Last Wednesday night was the first of six classes on developing your intuition that I am taking over the telephone with Andrea Hess. Andrea is a great teacher as well as being one of my favorite bloggers. Check out her blog and classes at http://www.empoweredsoul.com/ .
For homework this week, we are learning to meditate. You meditate on the light of a white tapered candle as you count your breaths for 15 minutes in the morning as soon as you wake up. For the evening meditation you have your eyes closed and just look at the space between your eyebrows. Both of these are slightly different ways to learn to quiet your mind and your thoughts. That doesn't mean you won't have thoughts. You will. Stilling your mind isn't easy. It takes a lot of practice. With practice, you will occasionally find that there are no thoughts. Most of the time, I find myself with just brief moments of silence followed by hearing my thoughts. When I notice my thoughts, then I go back to counting the breaths or to focusing on the third eye area depending upon which meditation I am doing. The secret is to just let go of the thoughts and refocus your attention.
Meditating is not new to me. I learned to meditate about 10 years ago using very similar techniques to those that Andrea has shared with her class.
I remember my very first session of meditation so clearly. I found myself face to face with a terrified little girl who was screaming that she didn't want to go there again. She was hysterical. She was crying. I was crying. She was me.
I had never realized before that day that when the sexual abuse happened to me as a little girl that I went into my head. I disconnected from my body in the only way that I could by going into my head. I stayed there for many, many years totally disconnected from my body and my emotions.
So before I could learn to quiet my mind to meditate, I had to quieten the cries of the little girl in me. I had to learn to comfort her and let her know that she was safe and the abuse wasn't still happening. Getting that little girl to trust me has probably been some of the hardest work that I have done in recovery.
Patricia
14 comments:
Thanks Patricia.
I haven't been abused. But some of my best friends have, so I understand something of the journey of gaining the trust of the child inside.
Thanks for being so open about your journey.
Hi Patricia,
Wow what syncronicity. I decoded this morning to change my meditation practice and light a candle and hust focus on that , breathing and getting to stillness- inspired ny Tolle- A new Earth
Thanks for sharing this, a difficult one to deal with - have seen so many people face their fears when I have assisted with The Journey- Brandon Bays
I will connect with you again at PDP where I am about to become active
Suzie, thanks for your comment. Don't you just love the synchronicity of the Universe. If PDP is Personal Development Partners, I haven't been active in that myself.
Patricia
Evan, it is nice to hear from you and thanks for the comment. Speaking out is the best way that I know of to reach out and break the silence for myself and others.
Patricia
Patricia,
I certainly know the difficulty of gaining the trust of the betrayed inner child, I think it is deeply connected to learning to nurture ourselves and treat ourselves in a sacred manner.
Meditation, chakra work and opening the intuitive faculties will often produce similar hurdles...as the work requires that we learn to trust ourselves and life again.
I'm so glad you are taking Andrea's course!
Much love,
PK
Paula, I am glad that I am taking Andrea's class also. I missed the class tonight because of company coming in just before 7:00p.m. The nice thing is that Andrea tapes her classes so I can catch up tomorrow.
Patricia
Hey Patricia, you make some great points about the fear we keep inside. Most of us have issues and we need to face them. I enjoy how open you are about your issues, which in turn helps me confront my demons.
Keep them coming
Karl, open is the only way that works for me. I stuffed the fear away for too many years. I have discovered that facing your own fears does often help others to face theirs. Thanks for your comment.
Patricia
Patricia,
I don't know if you heard your own words as clearly as I did, so indulge me a little here as I repeat what you said.
My FIRST meditation experience brought me face to face with my inner child.
Having had rather disturbing things happen in meditation, I know how frightening that must have been. On the other hand, most people sit and fight with their incessant thoughts about the days work, tomorrow's work, laundry, etc., i.e. distractions.
Yet your openess or readiness or however you might describe it is what occurred for you. Making something conscious that you most likely wanted to deal with, knowing it or not.
Meditation can have many purposes, many ways it assists one. I think your first time was fantastic in the how, not necessarily related to the subject matter at all.
I'm sure looking back on it, you feel similarly.
Barbara, looking back at the experience, I have to agree with you. I was blessed by the experience and the knowledge about myself that I gained from that experience. At the time that I was experiencing it, it didn't feel like a blessing. I had no idea how to deal with the inner child. Comforting her was what seemed the natural thing to do at the time. Thanks for your insites.
Patricia
Patricia, I think I deleted my own last line of my comment. It maybe wouldn't have mattered, but this was the crux of my message to you. It said:
You have so much courage and even when you were unaware, you had courage.
Barbara, thank you for re-adding that last line. It warms my heart.
Patricia
Patricia - I missed getting in on Andrea's class. It filled up before I decided to sign up.
It's interesting what you've experienced in meditation before. I have meditated for many years and it has kept me grounded and in that place of peace throughout my day but I also have a little girl within but unlike yours she is angry and doesn't want to be discovered.
I think I had mentioned this some time ago when you had just won a free session from Paula Kawal and you wrote a post on it. At that time you talked about the little girl in a little more depth. I commented and said I had been in a series of coaching sessions and in my last session my coach guided me through a meditation using some NLP. That's when I discovered the little girl and she was angry and mean and wasn't going any further in the meditation. She said Stop! and meant it. So, that's where we left it but I've often been curious about her and wondered what else I could do to make peace.
I think the Eckhart Tolle's class is helping with his book and hopefully down the road I'll connect with her again.
It's interesting the twists and turns we take and it makes you wonder if the concept of a little girl is more of the games the ego plays. Don't know - what do you think?
Great talking to you again.
Blessings,
Pat R., You may be right about the inner child just being a tool of the ego. Tolle's book is bringing me more questions than answers at this point. I missed this past Monday's class. I hope to read it tomorrow and catch up.
I have an inner child that thought that she was so bad that she didn't even believe that her guardian angels could love her. Convincing her otherwise was very difficult. To say that she was angry is an understatement. She was so furious that she couldn't see any light in her world when I first became aware of her.
Patricia
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