Note: This is a continuation from my previous blog titled “Celebrating Rebirth.”
With Christmas Day now feeling like a distant memory, I spend the next morning relaxing before strolling out to Keith’s magical porch for yet-another chocolate ceremony. The porch is quite disorganized as I attempt to help arrange the rugs and cushions. To my surprise there is a familiar woman on the porch, I will call her Mary. She had been here several times late last Spring. During that visit, Mary had deeply triggered me. I perceived her back then as being in strong ego and denial, not wanting to do her own work – and her very presence had caused me to cringe. I almost giggle today, however, as I sense a new purity and innocence in her – and it is not just the fact that she is very pregnant. Mary’s energy overflows with humble and genuine resonance.
Twenty-six people are crowded onto this small porch. The ceremony begins quite slowly as Keith soon opts to do an empath training unusually early in the process. Meanwhile, I continue in my own little world, meditating with those three warring energies – the masculine self, the feminine self, and the rescuer in me. I am visualizing many of the magical young women around me as representing that feminine side, including the one who had verbally accused me as being the separation energy on the porch. For the purposes of this writing, I will call her Cathy. I cannot help but notice that today, Cathy invariably avoids making even the slightest eye contact with me.
I smile inside, not taking this personally, because I realize this is really an external reflection of my own feminine side’s (Sharon’s) anger and rejection of me. In fact, I welcome this stage play. It profoundly helps me understand, on a deep emotional level, exactly what is really going on inside of me.
Switching Roles
I continue to feel deep love toward these feuding parts of me, visualizing them in my inner conference room, asking each one individually if they might consider a new way of working – not yet needing to face each other with their deeply hurt emotions – but instead focusing on reconnecting to their own purity and innocence while bringing in self-love.
Suddenly, I observe with fascination as another external process unfolds in front of me. There is a magical young man (I will call him Steven) who has been anchoring huge amounts of light on the porch for more than a week. Suddenly Steven is overwhelmed in deep emotional release – something new to him on the porch. Keith guides him through an amazing journey. I feel fascinated by what I observe.
I immediately visualize Steven’s magical loving face as representing the masculine self in me (as a grown up Bobby).
“Bobby has had to be so strong,” I ponder with new understanding. “He really was a profoundly magical child too. He always tried to do his best to support and love others, bringing in light and love and radiating it around. But he was overwhelmed by the task and felt so alone and betrayed … so abandoned.”
Immediately I focus on holding loving space for little Bobby, while at the same time visualizing his intense pain that is emotionally (and quite painfully) surging inside me. I as the adult empath give him permission to feel and express the pain, and I step back, simply asking my own Higher Knowing to assist in this release from a higher level.
“Wow,” Keith eventually interrupts my process, “You’re having a beautiful journey today.”
I quickly summarize my deep journey with my masculine, feminine, and rescuer energies, and explain that my inner masculine and feminine are taking turns playing the perpetrator and victim roles.
Finding The Rescuer
“Connect with Mary’s unborn baby,” Keith suddenly guides me in a quite unexpected direction.
Earlier in the ceremony, I had watched with loving tears as Keith had guided Mary in connecting with her own magical child. Mary is sitting on the cushion directly to my left.
Suddenly, I recognize that, for me, in this moment, Mary’s energy from last year is a perfect external mirror of that rescuer energy in me – an energy that I had viciously resented last year – but an energy that I now embrace with pure love today.
And as I imagine myself energetically connecting with the precious unborn baby growing inside her, I feel nothing but purity and innocence. This beautiful unborn baby is a magical old soul who can be trusted, not only to help Mary in her own future journey, but who I can also trust to assist me, today.
I feel this baby to be a masculine presence – a pure and innocent little boy – a fact that Mary later confirms. In an act of surrender and trust, I allow this purity to join with me.
Soon, I feel a magical sense of purity on the inside of my abdomen, on the right side (the masculine side).
Intuitions clearly whisper to me that I am regressing back in time, working with my own pure and innocent little Bobby … and with the rescuer part of me that tried to fix him. Meanwhile, I sense that little Sharon is simply observing, building trust, and holding space.
When I note that little Bobby suddenly seems very happy, I focus attention to the rescuer, which seems to be manifesting as a huge physical stuckness in my heart – at the center of that nail-in-my-heart betrayal center.
Releasing Betrayal
As I work with this energy at the center of my heart chakra, I have no idea what to do with rational mind. I simply surrender to the feelings inside, not directing anything with my head … instead simply following what is happening inside.
Soon, I feel vibrations emanating from that nail-in-my-heart spot. As I experience pressure in that same spot, I recognize myself as resisting a little, but it is not painful.
I cannot explain how I know, but I clearly understand that a large layer of betrayal energy is now flowing out of me. I feel much lighter, and realize that much of the betrayal that I believed to come from my inner children was instead coming from the rescuer part of me – a part that felt unwanted and pushed away as he tried to share his genuine love to help the other energies inside that were wounded and hurting.
For a couple of hours, I remain in this process, deeply feeling energetic shifting inside, staying completely out of my head, clearly knowing that some betrayal is continuing to leave me while a stream of self-love is gradually replacing the space left empty.
I make no focused attempt to quantify or to figure anything out.
Meanwhile, I continue to watch Keith’s ongoing beautiful work with Steven, who is working with past-life stuff, moving huge amounts of emotional density – doing so on the easy bus – releasing agonizing emotions in a matter of seconds, and then bringing in healing light, doing so in waves. This process on the outside gives me deep trust and confidence to continue allowing what is going on inside of me.
My little boy deeply trusts this release process … continuing to allow Higher Love to slowly fill me. I see everything happening on the porch, both inside and out, as MY OWN personal healing and release … as my own bringing in of love and releasing of betrayal.
Present-Life Regression
At the end of this almost seven-hour ceremony, I profoundly hug everyone who is still on the porch. I sense a beautiful energy present, and everyone’s comments to me reflect that same energy.
“You were doing some powerful work of your own today,” Keith tells me when I thank him for the beautiful experience that I observed today.
“Yeah, I didn’t talk much, but I was on an amazing inner journey, seeing everything as being inside of me,” I respond. “Even the past-live stuff that unfolded for others was a beautiful present-life regression for me, in its own unique way.”
As I walk home, I do so with deep focus, moving slowly, taking in everything around me with a new sense of wonder. I feel significantly lighter, and clearly recognize a new sense of budding joy and peace.
“Something is working,” I giggle silently. “The flow of my process is perfect for me. People on the outside will stop judging me when Sharon stops judging me.”
“My healing continues to be an inside job,” I remind myself as I later prepare dinner.
Indirect Projections
On Thursday morning, December 27, I feel so alive that I finally begin to reach out, via Skype, to a few other friends – friends to whom I have resisted connecting because of my own depressed moods of the last many months. It feels so wonderful to have beginnings of new hope and joy bubbling inside.
As the afternoon chocolate ceremony gets underway, I note with deep interest that Cathy continues to avoid even glancing anywhere in my direction. I feel her ongoing anger and judgment – something my rational mind could not possibly sense. And I feel my own inner giggles, knowing with loving clarity that whatever she is continuing to project onto me is not my concern, that it is part of her process, and that I need not worry about it. I love this new sense of self-love. The “old me” would have been in total self-loathing by now. The “new me” is quite content to allow everyone to have their own process, while I focus on expanding my growing self-love and compassion.
I spend the entire ceremony simply observing the processes of others, attempting to radiate loving space-holding energy, having almost no interaction with Keith other than a brief exchange at about two-thirds of the way through when Keith briefly praises my new energy and what I am doing.
Meanwhile, Cathy soon begins to beat around the bush regarding what is deeply triggering her. Without mentioning me by name, she talks of a deep childhood need to protect others from the negative energies around them. Then she outright states that Mary’s unborn baby was being put in a place to receive horrible negative energy. Cathy asks Keith for guidance on when to tolerate the dysfunction of others, and when to say “enough is enough” and to disconnect from them.
I clearly see everything Cathy is saying as a direct projected reference to me (with no names mentioned) … on the blockages in me that she perceives with such distain … on the intense separation energy that she projects onto me … and of the horror of having such intense negative energy connecting (yesterday) to a pure and innocent unborn baby.
The energy of Cathy’s projection is so thick and obvious to me, that I could practically cut it with a knife. I just smile inside, recognizing my purity and innocence, clearly seeing this as part of Cathy’s magical growth and understanding, continuing to find love and compassion for my self.
Instead, I imagine Cathy as being an external reflection of my own little metaphorical Sharon, attacking me from the inside. Sharon remains quite angry about the negative shutdown that continues to strangle her magic – and at the betrayal emotions that continue to clog her energy channels, keeping her in locked a painful state of separation from Source energy, insisting that, “enough is enough.”
An Inner Journey
Keith skillfully guides Cathy into her own journey with betrayal, and I go there with her, on the inside, using this external guidance to further understand little Sharon’s massive pain.
“I know that my only answer is to love unconditionally and not judge,” I repeatedly remind myself as I journey only on the inside.
When Cathy completes her own magical breakthrough, I sense that she made huge progress, yet I continue to sense her judgment toward me. Her verbal insights indicate that she has let go, and now understands what she is doing, but her behavior continues to project subtle anger and rejection onto me, as if I have somehow wronged her by being in my own stuck pain – pain that she can feel in her own body.
“This is Sharon’s horrible pain,” I ponder how my own magical child must have felt, feeling everyone’s pain around her, taking it inside and hurting because of them.
“Sharon was feeling everyone’s emotional density and getting slammed for it, being judged and betrayed because of it, hurting deeply and being punished for the tears and attempts to release the pain.” I ponder with clarity. “My (Sharon’s) purity and innocence was attacked, all because I felt the pain of others, and at that tender age I did not know how to deal with it.”
I see this truth quite clearly, but as Cathy continues to project her external judgment, I feel a huge judgment hook attempting to suck me into the external drama. Finally, I manage to bring in more Higher Energy and I successfully avoid that hook.
“Congratulations on your beautiful work,” Keith speaks up somewhere in the middle of my energy shifting, not giving me any specific feedback, just acknowledging that I am on a beautiful inner journey.
A New Light
Meanwhile, Keith is now working with Joe, explaining why he (Keith) is unable to help him right now. It is obvious to several of us that Joe is in little-boy victim mode, trying to get attention by his subtle behavior throughout the ceremony. Keith is calling Joe on this behavior, and asks those of us who clearly recognize what is happening to raise our hands. Four of us stick our hands confidently into the air. I clearly see that Joe is now externally mirroring much of the stuckness in which I have been trapped for decades. As Keith begins to educate Joe about his God drama, I sit back and take profound mental notes.
I find it magically powerful as I watch Joe’s intensity of repressed childhood drama, clearly seeing it as Joe’s God Drama projected onto Keith. I see that Joe believes he is not getting the attention and guidance that he wants, and I find it easy to understand why such guidance cannot be heard by Joe in his current energetic state.
I watch with inner giggles as Keith works with Joe in loving-but-firm discussion. There is no emotion in Keith’s voice, no attack, no frustration, no judgment, and no validation of ego behavior. Throughout this process, I imagine Keith as talking to me, and realize that what I am observing is probably how Keith has repeatedly spoken to me – but that I have always perceived such serious talk as my mother attacking me, making me wrong, and scolding me.
I am beginning to see the mirror of my own past God Drama struggles with Keith in an entirely new light.
Shared Grace
In the midst of Keith’s conversation with Joe, I find perfect opportunities to share my own compassionate insight and encouragement, even sharing a story of my first dream in Guatemala – a powerful dream where a very magical woman and I were having a conversation – one in which her last words were, “Forget everything you know and lower your defenses.” It was a dream that continues to guide me, even today. (Details in blog titled: Forget Everything You Know, March 25, 2010).
I giggle silently when, a few minutes later, as Cathy continues to exhibit resistance and struggle in her ongoing process, Keith tells her to listen to Brenda’s story, to “Forget everything she knows and lower her defenses.”
Perhaps an hour later, after Cathy has been deep in silent meditation, she opens her eyes looking much more relaxed. Following inner guidance, I gently reach over and touch her on the foot. She looks up, makes eye contact and smiles back at me.
“Thank you for playing out our mutual journey together with such grace,” I whisper just loud enough for Cathy to hear.
I feel deep peace in my heart. I can clearly see what Cathy has been experiencing in her painful journey. It is obvious how my continued stuck energy has been a profound catalyst in her struggle – but I also clearly see that Cathy’s struggle with me was her inner projection, having nothing to do with me, but one that was extremely real in her own experience. I clearly understand the power of painful projections – I know they are real for the person doing the projecting – I know this because I have done, and sometimes still do, the same thing.
God / Separation Drama Insights
As the ceremony nears conclusion, Keith continues to discuss more God drama details with Joe. In the midst of this conversation, I meditate deep into my own clarity, coming away with magical understanding of several of the hooks that have repeatedly caused me in the past to take the bait into my own pity-party of childhood God drama. Following are some of those insights:
• When I feel attacked, judged, or projected onto in any way, I immediately sense that my pure and innocent intentions are being betrayed.
• Feeling misinterpreted, especially by someone who should love and understand me, especially in a way that sheds negative doubt on my intentions, deeply triggers that betrayal energy.
• When someone speaks to me in a frustrated, impatient, non-compassionate tone – whether intended, or simply a result of their own inner struggles – this deeply triggers my sense if betrayal.
• Because I was trained to conform and be a people pleaser, I crave and require validation and praise for my good accomplishments. Lack of deserved praise in such situations is interpreted by me as betrayal, not giving me what I desperately need. In fact, I gave away most all of my power to the “validators” in my life, being deeply hurt if they did not then give back to me what I needed … when I needed it.
• It does not matter if such betrayal is real or simply perceived; either way, it stabs me to the core.
• Once my betrayal pain is triggered in any way, I involuntarily regress to childhood pain, old repressed overwhelming emotion surges to the forefront, and I feel as if I was massively betrayed all over again.
• Once I feel betrayed, the only way I can ever cooperate with the person who triggered the emotion, is if I receive some type of genuine apology or some other interaction where genuine trust can be restored – a process that is quite difficult. In the past, I have only succeeded in restoring such genuine trust with very close family, repeatedly with Keith, and a handful of other cherished friends.
• Once in the betrayal mode, I regress into deep childhood pain, feeling sorry for myself, isolating, projecting confusion and chaos for what was done to me, and throwing a painful and pathetic energetic temper tantrum.
• The easiest betrayal to heal is that from strangers. The most difficult is when I perceive it as coming from a cherished loved one.
• This betrayal energy is the core of my God Drama. While it has been repeatedly projected onto parents and other trusted people or institutions in my life, it ultimately stems from an absolute inner belief (at the core level) that I was betrayed by God / Deity, causing me to be disconnected, alone, and separate from Source.
New Healing Of Lifelong Patterns
Wow, as I ponder these insights, I clearly see painful patterns from throughout my life. And I am delighted to realize that I have stopped taking the bait on most all of these triggers. Yes, at times, the bait might be tempting, but I am clearly aware and making huge strides in simply saying “thanks, but no thanks” when those hooks present themselves. Today has been one of those magical days. Yes, I struggled a bit, but I did not lose myself at any time, I did not need validation, and I did not need an apology for the projections of others.
In fact, I am quite proud of myself – deeply validating myself – and magically loving myself. It truly is an inside job. Something profoundly magical is shifting inside me.
While preparing dinner, I cannot help but continue to ponder deeply. As weird, unexpected, and difficult as the triggers have been in the last two weeks – both onto me from others, and from me onto others – each trigger has brought me to an increasing level of peaceful clarity and compassionate loving grace.
I clearly see that this lifelong pattern (manifested both in mild and occasionally severe ways), and the resulting emotional devastation after each event, have layer-by-layer made it increasingly difficult for me to fully trust any outside energy – especially Higher Energies onto whom the bulk of the betrayal was ultimately projected.
Foot Fodder
After a beautiful sleep, and a relaxing last-Friday morning of 2012, I again find myself back on the Chocolate Shaman’s magical porch, where approximately twenty people are gathered.
Early in the ceremony, I note with confusion as two friends, one male and one female, lie down and place their bare feet deeply intruding into my personal space. Those dirty masculine feet trigger me most of all. As I struggle with my annoyance and discomfort, I note that this has been a frequent occurrence lately, and that I seem to manifest it at almost every chocolate ceremony.
“Why am I so annoyed by dirty male feet in my space?” I ponder with confusion before finally getting real with myself.
“I have been seeing this young man (with his feet in my space) as a mirror of my little Bobby,” I ponder. “Is this outside manifestation more than just a masculine energy trigger? Could this really be Bobby disconnecting, lying down, and feeling depressed and hopeless, refusing to engage the energies or do his own work because he feels so betrayed – so pressured and fixed by the dysfunctional masculine energy of our mother – that he refuses to cooperate any more?”
Almost immediately after posing this inner question, I briefly see a clear inner visual of little Bobby, lying down, checked out of life. I sense his anger and refusal to cooperate. I feel his betrayal and insistence that he will not help himself until circumstances are made right.
The Burdened Part
Quite soon, Keith looks in my direction and I respond by sharing details of my journey – of how I have been manifesting this for a few weeks now.
“It really triggers me,” I share deep emotions, “and I am seeing this as Bobby lying down and refusing to cooperate.”
Keith quickly congratulates me on my journey.
“I feel deeply overwhelmed by the intensity of the energy that I am attempting to hold for the porch while at the same time doing my own inner work,” I then express confusion to Keith.
Throughout my inner journey today, I have insisted that I try to help the porch at the same time, but I feel deeply taxed and burdened in doing so, almost wanting to lie down on the porch myself.
“Find that burdened part of yourself,” Keith guides me.
Keith then quickly moves on. In fact, this is our only interaction during the entire ceremony.
Focus Not Required
As I continue the inner journey, my attention turns to the woman’s feet that are also protruding up against my knees. I envision little Sharon also lying down on the job, rebellious, refusing to give me the time of day, refusing to cooperate any more.
I begin to experience the deeply depressed emotions of both Bobby and Sharon, at the same time being keenly aware of the angry rescuer in me who is quite judgmental of them both. I focus on releasing the emotion, bringing in love for all of these parts. I do not do this with rational mind. Instead, I express a meditative intent, asking the love to work with me, and then I get out of the way.
Within just a minute or two after Keith moves on, I start to cry. I feel the horrible burden of being strong and alone … of knowing that I have to do it all by myself because the people that are supposed to love and help only mess me up and make it harder, leaving me feeling betrayed.
“I do not trust these energies to work on autopilot, and that is why I feel I must focus on holding space for the porch with my conscious attention and focus.” I ponder with clarity. “It is the act of focusing that causes me to feel burdened – that act of having to do it myself.”
I now profoundly understand why these magical parts of me are so exhausted – why they want just to check out, give up, and lie down in frustration and depression.
Love Equals Betrayal
As Keith begins a group empath training, I quickly envision Bobby as being a magical empath, assisting the “rescuer” to release his anger and judgment.
Bobby and Sharon are clearly the victims of this rescuer, and Bobby knows how to help. I find deep compassion in his process … in his willingness to lovingly help this part of us that has oppressed both him and Sharon for so long.
Later, in the same empath training, I listen as Keith talks about how empaths who unknowingly took in this energy as children learned to equate love as being energetically hooked to pain and eating emotional garbage.
“I have love deeply hooked as being equivalent to betrayal,” I ponder with ever deepening clarity. “I have an inner belief that if I open my heart to more love, that I will surely be misinterpreted, misjudged, abandoned, and ultimately betrayed all over again.”
“No wonder I am so afraid of a relationship,” inner emotions tremble.
I meditate on this topic for a while, gleaning deep insights into how betrayal is hooked so deeply to both love and to my God drama – and just why I would be so terrified of allowing more love, earthly or from Divine Sources, because that love is the ultimate factor leading to more agonizing betrayal.
Facing The Swamp
To my shock, in the midst of this meditation about betrayal, I am consumed by emotions so real that I literally want to give up. I want to sob. I want to sink into my swamp and just say “eff-it all.” I want to go home and isolate from everyone.
“This is my hook,” I catch myself in shock. “I can bite this hook and sink deeply into this painful loop – a very tempting option right now – or I can work with higher energies until I release the emotion, doing so without taking the bait.”
I am overwhelmed by this putrid emotional swamp, on the edge of being sucked in it where I know I will drown. But I somehow still manage to energetically reach up out of the swamp, having one hand clutched tightly to the edge of the metaphorical platform above.
For more than a half hour, I struggle in this emotion, feeling sheer terror at the thought of going any deeper. Repeatedly, I allow tiny bits of yucky emotion to come into my awareness – but only as much as I dare. Finally, I feel guided to bring in giggling child energy. I imagine my grandchildren dog piling on top of me in a magical tickle fest, bringing in innocence and purity, and giggles of course.
I feel the inner joy wanting to come out, and then I experience the intense betrayal energy responding with “eff-you, I want to wallow in this pain.”
I choose to focus on the giggles. But rather than “trying” to bring in the love, I simply imagine the giggle energy, and focus on getting out of the way … focusing on surrendering and allowing the love to help me.
After clinging to the edge of that platform for what feels like a very long time – after being in the clutches of that betrayal swamp more deeply than I have been for over a month – I finally feel light and free. All traces of the betrayal are gone, replaced by peace.
Something Magical
The confusing thing for me now is that an intense flow of Higher Energy has begun to overwhelm me.
I remain in this flow until the end of the ceremony. The experience is so intense that I do not want to move, even after most people have walked off the porch. Finally, as Keith walks by my pillow, I speak up.
“Keith,” I beg for guidance. “How do I find self-love and compassion for these God-Drama hooks without attracting more of them? Part of me fears that loving my self in this energy is almost like saying I love this pain … almost like an implicit prayer asking for more of it.”
Rather than answering my question, Keith asks me to come up with my own response.
“I worked through the hooks with love and Higher Energy,” I begin to respond.
“That is your answer,” Keith interrupts me. “Doing that is not manifesting more … it is just dealing with what comes up using Higher Energy to assist.”
“Wow, you are doing really well lately,” Keith then congratulates me as I stand up and give him a quick thank-you hug.
I smile at the feedback as I walk home toward my apartment. I had been craving such feedback throughout the ceremony, but I would not let myself go there because seeking such feedback and validation is one of my major hooks.
I absolutely smother myself with praise and congratulations for what I did today. It was extremely intense. In fact, the overwhelming Higher Energy continues for much of the evening. I clearly recognize the profound growth in refusing to go down into that agonizing emotion in the old, hard-bus way – and instead managing to transmute that layer of pain using a connection to Higher Energies.
Yes, I still had to feel the intense betrayal pain in order to transmute it, and yes, I almost got lost in it, but I did something amazingly different today. I trusted myself … I trusted Higher Energies … and I trusted that if I refused to take the bait, and instead remained in a state of loving allowing, that something magical would happen.
As I rest in bed before falling asleep, a round of brand-new energetic tingles consumes my chest and abdomen, both in the front and backsides of my body.
“Wow,” I giggle, “I cannot explain it, but something magical is really shifting on the inside.”
Swamp Play
After a delightful Saturday writing “Teddy Bear Tales,” and a relaxing morning on the final Sunday of December, I remain clueless as to what is about to happen in the next ceremony.
Twenty-six people crowd the porch. Early in the flow, I feel good, but the squeamy sensations in my arms are back (as they have been for a few weeks). This morning, they are quite intense, like miniature convulsions at the cellular level. I feel them in my abdomen too, during moments where I am able to relax.
As the ceremony continues, I surrender, asking these energetic metaphors to get bigger, and asking the light to show me what it would do – or perhaps teach me what I need to learn. After silently expressing this intention, I sit in meditation and watch. The experience is intense.
Meanwhile, I also focus on connecting with more joy, imagining my grandchildren tickling me, climbing on me, and giggling with me. To my surprise, I feel guided to imagine them playing in my swamp – in those black, thick, muddy, tar-like waters of my putrid emotion. I feel those giggling children holding magic wands, running around barefoot across the top of the swamp, transmuting little pieces of that yucky energy without being touched by it. My grandchildren’s pure love renders them transparent to that emotional density in me, and they continue giggling.
As this metaphor continues in my imagination, I feel it quite profoundly in the form of energy twitching and shaking in my body – an expression of my own fear and resistance.
A Motherly Connection
As Keith sits doing profound work with a young man, he suddenly helps him to understand how he is blocking his father’s love – and that by blocking it, he is not allowing himself to further open. Keith explains that the father (who is present on the porch) also wants to open more, but feels as if his love is defective because it is being rejected by his son.
Wow, I suddenly return to my own issue, profoundly realizing that I furiously continue to block my mother’s love. Remembering my experience at the yoga retreat center just over a week ago, I make another attempt to invite and connect with my mother’s Higher-Self essence (not her personality self).
Almost immediately, overwhelming emotions consume me, and I struggle to hold back. As muffled sobs send streams of tears down my cheeks, feelings of intense resentment clog my clenching heart.
Again and again, I attempt to establish the energetic connection to my mother, knowing that this emotion makes no logical sense – believing that I should feel beautiful love for her Higher Essence. But each time I try, I can only visualize my mother’s face with a very stern scowl, brutally glaring back me.
“Ouch,” I ponder in shock. “This hurts.”
“I feel deeply betrayed by her stern face, and it IS REAL.” I ponder the confusing emotions. “She did brutalize me with conditional love that broke the spirit of my once joyful heart.”
(Again, I need to add a note here that I profoundly love my mother, and that she did the best she knew how, raising me with dedication and conviction. There was no physical abuse, and nothing that would (in the eyes of the culture) be considered emotional abuse. This is what happened to me in a loving, middle class, religious family where I was raised to conform and fit in.)
Learning Through Trauma
In confusion, I try to figure out ways to work with this pain metaphorically. First, I invite my inner children to join me in my conference room. As I do so, I deeply feel their trauma and childhood pain. I apologize to them, profoundly sympathize with their journey, and clearly recognize that I as the present-day adult in their life continue to take on that domineering parental role at times.
As I sit in this confusion, Keith suddenly turns around from across the porch, and I let out a huge sigh of deep emotional pain. When he waits for me to speak, I quickly fill him in, sharing what I am trying to do.
“This is huge,” I exclaim. “This is the core of my God Drama and why I refuse to allow Higher Love.”
“Trying to bring in your mother’s love right now, even from her Higher Essence, might be traumatizing your children, doing to them what your mother did,” Keith lovingly suggests that I try something different.
I quickly back off in my metaphor, and simply imagine myself holding a magical energetic space for my inner children – providing a safe environment to release some of their emotion.
A few minutes later, I ache inside, and am deeply nauseas. Even though I have stopped attempting to connect with my mother’s Higher Essence, that lingering image of her scowling face literally makes me want to vomit with agony.
Shocking Clarity
As I ponder ever deeper, attempting to remember how it feels to be loved by my mother, I can only remember two or three times prior to age five when I genuinely felt that purity. At every other age, I remember only how I tried to avoid her love, trying to maintain the appearance of love. But I was actually afraid of her love because I knew it would be used to pry into the walls of my inner pain – pain that I desperately struggled to keep hidden from her.
It is clear that I built huge blockades around my heart at a very young age, probably before age five, preventing her love from penetrating my vulnerabilities.
By the middle of my tenth year, I began clenching, talking fast, and walking pigeon toed, etc. In retrospect, it is easy to look back and realize that these behaviors marked an intensified step-up attempt to block out all outside energies of love – to keep them from penetrating my shell. I blocked my mother (and others) at every turn, trying to keep my painful secrets safe. I was hiding, cowering, avoiding, resenting, and trying to pacify her, while at the same time deeply fearing the prying eyes of any external love. I perceived my mother’s attempts to parent me as a threat to my inner secrets – as a threat to the pain that I was trying to protect.
Based on physical memories, one could say that my mother loved me very much. Based on emotions that repeatedly surface, I can clearly say that I was terrified of that love, because it tried to “fix” the magical parts of me – and it brutally suppressed those parts – not just energetic magic, but the gender energies as well.
I clearly realize that on the surface, I have always loved and been loved by my mother, but it was not until she had Alzheimers that I was able to find pure unconditional love for her.
“But I still cannot receive my mother’s love,” I ponder with ever deepening and shocking clarity. “Even now, having finally learned to love her without condition, I cannot allow her love to come back in my direction. I am still terrified of the hidden energies behind that love.”
Refusing To Bite
“No wonder I block higher love,” I continue to feel the emotion. “She was a projection of higher love, and I felt betrayed, controlled, judged, and manipulated by it. No wonder I want nothing to do with it; no wonder I do not trust it; no wonder the walls are still up with such fear. And no wonder all recent attempts to metaphorically receive my mother’s love have met such agonizing resistance, bringing me only a painful image of her stern, scolding face pushing down on me …”
I allow myself to feel this pain, going as close to the bottom as I dare … as deep as I can. The physical nausea is so strong that I step into the bathroom to attempt vomiting the nausea out, but it does not work.
“This is another fishhook of my God Drama,” I again remind myself with profound clarity. “Any betrayal feeling takes me directly into this emotional loop.”
“I will NOT go there this time,” I commit to myself. “Yes, I will feel the feelings as deep and painfully as they take me, but when I am there, I will allow Higher Energies to transmute it. I WILL NOT TAKE THE BAIT.”
I try to imagine my grandchildren, my children, and beautiful friends, all sharing love without conditions. I try to allow as much of it into me as I will allow, but the thought of parental love still turns my stomach. I sit in this confusing energy, feeling the agonizing pain very deeply, but refusing to get lost in it. Meanwhile, a full connection to the light continues to elude me.
As 4:30 p.m. comes and goes, and as Keith continues working deeply with others, I remember that we are bagging chocolate tonight, and that I need to go home to eat dinner soon. It is increasingly obvious that Keith will not have time to help me, and I know that Keith cannot do this for me anyway.
A Quick Magical Release
Excusing myself from the porch, letting Keith know I am doing well, I run home and lock myself in my bedroom. Almost immediately, I give myself permission to do the release-part of the process in a deeply physical way. I sink into agonizing screeching, wailing, sobs and dry heaving, burying my face in my pillow in an attempt to muffle the sounds echoing to nearby neighbors.
After ten minutes, as I feel that I am now at the bottom of the pain, I crawl on top of my bed and lay down, asking the Higher Energies to fill me.
Again I begin to cry, but this time the tears are joyful as I feel beautiful energy filling my head, especially dancing and tickling in my third eye chakra. As this proceeds, I am quite aware that part of me is deeply frightened of this energy while the rest of me giggles with excitement.
After a while, I stand up, feeling happy and energized, without a trace of the emotion remaining – at least not this layer. Soon, I have cooked and gobbled down a quick dinner, returning to Keith’s porch by 6:30 p.m., enjoying a magical and fun social evening of bagging chocolate.
I feel amazed by how I am now able to feel the deep emotion, not get lost in it, and then let it release to the light. Magic is in the air.
Trusting Self
I have been re-watching the television series “Lost” during spare moments of the last few weeks. On Monday morning, the final day of 2012, I just happen to watch the final episode of season five, where the character Miles is angry with his father for having abandoned both he and his mom when he was a baby. Through some magical twists in time travel, Miles suddenly receives new understanding of what really happened, and he is able to make a huge shift of perception.
Later, at the afternoon chocolate ceremony, right in the middle of the starting meditation, another wave of the intense betrayal emotion overwhelms me. I am terrified by what I feel … terrified to go back down, again, into that old pain … yet today, I am also filled with trust telling me that I will not get lost in there.
I clearly recognize this as another opportunity to bite that fishhook, to go into the emotion and get utterly lost in the betrayal.
“I’m trying to release this emotion to my teddy bear,” I share with Keith when he immediately turns to work with me. “I’m trying to build more trust, trying to bring in light and love, trying to blah blah blah …”
“Everything you have said so far is about ‘trying’ to do this and that,” Keith soon responds. “Stop trying. Allow … connect to the energy inside and follow where it is taking you.”
“The first thing that comes up is intense fear of the light,” I share with Keith a few minutes later. “It is fear of not doing it right, fear of the betrayal energy projected onto my mother … but I am not buying this.”
“One of my biggest hooks is in not trusting what I feel, and in needing outside validation,” I share confidently with Keith. “I am not going to bite that hook. I know that I CAN do this. I WILL do this. I know that my inner metaphors will guide me.”
Soon, I am meditating in deep peaceful trust, feeling a very nice energy, delighted by an almost-immediate sense of lightness.
Owning My Knowing
As Keith works with a friend about how her neighbors had challenged her inner knowing, I am magically triggered to another level of understanding concerning my own childhood.
“How can you possibly know that,” I feel my mother scolding me. “You have no way to know such a crazy thing. No way to justify your feelings. No way to defend yourself. You are wrong, wrong, wrong. Quit resisting, quit fighting back, and just obey.”
“But I DO know … I DO KNOW,” I feel myself crying back to my mother in defense.
In this deeply emotional visualization, I at first feel helpless and betrayed, unable to defend myself, unable to be heard.
To my surprise however, as I imagine saying “I DO know,” I suddenly experience deep energy surges inside – very strengthening sensations that are quite empowering.
I recognize that I just had another inner experience showing me that I surrendered my power when I tried to defend myself, and now, that power is suddenly surging inside as I own my knowing – doing so in a way that needs no defense – in a way that needs no outside validation.
I sit in this beautiful “knowing” for the remainder of the ceremony, constantly reminding myself that I DO trust my feelings, that I do NOT need anyone to validate them for me.
Heart Magic
Later, my friend Jill, who has been stuck during the whole ceremony, is put in the hot seat to be helped by the group energy. Keith immediately turns to me and speaks with a strong glow in his eyes.
“Brenda,” Keith shares in front of the group, “you are being massively called right now to engage a new level of power, like you have done with others in the last few weeks. Turn on that power switch and engage.”
To my surprise, Jill immediately tells Keith that she does not want to mix with the group energy. I feel her energetic projection, telling me to stay away. Keith then changes his instructions, asking the group to do nothing but hold a powerful space on the porch, sending any support to Jill’s Higher Self, for the highest good – not trying to send it directly to her.
Wow, this is another profound opportunity to feel as if “my love is rejected and not wanted.”
But I follow Keith’s guidance and open my heart anyway, sending love only to Jill’s Higher Self and to anyone else who wants to partake. With full trust and surrender, I open my heart to receive and then share, getting completely out of my head. Soon, in the midst of allowing, I feel as if I am sitting in a pillar of light, from mother earth to the cosmos. It is perhaps the strongest my heart has ever felt, except for that time on Valentines Day, 2011 (documented in my blog, “Heart Magic, March 9, 2011).
I have always understood that that experience nearly two years ago was a glimpse into where I was going. Excitement fills me as I realize that gradually, I am approaching that state on a more sustained basis.
Making the experience even more powerful for me, I receive absolutely no external validation from anyone, not even Keith. As I imagine myself shining this heart magic, I visualize it on a huge butler tray, being made available to anyone who wants it, with not even the least bit of tiny attachment to whether anyone else feels it, wants it, or partakes of it.
Next, I imagine myself as a tiny child filled with such radiating light. Then I remember how several friends, back in February 2011 had repeatedly told me how strongly they could feel my heart energy, even from twenty or thirty feet away.
“Surely, such energy coming from me would have frightened my parents if they had felt it when I was a tiny child,” I ponder the possibilities. “Surely, feeling invalidated and rejected for very real magic such as this made me feel deeply betrayed and confused.”
If I had radiated such energy in those days, it would have met deep suspicion from those around me.
Sharing Without Validation
For the remainder of the ceremony, I sit and giggle while imagining myself sharing this beautiful heart love with everyone I can think of. I begin with grandchildren and dearest friends.
“Some people will not do this for themselves,” I overhear Keith say something to another person in their process, “but they WILL do it for others.”
Wow, that comment was totally out of context, but it fits beautifully with what I am doing in my own process. I clearly would shine love to anyone else who needed it, but I have vehemently resisted doing it for myself … until now that is. And I love that I am receiving absolutely NO VALIDATION from anyone else regarding what I am doing. My own inner knowing is enough.
Suddenly, I am delighted to realize that I am sending this love to my mother’s Higher Self too … and I realize that as a child I could not give this to my mother. She could not receive it, and as Keith told someone else earlier in the ceremony, I felt defective because my unconditional love could not be fully received, so I believed something to be wrong with my love.
Magical Synchronicities
As I walk home on this magical New Years Eve, I can only giggle as I ponder how I had frequently visualized my magical and Fabulous Four during my process today. Little Sharon and Bobby, along with Yoda and mini-Gandalf, had been a huge support and cheering section in my process, helping me to surrender and allow myself to believe.
In celebration, I gather these magical inner friends, and head off to a nearby restaurant to gobble down my favorite San Marcos meal of burger and fries.
As I sit in silent meditation, waiting for the feast to arrive, I suddenly realize that it has been exactly 52 years since I was five years old. Intuitively, I recognize that my childhood shutdown was mostly complete before I turned six.
“Wow, the Mayans believe in a 52 year cycle, based on the long-count calendar, where every 52 years is like a rebirth.” I ponder with a giggle. “It is so magical that I am now here, 52 years after completing a cultural / societal / religious shutdown – a shutdown where I gave away all of my personal power – and that I am finally beginning to wake up and heal, literally beginning to let in the Higher Light and Love that was shut out and rejected so long ago. The power that is coming back is indeed my own power, the power that I lost 52 years ago.”
I love such little magical synchronicities.
Learning To Surf
As I sit in my apartment on Tuesday, January 1, 2013, I again intend to spend the day writing – but just like Christmas day, something inside resists, telling me to enjoy the day off, to rest, and to simply love myself.
As I increasingly learn to trust such feelings, I make no attempt to write, and quickly love myself through a lazy day of doing nothing productive.
2012 has been a magical year – a very difficult year – a year filled with unbelievable growth and understanding into issues such as childhood conditioning and shutdown, God drama, masculine and feminine energies, how to take projections inside and own them as my own, and profoundly journeying with the agonizing energies of betrayal. Those energies have been with me since a very young age, and have been repeatedly pushed into my face during my inner work this year – especially during those three long months this past fall.
But wow, I am filled with so much hope. I finally understand the origin of those energies. I have learned what triggers them, how I get lost in them, how to no longer get lost in them, and how to use Higher Energies to release them. Yes, I am still in the baby-step stages of this “easy bus” transition, but I AM doing it, and it IS working. Repeatedly, I have felt emotions to the core, and then, within seconds, or at least minutes, those emotions have been transmuted to peace and joy.
Deep gratitude swells in my heart as I really do feel that magical rebirth – the metaphors coming from so many directions – telling me that I am finally allowing my blockages to melt away, finally beginning to trust Higher Energies to help me in ways beyond imagination.
A year ago, I was just beginning to enter an intense growth phase – one where I was agonizingly triggered through challenges that felt as if I were being beaten down, again and again, under an advancing wave. Every time I healed and came up for air, another wave came out of nowhere and pushed me back to the bottom for another round of growth.
This year, I feel myself stepping through the entry gates to a magical, gentle growth phase – one of transitioning more completely onto the “easy bus” and possibly the “magic bus.” But regardless of what may be in store in this magical journey, one thing is certain. I am no longer fighting my process. I have found my surfboard, attached the safety strap to my wrist, managed to climb on top of the wave of light (at least for now), and am learning to surf. I will likely fall off a few times here and there, but hey, that is part of the fun.
… to be continued …
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved