I write again about the process of recapitulation, the process that has changed my own life from one of fear—bound by feelings of inadequacy leading to resistance to fully experiencing what life has to offer—to one of fully embracing life.

Recapitulation frees us from the promises and vows we made as children, whether consciously decided upon or placed upon us by others. In my own case, as an extremely sensitive and withdrawn child with little self-esteem, if anyone told me something I immediately believed it and took it on. I was told that I could not sing and so I rarely opened my mouth, when in fact I have a nice singing voice. I was told I could not dance and so I rarely danced, when in fact I can indeed dance in my own fashion. In Taisha Abelar’s book The Sorcerer’s Crossing, her teacher Clara says the following:

“…as children, we often make vows and then become bound by those vows, even though we can no longer remember making them.”

“Such impulsive pledges can cost us our freedom…”

“…vows, oaths and promises bind our intent, so that from then on, our actions, feelings and thoughts are consistently directed toward fulfilling or maintaining those commitments regardless of whether or not we remember having made them.”

If we ponder where we first heard some of the beliefs we hold so tightly to about ourselves and question their truths, we may find that they are indeed true statements that we must accept in order to move on in life or that they are far from true. The process of recapitulation enables us to gain clarity, so that we can move on, freed of ideas of the self that hold us back from leading fulfilling lives.

Taisha goes on to say that “[Clara] advised me to review, during the recapitulation, all the promises I had ever made in my lifetime, especially the ones made in haste or ignorance or faulty judgement. For unless I deliberately retrieved my intent from them, it would never rise freely to be expressed in the present.”

In Taisha’s case she had to confront the truth that she was not loved by her family, and her mother specifically: “It was your fate not to be loved by your family. Accept it!” Clara says to her quite bluntly.

As an example, Clara goes on to explain to Taisha some of her own history:

“I too had a problem very much like yours…I was always aware of being a friendless, fat, miserable girl, but through recapitulating I found out that my mother had deliberately fattened me up since the day I was born. She reasoned that a fat, homely girl would never leave home, and she wanted me there as her servant for life.”

“I went to my teacher, who was definitely the greatest teacher one can ever have, for advice about this problem,” she went on. “And he said to me, ‘Clara, I feel for you, but you are wasting your time because then was then: now is now. And now there is only time for freedom.”

It may sound too easy and too simplistic to just accept and move on and indeed that is not what Clara is asking of Taisha. She is asking her to confront her bitter truths by recapitulating their sources, by reducing herself to her child self again in order to relive the moments of greatest pain, when intents were set that controlled and inhibited her from fully expressing herself and exploring her fuller potential. If we remain bound by ideas placed on us as children we might never grow up, mature into responsible adults, or evolve into acceptance of our greater potential both as human beings and as energy beings capable of far more than meets the eye in our everyday reality.

When Clara tells Taisha that “You have only time to fight for freedom, Taisha…Now is now,” she is asking her to investigate the possibility that it might just be okay to reinvent herself at each confrontation with the truths and the untruths of old, by staying in the present, knowing that there is no time to waste.

Life will not wait for us. It greets us every moment of every day, yet we must consciously, and with awareness, greet it in return, tackling what it presents us with, decisively and with impunity, intent upon learning what our own truths might be, not what someone else has decided for us. From the perspective of now, we are offered daily opportunities to dig for our deepest underlying truths. If we can hold onto our awareness of being independent beings, with our deeper knowing of what it means to be human held in highest regard—that we are energy beings at our core, that our lives here are meant for evolutionary purposes—we can allow ourselves to embrace the fact that it is always our choice to break out of the webbing placed over us a long time ago, and repeatedly placed over us as we live out our lives.

When we recapitulate we must pose many challenges to ourselves, along with those placed on us daily by life itself. We must dare to break our old allegiances, our old pacts, and question every thought, idea, and belief that arises. We must challenge ourselves to change every tiny detail about ourselves if that is what will lead us on to becoming our true selves.

We must ask ourselves many questions as we recapitulate. Are we ready to discover and embrace our truths and become someone new, someone unrecognizable to those who once knew us in the past? Do we dare go beyond the old beliefs that have held us captive? What will happen if we sing and dance when we were once told we could not? What happens if we tell ourselves that we are beautiful, not fat and friendless, as Clara did? What happens when we admit to ourselves that our family did not love us, as Taisha did? Well, nothing happens except an enormous sense of freedom!

Now is now, and I choose to live now. I hope you do too! It’s really the only place to be: living in the moment. I have found the only means of getting here, to this moment, is by taking a personal inner journey of recapitulation.

Sending love as you take your journeys, embraced with intent for good recapitulations to freedom,
Jan

Excerpts from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice are from pages 117-118.