He said, “I won’t leave you. I promise.”

Chief and Kinse singing "Like A Rose" @ VICTO, 2007
I drowned when I was seven. I didn’t know how to swim at that time, and a boy pushed me to a 5 ft. pool. My father rescued me after long minutes of me struggling for my own survival. I thought that was the end of me. God is so generous and gave me another chance. From then on, my phobia started. I do not fear water. I love water. In fact, in water I feel calm and peace. It is the drowning that I am afraid of.

At the time when Sir Glenn (my second father, my friend, my mentor, and the only person who understood me without me saying anything) made me face my phobia with the use of psychoanalysis and exposure therapy. It was final phase at Oslob with my Kinse friends. We were on our siesta moments due to the very stressful activities we had that morning. He called out for me, and asked me to wear swimming gear. He said he was going to teach me to swim. I need to learn swimming because in our future trainings, we will be crossing rivers, seas, and so on, and he figured if anything happens, at least I can save myself. I felt nervous and woozy. I couldn’t say no. Chief (Glenn) was insistent and wouldn’t accept any compromise. So, I did change to my swimming gear.

As I headed through the pool, I felt my heart beat rose so fast. My hands started trembling and then my arms and my legs and my whole body. I only said “FUCK.” I felt nauseated. My sweat was heavy. I only want one thing at the time and that is to flee.

When I was at the water, I could only hear my fear and could only feel my tremors. He said he was going to teach me how float first before the swimming lessons. He knew there was a problem then. He is, first and foremost, a psychological practitioner. He reads body language, and most of all he reads what I am not saying.  He made me go back to the surface and made me lie down, with my hands open wide on my sides, and my legs together. He asked me how it felt like lying there. Honestly, I felt relieved to be away from the water. He told me that I should do that same position in the water. DARNNN!!! I was very fearful.

When I was in the water again I started crying, and crying, and trembling. He asked me “Why are you crying?” I didn’t respond, instead, I cried more. Some friends saw me. It was really embarrassing but at that time I cared less. Chief guessed that maybe I drowned in the past. I only nodded. He was a very good pacifier, and he made me believe him. I trusted him. He processed my experience and my feelings. I cried the whole time. And he made me float. I only listened to his voice, and did as he said. I think I was under hypnosis trance at the time. The only thing that kept me in the water for the first 50 and 100 counts was a prayer.

Yes! It was my first step for recovery. I did float. I kept counting until I heared no more sounds but my voice. I couldn’t hear him anymore. He wasn’t there anymore. It frightened me even more. When I started to struggle, I felt him again. He said, “I won’t leave you. I promise.” That was the only security I had. I had to believe him. I believed him.

Guess what? I made it for thirty minutes just floating in the water without him. Hahaha. I know thirty minute's ain't that long but it's a good start. :)

What’s so amazing about this event was that during the processing, I came to know the root of my phobia. I already had this fear inside me even before I drowned. It was the drowning that provoked the fear from latent to manifest---from unconscious to conscious. It was memorable. So now, I still carry with me the fear that defined who I am now. It sucks. I wished I had recovered then, but recovery takes years. I don’t even know if there is such thing as recovery. Maybe there is remission but not total recovery. When a damage is done, it can never be undone. Things will never be the same as they were before. When wounds heal, scars remain.

“I won’t leave you. I promise.” A lot of people say the same words all the time, but only a few of them meant those words. Chief meant those words when he said them. Though chief is now in Manila, his words still echo, as if he is still there saying those exact words. Only in him did I ever feel that I am not left behind. He spared the wounded little girl, and changed her life forever. From then on, the girl started trusting and believing again. But since there is no such thing as recovery, the girl will stay cautious until she tests the waters no more. 

My life in contentment

I look really thin here. But, this is my latest photo so far, and this is genuine happiness.
(written on NOV.17, 2010)

Big sigh. Time check 10:00 PM.

Life is beautiful. Life is good. This year I have been blessed with so much. This year is about to end, and another year is about to start. The next year will give me abundance in my professional and personal life. But future is nothing. Present is everything.

Yesterday I received a good news. It was the best gift I received for this year. I am so happy I could go the highest floor of Crown Regency and shout to the whole world how happy I am. Speaking of, I went to Tower 2 (Club Ultima) yesterday. I had a great time. I will be there in the next seven weeks or so. I love the people. I love the place. I love everything.

People remembered my special day, though this day ain't at all special. It feels like just any ordinary day but one person made it extraordinary. I love what he did. He made me smile and the thought of it makes me smile now. Thank you so much. You made my day. 

I am so happy. I feel contented with what I have now, not anymore wanting what I don’t have but having what I want (Haha.. makes sense??). I live my life as if it is my last. I seize the moment while I am still alive. I enjoy the company of others while they are still here. I love while I am loved, and love unconditionally even if I am not anymore loved. I make friends and treat them well. I cherish my friends, my real and true friends (Liki Society and FC Kinse) and my best friends. I make my life as happy as a best friend would. I am as nice to me as anyone I know.  I eat, drink, sleep, read, laugh, smile, sing, dance, cry, love, and so on. I give and share, and ask not anything in return. 

I can. I can do anything without boundaries. I am limitless and boundless. I am made up of what makes up the universe. Hence, I am the universe. I am the I. I am I. I am. I.

Peace begins in me.  I am at peace now. I am peace.



jeelchristine "in the beginning there was time and space, and from their union born the universe. in the end where the universe will cease to exist, time and space will remain constant."-jeelchristine
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Just Another Satori

photo taken on 2009 in Manila

Well, it is still 3 in the morning of November 7, 2010. For the past few days, I haven’t had enough sleep. I’ve been having insomnia since the break-up, probably since two weeks ago or so. And my period’s killing me at some point. I’ve been having my menstruation for a week now. At least I don’t feel queasy anymore, and i regained my appetite in food. That’s an improvement. I’m always tired. My eyes feel heavy all the time though I am not having any pain except minor cramps in menstruation. Yesterday (November 6, 2010), I kind of blamed my mom for waking me up when I was already asleep (partly asleep). If I’m not mistaken, I haven’t reached yet stage 3 sleep (the deepest sleep) yet. Earlier, about 9:15 in the evening, just before I went to sleep I told my mom not to ever wake me again, otherwise I won’t be able to go back to sleep. I have already suffered onset insomnia enough to suffer another type of insomnia, maintenance insomnia, for that matter.

I’m glad my mom didn’t wake me. In fact, I just had the best sleep in my life since God-knows-when I last had one. Anyway, I woke up from a dream and now I couldn’t go back to sleep anymore. I just had the weirdest dream since I last had one. I always forget my dream. Truth is, I don’t remember all the details in my dream, except for few and yet meaningful details. All I could remember is the last scene where I was shopping for things we will be needing in our travel with my mom. When I got home, I took a bath. My mom said to my cousin that she will be cooking “bam-e” so that my other cousin will win a contest he is joining. The contest happened to be a motorcycle exhibit. Anyway, there was one insignificant boy in my dream who joined me in my bath. Don’t worry I wasn’t naked. I was bathing with my clothes on. One detail I remember was that there was no shower. I shower most to the time in the real life. Well, truth is, in my dream, we weren’t in our current home. We were in our previous home in McArthur. We never had shower back then. All the details I could remember in our previous home were exactly the same, including where the kitchen and dining is, and where the rest room bowl located or the pales and so on and so forth.

Somehow, my memories of the past helped in the dream manifestation. Anyway, what’s weird is the boy. I do not know the boy. I tried recalling. I must have met that boy in the past but I must have forgotten. Anyway, I failed to see his face in detail so I couldn’t make recollection.

Dreams are significant. I just have to interpret it the way I used to when I was in training with FC. The thing about interpreting your own dreams is the risk of bias and denial. Earlier in my advanced personality class, we talked about Sigmund Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams.” I read the book back in college. Although his symbolisms have been criticised until the present time, I still think his is useful. During the training I had in Client-Centered therapy, Logotherapy and Gestalt therapy, at the back of my mind there are those symbols when I am doing counselling or even when we are processing feelings and catharsis with clients. It’s like automatic to me to think about those things subconsciously. The thing Freud is that he was misunderstood. Although I am not Freudian or neo-Freudian (I am a Jungian Humanist and Existentialist) I believe in him somehow. His critics did not understand the dynamics of dream interpretation. They did not understand that those symbols though how sexual they may be are the keys to understanding the human psyche---its complexities and unconscious, subconscious and preconscious dynamics.

Anyway, that’s not just it. Like I said, I only remember the last scene in my dream. I couldn’t remember the first scene. But somehow, I remember the feeling. It was a “satori” as Zen Buddhists call it. Upon awakening, when my senses were finally re-awakening, I felt the urge to write and send a significant person a message. I know, its dawn. It was probably past 2 o’clock when I sent the message.

Somehow, I am making sense of things. Things that are happening to me are making sense now. I found the answers to the question that I have been looking for. Carl Jung found the answers to his questions in his dreams. It was as a result of his interpretation of his dream that built his theory on the unconscious and collective unconscious mind, which he became famous of. I am not saying I am going to be famous with this satori of mine. What I am trying to say is that just like him I found answers to the questions that have kept me in the dark for a while. Somehow I knew the answer in me but I was too afraid to know the answer. Because this unconscious material is anxiety-provoking on my part, I repressed it into latency. It manifested through the dream.

Again, that’s just not it. I do believe at some point that the divine or  this God, or this invincible higher intelligence, this force (whatever you want to call it) is trying to communicate to us through this “gap” the Hindu quantum mechanics/physics public speaker and Indian physician Deepak Chopra calls. This force communicates to us when we are in this non-local awareness (higher awareness). Although in sleep, our body is totally in paralysis, there are still billions of firings in our brain that gives instruction to our cells, our hormones, and organs in our body. This series of firings in the brain makes us see images, feel, smell, hear, taste without the senses such as that in dreaming. Sleep is unconsciousness, as we know it. When I say “unconsciousness,” I refer to the medical term such as when someone is in coma, or when someone has fainted or when someone has been knocked on the head. In other words, when are totally stripped of our awareness. But, sleep and in sleep, particularly in REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep, that is when we dream, is not unconsciousness but non-local awareness. Dreaming is the road to the unconscious as Freud declared it. What we see in our dreams are all materials manifesting from our unconscious mind. In other words, the unconscious is non-local awareness. The unconscious is not only a reservoir for all sexually-threatening and anxiety-provoking thoughts, wishes, fears and so on, but also a gap---a spiritual gap where the this invincible higher intelligence speaks to us.

Dr. Ihalaekala Hew Len, a Hawaiian Psychologist, and a Self-I-dentity-through Ho’oponopono practitioner and guru believed that there is no such thing as “out there” There is only “in here.” He believes that the physical world is a creation of the mind or of the person. We, as human beings, are not in the world. The world is in us. We aren’t inside the body. The body is inside us. We aren’t human beings going through spiritual experience, but spiritual beings experiencing the amazing human condition of anger, depression, fear, distrust, sorrow, happiness, excitement, lust, love and so on. WOW! I can only say wow! But take note, Love is not a human condition, but a spiritual one.

Furthermore, how does this connect to my/our dreaming and so on? It is simple. Dreams are “in here” and not “out there.” If we dream of a snake, we might think that someone from the outside is going to betray us. Perhaps, but truth is there is no outside to begin with. The world is within us. We make our world. Whatever we think, it materializes. So, if we put a crap on this belief that we are to be betrayed or if we anticipate betrayal, it will materialize.

But somehow; we can use our beliefs, our superstitions, our attitudes, our perception of the world though how positive or negative they may be; to our advantage. This invincible higher intelligence speaks to us through dreams. We can consider our dreams either as caution or inspiration from the divine. If we dream of the snake, we can use this snake to twist our mind’s own coding system through neuro-linguistic programming. Instead of thinking about betrayal, we should think about trust and honesty. It is not being incautious. It is about being positive. Take note that if a negative mind is chaotic, so is a positive mind. I can testify to that. I am so positive I got tired and regressed back to my old habits. All the things I worked hard for totally gone into trash because of my regression. It sucks. Take note also that a positive mind is even better than a negative one. Trust me.

But what is better mind then? You might ask. A better mind is a silent mind, where there are no thoughts flying around working memory. Silence. Thus, when we dream of something threatening to us, it is good to be positive, but it is better to be silent, and let all the anticipations, expectations, fears and so on fly by in working memory. LET GO. It is like closing all windows and browsers in a computer and leaving nothing on virtual memory. You shall never see chaos in that. Famous Hindu spiritual personality Maharishi Mayesh Yogi said that by nothing we can accomplish everything. By not thinking is almost like not doing. By not thinking, we can accomplish everything. Waaaiiiiitttt!!! Where is the sense in that? I am not saying that we shouldn’t think at ALL! I am saying that we should give ourselves a break from thinking. From there, inspiration comes in. I remember an artist (someone I am following in twitter and facebook because I like his paintings) who tweeted once that he now has a real inspiration in months. The inspiration came to him when he was in silence.

Some people may find silence or doing nothing very tedious a task. Some people cannot shut their mouths, or just couldn’t stay in silence (sometimes I am guilty of this). But if you give it try, silence is not exactly tedious at all. If dreaming is a gap where the divine inters, so is silence. The difference between the two is that silence is not a manifestation of our unconscious wishes, dreams, desires, fears like in dreaming. Another difference is that sometimes we forget our dreams, and dreams are oftentimes distorted. It is difficult to understand dreams.  Both dreaming and silence are states of consciousness where the divine manifests. Silence is a non-local awareness (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence). In other words, we think without limits by not thinking at all. We become all-knowing in silence. We become all-knowing in dreaming when we aren’t doing anything but sleeping, where the body is shut down for drive-reduction, and energy reviving.

Okay! Speaking of drive-reduction and energy reviving, I need to crawl back in bed. I need to go back to homeostasis. Time check is 5:45 Haha. Good morning everyone!           

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