My unexpected experience at the Wellness Center at the B&B near Charleston continues to change my life. I returned on Tuesday for another Reiki session and some inner healing work with Diane. It's amazing to say that in three hours one's life can change, but mine did. I have a new commitment to life and an understanding of the part that my subconscious has played in my own health.
I have always shied away from the idea that I could be contributing to my body's frailty in some way. That kind of responsibility was too much to accept. Yet the more Diane and I talked, the more I could see that I was using various symptoms over the years to cope with deep psychic pain. This line of thinking links our minds and bodies and explains the one in terms of the other. We are a system of systems and it's unlikely that our minds can isolate patterns of thinking and inner pain from affecting our bodies. Pain seeks a release and if it is ignored, it will find its own outlet.
Diane led me to face the emotions that lay at the base of my distorted view of life and the inner healing session culminated in a choice to accept and love the self that God made me to be. It sounds so simple, but it was powerful.
I played a game as a young child that serves as a wonderful metaphor for what happened with Diane. The game was called "Under the Blanket." My friends put a blanket over me and then they kept asking me to to pass out to them something that I didn't need. I gave up a shoe and then the other shoe, a sock and so on until I was down to my shirt and shorts. I remember thinking that if stripping was the price of their friendship, I wasn't going to play their game. I stood up and took off the blanket and everyone cheered. The blanket, you see, was the thing I didn't need.
Towards the end of my inner healing session, I saw myself tightly enclosed in an L-shaped box. Being in that box is akin to being under the blanket. My emotional pain had demanded portions of myself for its expression over the years and I had given up my uterus, a knee, my thymus gland, and various muscle and joints. The ultimate demand, of course, would be my life.
In the box in my mind, my torso could move a bit, but my legs were stretched out in front of me and I couldn't move them. That made me feel frustrated and annoyed. All of a sudden I pushed out the walls of the box and stood up. I wasn't going to be "boxed in" any longer. The box was the one thing I do not need: my fears and the compensations I've made for not feeling worthy.
I feel so much freer today. I know that my body will be a good barometer for how well I am coping with my own and others' expectations. I also know that my life is much more in my control than I had previously thought. This is God's gift: "I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly."
To the abundant life!
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