Note: This is a continuation from my previous blog titled, “Engendering Compassion And Trust.”
After the ceremony on Wednesday, I continue to twirl around in an inner dance of newfound joy. I truly am overflowing with self-love, compassion, and trust. This beautiful energy continues throughout the next morning as I prepare for another chocolate ceremony – a smaller workgroup gathering on Thursday afternoon, January 17, 2013.
In the middle of a long and beautiful silent meditation, I note with interest that I feel a persistent, slightly painful pressure on my third-eye chakra, in the center of my forehead, just above the eyebrows.
“All right then, let’s do some work … who would like some guidance?” Keith finally interrupts the peaceful silence.
When Keith almost immediately glances in my direction, I speak up, mentioning the pressure in my forehead.
“It feels like stuckness in my third-eye chakra,” I explain to Keith. “I am in my inner conference room, trying to connect with it, but am not making much progress. Do you have any suggestions on how to work with it?”
“What comes up when you go there?” Keith asks me to feel the metaphors a little deeper.
“It is fear … fear of opening,” I begin to share. “There is a very deep need to protect … a terror of opening. I know that I shut this down for a reason …”
Keith encourages me to keep following this flow of metaphors, and begins to guide me with it. Suddenly a group of new people arrive on the porch. Then, one of Keith’s construction workers down in the yard comes up and asks Keith about a new drill bit – a metaphor that Keith points out with a giggle. Then, as we again start to work, there are more distractions that interrupt us.
“I’m noting with deep interest the continuous level of distractions that suddenly began when you started to work with me,” I tell Keith. “I know that I manifested this to derail me in some way.”
“Go with that,” Keith suggests as he soon moves on to help someone else.
Aspects Of self
As I ponder the events, I realize that a very strong part of me is repeatedly attempting to distract me from making any serious progress in the area of further opening my third-eye chakra. As I begin to ponder how to work with this energy, Keith momentarily glances my way, and I use the opportunity to speak.
“Keith,” I ask for confirmation. “It feels like I should I treat this distraction energy like an aspect of self. Would you agree?”
“Absolutely,” Keith responds with a grin.
Early on in my inner work with Keith two and a half years ago, I began to understand that I have many loyal parts, or aspects, of my own energy, faithfully performing various inner jobs on my behalf. I have frequently worked with these inner aspects in a magical and metaphorical way, working with them directly, seeing them as conscious, sentient beings that I love very much – as deeply trusted energetic aspects of myself that I put in charge of extremely important functions to help me survive in the conditioned world in which I myself was still asleep.
Now that I am beginning to awaken, some of the jobs that these loyal energies are performing are no longer necessary. In fact, they are still trying to protect me from opening, desperately and faithfully trying to keep my magic shut down to outside energies, etc. After decades of performing their trusted tasks, these energies feel abandoned and ignored by me, yet they continue to loyally and diligently carry out their tasks.
In this particular case, I clearly recognize that I have an inner energy that I once placed in charge of keeping my third-eye chakra shut down. As a tiny child, my third-eye magic got me into a great deal of trouble, plus I now understand that this is one of the main places in my body where I empathically sucked in the emotional pains of others. It hurt profoundly, and keeping this chakra shut down was crucial during those sleeping years.
An Abandoned Child
I soon imagine myself sitting in my metaphorical inner conference room, inviting this aspect of my energy to please join me at the table. As I visualize this scenario, I feel intense distraction energy on the inside. I cannot focus. I cannot feel the other being’s presence.
I just giggle, because I realize that based on what I am experiencing, this aspect of self has definitely joined me … and is doing his or her job extremely well.
Old instincts tell me I should see this energy as a rebellious external enemy that is not cooperating or helping me – an enemy that refuses to comply with my current needs and that is still trying to hurt and suppress my third-eye magic in a cruel, vindictive way.
But rather than judge in any way, I attempt to focus loving energy toward this inner distraction, admiring this aspect of me as a profoundly loyal part of me, faithfully keeping me safe – keeping me distracted from the magic that got me into so much trouble as a child.
I imagine myself as a parent who asked a child to perform a very important task, and who then abandoned the child for decades. As I finally reconnect with this child – a child still doing exactly what I asked him to do – it makes no sense to be angry with the child. I am the one who did the abandoning. The child most likely feels extremely betrayed, sad, and alone, all the while loyally and faithfully continuing to perform his job.
But even with all of my rational-mind understanding of what is going on, I still cannot find genuine compassion for this faithful aspect of my self. I continue to want to “fix” what is happening by trying to parent this child – a child that is ignoring me.
A Compassionate Leader
Finally, after unsuccessfully playing with this metaphor for a half hour, I intuitively recall my two magical experiences with Steven – energetic connections that engendered deep compassion and trust.
“I want to see this inner energy with that same profound level of compassion and trust,” I ponder with new clarity.
Immediately, I imagine this energy as having a face, and I briefly use Steven’s face as a beginning point to jump-start the process. This shift in visualization makes all the difference. Suddenly I have a magical new perspective, imagining this aspect-of-self as possessing deep love and compassion, being energetically gifted, magically powerful, and divinely connected.
“This aspect of me really is someone that I profoundly trust to keep me safe,” I ponder the flowing emotions of this new intuitive image.
Soon, with a newly established heart connection, I ask this loyal aspect of me to begin connecting to our Higher Self – learning about our ongoing healing and considering the possibility of a promotion to a more fun job – considering the option of helping us to safely open our magic rather than the unrewarding task of keeping us shut down. But I stop short of suggesting what that new job should be, instead asking this aspect of self to work that out directly with our Higher Self, in a way that would be win-win for all of us.
It is my job to be a loving and compassionate leader for this loyal part of me, not a know-it-all dictator.
Allow And Surrender
As I enjoy the high energy of this meditation, I begin to feel a sense of impatience, wondering how long it might take before this aspect of me takes a new job. I realize that I am not trusting and not fully believing that it will happen. Intuitions quickly remind me of several meditations that Keith has recently guided – meditations in which I learned to trust and understand that such things as this ongoing work with Higher Self can happen in a different dimension, outside of linear space and time.
“Why am I waiting,” I ponder with a giggle. “This whole process is already complete in that dimension. I have already expressed my intentions. I can simply get out of the way, drop attempts to monitor and control, and instead just allow and surrender, with complete trust that there is nothing more that I need to do.”
“And if there is something I do need to know or do,” I slip into a place of peaceful trust, “then that awareness will be given to me intuitively, or Keith will say something, etc.”
For the remainder of the ceremony, I relax, imagining Higher Energies working on me while I keep my eyes closed, blindly trusting with no need to know – all the while feeling magical things happening inside. One visual that helps in this area is that of imagining myself standing with my eyes closed while an indigenous shaman works on me with an incense burner, smudging me with the smoke of sacred copal incense while I simply surrender, having no idea where the energies will touch me next.
A Mutually-Beneficial Script
At one point, I interrupt my process in a brief attempt to assist someone else. A young woman is expressing that she feels deeply buried anger, but that she refuses to go into that anger, saying she was taught that it was wrong and hurtful to others to express such anger.
I speak up with genuine intent, attempting to help her know that it is safe to express her anger in this environment, letting her know that such anger needs to be felt to the core so that it can be transmuted. Because of her strong refusal to go there, I gently suggest that she might try punching a pillow to help it surface.
The young woman soon expresses deep annoyance at me as she stands up and protests to Keith that she feels as if I am trying to “fix” her.
I take a look inside to question what I have been doing, and I clearly see that there was no fixing intended. I have no idea how she or others perceived my encouragement, but I clearly see that her reaction has nothing to do with me. I perceive that she is just projecting some of that anger at me, because she is unable to access it any other way.
I giggle inside with loving confidence. I have no idea what the “truth” is from anyone else’s perspective, but I do not need to know. I was coming from my heart, in a place of pure and genuine space holding, encouraging but not pushing, gently coaching about possibilities, but doing nothing more.
“I am playing the other end of her anger script,” I ponder with clarity. “My side of the script was to be rejected … and WOW … I did not take it personally. It was a beautiful manifestation for me, showing me that I now have enough self-love and compassion that I do not judge myself in any way, even when seemingly rejected.”
I giggle again a while later when this young woman looks up from her pouting. We make eye contact and exchange a genuine grin with each other. She has figured out her role in the script … and expresses to Keith that what she just played out with me is something that she does indeed play out with others.
A Magical Realization
As the ceremony concludes, I remain on my pillow, grinning inside from ear to ear. I have more confidence today than I remember having in a very long time. I have spoken up and shared loving feedback without fear of rejection. I am in a state of magical surrender, trust, allowing, allowing, allowing … and did I say allowing? Increasingly, I am learning to stay out of my head with energy work.
Today has indeed been a delightful day of inner expansion. While working with my third eye and my distraction / resistance, I felt a great deal of softening. It is not something that can be quantified with logic or measurement, but something did shift, and I built a great deal of trust in this process. It is a work in progress, and I know that everything is moving along in perfect order … that I can be transparent and unattached to the timing because I am filled with trust.
I hang around for an extra half hour, exchanging deep hugs with those who also just do not want to leave. I walk back into town with three new friends. Joy fills my heart as I realize that I do want to be more social … that I really enjoy interracting with like-minded people … yet I do not judge myself because I also want to have alone time in the evenings.
This is a magical realization. I used to feel a tiny bit guilty and self-judging in my desire to have quiet time to rest after a ceremony … in not wanting to go out and socialize over dinner etc. I wondered if I was socially defective for wanting to isolate. Now, in my Higher Energy state, I realize that I really enjoy both social time and being alone … and I choose to be alone after six hours of deep inner work.
