Book 3 – Chapter 13 – My First Level of Healing – Excerpt 3-14

First Stage

1999 Feb. 7 – Sunday, I spent the afternoon at Jens watching a movie. Afterwards, we were standing by the kitchen sink discussing the movie as she began preparing some vegetables for supper. While she was talking, she turned to me and made some innocent hand gestures with the small paring knife that she was using to prepare her vegetables. Seeing the knife waving in the air activated me into a panic attack as it brought up my fear of knives. All my life I've gone into terror whenever someone waved or carelessly used a knife near me. I always tried to get out of the situation but if I couldn't, I'd order them to put the knife down slowly and to not play games. I’d also state, in no uncertain terms, that I didn't take any kind of fooling around or joking lightly and neither should they think that I was joking, as any move against me would mean that I would do anything to protect myself as I felt my very survival was at risk.

However, this time I also had a different awareness of my terror as I knew that what I was feeling wasn't real, as I knew that Jen wouldn't and wasn't going to harm me. I was confused by these new thoughts and feelings but instead of running or fighting like I normally would have, I told her that I knew she wouldn't hurt me, and that I wanted to heal this issue. She looked at me with a loving knowingness which was all I needed as I immediately became engulfed with my real feelings and emotions. I dropped to my knees on the kitchen floor and allowed myself to remember, feel and express all the denied emotions I had never expressed before.

I felt the horror and terror of seeing my mother waving a kitchen butcher knife in the air as she threateningly approached me and my brothers and sisters. She was emotionally wrought and beside herself, threatening to kill all of us and herself, if we "kids" didn't start listening to her and helping her. Of course, since I was the oldest, that put all the pressure on me to ensure that she was satisfied and happy because if she wasn't happy, then she just might kill us all in the middle of the night when we were sleeping as she threatened to do. I not only had to please her personally, but I also had to ensure that my brothers and sisters did too. That meant that I had to control what they did as I was the one that was being held responsible, not only for what they did or didn't do, but also for their personal safety. I don’t remember what triggered her, but in those days it didn’t take much as raising five children and not having much money, and with my dad being sick at times and not working, put a lot of pressure on her.

---- parts omitted ----

There were other instances, too many to go into, that I relived that day. I was going through a series of emotional and physical body releases right there on the kitchen floor. The more I kept expressing what I was feeling, the more experiences I was remembering. There seemed no end to this hell. I was not only crying and sobbing, but was also physically trembling and in pain. I was hot, cold, couldn't breathe, trying to vomit, trembling in anger, to name a few of the emotions and physical sensations I was having. During all this, Jen had put her supper aside and simply allowed me to express myself, speaking only when she felt she needed to. I remember a couple of times when I was curled up in a fetal position on the kitchen floor, when she came over to me and simply placed her hand on my shoulder. That loving gesture gave me the reassurance that I wasn’t alone and also helped me get to other issues.

After what seemed like an eternity, but slightly less than an hour, I finally released everything I felt I needed to. I felt exhausted as I rested on my left side in the middle of the kitchen floor, going over all that had just happened. After a few minutes, I felt I needed to get up and go home. I slowly sat up, and after a few more minutes, I stood up, regaining my balance and mental awareness. When I felt ready, I slowly made my way downstairs and out to my van. I left Jen's and managed to drive home without incident. When I got home, I collapsed on the couch and slept for several hours.

Second Stage

1999 Feb. 19 – Friday. Today I had a client come into the store for a personal one-on-one session to work on healing her issues of anger and rage. Actually, she had been in the store a few days earlier, and as I was talking with her, I was intuitively and empathically picking up that she had been sexually abused and raped, and also that she still had a lot of denied anger and rage. She looked shocked and bewildered that I knew her secret and said that yes, she had been raped, but that I was wrong in that she had healed her anger and rage, and also her hatred for men.

As we were alone in the store, we continued our conversation for about half an hour. During our chat, she told me of the psychiatrist she had been seeing for ten years, and how she had finally convinced him to allow her to release her anger and rage by allowing her to bring a bed sheet, a pillow, a bottle of ketchup and a knife into his office. She said that when she felt her anger and rage come up, that she stopped, put the sheet and pillow on the floor, opened the bottle of ketchup, got the knife out, and when she was organized, she took the knife and began to stab the pillow while squirting it with ketchup. She said that she continued to stab the pillow until she felt happy and satisfied that her anger and rage was released. I asked her where her psychiatrist was all this time. She said he was hiding behind his desk, terrified that she would come after him, but that she had told him that he was okay as long as she could stab the pillow. I told her that she had not released her anger and rage, that she had only acted it out, and that the moment she stopped expressing her emotions to get things organized was when she went into denial and that it was all an act, a re-creation and a projection of what she thought healing would be. She disagreed with me but said she'd think about what I said. When another customer came into the store we dropped the conversation, and after a few minutes she left. The next day she phoned and made arrangements to come in for a session, which was today.

––-- To be continued ––--