Family, Memories and Releasing Old Patterns

I did a TK (Transformational Kinesiology) balance the night I arrived to see my family. It's a process where you break deep seated patterns and anchor new patterns in your energy system. My goal for the session ended up being, "I see the past clearly and have released it. I live in the present". During my session I had this little pinhole of light into a sense of moving to a place of being "brand new". It felt really good and is the first deep down (not in my head, but in my being) sense that I will be alright no matter my circumstances, that I've had in a very long time. I felt a true spark of happiness in that moment.

I have to jump back to explain something prior to going home to visit my family. The physical and emotional injury to my heart center has softened up a lot and I feel myself making lots of shifts. One of the things I had added to my healing process was aromatherapy. I decided to see if I could get my physical body to heal by going after the emotional trauma from a new angle. I researched PTSD and interestingly pulled up a site on aromatherapy and the power it has to heal emotional, spiritual and physical trauma. The article spoke of how smell goes directly to the limbic system and can bypass other cognitive structures in the brain,causing there to be a direct link with smell and stored or even forgotten memories. We hold our emotions, sexual feelings and learning there as well. I immediately thought about how the musty smelling cellar had been the beginning of me accessing the memory of my uncle.

The article referred to Jeanne Rose, who is one of the leading researcher's in the field. Jeanne suggested spikenard and rose for women who have been affected by painful, sexual, psychological or physical traumas. By mixing the three different ones together it has a greater capacity to circumvent the cognitive brain's attempt to identify the smell, thus the process of bringing in the "new" feeling will have greater success.

The spikenard is meant to be a grounding and calming property and complement the angelic qualities of rose, to lift one above personal pain. Together they are powerful agents to heal and release emotional wounds from trauma, helping those that are suffering overcome emotional wounds, grief and deep anxieties.

I thought maybe it was too good to be true but I'd never know if I didn't try. It has helped tremendously. My cranialsacral therapist is stunned at the rate my body, mind and spirit is moving and shifting considering I had a fortress built of wood around my heart and the upper half of my body. It's been about a month since I started using it and I put it on the front and back of my heart chakra every day. The spikenard is inexpensive but the true rose otto essential oil is outragously expensive (1/8 oz. was 124.) It cost a lot for them to make it. It has made such a difference that it was worth it. You only need just drops of it so it lasts a long time.

Here's the recipe:
Emotional Trauma
9 drops Rose, 5 drops Spikenard, 2 drops lemon, 1 oz. carrier oil.
I used raw coconut oil as the carrier. The lemon is for joy.

While visiting my family, I had a great deal of insight and memories that held child-like emotions. I tapped in to the feeling sense of how much males scared me as a child (it felt as real now as it was then), so much that when I got back home I was rather jumpy around my husband. I talked about all the memories, feelings and awarenesses while away to him - I was acutely aware of feeling almost like a child. Sharing it seemed to bring about a release and then I just sort of went to this place of emptiness with no new thoughts or processing after that. I was in the present moment but not having deep thoughts about things. I couldn't connect with introspective thoughts. It didn't feel bad, just different. When I saw my cranialsacral therapist I told her about it because I didn't know if I was having a dissociative response to going home or what the heck was happening. I told her I couldn't form thoughts over my feelings, blog or do my lessons on recoverynation.com. I was just kind of blank but I had feelings of happiness (based on nothing in particular) that haven't been there for a very long time. She worked on my head and told me that it seemed a great deal was being released from my limbic system and attempting to process through the mid-brain to get into the frontal lobes to my higher thinking process (something like that). She said it was a lot of work for the body to accomplish. I told her that I had experienced headaches and was very sleepy, to which she wasn't surprised. She said to just relax and go with the process.

I told my husband about what was happening and he said jokingly, "Damn, I thought things were going much better for us and now your telling me it's because you are blank?" I was amused and told him I could tell he was enjoying the reprieve and he said he was. Actually, that goes for me too. I feel like I'm on an emotional holiday. We have laughed and gotten along better than we have in a very long time. Our home feels much lighter. We'll see where I come out on the other side.

Back to my family. My sister's baby is absolutely beautiful. She has a strong personality. She's high maintenance, but more in the way that she needs to use someone else's legs until hers work. She likes to see everything and takes it all in. She's strong but gentle and doesn't like harsh or startling sounds. It's hard for my sister because our mom died when she was 20 and she's missing all the cool things about our mom. She watched me in fascination as I handled and talked to her daughter in a very similar way to her. We look alike too so this helped my niece be more open to me. I discovered that her favorite song is the same as my daughter's was - "Hush-a-bye, don't you cry....". She's the sister I am closest to and I stayed at her house while I was there. `

Spending time with my family was a true eye opener. Family dynamics and patterns seemed to be right in my face, really clearly, instead of floating around amoungst us all as it has in the past. It was that in my face feeling, "I'm not so comfortable with playing my particular role in this situation"...."Not only do I not want to do it but I can't do it. I don't want to and I'm not going to". This was all in my head and not spoken out loud, of course. I have gone along and known what I was doing in the past but reasoned I was okay with it as I was only home visiting.

This time I didn't repeat my old ways to make others happy. Sometimes it was easy and detached. Other times, it was like a miniature inner tug-of-war. I needed to state that I was not okay with sexual jokes from my dad and stories by my brother about a friend's sexual antics. It took a bit but they got it. I truly felt like an observer and saw that my entire family has this seemingly close connection, but it is rooted in our childhood trauma. All of my sisters have done therapy and or healing work to recover but it's still there...the core of our connection (our brothers too). I felt separate from that connection which made me feel not as close with them and a bit sad, but I also felt good to let go of it. It had felt heavy, to which I was completely unaware of until this visit home.

I also saw why my dad has said for years that he's happy he has so many girls instead of boys (a total turn around). He's surrounded by women who love him unconditionally. Watching him in his relationship, I had all these memories of how clingy he was and how much attention he wanted. He wanted to be touching my mom all the time. He was also the far more emotional one between him and my mom. She could be loving but then she would be aloof and want her space. This woman now does the same thing and my dad will feel all rejected. It was like the past coming to present time. I had completely forgotten how he was in that way. While at home this time he said things to me like, "I love to be loved. I love it." The interesting thing is that I blocked out him being like that. Both my high school boyfriend and my first husband were really clingy to me and I didn't like it. I didn't personally experience it from my dad as a child but witnessed it.

My sex addict brother that has been semi/self-estranged from the family has been coming around to see family members. We knew he and his wife split but he announced that they were actually already divorced. I felt sad for him. He has turned to church as he has done in the past when he tries to gain control over his life. He's always been a pretty wild guy but when he goes to church he gets very legalistic with extreme black and white thinking. I now know that this can be the polar example of an addict still being an addict but acting "in". He loves Dr. Laura's radio show and books. Hopefully, life will get better for him. They have two beautiful little girls that deserve a healthy home.

I also noticed that my family has a charged sexual energy to it and that must be because my parents were so open about sexuality. What I once saw as them just being open and natural in regards to sex, now looks and feels different. I can't define it yet as I still have this suspended introspection and insight. As my therapist told me, I'll just let it unfold.