An “aha” moment in the dentist chair.

There is no one I know who thinks that going to the dentist is fun…..necessary but certainly not how you would really like to be spending your time.  Sometimes it is difficult for me to not be in fear of it since I experienced a childhood trauma sitting in that chair.  I don’t remember how old I was when I first had a dentist appointment, but my sense is that I was pretty young.  Anyway, I already had a fear of needles and when I saw the needle coming my way to give me Novocain…I pretty much freaked out.  I refused to let him put that in my mouth.  So for the next several minutes I sat in pain, my hands clenched to the sides of the chair while he drilled away.  Now I wonder why anyone would agree to treat a child who refused anesthesia?  Nevertheless, when my current dentist told me I needed to have a 50 year old filling replaced in preparation for a crown, (there were also a few minor fractures in that tooth) I was not a happy camper.  1 ½ hours in the chair.  Before we started she asked if I would like to have gas (nitrous oxide)  Wow, really???? You bet.  So she gave me the dreaded Novocain, absolutely pain free, then put the oxygen mask on me.  Ok, so now I’m sitting there with a wedge in my mouth to hold my mouth open, plus that rubbery thing they fasten in your mouth and the drilling going on and do I care?  The answer to that would be NO.    I’m pretty much in la la land.  So I’m floating along when all of a sudden a clear, distinct thought comes into my mind, and it is this, “This is what it feels like to not worry.” Whoa……really?  Freeze this moment, I want to say.  I really want to remember this feeling, because it’s fairly new to me.  It reminds me of the first time I got a massage.  I distinctly remember getting off the table and being startled by the revelation that this is what it felt like to be totally relaxed in my body.  Evidently a rare occurrence as well.  So I know, as I’m sure most people do, that worry does no good, but that hasn’t stopped me.  I’m sure it’s all tied up with what I have thought made me a good person, a good mother, a good friend.  What kind of a mother would I be if I didn’t worry?…..isn’t that part of the job description?  My children are soooo grateful I passed along this gene to them.  (not)   Aren’t we supposed to worry about our friends?  Well, I believe it’s all a matter of degree.  To what degree do we let worry block our joy? Our faith? Our ease?  One day when I was stressing over an upcoming surgery, not life threatening, but the worry gene had taken over.  My sister gave me a refrigerator magnet.  It said, “Good morning, this is God.  Today I’ll be handling all your problems and I won’t need your help, so relax and leave everything to me.”  I think this a great antidote to the anxiety producing worry gene.  Even if you don’t believe in God, or a Higher Power, or a universal intelligence, you might as well hand it all over to something, since we really have no control anyway over what might happen to our loved ones or our friends.  The other antidote I’ve found helpful is prayer…it’s a way of handing it over, but also it does send out an energy of healing and protection to the person and to the field….. and I happen to believe that it works.  It is a law that energy follows thought.  At the very least it can lessen my anxiety.  Since this is a Gemini month and Gemini is all about transmitting, and distributing, what I wish to transmit this month is my faith that everything is as it should be and all is working out according to a larger purpose and plan.  When I can rest in that I am back in the dentist chair, floating along in la la land without a care in the world.

“Now that your worry has proved such an unlucrative business, why not find a better job?”

Hafiz

Let go of it all.  Just remain in the center watching, and then forget you are there. Baba Hari Dass

“You don’t have to work everything out.  It’s already working itself out.”  Mooji

“Don’t let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries.” Astrid Alauda

 

 

