Diving into possibilities and opening up can lead you to interesting places.
A few weeks ago, I drove up to Portland Maine area to see my dear friend, Robin Morin for a healing session at her office. She said she had learned a new healing modality in her work and asked on her FaceBook page if anyone wanted a discounted hour long session. I immediately jumped on that knowing it would change my life.
Years ago, back in the mid 90’s, Robin had learned to be a massage therapist but she also learned a Hawaiian treatment called, “Huna Kana” which was the “dance of life” … From what I remember, it reaches down into your cell memory, pulls up trapped memories, allows you to see what those memories are and then you are asked if you can just “let them go”. Robin asked me to be her guinea-pig to work on all the stuff she had just learned. I said yes. So she came down to Boston where I lived at the time and did a 3 hour session on me. It was the most intense thing I’ve ever experienced. Afterwards there were adrenaline lines on my stomach from releasing so much out of my body. Someone told me that sometimes happened to women giving birth! I was stunned. But after the session when I walked down the stairs and sat in the living room with Robin, there was total silence. What I mean by that was the “would haves”, “should haves” and constant noise in my head was gone… completely. Whether it was from ADD or what, it was like constant traffic of noise in my head up until that time. It’s no wonder I functioned at all before that point in my life.
I turned to her and quietly said, “Robin, there’s nothing in my head.”
“Isn’t it great.” she said back at me beaming.
“But there’s no noise… nothing.”
“Exactly,” she said calmly.
I don’t know how long we sat there enjoying the quiet, but a week later I chopped off a foot of my hair and went up to Portland to learn more about this new life. She taught me how to savor and taste food. How to slow down and listen to my body… my numbed out body that was still processing all this newness of being payed attention to. And we went for a hike where her husband, Michael took one of my favorite pictures of us clinging to a rock as if we were just hanging on the edge of it peeking over. But really it was so much more than that. It was as if I could see my true self and I couldn’t hide anymore.
And so from there, I continued on with my life, went back to school and so on and so forth… till we come to now. Robin had upgraded her technique… “I’ve made it even easier for myself,” she said. And once again… she worked on me, pulling out cell memories but this time she delved into thousands of years of genetic patterning and cleared it. We went so deep and deeper still.
Once again it was intense, but it was only an hour. But what an hour. I came out the other side with her saying… “Just imagine all the possibilities.”
But imagining all the possibilities as a great dreamer isn’t always the best thing. And not all my patterns were gone. I discovered this week, I had this huge pattern of self sabotage in the way of distraction. Part of this lovely pattern of mine was about making life harder for myself. I came so very close to running away and starting grand new adventure which would distract me from finishing the book, yet again. Not only that, but it would take me away from this amazing new community that I found myself in right here on the North shore. A community that I am allowed to jump in and do my spoken word bit during “Wake up the Spirit” dances with Jon and Lisa at the Floating Lotus the first Sunday of every month. A community, where I am gathering friends and was thinking of creating workshops to offer. Perhaps I could be creative in a huge way here.
I came up with so many ideas after that session with Robin, and I spoke them out loud one night to Henry, who is the head of the Folklore Theater here in Gloucester… and the next thing I know he’s like… “Let’s do it! Let’s do your play on Lyme disease… start collecting the images and put them into a drop box… We’ll get together soon and hash it all out…” And he goes on about having a theater company and going all over the world, and I could see it in my minds eye. I saw the finished product, just as I have seen the finished “Notes from the Train” book… and my eyes glazed over in fear and I started running away in that moment. Why?
Because I was SEEN. I was heard by someone who takes dreams and makes them a reality. I was SEEN by people who heard my spoken words and wanted more… who praised them as brilliant. And for some reason that is scary. It’s holding me back in so many ways.
What is this fear creative dreamers have about finishing things and becoming successful? Or is it about being seen as great or an expert at something? My Ego part of me is like “Heck yes, got to love the attention, I’m a Sagittarius with a Leo moon, hell yes, bring it!” Another part of me screams, HIDE!
When I tell my best friend, Bill Flynn my newest idea of running away to a new place, he took a few days and just started harping at me on Wednesday… he would not let things drop. He said, “I need you to see what the pattern is and why you think you need to move again.” And he’d keep bringing me back on point until I was finally ready to scream and hung up. But he was right. Wow, just wow!
I came home that night and couldn’t just sink into numb land, watching tv or my usual romance novel, because silly me, I had decided to get to know a new community friends who plays an amazing guitar. I found out he lived only a few blocks away from me and we decided to do an exchange. He would play for me while I cooked dinner for him and we’d hang out. So that night after dinner while he played some kind of Spanish guitar music that spoke to my soul, I picked up my pen and wrote in my journal.
March 8th
What is my truth? Why do I want to flee this place? What now when community is so close to me? Embracing me.
There is so much ready to come out and thrive… so much underneath I’ve been hiding- forever. So why would I give up and move on? When it could be so good, so much better than before.
When I, the poet am in full bloom.
When I, live my life out loud…
louder than before.
When I am heard all over the world and yet I can’t understand myself. What is it?
Why do I hold myself back from experiencing success and putting it ALL out there… instead of just being moment to moment. At the Wake up the Spirit dance, I spread my wings. I wrote my prayers and took flight sharing with one and all… like a preacher on Sunday morning, preaching to the congregation. Like my ancestor, Jonathan Edwards, THIS is what I was meant to do.
I gave you everything in that one moment, then tried to step back into my hiding place by moving away.
Laughing at myself… as I write. Bill was right. It is a horrific pattern of running away. I need to finish what I started here.
Just finish it!
Who knows how the mind twists with untruths and patterns we learn right out of the womb from Day 1. How do we unravel them? Stack them up like mattresses in the Princess in the Pea. The pea is buried beneath all these layers of patterns, trauma, drama, years upon years of crap… piled on. How do we know how to remove the pea that will magically fix everything?
I don’t have the answers or that magic fix. All I now is that I need to stand still for awhile and work on allowing myself to be ok with being seen and heard. To be my creative self and keep writing. To keep dreaming up huge dreams and to possibly make them come true.
There is so much in me waiting to fly free. I looked back on older journals and realize that this is a gift I can no longer hide. My voice needs to be heard. So be it.