through the scene as if in living color, and in slow motion. Surprisingly, unexpected emotions that I had buried and long since forgotten seemed to be arising, and the true expression of how I felt at the time seemed to be surfacing. I hadn’t realized how intensely I had felt at the time. I’d been too successful, even then, at masking my true emotions by putting on a brave face.
Tears quietly streamed down my cheeks.
I felt very private, and I didn’t want to say much to Surja about it. And yet, there was a great relief in finally just being real with myself—taking the mask off and letting myself experience the incredible vulnerability and helplessness that I felt as a young child in that memory. I was finally letting myself feel the natural emotions that I hadn’t let myself experience at the time of the trauma. Somehow, even as a small child I’d learned that I wasn’t allowed to show my true feelings. And, more important, I hadn’t been able to admit them to myself.
So, in a very simple, pure way I was finally allowing myself to experience what had been there all along. I had never really forgotten this old memory, and the “discovery” of it was no real revelation. What came as a surprise was the intensity of my true feelings—I’d been so successful in putting a lid on them that I managed to convince myself that it wasn’t that important!
I shared a little of what I was going through with Surja, and gently she asked me, “Do you feel complete?” I checked inside with the inner wisdom. “No.”
“Well, why don’t you imagine a little campfire, and put all the people in your memory there with you; and why don’t you have a fireside chat and find out why the other people were behaving as they did, and let them know your true feelings—let the younger you talk to them as if they were here right now.”
Once again, what she said seemed like a good idea, so I thought I’d give it a go—I had nothing to lose. Meanwhile, I was still getting a lovely relaxing massage. Surja seemed to instinctively know in which area I was carrying tension, and she would ease it as I carried on with my internal processing.
Inside my mind’s eye, I pictured myself at a crackling campfire. Both my parents were there—they looked so much younger, and dressed in the corny style of the 1950s—and the four-year-old me who’d gone through the emotional memory was standing there in her little dress, looking very unprotected and unsure of herself. The present me was also there, so I decided to go over to the younger me and invite her to sit in my lap, so that she could feel safe and comforted.
I was very surprised at what was said at the campfire. I hadn’t realized how intensely the younger me had felt about this old memory. It seemed the little me had a lot of unexpressed pain to share.
She finally said what she had been unable to say for years. It seemed as if years of pain poured out of her. When she seemed empty of words, I turned to my parents and asked why they had behaved as they did. I was equally surprised to hear what was going on for them at the time, and tears of compassion sprang to my eyes as I finally understood the source of their pain, and how frustrated and helpless they felt. My sister had drowned at the age of four, and unfortunately their inexpressible pain would sometimes spill out and get directed at the rest of us.
The fireside chat continued until we’d all finally emptied ourselves out, having shared from our deepest hearts. And my little childhood self finally, for the very first time, truly understood why and how everything had taken place. I was left in peace—peace, simplicity, and true understanding.
I related a very condensed version of what had taken place to Surja, and she asked me once again if I finally felt complete with this old issue. I checked inside. “No, there’s something still niggling me inside, but I don’t know what it is—it’s just a feeling that something else still needs to take place.”
I felt at a loss. I knew there was no sense in turning to my thinking mind. It would only give me some obvious logical-seeming answer that had already been unsuccessful in helping me to heal, or it would judge me and tell me how stupid this all was.
So, once again I felt myself opening and trusting and surrendering into the silence—I knew the answers would come from there. As the silence became very vast, very pervasive, my thinking mind was arrested and, once again, I felt awed by the beauty of the peace that seemed to be emanating from my soul. My thoughts came to rest, as silence seemed to fill the room.
From the depths of the silence, I heard the words (or rather somehow experienced them)—“You need to forgive your parents.”
It hit me like a stone. I knew it was the truth. It was so obvious, but it had never occurred to me before. So, in my mind’s eye, I reconstructed the campfire and put my parents by the fire. Then, inwardly, the younger me forgave both of them—in the innocent way that children forgive. I felt as if my heart was breaking as the words of forgiveness came from my lips. The forgiveness was absolutely authentic, and came from the very depths of my soul.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. Peace washed through my body, the peace of completion. A simple knowing arose from within, a knowing that THE STORY WAS OVER!
As I lay there on the massage table, I began to feel a subtle but palpable energy coursing through my arms and legs, then throughout my whole body. Somewhere deep within I knew the tumor’s healing had begun.
After a short while, Surja gently let me know that it was time for the session to end. Two hours had gone by. It had seemed so much quicker than that! Gently, I sat up, feeling a little light-headed, and she handed me a glass of water.
She suggested that I might like to go back to the bed-and-breakfast, maybe have some soup, take a rest, and just allow things to continue to process inside. I nodded silently—I didn’t feel much like talking—and quietly prepared to get down off the massage table.
Inwardly, my doubting, thinking mind had slowly crept back, and was now in full force saying things like, “This wasn’t that big a deal—so you found an old memory—so what? . . . You’ve done this kind of thing before. . . . Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. . . . All this was just in your mind, in your imagination. . . .” and on, and on.
I slipped off the table, my mind chattering away, and reached for my clothes. As I put my arm out to grab my slacks, I felt wildly off balance, woozy and wobbly all over. I had to grab for a chair to sit down.
In that instant my mind stopped all criticism, and quietly turned all of its focus to what was going on in my body. I thought, “Shit!—something is happening here—something big!” and I reached down to touch my taut-as-a-drum belly to find it had actually gone just a tiny bit soft! I thought, “I must be dreaming—things can’t happen this quickly.” My mind began to race—it couldn’t comprehend what was taking place. I felt sick all over. All I wanted to do was lie down.
Don was already out in the living room, waiting for me, and I didn’t want him to see how sick I was feeling. I felt extremely disoriented—I could feel that things inside were shifting rapidly, but if I had to explain what I meant by that, I knew I couldn’t.
Gently, I made my way into the car. When I got to my room at the bed-and-breakfast, I was unbelievably grateful to slip into the clean white sheets and just snuggle down and rest, while whatever it was that was taking place, took place.
I continued “processing” through the day, and during the night I slept fitfully. I woke up the next morning feeling weak and vulnerable, uncomprehending. Everything was happening so quickly. It felt as if the molecules in my body were buzzing and shifting, and when I touched what had been my hard, pregnant-feeling tummy, it felt like jelly.
For three days
