Exorcise the Demons
This is an entry I wrote a few weeks ago, but didn’t get around to posting it until now…
I’m exhausted. Last week was a very emotional week for me. Being open is easy when things are going your way. It’s staying open when life zigs and you’re expecting a zag that can be a challenge.
My new friend Heather, who is a personal trainer, massage therapist and healthy lifestyle coach held my hand through most of the week. She moved to Bologna a year or so ago from Los Angeles and started Body Wellness Bologa (www.bodywellnessbologna.com). She’s shared some great nuggets of wisdom, given me two therapeutic massages, a personal training session and finally a healing session. I’m not sure I would’ve survived the week without her pampering and encouragement.
My sister Crystal does various forms of healing techniques with me all of the time. If it weren’t for her, I’d be wound up tighter than an eight day clock. She helps me breathe through the madness, find my center again and see passed the minutiae. My experience with Heather was very similar, but something happened to me that blew my mind.
If you don’t believe in this sort of thing, I encourage you to continue reading with an open mind. There was a point in my life where I didn’t believe it either. I was also an angry, hostile, aggressive young lady. Now, I’m a hope-and-happiness preaching, life-living, (still aggressive, of course) courageous woman. Being open and believing in the power of intention has had no ill-effects on my life. It has strengthened my relationships with family and friends, it has granted me freedom and abundance and it has given me the courage to be vulnerable. Since there’s no health risks, toxins or warning labels for being a glass-half-full kind of person why would anyone choose the alternative?
I will admit, the vulnerability part can be a bitch sometimes, but the good news is positive intention also grants me the power to heal my own heart. I sometimes have to be reminded to soothe and love myself when shit gets rough, but that’s why I surround myself with like-minded people.
In Italy, most of the streets in the historic areas are made of huge stone blocks. I constantly see road crews removing and resetting these bulky and obviously heavy pieces of stone. One by one they are chiseled out by hand and reorganized in the same pattern as before. I recently met someone fantastic. From the moment I locked eyes with this man, I felt a connection. He’s kind, charismatic, interesting, easy to talk to, fun and out-going …but the closer I got to him the more I realized he was surrounded by a heavy, stone wall. I was interested in what was on the other side of said wall so I started chiseling, but as I would remove a chunk of stone, he would replace it.
He’s very deep, but finds comfort in emotionless banter and humor. He can talk about his past and childhood with ease, but never about the emotions attached to the life-changing events. Never about how he feels. Only the facts. It was a defeating realization for me. I was confused to find out that this seemingly great man didn’t want to be any closer to me than we were. It was heart-wrenching to want more, but not get it. Even now, knowing that, the only thing that feels right, albeit painful, is to be more open and vulnerable with him. My rose-colored vision is that somehow, my openess will put a permanent crack in his stone wall and one day it will begin crumbling down. Will I be around when that happens to meet the real him? I hope so. Will my feelings for him be the same at that point? Who knows…I’ll cross that bridge if we get there. But, I do know that in a short time his happiness has come to matter to me regardless of my place in his life. I care about this man and want good things for him.
Meeting him and going through this emotional exercise brought up a lot of old energy for me. That coupled with my three-month trial in Italy coming to a close (I don’t want to leave) had my body all kinds of jacked up. That’s how I met Heather which brings me back to my healing session.
Heather uses a variety of techniques including massage, acupressure and healing touch. I had a wonderful science teacher growing up that made me fascinated with the world around me. Mr. Wilson taught me that everything in this beautiful world that has mass and takes up space is made up of matter. The computer you’re reading this on is made of matter. Your favorite sandwich is made up of matter. You and I are made of matter. And what is matter made of? Atoms. Minuscule bits of energy that make us all different, but mind bogglingly all the same. So, humans are really complex engergy fields which interact with other energy fields throughout the universe. Someone who is highly tuned in to this energy can become a conduit and through touch, help read and clear others’ energy centers in the body (chakra).
Have I lost you yet? Reread that paragraph if you must, but please stay with me!
That morning as I was lying on the massage table, relaxing in the dim room, listening to the melodic sounds filling the space, I began the process of clearing my head of all of the cobwebs that had collected during the week – finding a place of nothingness and oneness all at the same time. Heather began placing her hands gently over various areas of my body. My mind was clear, but as she would touch different areas of my body, thoughts and memories would come flashing forward. When she placed her hands on my hips, memories of relationships and heartaches I hadn’t thought of in 5, 10, 18 years were flashing through my head. It was like I was watching my entire love life in fast forward and it was overwhelming. As her hands touched my throat, I could hear fragments of conversations. I was talking to people I barely remembered, saying things I didn’t understand in the context of the conversational blip that was leaving my mind as fast as it arrived. And then, she placed her hand on my forehead. I believe the other was on the back of my neck…I can’t remember because I was in that tranquil, relaxed state of being. I don’t know how long her hands where there, but all of a sudden I felt a surge of electricity go through my body. I gasped and my body jerked like someone had just zapped me with defibrillator paddles. My chest felt full and my heart began to pound. I don’t know what to call it, so I’m just going to say Heather helped me blow my own mind wide open.
Heather met me a week ago. We’ve never gone to lunch together or had long talks about our lives. I didn’t tell her what I thought or felt during that session, but when we were done, she told me that overall my energy felt strong and renewed and next chapter-ish. She said I had blockage in my left hip and serious blockage in my throat – that it felt like I had lost my voice. She was right. When I feel negative emotions of hurt, rejection, defeat, or loss, I always physically feel a tightness and burning in my throat. It’s hard to swallow and I can’t speak.
Next time you get upset or angry or hurt, I encourage you to be aware of where you feel it in your body because it means something. Does your chest tighten? Do your ears burn? Does your throat close up? Does your stomach ache? Pinpoint the physical sensation in your body and feel and breathe through that pain and then let it go. If it’s too much to do alone, call somebody and have them be with you over the phone or in person as you move through the emotional energy. Because at the end of the day…it’s energy and it’s got to go somewhere. If you don’t let it go, it’s just going to vibrate inside of you until you, too, are wound up like an eight day clock.
Feelings are to be felt. Don’t sweep them under a rug or brick and mortar them around you until you’re closed off from the world. Life might suddenly dangle something wonderful in your face and you’ll be too covered up to see it…And that would be a shame because you deserve a beautiful life.
