More than four months have passed since I wrote my last blog, titled “Anticipating Magic,” which I published on June 25, 2013. At the time, I had every intention to continue writing, but within a few days of that date, my life took a new and dramatic shift and I followed intuitive feelings that pulled me in a very different direction.
For a couple of years now, my level of writing has felt overwhelming to me. But I continued to push myself forward because inner passions demanded that I do so. I never lost sight of the fact that I was NOT writing for others … but was writing for my own healing and integration. Anything else was simply an afterthought. Every blog I wrote brought huge self-insight and closure to often-painful emotional processing, helping me maintain a sense of pseudo-sanity in a mind-boggling, heart-throbbing journey through a profoundly emotional past.
Even so, I have often felt guidance that it would soon be time to shift my writing style – to share fewer words with the world, and to spend more time in the heart-side of my journey.
It seems that external events made this transition quite obvious as the final days of June, 2013 entered the history books. But I am getting ahead of myself. I still need to write about the events leading up to that experience.
As I finally feel a renewed passion to return to the keyboard, going back five months in time, I do so with a simplified style. I still want to capture the details for myself, recording my saga for my own healing, but I hope to accomplish this task in a summary style that will remind me of my own journey, while no longer needing to share every element of each step.
A Surprise Gift
I left off my writing with the second-to-last chocolate ceremony of the 2012-2013 season. It was a beautiful experience that left me feeling passionate, anticipating the magic of working toward a loving reunion between masculine and feminine sides of my inner reality.
The last San Marcos chocolate ceremony of the season took place on Sunday, May 26, 2013. To my unexpected delight, as we prepared to begin this final meditative journey (which for me may very well be my last with Keith), thirty eight people crowd the porch – most of them here because they too want to experience one more adventure with chocolate before Keith sets of on an extensive European tour.
To my delight, a dear friend and her five year old daughter show up right as the ceremony is about to begin. The young girl shyly smiles as she hands me a wrapped gift. Giggles fill my heart as I peel back the paper to discover a darling little girl doll – one that I immediately know will serve as the feminine side of my inner child – little Bobby’s magical other side. I could have no idea at the time just how perfectly timed this gift would be. Later I learn that the young girl felt strongly guided to give me her precious doll because she had recently seen me share little Bobby-bear with another friend who was in her process, right here on the porch.
Joy Hooked With Evil
During this final chocolate ceremony, I experience a repeat of recent intense pains, accompanied by panic attack and shaking in my belly. But in many ways the pain is different from other times. Somehow, today, I recognize the pains as having a healing component to them. I manage to maintain a very high energy in this ceremony in spite of what are intensely overwhelming abdominal pains. It takes all of my focus to NOT identify with the pains – to remember that they are old emotional energies that need to come up so they can be released. Rather than judge what I experience, I see it as a beautiful, much needed process of release.
During several of Keith’s guided meditations, I feel my inner emotional energy increase. I participate in the meditations as best I can, but it is all I can do to simply sit with my own journey. My agitated belly shakes and demands my attention.
Finally, I take little Bobby-bear, and my newly gifted Brenda-doll and I place them on my legs in front of me. Suddenly, I feel a minor surge of emotional energy release from my field and I begin to giggle out loud as something funny occurs elsewhere on the porch. Immediately I bend over in a wave of intense emotional release, gasping for air as I push through sobs and dry heaves. As the tears settle, I look into the eyes of little Bobby-bear and Brenda-doll, still sitting on my legs. I see their glowing smiles and the glimmer in their eyes. I force myself to try to smile back. But my belly continues to shake with panic and terror. It is a bizarre state – a physical panic attack in my belly, while at the same time I am now entering a high-vibration, radiant, peaceful, smiling energy from the heart up.
In a later conversation with Keith, I beg for guidance on what might be going on inside of me. Keith points out something that I have known before, but the conversation brings new clarity. Deep inside of me, I have joy and spontaneity somehow hooked as being equivalent to evil – and that when I embrace my joy I am, at a subconscious level, literally going against this core belief, triggering intense inner dissonance and anxiety.
Intense But Beautiful
As I scurry home from this final ceremony with Keith, I experience what feels like PTSD symptoms as I struggle to rebalance myself from an intense emotional journey. It is another evening of bagging chocolate. I bump into a few people on my way home, hugging and thanking each one. As one magical young man hugs me, I burst into a new round of sobs. I quickly reassure my friend that I am in a beautiful space, and that I am merely going through intense and powerful bursts of emotional release mixed with huge growth.
Later that evening, as I finally prepare for bed, I do indeed feel a profound difference. I let go of a huge amount of emotion today and I feel very different inside. New hope and budding joy seem to be knocking on my door, and I am much closer to flinging that door wide open.
Beautiful Closure
The final few days of May bring beautiful closure. I continue writing, integrating, and engaging in renewed socialization with a few closer friends.
On Tuesday, Keith stops by my house to exchange computer files. In this unexpected and very healing visit, Keith and I have a deep conversation in which I find much closure. These last three years have been among the most intense of my life. They have taken me on roller coaster rides through some of my worst emotional nightmares, repeatedly taking the lid off one “Pandora’s box” after another. At times, I have gotten lost in those old stories and emotions, and frequently have projected the intensity of my pain onto Keith and others – unknowingly blaming him for the emotions that I felt, even though I knew at the core that he simply helped me find the courage to lift the frightening lids to my own repressed agonies. One of the most profound lessons I have learned in the last three years is that if I feel any emotion, that it is not anyone else’s fault. That emotion is inside of me, and always stems from past pain that is begging to surface and release.
“Keith,” I tell him, “I am so sorry for all of the projecting I have done onto you in the last couple of years. It has been intense, but I am so grateful for all the growth I have gone through.”
“It has been a pleasure working with you,” Keith reassures me in his own genuine sincerity.
As Keith returns to his home, I overflow with deep gratitude for my journeys on his porch – for the agonizing emotional traumas that have resurfaced, and for the amazing higher-dimension experiences that have healed every one of them. Deep inside I truly feel that I will not be back next year … that I am likely done with this chapter of my life … and that as I move on, the things I have learned here will profoundly guide my steps in the future.
On Wednesday, I spend most of the day having an amazing visit with friends – first Brianne, later Sufi, and then an evening of bagging yet-another three-hundred pounds of freshly ground cacao – an evening where I again have the opportunity to express more gratitude to Keith for his patience in my often-insane healing journey.
The Best Closure Of All
But perhaps the most important closure of all comes when Catherine stops at my door on Thursday morning. She is running an errand for Keith, but in my heart, I see the perfection of our face-to-face encounter – the first such off-the-porch encounter in a very long time. In a moment of pure forgiveness and genuine heart-based connection, I thank her for our sacred shared journey – for the intense triggers we have sparked in each other. In spite of our massive personality clashes, we both acknowledge that at some higher dimension we definitely had agreements to play these often-quite-painful roles for each other.
The huge tearful hugs we then share are worth thousands of words. Somehow, all of the pain her presence has triggered in me during the last year is now worth it – and I believe that she sees the same truth in the buttons I have pushed in her.
My Precious
Friday (the final day of May), after another magical closure-filled visit with friends, including seeing Keith off on his shuttle to Antigua, I go to lunch with Sufi. We have the most magical talk that evolves into giggling metaphors based on “The Lord Of The Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien.
As we discuss our intense journey with God/separation drama, I suddenly realize that my inner emotional densities, and my subconscious anger toward it all, are like “The Ring” in this trilogy. The longer I carry this ring, the more hypnotized I have become in my life, getting lost in the burden of carrying this intense pain-body energy. I have carried these childhood wounds, emotions, stories, and patterns for so long that they seem like my obligated destiny – I am bogged down and struggling to move forward under their extreme weight, ready to collapse under their heaviness, overcome by the emotional moods that they represent.
But the God/separation drama is profoundly illustrated as Frodo (me) finally reaches the ledge above the fiery lava of Mount Doom. His (my) quest is finally over. All he needs to do is throw the ring (emotional stuff) into the churning fire below. But at the last minute, the hypnotic effect of the ring (density) is so intense that he suddenly refuses to let it go.
It is “My Precious” as Gollum and others like to say.
This is so profoundly illustrative of how I now see the God Drama. I have indeed carried all of my emotional stories for so long that I crave them; I cling to them and find it extremely difficult to fathom letting them go, even when I am right there at the brink ready to do so. No wonder my core issues are so hard to release. I identify with them so much. They have become such a part of my identity that letting go of them and embracing the light is one of the most frightening things I can do.
Gulliver’s Ropes
With Keith on his travels, I begin June with a renewed passion for catching up on my writing. But this time, my writing is much more flexible as I also frequently honor interruptions with random events and socializing.
During one such interruption, I do my own private ceremony with Sufi, drinking chocolate and engaging in a magical “Subconscious Book of Beliefs” meditation, journeying deep into my inner reality – searching for healing in my confusing “joy equals evil” pattern.
I find little “Bobby” at my side as I go deep, sliding down fireman poles, winding down spiral staircases, pushing the down button on elevators, exploring hallways, and finally finding a door that leads to the subconscious. Soon, I stand in front of a metaphorical door labeled “Joy.” Once Bobby and I unlock and remove the chains that block this door, we hold hands and step inside.
The journey is quite profound as I explore this room. It is a joyful place that has been chained and dark for more than five decades. I imagine myself opening blinds and windows, discovering a magical view of mountains on one side and beach on the other.
Suddenly, I sense myself as a “Gulliver”-like being, lying on the floor of this room, tied down with hundreds of ropes stretched over me, staking me to the floor, keeping me immobile and stuck. The images are quite clear as the intuitions unfold. Each of these metaphorical ropes represents some of the life conditioning that restricts my joy and spontaneous behavior, forbidding me from stepping out of the box, labeling spontaneity as evil, blah, blah, blah.
I bring in my inner children and begin imagining them cutting the ropes, one by one. As we do so, some ropes dissolve, and others re-form, refusing to go away. I then invite thousands of metaphorical angels to assist in the process. The meditation is quite powerful, bringing magical insights and growth, yet I clearly recognize that this is an ongoing healing journey with each of those restrictive ropes.
Noisy Neighbor Nightmares
After waking up in beautiful magical energy, Monday, June 3, brings the arrival of new and very noisy apartment neighbors. As I again go into deep contemplation as to why I continue to manifest such situations, I suddenly receive a burst of new inspiration.
Every time this has happened in the past, I have tried to analyze and fix myself – trying to find and heal the triggers in me that are so annoyed by such noisy surroundings. Today, I suddenly realize a lesson that has been a long time in coming. The solution is now obvious. Rather than fight my reaction to the noise, for the first time in my life I actually need to allow myself to feel and process the intense angry emotions that are surfacing because of the noise – the very emotions that spiritual ego insists I must fix and repress because they are not proper.
Soon, I allow myself to feel what is surfacing, cycling between sobs and dry heaving, alternating between the sobs and bringing in beautiful light, transmuting one layer after another.
It does not take long before I realize that this noise is intimately related to my “joy-equals-evil” hook. It seems that I see joy and spontaneity as being rowdy, out-of-the-box, frivolous, irreverent, noisy, and disrespectful of others, and that the only proper expression of happy emotions is to do so quietly and reverently.
“What a crock of bologna,” I tell myself with a sheepish grin. “I have repressed my joyful behavior for fifty years because I did not want to disturb the peace of others.”
But as I meditatively contemplate releasing these up-tight self-imposed restrictions, I suddenly find myself standing at the edge of the lava in Mount Doom, refusing to let go of “My Precious” ring. Somehow, I am terrified to let go of the “reverence restraints.” They are an all-too-familiar and very safe hiding place. If I actually let them go, I will find myself noisily giggling with joy, and then I might disturb others. I might get slammed and rejected and disciplined, ad-infinitum.
Oh what a crazy world this inner work reveals.
After nearly an hour of repeatedly feeling layer after layer of sobs and dry heaving – overwhelming layers – I feel intense pains flaring up in my belly. Gradually, realizing that these pains are the actual repressed emotions surfacing on their way out, I allow and relax, trusting the painful process. Soon, the pains are gone, and another new wave of lightness fills my heart and soul.
Healthy Masculine Healing
After continued processing with Sufi, followed by more similar journeys over the next few days, I randomly find myself listening to the music of Josh Groban, singing “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)”. To my shock, the music resonates deeply, triggering intense waves of “I am not loveable” emotions to erupt and release. It soon becomes quite clear that all of my “noise” triggers are ultimately related to again feeling that the only way to earn and deserve love is to repress my joy, squash my spontaneity, and to be a people-pleasing robot who obeys every rule and dictate in an effort to be worthy of the praise of others.
Somehow this process, including the magical masculine presence of Josh Groban’s voice, causes me to embrace my healthy masculine side, to own it, to invite it into my heart, and to do deep inner healing in the direction of bringing healthy balance with this masculine and the feminine forces within me.
I am quite clear that this healed masculine energy is NOT the same as the distorted, contorted, ego-filled, controlling masculine energy that so often has dominated my life. This masculine energy is loving, gentle, strong, and space-holding.
This integration process takes me in a new direction. I do not engage in the process with mental knowing or understanding. I mostly just allow myself to feel and NOT understand what is happening. It is only later that most of the insights evolve.
You Are Loved
Before continuing, I want to include the words to this beautiful song – words that touched me so deeply during this intense healing journey.
You Are Loved
Performed by: Josh Groban
Don’t give up
It’s just the weight of the world
When your heart’s heavy
I … I will lift it for you
Don’t give up
Because you want to be heard
If silence keeps you
I … I will break it for you
Everybody wants to be understood
Well I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don’t give up
Because you are loved
Don’t give up
It’s just the hurt that you hide
When you’re lost inside
I … I will be there to find you
Don’t give up
Because you want to burn bright
If darkness blinds you
I … I will shine to guide you
Everybody wants to be understood
Well I can hear you
Everybody wants to be loved
Don’t give up
Because you are loved
You are loved
Don’t give up
It’s just the weight of the world
Don’t give up
Everyone needs to be heard
You are loved
Magical Synchronicities
I can only giggle on Thursday morning when I realize that my noisy neighbors have unexpectedly moved out. They came with perfect timing to trigger this noise/self-love process, and the moment I found full healing and closure, they vanished into their own future. I love how the flow of synchronicities continues to evolve.
Soon, I find myself checking emails and glowing as I read a new quote from “Oneness” by Rasha. I love it so much that I want to share it here. (It is quote #145 from Rasha’s email series.)
“To act upon the guidance offered by another being, regardless of how gifted they may claim to be, is to make a statement, vibrationally, that valid information is unavailable to you directly. And therefore so it is. You have not come to this experience you call your life in order to have another being, with a questionable degree of visionary skill, make your key choices for you. Ultimately, the choices you put into action must be your own choices if they are to yield the level of results you would wish them to.”
Again, I am profoundly reminded that my whole journey is to empower me, to teach me to trust only my own inner compass, to listen to others but to only integrate what resonates with my own heart.
Pondering Changes
Friday, June 7, 2013 is the beginning of what will eventually become a new chapter in my journey. But before I share the details I must go back in time to describe the foundational framework that gradually inspired this decision.
Early in my travels, back in August of 2009, a dear friend in Playa Del Carmen (across from Cozumel in Mexico) told me about her friend who had spent a long time working with Shamans and a plant medicine in Peru – a medicine plant called Ayahuasca. I was intrigued by my friend’s sharing as she told me how much amazing emotional growth her friend had gone through via the assistance of this Peruvian journey. But at the same time I was overwhelmed by internal resistance demanding that this is too “out there” and too “outside of my box” and “I will NEVER do this myself.”
“After all,” I pondered in fright. “What might my family and friends think of such things? I might be rejected and disowned, etc…”
Since that time, as I continued my journey, I repeatedly and synchronously encountered person after person, roommate after roommate, who had personal experiences with Ayahuasca. Each time I found myself overcome with curiosity and a need to learn and understand about their experiences. Each time I felt a strong curiosity, but I continued to reject that option in my journey. Spiritual ego insisted that I was going to complete my healing journey with chocolate as my only partner.
Finally, in the spring of this year (2013), my inner draw continually increased. As I went through profound healing this year, I became progressively more aware that deep below the emotional blocks that I have already healed, there are frightening vaults of core childhood pain – suicidal pain – hopeless pain – and every time I approach this pain, I get lost and retreat in fear. Inside I began to feel a longing to work with a plant medicine that would help me move beyond my resistance, beyond my fears. I love cacao’s gentle door-opening guidance and facilitation, but my heart whispers that I need something that will take my hand and safely take me into those places – the places that I still run away from.
Synchronous Manifestations
In late April, after a particularly painful chocolate ceremony (one in which I projected onto and angrily argued with Keith), I found myself sitting in my own living room with my friend Sufi. As I licked my wounds and meditated into healing light, I shared my unfolding insights with Sufi.
“For a long time I have wanted to try Ayahuasca,” I tell Sufi, “but I have refused to do so, mostly out of fear of what others might think. But I just now realized that if I ignore all of that fear, my heart really feels joyful at the thought of pursuing this path … at least to try Ayahuasca and to get an experience that may or may not bring me more clarity as to future direction.”
My ponderings of that evening put the manifestation machine in motion. And to my delight, all of the puzzle pieces seemed to effortlessly fall into place. Sufi had an amazing Shaman friend in Chiapas, Mexico. Ongoing exchanges of emails revealed that the shaman just happened to have a tiny supply of Ayahuasca, just enough for four people (Sufi, myself, his assistant, and himself). He was currently traveling in other places, but at precisely the time when both Sufi and I needed to do visa runs to Mexico, he would be back at his home base.
Diving Deep
After a long day of travel on Friday, June 7, 2013, Sufi and I arrive at our destination. The next evening we are gathered in a small retreat center outside of town. The energy of the room is magical as we prepare to begin.
Tonight, the Ayahuasca is served in three smaller doses. Not long after the first dose, as the young assistant sings a beautiful motherly song, inner guidance suddenly takes me on a journey with my mother. The repressed emotion that immediately surfaces comes in a physical form, causing intense nausea and a round of purging my stomach contents. It makes no sense to rational mind – none at all – but I know and profoundly feel that what leaves me is not really physical at all. What leaves me in the form of vomiting is actually a putrid layer of repressed emotional agony that I have carried since birth. I cannot explain or justify any of this with logic. I simply know it because I clearly feel it. Once the vomiting is over, I immediately experience more light, joy, and clarity.
After the second dose another intense layer of nausea surfaces. Again, I magically understand that it is an emotional nausea – something that wants to leave. But it is stuck. I want it out, yet intuitions tell me that this is another “Ring” – another “My Precious” – more emotion that a part of me clings to and refuses to release. Finally, with the help of beautiful music played by the shaman and his assistant, I find the willpower to let go of this next layer. Peace immediately radiates through my whole being.
It is the third dose that brings the most amazing results. Deep in the journey, I suddenly experience my own caesarian birth in a vague visual and profound inner-knowing way. In agony, I experience the emotions of myself as a newborn, being violently cut out of my mother’s belly and quickly isolated in a cold and sterile hospital bassinette, after which I am whisked away and separated from my mother for most of the next two weeks. I feel the intense anger, the separation, the aloneness, and the betrayal of arriving in a cold and frightening world only to regret it all.
But again, with the aide of Mother Ayahuasca and a beautiful angelic song sung by the shaman’s assistant, I suddenly realize that I am literally surrounded by countless angels, loving me, invisibly supporting me throughout the experience. It is profoundly clear that I was never alone at the moment of my birth – that I was magically supported by angelic dimensions through the entire frightening and traumatizing journey.
Overwhelming Love
With this realization profoundly implanted on my soul, I cling to little Bobby bear, squeezing him tightly to my chest, imagining him as being “me” in that hospital delivery room.
I sob and sob and sob. The emotions are overwhelming and intense, but these are positive emotions. For the first time in my life, I am feeling an undeniable and overpowering flow of pure, sweet, angelic, unconditional love, and I am actually allowing myself to receive it. As the magical love flows in, sadness and fear release at the same time. Most of the sobbing is related to feeling the sadness at having never before felt this love, while at the same time bathing in it, cherishing it, healing in its embrace.
This experience seems to go on for hours. Simultaneously, in a way that seems perfectly normal at the time, I literally observe my emotions float out of me and drift into some type of geometric, psychedelic, musical contraption that simply absorbs and transmutes what I am able to release.
Finally, the shaman, his assistant, and even Sufi, all join in extended music and song to help me return to the world of smiling and giggling.
It is magical and profound. In a powerful state of knowing, there is no doubt that this healing is real and significant. I am alive and radiating joy, gratitude, and pure love.
Sometime in the wee hours of Sunday morning, we officially end the ceremony and begin to simply rest on the floor of the ceremonial space. I am so alive and enthralled by what I am experiencing that I do not want to sleep. Instead, I meditate, effortlessly experiencing dream-like visuals in my waking state, doing so until well after sunrise.
It is after 10:00 a.m. when we finally close the ceremonial space, cleanup, and return to the nearby city.
In my heart, I know that I have a deep connection with this magical Amazonian plant medicine and with the Ayahuasca spirit herself. I do not know when, but I know I will meet her again, probably quite soon.
Another insight is also very clear. In a variety of ways, many aspects of my experience were quite similar to a cacao ceremony on steroids. During the journey, I repeatedly found myself feeling profoundly grateful for my extensive inner-work skills that I developed during three years of working with Keith and cacao. Now, more clearly than ever before, I understand just how much I have really learned during this long and often agonizing journey.
A Tooth Setup
The beautiful energy endures for many days after returning to my home in Guatemala. For the most part, I simply do nothing but bask in the peaceful glow. But another journey is rapidly unfolding.
This journey began seven months earlier, while visiting Utah in November 2012. As I enjoyed a hot juicy steak with a friend, I suddenly experienced extreme sensitivity to the heat. Two different molars in my mouth began to shriek with pain – one on the bottom right and one on the bottom left. Immediately I remembered a root canal I had in Guatemala, just a few months earlier. Intuitions quickly whispered to just ignore the pain for now – telling me that I could take care of it when I get back to Guatemala. I would only be in Utah for a few weeks, and there would not be time to do the work in that tiny and very busy window.
Upon returning to Guatemala, the pains continued, but every time I considered going to a local dentist, very clear guidance told me otherwise.
“Just wait and do it later,” the guidance repeatedly reassured me. “You can take care of this dental work after Keith begins to travel. Doing the work now will interfere with the inner work that needs to take place.”
In retrospect, it was indeed a magical year on Keith’s porch, and I clearly see how the amount of dental work I eventually needed to do would have interfered with my process in massive ways.
Another strong inner guidance reassures me repeatedly that the dental work is part of my process, and that I need to stay put, right here in Guatemala, for as long as it takes.
On Friday, June 14, I went to the dentist (I will call her Maria) and had my first root canal. After telling Maria which tooth was hurting, she checked an x-ray and told me that she believed it was actually the adjacent tooth, because under that tooth was a large cavity that went down into the root. We began the root canal process on that tooth, on that very day.
On a follow-up visit three days later (preparing for the crown), I explained that I was quite concerned. I was still experiencing considerable pain in the other tooth, even though it looked fine in the x-ray. She listened to me, but we both decided to give it more time to see if the pain goes away.
Suicidal Swamp Revisited
For the next ten days, I manage to continue to write blogs here and there, but my time is increasingly consumed by necessary interim visits to my dentist Maria, and by extensive inner work that starts to surface. It seems that the same suicidal hopelessness that haunted me last summer and fall has again begun to resurface. On Tuesday, June 18, I experience my first round of deep sobbing, suicidal sadness, and hopeless stuckness.
But something is quite different this year. In the fall of 2012, I became entrenched and lost in that suicidal emotion. In my pain, I had identified and believed the emotion to be me. I struggled NOT to blame Keith and others for making me feel it, and I nearly drowned in those murky waters.
But this year, as the emotions surface again and again, I see them with new clarity. Yes, they are still overwhelmingly intense. But now, I realize that these emotions have been repressed inside of me for more than four or five decades. They are not being caused by outside events; they are simply surfacing from the past so that they can be healed. As I feel them, I now understand that they are on their way out. And I DO have to feel them or they cannot be transmuted.
Even so, each time I feel them, I continue to struggle with maintaining perspective. The feelings are so strong that intense focus is required to remember the truth that the emotions are simply old stuff coming up to get my attention. Somehow, with the assistance of my magical friend Sufi, I manage to transmute every layer that surfaces throughout the summer, and I do so without becoming extensively lost … and without projecting blame onto others. In retrospect, even though I would not wish this experience on anyone, I clearly recognize this journey as one of the most profound and eye opening adventures of my journey to date.
It is only later when I begin to realize that I have repeatedly felt these emotions throughout my life – but every time they began to surface, I had run away from them. I never allowed myself to have idle time because it was during those periods of doing nothing that I began to go crazy with the emotion. Instead, I did yard work, remodeling, volunteering, travel, television, socializing, movies – whatever – all with the result being that I distracted myself from feeling what was really inside me, pushing it back down to be dealt with later.
During the intense times last fall, I had no such distractions. I forced myself into meditative retreat. It was only then, actually having to face what was inside of me, that I began to drown in the slimy swamp of those putrid emotions.
This year, as I begin the dental work saga, the swamp again begins to form. In many ways, the journey is just as intense as last year. But this year, I have extensive experience and trust in working with the light. Things are still frightening, but I am much more hopeful.
A Journey With Pain
In the last two weeks of June, these emotions repeatedly surface, and I continue to heal layer after layer. During this time, I write many blogs, finally publishing my final blog entry, “Anticipating Magic,” on the evening of Tuesday, June 25, 2013.
On Thursday, my bottom back molar on the right side is again quite painful, and I convince my dentist to fill a small cavity in that tooth – one that she can barely see on the x-ray. That evening, the tooth increasingly begins to hurt.
By Saturday, I am in emotional meltdown. As I wake up, I am completely unable to function. My right jaw, ear, and forehead are aching in agony. Angry emotions of victimization rage through me. I do not trust what is happening with my tooth. The pain in that bottom right molar is exponentially increasing and raw. Suicidal depression again attempts to consume me.
After meditating, I manage to get a little sleep that night, but on Sunday morning, the pain is back with a vengeance. After Sufi channels a little guidance for me, I go back to a state of deep trust and spend the entire day meditating, finding great peaceful relief, filling with new hope.
I am learning profound new lessons in trust and surrender. In the past, the pain that I feel now would have caused me to rush to the emergency room. In the present, I am meditating it all into nonexistence. I am intuitively clear that all of my dental pain is related to past emotional trauma that has been repeatedly repressed throughout my life. I have a very long journey with hating my teeth, and all of this pain is now surfacing.
Lightning And Raw Nerves
After another intense pain-modifying meditation on Sunday evening, I wake up on Monday morning, July 1, 2013 in a state of sheer shock.
As I bite down, and my top and bottom teeth touch each other, I experience what feels like lightning raging into that bottom back molar – like actual electrical shocks shooting into raw open nerves. Never before in my life have I experienced pain like this.
But I try to remain trusting, optimistic, and in good spirits, attempting to meditate the pain away. But today, the pain does not dissolve or vanish. During the day, I begin to freak out with fear, medicating myself with Ibuprofen, distracting myself in any way I can. Tomorrow I have another appointment with Maria. I can somehow survive until then. Throughout the day, I attempt to focus on trust and self-love and compassion – knowing that all of this is happening for a reason.
During the night, I wake up at 1:00 a.m., again in extreme pain. Rather than fight the experience, I go into deep meditation, journeying through life issues, tracing the pain back to childhood, repeatedly returning to self-love and compassion. During this several-hour journey, I access deep and intense emotional release, recognizing how I have repeatedly been the perpetrator, abusing myself, my own inner child, hating parts of me, and filling myself with this heavy emotion. In many ways, I continue to abuse my inner child, even today.
A Fun Root Canal – NOT
Tuesday morning, as I show up at my dentist office for a scheduled appointment, I beg Maria to do another x-ray of the tooth, telling her of my painful saga. Still seeing nothing on the x-ray, she decides to trust me. As she numbs my jaw and opens up the tooth, she discovers that two of the four roots in that right-rear molar are dead and infected. But the worst part is what happens next.
For whatever reason, the numbing agent she uses does not seem to work on this particular tooth. Repeatedly, she injects me with more and more Novocain, but it does not help. Throughout the next hour, as she drills and cleans out each of the four roots, I literally feel everything.
I have a very high tolerance for pain, but during this procedure, tears stream down my cheeks, and my body constantly jumps and shakes as muffled sobs and whimpers abound. With all my will, I focus on love while trying to remain in my heart. In all my life, I have never felt anything so traumatizing and painful. Time after time, I just keep reminding myself that the pain is nearly over. Repeatedly, Maria apologizes for the trauma that she is inflicting on me.
As I later board the boat headed back to San Marcos, I continue to shake in shock and Post-Traumatic Stress. Over the next few hours, each time I attempt to tell a friend about my experience, I break down into intense emotional release.
Magical Highlights
In spite of the pain, I know – I deeply know – that all is perfect, and that what is happening is a profound and necessary part of my particular journey, and that what is needed on my part is self-love, compassion, trust, surrender, and gentleness with self.
I know that this seeming-trauma is making it possible for me to access repressed emotions that have been buried beneath decades of avoidance. Over the weeks and months that follow, meditations bring up layer after layer of intense emotional release and healing.
For the next two months I end up going to the dentist on the average of two or three times per week. I have a very difficult time chewing, so my diet is soft and gentle. I clearly recognize that one benefit of the journey is also to help me relax a lifetime of jaw clenching.
A highlight in the journey is that on one day when I was partially coherent, I did an interview regarding my journey with chocolate, sharing and remembering all the magical growth of my previous three years. That interview was published in an online magazine called “Ignite.me” and can be found at: http://ignite.me/articles/consciousness/chocolate-as-a-spiritual-partner-interview-with-cacao-ceremony-shaman-and-participant/.
Another highlight is that I am synchronously gifted with a copy of Paulo Coelho’s book “Aleph” – and am inspired to read it. The book profoundly awakens parts of me that absolutely know it is time for me to resume my travels, to awaken my passion for following my heart in new directions. Even so, I strongly know that patience is the key, and that the guidance will come precisely when it does, and not before.
In addition, I begin to use this downtime as an opportunity to begin doing my own self-created version of yoga stretching, focusing on the many areas of my body that are tightly locked – areas that often trigger anxiety if I begin to relax them.
And even though the dental recovery is so slow that I feel no capacity to write, I do find the time and energy to spend several days finally catching up on long-overdue photo postings on my blog.
But perhaps the best perk of all is that I deeply strengthen my already-magical friendship with Sufi as I rely on her deep channeling capabilities to repeatedly guide me into trusting and surrendering to what I already know inside me. Repeatedly, throughout July, Sufi and I drink chocolate together, and we hold powerful space for each other as we each go into our own respective deep, agonizing emotional journeys.
A Dental Marathon
By late-July, as the pain of this second root canal (and ongoing procedures) begins to heal, I notice that I am also experiencing many other pains throughout my mouth.
It is during a dental appointment on Friday, July 19, when the work of my second crown is nearly complete, that I ask my dentist to fill a cavity on a top back tooth on the right side. To our mutual shock, as she opens up the cavity (and she gets a mirror and shows me), the cavity has no bottom. It is huge and goes right down into the root of this tooth. Because of limited appointment time (and not expecting to need another root canal), Maria only partially completes the procedure, leaving the rest for our next appointment.
Meanwhile, Sufi and I drink chocolate together on both Saturday and Sunday. I am blown away by the deep issues that continue to surface in my own inner journey. Combined with the dental work, the emotional processing leaves me exhausted.
But it is on Tuesday, July 23, 2013, that the dental marathon week begins. On this day, we finish the root canal that Maria began on Friday.
I have asked Maria to replace all of my mercury fillings with non-metal ones. The problem is that my x-rays show that under each of these very old fillings, there are extended cavities that look as if they may go into the roots.
On Wednesday, we begin the first of those filling replacements. Sure enough, the cavity does run into the root, and we end up doing the second root canal of the week.
On Thursday, I am already prepared for doing the third root canal in three days – the bottom back molar on my left side. I have been putting this tooth off until now. It is the other one that began hurting last November. But I did not want to touch it until the molar on my right side was healed enough that could chew and still eat. This left-side tooth is in the same relative position as the one on the right – the one that caused such excruciating agony because the numbing agent did not work. This time I insist that Maria block the back nerve even more deeply. I still feel considerable pain, but I am able to tolerate it without the resulting PTSD symptoms.
On Friday, as Maria begins to replace a filling on my upper left side, it ends up requiring yet another root canal. And we are not done yet. We are both aware that there is one more tooth to do, and it too shows suspicious issues on the x-rays. I am anxious to get it all over with, but I give in to Maria’s suggestion that I should give myself a break and wait a few days.
On And On And On
The emotional and physical exhaustion is more than I can bear. Over the weekend, Sufi and I drink chocolate and I continue to trust, surrender, and process the frequent emotions that surface – in this case, doing so with such intensity that I briefly get lost in my pain. In my state of emotional burnout, a few triggers take place, and I find myself projecting that pain all over Sufi … nearly ruining a friendship. Luckily, we both understand the bigger picture of what we are doing, and resume our friendship within a few days.
Monday, July 29, 2013, I return to the dentist for another replacement filling and end up having my fifth root canal in a week. (Yes, the last mercury filling had another big hole under it.)
I am so emotionally and physically exhausted that I do something I rarely do. I log on to Facebook and make an appeal to friends and family to please send me loving healing energy. I am tired, drained, and at the end of my capacity to function.
But the dentist appointments are not yet over. I spend the final days of July, and most of August returning to Maria’s office two or three times each week, doing molds for crowns, testing the fit of crowns, grinding crowns to make them fit (low quality Guatemalan labs), sending crowns back to the lab in Xela to get polished again, and then finally gluing them in my mouth.
To my shock, however, another unexpected problem arises. With the back molars on each side, the teeth had been missing for so long that Maria had to burn away new growth in the gums. Otherwise, the crowns would no longer fit. After this burning process, several more weeks of painful healing are required before the crowns can be glued into place. It is almost a comedy act, except that I know that everything is perfect. All that is happening is causing me to trust, to surrender, and to do more inner work while patiently waiting for guidance.
In the meantime, while hoping for that guidance, I begin to research possible places in Peru that I might go – looking for something to jump out at me with passion.
Tying Up Loose Ends
Having still not finished my teeth, and receiving no concrete guidance by early September, I make arrangements for my visa to be renewed for another three months (using a renewal service across the lake).
August has been an incredible ride of deep inner work. It seems that I have literally revisited every core issue that I have processed on Keith’s porch over the last three years, often doing so multiple times, each time going deeper into the repressed layers of what feel like endless levels. It is increasingly obvious that deep inner resistance and emotional blocks continue to prevent me from going as deeply as I know I need to go. Core issues seem unreachable, and continue to influence my ability to function.
One day, in early September, old emotions are again flowing. Suddenly I realize that in all my processing, I have continued to reject these emotions as not being worthy of a spiritual seeker, and I have not really let myself go into them.
“I have to go into these emotions and let myself actually feel them,” I eventually conclude.
The journey is intense, but I finally complete another level of “graduation” with my processing. I actually give myself permission to feel anger and judgment toward certain people onto whom I have massively triggered in my life. The resultant emotional release processes are again intense, but more healing than I could possibly have imagined.
It is in the middle of the second week of September that I finally finish my dental work, and also pick up my renewed passport. Many loose ends are now tied up and I feel ready to move forward – yet the guidance is still not quite coming. I trust and surrender to the uncertainty … soon paying yet another month of rent.
Ongoing Training
I thought I was done with the deep emotional processing, but mid September brings new, additional layers with ever increasing intensity. It seems I am still on a path where I am continually learning to do my processing with the assistance of higher dimensional energies. The process remains intense, but I am now moving things within an hour or two – things that literally might have taken years in the past.
After enjoying a fun Guatemalan Independence Day celebration, the rest of September proves to be equally intense. Yet I clearly recognize the power of what I am doing.
This period is also a time where I finally feel capable of reaching out socially and actually making new friends here in San Marcos. I am delighted when the opportunities manifest easily, and over the course of a few weeks, I suddenly have several new friends with whom I feel a deep connection. I love how synchronous my process continues to be.
Even with all the growth, the layers of emotion seem to surface and release at exponentially increasing rates – often briefly overwhelming me before I remember who I really am – and remember how to detach, not-identify, allow, trust, surrender, and let the Higher Energies assist. Magically, every time I that I manage to return to the light, the emotional layer finally just vanishes. I am receiving huge training here.
Ceremonial Preparations
In October, another Ayahuasca opportunity unexpectedly manifests into my life. A local woman who has her own deep connection with this plant medicine has acquired enough to put together a small ceremony – and both Sufi and I will be participating.
To my surprise, with the energy of the ceremony approaching, I find myself overwhelmed with abdominal pains and cleansing. As physically unpleasant as the experience is, I know in my heart that it is all profoundly synchronous, preparing me to release as much as possible before this next ceremony. After more than a week of intensity, I finally return to stability and sleeping at night – giving me a few days of feel-good rest before actually engaging in the ceremony.
After an incredibly emotional energy session with an inspired local healer, I participate in a self-forgiveness ceremony with those of us who are drinking Ayahuasca on the next night (October 18). I end up writing six pages of ways that I continue to hate and abuse myself, forgiving myself for those behaviors, burning the list in a fire, and sobbing as I do so. The whole experience is magical and therapeutic. I now feel ready for the Ayahuasca itself.
Contrasting Ceremonies
In June, up in Mexico, I experienced one of the most beautiful ceremonial environments I could possibly ever imagine. In some ways, I feel as if I were spoiled by the quality of the shaman, by his amazing assistant, and by the incredible live music that they created for us. It was one of the most loving experiences I could have imagined.
As I sit in this ceremony in October, I realize I am in precisely the opposite environment. I love the people present, but as I drink my Ayahuasca and sink into my experience, I quickly reach a point where I feel pulled further and further into the journey. But deep fear surfaces at the same time. As I look at our ceremony leader to see if she can support me, I see that she is lost in her own journey, and does not seem to be paying any attention at all to the rest of us. Even more annoying is that she is playing the same annoying chanting music on her computer, in repeat loops. There is no personal attention at all.
Immediately, I feel deep anger and rage surfacing inside of me. Amazingly, I catch myself and recognize the profound synchronous nature of what is happening. I clearly own that the anger I feel is ancient repressed anger from childhood – or possibly even past lives. I clearly own that this is MY anger and that it is IN ME. It is NOT external, and is not caused by this ceremony. I have come so incredibly far in my inner work journey that I actually see this entire disastrous ceremony as PERFECT – exactly what I need for the next step of my growth.
I use the trigger to go incredibly deep. It is one of the most miserable experiences of my life. I literally vomit for several hours, nearly non-stop. Yet as the saga unfolds, I am profoundly aware that I am actually vomiting out putrid, core emotional blocks that have weighted me down since birth. With each purge I feel the inner pain-body energies fighting back, not wanting to leave. With each purge, I feel myself clinging to “My Precious” ring – my treasured dysfunction. With each purge I require at least twenty minutes of soul-searching to find the willpower to own the fact that a huge part of me really does not want to let this energy go. Finally, after intense processing I am able to purge the energy layer and feel relief. But then, less than five minutes later, another layer of heavy, nausea-inducing energy surfaces.
By midnight, I am so miserable that I am whimpering in agony, exhausted and weak – yet fully aware of the massive power of what I am doing – fully determined to continue.
Magical Energizing Relief
It is around 1:00 a.m. that I am finally able to relax with no more intense layers surfacing. In an attempt to rest, I recline on my mattress and try to sleep, yet so much energy has moved, and so much agitation is taking place in my emotional body that I cannot relax. I spend the next ten hours pretending to rest, but am unable to relax or sleep in any way.
It is only at 11:00 a.m. on the next day, in continued exhaustion, after an unexpected burst of sobbing tears, that I am finally able to bring in light. To my delight, almost instantly, I am filled with the most magical, joyful, energizing energy.
Now, rather than exhaustion, I feel more alive than I have ever felt. I clearly recognize that I have let go of core stuff that I did not even know was inside me. I feel profoundly different. These layers of underlying anger and depression have literally vanished. A magical sense of optimism permeates my soul, and because I had to do the work all by myself I experience a state of huge self-empowerment.
Even after such intense emotional processing and literally no sleep at all, I am wide awake and energized all day long on this second day.
A New Chapter
Three days after the ceremony on Monday, October 21, 2013, I continue to feel profoundly happy and energized. Guidance and enthusiasm flow through me, and I feel strongly inspired that now is the time to make plans for the future. I have done lots of research in the past, but none of it has gelled until this moment.
Suddenly, on this Monday morning, I clearly know that it is time to buy plane tickets, traveling back to Utah for a few weeks, then flying out of Los Angeles to Lima, Peru on December 8. I am so inspired and confident that I even buy the plane tickets before I make any arrangements for a retreat.
Later, in an exchange of emails, I make arrangements to begin a three-month retreat deep in the jungles of the upper Amazon basin, a couple of hours travel away from civilization. If all goes well, I will begin the retreat on January 18. 2014.
I have no idea where this will lead me. I can only speak to the passion that currently fills my soul. I have repeatedly questioned this process in my head, raising this doubt and that, but every time that I return to my heart, there are no doubts – none at all.
Since that third week in October, I have continued processing while taking care of details – packing, communicating with friends and family, and all the other busywork that comes with completely uprooting my life yet again.
Yet as I sit here writing on November 5, 2013, my passion continues intact, and my heart remains excited and peaceful. In only six days time, this new chapter of my life will begin. I will board a shuttle to Antigua, with a trip to the Guatemala City airport early the next morning.
Butterflies giggle in my belly as I anticipate the unknown magic that lies before me in the new chapter of my life that is now gradually unfolding.
Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved