retinal perspectives

(missing) a feeling of safety

I don't quite know what's going on but I have epiphanies rolling in left and right these days. I have noticed that my Reiki treatments (for myself) seem more intense, and I have been practicing Shiva Nata regularly, so I suppose it's to be expected. It's just that it's a bit overwhelming. They're all huge. They're all important. And they're all getting at deeper reasons for why I do the things I do (or don't do).

I decided that my focus for the month would be trust. I have a lot of issues with trust. It's important and useful. It's probably worth some focus.

The one message I keep getting consistently is that I need rest. I need rest in general. I need rest to process and integrate the epiphanies. I need rest to discover what's next. And yet, I resist. I don't trust the message. Plus, I don't know how to rest. Whenever I think I'm resting, I'm really doing things in my head or I'm worrying about all the things I think I should be doing instead of resting.

I was talking to a friend and she mentioned something about resting being connected to safety. Something about that thought rang true.

And then that night, while I was trying to sleep, it hit me.

I don't feel safe. Ever. Because once upon a time, in a moment when I felt safe (and was naked and vulnerable, no less), someone I trusted poured boiling water on me.

The me of now knows that it was an accident. But the me of then is small and scared and sees everything through a filter of fear. She thinks that something bad could happen to me at any moment. She believes that safety and vulnerability and trust lead to pain. And she knows that since she cannot control everything, I am never safe.

No wonder I can't rest.

No wonder trust keeps coming up as an issue.

No wonder money and weight keep coming up as issues (both of which represent safety to me, in varying forms).

I must confess that I found this very fascinating. I also didn't really know what to do with it, so I took it to my BodyTalk session later that week and told the practitioner about it. Along with doing the session itself, she suggested that I look for moments when I feel safe and take note of them so that it becomes easier to remember what safety actually feels like.

So, that's what I'm doing. I'm looking for safety.

I think what?

I mentioned that I had started working with Briana of Blisscovery Wellness on weight and body image issues. In one session, we were talking about why I am reluctant to clear my closet of all the stuff that doesn't fit and why I don't really want to buy clothes, particularly jeans, that fit well.

My first instinct was that it was related to fear - fear that it would send a signal that I had accepted this size and therefore had no more motivation to lose weight. (Never mind that if that was it, clearly not accepting it wasn't really working for me.)

Then, she asked if the reason was really related to fear, and the thing that came out of my mouth floored me.

I said that I couldn't. Because then I might look good. And that I didn't deserve to look good if I was larger than the size that I was "supposed" to be.

I so did not see that one coming.

As soon as I said it, I knew that was it (and where that thought came from). And that was just crazy to me. Because I don't think that. I would never think that. Except that I did. Unconsciously. That one unconscious thought (that my conscious mind knows is untrue) was dictating my behavior.

After that call, I cleared out my entire closet - and am slowly finding my style again.

You've probably seen the metaphor where an iceberg is used to represent the mind. The smaller visible portion represents our conscious thoughts. The larger hidden portion represents our unconscious thoughts. Those unconscious thoughts may be influencing our behavior but, unless we can find a way to bring those thoughts to the surface, it is hard to lessen their power over us. And therein lies the power in any practice or therapy that allows those unconscious thoughts to surface.

overwhelm. yes.

Advance warning: this post may be muddled and wander aimlessly and have no point. Much like the current state of my brain. You've been warned.

I am reading Elaine Aron's book, The Highly Sensitive Person. I feel less odd already. Ha! I am not the only person who thinks this much - among other things.

It is interesting timing because I have been reflecting on my current state of health (or lack thereof). Basically, I've been sickly for all of November. Ugh. (It is unfortunate that I did not know this in advance, or I would have bought stock in a soup company. I feel like a walking can of soup.) And I even went to see the doctor.

I sat in meditation the other day with the question, "Why am I not getting better?" The answer I got back? "You're not taking care of yourself." Well, the first answer I got was, "You don't really want to know." (Which was true. I knew the answer - and I didn't really want to hear it. Doggone intuition.) The answer got me thinking about how I got sick in the first place.

I went on vacation. It was fun. It also involved a red-eye flight (no sleep, I cannot sleep on planes), a wedding weekend where I met most everyone there for the first time (while they were all lovely and warm and welcoming - it still requires time to process), not much alone time, and a VERY early flight home. I went directly from the flight to work. The next day - after working again - I drove to the coast for a retreat. The retreat was fun too. It was also very emotional - and thus emotionally draining. The day I drove home from the retreat, I had a cough - a cough so horrible that I hope never to have it again. I gave myself reiki that evening, the cough died down, and I went back to life as usual. No rest. Maybe a week later, I spent the evening with a horrible sore throat. I gave myself reiki, the pain died down a bit, and I continued on. No rest. Maybe a week later, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with what felt like an ear infection. Reiki did not help, I had a permanent ringing in my ear, and I finally gave in. I went to the doctor, got medicine, and continued working. I got worse instead of better. I am finally resting, and I feel like I am finally turning the tide.

