Ego? Lucifer? One in the Same. – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #19)

 

I received Massage #19 from Avery at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA. Click here to read more about Avery’s practice.

I appreciate Avery’s massage work because she is very skilled and because she is keeping up on this blog. Her regular reading means that it is much easier for me to answer the question that each therapist asks at the beginning of each massage, “So, what’s going on with you today?”  Likewise, Avery is not only dedicated to client well-being. She is committed to delving into and polishing her practice of healing modalities like massage and Jin Shin Do.

In this massage marathon I initially set out to resolve numbness in my right arm and shoulder as well fear stored in the neck area.  Massages #1-#7 were so successful in meeting these goals that in Massage #8 the focus changed to chronically sore and recently swollen-feeling feet and ankles.

Originally, I believe that as with my neck past or alternative life memories - including a lifetime of foot-binding and another in which I, as a slave, wore ankle chains – were responsible for this discomfort. 

Yet, no such memories have surface in the foot area. Instead, therapists were drawn to work not only on feet and ankles but gluts, psoas and QL muscles as well.  Within in a few massages, it became clear that pain in feet and ankles was relieved through work in the hip (root chakra) area.  I concluded that feet and ankle symptoms were caused at least in part by energy blockages in the hip area that forced energy to stagnate in the lower limbs.

Avery had a treatment plan in mind when I arrived for the massage. She suggested a Jin Shin Do shoulder release as well as well as side-lying somatics to get at energy and tension in the psoas muscles, muscle winding through the pelvic girdle from lower spine to femur (thigh bone). I also asked Avery to work in the sits bone area as this maneuver created a lot of release in Massage #11.

Avery came to the massage with insights about the psychology of working with my inner attorney (or inner-dictator, as the case may be) to unseat him from his position of power and make room for change for the better.

As Avery held the positions for the Jin Shin Do shoulder release she said, “I see your inner-attorney as ego.  I see the ego as trying to edge out God.”

I could not agree more.  Avery's comment reminded me that - whether the ego takes the form of a character like my inner attorney or like Gadhafi - its nature is the same.  Through a need to control and an unwillingness or inability to feel and therefore comprehend the impact of its action, the ego inflicts gross levels of needless suffering. 

“I know that some people who identify as spiritual object to the term ‘Lucifer’,” I said, “but Lucifer is real and its equivalent is ego.”  

(The gripes of some of my peers notwithstanding, I use both words, ‘Lucifer’ and ‘ego.’ I like the term 'Lucifer' for its dramatic essence and the way it evokes instinctive awareness of denials fueled by fear - or what is sometimes called 'evil.'  I like the term “ego” for its intelligence and the way it empowers the mind to develop a relationship with the ego that ultimately undermines the ego’s power.)

“It’s like you are trying to get rid of this inner-attorney, when the truth is he is a part of you.  In other blogs you talked more about integrating him,” Avery continued. 

Avery had touched on a central conundrum as I see it:  How to create a peaceful and therefore safe revolution, whether personal or social, in the face of a dictator who refuses to step down?  How to understand the role of force or violence in such a process?  She also touched on another enduring question:  How best to relate to this ego, this dictator - to forces which control through poverty, fear-mongering, exploitation, economic manipulation, violence, slavery, judgment, negativity, enforced disconnection from the Divine and conditions that compromise health – when such degradation and unhappiness can no longer be tolerated?

(for more, see next post)

Full Body Cast – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #18 continued)

Muscles on the right side of my neck were clenched painfully as I arrived for Massage #18 with Karen Joy.  Kundalini, the energy that drives spiritual change, has done more during this massage marathon than bring hours of muteness and right-handed, backward writing.  In microcosm to events in the Middle East, kundalini is facilitating a personal revolution within my own energy field, a process of change in which the controlling tendencies of ego - symbolized by my inner attorney - are being asked step aside and allow for something new.

As the world watches uprisings in the Middle East, many hope for the best, for a more peaceful revolution.  As I watch Mubarak and Gadhafi, who also seem to symbolize the ego and the brutality too often inflicted when selfish blindness rules, I wonder how these revolutions, the inner and the outer, will resolve.

In reviewing events leading up to Massage #18, it is as if the moment - as I jammed to Hendrix’ “If 6 was 9” and my neck froze up - was, in metaphor, the moment when Mubarak, in the face of angry throngs, refused to resign, or the moment when Gadhafi declared he would rather die a martyr than relinquish control.  

