Tag: healing the inner child

The Jekyll and Hyde Inside #innerdemons #shadowself #empathy

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections2 Comments
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

We wear two faces: the “light” and the “dark.” As well as everything in between. What face we choose to show to the world matters, as well as what face we show to ourselves. What we refuse to show, or repress also matters.

I’ve been thinking about the Jekyll and Hyde inside of myself, and inside of others, a lot these days. We are living in triggering times, and both the “light” and the “dark” side of ourselves, and humanity as a whole, are being exposed. Our extremes are rising to the surface to show their faces, whether we label them as “good” or “bad.” Sometimes the terms “good” and “bad” are subjective, or filled with layers that deserve to be unpacked.

The other day I found myself remembering the first moment the Hyde inside reared its ugly face and shocked me into a deeper knowing of my shadow-side. I must have been around thirteen-years-old. I was babysitting two little girls that day, and we were playing a game of hide-and-seek. It was my turn to seek, and as I approached the youngest child, I decided I’d scare her a bit. Now here’s the thing. I’d never done anything like that before. People in town often sought me out for babysitting services, and I was known as a responsible and kind sitter. In that moment, though, as I approached that little girl, an unfamiliar, and dare I say, evil delight filled me.

“Boo!” I yelled, watching as her little body shook with a genuine fear.

Tears steamed down her face.

And in the seconds before regret took over, a feeling of grotesque power took hold of me.

It is one of those moments one never forgets, even tough it was mere seconds in length. The light inside took over that monster of darkness soon after I realized the ramifications of what I had done and I consoled my fearful charge, but the shock of the appearance of my shadow-self temporarily taking hold of me left its imprint.

I’m not sure I knew at the time what it meant, except that I had the capacity to do harm, as well as good, and there was a feeling of euphoric power in that moment of knowing. It scared the heck out of me.

It’s hard to admit that we all have the extremes inside of us, and it is also easy, sometimes to shun or condemn those extremes in others. Anger is often frowned upon or feared. Aggression seen as unkind. And, directed in harmful ways to the self or others, there’s few who would argue the truth in these judgements. Yet, what is the essence of these displays of self?

When I think of that thirteen-year-old babysitter now I feel empathy for her shadow-self’s reaction. She had inside of her a team of repressed “demons” waiting to be heard. Her voice, used to being silenced, felt in that moment its power.

Today, on her blog Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore, Sally Cronin featured her post “#NewAuthor Marketing Tips – Making the most of Twitter,” and I found myself thinking once again about the Jekyll and Hyde inside of us. I will confess I don’t care for Twitter, just as I don’t care all that much for GoodReads, even though as an author I should be using them both as a marketing tool. There is kindness and light to be found on each platform, but also a full exploration of the shadow-self.

It takes nearly no time at all to Tweet kindness, just as it does to Tweet hate, and inevitably when I, on the rare occasion, scroll through my Twitter feed, I find a both. But somehow, my eye tends to linger on the various faces of hate, anger, and fear. Any political post is rife with responses that make me recoil and reaffirm my unhappiness with social media’s darker side.

Herein lies the dilemma for me. It is okay to feel. In fact, it is a healthy aspect of knowing the self — this feeling into our emotional responses— but is it healthy to stream vitriol, unchecked? When we react with anger and hostility on a regular basis, we are feeding the shadow-self without actually listening to what it has to say to us.

So what does my reaction to these forms of social media say about me? It’s probably quite obvious to the reader. I tend to crave harmony and have conflict aversion. Although I can be a tough critic, I don’t like to be judged, especially when it feels “unfair.” This tells me if I want to explore the benefits of these writer’s resources, I also need to explore and unravel that shadowed self inside of me. Although these aspects of self, in essence, can be traced back to the wounded inner child. I think the same can safely be said for most of our “inner demons.”

In this time of pandemic challenges combined with political strife the likes of which many of us have never experienced before these last four years, it is not surprising that we are facing a battle with our inner Jekyll and Hydes. I know I often find myself lying in bed on restless nights examining the subconscious mind through my dreams and analyzing the wounded self instead of sleeping peacefully through the dark night.

