Purple & Red Balloons

I was searching for something in the house I had forgotten. The more I searched the heavier the block preventing me from remembering became. I found myself standing near the front door when suddenly, everything went black, and I couldn’t see. Something happened. Still conscious of where my body was, I leaned myself back against the wall under the light switches and let my body slide down into a squatting position as the darkness took me. It only lasted a second. When I could see again, I closed my eyes and searched the darkness trying to grasp what had happened. I could half recall the feeling of a male presence near me, or was it on me? Nothing more came and I pushed myself up off the floor, wiping my hands on my pants. As I moved to go back to what I was doing I casually thought, I will try again later.

I woke alone in bed. I curiously reflected on how this dream feeling was eerily similar to the black space I went when I was pulled out of the shower by the woman in blue before I fell back to sleep.

~

Dreams are not simply random unmeaningful imaginings of a creative mind. Dreams ARE the subconscious’s way of revealing the truths and beliefs we hold, the way we safely process events, information, and emotions we have experienced throughout life, and ARE message’s, guidance, and foreshadowing of what was, what is and what will come. And if we can learn to bring their guidance into conscious awareness, we can discover things about ourselves, our lives and those in it that will enable us to better process and heal from the things we have witnessed and experienced.

Above and below are two examples of my subconscious working to help me remember, and process a traumatic and life altering experience I'd forgotten.

~

I was back in high school walking down the busy hall with Laura, we were between classes and making our way to our next one. I didn’t have the right books for Social Studies but couldn’t remember where my locker was. I asked Laura where it was as we reached the classroom door, she waved vaguely down the hall saying, “It’s there.”.

I felt so foolish for forgetting and having to ask my friend for help. At the door of the classroom, I said again “I don’t have the right books for this class and want to be prepared. Where exactly is my locker?”

“You can’t go to your locker now! Mr. Byron would not like it if you were late.” Shel replied.

“I won’t be late.” I replied. “I’ll be quick.”

Mr. Byron came to the door then looking casual and friendly as my classmates filed in. He said in a sing-song voice, “Quickly to your seat. If you don’t there will be consequences.”

“But I don’t have the right books for the class.” Laura ignored me and hurriedly stepped inside the room.

My movement away from the classroom door caught Mr. Byron’s attention and he turned his back to the other students to address me, his expression changing to one of disgust and disapproval. He looked at me like I was somehow made of less than the other students. He sneered, “I told you to get inside and take a seat.”

“I do not have the right books for this class, and I’d like to go get them.” I said again. I was confused, why did this not matter??

He looked down his nose at me, “You always have been a problem causer, get inside now!”

I was taken aback by this comment, but the surprise quickly turned to anger. He had no right to speak to me this way!! I stood up straighter and squared my shoulders, “No.” I said defiantly.

He no longer attempted to hide his disdain from the class and turned slightly so they could see me. His hands fisted into balls at his side as he yelled, “YOU WILL BE PUNISHED FOR GOING AGAINST ME!”

I could feel the strength of his anger and will seeking a way in to control me, to force me into the compliance the other students showed. I stood my ground, and I looked up at Mr. Byron as he vented his rage at me, my own stubborn force of will meeting his. From the corner of my eye, I caught movement behind him, and for a second, they shifted focus. Jackson and Ryatt were peering out to see who Mr. Byron was so irate with. Their eyes widened with surprise when they saw it was me. They whispered to the others, and I knew they were saying ‘It’s her! What is she doing?! She never causes trouble!”.

I looked back to Mr. Byron, still yelling empty threats at me. It was draining listening to him go on. Why the hell was I still standing here taking this? Did I really want to be here in the first place? I decided then to leave and to hell with the “consequences” this was no longer worth the stress it was causing me. My decision made I interrupted his shouting, “Your threats don’t scare me. If you don’t care enough for all your students to be properly prepared and equally educated, I don’t want to be part of this class.” I turned to walk away.

His face blazed red with rage, “If you don’t get in this classroom right NOW, I will have you expelled from this school!”

“Go ahead.” I called over my shoulder, “I’m already on my way out the door!”

Ryatt and Jackson along with the other students were all standing in the doorway behind him now with shocked expressions on their faces. Giving up the fight Mr. Byron turned back to the classroom, and they all scurried back to their seats. He slammed the door behind him, and the hallway fell into silence.

Under the fading anger and relief of my decision I felt defeat and shame beginning to creep in. I still couldn’t find my locker. How could I have forgotten this?? Did I even know the combination once I found it??

I looked at the lockers lining the walls of the empty hall hoping a memory would be stirred. I flash of what I thought was recognition hit me, a locker near the end of the hall stood open “Ahh here it is.” I said to myself and walked towards it. As I stood in front of the locker, I heard a little voice in my mind say, “This doesn’t feel right. Are you sure this is your locker?” I ignored the voice and proceeded to start pulling things out to stuff into a bag. I meant what I had said about being done with this place, I had no intentions of ever coming back, and the knowledge that I had a choice brought a lager wave of relief with it.