The significance of these moments of defiance is that, as within me, change in the Middle East is inevitable.  In these confrontations between those needing change and those resisting it, time stops, and the tension between opposing forces creates a pause in which all things become possible, all things except returning to the old way.  At these moments the question is not will change come, but can injury and violence be avoided in the process?

In microcosm to events in the Middle East, I felt myself perched on a precipice of change, all things hanging in the balance, as I arrived for Massage #18.  Prior to my neck seizing up I had been asking myself what - if this personal transformation is indeed is a product of the same flow of energies creating social upheaval in the Middle East – am I to expect, when my inner-attorney refuses to step down as he is in fact seeming to do?  And how any internal violence, as manifest in unexpected neck pain, be managed and its destructive potential reduced?

(Here I want to share that in the course of this massage marathon, though I have not mentioned it until now, there were a few days when, after being released to the float dead on the Ganges in Massage #6, my inner-attorney seemed transformed.  He had gotten rid of the brown suit and the sweaty, overwrought demeanor. Instead, he was humble, dressed in the robes of a priest, ready to have an honest conversation about who he had been and what now was required of him.  However, a few weeks later he returned argumentative and domineering in the QL muscles and I have not yet again seen him as the priest.) 

The truth is, I am hoping for a more peaceful revolution, for myself and any peoples who stand up and request change for the better.  Another truth is, I need my inner-attorney with me and I need him healthy and life-loving. To exile or execute him - rather than heal and integrate him into my personality - is to split and fragment the self and therefore to do violence to the self, an act which ultimately diminishes personal and spiritual power and potential. How is it, then, that I am to move forward without hurting myself, given that change is inevitable, he is apparently unwilling to reform and everything hangs in the balance?

While questions of war and violence are complex and have no easy answer, my immediate solution to the question of how to (1) achieve peaceful, non-violent change within the microcosm of me, and (2) get my neck back in working order is massage, energy work, meditation and reflection. 

During Massage #18 Karen Joy worked my neck muscles.  At first this was painful and then the muscles began to relax and the pain to decrease.  As Karen worked, I noticed two changes in the symbolism of energy on the left and right, or feminine and masculine, sides of the body.  On the left, instead of dancing quietly while shut away in her studio, my feminine was now up and shouting vociferously at my inner attorney.  She was shouting that she is not going to do this anymore and that change will come.  Within this her determination was unadulterated.  By contrast, on the right side of the body – although I am not certain how he got this way - my inner-attorney lay in a hospital bed, subdued and in a full body cast.

I left Massage #18 in with less pain, greater mobility in the neck, new insights and a deeper curiosity about how my inner-attorney, in his incapacitated state, will ultimately be persuaded to reform.

Gadhafi out of my Torso! – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #18)

 "If 6 turns out to be 9, I don't mind!" - Jimi Hendrix

I received Massage #18 from Karen Joy at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA.  Click here to see a picture of Karen.

During Massage #17 it became clear that an overthrow of ruling energies – one paralleling the populist movements in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya – was happening within my own energy field.  In this personal revolution, my inner-attorney plays the role of Mubarak or Gadhafi – overbearing energies that do not take into account the true needs of others, and that rule, it seems, without true awareness of the suffering they inflict.  In my case, my inner-attorney wants to enforce a lifestyle that for me spells the death of the soul and importantly, in the past, led to persistent physical illness and emotional imbalance – in short unhappiness, a decline in health and emotional imbalance as well as a host of other challenges.

To date my inner-attorney, through an unwillingness to let go, has brought numbness in the right arm and shoulder and tightness to my right lower back or QL muscles.  (Importantly, while work on these muscles  revealed my inner-attorney ranting about the impracticality and even danger of a spiritual calling, work on the left side has shown a female ballet dancer.  She has not danced in a while but knows that it is time.  While my inner attorney argues and refuses to gives way, she quietly ignores his protests, shuts herself in her dance studio, straps on her ballet slippers and begins to stretch. When she does speak it is only to say, “I want to dance.”)

At the end of yesterday’s blog post, I wondered if and how the violence of upheaval in the middle east might show itself in my energy field during this personal revolution.  Parallels between individual and collective change and revolution are not merely symbolic.  Both involve the breakdown of outdated consciousness.  Both involve the movement of kundalini energy which brings lost power back into conscious awareness thereby enhancing our ability to affect the realities in which we live.  Finally, both processes are potentially volatile.  This is because as forces push from the bottom – whether repressed people as in social upheaval or repressed energy as in the personal revolution – and gather strength and determination, if energies from above refuse to yield, the pressure of upward movement with no relief will create an explosion.  This explosion can take the form of violent protests or, in the case of the personal revolution, injury to body or energy field. 

This is I learned firsthand as my question about how the violence of upheaval might show up in the personal revolution was answered shortly after finishing yesterday’s blog post.

After drafting the post I was feeling the spirit of change taking hold in the middle east.  I put on one of my favorite songs of rebellion – one I used to listen to frequently when I practiced public interest law:  Jimi’s Hendrix’s “If Six Was Nine.”  What stands out about this song for me is Hendrix’s defiance and his refusal to be defined by a social reality that does not serve him.  Key lyrics go something like this:

“If the mountains fall in the sea, let it be, it ain’t me… if all the hippies cut off all their hair, I don’t care… I got my whole world to live through and I ain’t gonna copy you...!"

I’m sure you get the point. 

And yet, even within Hendrix’ defiance, one that helped to define a epoch of social change - including advances in the rights of women and people of color - there was an element of destructiveness – or rather self-destructiveness - that could or would not acknowledge that energy which harms and represses from the outside is a reflection of what we carry inside– witness the early demise of this great artist. Therefore, the revolution will be most complete and successful when outer and inner transformation is achieved. 

As I danced to “If 6 was 9,” at the place in the song where Mr. Hendrix says with gusto, “I don’t care!,” I flipped my head and something popped in the right side of my neck.  My neck seized up and I was caught in a loop of pain and restricted mobility.  All night in my sleep the right side of my neck throbbed.  Today, at 5:15 pm, my neck was still sore and very stiff, when I reported for Massage #18 with Karen Joy.

(for more, see next post)

No Justice, No Peace! - 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #17 continued)

No Justice!  No Peace!

As Rose worked the muscles on the back right side of the torso, my inner-attorney asserted that the old way of doing things must prevail even at the expense of renewed purpose, enhanced quality of life, increased potential, solutions to pressing problems and improved health and vitality.  He argued that different ways of viewing life and truth cannot work in harmony and that meaningful change – for me or for society - is neither desirable nor possible.  

I am beginning to see that in his current state my inner-attorney is not a team player.  He is unwilling to be a member of a governing body of equals, a committee if you will, made up of the various aspects of self – including the feminine, the inner child, the conscious and subconscious minds, the heart, and the body to name a few – aspects united in the goal of remaking the inner-society (and economy) of Ahnday into a system better equipped to honor life. 

Instead, my inner-attorney rallies for the supremacy of his own world view.  He brings numbness to my arm and tightness to my lower back.  He sabotages through non-cooperation.  Instead of contributing his insights on to how best to achieve a common goal he stubbornly argues his point.  I suspect that his voice may also be at the core of insecurities and uncertainty as to how best to pursue my spiritual calling.  He is the naysayer, unable to see the shortcomings in his own approach – for instance, that the cost of practicing law was, for me, too high. Working in the demanding and unforgiving legal profession meant that I was often physically ill and/or emotionally out of balance.

In attempting to reach my inner-attorney - this part of me that does not want to let go into the new - I am left to wonder:

What, in my make-up of this inner-attorney does not allow him to see that this approach does not encourage the wellness of our whole being?  Why does he not see that a better way is not only possible it is in fact where we are going?  Why can he not concede power without a demand, even where the concession is to the self?

These are my questions.

“It’s really interesting how stubborn this right side is its efforts to hang on!” Rose commented while jostling muscles in the right shoulder area.

Rose held my lower leg in her arm and worked the area behind my knee just above the knee joint.  As she worked familiar defenses of anger surfaced and I saw that I had some resistance to seeing the emotional reality buried within the tissue.

After a few moments these defense began to clear and an image flashed in my mind. It was a picture of crowds demanding an end to government corruption first in Egypt and then in Tunisia.  Accompanying this image was strong emotion – resilience, a sense of purpose, self-confidence, self-respect, certainty, righteousness, outrage and rage.  This emotional energy fueled the protests and persuaded citizens to take the risk of demanding justice – because it is time, because it is right, because they have the power.

Next I saw an image of an outline of my body.  Housed within it was my inner society - the different aspects of self that make up my psyche and inform my consciousness.  My inner-attorney stood in the right torso while all the others formed a wave of energy which, as it gathered speed and height, projected a singular demand that my inner attorney step down from what has been his position of leadership. It seems that there is a parallel transformation happening – within me and these countries – as to what energies will rule and on what terms.

I mentioned this to Rose.  I felt just a hint of consternation.  The reflection of Egypt and Tunisia shed new light, leading to new, anxiety-filled questions. 

“Okay,” I said to Rose, “I get that my inner-attorney, because he was unwilling to change, is being overthrown.  I get that in Egypt they pushed the president out.  What I don’t get is what happens when the revolution, however peaceful, is contained a within one body, mine? Will there be tanks, riot police?  Do I need protest signs?  Where will my inner attorney go when he steps down?”

Rose laughed.  Underneath my humorous tone was a pressing concern.  If my own personal process exists as microcosm of larger, potentially violent social change, what then of the war? How might it be waged - possibly to my detriment - with my own energy system?

(for more, see next post)

Ferocious & Unrepentant, He’s Back! – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #17)

A pile of laundry!  This process has been so demanding certain things - like laundry - have had to wait!

I received Massage #17 from Rose at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA.  As this massage marathon draws to a close the energies driving what has been a wild ride of self-discovery are also beginning to slow.  While the massages continue to move energy and bring realizations, the emotional impact is lighter.  As a result, each day I feel more energized and optimistic.  I also have more energy for other activities –  other than maintaining the focus necessary to stay balanced and relaxed in the face of intensity. 

As a rule, Rose’s technique is effective, deep and often mysterious.  For instance, in Massage #10, Rose penetrated into unexamined areas of self laying the groundwork for the dramatic kundalini release of Massage #11 and also for the advent of backward & right-handed writing evident in the wake of Massage #14.

In Massage #17 Rose applied her unique technique and brought forth new awareness.  Whereas the first half of a massage often happens with the client lying face down on the massage table, and the second half with the client on their back, I remained lying face down for the whole of Massage #17.  This did not negatively affect the massage.  Instead, it addressed my unique needs.  (One quality I admire in Rose is her willingness to listen to the body and honor its requests – even where the body asks for unusual things.  This willingness enables Rose to coax that which has not been seen or touched – or sometimes even suspected - to the surface for healing and examination).  

Rose started on my left leg and I will admit that for the first part of the massage I dozed off.

“How are you doing?”  Rose asked.  Her voice pulled me out of a dream.

“Good, but I keep falling asleep.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“Yes, although I’d like to remain alert since I have blog about this later!”

Rose laughed.  In retrospect, sleeping during this part of the massage may have been exactly what I needed. It is possible that the sleep state created opportunities.  For instance, in my own work, I have noticed that sometimes when, during a session, a client talks about or analyzes their experience it forwards healing. At other times, this mental activity causes the mind to take over and the emotional body to become immobilized.  When this immobilization happens, healing energy cannot penetrate the body as easily and necessary movement of trapped emotion is reduced.  A sleep state during healing sessions disengages the conscious mind and can allow for healing that might otherwise be resisted or suppressed. (It is also possible that I was just tired!)

When I woke, Rose was beginning work on the right foot and ankle.  There she found soreness I had not noticed before.  At one point she pressed a fingertip into what felt like a series of dots arranged in neat semi-circle lining the bottom curve of my right ankle bone.  The geometric arrangement of these tender spots intrigued me although, as with previous massages and energy moved in the lower half of the body, the message of the dots was cryptic and I was unable to discern their meaning.

Prior to working on my right leg, Rose had spent time digging deeper into emotion stored in my right torso – arm, shoulder and lower back (QL muscles).  Though my right arm is no longer numb, muscle groups on the right side of the body have again become tight in comparison to counterparts on the left.  

Likewise, my inner attorney - the energy responsible for arm numbness - was expelled in Massage #6.  (He was reclaimed in a massage under the theory that his weaknesses could be reformed and his strengths utilized.)  Nonetheless, I again found this inner-attorney, ferocious and unrepentant as ever, in my right arm, shoulder and QL muscles!

(for more, see next post)

I Couldn't Remember A Thing About The Massage - 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #16)

I received Massage #16 of 20 from Tasha Enochs at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA. Click here to see a picture of Tasha. 