Who am I, really? I ask myself. What do I want? What do I need? What can I give to others? What can I not give right now? How can I heal the wounds that shout to be heard?

The Hyde inside does not, by nature, turn us into criminals. Instead, it offers us perspectives of self to examine, hopefully inwardly, before we cast that “darker” side of our face out to the world. It is as much of a gift, albeit usually an uncomfortable one, as much as it can be a curse.

The choice is always ours as to what we repress, what we “face,” and what we choose to express outwardly.

An Unusual Labyrinth?

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Classes, Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Spirit Channelings, the labyrinth17 Comments

 

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The Labyrinth of Light

 

 

I dreamt last night of a world I did not want to leave. “Hold me back,” I told my companions, lest I fly up into the wonderous sky above.  At that moment I was watching the dance of clouds as they morphed into fairytale forms, yet what was below was as magical as what was above. A child’s playhouse of wonderment and joy. I have dreamed these landscapes before. I have even traveled them in visions only to return to the density of a reality that seems, on the surface, false and formed through the deliberate hands of ego-driven might. By hands shaped by the individual quest for greed.

My soul has not forgotten the true magic of Life. Of untempered Joy. Every so often, it returns me to that state to bring back hope and also Truth. I have walked the broken lands that still hold magic for those who wish to see and feel it. Through the deepest depths of a despair that is not just mine, I have felt the ever-present stirring of Light.

We all walk the landscape of magic, whether we are aware of it or not. At each moment we can choose whether to become the trapped victim of fear fed by that greedy hand lusting for power and dominance, or we can find that ever-present state where the river of Life flows to the frequency of Light.

Here is where the inner-child resides, waiting to dance to Truth. We call her the inner-child because she holds the key to Life. She never forgets the “child-like” state of wonder that is the magic of all existence. The embodiment of true Joy, she resides in all of us. Tuned to her frequency, the world around her shifts to match the rhythm of her dance.

For so many of us, including those who are not yet adults, the inner-child is already lost in a long-forgotten place. We may know she is there. Sometimes we may even feel her inner core of light, but we have forgotten who to get to her. It is as though we reside in a labyrinth that takes on a maze-like form because the light within us is filled with broken lines created by pain and fear. These shadow lands impede the natural flow of light, which is that magical life force energy that vibrates to Truth. To Joy. To Love.

As one well-intended individual has pointed out, the labyrinth that appears in my first book in the Warriors of Light series does not resemble the labyrinths seen throughout ancient cultures, and which is now used in “New-Age” healing modalities. The labyrinth I chose, or rather chose me, is a maze of lines that unite the above with the below. Those who are familiar with esoteric teachings will recognize it as the mystical hexagram, the Star of David, or the Merkabah . Its origin predates religion and division. Two triangles overlapping in union, connecting the above with the below in perfect harmony. The true self, that “inner-child,” can be found always at the center. The seat of the soul. Of Truth. Of Light. Un-changing. There can be many individual journeys to get there, but we all, eventually arrive at the same place.

The book will be out soon…I had a minor glitch in formatting, a glitch which is turning into a gift to allow a more beautiful expression of the book and the vision that is being held to assist and support children young and old reconnect with the inner-child of Truth.

 

The Moon-Child

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Uncategorized3 Comments

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The moon-child forgot who she was before she turned three suns. In her time of  forgetting, she mapped the stars with rocks in the dirt below her feet, and played with the rainbow of light around her growing body. When the birds flew down to watch her, the moon-child hummed their songs deep within her throat. Sometimes she would even sing.

One day, when she was playing with the trees’ broken fingers, drawing spirals in the Earth’s brown body, the moon-child learned about silence. The rays of solar light were too glorious to ignore, and the moon-child rose from her crouch, threw the tree-fingers to the side, and began to dance. Her orange dress caught the waves of the wind as the moon-child wove the golden light around her. She raised her face to the sky and opened the mirrors of her eyes to absorb the endless blue. Laughter bubbled up from her belly and tipped the flap of her throat until it released her air.

