Healing Opportunity Awakened by Life

Healing opportunity awakened by life

Chinese character for crisis = danger + opportunity

Sometimes I have a crisis in the middle of the night. I will wake up and be unable to get back to sleep. Typically, I’ll then start trying solutions from my insomnia repertoire: –taking Homoeopathic remedies such as Coffea or Chamomilla for insomnia or overexcitement, or –heating up some chamomile tea, or –rubbing thuja ointment on my tired, achy feet, or –putting homemade comfrey ointment on my achy joints, or –taking a short stroll through our housing development at two in the morning. Occasionally, I’ll go outside, lie down on a reclining chair, and watch the stars for a while. Usually, I try each of these things one at a time, lay back down and see if they work. Some nights, I try everything on the list and still, I can’t get back to sleep. Sometimes, a healing opportunity is awakened by life.

When the standard tools fail you…look deeper

Recently, this was the case, where nothing seemed to help me get back to sleep. I’d woken up that night, after having had a Distant CranioSacral Integration session earlier that day. My brilliant intuitive practitioner had helped me recognize that my fear of being seen and heard was coming up to be healed in that session. This was such a huge puzzle piece to drop in for me. When such a core fear reveals itself, it is an unprecedented opportunity for self-healing.

All my years of self-healing experience alerted me to take advantage of this moment and dive into it. In the context of that self-healing session, I did some initial work with this fear, setting in motion my willingness to heal it completely. I breathed in Light and then breathed out the fear of being seen and heard numerous times. Sometimes, these healing opportunities awaken what is ready to heal in your life.

Ask for Divine help

Little did I know that I would be waking up later that night to continue the process. Perhaps I could have realized it sooner, seeing that none of my insomnia solutions were working. Once I finally realized that something else was needed, I asked to be connected to the flow of Reiki from the highest realms. I asked to be connected to the highest illumined beings from the highest heavens. I quietly and intuitively asked, “What do I need to do, what do I need to learn?”

Visions of the past arrive

Immediately, I began seeing visions of myself as a young child having trouble sleeping after a scary nightmare. I saw myself going downstairs looking to be comforted, only to experience a different nightmare. I saw my mother being angry to see me out of bed. She wouldn’t let me tell her how scared I was. She didn’t want to listen to me. She immediately made me stand in a corner, facing the walls. I wasn’t allowed to move or to make a sound. I had to stand there stiffly and quietly until she said I could go to bed.

Time to heal an old wound

For a child in her nightgown, scared and shivering, time passes slowly. Eventually, my mother would send me back to bed. While reliving these memories, I am left wondering, why it took so long for me to get at this wounded part of myself. It’s taken me a long time to recognize this treatment as a form of neglect, however unintentional it may have been. As an adult, I also wonder if I was the only child of her four older children that ever saw this side of her. I’m pretty sure I had a different mom from my siblings because I don’t recall running into any of them at night when I woke up. I might’ve been the only one who kept waking up at night needing a mother.

Is it true what they say that we are all raised by different parents even in the same family?

Trauma of neglect creates beliefs

The impression I was left with as a young child was that ‘it wasn’t safe to be seen by my mother at night.’ ‘It wasn’t safe to be heard by my mother at night.’ In truth, it wasn’t safe for me to be seen or heard by my mother during the day either. Whenever she’d find me as a young child, I was usually immersed in a creative mess. Being a typically curious and creative child, I was always exploring and getting into mischief. Mom wasn’t happy when my explorations made more cleanup work for her.

The view from her perspective

It took me a long time to see my childhood from my mother’s perspective. Here was a woman who gave birth to eight children in 13 years, lost her sixth child due to a premature birth and lost the remaining three toddlers, each at three years of age due to untreatable health weaknesses.

Exhaustion breeds neglect

The obvious conclusion is that my mother was out of energy, she had nothing left to give me. She had no extra energy for extra trouble. All she had left was anger and exasperation. My father was essentially a traveling insurance salesman. He spent much of his time traveling all over the United States by car to visit his clients. That meant my mother was essentially a single parent with this heavy load of responsibility and challenges.

By the time all the kiddos were tucked away in bed, my mother must have been exhausted. The last thing she wanted to do at that point was to hang out with one of her children during her sacred alone time.

Understanding the consequences

The consequence, unfortunately, was that my mother became my role model for how to treat young children at night. As a young mother, I too, suffered from low energy at night, whether it was from breast-feeding or from raising three children. I will openly admit that I was not a good parent at night. It was almost impossible for me to have compassion for my children and their suffering then. I never understood why that was and I didn’t have time to question it. When you are raising your young family, you are in survival mode. There is not a lot of time for self-reflection and self-growth.

Co-parenting saved my children…partially

Thank God my children had a father who co-parented them, especially at night. He had compassion for them in the middle of the night when I had none. However, he also traveled periodically and would be gone for days or weeks at a time. Those were challenging times for me as a mother. Subsequently, they were probably also challenging times for our children.

Time to heal the past

So now, in the middle of the night, I am receiving the healing that I am ready to receive. As I receive this healing, I recognize that it is time for me to release the fears of being seen and heard. Time to release the fear that wakes me up at night. I imagine blessing my entire childhood with Light, to help heal all those nighttime traumatic experiences. Sometimes, a healing opportunity is awakened by life.

Accept the painful past in order to heal it

It’s important to accept, acknowledge and embrace whatever you are self-healing. Your body, mind and spirit need to be acknowledged for what they have been holding onto. Then they will be ready to transform it and let it go.

“I accept all my fears, accept all my suffering, accept my restlessness, accept my fear of being seen and heard.”

“I accept and embrace them all right now, so that I can heal.”

“I apologize to my children for not being able to be there for them in the middle of the night.” Apparently, I had blocked that part of my heart due to my mother’s neglectful treatment of me.

Breathe in healing Light, release the fears

Now, I breathe in Light and breathe out the fear of being seen and heard numerous times.

Breathe in the positive affirmation with the Light

Next, I breathe in this belief with the Light, I am safe being seen and heard. I breathe this belief out with the Light, I am safe being seen and heard. I repeat this several times, breathing the belief in and out with the Light.

It will be helpful to continue repeating this breathing Light sequence, perhaps daily or weekly in the future.

What has been lost can be found

When our needs aren’t met and our fears are not consoled, we start to shut down. We block our heart from feeling the neglect. We then have the rest of our life to heal those wounds. It’s never too late to begin self-healing and it is never too early. Self-healing happens on time when your soul is ready.

My sleepless nights were a sign of deeper wounds from childhood that I wasn’t aware of yet. First, I remembered and acknowledged them, and next I began to heal them with Reiki. My soul was ready to confront these tough memories, and begin to heal them. Are you ready to do the same?

In my next blog…

Part two: The How; Self-Heal Your Wounded Layers