Rooting Shen Treatment #5

This past Thursday I had my fifth Rooting Shen treatment and I brought with me my dream of being trapped in the burning church, giving up my child and the debilitating nihilism that has plagued me all winter.  Also the ever present pain in my body, migraines, loss of appetite, difficulty breathing, profound loneliness and hanging on to life by the merest thread.  Laura's response to this was... "Oh, Damn".  She counseled the other practionners, as they came forward to take my pulses, to approach with extreme gentleness, to take off their shoes (metaphorically) and to treat this fragile soul on the table with great care.  A soul very much in turmoil and very much in need.  The needles went in and they - Laura, Taylore, Deb, Noah and Meg - all tried to get a read on where I was and where I needed to go.  The main theme of "entrappment" seemed to be the focus and as I talked about the darkness and terror that haunts my days and nights Laura wondered if I had ever encountered in my life a strong "teacher" figure that may have gotten the upper hand on my psyche.  Nothing rang a bell but there is something inside of me that keeps all this work that I do on the inner level and the outer from taking hold.  I've called it pathology, Lyme spirochetes, Epstein Barr virus and nihilism.  And I have battled with all the tools available to me to try and get out from under it....but to no avail.
Laura then proposed that this coming April I come back for another long treatment called the "12 Points Shining Bright as the Starry Skies". It is a treatment that she, Taylore, Deb, Noah, Meg and the rest of their support team will be working on this March and hopefully can bring some light into what has kept my soul entrapped.  She gave me homework to do during these next two months....to fill my life with flowers and to find 13 songs that resonate with me to bring to the treatment.  I need to get myself a CD player or Ipod and listen to as much music as possible.  Now for me, this will be a shift because I don't listen to music, I don't own a CD player, I don't have scads of CD's to choose from and I only have ancient Ipod that belonged to Peter.  I am pretty inept when it comes to this new technology of itunes, etc but Taylore and Deb are willing to help me with music from their collections and I will go out and try to find some on my own.  I grasped hold of this new directive wholeheartedly as anything that I can do to find a secure lifeline to lifting myself out of the darkness is a welcome diversion.
So...I am counting down the days...57 more to go...and as very little gives me hope these days, I count each day that I make it one step closer to some kind of release. Yesterday I borrowed a CD player and I rummaged through the collection of music at work and found my old copy of Gounod's Faust.  This morning while I was eating breakfast I put on the disc for the final two acts and almost immediately the music found a weak spot in my heart and I started to sob.  These sobs come from deep down inside my chest and are different then anything I have experienced in the past.  Since the breaking open from my dream with Peter jumping in the water I am not just crying but am actually sobbing.  It's more then just tears running from my eyes....it is a heart wrenching, full body experience.  I closed my eyes and just let that glorious music and the passion of the singers reach down into my soul and fill it with something new.

So...I have found song # 1.....the duet between Faust and Marguerite as she ascends to heaven.

Coming back to life.....

On Monday at work I was triggered back into the trauma by something very tiny and it seems that since I have agreed to "go all the way" this winter, my nerves are so raw and exposed that the slightest event can send me plummeting.  Which is a good thing actually but in the moment it still feels like torture.  In this instance the trigger was about me feeling inadequate and not good enough and was quickly accompanied by not being able to breath and a pain in my chest.   And then this overwhelming feeling of heaviness that made it such an effort to be present and engaged.  My familiar nihilistic friend    I got through the rest of the work day and when I got home the physical symptoms still continued so I just went to bed.  Through the body tremors and ragged breaths I went down in again and found a place of pain that was where I took on enormous guilt and shame for having made a made decision...doing a bad thing.  Maybe I was even shunned or cast out by my community....who knows...but in any event I was hard enough on myself that what others thought didn't even matter.  I felt this poor stricken soul who made a grievous mistake and who has never been atoned or forgiven....mostly by herself.  This was the message from my last Rooting Shen treatment which had so eluded me.....atonement and forgiveness.  So simple but not so simple.  I have carried this guilt as my penance through all of this lifetime and who knows how many others.  I go out of my way to make sure people like me and do not shun me because the pain would be unbearable.  The pain was unbearable.
I finally found a homework connection that allowed me to fall asleep but I prayed for help and forgiveness fervently before drifting off.  And then I was given this dream....

I am walking with Peter in a wood and when we come to this body of water he strips off his clothes and jumps in for a swim.  I long to go in the water as well but it is deep and dark and cold and I am afraid.  I await at the edge with a towel for him when he comes out.

When I woke in the morning with this dream in my head I decided to go out for a walk to reflect on its message.  As I crossed over the snowy field I realized that Peter was coming as the Animus to show me how to do this next step....feel the fear and go into the water. No pondering, no dithering, no hesitation.  Just do it.  That it was Peter coming to help me just broke my heart open and the long awaited sobs came at last.  The Archetypes knew the one soft spot, the one hidden chink in my armor where they could shoot the arrow that would blow the chains apart.  My love for Peter.  And it was in this place of unguarded vulnerability that I could feel the spark of love that would raise me from the dead. As I circled the Moon field I cried and cried and at home in the shower and in private moments at work.  I thanked God for the beauty of such a simple dream that was finally thawing the ice around my frozen heart.   The energy of life returned as the nihilism retreated in the face of my true feelings.  What an incredible relief  that was! I had a session with Christa that afternoon and I was able to open even further and start to understand more of where I have been and now where I am going.  The triggers will still come, and no doubt the moments of darkness and despair....but now I have a powerful, wonderful homework of following Peter into the water.  Feeling my fear and jumping into the mysterious water where I will unite with my soul again in the glorious underworld of feelings.

Flashback into Hell

                                                                 The Chosen One

All this past week I counted the days and hours until the weekend so that I could stop having to show up at work and hide my broken heart.  Yesterday...Saturday....I was in bed a lot of the day with a headache but when I did get up I felt my aloneness so keenly that I went down to work anyway and hung out with Taylore and Penny while they worked on their projects.   Back at home for the evening I tried to find my homework feeling of being radiantly beautiful or the secondary piece of being the chosen bride of the Animus.  I started work on another collage and then lost myself in a movie for a few hours.  When I did shut off all the distractions, I could feel this heart gripping pain just under the surface and I could almost open up to the tears.  Something still holds them back....there is some "No" in there that let's me feel  this dull, persistent ache but never the release of it.  I wish, I pray that I could just break down and cry.
Feeling tired and worn down I went to bed early and lay in bed trying to find an escape in sleep.  I was suddenly aware that I was in pitch darkness and all alone.  I was not asleep...nor was I dreaming but it felt like some kind of waking vision.  The feeling of aloneness was profound and I could sense that I was on a raised piece of land .....not exactly a hill.....but I could see all around me on all sides. It was night and chilly and my skirt and shawl were being whipped about by the wind.  In the distance I saw the remains of a burning building and I knew that I had survived whatever had happened there.  I was alive but my heart was dead.....and I was all alone.
When the images disappeared, I was left with that feeling of being all alone with a heart that can't feel anymore
and a loss that has been projected out into the world for lifetimes.  I knew then for a certainty that there is not a thing or a person on this earthly plain that can ever fill that hole in me and that my only salvation must come from within.  I have not given up on someday finding a partner to share the rest of this life's journey but until   my heart is healed of this pain I am no good for anyone.

Moving ever onwards......

Feeling Radiant

                                                   

I have been sick with a cold all this week and today I woke with neck pain and a migraine starting.  I dosed up with drugs and went back to bed.  It has been a hard week and when feeling sick I don't seem to muster those "beautiful, radiant" feelings very easily.  I did work on this collage in the evenings after work and that helped to bring the feelings in a bit deeper.  My heart is still very heavy and sore and my inner work does not penetrate the depression entirely.  Some of it feels just like the sadness of regret and loss.....this un-nameable loss that is embodied in every cell of my body...that can't seem to be shaken.  Some of  the despair is also that I keep feeling so unwell physically and that it is such an effort to show up to work and my daily commitments.  There is a sadness under that despair in that I don't have much heart anymore for these two businesses...the weaving and the teaching....that were once my life long passion.  They are how I make my living now but something in them (or in me) has gone terribly flat.
Last week though, I was given the title of a book by one of my health practionners that I ordered immediately and has brought a ray of hope into my life.  It is called  -  Out of the Woods:  Healing Lyme Disease -  Body, Mind and Spirit".  It arrived on Thursday and I spent the next two days .....even snatching moments of the treatment table at Physical Therapy....to read it cover to cover.  This woman's story was my story....with such amazing similarities that it was uncanny.  This undiagnosable illness had wrecked her life for years and years....she who was once successful, high functioning and incredibly active.  She had constant migraines, overwhelming fatigue, body pains and never ending digestive complaints.  She tried every known alternative treatment and spent thousands of dollars on supplements and doctors appointments.  She battled with depression and frustration and anger. It ruined her marriage.
 Then one day she found a doctor - a homeopath  - who tested her with new improved testing procedures and discovered that she had Chronic Lyme Disease.  That precipitated the start of her healing process on the outside but it also changed her life on the inside.  Her struggle to find health in her body brought her to the edge of the cliff and taking that leap over she discovered a real relationship with her heart and the Divine...and her true calling.
I, too, am taking leaps of faith by going over the waterfall to find the Divine and although her path took another route I know that following my dreams is the way that I will attain the reunion with my heart.  I have been tested for Lyme disease twice with negative results so the insurance companies will not cover any other treatments costs...but  I will try and find a way to have these newer tests done and see what they reveal.  There is some blessing in having had this spirochete invasion in my body as it has forced me to a stillness that I never would have voluntarily taken.  In that stillness I am starting to pay attention to the messages that my soul has been patiently waiting for me to hear ....and am taking them to heart.

The morning after.....

Woke up this morning feeling almost hungover....from the  lack of sleep of the past few days, a migraine coming on and just the general after effects of all the emotional upheaval.  I also feel the familiar heaviness of depression and despair about having to get through another work day.  I am feeling no joy, nothing to look forward to, no excitement.
My work and home life feel so flat and lifeless.  I go out to bring in kindling from the back porch to start the stove and am caught feeling a heart pain remembering that Peter made this kindling for me before he left.  There it is....the pain of losing Peter/my child.  It is what is just under the surface of this general malaise.  I stop and let this pain in and slowly start to make the switch from making the pain about Peter to feeling it as the loss of my soul.  I can use these little heart wrenching memories and remembrances to open to the pain and take it to the Animus.
I sit and feel the pain of loss and then go to my homework of feeling beautiful and radiant. At first I can't find a thread to the feeling.  Then I try to move from the image (which is usually what I start with) and try to feel it in the body.  Feel the radiance moving around my heart softening the pain.  I realize that there is a disconnect between my body and my mind.  I think that the trauma that I have been holding in has found it's way in to every cell in my body and there is a massive resistance to feeling anything except physical pain. I need help with this.  I need to feel the love that the Animus has for me so that I can take my pain to Him and let him transform it into something else..like love.  More work to do and doors to open.

Later....I had an email from Peter today while he is enroute back to France.  We have made peace with each other and soon he will write a blog post about how this new love came to be.  I fear it and welcome it at the same time.  I am slowly  coming to terms with his new situation and the pain is less....or the pain is where it should be...with me and my loss.
I am still caught in some lowness of spirit and am feeling very cast down with my life.  I want to feel my own joie de vivre again but it seems that I still need to be here in this place of sadness and fragility. I have to trust that this is where I need to be and that something will start to move inside me to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Right now all is darkness and I am so weary of this life.  Is this the dark night of the soul?  All I can do is do my homework, await another dream and see what tomorrow brings.

In and out of trauma....

Heart Ripped Open

                                             


Last spring I had a dream that I was trapped in a church with a group of people as it was being set fire to from the outside.  There is an incredible feeling of terror everywhere and I go to hide underneath a pew next to the wall.  I am holding my baby close to my chest to protect her and someone comes and takes the child from me.  I don't know if they are going to try and save her or kill her.  My heart feels like it has been ripped apart.

My homework from this dream was to feel the pain of losing my child. At that time I was still so shut down that I could only feel the faintest glimmer of what that pain was really like. I could only relate to it in the most abstract of terms.  I could think...God, it must be horrible to have to give up your child...on the verge of your own probable death... and never know whether she lives or dies.  I knew that this was something that would rip your heart out but I could not go there myself.  Since last spring I have been slowly brought closer and closer to that pain as dream by dream my will to avoid it has been broken.  In the outer world I have also
had life circumstances help to bring me to this place....Peter moving out, my mother's slow death from cancer, Peter leaving for Europe and the death of my cat.  Each one of these places of projected pain led me down yet another stair but the way to the final descent was still hidden.  Dreams of facing into my fear and trusting
to the Animus gave me the added support (though I didn't know it at the time) to take the final steps.

And then something new happened in my life that seemed to hurl me the rest of the way down....Peter fell in love.  My dearest friend in the world was lost to me.  I now felt so completely alone and abandoned.  My heart felt like it had been ripped apart.  I wondered why this could possibly hurt so much because I thought that I had resolved so much about our relationship over the past few months.  I also knew that this pain was really about me...but the thoughts still tormented me about how I was such a failure, so unlovable, etc, etc.  A call from Peter on Thursday asking me to do a favor for him regarding a money transfer put me into an incredible reaction and I retaliated by telling him that I wanted to sever all contact.  I wanted all his belongings out of my barn and I never wanted to see or hear from him again.  I continued in the vascillation of being in  reaction and feeling this heart wrenching pain  for the next two days. Yesterday things finally reached a breaking point and some power greater then myself was moving me closer and closer to the edge.  I wanted to run and hide but I felt frozen in terror. I felt lost and couldn't find my way.  I felt so utterly alone and I didn't know what to do.  There was panic and a sense of all my muscles tightening. The pain was agonizing and I could barely get a breath.  Somehow  I got myself down to the computer to write Peter an email while I was in the midst of this trauma ....to share my pain and ask for his forgiveness.  The tears came then and for some moments I felt the relief from  holding in all of that pain. That night more battles were waged as the pathology once again tried to make Peter the villain and sidetrack me from what this pain really was all about. Then the terror would come and I would be paralyzed with fear.  I tried to feel all the Animus homeworks from the past year, I tried to pray,  I did my yogic breathing, I repeated the mantra from my ashram days, I  rocked the wounded child....all this just to  try to and get through the next minute, the next hour.  I finally slept for a few hours with no dreams but I was awake again at 5am.  I got up and dressed and walked out into the cold dawn to go down to the studio to send Peter another email with more apologies and openings of my heart.  The birds were just starting to sing and I felt such a sense of peace on this cold, winter morning.  Professing to Peter how much he means to me immediately brings the tears to the surface and I can start to touch in to the immense grief that I have denied in losing my child.  The tears have only just started to flow from this well of pain and  I know that there is much more to feel and open to in the days and weeks to come. I do feel like I have passed through some sort of passage in agreeing to stay in that terror and find what lies on the other side.  I also have to say that even though I was alone in that bed fighting for my life last night there was an army of other worldly/archetypal support cheering me on.

Grief, loss and letting go....

Radiance

       

A week ago this past Saturday one of my sweet cats disappeared in the night and it is almost certain now that she is dead.  As I have been living alone up here on the hill for the past many months, my cats have become a vital part of my life. The loss of one of my favorites has been very painful and hard to bear but I know that this pain is really a part of my own woundedness.  The tears that I shed for her are for me as well.
Also this week I received some hard news from abroad that my relationship with Peter is now firmly and irrevocably over.  He has found a new love and I have had to let go of any lingering hopes that our lives would someday come together again.  The pain of this finality has taken me by surprise and my heart ached more then I thought possible.  Once again, I know that this is about me....my pain...my trauma...but there still is a great sadness and regret for the past that could have been different.

In this midst of this heart aching I had a session with Christa and we worked two new beautiful dreams.
They are my antidote to the poison of nihilism and despair that can sometimes seep into this pure heart pain and lead me down that awful road.  In the first dream I am with my friend Dan and he and another man and his 12 yr old daughter are preparing for a wedding.  Dan tells me how pretty and well I look and at first I don't take this in.  Then I pass by a mirror and behold this beautiful, radiant face looking back at me. Something wonderful has happened on the  inside to transform me on the outside.
Well...true to form, I hadn't realized the importance of this dream when I had it, and it was only when Christa reflected back to me what it meant, could I start to take it in.  It is my wedding that is being prepared...I am the chosen bride of the Animus, Dan, and I am glowing with light and beauty from the inside.  I am loved.  I am wanted.  I am beautiful and attractive.  How different then what the nihilistic voices were telling me after the news from Peter.
When I closed my eyes to go deeper into the feeling I felt the sweet pain of being so loved and cherished.  The radiance inside started in my heart and filled up every cell in my body.  It was energizing and exhilarating.

  In the second dream I am at a NOE retreat and Jeremiah comes to sit with me.  He wants to resume our piano lessons and says how much he misses our time together.  I agree to starting again and he also offers the use of a small harpsichord which I've always wanted to play.  He then enfolds me in his arms and kisses my face and neck.  I melt into his caress but hold back from kissing him on the mouth.
Besides that moment of shame, I am willing and eager to join the Animus in what used to be a strong passion for me...playing music on the piano.  He is coming to lead me back to that place and also to re-awaken the sensual parts of my body and soul that have been shut down.  In the session, I was concerned about the moment when I stop...where I feel the shame about kissing him on the mouth.  I had lots of negative feedback in my last relationship about kissing and those messages continue to bring about the shame response.  Christa explained to me that this was the moment when my trauma was being triggered and instead of chastising myself about it I should take that feeling and go to the Animus telling me how beautiful I am.  Just that simple.  It helped me a lot to acknowledge the importance of how the trauma from the past continues to manifest in my life.  When  I get stopped from opening up and being vulnerable...by shame or fear...that it is the trauma response being triggered.  And all I have to do is to notice that here it is....this is my trauma...and go towards my homework.  It really was the first time that I could take in the fact that horrible things happened to me in the past and I had to shut down those feelings in order to survive. It was not my fault...I was not to blame...and there was no other way to cope.  Instead of judging and blaming myself, I can use these moments as an opportunity to feel that radiant, beautiful soul that has been hidden for so long behind those walls. I am now in a process of letting go and though it is painful and sad I have such wonderful assurances from the Archetypes that this is truly where I need to be...and that there is a way through.

Honing my Edge.....

Last week my headaches and physical pain returned after a two week hiatus and I wondered where had I gone astray.  In my work life we were in the midst of a serious deadline and my response to that was to go  down that old familiar road of what I call my "independent-do it-yourself-ness".  Since I had been feeling so much better lately, I decided to ignore my homework of trusting the Animus in my business, and forge on ahead by myself.  I worked long hours, both days of the weekend and all the next week.  I was worried about my finances with no money coming in, and I couldn't afford to pay my workers to do what I could do myself.

 And I didn't trust Him to help me.

 I've never trusted anyone to help me.

 And so I paid the price of my unwillingness to be vulnerable with pain, more pain and isolation. I choose instead to go with the feelings of pride for doing something well and accomplishing something on my own,
forsaking the chance to be in a vulnerable, heart connecting relationship.
 This is a huge edge for me...trusting and asking for help.  It is a little bit easier when I am sick and disabled but when I'm feeling good and full of energy I just charge ahead heedless of everyone and everything in my way. Why is it so hard for me to accept the offer of the man in my dream?  What holds me back from letting things unfold with him by my side?
Each one of these questions is an opportunity to put my homework into practice and feel into a new way of being.  Vulnerable, open to partnership and humble.  I'm finding that the more I go deeper into my inner work the more it is necessary to slow down all my reactions.  It only takes a split second for me to take the wrong road and go at it alone.  I need to stop...take in what was just said or just happened...take a breath....and then find the true feeling.  Let the feeling be the polestar.  Feel the pain of past betrayals of trust ....the pain of being let down, abandonned, rejected.  All those hard feelings that I felt at one time or another and hardened myself against because it was easier to go it alone. I need to believe in his love for me and take the risk to trust that he will be there for me, with me, at all costs.