The moon-child, too absorbed with the sky, didn’t see the tree-finger next to her dancing feet, and when she twirled, one last time, she stumbled her tender body over the rough limb. Down the moon-child fell, like a tiny comet, rolling into a ball over her bleeding skin.

It was the first time the moon-child saw her body release a red river and she became filled with fear. Her small lips opened in a cry to her Earth-mother. Over and over she cried out her name, until her voice grew faint with frustration. Before she gave up her voice, the moon-child grew angry, and stamped her bare feet on the hard ground until her wounded toe bled a small stream of red into the dirt. “Ouch,” she cried out, remembering her pain.

Once again, the moon-child began calling out for her Earth-mother to help her. She wanted to be held. To be loved. To be told everything was going to be okay. She wanted her Earth-mother to cradle her in her arms and make the hurt disappear along with the red stream leaking from her body. When she again paused to listen for a response, her ears heard only silence. Even the birds had stopped singing.

The moon-child didn’t know that her Earth-mother had chosen to sleep away the day, and heard her cries only as a dream. And so, the moon-child also learned about abandonment.

Days passed into troubled nights, and the moon-child stopped dancing in the golden light of the sun. When she traced shapes in the dirt with tree-fingers, she began to forget their origins. Although the birds still settled nearby to watch, and to sing to her, the moon-child stopped singing back. They are not singing for me, she told herself. They are singing for each other. They do not see me. No one does. Not even my Earth-mother who is always asleep when I need her most. 

At night, when her Earth-mother left their cabin and it was her turn to sleep, the moon-child gazed at the white light in the sky that slowly grew from nothing into a large white circle, then back down to nothing, as though it was playing peek-a-boo with her.  Where do you go? she wondered when the body of light disappeared behind the veil of darkness. Take me with you! she whispered into the inky air as she imagined her body sailing through the dark sea on a path of stars to get to back home.

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The Return of the Goddess

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Memoir, Reflections, Uncategorized12 Comments

Yesterday I baked myself a birthday cake. A day late. It came out okay. The children and husband were polite, telling me it was “good,” but I knew they could taste what should have been there. There is a belief held by some, myself included, that the food we prepare for consumption holds the emotions we feel as we assemble it. When I took my first bite of the cake I had made for myself, because I had decided I couldn’t let the occasion pass without one, I tasted a distinct note of melancholia, if not the definitive spice of sadness.

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A not so pretty cake before the strawberry sauces was added 

Birthdays are never easy days for me. The wounded inner child comes out weeping to be nurtured, loved and adored unconditionally on this day, as well as the cloaked goddess who desires to cast aside the garment of domesticity and shine in all her glory. For at least one day. Instead, reality takes over. The hectic nature of our modern lives consumes the celebratory energy of the day, and the goddess and inner child are squeezed into the spare moments. But they are still there, waiting to be let out, and I find I can no longer deny their presence, nor do I want to.

I don’t think I am alone in my hidden, or not so hidden desires. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re shared by most of my fellow goddesses in hiding on this planet. There was a time, you see, when the goddess was revered. The woman-as-goddess was simply an undeniable truth. There was no question of our sacred power and gifts. We were revered and honored for the divine famine energy we possessed, as well as that awesome ability to create and bring forth life.

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“Ancient” artifact of 3 goddesses – Bath, England 

I’d like to believe we are gradually coming back to this place, but we’re not there yet. I am not the only woman out there who has to occasionally bake her own cake, and buy her own flowers (yes, I did that too). And, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. It’s a step toward honoring that inner goddess and child. It is an expression of self-love that is essential to healing the wounded spirit.

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The lovely sunflowers I bought myself

Last night I told my own daughter, who, I might add has had at least a handful of pedicures and manicures in her twelve years on this planet, while I have had one, a pedicure, in my 43 year, that life was not always like it is now. I brought back the time of the goddess and told her about how women shone in all their glory in a way that honored their power and truth. A time when we were not something to be feared, but revered.

I told her this is something that needs to be brought back, and that it can start within the home. That it is not a selfish desire. It is, quite simply essential. When we look at the world we live in, it is hard to deny that we are out of balance, and the scales have long been tipped dangerously on the side of masculine force. Notice I said force and not energy, as the true masculine energy is not forceful in its power, and it is always, ideally, balanced with the divine feminine nature that exists in all of us. We have forgotten that we are both. We have forgotten harmony and balance, and the glorious celebration of who we are. We have forgotten the need to bring forth in ourselves and others the hidden energies that lie in wait inside of us, so that we can nurture their rebirths.

The goddess within needs to be brought out. It’s high time we celebrated “her,” and revered her. It’s high time we starting using the name “Isis,” who was once celebrated as an aspect of the divine mother, in the name of love and not war.

So, you see, what I held inside and desired to come forth on my birthday this year, is an energy that exists in all of us. We all hold within us the dark and the light. The yin and the yang. The divine masculine and famine energies. And, there is always, always, the inner child waiting to come out to dance in the sun (or rain). If only for one day, but hopefully everyday.

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My children, several years ago, dancing in the rain

 

 

 

Clearing the Ghosts from the Closet

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir, Uncategorized2 Comments

It was a one of those nights when sleep arrives slowly and is interrupted mid-dream, ensuring that you will recall the scenes upon waking. One of my children was worried about ghosts in the bedroom. “You clear them, don’t you?” I was asked. The room felt unoccupied to me, but some protective measures where taken none-the-less. Turns out a scary YouTube video that was supposed to be comedic had been watched.

As a result, the lights went on several times during the night, and each time I woke from a new dream that seemed unrelated from the one to follow it until I rewinded the night during daylight.

My dreams began in that popular place where magic is contrived. I was eating lunch with my mother at one of the park’s restaurants. She had ordered the double hotdog special because it also came with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for later. I munched the fries, uninterested in eating the hotdog, while we sat at a booth. Then, suddenly, I found myself asleep, and when I woke my mother was gone. It had all been a ruse, a trick, a way to leave her child behind. Still groggy  from the drug that had been placed in my drink, I searched the streets, knowing she would not be found.

The next flick of the light found me on a park bench, reaching out to hold an infant that belonged to someone else. The child was a harmony of light and dark, with symbols covering his or her head (there was, fittingly, no sense of gender). The mother generously allowed me to enfold her baby in my arms. They followed me home, and while the child’s mother and I sat on the quilt I had made long ago with my own mother, she told me that the bedroom closet was too small for what it held inside.

“I’m a builder,” she assured me, and I watched as she threw open the doors and let loose that which was contained. Shoes and clothes piled out. “There is too much stuff in here,” She told me. “And the location is all wrong. Suddenly my closet was being lifted in her strong arms until it found a new home. A complete reconstruction and expansion was in order.

As I moved outside of the bedroom to watch, I discovered a house under construction. Some rooms were finished, others held the frame of potential. My home, though, was vast. Limitless rooms unfolded before me as I traveled (actually I believe I was flying through) the upstairs hallways.

Once again, a light went on, and I found myself inside of another dream. This time, I thought I was someone else who was not me. A beautiful boy who wanted to be a girl (this is significant on many levels, one being that in this life, I as expected to be born a boy by my parents, but was born a girl instead). Here I was, inside this child, being told that my father wanted me outside by the pond with him. I felt resistance build within me, and the struggle to be free erupt into wings.

I was the child of Pan, running gloriously wild, racing up the trunks of enormous trees and into a house held within the boughs. I was weightless with wings. There was nothing to stop me from being pure joy, except my own fears. Before I woke, I found myself in one of those upper rooms, looking outside at nebula exploding into being. Suddenly, I tasted fear. Could I, I wondered, leave it all behind? The Universe was calling…was I ready to follow that birthing of light?

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Orion Nebula, Source: copyright-free-images.com

 

 

 

Drawing the Enneagram #esotericpoetry #enneagram #spiritualpoetry

On By Alethea KehasIn Poems2 Comments

I wrote this poem rather quickly, in one sitting, letting the words flow through onto the screen as I typed. I have been in a bit of a writer’s rut these days, and I thank Sue Vincent  for nominating me for a daily poetry writing challenge on Facebook. This has stirred the latent creativity back to life, somewhat, and I am grateful for that.  I’m sharing this one, today’s, because it is metaphysically inspired.

Drawing the Enneagram

After I finish my third

I want to add colors to the distorted

shapes I’ve created, thinking about fear

She told me it shatters the spectrum

of the body, lodges

light behind shadows

to find a home inside darkness

I have found splinters

in unexpected places

The child who slipped

into the pool of joy

for a moment and forgot

about the well in the forest

is living in my lower breast

below the plate of armor

in a sliver of blue truth

Shall I place her in the middle

and spread the rainbow

around her? He never built her

the swing-set, it still festers

in the gray matter of my mind

with conditional love

 4 cuts a path to 1, bisecting 9

and 8 to get to 7. My eye lingers

in the space between 5 and 6

even though I wore the number

13 last night in my dreams

on a magenta shirt. My other father

wanted me to change its design

but didn’t want to pay the cost it would take

Typical

So I refused, and the shark

in the water became a hippo

leading me to land, where I ran

until I looked back and laughed

myself awake

My Enneagram
My Enneagram with a Sliver of Blue

Each knot holds a memory that seeks to be free

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir6 Comments

Remember the robin in my last post, appearing blatantly bold outside my window during the snowstorm? The only bird to be seen by my eyes that day?

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Somehow I had forgotten her, amid the daily struggles of life this last week. Yet, she was there, a silent reminder as I opened my blog to write this morning, showing me that her message had come full circle. Yesterday, without thought given to my friend the robin, I reclined on a couch with my left hand cradling the orange energy of my womb, my right, the blue energy of truth held inside knots along the right side of my neck.

The robin, I am reminded on this morning as I watch another snowstorm fall outside my window, is the bird who welcomes rebirth each spring. She wears the color of creation without fear as an apron of feathers that spreads from her upper chest down to her lower abdomen, where it meets the purity of white. Here, in this lower region, she releases into her half-moon nest, a brood of sky blue eggs each spring. Her creation in the beautiful hue of truth.

When I saw the robin a week ago, my neck felt fine. But, as I think back now, it was a prelude of what to come, as soon after that last snowstorm, my neck formed a rope of knots connecting the base of my skull under my right ear, down into my shouldere where it wrapped into a pile of more knots.

The energy held inside the knots seemed to tighten with each day of a week filled with surreal reminders of the cycle of loss. Within the space of a few days, two children passed in my town. The loss of a child, even if it is a child not well known to you, can unearth a well of emotions and memories inside of you. There is, arguably, nothing quite as poignant as this form of loss.

I will not enter into the details around the passings of these two children, as their stories are not mine to share. For me, and my family, they were triggers, as all death is, impacting each of us in individual ways. My son, who wears the open cloak of an empath, struggled I believe the most. That is his story, but I will share its effects on me.

My son, is in many ways my mirror. His eyes are mine, and when I look into them I see the little girl I once was. In his moments of struggle last week, I was brought back to that child inside of me as I watched his over-taxed body attempting to process and release an emotional burden that was mostly not his. I was thankful, in the midst of feeling heart-broken and helpless, that he did not swallow his storm, as I had so many times as a child.

What brought me to the couch yesterday, was that desperate need for release. My emotional limits were crumbling, but the rope of knots that held the right side of my neck in traction was stronger than ever. I thought about hiring help to release the tension, but it wasn’t until two of my friends, in separate messages, spoke of going inside, that I allowed myself to acknowledge what needed to be done.

Even though it was a Sunday, and I was sharing the space of my home with the rest of my family, I retired into a semi-quiet room to enter the energy inside. Here, as I channeled healing into my body, I found myself returning to that little girl named Truth.

“You were a beautiful child, so open to love.”

These words, I knew where not mine, but there was a part of me that cringed before I began to release. This was not a truth I held onto for long as I grew in this life. Instead of lingering on this notion, I let these words unfold into memories and the tears that come from release. Scenes flooded my consciousness, each one gently unraveling a knot. Each memory was a mere snapshot of a larger plot, but there were themes I could not miss.

Each memory was formed outside, where walls do not exist inside the expansive womb of Mother Nature. Inside these snapshots from my early life, I was welcomed by the energies of freedom, peace, beauty, magic and love. Each held my truth before it was changed.

Social Studies

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir2 Comments

It started in the cafeteria, that place where cliques converge onto tables, their masses growing with popularity and spreading down the length of the tables like poison ivy beside a stream. Voices happier than a bubbling brook. Twenty-seven years ago you would have found me sitting at different table, those ones quarantined to the periphery, beside the other outsides not considered cool enough to dine with the masses.

It wasn’t always like that. Twenty-eight years ago I was cool enough to eat where I wanted, even though I wore my self-confidence in a fragile shell around me. That was before it was broken almost beyond repair. You can find the story in the book My Other Ex: Women’s True Stories of  Leaving and Losing Friends. I’m not going to narrate here. Instead, I’m going to tell you about the cafeteria I dined in last night.

There I was, standing in the center of the floor dressed in skinny genes and a fitted t-shirt, my hair long and straight, my smile wide and unwavering. There was no doubt in those clear blue eyes that covered the room with ownership. I looked more like my middle-school daughter than my former self.

“He likes me?” I asked the friend closest to me, “Maybe I’ll go talk to him. Maybe I’ll tell him I like him.” We were talking about a beautiful boy in our grade, and I was sure he could be mine if I asked.

I carried the crowd down the hall, my hair waving to the students behind us as we made our way to our next class. Social Studies. I kid you not. Sometimes Spirit is so obvious you can only laugh, which is what I did when I woke this morning and reviewed my dream. Nowadays the class would be called Integrated Arts, I believe, but back in my day we called it Social Studies.

Perhaps I should be frustrated that I am still healing that insecure girl still inside of me, but I’m simply grateful she’s able to heal. I judge my dreams by their content and their emotions evoked. Last night felt like victory, not because I was about to win the heart of a popular boy and the admiration of my peers, but because I had the self-confidence to express myself in full, unbroken glory.

A few nights prior, I healed a piece of that girl (now younger than in the cafeteria dream) in another dream about a boy. Again, I looked a lot like my daughter, in fact it was as though our souls and bodies were merged. There I was inside a car, nestled into half-sleep in the backseat beside a boy my daughter likes. Outside was a lake of water from which I had just been rescued.

“I love you,” the boy whispered his kiss into my young body before I slipped into a sleep of bliss.

I can’t tell you why the boys in my grade school never “loved” me, I can only tell you of my longing to be loved. Like my daughter, I was a pretty girl, but I wasn’t walking inside a body filled with confidence. I was a child who wore the clothes of rejection since birth.

Before that ten-year-old girl felt the joy of being loved in my dream-state, I had another healing experience. A week and a half ago, I was at shamanic workshop and traveled to the belly of Earth with Huascar as my guide (to read the poem I wrote about this journey, please visit the post A Journey Back to Self, and found a little boy hiding inside the black body of a cave. Before the entrance was a phallus, standing tall and proud. We were retrieving lost pieces of our souls, and although one (including myself at first) might think I should have found a girl waiting for me, I had found a little boy.

Sometimes we forget that balance is a body of light and dark, a body of yin and yang energies in equal portions. That little boy represented lost confidence, and he/I was ready to welcome back that masculine energy that holds the phallus erect and the voice strong. I needed to reunite with that lost “boy,” before I could return that beautiful broken girl to a body of unwavering love and joy.