“Someday you are going to realize there is a tremendous difference in knowing the path, and walking the path”
Morpheus to Neo ~The Matrix
I hate to do this, but if you want to be caught up, you’re going to have to go back and read Parts I-III.
I’ll wait.
Ok, so now you have some of the back story.
This installment starts in late November 1993 and I’m going for my second session of “energy work” with that little Tasmanian devil, T.
I’ve wised up enough to realize this work has absolutely nothing to do with alleviating tension and sore muscles.
It is a “soul massage”. It is releasing very old and “stuck” cellular memory, in order to give my soul a cleaner slate. I didn’t have a full grasp of why that was a good idea, but like most things that were happening to me at that time, I was just “goin’ with the flow”.
T incorporated acupuncture needles this time. TONS of them. I had them all over my body. My face was covered, down my spine and the bottoms of my feet, which freaked me out. What if there was an Earthquake and I had to make a run for it?
When he was working on my spine, I started to feel very anxious, like an anxiety attack—so I told him to stop. With one wave of his hand, I felt better.
Shit, Where was this guy when I was getting my divorce?
After my previous session, which was my first, I became quite ill.
This time, I lost my mind.
Well, just a little at first, but I’m someone who REALLY likes feeling normal, and as I left normal far behind me in the rearview mirror, I shut down.
But first I got weird and kinda desperate.
I had read that putting pennies (copper) in your shoes could help ground a person, so imagine if you will, me at work with pennies taped inside my Jimmy Choo’s and Manolo Blahnik’s. It didn’t help. I was out of clever options. Could a tin-foil hat be far behind?
Work…yeah, that was interesting. Thank God I ran the place, so I was there alone 90% of the time. I literally would be “out” of my body all day, every day. To the point that I would forget how to answer a telephone. Not what to say… I didn’t know how it worked! It would ring, and I’d stare at it, like someone from the dark ages seeing modern technology for the first time. Same thing with the fax. I also had trouble reading English.
While I was “out” I was freezing cold, but each day for I’d say a half-hour total, I’d pop back “in” for a visit. I could feel it start at the base of my spine with a warmth that would radiate to the top of my head. Once it got there, Me, the 20th century Janet, would be back!
That’s when I made sure I would listen and return the phone messages, and read whatever needed my attention. Oddly enough I have no memory of a single customer interaction. I know that can’t be true, this madness lasted for over three months, but apparently, I was able to fake sanity convincingly.
I was so afraid of getting fired or driving a car when I was “out” but my team, yes, I had a little team around me now, with T acting as the leader, and he assured me that the state I was in (Samadhi) was so sacred, that no harm would befall me.
Sacred Shmakred. But it never did.
When I wasn’t an emotionless zombie, I was suffering epic, massive anxiety. Fear was my constant companion.
I know, hot mess…enlightenment isn’t elegant. (More on that later)
I had one foot in this world, and another foot…somewhere else. Somewhere far, far, away, where I was assured I was needed.
My opinion was, hey, I have this perfectly good body right here, right now, I want to be present! So I fought the process. Tooth and nail. No flow going for me! I struggled every second of every day, and THAT was causing all my suffering.
You don’t fight Samadhi, you embrace it, or so I was told.
Nights were hard. I lived alone, for which I was partially grateful. On one hand, I didn’t have to make excuses for my behavior, but I felt extremely isolated.
God, nights are sinister.
I’d never really noticed that before. They are excruciatingly looooong and so damn black, so damn all the time in the winter!
T did his energy work on me, sometimes several times a day if I was particularly uncomfortable.
With him came that same bone dry bedside manner.
I remember, one day, laying on the bed, saying all I could see was black, and screaming that I couldn’t breathe.
Me:(gasping dramatically) I’m gonna die!
T: (calmly, almost bored, while thumbing through a People magazine) You are in Bardo, every cell in your body can breathe, not just your lungs, ask your whole body to breathe for you. How about if you quit fighting it? Surrender.
Me: I’m dying!
T: Then die.
Looking back I realize his calm nonchalance saved me. I can’t imagine how scared I would have been if he had been freaking out also. I’m convinced that that’s the best way to be in these situations. Calm and reassuring, not at all emotionally invested.
If I had smelled ANY fear on his part, I would have lost it…more than I already had.
The team was concerned that if I didn’t lighten up and “throw up my hands like I’m on a roller coaster” that the energy would fry my circuits. Everyone agreed, fighting it was not serving me.
“This is your new normal,” they’d insist. “There’s no going back, you can’t un-know something, once you know it”
Shut up! And what does that even mean??
I swear, some of the people that look homeless and crazy on the streets, I’m convinced have never learned to ride the roller coaster. I feel for them, I really do.
I bet they have pennies in their shoes.
My friend at work, Sally, was the only person I confided in. She didn’t judge, even though it looked to her like her friend had flipped her lid.
When I felt particularly bad, I’d walk by her booth and we’d make eye contact.
Then we’d both throw our arms in the air and go “weeeee” and I’d feel a little more human and understood. She rode the coaster with me.
I’m making it sound like it was all hell.
It was mostly hell, but Samadhi brings with it some interesting party favors.
I think that happens to keep you engaged because every fiber of my being was checked out.
I did have some mystical, magical, miracles happen during that time.
Those will be next.
(To be continued)
XoxJanet