Anyway, I read all that and I think, of course I am sick. Sheesh. My poor body was trying and trying to tell me what it needed, and I ignored it and ignored it.

The thing is .. I do know that I need time to recover my equilibrium again. I love people. Love being around them and with them. But I also need my alone time. I love traveling. But I need time to recover from the stresses of travel (especially a lack of sleep). Flights at early or late hours - not good. Noise .. crowds .. they need to be followed by quiet. Etc. Etc. None of these needs are new - it's just that prior to this year, I had very little self-awareness and didn't connect the dots.

Not entirely sure what the next steps are. I think the awareness is a good start. Maybe being gentle with myself. Maybe learning how and when to recover. Maybe even learning how to avoid some of the need to recover in the first place. If you have dealt with this and have ideas that have worked for you, I am all ears! In the end, I guess I'll learn as I go. It's all a process.

your body memory

After I started giving myself reiki treatments, a most peculiar thing began to occur. In random moments, my jaw would pull downward and force my mouth open, and it would then lock my mouth in that open position - usually for a minute or two. This was fine during reiki treatments. But then it began happening elsewhere - often when I was driving. Considering that when your mouth is open for a while, you start to drool, this was definitely not something I wanted to continue. I had no idea what this meant, or what to do. I asked my reiki practitioner about it once and she said that I would know what it meant eventually. Argh.

Recently, I was relaxing in savasana after yoga. All of a sudden, I had the passing thought that perhaps my jaw thing was due to my burn - that it was opening my mouth in a scream that I never screamed. But then I dismissed the idea - it seemed too crazy.

Well .. I went to see a shamanic counselor on Friday (who I'd recommend, by the way). I happened to mention my randomly locking jaw because it was happening even more frequently last week. She said something about body memory, pulled out a crystal, and began asking questions. She wasn't asking me, so I assume she was asking my body. As soon as she asked the first question (is this a body memory?), I burst into tears without the faintest idea why. She got that it was a body memory, that it was from age 6, and that it was a sound and an action.

I was 6 when I was burnt. Clearly my crazy idea wasn't so crazy after all.

your authentic self

Did you know that being authentic can be considered a part of wellness? Really. I have struggled a great deal with this in the past, though I am finally moving past my fears. Stifling my authentic self led to weight gain, a weak throat chakra (well, I guess it could work both ways - either the weak throat chakra led to the stifling, or the stifling led to the weak throat chakra), and lots of resentment - none of which are conducive to wellness.

Are you your authentic self? If not, can you see any ways in which this might affect your health?

allergies and burns and cats, oh my

I've always believed that your mental and emotional health have an impact on your physical health. After I started practicing reiki on myself, I realized just how large of an impact they can actually have.

I was allergic to cats. Horribly allergic. Throat began to close up within minutes allergic. Given that two sisters have cats, this presented a problem. I had to use steroids to survive each visit and I just hated it; I never felt like myself, my breathing was still impaired, and the taper never went well. With one sister, the visits were easier - because I could stay at a nearby B&B. With the other sister, it was harder - because my parents thought that if they just cleaned thoroughly, I would be fine. After I returned home from a visit, I would always have a few days of coughing fits where it felt like the cat hair was coming out of my lungs.

I worked with a naturopath for a year and it helped a little bit, but I still wound up in the clinic for steroids to survive the rest of that visit to my parents. I did start allergy shots twice but, since I was doing it under duress ("this is what will get rid of your allergies - you need to do this"), I doubt they would have worked even if I had completed them.

Then, I started reiki. After my Reiki II class, when I started clearing at the mental and emotional level, I began having those same coughing fits after the more intense sessions. They'd occur in the middle of the night (my neighbor even asked about them because he could hear me though the walls) or I'd spend my morning walk with Atlas doubled over, coughing as if my lungs would come out. That was when I realized that perhaps my cat allergies stemmed from something, and if I could clear it, perhaps the allergies would leave too.

Eventually, I realized that the cat allergies were connected to a burn I received when I was little. I was in the sauna, and someone accidentally poured boiling water on me. Recovery was long and painful. But .. my grandparents had a sauna. Every Saturday, we'd visit them for a sauna. Except now I was terrified of saunas. I remember sitting inside that sauna every week - staring at the hot water and the flames under the stove - watching and waiting for something bad to happen. But I never told anyone - I didn't want to be a bother or make them feel worse about my burn. I held all that fear inside. But repressed emotions will make themselves known somehow, and mine did so in the form of allergies.

I'm afraid that I don't know how to explain how I know that. It just came to me in a flash of intuition - and I trust my intuition. What I can tell you is that my cat allergies are nearly gone. And in the end, that is really all that matters to me.