As I packed up the things inside, I heard muffled male laughter coming towards me from another hallway, I turned to look in that direction as the laughter rounded the corner. There were five guys coming down the hall. One, a short blond with shinning blue eyes I was acquainted with stood out from the others. We locked eyes and he smiled a know smile at me. My stomach twisted as he led the others towards me. For some reason I found him attractive but pretended to look uninterested. I knew who the boys were and thought, “I know these guys, they are my friends.” They stopped when they reached me.

Still smiling that smile the blond boy asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.” I told him.

He smiled at me again, disarming me, “Do you want to come hang out with us?” he asked.

My tummy turned with butterflies. His eyes were so blue! “That sounds fun.” I replied, internally cringing and instantly regretted my too quick response. I stared into his shinning blue eyes for a moment, seeking some sort of reassurance. They seemed to sparkle with some secret knowledge I thought said he liked me. I closed my locker and slung my bag over my shoulder playing with the idea of going out and having a good time with them. After what just went down with Mr. Byron it sounded like what I needed, but in the back of my mind I was being told to be cautious. “You know what he will do if you let your guard down.” It spoke. We walked towards the exit and this feeling of caution grew. I wanted to ignore it and go play but as we exited through the schools doors I said, “Actually I think I’m just going to head home.”

The blond boy looked disappointed then smiled that smile and asked, “Could we walk with you? We are headed in the same direction.”

“Sure!” I said smiling back. I wasn’t ready to give up the attention he was giving me. It felt good to be seen this way, and like nothing in the world mattered more than having him focused solely on me. But the warning of caution was still ringing through my mind. It was important I made sure the attention I gave back held no more hints than simple friendship. Ohhh but how I wanted to shamefully flirt! I remembered then I was married and very much in love with my husband. I had no wish to jeopardize what we had, even if this boy was stirring in me desires I thought I could never feel with him.

We took the long way to my house which led us through the small downtown core of my home town. I was having a good time. The boys were being boys and we were all laughing at their antics. The blond boy never once stopped trying to bend my choices to his will. He was being kind and attentive, and I was still happily eating up the attention and affection being showered on me despite wanting to rebel against the voice in my head telling me to, “Use caution, because he is other than he seems.” Though I was toying with the idea to throw caution to the wind, to give in to “my desires” and do as he wished me to. I never wavered outwardly from my choice to just go home.

I was holding a bouquet of balloons in my left hand now while we waited at the traffic lights. I considered the blond boys height as we talked and watched the others run across the road to the south after a rolling red cooler full of beer. He wasn’t much taller than me “His height would make kissing him a lot easier.” I thought. We casually talked as we waited for the light to turn, he was still working to convince me to change my mind when the light turned green. We crossed the street, and the others came running back on a diagonal with the cooler between them. I still would not budge from my choice to go home so they continued with me for a little longer, the others following his lead.

Realizing we were coming to the end of our walk and I wasn't going to follow his will, the blond changed his tactics of persuasion, still smiling that disarming smile he asked, “So are you going to invite me over?”

Eeeeep! My tummy flip-flopped. Still working to hide the eagerness I felt from my eyes, I replied with a half flirtatious smile, “I never said anything about you guys coming over to my house”. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I wanted to comply with the blond boy's wishes, but I knew what he wanted to do, and I wanted no part in it. My intuition was screaming “Do not let yourself be alone with this one!”

He understood then he wasn’t going to get what he wanted, and I felt the sudden stinging loss of his attention as he pulled it away from me, cutting me off and causing my heart to ache at its loss. By the time I stopped to say goodbye, he was no longer trying to speak with me or gain my affection. Without pausing or looking back he and the others turned in the opposite direction and crossed the road, “We got to split.” He mumbled half remembering my existence.

I stood there with my balloons looking after them as they walked away. It was as if I had been left out in the dark and cold. I was confused and I didn’t understand why. I felt suddenly… empty and dejected. “Ok.” I unconfidently called after them, “Thanks for walking with me, see you...” I trailed off realizing no was going to one looked back or reply.

I was both relieved and deeply disappointed. Still holding my balloons, I started towards my house. I thought I had been having fun but now I didn’t know, and I was alone again. “You’re a tease, shame on you.” a voice said. “If you were willing to be so “friendly” you should have spread your legs and given him what he wanted, you should have ignored your intuition. Then, he would have loved you.” The shame I felt almost overwhelmed me. It was right I was a tease, I had so much to be ashamed of. I should have done what he wanted. It WAS my fault. "Whore." The voice whispered.

Wait… what??? “NO!” I exclaimed to myself, “I have done nothing wrong here!! I made no implications which would have led him to make any kind of assumptions!!! This was bullshit!"

The weather changed then and the air grew colder. I looked down and noticed I was dressed appropriately for the changing weather, there was snow on the ground and the sky grew dark. A wind picked up and I was pulled quickly down the street by my balloons, Marry Poppins style, towards my childhood home. I sailed past my house, the balloons pulling me along at increasing speed. With slight panic I watched my house go by and thought, “If I let the balloons go the wind will stop.” Part of me wanted to go on the wild ride they offered but I was home and afraid of the speed, so I let them go. The wind stopped but the balloons did not. “I shouldn’t have let them go!” I chased after them catching the bundle of balloons before they floated out of reach. Now standing near the end of the block to the north I looked up at the bundle of balloons for the fist time since they appeared in my hand. They were just normal balloons, purple, and red with white stars. With a sense of wonder and awe at the significance of their meaning, I felt they were the most beautiful balloons I had ever seen!

I woke to find myself back in bed feeling old emotions and energies I didn’t fully understand and couldn’t quite place. I put them all from my mind, like I had been doing for so many years and fell back to sleep.

~

Logic tells us eyewitness accounts are an unreliable source of accurate and objective information. This is because no one person perceives the world or a single event in exactly the same way. We perceive our world through a filter of emotions, beliefs, and past experiences (remembered and forgotten) we have been conditioned from childhood to carry with us. So, when something happens, say a car accident where two cars collide, and there are multiple people there to witness it, no one recounting will be the same, because each individual’s focus will be on different things based on their beliefs, feelings and past experiences. Now, does this mean that the witnesses are all wrong or lying? No, not necessarily. Truth is subjective, which means each recounting is true because the individual believes it is the truth. It is their truth, their remembering from their perspective of life.

In saying all of this, there are still certain facts that will be accurate and objective, one car collided with the other. These facts will be known as true by all because there will be physical and visual evidence to prove them true.

So, what happens in a case where there is no physical evidence for proof? What happens when no one speaks up about what happened and events are buried, forgotten, and only remembered years, or even decades, after the fact? And the evidence to prove objectively that something happened is gone? How do you know that your remembering is the truth when you know, it was suppressed? Not only by your mind but also by those involved, and that it is going to sound VERY different from the truth others will want to tell (if they themselves still remember).

This brings me back around to what I said earlier about dreams, and stirs up thoughts on the subconscious mind...

The subconscious (emotional/intuitive) mind is an amazing thing! It can help us create amazing works of art, process new information and, even help us forget, or remember life altering events. The mind can move traumatic, and even joyful, events from our conscious (waking) mind and lock them away in our subconscious (dreaming) mind, to help us "stay alive" and “cope” with the realities of the life we have lived. Dreams are our mind's way of helping us deal with and process life events and the emotions they stir up in a way which will keep us functioning in the waking world, they help us cope with the things we have done, witnessed or personally experience. Dreams can be prophetic, deeply healing, confusing, scary, and insightful. But ultimately the choice in how you allow your dreams to help you in your waking life is up to you, the dreamer.

Puuuhhhfff… Okay... Here. We. Go. No turning back now...

November 2003, I am 17.

I woke up on the leather couch in my dad’s living room, my dad’s voice in my ear, “There you are! What are you doing on the couch!?” The coolness of the leather soothing my hot face. “You got a mess to clean up in the bathroom before you go to work this morning!” he said in a mocking tone of disapproval.

I groggily blinked my eyes open and slowly I sat up. My head was pounding, and my mouth was like stale dry cotton. I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. I desperately needed a drink of water! A part of me knew why I was on the couch, I had gotten too hot in the bed, and I wanted to be found… “Nope. NOPE! Not looking at that!” I thought and pushed it far, far from my mind and into a space of forgetting. Ignoring his first question I asked, “Huh? What mess?”

“You puked Hawaiian pizza all over the bathroom!” Was his reply.

Mortified by his words, I jumping to my feet “No! I did not!” I exclaimed.

“I’d remember doing something like that! Surely this was a joke!” I thought.

Out loud I said, “You're kidding!”

“I am not. There are chunks of pineapple all over the place!” He replied.

The horror on my face was clear as day I looked into my dads face and thought, “How could I?!”

He laughed at my expression and walked into the kitchen “I’m joking, it’s already been cleaned up.”

I felt shame mix with relief, I did not have it in me to clean up vomit this morning. I heard my stepmom’s bitter laughter coming from the bathroom and my relief sank. Cautiously, I made my way to the bathroom, my stepmom came out with bright yellow gloves, a wet rag and empty bucket in hand. She looked discussed by what she had had to do. And all evidence of this so-called pizza vomit along the memory of the night before had been washed away, sent down the drain and into the darkness. “I would have cleaned it up.” I said meekly to her as she walked past me.

With a mask of kindness not quite reaching her eyes she said, “That’s fine sweetie. It couldn’t be left like that.”

My dad came back out of the kitchen and looked at me, “You don’t remember puking?

“No.” I said in a pleading tone.

“How much did you have to drink last night?” he asked with temporary concern.

Believing this must the case because, what other explanation could there possibly be! I had to have gotten black out drunk on draft beer lastnight, I said with horror, “Well obviously more than I thought I did!” and he roared with laughter.

Spring 2022, I am 36.

It was early April, and about three weeks after I had Elaine remove the woman in blue from my life and clear out the old contracts attached to her. I was feeling stronger, more assertive, and free of the suppression and fear the woman had brought with her. My intuitive and psychic gifts were in high gear, I was busy with browband requests, and the physic information from the world and people around me was flowing in rapid fire. I was even finding it easier to let go of my need to attach to the emotional problems of the beings and spaces I came into contact with. After an almost three-month battle, I was finally feeling like I was getting back on track and picking up where I had left off before Christmas.

Then one evening I was out for a walk with a friend around town, and I was energetically jumped.

We had doubled back near a park I knew an invisible predator lurked. I’d had encounters with him before, but he had never left the place where he “lived”. The skin at the back of my legs and butt tingled and stung into goosebumps as we passed the park. I squealed “Get off of me!” and attempted to bat the feeling away, he did not leave, but I did not worry because, these things never stayed for very long.

My friend felt the man’s presence, “Oh yuck! What is that?” she exclaimed.

I admitted I was not entirely sure, and since there were multiple things going on in general, where my empathic abilities were concerned, I brushed it off as no biggie.

That night before falling asleep, I felt a clawing itch and tickle begin in my throat, refusing to be consciously aware of what was going on I went into myself and somehow dislodged the presence, its exit brought on a fit of deep coughing that scratched the back of my throat. I only realized after as I was falling asleep that it was gone, and something had been amiss. The next night the same thing happened, and the night after that I felt the cough begin, but I made a misstep somewhere and it got stuck in my throat. I fell asleep knowing this was going to cause problems.

My dreams from that night felt threatening and dangerous and I woke feeling shame, embarrassment, and depression. I was so scared of being assertive or aggressive in any way, even if it meant my own safety was on the line.

~

It was a bit of a miserable spring day so after journaling my dreams and feelings I opened How to do the Work by Dr. Nicole LePera. Early in the book she talks about “checking out”, or as she puts it “boarding a spaceship”. She explains that this is a type of coping mechanism learned in early childhood meant to help keep us feeling “safe” and is actually a trauma response.

“There was that word again.” I thought, “Trauma.”.

I put the book down and took a moment to ask myself about my most recent “boarding of a spaceship”. The memory of our recent Ag. Society meeting came to mind. There had been many emotionally unstable individuals present and when things started to get heated, I did check out. “And before that?” I asked, being intimate with Tyler… My stomach twisted "Nope!". “And before that?” Christmas, with Tyler’s mom… A flood of images from my past swept across my mind, I understood I checked out regularly and often without conscious thought. It always feels like a part of me has stepped outside my body and disassociating from whatever unstable situation I find myself in. It had just been in the past year that I started to become aware of doing so and been able to take note of when and in what situations it tended to occur. I was still reluctant to acknowledge to myself that this happened most often when I felt someone might ask me to compromise my integrity, in group settings with people I did not know well, with forceful people and, most bothersome of all, during sexually intimate situations. My stomach twisted. “Nope. NOPE! I’m not looking.”

As the days progressed, I felt I was being influenced and choked by outside sources again. It didn’t matter what I did to facilitate a shift in feeling, the choking persisted. It felt like my throat was swelling shut even though it was not and like at any moment I would suffocate. “Why was I still suppressing my power?”

A week went by, and the choking feeling was still with me. Only now it was itching in my ears with the Taylor Swift song, You Belong with Me running on repeat through my mind, each time I would put the song down there it was around the corner looping through my mind again, and again. The message this entity was bringing with it was not coming clear! And it was starting to mess with the technology around me, along with my ability to access our finances.

Clearly there were abundance and self-worth issues surfacing here but I just couldn’t see how this piece fit into the puzzle of my life!

In confusion, I reached out to Elaine via email for help. I explained what was going on to the best of my ability, I must admit here that my explanation was scattered and weak, I didn't want to understand what was going on, and felt incredibly meek and foolish for reaching out again so soon, and for refusing to understand what was going on with me. I honestly felt like I was seeking to be rescued with a quick fix from someone I deemed as more knowledgeable than myself. Elaine was picking up on this and was reluctant to dive in and rescue me. I couldn’t blame her for that, as I did not wish this to be my intent. She told me to ask what the spirit wanted and to see if there was a contract present that I had signed as a child, to dissolve it and tell the entity to leave. I was an adult now and if it did not leave on its own, I would get Elaine to remove them instead. When I had done this, I was to check in with her to let her know how things went.

This wasn’t the first time I'd been told to ask an entity what they wanted, and it wasn’t the first time I wondered how the hell I was going to do that. Before I could resolve myself to ask, the Taylor Swift song became louder and more insistent, instead of the lyrics “You belong with me” I kept hearing “You belong TO me.” This was a man. That much became obvious. When I asked what he wanted all I felt him say was, “YOU”. What the fuck?? This made no sense! I told him what Elaine had told me and he laughed in my face.

Sometimes when an entity comes to me, they will bring a song with them which relays the message they wish to be known and I will put on the song for them to listen to. Sometimes one playing brings the message across, other times, I have to play it multiple times until they are satisfied I understand the meaning.

I tried this with the man now present. Halfway through the first play of the song I had two huge sneezes that scratched the back of my throat, and I recalled two incidents which occurred the weeks prior while I was out for a run. Scuzzy looking older men from out of town had approached me in vehicles asking for directions, I'd gotten the impression they knew where they were going and had used this as an excuse to speak with me. These put me on high alert. I'd thought they had been different men, but what if it had been the same man all along and he was trying to collect me?! And the night I was unable to cough him out is when he had taken root? I found this prospect disturbing and did not want to look deeper. “Nope, nope, NOPE!”

That night I had a disturbing dream about being restricted in my ability to wield my power. I was told when I could use it, how I could use it, and how much power I was allowed to wield. And I would forget who I was over, and over again.

Once I forgot, I would be brought out and told to use my power, and I would feel the pleasure in it as the power grew in strength. I would lose myself in its feeling and stretch to push past the limitations placed on me, to all the power I knew resided within, only to feel it hit the edges of the thing I was encased in, and I would remember.

For as hard as I tried in secret and when I was taken out, I could not push past the clear membranous lining I had around me, and I would become angry by the forced restriction. There was no place for me to vent or release this anger. It was trapped as my power was trapped. And there was no way for release.

A man would appear, my brother?? He would take me out to use my power in public. Once I had done what he wanted he would instruct me that was enough, it was time to stop, and I would be put back in my box. I had no choice but to comply because all my power was encased, and only he had the means to control it. This man, my brother, who kept me trapped would not allow my strength to be greater than his, he knew my power well and what I had been before. He remembered. And he was jealous and afraid and wanted it for himself. So, he had fashioned me this prison to keep me close and when I was sleeping trapped me in it. He limited and enslaved my power to wield as he own.

The power he showed to others in public was a lie of course because it was mine. But they had all forgotten too. Only he, and the few others who remembered, had found a way to take the power that belonged to others and pass it off as their own.

He stifled me and made me appear weak to his world. A man I'd loved and trusted had found a way to steal my power and use it for their own selfish gain.

I remembered it all now, who I was, what had been, and I vowed I would never forget again.

I was Persephone. And once, men had worshipped at my feet, and lovingly revered my wrath. But those days were gone, and their memories corrupted by male greed and the need to dominate that which they feared.

In this dream I would wake and write this story down, again and again. Each time I flipped through what I had written I would feel relief that I would not have to write it again. And all that was left for me to do were a few tweaks here and there and it would be ready for release.

This dream repeated multiple times the details changing only slightly. Each time I woke between falling back into it I would feel more and more disillusioned.

I got out of bed the next morning feeling angry, sad, and frustrated at having my power stollen and stifled once again.

~

I emailed Elaine to tell her what the man had said to me when I asked what he wanted. I had an entity attached to me she said. She told me to go out and pick a rock, blow the feelings and the man into it, then gargle with really salty water and spit it back into the cup before burying both the rock, and the salt water in the ground. Then let her know as soon as it was done. “Spirit can not abide salt.” she said, “It is a barrier they are unable to pass through, gargling with salt traps the entity inside the water, and the rock is like a focus point for your intention of extraction. If the salt water is phlegmy, cloudy, bubbly, or anything other than clear it is an indication that you did indeed have an entity attached to you and have successfully extracted it from your system, and is now trapped in the salt water. When you have completed this you dig a hole in the earth, drop in the stone, pour the salt water over top and cover it all up so that the earth and spirit take care of things for you.”

I grabbed my salt, a glass of water and my little gardening shovel and off I went to extract the shit out of this bugger trying to woo me with Taylor Swift songs. I found a rock, dug a hole, and proceeded to blow the entity and his song into the rock. I could feel him moving away from me before I even began to blow. My intention was focused enough to back him off, or he knew what was coming and wasn’t willing to go. I gargled imagining him and all his BS had gone into the rock and forever away from me as the salty water scratching at my mouth and throat. I spit him into the cup, seeing the icky results of my work floating in what remained of the salt water. Then I buried everything like I was told. I felt better instantly for about a minute then the song was back. I still felt him near me, my face tingling at his closeness. Fuck. "You thought you could get rid of me that easily?” He laughed, “You belong to me.”

“One way or the other you’re going to leave. If you don’t go on your own Elaine is going to make you.” I said to him out loud. My words made him angry but he moved away.

No matter what I did the song was still there weaving its lie in my mind “You belong to me”. I emailed Elaine and shared with her how it went. Hoping the earth would take care of the rest.

The following night while I was meditating, I felt something very large start making its way from my midsection up into my throat. It was just about to start peaking out of my mouth when I suddenly became more aware of what was going on and everything stopped. Darn! I just about had it.

Two days later the man was still present, at a greater distance than he had been, but still there, weaseling his way back in with a web of Taylor Swift songs which would inevitably bringing me back to “You belong to me.”

I kept Elain updated and we decided to schedule another phone appointment to get to the bottom of what was going on. By the time we talked he had backed way off because he was a coward who knew he’d been found out but didn’t want to let go of his control.

~

Elaine instantly found the man standing behind my left shoulder, and I felt his anger when she did. He was not attached to me yet but was still in my energy field she said. Elaine chided me for not having stronger boundaries and for leaving myself open and exposed to outside influence like this. “You have the tools to be able to take care of these things on your own. You can’t be running to me for help every time you let an entity attach itself, I would help of course but, it would cost you a lot of money in the end…”, “Relationships with spirit should be treated like relationships with humans, they are built over time with trust and not every spirit you meet is someone you want in your life. Some need to be told to fuck off!”

This made me feel awful! I thought I was doing this!! Clearly, she is right, and I deserved this scolding. I needed to hear her words because, I do feel like I’m running to her for rescue and have been doing a piss poor job setting and maintaining my boundaries. I should be able to do this on my own!

Elaine told me to tell this guy to bugger off. I did this in my mind, but I found it extremely hard to be assertive. “Come on get angry!” She encouraged.

I tried again, attempting to put more energy into it. Uhhhh! “BUGGER OFF! Leave me alone and never come back!” This was exhausting and pointless! We talked about the difficulties I had with getting angry, how healthy and healing it can be and a little more about boundaries. She eventually explained when people leave themselves wide open for invasion like I was, it’s generally because something happened and there is a contract in place related to it. With her help he backed off a little further so she could do her work.

“OK,” Elaine said, “First I’m going to go to the underworld to see if there is a contract there which needs to be rewritten. I will be right back. Let me know if anything comes up.” Her rattles started and I laid there on the bed in our front room breathing in and out with no pauses for what felt like a long time. When she came back, she asked, “Were there some tricky situations with boys in the past?”

I thought back on my convoluted history with boys before I met Tyler assuming she meant in general. Tears of shame clawing at the back of my eye I replied, “Oh yeah.”

Elaine told me there was a teenage soul part that had come back, she'd left because I got depressed and felt a great deal of self shame, she couldn’t abide it any longer, so she checked out. She showed Elaine a story... There was a party, where a young girl was having fun, things began to get a little fuzzy and the girl found herself playing what she thought were innocent kissing games with some boys there. Somebody drugged her. And the next day she woke with no recollection of the previous night’s events. The girl told Elaine “One minute we were having fun and the next everything became fuzzy and confused. I don’t know what happened!” Elaine explained to me that she was told everyone involved was very naïve, had been drinking and acting foolishly without thought. I had a contract in place for this life to be and act innocent, which is fine, great even, and somehow in this mess of forgetting shame and embarrassment got attached to that contract. This was never supposed to be part of things, the contract had been rewritten.

So, the belief “I deserve to be wide open” and “I deserve everything I get/got” came into play because she/I believed she didn’t protect herself from those boys. “That is a bunch of patriarchal bullshit!” Elaine exclaimed. “There is ZERO reason to feel ashamed for not remembering, or about what did or did not happen. I kept the being innocent contract in place because it fits with what your soul wants for this life, removed the shame and embarrassment attached to it and replaced them with, I call bullshit out with no remorse and put up with no one’s nonsense! This soul part is very tall and large, and she is all about boundaries and saying it like it is. She feels very different from you, so make sure you are checking in with her a few times a day.” I could feel this new addition to my spirit and was nervous about her coming back after so many years. “Are you willing to accept her back into your life, grow her up and work with her?”

I hesitated. “No…” I thought. Wooohhh, “You can do this.” Resolving my self I said, “Yes. Yes, I do.” willing my self to believe I was up for what lay ahead. Oh god what was I doing?! Could I really do this?? Was I up for this challenge? She was so big and felt so strange in my skin... This was going to be a lot of work, and it scared me.

Elaine gave me instructions on what to do next to ensure this piece of my soul did not leave again and stayed with me as I checked in with her. This part of myself felt strong and stable, like an earthy warrior goddess, she was around six feet tall and beefy like a bodybuilder. She reminded me of Brad Pitt in Troy, only female. A big Greek warrior equipped with the armor, helm, and bronze sword one would envision a warrior of this time to come with. She was still me, still had my face but was sooo much larger. She was angry and sick of the shit people were feeding me, and ready to stay and help me grow into the person I was always meant to be. She assured me she wasn’t going anywhere and would be with me through this process as long as I was willing to do the work. Was I ready? "No! No! I don't want to look!!" My fear whispered.

When this was done Elaine had me pick stones from her medicine wheel and like she had in our previous sessions she had me blow into the stones the man, the forgotten situation with those boys and all the residual energy and emotions I was feeling, then gave me a clearing and balanced my chakras because they were all spinning backwards again.

The stuff coming off of me was like black sludge she said and was stuck in my second chakra. I felt the mans fear as he was pushed out and away from me. Afterwards she told me the wooing and song were seeds of attachment he was planting in me while I slept, “Make sure you are opening a sacred space to sleep at night and putting a bowl of salt water out to catch what your chakras sluff off.” She removed all the attachments then gave me more homework to do.

I was instructed to do a sandpainting so spirit and the earth would clean things up, I didn’t want to get physically sick after all, to take it easy and make sure to have a salt or Epsom salt bath at some point that day. When I voiced concerns about still feeling the man’s presence, she reassured me he was a long way away, pissed with her but my newest soul part and a sandpainting would take care of him, I did not need to worry. She also told me to make sure I ate a grounding meal like a burger or steak and that I gargled with salt water regularly over the next few days because I was going to feel the attachments he had planted clearing from my system, the new soul part would actively be helping push out and clear up any sticky feeling so if memories of what happened began to surface to blow it all into the sandpainting. She also reminded me I did have a week of email coaching; she was there if I wanted or needed to share. We talked a little longer about everything. Elaine told me the teen years are a time when soul loss can easily happen, hormones and what not. I did admit to having suspicions over the past 5 years about maybe something not so great happening, there were many signs to indicate the possibility of some sort of assault taking place, but I felt I could never be sure it was true.

Immediately after getting off the phone with Elaine I was hit with a vengeance by a wave of guilt, my body felt full, my ears tightened up and my throat constricted. I felt defeated, like failure was not an option and I had epically failed right out the gate. I felt like I had gained no more ground than I already had and above all I feared the man was still attached to me and things would never change. I told myself to trust and commit to the work and I set about starting the process of integrating on my own. I added objects and images to my personal altar to honor this new soul part, gargled with salt water then went out to start a sandpainting. I added rocks and sticks to the inside of my circle, blowing into them the man, the shame I felt and, the memories I could not remember. I put into it every sticky situation I had ever been in with a member of the opposite sex along with the feeling of deserving what I got and every other feeling that went with it. At the end of the day, I felt worse than I had before I called and feared it didn’t work.

All that night I dreamed about pulling out wires of attachment and pushing my energy out only to feel… trapped or isolated, like I wanted help but was too ashamed to ask for it. This happened over and over. And then at times I would be talking to someone about the weather and how it was a manifestation of the collective human consciousness, then phrases like, “I don’t want to be doing this! It’s too hard, too complicated!”, “I don’t want to interact with spirit at all, ever, even my own. It's too hard!”, “I just want to be a normal girl!” would move through my dream lips. I was angry, hurt and above all I was afraid.

I woke up the following morning feeling tired and angry with this new soul part. She left me!! Things got a little hard and instead of fighting for me she just fucking checked out! She left me here alone with no support stewing in my shame and embarrassment. She hadn’t been strong enough to stay! I sat down at the dining room table to connect with and feel this new aspect of myself. I pictured her sitting across from me, she was humble and smiling in the face of my pain. I cried “YOU LEFT ME! I needed you and you left me!! Why wouldn't you fight for me?!” Why didn’t you try harder?! You left me all alone with this!”

She bowed her head slightly in a gesture of acceptance, looking at me with unconditional love and said, “I am here now.”

Tears erupted from my eyes and my face burned with unresolved emotion. The parts of me she left behind seethed for a moment, “Not good enough! “ they said as one.

This anger at her, at myself, bothered me. Was it ok for me to be this angry? I had no wish to push this rediscovered aspect of myself away, I wanted her here with me, I needed her stability and solid foundation of strength. And I wanted to believe that this time she would stay with me until the end. I reached out to Elaine and asked if feeling this way was normal. She reassured me that yes, in fact it was perfectly normal, and it was ok for me to feel angry. She did leave during a tough time after all. Elaine reminded me to keep working with the soul part and the sandpainting and to check in often until it felt comfortable to be with her.

The next day I was still upset with the new soul part as I sat down at the dining table once more to check in. I thought, "What happened, and why did it happen? What purpose did this soul loss and contract rework have for my overall soul development? And what was the purpose of the experience and subsequent consequences of it? What point was there in me losing so much of my personal power??" I stared across the table at this new aspect of self and asked, “What can I do to encourage you to stay?” The minute the question left my mind I became upset, I thought, “Why am I asking what I can do for you? I should be asking what you can do for me! You are the one who left after all!”

The answers that came were unexpected yet accepted quickly by the parts of me which were “left behind”. My Greek warrior goddess replied, “This was a symptom of. And happened for us, for you, and for the parts of you who were “left behind”. They needed to grow stronger, to develop without my strength. This happened for you, for them, for us.”

~

In the following days I remained out of sorts and was still dreaming about unplugging wires and tossing them into the bowl of salt water I kept by the bed, I couldn’t stay asleep and kept tossing and turning unable to stay comfortable, I was tired and stressed. Tyler was home for breakup and even though I told him a bit about what I had been up to with the spook and Elaine, I shared very little of what I was going through. How could I tell him what I had been suspecting for years when I had no memory of what happened?? How could I speak this and know it was truth??

On one of these days, I decided to clean out some drawers and found a stack of old notes and drawings from high school I had kept for some reason. As I sifted through the small stack before deciding what to keep and what to throw away, I noticed that all the notes centered around a specific time in my final year of high school, and that they all related to specific topics of conversation, the people we hung out with, parities, lies, sex, and betrayals of trust. I couldn’t bring myself to read most of what I had kept but understood the connection to what I was currently feeling, and the rediscovery of these old high school notes had meaning. Even if I couldn’t see it, these small seemingly insignificant events were lining up within my life to help lead me to the truth I needed to face.

When I had everything organized into keep and toss piles, I sat down to look through the comics and silly pictures my best friend had made for me. The comics were all titled Cheryce’s Adventures in… With whatever class I’d been taking at the time they were written. At the end of each dark adventure, I of course, would inevitably be killed off in some seemingly random or violent way. I rummaged through the comics rereading some of my favorite's, giggling to myself when I came across a series from our final year of high school titled, Cheryce’s Adventures in Bio. In this series a boy from our class appears to stalk me and in bizarre turn of events I would die either at his hands or in a random unrelated way, in one he raped me, and I died via large bookcase. My limbs went cold as I read, and I quickly put the comics away.

A memory flashed through my mind, I remembered this boy driving Vanessa and I home. As he and I sat in my dad’s driveway, he asked me to kiss him before I went inside. I remember feeling slightly repulsed but also attracted to the attention and quickly kissing him, because it was what he wanted, then dashing inside. Or did I? Was this right?? My memory was muddled and confused, I thought it was much later than it should have been when I got dropped off at home, but was it this time? No one was up to ask questions as to why I was so late... "I’m missing something here." My mind wandered down into the fog of my teenage life. The memory of the pineapple pizza incident, as I was prone to calling it, popped into my mind... How did this fit into these memories?? "No this wasn’t right." I risked a deeper look in to the fog of the past. I could remember two occasions from my final year of high school where I woke up the next day with little or no memory of the previous night’s events, but this wasn't it. I had assumed I had just drunk too much both those nights, like everyone said. But clearly this was a lie, at least one of these times... One of those nights was the new years Vanessa accidentally broke a guy’s coffee table, and we were kicked out of the party. I woke up in her sisters bed hung over as hell. The other was the keg party at her house the same night I threw up in the bathroom at dad's. Were there more? Maybe? I couldn’t be sure.

~

It was the middle of the night and Tyler had gotten up. I must have been in a deep sleep because I did not hear him until he came back into the room. The sound and feel of him getting into bed jolted me into a half-conscious state. Panic washed through me. I needed to stay conscious!! I had to stay awake!! My heart pounded in my throat. I clawed my way tooth and nail through the fog of unconsciousness and panic to full wakefulness. My pulse throbbed in my ears as my eyes shot open. Seeing where I was and Tyler in bed again beside me brought a the wave of reassurance, I was safe. I took a few deep breaths, "NO!", and quickly fell back into a fitful sleep.

The next morning I woke up feeling angry and blocked. Someone was trying to “get up on me.” So, I decided to go for a run. I needed to move my body, to dislodge some of the stuck energy in my system.

I ran metaphorically into what I was feeling. And I was pissed! I’d walked myself right the fuck into a situation which was intentionally designed to make me immobile! And I hated myself for the part I played, and the belief it was too difficult to push others energy off, that I had no right to my own space.

In all this movement and feeling it dawned on me, he knows I know what he did.

Suddenly I could see him standing against the wall doing his best to appear meek and harmless. He was trying to plead his case and justify his actions. He kept beginning “I’m sorry, forgive me.” But I could feel it was all a big fat load of bullshit. He wasn’t sorry!! Just scared of getting found out, of having the truth exposed. His wanting me to “forgive him” really meant, for me to consent to continued silence so he could resume feeling good about himself. There was no remorse here for what he had done! Only a desire to avoid responsibility and being held accountable for his actions.

"Go stuff it!” I said to him “You will find no absolution here, no acceptance of you “justifications.” There was no way I would be the one to absolve him of his sins just so he could feel better about himself. NO FUCKING WAY! That was his road to walk.

Run complete, I stepped off the treadmill still hearing the slimy, greasy little shit begging, pleading in feigned desperation. If I would only accept his pleas he could keep carrying on as he had been for so long. I told him once again to get bent, I would feel no remorse for the current situation he found himself in. He had made his bed long ago, had been old enough to know better and now would lie in the mess he made whether he wanted to or no. The only absolution I would give in this situation would be to myself. Only he was to blame for the choices he made.

“NO REMORSE.” The warrior in me said. I rolled out my yoga mat to stretch and felt my new soul part moving with me, her rippling muscles moving in unison with my own. As I scratched the lactic acid out of my lower limbs, I came to the understanding both he and I, along with the others involved, had suffered with the consequences of the choices made that night, the difference was, I was actively working my way out of the karma which created the path leading to what he, and they, did, and trusted it to take care of things for me.

~

This is only the beginning of remembering the truth of what my subconscious and body had never forgotten. And will be continued in time...