THESE ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE STORY . . .

Into Consciousness
1993 was when healing really became intentional and it was in the early 80s when I started therapy. So it was about ten years between the beginning point and between the opening, the real opening.
I was in a lot of pain after a break-up, and I did a couple of healing seminars to help me get over the pain of the separation. I experienced a big opening in a seminar. And that was my first big awareness. At that time a friend of mine was into The Course in Miracles. He used to hold these little lunchtime meetings at work and it was making me nuts because he would say things like "there are no accidents" and my left brain took off with that one. I would make up all kinds of scenarios to challenge that.
Right after that I noticed that something odd happened in the two trainings. In the first one I had one of the most unusual connections with the people I would never have liked or would have chosen to talk to at a party. I would have avoided them. And instead, my heart opened up to them. It was very powerful. And, it kind of confused me. And, then, it may seem small however, this small incident had a effect on my perception of things: at the end, when we all came together as a group and gathered in a circle, it was quick, informal, and spontaneous. When I looked around, what I saw to my left was the one person and to my right was the other person and exactly next to them was the other person ....I realized that these were the same people to whom my heart connected. I was blown away and I took a couple steps back to see who else was there and what I saw was this perfect arrangement with everybody with whom I had a connection arranged by perfect distance. And I took that in.
So, later on when I did the second seminar . . . I had a curious mind, so I said to myself, let me take a part of my brain and watch and see. See if there’s anything in what I get about that unusual awareness I had about those people showing up at that gathering at the end. And so it was for five days and about midway into it I started to notice things. I had developed some kind of an extra sense of things. What happened was that I was actually sensing and feelings things out of ordinary awareness, connections between myself and others and between other people. I saw the energy actually run between them. Chords. And I knew that this one person was thinking of that other person and would get up and walk across the room to sit with him for example. And I remember that. It didn’t last very long, but what happened to me was that I was very much tuned-in for a while. After that, I continued to have some of that awareness...in the most commonplace parts of life, like getting on and off an elevator or interactions with people.
So, that was my opening and it was in 1993 and this is the year 2000. I’ve built upon it, I’ve kept it open and I worked it. That was my beginning.

Healing old choices
There were wrong turns in my relationship stuff -- I was choosing the emotionally unavailable types and I did that over and over again. But I think that’s what we do, you know until.... You know I feel finished with that now. That was a repetitive problem and I really got how it connected to my mother too. I saw that. I saw that the ambivalence that I was attracting to me was the same ambivalence that my mother sent me. Not consciously, of course. I was trying to get it (an ambivalent dynamic) to work. And it doesn’t work. When my mother was sick the second time all the old craziness came back. I was a mess for a couple of weeks. At that same time I was attracted to someone who was ambivalent towards me. That went on for about a year and it was painful and I felt like there was no way out...my love life seemed like one unending date with the same dysfunctional relationship, same person, different body.
I went through a phase where everywhere I went I attracted an ambivalent attraction. You know, I’d end one dysfunctional connection and the next day happen upon another one and I didn’t even have a day off. And I thought, what the hell’s going on here? And it kind of pushed me, it pushed me to my limits. And one day I had a flash of insight when my mother was giving me a mixed up communication on the telephone, "Don’t come near me I’m mad at you." And then in the next breath she said, "Where have you been. How come you don’t come to see me?" And I flashed and saw that, of course, this is the same ambivalent persona I have been dating.

Clear self-authority
I’m very clear now about trusting my inner voice. I really got it. I was aware on some level that that organization was nutty while I was participating, and I took the good and threw away the rest. There was some good there. And then once I got really clear about it, I got healthier. Then I had no tolerance for it and I was out of there. And the other two folks I mentioned, I was really furious with them and I am not now. I see their limitations and their confused good intention.
I can see them more, my perspective is bigger, I see their woundedness and confusion and that is what helped me let it go. With the help of time and distance and a clear intention to heal it and let it go, I got past it. And out of it I got a stronger sense of myself. The word self-authority would sum up what I got out of that.

All in my body
What I started to learn after awhile was that I found that a lot of it was in my body. That’s why I got into the bodywork. The spiritual, the psychological and the emotional are in the physical body. That’s what I learned. I found it all in my body--I couldn’t separate it out. And that’s what got me so intrigued.
A couple of times I can remember when I noticed a kind of knot in my abdominal area, just like tension. I’d occasionally think, "What is that?" "Oh, I wonder what that funny feeling is?" It wasn’t painful, just slightly uncomfortable, just a little knot in my abdomen. And during a session with a bodyworker I tapped into what was inside that knot and that’s when I cried the hardest I ever remember crying. I went into some other state of consciousness. I was awake and dreaming at the same time and I got some interesting metaphorical images which began to give me information which later would make sense and unravel a puzzle for me. I released so much out of my body that the knot was gone, my anger was gone, even low grade resentment was gone. What happened was when I cried, that knot that was in my stomach completely left. And I had a very clear awareness that that emotion was in that knot and that I had released all kinds of stuff that I did not quite understand out of my body.
I had another couple of occasions happen where old hurts were showing up in present time. It matched energy with the initial hurt, not the story, bearing only an energetic like resemblance to the initial incident. My left brain would have never connected the dots. A number of times present time experiences took me to old memories and feelings that were stored in my body and when I made the connection to it, I felt it and released it. So, I’ve had numbers of those experiences. My understanding of my bodywork practice is a result.... not just an idea or a theory.

Center of my energy
I’m starting to learn about the center of my energy and keeping it to myself. I’m drawing my boundaries and really putting them up. . . I mean I can sit here and talk to you but I’m also out in the world and I have really started to have a sense of my boundaries on an energetic level.
And before, the energy was leaking a lot. Now, I feel like, it’s kind of new for me actually, but I find that I really enjoy being alone. I’m a little bit more of a loner than I ever imagined myself to be and I enjoy that. I’ve gotten quieter. And I’m learning how to manage my energy better, and how in the subtlest way I can become depleted. I am challenged by the idea of being out in the world and keeping my center. And not having folks find me rude.

The need for healing
What needs healing is that people are afraid to just own their feelings and say them and just be real, and that’s it. That’s all there is, you know. Especially tenderness. Everybody’s hungry for it and closeness. You know, tenderness and closeness and vulnerability is really it. And that’s what everybody’s missing. And, I think there is an opening in the world for this. I think things are changing and little by little people are getting what is missing. That’s why Reiki became so popular so quickly. It’s approaching a household word now. People are waking up to what they need.
Connection and tenderness, period. Community. Real community. Not just a social club. But a sense of one another and knowing that each of us is a piece in a link.