiting. The name “Guate” is a nickname the local people use for Guatemala City. After an hour of winding up and down the switchback-and-pothole-filled roads that take us over the mountains surrounding Lake Atitlan, we finally arrive at the main inter-American highway. Another three hours after that, our crowded refurbished school bus arrives at our final destination – a chaotic bus-crowded street in the heart of Guatemala City.
A Panic-Filled Passport Process
After another brisk thirty-minute walk down a noisy and dirty traffic-laden street, the three of us arrive at our first stop – a huge indoor “Mercado” (market). Rosa has never been to such a large market – a market filled with many square blocks of tiny crowded aisles of makeshift mom-and-pop vendor booths selling their wares – a place where the interested shopper can find just about anything from spices, hardware, clothing, nuts, fruits, meats, and even pig heads.
Soon, we are off on another hurried walk as we make our way down a series of crowded streets toward the immigration office where Keith needs to retrieve his passport. While there, I make a quick decision – a decision to face my own fear at doing something new – a decision to submit my own passport into the system. This is my first time ever facing the red-tape bureaucracy of doing a three-month visa renewal at the “migracion” office in the capitol city. For some crazy reason, the thought of doing this complicated process all by myself induces a feeling of gut-wrenching panic.
Seconds after making my decision, I rush into a crazy process – first filling out papers – then running downstairs and out onto the street to make passport copies and get photos – back upstairs to wait in line to talk to a customs agent where he fills out more papers. Then I go to a different window, after which I run back downstairs to a bank, pay a few fees, and run back up to wait for the original agent to complete my paperwork.
I am quite proud of myself when, more than an hour later, after communicating entirely in Spanish, I have faced my fears and the process is complete – except for the fact that I now need to return to Guatemala City all by myself, in about two weeks, to retrieve my passport.
Contentment And Gratitude
It is early afternoon when Keith, Rosa, and I complete another long walk back to our original bus stop, where we then catch a city bus for the whopping sum of about thirteen cents each – a bus that will take us to a very modern shopping mall.
I note with somber interest that an armed guard carrying a loaded automatic weapon stands at the front of the beat-up old bus – an obvious reminder that Guatemala City has an issue with crime. But when we arrive at the mall, I literally feel as if I am back in the United States – as if I am walking in any safe and beautiful shopping center back home.
Two hours later, we divide up a heavy stack of newly-purchased cookbooks, each of us carrying a portion of the precious payload as we pay “one Quetzal” to ride a city bus back to our original chicken-bus stop. Ten minutes later, we are on a 2:30 p.m. bus that whisks us away on the four-hour journey back to Lake Atitlan.
After a short Tuk-Tuk ride, I am finally back in my apartment in San Marcos just shortly after 7:00 p.m.. It has been a very long and exhausting day – a day of over two hours of walking and eight hours of bumpy, bouncing, crowded buses – my feet are killing me, while contentment and gratitude fill me with peaceful love.
Keith and I participated in a beautiful service today, and for the first time ever, I spent time in Guatemala City (other than landing in an airport and zooming away in a taxi).
Feedback And Knowing
Early Tuesday morning I take the opportunity to finish watching the final episode of the Star Wars saga before walking out to Keith’s magical porch to assist in a private chocolate ceremony that will begin at 10:00 a.m.. Even though such extra ceremony days cause me to slip further behind in my writing, I love participating in such private groups.
My energy today does not feel especially powerful, but I am happy, connected, and ready to hold powerful space for others. During the first couple of hours in the ceremony, I do just that. I giggle inside when Keith eventually interrupts while I am working with one woman.
“Can you feel what you are doing?” Keith asks the woman. “You are releasing a lot of density out of your feet, letting it go to Brenda.”
As I listen to Keith talk, I am deeply grateful for his words. My hands are tingling, and I do feel a lot of power in my heart – yet I am so shut down in the area of sensitivity that I really do not fully understand what it is that I am doing.
“In fact,” Keith further surprises me while talking to the group, “most of you in this corner are releasing density through Brenda. Brenda is good at working with entire groups of people.”
As I continue to hold space and assist, I can only trust that Keith’s words are true. I feel confident and unconcerned by my cluelessness as to the scope of what I am doing. I trust that right now I do not need to know what I am doing – that I can simply ask my heart to do whatever it does, and that the knowing I need will come when it is time.
Holding Divine Hands
Eventually, I sit back on my own cushion. I feel tired and know it is time to do a little “me” meditation. I trust that Keith will call on me if I am needed to assist.
As Keith works with a woman next to me, he suggests that she connect to her angels/guides/Higher-Energy with one hand and to her inner child with the other. Intuition causes me to follow along in her process. Soon, I am imagining myself back in a meditation from nearly a year ago, standing reluctantly in a hallway just outside of a room that glows with brilliant light. Inside that room are all of my Higher Dimensional friends – Higher Beings that I have known for many lifetimes – a circle of friends that are now supporting me during my earthly journey. (See June 23, 2011 blog titled “Circles Of Friends”.)
As I try to imagine myself finally walking through this glowing doorway, I still cannot find the ability to do so … but I somehow do find the courage to reach an imagined hand through the open doorway. Then, I ask my inner children to take my other hand. As I do so, visualizing my friends grasping my hands with loving divine support, I tear up in a mixture of both joyful emotions and intense fear. I am deeply touched by this image.
A Divine Lift
When Keith guides the woman next to me to imagine herself lying down and giggling in a mud puddle, I do the same, visualizing myself in the mud, still holding the hands of my angelic friends. I imagine my circle of friends lifting me out of the mud while little Bobby and Sharon use magic wands to remove all the dripping slimy mud from my skin and clothing.
Then, another metaphor intuitively presents itself – one Keith often shares with people. I see myself standing at the bottom of an un-climbable wall of glass – an obstacle in my path that I cannot cross using rational mind – an obstacle that can only be passed with the assistance of Higher Energy.
As I imagine my circle of friends lifting me, I feel them flying me into the air, showing me the possibilities – making it quite clear that they have the ability to lift me over that wall. As I intuitively feel myself suspended in the air by the pure love of my friends, I cry some more, again shedding tears mixed with both joyful and fearful emotions.
I recognize that I am not yet being taken over the wall, but am being given a powerful meditative glimpse into the possibilities of where I am headed.
Releasing Fear And Resistance
Soon, Keith leads the group in an empath training – one that again causes me to sink further into my ongoing process. As I contemplate the buildup of pains in my abdomen, I begin to get the feeling that these pains are not emotional densities at all – that they are pains caused by intense fearful resistance regarding the consequences of reopening this level of magical awareness.
As Keith guides the group, I disengage and focus my intent on allowing fears and resistance to be released to the metaphorical angels. By the end of the training, I have completely relaxed my body. I continue to feel some painful blockage, but am glowing with light and peaceful energy. I am even more convinced that the remaining pains – at least the layers I am experiencing today – continue to be fear and resistance.
Soon, I am back in my “mud meditation” – imagining my circle of friends and inner children lifting me out of the quicksand of rational mind that has me trapped. As I do this, intense tears again begin to surge inside me. I attempt to keep them mostly in check, not wanting to make a personal scene in this private ceremony.
A Faint Flow
Next, Keith mixes things up by throwing in an unexpected meditation. It is one with which I am quite familiar, but to my surprise, many parts of it feel brand new.
First, Keith guides us to feel an energy that supports us from below – an energy that metaphorically equates to being held in the palm of God, or sitting in the lotus of the Buddha.
As I focus on finding this energy, I instead encounter a feeling of emptiness – of being unable to feel anything.
“I am unable to bring in such motherly love from the Divine Mother Earth,” I think to myself in confusion. “I feel nothing at all.”
After finding this energy, Keith guides people to send down roots from this energy – roots that reach to the very center of the earth. Next, as we use these roots to pull energy up from the Divine Mother, I manage to feel a very tiny flow of mild energy in my lower two chakras, but this faint flow gets deeply stuck at the base of my solar plexus.
Dark, Dank And Depressing
“Now,” Keith guides, “bring up the energy to support your heart. Imagine the scent of the lotus fragrance drifting up to your heart, even if it is just a drop or two.”
As I focus on this process, I begin to be overwhelmed by deep fear – profound inexplicable fear and near panic.
“Motherly love is not allowed in my heart.” I ponder with deep painful insight. “I am afraid of it.”
After completing this beautiful meditation, Keith unexpectedly guides the entire group deep into their subconscious, walking down and down, deeper and deeper into the subconscious mind, ending up somewhere in our heart or solar plexus.
To my shock, in a very vivid intuitively perceived visualization, I find myself frightened and isolated in my solar plexus. I am in a very dark, cold, putrid cave-like room. The walls are damp and smelly, covered with slimy mold and mildew. The dank and dark cavern is disgustingly devoid of love – undeserving of love.
Intuitively I feel as if a thick layer of steel reinforcement prevents any love from entering.
Shocking And Overwhelming
“I hate my mother’s love,” unexpected words flow strongly into my mind. “I am disgusted by what that love feels like.”
(NOTE: I love my mother very much – and I absolutely know that she loved me as well. She loved me with all of her heart, in the only way she knew how. What I am writing about here is not the reality of my mother’s love, but is instead the colored and filtered perceptions of a lost and frightened child who was incapable of clearly perceiving the real love that my mother had for me.)
As I ponder these surprising feelings, I begin to realize that the only real memories I have of feeling an unconditional connection with my mother during my younger years were at around age three or four when we occasionally hugged each other during moments of brief connectedness. From age five and older, I have only memories of being annoyed by what I felt was her constant nagging – by her attempts to keep me on a loving straight-and-narrow path. She did it with pure genuine intention, but I felt as if her love was always focused on manipulating me to be better – as if it were conditional, based on my obedience and conformity to her teachings.
I learned at a very young age that I could not perceive my mother’s love unless I was pleasing her.
“I hate love.” The agonizing words flow uncontrollably through my mind. “I hate love … I hate love … I hate love … I hate love.”
The level of disgust and hatred for what I, as a child, perceived as love is shocking and overwhelming.
Judge The Sinner
In later brainstorming, I clearly see that this “hatred at love” had nothing to do with my mother. I felt the same manipulation and control from nearly all adults in my life – family, extended family, some friends, and even total strangers. It stems from the deep conditioned awareness that punishment, judgment, and perceived withholding of love, were the result of stepping out of the box – that these “sins” of being different could not be tolerated.
A concept of “loving the sinner, but not loving the sin” was a predominant force in how I perceived the teachings of my religion. The only problem was that most people (in my perception), in their attempt to reject the vilified sin (no matter how miniscule), invariably ignore and ostracize the “sinner” as well, because they feel as if loving a person who is committing a sin is somehow endorsing and enabling that sin to continue. In this twisted logic, the only way that someone in such a mindset can help another to “stop sinning” is to withhold love – to make them feel like an outcast.
So as a youth, absolutely understanding this judgmental behavior to my core (from personal experience, personal observation, and via being an empath), I did my best to be perfect – to hide my true self and my horrible sins. True or not, I absolutely knew that I would not be loved if those evil inner feelings were made public – I absolutely knew that the love others had for me was conditional – conditioned on my conformance.
In an agonizingly painful way, as I write these words I recognize that a hidden portion of this conditioning continues to live inside of me in the way I perceive the behavior of others.
Outside The Door
At the end of this shocking “I hate love” meditation, I am crying quite strongly-but-silently – attempting to minimize my noise while piling up the tissues. I wish I cold permit this intense emotion to burst forth, but hesitate because I am assisting in a private ceremony.
As the ceremony reaches perceived conclusion, Keith asks if anyone has anything else they would like to work on. After a several minute meditation gap where no one speaks up, I decide to open my mouth.
“I would love some help.” I express to Keith as I briefly explain my painful meditative journey.
Seconds later, Keith asks a woman to sit in front of me, touching my feet, assisting me in bringing in the Divine Mother energy. I begin to cry deeply as I struggle to allow this love.
“Open your eyes and look at her.” Keith points to the women in front of me. “She doesn’t have any conditions, doesn’t care if you receive it or not, and doesn’t care what you did or do … she is just making the Divine Mother energy available to you.”
“Yeah,” I respond as I stare at this beautiful and peaceful face. “I feel this love’s purity and unconditional nature. I feel it just outside the door. I feel how beautiful and safe it is … how nonjudgmental it is … how peaceful it is … but I don’t seem to be able to let it come into my disgusting, dark, dank, and moldy room.”
Tiny Tidbits
“Brenda,” Keith guides me, “just find the door to the room and open it to let a little bit of the love come in.”
“When I open the door,” I respond after meditative attempts, “I feel it immediately swing closed again.”
“Just open it to let a little in,” Keith gently encourages. “Then let it close. Let the little bit that comes in do whatever it does to build trust.”
“It feels peaceful, calming, and not threatening.” I respond a few minutes later.
“Open the door and let in a little more.” Keith guides.
We repeat this process several more times. Gradually I feel more and more tiny tidbits of love enter this room.
Shared Visualizations
Eventually, I experience weird twitching in my solar plexus, as if something is kicking and poking me from the inside.
“Trust this as part of the process.” Keith guides me. “This is what it felt like when your mother controlled and manipulated you with love. It literally felt like being kicked or poked on the inside. You have to go through this same process during the undoing.”
I observe this bizarre inner kicking for a while. It feels as if huge gas bubbles are popping in my solar plexus, actually twitching and poking me in bizarre spasms. After about twenty minutes, the inner turmoil fades at about the same time that the chocolate ceremony fades to natural conclusion.
I find myself in a very good place. The woman who was sending me Divine Mother energy soon shares that she actually saw my dark, dank, disgusting, moldy room. Keith gives me similar feedback, sharing that he too saw that room. I never actually saw it as a visual, but I vividly felt its putrid, rank, disgusting nature.
Conditionally Delivered
As I gather up my belongings, I feel the significance of the progress I made today – progress that continues to provide more insight into understanding these crazy pains in my solar plexus. It becomes increasingly apparent that many if not most of these pains are indeed related to a wall of resistance to allowing Divine Feminine love to reach my heart.
“Could this be another strong clue to my ‘blown fuse’?” I ponder with curiosity.
I am quite pleased that, at least for today, I received more trust-building glimpses reassuring me that energy can indeed flow into my lower chakras.
In a short conversation with Keith after the ceremony, he makes it very clear that my dear mother loved me very much – and that she loved me in the only way she knew how – with that conditional coloration.
I know she loved me deeply … and I know that because of that love, and the culture in which we were both raised that it was absolutely mandatory for her to control and manipulate me into conforming to the beliefs of our religion. I clearly recognize that all of her discipline, nagging, and punishments were done from a loving stance – an act of desperation to keep me safely in the fold.
I am also pleased that I am increasingly learning to understand the intricate complexities of love delivered in a conditional way.
Peace To Distraction
After a rushed morning of shopping across the lake, I barely make it back to San Marcos in time to hurry over to Keith’s porch.
In no way could I possibly be prepared for the emotional turmoil and trauma that awaits me.
When the chocolate ceremony begins, I am in beautiful energy, bringing in peaceful vibrations while imagining myself working with the Divine Mother meditations that had so profoundly touched me yesterday.
“Brenda, there is a very beautiful energy here today.” Keith had surprised me early before the glow meditation. “If you connect with it, it can help you go where you want to go.”
“I am already deeply connected to that energy,” I respond to Keith. “In fact, I believe I am helping to anchor it into place.”
But as this statement leaves my lips, I realize I have suddenly slipped into my head, starting to think about what I am doing rather than just BEING what I am doing. By the end of the glow meditation, I feel deeply distracted by language translations, noises, interruptions, and head chatter as Keith begins to work his way around the porch.
Damned Regardless
After more than an hour, when Keith finally turns to me, I begin to share my crazy journey – a journey beginning with beautiful energy and now being plagued by very distracted, confused, angry, anxious, and agitated emotions.
“I literally feel as if I regressed back to my childhood again.” I express my confusion. “The emotions I feel right now make no sense based on present reality – yet these emotions ARE very real. I am feeling the sensation of being horrendously nagged and manipulated … taking me back to that feeling of ‘I hate this kind of love’ that I had yesterday.”
“I’m struggling, trying to figure out what to do.” I express frustration to Keith. “I don’t know if I just need to sit and feel these emotions, if I need to cry, or if I need to try to bring in light, …”
Keith congratulates me on my awareness, and points out that my need for rules, recipes, and handholding guidance is a part of this confusion.
“You don’t know what to do,” Keith guides me, “because as a child, no matter what you did, it was wrong.”
“I was always in that damned if I do and damned if I don’t spot.” I share with Keith. “My true heart was always wrong, rejected, and getting me into trouble. Following my parents did not feel good.”
Observing Emotional Eruptions
“I’m getting physically nauseas.” I share with Keith. “It hurts. As a child, I had tons of intestinal and digestion pains. I am wondering if that was my only childhood way of getting real loving attention in a way that would not get me into trouble. Such pains gave me a valid reason to be crying.”
Keith agrees that I am onto something with this new line of thought. I begin to observe these pains while asking the light to support and assist me. Gradually I relax and the pains subside – yet the emotions continue and I isolate from the group, lost in emotion, simply sitting on my pillow and feeling.
At one moment while working with Keith, I begin to sink deeply into agonizing emotion. I smile when at that precise moment Paul jumps up and begins to create disturbance by running around and passing out more chocolate.
“Just like clockwork.” I whisper to Keith while continuing to explore these emotions.
On another occasion, when I slip into the kitchen to pour chocolate for a new arrival, I almost break down into sobs while in the kitchen. But seconds later, after stuffing the emotions and returning to my seat (doing exactly what I did as a child), I simply melt into the invisible framework of the porch – disappearing to numbness and isolation while continuing to observe at a different level for the remainder of the ceremony.
Indignant Projections
As the ceremony concludes, I remain behind to hold space for the processing of one person who is deeply struggling. This person’s work leads me to profoundly recognize a painful pattern in my own life – one that has repeatedly played out. The pattern tells me that I have the act of receiving Divine Love as being hooked and equivalent to rejection, abandonment, and being alone.
“I’m not sure I want Divine Love.” I share these insights with Keith. “Conditional love hurt, but it kept me in the box. Divine love took me out of the box, and when I left the box, I met nothing but rejection and abandonment.”
As these words leave my lips, I being to sob, deeply experiencing those emotions of abandonment, as if they were in the present-day.
“You have moved some very deep stuff today.” Keith congratulates me.
But in my state of still being lost in unbelievably strong waves of emotion, I am not really sure if congratulations are in order. I have little trust in what I have been doing.
Keith momentarily steps into his house to add a layer of clothing for the cool evening air. As he does so, I witness the behavior of another person – behavior that triggers me into a state of deep judgment, anger, and projection. My professional ethics as a not-yet licensed counselor launch me into a state of unexpressed indignation. In retrospect, I can see how such events were innocent and lovingly motivated – but at the time, my projections and imagination were at full strength.
A Series Of Slams
I will not provide details – suffice it to say that a few minutes later, when Keith and I are alone on the porch, I attempt to express my concerns.
“Brenda, those are your projections.” Keith gets sternly frustrated and impatient with me.
“Keith,” I angrily respond. “I am not sure if I want to be part of an environment where such things are allowed and ignored.”
For a few minutes, I feel as if Keith and I are deeply arguing – I perceive that I am being unjustly slammed for my genuine attempts to express real valid concern. I am so engulfed in my feelings of betrayal and abandonment that I am prepared to stomp out angrily and never return. I actually do stomp halfway down the garden steps before turning to further engage Keith.
“I’m too emotional right now … I won’t be here to help with bagging chocolate tonight … I don’t think I can do it.” I express to Keith regarding his plans to bag 250 pounds of freshly ground chocolate that is probably on its way back from the mill as we speak.
I am then blown away by how this statement results in what I, in my childhood emotional state, perceive as an absolute slamming rejection from Keith. I feel as if I am being made into the bad guy here – being blamed for my incapacitated emotional state. I know that I am not really needed – that there will be plenty of others to help with the bagging.
In retrospect, as I write about these events, I can now see that all of this is a beautiful stage play – a setup showing me exactly what happened to me as a child – but at the time I am extremely devastated and feel deeply abandoned by someone who should treat me with loving compassion.
Bullied And Manipulated
“Brenda,” Keith points out, “you are on the edge of sinking into another deep loop of isolation, resentment, and judgment. Remember that you can choose to go into this loop, or you can refuse to take the bait. The choice is yours.”
“I will go home and put on some jeans and grab a sandwich.” I mumble in frustrated emotional tones. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Whatever you choose is fine.” Keith lovingly reassures me.
I absolutely do not want to come back. I feel bullied and manipulated into coming back – as if Keith’s loving words were used to shame, control and manipulate me (another beautiful stage play of what happened to me as a child).
After a quick round trip for two peanut butter sandwiches and a banana, I soon arrive back on Keith’s depressing porch. Others are giggling, laughing, and interacting with each other in happy magic. I sit over in a corner, double-checking weights on a scale, struggling not to burst out into emotional sobs – struggling to keep my eyes open from the exhaustion of such an intense emotional journey.
I use the evening to wallow and ponder in my misery, struggling to remain the observer and to not get further lost in the trauma and drama.
Several times Keith walks over and touches my arm.
“How are you doing?” He asks with a loving, concerned glow in his eye.
“Struggling, but surviving.” I respond.
Eventually, during one of these check-ins, Keith reassures me that it would be OK if I need to go home. I refuse to leave, sulking in my misery, continuing to feel quite resentful regarding how I felt manipulated into being here against my better judgment – against my own personal needs and wishes. All I want to do is go to bed and sob in a pile of tears.
Running Is Not An Option
It is after 10:00 p.m. when I finally enter my apartment and sit down at my computer. I am lost in a state of angry childhood confusion – so angry and confused that I struggle to recall even the basic details of what took place this afternoon. After nearly an hour of angrily and numbly typing notes, I am more upset than ever. Perhaps “pissed” would be a more accurate word.
“I am pissed, pissed, pissed.” I scream out in deep gut-wrenching sobs.
In my present state, I am so profoundly filled with righteous indignation, feeling so “done with Keith’s porch”, that I am ready to go on a temporary-and-perhaps permanent vacation. The only problem is that my passport is at the immigration office in Guatemala City.
I find it bizarrely humorous that tonight I am so angry that I really could just pick up and go to Mexico (or somewhere else) for a while to calm down. I have never before been this angry at Keith and this ready to abandon my inner work on his porch. But because I have followed the flow, synchronous events have caused me to be without a passport for the next couple of weeks.
It seems that in my darkest hour, running anywhere is not an option.
A Sobering Thought
After going to bed and staring angrily at the ceiling, I get up to write a few more notes.
I remember how Keith had talked about a statement I made during our argument … a statement that part of me would “rather die than shift these beliefs” (beliefs related to my reason for the anger).
“Brenda,” Keith had told me, “This anger is your teacher … preparing you to work with people who are terrified of shifting their conditioned beliefs. People like that will come to you for help, already being in this same state of panic.”
“I don’t want to work with people like that.” I had expressed my terror to Keith. “I can work with you because I can somewhat hear what you are trying to tell me … but I cannot work with someone like me right now if they are not willing to listen.”
“Then you will have to be OK with watching them get lost,” Keith shares the stark facts.
As Keith mentions that I will have to watch people I love and care about go down the emotional toilet because they have too much fear to face their issues, I know he is actually talking about me too – that he is OK if I bolt and run – that he is OK if I suffer a meltdown and never come back to my spiritual path. The thought is very sobering.
Broken Sleep
I am still up at 11:35 p.m., and I am still pissed. At 12:23 a.m. on Thursday morning, I am again sitting at my computer typing the words, “pissed, pissed, pissed.”
I am not at all sure if I will get any sleep tonight … any at all.
Finally, at 2:30 a.m., still being wide awake, still steeped in my anger, I begin to ponder whether or not I have the will power to even attempt to leave this emotional loop before it runs to full completion. I begin to focus on self-love … on loving myself for being right where I am at … on loving myself no matter what I am doing.
As I do so, I begin to feel something shifting inside. Intuitions take me to a thought of moving from the dark side of the force, gradually returning to the light. Finally, I get about two hours of broken sleep – sleep that is filled with dream metaphors from “Return of the Jedi” and “The Force”.
Hopeless Self-Loathing Surrender
By 4:30 a.m., I am again wide-awake – and remain so for the remainder of the long night. I want to meditate and bring in more self-love, but when I walk in to the bathroom to look in a mirror, the only thing I want to do is to scowl at the face I see and to loudly scream the words “F@ck you!!!”. I am lost in a total state of self-loathing.
“I’m too tired to effing care.” I ponder in self-deprecation. “I don’t feel like another living soul cares at this point … no one understands. Right now I am also projecting ‘F@ck you’ energy all over Keith. I know self-love is the answer, but I don’t effing want self-love … I literally would leave the country right now if my passport were available.”
Several times in my angry restlessness, I get up and walk by the bathroom mirror. Each glance at my face is met by angry snarls, swear words, calling myself a loser … and sobs, sobs, and more sobs.
The intensity of this self-hatred has me scared. I am stuck, and the way I feel right now I am quasi-suicidal. I am not yet thinking about ways to do myself in, but I literally am so low and depressed that right now I have no desire to go on with life. I feel like I have ruined everything … that Keith is now abandoning me … and that I will forever be a failure. I am literally giving up.
A Perfect Setup
At 9:30 a.m., still struggling, I walk out toward the edge of town, hoping to find Keith at home. I am exhausted and non-functional, wondering if a session with Keith might help versus the idea that maybe I just need to observe myself and let this crazy agonizing loop play itself out to conclusion.
“C’mon in,” Keith greets me with a smile, quickly dropping everything to spend the next two hours helping me.
“Your Higher Self set all of this up to take you to this next state of childhood experience.” Keith guides me after I share my long depressing journey.
“You reached a state of just giving up,” Keith continues, “of having no more hope.”
“Yeah,” I respond with new hope and recognition, “that makes a great deal of sense. It makes no sense to me as an adult, but I have reached a regressed state where I do not believe in anything or anyone … wanting to just fade away … knowing I will never be an author … that I will end up penniless … without family or friends … with no place to live or call home … to just die and disappear.”
“This is exactly what you finally ended up experiencing as a child,” Keith guides me. “Go into that emotion and feel it … connect with that child.”
Swirling Energy
As I meditatively connect with my little inner child, I begin to sob intensely.
“There is a lot of sadness in here.” I mumble through my gut-wrenching sobs.
“And there is a huge amount of buried rage underneath that sadness.” I share strong intuitive feelings a few minutes later.
“Release that rage.” Keith encourages me.
“I’m trying,” I express my confusion. “But it is not coming to the surface and now I cannot feel it anymore.”
“Then you are not ready for that today.” Keith gently reassures me.
“My forehead is swimming in severe confusion.” I express new feelings. “It feels so distracting that I cannot remember hardly anything. It feels like swirling energy in my third eye – as if my third eye is stuck in the mud.”
“Now your inner knowing is starting to teach you.” Keith guides me.
I have no idea where that “stuck in the mud” metaphor came from … but my forehead feels as if it is clogged with mud, and the intense swirling is trying to stir things up a little.
No Other Choice
Keith congratulates me on my unfolding intuitive ‘knowing’, teaching me that the densities I am working with can only be released after I achieve this ‘knowing’ as to why I designed my life to put those densities/lessons there in the first place.
For a while, we talk at a rational-mind level about how my third-eye is my place of divine knowing and understanding.
“You shut it down at a young age because it got you into trouble.” Keith reassures me. “Your parents did not do it to you … you did it yourself to get out of trouble.”
As we talk, my entire third-eye region feel increasingly congested, as if I am developing a severe sinus infection in my third-eye – as if thick plugs of mucus are blocking the flow of my energy.
“Brenda,” Keith guides me, “you were connected to this knowing as a child. The emotions of ‘giving-up’ that you are experiencing now as an adult are what happened to you when you had to shut this magic down. You had no other choice.”
“Yeah,” I respond, “if anyone had tried to explain to my parents what was happening to me, they never would have understood or accepted it.”
A Little Light
“Go in and ask your Higher Self to help you with this energy,” Keith guides me. “Ask for help to bring in the light, or to do whatever you are ready for.”
As I sink into meditation, I return to what I was doing on Tuesday, envisioning myself reaching my right hand into that Divine room filled with my circle of Higher-Dimensional friends. As I begin to feel tiny glimpses and hints of Divine Love, I freeze into a state of panic and mild whimpers.
“Keith,” I begin sharing, “I do not necessarily remember, but this type of crying feels eerily familiar … I remember it … it is what I did when my mother was trying to stop me from crying … it was a state of frightened panic and whimpers that simply would not stop.”
“If there is too much fear to go there today,” Keith reminds me, “then we can come back and do the rest on another day.”
“Ask the light to help you release this fear.” Keith guides me.
I meditate for a while, feeling a few drops of light, then feeling more whimpering as the fears again swell. I repeat this pattern a few times, but finally, I cannot proceed. The fears are simply too intense.
Rational Understandings
Keith interrupts my meditation to engage me in a little rational-mind talk that helps me stabilize. As we talk, I feel very clearly that this entire experience has been a profound and beautiful setup – a role play that served me deeply, even though Keith was not aware at the time that he was playing a role for me.
As a child, when I attempted to express my truth to my parents, they rejected me with frustration. Then, when I just gave up and cried, they slammed me with more frustrated rejection and disapproval. I got into trouble no matter how I attempted to express my confusing feelings. Finally, I just gave up completely.
Drug By The Nose
As I continue my meditation into the swirling energies of my congested third-eye, I feel as if I am going nowhere fast. I continue to feel a great deal of energy moving around, but cannot make sense out of it. I continue to feel blocked, stuck in the swirling mud of this confusion.
“Is this moving energy normal?” I ask Keith. “I am so confused that I do not even know what an open third-eye chakra feels like. How can I know what I am looking for?”
“It is not open, Brenda.” Keith reassures me as he guides me to meditate more.
Soon, I begin to observe as the energy moves around from place to place. First, the energy in my third-eye relaxes and I feel a strong buildup of energy that forms at the bridge of my nose. Soon the energy leaves my nose and returns to the lower forehead. This movement repeats back and forth several times, with the pressure finally resting in my nose.
“It feels like the bridge of my nose is being squeezed or pinched.” I share intuitions that flow through me.
“What metaphor does that remind you of?” Keith asks.
“Of being drug around by my nose,” I blurt out a minute later. “But I do not remember that happening to me.”
“Whether it happened physically, or just energetically,” Keith confirms my metaphor and reassures me, “that IS what happened to you.”
A Stuck Nose Energy
Eventually the energy moves down into the lower portion of my nose, near the nostrils.
“Good,” Keith guides me, “let it flow out of your nose … all of the confusion and swirling wants to release.”
I meditate for over ten minutes, attempting various types of visualizations, but nothing moves.
“Brenda,” Keith soon guides me, “imagine a waterfall of liquid light flowing through your third-eye and out of your nose.”
Again, I do this for another ten minutes, and nothing moves.
“I’m just too stuck,” I finally explain my feeling of failure.
“Then the energy is not ready to move yet,” Keith explains. “It will happen when you are ready … when you have learned everything you need to learn. That feeling of being stuck is exactly where you were as a child … shut down and unable to connect.”
Energized And Reborn
Slipping back into rational-mind discussion, I explain to Keith how, throughout my life, I have had difficulty learning by listening to lectures or simply reading a book.
“The most effective learning for me was hands-on doing.” I share. “But if someone did not give me detailed instructions, I would go into a panic of confusion and fear … like I did when thinking about getting my visa renewed in Guatemala City on Monday.”
“Is this panic, confusion, and needing of recipes and instructions related to my confusion from childhood? I ask Keith for any guidance he might bring in from my guides.
“Yes,” Keith responds, “that is part of the pattern … but I’m getting that for you the confusion began as a way to shutdown your third-eye … and as a way to move emotional densities through using confusion as a way of expressing that emotion.”
After two hours with Keith, I feel energized and reborn with new hope. After treating Bobby and Sharon to a burger and fries, we all take a much needed nap.
Keith’s response makes a great deal of sense, but it is not until writing and integrating six weeks later that I begin to recognize that frequent emotional confusion is a major clue to further opening my third-eye chakra.
Heartfelt Gratitude
These last twenty-four hours have been among the most angry and rebellion-filled hours of my emotional journey on Keith’s porch – but as usual, they have resulted in an eventual unfolding of beautiful insights relating to childhood emotional issues.
It never ceases to amaze me how synchronous events continue to coordinate a series of days into a beautiful cohesive journey. Not only did my trip with Keith to Guatemala City give me much needed confidence in going to the city and in working with the immigration office and bus system – but that trip was crucial in keeping me from being unable to run away when my tendency to do so was stronger than it has ever been. Had I had my passport in hand I very well might have opted to hop onto a tourist shuttle on Thursday morning rather than confronting my issues and returning to talk with Keith.
And the inner work that entered my awareness on Tuesday, as if out of nowhere, was also a key player. It was that experience that helped me to deeply understand how much I (as a child) hated controlling and manipulative forms of conditional love – how even when that love has a basis in true genuine foundations, that if it is used to induce shame or control (as Keith role played for me), it stirs intense inner childhood rage.
Finally, the ceremony on Wednesday took me deep into the vulnerability of absolutely knowing that, as a child, I knew that connecting to Divine Love was equivalent to absolute and utter abandonment by those I love.
Those synchronous events were precisely timed to bring me to a state where a series of loving and innocent circumstances after the ceremony on Wednesday (also beautifully scripted) took me deep into getting lost in that agonizing loop of childhood hopelessness and abandonment – taking me frightfully close to angrily giving up my work with Keith – it was a very close call.
But none of it would have happened without the patient and compassionate assistance of a dear friend and teacher.
Thank you Keith … and have I apologized yet for how profoundly I was projecting onto you? I am so grateful that you have enough inner knowing and connectedness to stand by my side even when I find myself deeply immersed in the emotions of being a crazy lost and abandoned child.
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved