Realisations..

[Sean]

Hello Mystress,

 Your words bit deep into my heart. But they woke me up. I can see a lot more clearly now. You know I found out that I wasn't actually surrendering. I actually had it all down for about a week, months ago. I was poping bones into place and everything. Then something happened that so disrupted me, and hurt me and confused my feelings that I could not get surrendering to work right after that. It just would not work. I was so hurt and confused and I didn't have anyone to talk to about this. I didn't feel like I could trust anyone to talk about this. I didn't trust myself enough to. I felt like I had lost touch. Like I was abandoned. Outcast. So I just gave up. And I never went back to actually surrendering. I just kinda sent things away. And so many things happened that I forgot about it. Pushed it away. And I didn't beleive in myself enough to try it again.

I just realised that I can do this again now. She helped me out. And can really surrender again. Now when these things come up again, I can actually give them to Her. I think this was a key thing for me. I've been surrendering things again, I think I can get this all together now. I feel more enabled. Not so hopeless.

Also, I realise what you say about my hating things. I see the way now. You've shown it to me. I see the doors opening and the light behind them. I see my life opening up before me again. I see the sky. I want so much to break free of my sad old life. I want so much to go out and do things again. To go out to a field, Hook up my electric guitar and play what I feel inside like I used to do. I want to go dancing, to get a job, to go out on trips. Meet new people. Go to collage. Do all the things I wanted to do....  But I can't. I'm stopped. My body is in a pretty bad state. Example...I want to strap on my guitar, but my back cannot support it, it falls out of place. My guitar is one of my meditations, I feel pretty bad if I cannot play it. I've not played in a long time. And I think, who took away my happyness? Why can't I play this? And I hate them. And I hate my body because it cannot play what I want. I hate more. Then I get so frustrated and depressed and start to complain and hate things. Then I start to hate the world and myself because I cannot do the things I want to in it.

So I see now that when I hate them, and the world. Its sending away energy that I need to heal. By hating my body, I separate from it, detach, I dont't love it because its hurting me. Without me caring about it, it's not going to heal. So it stays hurt. Now I see that I have to send it love every day. Even the most hurt parts. I have to re-attach myself to those parts so they can get the energy they need to heal.

Then I see how this applies to my past. I try to separate from the things I hate about me that I did, or what was done to me. Even though it is me. By separateing, I dont get the love I need to heal that part of my life. Its hurting and needs help, but I keep running away from it. Pushing it away. By re-attaching to these parts of me, they can get the love they need to heal and those parts I lost can become part of me again.

Am I close on this? I think I see where both of these things fall into the victim/abuser role. I want out of that. I want to be free of all of that. Is it, love everything I hate about me?

But I recognise how I need to heal up my body. So much is in there that if I can set it up again. I would be so happy. I could forget everything and move into a new day. I've just started to surrender things in it again last night. But I remember that I can only do so much in a period of time before I raise my energy to high and I have to take a break. I think thats what it is anyways. I was thinking about getting in touch with you Mystress for a tune up. But I don't know if that would raise me up to high or not. Since it wouldnt be me doing it, I don't know. Whenever I feel like I can do more, I do it right then. Right now I feel a lot of energy in my head, have to wait till that calms down before I can do anything else.

So, does this make sense?

Thank you.

Sean

[Percyval]

hi Sean,

one thing you seem to always say, is that you need to heal before you can do anything... this rings a bell with me, because my body has been broken for 15 years... and broken real bad for about 11 years that i've been living homebound and even unable to sit up for more than 10 minutes at a time (although i can recline)...

after about 10 years of trying everything to heal myself, it began to seem like nothing would ever heal me... so, i had a friend of mine and Mystress's do some sessions of deep hypnosis with me, to ask my body what it wants me to do... it ended up finally asking me to surrender trying to heal myself, and just accept life with the situation i have... hmmm?

there are so many things i cannot do that i used to love... if i even partially listed them for you, i would have more than half this list in tears... so, instead, i have looked for (and found) many of the things that i am still able to do, and i find my joy in them... many of my days are ecstatic now... but still, a lot of days are extremely painful, and i must still fight to not let myself fall deeply into a depression...

so, i'd like to suggest that you consider not waiting until you are healed before you begin living... perhaps you will find healing.. perhaps even i will find healing some day... but there are many precious days between now and then... just living them as the gifts they are is already a type of healing... it's not easy, but it's easier than feeling bad about how tough things are for me...

lovingly,

percyval

[Mystress]

:  Hello Mystress,

:
:   Your words bit deep into my heart. But they woke me up.

I am sorry. It is never easy to wield the masters cane, especially on one so fragile... it is always a leap of faith to be cruel to be kind... but it is harder, to see you stuck.

:  I just realised that I can do this again now. She helped me out. And can really surrender again. Now when these things come up again, I can actually give them to Her. I think this was a key thing for me. I've been surrendering things again, I think I can get this all together now. I feel more enabled. Not so hopeless.

I am glad!

:  Also, I realise what you say about my hating things. I see the way now. You've shown it to me. I see the doors opening and the light behind them. I see my life opening up before me again. I see the sky. I want so much to break free of my sad old life. I want so much to go out and do things again. To go out to a field, Hook up my electric guitar and play what I feel inside like I used to do. I want to go dancing, to get a job, to go out on trips. Meet new people. Go to collage. Do all the things I wanted to do....  But I can't. I'm stopped. My body is in a pretty bad state. Example...I want to strap on my guitar, but my back cannot support it, it falls out of place. My guitar is one of my meditations, I feel pretty bad if I cannot play it. I've not played in a long time. And I think, who took away my happyness? Why can't I play this?

I don't know. I've seen a blind guy named Jeff Healy who plays his guitar flat on his lap... I used to have a boyfriend who liked to play guitar lying in bed with it balanced on his chest.
I think, most people who are musically talented, can learn to play any instrument. My oldest sister plays piano, organ, guitar, banjo, and accordion.
Maybe you cannot strap it on and jump around like a rock star anymore, but that is no reason to deny yourself the pleasure of making music. You said the metal does not appeal to you anymore... perhaps Goddess has a different kind of music for you to make?

You are so busy looking at what you have lost, you are not considering that when Goddess takes, She always gives back. One door closes, another door opens. Some grieving is normal, honor that... but do not let it stop you from living.  

: And I hate them. And I hate my body because it cannot play what I want. I hate more. Then I get so frustrated and depressed and start to complain and hate things. Then I start to hate the world and myself because I cannot do the things I want to in it.

That is your shadow. That is the abuser you could not see, because you were so focused on the victimhood. Love that guy. Accept him, and forgive him.
:
:  So I see now that when I hate them, and the world. Its sending away energy that I need to heal.

Yes.

 Hatred is a leech that sucks you dry and pulls you under.

 What you focus on, grows. The hatred blockages get bigger and choke off the flow from Source. The energy of hatred you send out, comes back multiplied, making you hate even more... and the hatred itself puts stress on your body.

When you are hating, or focusing deeply on any negative emotion, your biochemistry radically changes to the flight or fight response. That means, your body sacrifices some long term health in order to handle what it thinks is a more immediate threat to your life. This evolved a long time ago, and is common to most species of mammals. But, most mammals do not have much imagination, or ego to take them out of the moment.

 Your body cannot tell the difference between an imaginary threat, a memory of a threat, and a real tiger about to eat you. It responds the same way. It dumps systems that are needed for long term health, to give you what you need to flee a tiger.

 Adrenaline that makes you shaky and paranoid. Your heart pounding. It changes the ph of your blood, it becomes alkaline and loses all of the calcium it carries. You cannot grow healthy bones, if you are stressed all the time, and calcium is a mood regulator, it helps keep you calm. So when calcium goes you get even more moody and irritable. Ready to fight a tiger, if need be. The body sacrifices digestion, like being so scared you shit your pants... same thing to a lesser degree. Digestion takes a lot of blood, and the blood is needed in your legs to flee the tiger, and you have to be light to run faster. You cannot digest your food properly when you are feeling hatred, so you lose nutrition and your digestive system gets weaker. When your blood is alkaline, harmful bacteria flourish. Most harmful bacteria cannot live in an acid environment, which your blood is when you are at peace. So, stress lowers your immune system.

That is what you do to yourself, to your body on a purely physical level, when you choose to hate. What you do on an emotional and energetic level, as you are discovering, is even worse.

 Victim/abuser, abusing yourself worse than anyone else ever did. Forgive them all, and yourself.  

:By hating my body, I separate from it, detach, I dont't love it because its hurting me. Without me caring about it, it's not going to heal. So it stays hurt. Now I see that I have to send it love every day. Even the most hurt parts. I have to re-attach myself to those parts so they can get the energy they need to heal.

Yes.

But. Do it, without expectation of healing. With no agenda, but to love for the sake of loving.  

:  Then I see how this applies to my past. I try to separate from the things I hate about me that I did, or what was done to me. Even though it is me. By separateing, I dont get the love I need to heal that part of my life. Its hurting and needs help, but I keep running away from it. Pushing it away. By re-attaching to these parts of me, they can get the love they need to heal and those parts I lost can become part of me again.

Yes, Sean. Love all of the parts of yourself, unconditionally.

When you go into the past and your regrets, or into the fantasies of the future, you are not in your body, not in the here and now. It is only in the here and now, that the power of love is.

:  Am I close on this? I think I see where both of these things fall into the victim/abuser role. I want out of that. I want to be free of all of that. Is it, love everything I hate about me?

Yes. That is how you embrce and integrate the shadow. Love it and be grateful for it, even if it hurts and makes no sense. The things you hate about other people, ask Goddess to show you what they reflect, in you... and love what you find. Forgive. Surrender.  

:  But I recognise how I need to heal up my body. So much is in there that if I can set it up again. I would be so happy. I could forget everything and move into a new day. I've just started to surrender things in it again last night.

Percyval has some good advice about this. He is in a better place to guide you because I am fortunate never to have had any serious long term illness. I have had my own challenges to face, including facing the same victim/abuser issues as you...

 You keep going into these if-then games. If you get better, then... They are ego illusions. They take you out of the here and now. They drain energy away into the illusion of the future.

The past, is a memory. It exists, nowhere else.

I had a discussion with a scientist friend about this, once. He insisted the past must exist, because we see evidence of it. His computer is the same computer as he had yesterday... I reminded him, it is not. The sub atomic particles it is made of blink in and out of exisitence all the time. In every nanosecond, on a subatomic level it is totally destroyed and recreated anew. That it retains it shape at all, is because it is held in the mind of Goddess... and there it exists, in eternity.  

 The past, is a memory. The future, is a dream. You cannot live in memories and dreams. Stop dreaming. Wake up, and start living here and now. If you cannot do the things you love, then find new things you love to do. Life, is so huge and amazing!
 Just.. surrender your dreams of the future. What will be, is as Goddess Wills. Stop postponing living till some day that may never come. Don't give yourself away to that.

: But I remember that I can only do so much in a period of time before I raise my energy to high and I have to take a break. I think thats what it is anyways. I was thinking about getting in touch with you Mystress for a tune up. But I don't know if that would raise me up to high or not. Since it wouldnt be me doing it, I don't know. Whenever I feel like I can do more, I do it right then. Right now I feel a lot of energy in my head, have to wait till that calms down before I can do anything else.

It is good that you are learning to pace yourself. You are really like a rollercoaster sometimes, flying off on big insights then crashing and forgetting them all. Find the middle path. Do not attach to the highs or the lows. Do not attach to the dreams or the what if-then games. Appeciate what you have, here and now, and surrender it in the next moment. Just let it slide, and relax. Smell the roses, enjoy the sunshine.
:
:  
:  So, does this make sense?

Good sense! You are understanding the shadow much better, and you feel much more balanced than before. You feel like a man again. A tired man who has been humbled, but such are the genuine heroes.
 There is a shadow I would like you to look at. Examine all those Christian saints you rejected, who suffered and yet found bliss and grace in surrendering to the suffering. They are your reflection, love them. They have some things to show you, that you cannot see if you are blinded by hate. Try to find the beauty in them... it is there, and it too, is yourself reflected.
 Blesings...

:  Thank you.

:
:  Sean

[Shara]

Percyval,

 Being quite a goal-oriented type myself, I appreciate this reminder.    

: so, i'd like to suggest that you consider not waiting until you are healed before you begin living... perhaps you will find healing.. perhaps even i will find healing some day... but there are many precious days between now and then... just living them as the gifts they are is already a type of healing... it's not easy, but it's easier than feeling bad about how tough things are for me...

: lovingly,

: percyval

  When I read your post, I saw a recliner with wings (like on the cover of the book Accidental Tourist)- ;-)  Are you an armchair traveler, or are those your angel wings?

                        Shara

[Monquie]

Sean--

I wanted to add to what Percyval and Mystress said about not waiting until some future time when particular conditions will be met so THEN you can be happy.  I can speak to this from both my own experience and that of my husband.

Personally, I have been in indifferent to poor heath for about 16 years.  I became sick in college and it has never really gone away.  I spent years of my life giving in to illness and buying into the idea that I only had two choice: 1) be healthy and live my life, and 2) be sick and give up.  I looked for a "cure" for many years, and then realized that my life had become completely taken over by either being sick or looking for ways NOT to be sick.  

I am not currently able (and have not been able for many years) to do things that I love to do: artwork like stained glass, embroidery, silk-painting, etc. because it is just too physically painful (the pain I experience is mostly neck-shoulder-back pain).  However, I decided to stop looking for a cure and just live my life the best I could.

Since I decided to do this, I found a career (psychology), met my husband, got married, bought a house, and acquired two dogs, and a cat.  I had never thought that I would be able to even hold down a full-time job, never mind go to grad school and train to be a psychologist (I somehow got through college while being awake only nine hours a day--had bad fatigue).  But I am doing it.  I still deal with physcial pain and depression.  But I guess the point of all this is that I didn't have to wait until I "got better" before I lived my life, trying to find happiness within myself and with others.  And I'm no superwoman--far, far from it.  I am a very normal, average human being with lots of frailties.

When I met my husband he had a shoulder injury that caused him to experience great pain, and for the first year or so of our relationship he would say, "Things would be perfect if only my shoulder was okay."  Then he had shoulder surgery and started saying, "Things would be perfect if my shoulder would just heal up."  Now his shoulder is healed and he is feeling blocked from doing the things that had motivated him to get the surgery in the first place (and probably caused the physical damage, too), like weight-lifting.  The block has become purely mental (and I think it always was--only now it's very clear) and he says, "If only I could get  myself to exercise and lift, my life would be perfect."  And I tell him, "No Tom.  This is the same song you've been singing for years.  Don't wait for life to be perfect (whatever that means) or some condition to be met in order to deserve happiness."  He is now coming to grips with the fact that HE is the one who will not let himself be fully happy.  It's not coming from an outside source.  It's not something out of his control.  As long as he could point to some process that he imagined was "external" to him then he could blame his unhappiness on that.  Now it's back in his court.  Not an easy lesson for him (or for me).

Anyway, just thought I'd add this to what's already been said.  Good luck with finding the middle path!

Love,
Elizabeth

[Percyval]

hello Shara,

:    When I read your post, I saw a recliner with wings (like on the cover of the book Accidental Tourist)- ;-)  Are you an armchair traveler, or are those your angel wings?

i'm glad my post was helpful to you... your comment is kind, although i never saw that book cover...

it really feels to me that the whole world is present right here where i am... expecially with the aid of a special computer i can use while reclining... so i don't feel a strong need to go anywhere else... although this took some getting used to...

and beautiful Elizabeth Monquie: thank you for adding your experience, which was so similar to my own... i felt a little embarrassed to post about how serious my physical problem was, but felt it was the right time and place to bing it up... so having you join me with a post like mine helped me feel more comfortable about having shared this...

warmly,

percyval

[Laura]

Hi Mystress and Sean and Teafolk,

Your posts were really helpful to me, especially the part on what hatred does to the body.  

Mystress, I was wondering if it would be OK to share your reflections on the hatred leech with some of my girlfriends?  

It is such a hard balance to find: to not repress one's emotions but to come to them with love and forgiveness and gentleness instead of turning them outward on others or in seeing what is there to feed its wrath...wow, this is so difficult to stay inward and honest and loving at the same time. I am afraid of feeling more negativity and what it attracts, but I guess that it is already there and already attracting.

When I woke up and realized I wasn't being gentle with myself and realized how much anger and shame I had toward my parents and how I blamed them for not teaching me to love and accept myself and now I have to be the one to fix it, for the first time I noticed that I had been carrying anger and hatred under a thick veil of fear and shame.  I was turning this anger on myself and on them. But I know it was not their fault, they did their best, that I repeatedly and endlessly try to forgive them and myself and get to the point where I don't feel like I am hurting myself anymore with judging blaming angry fear, knowing this is not my truth...

this is such a simple task, to love and to forgive, but for the first time in a long time, i feel genuinely challenged, in that childish temper tantrum crying in the closet cause I'm scared sort of way. i thought of myself as a very gentle and compassionate person, crying at roadkill and deforestation, and this was a huge blow to my self-esteem.

i still feel gentle and compassionate and sensitive, but I also kindof feel like I am an abused wife dodging fists of fear, anger, judgement and blame, trying to own it all as mine lovingly, dotingly, like a mother to myself, staying inward, imagining what I would look like, how it would feel to be that self-accepting

though i brought myself here kicking and screaming, I can see it now, kindof blurry like the oil steaming off of concrete on a hot day, and knowing one's destination is a sort of faith

Kindly,
Laura

[Mystress]

:
: Hi Mystress and Sean and Teafolk,

: Your posts were really helpful to me, especially the part on what hatred does to the body.  

I am glad. I am grateful to Sean for his sharing, and you and others who post. I often wonder, there are 50+ students enrolled at present, but only a handful post. I wonder, are they shy? Afraid they will get a whack from the cane? Finding the course so easy that they have no questions? Skipping class? I think perhaps a lot of students sign up then get distracted from studying.

: Mystress, I was wondering if it would be OK to share your reflections on the hatred leech with some of my girlfriends?  

Yes. Not Sean's writing, but that section between, yes. It stands on its own as an essay, eh? Be nice to circulate it in battered womens shelters...

: It is such a hard balance to find: to not repress one's emotions but to come to them with love and forgiveness and gentleness instead of turning them outward on others or in seeing what is there to feed its wrath...wow, this is so difficult to stay inward and honest and loving at the same time. I am afraid of feeling more negativity and what it attracts, but I guess that it is already there and already attracting.

Yes. There is a fine balance, in learning to not repress your emotions, but also to observe them with detachment and not get carried away in them either. To identify with the part of you that is Goddess, and watch yourself.. your body  crying and being angry without getting so caught up in the emotions that you lose the witness identification. It is a different kind of witness state, where the body is emotional but you are a compassionate non judgmental observer, loving yourself no matter what.

Watch the emotions go by, like a parade passing, see how they change and shift, as the layers are released, and loving all of it.

The rage of the abused child... this morning it came up again for me, as it does, every so often. Thinking of my parents and getting stray anger at feelings of injustice and what I wanted to change. It ran for about 3 minutes before I caught myself and went, "oh, this old thing again". Surrendered it, reminded myself to just love them and look for perfection. That gave me peace again.

I am not even sure if the stuff that comes, is my own anymore, or if I am picking it up from them. I know they have their own regrets.
A few minutes of anger every few weeks or months.. I can live with that. It is nothing like what it used to be. Seans rages are familiar to me, I have been there... injuring myself with the blame game.

: When I woke up and realized I wasn't being gentle with myself and realized how much anger and shame I had toward my parents and how I blamed them for not teaching me to love and accept myself and now I have to be the one to fix it, for the first time I noticed that I had been carrying anger and hatred under a thick veil of fear and shame.  I was turning this anger on myself and on them. But I know it was not their fault, they did their best, that I repeatedly and endlessly try to forgive them and myself and get to the point where I don't feel like I am hurting myself anymore with judging blaming angry fear, knowing this is not my truth...

: this is such a simple task, to love and to forgive, but for the first time in a long time, i feel genuinely challenged, in that childish temper tantrum crying in the closet cause I'm scared sort of way. i thought of myself as a very gentle and compassionate person, crying at roadkill and deforestation, and this was a huge blow to my self-esteem.

It is so hard, to face the shadow. It is the hardest part of the whole process, I think... learning humility, the hard way.

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me." Grace comes, when you accept your wretchedness. When you are humbled by it.

: i still feel gentle and compassionate and sensitive, but I also kindof feel like I am an abused wife dodging fists of fear, anger, judgement and blame, trying to own it all as mine lovingly, dotingly, like a mother to myself, staying inward, imagining what I would look like, how it would feel to be that self-accepting

beautiful.

: though i brought myself here kicking and screaming, I can see it now, kindof blurry like the oil steaming off of concrete on a hot day, and knowing one's destination is a sort of faith

: Kindly,
: Laura

Blessings!

[Sean]

Hello,

Thank you Percyval and Elizabeth for sharing. Thank you Mystress for your post. I have things worked out for once. I understand. I'm only going to do this for a bit. Just wanted to let you know how thankful I am to be shown these things. Already worked on them with great results. I'll come back later.

Take care.

Sean