Shortly after midnight, a nice little earthquake shakes my bed. I giggle as I imagine myself as “Captain Brenda,” hiding with my starship, parked deep in a cave of a large asteroid. Suddenly the earth shakes as we all begin to realize that this is not a cave at all. We make a rapid escape, racing toward the cave entrance, with huge teeth closing down on the opening. Barely making it out in time, we look back and realize that we had been inside the throat of a huge space monster.
I continue to ponder about these magical Star Trek metaphors as I further connect to one of my favorite “A Course In Miracles” teachings – one reminding me that defending myself is actually an attack … that when I defend myself, I am in reality draining my own power resources. I love the added clarity. I have spent my entire life with my shields on full strength, draining a great deal of personal power in the name of safety and protection.
A Heavy Release
After a relaxed-but-unmotivated morning, I prepare for another afternoon of inner work. I continue to feel a lot of teenage emotion flow through me. These are emotions of self-hatred, social dysfunction, and utter hopelessness. I clearly realize that these emotions do not originate in the present – and that there is no real present-day reason for even feeling them – but they are so powerful that constant diligence is required not to buy into them. I begin to wonder if these emotions will ever go away.
It is shortly before noon on Wednesday, June 27, 2012, when I begin my stroll out to the home of my favorite Chocolate Shaman.
Shortly after chugging my yummy chocolate, I immediately begin meditating, even before Keith starts his introductions. As I focus on connecting to light and love, those teenage emotions begin to flow with increased intensity – emotions of social struggle, self-hatred, futility, and hopelessness. These emotions flow very deeply, taking me into more waves of tearful release.
During the “Glow Meditation,” several additional waves of deep emotions flow through me – intense waves of agitation. I quickly begin to breathe light into my heart, imagining myself as being the adult empath, assisting my inner teenager in releasing this emotion in a more facilitated way.
As the meditation is almost complete, Keith turns to a friend of mine and tells her that she is going to be releasing a lot of stuff from her abdomen today, most of which will go to Mother Earth. I giggle through my tears, intuitively recognizing that Keith is also talking to me.
Repeat Performance
When Keith begins a round of individual work, he unexpectedly begins with me.
“I am back in the same place I was on Monday,” I explain my journey, “I have another agitated energetic river of teenage emotional sewage flowing through me. I am attempting to remain nonattached, simply holding-space while observing. It is quite intense as I feel some of the emotions at a conscious level.”
“You are doing great,” Keith reassures me. “I have nothing to add. Just keep doing what you are doing.”
While Keith next works with a woman seated to my left, she begins to experience magical inner openings, and her eyes swell with tears of joy.
“I am such a loser,” more teenage emotions swarm me as I watch her open while I remain stuck.
“What is wrong with me,” the self-hatred rages. “When is it my turn to further open?”
I consciously allow myself to feel these teenage emotions, remaining the observer, recognizing that these emotions are from that past and that I must not identify with them.
God Drama Triggers
As Keith works with a young man who is deeply stuck, he guides him to an inner place of deeper energy connection, telling the young man that this will allow him to go deeper into his process.
“I need a deeper energy connection too,” I ponder.
Soon, I redouble my efforts to bring in more light, simultaneously continuing to be the adult empath for the river of putrid density that is flowing through me. As I bring in more light and love, I feel the density flow step up a notch, causing me to experience stronger density agitation, as well as increased higher energy in my head and neck.
As Keith works with another young woman, I again witness someone going through a magical opening process. Those teenage loser feelings quickly resume their taunts. God drama voices begin to rant and rage in the recesses of rational mind.
“Keith is giving everyone else such beautiful assistance, and they are all having such magical openings,” I ponder in frustration. “But all I got was “good job Brenda, keep it up.””
“What am I, chopped liver?” I ponder with self-hatred. “By myself, I am never going to open my magic …. and Keith (God drama projection) is just ignoring me.”
Shifting Energies
I actually find great comfort when one magical young woman begins to express her own stuckness. She too is trapped in unacknowledged fear and is unable to feel or embrace her magic, expressing doubts that she is just imagining things.
Such an external mirror helps to take me deeper into the self-realization that I am not alone in the “stuck-magic” department. I clearly see this young woman’s magical gifts – while easily ignoring my own. This understanding helps me focus more on self-love and self-acceptance for where I am in my own process – for the magical gifts that I have already opened.
Soon, Keith works with a young man who is also struggling with the same energy of stuckness. He is powerful, and ready to open, but has huge inner walls and great fear. I so resonate with this young man’s process. I am so stuck … and so tired of being in that hopeless state.
By now, that flowing river of teenage emotional sewage is calming down considerably, and the flow of my process seems to be increasingly guiding me into exploring stuckness and the related metaphors of those Star Trek shields that guard and protect the power center in my solar plexus.
Micromanaging Madness
Meanwhile, I have been simultaneously focusing a great deal of my attention of further attempting to relax my torso, paying close attention to my heart and abdomen. While doing so, the squeamy (squirming and screaming at a cellular level) sensations in my arms have been intense. I am clenching tightly, not only in my arms, but also throughout my torso.
While concentrating on surrender metaphors – imagining myself enjoying the ride, floating in a river raft, floating in the water itself, etc… – I finally settle on the metaphor that triggers the most inner anxiety and fear. I visualize myself as sitting in the back seat of a car, being driven at high speeds down a crowded road by someone that I do not fully trust. The feeling creates freaky anxiety, especially when I imagine a few real people behind the wheel – people who have triggered such fears in my lifetime.
Emotions of panic begin to consume me – feelings of helplessness and being totally out of control.
“I have never been able to sleep in a car,” I ponder repeated memories, “because even when I am not driving, I feel a desperate need to be alert and observing, just to make sure that we are safe.”
“For my entire life I have been uptight,” I review the fears. “I have a desperate need for safety, a fear of losing control and being at the mercy of others, and a need to micromanage my environment in order to maintain a sense of protection and security.”
Go For It
“All of this is a projection of my childhood conditioning, fixing attacks, and having my power drained,” I ponder. “Every nightmare of not feeling safe in any environment stems from that state of being on red-alert – of needing to have my shields at full strength.”
Throughout my life, from my earliest memories, I have been protecting myself from attack, attempting to manipulate my environment to maintain that safe-from-energetic-attack factor.
“Hidden inside of me is sheer terror at the thought of being out of control,” I now clearly understand. “Being vulnerable to random energies and behaviors is absolutely frightening.”
By the time that Keith finishes his first loop around the porch, I am sinking deep into this recognition, profoundly experiencing the body anxiousness of that terror – the terror of being in the metaphorical back seat of life – the nightmare of not being the driver, and of being forced to just sit in the back seat while blindly trusting.
“How are you doing?” Keith suddenly turns to me.
Somehow, Keith already knows exactly where I am at in my energetic state. He directs me to surrender to the emotions, even before I share any details of my journey.
“Brenda,” Keith encourages me, “you might be judged by some people for crying, but go for it … go down into these emotions. Rather than trying to fix them, go right through the emotions as deep as you can.”
Back Into The Box
With Keith’s encouragement, I begin to cry and sob … but I am still resistant at the rational mind level. Keith quickly brings up the topic of how my mother and childhood conditioning stuffed me into a protective and restrictive box.
“I am so angry at that “mother/conditioning” energy that stuffed me into a box,” I express feelings that I now know are at the root origin of my protective shields.
“Your mother is here trying to force you back into that box,” Keith explains with emphasis.
I clearly know that he is referring to my mother’s essence in a metaphorical way, and Keith’s unexpected words cause deep emotions of anger to swell.
“F@ck the box!” I spout off angrily. F@ck my mother! I am done with that agonizing conditioning box. It does not serve me. I refuse to give it my power anymore.”
For a while, I angrily punch a couple of pillows, hoping to trigger and release even deeper emotion – but the emotions are weak and lackluster. Something inside is holding me back, keeping me from going deeper.
“Brenda, your mother is right here, trying to pull you back into the box,” Keith again tries to trigger me to go deeper.
Again, I punch and sob, even lightly screaming with raised vocal tones, but I am stuck.
An Unexpected Ally
Soon, a new arrival shows up on the porch – a porch where only a few people yet remain. It is a dear friend, one that I will call Jeff – a young man who has been deeply struggling lately, and who has temporarily medicated his stuckness and depression using alcohol. He is a beautiful soul, with a powerful and genuine heart, and has never before come to a ceremony in such a dysfunctional state. I love and honor my friend, and would never betray his privacy – but sharing this part of the experience is necessary to explain my own process.
