quote:

Originally posted by KristiMarie:
...It is coming clearer to me, now, how much influence they had over me, how much I opened myself to them, how much authority I'd given to them. ...

I have been having mind impressions that are of their intent, not my own, of this I am sure. It is their will to control. I've questioned myself (before, and again, now...

I was as much merged with her as the guru. In fact, I am not sure I know the difference between the two, as she is completely merged with the guru.
...

I want my life back.

I don't know anybody who's gotton out of this kind of energy enmeshment easily. It seems to be a longer process in some cases. Sometimes forgiveness is what is called for to make a break, other times you need a hard boundary of no contact. Some people think they should compulsively pray for somebody to break a hostile bond, but that can make you more stuck to them. So, it's a discernment process.

The good, great news is that you're hunger for Christ will combat all those entaglements. He will feed and form you. I'm thrilled and happy to know that you want to join the Catholic Church; you will be receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, and that gift is beyond words...

So you will get your life back, but you'll get more than that! I believe we resonate to Phil's teaching about a healthy Ego because we know, at some level, that God does want to heal all the brokenness in us. In fact, I believe our Egos will actually be perfected and carried right into our Glorified Bodies.

Deann, No, It was not too much.

Shasha,

Reading your words about receiving the Eucharist just brought suddenly clearer meaning to a recent dream. I'll not share the whole dream here, but there was the serving of the sacrament and my being receipt of very live/fleshy (disc-shaped) pieces of meat.

I wish I could receive the Eucharist already.

I was sitting here writing some more of my experience out to share, but am going to take a break from it for now and get my day's rest.

I will continue to pray for Christ's guidance. I feel I need to turn all my thoughts to Him.

Kristi

Having read Deann’s sharing and Phil’s comments, I am taking the time to write this out, to help identify what is being held and where it belongs?

(This became long, but it's done me good to write it.)

But I am going to need to back up and share of another association before I write of the affinity I had with the guru and the woman who initiated me into her.

Still, I have not taken the time to write the experience of my initial kundalini awakening for sharing here. Shortly, it was spontaneous and very powerful and after a period of about 4 months of sublime bliss where I experienced life as being without any contention or judgment, my subconscious began unloading and with it all the wounding of my ego. I did not have the ego structure/health to support my experience and my reference points for life spun wildly out of control. It took me some time until I began to feel I had my feet somewhat back on the ground, had some sense of structure and stability again.

Soon then, I began seeing an energy worker/healer. First, one woman, intermittently, for about one year. I took a break from that. A short time later, I began working with another woman. I continued working with her for more than three years. I entered into analysis during the period of time I was working with her. The results of my analytic work began to show/tell that I needed to stop seeing this woman, but I had become hugely dependent upon her. She had a very soothing and very "seductive" energy, I later came to see. It became a like drug for me, something that wiped my cares away. So, it was counterproductive to my analytical work and growing in my self. Toward the end of the time I was seeing her, she encouraged my going to see the woman known as Mother Meera. I considered it. On a later date, I communicated to the healer that, yes, I think I will go see Meera. With that answer, she began channeling an energy into me that caused me to stop her cold when it hit my solar plexus. It was Meera, someone the healer had been devotional to for years. This woman always worked by opening the body from the feet first and then took position at my crown, with her hands on my crown, as powerful streams of energy coursed through me. She literally received everything that flowed through me. Does that scenario/positioning cause your eyebrows to lift? It did mine, later. This woman became like "mother" to me, a cradle, if you will. It was only with hindsight that I knew the energy which caused me to 'stop" the healer was Meera. For, the healer again encouraged me, "look her up on the internet." I did. I had not looked at her picture for one minute when the room in which I sat and my whole body became filled with silvery white light that literally pushed me to the floor. I did not know I'd invited that. I pushed the healer away, stopped working with her. I became very angry with her. She became angry in return and placed a huge guilt trip on me. I responded from a child-like place. It took me months to begin to get a sense of myself again. When things got tough, I still thought of her. Over the course of the next two years (while continuing my analysis), I consulted her via distance once and then in person at the end of the second year. THAT treatment left me literally feeling (within a few days time) that my body was a lingham ascending up into the universe (reminds me of my childhood experiences of nightly ascending), though I stood on the ground. Again, I pushed her away.

Full of fear and uncertainty, I turned to the woman who initiated me into the (female) guru. Do you see a pattern here? All these woman/mothers? It was not at all long before I felt pushed down to my knees in this guru affair. The energy of my body would literally go to her in devotion, as did it earlier flow to the healer, and Meera, by extension, I now understand. I was practicing devotion to the guru for nearly two years. There was a huge propensity for me to "go away" to her (the guru...and the woman who initiated me into her), which is essentially the same thing I did with the healer.

Let me now back up many years, to when I was a child. I had a powerful dream. I don't really know that we can call it a dream. It was more experience or visitation of some sort, meeting with an archetypal energy. I was asleep in my bed when I became aware of a raw, electrical energy formation having entered my bedroom. My child's mind later identified it as "witch," but there was no form. It was a huge apparition/formation of colored light/energy…white, red. I thought it hovered above my bed, pulling my teeth out in one full set. Comprehend this? Grasp this? Sink my teeth into this? How does a child who has no reference points for such a thing. My body was so electrically charged that I felt as if I had millions of electrical needles penetrating every tiniest point of my body. I sat bolt upright in my bed, staring into the darkness of my room. I tried to form sound, to call out, but could not. I was so frightened that when I searched for my teeth with my tongue, I could not find them. In a moment I located myself in space and time, in my bed, in my room. Feeling the covers of my bed with my hands again, I simply heard an inner voice say to me, in a very comforting manner, “It is okay. It is just a dream. Go back to sleep now.” I was immediately calmed, laid down and very soon returned to sleep. The dream/experience changed me in ways I did not then understand. I became determined for life, ached for a life better than what may have been my fate were the grace of God not present. It was after this that I began yearning for God, studying the New Testament, had the various charismatic experiences, before one day praying that God take it all away. I do believe I began experiencing a kundalini awakening that was far too much for me to deal with. My prayer was answered.

Looking back on my young life, it was always (to me) as if a great love carried me through my (difficult) early years. I truly felt held/carried more by my Self through most all of my teen years. My consciousness/psychological disposition was far different than others of my age. This made it hard for me to relate to others of my own age.

Anyhow, about one year into my devotional practice to the guru, I’d asked the woman I was in contact with to do a weaving for me. She is a fiber artist. I had been working (in therapy) with that dream/experience memory, again. It was harder for me in earlier years than it was feeling now (then), as before it was full of the memories and pain of the abuse by my father. It is said in Jungian analysis that the way the work should (the way it is important for it to) proceed is that one work’s first with the father issues. My process was intrinsically reverse of this from the beginning, keeping in mind that my healing work began spontaneously with the advent of the kundalini rising.

Now, however, at the time I’d asked her to do the weaving, I felt in a very good place with the work with my father. Still, today, when I think of him, I am moved compassionately. Through the course of my healing, seeing and witnessing his wounds, I could locate them, viscerally in my own body…feeling my inheritance of them on a psycho-spiritual level. So, I felt I grew to understand the deep nature of his pain, because I shared it. This helped with forgiveness.

But I’d still never really dealt with my mother issues. With today’s hindsight, I know that the child I was (and the woman, still was) was protecting my image of mother as a child. I had to hold out hope that at least one parent was good, responsible, loving. And there certainly was a sense of mothering and caretaking in my young life, but it did not come from my own mother. Again, it was more this connection with Self, that something Other that held, cared for and guided me. Spiritually, it was there. But physically (and psychologically, as would be needed for my ego health), a mother’s nurture remained absent from my young life. Obviously the dream experience and my associations with it (witch taking my teeth out) can speak of the negative/devouring mother archetype, too. And that was essentially the experience of my sisters and I in regards to my mother, who did not protect us from my father’s sexual abuse.

And now (then) I was feeling in a better place in regards to my mother. So, I’d gone back to that dream experience and sketched me there, sitting up in my bed with this apparition visiting me. The image graphically caught the sense of electricity and terror I experienced. My analyst was so stunned by it, she asked, “How was that for you?” It was okay. And it was. I was glad to finally be able to look at those moments and for it to not produce fear. I felt a certain “is-ness” with it.

It was this image, I decided, that I wanted to honor in the weaving, and asked that she come up with something around this image to weave for me, as a tapestry. I wanted to somehow honor that experience of my young life…live with it…be okay with it…and hence find greater resolution and healing.

One thing led to another in our communications and it turned that the weaving began on the night of the beginning of Deepavali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali), known as the “Festival of Lights.” We both said some prayers for this “auspicious” event (as we called it) marking the beginning of my tapestry weaving. During the course of the weaving, her inner muse took over and she came to tell me that Devi wants to be in the weaving. There would also be a unicorn and dove and waterfall, she said. I accepted and agreed upon this. As she wove, I ended up having some powerful experiences, one of which left my womb literally rocking in heaving motions and contractions, followed by the sense of a huge lingham that wanted to enter my being, leaving my inner vision dazzled with a million lights/suns. I must share that this experience was not at all much different from one of the experiences that came to me when the kundalini initially awakened in me ten plus years ago.

I had also been praying: (A chant/mantra edited out)

She (and I) had packed so much prayer and intention into this weaving, that by the time I received it, I could hardly stand to look at it. She considers her work to be somewise shamanic and the complete tapestry to be somewhat of a mandala of the Self. The tapestry emanated a powerful energy that disturbed me. It also felt to connect me all the more to her and the guru. I took it down time and again, placing it in the closet. Finally, not able to stand it anymore and the confusion and dissociation it was bringing into my life, I took and burned it in a fire pit at a local park.

I need to back up one more time and share that after the experience of the dazzling lights and heaving womb, I was moved to some of the most free-flowing tears I ever experienced. As I wept those tears, I recalled a poem I wrote in earlier years. My poems have often been as prayers, many of them coming from very deep places within me, my heart. This one I entitled, Whispering Moments. I will share it here to add context to the experience. It was reflective of my then contemplative moments (in 2003) and my heart’s prayer to be born anew from the circumstances of my early life:

"Whispering Moments"
With pure and perfect affection
In solemn ceremony,
She arrives

Cascading through my heart
Reminding of spaces untouched by me

From the belly of my being,
She ascends
Her breath catching in my throat

Thirsty for voice
She has me to see
To say

The beauty that has not been said
That has not been told

Impassioned with Her love
Encased in Her gentleness

Opening, allowing
With sweet and delicate weeping

She moves me
In fragrant tenderness

Like a virgin birth,
She is becoming
2003

Given the experience I had and the weeping I was doing, I was feeling like my prayer/poem was coming true.

But as the days wore on with that tapestry, I was no longer feeling this way. Things were becoming very troublesome inside of me, hence my sharing of the experience and dream of feeling like I had a battle between light and dark inside of me the last time I seen the guru for darshan.

I think I will (try to) sum up here, for now.

I became angry again, with her now, for bringing this into my life. I’d invited it, but without fully conscious consent in that I had no idea what this was going to bring into my life. Because of that, I blamed.

So, there I was, for a third time, with the kudalini either awakened (in the case of my spontaneous awakening) or enticed to move (via the healer and this tapestry weaving) in a way which was too great for me. Surrendering to and trusting the guru or this woman no longer felt the right thing for me. I was full of fear and terror again, as I shared in some earlier posts.

It is worth my saying that when things become tough for me after the initial awakening ten years ago, I did experience a period of profound fear/terror. I had no understanding for what was happening to me, as my unconscious unloaded, while the kundalini was so strong that I often felt like I had tadpoles swimming up my legs. That became better for me only when I began literally “calling out” to God from what was to me like a living nightmare. I had a turning point one evening when I just could not stand the fear anymore and resolved to let go, to God. I felt/experienced first my brow chakra (filling the greater portion of the interior of my head) as if empty or full of air with a sense that it was also a vast space. What we have read termed as the “music of the spheres” (sometimes, also referred to as the “eeeeeee” sound, something I had heard since I was a child) filled the space of my brow chakra and then spread to my heart center, vibrating, emanating to most clear musical tone/note. It soon filled my whole body. I felt in a very celestial space, literally like the grace of heaven’s angels were filling me. The single note or tone evolved into a heavenly orchestra, music unlike could be produced on earth, I thought. And then, a choir of angels singing praise inside of me. I was bathed in this experience for what seemed a short eternity. I literally felt like my being was being washed, as though the angels poured spiritual water into me, flowing like a river of heavenly love. I was concerned my body may literally levitate. I had such dream experiences at that time. “Okay,” I said the next morning, “Thank you God.” “I can do this, then.” “I can continue.” “I can begin to trust and know that you have something good in store.” It helped me to be able to continue putting one foot in front of the other.

The thing is I believe my journey belongs with Christ, only I have mistakenly placed it outside and onto others. He was/is the progenitor of my spiritual life, since a child. This is why I wept so greatly when I learned that I was in fact baptized in the Catholic Church. Maybe there is, as they say, no errors. Maybe I was supposed to walk the course I have and still Christ will use it to help me to help others. Maybe it was all as needed to be. Searching for acceptance here.

But the anger, I am questioning, where does it belong? With these woman? With my own mother? Who, anymore, I also weep for in prayer, with my dreams and contemplations leaving me now locating her wounding (viscerally) in my own body, knowing that I inherited the same from her (my mother was also a sexually abused child, my grandmother also unable to protect her as a child). And what purpose does anger serve? I held mother projections with all of these women. Amidst all else, each one of them were also a source of nurture to me, despite my relationships with each one of them ending up eliciting anger and fear.

Given the way my rosary prayers turned me to the vision of my mother (at communion) and my grandmother’s heart (the heart she could not express, the sufferring petitioning heart my mother and I did not know in life), I feel Mother Mary is bringing me to where it all really needs to be now, turned to forgiveness for the lacks of mothering within the women of my family, love for the suffering of the women of my family. And forgiveness, also for these others.

Kristi

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KristiMarie,

Dear Kristi,

I'm moved by your sharing and grateful for your insights. I relate to so much of your story. I can only share briefly though for my energy system does not allow for me to dwell too long in reading and writing without repurcussions physically. I sense though that our healing isn't separate. You have much deeper understanding on the mental plane of all that you are going through than I and I feel grateful for your ability to put it into words.

I am 57 years old and my kundalini awakening happened approximately 15 years ago. I'm still dealing with a very imbalanced energy system and am finally learning to be gentle with myself. I just wanted to let you know I'm still here and am benefiting from your healing, this being viscerally within my own body. Thank you.

Much Love,
Deann

Hi Deann,

I am very glad if what I shared is helpful for you.

May I ask, is your name pronoucned De-Ann, or Dean? I made an assumption that you are male, evident in my writing your name as Dean the first time I responded to you.

I wish for you a peaceful and balanced energy system, Deann.

Kristi

quote:

It is said in Jungian analysis that the way the work should (the way it is important for it to) proceed is that one work’s first with the father issues. My process was intrinsically reverse of this from the beginning, keeping in mind that my healing work began spontaneously with the advent of the kundalini rising.

I just wanted to come back to correct my error. It is held that it is important to work with the "mother" issues, first. I wrote father.

Kristi,

I guess the name would be pronounced De-Ann. It's not actually my name though, just my user name. I wanted to use my first initial and my middle name - D. Ann, but it looked like a male name, Dan. LOL! Now I see it still looks male, as in Dean. Anyway, I am female.

Thank you for your wish for me. I feel very messed up energetically. I have a lot of pressure in my head on a daily basis. Can't deal well with a lot of loud noises. I had an MRI of my head and they found nothing wrong. The pain lately is mostly in the forehead area. It expands more during my prayer and feels less sharp. Sometime moves around but never goes away completely. The spiritual readings I come across lately is speaking to finding peace amidst adversity. I pray for the grace to bear it and not complain so much to my family. It's hard though.

Hi Kristi,

That's quite a crazy ride you've been on! Mass confusion is evident in your story, the kind of confusion that is clearly not of the Holy Spirit, but of some demonic force. The energy mergings and exchanges seem to be a tell-tale sign of the deceiver. If you don't mind my saying, it sounds like Satan was distracting you with: "Look here, now see this! Wow-wee, chew on this symbolism!" Like a circus master.

On the other hand, God doesn't need to activate anything energetically to be known by us, to give guidance, comfort, healing, and love...His signature is much more simple, humble, and even ordinary sometimes.

I hear you say that it may be healing for you to write this out. Clearly, when we're traumatized, we do need to integrate split up pieces of ourselves before we can move on. However, I'd caution you against spending time rehashing those memories in a way that is keeping you bound. Of course, you'll have to discern what is healing and what is binding you to those energies. Personally, I wouldn't write out any mantras. They tend to be energetically 'engineered' by gurus to be a 'hook' into us. Even if the words are benign; that's not the point. The guru actually imbues the mantra with her special intentions. Got anything else to burn in connection with those women? I had a bon-fire when I realized how enmeshed I had become with certain people. I threw in clothes, prayer shawls, jewelry, books...it just felt good to say good-bye! Plus, I received prayer to break off any soul ties with them.

In the meantime, do you have any mature Christian friends with whom to fellowship? ...besides us...well, I'm not *that* mature...

Peace to you!
Shasha

Not much time to respond to you or others right now, Shasha, as I am going to spend some time with some healty folks for the evening. Still working on building better community relations.

You are right, regarding the energies I became involved with. I've burned and or disposed of "everything" already.

I understand what you are saying regarding not spending too much time hashing things out, and yet, I feel it is important to go back over things to see just where we made mistakes, so as to not repeat history, but learn from it. To get clear about all that is not of me, but they and the delusions created as a result of my association with them.

This was helpful for me, Shasha, because, before, I was too afraid to even write it. Fear does not help. It is part of what they perpetuate/feed on. But my awareness was raised on the point of not writing or repeating mantras. I think I will go back and edit that out later.

Kristi

Hi Kristi,

I hear you that writing it out is a means of combatting the fear. And I recall you said that you felt you needed to protect them (which is common in abused children, as I'm sure you know). Calling them out into the light is therefore healing for you, I see. You're not RE-hashing as this story has not yet been told. I appreciate that. And, as I said, writing out fragmented pieces of our history is good for healing. Feeling heard about what is real, seeing deeper layers to the story, not carrying it alone-- all are enormously healing. I'm glad you can do that with us.

Please don't feel I'm criticizing you for what you wrote.

Hi Shasha,

I did take some of your earlier post in somewhat critically. I saw that moments afterward. Yet, it is even more helpful that you also came back to speak to it. So, thank you for that.

I have a lot of "bean sorting" to continue to do. Writing what I did helped me even in that, for some elements of what I shared are authentically me, such as the poem, which I wrote at a time before any of the mentioned persons came into my life. After having finished the writing, I felt more layers of deception and fear lift. So, yes, very healing!

Kristi

I was sitting for some early morning prayer and reflection. In some moments I reached for Gail's poem that was sitting on my bedside table since yesterday. As I came to the final few lines, I began weeping. A weeping which moved into a litany of prayer to Christ, for His guidance, for I have been so very lost. I reflected to Shasha's words regarding how my longer sharing above reflected great confusion (among other things) ... and I saw (felt/believe) that God used my sharing here to expose that as well, so that I might better see and begin to heal from it. It was not easy for me to write and share that, not just because of the fear issues (protecting, imagining repercussions, etc.), but also because it was exposing my vulnerabilities, my errors, my weaknesses, etc. And, so, I just wanted to come and take this moment to say how very thankful I am for Shalom Place, as that was also included in my tears...gratitude.

Kristi

Hi Kristi,

It just came to me last night that I was feeling protective of you when I made that caution statement about your writing. But I see how my comment would have felt critical--at some level. So thanks for your honesty.

Hi Shasha,

First, a funny... I'd read your note yesterday afternoon, prior to visiting with my analyst and then on to Bible Study. When I came out of the church and was driving home, feeling in a joyful spirit, I was considering your words regarding feeling "protective" of me, and I giggled (in light of my above long sharing), the comedian in me saying, "Oh, Bother, another Mother!" It was an affectionate thought!

I value your concern and your sharing with me does help me very much. Thank you. I also considered that you were expressing for me the same concern you had for yourself (and exercise for yourself) coming out of all that you did. Just want you to know that "I value you and what you share with me." Already, it has been of great help. And am feeling moved (encouraged) to comment more on some of the topics (re. False Gods) when the time is right.

Kristi
~
p.s. I knew I had to let the feeling of criticism go because it is not what Christ would want, not what He holds for me.

I wanted to come back to my last post here, for I had not clearly thought out what was on my mind, hence my language was chosen poorly.

It was not an affectionate thought. I realize that may have come across wrong. I was feeling affection in the moment of (and well before) the thought, and I did laugh good naturedly with the thought. But when I posted I was not then comfortable simply saying, "I don't need another, mother" (save Christ and Mother Mary).

Shasha, I actually think I "perceived" criticism, verses interpreting it.

It is important for me to come back and say this, for I have far too long taken on the projections of others, and I cannot do that any longer.

I can see where, given your past history with gurus, you would be critical of what I shared.

But where and for whom does the concern really lay? Who were you really feeling protective of?

I am doing my level best to take responsiblity for myself and work through all the layers of delusion and confusion as a result of these associations. I was not asking you to "mother" me, be fearful for, or be protective of me.

Sometimes, a person just needs somewhere to take and share things, get them out. Your recognition of that and how it was helpful for me did not come until after I affirmed that is what I was doing in sharing all of this here...but why would I have the need to affirm that, lest there was criticism for what I shared in the first place.

I hope you understand I am not trying to be adversarial, just clear on what lay with whom.

Thank you.

Kristi

Hi Kristi,

I appreciate that you are wanting to be clear and understood. To communicate well takes a lot of time and energy...I know I tend to cut corners and not do a good job of being clear at times when I'm asked to be. So, I'll have to think some about what you shared above...

Christ's peace,
Shasha

quote:

Originally posted by KristiMarie:
...Sometimes, a person just needs somewhere to take and share things, get them out. Your recognition of that and how it was helpful for me did not come until after I affirmed that is what I was doing in sharing all of this here...but why would I have the need to affirm that, lest there was criticism for what I shared in the first place...

Thank you for correcting me on this. I am very sorry that my words hurt you, and I see my failure to empathize with you. I didn't feel critical in my heart, but neither did I convey the kind of affirming and empathy I should have in reaction to your sharing.

If you want, feel free to say what, in particular, you perceived as critical in my response...the comment about the mantra, being deceived by the energies? I am open to feedback.

In any case,
Friends, please pray for me that I can be more sensitive and compassionate to those around me.

Shasha and Kristi,

I don't want to interrupt your dialogue, but to let you know that I've been reading it, feeling gratitude to the Lord, that I can witness here people talking about difficult things and confronting each others in the Spirit of Love.
(Shasha, initially, when I started to visit the forum, I remember I used to be a bit anxious about you criticizing my "journey to the East". In time I learnt to value and like the way you're passionate about Christ )

Hi Mt,

Thanks for your feedback here. I did think of you here too in this piece of discussion.

I do remember your bristling at my comments a few times when you thought I was disturbed by what you shared about your "journey to the East." I felt I was reflecting back to you your confusion more than my disapproval...? Still, it's a similar problem I think that Kristi is telling me about my style of relating--that I come off as critical. I need to hear that. In my, perhaps inflated, self-image, however, I'm very low key and accepting of people...

Hi Shasha,

I thought about how to respond, what to say in answer, and I am left now with returning to the very first thing that came to my mind/heart after reading your post early this afternoon.

It was "What would Jesus do?" How would He have responded, like for us to respond to one another?

I really imagine/feel that His grace sort of presides over the forum here. Hence, His returning me here to return me to Him, I believe.

As I was writing what I did to share here, it was His acceptance I was seeking, hence my later words saying, "I knew I had to let the feeling of criticism go because it is not what Christ would want, not what He holds for me."

I am feeling it not best to get into dicing up ("analyzing") specifically this or that word, etc. It seemed to me in was a general tone/energy that permeated your intitial response to me. And I know that, for me at least, the deepest and most lasting insights into myself come when I personally take things in and wrestle with them. I simply don't learn as well when someone hands me something on a plate, because, in that case, I didn't do the work.

Please know, however, that it was less "hurtful" for me and much more about an opportunity to help me grow. My awareness was raised and I was encouraged to state what did not feel right to me, that I was not in agreement. I have often remained silent when I was bowled over by the projection of another. I don't think that is what Jesus wants me to to any longer.

I have this beleif that His love heals precisely by looking past all the superficial layers and levels of our false selves and straight into the core of a person, where one's original goodness resides. That He touches the truth and love that we are, so reminding/awakening that.

Kristi

Borrowed from Phil’s comments in the Celbrate Recovery thread.

quote:

I don't really have to know if another's communication is a projection, or if I'm projecting that they're projecting, or if their motives or good, etc. All I need to do is take responsibility for my inner reactions to their communication, and my own behavioral response to it. It doesn't matter to me that others communicate sloppily at times; heck, we all do. But it is very important to set boundaries for oneself against what we perceive to be abusive, ill-intentioned communication and behavior. Thankfully, it's been quite awhile since we've had that sort of thing on this board.

This is helpful.

Does not this also highlight the fact that ultimately we must all own our own projections? We cannot really know another. And sitting across a computer screen makes it all the more difficult. All we are really working with is our own inventory of beliefs and experiences.

I believe I was taking responsibility for my reaction to your communication, Shasha, hence my coming back to say that I knew I had to let the feeling of criticism go.

And I did not find your communication abusive or ill-intentioned, but as I expect and look forward to continuing to share here and with you, it felt important for me to come back and point out that it felt critical to me.

I want to borrow an item from Phil’s handbook that speaks of the origins of the false self system. One of them being, “Disempowerment of rational and volitional powers,” because I think it speaks to what I was experiencing in response to your initial sharing:

“Critical attitude from other people toward oneself further reinforces commitment to look to others to decide for us the values by which we will live.”

The fact that you shared you later realized you were feeling protective of me indicated to me that you were placing yourself in a sort of parental position to me. As I continue to share here, to learn and to grow, this is not what I need.

Kristi

Kristi,

Whoops, thanks for pointing out that I didn't get back with you on this. I missed this last post.

I'm not sure what projections you think I'm not owning...I certainly did *identify* with some parts of your long sharing of being deceived/seduced by the energies of the friend and guru. Many aspects of my life were detroyed owing to my entanglement with the energies (Satanic) in the cults into which I was initiated. However, I don't feel that I was projecting some deceived/wounded/lost part of *me* that needed protecting.

I've given the "look out!" message dozens of times to people at SP who share their stories of false gods, not because I'm projecting some part of myself. The reason I started this thread is to have a place to warn people of these dangers. I guess that could be parental, OK. I don't mean my feedback to be pejorative or critical, however.

In point of fact, I felt very empathic and caring towards you when I read your longer sharing (consistent with what I felt with all your sharing), though I didn't write all that out in my initial response. My mistake was not taking the time to do a more thorough response to your sharing, being more sensitive to what you needed.

I hope that helps.

As I shared in a PM, let's be wary that Satan doesn't succeed in destroying what is good about our being vulnerable and sharing unto our individual and collective healing.

Hi Shasha,

Again, I did not feel your response was hurtful to me. As I earlier said, I felt good just to have written and shared it on the forum.

Perhaps you thought I expected a response from you as I posted it in this thread that you initiated regarding False Gods. Regardless of where I posted it, If none had responded, I do believe I would have remained blessed for my writing it out and sharing it on the forum.

I'd like to draw on your words from your recent post:

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
My mistake was not ... being more sensitive to what you needed.

You make an assumption (still) that I need something from you.

So, let me back up and try to draw this all out a bit more. After having read your initial response, and our following few exchanges after, I realized I was in the belly of a care-taking/parental complex with you ... which I believe began since I first returned to the forum.

I think the problem (for me) is that you forget to take off your therapist hat.

I did not need you to "mirror for me" (reflect back to me) where I was at ... as you indicated was the same thing (mistake?) you did with Mt. I am not your patient. That is not what I come here for.

I did not need you to point out that I was on a "wild ride" of "mass confusion" and "demonic energies."

I am well aware of what I wrote, well aware of what my experience was. This you should know, as it was not the first time I had written of these things, not the first time they were discussed here on the forum.

If you will go back and look at all of your responding to me in this thread, and elsewhere, you might see that you are acting/responding from the position of a counselor...being protective/parental/guiding.

Kristi

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KristiMarie,

Thank you for clearing things up for me--further; I appreciate your candor.

I'll have to give all that some thought...

God's peace,
Shasha

Since my nickname was mentioned by Kristi in her most recent post, I'd like to clear somet things up.

Shasha,
from my present perspective your comments and reactions to me were OK and I wouldn't call them "a mistake". At the time I felt a bit uncomfortable now and then with your interpretation of my experience, but now, when I know your story and I'm more familiar with your unique "style", I'm totally comfortable with your view, even though I'm not sure if I share this view. I also heard that your interpretation has changed a bit, since in some of your recent posts you suggested that co-existence of non-dual and interpersonal mysticism might be just "my thing". So maybe you'd agree that my "journey to the East" was something good, even, perhaps, the only way for me to get back to the Church? That said, I'm not happy, of course, that I held false beliefs and that I wasn't in full communion with the Church during those years.

I'd also like to add that I've never felt "like a patient" interacting with you, and I think that you're respectful of other people's boundaries in terms of using psychological interpretations. I feel comfortable with you praying for me, caring for me etc.

Kristi,
I've shared here how it feels for me to communicate with Shasha on the forum. I'd like to say that I think I understand the way YOU felt interacting with her, even though we may experience Shasha differently. I decided to share it, because I suppose it might be useful for Shasha to know how different people react to her words.