Note: This is a continuation from my previous blog titled “Finding Compassion.”
I literally giggle as I stand in front of the mirror, early on Friday morning. It is December 21, 2012 – the long awaited magical date when many in the western and new age worlds have predicted all types of shift possibilities, ranging from mass destruction on the planet to being rescued by extraterrestrial sources (and everything else in between).
For my part, I feel a magical energy flow dancing in my body. While staring at my reflection in the mirror, new sparkles seem to glimmer in the light-brown eyes that return my gaze. As I did last night, I again verbally exchange magical praise and self-love to the face in front of me, expressing deep compassion and love for all parts of myself – wounded parts that have been subtly swimming in pools of betrayal and self-loathing throughout much of our life.
“I deserve to be treated with unconditional love and compassion,” I repeatedly giggle at myself. “There is no more room for scolding, frustration, preaching, condescension, and make-wrong.”
I love this newfound inner power – a newfound understanding that feeling loved and validated is entirely an inside job, one that will no longer be outsourced to others, no matter who they are. I have not felt this happy and content for a very long time. I am through with the self-squashing, self-loathing, self-scolding, being distant from my heart, withholding of self-love because of self-judgment, etc…
It is so clear now. When I love and fully validate myself with pure divinely sourced love and compassion, I need nothing of the sort from the outside; and if outside energies try to attack me, such attacks do not stick. I no longer own my half of the Velcro that would attract them.
Something powerful shifted yesterday. A new and delightful energy is swirling throughout my neck and back regions, even dancing around in parts of my abdomen. I do not yet understand the shift with rational mind, but it is good.
Showering Shower Insights
As I continue my giggling in the shower, new insights begin to solidify.
Clearly, throughout the last year, especially during the final six to eight months, I have energetically recreated a massive stage-play reenactment of my childhood (prior to age five). Month after month, I believed myself to be the porch crybaby, the social loser, one that no one knew how to help, totally stuck in my inability to allow assistance from Higher Energies. Everyone’s patience was running thin, gossip was ensuing, and judgments (real or imagined) were being spread. Keith and others were often in the middle of my energetic recreation, playing their roles in ways that I perceived as scolding and making me wrong for my learning process – for not “owning” my God Drama.
“YOU do not want to cooperate,” Keith’s occasional feedback-with-emphasis floods my memory. “YOU are throwing this tantrum … YOU are choosing to be stuck and refusing to allow the light.”
Of course, I now know all of this was perfect – and much of it may have transpired only in my personal reality of individual perception.
“This is exactly what happened to me as a child,” I ponder in the shower. “My parents were exhausted and frustrated by my emotional outbursts. I cried and cried at the slightest feeling of rejection, and they could no longer handle me. They gave up on me, not knowing how to fix me, merely tolerating my confusion. I felt their emotional distance. I felt the broken record of frustrated judgment playing over and over.”
“Surely they were at the end of their rope,” I continue the shower of insight. “They must have judged themselves, and judged me for crying … all the while, continuing to recognize me as a tiny innocent baby / toddler.”
“And, as the magical empath that I was, I unknowingly took all of that emotion into myself, believing myself to be a loser, judging myself, being frustrated and impatient with myself, etc…”
I lost my self-compassion at a very young age, replacing it with the confused emotions of everyone around me, crying in the pain, and then being punished for crying. In my greatest emotional needs, my parents were distant. Yes, they loved me as best they could, and were physically present, but they did not know how to help … just as Keith has been unable to offer help in guiding me out of this same stuckness.
“Yesterday,” I ponder with clarity,” I really took back my power from childhood … the power to love myself, the power to find my own inner validation from divine sources.”
Into An Alien World
As I continue meditating after my shower, I clearly see the same patterns repeating throughout my life, with various levels of family, friends, co-workers, and teachers.
It all stemmed from the overwhelmed reality of a tiny magical child, born into an alien world, feeling energetically (empathically) attacked by confusing and painful emotions not even my own. It came from being shut down by loving parents, feeling misunderstood and misjudged by everyone around me, feeling energetically abandoned and betrayed, having to sacrifice all magical parts of me in the name of fitting in, and from believing myself to be the misfit alien.
I tried, but my true self could not fit in. In the painful process, I learned not to trust my own guidance, instead, becoming a robot just seeking to win external validation by following the rules and instructions of others – rational-mind rules that became my only recipe for acceptance in a confusing world.
The only thing that kept me going was a tiny and deep inner connection to unconditional love, and a very strong personal will telling me that somehow, one day, I would heal and understand.
Wow, I love the deep insights that are all coming together with such profound understanding. There is something inside of me this morning that is very clear – clear that this all DID happen to me as a child – and that for my growth, I have magically re-experienced much of it here in Guatemala. But another inner knowing pats me on the back, telling me that the hardest part is now behind me. It is time. I deserve to love myself and to see myself via the clear lens of truth.
“I really was a loving, pure, innocent, and gifted child,” I ponder with confidence. “I was judged and harshly programmed by culture, because I struggled, fought, and resisted all attempts to force me into the consensus reality. I refused to willingly comply, so I had to be lovingly broken like a horse.”
No Validation Needed
When I arrive at Keith’s porch, just after midday on this beautiful windy Friday, I have a giggle in my heart and a playful skip in my walk. Angela and I banter with giggles before the ceremony.
“I like you in this energy,” Angela smiles at me.
During the “Glow Meditation,” I play with my teddy bear, standing him on his head, just being silly, pondering how our world is so upside down in so many ways.
I have shifted in a major way. I feel a spark of inner love that has been deeply covered with black sludge. Throughout most of the ceremony, I hold a powerful energetic space, occasionally sharing energy with others while connecting my heart to the group, feeling peaceful vibrations throughout my body.
My heart is open. I trust myself and need no feedback or external validation. At one point, as he works with someone else, Keith momentarily reaches over and touches the center of my high heart region.
“Wow, you’re in a beautiful energy today,” Keith begins the only short vocal exchange we have all day.
“Yeah, thanks,” I respond with a giggle, before summarizing my profound shift.
I continue to receive beautiful “facial feedback” from nearly everyone on the porch, and I take delight when I overhear Keith tell one woman that she is now understanding some of the same type of childhood nightmare that Brenda has been working through.
An Opportunity For Rejection
As one friend (I will call her Jill) goes into deep emotional processing, I attempt to send energy from afar. But when Jill opens her eyes and notes that my hands are reflecting in her direction, she asks me to stop. Ego insists that I should feel rejected. I smile and do not listen to ego.
Later, after an empath training, I am surprised by what occurs next.
“We’re going to help Jill now,” Keith guides the group. “Brenda, since Jill is being deeply triggered by your process, I would like you to sit this one out.”
What a perfect trigger setup – a setup for rejection and betrayal.
To my delight, I just giggle at the bait dangling in front of me. I totally understand that I have been profoundly triggered by other people, that I have projected my own inner insanity onto them, in spite of them being beautiful people.
“Pure unconditional love would include allowing them to be triggered and to project onto me in just the same way,” I ponder with peace and confidence.
Again, this takes me into another level of childhood understanding.
“As a tiny child, my magical self was deeply rejected, on a frequent basis.” I ponder. “At that age, I was devastated, taking it all in, loathing myself, believing myself to be bad. The stage play today is again allowing me to play this out, but I clearly see that it is not about me at all.”
I come away from the experience with a clear inner visual of what my parents (and others) did to me in the name of God … of how I felt betrayed by loved ones and Higher Powers.
The Other Side Of The Mirror
I am actually excited by the realization that today, in this moment, I have no emotional charge around this issue … none whatsoever. I am free, at least for now, from this layer of childhood pain.
I sit in this magical understanding for the remainder of the ceremony, meditating with my grandchildren in my heart, and sending love to every person that I can think of. I am deeply grateful for this experience.
“Keith,” I ask in confidence when the ceremony is over. “First, I want to say how extremely powerful it was for me to be excluded, giving me an opportunity to process childhood rejection. I was just wondering if it would serve me to know what Jill is projecting onto me.”
“Brenda,” Keith reassures me with compassion. “It is not about you. Jill is not even sure what it is about yet, and there is nothing for you to know, or to do differently.”
I love my deep understanding of the relationship rules: It is never about the other person … It is not about what it is about … and nothing changes until I do. And I really get it from the other side of the mirror as well. I can magically allow someone else to have a triggered issue with me, without needing it to be my problem as well.
A Lifelong Pattern
As I walk home, however, the ego storyteller in me is demanding some attention, begging for the opportunity to rage with insecurity, screaming, “What is wrong with me?” … “How dare someone I love reject me for no valid reason!”
Such childhood chatter of betrayal by those who should know and love me is quite tempting. As a child, it was nigh impossible to own my self-love and self-compassion amidst such chatter. Again, I quickly acquire yet another layer of understanding of my childhood, of how I killed my self-love, my power, and my heart … all in the name of attempting to win back that conditional love … in trying to please loved ones so that they would not reject me.
It is clearly a lifelong pattern … one of trying to sooth rejection from others by being a people pleaser … by sacrificing my power … by sacrificing my identity and true self so that others might like me better.
Ignored Concerns
After a delightful Saturday, spending twelve long hours writing “An Impassable Switchback,” I find myself back on Keith’s porch for a December 23 chocolate ceremony.
As the first two cups of chocolate are brought out onto the porch, one goes to Joe and the other ends up in my hands. The moment that I taste the mixture, I recognize that it is extremely thick, nearly twice as concentrated as normal.
“Keith,” I call out with loving concern, “this chocolate is way too thick. It probably did not get properly stirred before being put into the cups”
I want to make sure that no one is served so much that it will make them nauseas. Joe is OK because he normally drinks a double dose anyway.
To my shock, Keith calls back, reassuring me that the chocolate is just fine, just letting me know that it was simmered for a while and that this is why the texture seems thicker, smoother, and finer.
“Are you sure,” I call out a few minutes later, after Joe also agrees with me. “This really is extremely thick.”
I absolutely KNOW that the mixture is too rich, that the simmering caused a lot of water to evaporate, leaving a very concentrated dose.
Keith again minimizes my comments, almost laughing me off as being silly, reassuring me just to trust him. My concerns are greatly minimized when I realize that the first two servings (and only the first two) where reheated from yesterday’s chocolate, and that everyone else’s chocolate is quite normal.
Seeking Cultural Consensus
As I begin to drink more from my cup, I check my own internal guidance, doing so several times. I clearly feel that I should only drink about two thirds of what I was served. I again try to tell this to Keith, mentioning how simmering caused the chocolate mixture to be much more concentrated. He again brushes me off without appearing to listen.
Repeatedly, again I check my own guidance, confirming that my feelings are true and valid. Suddenly, I recognize that I am manifesting another role-play to show me what happened as a child. Emotions cringe inside as I think about it. It really hurts.
“I desperately tried to speak my truth when I was a tiny child,” I ponder with profound clarity. “It does not matter whether my words were true or not. What matters is that I believed them, and my heart told me they were true. When I tried to speak truth that differed from consensus reality, I was ignored, dismissed, made wrong, pushed aside, and not given any validation for my feelings. I simply gave up and drifted into the background, no longer trusting what I knew inside, drowning in the invalidation of others.”
“In fact,” I continue pondering, “throughout my life I have been terrified of speaking up with intuitive truth, because when I tried, I repeatedly manifested situations where my words fell on deaf ears, causing me to feel ignored and stupid.”
Suddenly, I am deeply grateful for the little “role play of the day.” It no longer matters whether Keith is right or whether I am right. I realize that we were both guided to our own scripts in this exchange – and I clearly see the profound level of further understanding.
“Wow,” I go deeper in thought, “for most of my life, I have squashed the voice of that magical child inside. I have ignored, dismissed, invalidated, pooh-poohed, scorned, made-wrong, been impatient with, ridiculed, hated, despised, and done everything I could to make that annoying voice shut up – trying to keep it hidden – because it did nothing but get me in trouble with those in the cultural consensus.”
“No wonder little Sharon and Bobby are angry with me,” I ponder. “I am still abusing them.”
Asking For Help
As I sit on the wooden platform with my Fabulous Four, I struggle with the decision of whether I should follow this now very deep and painful emotion down into that swamp.
“Maybe I need to go diving in those murky waters,” I briefly consider, “but if I do, I must do it with the companionship of Higher Energies. My priority right now is to love my inner children … to hug them … to validate and honor them for what they have been through … for what I have continued to do to them.”
Feeling unsure of myself, knowing that I need to process the emotion, but it is so strong that I am afraid to go there, I again imagine myself on that “Impassable Switchback,” facing the narrow ledge that will surely kill me if I attempt to climb down by myself.
As I think about that magical dream over a month ago, I imagine my guide, my hiking companion, coming up behind me, knowing that he is capable of assisting.
“Will you stop and help me,” I ask my guide. “I am afraid to go on by myself. Will you just stand here with me, holding me, helping me to release the fear? And when I am ready, will you help me move further, perhaps carrying me past the switchback, or however it might work?”
I leave rational mind completely out of the equation. I just express my metaphorical intent to the subconscious mind.
Immediately, tears begin to stream down my cheeks as I sense a feeling of deep emotional love and surrender. Tingling sensations saturate my high-heart and second chakra (lower abdomen) regions. The sensations are small, but to me, they are quite significant.
Focus On Love
When Keith eventually turns to work with me, I share the magical journey and how our little exchange at the beginning had set me up perfectly to go deeper into childhood.
“This is the beginning … the origin … of my betrayal energy,” I explain as a few tears continue to trickle. “At that tender age, I felt betrayed by God’s representatives, by God Herself, and I learned to hate myself for that. I believed that I was the loser and the defective one … and that there was no one to help me … so I had to make the journey all by myself. Throughout my whole life, I have frequently manifested external circumstances to remind me of that betrayal … to remind me how I have to do it alone.”
As Keith soon moves on, I sit in a state of joy and pain … both at the same time. I watch the powerful work of one woman, and then observe as Keith asks another woman to assist. This second woman is deep in her own painful crap – reminding me of how Keith had asked me to assist a friend when I was in my own painful process just two days ago.
“I do not know how … nor do I know what needs to happen,” I ask my Higher Self, “but will you show me what Bobby and Sharon already know? I will just step out of the way and observe.”
For the next long while, I continue my self-love journey while inviting my Higher Self to help me energetically assist others at the same time. I feel a great deal of tingling expansion in my heart, my high-heart, and my solar plexus. I stay out of my head, simply trusting that I do not need to know … that I do not need to understand or direct this process … and that if I do need to know something, that the understanding will be given to me.
I just focus on love.
Gentle Celebrations
Eventually, as a large portion of the group stands up to leave, the porch turns into a thirty-minute hug fest. Many people just experienced a very profound connection with higher energies, and they are celebrating. As I observe, I initially experience a sense of resentment because of the interruption.
Finally, I remember that this whole ceremony “Is me,” and that the celebration is really on the inside. Rather than reject the external celebration, I suddenly focus inward and engage in the inner celebration – a celebration where inner energies are finally starting to open … to connect with Higher Sources … to giggle and hug each other … congratulating each other on their magical progress. I imagine many parts of myself standing around holding refreshments, rejoicing and hugging, reveling in the magic of what is happening. I even briefly manage to giggle on the outside.
Soon, we resume the ceremony, and Keith leads an empath training. Today, this process is very difficult for me, because I feel “phase one” of the training quite intensely. It is a phase where we allow emotional density to enter and get stored inside of us, in much the same way that we did it as children. As this happens, I feel intense pain in my solar plexus, and I never fully release it, even in the later stages of the training. I am exhausted, tempted to judge myself … but am still aware of peace and self-love working with me.
“Just go home and love yourself,” I feel that loving inner guidance silently whispering. “Don’t think about it … don’t push yourself any more today … just be gentle with yourself.”
I quickly get up, put my stuff in my bag, and briefly stand on the steps, waiting to see if Keith will look up to let me thank him with gestures. When Keith does finally glance my way, he smiles and gives me a huge thumbs-up. I giggle inside when my friend Jill (who was triggered by me in the previous ceremony) also smiles and waves.
For the remainder of the evening, I lovingly give myself permission to rest.
Compassion For Rejection
Here in Guatemala, Christmas Eve begins just like any other day. Early in the morning, I scurry down to the boat dock and take a boat to Panajachel where I do some much needed banking and grocery shopping. I barely have time to return home for a shower before rushing off for a Monday afternoon work-group ceremony.
Almost immediately after drinking chocolate, one magical friend goes into intense and deep work. She had experienced a profoundly magical connection to Higher Energies in the ceremony yesterday, and had then experienced the agony of manifesting repeated separation experiences last night and this morning.
Keith asks several of us to hold space for her – specifically mentioning my name – asking us to help her as the powerful empaths that we are.
“Is this density that I am feeling just stuff that I am reading from her?” I ask Keith a few minutes later, still trying to learn how to trust what is mine and what belongs to someone else.
Keith nods “yes” and grins at me, just before the woman doing her processing speaks up and lashes out at me in pain.
“Brenda,” my friend barks with agonizing emphasis, “I see you as holding the separation energy on this porch.”
“Ouch,” I ponder silently. “Another dear friend is massively triggered by my stuckness, and is projecting her pain and anger onto me.
I clearly know that this friend is frustrated because she does not know how to help me in my stuckness, and because she is so energetically tuned-in that she feels my own stuck pain in her body.
But Rather than feeling angry at what just happened, I feel deep compassion and understanding, realizing that my friend and I are playing opposite ends of a profound script – one in which each of us is learning about compassion.
Missing Velcro
Keith talks for a while in a round-about way, discussing how important it is to find compassion for the way the world is … of how we can find this reality inside of us … for example, we can find out why we are manifesting the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
I clearly see that my own feud between Bobby and Sharon has been such an inner war projected outward.
“I sure hope my friend heals this soon so I can stop playing this stuck energy on my end of the script,” I initially try to project responsibility for what is still happening.
“Wait a minute,” I suddenly pull responsibility back inside of me. “My only concern is my side of the script. Nothing will change until I do. My lack of healing is what is keeping her stuck. She will continue to play this role for me until I move out of my stuckness. Only then will my reality shift.”
I am deeply proud of myself, because, in spite of harsh words that were quickly and innocently hurled across the porch in the midst of someone else’s process, I find a giggle. My magical “I am a loser, I am to blame” Velcro is gone. The words do not stick to me. Instead, I feel deep compassion for my friend, and I realize more than ever that it is time for me to learn how to receive love from Higher Sources … to heal my inner battle for the good of the planet.
An Inner Battle
When I get bluntly honest with myself, I see that both Bobby and Sharon continue to feel betrayed and attacked by each other … and that both remain quite judgmental and lacking compassion for the other … both feeling profoundly miss-accused by the other.
Today, rather than understanding this inner war solely at the rational-mind level, I feel it with new clarity. In my heart, I energetically feel the deeply betrayed feuding energies in a new light.
I am not quite sure who they are. At first, I see them as Bobby and Sharon … as my inner children who are angry at me. But then, I recognize them as my masculine and feminine sides – parts of me feeling deeply betrayed and wounded by each other, something that has progressed throughout our life.
I sit in my inner conference room, asking all of the feuding internal energies to join me there. Meanwhile, Joe (my external projection buddy) goes into deep past life processing.
“If you get drawn into a battle, you WILL lose,” I listen to Keith coach Joe in this past life scenario. “The only way is to love, to not fight the war any more.”
These words come at the perfect time for me, in my own inner battle. It is time to put down the weapons, to lay aside the betrayal and anger, to give up the need for validation and apology, and to bring in love.
Trust And Surrender
Deep in meditation, I invite my Higher Self, angels, guides, whoever might be there for me, to bring in a little love. I ask my inner children to hold my hand and to show me what magic is inside of me.
“I will just watch,” I commit to myself in this meditation.
As I observe what happens next, I feel waves of tingling vibration moving through my entire chest and solar plexus regions. The energy is mild but definitely moving around in a way that is physically detectable. I remain out of my head, and remind myself that it is time to allow unconditional love and compassion – time to get out of my way and to just trust and surrender.
Meanwhile, I also feel guided to hold space for someone else while maintaining trusting observation of what is going on inside of me. Keith soon checks in with me.
“Sit down with those energies and have a loving conversation with them,” Keith guides me. “Ask them if what they have been doing is working for them … if it will ever work for them.”
As I follow Keith’s guidance, surrendering into further mediation, I clearly experience the intense betrayal energy from both the masculine and feminine energies … and I clearly see repeated instances in my life where this feud has played out in various contexts. Everything we have ever done to heal this has repeatedly failed.
Trusting Higher Self
It is time to find common ground.
I imagine my masculine and feminine selves, sitting on pillows, facing each other in a dimly lit room – in a safe environment where they can discuss their emotions without fear of being rejected or attacked.
As I visualize them taking turns sharing the pain with each other, I imagine what they are saying. I feel their intense sadness as tears form in my eyes. I clearly see the purity and innocence of each side – of how each has always done the best that they knew how – of how each deserves unconditional love and compassion – of how each is so genuine in their heart.
At one point in this still-serious meditation, some funky dance music starts to play somewhere in a house not too far away. Learning to trust such interruptions as divinely orchestrated, I imagine my inner masculine and feminine selves standing up and engaging in some weird and jerking dance moves – doing so in a very silly way – almost like robotic dancing.
I feel their inner giggles. I sense that something is shifting.
Trusting that my rational mind has no clue what needs to happen next, I ask these two energies if they will step out into a magical field where they can meet with our Higher Self. I ask them to work directly with our Higher Self … perhaps to watch a video of our ongoing process … perhaps to discus new roles and ways of healing and working with each other.
After expressing this request with my imagination, I step out of the way and simply chill until the end of the ceremony, which ends at around 4:30 p.m. – an early out day for Christmas Eve.
A Magical Place
I am delighted when, after most people begin to scatter, that Keith and I have the opportunity to have a delightful ten-minute discussion. He repeatedly shares positive feedback about what I am doing in the last few weeks … that my energy feels really good. I love the opportunity to share more details of my journey, and to feel some of that validation that I lacked so much as a child (even though I no longer need it to feel good about myself).
“You set this lifetime up in a brilliant way,” Keith tells me. “You not only set up this gender war on the inside, but you set it up externally too, with your transgender issues.”
Feeling on top of the world, I rush home and gobble down a quick meal of home-cooked rice and beans. I am prepared for a relaxing and restful Christmas Eve, perhaps listening to music, or maybe watching a fun movie.
But unexpectedly, just a few minutes after I finish eating, I receive a phone call from Isaias, inviting me to join his extended family for a traditional Mayan Christmas Eve at his sister’s house – the third time I have been invited in as many years. The evening is magical – with traditional tamales and ponche (a hot fruity drink) – followed by giggling with the children as they set off fireworks in the yard and street.
Yes, I said fireworks – they are very traditional here in this part of the world.
I am back in my comfortable apartment by 9:30 p.m., but continue to be amazed by the fireworks – especially the massive aerial display launched all over town beginning at around 11:30 p.m. and lasting until shortly after midnight.
What a magical place in which I find myself – both culturally, and in my personal path.
Inner Anger Projected Outward
Christmas morning, I wake up in a state of energetic shock. Ego mind chatter is raging.
Even though the experience yesterday was profoundly magical and healing, a defensive backlash of storytelling rages inside, expressing anger and frustration about how I was accused of “holding the separation energy on the porch.”
“She said those words with animosity, as if my own agonizing stuckness was a personal attack on her,” the chatter demands justice for how my friend had briefly attacked me.
“How dare such a magical being lash out at me like that!” the voices rage. “This is just showing how unenlightened she is, how little compassion she has for my stuckness, and how she is blaming me for her own stuckness and pain as the empath she is, blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum, etc…”
I am shocked by the level of ego stories that are demanding my low-vibrational attention.
I am quite happy and content, and have found great healing from the inspired events of yesterday. Yet this angry ego chatter insists that all of that growth be negated and invalidated – that we were betrayed and attacked and we have to defend ourselves.
“Wow,” I ponder in the shock, “this is my wounded little Sharon, lashing out at the masculine stuckness that continues to cause her so much pain. My other magical friends have nothing over her … she is powerful beyond my current rational-mind understanding, but she is pissed off at all of the pain she has to endure because of that separation from Source – a separation caused by the masculine stuckness and the inability to get past our God-Drama blockages.”
“That friend of ours needs to learn some tough lessons about finding compassion,” the ego voices again rage inside.
“This magical part of ME has some tough lessons to learn about finding compassion,” I respond back. “These wounded parts of me … both the wounded masculine and feminine parts of me … know that the other has ruined their life. Their hatred regarding their suffering is intense.”
“Both of theses parts need to learn compassion for the other.”
Process Pondering
Wow, I get it more clearly than ever. This external stuff is ALL inside of me.
To my surprise, as I get dressed, another round of chatter rages for expression. This time the subject is all of my triggers and projections onto Joe – my present-day projection buddy for stuck, masculine, ego-based energy.
The chatter is so intense that I almost laugh – but I cannot laugh because the emotions that accompany the chatter are overwhelming.
I begin to ponder what I would say if I were to walk up to a group of feuding Israelis and Palestinians – what I might be able to say or do to help diffuse the tension and sense of betrayal that they feel toward each other.
I imagine myself approaching them from a place of control and authority – radiating a fake smile – telling them that I am here to help them resolve their differences.
“Come on,” I visualize myself speaking those condescending words. “Let’s love each other. Let’s sit down and figure out how to love each other.”
As I imagine such a real scenario when trying to work with my own feuding energies, dictating to them what is wrong and how they just need to let their differences go and learn to get along, I can clearly see how ineffective this approach would be.
Each side is deeply justified in their sense of betrayal and in their emotional wounds that are generations deep. Each feels that they cannot release that betrayal without somehow admitting they were wrong, without admitting defeat and humiliation, without acknowledging that their whole life has been lived in vain. Such betrayal cannot be released so easily at the rational-mind level.
“I cannot just demand that they love each other,” I ponder. “Instead, I need to develop an unconditionally loving relationship with each of them. I need to first develop trust with each, one on one, on an individual basis. I need to validate that I understand the very real justification for their perceived pain. I need to assist them in lovingly releasing their pent-up agonizing emotions. And I need to hug and love them with pure and unconditional acceptance.”
“Only then, once they have each healed their own individual wounds, can they hope to find common ground with the other.”
This is a daunting task, even to help in the healing of one of the sides. I am deeply grateful for the external realities that have finally shown me what I am actually facing on the inside.
An Unsolvable War
With this understanding firmly rooted in my heart, I retire to my bedroom, and proceed slowly through deep emotional release on all sides.
First, I connect with the feminine side, experiencing the agony of a magically connected child who was ripped away from her “oneness’ connection, forced into harsh separation from Source. I feel the intense pain, the betrayal projected onto all of the stuck culturally-conditioned people who did this to her – the people who forced her to disconnect from her magical side and to instead embrace the emptiness of a left-brained world – a world that is upside down and backwards.
This magical part of me feels deeply victimized and betrayed. She drowns in sadness and anger regarding what happened to her.
Next, I connect to the masculine side – to the rational mind logic that was programmed into me. This loving man feels the agony of being betrayed and victimized by a magical little brat who filled his life with so much chaos – for how he was repeatedly punished for her behavior – for how she is the source of all his problems – for a lifetime of struggle. And underneath this stuck masculine side is the genuine masculine energy that also feels deeply betrayed by how he too was disconnected from Source.
As I experience these emotions ever deeper, I have a profound new understanding of the literal unsolvable war that has been raging inside.
Three Feuding Energies
In the darkness of my bedroom, I sit in meditation with these energies, doing so in that metaphorical inner conference room. I have in front of me two energies, each believing themselves to be the victim while seeing the other as the perpetrator … and here I am, the rescuer. When I am honest with myself, I realize that I do somewhat “hate” them for being at war inside of me, causing my world so much chaos. In my refusal to see what was really going on inside, still partially having my blinders on, I have seen these energies as little brats who just need me to put them in timeout so that they will stop fighting.
Ooops. I am that third energy … the one not acting with compassion.
Taking the meditation ever deeper, I feel the agony of each energy, individually. I feel their hopelessness, their futility, the suicidal wish just to give up because the betrayal has been so deeply inflicted that it is no longer healable at this level – we have tried for a lifetime.
As I try to connect with Higher Energies to help me with this feeling, I myself feel abandoned and betrayed, refusing to allow this connection.
“I want to do this myself,” This rescuer part of me fights back. “You (Higher Energies) have done nothing but screw with my whole life, and I need to heal myself before I have any hope of ever trusting you again.”
Celebrating Rebirth
By 9:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, this deep meditation is over. I had hoped to spend the day writing again, but after such an intense inner journey, my emotions are numb and quite funky, bouncing all over the place.
Again, in the spirit of gentle self-love and compassion, I give myself permission just to have a fun relaxing Christmas Day. I spend time watching videos, having a delightful Skype conversation, and just plain resting without guilt of any kind.
It is my fourth Christmas day being on the road by myself. As the day nears completion, I feel quite happy and content. Yes, I have been on a magical ride, some of it being quite emotionally intense, especially this past year.
But I can honestly say that I feel profound hope for my future. Layer by layer, I continue to peel back emotional blockages – blocks that prevent me from allowing a deeper connection to the light that has always been there waiting for me.
Finally, I feel as if there actually is a Divine Light at the end of the dark tunnel in which I have felt so lost. The major dysfunctions of my life seem to be gradually melting away like butter in a warm pan. As the vibrations of my heart increase, the solidness of my blockages gradually softens and melts. I am not finished yet, but I can already feel the freedom – the aliveness – the whispers of Higher Energies beginning to return.
As the Christian world celebrates the birth of Christ, I am celebrating the rebirth of a little inner child – the rebirth of masculine and feminine balance in my life – the rebirth of new hope – the rebirth of budding joyfulness – the rebirth of a magical connection to something much greater than myself.
… to be continued …
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved