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Messages from Jeanne

#738 All Lies Within

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Recently, I have been reading over some of my earliest written communications with you. At that time you stressed six points of importance that you urged me to consider as part of an ongoing process in learning how to live in a new way. Those six points were:

1. Stay in form (good physical shape).

2. Rest.

3. Allow for flow and take one step at a time.

4. Stop thinking so much.

5. Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.

6. Learn detachment.

Since then you have expanded on those original points many times over, but heart-centered breathing and staying in balance seem to be the most important. I still see these six points as extremely helpful in the process of staying connected to the inner self and doing inner work. I ask you today if you have something new to offer us, as we all wish to remain alert, gaining in awareness, and as we continue to seek experiences of spirit, of our own spirit, even while we must confront our human selves every day as well. As we seek balance of these two aspects of self, what do you consider to be the most important consideration?

My Dear Ones, as you already know and, as Jan mentions, I always stress connection to the inner self through heart-centered breathing. This is the ultimate process that must be taken into consideration and adhered to: Listening to the inner self.

It does not matter what modality you find out in the world to entice you to healing or growing or expanding consciousness, as long as the inner self, the spirit that pushes and urges you to evolve agrees that it is a necessary or productive process, or that it is time for such activity.

The true spirit self needs a lot of attention. It holds your truths and these truths range from the truths of your past, as well as the truths of your present and your future.

The true inner spirit self, once you have awakened to its presence and its voice, requires constant attention so that its words of wisdom may be clearly heard. Then it takes work in learning how right those words are. It is okay to test what it tells you and to try to align with what is outside of you, but really, in order to truly grow and change, in order to heal, your inner spirit self has all the answers.

So, in addition to my original six pointers, I do stress heart-centered breathing, for it will lead you to deeper connection to the inner spirit self who holds ready all that you must find out about the self.

You, within your human body, hold all worlds. You are more than just flesh, blood, bones, brains and organs. You are also infinity itself. You are the doorway and within you are infinite doorways. Through resolution of the physical self you have the opportunity to explore the infinite self.

Keep in mind: All lies within. That is what I offer you today: All lies within!

Thank you Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below. Other ideas for maintaining balance and doing inner work are categorized under Guidance in the side bar to the left on this Channeling page.

Most fondly and humbly offered.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Why Recapitulate?

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I’m going to get personal here, because I can only really talk about my own experiences with any authority. When I was a child I was viciously molested and raped by a man in my neighborhood. This abuse lasted the better part of sixteen years, mostly when I was very young, starting at age two until about age ten, but then intermittently until I graduated from high school and left home at eighteen to go to college. How could this happen, you might ask? How could parents, relatives and teachers not know what was happening? Did she not tell anyone? These are questions that I confronted over and over again as I recapitulated this segment of my life in a three year period beginning in 2001. Today, I specifically address the above questions because I know that anyone who has suffered abuse, sexual or otherwise, must also confront these questions.

I came from a family that was set up to ignore and deny even the possibility of such abuse. Perhaps most families are this way. My mother, a deeply depressed and angry woman, could not abide feelings of any kind. Perfection in everything was demanded and expected, nothing was allowed to ripple the surface of that perfection, no weakness within the family structure that she had created was allowed. If dissonance, conflict, trouble, or even emotion of any kind appeared it was quickly shut down, pushed away, swiftly disposed of, disappearing from sight and memory. My father, a deeply sensitive and deeply fearful man went along with this family structure. He spent his feelings elsewhere in giving time and energy to a long list of public service organizations, to other children and families in dire circumstances, to the poor, the depressed, the mentally ill. Within our own family everything was perfect, no sign of discontent, no sign of weakness, no sign of despair was allowed to leak out, the walls were solidly built and the entryways blocked. As a child, I quickly learned that this was how I too was supposed to construct myself, with strong barriers, not letting anything out, but also not letting anything in. This was, I believe, how the abuse I suffered could take place and my parents not “know about it,” because they chose not to. It didn’t fit into the world they decided upon, created and lived by.

I was seen as and indeed was an extremely shy child. This characterization never left me; it followed me into adulthood. The abuse, starting at such a young age, coincided with my emerging personality and perhaps created this withdrawn child self, but also the strict requirements of behavior upheld at home left little room for a true child self to evolve outwardly. The lessons and structures learned there fit well into the outside world, into the Catholic school I attended where we were taught how sinful it was to think about the self in any way, that selflessness was the most important of virtues, so how could I dare to speak about myself? My problems were nothing compared to other children in the world. Basically, I learned to maneuver through life according to the rules and demands of the authority figures in my life. I acquiesced and took the journey that was presented to me, with few options and little energy to do otherwise, so intent was I on keeping myself safe and protected no matter where I went.

My abuser groomed me from a very young age. In the beginning the abuse was made to seem like games, strange games, often painful games, but over several years they became part of a process, unfolding in a different world from that of my closed family world; however, the requirements of those two worlds were really not that different. I went from one secret world, where obedience and absolute allegiance were required to the other where the same structures were in place. I learned, over time and through hard won lessons, how to seamlessly maneuver within and between these two worlds, and as a result they rarely intersected. On occasion, when they did threaten to collide, I found the means to contain and protect myself, to keep myself safe, by dissociating, by turning to new worlds of my own in creativity and imagination. I sensed the ever-present potency of mental disintegration, but I avoided it the same way I had been taught to avoid any feelings or emotions; I shut it down, pushed it away, and carried on, withdrawing from that which threatened to trigger it.

In essence, I learned what my parents taught me. You don’t speak about yourself, your feelings, your problems. Instead you get depressed, you harden yourself, you get busy and spend your energy on others, but above all you never crack, you never let anyone see that there is anything wrong with you. It was perhaps the biggest and best lesson I could have learned at the time. In essence, the parents I received gave me the lessons I most needed at the time in order to survive, but in so doing I was also perpetuating a lot of secrets and lies, having to live out rules and mental constructs that did not really belong to me. I had to uphold my parent’s world. And even though, for a long time, it worked for me, one day I could no longer bear the burden of it. I could no longer carry forth the long held secrets, my own or theirs, and that was the day I knew I had to recapitulate that part of my life. It had ruled me for too long and I wanted to be free of it.

That was the original intent of my recapitulation, to set myself free of what did not belong to me and from what I had kept pushed down inside me for so long. I finally decided, consciously or unconsciously or a little of both, that it was time to let the child self speak about what had happened to her, to offer her the words to say what she could not even begin to fathom. She needed an adult to put into words the horrific events of her life, to make sense of them and to break the long held silent pacts that had been established before she even knew she existed, the pacts set in place by the adults in her life.

To me, this became the impetus that sent me on an awakening journey, an awakening that had been triggered many times, on many occasions in the past, but that I had to be in alignment with in order to truly begin to confront the lies, the secrets, the structures of a world that was not really the world I wanted to live in. The recapitulating of those early years of my life was a most painful journey and I admire anyone who dares to step into the mire of their past and confront the petty tyrants and fearful demons who stand blocking life from unfolding as it truly can.

I know what it means to feel now, to feel not only emotionally but physically everything that happened and happens to me. But I also know the liberating feelings of freedom from that which does not truly belong to me. I know what it means to embrace my truths, my desires, my needs, and my perceptions of a new world, under my terms. I know what it feels like to wake up every day knowing that I conquered the past, knowing that I won all the battles this time, on my terms, in my way, using inner work; truth and honesty my only weapons.

I discovered another thing as I undertook the recapitulation adventure of those early years of my life. I discovered a spiritual core that was as indestructible and strong as I always knew it was, the core that kept me whole and safe, even as I took a most disheartening and painful childhood journey. I rediscovered what it was that kept me alive and sane all those years. It was myself. It was myself finally freed of everything that had been imposed, and once reunited with that true self the adventure took on a momentum of its own. It has not stopped even though I still must recapitulate what comes to greet me on a daily basis. But honestly, that childhood past is done. It is solidly placed in the context of who I am and where I am going now. Now is all that matters, but I would not be present, facing oncoming time, NOW, if I had not dared to face the past and free myself of it.

I offer this essay today to all of you who are taking the first steps into the journey of recapitulation, to those who are well into it, and to those who fear venturing inward. I can only stress again, in so doing you will become free. You will become YOU. It’s a pretty great place to be!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#737 Experience Your Innocent Self

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Today I ask you for a message of guidance for all your readers. Please tell us something of importance for our world, our time, and our spiritual progress. Thank you. I breathe into my heart center and accept your energy. What guidance do you offer us today?

Truth must reign. Honesty, fairness and truth must permeate every sinew of your body and every word spoken from your mouths, otherwise there will remain blocked energy, unavailable, holding you back personally and collectively. In order for advancement upon the earth there must be a new innocence established. This must begin within the self.

Only in allowing the true self access to life will true healing and growth take root. Only in acknowledging the superiority of the energy self will life advance beyond the pettiness and rivalry that now dominates your world. Only through accessing and utilizing the true self will your lives change and the world at large experience a much-needed shift.

You see, things have proceeded far from the original intent of man’s purpose. Life upon that earth was meant for experiencing the self in a world of solids, in a world of concrete reality so that the energy self could build strength and character, so that the lessons learned inside the structures of a life upon that earth could be more fully understood within terms of energy.

However, the energy self no longer dominates. The solidity of life upon that earth overshadowed the purity of the energy self. Thus a struggle began between the two selves. The energy self from which all are born and all will return has suffered greatly, but this is not to be despaired, for this is also its journey. The human self offers the lessons of life to urge this energy self to awaken.

Find in the human body the energy of life. Find the energy that is yours personally and do not be afraid of its innocence. Do not fear its exposure to the world, for it is only in allowing it to exist that you will change the position you personally occupy in that life and that world. In so doing the world itself will change, for the collective energy seeks change as well.

In experiencing your innocent self you will eventually be greeted in return with equal purity of energy from without. Set the intent to be open now so that your personal channel may be flowing, so that your energy may be available to give and receive. Set the intent to speak your truth both to the self and to others.

Set the intent to breathe and feel and act with goodness and honesty in every breath your take. Breathe out your negativity, your anger, your disappointments, your judgments, and your disgusts. Breathe in your truths, and your innocence will thank you for finally paying attention to its needs.

It is a long journey—the healing, awakening journey—but what else can you describe that would serve your soul? What else is there really that matters?

Thank you Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Most fondly and humbly offered.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Unblocking Energy

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Back when I was doing my recapitulation Jeanne told me that if I did not find a way to speak about what had happened to me during childhood the long hidden secrets would putrefy inside me. I’d already had proof of this with intermittent pains and illnesses with no medical explanation, skin problems, and cancer. Don Juan explained to Carlos that the purpose of recapitulation consisted of:

“…a systematic scrutiny of one’s life, segment by segment, an examination made not in the light of criticism or finding flaw, but in the light of an effort to understand one’s life, and to change its course. Don Juan’s claim was that once any practitioner has viewed his life in the detached manner that the recapitulation requires, there’s no way to go back to the same life.” —from The Wheel of Time, page 4.

The process of recapitulation consists in learning how to release blocked energy to achieve the detachment that allows us to fully accept and experience new life. Once again, near the end of my recapitulation, Jeanne reminded me of the need to continually release all energy blockages. As I began to take on the job of becoming her channel she warned that if I did not find a way to speak about her, and what I was learning from her, that everything would begin to pile up inside me again, creating new blockages, and eventually I would die.

At that point, I had a dream in which I was feeling the fullness of being Jeanne’s channel and I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that my intent was pure, that I had pureness of heart. In this dream I was confronted with a stadium filled with hecklers who, no matter what I said, would not listen to me as I tried to explain that I was a good person and I was only doing this because it was the right thing to do. Jeanne told me that I had to let my feelings go, that in feeling that I was not being appreciated for my simplicity, my goodness, that I was not listened to and ended up feeling ignored and insignificant, that I was in fact expressing self-importance. She said that no matter how justified and right I felt it did not matter. The only thing that mattered was taking the journey. She was challenging me to take the journey with her more fully. Was I ready to do it, to leave everything behind and go with her into a new world?

In taking the journey, by accepting every challenge as a challenge to let go of my ego, I discovered that most of my blockages were bundled up in self-importance. In order to truly release blocked energy and access my own vital stores of energy I had to get to a place where nothing mattered because nothing had any significance. I had to totally detach from everything that my ego previously felt was important, even the importance of being good, right, or pure of heart. As don Juan taught, in learning detachment—non-attachment to the structures of this world, including feelings of self-importance—we gain the means of shifting our perceptions and evolving.

I finally understood what Jeanne had been telling me all along: if I allowed blockages to remain inside me they would continue to eat up my energy and I would eventually rot away, just an empty carcass. I also knew that either way I was facing death. It is a known fact that we are all going to die, but now I was being asked to make a decision in how I wanted to face my death. Did I want to stay attached to the old self, so known and full of pain, or would I choose to let her go and open up to something totally fresh and new? I was headed the same place no matter what I decided. “Are you taking this journey with me, Jan?” she asked. “Or are you going to stay attached to self-importance?”

I finally understood that in giving up the ego I could become free. “I get it,” I said, “when you can accept death you are free.” How simple that statement sounds! We already possess the knowledge that death is inevitable, but we can change our perception of death by constantly finding new energy: by doing recapitulation, by breathing out old stuff, by releasing energy blockages. We can choose to give ourselves new energy and in so doing free ourselves from the fear of death, removing its dark shadow from our lives. When we allow ourselves to let the true journey begin, death no longer matters either, just as ego no longer matters.

Once I sat and did the recapitulation breath during a thunderstorm, aware that the energy of it was powerful and that if I could tap into it I might be able to create a shift. I sat for a long time and did the sweeping breath, moving my head to the right and then the left, breathing in and out slowly and methodically as I swept my head back and forth, simultaneously going deeper and deeper into myself. I breathed out the energy of my abuser, even the smell and taste of tobacco smoke that appeared, cleaning my nose and lungs of the memory of him, unblocking my body of everything else that arose to get in my way as the storm raged outside the windows, as the lightning flashed and the thunder shook. I went further and further back into the past and beyond, until I became an old Indian woman sitting under a thick and roughly woven blanket on a precipice of a high mesa overlooking a desert landscape as a thunderstorm raged and cracked all around me. As I did the breathing I was letting go of all the dark secrets, breathing out the energy of my abuser, sending him away and replacing his energy with my own, going deeper and deeper as I cleared a path to my truth, into what I had stored inside me, until I was able to leave this world and enter another.

As I took that recapitulation journey that day the energy was very much like the energy of this day, the energy of the storm that now rages outside my windows much the same as that thunderstorm, the wind offering a similar power. With awareness of energy, of our personal energy and why and where it is blocked inside us, in learning how to release ourselves from the past, we become available for experiences of energy as it flows in the universe, as I was that day when I did succeed in shifting my world.

With the intent already set to change, we just have to accept the mission set before us. We have to face death, but in so doing we also have to face life. Are you ready to take the journey? Today, with the power inherent in the southerly wind, it may be your moment. Good Luck!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

News and Notes

A Windy Day!

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I’m working on my regular Wednesday blog but in the meantime a terrific windstorm is blowing outside. If the power goes out I’ll get my blog posted as soon as possible after it gets restored. This is the kind of southerly wind that does a lot of damage and with our recent server-being-down issues I just wanted everyone to know that we’re still here. So, should the wind not take out a few trees or sheer off our new roof that the tornado damaged two weeks ago you’ll be hearing from me again later in the morning.
Have a great day! -Jan