Massage #16 took place on a rare sunny day in February.  At the end of a sunny day I am often left with an impression – the sense memory of brilliant light, warm air on my neck as I coast on my bicycle, and freedom.  I don’t necessarily recall the details, for instance, whether I was at the bakery or the river at three o’clock or the number of clouds in the Northern quadrant of the sky at noon.  Massage #16 mimicked the day.  As I sat down to write about the massage I discovered that I could not remember the details!  The sensory impression of hands, oil, and conversation alone stayed with me.  In fact, I had to text Tasha and ask her jog my memory.

She reminded me that we had worked on hips and feet, and that over all there was not as much fear in my neck as there had been in the past.  This was true.  During the massage Tasha worked vigorously the front and sides of my neck.  As mentioned, up until Massage #6 with Richard Oliver this would not have been possible as my fear response would have been too strong to allow the massage work to continue.  However, even though much of the fear in my neck has been resolved, in this massage with Tasha, another layer surfaced. This time, I saw flashes of myself hung in a noose, a rope held tight around my neck by a white knuckled hand and the face of an angry man.  These images flooded my mind until they became a collage reflecting back to me the nature of my hidden fears.  Unlike the past life memory of drowning released in Massage #6, in Massage #16 I was unable to pinpoint one clear past or present life memory behind the images.

Tasha consistently brings strong intuitive skills to her massage practice and Massage #16 was no exception.  Though I did not mention my intensifying fear or pull away from Tasha, as my discomfort peaked, she removed her hands from my neck. “Is this okay,” she asked, “I was feeling some resistance?”

I let her know that the fear was there and that it was okay because I wanted to work through it. 

At another point in the massage Tasha pressed her hand into the muscle at the far right of my upper chest near the armpit.  As the muscle relaxed it released a wave of psychic pain that I felt both within my heart and behind my eyes.  Though I could not connect this pain to any particular life situation, once it passed my heart opened and become warm with happiness.

“That’s funny,” Tasha said.

“What’s funny?”  I asked. I had not mentioned the wave of psychic pain.

“Pain,” she said, “How we always think of it as something physical when that’s not always the case.”

I thought about the number of times in these massages - even though my body is strong and flexible - when I had been touch gently and yet experienced strong discomfort. “Yes, I am in some psychic pain,” I replied.

And yet, even as fear creeps into my neck and pain releases from my heart, the deepest and most intense parts of this massage marathon seem to be drawing to a close.  Although I did not foresee it, this experiment of 20 massages in 2 months has double as spiritual initiation bringing expanded consciousness, deeper self-awareness and new gifts.

As Tasha wrote in a text message describing Massage #16, “My perception was that you may be over the most emotional releases…that you are over the hump.”

I think she may be right.

Enter the Psoas - 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #15 continued)

Muscle chart in one massage room at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA

Another message came when Aiden worked the right QL muscle.  Aiden first worked on, and I first discovered, my QLs (Quadratus Lumborums) as well as the fact that they were tight in Massage #10.  At that time and in subsequent massages these muscles, which run vertically in the lower back area, were so tight that it was all I could do to breathe through the massage.  This intensity prevented me from grasping the emotional content held there.  However, by Massage #15 the muscle had loosened enough that I was able to feel into what was being released from the area.  I have heard that worries around material support, including money, are often carried in the lower back. Given the near constant strain many feel to make enough money to support themselves - let alone fulfill their dreams - it is not surprising that we have such high rates of lower back tightness, pain and injury in this country!  (Imagine what a functioning economy that serves the needs of all people could do for our lower backs!)

As Aiden worked he said, “Can I ask you something?  What does smoke or smog mean to you?  It’s something that I saw when working on the QL.”

The answer was not obvious and needed to be deciphered.  Smoke or smog - on a symbolic or energetic level - can mean many things.  In certain traditions smoke is sacred and carries the blessings and intelligence of the spirits.  Smog is like smoke in that it obscures things visually, yet smog is air that has been polluted and so smog does not carry the same connotations of purity, love and healing as smoke. 

“It’s definitely a shroud,” said Aiden.  (According to the dictionary a shroud is a veil, something that screens, covers, protects or conceals).

As a partial answer, the words “deception” and then “self-deception” flashed in my mind.  As I looked more closely into what was happening in the muscle, I saw there my inner-attorney.  Though he had been evicted from my right arm and shoulder he had seen fit to take up residence in my right lower back!  There he was, sweaty and wound up, making all kinds of arguments about why I cannot and should not pursue this spiritual calling due to his (or my) (or our) doubts about whether adequate support will be available. 

I deduced that his (my) worries were a kind of self-deception that could be used to justify not meeting my calling.  This explained the “concealment” aspect of the shroud Aiden described.  To extend the shroud metaphor, this self-deception also served as a veil which concealed a truth – presumably about what support is in reality available.  Likewise, the self-deception served a protective purpose. If, as my inner-attorney insisted, adequate support is not available, then keeping to his vision is safe.  

I am grateful for Aiden’s ability to see (and communicate) this symbolic shroud as it helped me to further understand the conflicting desires and belief systems carried by different aspects of my psyche.  This in turn allowed me to make a conscious choice about which one of these aspects I will choose as leader.   

For now I’ve decided that the inner-attorney will no longer lead.  We (I) did it his way for years – with limited success and happiness.  Therefore, I am choosing a new life vision based in spirituality, one I feel has more potential for fulfillment of all - rather than a few - people - and aspects of self!

Also, though I did not anticipate it my inner attorney did not disappear with the numbness in my arm.  Instead, he relocated to another area of the body!  Perhaps this is what they mean when they say that from the self you can run but not hide - whoever "they" is.  Importantly, although he and I (or I and I) may disagree on fundamental issues, I see that he has skills that could be useful – for instance, he is a hard worker.  It seems that I am being asked -  instead of evicting (or releasing) him as I did in Massage #6 - to reclaim and transform him so that the energy that has been fueling him becomes available for harmonious, productive purposes. 

When not delivering intuitive messages, Aiden worked a new muscle, the psoas. The psoas is an abdominal muscle that attaches at the spine and then also at the femur (thigh) bone near the hip joint.  On its way to the femur from the spine, the psoas winds through the pelvic girdle.  This means that while the psoas is massaged from the abdominal area near the hip bone, this same work impacts muscle tissue deep within the abdomen.  In fact, I did a little on-line research into the psoas.  The psoas, along with another muscle, the illacus, is responsible for bringing the leg toward torso or torso toward the leg.  This muscle is therefore often tight in Americans because we tend sit for long periods.  A tight psoas often means guarding and held emotion in the abdomen. This mean that psoas work is often intense and the work Aiden did on my psoas was no exception. 
 

If I have discovered only one thing on this journey it is that where there is muscle tension, discovery awaits.  I look forward to unraveling the emotional content hiding deep within the muscle fiber of my psoas!

The Nature of Wax - 20 Massage in 2 Months (Massage #15 continued)

In the prior post, before talking about Massage #15 with Aiden, I was described a startling neurological event (or SNE, for short).  This SNE mimicked a small seizure and occurred during shamanic dreaming.  I received some insight into the SNE during the Massage #15. 

For myself I have made the decision that barring a clear and present danger, though trepidation there may be, I will stay on my spiritual path.  In situations like a SNE, this commitment means exercising emotional self-restraint.  It means being aware of risks while abstaining from feeding fear.

Fortunately, I have options and the lack of medical research into the connection between neurology, physiology and the SNE is therefore surmountable.  I will work to self-heal.  I will have opportunities to do this because the SNE has recurred since the workshop.  It has recurred outside of dreaming.  

As Providence would have it, the first of Aiden’s intuitive messages was helpful in developing a self-healing technique to deal with the now recurring SNE.  While intuitive healing messages may come in the form of easily read words flashed in the mind they just as often come in symbolic images or pictures that must be deciphered.  The process of deciphering these symbols can be great fun.  It also gives clues about the healing technique to be used and how the technique will work.  Any healing energy suggested for use in messages can be applied to the symbol of energy or illness – like brain wax - though in actuality it is applied to the health or life issues itself.

During Massage #15 Aiden described the nature of wax and how it responds to temperature. He noted that when cold, wax is rigid.  When warm it becomes fluid and therefore can be moved or removed. 

This was a clue.  In my world view, fire is the element of spirit.  The SNE occurred during a spiritual exercise I feared – at least subconsciously - was not safe if only in terms of the social challenges it could bring.

Putting all these messages and information together, since Massage #15 I have used a shamanistic technique of applying a small and gentle flame to the SNE when it has occurred.  As I feel the wax melt I breathe in deeply and affirm that the spiritual process is safe and that no harm will come to me from engaging these gifts. On the exhale I flush the melted wax from my brain.  Each time the SNE symptoms release fully and quickly.  As with the numbness in my right arm and massage, I hypothesize that the SNE will dissipate over time with the use of this technique.

(for more, see next post)