A Journey of a thousand miles....: 2010

May 26, 2010

El Dejar Ir A Mi Historia -La sanación del Niño Interno


Miércoles, 26 de mayo 2010


Nuestra historia es lo que a menudo equivocadamente nos referimos como “nuestra vida”. Los capítulos de los cuales están llenos de nuestras experiencias pasadas, nuestras decepciones, nuestras penas, nuestras heridas, y nuestras creencias. Los personajes dentro de esa historia son aquellos que hemos amado y nos han amado, y los que nos han herido y a su vez nosotros hemos herido. Estos capítulos son unidos y nos referimos a ellos una y otra vez como un manual de referencia sobre cómo vivir nuestra vida. Nos aferramos a ella con fuerza sin darnos cuenta de las limitaciones que nos imponemos atreves de lo que estamos haciendo.



Es nuestra historia y las páginas de nuestra historia nos definen y nos dan un sentido de quiénes somos. Siempre que nos enfrentamos a una nueva situación en la vida, sin darnos cuenta, la enfrentamos de la misma forma. Nos referimos al manual de referencia llamado "Mi Historia" para saber cómo responder. Nunca nos atrevemos a mirar más allá de lo que fue, con el fin de ver lo que podría ser.



Finalmente llegamos a un punto en nuestro viaje en el que nos sentimos "atrapados". Tenemos el deseo de ir más allá de nuestras limitaciones, pero nos sentimos incapaces de hacerlo

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Para mí ese punto lo alcance hace unas semanas y me lleno de desesperación. Sabía lo importante que era dejar de lado mi historia, o como Eckhart Tolle se refiere a ella "encontrar la vida debajo de mi situación de vida", y con toda honestidad, yo creía que ya lo había hecho. Yo había dejado de utilizarla como excusa de porque mi vida era como era hace mucho tiempo. O al menos es lo que yo pensaba.



Empecé a ser muy consciente del hecho de que había algo dentro de mí que me manejaba que yo no podía identificar, ni tenerle acceso. Mis anhelos espirituales, aunque grandes, se veían obstaculizados por una fuerza invisible que no podía controlar. Mi mente estaba corriendo su propio programa.

Así, la semana pasada me retire del mundo y viaje dentro de mí en un esfuerzo para sanar mi vida y eliminar los obstáculos que se interponían en el camino de la verdad. Y me lleve una gran sorpresa al ver que el primer obstáculo que tenía que enfrentar era, "mi historia". Todavía estaba allí!! Mi negación no la había hecho desaparecer. Simplemente se escondió en las sombras, y aún marchaba en mi vida de forma autónoma. Y ahora, lo único que podía hacer era hacerle frente, pero de una manera en que nunca la había enfrentado antes. El contar mi historia como lo había hecho en el pasado había significado que lo único que hacía era proyectarla hacia el exterior y la simpatía y la compasión que recibía reforzaba el hecho de que yo era en realidad una víctima. Para realmente enfrentar a mi historia tenía que "sentirla", sentir cada parte de ella que todavía existía dentro de mí y controlaba mi vida. Fue muy inquietante, pero con la dulce voz del “amor” guiándome a cada paso del camino, encontré la fuerza y la voluntad para moverme a través de mi dolor.

La mayoría de nosotros nunca tenemos la oportunidad de hacer esto. Enterramos el pasado en un esfuerzo para poder seguir adelante con la vida, y esperamos y rogamos que se quede enterrado. En suprimirlo, lo que estamos haciendo en realidad es negar nuestras emociones, nuestros sentimientos reales, y en el largo plazo la creación de más problemas en nuestras vidas. Para algunos de nosotros este comportamiento es el resultado del miedo, para otros es el resultado de nuestro condicionamiento. Se nos enseña que mostrar o expresar nuestras emociones está mal. Simplemente no nos damos cuenta de el daño que nos hacemos a nosotros mismos en esta negación. Emociones reprimidas requieren un montón de energía para mantener en su lugar y como resultado sufrimos los efectos de nuestras acciones de una manera física que resulta en enfermedad, depresión, ansiedad, dolores de cabeza, fatiga y por supuesto, enfermedades como el cáncer. Negar nuestras emociones nos lleva a mal-estar.



Me di cuenta durante el transcurso de la semana que si yo realmente quería sanar mi vida, entonces tenía que enfrentarme yo misma por completo y dar salida a todo lo que estaba en el camino de mi libertad. Sólo haciendole frente a lo que yo había negado durante tanto tiempo pude entender completamente el comportamiento que yo había puesto en marcha con el fin de "sobrevivir" mi dolor. Con el fin de descubrir la verdad de quien soy, tuve que entender primero quien no soy. Y así con cada máscara falsa que me pelaba, me acercaba cada vez más a la esencia de mí ser.

Pero para llegar allí necesite viajar a través de la rabia, el resentimiento, el miedo y la tristeza. Fue un viaje difícil, y los efectos de lo cual no los sentí solamente en mi psique, sino también muy profundamente dentro de mi cuerpo físico donde sentí dolor y enfermedad. Todo esto lo llevaba dentro de mí, toda está toxicidad que no había dejado lugar para la felicidad, la paz y la alegría que tanto deseaba, pudiese entrar y tomar su lugar.



Al enfrentar estas emociones y permitirlas a que subiesen a la superficie, temí que me iban a consumir y que nunca sería capaz de dejarlas ir. Pero yo no tenía de qué preocuparme, porque muy suavemente el Amor me tomó de la mano y me acompaño a nuestra siguiente parada en el viaje, el "perdón" y ahí fue que mi curación comenzó de verdad. Ahí perdone a toda persona que sentí que me había herido de alguna manera, tanto vivos como muertos, ya su vez les pedí a los que yo había herido que me perdonaran a mí. La pesadez en mi corazón empezó a levantar. Pero el acto más profundo y transformador del perdón que tuve que enfrentar fue el perdonarme yo misma. Resistí por un tiempo hasta que me di cuenta que hasta que me liberara yo misma de la prisión de la culpa, yo no sería verdaderamente libre. Mis lágrimas fueron como una válvula de escape que alivió toda la presión que había llevado dentro de mí durante tantos años. Me sentí tan increíblemente liviana. Tan libre.



Y de repente, mi historia desapareció. Yo podía recordarla si quería, pero ya no era "yo". Y viendo que no era yo, el aferrarme a ella ya no tenía sentido. El descubrimiento más hermoso de este viaje de sanación fue encontrar la joya que estaba escondída debajo de todo el dolor. Esa joya por supuesto fue el "Amor”. Ese amor dentro de mí me permitió ver que cada persona está en su propia etapa de su viaje, y con ese regalo llegó la aceptación. Ya no necesito que “ellos” cambien, ahora soy capaz de amarlos por quienes son. Nada fuera de mí tiene que cambiar. "Todo" existe dentro de mí. He descubierto mi esencia, mi verdadera voz, mi luz, mi amor. Y ahora doy un paso adelante y comienzo a vivir mi "verdad".

May 25, 2010

Letting Go of My Story-Healing the Child Within

Wednesday, May 26, 2010


Our story is what we often mistakenly refer to as our life. The chapters of which are filled with our past experiences, our disappointments, our pain, our hurts, and our beliefs. The characters within that story are those who we have loved and have loved us, and those who have hurt us and we have hurt in return. These are all bound together and referred to time and again as a reference manual on how to live our life. We cling to it tightly never realizing the limitations of what it is we are doing.

It is our story and the pages of our history that define us and give us a sense of who we are. Whenever we face a new situation in life we unknowingly confront it in much the same way. We refer to the reference manual called “My Story” in order to know how to respond. We never dare to look beyond what was, in order to see what could be.

Finally we reach a point on our journey where we feel “stuck”. We have the desire to move beyond our limitations but feel helpless to do so.

For me that point was reached a few weeks ago and it filled me with despair. I knew how vital it was to let go of my story, or as Eckhart Tolle refers to it ‘find the life beneath my life situation”, and in all honesty I believed that I had. I had stopped using it as an excuse for my life being the way it was a long time ago. Or so I thought.

I started to become acutely aware of the fact that there was something driving me from within that I could not identify, nor access. My spiritual yearnings although great, were being hampered by an invisible force that I could not control. My mind was running its own program.

So, last week I withdrew from the world and journeyed within in an effort to heal my life and remove the obstacles that stood in the way of truth. And much to my surprise the first obstacle I encountered was “My Story”. It was still there!! My denial of it had not made it disappear. It merely lurked in the shadows, still running my life autonomously. And now, all I could do was face it, but in a way I had never faced it before. Telling my story as I had in the past had meant I was merely projecting it outwardly and the sympathy and pity I received merely reinforced the fact that I was in fact a victim to it. To truly face my story meant I had to “feel” it, feel every part of it that I still carried within me and controlled my life. It was quite unsettling, but with “Love’s” gentle voice guiding me every step of the way, I found the strength and the resolve to move through my pain.

Most of us never get the chance to do this. We bury the past in an effort to move on with life, and hope and pray that it will stay buried. In suppressing it, what we are in fact doing is denying our emotions, our actual feelings, and in the long run creating further problems in our lives. For some of us this behavior is a result of fear, for others it is a result of our conditioning. We are taught that to show or express our emotions is wrong. We just do not realize the harm we do to ourselves in this denial. Suppressed emotions take a lot of energy to keep in place and as a result we experience the effects of our actions in a physical way through illness, depression, anxiety, headaches, fatigue and of course, illnesses such as cancer. Denying our emotions leads to dis-ease.

I realized during the course of the week that if I truly wanted to heal my life, then I must face myself completely and give an outlet to everything that needed to be released. Only by confronting that which I had denied for so long was I able to fully understand the behaviours that I had put in place in order to “survive” my pain. In order to discover the truth of who I am, I needed to first understand who I am not. And so with each mask of falsehood that was peeled away I journeyed closer to the core of my being, my essence.

But to get there I needed to journey through the anger, the resentment, the fear and the sadness. It was a difficult journey, and the effects of it were not merely felt in my psyche but also very profoundly within my physical body where I experienced pain and sickness. All this I was carrying within me, all this toxicity which had left no room for the happiness, the peace and the joy that I so desired to enter in and take its place.

As I faced these emotions and allowed them to rise to the surface I feared that they would consume me and I would never be able to let them go. But I needn’t have worried, for ever so gently Love took me by the hand and walked me to our next stop on the journey, “forgiveness” and there it was that my healing truly began. As I forgave every person that I felt had hurt me in some way both living and dead, and in turn asked those I had hurt to forgive me, the heaviness in my heart started to lift. But the most profound and transformative act of forgiveness I had to face was to forgive myself. I hesitated for quite some time until I realized that until I released myself from the bondage of guilt, I would not be truly free. My tears were like a release valve relieving all the pressure I had carried within me for so many years. I felt so incredibly light. So free.

And suddenly, my story was gone. I could recall it if I wanted to, but it was no longer “me”. And seeing that it was no longer me, holding onto it was no longer necessary. The most beautiful discovery of this healing journey was finding the jewel that lay hidden beneath all the pain. That jewel of course was “Love”. That Love within me allowed me to see that everyone is at their own stage of their journey, and with that gift came acceptance. I no longer need “them” to change, I am now able to love them for who they are. Nothing outside of me needs to change. It is “all” within me. I have discovered my essence, my true voice, my light, my Love. And now I step forward and begin to live my “truth”.

March 19, 2010

A LESSON IN HEALING GRIEF- A Tribute to my Sister Claudia


Saturday 20th March, 2010
Almost 40 years ago when I was four years old, my sister Claudia left this life after suffering a heart attack. She was only 12.

The pain and the heartache and the emptiness that ensued is not something that needs to be elaborated on here. The purpose of this is not to re-live the pain but to move through it and heal it. And pain can only be healed by moving through it, not through avoidance. I have watched my parents carry that pain unable to discuss their feelings let alone mention her name, without experiencing heartache. I have seen the effects of it on my mother in particular who has never allowed herself to cry for my sister. Her explanation for this was that I was so young and she could not let me see her cry. Yet 40 years on, she is still unable to release the tears she has kept imprisoned within the walls of her heart.

Grief is a natural process, yet there was nothing “natural” in how my parents dealt with it and I must state, that there is absolutely no judgment in my saying this.

Last night I decided to share photos of my sister with family and friends via a social networking site. At first I resisted sensing that it would cause pain to those who knew her and evoke pity in those who have known me, and the effects her passing has had on my life. Despite my initial resistance, I went ahead with my plan. As I edited the photos and for the first time “really’ looked at them, the ache in my heart was overwhelming. But it took me completely by surprise that for the first time in my life, I did not cry.

And then I received a message that changed my life completely. A family member wrote to me expressing his sorrow for the pain I still carry in my heart and reassuring me that she is still with me. As I started to reply to his message I felt that having evoked that sadness in him by putting the photos up in the first place, I had a responsibility to heal it and give him peace.

My intention was to heal it within him; I did not realize at the time that what I was in fact doing was healing it within myself.

As I wrote I forced myself to confront that pain head on and I could only do so by turning my attention inwards and focusing it entirely on that tightening sensation that gripped my heart and threatened to crush it completely. The moment I had avoided for so long had finally arrived and it astounded me to recognize that the fear that had stopped me from doing this time and time again was just not there. As I felt the sensation fully, I was able to identify it and what I discovered was not what I had expected. What I expected was pain but what I found was love, a profoundly intense and overwhelming love. As I focused further on what I was feeling it only intensified and as it intensified my heart felt like it was filling beyond its capacity to the point where it would burst. At that very moment I felt an intense pain, and in that instant I was healed. I suddenly realized that it was not the pain of losing her that I was carrying, but the pain of withholding so much love for so many years. My heart was brimming with love, a love that had no outlet. And to withhold love is painful.

I suddenly understood so much of my suffering but am now seeing it with a healed sense of perception. I had always felt that a part of me had died when she did, but I was wrong, for the truth is, that part of me was only crippled by my lack of understanding and at any point I could have let the pain go had I only been willing to face the feeling that I had defined as pain. Love is energy and suppressed energy can only lead to dis-ease. When we lose someone, the love we have for them does not leave with them, there is no hole in the heart, the love continues to flow, that is, if we allow it to. We think our heart is broken at the loss, but our heart feels broken because we are denying it the ability to do what it is meant to do, and that is to love.

On those rare occasions when we are willing to open our hearts to someone, we do so tentatively and fearfully as we have defined our hearts as fragile and weak. We fear being hurt, we fear that if we love, then we may again lose the object of our love and the thought of more heartache is unbearable. We do not realize that our heart aches because it yearns to give love freely with no limitations.
 
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