Today was the last ceremony of our 10 day retreat, and hailed a wonderful breakthrough. I felt that the majority of the heavy energy had left me – no anger, frustration, misery or self-hatred. I sat quite happily for a couple of hours before beginning to feel sick. Rather than trying to force myself to be sick, stop myself from being sick, or even both at the same time (!), I just sat and allowed myself to feel what I did.
I realized that whether I was trying to resist the nausea or trying to indulge in it, all I was doing was fighting the present moment. Why? I could see for the first time that the torture I created for myself in my mind was orders of magnitude more unpleasant than whatever feeling or sensation I was trying to resist. The real issue was that I had conjured up a scenario and story surrounding the feeling or sensation, particularly about how much worse it might get, and then hung my fears and resistances on that.
After some time, the urge to vomit was strong and so I graciously threw up in my favourite corner of the garden, before returning back to my seat in the Maloka. I sat with the feeling for a little while longer, rather than indulging in it, before it passed more effortlessly than it ever has done in the past. I’d just taken the first step in truly understanding non-resistance.
Shortly after, I had the urge to move inside the house, and spent the remaining 6 hours on the floor in the lounge being supervised by Max the cat, enjoying the most incredible flow of creative inspiration.
Visions of everything from futuristic holistic healing methods to technological advancements. I finally realized what it was to start to move into life’s flow, with less and less resistance. To move with the waves of nature and my body in harmony.
I could see that once all the self loathing and heavy energy gets released, space is made for the more subtle aspects to manifest. I didn’t try to take on other people’s upset and suffering, mistakenly calling it compassion – instead I was very conservative with my energy that day and held my space and personal boundaries strong.
I had the urge to go to the toilet and as I got up to go, another insight hit me. I’d “push” pain and uncomfortable feelings down into my stomach, intestines and bowels. I felt tension in muscles down there that I’d forgotten how to relax. I sat for a few minutes trying to work out how to relax them but to no avail.
I lay on my back with my hands loosely rested on the area and just breathed – deep yoga breaths. On each breath out, I felt the warmth and comfort in that area until the muscles had fully relaxed. Once the memory was learnt, it was easy to tense and release these muscles again. What followed was hours in the bathroom, letting go of stuff that I felt had been stuck there for years.
I finished the ceremony feeling light, alert, empowered and full of energy. Wow – what a change from the others.
As I reflected on the ceremony later in the week, I was aware that my physical state had dramatically improved. I was waking up in the morning fresh and full of energy, after two hours less sleep than before. My lower back pain and sciatica had completely vanished, my eating and bathroom habits had fallen into a healthy routine. I can’t say with authority that the mind is the sole cause of physical illness, but it’s obvious to me that it’s at least a major contributing factor.
