Читать книгу The Inner Art of You and I - Tatz Holmes - Страница 3

My eyes closed, as I lay on the floor. My breath flowing in a long, even rhythm as I allow my awareness to centre into my Heart. With each breath sinking deeper and deeper into the space within. I follow the invitation into imagination and begin the journey into another realm.

Deeper into the meditation and I am standing on a heart-shaped lily pad floating upon an emerald sea towards a beautiful white domed temple. It is night, a waxing crescent Moon adorns the sky surrounded magnificent diamond stars. Around the base of the temple are stairs leading out of the water and up into an ethereal light emanating from no particular source. Eight ornately carved columns are inter-spaced around the circumference of the temple with balustrades between every second pair. As I walk up the stairs and take in my surreal surroundings, I notice tiny formless “faeries” flying around me, light energy in the most beautiful white-gold colour. It is all so dreamy and beautiful.

I am guided to a chaise lounge. I walk over, lay down and make myself cosy in amongst soft delicate blankets and cushions. There is a table beside me with a golden rotary phone, I pick up the handset and dial a number, 17 17 17. A slight pause after I say hello and then suddenly the coiled cord of the phone and the handset change form and disappear from my hands as a beautiful golden feathered dragon appears and begins to join with me as a double helix spiral integrated into my energy centres.

The scene changes and a voice speaks words that I cannot remember. I am aware that there are several Angels in the temple with me. I ask to go into the emerald sea, I somehow know that these are the healing waters of life and I walk naked down the stairs into the water. I first begin to wash by body with my own hands, then by the hands of Angels and finally simply by the water itself as I lie held and supported becoming one with the water as it cleans each of my energy centres. There is something ceremonial about the energy at the temple and I somehow know that something profound is coming and I wish to be purified in these sacred mystical waters.

A voice says to me, “Become aware of your energy.”

I am guided to release my attachment to my physical body, to release my human form and simply become my energetic self. I become a rainbow light, but I feel a sense of confusion. I am still attached to having some type of form or shape.

“What should I be?” I ask.

“Anything you choose.”

“Really?” I feel so excited. “Can I be a circle?”

“If you would like to.” I form into a bubble as I float into the centre of the temple.

“What else can I do?” I ask feeling a childlike sense of wonder.

“Whatever you want, try it.”

I become formless and morph and shape as I dance; swirl and twirl around the temple. I am overwhelmed with joy that and feel tears welling up in my eyes as my physical body lies in my room immersed in this fantastical experience.

“It is time Dear One, are you ready?” The voice asks.

“Oh my god, it is really happening isn’t it?”

Somehow, I know exactly what is to come. The Angels and Faerie beings in the temple surround me in a circle as the roof of the dome begins to open. An Angel Stargate and it is opening for me!

I witness as the Stargate opens into the Universe and there are more Angels and light beings on the other side waiting. I am held by the Angels and Faeries with me as we begin to rise and go through this magical portal. The most intense feeling overcomes me and I sob out loud. As we are through the Stargate and I am completely surrounded by these magnificent beings, and in a moment they join their energy with mine and begin pouring Divine Love into me. I feel myself expand and become one with those that are around me. I expand again to become the Divine essence of Love, and once more to connect with the source of creation and become all things and no thing at the same time. I am coming home.

My eyes suddenly open, and I looked up at the ceiling of my room as I listen to the rest of the meditation. After a while, I get up and go sit at my work desk, I felt restless. I am heavy and light and dizzy. My ears began to ring, my breathing deepens, and I burst into tears. I go back to my room, lay back down and close my eyes. I am instantly back through the Stargate.

“We are not finished, are we?” I asked.

“No.”

The ringing in my ears becomes louder, it is not uncomfortable but a pleasant frequency. My forehead begins to pulsate, my breath is heavy, and tears stream down my cheeks. Slowly my breath evens out as I feel myself being attuned to a heightened frequency of consciousness.

Eventually the ringing in my ears subsides, along with the pulsating in my forehead and I lay there for a time feeling bewilderment and gratitude.

My meditation is complete.

Looking back on this meditation and this point in my timeline, I wish to take a moment to honour the journey of life, the path of expansion and the curiosity that is illusion. Do I know what is real and what is not? Not really, I have some thoughts, some ideas and contemplation's, yet in truth, they are just that … thoughts, ideas and contemplation's. They are malleable in their form as they shift and shape to the Dreaming that is life and the process that unfolds as we grow and age. It is truly a wonder how we can be so unaware of this simple occurrence of shifting beliefs and often hold onto what we believe to be true. Some of us do so with an intense ferocity and even create wars because of our steadfastness to the beliefs that we hold.

Perhaps some of my own stories may seem unbelievable to others. In fact, there have been plenty of times that I too have not believed in my own experiences. This meditation experience that I have just described for you, was just one of those. I had never in my life experienced such power; such realness; such profound Love, yet it seemed to happen only in my imagination, but did it?

Is the imaginary realm so very unreal in the face of this illusory existence that we live in within the Human experience? Synchronicity or coincidence? Intuitive knowing or a wild guess? Who knows for sure? What I do know is that I have witnessed and experienced far too many things in the unseen realms of existence to believe that this meditation was anything but absolutely real for me, that these Beings of light were truly there and that this world that I visited exists somewhere in the vastness of our multi-dimensional reality.

My ongoing experiences of the realm of Spirit offer me all the proof that I require in knowing that I am far greater than the limitations that I place upon myself; that I am capable of creating things in my life that far surpass my wildest dreams; that I hold in me the infinite knowledge and power of the Universe and all that I need lives right within me. This meditation was an invitation to explore deeper, to know myself as an energetic being connected to Spirit. I came out of that meditation a different person, my energy had shifted and I could never again be the person I had been the hour before I lay down to journey within and I most certainly did not want it any other way.

Over the years my journey of self-discovery has led me to remarkable teachers and mentors, both through books; videos; documentaries; courses and in person. As I began to open up to a new paradigm within, so I began to attract new and exciting experiences into my outer reality. I began to become fascinated with the emerging science and research being offered that aligned with spiritual teachings and the understanding of the Spirit self within Humans. Finally, I had a way to infiltrate the mainstream through scientific teachings and offer a new perspective to those that are spiritual sceptics through my various training and therapeutic education. So, on one hand, I am learning about conventional therapeutic supports and scientifically researched practises, while on the other I am diving deeper and deeper into the spiritual realms. I have been called a bridge, a gatekeeper between the old paradigm and the new, a walker between worlds helping to guide the way to the new future. Some call me a Dreamer, telling me that there is no future for our species on this planet, and I continue to hold the Dreaming gently within my Awareness. It is up to us, the Dreamers, to dream us into the new way which has been hiding in plain sight all along.

Spiritual teachers have long since been telling us that we are energy, that our breath is a sacred tool and our Heart the seat of Love. Science confirms that all matter is energy, that we can use our breath to consciously create change in our bodies, that our Heart is more powerful than our brain, and, when we combine our breath and our Heart consciously, we can create radical change in our neural pathways which consequently effect the autonomous nervous system creating balance and resilience mentally; emotionally; physically and spiritually.

This then opens us up into the deeper exploration of our physical bodies, our thoughts and feelings, our beliefs about ourselves and how we can truly become alchemists in our lives.

I am no scientist and may allude here and there to some scientific terms which I invite you to explore further beyond these pages as there are teachers out there in the world that can offer you this knowledge in a far more comprehensive and informative way than I, however, when we marry science and spirituality together there are some ideas that simply make sense.

Spirituality tells us that we are all connected, One. That separation is an illusion and that we are all manifestations of the source of all creation. Science tells us that everything is merely energy vibrating within a unified quantum field that is inter-connected.

Spirituality tells us that we are creators, alchemists, manifesting our reality. Science tells us that we are emitting our vibration out into the quantum field and attracting to us that which we are putting out. This invites the contemplation of how we can truly differentiate where one thing ends and another begins. When we open our awareness to energy, we begin to witness life and our experiences from a different perspective. We recognise that every aspect of ourselves is an energetic experience whether mental, emotional, physical or spiritual and as such we are able to harness this energy within ourselves and shape it into whatever we choose. This is where the alchemy occurs.

Think of it this way, we all have an electromagnetic field that is interacting with the field of life around us. We walk through the forest and we feel a sense of peace and wonder as we interact with the beauty of nature. We can walk into a room and turn to our friend saying, “there’s a strange vibe in here.” People and places give off a feeling and we feel this through our field, process the information through our body and from there we make our choices on whether we like the people or the place, yet what we don’t always realise is that our own vibration is also in effect and simultaneously shaping the situation. All energies are interacting and co-creating the experience of space and time.

When we further understand our emotions as energy in motion, we begin to realise that this energy is being transmitted out into the field and we are attracting the same or similar vibrations to us. This coupled with our thoughts that drive the emotion is, in effect, creating our reality as we behave in alignment with our thinking and feeling, which in turn offers us more of the same. We feel the same thoughts and emotions and we begin an interesting cycle of behaviours and attitudes. Have you ever noticed people around you that complain all the time? If so, then you will have seen how life seems to throw them constant bad luck and that bad things just seem to always happen to them. Is it possible that their attitude is what attracts the so-called “bad luck”? What about people around you that are bubbly and happy, grateful in life and have an all-round positive attitude? Life seems to shower them in “good luck” and somehow, I just don’t think this is a coincidence. Test it out. Consciously go out into your life and spend a day with a bad attitude and another with a good attitude, regardless of what events unfold and simply see what happens.

Now, what if I told you that this is something that you can cultivate for yourself? What if I told you that your energy is yours to harness and create with? Would you believe me?

The thing is, it is all about perspective. It is all about how you choose to view the world and your ability to recognise that you are choosing even when you are not doing so consciously. If you are walking through life unhappy, disillusioned, unhealthy and bitter, what type of experience are you creating for yourself. These are often people that are judgemental, blaming and victims of experience. Constant negative thoughts and emotions are bound to influence your body and create all manner of illness and dis-ease. In fact, we know that this way of life creates stress and when we are in constant stress our energy is directed to our extremities to prepare us for fight or flight and is unsustainable over the long-term. Living life from the internal programming that is unconsciously running within us is what creates cancer in the Soul which has no choice but to manifest in the body.

When we are consciously cultivating our energy towards higher vibration through choosing to shift our perspectives from fear to Love, we are creating a life that is easeful and in flow. This does not mean that we do not encounter obstacles or challenges along the way, but it does mean that the way in which we perceive and handle those obstacles and challenges is from a space of far more resilience and inner comfort. It is quite simply all about self-awareness and, once again, this is our choice.

The first type of person I mentioned, lives in a space of negativity and are in an incoherent state. This means that they are out of alignment not only mentally and emotionally, but they are also creating physical havoc within their bodies. The body becomes so used to, and even addicted to, the stress hormones that these people begin to create stressful situations in order to get their chemical fix. They are neurologically wired in such a way that they are constantly creating situations where life affirms to them that everything is a struggle, that people are ‘shit’ and they literally live in a perpetual pool of problems. At some point, we have all been this person, myself included. The amount of drama I have created in my life, well … that is a story for a whole other book, “The Mischief and Misadventures of Tatz,’ perhaps.

There are a couple pivotal moments of conscious change in my life, where I stopped in my tracks, changed my mind and thought to myself that this way no longer works for me and I no longer choose these patterns. The more I did this, the more it happened, and I learned how to become the observer of myself and start consciously creating change in my life.

I began to become aware of my body, my thoughts, my feelings and the relationship between them. I started questioning my beliefs and the energy that I had vested in them. I opened myself up to change, whatever that meant, and allowed the old me to be stripped back and the true me that was underneath all along, to be revealed.

So, if everything is energy, including our thoughts, feelings and beliefs, then the question begs, what is it that you are creating in your life and how much energy are you putting into the things that do not serve you? See, the problem person I mentioned earlier is stuck on the hamster wheel, cycling through the same emotions, recreating the same stories and reinforcing old neural pathways that create the same chemical release in the body and can create a physical addiction to the hormones of stress, which means that every so often we are going to require that fix and so we need some discomfort, some intensity to boil up. and create a bit of drama for us so that we can get it.

As I mentioned earlier, those of us that live in stress states are communicating with the body to be ready for fight, flight, freeze or faint. We are on hyper-alert and driving the energy away from our internal organs. We are producing excessive stress hormones in the body and we are unable to sustain this for long periods of time without it creating a lasting effect. As we learn how to regulate and bring ourselves into a coherent state, we can now consciously take charge of our energy; build our resilience and enhance our ability to cope in stressful situations.

Just as we train the muscles of our body to perform in various ways through repetition, so too can we train our brain through repetition and what this means is that we have to first know ourselves, become aware of our limiting beliefs and stories, acknowledge our trigger points, take responsibility for ourselves and begin the practise of transforming ourselves into a new consciousness. This may sound daunting and, truth be told, sometimes it definitely is not pretty as we have to let down the walls that we have built and step into being vulnerable. This is a journey of sitting in the fire and allowing ourselves to move through all that has held us back. It takes determination and effort, plus a dose of courage at times. You must be alert as you begin the process of counteractive thought. You must be willing to allow yourself to go into the shadow spaces, sit in them and open your Heart to them. You must be willing to meet the darkness within you with love and know that this too has a rightful place in the sanctuary of your Soul.

Many of us have experienced major trauma in our lives and may not wish to go into the painful memories and spaces of what that trauma was for us, and understandably so. Yet, with the help and guidance of a skilled Mentor it is possible to work through the trauma and enter into to it with a different consciousness and come out the other side with a new perspective and a stronger resolve. We can turn our trauma into great teachers that open us up into truth and love. We can meet the Divine within ourselves through our healing journey and expand our inner knowing that we are far greater than this Human experience; far greater than our suffering; far greater than our experiences; far greater than our thoughts and beliefs. We can access the unlimited potential of ourselves and recognise the true power that we hold within. So, while diving into the darkness can be scary, especially when we have pushed all that icky stuff down into the deepest depths hoping to never look at it again, it is deeply powerful when we move through it shining the light of truth and love, bringing balance and equality. It is deeply empowering to journey into the inner shadow realms and explore all that we have disavowed of ourselves, integrate the wisdom that resides therein and finally let the ghosts free.

Imagine this if you will, throughout your life you have moved through experiences, some of them hold beautiful memories and others have created uncomfortable ones. If you were not taught how to effectively cope in your life or were not supported properly in moving through the struggles or the traumas you may have experienced, you began building a protective wall. With each experience the wall grows higher and wider and it holds all of the pent up emotions associated with these events, it holds all the stories and beliefs that you have gathered over the years of your life that contain charged emotion; it holds all the negative things you have ever been told or told yourself; it holds your generational and ancestral stories, beliefs and traumas; it holds all the suffering that you have not looked at or allowed yourself to feel and release, and on the other side of the wall is you. You must continuously work to keep the wall up. Every so often a brick comes loose, and some intense emotion comes pouring out and you find something as fast as you can to plug it up and close it once again. Yet these bricks are all scabby wounds and you cannot help yourself but pick at them by creating people and experiences that rip the scab off and bleed out some of this pent-up emotion. It is hard holding this wall in place and keeping all that gunk dammed up.

When we begin the process of sitting in the fire, we must let go of the wall and it is up to us how quickly or slowly we do this. Inevitably though, when we start this process, at some point there will be a great surge of release and things may seem chaotic for a time as the river of our Soul is flooded with all that we have held back, but with this flooding comes a deep cleansing. All that has been stagnant within for so long is washed to the ocean and enters the sea of possibility. This is a deep inner cleanse and soon the waters of your river begin to run fresh and clear once more, however, this is something that only you can choose.

See, when we block the flow of energy in our lives through holding ourselves, others or our experiences in anything other than Love we are creating a dam that becomes stagnant and without flow, we are creating blockages within our own selves and we see this reflected into our outer reality. The more we become self-aware the closer we come to self-mastery.

What does this all have to do with energy and the energetic realms? Well, when we step into self-awareness without labelling and judging our experiences we step into the energy and the feeling aspect of ourselves. We notice the energy that moves through us in emotional states, whether heightened in joy and love or fear and suffering. We allow ourselves to truly feel into the inner experience, witnessing where and how it arises in the body, and we start to access a different level of consciousness and intelligence.

In my work I invite people to describe to me the physical manifestations of nervousness in their bodies. In fact, I invite you to take a moment now and feel into where and how being nervous arises in your body. For example, I notice in myself that my body temperature rises and I get sweaty; my heart rate increases and I become fidgety or restless.

Now, take a moment and feel into what happens in your body when you get excited. I notice in myself that my body temperature rises and I get sweaty; my heart rate increases and I become fidgety and restless. Exactly the same physical experience, which means that the energy of these experiences would be remarkably similar. I am yet to meet a person who does not say that it is the same for them too, that their experiences in the body match when nervous or excited.

Knowledge is power and understanding this similarity opens us up to the possibility of shifting from nervous to excited and transmuting the energy of the moment into something that is rich and valuable for our experiences. The more we know the charge of energy in motion (emotion) in our bodies, the easier it is to channel it productively. This is one way to turn metal into gold and become the alchemists that we are.

So many of us have been living separate from our bodies for one reason or another. Our consciousness has been governed by societal norms on what constitutes beauty and so our relationships with our bodies have become distorted. Those of us who have experienced abuse of our bodies and carry the trauma of violence and violation often become self-abusers. I know from my own personal experience that my body was my ultimate betrayer as a young child. Sexual abuse taught me that I was bad, shameful and disgusting which embedded a deep sense of guilt within me. I who was violated, became the continuance of that violation as I ravaged my body in the abuse of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. My distorted understanding of love leading me to promiscuity and simply handing myself over, even when everything inside of me screamed against it, as I believed I would be loved if I did so, how wrong I was as I was left repeatedly to sink deeper into shame.

Reconnecting with my physical self has been a process. Learning to love my body again and finding the ability to forgive it and allow it to be nurtured has been huge. As I write these words, I am on day 26 of being smoke free once again, and abstaining from alcohol. So many times, I have made these attempts to quit cigarettes and somehow returned to the habit. Yet this time, there is a difference. This time I have been so deeply conscious of the process, watching the inner stories arise in me and allowing the deeper truth to emerge. I have noticed the guilt and shame that I have carried around smoking and realised it is connected to the guilt and shame of that young version of me, she who was violated and then rebelled against all that she was told and found a way to medicate and soothe the pain.

“Don’t smoke,” my Mother would tell me. I would go out and smoke more.

“Don’t drink,” she would say. I would go out and drink even more.

“Don’t take drugs,” she would demand. I would go out and take even more.

My rebellion and self-medicating against the violation and the abandonment was to become the deepening into self-punishment and an inner violation that would continue for 27 years of my life, so freshly released with an acknowledgement of all that I suffered and the opening for calling back these remnants of myself to wholeness. See, I have worked through all my trauma, I have sat deep in the fire of my pain and allowed it to be seen, to be felt and to be released. Life has been kind in that it offered me an experience of an abusive relationship to take me back into the darkness so that I could meet my suffering once again and, while I may not have realised it at the time, this was a gift. This man had gifted me an opportunity to go back into the depths of my pain and truly feel and express the energy that I had kept behind my own wall that I had built. As I remember this time, where I felt so incredibly alone and so far away from all those that I love with me being in Australia and my family and loved ones all in South Africa, I recognise that this was my salvation. This was my opportunity to sit in the fire so fully, with so much fervour, releasing my angst through movement and expression.

Every day, every night, I danced for eight months. First it was Florence and the Machine who journeyed me into the depths of my anger. My anger at every person who had ever violated me, this man that I had been in relationship with; the men who had used me for my body; the bosses that had felt me up and made me freeze in panic; the father who fondled me as a child; and my anger at myself … she who violated her own self. I screamed as I danced, I sobbed, and I allowed all the anger and all the pain that I carried behind that damn wall to release and to flood every aspect of my being as I moved my body and offered these energies the opportunity to be fully expressed. At times, I felt like I would die, that I would be consumed by the intensity and that the fire would swallow me up and reduce me to ashes. I would go to work with eyes so swollen from crying and tell people that it was allergies. Yet every day, every night I would do it again and again as I moved and danced into my salvation.

Journeying through this process of becoming smoke-free and abstaining from alcohol has been interesting this time, an offering into moving through another realm of healing, freeing myself of the addictions that have held and hidden the first pain associated emotions to little me and at the same time freeing myself of the old story of guilt and shame I have carried all my life. I witness this process and the energy that has moved, noticing the subtle nuances of emotion that arise; the unsettled energy; the discomfort.

Within the witnessing comes the knowing, the energetic spaces shifting and shaping themselves into something else, something different, something freeing. When we open our awareness to the energetic realms, we are unlocking the first door to consciousness, this is the beginning of the journey home.