Bless Jeff’s magical heart, he speaks so lovingly and freely when his inhibitions have been relaxed.
“Brenda,” Jeff approaches with loving concern. “I am drunk, but I want to know if I can help you.”
“I would love your help,” I share with my friend.
“You are profoundly powerful,” Jeff shares his respect for me and my journey. “You are one of the most amazing and powerful people on the planet. I want you to know that I have your back, you have my deepest respect, and I want to help you to break out of this stuckness.”
Just hearing my dear friend’s loving-and-heartfelt support helps me to go into deeper sobs – gut-wrenching sobs, coughing, and dry heaving. It is exactly what I need to take me to the core of my resistant pain.
Punk Encouragement
A few minutes later, as this intense emotional release begins to relax, I feel myself breathing with effort, exhaling agonizing energy while gasping to bring in more light and love.
Angela soon joins to help, beginning to lightly pound on my back, assisting in the loosening of energy blockages that are now beginning to flow – doing so in a beautiful way. With Angela’s loving support, I quickly sink into another round of agonizing release.
Angela, Keith, and Jeff repeatedly encourage me to keep going … to go deeper … to go for it … to do what I need to do to get this emotional density out of me.
I do my best to surrender, giving it my all, crying and sobbing into the agonizing emotional pain – into that teenage anger, futility, and stuckness.
Soon, Jeff surprises me, in his uninhibited state, asking if he can sing some “punk music” for me. When I say yes, he sings for a few minutes, making up words and music as he goes – speaking words that encourage me to get out of the box, to let go of religious and societal conditioning, and to take my truth and shine it for the world to see.
I listen with an open heart, inhaling the deeply appreciated support and encouragement.
Get Angry At The Box
Jeff soon begins to discuss my transgendered status, openly and publicly. At first, I am a little shocked, but when I glance around the porch, I note that there is only one person who does not already know my story anyway … and I deeply appreciate Jeff’s loving support.
“I love transsexuals,” Jeff rambles in his uninhibited state. “Most of them are fake, but you are the most genuine and open person I know. I love your courage to be ‘trans’ in a religious culture and family, and that you were able to break out of that conditioning box.”
“Get angry at that box,” Jeff encourages me, “and be done with it once and for all.”
“I can let go of the box, but I love my family and I support them for being right where they are.” I defend my childhood religion. “That religion no longer serves me, but I love my family for being a part of it still.”
“Your mother is still here, trying to force you back into that box,” Keith again encourages me to break the power that the box has over me.
I engage in a few more swear words, more pillow punching, and weak emotional release, but my emotions are waning.
“Brenda, scream it out,” Angela encourages me, “Jeff and I will both scream with you.”
I do scream for a minute or two … and my friends join in … but I soon stop. I can tell it is helping, but feel as if I am being too dramatic.
“I can assure you that I feel a great deal of emotional stuff leaving you,” Angela shares her energy perceptions with confidence.
Heartwarming Feedback
“Brenda, can I touch you?” Jeff asks for permission to do a little energy work on me.
When I agree, Jeff places one hand on my heart and one on my back. I feel his beautiful unconditionally loving energy gently assisting, filling my heart with healing energy. Soon, Keith again mentions my mother’s essence that is trying to pull me back into the box.
“Thank you for the beautiful image of me allowing someone who is drunk to help pull me away from the box that my mother is trying to pull me back into,” I giggle to Jeff.
Repeatedly, Jeff encourages and expresses his support by saying things like “Brenda, I’ve got your back,” and “Brenda, you are so amazing.”
“When you get through all of your emotional densities and open up your magic, you are going to be such a profound healer,” Jeff then shares.
Quickly, Angela and Keith share their own similar feedback, with Keith again surprising me by telling me that it is an honor to have me here. Such pure loving support is deeply humbling. I clearly see that I am surrounded by masters – beautiful healers that I see as my mentors.
Squashing My Power
Finally, as my emotional release settles, Jeff backs away and Keith takes over.
“Brenda,” Keith guides me, “find where your mother’s energy is at in your body.”
“She is sitting on my solar plexus,” I finally tell Keith after a few minutes of deep meditation. “She is squashing my power, sitting on my solar plexus while also holding several hundred-pound weights, squishing me, controlling me, and manipulating me to keep me in line … in the box.”
“It is time to remove her energy,” Keith guides me, without saying how.
I focus in meditation, considering several metaphors, imagining what I might do. I get that this is not a process to be done with anger or force, but instead needs to be accomplished with love and gratitude.
“My mother has actually been serving me, doing what I asked her to do,” I ponder.
Soon, I attempt to connect with my mother’s Higher Self, explaining that her job is now complete, that she can release now … that our joint agreement has now been fulfilled. This seems to make no difference. Still feeling my mother’s energy sitting on me, I bring in more love and gratitude, filling my heart with light … but I still feel her weight squashing me.
“I can’t do it,” I express frustration to Keith as I share details of what I have tried.
I Want Her There
“Ask those weights to go,” Keith guides me.
Soon, I visualize those weights as disappearing and transmuting. As I do so, I feel some increased lightness. Others on the porch continue to hold space for me while I sit quietly in meditation.
“Keith,” I speak again ten minutes later. “I’m getting a strong headache in my third-eye chakra. It feels like my mother’s palm is pushing down there too. Does that make sense to you?”
“Yes, Brenda,” Keith responds, without adding further guidance.
“I’m now realizing that my mother has a very big presence,” I interject a few minutes later, meaning no disrespect to my mother. “She is not just squashing my solar plexus, but she is also sitting on my heart and lower chakras while holding her hand on my third-eye chakra, literally choking everything, squashing everything. I cannot breathe!”
“You’re getting much deeper insight now,” Keith encourages me to continue.
“If she is still sitting on you,” Keith eventually interrupts the silence, “that is because you want her there.”
“It is not her doing this to me,” I ponder Keith’s words. “It is me, not wanting her to get off me, not wanting her to stop squashing me.”
This takes me deeper into recognizing the God-drama tie-in.
A Hidden Victim Payoff
“I don’t want to let her energy go,” I ponder out loud, “because if I am free of that victimization and strangling pressure, then I will lose all hope of feeling love. Her strangling-type of conditional “sitting-on-my-heart-love” is all that I have ever known. If I give it up, I am losing all hope of love.”
“Congratulations for your insight,” Keith grins at me.
“If I let this smothering energy go,” I continue sharing, “I will be forced to face my frightening light shadow. I will have no more excuses, no more victimization to blame for why I cannot be in my power. This is actually quite frightening.
“Yes Brenda,” Keith again congratulates me.
“I am playing this game with God and my mother,” I ramble on. “I am pretending that she is the one squashing me … that God is victimizing me and not helping me … but in reality I refuse to let the blockage go because I get a payoff from being shut down and a victim.”
“The part of you that wants this mother energy to continue squashing you is more powerful than the conscious part of you that wants it to be gone,” Keith takes my payoff statement further.
Keith soon reinforces my deepening process by taking a few minutes to talk more about the God drama with the few people who yet remain on the porch.
Elusive Solutions
My work, and this ensuing discussion, triggers someone else to work on her own parent issues. Keith works with her a while as I just sit and integrate. Right now, I am enjoying more clarity on my God drama issues than ever before.
In silent meditation, I image myself tightly clinging to an extremely heavy pillow, lying on my back, with the weighted pillow suffocating and squashing me.
“I refuse to let this pillow go,” I silently scream out. “I want this pillow forever.”
When I later share this melodramatic exaggeration of a metaphor that shows exactly what I am doing in real life, Keith again congratulates my increasing depth and understanding of what I am doing.
When I ask Keith for guidance on how to proceed with healing this God drama craziness, he gently reminds me what I already know … telling me that “know thyself” is the first major step. Keith then adds that self-love and self-acceptance are key, along with recognizing that I cannot climb over that wall on my own rational-mind power.
“You need higher love to lift you over that five-meter wall of glass,” Keith reminds me. “But you are still playing that game of refusing to allow that help.”
“It is all about knowing myself, loving myself, and owning the game that I am playing,” I summarize the solution that continues to elude me.
“You are doing wonderful,” Keith encourages me. “You are seeing the game that you are playing … and you are owning it. If you are unable to go any further, now or ever, that is fine. You need to find self-love and self-acceptance for where you are right now … for being in a place where you are still stuck.”