“There is nothing wrong with this at all,” I giggle as I close my patio door for a quiet evening of integration.
Magical Beginnings
And early Friday morning I am very social as I help a friend move her belongings (storing some in my apartment) in preparation for her flying to California.
After playing with some potential problems on my computer all morning, I cannot help but giggle as I later sit on a porch filled with twenty-seven people in what I perceive as a very stuck energy.
I begin the ceremony in a magical heart space, literally almost giggling. I feel the joyful energy inside, dancing from my heart to the top of my head, with some tentative softness in my forehead. The lower chakras, on the other hand, feel quite stuck today. It is like two different worlds. My top half is vibrating off the planet, and my bottom half is quite heavy and dense, almost lifeless as far as energies go.
This is quite the interesting place to be. I literally want to giggle and laugh in my happy heart as I observe the inner and external stuckness from a state of complete non-attachment.
I want to send some of this love to my lower chakras, but make no attempt to control or fix. I simply imagine the magical, giggling energies that I feel as helping to hold space for the rest of me.
Profoundly Peaked Interest
As the “glow meditation” concludes, I feel tight sharp pains around the bottom of my rib cage. A while later, intense pains form a line from my rib cage downward, stretching through the center of my abdomen.
A friend feeling similar pains speaks up and asks Keith to help her understand if she is reading the energy of others.
“I feel like the pains I feel are also from reading energy,” I ask Keith for feedback.
“Yes,” Keith confirms, “you are both reading energy. There is a very stuck energy on the porch today and you are both feeling it.
As Keith works around the porch, there is almost no emotion expressed, and very little participation, especially from first time people.
Several times during the first hour, Keith comments about how strange the ceremony is today, mentioning how the level of stuckness is off the charts. I perceive that he makes these comments, partly to point out what is happening, and partly to solicit feedback from those who have been here before so that new people will know that what is happening today is not a normal occurrence.
“Yeah,” I respond to Keith after one of his comments. “I have never seen a ceremony quite this stuck.”
My interest is profoundly peaked. When something this strange happens, I automatically begin to ponder why I might have created and/or manifested it – wondering what magical lesson I can learn from what is taking place.
Insane Guilt
As I search for the hidden treasure in what is occurring, the joy and giggles in my heart seem to increase, as do the pains that I experience in the lower chakras.
I begin to feel quite confused by the overwhelming contrast, wondering how I can be so happy while feeling so much pain. I clearly know that the pain is not mine, and that I am reading it from others, yet I begin to feel guilty for not delving into it to explore it. The pain is so profoundly real that rational-mind logic tells me it must be my own – that it is my duty to dumpster dive to the bottom of the pain so that I can heal it. I feel an innate sense of obligation, condemning me with the responsibility of handling all of this pain in my own body, on the hard bus. I happily smile for now, just ignoring this head logic.
The experience is quite mind-boggling and eye opening; showing me, in a new magical way, how a large portion of the emotional trauma I have felt in my life was likely inhaled and internalized from other people.
“Am I missing something?” I soon ask Keith in regards to the insane guilt that I feel for not processing this as my own.
“I’m getting that you are quite clear,” Keith responds with confidence, “but I do suggest that you focus on exploring that guilt.”
As I ponder, it is obvious that such insane guilt has plagued me throughout my life. Guilt defined me, and I believed that I deserved to feel guilty. In fact, in retrospect I clearly see that this guilt caused me to focus inward, learning to heal the emotions of others by healing them inside of me. I thought they were mine, that I deserved to feel them, and that I was obligated to heal them. I really was helping others by being an emotional garbage dump, and then slowly processing through the sewers. It was the hard way to learn.
Childhood Compassion
“I feel as if these energies are attacking me,” The other woman reading these pains so deeply soon expresses her confusion to Keith. “I feel like I need to push these energies away. This is helping me to profoundly realize that this is what I experienced as a tiny child.”
I completely relate as I listen to my friend’s words. I too feel profound compassion for my self as a child.
Reading But Not Eating
I feel as if I am being totally “made crazy.” My heart remains happy and giggling. Beautiful energy continues to flow in the top half of my body. But now, I feel as if I were literally stabbed all over my abdomen, from the ribs down … and I feel like a weight belt is tightly wrapped around my solar plexus, squeezing, pinching, and holding me down.
My abdomen is consumed in hopeless agony. It is the most empath pain I have ever felt while simultaneously basking in the magical awareness that the pain is not even my own.
I continue to love the pain with beautiful inner giggles and smiles, while a sense of conditioned guilt (for not processing the agonizing pain) continues to knock on my door.
By now, my abdomen is twitching intensely, mostly on the sides. I have never experienced such bizarre sensations before. The density is not solid, it is moving around, and even with the pain being so agonizing and intense, there is something very different and almost relaxing.
