Saturday morning I am surprised when my roommate Sufi approaches me with a gift – an apologetic offering of sorts – innocently seeking forgiveness after having engaged in a minor trespass.
“Brenda,” Sufi smiles as she hands me a huge tube of toothpaste, still in the box. “I bought this for you. I felt guilty because I used up all of the tiny tube in the bathroom without first asking.”
“Thank you,” I respond with a feeling of blindsided shock, taking the tube in my hands, staring with a forced smile at the monster toothpaste tube that I would NEVER have purchased for myself.
What I do not tell Sufi is that the small tube that she used up and threw away was one of three tiny tubes that I bought two years ago in Cozumel. I had spent hours searching several stores before finally finding them. In my first-ever venture into the then-fearful world of backpacking through the Yucatan, I needed to pack extremely light. Ever since, I have carefully saved that final tube, so that I could use it during any possible travel in the future. Such travel-size tubes are hard to come by here in Guatemala.
A Silly Tube
My heart sinks with feelings of being betrayed and violated – but I keep my mouth shut and focus on seeing this emotion as an inside job.
“This is not about Sufi,” I remind myself repeatedly. “This is not about a stupid and silly tube of toothpaste … and nothing changes until I do.”
“But she violated my privacy, using up and discarding something that had meaning and value to me,” the wounded part of me lashes back in silent accusation. “How dare she do that! I would have gladly let her share a little of my larger tube if she had only asked – but not that tiny tube. This is precisely why I do not want roommates. They use up all of my stuff, do not respect my privacy, and do not value my personal possessions.”
After breakfast and a shower, I sit at my computer to write – but all I can do is play mind numbing computer games. The out-of-proportion emotions raging through me are insane and mind boggling.
Finally, I rush to my bedroom and close the door as an unexpected wave of intense emotion consumes me to the core. For nearly thirty minutes I sob and dry-heave emotional energy out of my body.
By now, I realize that a silly little tube of toothpaste has taken me into the depths of very profound and core pain in my life.
Time To Go There
Finally, at about 10:30 a.m. on this Saturday morning, May 26, 2012, I put on my sandals and prepare to walk out to Keith’s house, hoping to schedule some time for a private appointment.
As I start out the door, I stop to give Sufi a quick hug, tell her of my insane suffering over such a stupid issue, and lovingly reassure her that “this is not about her.”
I am numb, with a blank stare, when I finally arrive at Keith’s kitchen door.
“Can we either schedule an appointment or talk now?” I ask Keith. “I am not sure if this is past-life stuff, or from my own childhood … but the emotions are intense, and I know I need to go there and explore.”
A Lost Teddy Bear
“I’m getting that this is childhood stuff from this lifetime,” Keith responds after checking with his own guidance.
“I am being shown an image of you as a tiny child, bringing home things like rocks and leaves … the typical stuff a child brings home,” Keith shares more guidance. “Your mother did not appreciate your treasures and just threw them away as garbage, doing so without your permission or knowledge.”
“Yeah,” I respond with new memories. “They were precious things to me … but were junk to my mother … so she threw them away. I had no right to my private space as a child. I had no right to keep precious possessions that she did not condone and/or want in our home. My father was a major packrat, and my mother could not get him to let go of his precious stuff. It suddenly occurs to me that she could not fix my father of his huge collection of treasures and memorabilia … she was unable to control his junk collecting … so she took it upon herself to control me, someone she could control … to keep me from collecting what she thought of as junk.”
“I just had a flashback of a devastating memory,” I share with Keith. “I used to have a precious teddy bear that I loved and took everywhere. I do not remember the exact age, but I clearly remember my emotions when it turned up missing.
“That old bear was so ragged,” my mother had told me. “It was falling apart so I threw it away.”
At hearing my mother’s emotionless words, feelings of intense betrayal and personal-space violation had stabbed deep emotional wounds into my tiny heart. Even as I explain the experience to Keith, fifty years later, the emotions are raw.
Dog Named Molly
And then, at around eight years old, I begged my parents to let me have a dog. I named her Molly. My dad fenced off a small portion of our yard at the side of the house. I helped to make a little dog house, and I even wrote a poem about “Molly” for school – a poem that had been harshly critiqued by my teacher – a critique that devastated my creative confidence.
“I came home from school one day,” I tell Keith, “and when Molly was missing I asked my mother if she knew where she was.”
“She was just too messy and got into everything,” my mother responded with firmness. “We took her to a new home, at the so-and-so’s house, just a few blocks away.”
“Molly was only in my life for a month or two,” I tell Keith with unfolding insight, “and I felt deeply violated when she was taken from me, behind my back, without my knowledge. My own feelings of ownership and personal rights were trampled by my mother’s need for order and cleanliness. I had no say in what happened, and my emotions were ignored.”
Profound Privacy Ponderings
“And another example that suddenly flashes into my memory,” I continue sharing with Keith, “is that I had a precious comic book collection that I had acquired as a child and young teenager. I was saving those comic books – all of which were purchased with my own money. At age twenty-one, when I came home from my missionary service, my parents had moved from Washington State to Utah. In the midst of that move, my mother had discarded most of my stuff. When I asked about my special comic book collection, my mother casually responded that she had thrown that junk away.”
“I felt deeply violated,” I share forgotten emotion with Keith. “It is like my mother was a cleanliness and organization Gestapo, and my feelings did not matter.”
“In fact, I don’t remember ever having had privacy as a child,” I continue rambling. “I now remember, that when raising my own children, I insisted on honoring their privacy in their own rooms – on never searching their belongings or invading their privacy. I never had that luxury for myself, and I knew from personal experience how much it hurt to feel so deeply violated.”
“My stuff was not mine … and not respected,” I continue. “It could and did disappear at any moment … whether it was old clothes, toys, teddy bears, or whatever. I was rarely consulted, but if I was, and I resisted … if I fought and rebelled … I got my mouth washed out with soap or cayenne pepper sprinkled on my tongue.”
“And this did not end in my own childhood.” I add another insight. “I felt the same way in my marriage … feeling that I had no personal privacy … none whatsoever. And with every roommate I have ever had, I always worried that they were violating my personal treasures.
Tip Of The Iceberg
“I’m getting that this physical possession stuff was just the tip of the iceberg,” Keith soon interjects in this eye-opening conversation. “You had no right to your own opinions and beliefs either. You had no right to think and feel as your own heart desired.”
In a short discussion, it becomes quite clear that as a child raised in a deeply religious environment, I had no right to my own opinions, behaviors, quirks, beliefs (political, cultural, religious, etc.), ideals, values, morals, etc…
“I was a mini-me robot shell, trying to mimic my mother,” I respond with shock. “I was treated as a piece of clay to be molded and taught by those in authority. I had no right to be myself. I was not allowed to be a unique human being with the freedom to explore my own heart desires. I was simply forced to conform to the cultural expectations.”
The Ugly Duckling
“I often use the garden metaphor,” I share with Keith. “When you plant a seed, you water it and nurture it, tilling the soil, etc… You never plant a carrot seed and demand that it grow into a radish. It is like I was raised in a culture of radishes, but I came to earth as a tomato. It was the sacred duty of my parents and religious culture to teach and condition me into being a radish. They were not even allowed to consider the possibility that I might not be a radish. That would be blasphemy.”
“I struggled to conform to the wishes of my parents,” I explain to Keith. “I tried to be a radish. I DID conform to their absolute radish rules. I had no right to think for myself, and I was punished if I tried. My whole life was about following rules, being a group member, hiding my uniqueness, and seeking validation that I was doing things right.”
As a child, I deeply related to the story of “The Ugly Duckling” – of a baby swan who was raised by a family of ducks – and how the beautiful graceful swan felt so ugly and simply could not fit in to the cultural expectations.
“I was the ugly duckling,” I suddenly ponder to myself. “I literally was a swan raised by a family of beautiful and loving ducks – but I could not be like them, causing me to experience deep inner shame and guilt regarding how I was a misfit.”
Keith again spends a few minutes reminding me of how many indigenous cultures around the world raise their children with the understanding that the parent’s job is to simply provide a safe, loving, supporting, and caretaking role. In those cultures, the children are encouraged to grow up in their own unique way – believing that every child comes to this earth with a unique journey and purpose, and that it is the child’s personal right to find and live that journey.
The Gender Card
“Brenda,” Keith slightly redirects the conversation. “You don’t fully appreciate your gender blessing … and how it was your way OUT of the conformity box … your ace in the hole.”
“Wow,” I suddenly put the pieces together. “Before being born, I wanted to experience life in the 1950s culture with a deeply religious background. I wanted to get lost in the cultural and religious shutdown as a part of my path.”
“And had it not been for the fact that I also threw that gender card in the deck,” I ponder with clarity, “I would NEVER have found my way out of that culture. By now, I would have still been an active member and high-up leader in that religion – probably being quite happy and content in doing so. I would never have been able to leave that box.”
“I set my life up in such a way that I was forced by an undeniable inner mandate to find my way out of the church and culture.” I share with clarity. “I designed the transgender struggles to force me to confront the issue – to make me choose to either die or leave the traditional box behind.”
“With this new perspective, I am actually grateful for my transgender struggles,” I share with Keith. “Before I finally confronted my gender confusions, I was self-righteous, obedient, conformant, judgmental, and even emotionally controlling. I probably would have died that way without ever finding the spiritual path I am now following with joy. The gender card was my guaranteed ace in the hole … something I designed in my “life path” to guarantee that I would find my way out of the box.”
“You would still have been a genuine caring healer,” Keith quickly points out, “but you would have been doing so from within the box.”
The Borg Collective
“And throughout your life,” Keith reminds me, “you never lost track of your pure and genuine heart.”
Keith and I begin to discus many aspects of my life history – experiences that without fail remind me that through it all, I was genuine, caring, and acting from personal integrity. It broke my heart when those I loved saw and judged otherwise.
“Wow, this is the story of my life,” I soon share with Keith. “My genuine self was not valued by my mother. I had to sacrifice true expression of my soul, pushing it out for safekeeping, leaving nothing but an obedient-and-empty shell, trying to please and obey my mother … and later my own family.”
Deep emotions begin to consume me as I share these words. Again I am sinking into deeper layers of the God drama – into repressed anger at the complete shutdown of my heart, the loss of individuality and self, and at the withdrawal of love for being my genuine self. I feel anger at the Light and Higher Energies.
“I am still not allowing the light because I believe it will do the same thing to me that my mother did,” I ponder out loud. “It will somehow absorb me into the mystical “Borg collective” (Star Trek metaphor), causing me to lose all sense of individual identity, privacy, and right to be uniquely me.”
To The Core
As Keith and I continue to talk, my stomach now churns painfully as waves of deep emotion frequently crash through me. Keith repeatedly congratulates me during this profound healing journey, letting me know that he can feel the depth to which I am allowing these emotions to surface.
“You are feeling what you need to feel,” Keith shares his praise. “You are following the flow of metaphorical breadcrumbs and doing what you need to do with the clues that are emotionally presented to you.”
“But Keith,” I protest at one point. “These emotions are already intense and I am afraid to go any deeper. I am fearful that I will end up crying for another five hours, wallowing in the pain. I want to go deep and learn about why I put these blocks inside of me, but I am also afraid that I am scamming myself, just creating pain where none exists.
After deep conversation, both Keith and I agree that this new layer of emotion is definitely NOT a scam, and that I need to go deeper … to the core … right through the middle of it.
After a beautiful hour and a half conversation, I thank Keith, return home, and prepare myself to take the dive. I want to find that core.
Creativity Lost
I begin by meditating in my bedroom, mostly lying down. Repeatedly, I pass through deep emotional release intermingled by quiet periods of numbness, apathy, hopelessness, and futility. These latter emotions feel profoundly familiar, resonating as originating during my teenage years.
Finally, I have gone as deep as I dare, and instead bring in a little light to stabilize myself before watching a movie and going out for burger and fries at my favorite restaurant.
Later, as I sit in my living room, I remember a scene from a movie that I had deeply loved – “The Runaway Bride.” In the scene, after having repeatedly almost married several men, Julie Robert’s character is sitting with a friend in a restaurant, feeling lost and dejected. The friend points out to her that she always orders the same type of eggs that her then-fiancé loves – that she has no “personal likes and preferences” of her own.
I remember the emotions I had when I first watched that movie – when I first recognized that I too did not know what kind of eggs I liked. I have been a professional chameleon through most of my life. While I do have many “dislikes” – I have mostly “just liked” what those around me liked – whether it was restaurants, movies, sports, music, recreation, or anything else.
Until the last few years, I have spent my entire life trying to blend in, being terrified to stick my neck out with any opinion that might not be validated by the consensus reality. I have been frightened of being different.
I again review what I discussed with Keith this morning, painfully recognizing that my mother (and others) literally destroyed my creativity. I was conditioned and taught to give up “me,” to not think out of the box, to never stand out from the norm.
“How dare my mother do that to a child!” I ponder in agonizing shock as another round of emotion flows to the ethers.
You Are Loved
After meditating late into the night, I begin to listen to music on my IPOD. As the music inspires me, I realize other profound areas where my confidence and creativity were shattered – areas such as dancing, singing solos, acting, story telling, sharing jokes, participating in talks, and any type of oral presentation.
In every case, while I knew I had the potential to be good at all of them, I was terrified of each because I could not have handled even the slightest hint of negative feedback. I only engaged in things where positive feedback was assured.
Finally, I begin to listen to the album “Awake” by Josh Groban. As the second song “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)” begins to play, wailing sobs consume me. I love Josh Groban, and in this moment, he seems to represent (to me) the healed masculine, Divine Masculine image – Heavenly Love that is supporting and encouraging me. The words are perfect.
You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)
Words and Music by: Thomas “Tawgs” Salter
Sung by: Josh Groban
Album: Awake
Don’t give up
It’s just the weight of the world
When your heart’s heavy
I, I will lift it for you
Don’t give up
Because you want to be heard
If silence keeps you
I, I will break it for you
Everybody wants to be understood
Well, I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don’t give up because you are loved
Don’t give up
It’s just the hurt that you hide
When you’re lost inside
I, I’ll be there to find you
Don’t give up
Because you want to burn bright
If darkness blinds you
I, I will shine to guide you
Everybody wants to be understood
Well, I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don’t give up because you are loved
Don’t give up
Because you are loved
…
[Ending phrases repeat several times …]
I replay this beautiful song over and over for several hours before finally drifting off to sleep. Somehow, the inspired words, the image of Divine Masculine holding me with pure loving support and encouragement – the whole beautiful song fills my soul with much needed peace and reassurance that “I am loved” in ways I cannot possibly yet imagine.
No Bars Or Walls
Sunday morning at 4:18 a.m., four loud bombas (bomb-like fireworks) burst in the sky, sending shockwaves through the air from less than a hundred yards away. After getting over my initial giggles and tired eyes. I manage go back to sleep. Soon, at 4:43 a.m. another three loud booms shake the sky, and several more again do the same at 5:08 a.m. – I love Guatemala.
“Today must be some type of religious festival,” I chuckle as I give up all hope of further sleep.
But even with the external cultural entertainment, I wake up with another repeat of emotional numbness, apathy, hopelessness and futility – more of the same crazy teenage emotion flowing through my present-day awareness.
Finally, after resisting the emotion throughout the morning, I succumb to words that Keith frequently tells me, “Be where you are and not where you think you should be.” Shortly after 10:00 a.m., I allow myself to feel the emotions to the core, retiring to my room and letting them burst out for a few minutes.
Returning to my computer, I repeat all of the ponderings from yesterday – all of the emotional depth and wisdom that was triggered by a silly little tube of toothpaste.
“I have no right to be myself,” these emotions rage on with their persistent message. “I have no right to my opinions, to my privacy, or to my desires. I will never be free, always doing the bidding of others. It is a lifetime prison sentence … only the prison has no visible bars or walls.”
Go For It
As the afternoon chocolate ceremony gets underway, I focus on holding energetic space for others while simultaneously observing a lot of agitation in my own solar plexus. As a few others on the porch sink into deep emotional release, I focus more of my attention outward, attempting to find a little fun and joy in repeating an empath experience that I had last week.
“Brenda, much of what you are working with today is your own,” Keith tells me when I ask about what I am trying to do.
After Keith’s guidance, I focus on my own issues. Several times, I sink near to the point of publicly bursting into my own emotional release, but I repeatedly pull myself back to the surface. I am tired of crying on Keith’s porch. Pride will not let me go there. I feel that there are several people who will judge me, condescending on me that I am simply weak and choosing to wallow in the same old stuff, over and over again.
Finally, when Keith eventually checks in with me, I share my teetering emotions.
“Go for it, Brenda,” Keith encourages me to ignore the judgments of others and to do what I need to do in my own unique process.
Uninvited Intrusion
Very quickly, I sink into extremely deep emotion, beginning to sob and dry heave while lightly punching a few pillows. But after only about ten seconds, the emotions dry up. I begin to question whether the emotion was transmuted, or if perhaps a part of me is just too terrified to go deeper.
“I do not feel much lighter,” I ponder my body feelings. “I am just more numb. It does not feel like anything was transmuted. It feels like I just shut down.”
I sit with this numbness for a half hour. Occasionally, another intense burst of muffled tears find their way to the surface. I still find myself trying to hide the emotion, still worried about what others may think.
A while later I start to sink into another deep layer of muffled sobs. Suddenly I feel two warm hands holding me on both sides of my head, feeding me with beautiful loving energy that begins to fill my head. Wondering if someone like Angela is holding my head, I open my eyes, fully prepared to allow her to work with me. But when I see that it is another woman – one that I have been watching for a while – one that is extremely prone to fixing energy – I am deeply shocked by the uninvited intrusion. I have already observed several other people today ask this same woman to please back away – to allow them their own space.
On My Own
Immediately, out of pride and resistance to outside help, I change my mind about allowing the uninvited assistance. I had wanted to go to the core of this emotion, and this woman’s loving energy is now pulling me out of it.
“Please, I would appreciate it if you would give me my own space,” I ask this woman.
Soon, I am able to return into even deeper-but-hesitant emotional release. Intuitively, I know that I am barely able to scratch the surface of the pain that is really buried down there. I am again feeling deep anger regarding the “utter gutting of my identity when I was a child” – at the disempowerment that took place.
“How dare you do that to a child,” I quietly mumble in an attempt to access deeper emotion.
I even try making a few faint vocal tones to trigger my throat chakra – the center of expression. Nothing I try seems to get me closer to that frightening pool of repressed emotion – and I still do not feel safe on this porch in doing so. Keith has briefly checked in with me several times, giving me great advice and loving feedback, but today he has refrained from encouraging me in any particular path of action.
Suffocated Life Force
“Keith,” I finally ask for guidance. “I am so stuck. Do you have any suggestions?”
Without saying a word, Keith then does something to me that I have only seen him do one time before. He moves directly in front of me, places his hand over my mouth and nose, and does not let me breathe.
I feel the message strongly. As a child – and even throughout my life – my mother did not let me breathe (metaphorically). Instead, her determined attempts to teach me how to be an obedient follower literally snuffed out my life force. I was, essentially, suffocated by her dominant presence in my life.
(Remember, I love my mother dearly. I clearly know she did the best she knew how to honor her sacred duty to teach me to follow in her footsteps. It is not my mother I am really questioning here. I am instead, pointing out what happens during a childhood shutdown in a normal, happy, loving home, with parents that have the most pure of motives.)
Having already seen this example once before, and having already experienced the deep emotional effects simply by participating in that former process, I have no need to experience it in a deeper way. When I reach a state where I can no longer breathe – a place where I am ready to start panicking – I grab Keith’s hands, push them away from my face, and take a deep gasping breath.
Keith quickly moves on without saying a word.
Masculine Reversals
Finally, after a few more layers of tears come and go, I am again stuck, hiding under a blanket. I want to go deeper, but fears continue to stop me.
Soon, I sit up, invite more light to assist me, and begin to feel mild-but-pleasant energy in my crown. I am a little more peaceful, but continue to feel quite numb.
There is a young couple on the porch today, and Keith soon decides to guide them through a process he occasionally shares with committed couples. It is a process where he asks the couple to sit opposite each other, and he guides them through exchanging masculine and feminine energies with each other – doing so all at an energetic level while staring into each other’s eyes.
To my surprise, however, the process today takes an interesting twist. Keith asks the couple which of them has the masculine energy and which has the feminine. The woman blushes as she confess that she is the masculine energy partner.
As this process unfolds, I decide to participate in my own way, imagining Josh Groban, representing the Divine Masculine, sitting directly in front of me. As I imagine the loving and healthy masculine energy flowing my way, I suddenly feel an image of my mother’s face popping into my own face, condemning me for participating in this imaginary exercise.
“It was my mother that taught me the distortions of unhealthy masculine power,” I recognize as my solar plexus suddenly agitates wildly. “My mother was the strong and dominant masculine power in my childhood home, and she used that power to control, manipulate, and dominate me into loving obedience … to gut my soul and to turn me into a compliant shell-of-a-being. She did so from a place of well-intentioned, but deeply-distorted masculine energy.”
As I further ponder, I feel my father’s submissive, loving compassion, how he always loved and served my mother – but it was her that really called the shots with my life.
“I have God/Higher Energies hooked to being equivalent to my mother’s masculine control,” I ponder with shock.
Crazy Confusion
I focus on this process – asking loving and healthy Divine Masculine energy to fill me. But for unknown reasons, after about thirty minutes, I feel somewhat traumatized by the experience. My inner fears of embracing the healthy masculine are intense and bizarre. I clearly see how I project the light and Higher Energies as being masculine power. I am in a deep “know myself” process, learning yet another reason why I struggle with the God drama.
In the midst of this partial emotional trauma, I again focus on bringing in more light to assist. I manage to get somewhat stabilized, but feel extremely confused by my current energetic state – remaining in this weird state until well after the end of the ceremony.
Keith encourages me to go into the confusion, to surrender to it … and this confuses me even more. I ask about a few of my perceptions during the ceremony, and Keith’s feedback invalidates what I had experienced – feeding me with more confusion – making me feel somewhat chastised and slammed for trying to talk about my perceptions.
Keith is firm in his feedback, but is not rude or impatient. In fact, his words are quite loving – just disagreeing with my perceptions. I follow him briefly into his kitchen to discuss my confusion, but this only leads to more crazy confusion.
“You are in a beautiful place,” Keith encourages me in the middle of this. “You are going where you need to go. Stay in the flow and trust your process.”
I return to the porch and sit meditating, with a dazed and blank stare as the rest of those still on the porch put things away. I feel nice peaceful energy in my crown while simultaneously experiencing intense childhood confusion running through me. In fact, I am now becoming quite aware that I am experiencing two realities at the same time – Higher Love AND childhood confusion. Keith is lovingly but firmly feeding into my recognition of that confused state.
Two Realities
To my delight, the woman who had placed her hands on the sides of my head comes over to hug me – the same woman I had felt was trying to fix me.
“I felt your beautiful love,” I share with this woman, now realizing my perceptions were wrong, “but I was trying to go deeper into my emoiton and I felt the timing was off. It pulled me out of my process.”
“No, Brenda,” Keith unexpectedly interrupts. “You pulled yourself out. Her love might have allowed you to go deeper. As you yourself recognized, her love was pure and unconditional and you could have utilized that to your benefit. You made the choice to let it pull you out.”
“Can I love you now?” the woman asks.
As we hug tightly, I cry some more, briefly explaining that I am regressed into deep childhood emotions – into a childhood reality that is flowing through me – a reality that feels so real that I find it hard not to attach to it.
“Yeah,” she responds. “I can feel your resistance.”
A minute later, I ask Keith a few more questions, as I desperately seek closure.
“Brenda,” Keith responds in loving frustration. “Get out of your head and quit trying to think about it. Just trust the two realities that are flowing through you (Higher Energy and childhood confusion).”
It Gets Easier
“Congratulations, Brenda,” Keith gently shares after everyone has left the porch. “You are in a beautiful place … feeling both the reality of your connectedness to Higher Energies … and feeling your child-self’s confusion, anger, and other emotions.”
“You can attach to either,” Keith reassures me. “Both are true. If you attach to the child’s emotion as being real, that will be your present reality. If you attach to the Higher Energies, that can be your present reality.”
“Does it ever get any easier?” I ask for guidance. “I know that I am just running childhood stuff through me, but it is so intense and overwhelming that I cannot help but struggle in trying not to attach or identify with the regressed emotions.”
“Brenda,” Keith responds with loving patience. “You are already aware that it is much easier for you now than it was a few months ago … and it will continue to get easier as you experience this process.”
Available But Rejected
Keith then points out that the woman who had placed her hands on the sides of my head today – trying to share pure unconditional love with me – was a part of my process.
“Just like today, that type of real love was available to you as a child,” Keith adds his guidance, “but you would not allow it. You were so terrified of love that you couldn’t let it in.”
“Thank you for being so gentle with me and for not slamming me in my confusion,” I express my gratitude to Keith. “Thanks for acknowledging that I am feeling this confusion so profoundly, and that I do need a little rational mind feedback to help me establish trust in the reality of both worlds … to help me trust that something real and productive is happening in the middle of this intense childhood confusion.”
A Long Night
After returning home for a quick meal of rice and beans, I am exhausted by all the energy that continues to run through me, and go to bed, again listening to Josh Groban singing, “You Are Love (Don’t Give Up).” Shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Monday morning, I wake up with a feeling of intense energetic confusion running through me – nerve-wracking agitated energy that flows through me like a raging river.
I remember countless times through my teen years when I would wake up with such intense and crazy-making energy – when I would lay awake in bed for many consecutive and sleepless nights.
“I can only assume that I am experiencing what my young teenage self must have felt,” I ponder with clarity, attempting to stay out of my head. “Only now, I am feeling it in random and semi-reverse order.”
This weird energy pulses throughout my head, nose, arms, abdomen, and legs. Intuitions tell me that what is happening is powerful and significant – but it remains confusing and disconcerting. I attempt to follow Keith’s guidance – trying not to analyze and dissect the experience with rational mind.
After an hour of still being awake, I am beginning to go energetically crazy, feeling like an absolute and utter energetic dunce. I long to return to the feeling I felt, just last night, while listening to Josh Groban sing, “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up),” but such peaceful feelings are fleeting. This childhood/teenage emotion – an agonizing regressed reality that is flowing through me – is overwhelming.
I can tell it is going to be a very long night. It is amazing what a simple little tube of toothpaste can trigger.
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved