As I sit in the chocolate ceremony on Wednesday afternoon, May 9, 2012, the sharp pains in my abdomen have returned. When I ask Keith for guidance, his response is quite similar to what he had said in the last two ceremonies.
“Brenda,” Keith shares his insights, “this is a process designed to get you out of your head. Don’t try to figure this out with your rational mind. Just be present and let it unfold.”
In spite of the deep pains, I trust that all is well. Normally, when feeling such agonizing inner metaphors, I would totally focus on my own process, but today many others on the porch are going into intense processing. It seems intuitively obvious to me that my job today is again to ignore my own pains and to be in my power while allowing these emotional densities to flow through me without rational-mind babysitting.
Not giving it a second thought, I begin to assist one person after another, following intuitive guidance each step of the way. I leave rational mind behind and simply trust my feelings, sharing energy, holding space, and guiding several others through deep emotional release.
A Rapid Adventure
Finally, as things settle down at around 4:00 p.m., I sit back on my own cushion and begin to observe and integrate.
I watch with interest as Keith works with a woman on deep inner child issues. As I do so, I am shocked to find myself meditatively journeying down into my own abdomen, connecting with Sharon, one of my little inner children. Intuitively, I clearly know that the Sharon with whom I am connecting today is two years old – and she is experiencing deep and very angry emotions.
Following intuitive guidance, I use a metaphor that I have engaged before, being the adult empath who is holding space and empathically assisting my own dear inner child. As I do so, I experience this little child’s pain running through me, causing me to shed many tears as I deeply feel her pain – but I am doing so from a place of loving power. After a while, the emotion dries up and I begin to follow new breadcrumbs.
To my surprise, when I briefly open my eyes, I note that Paul appears to be paying attention to my energy, as if lovingly holding space for me from afar. I quickly close my eyes and return to my process, breathing deeply while focusing on relaxing energy channels on the front of my body. I play with several metaphorical stories involving angels, guides, and Higher self – but each seems to fall flat, giving me the message to back off, to stop trying to do anything, and to just allow my flow to unfold.
Something tells me that things are already perfect as they are. For the remainder of this beautiful ceremony, I simply focus on deep self-love and self-acceptance for the perfection of where I find myself on this magical river-rafting trip. Intuitions tell me that I am right on schedule with this unfolding adventure in the rapids.
Unexpected Compliments
Twice in this final peaceful hour, Paul absolutely shocks me with unexpected positive feedback.
“Wow, Brenda, you are really in your power today,” Paul first told me.
“Your eyes really glow when you are so powerful in your flow,” Paul shared a while later.
I know these beautiful compliments were extremely difficult for Paul to share … I recognize the genuineness of his intent … and I am blown away by such unexpected feedback from someone onto whom I have projected so much.
It has indeed been an immensely deep ceremony today – a ceremony involving intense inner work, profound release of anger and pain, past life regressions, inner child work, and processing of overwhelming emotions. The fun part is that this was not my own processing. It was processing in which – along with Keith, Paul, and Angela – I was able to play an integral role in facilitating.
I am quite proud of myself for the role I played – even with my own deeply painful abdomen. Throughout most of the ceremony, I carried a large “Elestial Quartz” crystal around with me to assist in my own background emotional release. This is a beautiful crystal – one that Keith says is quite valuable in absorbing emotional densities.
When the ceremony ends, I giggle with delight as Keith and several others thank me for my assistance today.
God Drama Insights
As people finally scatter at around 6:30 p.m., I sit alone on Keith’s porch and begin to realize that I am sinking into my God drama.
“The stronger I get, the more abandoned I will be,” inner voices chatter in my head. “I only get help, love, and assistance when I am weak, pathetic, and needy. If I am strong … if I am helping others … everyone knows that I am OK, so I will be left alone and ignored by God, as projected onto Keith.”
“This has played out beautifully since Friday,” I further ponder. “I have had these intense abdominal pains while being in my strength and power for the last three ceremonies. Through it all, I have pushed my own needs aside and felt ignored by God and Guides while simply having to be strong and give to others. I desperately wanted help in resolving my own issues, but since I was in my power, no such help was provided.”
I see the external mirror quite clearly, and as I allow myself to feel the pain of this surfacing inner belief system, I become quite emotional.
“The little child in me believes this ‘truth-with-a-lowercase-t’ deeply,” I ponder with clarity,” and I have had this child’s emotions flowing through me in profound ways as of late. I know this is a lie as far at the truth goes, but it is very difficult to separate from real life.”
Sinking Into Insights
As I sit, sinking further into these unfolding emotional insights, Angela encourages me to come to dinner with many from the group. The thought freaks me out as inner emotions continue to churn. I do not want to be social around people when I am emotional – especially not around Paul.
“Keith,” I call from the porch into the kitchen, “I am powerfully sinking into my God drama. Do you have any suggestions or insights?”
I quickly explain my unfolding emotions and my dilemma about not wanting to go to dinner when I am so emotional. Past experience tells me that when I go out with friends while deep emotions are flowing, I usually energetically withdraw, and feel more lonely around my friends than I would if I were actually home alone.
These situations have repeatedly manifested into my life, both with family, friends, and church – situations where I was so strong and self-sufficient that everyone just assumed I was fine and left me alone, providing no support unless I broke down into mushy tears and asked for help.
No, I do not want to go to dinner tonight.
Deep Dinner Diving
“Your behavior at dinner would be a choice,” Keith bluntly and coldly points out. “You could go and isolate yourself, feeling alone … or you could go and choose to be social.”
I walk into town with Angela, talking all the way, still not having made a final decision. When we reach the restaurant door, I again review my choices before quickly biting my tongue and walking into the restaurant with Angela.
As we approach the table where about eight others have gathered, there are only two seats available on opposite sides of the table – one being right next to Paul. I quickly select the other, but find myself seated around people that I really do not know very well. I am feeling quite emotional – and the teenager in me is terrified.
For the next hour and a half, Angela is an angel as she frequently makes funny faces at me to pull me back to the present, occasionally talking to me from across the large round table. But I still find myself wishing I could isolate and be alone. I am not into this type of surface-level social encounter – especially not when feeling so emotional – and those hidden and unexpressed emotions are quite intense. While resisting the process, I continue to dive ever deeper into these emotions.
At one point, when my abdomen feels as if it is almost on fire with flowing emotions, Keith looks at me and verbally acknowledges that he can feel the emotions in my abdomen. Angela quickly nods in agreement that she too can feel my journey. Myriads of old emotions are coming up-and-out. I desperately try not to attach to or identify with what is flowing out of me – but I find this endeavor to be quite difficult.
Powerful And Raw
After a couple of people have already finished and left the restaurant, I hang around for twenty more minutes, but I can take no more inner agony. The river of emotion flowing through me remains intense.
When I arrive at home and briefly step into my bathroom, I suddenly burst into painful emotional release. Intense wheezing, coughing, tears, and teeth chattering consume me for several minutes. The emotions are powerful and raw. I know they are based on past experience and not present-day reality – but I also realize that I am reenergizing some of them because of how I am reacting. Intuitions tell me that I will likely need to repeat such emotional journeys until I no longer feel any attachment whatsoever.
As I finally complete my notes for the day, unsettled emotions continue to flow. I am quite clear that this social pain is an ongoing process – one that will continue to be a combination of tears and bringing in the light.
A Perfect Setup
I found beautiful closure with being around Paul today. His surprise compliments warmed my heart. I still feel slightly awkward around him, and have no desire to connect with him at a social level – but am delighted that I no longer feel any anger or judgment toward him – just pure compassion.
As I prepare for bed, I again reflect on the last five days – on how I have had three profoundly strong and powerful ceremonies while simultaneously experiencing horrible abdominal pains with which I received virtually no assistance – while simply being told just to stay out of my rational mind.
I see the setup perfectly – an external setup of a mirrored internal reality – a reality showing my God drama beliefs that being in my power is equivalent to being abandoned and left on my own. Keith is beautifully playing into this stage play by following his own guidance. I totally believe that this feeling of abandonment by Keith (and by God) is perfectly orchestrated to bring this inner reality to painful clarity. My lesson right now is to allow this God drama to move through me while not reenergizing it … to know myself … and to feel the emotions without attaching and identifying with them.
The Root Of All Evil
As I rest on my pillow, late on Wednesday evening, the meditative insights will simply not stop flowing. Finally, I get out of bed and take some notes – notes about how I have personal power and strength essentially linked as being equivalent to losing all hope for love and support from others … including from God Herself.
Following are those meditative notes:
Power and Strength are equivalent to:
• Overwhelming responsibility … entanglement in the lives of others … burdensome duty … a leash around my neck … an inability to follow my own heart and passion.
• Rejection, abandonment, and loss of help from others … loss of attention.
• Jealousy from others when I am in my own power, thus creating guilt in myself for having something that they do not have. It is far better and safer to be weak.
• Loss of love and potential for love … imbalance in my life … and no one wants an empowered and capable wife who does not need to be taken care of (from personal experience with one man I dated).
• Loss of my personal life … excessive obligation to others … leadership responsibilities … a need and expectation to remain strong and powerful … an inability to be weak … people will expect and need me to be strong for them.
• No time for me … no creativity … no writing … being stretched too thin … too many people seeking what I have and an inability to keep up with it all … a deep questioning of whether people are seeking me for who I am or just for my money and power.
• Disconnection from God (a bizarre but true belief) … strength and power are linked with ego, and ego and God are not compatible … the only way to God is through weak humility … power is the antithesis of spirituality and humility.
• Being slammed by those that I love … being scolded for my pompous, presumptuous, magical, alien statements about things that could not possibly be true in their view of reality.
• Complete loss of privacy … loss of self … pride … shallowness … political and government entanglements … conflict … war … being a target by those who want my power … unwanted visibility in the world … an un-maintainable pedestal that will crumble beneath me … exhaustion … burnout … unreasonable expectations from others … unreasonable expectations from myself … a mask … pretense … trying to live up to something I cannot be.
• Having to trust myself … I was taught not to trust my own instincts … having no defense for “why I know something” that most people believe is not possible … putting myself out there in a defenseless way for others to attack … it is unsafe and risky business to be empowered.
Wow, no wonder, at a subconscious level, I have no desire to fully embrace my power and inner strength … no wonder my power is shut down. Part of me deeply hates power … is terrified of power … and knows that power is the root of all evil.
I am actually beginning to understand Keith’s statements about the games we play with God, and about owning that I really am playing those games … that a dominant part of me really does not want that divine assistance.
A Mini Adventure
Thursday, shortly after I begin an attempt at writing for the day, Sufi and I start talking about the option of going to San Pedro for the day. A woman who was here on the porch a few months ago has asked me to go on a romantic search to help her get in contact with a jewelry artisan who sells his wares on the street in San Pedro … and I have resisted, not wanting to spend the time. But Sufi has volunteered to go with me, and today is a good day for her.
To make a long story very short, we spend a few hours following breadcrumb clues and we actually locate the young man in question. It is a fun adventure with an uncertain outcome in the long term … and the break from routine has been very rewarding.
When I finally get back to San Marcos, powerful confusing energies are again swirling in my head. Being unable to focus on writing, I follow intuitive guidance to walk to the edge of town, hoping for a short chat with Keith.
Feel The Love
Keith agrees with my own personal assessments on my process, commenting that normally, in such a place, he would guide someone into a meditation process to work on this.
“But, I am being guided to just have you stay out of your head, to be present, to not try to figure it out, and to allow the flow of your process to continue,” Keith tells me. “Part of your process is to get you out of needing to understand everything with rational mind.”
I trust Keith’s guidance, but it simultaneously maddens my rational mind. I do not know how to “just be” and I desperately feel a need to be doing something to push my process along.
“This morning,” I share my frustration with Keith, “I meditated for an hour just trying to watch my breath without thinking or following metaphors. It was an extremely difficult venture. Can you give me any suggestions on how to “just be”?”
“Imagine yourself connecting with your four-year-old child who is struggling with swirling confusion,” Keith starts to take me on a meditative journey.
Immediately, at this thought, I tear up with strong emotion.
“The child is just beginning to be able to verbally communicate,” Keith continues, “but you would not try to explain how do deal with swirling confusion to this child. You would just hold the child … and love the child. Just do that with your own inner child and allow your Higher Self, your guides, or the Divine Mother Herself to just hold you in the same way. There is no need for words, thoughts, or understanding. Just feel the confusion and receive the love.”
Let It Be
As I further explain my confusion, and the maddening resistance in my rational mind, Keith refers me to my recent writing about my perceptions of my mother’s micromanaging, and of my own – and of how I am trying to micromanage my own process.
“Just let it be,” Keith again encourages me. “Trust it.”
“Yeah,” I acknowledge, “I totally trust how I got to my present understanding after going through five days of extreme abdominal pain, being deeply in my power, and feeling abandoned at the rational mind level. I trust at this level, but I feel so helpless … like I want to move faster … to facilitate something to help me get on the easy bus instead of continuing to slog away on the hard bus.”
“I am actually quite pleased with what you are doing and where you are at in your process,” Keith suddenly surprises me with delightfully positive feedback. “You are doing very well with it.”
Shortly before 3:30 p.m., I find myself back home, finishing another round of notes. I remain deeply emotional, and utterly exhausted … simply opting to go to bed.
Inner Child Pain
Soon, in the darkness of my bedroom, I imagine myself simply holding and loving my dear inner child. As I do so, I invite the Divine Mother to simultaneously hold and embrace me.
Deep emotion quickly consumes me with a profound round of initial tears, coughing, and dry heaving of dense energy. As the external emotion settles, I continue to experience panicked breathing while imagining myself holding my child and inviting Higher Love to hold me. Finally, I drift off to sleep.
To my shock, when I slowly drift back into groggy awareness at around 5:00 p.m., I am profoundly aware of a sensation telling me I am horribly evil for something that I did to myself … for trying to hide from God. I assassinated my magic and feel as if God is angry and mad at me for doing so. I am deeply aware that these are the emotions of my dear inner child flowing through me.
Avoiding The Punishing Powers
Suddenly, I remember a recent Facebook video title – one that I scrolled by, but never did watch. The title was something like “Girl actually swallowed by a whale.”
Simultaneously, I remember how, as a young child, I was deeply moved and quite emotionally fearful of a story from the Christian Bible. It was the story of Jonah and the whale – of how he tried to run away and hide from God and the path God had asked him to follow. Eventually he was tossed from a ship in the midst of a huge life-threatening storm. After being swallowed by a whale, he was finally regurgitated back onto the beach and given another opportunity to fulfill his mission.
Every time I heard that story as a child, I felt the deep fear of knowing that I too was running away and trying to hide from God – afraid of the responsibilities that I did not understand, but which I intuitively knew at a deep level I would be expected to carry out in my lifetime.
In fact, I clearly see that I have been hiding from and running from God my whole life. I have been terrified of my mission, my power, my magic, and my responsibility. As a tiny child I used psychic surgery to kill and sever that magic … and I literally feel as if I have been hiding in the belly of a whale for much of my life, frightened, feeling as if I have screwed everything up, subconsciously avoiding the punishing powers of Higher Energies. I knew I was not capable of fulfilling my calling, and was terrified of God’s wrath and eventual judgment when I proved my weakness and failure.
I cannot justify any of these intuitive insights with rational mind – but they clearly flow through me with deep emotion as I wake up from that groggy nap while still being halfway between two worlds. The insights add so much sense to my budding understandings about the God drama, and as I ponder them, a great deal of fear and emotion continue to shake inside.
Childhood Love
Feeling “all processed out”, I immerse myself in movies, unable to handle any more emotion right now.
A few hours later, when Sufi returns home, I remove my earphones to say “hi”. As we start talking, I share a little of my process, and suddenly sink back to the depths of emotion.
“Do you want me to hug you?” Sufi gently offers.
“Yes, please, I would love that,” I whimper my response.
After hugging for a minute or two, I relax and snuggle into her, with my head leaning against her shoulder and neck while she gently caresses me with her right hand, lightly touching my cheeks and forehead, creating gentle energy swirls just a few inches above my face and heart.
I sink into deep vulnerability as I begin to cry. I feel quite guilty for being so open and vulnerable, and suddenly begin to shut the emotion down while erecting a temporary wall. As I share my wall-building process with Sufi, however, I again quickly access even deeper vulnerability. I feel as if I am my adult-self and my inner child at the same time. I am that four-year-old who has never before felt such love with no agenda, and I am the adult finally allowing that child to feel such love.
I start to shake as I ponder my fear of such vulnerability … and fear of getting into trouble for the tears. But minutes later, I begin to fill with a temporary wave of childhood anger – anger that such pure love was never given to me. The anger is soon replaced with more love as Sufi continues to hold me.
A while later, another wave of intense anger, tears, coughing and dry heaving flows through me before quickly drying up in the presence of the continued loving energy.
Magical Flowing Energy
Sufi was on her way out to meet friends when this all started, and I keep thinking that I should send her on her way. But then I remind myself “No, I can remain vulnerable and not push her away … not sabotage this precious moment.”
As long as she is willing to do this for me, I will allow it. I love the feeling of such cool, refreshing, agenda-less, unconditional love that is gently wafting in my direction. It is not forced, not colored with anything, just a cool breeze gently healing me.
I am being given a profound gift of grace … a look at where I am going in my life. My rational mind could not really explain any of this … the head could not take me here … I simply need to feel and allow such divine love in my life … for myself and for my inner children. I have many walls that prevent those Divine energies … I want to allow such love … I want to radiate it like a light.
I soon thank Sufi profusely. In all the times that people have held me on Keith’s porch over the last few months, her love comes through at the top of the list, radiating with absolute purity. I have been able to be vulnerable and to receive a great deal of it in spite of my fears and tears.
“Why don’t you come down to the lake and go swimming with me?” Sufi invites me to join her in a late-night adventure.
Part of me really wants to be spontaneous and go down to the lake … but a stronger part wants to document my journey with notes, and to bask in the glow of the loving energy presently flowing magically in my heart.
Masks And Pretense
After a beautiful night of sleep, I relax on Friday morning before heading out to Keith’s magical porch for another afternoon chocolate ceremony. About thirteen people gather for what I do not yet know will be a very challenging ceremony on my part.
As the “Glow Meditation” ends, I begin to focus on bringing in more love for my four-year-old child. But soon, intuitions turn my attention to age twelve, and my teenage years. I focus on bringing in and allowing that same gentle pure unconditional love that I felt from Sufi last night. I manage to bring in a great deal of this pure love on my own, but also find myself regressing profoundly into a deep layer of emotion from teenage years.
I feel isolated. I want to dig a hole and climb into it. I want to run away and just cry.
As I allow these emotions to flow, maintaining a thread of being the observer of it all, I start to experience a profound and deeper-than-ever understanding regarding why I hated groups of people as a teenager – why I hated the socially-active popular kids – why I hated church group activities.
“I took in all of the emotional stuff from these groups and gobbled it down,” I ponder. “Then I had to put an imaginary mask on my face and pretend that it all tasted good while giving the outward appearance of living a happy and normal life.”
As I continue to bring in love for my inner teenager, I also repeatedly experience recurring waves of gentle flowing tears and occasional teeth chattering while allowing the desperately needed love to come through.
Teenage Isolation
Keith spends a great deal of time working with others. Finally, after a couple of hours, he reaches my cushion. When I briefly catch him up on my process, he explains something I have not yet thought much about – that I am flowing a bunch of that teenage emotion right now, and that much of what is leaving me is not even my own emotion.
“What happens to a young teenage boy who goes to church and sits around everyone else – a teenager who is expected to put on a happy smile and pretend that everything is beautiful, and at the same time you are taking in all of that emotion, stuffing it inside you, and believing it to be your own?” Keith poses an example question to illustrate his point.
“I have a hard time relating to that,” I explain to Keith, “because all my life I really have believed all of the agonizing stuff inside of me to be my own self-hatred.”
What Keith says makes a great deal of sense, but he quickly needs to move on to work with someone else.
I continue to focus on bringing in love, allowing the tears to stream, and trusting my flow that all is well with my process. As I do so, I experience increasing waves of teenage pain, needs, and desires … of teenage hatred for people … of a craving for isolation. I even pull a scarf over my head to enhance the feeling of desperately wanting to run away and hide. As I do so, I am able to be more authentic in my process of re-experiencing those agonizing teenage emotions.
Without Higher Energies
Finally, when Angela finishes working with someone else, she responds to a request Keith had earlier asked of her – that when she finished she should come to work with me to assist in releasing those teenage emotions.
When she initially asks if I want her to sit behind me, I resist and say no. She holds space for a while as I continue the same mode of ongoing emotional release. Eventually, I recognize that the tears are no longer helping – that what I really need is to bring in more love.
“Will you sit behind me now?” I ask Angela to assist.
As I surrender to this influx of much-needed loving touch, I gradually enter a deep round of agonizing emotional release – one that starts out with deep belly-breathing, followed by an intense surge of surfacing emotion.
Finally, I have no choice but to break out in screeching and agonizing wails as the emotion can no longer be contained. I am sobbing, coughing, dry heaving, and repeatedly screeching in emotional pain.
“This is what emotional release looks like when you have to do it all by yourself without the assistance of Higher Energy,” I overhear Keith tell someone who is on the porch for the first time.
I know Keith is right, but I feel helpless to permit anything more right now … I am still unable to bring in more Divine light and love … there is too much fear … too much blockage. I am in new territory … progressing in baby steps … trying to build trust.
A Small Significant Layer
Soon, another wave of anguish erupts and another layer of intense release follows. Finally, I begin to breathe in a more relaxed-but-rapid manner.
“Use your right hand to help Brenda with the density in her abdomen that is ready to leave,” Keith soon guides Angela. “She does not yet know how to do it by herself.”
Angela places her hand on my belly and, after a few minutes of surrender and experiencing a swelling pain, I feel as if those pains suddenly dissolve and move into Angela’s hand. When I mention this to her, Angela confirms that she felt it too.
We engage in this process for another hour or two. I continue to experience strong waves of abdominal pains that swell and then fade. I have no rational mind confirmation that I am doing anything other than experiencing pains that come and go in waves, so I ask Keith if he can provide a little play-by-play feedback of what is happening. Keith quickly diverts and asks Angela to tell me what she is feeling.
“I am feeling layer after layer of densities peeling away.” Angela shares her experience. “I definitely feel a lot of things moving.”
After taking a quick restroom break, I return to the porch and lie forward on a pillow for a while – breathing rapidly and almost in shock.
“What you did today was quite profound,” Keith soon shares. “You took another small layer off your densities, while building trust. It was quite significant.”
“Just a small layer?” I ask with curiosity.
“Yes,” Keith responds with emphasis, “but it was very significant.”
Strong Surprising Emphasis
As the ceremony fades, Keith goes into his kitchen to engage in a few chores while Angela, Paul, me, and two others remain outside on the porch. I do not feel complete and want to discuss a few more issues if Keith has time.
“Keith,” I eventually call out, “so with the God drama, it is not so much about releasing emotions etc., as it is about owning the game I am playing with God, right?”
“It is a little of both,” Keith lovingly calls back to me.
A few minutes later, Keith comes out onto the porch and begins to speak with STRONG emphasis.
“It is time for you to work on your God drama,” Keith surprises me in what I perceive as a very firm and almost confrontational tone.
“Exactly,” I respond. “I really want to get through this.”
Harsh Reality
“It is time to own your God drama,” Keith continues in his harsh tone. “It is time to own the game you are playing … to own that you DO know how to bring in love and to connect to Higher Energies, but that you DO NOT WANT to do so because you will lose all hope of receiving an apology from God, giving up your leverage for an apology, and your reasons for being a victim of the life you have had. It is time to own that you chose your parents and the struggles that you have gone through.”
Immediately, I recognize that Keith is intentionally exaggerating this authoritarian and forceful emphasis – a speech that feels more like a humiliating attack – one that feels even more humiliating with Paul and others listening in. I feel as if am being lectured to by someone who believes me to be an utter loser.
“But Keith,” I respond in protest, asking him to be more gentle with me. “I already believe all of that. I am the one that asked you to help me work with my God drama.”
“NO, you do NOT believe that, or you would not still be where you are right now,” Keith responds with harsh emphasis.
Humiliation To Praise
I try to get Keith to soften, to give me some clarification. I feel as if he is suddenly saying that it is time to jump off the cliff in one large step … that it is time to admit my game and then just be done with it. In fact, I feel so rattled that I am extremely emotional, practically in freak-out mode.
“I believe all of this,” I attempt again to defend myself. “I understand the God drama at a rational mind level, but I AM STUCK, I have no energy sensitivities, I don’t trust myself.”
“Brenda,” Keith firmly responds. “That is part of your denial. You DO know how, you are just pretending that you do not. It is time to give all of that up, to fully admit the game that you are playing, to admit that you are only pretending to not know how.”
I am so lost and confused right now. Keith is sharing so much info, in such an emphatic and domineering tone of voice. I know he is doing this on purpose … a form of role-playing … but each word out of his mouth further humiliates me in front of Paul. I feel profoundly badgered.
On the one hand, I really love what Keith is doing. I know I need to get serious … that the status quo is taking me nowhere … but I am overwhelmed by what feels like badgering and hammering with a great deal of intensity. I am sinking fast.
“Brenda,” Keith then shocks me. “What you are doing is quite profound. Everyone else on the porch will eventually have to do something similar.”
I almost giggle as I hear Keith’s encouraging words in the midst of my pain. I recognize that he is actually complimenting me in a very deep way while I perceive him as playing the role of tough-ass spiritual drill sergeant at the same time.
Confusing Catch Phrases
In spite of what Keith just said, I feel quite annoyed that Paul and the others are listening in. I intuitively feel Paul’s smugness developing as he continues to listen to Keith harshly badger me.
Angela gives me a ton of advice about her own journey with such issues. I feel that her comments are real, caring, and genuine … but they do not fully resonate, and I wonder if she really understands, or just thinks she does. I do not trust much of anything right now.
I have repeatedly tried to get additional clarification from Keith, but he continues to use what I consider to be the same trite statements about what I need to do. He will not go into any deeper rational mind explanations. I feel profoundly frustrated. I actually challenge Keith, telling him that I want real guidance, not just the same catch phrases over and over again.
“Brenda,” Keith reassures me firmly, “when you actually do the work, you will then understand what I am saying to you … not before.”
As Keith returns to his kitchen to run a few more evening errands, I simply give up and surrender in humiliation, feeling like a failure.
Escalating Humiliation
Moments later, Paul begins to preach to me.
“Brenda, maybe now you will listen to me,” Paul smugly lectures me about how I have been so wrong to ignore his deep wisdom.
“Please, Paul,” I beg, “you have no clue where I am at in my process right now.”
“Yes I do Brenda,” Paul lashes back at me.
“You can have your truth and I can have mine,” I respond, attempting to defuse Paul’s ego.
Several times over the next fifteen minutes, Paul verbally jabs me with condescending comments about how I will not listen to his wisdom, about how he has the answers if I will just stop fighting him. I simply ignore Paul’s comments, offering no response other than my silence.
“Keith,” I eventually call out to the kitchen, “can you schedule me for a private session to work on this. I do not feel comfortable with this level of processing while people who do not understand what I am going through are listening in and judging me. Those who have not done what I am doing cannot understand where I am at.”
As I complete these words, Paul again verbally jabs me for not listening to what he knows. I just ignore him.
Keith soon returns to the porch.
Private Please
“But Angela does understand,” Keith responds.
I find a certain amount of satisfaction that Keith does not include other names in this sentence.
“Yeah, I am not talking about Angela,” I respond. “I definitely feel her understanding.
In a way, I recognize that I might be partially reenergizing Paul’s attacking of me with his condescension and smugness, because it deeply annoys me. But at the same time I know that I am merely lovingly stating my truth and asking him to please disengage from his verbal badgering.
A few minutes later, as I step into Keith’s kitchen to schedule my private appointment for tomorrow, Keith suggests having Angela there. I quickly agree. I am so exhausted that I want to go home to integrate and take notes, but I also recognize that tonight is another night of chocolate bagging.
“Keith, I know I committed to be here tonight,” I express my truth, “and if you need me, I will still come, but right now I want to go crawl under the covers and integrate.”
“We have enough help tonight,” Keith lovingly gives me permission to take care of myself.
So Worth It
As I prepare to walk away, Angela jumps in with beautiful feedback.
“Brenda, when you get through this you will have such an amazing spectrum of understanding from all of your background issues,” Angela shares with a smile. “You are going to be one amazing healer.”
“Brenda,” Keith suddenly offers his own beautiful feedback, “It is such an honor to have you on the porch. Angela is so right. For the longest time you were the only support here who fully understands what I am doing. I am so glad you are here.”
I am so grateful for such beautiful and desperately needed words that make everything I am going through feel so worth it.
An “Importance” Emphasis
“Thanks for being so tough on me tonight,” I thank Keith with a hug.
“I’m not being tough on you,” Keith smiles back at me.
“But it feels as if you are saying that it is now time to do the final shift, all at once,” I express my misconception.
“No, of course not,” Keith offers loving feedback. “It is a process that you will do in your own way. I am just laying out the parameters of the process. It is time to own the game and quit making excuses.”
“But I felt so overwhelmed by the finality of your emphasis-filled ultimatums expressed so firmly in front of Paul that I was deeply intimidated,” I explain to Keith.
As I again thank Keith and begin a very slow stroll home, I suddenly realize that Keith’s “emphasis” voice tonight is the same voice he has often used in role-playing my mother. I am quite tickled that today I did not react directly in the same way. I did not take his tone as frustration and impatience – but instead as “importance”.
I can clearly see that his “importance” emphasis has shaken me up just enough to get me really serious about owning my God drama – about going deeper beneath the surface.
My Ultimate Barrier
As I finish my notes and prepare to meditate before bed, I decide to pull four tarot cards. I am blown away by the selections. I begin with the “Page of Swords”, which to me is an indicator of coming mental messengers. The next card is the “Queen of Wands” which I see as representing a feminine rule over spirituality. The next card I randomly select is the “King of Swords” which represents Masculine reign in the mental realm. Normally I would stop here, but I feel guided to pull one more card, which ends up being the “Page of Wands”, indicating coming spiritual messengers. I cannot help but giggle at the balance of feminine and masculine, at both the spiritual and mental levels.
Mine has been a long and surface-level journey with the God drama – one that I first embraced during processing on Keith’s porch in early 2011 – one that has always been quite casual. Increasingly in the last month, the flow of my process … the flow of my being … has been systematically taking me into an ever-deepening experiential understanding – one that goes far beyond rational-mind book learning.
I am eager and anxious to continue this ongoing process, to keep removing the layers of resistance.
One thing feels quite clear to me. It is my God drama that prevents me from fully allowing Higher Dimensional assistance to whisk me away on the easy bus.
While I am gradually able to access increasing levels of light and love, my ultimate barrier seems to be the games I play with Deity. It is my profound and insane insistence on keeping those inner protective shields raised at full strength – on hiding from my own Divine power – as if I ran away from God and was swallowed in the belly of a whale.
… to be continued …
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved