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Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Dream Teaching

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I woke up this morning and said: “I was being taught all night long.”

“What do you mean, you were being taught?” Chuck asked.

“I was being taught something all night long in dreaming, the same thing repeatedly, but now I can’t remember what it was!” I whined. “Maybe I can call it up later, I’m pretty good at that,” I said, as I fought to hold onto what had vanished as soon as I opened my eyes. Synchronistically, this is exactly what happened last October when I was dreaming with the women shamans, asking them to teach me how to become a shaman and it is what I had been planning to write about today. So, wouldn’t you know, I had another experience to underscore the process of learning to become a shaman. Here is the experience I had last fall, as I wrote about it in my journal on October 23, 2009:

Dreaming was not as successful last night, though I asked for the next step in shamanic practice. Once again I put the dreaming pillow on my lower abdomen before I fell asleep. Whatever I got had something to do with the self, both the body self and the ego self, but it was not clear. Ironically, I fought with my body throughout the night, too lazy to sit up, reach for my notebook and write down what I was getting, clear or not.

“Write it down!” I commanded my sleeping self, but then I would argue: “It’s not clear!”

“Write it anyway!” I retaliated, but still I was too lazy to do so. I figured I would remember it, which I have failed to do, except knowing that it had something to do with the self. Perhaps it was about aligning the body self with the intent to do the work. The lazy body obviously got in my way last night. I will have to give it another go tonight and hopefully I will not have the same issue to contend with, my lazy self. Pretty interesting, I must say!

Later in the day I wrote the following:

Okay, so I get that I was confronted with my lazy self and that is my current challenge. This lazy self must be confronted in order to keep moving forward. This is the avoidant self, the reluctant self, the fearful self, but she is not as strong as she used to be. Now she is more like a slug in the way, not much energy, but still present and capable of sabotaging my progress. This sluggish self was, at one time, the depressed, traumatized self, immobilized by fear and unavailable to truly live until the trauma had been realized. In the old days, before I recapitulated, I remained caught in two worlds, never quite present in either, but now that I am awake I must remain awake and alert. The old sluggish self still tests me as she did last night while dreaming. I argued with her. Contending with this self is the third step in the practice of shamanic work, the whole physical self: the conscious mental self, the body self, the conjuring mind self, the ego self, but I see it as all related to the ingrained comforts of the physical body, the lazy self. (End of journal entry.)

My experience last night was very similar to that of last October. I still have my notebook open beside me as I sleep, a pen stuck into the page and all I have to do is lean over, pick up the pen and begin writing. I argued with myself again last night, thinking in dreaming that of course I would remember, I always remember, I’m good at that. All aspects of the physical self were present again last night, teaching me a valuable lesson; the conjuring mind, the ego self, the lazy physical self all in cahoots to show me that something else is necessary in order to truly do shamanic work, and that is: to get beyond the limitations of the physical self, which will always seek to remain dominant.

The other thing that strikes me today is that the two previous lessons that I learned in dreaming were also in play last night and in my dream of last October too. I was being shown again the workings of the two minds, the conjuring mind and the inner knowing mind that argue incessantly. I knew I should write down what I was getting on both occasions, but I could not get beyond the ego, which upheld its superiority. “Don’t worry Jan,” my ego self said, “you’ll remember!” The second lesson, the value of repetition, was also in action. In both instances I dreamed the same thing, over and over again, but since I also argued with my physical self, I failed miserably to recall what the lessons were. Once again, as I had done last October, I woke up this morning holding onto the fact that I was missing, because of my laziness, a very valuable lesson, but now I see the real lesson as being the repetitive, night-long fight between the two minds. The knowing mind was seeking to wake me up, asking me to shift out of the old lazy self and allow the new disciplined self to take over and push the ego, the conjuring mind, and the lazy physical self out of the way.

Alas! Now I understand the true value of repetition: to force a shift. But shift will only happen when we are ready; when we finally get just what it is that we are being taught or asked to do, when we have repeated the same lessons to the point of mundanity and boredom, until we say, hey, there must be more to life than just this same old stuff! And in the shamanic world the action of shifting is not an action of the conjuring mind, except in learning to know it, in understanding how it works to hold us in our old places, in our lazy body selves, in our comforts, in our egos, in our old places of trauma, until we have learned what they have been trying to wake us up to, in dreaming or in waking life. Pushing ourselves beyond the limitations of the physical, mind or otherwise, is the next step in learning to become a shaman.

Know your enemy. Know your mind, know your ego, know your limitations and then push beyond them. Wake up and remember! These are the real lessons in awareness that I have been taught by the women shamans. Whether you are interested in the shamanic world or not, awareness is the true key to evolving, in this world and in the next. Once again, this is all related to the practice of recapitulation too. The steps I have learned from the women shamans of don Juan’s line are steps in undertaking the process of fully understanding the self, because, in actuality, you have to understand and know the self in order to understand the shaman’s world and be able to maneuver in it. It is the same thing that we will be confronted with when we die. We must be prepared to maneuver in a world where we will no longer have a physical self to rely on, to blame, or to trust. No comforts of the physical will be available. Only our energy bodies will be available, and how will we fare if we do not know them?

Next week, I will bring you the fourth step in the process of shamanic work that I learned in dreaming with the dreamers. Until then, watch out for the conjuring mind! Pay attention to what the body is repeatedly attempting to say instead, as Jeanne suggests in her lessons in inner work; go deeper into the body self. Pay attention to the earthquakes within, as she mentioned in her message on Monday. The body holds more in its silent sinews than you know. And then go beyond to the energy that lives inside that lazy physical house of self and invite it to emerge from its sleepy state and enjoy a little of the energy of the spring with you!
With love and humble attempts to remain aware,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#676 Earthquakes Within

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
As I communicate with you today I am reminded that we have done this channeling more than six hundred times for our readers. Our personal communications extend far beyond even those messages, into the thousands since we began this process almost nine years ago. When I fathom that, I am absolutely amazed. I know there are many skeptics in the world, people who have no connection to spirit, within or without, or even to themselves as energy. I have never not had that kind of connection, but it has, until ten years ago, been very private, underdeveloped, often pushed aside and doubted, often felt as troubling, frightening or too vague to understand clearly. Now, through my work with you and Chuck, and on myself, I have elected to pay attention, to accept the challenges that arise, to better understand the meaningfulness of everything that has occurred and continues to occur in my life as part of my personal evolutionary process. As a result I have been able to slowly change, to accept that I am a different person and to push to become that new person in the world. This is what I wish for everyone, but I know that is naive, that it is very difficult for people to embrace the hidden sides of themselves, good and bad, so that they can change. It is a long and arduous process, but it does allow for true change to happen. We see now, and Chuck points this out in his blog essay too, that even the Catholic Church, that stalwart and self-righteous structure, is being asked to do a public recapitulation, to confront the past, to be truthful, honest, and forthright before the world, to confront its darkness and evolve spiritually. This is what we are all challenged to do in our lives. I know what it means because I did it. I did a recapitulation, and it isn’t easy. Even having done the major part of it I continue to do it every day, as I find myself in many worlds, seeking balance, struggling to maintain my inner identity and to evolve to my fullest potential while continually going beyond my inhibitions and fears.

What can you offer us today to aid us all in our attempts to not only stay connected to spirit, but to more fully embrace the true aspects of who we are as human beings, fallible and hidden though we may be, while at the same time we know, by our own experiences, that confronting the truth really does set us free? How do we more fully embrace our human condition, loving ourselves for our journeys, while at the same time lovingly pushing our fearful selves to keep evolving? What guidance do you offer us today?

You ask, My Dear, for guidance in the process of achieving wholeness. As you know, I always contend that life itself will lead you there, but an inner awakening must occur and be reckoned with in order for the two selves to meet and assign themselves to a mutual journey. Without recognition and partnership, the journey ahead will be fragmented and unclear, as you state in your query was your own experience for many years.

Many people upon that earth elect to deny the true workings of the inner spirit, the holiness within, because it frightens them. In its awakening process the inner spirit shakes awake not only its own long buried persona, but in its rumblings it shatters that which has stood solidly present and in control for so many years. An inner awakening rattles the outer world in much the same way that an earthquake rattles awake the world far above its center of heat. Angry splitting apart may be the result of an earthquake on the outside, but on the inside it is merely a shifting of conditions no longer tenable in their current state. When tensions arise there is no recourse except to alleviate them in some fashion.

I suggest to Our Dear Readers that inner tension always be paid attention to. It is not meant to drive you crazy or force you into misery, sickness, depression, anxiety, or fear, but simply to ask you to notice that something deep inside you is asking for the shift that it needs in order for the process of life to evolve. The world around you constantly changes and evolves and you, My Dear Human Souls, are also being presented with the same process. You are being asked to recognize the earthquakes and storms within for the spiritual awakenings that they are.

As you know, I stress the shamanic term recapitulation as the process that must be undertaken in order to properly deal with the inner heat. This is a spiritual process whereby the inner self is allowed to speak, to reveal itself, to be offered a platform for expulsion, revelation, and renewal, so that each of you may reconnect to the true growth energy within, that of nature, of God within, and to the possibility for understanding the self as energy, interconnected to all other energy.

Once you feel the awakening of the energy of inner self it is hard to reject it. Once the hard crust of neglect has cracked and the secrets of self have begun to seep outward it is hard to repair the festering wounds it reveals. The tearing awake of the inner self, bursting through the long-toughening process of life, is no less an act of nature than the earthquakes that rock your globe. Your earth’s inner awakening reflects the great need for the inner spirit to emerge from its darkness and become present in that world where it has so often been pushed aside.

I do not speak of religions, of church doctrines, or of preaching dictates. I speak only of the true energy of inner spirit, which resides in every human being upon that earth. You each have within all that it takes to evolve. You must allow your awakenings, your inner rumblings, to teach you what you need to know about the self. You must allow your secrets to be revealed to the self. You must accept yourself as fallible and as good, as lost and as found, as hungry for life in a new manner. Only in accepting the wholeness of self, encompassing all that you love and want and all that you hate and fear, will you achieve that new life you so hunger for, My Dears. And you must learn what it means to be truthful, honest, and utterly naked and revealed, facing the self without conflicts of interest, without conventional voices dictating judgments and proposals that overshadow the truths of who you truly are.

Remind yourselves often of your energetic content, of your ability to flow with life, of your desire for connection. Practice your evolving biddings by listening to what is going on inside you more intently. Listen to your inner self and ask what to do next. And then wait for the answer. It will come.

Thank you, Jeanne! I understand that you are also proposing that we are like the energy of nature itself, that we are no different. Would you contend that the preponderances of natural disasters are warning us of our true inner desires to change and evolve? There have been earthquakes, a volcano in Iceland, global warming, cyclones, typhoons, flooding and any number of natural disasters lately affecting the world. I have felt them to be signs that Mother Earth, that nature itself will not allow us to be in control for much longer, that we are being forced to change, but I don’t feel that enough people are listening. Can you comment?

Nature itself will reveal its intentions. It has far greater power to shake the world and shatter the empty dreams and cogitations of greed than any human alive. There is none so powerful as Mother Nature. But you must all pay attention to that same energy within. Mother Nature resides within. God resides within. All power resides within, good and bad. Evolutionary potential, built up over centuries, lies within. Some of you upon that earth have been evolving for many years, many lifetimes, while others are new at it. It is up to the old souls to lead the way, by example, returning to earth energy. The earth itself is showing you that this is the proper road to take, for it leads to the inevitable change that is to come.

Do not be afraid of change, but prepare for personal change first by embracing that which comes from within to teach you what it means to embrace change without. Learn to embrace the journey of self, of the inner self yearning for partnership and mergence in life. Return to nature by returning to self. The true connection to self and nature lies within and that is where your energy lies: within. The energy of earth lies within, and it has the capacity to shift and change the outer world when the time is right.

Do for yourselves what you know you must. Prepare to evolve. In adopting a new relationship with the self as an evolving energy being you will be ready for what comes in your life to greet you. Your practices of inner awakenings will have prepared you well.

NOTE: As I was typing up this message I heard a knock at the door and an elderly gentleman, a Jehovah’s Witness, was standing on the porch looking at our concrete Buddha who sits gazing out over our front walk. He asked me what I thought about all the change in the world, and I replied that I thought the world itself was showing us that we have to change too. He handed me a copy of Awake! This month’s pamphlet is subtitled: Nature had it first. I am struck by the synchronicity of this visit while I was working on this awakening message today.
-Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Value of Repetition

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Today, I continue writing about my dreaming experiences with the women shamans of don Juan’s line, which I began blogging about last week in Being-in-Dreaming. But first, I must mention that I am struck by the synchronicity of Jeanne’s message on Monday as related to the process I am writing about. Even though my dreaming experiences took place several months ago, as I write about them now Jeanne’s weekly messages seem to be in synch. These evolved beings, the women shamans and Jeanne, are really all talking about the same thing: the process of recapitulation.

As regards Jeanne, I refer to the three stages of detachment reaction that she spoke of the other day as being essential during the process of recapitulation. During my own recapitulation I learned to step back and view how I normally reacted to the events in my life. As the process of recapitulation unfolded I learned that my first reaction, to a memory for instance, always needed to be challenged. Even though I was initially confronted with very familiar, comfortable and conventional responses, I had to find out where they came from. Did they really come from me or were they from something I had been taught, heard, or assimilated from outside of myself, perhaps falsely? Were they spoken in someone else’s voice, having absolutely nothing to do with me? Was I just mimicking something I had not really ever questioned? Was I being judgmental, dismissive, or prejudiced? Was I operating out of fear, denial, or self-pity? Was I getting the memory right from my perspective or was it from someone else’s perspective, long ago ingrained?

The second level, going deeper into the self, was a lesson in finding my own voice, connecting to my own truths and learning to pay attention to them. This level involved interacting with a different me, discovering that I really was that someone inside I had always known existed but never really allowed to be fully present. This was the level of waking that self up and allowing her to speak, allowing her to relive the past, fully aware now, without the veils, the conventions, the old voices. This was the process of continually pushing away the old ideas of self, facing the petty tyrants, and staying connected to the inner self, no matter how painful, how frightening, how annihilating. This was the process of forging a new connection to the inner self and allowing the old self to slowly break down, no longer useful or necessary, as eventually my world changed along with me and the old self became the one who didn’t fit, who didn’t feel right anymore.

By going to the third level that Jeanne spoke of, to utter calm certainty of self, I was able to recapitulate fully and truthfully, detached from the conjuring mind, accessing the knowing mind that I wrote about last week. By achieving this deeper place of recapitulation I was able to fully own my life, my experiences, my actions and reactions, taking them on as my personal truths and experiences, full of meaning for me as an evolving being, detached from expectations and judgments of self and others. From this place I was able to go even deeper, into the unknown that lies beyond the self.

So, you might see, as I suggest, that the first message in dreaming that I received from the women shamans was that first level of reaction that Jeanne suggests we must confront in ourselves, because this is the step in learning to distinguish between the two minds, the outer conventional voices and the inner true voice. Today, I address the second level that Jeanne mentions, which is right in alignment with my second night of dreaming with the women shamans, which I wrote about in my journal on October 22, 2009, as follows:

Once again I asked the female shamans to teach me something in dreaming. Once again I placed the dreaming pillow on my lower abdomen and I asked to be taught the next step in learning to be a shaman and this is what I got (which I wrote in my journal while sleeping, in automatic writing):

The value of repetition.
That which appears
boring and mundane
holds the key to
something important.
Do not dismiss
any signs. (End of journal entry.)

Repetition is one of the facets of recapitulation that I found most annoying. However, going over a memory or studying a behavior countless times, to the point of boredom, was a most essential process. It not only neutralized the memory or behavior, but allowed me to further gain access to the new me. By constantly confronting the old me, the old petty tyrants, the old memories, the old behaviors and feelings, the old ideas of self and others; by constantly reasserting that I was no longer there, no longer that person, no longer thinking, acting, behaving in the old manner and, yes, by facing my own boring self over and over again, I gained surer footing in the new me.

In that second level of reaction, as Jeanne calls it, the women shamans contend that we will find that which is the key to the self. This is the part of the process where we make the connection to our potential self. This is our awakening step, where, as the new self begins to emerge and we chip away at the old self and the old world, we are granted glimpses of what is to come. It is only through repetition, in making the same mistakes countless times until we are totally bored by them, that we truly will change. I learned that change does not happen over night, that it takes a lot of work. It takes daring. It takes confronting the old self, the old petty tyrants, the old conjurers in our midst, facing our issues until we are done with them, completely and fully.

This part of the recapitulation process is where the bulk of the work is done. It is where we meet ourselves in our most vulnerable, our most fearful, our most confused, our most false and our most truthful states. It is where we face our petty tyrants over and over again. It is where we discover who we have become and who we might become in the future if we dare to keep going. If we can do as the women shamans instruct and value the repetition of our lives and our recapitulation process, repeatedly facing even the most boring and mundane of issues regarding ourselves, we will discover the key to where we are going, to something important about ourselves.

In fact, if we can stay with the process of life itself, and not dismiss any signs, but value everything that comes to us, even our need to continually stay in old places, old relationships, old habits, old patterns of behavior we offer ourselves the opportunity to change. And when we are ready to fully recapitulate, we discover that the key is within. To each of us that key offers deep personal meaning, personal revelation, and personal experiences that have the potential to take us far beyond this world, to better balance between worlds, to grant us the daring to keep exploring our selves and all that this world truly holds.

Next week, I will write again about my dreaming experiences with the women shamans. It will also be interesting to see what Jeanne offers us next week, and Chuck too in his blog this week. We tend to speak on similar topics, though without forethought or planning. It’s just the way it works!

Dream, do inner work, ask for help. As you can see, I always seem to get exactly what I ask for, though it may not arrive in the form I imagine. If you care to comment, please feel free.
Love,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

# 673 Chuck’s Place: Thank You Petty Tyrants!

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Why are we here? One thing is certain: our time is limited. Our life here is only a visit. In the end, we must leave on what the shamans of ancient Mexico call, our definitive journey.

Unlike other journeys we may take in this world, in preparation for our definitive journey there are no bags to pack and only one appointment to keep, our appointment with death. At that appointment we are required to relinquish our bodies and our attachment to all things material as we enter the unknown in pure energetic form.

Throughout their physical lives shamans enter their energy bodies and take journeys into infinity. Upon returning they report that, though they discover amazing things on these journeys, the true preparation for facing the unknown is in this world, in the form of our encounters with petty tyrants. One major reason for our being in this world is, as I see it, to encounter and master our petty tyrants, the true proving ground for our definitive journey in infinity upon dying.

Petty tyrants can be defined as anything in this world that interrupts or shatters our expectations. Examples may include a crying baby that won’t allow us to sleep, a defiant teenager, an unloving parent, an exploitive boss, a ruthless ex-spouse, a rejecting lover, a condescending partner, a prejudiced teacher, a violent psychopath who physically or sexually abuses, etc. Petty tyrants can also come in the form of natural or unnatural disasters such as earthquakes and wars. In fact, the examples are endless and range from annoying everyday interactions to traumatic experiences. Petty tyrants are not fair, they don’t play by the rules; they devastate us, they use and abuse us, they take what they want, they destroy what they want. Our experiences of petty tyrants force us to relinquish our expectations of common decency, respect, love, or basic entitlements. Although these expectations may be our preferences in this world, they are, by far, not the true nature of reality, which is unpredictable. When faced with a petty tyrant we are thrust into a completely unpredictable, uncontrollable reality where anything can happen, anything goes.

Shamans say that our encounters with petty tyrants provide us with the necessary training to face the true nature of energetic reality; this is our destiny, this is why we are here. Energetic reality is fluid, ever changing. To maintain cohesion in energetic reality we must be able to flow without requirements, that is, preconceived expectations. Petty tyrants force us out of our world into the unknown. If we refuse to accept the unknown and choose instead to cling to our expectations of reality then we are not prepared for our definitive journey. If we insist upon a world that conforms to our expectations, we are not ready to enter the unknown. The Buddhists point out that if we cannot detach from our expectations upon dying, we must re-materialize; that is, reincarnate in the material world for more classes on detachment, with our petty tyrants as teachers. In fact, petty tyrants are our greatest teachers in this world.

The process of mastering our petty tyrants requires that we recapitulate. In recapitulation we face, squarely, all our experiences in life, releasing any attachment to them in the form of anger, resentment, fear, regret, hatred, sadness, self-pity, etc. Staying attached to unfairness, for example, would keep us attached to a predictable world that follows the rules. As long as we hold to the position that we are undeserving of the petty tyrants in our lives we remain deeply attached to creating our own world, a world of illusions, what the Buddhists call maya. Through recapitulation we arrive at a place of complete neutrality toward all our petty tyrants. We let go of any sense of being special or deserving of anything, we simply accept all the experiences in our lives as part of the journey, without judgment. Experiences are simply facts, they happened. With recapitulation we are released to completely let them go, with appreciation for lessons learned. We arrive at a place of readiness to enter an unpredictable world, our tyrants having prepared us well!

When we arrive at the place of utter neutrality, what the shamans call the place of no pity, we are offered the opportunity to thank our petty tyrants for journeying with us and preparing us for our final appointment with death, as we embark upon our definitive journey in infinity.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Mind Body Release

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Last week I was unable to find a theme to write on. I kept looking for something that would be pertinent or significant, both as I worked on my book and as I pondered Jeanne’s answers to the questions I had asked her in Message #668, but alas nothing stuck out. This week, however, several themes have come up.

Today is quiet and the ending of some rainy and very windy weather is in sight. The other night, however, the wind blew harshly all night long. Sudden gusts knocked things over on the deck and rattled the house. It was a difficult night to sleep and I was constantly startled awake. As I lay there listening to the wind, the phrase, the winds of change are upon us, kept running through my head. Today, I present you with the following, beginning with a dream I had during that noisy and windy night:

In this brief dream, I pull open the double doors to our linen closet and stand there looking in at everything neatly folded, everything in its place, neatly compartmentalized on the shelves and I immediately think: “Oh, my mind did this. I don’t want to dream about this! I want to fly!” And with that thought I woke up.

Waking up out of that dream, I realized that what Jeanne had been reviewing over the past few weeks is that change is indeed inevitable, that tomorrow will always arrive, that we cannot stop time from marching on, just as we cannot stop the wind from blowing. The wind will always blow. It is what it does. The challenge we face, each day, is: do we allow ourselves to do the same, to constantly change? Or do we elect to sit tightly in our complacent lives, rearranging our linen closets and pretending that change is not happening? As soon as I called that dream for what it was, a mind conjuring call to stay complacent and caught in old fears, I allowed myself to let go a little more, to acknowledge that I do indeed want to be open, to dare myself to fly, as Jeanne called it the other day.

Do I dare to fly with the winds of change, to flow and become like a leaf on the breeze and truly let go of all the foreign installations, as Chuck calls them, all the neatly compartmentalized linen closets in my life? Where can I let go today? I must constantly ask myself this question rather than huddle in fear at the sounds in the night, of the wind doing what the wind does best. And how do I let go? How do I learn to fly?

As I ask myself these questions I immediately go to my body. Where am I tense, I ask, and where am I holding? Where can I soften? The body is the place that I personally find I must return to, over and over again, in order to truly let go. Releasing physical holdings is a big part of the letting go process. How many yoga classes have I walked out of feeling like I am in a new body, a softer, looser and more flowing body? Thousands of yoga classes that I have attended over the past thirty-five years have continually proven the simple fact that physical release is a vital aspect of allowing for change. Every week I experience this softening, this letting go of the physical, and the result is always startlingly amazing, because even after I have left the yoga class I notice that the softening automatically carries over into the rest of my day. Daily shavasana (relaxation) and daily meditation also suffice when I cannot get to a class or don’t have time for my own practice.

Finding that my physical body held most of my issues was a big discovery for me during my recapitulation process. When I first heard someone suggest, many years ago, that the physical body stores memory I found it hard to believe, but the longer I worked on myself the more true that idea became. Even though I had recapitulated my memories in my conscious mind, I found that my body still held so much more. The body, in its silent way, with its sturdy structure, seemingly so present in the moment, does indeed hold much more than we can see. Once I was ready to go to it and to allow myself to actually feel, asking it to show me what it needed me to learn, I began a more thorough recapitulation. Once I was able to leave the conjuring mind that told me I was done with my recapitulation and enter my body, I learned what it really means to fly, in the sense that Jeanne speaks of.

During one Embodyment Therapy session, which helped in the process of physical release, Jeanne came to me and said the following: “Let the bad out, keep only the good, only the essentials.” In a subsequent session she came again and guided me through the removal process of old memories, old ghosts as I saw them during the session, which I documented afterwards in my journal:

Jeanne is with me, pulling old ghosts out of me like tissues out of a box, all strung together. My body responds to the expulsion of them, reacting to the tearing sound each one makes as it leaves, the sound of a tissue being pulled from its slot in the box. Jeanne reminds me: “Remember, I told you it’s all about change, getting rid of the old that you have no use for, making room for the new.” I experience the physical ripping out, as if actual body tissue is being pulled out of me. It is quite painful, not easy to handle. I call to Jeanne to help me get through it. “Take my hand,” she says. “I will take you where you need to go. You aren’t dying, it’s just a removal of all the old dead stuff that you don’t need, dead issues, bad stuff, all the leftover memories and feelings that will bother you if left behind.” It is like having radical surgery. I am not sure that the pulling out of the old ghosts, the old demons, feels good. It feels like being disemboweled, that something is being yanked out of me, but I can’t stop it and I don’t want to either, because I know it is the right thing to do. I see the horrors of my life with my own eyes. I see every horrible aspect of the past as it gets pulled out and dragged away. In a quick blink of an eye everything that has ever happened to me gets pulled out and leaves my body. The process is fast, wrenchingly painful, but I go with it. I let go. I let it happen. I try to follow, to see where the ghosts go, but I am not allowed to follow. I am forced to stay in my body and experience the removal. (From a session in 2004)

This experience came to mind again during the night as the wind blew and the old demons fear and worry crept into bed with me, attempting a takeover. My dream, having jolted me away from them, prepared me for the winds of change that were blowing outside, reminding me to let go again of the old, to flow with the inevitable. I dozed and startled awake throughout the night, as the winds howled, never quite able to rest deeply, but at each awakening I would remind myself to physically relax, to physically let go. I repeated Jeanne’s recent words of guidance, to let go to the inevitable, finding that my intent to change had to be focused, as usual, on releasing physical holdings.

Self-hypnosis, repeating mantras, doing full body relaxation, quiet moments of breathing and calming meditation, as well as taking yoga classes, (and many other modalities of healing and relaxation) all offer release and bring attention to the physical body. If none of these processes are accessible or appealing, then simply notice the body and ask: Where am I holding? And then let it go and see what happens. And, as Jeanne has suggested, go deeper each time you ask the question, allowing for release and change to not only become a mind process, but a physical one as well.

Until next week,
Jan