Childhood Brainwashing - A Prison Without Walls

I've been doing a thirty-day online course with the Baggage Reclaim School, which was created by Natalie Lue, author of the Baggage Reclaim blog and several wonderful books.  The course is titled, Tune Into Your Inner Voice (and Calm Your Inner Critic).

I was drawn to this particular course because, even though I've been delving into the deep, and often murky, waters of my inner self, healing childhood issues, working on my self-esteem, etc. for a couple of decades or so, and I've more recently been clearing all manner of issues with kinesiology - there was still this thing inside me that I couldn't put a finger on - until now...  Enter my Inner Critic!!!  Fortunately, I'm already well acquainted with my Inner Voice/Higher Self - She has led me to the most wonderful people, books, and experiences, including this course.  But the Inner Critic has evaded my notice - lurking away inside me in its many guises, not exactly putting criticism into words, but, instead, holding me back through fear and feelings of being undeserving of happiness.  To put it another way, the brainwashing I received throughout my life has created a compliant, polite woman who can't even draw or paint because she's too afraid to rock the boat of what she's allowed to have in her life.

Each of our parents abused us in their own way, which I won't go into here, but one event had lasting repercussions.  When I was about four, my parents had a couple unknown to my sister and I over for dinner.  When one of them spoke to me, I got all shy, and just hung back – as so many young children do when meeting new adults.  My father belted me in the chest, barking at me to answer them...  He hit me so hard it knocked me over.  I don’t remember the incident at all, but I always knew there was something that had happened, because I remember the events that came afterwards.  I stopped kissing my father good-night, and became terrified of him.  Instead of apologising, which would have healed the situation, and allowed me to feel safe around him again, he made it his job to annihilate me psychologically and emotionally, and to make me dependent on him - thus making me believe I couldn't cope without him.

It was so difficult feeling angry towards my father when growing up, not only because anger in little girls was unacceptable, but because everyone seemed to like him.  He was handsome and friendly, helped at the school, participated with my sister and I, drove us to school dances, took us on holidays as a family – so how could he be an abusive father?  And how could I hate and fear such a wonderful man?  To this day, I feel totally perplexed by those inconsistencies.  I feel brainwashed, and although I’ve done decades of reading, writing, burning unsent letters, clearing with kinesiology, talking to psychologists, etc, I still feel this deep fear of retaliation from others with whom I may need to set boundaries…

And I only know what happened all those years ago because, in my late twenties, I went to a Numerologist and she asked me if I was an abused child.  She said something happened when I was four, and if I didn’t know, to ask my mother.  Which I did.  And Mum told me what had happened that night.  Several years after that, my Kinesiologist also picked up something to do with my father that happened when I was four.  And a couple of years ago, the Physiotherapist I’d been seeing told me that my sternum was concave rather than convex, though not in a way that suggested a birth defect.  I asked her if it could have happened when I was belted in the chest at around age four, and she said the bones would still have been soft enough then, so yes, it could.  Up until that point, I’d always maintained that I wasn’t physically abused – 'just' emotionally and psychologically abused, gaslighted, brainwashed…  The thing that hurts the most, though, is the unanswered question – where was my mother, and what did she do about it?  I think (I hope) everyone would have been shocked by the event, but it was the mid-60s and it was fairly common practise for children to be abused in some way.

After my rejection of my father, I became his scapegoat, and then I seemed to become the scapegoat for the entire family, plus bosses, co-workers, lovers, friends…  I’m so tired, and my immune system is ailing (I have Myalgic encephalomyelitis).  I've been working hard at becoming well - on all levels - and I feel ready (and willing) to take off this heavy cloak, to lay it down once and for all, and live the days I have left in Lightness and Joy…  I believe these Inner Critics so many of us have are the product of brainwashing from our parents and other ‘authority’ figures from childhood, and I've been feeling for some time now the need to reprogram my mind, which I’ve begun...

For years, I’ve wanted my father to change, giving him the power to set me free, but then I realised he can’t, and it’s up to me to change - and to free myself.  I hope this coursework will help me get to the bottom of it, because I’m holding myself in a prison that may not have been of my making, but to which I hold the key…


Love and Light to All  xxx

Letting go, and losing sight of the shore!

I’ve been sick on and off for as long as I can remember.  As a child, I was in hospital a lot with asthma, and spent an extended period in the Xavier Home in Brisbane, where I kept up my school work, and did everything I needed to do to not die.  I didn’t know about getting well.  I felt abandoned by my family, and thought I’d never go home.  How can a child get well and thrive in a situation such as that?  Anyway, the fear of abandonment has hung over me for the remainder of my life, making me unable to say no to things, and people, that were harmful to me.  And yet, here I am, still here, and diving deeper into the depths of self than most people dare to go.  Yes, many people go through some self-inquiry - there are so many books and workshops out there now - but they usually stop at a certain point, fearing what they might find if they probe any deeper.  I want to go deeper.  I want to go so deep within that I get to the me that was before this life even existed!  I want to know why I am the way I am, and what is blocking me from living the life I could be living.  And I’ve found some interesting things along the way.  I walk my talk.  I live and breathe what I say.  And I notice everything… every thing…

Yet here I am, sick again - with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, copper toxicity, and fibromyalgia.  When I start to feel like I’m improving, I’ll do a little exercise and that will set me back a week or more.  Instead of the exercise helping to build strength and endurance, my body turns against itself - it’s like an allergic reaction to the exercise!  I just keep clearing the issues that come up, constantly muscle testing and clearing and, as I improve, I try again.  But recently I’ve been thinking about how illness has played a major role in keeping my life small and safe.  Most people would have you believe that we don’t choose illness, but we do - unconsciously, of course.  It’s like illness is my default.  Sadness is my default.  Poverty is my default.  Pain is my default.  These four issues work together to keep my life small.  There’s a quote that sums it up perfectly.  “Man cannot discover new oceans until he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”  (Anon).  Not only have I been unable to lose sight of the shore, my boat has been tethered to the shore.  I row out a little way, and then the rope of sickness, poverty, pain, and sadness (all fear in different disguises) pulls me back in to safety.

However, all this inner diving is different - there is no tether!  I dive so deeply inside myself that I often lose sight of the shore of what is socially deemed normal and appropriate!  For me, it’s always been the inner journey, and I have been discovering new oceans within, new worlds that aren’t visible to most others I meet.  In company, I often feel more alone than I do when I’m truly alone.  I didn’t know why this was, but recently realised it is because I then focus on the other person, their wants, needs, pains, and I lose myself in the tide of suffering that surrounds me.  This is the old co-dependent need to fix everything for everyone.  Which is, of course, impossible.  But when you’ve grown up in a toxic, co-dependent, family, you think if you act the way your parents want you to act that they’ll like you, that they won’t abandon you (emotionally and/or physically).  I wanted my father to like me, and I was terrified of him.  I was so enmeshed with both of my parents that I didn’t know who I was.  I didn’t know what I wanted, just what they wanted of me.  And then the rules kept changing, so the floor would fall out from under me just as I’d thought I’d got it right.  I felt so disempowered and out of control, that my life became out of control.  And like attracts like, so I attracted friends (and foes) who were also self-destructive, unhappy people.  Co-dependence really is insidious, because it usually remains hidden deep within us, working away, gaining power, making it impossible to break free of the people who are the most damaging to our wellbeing.

And yet, here I am.  Still here, and still diving ever deeper.  Something, some light from within, makes me keep going.  I’ve been to several therapists over the last ten or so years, and they all ended up asking my advice on their own issues!  Again, I had attracted narcissists like my father, so I worked on my own narcissistic tendencies.  No university course can give you insight.  This is the hard work I believe we’re meant to be doing - and we need to do it ourselves.  No-one else can do the inner work for us!  We need to trust ourselves first, then spirit, then others.

However, sometimes we need a sounding board in order to become clear about what we want, and a good therapist can be helpful here.  When I was working through some issues with my ex-boyfriend, I saw a lovely therapist.  After we'd worked together for a few months, she said she thought I could do anything I put my mind to.  The trouble is, I don't have the desire to put my focus on the things others in my life think I should be focusing on.  For instance, I don't feel passionate about anything - other than this inner work, and energy healing, which may not bring in an income.  I don’t believe life is about working hard just to make money and buy nice things.  That's not laziness, I just don’t agree with that work ethic.  I believe that our abundance is accrued and waiting for us to allow it into our lives.  I needed to do the inner work in order to set myself up in a more centred space, by healing the stuff that needed to be healed - the shame, the guilt, the fear of abandonment and rejection - things that made me act in ways that weren’t in my best interests (for you, it may be different). 

And now, it’s time to let the tethers go, and lose sight of the shore on the outside!  I never wanted to travel the world when I was young.  My sister did, but I felt more comfortable staying at home.  At the time of writing, a friend and her partner are travelling all around Italy.  She’s posting the photos online for all her friends and family to enjoy, and I am really beginning to see myself out there, in the big, wide, world - and not alone, either, but with my soul mate!  I never really wanted anything for myself but a house and two dogs.  Now I want it all.  I don’t need to be in a relationship - I worked through my co-dependence in the last one.  And I’ve been working on my issues since I broke off with him, so that I would be healthy on all levels when I met my equal.

If I’m going to untether my boat and lose sight of the shore, I might as well do it in all areas of my life!!  I’ve never been wealthy - that was too big and scary for me, and I felt unworthy and uncomfortable with money.  Whenever I had money, I quickly got rid of it, either by spending or giving it away.  I’ve never been truly well - either emotionally or physically (and yet, I have an inner strength that has always been there, no matter how sad or depressed I've felt).  I’ve never been in a relationship with a man who is my equal - spiritually, emotionally, physically, and intellectually.  To ask why, and not look inside first, is just whining!  During my deep diving, I found the answers, and I did the work (and I’m still doing it) and now I say, it's time… time to live!

I don’t have the answers for anyone else.  If you want to know the answers, first you need to ask the right questions.  Just finding the questions takes work and insight.  The good thing is, the more inner healing you do, the more insight you receive.  You’re no longer cynical - or gullible.  You have a deep sense of knowing - and no person or event can topple you from your centred way of Being.  You can feel sad, and at the same time feel a deep sense of joy!  You’ll see through the motivations of others, and it’ll be okay, because you’ll know (I mean really know) that they’re on their own journey, and you have no way of knowing where they are along that journey... and the only journey that is of any consequence to you is your own!

Focusing on other people’s journeys, no matter how important it may appear (world hunger, for instance) really can knock us off our own path.  We can do more good for the planet by staying true to ourselves and expanding.  By expanding, the universe, in turn, can’t help but expand.  So, by diving into our inner world, working out who we are and what we want, and then staying focused on what we do want (rather than complaining about the stuff we don’t like in our lives - because we get what we focus on, whether or not that is what we want) - we actually become co-creators, and the universe expands because of us!  That’s pretty amazing, don’t you think?  It’s so big, that most of us just don’t want to believe it.  We want to put someone else in charge, because the responsibility seems too great!  We want it to be God’s fault that things happen - or we blame the government.  But things just happen!  The planet is expanding and changing all the time.  It heats.  It cools.  It shifts.  That’s the way it is!  The important thing is to remain centred and not go off following every piece of news, losing sight of the big picture, and getting caught up in the drama and the suffering.

The best way to stay centred is to remember what you want, and look towards that.  An important note here:  If you feel anxious about the thing or person you think you want, then you’re coming from fear, and you’ll attract the thing you fear, rather than what you want!  Trying to make stuff happen just works against us.  I know it seems sometimes that things aren’t going the way you want them to, and that’s because there hasn’t been enough inner work to discover what the blocks are, and then healing, or clearing them.  Complaining about something increases the energy around that thing, and that's how our beliefs are born.  We have a thought, we focus our energy on it, and then we attract that very thing, and so we believe it to be the truth.  Much better to use that power to create positive beliefs, don't you think?

I’ll use myself as an example.  I always attracted men who were controlling, and who put me down in order to feel smarter than me.  I never let my intelligence shine, because my father hated that I had a high I.Q. and worked at pulling me down.  Consequently, every man I met, whether at work or socially, was my father with a different face.  I had to work through all of that until I finally got to the core of the matter and recognised what was going on.  I did that quite early, but didn’t know what to do about it.  Then, when I’d learnt how to muscle test, and the insights began flowing in, I could clear and heal the old stuff.  I did a lot of writing too, and I was drawn to the books I needed as I needed them.  I worked, and worked.  And then I worked some more!  All the guys had been learning experiences.  The trouble was that I believed, through my experiences with men, that all men were stupid, controlling jackasses who put women down.  My beliefs then attracted more of the same, and I’d complain to anyone who would listen about the latest poor me episode with some guy.  And then, I just stopped complaining - because I finally understood that the complaining, and believing, was what was drawing these replicas of my father to me.

You see, we form our beliefs, and then we find ways to justify those beliefs.  “See?” we say.  “I knew all men were like that, and this proves it!”  Add your own issue here - it can be about money, health, spirituality, quantum physics, whatever… remembering, also, that just because we can’t see something (our own issues, God, our soul, energy...) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  People ridiculed the very notion of flicking a switch and having a light come on!!!  They just knew that gas lamps and candles were the way things were…  I’ll leave you with that.

Love and Light
  xxx

Trees

I've always had a love affair with trees.  As a child, I loved to climb the huge oak (well it seemed huge) bordering our neighbour's place.  My sister and I would sometimes go too high and I (being the youngest) occasionally required help getting down again.

On a recent trip to Poona, on the Fraser Coast of Queensland, my friend and I encountered some of the most interesting trees I've ever seen.  They were in Maryborough, which was once prosperous, and I hope it dusts itself off again soon.  I'd like to share some of those beautiful trees with you (whoever you are)...

This tree is in a wonderful bird sanctuary and wetlands park just outside of the city centre of Maryborough.  I blend right in, don't I?

 This one (below) is in Queen's Park, and has a very interesting bark pattern.

You can just see my friend (above), who is over 6'3", hidden in its depths - this beauty is in Queen's Park also.

Another enormous and ancient tree in the beautiful Queen's Park of Maryborough (left).

My friend went right inside this strangler fig and filmed its labyrinthine interior.

I hope you enjoyed these wonderful trees - if you ever get to visit them for yourself, please say hello from me!

Love and Light xxx

The Shaman's Garden

The young prince of Bush Turkeys is building a luscious, leafy mound beside the garden steps which lead from the road to the house.  He began this monumental task last Tuesday, and has been going ever since.  His first choice of location was on my front path.  He came and got me and showed me his fine work, and I told him it wasn’t very protected there, and showed him a spot on the front embankment, protected by trees and elevated to allow water to run off.  He must’ve liked the idea, because he moved his project up there.  Every now and then, on a daily basis, he will make some noise around the front verandah, and when I go out he runs to the nest to show me.  I tell him it is beautiful, and he puffs out his wattle and runs off.

Yesterday, I was sitting on the steps watching him work on the nest, when his chosen female came in for a look at the proceedings, her wings held out like a cloak.  He immediately prostrated himself on the ground.  Then got up and kept digging a hole in the centre of the mound.  When the female came onto the building site again, he would lie down flat in the nest, wings outstretched, covering the hole.  He was so still, yet I could see him quivering.  She went closer, digging around, her wings and feathers puffed up.  Suddenly, he leapt up, but she was too quick for him and, in a flurry of feathers, got away.

The young prince kept going at the mound, making it bigger and bigger.  Then, the beautiful female came over to where I was sitting on the garden steps, and laid down beside me.  The prince jumped on top of her, holding her wattle in his beak.  He wiggled about a bit, then jumped off and kept going with the nest.

I thought it was a lot of trouble to go to for a few eggs, but then I read that the female can lay up to fifteen!  I was also a little jealous.  No man has ever gone to that much trouble to woo me!!  Perhaps I’ve always given in too easily, and he hasn’t had to go out of his way for me.  I think I’m learning a lot from these Bush Turkeys.  Whenever the chosen female comes near, the male lies down.  She goes away, he gets up - always keeping an eye out for her, and lying down if she comes within sight.  The male does all of the work, as he is also the one to guard the nest.  It’s amazing, and truly awe inspiring to be this close to nature in all its glory.

However, the Bush Turkeys aren’t the only ones courting.  The Goannas (Lace Monitor Lizards) have been having their honeymoon on the roof of my back verandah, which I can see from the window in the loft.  They spent a couple of weeks up there last year!   When she's had too much, the female sometimes gets away by herself –inside my ceiling!  The male is too large, and can’t get in, so she's alone.  For a while, she was in the wall cavity above the bedroom window, and, at night, I could hear her breathing.  It was quite lovely.

The first time she crawled into my ceiling, the male came looking for her through the back door. I went out to talk to him –such a beautiful creature –and told him that his girl wasn't inside the house.  He went off, down the vine-covered post, and into the ferns.  After a few days to a week of solitude, the beautiful female emerges, and he takes her - many times!  Between sessions of sexual activity, they lie in the breeze on the roof, touching each other.  It is a beautiful sight, and I once again thank God and the Sacred Mother for all that I am witness to in this place.

I realised the other day that my house is a great metaphor for my own process.  It is set down from the road, under a great canopy of trees, palms and dracaenas.  The inside of the house is dark, but when one exits the back door onto the verandah, they come out into the light, with views into the distant mountains.  I too have gone down into the Underworld, and spent much time in the darkness, to emerge into the Light.  And now, my view of the world is much greater, and from a higher aspect, than before going into the darkness.  I am Shaman, and my Divine Purpose is to keep working in the dark, in order to help bring all in the darkness into the Light.

Love and Light,
  xxx

Beautiful spiders and praying mantis...

2.45 am, Friday, 21 October 2011.  I turn on the bedside light, not for any reason I can think of – other than to witness the extraordinary transformation taking place beside my bed.

In the dim light, I see a Huntsman spider, which seems enormous and appearing to have too many legs.  I can’t work out what’s going on, so I shine my torch light on it.  At first, I think it has caught something, but then realise that I’m watching the spider shed its old shell.  Apologising for the light, I am transfixed –completely in awe of this miracle of transition.  I’ve seen many empty spider shells over the years, but thought they were the skeletons of dead spiders.

When the beautiful creature has completed this exhausting process, she is ghostlike in appearance, pale and beautiful.  She slowly steps out of my torch light, and moves around to the back of the chest of drawers, in order to rest in the darkness, and recover.  She is still there.

I am so ecstatic, I can’t sleep.  I know it is a gift from Nature –awakening me in time to witness such an event.  I, too, have had an exhausting transition, and have shed my old shell as well.  I stand naked and pale in the Light, awaiting the next steps I need to take in order to fulfil my Divine Purpose...

10.30 am.  I go outside to put away the emptied bin.  Back in the kitchen, I feel something in my hair and brush it gently with my hand, thinking it’s a leaf (but maybe something else).  A beautiful Praying Mantis lands on the kitchen floor.  Apologising, I bend down and offer my hand.  She puts up her front feet to take hold, and, in the halting manner of Praying Mantis, she slowly climbs aboard.  She really studies me (and I her) –her little triangular face inquisitive.  She reaches out again, so I hold her closer, allowing her to climb up my top, towards the tangle of my curls.  She is still on top of my head, as I write. 1.50 pm.

As a child, I befriended a Praying Mantis who was living in a pot plant in our lounge room.  She, too, would sit on my head, and went with me all around the house and yard.  I’d walk around the back garden with her on my head, and she would fly off to investigate, then fly back and land on my head again.  I really loved her.  She laid eggs on the planter, but I don’t remember whether any of them hatched.

Do insects reincarnate?  The way this one is acting, I feel it is a reunion.  I know what a privilege it is to be so accepted by insects, birds, and other animals.  I feel blessed to have been accepted by the Sacred Mother, and all of the creatures who reside in this dimension.  It feels like a celebration of my coming into my Shamanism, after such a long initiation, and I am filled with love and gratitude.  Namaste.

Love and Light,
  xxx

Wait for Me (A Poem by My Self)

i

Wait for me as I hover over a land of gracious beauty and delve into
  the waters of God
wait while I kneel on glass bleeding not feeling pain just grateful for being alive
wait yet longer while my heart pounds thankful for being in my chest
love me from a distance as I become my Self
hold my image in your heart and pray I will come
wait as I yield to the triumph of God –
blistering beauty of sunset
tranquil slate-smooth lake where we once met
hold the thought of me
let me be who I am becoming
wait while I feel every emotion and be all I can be
see me in light bright as bird wings flapping fast on a winter’s day
hold onto something
not me
let me go
let me be me


ii

Window opens onto glacier's blinding purity
purer than my own heart yet melting just the same
I fall into the melted freeze as it roars downwards into that smooth grey lake
  where we met
wait for me there
let your heart slow to the bird's wing as it alights the branch
see yourself above it
floating in ether
shimmering vapour
hold the vapour
that is me

Rumi - On Living in a State of Love

The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away,
afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love
is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose;
lovers are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone,
even surrounded by people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble
of giving advice to a lover
gets nothing.  He is mocked by passion.

Love is like musk.  It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

  ~Rumi~



Note:  Rumi was a 13th Century Islamic Poet, Saint, and Spiritualist.  He challenged the hypocrisy so often found in religion, and wrote of the deep love between the human and the Divine.  He lived as he wrote, and his works still inspire us to live in a state of love and compassion.


Love and Light
  xxx