While reading through this story you may ask, "How are all these events connected? Some things she has in here don’t seem to have relevance." I assure you they do and everything is connected, and like me you may not yet see how.
Spiritual and emotional growth in adult life is like a puzzle with no picture to guide you, that you are missing pieces to. Just when you think your about to complete the puzzle, you realize there is a missing piece, and each piece you find afterwards in your search to complete the puzzle leads to the knowledge there is another piece to look for. Sometimes those pieces come in order, but most of the time they come in what appears to be scattered and irrelevant chaos, and you get pieces you think have no place in your puzzle because you have yet to find the ones which lead to the piece you now hold.
Below is a recounting of discovering a few of those puzzle pieces I didn’t know where to place in the puzzle of my life.
Earlier in the spring and summer of 2021 I became acutely aware of how addicted I was to staring into vehicles as they passed me by on the streets. I just had to see who the person was, what they were doing inside their vehicles and pass judgements on them. So, one day I decided I would stop. The act was starting to make me feel dirty and heavy. And really, what business was it of mine to know what someone else was doing inside comfort of their own vehicle? It had started feel like walking up to a stranger’s house and peaking into a window to see what they were doing in the privacy of their own home.
Now, any time you decide to change things about yourself, your beliefs, or your habits there will be push back either from internal or external sources. So, I knew in a small town this choice would ruffle some feathers, but honestly, I was beginning to not care what others thought. It had started to feel like I was prying into people’s private lives, and it was none of my business who was doing what in which vehicle. I had to stop for my own good. I resolved no more snooping into passing vehicles at all.
This seemingly simple and easy habit to change was more difficult than fist anticipated, I had been doing it unconsciously for most of my life after all and would have to maintain a higher level of awareness if I was going to break it.
And like I knew this choice would, it became quickly apparent that some people became offended by it. I came to find these individuals, and their children, would intentionally start snubbing me.
From the beginning I had been acutely aware of the personal insult that would be taken by some, and if I’m being honest, the fist time I understood I was being intentionally snubbed I initially felt hut. But once I perceived why I had been I couldn’t help but laugh at being paid back for the insult they believed I had paid them. (An eye for an eye). They were doing it deliberately thinking to hurt me like they believed I was purposely hurting them. But the thing was, this choice I made, had nothing to do with anyone but me. Even though I knew the true intent behind their actions and mine, I made the choice to take no offence to their petty, vindictive and unconscious choice for “payback”.
Later that summer I did my best to explain to my mother what I was attempting to do and in a long conversation was told, others would not like me going against social convention, especially in a small town, I should care how it appeared and know others would think I was a bitch for doing so. This was not the first time a conversation like this had sprung up between us when I broached the subject of letting go of social convention and being attached to others’ opinions or feelings when it came to making healthy choices, and setting healthy boundaries for myself, and like those other conversations I was left feeling misunderstood, frustrated, and unsupported in my choice to start becoming self aware.
Fast forward to late December the same year, my best friend messaged me one morning close to Christmas to talk about what had been going on in her world over the last couple of days. As I listened to her recording, I was hit with the fear of confrontation, and shame over actions and words I had not and would never say. What the hell? It took everything in my power to stop myself from turning her message off and ignoring her completely. I thought things were somehow going to turn to the topic of me, and I would hear her begin to tell me hurtful things about myself that were either untrue or, which I did not wish to hear. Of course, this was never going to happen. She was going through something, which had nothing to do with me, and was not reaching out to attack anyone or complain about her current situation. She was simply reaching out and asking for emotional support from someone she trusted. Despite the fear and shame, I felt I told myself I could give her that. Through these irrational emotions I felt I reassured her she was doing the right thing and I was there for her whenever she needed me.
The next morning, I woke up feeling like I was being pushed to the edge of a well of emotional drama I did not wish to fall into. On my way over to feed my horse I passed Connie. The story of the drama that had played out between us came flooding back with a vengeance and I heard a woman’s condescending voice in my head, I put Connie’s face to it. I could see the look of arrogance on her face and hear the lie of warmth in her voice as she spoke “What a sad life you have. I feel sorry for you so I’m willing to make you a generous offer because it’s Christmas. If you could get over yourself, I would share with you all the abundance I have. If you would just shut up and come back to play your roll, it would make me, and therefore you, happy. You would feel filled with all you will need to feel better about yourself and your life. You could be a part of what I have built around me. What a sad and lonely life you must have. Look at how much more I have than you do, you have so little compared to me. I have children and a career, a full and happy family and social life. What do you really have? Come back and I will share theses things with you.”
I at first, I believed these lies and felt hurt about how little she perceived I had. Was I kidding myself when I thought I had a full and beautiful life? Was she right about how little I had compared to her? Had I made a huge mistake by wanting to spend another Christmas at home with just my husband? I should have insisted on a family Christmas. Look at the warm and full house she will have compared to my cold and empty one. I could have been part of that warmth if I’d just give up my integrity and bend to her will. Then I was angry! “Fuck you and your fake pity and lies!” I said to her “My life is full and beautiful. What gives you the right to judge me and say I have less simply because my abundance looks differently from yours? I know what you offer because I’ve been there before and it is not love and acceptance, what you offer is public alienation, manipulation, and control for your own satisfaction. All you care about is how your full house is perceived by those outside your home and that is not abundance.”
Her voice came back dripping with self righteous indignation, “Why can’t you just suck things up and reconcile for my sake, the kids, and the family? This is all your fault. If you weren’t so selfish and irrational, you could have what I have.” I felt the tug of self recrimination pulling at me once again. This was all my fault, all my doing. I was the big bad bitch in this narrative and no one else was to blame for the way things now stood. “Things had been going fine until you turned your back on us and fucked everything up. You should just get over it really and come back to the fold so you can play the role we want you to play in our lives.”
I came home feeling like I was missing an opportunity and had failed to make things better. I was letting past patterns inform the present and believed I had not given Connie enough opportunity to show me she had changed. This left me feeling guilty and ashamed again for choosing to pull myself out of a toxic relationship. I sat down and began to write out what I was feeling and thinking in my journal, “I refused to feel guilty for distancing myself once and for all.” I realized that any choice I would have made when it came to leaving Connie behind would have resulted in a similar outcome. I wondered, how many times, or lifetimes, had I played this drama cycle out? How many times had I caved to the guilt and shame I felt for walking away and gone back only to have the cycle repeat itself? How many times had my ancestors repeated this same cycle? And how many times have I walked away and not gone back? My thoughts then turned to how I had met Tyler and come to live in small town Saskatchewan and the part Connie played in that meeting. What would my life look like if I had not pursued a friendship with her? Would I still have met Tyler without her involvement? Would I still be living here? Would my life look differently than it did now? And if I still had ended up meeting Tyler without her involvement, would we have struck up a friendship anyway? These questions began to excite me. And in that moment, I reluctantly realized I had to suck it up, speak my truth and finish writing about how our relationship ended despite how awful it made me feel to rehash those old emotions. I had to complete the blog post I was working on so I could close a cycle and move on from it.
I took some time to explore the questions I had asked myself. I thought about what the medium Grant Figley had told me 5 years ago about my relationship with Tyler, “it was fated” he’d said, and I felt in my gut I was always meant to spend this life with him. It would not have mattered if I formed a relationship with Connie before meeting him or really, what path I would have choose to walk. Spirit would have found a way to bring us together anyway. I still would have met Tyler and would still have ended up in a space similar to the one I was in now. Connie and I would have still played similar roles in each other’s lives, and things still would have ended with me placing a large amount of space between us. I also played with the idea of learning the lessons my relationship with Connie was meant to teach much earlier in life, with the girls who bullied me in junior high, and having our relationship be one of limited contact with firmer boundaries in every sense of the word. And oh man! Did these thoughts make me feel light! In a way it was empowering to realize even then I had choice, and could sit here now, in present time, and envision a path not taken that still lead to a moment like the one I was in, one with the drama pattern Connie helped bring to the surface missing from it.
~
We were in bed, I was half asleep feeling how wonderful it felt to be laying there beside this beautiful man I chose to spend my life with, warm tucked up in my bed. I thought to myself this is good! And the Netflix cartoon The Midnight Gospel, episode 5 Annihilation of Joy, came to my mind. I want to do this over again and be able to make better choices I thought to myself. As I felt this contentment, I was suddenly struck with the feeling, if I did this life over again, I would forget all I had done and experienced in this version. I would forget about this moment of perfect contentment and how happy I was to be laying there beside the man I loved. I rationalized, if you lived this life over that would mean you would get this moment again, would you really be forgetting it? I cried to myself; I don’t want to forget this like I had forgotten the others!! I did not want to forget again! I had already forgotten so much!! Then something happened. I went somewhere else. I thought about death. I would forget when I died, I thought. Or would I? I went further into that feeling, I thought about a time far in the future where I was old and wrinkled with my white hair spread out around me as I laid in a bed. I watching as my soul lifted out of my body. Where did I go? What would I do? The thought let go of these questions roll through me, so I did. I watched and felt myself as I floated up into darkness that was not darkness but a space devoid of things but at the same time full of rainbow light and open spaces where memories lie. I suddenly understood I would forget nothing. I would remember it all, every perfect detail and moment of this life and so much more! Death was the true remembering and life was only a temporary forgetting. I would remember everything I had ever forgotten. It was thrilling and beautiful, this place I found myself in. The feeling shifted again and as quickly as I was shown this feeling it was gone. For a moment I tried to hold onto it then let it go. I told myself it happened once it could happen again and if not, once was enough.
~
It was Christmas Eve, I was in the kitchen cleaning up the mess I had made while making Russian dip when the doorbell rang, it was Tyler’s mom with a bouquet of Christmas flowers and a card for us. She had just picked the flowers up and had not wanted to wait until tomorrow because she didn’t think they would see us. Tyler came to sit at the counter beside his mom, she looked and to him then me, “So, are you guys coming for supper tomorrow?” she asked. Meaning are we gong to Brett and Connie’s for the family Christmas?
With those words I felt this light tingling feeling as I stepped outside of my body and away form the situation. I began to feel the first tingles of panic and knew I would say things I didn’t believe. I had already told our families this year if they wanted to see us, they had to come to our house over the holidays. I looked to Tyler and quickly realized he had done something similar and was not going to say a thing and replied pleasantly, “Nope. I told you we are staying home this year, if you wanted to see us you had to come here.” This did not please her. I thought to myself, I should have known she would do something like this.
I could see the wheels turning in her mind and she frowned, she asked “If I had dinner at my house would you come?” I watched Tyler out of the corner of my eye, his eyes cast down to his phone. He was still not willing to speak up.
I replied “No.” meaning not this year because of the choice we had made. If I said yes, she would take it to mean something it did not.
She became visibly displeased and I understood then she believed I meant we would never come for a full family gathering if Connie and Brett were there. I made absolutely no move to correct this assumption, and felt paralyzed to do so, like it would just be easier for me to let her assume her thoughts were true. She then said, “You need to get over this and suck it up. It’s only one day and family. I didn’t like some of my family in-law either, but I had to suck it up and go even though I didn’t want to do family dinners.” Ha! I thought, not at all a coincidence she should say these exact words to me now. As I was still not fully present in my body and detached from the situation, in an unhealthy way, I felt only the slightest of slaps to my face. I half told myself this is something you have no obligation to take on. These are her projections, and an opportunity to show yourself you are strong enough to stick to your guns. That you do not have to bend to the wills of others to be approved of.
I replied “I don’t have to suck anything up. And you didn’t have to “suck it up” either, it had been your choice to go to those dinners. I do not have to subject myself to a toxic environment if I did not want to.” She didn’t like hearing these things, but I could see she at least half understood what I was saying and made a face that said she didn’t want to go for dinner tomorrow night either.
Tyler finally spoke up and said, “See you don’t wat to go either!” His mom just laughed at him. I offered for them to come for dinner at our house instead, we were having scalloped potatoes and ham, there would be more than enough.
She did not acknowledge the offer for dinner and said, “Well you guys can come over for drinks later.” still not getting that I meant what I had said about staying home.
“Yeah sure, you guys can come over for drinks later!” I replied. This put a pause on things for a moment like she didn’t know how to respond then said more to Tyler, “I’m going to have a hard time getting your father out of the house in this cold weather.” I knew this was an attempted manipulation to get us to do what she wanted, and she said it two more times while her and Tyler went back and forth about his dad. As she was leaving, she said “Ok, we will stop by for a drink tomorrow before supper, if I can get your dad out of the house.”
After she left, I became a little upset. Tyler had made no move to support me or stand up in my defense with his mother. Fucking “suck it up”, are you kidding me?! I continued with cleaning up the kitchen and said to Tyler who was back to playing on his phone, “Thanks for making me the bad guy again. You could have said something and helped back me up.” I felt like I had been hung out to dry. Tyler mumbled something and left the room.
How could he just sit there and say nothing? I thought he had my back in this and understood where I was coming from! Was I not taking into consideration the things he wanted? The feelings from the previous days became amplified, I was being an unreasonable asshole for sticking to my guns, and no one but me seemed to support me in the choices I was making. I really began to wonder if I was doing the right thing for us and myself at all.
Somehow this whole thing had been turned into being about Connie, and I had let Tyler’s mom leave under the false assumption that this was correct. How the hell had my Christmas turned into being all about Connie?? I heard the bathroom door close, and the shower come on and knew Tyler would not engage this conversation any further. Even though I felt hurt and angry with him I knew he was right in his approach of not taking what his mother said personally and understood his apparent lack of support was me projecting childhood pain and a repeating pattern I did not fully understand onto this situation.
Despite this understanding I couldn’t help but feel hurt, unsupported, and misunderstood. I wanted to talk this out and Tyler wanted to forget about it happening. I felt a strong desire to confide in my own mother while I was alone in the kitchen, that little girl in me was saying run to mommy and she will make it all better. I had not felt this desire in a very long time, and I almost picked up the phone to call her when that voice of hesitation crept in reminding me of the last few conversations we’d had, it said “remember what happened the last time you shared with her? And how unsupportive she was?” I began to doubt that her ear would be a sympathetic one, and could almost hear her saying “I agree with Tyler’s mom” … And besides that, she was busy with grandkids, I didn’t want to take her away from her fun just to listen to my sob story. I was in this alone and had to figure my own shit out. No one was going to help me do it.
Why did everyone seem to insist I compromise myself for their happiness? Why was I still coming up against so much resistance to stay true to my integrity? I thought about the stories in Elaine La Joie’s, The Empath and the Archetype essays and this helped reassure me I was doing the right thing for myself in the best way I knew how at this time. I did not EVER have to suck anything up to please someone else, even if it was family. I did not EVER have to play small to make others feel better about themselves, even if it was family, and I did not EVER have to compromise my integrity to do things that made me feel bad about myself, even if it was family.
That night just as I was about to fall into sleep, I was violently jolted awake by someone on my right scaring me. Heart pounding, body convulsing my limbs flailing as they got caught in the sheets. I opened my eyes looked around then promptly fell asleep forgetting anything had ever happened.
I allowed my Christmas to be dominated by what I told myself were intrusive thoughts projected at me by Connie. I felt myself feeling a great deal of shame for not wanting to make her the center of my universe and would see her doing all the Christmas things and arrogantly saying to me “See how much I have being surrounded by family and how little you have? You could have this too if you just shut up sucked it up. How lonely you must be spending Christmas alone like that.” It felt like I was in what appeared to be a loosing battle with an entity that wanted to see me suffer and fizzle into nothing.
Connie and Brett’s kids called late afternoon Christmas day to talk to Tyler while his parents were over for a short visit, he put them on speaker phone and they wished him a Merry Christmas, asked what he was doing and thanked him for the cards and money I had got for them. During the phone call the kids did not ask after me or mention me once, and I could fee myself growing sadder and sadder as they spoke, I could almost hear the unkind things their parents had been saying about me in front of them and part of me wondered if they were using them as a tool to try and hurt me. After they hung up, I felt deeply wounded and told myself I had made my bed and now must lay in it. I had known this would be the outcome of my choice’s and now I had to live with it. I stopped myself at this thought, why am I taking this so personally? Their actions had nothing to do with me and could only hurt me if I allowed them to. I knew from past experience how easily I picked up on their emotions, so I asked myself, was this sadness even mine to begin with? Or was it coming from the kids? I considered how I had felt in the past when they had ignored me and how I had been feeling in general and decided to say NO THANK YOU to the invitation to fall into the depression being offered. I made the choice to not allow their choices to hurt me and the feelings quickly passed.
I desperately wanted to feel comforted and supported, I wanted to be told it would all be alright, and I was doing the right thing. I longed for a sympathetic ear and felt like I had been launched back in time and was that silenced, wounded little girl I used to be. I needed to have faith in myself and show I supported my own decisions even if no one else did. I had to trust I was doing the right thing for me despite the ruffled feathers of others. I had to hold my ground and stay firm in my convictions and allow myself the space I needed to feel, reflect on, and hear what my heart had to say. I had to show myself support without seeking external validation from others even if this meant walking through some hard emotions. It was time to start facing truths and breaking cycles, starting with calling my mother in-law and clearing up the assumptions I had let her leave with Christmas eve.
Over the next couple days, I mulled over what it was I wanted to say. Just the thought of calling and rectifying this situation with my mother in-law had me panicking, but I could not put off talking to her any longer, Christmas was over with, I was home alone, and she wasn’t working so today was the perfect day to clear things up. I worried the words I wanted to say would not come if I called with no plan in place and I sat down to write out what I wanted to say in simple and clear language in the hopes I would not muddle things up.
Once I was happy with what I wrote I picked up my phone shaking in fear my heart pounding in my throat. I was pushing the edges of a comfort zone I was reluctant to leave, and the panic screaming inside me said to run as fast and as far as I could and to hide myself away from the danger of speaking my truth. She answered the phone pleasantly and we exchanged hello’s before I dove into the reason I had called. I explained to her, had our choice of plans been different this year and dinner been held at her house we would have come. Our decision to stay home again this year had nothing to do with Connie. She happily accepted this clarification and I asked if she understood why I did not wish to have Connie in my life. When she replied “No, not really” my stomach dropped, my heartbeat like it would burst from my chest, my mind clouded over and the words I wished to speak froze in my throat. For a moment I was utterly and completely paralyzed with fear. I was flooded with childhood memories of wishing to speak but being trapped in that paralyzing silence. I forced myself forward and prayed to my guides that the next words I spoke were the right words, because I could not think enough to even read from the paper sitting in front of me. Miraculously through the irrational level of fear I felt I articulated my self beautify, my words were clear and to the point, and I left the conversation with the knowledge she understood, in that moment, why I had made the choices I had where Connie and her family were concerned. Still shaking I ended the call and gave thanks to who ever was there for helping me find the right words. I knew I should have sat down to breath into what I was feeling and help myself to facilitate some integration, but I did not. I could not.
Despite half understanding my reaction to this situation did not fit, and how it was all related to writing about the fall out between Connie and myself, I sat down to work on Hitting a Growth Curve and unwittingly threw myself into a deep pit of fear and uncertainty.
All that day I was in my head reeling through limiting belief thoughts, and imagining up drama scenarios for myself to tumble through with how this next blog post would be received. I hardly slept that night and while being intimate with Tyler earlier that evening, I felt myself disconnect from the moment and go somewhere else to avoid fully engaging with him. The instant I did this is when she entered me.
I spent most of the following day writing and could not help but feel fear at putting this story out there into the world. There would be consequences for telling my truth, and I feared I would pay a big price for putting this story out on a public platform. For as strong as I could hear the Yes! Go! Write! I could also hear the No! Be silent! Leave it alone! Shut up! SHUT UP!
When I decided to finish writing for day, I felt overwhelmed by a sharp biting energy, it was in my face pressing down on me so intently my nose throbbed with the pressure. It felt like I had been hit or someone was on me pushing down on my face. I knew it had come in the night before, but what exactly was it? It felt like a psychic attack can feel from a living human being, so of course I thought this must be Connie’s spirit or something to do with her and this karma trying to stop me from speaking up and breaking this guilt, shame, fear cycle. Who else could it possibly be?? Or could it be my ego? Was I the one trying to stop me from sharing this story? Humm…
I put everything away and drew myself a steaming hot bath with Epsom salts and baking soda to help get clear things and relax.
The next thirty minutes brough physical pain, reeling thoughts, and the intense feeling someone did not want to let go control. The illusion of breathing being restricted surfaced, and I could not for the life of me feel into my left side! Each time I tried I felt I was pushed out of my own body. She didn’t want to let go of her control, or was it that I was reluctant to release this situation and did not wish to see what needed to be seen? I suddenly thought get out of the tub. So I did. Red faced and sweating I hopped into a cool shower. As the water rained down on me, I closed my eyes and took a couple deep breaths. My head spun, I thought stop this or sit down before you pass out, then thought, naw, that won’t happen silly! We don’t pass out. I followed that feeling I knew I shouldn’t have followed standing in the shower and my world went black.
The next thing I remembered hearing was the shower doors crashing open and feeling myself falling. I had just enough awareness left to me to get my arms up to help absorb some of the shock of the fall, I hit the floor and bumped my head on the toilet. Struggling to get my bearings, I fought my way back to consciousness and pulled myself up, I did an “oh shit” check in a state of confusion before moving further, was I ok? I felt my body as I sat on the floor. Other than the womp, womp, womp of energy around me and the muscle aches in my shoulders and leg I was fine. I felt where I had hit the toilet with my head, I’d managed not to knock my head too hard, and I was fairly certain I was not concussed, but my left thigh was throbbing something fierce, I knew I’d have a nasty bruise to contend with but that was it.
As consciousness slowly came back to me. I reassured myself I was fine with a second scan of my body while I got myself oriented in the space again and slowly sat up further. Uhhh...
I reprimanded myself for my silly choice and sat there between the shower and toilet stunned. What the hell just happened? How could I have been so foolish? I had been warned and did not listen once again. I ran a hand over where I had landed on the shower lip and door latch, I felt the welt already starting to form. Panic. I didn’t want to look. It hurt but was not restricting my movement in any way, I told myself I would be ok. I stood up feeling dazed and vibrating with the feeling of having been in some sort of unexpected physical altercation. Still in a state of disorientation I stood there and looked around the bathroom not knowing what to do, I did not feel the same, something was different. There was less noise than there had been the moment before, and I noted how the sound in the room was moving differently, everything sounded… hollow... Like I was hearing the beat of the water on the floor of the shower through a tube or from a great distance. Suddenly I felt rushed and wound up into a tizzy. I had to close the shower doors! There was water everywhere! This mess had to be cleaned up before someone else saw! Thank god I was home alone and Tyler was gone. It would have been so much more embarrassing had he been there to witness my weakness and shame.
These thoughts made no rational sense but at the time it all felt so logical. I was in fact home alone, there was no one there to witness what had happened. No one there to see me in that state of… weakness? And no one to witness what I kept hearing was “my shame”. So, who was I trying to hide the “evidence” of this from? Myself? Whose weakness and shame was I actually feeling? Hers or mine?
I hurriedly closed the shower doors and mopped up the bulk of the water that had come out on me with a towel and quickly got back into the shower. Part of me wanted to pretend what just transpired never happened but the evidence I could feel already forming on my thigh could not be denied. The other part of me, the part that was me, could do nothing but laugh at my poor choice to ignore my subconscious and feel the relief and gratitude I had for coming out the other side with nothing more than a bruise. Ty was going to laugh when I told him this story! How Lucky I had been!
I stood under the water trying to work out what had happened between standing and being on the floor. Something happened in those few seconds of unconsciousness… a fight of some kind... with what I thought was a woman. Connie? Or someone related to one of us attached to the situation? I didn’t know but understood it was all related to speaking out and writing my truth, but how exactly? I was attempting to lay something to rest, and she did not want to let it go. While I mulled this over, I turned the water which now felt too cold up and let the hot water wash over my head and face. I felt… a feeling I could not put into words or really at that moment comprehend. I turned to face the back of the shower and saw the disapproving stern face of a woman in my mind. She was standing in my bathroom close to the shower. “Ah! You sneaky bitch!” I said to her. I had tried to get her to let go of me and in her force of resistance she pulled me out of the shower. We had actually fought physically with each other. She hit me!
Looking back now I realize, in her attempt to get me to comply to what she wanted me to do she got physical. When she realized she had hurt me she began to back pedal just a little and felt shame at her weakness of looing control of her temper.
You know that feeling you get after an accident you’ve been hurt in where you know once you look or find the hurt it makes everything worse and real? That is how I felt about looking at the welt already formed on my upper leg. I knew my reaction did not fit the situation I was now in and forced myself into a space of acceptance and calm and looked down at my leg. Like I rationally knew it would be, the bruise was not nearly as bad as this feeling wanted me to believe. Yes, I would have a big brightly colored bruise for the next week or so but that wasn’t so bad. I’d had bruises like these in the past I told myself and they had been no big deal. I had even proudly shown them off to others in a “hey look at the idiocy of the situation I got myself into!” But this I did not want people to know about, I didn’t even want myself to know about it.
Standing in the shower I forced myself to really look at the bruise and feel the swelling with my hand until the feeling of fear passed and I acknowledged I was ok. I took a few more deep breaths and sat down on the seat in our shower. I covered my eyes with my hands and watched as an orb of color pulsed and shifted behind my lids. It went from bright green to yellow then orange, blue, indigo back to yellow, and finally to white ringed in a golden glow. A woman’s face appeared shifting as she moved. She was tall and regale looking in her late 18th early 19th century wide brimmed hat and blue dress with poofy sleeves. Her tiny waist narrowed in a way that screamed corset, and her soft brown hair was pulled up in a bun. I though, she’s beautiful. I gave her a side glance and knew she had been the one I fought with. Was she from a past life or was she an ancestor? Was she the abuser or the abused? Was she trying to show me what she herself experienced or had I experienced what she had done to others? Could it be a combination of both? I knew our early childhood experiences informed our adult choices, was this what was going on? I could not be certain either way but understood then the foreign feeling I felt but I could not name was brutalized.
The woman in blue was still with me as the new year approached but I was doing my best to ignore her completely as she wreaked havoc on me emotionally. I did not want to put her appearance and my emotional state together because this was something I did not want to understand. It was easier to believe this could be some external force working against me than for me to say this was my trauma, my ego that had taken the hit. I was pushing myself into a space my ego was reluctant to go, so it was pushing back saying “NO!”, “Shove this back down into the dark where it can never be seen! This must never be spoken of!” “Shut up, SHUT UP!”
I was all out of sorts as I drove into the city for a vehicle service one morning just before New Years. I felt afraid and like at any moment consciousness would be stripped from me again, I was not in control of myself or the vehicle I was driving. Someone else had taken the wheel and was now in the driver’s seat, planting erratic and terrifying feelings, thoughts, and images in my mind. That whole hour was a continual fight to stay conscious, calm, and focused on my surroundings. I was not grounded, and it felt like my feet had been kicked out from under me and I was falling hard into a situation I was not prepared to handle. Honestly, I felt traumatized and stunned by a fearful situation that was out of my power and control.
The highway was bare and dry yet each time the south wind gusted enough to feel, or a vehicle passed me, I panicked at felling out of control and slowed down. I told myself, “I should not be on the road. I am in no fit condition to be driving right now! This was a mistake.” The instability of my drive did not ease as I entered the city, and it took all the power I had to maintain what little focus I had left to me. I’d left myself just enough time to stop for a warm beverage and a muffin before my service appointment. I wanted something warm and tasty to help sooth me while I sat and waited for my oil change.
What I thought was going to be a simple hour wait turned out to be three. I was offered a cab to take me somewhere instead of waiting but I had nothing else to do and no where to be. Plus, I had multiple books waiting for me to read loaded on my phone and lunch plans with Tyler to keep me occupied. I made my way to the waiting area and found myself a seat. The first book to jump out at me was one titled Breaking Free. Identifying & Changing Your Addictive Family Patterns by one, Dr. Barry K. Weinhold. I thought sure why not, it seemed fitting considering what I was currently experiencing and writing about. I was digging into what was not only a childhood and past life pattern, but I was beginning to suspect an ancestral one as well.
Dr. Weinhold writes about how parenting choices, behaviors and beliefs can end up inflicting trauma in childhood, how they shape the way we live our adult lives and even raise our own children. He also writes about how as adults we unconsciously seek out people and situations similar to those we experienced as children, in an attempt to bring those childhood traumas into awareness for integration, humm… he also writes about how children are fantastic mirrors for our own unresolved childhood traumas, when a child asks for a parent to meet needs they themselves did not have met as a kid it will trigger unresolved childhood wounds, and often times cause those same wounds to occur in their children. He then goes on to explain how we learn the cruel and hurtful conditioned cycle of inflicting pain on others when we ourselves are hurting in order to make ourselves feel better i.e., physical, emotional, and phycological abuse/manipulation or, “an eye for an eye”. Humm, humm, humm…
As I sat reading the introduction to this book, I had been putting off for about a year, I could not help but feel awed by the coincidence of rediscovering this title now. I dove in headfirst!
Right from the introduction it was an action packed hard hitting read which offered no breaks in reality checks to the gut. I was enthralled! This was exactly the kind of book I had been craving to read for months now! I felt like the information I needed now was being handed to me on a beautiful but sharp-edged silver platter, and I could not get enough even if it meant getting cut up a little.
In chapter one titled The Sins of the Father, Dr. Weinhold talks about developmental trauma, which is a term used to describe trauma that occurs during early childhood. “It is now recognized that unresolved childhood trauma can cause you to re-experience aspects of that trauma in present time when you get triggered by something in a present relationship experience that reminds you of the original trauma. This is called PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) …”, “We experience a secretion of hormones that causes our body to react without conscious thoughts. It is called an “adrenal stress reaction” and it causes us to either fight, flee. Or freeze.”, “… this reaction remains wired into you and automatically triggers you when the conditions are right. It can be puzzling or confusing when you can’t attach your behaviour to known traumas.”
The memory of my over reaction to talking with my mother in-law and how I reacted physically, the fear, the shaking and mind going blank, came flooding back. I had PTSD! How was this possible!? I had never experienced any huge traumatic life event, or at least I could not remember doing so. So, how was I reading these words and understanding it was true for me?? I continued reading to find answers. “…even small hurts daily and disconnects caused by our parents’ failure to respond appropriately to out developmental needs for nurturing and protection can cause a lasting trauma.” In other words, trauma doesn’t just happen in one big scary life changing event, trauma can also occur by experiencing multiple small events that happen regularly over a period of time. Well, this explained a lot. I obviously knew I was experiencing a fear response, but I had no clue I was going through what could possibly be considered PTDS! What was I not remembering?
The time flew by as I read, Tyler came to pick me up for lunch and I excitedly dove into sharing with him what I had been learning. He listened politely as a yammered on but soon changed the subject and asked no further questions about the book I had discovered. We talked casually about his morning and eventually I found us sitting in what I felt was an uncomfortable awkward silence. Again, I felt the feeling of needing to talk, to express and share but was coming up against a wall of blocked communication, discomfort, uncertainty, and fear.
I so wanted to share these types of insights with him and to have the kind of deep talks about emotions and human conditioning I had with others and felt disappointed he was still not comfortable doing so. He dropped me back off at the dealership after we ate, and I sat down to dive back into my latest discovery. The next hour and a half sailed by, and I found I was a little disappointed to be putting this book down when my vehicle service was over.
I stopped at Starbucks for a peppermint mocha for my drive home. When they told me they were out of regular chocolate sauce and only had white chocolate at the drive through menu I was instantly pissed off, this was a waste of god damn time! I thought, I’d been forced to take the drive through because their doors were closed for walk-in orders because of COVID-19, if I left without ordering something I would be forced to be that person who drove out of a drive through in a pouty huff because they couldn’t get what they wanted. The thought mortified me! I had to order something just to save face. Why was it too much to ask to get a regular mocha?! I caught myself getting angry with the girl over the intercom and did my best to correct that error. After all, it was not her fault they ran out of dark chocolate sauce. I reasoned with myself, maybe if I tried the white chocolate mocha, I would be pleasantly surprised… Ha, I doubt it, and I ordered it anyway.
“What the hell is wrong with me today?” At one point in time this reaction would have been in character but for a while now this type of over reaction was becoming increasingly out of character. I pulled away with a white chocolate mocha still talking myself off the ledge of what felt like major unnecessary drama and took my first sip, the white chocolate was not as bad as I anticipated it would be. What a surprise. I though of my mom encouraging us as kids to experiment and try new things before we judged them as unsavory and said to myself, “See, it doesn’t hurt to try something different every once in awhile. Stop being so poopie, life is good.”
~
I dreamed I did a post about fear for Instagram. I was looking for someone to acknowledge and sooth this fear, and to be recognized in a way I never was by my parents as a child, but it went ignored. Somewhere in this dream I half comprehended I had to be the one to acknowledge this fear, by posting it to social media and not receiving the recognition I was looking for was guiding me into a space of understanding that I could hold space for myself and this fear on my own. I did not require external support or validation.
~
The new year had come, and I found I was getting angry over the silliest little things, it became very apparent when Tyler arrived home from work one afternoon that I was looking to pick a fight. I did my best to stay out of the old pattern of allowing my emotions to dictate my behavior but felt like I was failing myself and Tyler in the challenge. I knew he was picking up on the increasing difficulty I was experiencing at not lashing out as he packed to leave the following day for work. He came out of the bedroom and toured around the house opening cabinet and closet doors, he was looking for a metal clipboard I had thrown out because it had not been used in over a year. When I told him I had gotten rid of it he became angry, and for the first time in many, many years I found we were on the verge of what could turn into a big fight. I was projecting out around me such a state of emotional upheaval that I was pulling him into it. Through the pain I felt at him projecting my inner conflict back at me, I realized what was happening and apologized for getting rid of the clipboard then stepped away from the situation. I was making things worse by wanting to inflict pain on him because I felt I was losing control, did not have his support and, I couldn’t explain to him the weight of what I was feeling.
~
One night after Tyler had left, I was jolted awake twice feeling a great deal of fear. The first time it happened, I was woken out of a dream. The fear was just suddenly there, and I was conscious of the transition between the dreaming and waking worlds, as I fought against this push and pull in a black space that funneled me back into consciousness, I could hear an older man saying “Relax, stay asleep there is nothing to fear” and someone else saying, “No! You must wake now because I call!”. When I awoke laying on my back Jelly Bean was tucked up in the crook of my arm calmly purring. I slowly looked around the dark room and listed to the sounds of the house. Nothing was amiss so I fell back to sleep. I do not know how much later it was when I was shocked awake by fear again for the second time, but Bean was still there beside me, this time at my back still calm as can be.
~
In the days that followed I began to get worried about this bruise on my leg. I was still feeling brutalized and was beginning to fear this bruise was going to cause a blood clot and kill me. What? It was still a little swollen and very ugly looking. I soaked my battered body in Epson salts and wrapped up my leg with a tenser bandage which quickly brought down the remaining swelling. Why was I suddenly so terribly concerned about this now when two days prior it had not been an issue? I was almost in a panic about it for goodness sakes! I continued to soak in Epson salts daily and within a week the bruise and any swelling were gone.
I was utterly and completely exhausted! Physically and emotionally, I was done. I could hardly find the energy required to do the daily tasks I knew had to do.
One day mid January, I sat down to read. I should have slept but even that felt tiring. Instead, I picked up Breaking Free and some heavy stuff surfaced around feeing emotionally supported and being victimized.
Dr. Weinhold was now talking about repeating patterns in our close relationships that were similar to the ones we had with out parents, he went on to talk about how those relationships could be similar to the relationship our parents had with each other. Then he explained some safe and healthy ways to express our feelings, like beating the crap out of a bean bag chair with a bat or racket when we are angry and continuing the process until that anger turns to tears and emotional release, or imagining being the judge and jury who prosecutes our parents for all their “crimes” against us, which caused us to feel pain or sadness until we are able to come to a resolution and a accept our parents as wounded children themselves, who are deserving of forgiveness and compassion too.
By diving into that anger and giving ourselves permission to express it in a safe and healthy way (not taking it out on other’s) helps us work backwards into the underlying pain and sorrow which caused the anger to be present in the first place. We can not forgive until we let ourselves fully and completely grieve, and part of that grieving process is feeling and expressing anger. By feeling outraged by the lies our parents, or society told us and for a time feeling hateful towards them through healthy and functional processes which facilitate healing, we break cycles and sever attachments to the limiting beliefs holding us back form our full potential. What parental pattern was being played out in my relationship with Connie and this entity who would not leave me be? And who or what did need to get angry at?
The first thing to come to me, which I had been working to integrate for some time now, was repeatedly being placed into the role of victim as a child. I tried to rage at my stepdad for turning me into someone who believed that unpredictable and sudden outbursts of anger and projected rage were acceptable ways to treat those I loved. Then I tried to rage a little at my mother for not stepping in to protect me or support me emotionally when I verbally tried to vent my pain of being taught how to be a victim.
I cried and tried raging into the space around me and wrote in my journal “I was repeatedly placed in the role of victim then told it was not acceptable to express the emotions that came with being victimized. I was victimized for being a victim. I was also show how to be a victim by watching how my parents interacted and reacted to the people and situations they encountered. I was taught how to stifle my personal power and that it was not acceptable for me to be stronger or more confident than they were and was victimized for not being a victim.” Oh shit. This is what Connie has been trying to show me! This is the cycle of abuse I need to break.
The more I thought about what I was reading the more I realize all my close relationship were trying to teach me how to be more assertive and emotionally support myself and break free from the misguided cycle of playing small and being a victim. It was time to start releasing the ego beliefs I formed in childhood to keep myself safe. I understood then I gravitated towards people who limit the level of intimacy they express and avoid those who were open to deeper emotional connection.
I could acknowledge we can not give to others that which we can not first give to ourselves. You can’t love, or emotionally support another unless you are willing to love and support yourself first. As long as I sought these things from a source outside of myself, I would never feel fulfilled. Yet I desperately wanted to feel understood and supported by those I loved the most!
The realization I had and not been taught how to do these things by my parents and the understanding I had to find my way there alone brought a second wave of anger and tears to the surface. When the anger and pain passed, I came to a place of resolution I could see the pattern in my stepdads and mom’s childhoods which lead them down the path they had chosen to walk, and I forgave them and felt compassion for the childhood wounding’s they experienced at the hands of their own parents.
I then turned my attention to my dad and stepmother, and everything deflated. I felt the large gap which existed between them and my emotions. What did I feel here? I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t want to look. As nothing surfaced, I moved on with my reading, Dr. Weinhold went on to talk about how long it can take for a single pattern to come into our conscious awareness for integration, “…to become conscious enough to achieve positive results, the process takes about one month for every year you have been alive. So a 30 year old starting the process can figure that about 30 months will be necessary to bring enough of them into conscious awareness to begin to produce lasting changes.” I started this all in my early to mid 30’s, which means this pattern I was currently working through would take about 33 to 36 months, 3 to 3.6 years, to integrate. I hoped that meant I was coming to the end of an integration cycle and not starting a new one.
Days later I was still exhausted, and the pressure was still on me like a heavy weight pulling me down, my dreams were complicated and overloaded with people, family, and events of all kinds and I was still finding myself getting angry over the most random of things. Each time I sat down to breath into the feeling it only brought up overwhelming fear of release. Who was I without this pressure constantly on me? And how could I make myself understand accepting these burdens is a choice I am making when I feel there is no choice to choose otherwise? I still was not seeing things as being a choice. How did I choose to say no, I am not taking on your baggage for you? I was feeling my limitations and believed I was hiding myself away in the hopes these burdens would release themselves. Was I looking for release in the wrong places?
My self-worth had been tanking, I felt like I was trying to rise above my station in life and was not entitled to do so. As I lay in bed breathing one night into this feeing a voice said, “What makes you think you have a right to rise above your station in life? Who do you think you are to even try to rise above me? To defy my will and better yourself?” It was like I was saying to myself, “You have no right to raise your vibration higher than the lowest vibration in the room. You are unworthy to do so because it may offend or insult those who’s vibrations are lower than your own. You can only feel as good as the weakest person in the room.” I felt like that unsure, naïve little girl I had been and, in some ways, still was.
I finished Hitting a Growth Curve and posted it to my blog early in January. I could not help but feel terrified about doing so. What if I was doing the wrong thing? What if I upset someone by sharing my side of things? I felt so much doubt about putting the story out into the world. I asked my cards and spirit one last time if I really was doing the right thing and the reply was yes this is on track, you are doing the right thing. *Sigh, ok I got this. I told myself it was my ego protecting me saying “No, stop! Don’t’ expose this! It could be dangerous! This will bring problems and damage will be done because of it, feelings could be hurt, and there will be negative consequences later for your unthinking action. You will get in trouble.” Because I was going against programing I had accepted as a kid to keep myself safe I was pushing into a space that lay outside my comfort zone. I was asking myself to grow and it scared the crap out of me.
When I was done posting I sat down stomach twisting to read, things were out there in the world and there was no taking it back. Things had to take their natural course now. I opened up where I left off with Breaking Free and hunkered down to try out a couple exercises, the first is titled Identifying Parental Traits. In this exercise you make a list to describe each of your parental figure’s traits, you are to do this from the memories you have from childhood and try to list at least ten. If you list less than ten, it indicates there was a lack in the relationship strength. When your done you look over the lists and put check marks beside the traits you identify with in yourself. The parent you identify the most with or least can indicate the strength of the relationship and the unresolved conflicts present in your life. The second exercise is Identifying Parental Disapproval Patterns where you do the same thing.
As I did these, I felt like I was digging up the past I thought I’d already lain to rest. When I sat back to look over the lists and where I had placed check marks, I could see how polarized my view of my parents really was, and how lucky I had been to have the mom I did. Even though things had been hard, and I blamed her for so much for so long, I finally saw how open her, and my stepdad were to allowing me to uniquely express myself and explore my individuality growing up. The more I read the more I began notice how much my father and stepmothers’ belief systems influenced me, and how much damage had been done by them but would not look any further.
I was surfing through my Instagram feed when I came across a post by The Holistic Psychologist about parentification. Dr. Weinhold had been talking some about this same topic in his book, and I understood I had been patentized to some degree by both my parent. But for some reason this post hit home the large part my father played in parentizing me.
In this post she stated there are two ways to be parentized. The fist is emotional parentification, where the child is placed in the role of coach, counselor or confidant by a parental figure and adult problems are shared with the child, like marital issues, and emotional problems, or there is regular substance abuse happening in front of the kids. The second is instrumental parentification, where a child is placed in a position where they take on the majority of the household responsibilities, like house keeping, cooking, looking after younger siblings, or taking care of the finances and have to “fend for themselves”. Both situations happen because there is a lack of healthy boundaries in a parent/child relationship and the parent places their emotional needs on top of the child asking them to be the parent instead. Roles get reversed and the child becomes the parent. I sat to contemplate things but found I still did not want to go deeply into this.
That night I did my breath work in the tub. When I was finished, I pushed all the air in my lungs out, took one more deep breath and retained it. I followed the feeling and felt panic, and like something was being ripped off my face. I was sputtering in… water? I released the breath, made fists with my hands, and rubbed my eyes. A wave of panic washed over me again then saw a male lion. I opened my eyes and I had not moved but felt like I had been pushed to the edge of my capabilities. I closed my eyes and covered them with my hands. I was running out of air! But I couldn’t stop now! I couldn’t pause to catch my breath mid stride I had to push myself to the brink of suffocation and to the end. The ugliness of it all made me feel the pressure to achieve, excel and succeed. I felt the anger of being placed in competition and the need to be better than I was, to push myself harder, faster, to be stronger. I wasn’t good enough. Fear, panic. I was running out of air.
I came to the section in Breaking Free where Dr. Weinhold explains how to do a prosecution of your parents. He explains how to write out all the ways they hurt, betrayed, or disappointed you as a child, and hold them accountable for their choices and actions which led to your pain. You essentially blame them for all your pain and problems so you can come to a place of resolution and forgiveness before moving into doing a defence of your parents, where you empathize with them and work to see how their childhood experiences informed the choices they made in adult life.
As I read through the list of questions to ask yourself about your mother, I noticed my ear lobes were becoming increasingly itchy, my throat was getting tight, and my temples were tingling. Someone did not want me to face what this section had to teach, so I read on and came to a deeper awareness of how lucky I was to have the mother I did. I was loved, and shown I was loved often and regularly, I was encouraged to explore my individuality, creativity and do what brought me joy. Above all I was encouraged to be myself and explore life and my independence.
My thoughts turned to how angry I had been with her for so many years and how much I had blamed her for as I read through the father questions. And it dawned on me, what if the anger I felt towards my mom was actually a projection of my father’s anger towards my mom, his ex-wife, and his mother? I felt a bubble I did not realize I was in burst and set the book down. Oh shit! At least half of what I projected at my mother was a second-hand projection of my fathers unresolved feelings towards her and his own mother. My world did a little topsy turvy as a long-held belief finally released.
Later in the month, I found I was really struggling with the awful and unconscious ways human treated each other. I kept thinking about how we believe we need to control those in our lives in a way which keeps them locked in the little boxes that make us feel we can understand and accept them. I could feel the pain of being emotionally manipulated, and verbally degraded by someone who needed to control my every thought and action so they could feel better about themselves. It was a devastating feeling, and I desperately did not want to perpetuate this awful fear based need to control through verbal, psychological or emotional abuse.
When I tried to articulate this feeling to others I was met with indifference, rebuttals or conversation was blocked. Each time was faced with my belief of being unsupported I would think, “No one cares enough to even listen. No one wishes to hear what you want to say. No one will support you in working to understand this so just give it up. You can’t change things so quit trying.” This made me so angry! Why did humanity collectively need to keep projecting fear and hate onto others?! Why did we have to shit on those we perceived as weaker than us?? Why did we feel we needed to control how others chose to live their own lives? This felt like a very significant lesson, and I wanted to understand the pattern, but it felt like at every turn I was still being blocked.
I was alone in my room doing my breath work one night and was sent back into a forgotten feeling form childhood. It was connected to being at my fathers and chocking back emotions. I was breathing into the feeling that was growing in my solar plexus and followed it as it moved up into my chest, when it hit my throat, it felt like that huge lump you get at the back of your throat when you are swallowing back your tears, only this was coming up not being pushed down. It hurt but I breathed into it anyway and found myself sitting on the worktable near the window in the garage of my dad and stepmom’s old house.
They were drinking again and had left us alone in the house. Wanting to spend time with our father my little brother and I had once again gone out to the garage where they spent the nights drinking. I was being told to stop crying and asked repeatedly why I was crying at all. I wasn’t understanding how they didn’t know what caused me to become so upset, after all they had just finished telling us horrible, awful things about our mother who we loved deeply, I felt what it felt like to know I could not be truthful, remaining silent was awful but telling the truth would be worse, so I stayed silent and just cried unable to speak or make a move to leave the situation.
The images shifted and the childhood fear and dread I never voiced about having to spend weekends at my fathers came flooding back to me. I felt the relief that came with Sunday morning and the excitement of packing my things in the evenings knowing in a few short hours I was going back to my mom, back to a safe space, freedom, and a sense of stability. Then I felt the disappointment that came on those times I knew we would have to stay longer than the weekend or off our normal schedule. I felt the absence of my father’s presence and what it felt like to be left with people who wanted me to fit into their box of what a “good daughter” was. Somewhere in all of this I felt the understanding of how misplaced my hurt and resentment has been for so many years. I imagined my adult self walking into that garage and seeing that child version of me run to my arms. I picked her up and felt her wrap her little arms and legs around me. Someone else came crying and clung to my leg, shit. I thought this is my brother and asked him to come and collect this child aspect of himself, he was no longer my responsibility, he came. I scolded these adults who were supposed to be caring for and protecting us back into their seats then, I set them and the garage on fire and we calmly walked to the street to watch the garage and house go up in flames.
The next morning, I woke feeling raw, like something had been torn away and I was left bleeding and exposed. And in the days that followed, I found I was still looking to pick a fight, specifically with Tyler when he phoned, I kept thinking “I’ve married my father! How do I get out of this?” The weight of being unsupported was like a ton of bricks pulling me down, and each time I sat to feel into the energy in and around me I would see a wild looking dark-haired woman gnashing her teeth at me. The fear was on me again, or had it ever left? It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and its problems were mine and mine alone to solve. Even my ability to communicate my need for help and support felt like it had been stripped from me, each time I sought it out I felt I was told I had to do it alone. No one was returning my calls or seemed willing to communicate verbally with me and asking for the help I needed brought me to the edge of a panic which made no rational sense. I was struggling to articulate myself clearly and strongly and still felt I was the one fucking everything up. I had done this to myself. I let myself be pushed into a corner buy someone else’s forceful aggression and had no way out. I was alone.
~
I dreamed I was in a school classroom; A childhood friend was there somewhere, and I was doing something with stones. One in particular stood out, I kept calling it moldavite or mooakite but knew that was not right, it was white with a green line running through it. I wanted to look this stone up in my crystal book, so I got up and stepped outside the classroom. Lexi was looking through my bead collection, she was going to make herself a bracelet. She said something which prompted me to remember a book I had read I thought might be of some help to her. It was a book about empaths, and it had changed my life. I believed the book would be in this school’s library, so I headed down the hall in the direction it lay. Two women turned down the hall towards me they were talking about the school shutting up the library and getting rid of all the books, how sad! Allison was pushing a library cart with books on it. As we passed each other I noticed the book I was thinking of on this cart and I thought about taking it as I passed but thought they must have it for a reason so I did not, the library will have a second copy I thought.
When I reached the library door it was already locked up. There was a large poster over the door saying something about the closure, but I did not take the time to read what it said. I turned back the way I’d come wishing I had snatched that book when I had the chance. Then I felt something in my hand. I looked down and it was the book! I skipped down the hall and felt the impulse to turn into a room to my left, it looked like my old elementary school library, but it was empty of the bookshelves which used to fill it. immediately to my left I noticed a woman with dark hair sitting on a bench against the wall. Smiling proudly, I said “I brought you a book I thought you might like!”
The woman gave me an emotionless look. I handed her the book and she accepted it. “What is this book about?” she asked. I explained it was a book about being an empath and enthusiastically told her it changed my life. She seemed to be disinterested in the book and engaging with me, and there was a long pause in the conversation. I wondered why she did not want to speak to me, I had been so eager to share this with her and now I was questioning my decision. I felt suddenly unwelcome but did not move to leave. I thought she had liked me and that we were friends but now I was getting the cold shoulder. Was I going about engaging with her the wrong way? Had I done something to gain her disapproval? I could think of nothing I had done which could have brough this kind of response on. Was I seeking something from her she was not willing to give?
Not willing to give up I said, “I wanted to return the favor and to say thank you, the books you suggested for me were really helpful.”
The woman looked at the book cover before setting it down beside her on the bench, her face softened some and she replied, “Thank you, I will read the book. And I will bring you more books to read as well.” She stood then and walked a little way to the back of the large room; I took a few steps to follow. My back to the entry. Vibrant greens and blues caught my attention and I looked to her right the space was rowed with church pews facing a very real looking scenery with a lush forested and mountainous landscape. I could just make out something large and white moving on the other side of a small hill which had a large hollowed out log laying on top of it. “You are still carrying a great deal of stress with you.” She spoke.
I felt myself choke up and turned back to look at her. “Yes.” I replied “I am.”
“Why?” She asked calmly.
The emotion I felt was strong and the tears just on the edge if my vision. I wanted the release, but it would not come. I replied, “Because I feel I have no other choice but too.” She had seen what I thought was hidden, and I felt great embarrassment at my expressing of emotion. I did not want to inconvenience her by letting it out because, I thought, if I started the tears would not stop. Movement in the lush forest scape caught my eye, I turned my head to look. The large white creature was coming over the hill backwards, a polar bear. It seemed to be of no threat. The worlds touching at the edge of that wall would not be crossed unless I wanted them to. I looked back to the woman but stayed aware of the animals’ movements.
The woman spoke, “How could you change your routines? Could you add something to them or take something away?”
“No, I don’t think so…” I spoke. “How would I even go about doing so?” I felt the block this question exposed and constrained by my routines. Change? I thought, what could I possibly change? The very concept confused me. It made no sense! I have to do the things I have always done. There is no room for anything else. We exchanged a few more words.
I was thinking about what she had said when a flash of white caught my eye once again. I looked past the rows of pews, there were people now sitting scattered here and there watching the scene set before them. The large white animal was backing up the hill, it turned at the log then climbed on top of it to lay down. Two blazingly bright blue eyes looked out over the audience and met mine. It was a huge white tiger! Instantly I felt threatened. I should leave I thought as we staired at each other. I broke eye contact to look about the room, the people in the pews did not seem threatened and the woman I had been speaking to continued to ignore the scene. I turned my attention back to the cat and met its gaze again. It flicked its long white tail and blinked those bright blue eyes slowly almost casually at me, as if saying I am no threat. I resolved to stay and turned my attention back to the woman before I woke.
~
The following night as I was falling asleep, I thought I heard a baby crying, it sounded almost desperate and roused me awake I listened in the dark, but it did not occur again. Then later I was shocked awake by a woman screaming before finally falling into a somewhat fitful sleep.
Near the end of the month, I booked a reiki session with a lady who can see spirits. The whole session I was distracted and could feel the attachment on me, when we were done, she told me she saw two people, a woman in blue with a big wide brimmed hat and a man who she thought might be a miner. After this I was able to connect some to the woman and the words judgmental and condescending came to mind. I felt this pressure of being judged for who I am and like there was a microscope on my perceived flaws in personality, thoughts, and actions. It seemed to not matter what I did or what choices I made they were all seen as failures which would never gain me the support or approval I was seeking. “The choices you make will always be wrong.”
On Saturday January 28, 2022, the energy around me hit a new level of intensity as the Freedom Convoy reached parliament hill in Ottawa to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers. After 2 years of mass blind compliance the war for our freedom had finally begun. This movement would start other freedom protests in Canada and around the world, in the weeks and months to follow and I could not help but feel pride in my fellow Canadians as they peacefully marched on our capital for freedom. Our “great” Prime Minister, who by the way is a criminal, was quoted as calling these protesters “a small fringe minority”, who express “unacceptable views” and are undermining the rights freedoms and values of Canadians. He would also later call them radical right-wing, swastika carrying racists. This was fear mongering propaganda and persecution at its finest.
Early on in the protest I decided I needed to get more information on what was going on and why it was happening, so I turned to the internet, the government, and corporately funded news/media outlets. What I found in articles from CBC, CTV, and Global news was a very different narrative from the one I was seeing played out in real time over social media. Had I gotten it so wrong? Or was this depressing and hopeless approach I was reading in the media propaganda meant to misinform and manipulate the masses? No! I thought that can’t be true. But the more I read over the weeks to follow the more horrified I felt about what the government was pulling off. On one side you saw light and great hope and on the other you saw darkness and desolation. I was appalled by the polarizing energy and misinformation I was coming across in the mainstream news and media. I could clearly see the outright lies mixed with grains of truth they were feeding through the news. And there was almost no on the ground coverage from mainstream news providers speaking to the Canadian citizens there showing their support. I began seeking alternative news sources and I found it challenging to find truthful and objective information in Canada about what was really going on in Ottawa.
As I watched from the comfort of my home, wishing I could be there to show my support for those brave enough to go, I could feel the joy, hope, and comradery of the people in the videos being posted on social media by those who were gathered in downtown Ottawa. What stood out most was the diversity and kindness of people there. They came from all walks of life and different ethnic and religious backgrounds. This movement was the start of something hopeful and amazing and every day they stayed I prayed for a positive, forward moving, and peaceful resolution to things.
In the weeks to follow the celebration of freedom continued in the nation’s capital yet no representatives from the government was sent to speak with the organizers of the protest. I could feel both the knowledge I was not alone in my beliefs and the frustration over not being heard by those who could effect positive change. I could feel the freedom and joy along with the pain and suppression we were collectively under.
At times I still felt like I was being goaded into fights with others and would have to talk myself off the ledge each time. And it was becoming increasingly obvious to me that this woman attached to me had something to do with my father. Memories of childhood kept surfacing and I was projecting things about my dad onto Tyler. But I DID NOT want to look! Around this time a young darkhaired man name Tobias began to pop up every so often when the woman in blue was occupied but like her, I was suspicious of his intentions, so I pushed him away. The buzzing and stinging heat in my head and ears was still intense and I was starting to feel like I was getting sick with out becoming sick. Honestly, I was exhausted. I needed help, I did not have the tools to face this alone, so I booked a healing session with Elaine La Joie, the woman in blue making it very clear she did not want me to do so.
On February 11, 2022, the city of Ottawa declared a state of emergency against the peaceful protesters and brought in more police and greater scare tactics and on February 16, 2022, the government invoked the emergencies act, which is essentially marshal law, to remove the “unlawful fringe minority” form the capital. They were changing the rules in order to suppress an opinion which differed from their mainstream narrative. The Liberal-NDP government used this protest as an excuse to finally strip us of our civil rights and freedoms. The Canada I knew, that we knew, was gone. Crowd funding platforms were hacked by government sources and personal information about regular every day Canadians was leaked to the media, bank accounts of those who donated to help support the Freedom Convoy truckers were frozen and assets were taken. And the word ‘Freedom” was termed a right-wing extremist’s word by the CBC. On February 17th, two of the convoy organizers were arrested and charged with counseling to cause mischief. And a large police presence flown in on UN planes were brought into the city to aggressively stand against and push out peaceful legal protesters. The level of violence and goading the police force displayed was appalling to watch. And by Sunday February 20th, there were growing concerns the Liberal-NDP government was going to push to have the emergencies act become permanent law.
A war we never asked for was coming and we were powerless to stop it from happening. I could feel the anger and aggressively threatening energy ramp up around me as I watched the police presence in Ottawa grow. Thoughts of my father and his mother, my grandmother began to cycle on repeat in my mind. I could see the cycle of abuse present in their relationship and likely her relationship with her parents, and so on down this ancestral line. How was all of this connected to what was happening in Ottawa? I tried to work out how this ancestral cycle had impacted my life and in what ways it had filtered down to me through my father and came up empty once again.
I was glued to any and all information I could get about what was going on in Ottawa and felt how disheartening it was to know the people we paid to represent us in parliament had zero interest in what we the people, the ones who paid their bills, wanted for ourselves and our country.
On the morning of February 21, 2022, Parliament voted to keep the Emergencies Act in place until the end of March then they would “re-evaluate the situation”. Power had been grabbed and there looked to be no safe way out of this situation. I felt like I was being dragged down a rabbit hole of fear and paranoia. No one was safe now and none of us would come out of this unscathed. Irreparable damage was being done. I was angry and so full of the fear of letting go of control, I felt like I was huddled over it protecting things with one arm wrapped around the pain of unspoken words and things I did not want to see or hear. I was pushing myself away saying ‘No! Go away, this keeps us safe!” Three days later on February 23, 2022, the government revoked the Emergencies Act, and the next day Russia and Ukraine went to war. Not a coincidence.
~
March 7, 2022, my healing session with Elaine finally came after two months of turmoil.
After telling her about what had been going on since Christmas she journeyed to the underworld and found the woman in blue along with a man in uniform and many other people right away, they had lived through some sort of civil war and the woman was a very intimidating person, or tried to be, and had forcibly controlled those she could in order to prevent them from speaking against what was going on around them, or from voicing a differing opinion in order to keep those she cared about alive, she used any means necessary to protect those she loved including physical abuse.
During this woman’s life there were people dying violently around her for speaking against what was going on. This was on my father’s side of the family and this woman was currently active in both the human plain of existence, the middle world, and the spirit or underworld. As Elaine worked, I could feel the force of the woman’s resistance to what was going on, she did not want to go and attempted to use her tactics on Elaine to get her to stop. This woman who had been causing me SO much grief in my life believed she was keeping me safe from harm and death, by trying to keep me silent in a time where my voice and opinions needed to be shared with the world. It was no coincidence she should appear at a time when Canada and the world were in the grips of an different kind of war.
Elaine had to have a long conversation with the woman and explain to her that yes, there was a war of sorts being waged but it was a war on information and not a war where I would die, I would be safe without her, the world needed to hear my voice. The woman reluctantly let go only after she felt convinced I would be safe and would not die for speaking out. Elaine pulled the woman out of me. As we coaxed this woman out of my body, I could feel the energy tugging upwards and jump into my left arm then slowly inch its way down my forearm, when it reached my hand and went into the crystal my hand became cold. The woman was wrapped around my solar plexus and so active in the physical world that instead of moving her on with me on the phone, Elaine would leave her in the large quartz point and move her on later. The man who was with her, also a family member, and the others willingly left of their own accord once she was out of me. There was a belief pattern attached to this woman, where if you spoke up or out you died, if you didn’t comply you died. Well shit! I wasn’t crazy after all. Elaine cleared the contract, you speak you die, for everyone down the woman’s ancestral line, and replaced it with, you speak up when appropriate, as needed and thrive. You speak your truth and live. There was also some marriage and family stuff which came up during the healing, and she cleared some of that up as well.
When she was in the underworld no soul part, loss of a part of yourself that happens when you experience trauma, was there asking to come back so she brought me a large male lion to help me find my courage and power to speak up when I needed to defend my self or boundaries. And we talked about me being on a journey to find my noble warrior, finding that part of myself who is not afraid of sacrificing what I need to, to uphold and stand firm in my integrity. Elaine stressed I was not there yet, but that I was on my way, and I should start testing and asking myself what I’m willing to sacrifice for my beliefs. Am I willing to die for what I believe in both literally and metaphysically speaking? We also talked about coming to a place of resolution and accepting that it does not matter what others say or do in the attempt to force me to comply to their will as long as I believe in and support myself fully. She reaffirmed I did not need to feel supported by others in the choices I made so long as I supported myself and reassured me, I was doing the right things and great work in improving my self awareness.
Checking in with lion he felt strong, powerful, and assertive and it was like I could tackle anything life threw at me. He has a no-nonsense attitude and won’t put up with anyone’s bull shit, not even my own.
Before we said our goodbyes, she gave me instruction on the homework I needed to do, like checking in with Lion daily, taking a salt bath and making a sandpainting to help clear any residual up on the spiritual level so I didn’t get physically ill. We also talked about the importance of learning how to be an individual so we can better serve humanity within a collective energy which does not wish to be an individual, and how it takes a great amount of strength and courage to make the choice daily to go against a system of beliefs so ingrained in our conditioning both internally and externally. I felt stronger and lighter than I had in months all that pressure I felt pressing down on me was just gone, and with a flick of an imagined tail I could send the bothersome things I felt invading my space away like they were little flies. I felt good.
Little did I know then that this was just a light breath which would send my internal world and sense of reality tumbling like a line of dominos. And would turn out to be a single piece to a much larger and more complex puzzle than I first imagined.
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