Help

[mchild]

Hello

I am new to the course. For the past 3 years  I've been floundering about and now I'm worn out and confused - I am in need of some wisdom!  A loving lift (ach - no kicks I am down) to get out of a victimhood sloth.   I feel like a Special Ed student - in need of some extra tutoring on how to “let Goddess get on with it”

Please excuse the length of this post â€" words are so long-winded...but I don't know how else to begin. I have given some headings in CAPS to break it up so no one has to read through everything.

GROUNDING GONE WRONG
I began a Zen meditation practice in my mid-forties.  After several years I felt intense upward energy - something between a wind and a current (menopause I thought?).  It was strong and it went UP.  The Zen teacher talked about grounding â€" taking my awareness down and the energy would follow - but I couldn't do it - the energy was stronger than my awareness or I wasn't using my awareness in the right way? I just read the lesson on kundalini and chi and I realize now that I made every mistake in the book - I tried to control it, I struggled against it, I wasn't gentle and I became panicky. 

At a 7-day mediation retreat, I told the Zen Teacher for the 500th time, “the energy goes up, it won't go down” He said, “ okay, why don't you let it do what it wants.”  So I let it do what it wanted. All of a sudden my right foot “plugged in” to the floor and a river of raw white fiery energy went roaring diagonally through my body and shot out the top of my head like a big sparkler. This went on for two hours. I had no idea this kind of energy was available. I was not trying to do this but I was happy because for the first time in months my body felt relaxed.

SYSTEM GONE HAYWIRE
After that my system slowly went haywire â€" I developed a painful somatic disorder (early developmental trauma they tell me) in my left side. My muscles yanked and squeezed.  There was an amount of primal fear that I could not surrender too - I was constantly overwhelmed. I am more stabilized now, but I have have trouble standing walking and sitting . Sometimes I think I'm not well enough yet to do this course.

GROUNDING RECOVERY
If its all about grounding â€" boy do I need to learn to ground. I want to ground, but the energy current is still there and it still goes up â€" or my body feels overstuffed.  I keep doing the dumping, but it doesn't seem to make a difference??.. I have read a lot of helpful posts on this forum.  Please let me know if you think the thoughts below are a good approach to take.

Reading the emphasis on gentleness and surrender here, I realize that I have almost no kinesthetic sense of gentleness or surrender â€" its as if my body only knows how to brace and resist and defend.  No wonder I'm so worn out. I'm like a blind person trying to see. so I am taking some time to discover these qualities before I even start the grounding exercise in earnest.   I don't want to get “plugged in” again unexpectedly â€" though maybe that is not something to worry about?

NEGATIVE FEMININE ENERGY
Underneath the social masks and veneer of “good society” my family tree is full of venomous feminine energy â€"  My mother and aunts harbor a lot of submerged/activated rage, malice, vindictiveness.  One of my aunts â€" her face actually looks like a demon. My mother and my aunts were all “motherless” - they either suffered gross maternal neglect or were actually orphaned. 

In meditation I have seen harpies, women who had no identity except through men, women who were slaves, captives, murdered, raped. Some of these women were in despair, but many of them were filled with a cold fury.  I had always associated anger with red heat â€" but their anger was black and cold like space.  With women who were disheartened, I could come into the scenario and say or do something that shifted things.  But with the particularly venomous or malicious women, I was more fearful and therefore not able to enter in any effective way.

I saw so many scenarios that I finally stopped â€" what is the point of cycling through all that over and over.   I want to shift it.

BROKEN CHILD
In meditation I have seen a child in broken in two, a feral child, and also a set of teeth â€" all bite.  There is a grey cloud that radiates shame. I have gathered these children up â€" but I am so clumsy at finding what is necessary to heal them! â€" they are so wild and angry.  Reading Mystress' post on healing hurt children, I have more ideas now, but the feeling of being stumped still persists.

NASTY VOICE
I do not understand why my body has such a hard time healing- I was not a person who was ever sick and I had a strong constitution.  But now I cannot get my energy back.  Twice I have heard a voice outside my head â€" a nasty malicious voice â€" I read about spiritual parasites and I followed various instructions I read on the internet, but I know so little about any of this â€" its hard to be confident that my actions are effective.  Mystress and the people here seem to know about this kind of thing.

WILEY E COYOTE?
After reading the introductory lesson I wondered: am I an un-confessed Wiley E. Coyote type​? Did I get flattened by kundalini because running in my system â€" whether I chose to acknowledge it or not â€" was a wish for power and domination? Power to get back at all those men who kept the power for themselves or turned it on women? I've had many bad relationships and unfinished business with men.

FORGIVENESS

For example, I am angry at my former Zen Teacher â€" despite repeated conversations with him over the past 2 years I have not been able to reconcile myself to what happened to me while studying at the Center he is the head of.  I feel my mind to be in a faulty and dangerous state â€" the pull of hate, vengeance and self righteousness is strong. 

ACTIONS NOW

I firm up my resolve to not end up like my Aunts or like my mother.  I access other experiences from meditation â€" experiencing my body as light â€" what can hurt light?  It is not something that can be hurt.

I feel light pouring into the crown lotus blossom â€" and trickling very gently down.   When it gets to the collar bone â€" there is a mass that blocks it and I am just letting rest there.  Before I would have tried to force it through.

My sacrum is twisted and I'm working with an orthopedic massage therapist to untwist it. 

THANK YOU for this site and this forum. I would appreciate any support.

[Mystress]

  Wow. Sorry you are having such a difficult time.

   The simplest advice for the children, harpies, body etc... just love them.

  It can be difficult to get into a loving state when fearful, grounding helps here.  Try thinking of something you really love until you feel full of love then send some of that love to what seems unlovable.

   Do not delay beginning the grounding practice. It is always safe.

  I generally feel its better for students to become established in grounding before beginning practice in surrender but when there is so much interfering then clearing some of it out with surrender can benefit.  The karma section on my other site K teacher will give a good overview and you can start to break up the blockage at your collarbone. Glad you are seeing a doctor too.
http://kundalini-teacher.com/karma.php

   If you have read the lesson you know, chi goes down, kundalini goes up. We give chi to the earth heart, we get back Kundalini. Grounding gets you into a state that is free from fear... what you need. Seems like your body is burning up from fears run loose.

  I am moved to advise you to try other methods of grounding, walking in a forest, sitting with your back against a tree trunk... even the Yggdrasil tree on my secondlife island can help sort out the central channel.

  Many Zen teachers know nothing of Kundalini, Zen does not seek to awaken it, some zen practices see it as a bad distraction and try to squish it flat... doesn't work of course.  Instead apply your Zen practice to soul meditation, observing the breath. Hmm I see the k teacher essay about it needs updating so I will describe it here.

   Sit quietly and observe the breath, without trying to control it at all, (no pranayama!!)  just watching like its on TV. Observe different aspects of the breath, the feel of air moving, the ribs and belly rising and falling, shoulders, nose, lungs, there is a lot to look at and it can get really interesting, the longer you look.

   Distracting thoughts will arise, just patiently return attention to the breath. As you continue, you will start to feel an inexplicable joy rising from beneath your ribs... this is the soul energy!  Continue to give attention to the breath.  Give love and gratitude to the soul... but mostly focus on the breath. The soul energy will keep expanding on its own and it is powerful healing cleansing energy that will devour all fear in its path.  You can do this meditation as much and as often as you want, but try it at least 10 minutes, 3x a day. 

  Forgiveness isnt something we focus on much, because in order to forgive there has to be a belief in injury and thats not the same as looking for perfection, that all is as Goddess wills. The practice of forgiveness is best applied internally- forgiving your own self.  You can ask your body to forgive you too. 

  Do you have a few years memory missing from your childhood? Most people do not remember the whole of their childhood but if you cannot recall at least one event per year from age 5 to 18 it may be that what is driving the fear is a traumatic event that got buried. Consider some conventional therapy. A skilled hypnotherapist can help you talk to your body about what it wants or what its trying to tell you.

   I learned self hypnosis from a book by the great Milton Erickson at age 12, so much benefit to being able to talk to your own unconscious mind directly.

   Calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, flax seed oil, B vitamins to support the body growing a new nervous system. Warm milk and honey.  You will be amazed at the difference it makes to get these essential elements topped up! The body needs it. MSM for healing. Pretty tough to overdose on those, so dont scrimp. Too much magnesium will give you the shits but usually it comes combined with the calcium so you wont take too much.

  That seems enough for now, let us know how it goes? 

[mchild]

I very much appreciate your answer - and for all the helpful advice therein. Especially as to how to support my body and to make amends with it. Yes, you are right, I do have gaps in memory - there is definitely trauma there and I am working on this in therapy. Hypnotherapy has been in my mind as well.

I especially appreciate your words on forgiveness - given my background and all the shadow material that has come up - I often forget that everything is inherently perfect.

Again, many thanks.