Child-like wisdom – part 2

Tags

Child, Energy, Healing, Inner child, Love, Photo shoot, Raunchy, Repression, Scotch, Sushumna, Wisdom

Read part 1 first

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Who was this girl, I wondered? I simply didn’t recognise myself. It wasn’t the costumes. This girl seemed confident, relaxed. She looked good. No, she looked great. Sexy.

She doesn’t look how I feel about myself. Who is this person? Did taking off most of my clothes liberate something? So carefree, so in love.

I could see… invisible layers of protection that I usually wore, were missing. Why?

Suddenly wracked with pain, sobs bubbled up from the depths. It was very confusing, I had no idea what was going on.

And then came the voice. Calming and knowing. As though someone was in the room speaking to me.

Go and lie down on your bed said the voice. Do it now. Get comfortable. Its time to look within. That girl in the pictures is you but to be her, you must let go. You must wake up.

Who was I to argue at this point in time?

I surrounded myself with cushions and pillows, like an island.

Here’s what you’re going to do. Close your eyes. Turn them inwards, down. Take them from your head and send them down inside your body. Find the pain. Once you’re there, you need to look at your life from your body’s perspective.

That might sound completely nuts to anyone reading this, but it made some kind of sense to me at the time. So I did just that.

I visualised my eyes coming loose from their sockets and travelling down my spine. Unsurprisingly, they settled in my belly region. Ah, so this is where repressed emotions live (kinda knew that)!

Perhaps I was in some kind of trance by this stage, but I “met”, well… a five year old version of myself! Or something like that.

We held hands, and we replayed the events of my life to date. Not the pleasant things ofcourse. We were here to look at the pain. The things that made me feel small, less than.

They flashed up one after the other. But this time I felt it deeply within my body. No suppression, no isolation. Fear and pain unplugged.

And the five year old me howled. The way a child cries when they think they’re truly alone and abandoned. She was scared and sad and no one heard her cries. Not ever.

I knew it was my job to help her. To make her feel better. To look at each event and say sorry for not noticing before. But I see it now, and let’s get through it together.

Every new scene brought hysteria closer to the fore. There weren’t too many, but enough: heartache, betrayal of trust, fear and disappointment. From each episode, an unresolved piece of the hurt had lodged itself deep within my body. I might not have been aware of it, but five year old me was. Until now, it had been her burden to carry in silence.

Hours went by, but eventually the pain subsided. From the top of my skull to the base of my spine, I distinctly felt like a wind tunnel had been erected. Sushumna. A sense of spaciousness pervaded.

But more than that, I now knew that deep within resided my child-like self, perpetually young and trusting. Wanting to be known, to be heard and loved.

Awe and wonder filled my waking moments, aware I’d experienced some kind of spontaneous energetic healing.

By the way, those photos were a hit! Originally I was going to post them to my love, but soon afterwards I was given instructions to go and pick up a plane ticket and get my ass over to the UK! To deliver them in person and share the last few weeks of his trip whilst his mate did other things.

Interestingly, this experience had a much further reaching impact. A little shy, the first night after arriving, I handed over my pack of photos and an accompanying letter and went to have a shower.

No surprises there – he loved them! But on a deeper level he got it – he could see the transformation I’d told him about.

For as I cast off the buried pain through that night, it seems my heart also grew lighter. More free.

With fewer layers of protection, it was easier to connect to the man I loved. Whilst, erm, sex had always been a good thing, I now seemed to have a whole new level of sensitivity and feeling. He noticed the difference too.

Poetically, I guess you could say my inner castle walls came tumbling down…

I’ve since come to believe that we all have this “inner child”. They represent who we are at a very basic level. They are our innocence, our trust, our belief in good things.

When our inner child constantly deals with repressed pain and suffering we start to close down and feel the need to protect ourselves. In doing so, we cut ourselves off from the world and even those we love. A vicious circle, but one we have the power to do something about.

Ofcourse, after I was assaulted, I had to go through a similar journey. Well, perhaps somewhat different. But nonetheless, I’ve had to shed the accumulation of emotional and physical pain stored in my body. To free my inner five year old once more.

~Svasti

Child-like wisdom – part 1

Tags

Abuse, Assault, Castle, Child, Love, Raunchy, Scotch, Self-conscious, Verbal abuse, Wisdom

Like a fairytale covered with pixie dust, I was engaged. He proposed in a castle near Wales. I was just 24.

I’d been flown to the UK as a surprise to share the end of my boyfriend’s three month jaunt, planned with his mate before we’d met.

How does it happen that one day you meet a stranger for the first time and feel a ridiculously powerful connection?

Okay, so we didn’t end up together – we never made it down the aisle. But whilst it worked, we fired on all cylinders. It was magic. It was something.

Possibly the strength of our bond is what allowed him to talk me into doing something I never thought I’d ever do.

It was during one of the endless and expensive calls we had whilst he was gallivanting all over the UK. At first he said he’d ring me once a week because of the cost. But that seemed unlikely when he called me the very next day. And the day after that. And the day… well, you get the picture.

I miss you he said. Every day. Our phone calls were long and beautiful, discussing you know – everything.

Send me some raunchy photos to keep me company he begged. Although he couldn’t see how much I was blushing, he soon heard all about it.

He knew, ofcourse, of my body issues. I’m too tall, I’m not delicate, and I’m not waif thin. I’m not pretty. So said the negative internal voices – thanks, brother.

For many years I was my older brother’s physical and verbal punching bag. Mum went back to work once we reached a certain age. From the time I started high school, there was always a good hour or so before any parental figure showed up. Time my brother – a very angry person for reasons unknown – used to full advantage.

To bait me, to hurl threats and insults against the way I looked and my intelligence, to smack me around as he saw fit. It’s something that for the most part, I’ve moved past now, thankfully.

When someone tells you every single day of your life how ugly/stupid/fat etc you are, it sinks in. Throw enough mud…

Of my brother’s “conditioning”, the hardest part to overcome were insults about my looks. I knew I was more intelligent than him – that was easy to see. But I never drew much male attention, so I bought the rest hook, line and sinker.

A remaining side effect to this day is that I can’t look in a mirror or at a photo of myself, and see what other people see.

So as you can imagine, my boyfriend/soon-to-be-fiancé had asked me to do something that was anti every instinct I had. I was supremely self-conscious about my physical appearance.

However, I was madly in love and I really wanted to be able to do this for the man I loved.

I recruited one of my closest friends who had some skill as a photographer AND would be cool about the request. Giggling, we planned the ‘photo shoot’, working some alcohol, pizza and chocolate into the equation.

My ultra-tiny one bedroom unit was transformed. The sofa was pushed into the kitchen. A sheet was taped to the wall and props came out – sheepskin rugs, elaborate cushions etc. And costumes – there were several changes of scanty clothing to consider. I’m nothing if not creative!

A fine scotch lubricated proceedings. We turned on some music and um, got started…

Unexpectedly, it was a blast. Initially I felt strange being half naked with my friend B taking pictures. But with each costume change and more alcohol we were increasingly amused.

I was terrified about getting them developed. B took care of that for me and left me in peace to peek at the results. Drink in hand, deep breath, and I opened the packet.

~~~~~~~~~ To be continued…

~Svasti