Our society has tremendous prohibitions against feeling too much. We are afraid to feel too much fear, hurt, sadness, or anger; and oftentimes we are also afraid to feel too much love, passion, or joy! And we're definitely afraid of our natural sensuality and sexuality.
—Shakti Gawain
Fear is like an evil ghost. We know that it's there; we pretend it isn't, and we're afraid to do anything about it. So it just takes up residence wherever it feels like and goes on haunting us. But there is good fear and bad fear and it can be helpful to be able to tell one from the other.
Healthy fear gives us a sense of when something really isn't safe. It warns us of danger. Otherwise, we might all be jumping off cliffs or walking through Central Park alone at night. The good news is that healthy fear isn't going to hurt us. It protects us from getting hurt.
Negative fear, however, can cripple us. It shows up in the body as a very icy-cold energy. Oftentimes, if a person is carrying a great deal of fear, I can feel about five inches of a thick coldness that either sits in certain areas of the body or completely envelops it.
Suzanne, a young woman in her early thirties, came to me for a healing that had to do with her fear around love. There were cold spots throughout her body. She had just fallen in love but had many negative messages inside: her parents’ bitter divorce; disappointing past relationships; painful, past-life memories concerning love, of which she wasn't conscious but were there nonetheless. She felt that her new love was right for her in many ways, and she did not want anything to interfere with this relationship's potential. Yet, fear was holding her back. She discovered that she would only be able to go forward and let the relationship unfold if she learned to release herself from the negative images of the past that were stored in her body.
Many years ago, I sat in a hospital, waiting to undergo my fourth surgery in two years. It was to be the second surgery on my colon. I was very upset that I was back in the hospital and that I was still in pain after three other attempts to correct the problem. Why was I going through all of this? Was it some karmic debt from another lifetime? I felt very frustrated that I couldn't see for myself what was going on. Here I was, a psychic who had helped many other people understand why they went through similar situations, yet I couldn't see what was going on with me!
My mom called a medicine man she knew in South Dakota and asked him if he could see why I was back in this same predicament. He called me at the hospital the day before the surgery to tell me he'd had a vision of my colon being full of fear. He said that I had been storing in my body all of my fearful memories since childhood. I had to work on releasing all the fears stored in my colon if I ever wanted it to work properly.
When I hung up the phone, I felt overwhelmed. Where in the world to begin? I had hoped that he would give me some magical words; then I could pack my bags and go home. I felt so alone and so afraid. There was a part of me that knew he was right, even though intellectually I wasn't yet convinced that stored emotions could have such a devastating effect on my body.
I had the surgery. The doctor corrected the physical problem by removing thirteen inches of twisted intestines. I knew intuitively that I needed to work on surrendering my fears rather than holding on to them. I did not want to have any more surgery or any more pain. I wanted to heal.
It took some time for me to be honest with myself. My first reaction when the medicine man had told me the problem was fear was to try my best to dispute the facts: “No way do I have any fear. I am tough. I can handle anything.” The truth was that I was very fearful despite the fact that I was handling things. It took me a long time to be willing to see this.
I believe that all of us, especially those of us who are traveling a spiritual path, eventually need to face our fears. We can't in all honesty say that we're faith-filled, if in fact we are fear-filled. If there is an inner conflict between faith and fear, we must work on resolving it. Emmanuel says,“People have to deal with fear because it is one of the greatest denials of the reality of God” (Emmanuel's Book, p. 164).
It has taken me a while, but I think that I have identified most of my fears. I find now that when I get a pain I am usually able to identify the cause as something in my life that's making me feel afraid. I know it's time for me to surrender those fears once again. I would like you to start becoming aware of what your own fears may be, so you can write them down in your journal.
Resentment, like fear, has the ability to make our lives miserable. Fortunately, both are totally under our control. Webster's defines resentment as taking “strong exception to what is thought to be unjust, interfering, insulting, critical.” To me, it's remembering a hurt that has been done to me and not wanting to let it go—harboring angry or hateful feelings. Sometimes resentment means scheming and plotting ways to get back at the person who hurt us.
As a healer, I have seen that resentment can be the root cause of many physical problems. When we continue to hold on to the injustices other people have inflicted upon us, resentment builds inside us, causing serious damage to our bodies. If you make a statement to yourself, such as “I will never forget what so-and-so did to me,” you are consciously storing that memory in your body, along with the bitterness and hatred. Our resentments become bitter stories that grow with the passing of time.
A client named Eric came to see me because of his hearing difficulties. He told me that one day he had been hunting with his best friend when the gun went off in close proximity to his ear. He had been having trouble with his hearing ever since.
The first time that Eric told me this story, the mishap seemed quite unintentional. But I found that each time he repeated it, the details of the story changed. Once, when he came for his appointment, he was in a particularly bad mood; nothing had gone right for him at work that day, and he'd come home to house full of angry, unruly kids. This time, when he told me the story, he revealed that his friend had been trying to kill him!
Was this true? Or was Eric embellishing the facts? In terms of his healing, the only thing that really mattered was that he forgive his friend and let the story go. Once he released his resentment, I told him his ear would begin to heal.
Many people don't know any other way to get attention or sympathy or love than to share their stories about how they've been hurt. They repeat their stories over and over again, telling anyone and everyone who'll listen all the details about “who done them wrong.”
This is a tough way to live. Every day, people intentionally or unintentionally hurt us. Most often it's unintentional. Each time a hurt comes our way, we have the choice to either let it go or hang on to it and store it away until we can get back at them. We believe we will be able to rest only when we feel that justice has been served. But as quickly as justice is served in one case, another injustice is there to take its place, because resentment has become a habit.
If you've been slighted, hurt, or injured, your body will store your own story of injustice so you can tell it over and over again. Somehow, we think that if we never forgive and forget the people who hurt us, that they will suffer the punishment. The simple truth is that we're the ones who end up crippled with arthritis, back pain, headaches, cancer, or whatever. The resentment is killing us, not the people we find so hard to forgive.
One characteristic of resentment is that it is often not as obvious to us as it is to others. Instead of waiting for an apology, all we have to do is express our feelings to whomever has hurt us, and healing can be instantaneous.
Rosalie came to me in search of healing for her sprained ankle, which was the result of a freak accident. A male friend who had been staying with her was late for a job interview and found that his car was out of gas. He asked Rosalie if she could drive him there. In her rush to get ready, she tripped and fell, spraining her ankle. Not only did her friend not offer to help her, he left her in pain and rushed off to hail a taxi.
It was now several months later, and still Rosalie's ankle would not heal. It was only through a psychic reading that I learned that she was subconsciously holding on to her resentment. I told her that what she was really hanging on to was the hope that her friend would one day acknowledge the role he had played in what had happened and apologize for leaving her in pain. As soon as she was able to release her resentment by offering her friend forgiveness, Rosalie's ankle started to heal.
If you are still hanging on to negative feelings about something that happened to you a long time ago, these feelings are being held inside of you where they can do damage to your health! Don't minimize these feelings. Let go of the resentment you may be holding inside.
Another side of the resentment issue that is not so pleasant to look at has to do with the pain we have caused others. The eighth step of AA's twelve-step program is making a list of all persons we have harmed and becoming willing to make amends to them all. Step 9 is making direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when doing so would injure them or others.
What does it mean to make amends? Webster's says: “To correct, to improve; to change or revise.” It's not only apologizing for the hurt that we have caused others, but it's changing our future behavior toward that person. The apology isn't much good if we apologize for something and then turn right around and do it again! What is most important of all is changing our own behavior.
It can be helpful to ask God, the Universe, or whatever is your concept of a Higher Power to help you be willing to acknowledge those hurts that you have caused others. I know that acknowledging that there are people you have harmed is not pleasant, but it's a vital part of the healing journey. Remember, this has nothing to do with who's right and who's wrong. Don't get caught in the trap of who hurt whom more. Taking care of your unfinished business is for your sake, your healing. It has nothing to do with your concept of justice.
One final thought: in making amends to the people you have harmed, be very careful not to injure anybody in the process. When considering making amends, ask yourself if the amendment you are thinking about is going to make the other person feel better. If it may cause the other more harm, don't do it. While the purpose of making amends is to clean out all the old guilt and shame, as well as to wipe the slate clean, it is not to be done at another's expense! In many cases, the very best way wecan make amends is to forgive ourselves for the harm we caused.
Exercise 1
List Your Fears
In your journal, make a list of the things, people, or situations you fear. List every fear that comes into your mind, no matter how small it may seem. List it even though you may think it is silly or unjustified. Remember, you don't have to share this list with anyone. When you've finished making your list, read it over. As you read, are you aware of pain anywhere in your body? If so, jot it down next to the fear.
The purpose here is to start getting these fears out of your body and down on paper where they can do you no harm.
Exercise 2
List Your Resentments
Divide one or more pages in your journal into three columns. Label the first one “Name of Person/Organization”; label the middle one “What They Did to Me”; label the third one “My Feelings Then and Now.”
When you have finished with your own list, ask a close friend or relative whether she knows of any other resentments you might be carrying around. Often, we forget details from our own stories. We may have shared our “war stories” with friends who will remind us how angry or resentful we were at the time. Our parents can remind us of resentments we may have been carrying around since childhood. If you discover more resentments, add them to your list.
Exercise 3
Make Amends
Divide one or more journal pages into three columns again, this time labeling them, respectively: “People I Have Harmed,” “What I Did to Them,” and “How I Will Make Amends.”
Now fill in the blank spaces. Remember my earlier caution about making amends only if they will do no harm. And remember, too, that sometimes healing begins by finding it in your heart to forgive yourself.