Friday, March 26, 2010

Witch, Shaman, Hypnotherapist - The Healed Healer

I suppose I'll start out with a quick update on my current situation since I haven't posted anything in a while.

I decided to take the room at NurAllah's house and things have been going well so far. I'll admit last weekend that I didn't sleep very well, but I'm not sure what it was due to. The bed was just this side of comfortable, being a thin day-bed (I'm in a different room this week and the mattress in here is much better), I've been having sinus/lymph node problems off and on for the last few weeks so my post-nasal drip was causing some discomfort. But also last weekend we covered/dove into Hypnotic inductions and deepening techniques, so I was hypnotized then brought back out quickly probably 30 times a day over those 3 days. A certain disorienting/exhausting feeling coupled with information overload I think is more to blame for my poor sleep though. But I had some very powerful experiences that weekend never-the-less, mostly including my inner subconscious mind.

Before I detail what happened, let me give you a general breakdown of the happenings inside my head.
There are a bunch on people up there, lol. And no, not in the 'split personality' sense, but simply in the 'parts' sense, there are a lot of 'me's' and each one has an identity and a job.
There's the Muse Me, the figure I often follow when on guided medatations and hypnosis.
There is the Prince Me, and also the Princess Me, my Anima and Animus (I know Jung only said you had one or the other but I'm androgynous so I have both). These two figures where some of the most prominent in my emotional growth and recovery over the last couple of years but I think that more recently they reached a end, or at least a break in their saga. It began with their creation in my mind, several years ago, starting with the Princess's story. She lived in a beautiful rose garden surrounded by and thick stand of Birch trees. These two plants have represented the feminine and masculine in me ever since. But anyway, the Princess tended the garden she could not leave, for the trees grew so close she could not slip through, and she silently waited for the Prince to come and reunite with her. My Prince self later showed herself and was very badly injured, she was bound tightly with razor sharp thorn vines and had been impaled on her own sword. I feel this represented a lot of my confidence and self identity, mortally wounded by myself and suffering a lot of emotional pain. During a very powerful visionary experience I had during a drum circle maybe a year or better ago I experienced her freeing herself from her bounds and in a crescendo of the music the sword was pulled free. This was the beginning of my path to healing. The vision ended with her laying unconscious at the base of a tree still wounded and bleeding, but no longer constantly reliving the injuries.
A while after that incidence I had another vision during a massage session of the Prince starting to heal, her wounds closing and her body becoming whole again. It ended with her standing and slowly making her way through the forest, looking for the princess. I had a few lesser visions after this one of The Prince searching before I came to the final vision in the arc. I had an incidence during a meditation where my Muse self was walking down a path in my mind and I happened to notice as we were heading toward somewhere else, the entrance to the Guarded Rose Garden. But it was not as I had last seen it. For a small moment I looked inside and not only was a path now open to the glen, but the garden was blanketed in snow, and the Princess was nowhere to be found. I thought this was a little odd but nothing much came of it until a later meditation. My Muse self was at the edge of a pond, touching the water to make ripples when a sound caused us to look up, and there stood the Prince. My Muse asked where she was headed and the Prince replied that she sought out the Rose Princess. Muse told her what she had seen in the garden and that the Princess was gone. The Prince was surprised but said that she would go to the garden and wait for the princess' return. Muse me watched her go and bid her rest well, for her journey had ended. Sure enough, the Prince entered the garden, lay down on one of the benches and quickly fell asleep.
I've not had any visions of the two of them since, and I do believe that, at least for now, their story is over.

Now last Saturday I was invited to an event after class, and I'll admit I didn't know what it was until I got there, but it was an Old-time dance society, Countra dance with dosi-does and waltzs and the like. It was very interesting and fun, though I got winded quickly (it was some good cardio let me tell you, lol). Now you have to have a partner for each dance and the first couple of dances the same man helped me out, since I'd never done this before. However after the second dance I was very winded and had to take a breather, but another man came up and asked if I would be his partner. I politely refused and said I needed to take a break. I sat the next dance out but when the next dance was starting up and I went to join the same man asked if I would be his partner now. I agreed and danced, a little confused but happy. After that dance I was quickly winded again and was going to take another break when I was approached by two more people to be their partner. I politely refused, when a thought entered my mind.
"Why on Earth are they asking to be my partner? It's not like I have anything to offer, I'm not worth their attention, they just don't know it."
...a short second after this thought and it's accompanying emotions went through me I pulled up short and realized what had happened. I stopped, everything going quiet around me as I focused inward and said, "Hello Id." And she said Hi back.

The Freudian model of the Id, Ego, and Super Ego is that the Id is your basest, carnal desires, your Superego is your morals and your ego is the figure in between trying to keep balance. As much as I know and accept this construct, the idea entered my head a long time back and manifested in it's own structure.
Ego is me, the me as I am, my conscious identity you could say.
SuperEgo is the idealized me, the me I hope and dream one day to be.
and Id is my Sadistic inner bully. She likes nothing better than to tear me down and make me so miserable I don't want to live. She and I used to be much closer, she was with me everyday and these where some of the darkest days in my life.
However as time has passed and I have grown, Id had been pushed back into the darkness, not allowed to intervene as she once had.
But this incident last Saturday showed very clearly that she was still there, ready to knock me down a few pegs if she thought I was getting too uppity.
It hurt a lot to realize that she was still there, and that she still had the power to so easily lay waste to my still fragile self-esteem.
The night ended on a poor note, I hid in the bathroom most of the rest of the next hour, too ashamed to go back to the dance floor, and when I decided to find the people I had come with to tell them I was leaving, I found that they had already left without looking for me. That added extra pain to my already hemorrhaging pride. Thankfully I was able to let the event go for the most part, letting go of the pain but left with the knowledge that the me that could wound me so deep was still alive and well.
The next day I asked one of the people from class why they left without finding me, and they said that they looked but hadn't checked the bathroom (it was a man) and that they actually left just before I had, so I hadn't been abandoned there s easily and I felt better about the situation.

Shortly after my conversation with R.G. (the classmate I talked to about leaving the dance) we had our daily group Hypnosis session. It was very similar to most guided meditations I've had, a lot of guided imagery that led us to a beautiful beach where after a progressive relaxation and a numeric amnesia exercise, I sat on my beach chair and absorbed the suggestions Matthew(the teacher) was giving. But after a certain suggestion, I can't recall exactly what it was though I know it had to do with healing inner wounds, I heard a sound.

My Muse self looked from the ocean to the source of the sound and I saw, lying about ten feet away on the sand, Id. The sunlight that had passed over my body to relax me earlier in the session was now focused on Id and she was crumpled on the sand in agony. Her cries were unearthly and pitiful. She cried, sobbed, screamed and groaned. She was writhing under the healing light and what looked like thick black crude oil was oozing out of her skin. She looked up at me and the look on her face was pure suffering, her expression was one that was begging for mercy.

I looked upon her and found that I didn't have any of the feelings I thought I might, or should. I didn't recoil in terror or disgust, and neither did I take any pleasure in her pain. Instead, I felt pity, unmeasurable pity.
Long had I viewed Id as my cruel tormentor, the dark part of myself that took pleasure in hurting me. But I saw then truly what she was. Ego is my conscious mind, SuperEgo is my higher mind/ my higher self, and Id was my subconscious, my inner 'well educated 10-year-old' who had long held evil lies as truth and had been poisoned by them. Just like bullies in real life, who often hurt others because it is a deference from hurting themselves, Id was not acting Sadistically but Masochistically, she was hurting herself, me, in the form of the other.

I stood from my seat on the sand and walked over to Id. She continued to look up at me, her face filled with sorrow. I knealt down beside her and gently stroked her hair, offering comfort to myself.
"It's going to be okay," I said, "I know it hurts now, but it's going to be okay, you'll be better soon."

Shortly before I decided to come to this school I bought a book on impulse called "Shamanism for Beginners" By James Endredy. I had never been much interested in the topic before, but I found myself engrossed in it's pages and with the Idea of "The Healed Healer" since most shamans are identified by having survived some illness or injury. They must be healed of their own injuries to heal the injuries of others.
I encountered this exact same philosophy here at Matthew's school, the idea of needing to heal your own emotional and physical wounds before you can heal those of others.

While I may not go so far as to call myself a shaman, I think my wanderings in this life have lead me to this path of the Healed Healer, and I finally feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, like I'll finally be healed. Like I'll finally have meaning and purpose in this existence. It's like the prospect of being born anew.

As the day wore on Saturday, I noticed the pain of swollen lymph nodes in my neck. I hadn't had them in a few weeks so I was a but preturbed, until a thought occurred to me. Lymph nodes are a part of your bodies immune system that helps to fight infection and flush the associated waste from your body. The image of the black crude immediatly jumped to mind and I made a connection. My body was washing this negativity out.

"It's going to be okay," I thought to myself, "I know it hurts now, but it's going to be okay,"

"I'll be better soon."

Aika

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad I got to hear some of this in person first. This work of healing ourselves is what T. Thorn Coyle calls the "deep work" or the "great work." We have to come into full possession of ourselves in order to be whole and our best selves, to serve the world.

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