An Unusual Trinity
I sit in beautiful meditation for about a half hour. In fact, there are only five of us left on the porch, and all of us rest in complete meditative silence. Keith is even resting on the ground, relaxing back with his head on a pillow.
As 5:30 p.m. arrives, we all begin to stir … except for Jeff that is. Jeff is fast asleep, and has been so for a while.
“Brenda,” Angela suddenly giggles loudly, “today you have been helped by the Father, the Daughter, and the Holy Drunk. What an unusual Holy Trinity (Keith, Angela, and Jeff).”
There is another round of bagging freshly ground chocolate tonight, and as usual, I have already committed to participate. But tonight, even though I am in a very magical space, I have a strong desire to do something different. I really want to go home, take notes, and further meditate before all of the magical memories have vanished.
“Take the night off, no problem,” Keith responds with a grin when I ask for feedback.
“But you got so mad at me that one time a few months back when I told you, for the very same reason, that I wasn’t coming back later to bag chocolate,” I smile back at Keith, being delighted but somewhat confused … and somewhat fishing for other feedback.
“Brenda, that was a role that I needed to play for you then,” Keith grins back at me. “Now go home, take notes, and integrate. We will be fine without you.”
“I love it,” I silently giggle. “Prior to now, Keith had never admitted that he was role playing that night. And I clearly recognize that my healing of that piece of my God drama depended on believing that he really had been mad at me.”
Honored, Humbled, And Afraid
After quickly cooking a plate of rice and beans while simultaneously taking notes, I begin to further meditate … searching for additional insights into my payoffs for remaining stuck … into why it is frightening to move more into the light. The meditation is peaceful, but lacking in additional insights. By 8:30 p.m., I retire to bed, feeling peaceful, but exhausted.
Suddenly, at shortly before 9:30 p.m., I hurry back to my computer to take notes regarding more of the amazing heartwarming feedback that Jeff, Angela, and Keith had shared with me this afternoon. I begin to sob as I record new thoughts – memories of how deeply honored and humbled I feel to have been so deeply supported by my dear friends today.
Yes, I am still stuck at the bottom of that wall of glass. But I am indeed following the courage of my heart. I want my mother’s energy off my chest, but I clearly own the fact that it is me keeping it there. I have fear-based payoffs … I am afraid of giving up failure and having the responsibility of standing in the light … afraid of both responsibility and of my inner divine power.
Post Hypnotic Suggestions
At 6:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, I begin browsing the internet and end up finding and watching a movie called “The Source Field Investigations” by David Wilcock. I found the video on his personal web site (www.divinecosmos.com) but it seems that the video is also available on YouTube.
The first thirty minutes of the video fascinate me as David discusses several examples of hypnosis that had inspired him in his younger years to further explore the metaphysical realm of subconscious beliefs. David shares one story of how a man, under hypnosis, was given a post hypnotic suggestion stating that after he wakes up he would not be able to see his daughter. Sure enough, when the man was brought out of his hypnotic trance, he could not see or hear his daughter anywhere, even though she was standing and giggling right in front of him. The part of the story that fascinates me, however, is when the hypnotist held a stopwatch to the back of the little girl and asked the man to read the time and the inscriptions on the watch. As the story goes (and I have no way to verify this), the man looked right through his daughter’s body and read the stopwatch perfectly.
In essence, since the man’s subconscious was programmed not to be able to see his daughter, he could see right through her as if she did not physically exist.
Again, I have no way to validate or denounce this story, but I have personally witnessed several hypnotist shows, and I have seen some amazing stage situations created by similar post-hypnotic suggestions.
The Power Of Belief
Suddenly, as I watch this video, I remember something Keith told me, almost two years ago when I had first asked if it was possible for me to do what he does.
“Brenda,” Keith had responded, “the only difference between you and me is that I know I can and you believe that you can’t.”
“Wow,” I ponder after finishing the video. “Is it really that simple? Does it really come down to a subconscious belief? Are all of my dysfunctional behaviors simply manifestations of programmed beliefs in my subconscious?”
“Is my inability to open my psychic and other magical abilities simply because I have conditioned childhood beliefs that tell me they are not real … that I cannot access them?”
