And So It Begins…

Last night was one of the worst in recent memory. I couldn’t sleep for my stomach was tied in a knot, which was caused by something that happened earlier in the evening. Sometimes being on a spiritual path knocks you upside the head, and this was a big knock. Things are not over yet, and I expect that it will be some time before the full meaning of this, comes clear.

I held my MeetUp last night, at a local coffee shop. Only one other person showed up, a recent friend of mine that also happens to be a retired English professor. I had mentioned earlier that may guides had told me that I was going to write a book. I had also said that I had no idea when or what it was to be about. When I became clear that no one else was going to show up, she proposed to help me write that book, in exchange for help I had given her in handling a spirit in her house.

We discussed the idea and she outlined how I would get started. For my part, I was resisting, but I’m not sure exactly what I was resisting. I don’t mind writing, (obviously!) But something about the situation was bringing up something, something I couldn’t put a name on, but I have felt before.

This something first popped up when I did my first QHHT session as a client. I never really got much detail, but an enormous about of guilt and grief came to the surface. It seems that I had been someone who was responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not millions of people, and wholesale destruction as well. Despite the powerful feelings and the physical symptoms from that session, I have never been 100% convinced that I didn’t just make the whole thing up, well, to be important, and all that. Once the session was over the emotions slid back beneath the surface again, only occasionally reappearing, in brief flashes.

Last night, I’m still not sure what I felt, but it seemed like I was feeling the huge swells caused by some powerful force below my awareness. Something so large that it only needed to roll over in it’s sleep to cause tidal waves on the surface of my mind. I can never leave well enough alone, so, like most boys do when they see something they don’t understand, I kept poking at it with a mental “stick.” Unfortunately that left me stuck inside it most of the night, with my stomach knotted, thoughts swirling in my head and unable to sleep.

Let me try and explain what was going on in my head. First there was a buzzing, and anxiety, and a set of memories that kept playing, over and over. The first memory was of a “dream” or past life, take your pick, were I was a priestess, traveling on a ship. Though I was technically a priestess, I was for all practical purposes, a mid- to high-level bureaucrat. One of those faceless people who do the grunt work of managing all the details of keeping a temple complex running smoothly. I was on the ship, with a single, armed, escort, because I smuggling holy artifacts to a trading outpost to protect them from the coming disaster. I really didn’t want to be there, but I was ordered to by my superiors, and there was nothing I could do about it. Apparently politics were such that we were not allowed to admit that we knew what was coming, so we had to make what preparations we could in secret. I kept getting more and more details about this, as the scenes played over and over in my mind.

The next memory was something that happened when I was about five, and playing with a neighbor girl. I was living in Massachusetts at the time, in an area that was pretty undeveloped at that time. The street we were on had houses on just one side and we were surrounded by undeveloped forest and fields. The girl and I were playing in some area away from the houses and she needed to pee, which she did, in front of me. I remember watching with mild interest. After that, we went…somewhere, and the next thing I remember is “I don’t want to feel any more.” Where about that time I disassociated so strongly from my body that it took decades of self work and a therapist to get back in, sometime in my 50’s.

Now for the last memory, the one that turned out to be the key. This is about a girl I had a crush on, starting in the first grade, and on through the last time I saw her in school, junior collage. Despite the fact that we were in the same grade all that time, I don’t remember noticing her very often. The first memory I have of her is in the first grade. We walked to her house after school and playing “horses” in a neighbors yard. Later, as I remember it, I was attacked and bitten by a dog on the way home. After that, I never spoke to her again. I would see her at school, but I was deathly afraid to ever go near her.

I ran into her at our twentieth high school reunion and her story of that time is quite different than mine. Apparently, she followed me around a lot, and hung out at my house enough that she knew my mother. I have no recollection of any of this.

Back to last night. I got up, at some point, very late, to walk a bit, in the hope the my stomach pain was caused by gas and standing up would allow me to burp and release it. No such luck, but, while I was pacing, thinking about my grammar school crush, a strong need to cry came over me, and the words “I am so sorry!” Once I had let that run it’s course, I felt a feeling of release, and then went back to bed. Soon I realized that everything in my head and body had subsided enough that I could finally get to sleep.

Today, my stomach still hurts, and it still feels a bit weird inside my head, but it feel…different, something has shifted. Something has begun and we’ll see what happens next.

I'm Baack!

This is the first thing I’ve written in a while. Since I’ve moved, certainly, but it’s probably been close to six months since the divorce started in ernest and I started working. Both occupied so much of my attention that there wasn’t anything left for writing. Now that my life is settled again, I realized that the job was still sucking up way too much of my attention and I had to quit.

That decision represents a milestone in my journey. I now have now chosen to fully commit to my hypnotherapy practice and this “alternative” health world for my income. That may not be as brave as it sounds, since I have saved quite a bit and I won’t be hurting for quite a while, if I’m careful. But it’s a big deal for me because of my insecurities around money. I am pretty uncomfortable without a steady income, no matter how much I have in the bank.

The thing is, I knew right away that job wasn’t right for me, but I went to work there anyway. Shortly after I moved here, I went to that store (It’s one of the big, national retail chains) to pick up a few things. I could tell then that the energy of the whole place was very uncomfortable. But, like we all do, I talked myself into accepting a bad choice because I “ought to.”

A big part of my spiritual journey has been the stripping away of all the “supposed tos” and waking up to what is really going on. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories. Mostly because pretty much everything I see happening in the world can be easily explained by greed, lust (for money, power, sex), and fear. Couple those drives with little knowledge or interest in the long-term consequences of their actions, and you get today’s world. I do monitor, to some extent, what conspiracy groups are up to, but I looks to me that, if there really was a global conspiracy, then these people would be playing into the conspirators hands. I may write more about this in the future, if I get inspired or have enough questions on the subject.

This was something I was discussing at my last MeetUp. I have been having meeting at my house, and it’s been fun. I have a regular and we have tea and snacks and hang out in the kitchen or living room talking about whatever. This time, I found myself struggling to articulate what I have managed to see about life, without having it sound just like another new-age platitude. And I couldn’t do it.

I see that there is what we need to get by, and there’s what want. But, what do we want, really? There’s what we are told to want, by you parents, friends, and all the ads you see every day, but how much of that desire is really yours? There are endless ads, everywhere I go, that all want me to spend money and buy stuff. And I see around me the message that successful people have lots of stuff. You want to look successful, don’t you?

What I’m seeing is that I’m supposed to buy stuff, then I have to spend more to take care of that stuff, to go out, take trips, have parties, raise kids, send them to expensive schools, and still save enough that when I won’t, or can’t, work any more I can continue to buy stuff and continue the same cycle.

Most of my life I have been trapped by the fear of not having “enough.” I could never do what I wanted, because it was a waste of time, unless it was one of the “sanctioned” consumer activities like going out to eat, partying, taking a vacation, traveling, shopping, etc.. And I never questioned the point of it all. Why bother? Especially when most of what I did seemed to be about how I looked to other people. I suppose it all fell apart when I realized that everything I did was to look good or get approval from other people. I wasn’t getting it, and I was embarrassed when I did get it. There is the paradox.

So I had to ask, what do I want? I do want to be like everybody else and just have the nice “stuff,” but there’s got to be more than that, surly? Thinking long and hard, and fighting through layers of conditioning, I’ve realized that I want to help people and explore the “forbidden” parts of our culture: The paranormal, the psychic, UFOs, the unexplained, all the stuff the “respectable” people don’t take seriously. And my gateway to exploring this inner world is hypnosis and hypnotherapy. I get to help people to gain understanding about themselves and what’s going on around them, and bring them a measure of peace. That is very cool. And, at the same time, I get to witness, first hand, fascinating excursions outside of this materialistic paradigm. That is also very cool.

That’s probably enough for my first day back on the blog. More later, bye!

If you have any comments, questions or topics you’d like to see me cover, send me a note: AQuestioningSpiritTherapy@gmail.com