Claiming my Space

A few months ago in preparation for the full moon in the sign of Pisces I was reading up on all of the energies that would be descending as well as the symbology of this last sign of the zodiacal year.  What I learned was that as the last sign for this astrological year we were ending a yearly cycle. We started in Aries, the first sign of the zodiac and now 12 months later we contemplate what we have learned and what needs to end for this new beginning to be birthed. Not unlike our New Year’s eve where we ponder the past in anticipation of the future I started asking myself some questions.  What was I leaving behind? What was I letting go of?  What was needing to be cleansed, cleaned out in order to move into the next new cycle.  These questions were reinforced as I held my full moon ceremony and asked those present to ponder on what this ending meant to them.  At this ceremony we also acknowledged the lunar eclipse.  What was the meaning of those energies?  Well significantly that eclipse was also asking us to identify and be willing to let go of any long standing patterns that we felt might inhibit the birth of the new cycle.  Holding all these thoughts in my consciousness I went to bed the night of the full moon and had a profound dream.  In it I am on a bus with Joe Biden. (I know, cheesy right?) Anyway he is a man that I admire so I felt drawn to him.  We sat and talked for what seemed like hours and there was such a good feeling between us.  I felt seen and heard and listened to and felt deeply connected to his presence.  Then later in the dream we are sitting in a restaurant and he says to me, “ I so enjoyed our conversation but I don’t feel like you really shared anything of yourself.”  I was stunned and was sure I hadn’t heard him correctly so I asked the woman who was with us to explain to me what she had heard.  She confirmed exactly what he had said.  Well, I’m still in the dream and I decide to try to analyze what this may mean.  (forever the therapist…even in my dreams)  I am surprised when the meaning comes through so clearly. I get the message that deep deep down I haven’t believed that people really want to know me.  It’s not that I don’t share it’s that I don’t feel like people are really interested so I often hold back.  This awareness was so strong that it woke me up and I immediately wrote it down.  I’ve been sitting with it for a few weeks now and the deeper understandings continue to be revealed.  First of all, I realized that even though I am not acting out this particular pattern most of the time…..it is still there and it definitely wants to be released.  Another awareness came when I related this pattern to my 2 type in the Enneagram.  2’s have a need to have other people think well of them so they can become more attentive to others in an attempt to manage other people’s perceptions of them.   So it may partially explain why I don’t feel people are interested in me.  Not everyone I meet is a  2 and so intensely focused on others as I am.   With all this attention on the other I’m not present to what people may be sending me. So all these revelations brought me to a moment in which I stated my willingness to be done with this pattern and I rededicated my energies to my right to claim my space……my right to be here and to be heard.  I even wrote it in big bold letters in my journal.  I have to say it has made a remarkable, if subtle, difference in the way I feel.  It’s hard to put into words but there is a new confidence, a new self assuredness that is informing the way I walk through my day.  And I am ready to birth this new beginning with a little less baggage holding me back. I read a sentence somewhere, during this time, that perfectly described how this shift feels.  It feels like, “personal confidence and the ability to operate from a new level of personal mastery.”  Once I opened up the space within me to more deeply believe people were interested in me I began getting all kinds of affirmations to that effect.  I’m here at a conference in AZ. with many from the world wide esoteric community attending.  I missed last year and so I haven’t seen these people for two years yet every single person I saw greeted me like an old friend.  I’m sure that has happened before but this year I took it in as confirmation that I was seen and heard and welcomed by others.

There are also some interesting correlations with the astrology of my chart that may be connected to “claiming my space.”  I do love it when I notice the many threads that weave themselves together to create a new awareness……dreams, synchronicities, astrology, the enneagram, quotes from a book, etc. all leading to a deeper understanding. Anyway, in my natal chart I have the planet Saturn sitting exactly opposite my sun. The sun is where we shine, where we embrace all that we are and unabashedly shine it forth, without reservation….full of confidence about who we are.  Than Saturn comes along and says, “wait a minute, not so fast…… you have limitations you know, responsibilities, duties to perform.  So this has been my lifelong challenge.  Go for it? Or, wait a minute….you must do all the hard work first then someday you will be ready.  Always in my meditations when I ponder what my service would look like without the obstacles of my personality it always comes down to greater self confidence.  I see myself, teaching, writing, presenting in front of groups, without anxiety or hesitation.   It would feel spacious and free….liberating.  I feel like I’m Being that now…..since the shift of “claiming my space.”  It’s hard to describe the shift in words.  I just feel different….more empowered, less fearful,…..more of the feeling that I have a “right” to take up space.  And if I don’t take up space it’s because I choose not to….so it’s a choice instead of a misguided belief that people aren’t interested.

Everyone who has looked at my chart here has commented on how this is going to be a pivotal year for me.  A dramatic shift in some way and I can’t help but think it has to do with finally releasing this deep underlying belief of unworthiness, I guess I could call it.  This whole year, since my accident last February, has been about purification, cleansing, releasing, accepting limitations and coming to peace with that.  I made peace with my Cancer moon because of that accident….learning to set my boundaries.   I refocused on living my life.  I had a deeper experience of detachment.  So there’s no way this is not all connected.  Getting a handle on Saturn, resolving Cancer, a rededication to my Soul’s work…..with confidence. The other astrological aspect that is happening is that Pluto is crossing my Ascendant, as we speak.  Whatever is frozen in form, Pluto dredges up.   This belief of unworthiness was definitely frozen.  Pluto digs it up so we can see what needs to die…to be reborn.  For me this means I need to die to my lack of confidence, to not enough. I need to untangle my preoccupations.  What am I putting to death in my life so I can live more fully?………my old pattern of less than, of, no one is interested.

The next step is “yes” to wherever I’m led.

 

Love after Love

The time will come

When, with elation,

You will greet yourself arriving

At your own door, in your own mirror,

And each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say sit here.

Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

To itself, to the stranger who has loved you

All your life, whom you ignored

For another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes.

Peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott