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Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

How to Heal

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I begin with the premise that all pain and illness, mental and physical, stem from psychological disharmony. If the psyche, the energetic manifestation of the spirit in the human mind, becomes disrupted, or infected, the result is disharmony, dis-ease, disturbance within the entire self: the body, the mind, and the spirit.

There is always a light at the end of the tunnel of darkness…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

A Path of Recapitulation

There are many paths to healing. I took the path of recapitulation to heal from Complex PTSD, which stemmed from 16 years of sexual abuse that first occurred in early childhood and ended when I was 18. Those were my formative years and during that time I was inundated with not only the brutal sexual abuse but also the intense psychological repercussions of that abuse.

The human capacity to endure and survive, however, is incredible, but at what expense?

What my child self could not handle, either physically or mentally, my psyche and spirit handled, offering several pathways of protection so that life could continue. This is common in cases of abuse, where the body and the mind work in conjunction to hide from the fragile ego that which is harmful, painful, confusing, or damaging. In my case, all memory of what happened to me was wiped clean. At the time, it saved me, but later it came back to haunt me.

Hints of what had happened, though deeply buried within the person I became, began to arise, bringing with it the pain and discordancy that had been long buried. That’s when I realized I needed to find out, at the deepest of levels, why I had so much disharmony within myself, why I had so much physical pain and mental anguish, why I was so afraid of life, to the point of destroying all I had worked so hard for, all the paths of potential success that I refused to embark upon. Why was I so self-sabotaging, so self-negating, so self-deprecating? Why couldn’t I just be normal?

That was when recapitulation, as a path to healing, came into my life, a path of not only remembering, but of reliving, releasing, and resolving—a path to freedom.

An Adult Self

The first step before beginning a recapitulation is to shore up the adult self. A strong adult self in the house, in you, will help keep you focused and steady as you begin to walk the path of recapitulation.

During recapitulation you will often be in two worlds at once, in the present and in the past, and your adult self will keep you balanced, keeping one foot in each world so that you can continue to be fully functional and present in your everyday life.

Even if recapitulation proves not to be your path in this lifetime, it’s best to shore up that adult self anyway, it will make for a life that is more tolerable and steadier. And that adult self will help keep your pain at bay with good suggestions and tactics rather than those that further damage.

I had a good mature adult self already well established when I began my recapitulation. So that was not going to be a problem for me. And once I was given the opportunity to find out what was so wrong with me, I dove in, wanting more than anything to get to the bottom of things.

Shining a Light

The next step is to bring the light into the darkness of the self. This is scary because you may not know what you are going to find. Just be open. For once you begin to walk the path of recapitulation that light is going to be very important. Things will come to you, challenging you to take a closer look, showing you where you need to go, and the only way you will be able to fully know them is by bringing in the light.

When you bring the light into the darkness, things change. For the first time you begin to see the truth, and the truth is what matters. The light reveals the truth and the darkness disappears.

Trusting the Journey

As things arise, trusting in the journey becomes the next step.

Keep in mind that recapitulation is a healing journey. Keep in mind also that you are well protected and guided as you recapitulate, for, as an ancient practice, all those who have gone before you and carved the path are energetically supporting you on your journey. That’s a lot of positive energy!

Letting Go

As you walk the path of recapitulation you will be challenged to let things go, to let go of the comforts that you once used to protect yourself. This is a crucial step, for what once saved you in an old way becomes a blockage to a new path of healing.

Letting go means being free to embrace the fullness of your true self, the self that is waiting for you at the end of the tunnel of darkness.

As you let go of old ideas of the self, as you let go of shame and blame, of the pain and the anguish, as you shed all that once meant so much to you, you might feel as if you are disintegrating, but this is good disintegration, like a snake shedding its old skin and finding that it still exists in its wholeness, though the shedding of that old skin took quite an effort. It’s the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, the chick from the egg, the seventeen-year locust emerging from the ground, having climbed through the dark earth to emerge into the light, against all odds.

Healing

I believe that we can all heal, from the deepest and most traumatic events and illnesses, those that physically challenge us and those that mentally challenge us.

If and when we are ready, our healing path will show up and ask us to take the journey toward healing. If we are not ready, that’s okay. It might not be the work of this lifetime. In the meantime, work on shoring up that adult self previously mentioned.

But, I suggest, that if you are hit over the head with something about yourself that knocks you off your feet, grab a light and take a look at it, and see where it leads. It might just be what you’ve always been looking for, your true self and the truth of yourself!

Sometimes the best way to heal is to stop seeking, to stop looking so hard, running to this path and that, thinking that this new cure will be the one, and to instead just sit down and wait to see what your spirit brings you. For the truth is that your spirit is with you always, has always been with you and knows you better than anyone. Your spirit has all the answers you seek. Ask you spirit to guide you.

The Recapitulation Diaries

I wrote The Recapitulation Diaries to show that full healing from Complex PTSD is possible, that even though you suffered greatly—more than I did, I’m sure—you too can heal.

It’s not an easy journey, but what journey is? You’ve already taken the hardest part of it, now you just have to remember so that you can clear your energy of all that infects you, for to go back to my beginning premise, all pain and illness, mental and physical, stems from psychological disharmony, from infection that has intercepted our energy field and contaminated us. Once we heal ourselves of those infections of energy a life of wonder awaits.

I won’t say any more today, though there is so much more to the healing path of recapitulation. My books tell the story. I would not be here today had I not taken that journey. That I am pretty sure of, or at least I would not be here writing this to you today, from the bottom of my heart, hoping that you too may heal.

Sending you love and healing energy,

Jan

The Recapitulation Diaries

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Sorcery & Crazy Wisdom

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Wholeness: engaging the light & the dark…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Carlos Castaneda said that if anyone opened to the energy of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico they would be inundated by their influence. The modern day shamans of his line acknowledge that all their knowledge comes from this ancient heritage; what has changed is their intent in how they use that knowledge.

The ancient shamans coveted power, and their ability to perform such supernatural acts as defying physical death itself, by remaining in physical form, for centuries. The modern shamans saw this intent as binding one to the physicality of the Earth rather than allowing one to move completely into the energy body and evolve into the subtler dimensions upon dying. Freedom to evolve is the intent of these modern-day shamans.

Don Juan Matus was concerned, throughout his mentorship of Carlos, that Carlos’s nature was too infused with the predilection of the ancient shamans. He foresaw that Carlos might become a Nagual partial to the sorcery ways of the ancient shamans. Those shamans trained their apprentices with the full-on ruthlessness of sorcery.

Sorcery has absolutely no morality, nor compassion, in its training manual. Jan’s Recapitulation Diaries document her, at the time, unknown early life apprenticeship with a dark sorcerer of ancient tradition. The training was brutal, yet her survival and recapitulation advanced her to a complete equanimity of consciousness.

Jan’s early life of abuse was the journey with the ancient shamans, whose throw ’em in the deep end predilection was later completed with the modern shaman’s road to freedom via recapitulation. Being shattered is forced psychic awakening; recapitulation leads to psychic wholeness and keen functionality.

Jan’s journey reflects the pervasive journey of our time: incessant trauma. Complex PTSD is the natural human response to the events, human and environmental, of current life upon the planet. Gaia is challenging us now with full-on sorcery, crushing our left brain’s fantasies of control. She expects a total recapitulation, and right action, for us to be ready to retake the helm with integrity.

Sorcery takes no prisoners. Petty tyrants are not fair. To survive, the ego must learn to be a keen observer, taking action only as absolutely necessary and appropriate. Demanding fairness and entitlement from a petty tyrant depletes energy and puts one at risk. Trauma forces entry into to the subtler dimensions, but even there one must not dally in the safety of dissociation. Mindful presence is the necessary ego state of survival.

Mindful presence must be cultivated out of defensive vigilance, which, if unrefined, depletes energy reserves and forestalls the necessary ability to go with the flow. Edy Eger in her memoir, The Choice, documents the impeccability of her mindful presence during her time in Auschwitz. Nonetheless, her journey remains a work in progress, as the full retrieval of her energy from the traumas of her life is still a work in progress.

As long as the sensational and emotional imprints of trauma remain charged in the central nervous system—in the form of triggers—present life remains partially frozen in the past. A fully clear and present life requires the complete experience of everything, and full detachment from everything, that has ever happened to us.

I experienced the modern shamanic side of Carlos Castaneda. The tools he offered are tools of freedom. Recapitulation is the tool of freedom from the trappings of trauma. I did not experience the fully ancient sorcerer side of Carlos that Amy Wallace documents in her memoir, Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life With Carlos Castaneda.

I know too many characters from my time in that world to doubt the validity of her journey. The cognitive dissonance between her experience and mine, made me keep her book at bay for years. She documents experiences that are so anathema to everything I stand for, that if Carlos were still in this world I believe he should be imprisoned. 

At the same time, the validity of the tools he passed on have cracked the nut of total healing from PTSD.  Certainly, Carlos ensured, by his extreme polarized ego states, that he would not be venerated beyond this life. The value of his tools are in their utility, not in their association with him.

Buddhism has its own brand of sorcery. Chogyam Trungpa, Tibetan refugee, teacher, scholar, founder of the Shambala Training method and Naropa University, had a similar shadow life to Carlos Castaneda’s. This included sexually abusive and inappropriate behaviors.

Many in the Buddhist world have been so positively impacted by Chogyam’s teachings that they accept the cognitive dissonance of his shadow behavior as “crazy wisdom”, essentially appreciating his sorcery activity as a deeply challenging but valid form of teaching.

As with Carlos, if Chogyam were still alive in this world, he too should be prosecuted for unlawful behavior. Tricksters have their value in teaching but they are not above the laws of this world. At the same time, spiritual advancement requires that we totally accept every experience we have ever had, regardless of how beautiful or horrific it might have been.

Though we may subscribe to the highest level of morality, life itself is amoral. Though rising in the subtler dimensions requires progressively deeper refinements of love, we will not progress on that journey if we cannot accept every experience of our lives with equanimity. If we can’t find our way to love with that which is most horrific, its mastery defines our karmic destiny.

Sorcery and crazy wisdom are indeed expressions of the dark side of the force. Encounters with the dark side are required Earth School courses. Achieving wholeness—the coveted diploma from Earth School—requires that we know and accept everything we have ever done, or that was done to us, with equanimity.

With gratitude to the dark and the light—the wholeness,

Chuck

Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

Recapitulation & Higher Attunement

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The real lesson of trauma is not that it grants us leave to be victims to be compensated, or survivors to be admired, but that it offers us a gateway to experiences of our Higher Self, offering us a way to experiences of our true nature as energy. Every bad memory is a doorway to accessing the lessons learned during our traumatic experiences, for indeed there is a lesson of Higher Consciousness in everything. Our journey through trauma has the potential to show us the way to achieving that state of Higher Consciousness on a more regular basis.

Recapitulation is about aligning with spirit and getting attuned to its potential, now, in a conscious state, rather than in the unconscious state of trauma. This is what all my books are about, recognizing life as a journey to higher attunement. Recapitulation is about taking the conscious journey to getting there, from dissociation from spirit to union with spirit. No matter the vehicle or method that gets us there, it’s what we’re all seeking, conscious union with our wholeness, the powerful spirit energy that we are.

Are we lucky? That which once made us a victim or a survivor has the greater potential, if we dare take it to the next level, to catapult us far beyond ordinary reality and ordinary states of consciousness. In recapitulation we learn how to do this with awareness. What once happened to us in a dissociated state now has the potential to teach us what we are truly capable of. How did we survive the horrific things that happened to us? Were we just the lucky ones? The answers all lie within us.

In recapitulating, in facing our fears and going beyond the defenses that have kept us safe and protected, we offer ourselves the gateway to our personal truths but also to attunement with our personal Higher Self, our state of Higher Consciousness, our true state of energy, light, and wisdom. It’s a journey not for the faint of heart but for the true warrior that lies within. And of course you have that warrior inside of you, it’s what kept you alive and still does!

Sending  you love and wishing you well on your journey to wholeness,

Jan

J. E. Ketchel, Author of The Recapitulation Diaries

Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

RECAPITULATION: When There is No Other Choice

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There comes a point during a recapitulation when there is no turning back, when there is nothing to do but hold steady and proceed on the journey, for it is indeed a journey, a path with heart. At this point, the old world and the old self are no longer viable and yet the new world and the new self are not yet fully formed, but there is nothing to do but plod along, no matter how painful and debilitating.

Eventually, the tensions of the recapitulation will subside, the original intent having been fulfilled. One day you will wake up in that so-longed-for new world, and you will notice that you feel and look different. From that point onward the old world begins to decelerate, to disappear from view, and only what lies ahead is of any importance.

Here is an excerpt from my next book, during a time when I was just on the verge of getting to that most important turning point yet still dealing with walking the abyss between the old and the new:

“The pain stays away during the day, I realize, because I’m focused, quietly painting, staying in the moment, intently aware of what I’m doing, present in the surroundings I find myself in. But being in the moment is a kind of Limbo, a holding place, an unreal world. The real world is being in the turmoil of my inner work, confronting the issues I have to deal with, being innerly attuned and aligned with my inner journey. The real world is my recapitulation and my search for wholeness. Everything else pales in comparison.”

-© J. E. Ketchel, from “Dreaming All The Time”

Not long after this entry into my journal the final shift happened and I was free. Remember, that’s the final outcome, freedom. And though there is much pain to encounter and many truths to face, it is the most stupendous journey you will ever take.

Wishing you well as you continue on your own journey into your own very real world.

Sending you love,

Jan Ketchel, Author of The Recapitulation Diaries

Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

What is Recapitulation?

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Recapitulation is the practice of recalling and reliving past personal events. It’s main goal is the redeployment of energy that is stuck in past events, traumas, relationships, attachments, and emotions. Such energy is unavailable to us until retrieved. Recapitulation is a means by which to retrieve our energy and return it to ourselves for our own use.

To recapitulate one’s life is one of the greatest feats of a lifetime, leading to a kind of freedom unimaginable until experienced. Recapitulation frees our energy from events of our current life, as well as energy from previous lives that we have carried over to work on in our current life.

Those of us who have been sexually abused, whether as children or adults, know full well what it is like to not have access to our own energy. We spend so much time defending ourselves from perceived threats, long after they are no longer real, thinking we are in control, when in reality something else has total control over us, the places where our energy is caught: in our past, in our traumas, in our defense mechanisms, in our habitual behaviors, in our fears.

We may not even realize that our energy has been usurped by these mechanisms, for they seem to be protecting us. They even comfort us and keep us safely within certain boundaries that we know and perceive as protective. But such boundaries are limitations to fully living life, keeping our energy tied up, stuck in places that are not really that healthy.

Fear is our biggest enemy. If we can’t go outside of our house or apartment out of fear of being attacked, if we can’t have a relationship with another person out of fear of being hurt, if we can’t stand loud noises or are constantly awaiting certain disaster, we are cut off from real life. With our energy tied up in protective defense mechanisms, we are incapable of fully experiencing the true energetic vitality and loving possibilities that we see others enjoying in life.

However, once we begin to recapitulate what happened to us, whether in sexual abuse, traumatic accident, war trauma, emotional, or psychological trauma, we realize just how much of our energy went into those so called protective mechanisms. As we recapitulate and let down our guards, finding safety and protection within ourselves, we begin to experience ourselves as more than just our trauma, as fluid beings of energy.

As we recapitulate and slowly release our fears, we free our energy from them, bringing it back to ourselves for our own use. As we retrieve our energy it gets redeployed into new centers within us, into centers of power, knowledge, and wisdom. We begin to experience a new kind of safety, a safety based on wisdom gained through all the things we’ve recapitulated. We learn that because of our trauma we had access to the same lessons that yogis and shamans spend a lifetime trying to master. We discover that, as a direct result of our trauma, we know exactly what the energy body is and what it is capable of.

We begin to understand that our trauma was the catalyst to our energy body, to knowledge of ourselves as spirit, to ancient wisdom that many long to achieve yet have access to only through the teachings of others. We discover that we had received direct knowledge, long before we could understand it. As we recapitulate, we let go of what once held us captive and fully embrace our trauma as our path to enlightenment.

In the end, we are no longer victims of our trauma but redeemed by it. Fully released from it, we are fully available to all that life has to offer us, without fear. For fear is no longer interesting to us, only what comes next on our spiritual journey has any interest.

These are the things I wish for all of you as you take your recapitulation journey, as you dare to take that most powerful journey to freedom.

With love,

J. E. Ketchel

Author of The Recapitulation Diaries

Published simultaneously on The Recapitulation Diaries Facebook Page.