I clearly understand that I am NOT eating this pain but am only reading it; I am NOT storing the emotional density inside of me as I have done for most of my life; and I do NOT believe it to be my own.
A True Story
As Keith works with yet another magical empath, who is now also reading excruciating pains, I find the work deeply empowering to my process. Keith helps her to understand how she felt like a loser for most of her life because she unknowingly attracted people to dump their emotional crap all over her – and then she believed herself to be dysfunctional and broken – that she was the world’s biggest loser.
When I nod my head with a giggling sigh of agreement, Keith turns to me and asks me to share an experience of my own about how I used to suck such pains from a former friend.
“About ten years ago, I had a friend who used to call me at work about twice per week,” I begin my story. “She lived a few hours away, and had a lot of trauma and drama in her life, and I was the only person she could talk to me, so she frequently called me to unload her pain.”
“During those intense one or two hour conversations,” I continue, “my friend would literally talk so loud that I had to hold the receiver a foot from my ear so that it would not hurt my eardrums. Meanwhile, I listened lovingly and patiently, because I wanted to be a good loving friend … I knew the pain was not about me … and I knew I had some type of capacity to help her.”
“When the conversation was over,” I finish my story, “she would be all giggly and bubbly, happily thanking me for helping her to feel so much better. Once I hung up the phone, I was so confused because I literally felt like crap, and it took me a few days to recover. I was depressed, nonfunctional at work, and needed to isolate to recharge.”
“As I look back on this experience with even more awareness, I clearly see that I was eating her emotional garbage. I felt like a total loser after such conversations. I was happy that I had helped, but was deeply confused by why I felt so much emotional pain inside of me after hanging up the phone.”
Empath Reflections
As I finish my story, I ponder with profound hindsight, how I have often done the same type of empath eating, over and over again, with many people … with family, work environments, and friends. But I never understood what I was doing, and always believed that any emotion I felt was my own. I struggled with depression, frequently isolated myself, played the piano, engaged in mind-numbing repetitive physical activities, and watched a lot of television, all in an attempt to recover from the confusing emotion – emotion that made me feel like a dysfunctional loser. I inaccurately attributed all of the pain to my teenage social nightmare, and to my struggles with gender.
Countless times, I have had a confusing and clear awareness that when I am around people, especially close friends, that other people start to feel better, that I can help them to let go of pain and to be happy again – that somehow my presence and energy was all that was needed. A few people told me I had a gift, but I would never let myself talk about it, or believe it, because it felt like ego … believing that what I experienced could not possibly be real.
“No wonder I felt so betrayed as a child,” I ponder. “I continually acted with a pure and innocent heart, trying to do what was right, but over and over again I kept getting slammed with intense emotions that I unknowingly consumed and internalized as an empath. I literally felt as if I was the winner of the world’s biggest loser contest.”
Betrayal Understandings
Another realization soon flows into awareness.
“Wow … much of the betrayal energy I have felt during my life was not even my own,” I ponder with shock. “Especially with my friend ten years ago, It is so clear that she was always feeling deeply betrayed by this person or that. When she unloaded onto me, I took in that betrayal emotion as my own, adding to and strengthening my own sense of betrayal.”
“Yet, by taking in that betrayal energy,” I smile as I ponder the paradox, “I felt doubly betrayed because the act of bringing any external emotion into my body hurt and made me feel betrayed by Higher Energies (at a subconscious level).”
I soon call a meeting in my inner conference room, inviting the Higher Selves of all of the people in my life who have deeply triggered my betrayal energy. In deep meditation, I ask each person to take back any of the betrayal energy, still in me, that belongs to them.
I am delighted when this meditation is over, because I feel considerably lighter. In fact, all of the physical pain I felt earlier is gone, and peace consumes my entire body.
Finding Trust, Releasing Guilt
When the ceremony ends, I am giggling from head to toe. I hang around with a group of magical souls who linger, visit, and hug, and then eventually walk part of the way home with two magical young women with whom I am developing a kindred bond.
I am so grateful for my new social manifestations … and for people who are showing deep gratitude to me for my presence and support in their processes as well.
After the first two friends go their own way, I bump into another young woman who is deeply struggling from the emotions of an experience that she manifested during the ceremony. I hold high vibration space, giving a little inspired and loving advice, but not owning any responsibility to help her. I am filled with a deep trust that she is perfect where she is at … that she is in a magical process of her own … and that the only thing I need to do is encourage her to trust and love herself with gentle compassion, giving herself permission to do what she already knows she needs (and wants) to do.
As we stand at the bottom of my gate, I really giggle inside when I do not invite her upstairs to do her processing with me. I am filled with so much trust that I know this is something she needs to do by herself – and I love myself for not feeling guilty or obligated to sacrifice my evening in a way that would not serve either one of us.
“Wow, I love not feeling obligated to take on someone else’s pain,” I giggle as I cook dinner. “This is all so opposite my journey from last year, and I so love the peace I feel.”
Magical Metaphors
Early Saturday morning, a dog barks nonstop outside my window for at least thirty minutes. Finally, I focus on returning to the giggling self-love and compassion that I felt in the ceremony yesterday, opening up to the birth of an energy more magical than ever before. As soon as I reach this state, the dog runs away.
It is only appropriate that I spend the rest of the day writing a blog titled, “Celebrating Rebirth,” and then later that same evening I learn that another of my children is expecting a new baby. The metaphors just keep lining up in unbelievable ways.
Higher Energy Giggling
Sunday afternoon, January 20, 2013, I am already in a beautiful energy, even before I drink chocolate. As I sit waiting for the “Glow Meditation” to begin, I experience a delightful dancing energy twirling around in my entire spine, pleasurably tickling my fancy in magical ways. Repeated energetic shivers and goose-bump-like energy cause me to glow brightly on the inside.
“Brenda, you will notice…” Keith interrupts his introductory comments to speak to me.
I immediately open my eyes, stop what I am doing, and turn to look at Keith.
“No,” Keith smiles at me. “Go back to what you were doing … you will notice that you are now in a place where you are almost giggling with Higher Energies.”
I smile and thank Keith for noticing. I spend the first hour basking in this energy.
A Profound Epiphany
As Keith conducts an empath training, my inner giggle continues, but I also note that my third-eye is again feeling pressure and my solar plexus suddenly swells with overwhelming pain. As before, I maintain delightful energy while observing this painful inner metaphor without attachment.
Soon, as part of the training, Keith talks about how many people have love hooked as being equivalent to eating garbage, or to experiencing pain, depending on the age when their empath magic began to manifest.
“I have love hooked to feeling betrayed,” I ponder again with clarity.
Suddenly, a profound epiphany of understanding hits me.
It was around the end of 2000 when I was magically beginning to open up to profound love from various sources. I was dating a man that I thought I might marry, my family situation was delightful, I was again participating in my old religion with hopes of deep acceptance, I found beautiful new friends, and even opened a business with one of them.
In the midst of all of that magical loving experience, as I basked in the energy of finally arriving at real love, my world suddenly fell apart with what I perceived as intense betrayal in nearly all of these areas of my life – sometimes in multiple ways. It was more betrayal than I had ever experienced, happening from numerous sources all at the same time.
“Wow,” I ponder with shock. “It looks like this is profoundly true for me. I have a lifelong journey with repressed God-drama betrayal stuff, and when I began to open to more light and love in my life, then that stuff all manifested in extremely painful ways – in ways that nearly broke my heart in an excruciating drawn-out healing journey.”
An Obvious Obscure Metaphor
As I ponder this epiphany, that nail-in-my-heart spot suddenly returns with a sharp pain. I do not connect the dots at first, even though I clearly know that when this metaphor first appeared during my early inner work a year or two ago, it clearly represented the feeling of being betrayed and crucified (nail in the heart) in the name of religion and God.
Treating this center-of-my-heart pain as something new, I attempt to go inside to feel it more deeply, believing it to be emotional density that can be transmuted.
But I CANNOT feel it. Finally, I express my confusion to Keith and ask for his help.
“I’m wondering if I need to work with this pain as an aspect of self rather than as an emotional density,” I ask for guidance. “Any suggestions?”
“I’m getting that this is something different,” Keith responds. “Go sit with it … find out what it is about.”
I resist Keith’s guidance because I want a quick fix … but I ignore that “ego hook” and genuinely go inside to ponder for a few minutes.
“I’m getting that it is fear,” I finally share with Keith.” Like a voice saying, “NO, NO, NO, we don’t want to open our heart any more than we already have.””
Still not connecting the dots, I then backtrack and bring Keith up to date on my epiphany of deep understanding regarding how many beautiful loving experiences in late 2000 had ended up manifesting as intense betrayal experiences.
“Brenda,” Keith smiles back at me, “you just answered your own question.”
“Duh,” I giggle back with a hand on my forehead, “In the last week and a half, I just opened up to massive amounts of light and love. The pain in my heart is now getting my “betrayal attention” saying it is terrified that I am going to get slammed again if I open to any more love.”
Heart Transparency
As Keith quickly moves on, I take the fear into my inner conference room. I cannot connect, and make no progress.
I try to work with it in several other obvious ways. Still not working…
Then I decide to visualize this fear as having a beautiful face … the face of one of my dear friends who has had her own experiences of fearing more love. As I visualize my own friend in her fear, I feel profound love and compassion for her … and for my own inner fear energy. Just as the “distraction energy” from a few days ago, this fear is a profoundly loyal part of me, trying to warn me that it is terrified to open to more “love-equals-betrayal” realities.
Still the pain does not diminish, so I follow more intuitions. One by one, I visualize all of the people that I perceived as betraying me during the last ten years, plus a couple from the previous decade.
Energetically holding the metaphorical hand of this fearful part of me – with my dear friend’s face still lovingly representing the fear – I bring each of these “betrayers” forward.
“See,” I tell this terrorized heart-fear, “this is a person that we once perceived as betraying us. But now, we have so much pure self-love and compassion, that no matter what this person did or might still do, they can no longer have any effect on us, none whatsoever. In fact, we are so transparent now that we could even hug them with pure love, and their energy could no longer affect our connection with Higher Energies.”
I love the sense of peaceful calm that gradually consumes me as I review each of these past nightmares, realizing that they are indeed healed, that they cannot touch me now, and that similar situations would no longer find a piece of Velcro onto which they could stick.
At one point, with one of my betrayal actors, I feel guided to try to quietly laugh out loud, remembering that when I try to laugh, that if there is any buried pain just beneath the surface, that the laughter often triggers it to come up and out. As I do so, a few short bursts of emotional release rage through me, lasting a few seconds each. Each time, I return to a feeling of even Higher Love.
When I finish this process, all the pain at the nail-in-my-heart spot is gone, and I experience delightful-but-prickly tingles of energy migrating to the front of my throat. The metaphor clearly tells me that something new in my throat chakra is now beginning to open or upgrade in some way. I do not even attempt to understand. I just love the feeling.
Newfound Power
I sit in this beautiful space for the remainder of the ceremony. Near the end, an older man looks at me, gets my attention and motions that he would like to hold little Bobby-bear.
“No,” I quietly nod my head side to side, not actually speaking.
I initially feel a little guilt for not sharing, but I am not particularly connected to this man’s energy, and I quickly realize that what I just did was actually very empowering to my heart.
“I have had a lifelong belief that it was wrong not to share, even if that sharing was a direct violation of my sacred personal space,” I ponder with deep insight. “I bought that belief from my mother, and it is a belief that I will now give back to her.”
“Bobby is me,” I giggle silently. “I do not give my inner child away, and I do not let just anyone affect his energy. I will not sacrifice my inner connection just because someone else wants to use him.”
Wow, this empowering realization is extremely symbolic. As I ponder the newfound power, I quickly experience another sensation of slight energetic upgrade, this time in my abdomen.
No Drama Required
In a small workgroup chocolate ceremony on Monday afternoon, January 21, 2013, I am delighted when only fifteen people fill the porch, allowing for more personal work with those present. As we get underway, I focus on holding a Higher Energy space for others, but feel confused by my unexpected inability to find that magical, joyful energy inside of me.
I am close to that state, but it is fleeting and eludes me.
I observe as a woman in the corner does deep release work, with Keith guiding her to do it on the easy bus.
Then I learn something quite profound as the other woman who was unable to express her anger a few days ago, is again facing the same issue. I know better than to say anything to her, so I sit back and observe Keith as he works with her in an unexpected way.
I did not believe it possible to release the anger without first externally expressing the emotion in some way, at least enough to get in touch with it. But Keith guides her to do it in a magical way, with no external drama required. In the meditation, Keith has my friend meditatively connect with the anger, and then imagine herself throwing the anger at a Higher Being, first with her hands, and later with metaphorical buckets filled with the putrid anger. I love learning yet another easy-bus technique – seeing it in action.
A Fading Heart
But at this point, the ceremony takes a bizarre turn. This person is projecting onto that person, and the discussion turns into nonstop rational mind discussion about surface level spiritual topics. I find myself feeling a tiny bit judgment toward people who do not yet grasp the rules surrounding the concept of “nothing changes until you do” – and toward those still wanting to debate behavior and actions at the level that created them.
I observe this head-level chatter as it goes on and on. It is a discussion of spiritual topics, but all at the rational-mind level. I continue to find loving energy inside as I observe with deep interest – especially after the long lecture Keith gave to the porch just a week ago, one about “not doing stories.” Last week, I clearly figured out that I was the inner storyteller, and I now begin to search for new insights surrounding storytelling and rational-mind talk in general.
Many people join in the discussions and Keith just feeds right into it. With this observation in mind, I take the hint that something profound is unfolding for me.
“I previously figured out that my inner storyteller massively disempowers me,” I ponder with clarity, “but I am now noticing how this conversation is draining me as well.”
I begin to struggle with maintaining my energy, so I disconnect and go inside, making a concerted effort to remain in balance.
I clearly understand that some people are learning a great deal in this discussion. Not too long ago, I would have likely thrived in such a conversation about spiritual topics. But today, I find myself feeling as if all the talking is pulling out the magical plug that feeds power to my heart.
Feminine Heart Pain
I take this deeper in meditation. This type of rational-mind communication is all I have known for most of my life. It has felt normal, and comfortable. I was in the left-brain and that was all I knew.
Lately, I have been swimming in the shallow end of the right brain, getting profound glimpses of the magic that awaits me as I further connect with my heart and feminine magic.
“It is like the feminine side of me is finally waking up, and she hates the masculine side of me for all of the left-brain storytelling I have done throughout my life,” I ponder with clarity.
The deeper I go, the more emotion surfaces around this issue. In my present state, I actually “emotionally hurt” at some level as I listen to the talking of others. I am tired of the talking … I want to feel connected in the heart, and nothing else matters to me.
Tears bubble and emotions swell as I ponder this deep longing to remain connected to the feminine heart. I literally feel as if each external word is a dagger, wounding my heart connection. I clearly know that I need the left brain as a partner, but right now, the heart hates the head, the feminine despises the masculine.
I begin to work with this pain solely from the perspective of the feminine, putting a “betrayer’s” face on an imagined masculine energy. This does not work.
Soon, I again imagine Steven’s face as the temporary representative of healed masculine energy. Suddenly, the betrayal and anger take on a new understanding as I begin to see my masculine side through the eyes of emotional purity and divine innocence, with love and compassion rather than anger and resentment.
One by one, I visualize various stages of my masculine self, from child to adult. With each, I focus on the purity and innocence, feeling a great deal of loving emotion as I surrender to several layers of intense emotional release, each lasting only a few seconds.
Feminine Betrayal
Suddenly, I feel as if I were kicked in the gut. Deep pain consumes my abdomen, as an empty aching tells me something is missing – that my wind was knocked out.
I again return to the metaphor of a Higher Being who once showed me how I felt kicked in the gut by my mother’s energy during my childhood shutdown process. I also recognize my mother’s energy in that process as being dominantly masculine.
“My feminine side feels deeply betrayed and kicked in the gut by my mother’s masculine energy,” I ponder with clarity.
As I did with the masculine side, I work with little Sharon / Brenda at various ages of my life. Gradually, I reach a state of reaffirming my feminine purity and innocence at each age, recognizing that at every stage of my life, both the masculine and feminine sides always did the best they could with the most genuine of loving intentions.
Finally, I attempt to imagine adult Bobby and Brenda holding hands. I sense that they are barely able to tolerate each other’s company, but each is feeling a large amount of self-love – each acknowledges that they did the best they knew how.
This is as far as I get in the meditation – but for me, this is huge, much further than I have ever achieved in the past.
My meditation is interrupted at around 3:00 p.m. when Keith taps me on the shoulder and asks how I am doing.
“This has been my own personalized ceremony,” I respond to Keith with a giggle, quickly filling him in on how everything has served me.
“I have been doing individual work with both my masculine and feminine sides,” I then add. “I have been feeling their betrayal and bringing in self love.”
“I am really messed up in there,” I suddenly blurt out as a small wave of tears stream down my cheeks. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“No,” Keith responds with compassion, “I’m getting that you are not missing anything … and that you are doing really well. You are realizing that for each of these energies, you are the one that can help them to find healing, self-love, and compassion.”
Childhood Anguish
I begin to sink deeper into meditation, but then a nearby woman starts to crowd my space. I feel invaded as she shares story after story while simultaneously bumping into me. In fact, the entire porch is now engaged in continuous question and answer mode with Keith. I giggle in frustration as I continue to explore my creation.
In this “create-my-reality exploration,” I see that this conversation is useful for others, being exactly what they need. And it is profoundly valuable to me. I am learning first-hand how I continue to struggle and give away my heart-connectedness to such environments.
“I want to go back into my heart again,” my hurting feminine side cries out in loud silence. “I don’t want to hear all of this head talk, and me-too stories at the surface level.”
“This is another level of what happened to me in childhood.” I suddenly ponder with clarity. “When I was very young, I had that magical heart connection. But, after all of the constant surface-level storytelling of those around me, I was incapable of maintaining that Higher Energy space. Finally, I just gave up in hopelessness and frustration.”
Right now, in this ceremony, I feel this agonizing scenario so profoundly that I realize I have literally regressed to childhood. Every word that I hear seems to stab me with anxiety as I struggle to maintain a fading heart connection.
I am determined to hang on till the end of the ceremony, but as most of the women leave, with only four or five men remaining, all of which are engaged in vibrant discussion, I recognize that I will get no more insights today – that I have already been given a magical gift of understanding. I have experienced yet another way in which my magic was unknowingly trampled at a very young age.
I grab my stuff, wave to Keith with a grin on my face and walk down to the lake to meditate in peace. But when I get there, two men are talking loudly, one of them beating forcefully on a drum – not exactly the heart space I was looking for. As I walk home, it seems that I am being overwhelmed by non-heart images … drummers here and there, a trash fire somewhere in town drenching my home in thick residual smoke, loud noise in the basketball court, and extremely noisy neighbors.
I am craving my heart connection. I feel empty and drained, and the inner storytellers are now busy creating more distraction.
I have never been more connected to the actual anguish of a magic child who was not allowed to remain connected to her heart.
Return To Joy
Normally, at the end of a long chocolate ceremony, I want to disconnect and lose myself in something different, like perhaps a movie. But at this moment, I crave nothing more than to meditate and to regain the magical Higher Energy dance that had filled me through most of this week.
I quickly isolate myself in my bedroom, and spend twenty minutes in the dark.
Almost immediately, a delightful shivering, dancing energy fills me as sharp tingles (new energy opening) shower the back of my neck at the base. Never before, have I felt so much new energy in this location … on the receptive side of my throat chakra … the chakra where expression of self, creativity, and truth are key.
The message comes in loud and clear. My self-expression was deeply restricted because of the rational mind chatter that dominated my life. It is now finally beginning to open up on the feminine, receptive side.
“As a child,” I ponder, “my genuine expression was rejected as alien and wrong. I empathically felt the pain of other people’s judgment and I shut it all down … I blocked myself … just to survive … desperately trying to conform and fit in.”
I engage in a short round of forced laughter, which as expected, pulls me into a few layers of deep dry-heaving emotional release – short layers of a few seconds, followed by transmutation by the light.
But I still do not feel joyful again. Following a hunch, I ask for the joy to come back. After allowing another quick layer of emotional release, I begin to feel some of that joy.
“Wow,” I giggle with relief. “This really is an inside job, and this true joy is only found through a direct connection to Source. No one else can give it to me, and no one else can take it from me. I only lost it today because I fell into an old pattern – one that taught me how I have always given away my energy and power to bombardments of rational minded discussion.”
Centuries To Learn
After finally reconnecting with glimpses of delightful energy, I attempt to watch an evening movie, but exhaustion consumes me. By 8:00 p.m., I am in bed, but I cannot relax. My heart is racing, and I feel as if I am in a panic attack again. I quickly return to meditation, pondering the inner belief that more love means more betrayal and problems … recognizing that part of me is still quite fearful of further opening my heart connections. I meditate through the panic, returning to High Energy, and soon fall fast asleep.
Tuesday, as I spend a magical day writing a blog titled, “Learning To Surf,” I cannot help but giggle again as I recognize the profound synchronicity. Here I am writing about the first time when I finally trusted myself to stay on the easy-bus surfboard for an extended ride – writing about an experience where I learned to allow emotions to come up, feel them deeply for a few seconds, and then allow them to be transmuted by the light, letting them go as if by magic (and it is).
Later that evening, I watch the movie “Star Trek Insurrection.” The movie takes place on a remote planet, where the people have learned many magical things. One particular quote from the movie jumps out at me as Captain Picard is talking to a woman who just made time slow down. When he asks her long it took to learn how to do that, she shares what for me is an unexpected answer.
“It took us centuries to learn that it doesn’t have to take centuries,” She responds with a smile.
I realize that for me it has taken decades, followed by two years of intense inner work, to finally learn that it doesn’t have to take decades, or even years, to learn to trust Higher Energies. Nevertheless, I totally trust my own path, remaining deeply grateful for everything I have learned along the way. I will indeed be able to use what I have learned, and continue to learn.
Happy, Giggling, And Magically Connected
It has been another magical week, with deep understanding into the heart-strangling power of storytelling, both inside and out.
The journey included a profound exploration into inner masculine and feminine energies, involving significant healing and insights into childhood.
Repeatedly, I gained ever-deepening understanding into the nature of reality creation, and I learned a profound respect for new ways to work with aspects of self, doing so with genuine love and compassion.
And in unimaginable ways, I have acquired a deep experiential understanding into another layer of the surprising nature of my empath abilities. Never before have I had such clarity as to the patterns throughout my life – as to just how much I have suffered from the physically agonizing emotional pains taken in from others. I believed my emotional nightmares to be the result of my own depressing and dysfunctional loser-self – and I struggled to heal everything I took in from others, all by myself.
Yes, my empath gifts often continue to function on blind autopilot, from a semi-negative polarity, as I still work on releasing more of the blocks that cause me to struggle with this magic. But never in my life have I so profoundly experienced such clarity as to the nature of my emotional sensitivity– and what happened to me as a child.
But the most fun part of all is that I learned it IS possible (and even fun) to be happy, giggling, and magically connected to Higher Energies, while at the same time reading the intense emotional pain of others. In this training phase of my journey, the overwhelming level of pain was actually part of the magic – showing me in undeniable ways just what was happening. I expect that one day soon, using such magic will be much easier, even effortless … increasingly filled with magical, joyful giggles.
… to be continued …
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved