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ritual theory

spiritual journey

I never told you what happened when the man I loved touched my back for twenty minutes, in the bed where two nights before, he had used me for my body, hurting me in a deeply harmful way.  What happened was a spiritual journey I’d not planned or bought a ticket for.  It was quite a surprise I’d like to tell you about.

hurt

I was so hurt, the man I loved would come here and destroy our friendship.  Having sexual contact with me with zero intention to do something real with me was a shock.  It’s one thing to trifle with acquaintances who might be also playing in a lighthearted way.   But I was no acquaintance, and I was never playing.  I’d spent more than a year with his well-being central to me.

When he invited me to his bed, I had no idea it was for a one time experience of jollies.  I never would have said yes to his invite, if I knew he was just messing around.  That’s not the kind of person I am–I don’t mess around.

The next day he treated me like nothing happened.  Holy crap.  It was confusing and disturbing.  Then he told me had a girlfriend back home–not the long term domestic violence cycle abusive partner, but a new girlfriend who things were “going well with.”

Wow!  I was knocked on my ass.  Rather than fight about it or rage, I turned inward, fled, and suffered hard.

harm

Who travels 3000 miles to use a good friend like a random stranger in a bar?  Not only is was it stupid, selfish, and harmful to me, it was also harmful to him.  I’d listened to him, helped him plan his weeks, talked to him on a daily basis for months, given him all I could to support him.  I paid for part of his plane ticket to get here, and prepared the guest room for him with snacks, art, and love.

No matter.  The world is full of offerings for him to take.  Reciprocity and showing up for others in a balanced way is no concern of his.  I couldn’t comprehend the selfishness of his actions, which destabilized me to the point of danger.

It wasn’t that he I didn’t tell him how I felt.  I explained, and he was silent or flippant.  I was just a needy woman, demanding shit of him like all the others.  You can’t make someone care who doesn’t care.

trying

But I was trying to be ok, right?  It can be hard to tell right away, how big a deal something is.  When he said our sexual contact was a one time thing and he was not going to have a relationship with me, I was destroyed.  I couldn’t believe he was just playing with me.  But he was still staying in our guest room, eating meals with us, having his dramas, and it was up to me and my spouse to pick up the pieces and continue.

I tried to be ok and still connect with this friend.  My heart was broken, but he had broken it plenty of times before.  Then I started having trouble sleeping, which is dangerous for me, as I’m prone to mania.  I talked to close friends about what happened and tried to get a grasp of what my friend was actually doing.

One morning, I asked my friend if I could come to his room and he would touch my back for twenty minutes.  I had a list of comforting sentences I wanted him to read to me.

I thought this was a good idea, a way of trying to ground myself and have a good experience with the friend and salvage the friendship.  Maybe we could recover from this.  After all, we were supposed to be trying out family.  Maybe we could get through this and learn from it.

spiritual journey

I lay on my tummy, and my friend touched my back in a circle.  I was crying almost right away, which was good.  Some feelings were stuck in me, and they needed to move out.  He read the sentences to me as requested and set a timer on his phone.  Almost immediately, I went on an unexpected, unplanned spiritual journey.

I journeyed back through time and met my parents when they were young children.  I met both.  They were about two years old.  It felt important and strange, but not strange.  I saw them play, and I held them.

My parents were amazing, vibrant little children.  I held them in my arms and against my body.  And I felt how their needs were being neglected by caregivers who were abusive, under-supported, clueless, selfish, or lost.  I tried to give love to them, and it felt right to witness their pain.

Similarly, I held my brother when he was two years old.  Who is this person, really?  The child self was open, curious, harmed, and hurting.  I did the same with my grandparents.  It just happened–I felt zooped along back through time.  The experience was unwinding like a thread.

I saw my family of four when I was a kid, like I was being tour guided by the ghost of Christmas past.  Here they are, with their individual inner struggles, and a collective family struggle.  I got a new perspective on this deeply fucked up family of pain.

mama

Then I was with my mom, just me and her.  I was petting her hair and loving her as she was before she died.

Usually I try to leave her alone because I don’t want to bother her on the other side.  I feel she’s busy doing shakti energy, part of a cloud of powerful life force energy, keeping the universe going.  When I talk to her, I think it takes effort for her to differentiate herself again and face me.  She loves me as much as ever.  But I feel she has other things to do, than listen to me.

But I was loving her, on this spiritual journey.  Was it real?  Was it just a vision or like a dream?  I’m not sure, but she gave me a clear message about the man who was touching my back as I cried.

Mama’s message was: This man is a piece of shit–get the fuck away from him.

Wow, ok.  She never liked telling me what to do, not so directly like that.  I’d never heard her sound so emphatic.  She could see this friend was taking and taking from me, taking all he could get, with no concern for replenishing me.  It wasn’t a happy, reciprocal relationship between two responsible adults.  He was a bottomless pit I was chucking my love, attention, resources, attention, time, and energy into.

That’s not a way to live.  She could see that and told me straight up.  Thank you, Mama.

seriously

I took my mom’s message seriously.  When the twenty minutes was over, I sat up.  The man I loved was delighted in himself, that he had stopped touching my back right before the alarm went off.  Yeah, congrats–you timed it right.

He expressed zero concern about my well-being, that I had just cried for twenty minutes straight.  There was no concern for me.  He was entirely self-centered.  I was in a room with him, and he had been touching me, but I might as well have been alone.

I didn’t have much to say to him, gathered my things, and left.  It took me a while to break away from him–I wish I could say I immediately asked him to leave and stopped speaking with him.  No, I needed to do a lot of work, to help myself understand the dynamic I was stuck in and free myself from it.

help

But my mom’s emphatic advice really helped me.  As I wandered around confused by the situation I was in, her direct message was a fact I could come back to again and again.  It helped me realize that I was in a bad situation.

I had a peer counselor who mentioned ancestral healing.  I was like–hmm, is going on a spiritual journey to hold your relatives as two year olds ancestral healing?  Seems far fetched, that I changed anything with this hallucination / vision / experience.

It felt totally real.  There are ways I am crazy, but this didn’t feel crazy at all.  This is a good example of using an extreme state for the power of good.  I was emotionally and spiritually vulnerable, my senses were doing an unusual thing, and I did the exact thing I needed to do.  I couldn’t have planned it better.  I’m so grateful I can trust myself to take care of myself.

show up for love

Have you gone on a spiritual journey like this?  Would you like to?

It feels in keeping with the life I live.  I want to show up for love and do connection.  Back through time is fine.

By Nest

Curious, disabled Earth Goddess, telling the truth.

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