“Is the ‘undoing process’ talked about in “A Course In Miracles” simply an undoing of conditioned beliefs … beliefs that are so deeply rooted that they still control my life?”
Of course, I deeply believe that the answer to all of these questions is a resounding “Yes.”
“But how do I undo such conditioning?” I ponder. “And why is it so hard?”
“I am doing that right now,” I respond to myself. “With each layer of emotional densities that I process, I am also healing conditioned beliefs and shifting dysfunctional core beliefs, learning to remember who I really am, learning to love myself, beginning to recognize my personal connections to Source.”
Unquestioned Beliefs
As I continue meditating, I clearly recognize that my stuckness and ego issues are both related to conditioned beliefs about good, bad, right, wrong, better, worse, … and of wanting to measure up on the good end of the list. It is these labels, and trying to find my place on the goodness scale, that creates “ego separation,” and the need to be different and better than others.
“And these labels – all of this judgment and separation – were programmed into me by God’s representatives,” I ponder. “All such teachings came from parents, church, and other cultural teachers who drop-by-drop filled me with irrefutable beliefs about needing to compare myself to other people and other beliefs so that I would not be judged as wrong or bad.”
“And all such programming is essentially equivalent to post-hypnotic suggestions, repeatedly fed into my subconscious mind.” I ponder with shock. “No wonder I see only ego and separation everywhere I look.”
As I dig deeper, I clearly see how all judgments, core issues, and even my God drama, originate from such hypnotic beliefs – beliefs that most of us never even question.
God Drama Fuel
Shortly before 11:00 a.m. I walk out to Keith’s home for my final private session of the season. But to my dismay, when I arrive, there are two women sitting on the porch, and Keith is just barely beginning to work with them in their own private session. (I do not understand it until later, but Keith has been delayed by unforeseeable circumstances all morning, and these two women were supposed to begin their own private session at 9:00 a.m..)
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Keith gives me an apologetic look. “My morning has just fallen apart.”
Immediately, I feel abandoned and rejected, assuming that Keith has either double booked me, or simply allowed someone to walk onto the porch without an appointment. Either way, my God drama rejection/abandonment complex has been triggered deeply.
“So, what do I do?” I ask, feeling hurt and stunned.
“Can you come back at 12:30?” Keith asks after checking his schedule.
“Isn’t so-and-so coming just after that?” I ask.
“She is not until 1:30 p.m.,” Keith responds.
I pause and do not respond for ten seconds. I know Keith will not be ready at 12:30 p.m. if he is just starting his current appointment now, and I do not want to be cut short at 1:30.
Memories are flooding my mind – memories of what happened just over a year ago when Keith was about to leave San Marcos in early April of 2011. I had scheduled a final appointment with him, and he had, at the last second, pressured me to allow Serg to join us. I was so hurt and angry at the time, lost in inner unexpressed anger. In the end, that session proved to be amazing and powerful, perfect for what I needed. But today, I want my two hours of one-on-one time with Keith. It will be my last chance for such a session in a very long time. Even with these memories racing through me, I remain peaceful, trusting that all is OK, even though I still have not responded to Keith.
“Unless you want to come this evening,” Keith suddenly volunteers.
“I could do that,” I respond with optimism, proud of myself for staying in my trust.
Another Emotional Reality
As I soon walk away with a 6:00 p.m. appointment in the books, I feel deeply frustrated, feeling renewed God-drama triggers telling me I am being abandoned, ignored, and that my needs are not as important as those of others, blah, blah, blah …
“I know all will work out perfectly, and that Keith would not do this if he were not guided,” I remind myself in repeated attempts at self-calming. “But I am angry and hurt that Keith would do this to me. What about ME? Do I not matter?”
As I walk slowly toward home, the inner debate is heated, both sides of the argument firmly standing their ground. Suddenly, I find a peaceful place.
“Of course,” I ponder with a clarity-giggle. “This is MY creation, and I set this up as a final lesson in nonattachment and going with the flow … maintaining my peace … not judging … not needing to be right or wrong … or good or bad.”
Even with peaceful clarity, however, the naysayers in my head continue to stir up dissent. It is only after honoring my inner children with a burger and fries – and after spending two-and-a-half hours in a beautiful Skype call with a friend – that I find peace.
Suddenly, in the middle of that Skype call, I realize what is happening. I have again triggered yet-another river of sewage – emotions of teenage struggle with feeling rejected and abandoned by God. The emotions I have been feeling are extremely out of proportion to actual events, reminding me in huge ways that I am running old putrid emotions through me, simply struggling not to attach or identify with them.
As soon as this realization clearly sinks in, I switch to observer mode, allowing the emotion to flow on autopilot, and enjoying the remainder of the conversation with my dear friend. It continues to boggle my mind how past emotional realities can be so convincing and overwhelming.
High-Heart Heaviness
After returning home from my phone call, I find peaceful clarity and beautiful energy as I meditate nonstop for one-and-a-half hours.
I do note, however, that my high-heart region feels deeply pressurized with a heavy dense energy. I am not sure if it is emotional density or perhaps something trying to open and expand … and I do not concern myself with it. Instead, I choose to trust my process, believing that such knowing will unfold.
Shortly before 6:00 p.m., I end this amazing meditation and walk out to Keith’s home for my final private session of the season.
“How are you doing?” Keith asks.
“I think I am running teenage abandonment, rejection, and God drama stuff through me again,” I respond after sharing details of my day. “Another layer has been triggered by the silly scheduling things from this morning.”
Keith quickly checks his own guidance and congratulates me, telling me that his own guidance backs me up one-hundred percent.
After several short conversations about a myriad of pertinent topics, including my deep insights into post-hypnotic suggestions, all of that former pressure in my high-heart region suddenly returns – feeling heavy and dense. Unlike a couple of hours ago, however, I am now feeling the deep emotions that go with the pressure, and intuitions tell me this wants to come out, NOW!
Releasing Betrayal
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” I quickly explain to Keith,” but I suddenly feel like crying very deeply.”
“Quit listening to your mother telling you that you should not cry,” Keith lovingly scolds me. “Go into it. Allow your process.”
Within seconds, I am dry-heaving energy out of my throat in agonizing ways. A few coughs and tears also join in, but most of the emotion is released as if I am vomiting energy out of my throat. The emotion is intense and excruciating, lasting a few minutes. I note with fascination that I can literally feel the energies leaving my high-heart region, as well as from a thin line that runs vertically from my throat to my heart.
I literally feel as if the wind were knocked out of my gut … BUT the sensation is not in my belly, that “wind-knocked-out” sensation is in my entire upper chest.
“That emotion felt like intense anger mixed with sadness,” I share with Keith when the release subsides.
“What a perfect definition of how betrayal feels,” Keith responds.
Betrayal Breadcrumbs
When the tears dry up, Keith continues to support me as an empath, encouraging me to allow more emotions to flow out of me the easy way. Keith suggests that I try a few metaphors to help me get out of the way so that the emotions will flow more easily. After trying several things, I find that filling my own heart with love and imagining myself as an adult empath helping my inner teenager is the most helpful for now.
I do this quite peacefully for a while. I am fascinated as I observe the movement of the dense energies that remain. I feel the pains migrate from my high heart down into that “nail-in-my-heart” spot.
As I attempt to continue releasing more emotion, the pain in this “nail-in-my-heart” spot increases greatly.
“This pain is not density that needs to be released,” I soon share new intuitions with Keith. “Instead, I am reminded that this spot in my heart chakra is the center of my betrayal metaphor – of having been crucified in the name of God. This pain is an aspect of my own loyal energies, rebelling at my attempts to further open. It is the betrayed part of me that is making a valiant stand of resistance, attempting to keep me safe from further betrayal.”
“Keep following the breadcrumbs,” Keith encourages me, not supporting or denying my intuition.
To The Beginning
When I eventually invite this betrayal energy to join me in the inner conference room, I soon sense deep anger and lack of trust. As I attempt to further communicate, I feel increased resistance and lack of cooperation. Again, I revisit former thoughts that perhaps this really is density, or something else. About the only thing clear is that the energy I am connected to feels deeply betrayed … betrayed by ME.
“You are doing great,” Keith responds when I again ask for guidance. “Just keep doing what you are doing.”
I soon involve my Higher Self in the inner conference room, asking this part of me to work with Higher Self … hoping that perhaps this betrayed piece of me might trust something or someone other than me.
When this does not work either, I follow a new intuition that guides me back to childhood. I invite this betrayed aspect of myself to return with me to the beginning – to the time when the two of us jointly made the painful decision to shut down all of our magic.
Finally, I begin to feel energetic shifts and intuitions that tell me something is working – that energy is vibrating, softening, and starting to move.
Beauty And The Beast
After a while, an old metaphor of “Beauty and the Beast” suddenly returns to my intuitions. I found great peace in this metaphor just over a year ago when I first began working with inner masculine and feminine energies. The “Beast” represented my wounded, betrayed, and angry masculine self – an inner aspect still doing his job of protecting me – providing me with support, strength, and power – while I resented and judged him as evil. After all these years, even after the healing I did with Star Trek Metaphors, this masculine part of me continues to feel unlovable and forgotten … having spent five decades of being abused. He does not trust me, does not trust my love, and does not want to be abused, disrespected, or forced to ride in the back seat any longer.
In this meditation, I see myself as “Beauty” or “Belle.” I have been afraid of the “Beast” for most of my life, and during most of my healing journey I have blamed him for not cooperating, resenting his stubborn refusal to drop his protection and to allow some love to come through.
For a while, in silent meditation, I focus on finding my own ability to love that rejected Beast … repeatedly imagining visuals and storylines from the Walt Disney movie to flow through me. Gradually, relaxation and peace begin to fill me.
Magical Highs, Excruciating Emotions
“This nail-in-my-heart spot feels like the focal point or source of my body clenching,” I soon share with Keith. “This is the part of me that is trying to micromanage and control the rest of me to keep me safe … to raise the shields … to reject “mother” and other fixing energy as being an attack, etc…”
Again, Keith does not give me much validating feedback, other than to congratulate me for following breadcrumbs and for pealing back more layers of my process. On the one hand, I crave his deeper involvement in my metaphors, but on the other, I know I am learning to work by myself … that very soon I will be doing this completely by myself and he is showing me in a powerful way that I really do not need his help at all.
“You are doing really well,” Keith tells me as he takes a late evening break to feed his cat Squeaky. “I’m getting that it is time to end, and that you are done for the night.”
“I am going to miss having Keith around to help me,” I ponder as I walk home, “but I really need a break. These last nine months of nonstop inner work have been brutally intense.”
I really look forward to a break from the inner work. I am so deeply grateful for the profound healing – healing that has taken me to magical highs and unimaginable depths of excruciating emotional pain – pain that I would not wish on anyone – but healing that I would share with the world.
A Playground Of Growth
I love the insights I have obtained by pondering the similarities between post-hypnotic suggestions and the cultural/religious/societal beliefs that are hypnotically programmed into our minds from infancy. Both leave us seeing only what we are programmed to see, leaving us unable to see anything outside of our boxes.
These two days have been an intense playground of growth, beginning and ending with continued flows of teenage emotional garbage – emotions that are systematically coming up and out. Both days included Keith, and others, repeatedly encouraging me to “go for it” – to ignore the judgmental voices of others who do, and did, condemn me for carrying such a deep emotional load – and for needing to cry through so many repressed and suppressed layers of agonizing pain.
Today took me ever deeper into new clarity surrounding the inner betrayal energies that form the basis of my God drama – and the basis of my ongoing feud between inner masculine and feminine energies.
And yesterday … wow did I ever have a powerful journey, aided by a very unusual trinity of loving support – The father, the daughter, and the holy drunk. I will never forget that profound experience. I had no idea that my mother’s essence continued to smother and squish my heart and power centers with such force – but even more revealing is the fact that my mother is not doing it TO me. It is me that clings to the ongoing payoff – it is me that fears releasing the heaviness, lest I be forced to face the brilliance of that magical light.
As I ponder back to yesterday morning – to an earthquake that awakened me shortly after midnight, I can only giggle at all the fun “Star Trek” and “Beauty And The Beast” metaphors that intuitively bless my process.
Yes indeed, these have been an extremely magical and deeply excruciating nine months of inner work with Keith. I feel deeply nostalgic – and exhausted – as I ponder that tomorrow will be my final chocolate ceremony of the season – my final opportunity for deep growth with Keith’s assistance ….
Or Is It?
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved