Your Story of who you are - June 2008

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f r e e s o u l

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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

a newsletter dedicated to educating, informing and inspiring people
to apply new possibilities in healing and inner growth

VOLUME.7

Your Story of who you are.
An open Letter to the Graduating Classes of 2008.

6/21/08

It is one week after my daughters graduation. A week ago we all sat in the auditorium, saw the graduates walking in accompanied by beautiful music, all of them so dressed up, so festively, so solemnly. We celebrated, cried and listened; were moved and impressed by their speeches, and performances, by their presence, and their maturity. We enjoyed hearing the adult speakers too, who had good words to say, good memories to bring back, good advice to give, and good insights to share. All so beautiful, caring, eloquent and inspiring. I went home very moved: happy and sad at the same time, a time of endings and new beginnings. It wasn’t until a few days later, when I thought about what it might be that they would take with them into the world from these events, and from those speeches, that something felt missing to me. Something nobody had spoken about.

It compelled me to write down what I would have liked to say to them... something I wish all graduating students could know. So, if you happen to know one, please pass it along.


Dear Graduates,


What are you taking with you?

Clearly what you are taking with you into the beginning of adulthood is the education you got. And of course we all hope it will serve you in the very way we envisioned it would. But you are taking something else with you that will actually have a much bigger impact on your life: your own story of who you are. This story contains everything you believe about yourself. It has been shaped to a degree by this school, and by what you have experienced here, not only by what you have learned, and what you have accomplished, but also by what you have been hurt by, what you have missed, and what you have failed in. Everyone of you has had those experiences too.

My own daughter was lucky to be able to go to a school were the teachers can safely be described as generally idealistic, immensely dedicated and caring. That may be a rare thing in this world. Whether or not you went to a private school, or a public school, whether you loved or hated your time there, during your years in this school you had both good and bad experiences. Everybody does. That is true even at a school like ours, where the teacher, who was chosen to give the graduation speech during the school ceremony, described it as a place where you could mess up and be forgiven. Looking at those 18 students on the podium, I was aware in that moment that some of them wouldn’t agree with that, as much as the teachers believed that was the school they had created. You too probably had experiences where you felt punished, maybe even unjustly so, maybe you have at times felt overlooked, unrecognized, or picked upon as well... Yes, this too was part of the reality of going to school for them and for you.

The opening chapter of this story had already been written...

Here it is helpful to come back to your story of who you are. It is important to realize that the opening chapter of this story had already been written when you first entered your school, and the character you were cast to play in this story was already clearly outlined. That also means the people you were about to meet, teachers as well as classmates, would either fit into your story and play a bigger part in it, or they wouldn’t. And as every story has its heroes and its villains, so did and does yours, therefore also the bad parts had to be filled, and filled they were. Not because the person who happened to play such a role was inherently bad, but simply because they were capable of filling that particular part, simply because they embodied enough characteristics that were familiar, enough that matched.

It was as if you saw someone taking dance steps you knew, heard the music that you knew, and you couldn’t help but jump in and dance that dance with them. Sometimes you would dance a tango, and sometimes you would dance a waltz. And usually, once you start to dance a particular dance with someone, you dance it all the way to the end. Because once you have started, it’s pretty impossible to change the steps right in the middle of it, even when you try.

Understanding your story and how you fill the parts in it explains how it may have been possible that you had interactions with teachers - or parents, who might genuinely think they do something from a place of love and service to you and your education, while you may have had experiences that felt very different. Of course there are always some adults who act out of fear, trying to protect themselves. For them it’s harder to see who you are. They also tend to be the ones who play the bad guys. The point is: Everyone can’t help but play out their story. Teachers too. And you fit into theirs as well.

You are only about to recast the principle parts...

It is your story that is coming with you, now that you are leaving. Now, even though it seems like life is ready to start all anew somewhere else, even though you may be leaving so many people behind, in a way you are only about to recast the principle parts that are now opening up with new actors. It is good to know that. The more you know about your story, the more you can slip into a different part, the more you become the director.

During your graduation festivities you probably heard a lot of inspirational advice of keeping your passion alive, making the right choices, staying true to who you are, and following your dreams. Can you actually just do this? Parents and teachers will always tell you that, those are always our hopes and aspirations for you. We will always encourage you, reassure you, and remind you of the dream we think you are reaching for. Many of us do this because we want you to have something we feel we ourselves have lost sight of, because we still love the idea of making a dream come true, because we believe that the way to lead a truly happy and fulfilling life is to live your dream, to reach what you have envisioned.

Reality though looks a bit different. Every generation growing up knows that not everyone meets their dream, and surely not for lack of wanting, not even for lack of trying.

I know this from the inside: I happen to work with adults who have lost a dream, lost their ability to make good choices, their belief in who they are, and their passion along with it, sometimes so much so, their bodies have become ill as well, proving to them that indeed there are limits, that indeed they can’t. My work happens to be about reawakening that dream and moving it back into reach.

Therefore I know that at the root of every problem you encounter, every fear that grips you by the throat, every bad habit that gets in the way, every addiction you cannot shake off, or every painful relationship you have, is an experience you had long ago that closed a door inside of you. There is much I could say about why those doors close, but not here. Suffice it to say we all have our share of them.

I am not saying this to discourage you.

When the door to your dream doesn't open no matter what you do...

I am saying this to tell you: when it happens at a future point in your life and you knock on the door you need to open in order to step into the next passage toward your dream, and you find it locked, and you find it locked every time you knock, no matter how loud you knock, how much you scream, or how friendly you ask, when no matter what you do, this door remains locked; I want you to know that it is not locked because you are not meant to open it, not because you are not good enough, not because you have made mistakes in the past you are now paying for, or because someone powerful doesn’t recognize your potential. I want you to know that this door is closed ONLY because any one of these kinds of assumptions has become part of your story, has become something you started to belief about yourself. Life will always prove to you what you believe, it will always collaborate in the most miraculous way to let you play out your part.

This may sound even more discouraging. As if there is no way out of this story of yours.

But now I am going to tell you a secret:

As powerful as this story is - and it is powerful - as much as it shapes all of your experiences in life, in the end it is NOT who you are.

This is what you need to know:

It doesn’t matter how long something has been buried inside of you, how long a door has been bolted shut. You, and you alone can open it again, and when you do, you will discover that it was you who closed it to begin with, not your parents, not your teachers, and not the world around you, even though it probably looked like that for the longest time.

The person you are underneath your story is someone you haven’t even met yet. Your full potential is still waiting. Waiting to be released.

This speech is not about how you actually do this. Not all of you are going to be interested in exploring yourself like that anyway, that too may already be part of your story. I am only here to tell you: It is possible. If you want to, you can. There is more than one way. And when you look for it, the right way for you will be there. My hope is that you’ll remember this. My hope is you won’t need to wait to discover this until you are 50 years old.

And finally here is one more secret: While everybody sets out to reach their dream, while everybody believes once they reach it, life is going to be so wonderful, very few people understand that what really makes you happy is not reaching your dream, but having it. It always only seems like we are doing something in order to get something we think we need. What we really need is the energy and excitement that comes from having a dream, from wanting something, or being engaged in a project we love, because that is what nourishes our soul, and makes us feel alive. So, once you do reach your dream, make sure to take a deep breath and start looking for a new one.




I wish you all the best on your path through life.

Tomma

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TOMMA VON HAEFTEN 632 ALBANY TPK OLD CHATHAM NY 12136
OFFICE 518 794 0017 HOME 518 794 6224 EMAIL tomma@taconic.net
WWW.THEFREESOUL.COM

The Immensity of Love - Feb 2008

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f r e e s o u l

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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

a newsletter dedicated to educating, informing and inspiring people
to apply new possibilities in healing and inner growth

VOLUME.6

The ancient Thirst in our Being

2/10/08

It is true that there are no words adequate to describe THIS that we call Source, that in naming IT we narrow IT down, and yet it is also true that in giving IT words an expansion happens. I find in writing I not only discover more clarity in my experience, but I also know that these little black lines and curves carry something that can travel to someone else’s soul, like a scent that is carried by the wind from a lilac bush, and in an instant that blossoming bush has come to life inside of us.

That’s why I write. I hope the fragrance of Source will stir an inkling in your own soul, awaken an ancient thirst.


I have been visiting Source many, many times with the Journey, but this past weekend the encounter touched me more deeply than ever before, and it’s aliveness stayed with me like it never has. It was as if all the experiences of Source I ever had, were now joined together in this one.

Even such a massive emotion as this anger disappears without a trace

In that last Journey I found myself needing to pass through the burning intensity of an anger that poured out of my whole body with a breathtaking power. A huge cleansing. Oddly there was no glimmer of memory of who had caused this feeling, as if what was burning away here was something of my own. A last clingy veil of my own weaving that had still separated me from Source. I have been through such a flaming passage before. It is astonishing how fast even such a massive emotion as this anger disappears without a trace... all by itself. I surrender and dive into it, there is nothing of substance... I keep breathing... I allow it... I listen... as if my very cells are screaming... and after a while I can feel it leaving my body... just like that, magically... something lets go... a softness begins to spread... I wait...

And that day... there I was... not me... but dispersed boundlessly into countless particles, and at the same time there was a me in each of these infinite particles. And the me in my familiar human body was weeping over the immensity of love welcoming me here. My eyes weeping, my voice stammering... truly, for the eternity of the first moments, there were no words.

This vast love embraced me...

This vast love embraced me, as if every single molecule of matter around me was stretching out its arms, holding me, carrying me, rocking me so tenderly... it didn’t matter what thing or being these molecules were a part of. In them I was everywhere, and I was... home, resting, utterly free of worries, of struggles, of duties. Held in a love that felt... almost solid.

Seen through the linear eyes of time this love became visible as a stream of energy that flowed like an ever-meandering river... golden. Magnetic. Endless. I could feel a vibration buzzing in every cell of my body aligning with its steady movement. The invitation was clear. Would I allow myself to be completely carried by THIS, always? What is life like in the embrace of THIS? Every day? How are responsibilities taken care of? Problems solved, bills payed, decisions made...?

There were pictures, and more pictures, clear and beautiful. There were answers. Many.
My thinking mind softly eased into trusting that it is all right to give up the burden of being in charge. There was the present and the future gently laid out for me. The river carrying me through. No need to know how I would arrive anywhere, because there was nowhere to arrive. Nowhere to stay. Nothing to reach. Nothing to hold on to. And within me a dawning awareness that the unfolding of life would become more beautiful than anything I could ever plan for.

Where is all of that now, you may ask?

There is a calm loving voice that responds to the one that worries

IT is still here. Not as blatantly obvious as during my Journey. A bit more hidden under the surface of “normal”, daily life. It’s not like my life has radically changed, and yet it has a different anchor, one that doesn’t let me drift away as much from being fully alive. One that keeps me in a more balanced state of mind because there is a calm loving voice that responds to the one that worries about not getting enough done, not making enough progress, neglecting another person, not taking care of myself, forgetting this, being late on that... yikes!!! Subtle, but so relentless.

Now I notice and I remember a deeper reality. It takes some practice. But each day I sense this presence of Source a little more often, a little more easily. When I remember to stop, I can hear it like a soft whisper calling me in those moments of stillness between one activity and another, this river, this love, and yes, I will let it carry me.


My article will have served it’s purpose if it can inspire you to seek THIS, or if it reminds you to revisit the ever changing experience of THIS. In the Journey we call it Source, but it has so many names: divinity, inherent truth, primordial essence, unity consciousness, Buddha-nature, and more. Keep in mind that your experience will be different, because it will be your own, and it will speak at that specific point in time to your particular state of doubt, pain or illness in a way you can never anticipate. One thing you’ll know: when you enter Source, the illusion of all that you suffer from disappears. You remember who you are.

f r e e s o u l
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TOMMA VON HAEFTEN 632 ALBANY TPK OLD CHATHAM NY 12136
OFFICE 518 794 0017 HOME 518 794 6224 EMAIL tomma@taconic.net
WWW.THEFREESOUL.COM

Oppression turning into Abundance - June 2007

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f r e e s o u l

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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

a newsletter dedicated to educating, informing and inspiring people
to apply new possibilities in healing and inner growth

VOLUME.5

Abundance - a single Journey

6/11/07

This morning I woke up and I knew I had to go on a Journey.

It’s not the first time I have done a Journey for myself, I use it whenever something shows up that makes me feel uncomfortable enough, irritated enough, or sad enough to want to pull it out by the root.

My state of abundance seems to be directly linked to the size of those lists.
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This morning, still in bed, it was the awareness of how I look at the tasks I face each day. I walk through my day carrying two long lists with me: a liability list and a possibility list. Both are full of items that I, and I alone, need to get done. The liability list holds all my responsibilities as a dutiful caretaker of my home, professional Journey practitioner, successful business woman, good mother, loving partner, inspired gardener and loyal friend. Apart from all the necessities of daily living, it holds larger projects such as: painting the barn, creating a new flower bed, installing an electric fence, planing our trip to Europe, and clearing out the attic. The possibilities list holds all activities and projects that I believe will make my practice and business grow. My state of abundance seems to be directly and inversely linked to the size of those lists. The longer the first list, the less time I have for the things on the second list; and the longer the second list, the more I am failing to create an income that has a chance to grow significantly larger.

It’s been 4 years since I stepped out into the world waving a little flag announcing the humble beginnings of my private practice: “free soul”. I didn't imagine it would take me this long to stand on my own feet. Now, while I am earning a good deal more than I did in the beginning, I am still not able to pay all of my bills. There are too many of them. I find myself still wondering: how much longer until I am really making a living?

Everywhere I look, I see a liability.
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So, this morning, the weight of those lists was just oppressive. I realized that practically everywhere I look, I see a liability. I see something that says to me: YOU need to take care of this! I realized I was living with a belief that it is beyond my physical ability to do what is needed to get what I want. High time for a Journey!


As I closed my eyes, I felt myself literally bouncing down the stairs into my inner being. When I stepped into the room lit by my inner light, my abundance mentor was already there waiting for me. As always, he was wearing his peculiar outfit: a robe as if made out of many layers of skirts, so that when he turned, there was a rainbow of colors twirling around him. A little flying vehicle was waiting for us too, a mixture between a giant dandelion seed and mini helicopter. Off we went.

The space was squeezed together so tight, hardly any air could pass through.
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We landed at the top of my throat and here I felt and saw the restriction at once: the space in here was squeezed together so tight, hardly any air could pass through. And there was a memory waiting for me: When I was 5 or 6 years old, I had an inner ear infection that had kept me in bed for many days. My preschool class was planing some kind of party or celebration, but because of my illness it was in question whether I could go or not. I had never been to an event like this and I wanted to go so badly it almost hurt. I had prayed and hoped so hard, and yet it wasn’t up to me. I knew I had been getting better, but was it fast enough? There I lay in my parents bed on the day our old family doctor come by for the last check up, filled with such fear and anticipation and hope, and when he said “no” - something broke inside of me.

.It was not that I couldn’t express my sadness, I did. I cried and cried, and my mother consoled me as best she could. What was inexpressible for me in that moment was that the world I lived in had changed. It had become a place that was unjust, a place where I could not do enough, no matter how much I wanted to; where it hadn’t made a difference that I had eaten what I was supposed to eat, taken the medicine just like the doctor had prescribed, and slept as much as I was advised to sleep. I still couldn’t go, and there wasn’t anybody I could blame, for no one had done anything wrong, not even me. It was only my body that hadn't been able to do what I had asked for.

In such moments a door opens to offer us a way into freedom.
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But now, in this Journey process, I could speak, and it was God I needed to speak to, after all had he not given me my body? At the campfire the little girl I was at 5, could finally express her pain to him: Why did he let this happen? Why had he allowed my world to become so small? Why did he punish me so, what had I done?
I was surprised by the answer, which came very softly, like a whisper: “On the contrary - your world became richer in that moment.”
Richer? I didn’t understand.
“Yes, you had been given the chance to learn that in the moment when you want something, in that moment of wanting, it already exists inside of you.”
Well, that sounded great, but I’d still rather have gone to that party.
“Yes, but if that had happened you would have gotten tied more strongly to a dependence on physical manifestation, instead of being free from it.”
Free from getting what I want?...
“Yes, what happened was really a gift. It is only in such moments of emotional intensity that a door opens to offer you a way into freedom.” ... “And it doesn’t matter that you didn’t go through that door then, the door remained open all this time”
... Hmmm

I don’t recall all of what God said. It is hard to put into written language an exchange at this deep level of soul communication. I remember I was shown how to understand what had happened in three different ways. I remember hearing one of my business coaches voice saying: “... you have to absolutely let go of the outcome.” I remember seeing an imaginary rich person desperately looking for more things to want, grasping at more and more outrageous projects.

A source of pure life force that feeds and nourishes me.
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When it all sank in, I began to see that any experience of wanting something, is a source of pure life force that feeds and nourishes me. It’s the very juice that moves me forward, the fuel that pumps the heart of my soul, the reason I feel so alive. In the midst of this exchange it dawned on me that I had heard this concept many times before when Abraham spoke about launching the rocket of desire, but I had never understood that that rocket wasn’t there to attract to me what I wanted, not there to create a certain outcome, but that it is purely there as a source of energy. This may seem subtle, but the difference this makes in my life is huge.

It’s not ever about the doing or not doing...
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At the end I received some specific instructions. When now I see something, or think of something that says: YOU need to do this, I can bless this experience and just see it done. Simple enough. It’s not ever about the doing it nor not doing it, or when I can or can’t do it, it’s about collecting the energy this thought provides. It’s like putting money in the bank, and that money sits there, ready to be used, until the job is done. - Man, what a difference!

After the campfire exchange was complete, it was easy to forgive my body, and now I was eager to see how this experience had transformed the place in my throat. I was hoping that it had become more spacious and that more air would be passing through, but what I saw was beyond my expectation: My throat had opened up so wide, I found myself standing under the vast darkness of a starry sky.

In a Journey process, before we leave the place in the body that held the memory, we always ask the body for a final communication. The sky in my throat said to me: Your desires, wishes, dreams and hopes are just like the stars in the sky. These stars are not there for you to hold on to, collect, or get out of the way, they serve you simply by allowing you to see how vast the universe is you live in, by giving light to their little part of space far away from you. Some of these stars don’t even exist as you see them, their light has been traveling for so long, and others that are shining right now, you are not yet able to see. See your desires as those stars. See how empty that sky would be, if you attempted to pluck them all out of there in order to get the job done. Know that when one of them fades, as its fire is extinguished, you want a new one to replace it right away. Can you see that the more of them you have, the richer your life will feel? Ahhhh, yes, I could see that.



Money in the bank...
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Walking through my house later in the morning I felt a new calm settle into my veins. I looked at the pile of winter boots and clusters of down jackets in our coat room and thought: “Indeed: money in the bank!”, spotted the rotting floor on the porch outside the living room: “Wow: a lot of money in the bank!”, saw the sewing machine, still standing on the dining room table: “Even here: a little money in the bank!”, and felt that old, ever present burden beginning to lift off my shoulders.

After breakfast, during my daily walk with Jacky down the old railway dam, I saw the abundance of nature all around me: dewy oceans of leaves in so many shapes and ever intricately different formations, cascades of fragrant flowers hanging from the wild rose bushes, sparkling in the sunlight, the hundreds of voices of all the many unseen flying creatures, with their little feathers, growing out of their thin little bird skins, each a miraculous piece of art, and me in the midst of all of that, walking with wet shoes through the warm summer air.

I had so often in the past felt a nagging kind of envy: why was it so easy for these lowly plants and creatures to manifest in such abundance beyond what anybody had asked for? What did nature do, that I couldn’t, that I constantly failed in? Today, for the first time, I didn’t leave this presence behind me when I stepped back inside through my kitchen door. Today I started to be able to see this same abundance in my home shimmering everywhere I looked.



Unless we can go back to discover the cellular memory...
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While we may recognized something in ourselves in another person's struggles, we each have our own formative experiences that we can revisit to remove the imprint that happened at the time. Our thinking mind is so quick to tell us that there is something we can DO, just like what this other person did, to change the way we have been feeling, but it is my experience that unless we can go back to discover the cellular memory that created a limiting belief about ourselves or the world we live in, we will be caught in different forms of the same repetition over and over again.


I wish you an abundantly happy day!

f r e e s o u l
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TOMMA VON HAEFTEN 632 ALBANY TPK OLD CHATHAM NY 12136
OFFICE 518 794 0017 HOME 518 794 6224 EMAIL tomma@taconic.net
WWW.THEFREESOUL.COM

All about Forgiveness - Jul 2006

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f r e e s o u l
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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

a newsletter dedicated to educating, informing and inspiring people
to apply new possibilities in healing and inner growth

VOLUME.4

7/30/06

All about Forgiveness

Each month I go to a women’s circle. Each month we have a subject and share our experiences on that particular theme. Our most recent theme was forgiveness, and we each had exactly five minutes to speak. As the evening unfolded I found myself wrapped in a rich tapestry that was woven from each women's story. I was touched by many different experiences of forgiveness, and we all witnessed many different levels of maturity and ability to step away from our old knee-jerk reactions. By the time I drove home I also found myself passionately inspired to explore this subject in more depth in this newsletter.

We all seem to believe that forgiveness is a good thing, at least most of the time, but what exactly does forgiveness mean in each of our own lives? Why is it a good thing? How does it happen? When is it necessary? What are the things we need to forgive? And are there things we should not forgive, ever?

During most of my life I didn’t know anything about forgiveness. I grew up with parents who without a doubt loved me and my two younger siblings very much, who raised us with as much attention, understanding, care, and caring as was within their capability. The kind of personal violations I remembered were really of the minor kind: my sister using my clothes without asking me, my parents not buying us an ice cream even though it was a really hot day, teachers grading a paper unfairly, or my mother nagging me about not practicing my violin often enough. Only twice in my life was I slapped by my mother, and both times she apologized right afterwards. I always thought of my childhood as a fortunate one, one that gave me a nurturing environment to develop my talents and abilities, and with that came a certain obligation: to use these talents to give something back to the world, to those people whose lives were burdened by less fortunate circumstances. It became my life long search how best to do that. As I grew older, somewhat to my surprise, I discovered I myself also had plenty of inner limitations and obstacles that all wanted to be let go of.

In spite of all the healing and personal growth work I have done in my life I didn’t come to understand the power of forgiveness until I started studying The Journey two years ago.

When I read Brandon’s book I was struck by the key role forgiveness played in her own healing. I was impressed by how much she already knew and how many healing approaches she had practiced and mastered by the time the tumor showed up in her body. And yet all that she had learned to that point hadn’t prevented that tumor from growing. When she finally stumbled onto the experience that was to become the full Journey process, she checked with her inner source to ask whether she was done. The answer was a definite NO. Almost in despair she asked what else can possibly still be missing? This time the answer was simply: forgiveness.

Why then is forgiveness so powerful?

In my current understanding of the healing process, whether it concerns a physical or an emotional condition, forgiveness is the last piece in a chain of transformational experiences that can heal the body or the mind from the trauma it was exposed to.

When we truly and wholeheartedly forgive, what we are really doing is giving away the impact someone's action had on us; in that moment of forgiveness we are giving away our story of having been hurt or wronged, and we step back into the broader truth of our divine nature, that part of our self that cannot be injured, the part that is eternal, free, enlightened and always complete. I know such a part is alive and well in each and everyone of us.

There are a few important things to understand about forgiveness.

First: Acceptance is not forgiveness. It may sound similar and feel helpful to find acceptance, but when you accept you merely acknowledge that something exists and that you choose to live with that reality. In spite of acceptance you may still be licking your wounds, you may still deep down believe that “this” should not have happened, and still continue to experience yourself as a victim. - True forgiveness has a profoundly different energy. It sets you free.

Second: We cannot tap into this power just by giving forgiveness lip service. We may understand that it is important, we may say all the right words, but if our forgiveness is not genuine, if we don’t truly feel it, it will not liberate us in the same way.

Third: It is hard to forgive someone in the present for something that has its origin in the past. How often do we react to triggers, to someone pushing our button, giving us an instantaneous feeling of being wronged, mistreated, ignored, attacked, or misunderstood? How much time have we all spent arguing, defending, blaming or punishing someone and the part we were cast in felt oh, so familiar? How often are we aware that we are replaying an old pattern, a role within a story that was written into our cellular memory a long, long time ago?

These are the experiences that often have us running in mental and emotional circles. As we battle the ghosts from our past, we may be unable to hear what our current antagonist is really trying to say or do. And if that person gets caught up in their own story of the past, we are soon so entangled in proving the other person guilty that it can become impossible to hear or understand what is really happening. Forgiveness isn’t all that effective here. Trying to reshape the present doesn’t have a big influence on the imprint that shapes our day to day experience and behavior. When this imprint is anchored in our past, in an old wounding experience, it creates a lifelong pattern that is often difficult to brake. But... once we discover that imprint, that root of our present experiences, then we have the chance to fundamentally change its hold on our current reality. In the Journey we call this imprint the cellular memory. And forgiveness at the level of cellular memory is where it is absolutely the most powerful.


In my experience in working with the Journey there are just a few things that need to happen in order for forgiveness to be complete and do it’s profound healing work.

Speaking our truth.

This is the first step. The younger you needs to have the freedom to express what couldn’t be expressed in the past, to be free to feel everything that may have been suppressed, and to say all that wasn't said. In real life this is often hard to do. The person who hurt us may be unwilling to talk, unavailable or even dead by now. It’s fortunate that it doesn’t seem to make a difference to our brain whether we are talking to a person standing before us or talking to the imagined presence of that person. That’s why hypnosis, guided imagery, and visualization work. The most dramatic benefit of Journey-work is that the cells in our body can’t tell the difference either.

Here too it is important that we open up completely and just speak from our raw emotions that were present at the time, without editing or judging ourselves. Not only do we have the right to speak our truth now, but we always did: We just didn’t know it.

Feeling fully heard, seen and understood.

This is the second component. Again this is much harder to do in real life, because real people tend to get caught up in arguing and defending their actions. But in the Journey we have the chance to speak to the internalized presence of a person. In that realm of connectedness that we achieve here, we can access a response from a deeper level of that persons' soul. In a Journey we have a lot of tools that allow us to feel fully heard, seen and understood in ways that were sorely missing in our real life experience. When that happens, the need to argue, to explain ourselves and to convince the other person finally disappears - Our truth has passed beyond our internal space and is now shared by the other person.

The willingness to fully hear, see and understand.

This is the last requirement. As long as we believe that the other person was acting intentionally, maliciously, or carelessly against us, it will still be hard to forgive. Or, if we believe on the other hand that we somehow caused our painful experience, we continue to live with the conviction that we need to be someone other than who we truly are. Only when we discover that the action that hurt us was born from the limited emotional abilities and lack of inner resources that the other person lived with, when we begin to see the pain, struggle, fear or stress the other person was in, and that it was their inner environment rather than something about us that caused their behavior, we free ourselves to feel... compassion. For it is within compassion that forgiveness lives. When we begin to feel compassion, forgiveness becomes effortless.


So, are there things we shouldn’t forgive?

What do you think? What is it that you want to choose? If the choice is one between liberation or holding on to an old story, which would you pick? Knowing that forgiveness is not about letting go of justice, not about condoning actions that hurt you, but about walking the path that heals, what might then keep you from picking liberation?

Liberation and freedom have a grand and glorious sound to them, but to many of us they can be frightening. Why is that? Because we are being asked to give up a piece of our old identity, to let go of a story that used to define who we are. We are being asked instead to step into the unknown.

We only need to look at how fiercely entire nations hold on to the stories of being wronged, enslaved, and mistreated to remember how very difficult it is for us humans to let go of these stories, to let go of an identity, even when it is a painful one. We all know that it can feel impossible to even consider forgiveness. When there is such a nessecity to continue to mistrust, condemn, hate and fight. The irony is that it makes us feel safer to do this. It feels that we are protecting ourselves. - But are we really?

Once we understand the healing power forgiveness brings to one human being, can we begin to sense what it might do for a whole nation? How might we look at another nation if we could see it through the eyes of compassion? Can we even imagine the amount of profound transformation this would bring?

I do know this: each time one of us leaves behind a piece of our old story, each time we are able choose liberation and freedom and step into that unknown by forgiving a parent, a sibling, a relative, an ex-spouse, a boss, a coworker, or a stranger, we feed this capability in all humanity. The glory of the freedom that awaits you there, you can only discover when you dare to take that step - with or without the help of a Journey.


Who is it then, deep down in your heart, that you would truly like to forgive?

Finding the Express Lane to Source - Jan 2006

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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

a newsletter dedicated to educating, informing and inspiring people
to apply new possibilities in healing and inner growth

VOLUME.3

1/29/06

The discovery of “The Feeling Cleanse”, or:
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How to get on to the express lane to source.

That Saturday I was upset. Two hours later driving home I was still upset. Upset and confused. Why hadn’t this little turmoil gone away after I had spoken and expressed my feelings? I had communicated my truth as well as I knew how. Had I not said I was feeling used? Had I not said I was feeling disrespected, and had I not explained how it was effecting me that my day was turned upside down with only 30 min. notice?


Yes, but it still was there: a little voice inside of me that wouldn’t shut up, that needed to make the same statements, declarations and explanations over and over again, a nervous, unsatisfied restlessness inside of me, and underneath: a lingering sadness, that could turn into a quiet weeping, if I could just let go enough to be that vulnerable. That’s how I knew this wasn’t just about what happened today; this was older stuff. And I was determined to honor what was coming out of hiding that day and use its challenging presence to my greatest advantage.


When I got home, I sat down, took a deep breath and just allowed myself to feel what was really there at the core of those mingled feelings.


An intense 15 minutes later everything was changed: there was deep stillness and peace all around and inside of me, and an exquisite awareness of being, - a knowing of the timelessness of my existence, being connected to an eternal flame. And the troubles had quite thoroughly vanished.


Later that day I realized that my experience could be used as a blueprint, that I could teach other people how to follow that same simple outline and release whatever negative feelings they were hooked on, and that by creating a process structure I might be able to offer them an express lane to nothing less than source itself. Moreover this was something that could fit into peoples busy schedule, something they would be able to do on their own, whenever a trigger showed up.


Soon I began to imagine what could happen if this little tool was used regularly: relationships were bound to become lighter, more truthful, more present, more peaceful and more connected. Isn’t that what we all want? We would experience less conflict with our kids, our parents, our coworkers and our bosses. We would be less depressed and more empowered, and living with a level of awareness and inner knowing that was rising continuously. How can 15 short minutes make that kind of a difference? That’s what I would like to briefly outline in this newsletter.


When I started to work with "The Journey" well over a year ago, one of the most startling revelations had been that any negative emotion will become our personal gateway and passage to source, life force, the universe, or God (whatever name it is given), IF we allow ourselves to welcome this feeling, instead of turning away from it. In the so called Emotional Journey we use a method of dropping our client through the present emotion to whatever lies beneath or in the very core of it. In this way we often 'dig' through a lifetime of negative sediments, layer after layer of different emotional states, until we enter into an experience of source. While the Emotional Journey is a profoundly transformative and deeply healing process, it is also an entirely unpredictable and often long one, because we have no way of knowing how many layers a client needs to pass through.


The reason why the new Feeling Cleanse is so fast, is that it is based on a slightly different type of process: the No Ego Journey. The No Ego Journey was created to enable us to strip away the veils, illusions, and fear fixations of our particular ego type, by plunging us into the very feeling we have most feared and avoided our entire life. A very astonishing thing happens when a long suppressed negative emotion is allowed to be fully felt and to fully unfold. It acts like a flame that burns through our body, taking us directly to source, purifying, and clarifying our being in it’s wake.


Is there an explanation for this phenomenon?

I could describe it with this image. It is a little bit like you have been living in a beautiful house all your life, and there are certain areas in your house that are shrouded by fog. You don’t ever enter into those areas, because you are afraid of them, you don’t know what is in there, you worry you can’t see in there, and from where you are, the fog looks like a solid wall. Once you take the courage to enter, you find the fog isn’t solid at all, you can still breathe, you can even still see, you notice you are in a passage, and as you keep going you finally break through the outer wall of the fog and find yourself standing in the bright sunlight of the wide world outside.


Once we just allow that avoided feeling to completely be there, once we experience that a feeling doesn’t have any substance, and has no power over us, once we discover the greater truth outside of our limitations, we are truly beginning to liberate ourselves.


Most of us have lived our lives in the gravely erroneous belief that when a strong emotion surfaces, we either need to do something, or we have to stuff it back down. How did we get this so wrong? How did we come to take for granted that only by action will we be relieved of our uncomfortable feelings? And what are we driven to do? Typically, any feeling of anger translates into the urge to fight or yell. Sadness propels us to want to retrieve or recreate what we have lost, and fear makes us run for safety or cling to support.


For most of us it is a revelation to be able to simply welcome a painful feeling and experience it dissolving into nothing - entirely on its own. After this path of "non action", what does such an experience leave us with? The rediscovery and unshakable knowledge of our true identity, our deepest essence: freedom, love, stillness, and peace.


I call this process the ”Feeling Cleanse”, and I offer it to you for your own liberation.


So, when and how do you use the Feeling Cleanse?

You can apply it to any uncomfortable emotion you are experiencing. As you get more experienced you will also be able to use this process on headaches, other physical pain and more subtle emotions. Here is the outline as I have been using the process so far, for myself, family and friends. In parentheses I have added the example of my own first experience with a feeling cleanse.

OPENING UP

1.) Identify all thoughts that are associated with this feeling and write them down.

Sometimes your thoughts may seem unrelated, that’s fine! Don’t edit. It doesn’t have to make sense. Just empty out, express what’s there and get it down on paper.

(My thoughts were: I feel taken for granted. It is unfair that he can always do what he wants to do, and make changes last minute. It’s unfair that they can have all this fun in the city and I can never go.)

2.) Identify the feelings that are present and write them down.

You may be unclear about what it really is you are feeling. Ask yourself any of these questions: "If this is a part of me that has been hiding, what is this part of me that is showing up here?" or, "What is this part of me feeling?" or, " What is the pain of this part that is showing up here?" or, "If there was a feeling buried underneath this confusion, or this agitation, what might that be?"

(I felt: upset, sad, used, alone, weepy)

3.) Find the “root statement” of these feelings.

This is a statement that describes what is at the bottom of what you are feeling. Again, you can ask some questions to elicit this statement: "What is this part of me really saying about itself?" or, "If there were words that could describe the kind of pain this part of me is in, what would they be?" (From this point on you probably want to keep your eyes closed.)

(My root statement was: “I don’t matter”)

ENTERING THE GATEWAY

4.) Allow yourself to go to the deepest root of this pain.

Now you use the above root statement and repeat it like a mantra to allow yourself to sink to the deepest pain. Once you are conscious of what this feeling is, just stay in it...

(My root feeling was one of increasing annihilation)

5.) Allow this feeling to completely expand and unfold along its inner path.

...and keep repeating your mantra, and just stay immersed in this feeling, keep breathing evenly, staying open. Notice if there are areas in your body that are blocking this feeling and ask what needs to happen to open those places up. Welcome any visual images that show up to become part of this unfolding. You may have a very strong physical experience of this feeling in your body, especially if it is a form of anger. You may feel heat, certain muscles may be tightening up, or even shaking - that’s fine. But if you feel an urge to yell - don’t give into that, don’t disperse the energy! Keep it inside your body. You will experience the feeling peak and then slowly wane. Allow all of this to happen naturally, welcome all that is part of this unraveling.

(I felt and saw myself falling away, falling out of existence, as through a tube, disappearing out of sight)

ARRIVING IN SOURCE

6.) Allow yourself to be taken to where you need to be in Source.

When the painful emotion has finally disappeared on its own, allow yourself to become aware of where you have arrived, and what you are experiencing right now. "How does it feel right now?" To deepen this first state of source, ask yourself: “What is in the heart of this feeling, what is in the core of this experience?”

(At the end I became aware that there was another part of me that was actually watching myself falling away, and that the watching part was eternal)

7.) Find your new “source statement”.

Find the statement that expresses the knowledge about who you are in Source, in this place of expanded awareness.

(My source statement was: “I am eternal”)

8.) What is your image of liberation

You can stay in here as long as you like. You can even ask specific questions, and you may get some surprisingly clear answers. Write them down if they are significant. Also write down your new source statement, and any other insights you have had, changes you want to make, or actions you want to take.

(My image was one of that eternal part of me being connected to and part of a stream of light or fire, which in that moment had the name: ‘the eternal flame’)

* * * * * * * * *

Once you are experienced in using the feeling cleanse, it will be a tool you you can use in the midst of a busy day, to clear out the debris left after the kind of remark someone made that really hurt you. It will bring you back into balance after someone behaved in that certain way that left you feeling painfully unnoticed and unimportant. It will help you discover and dissolve the root of the anger you feel when your kids still don’t do what you ask for the millionth time. Be creative! We don’t even yet know all the things this miraculous little process can do for us. So I invite you to explore and play with it full out. You can only win!

I would love to hear back from you about your experiences using the Feeling Cleanse. The more feedback I get, the more I can fine tune this process to serve its purpose. I have work sheets available to track your experience, as well as all eight process points collected onto a legal size sheet, both of which can be sent by e-mail. And I am happy to offer help over the phone, or answer questions by e-mail.

I will also create a structured form of teaching the Feeling Cleanse through individual classes and workshops, and I will keep you posted on that.



May the Source be with you...
... much love

Tomma

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TOMMA VON HAEFTEN 632 ALBANY TPK OLD CHATHAM NY 12136
OFFICE 518 794 0017 HOME 518 794 6224 EMAIL tomma@taconic.net
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WWW.THEFREESOUL.COM

2 More Case Studies - Aug 2005

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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

VOLUME.2

8/31/05

Dear community, clients, and friends,


Here we are, a full eight months after writing my first case studies, and promising you a newsletter on a quarterly basis... yes, sometimes life just takes you down a longer path than you expected.

Today I want to share more with you about the emotional journey in particular, and give you a detailed insight into the possibilities of this process.

Like no other healing work I know, the emotional journey takes you through the many layers and faces of your inner limitation, accepting them, even inviting them, until you break through into the very part of you that is eternally connected, unconditionally loved, loving all that is, peaceful yet powerful, timeless, vibrant. Everybody experiences that source, that self that is source, in a different way. But nobody who visits this place through the journey comes out unchanged.

While the emotional journey addresses and releases any emotional patterns, relationship disfunctions, traps, codependencies, or addictions, it can also have an instantaneous effect on our physical bodies. The first case study gives a great example of that.
(Again, the names of my clients have been changed)


CASE STUDY I

Paul had had back pain for the past 20 years. It started when he was 18; at 21 he had his first disk hernia and another severe one at 22, while he was in the army. He described the pain as a beehive in his back that would never stop buzzing. He had been to chiropractors, acupuncturists, doctors and surgeons, who performed four surgeries on him during the last six years alone. None of these treatments ever made the pain go away; the only success he was able to achieve was a temporary and minor easing of it.
After his health insurance refused to cover yet another surgery, he was forced to look for other ways. A friend had recommended my work to him.

In his emotional journey he went through 17 different emotional layers until he came into his source experience.

His breakthrough into source, or transition, happened from a feeling of being trapped and boxed-in, which appeared as a dark, black space, a circular room. This was also the emotional layer in which his parents showed up, and this always indicates the layer we will do the campfire process in later.

As we explore further, he feels an excitement as he discovers a light area, a room with white bone walls, sensing this is a place he’s been looking for for a long time. It turns out this place is right above the dark space, and he finds he can consciously go up there when he finds himself back in the darkness and the feeling of being trapped. But even though up there is a better place to be, the earlier feeling of excitement is now replaced by boredom and he realizes the real solution is outside either of those rooms. Outside is the unknown, the outer space. There is an opening in the light room that would allow him to leave, but he is afraid to go into this unknown; something is holding him back. At that point he realizes that what he needs to find in this journey is his connection with the unknown. After some communicating with an inner part of himself that shows up as a strong authoritarian voice holding him back, a part that really wants to keep him safe, we find another inner part: a guide, or a sense of guidance that will protect him out there and lead him back safely. Once that is discovered, he is ready to let himself drop into the unknown outer space.

After he enters that realm, he floats around for a fairly long time.

He finally describes the experience to me: ”I am one with the unknown, it is infinite, it is everything, I feel very light, I am floating, I am being part of the universe, there is a lightness here that eliminates the heaviness of being in the body”

During his campfire circle a 10-year-old Paul needs to speak to both his Mother and his Father. His Mother is finally hearing his true feelings about her criticizing him and even his friends all the time. Interestingly he learns that she really just wants to protect him, (just like the authority part inside of him wanted to protect him) and she almost can’t help herself. Exploring further, he discovers that deep down she is experiencing a fear herself, and that this fear comes from constantly being criticized both by her father, and also by her husband. He realizes that because she is hiding this fear from her consciousness, she is acting it out against him.

We empower Paul with some new inner resources: the courage to set his own boundaries, optimism, the sense of belonging, self love, a protective crystal layer against criticism and verbal attack, and the ability to look for love in the right places. After breathing in these new qualities he feels very different standing there looking at his parents. When at last everything is out in the open, his feelings are fully expressed and he feels that both his parents really heard what he said; he is ready to wholeheartedly forgive them.

During the last segment of an emotional journey, which is called the ‘future integration’, we are able to check whether the work is complete, by projecting the experience of what just happened into the future.

In this case, when we noticed that Paul's issue never completely disappeared, not even at 10 years into the future, I knew there was something else that needed clearing during this session. When I invited another younger Paul, one who also needed to speak up today to the campfire, he found himself brought to a memory of his first girlfriend cheating on him when he was 16 years old.

Again, he could now, at last, say everything he needed to say and let her know his full feelings about what she had done. During the exchange he understands that even though he was ready for this love that felt very deep to him, she just wasn’t there yet. After completing their dialog, he decides to cut an energy cord that still connected them, to completely let each other go. This feels very uplifting to both of them. After he thanks her for all the love she did give him, and she thanks him too, he is ready to forgive her. When we do the future integration now, the issue disappears completely by 6 months.

I talked to Paul three days later on the phone. He described the rest of the day driving home from our session as being in a fog and very tired. When he woke up the next day though, he was stunned to find no pain in his back; all that remained was a certain stiffness that felt like it too was unwinding. He also showed some signs of detoxing: symptoms like a flu coming on, and no appetite, also some sudden strong tingling in his hands during a walk he took, almost like an electrical discharge over a period of 5 to 7 minutes. His eyesight felt clearer and he felt his sense of smell coming back.

Three weeks later the pain still hasn’t returned. I haven't heard from Paul since.


CASE STUDY II

Joanne was visiting with friends in this area when she heard about my work. She wanted to address a particular emotional pattern in a growing relationship. When a relationship wasn’t progressing in a certain way, it always brought up a lot of anxiety, worry and anger in her. There was always the longing of wanting more, mixed with the confusion about not getting it and the feeling that it might be wrong to want it after all, because she really wasn’t worth it.

In her emotional journey we went through 9 layers in reaching source. Unlike in Paul’s case, her emotional layers didn’t have much of a story, or sense of space to them. She was dropping, in textbook fashion, from one pure emotion into the next. There also wasn’t a big obstacle to reaching source, but rather a soft transition. From a last negative state of anger she found herself dropping into a pure “alleluia”; from there transported to a feeling of awe that sat as a tiny bright star in her heart, and finally she enters into a vast “inspiration, a humility that is bigger than love. It is like a chalice, almost untouchable, almost too sacred, and it is everywhere: inside myself, outside myself, without boundaries.”

Her mother had shown up in a layer of nothingness, in a neutral feeling, but when we invite everyone to the campfire, the 9 year old Joanne has a lot of intense feelings to express to her: “I need to let you know how much I hate you! How unprepared you were to be a mother. I have never felt so confused or misunderstood, or hated , or blamed, mishandled, mistreated and unappreciated before. I feel I grew up in a nightmare!” Her Mother responds that she really could not do it any differently. Visiting her mother’s own inner world to understand more, Joanne can feel those spikes, those ‘shoulds’ that go toward the people around her, as much as against herself. Dropping beneath that layer, she discovers her mother’s fear; a fear about letting go, a holding on, so that ‘nothing will ever catch her’. Underneath that is simply pain, a pain that Joanne senses came from her own childhood long ago.

But in the mix of all of that, we are also able to find her ‘connected place’: the place inside herself where she feels good about herself and the world around her. That place is in her heart, and from there she feels nothing but pure love for Joanne. Recharging the self with that parental love is always a powerful experience, and we are able to use it to its full extend. After the final cutting of an energy cord, the exchange is complete, and Joanne is ready after all these years to truly forgive her mother.

The second part of the campfire dialog was devoted to a group of three men. Joanne had needed their presence and participation: each one of them had abused her during her school years. It was the present day Joanne who needed to speak to them: “ I want it healed!” She declared. “I even want restitution! - - I don’t know if it can ever heal, but at least I want to manage it, I want it not to manage me any longer.” None of them have anything to respond to that. It is her mentor who speaks: “You need to open yourself to them. You can’t keep on doing this to yourself”. She realizes that since these experiences, she has deep down hated every man she has ever been with. Her mentor helps her to look inside the feelings of this group of three men. What she finds there is in her words a ‘binding experience’; there is selfishness and ignorance: the inability to realize the devastating impact of their actions, but also clearly: guilt. We now invite these men to ‘clean up the mess’ they have caused. This is another powerful mini process we call the ’clean sweep’ where they are able to remove all the residue, waste products,.and all the results of their behavior out of Joanne’s body. When at the end we fill all the emptied out places in her body with light, the transformation has been successful and Joanne is able to forgive all of them.

During our final future integration Joanne starts to feel lighter immediately and after only one year her relationship issue has completely disappeared.

Speaking to her about one week after our session Joanne tells me that she notices she is letting go of needing the perfect relationship. It feels to her like much is shifting, and that she is able to give old wounds the chance to be acknowledged.

A month later she reports that her intentions seem to be more in the forefront of her mind. She realizes she may not always act on them but they are there. She seems to be more aware of them and what she wants to create in her life. And she feels clearer about some things. And:
“Do you remember in the journey where I met with my three abusers? Well, last week when I was back in my home state, I met with one of them [in person] and expressed my forgiveness to him, which was part of the message I received in the journey. It was an incredibly healing experience. A big space opened up for me after this interaction. One, where I decided it was time to start discussing moving back there and another where I met a man that I deeply connected with. “
That has been my last update from her.


Does everybody have such a tremendous healing or opening after one journey? Of course not. I often see the conditions we are addressing as a layer of ice surrounding an essence of our being. That part of our essence that is frozen up can not direct life force into our physical body nor into our emotional body. When we are working with the journey it is as if all of a sudden we are being given a hammer and chisel. Sometimes that ice is just a thin cover, and we break through to the part that has been sitting there dormant right away. Sometimes that ice is much thicker and we need to use this process more than once to uncover what has been buried. The important thing to remember is that we now have this tool. It is here for us. It is here to serve us. And while successful journeys as Paul’s and Joanne’s seem to indicate that this process works for some people better than for others, it is important to remember that it is not just about the outer success we do this work for, but for the profoundly healing discovery we are having in each single journey we take, the discovery that we have the right and the ability to be who we truly are, that our feelings are, and have always been valid and important, and that when our essence is at last truly seen, it will be seen with nothing but love.

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TOMMA VON HAEFTEN 632 ALBANY TPK OLD CHATHAM NY 12136
OFFICE 518 794 0017 HOME 518 794 6224 EMAIL tomma@taconic.net

3 Journey Case Studies - Jan 2005

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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

VOLUME.1

January 2005

Dear community, clients, and friends,


Many in this community have come to experience The Journey during my introductory offer.
I would now like to share with you some examples of journeys and their results to give you an opportunity for more insight and understanding into the potential of this powerful modality.

I have worked with clients on health issues as well as emotional issues. We have addressed different types of cancer in different stages, digestive problems, unhealthy eating habits, and a simple bronchial virus. We have also explored and released the causes of many different anxieties, low self worth, various dysfunctional relationship patterns, marriage estrangement, fear of making mistakes, childhood abuse, and even the roots of financial troubles. The possibilities to apply the journey to make changes in your life and to come closer to the essence of who you truly are, are abundant.

I thought you would enjoy a glimpse into this amazing process with synopses of a few of my recent cases. I’ve not used the real names of these clients to protect their privacy.

Case Study I

Peter came to me not because of his cough and sore throat, which he had not been able to get rid of for several days, but with unresolved questions about the meaning of his work, and the difficulties of making changes that would result in him feeling more respected by the people who hired him.
The physical journey took us directly into his throat, where we found a memory of his stepfather, standing tall and distant above him at a time when he was about 7 years old. During the dialogue at the campfire the young Peter could at last tell his step dad how neglected he felt, sometimes as if he was invisible to him, and how much he longed to be understood, how much he yearned to feel that he had at least some interest in him. During the exchange he realized that his step dad had given what he was able to give, and had indeed tried to be a father to him, and in a short while he was ready to forgive him for his lack of understanding, interest and presence.
When the journey was finished the pain in Peter’s throat was already almost gone and only half an hour later it disappeared completely.
On the very next day he received four different e-mails from entirely unrelated people, all of them complimenting him on the high quality of his work.
Peter has since done a few more journeys and is currently in the process of fundamentally restructuring his work process.

Case Study II

Selma had done some hypnosis work with me in the past,and had made some good progress, but she felt she had not yet reached the core of the issue, which in her mind she summed up as: there is something seriously wrong with me.
During the physical journey we went to a place in her body, that was not clearly identified and looked like a cave. It linked her to a very early memory of lying in her crib as a baby, utterly neglected by her father, who had ignored her crying and had neither changed her diapers, nor been feeding her. When her mother finally came home, she first argued with her husband instead of taking care of her baby daughter. There is an additional memory later in life when she was about 3 years old. Her parents were still making her eat food she didn’t like, or making her eat when she was not hungry: there was still no offering of the right food at the right time. And there was still the experience of feeling dirty, she wasn’t taught how to wash herself “nicely”.
After receiving her bouquet of inner resources and replaying the situation, the potential of a different life literally unfolded before her inner eyes. She could see the different child she would have been, the playfulness and ease that she could have felt, her grandmother’s presence who would have given her all the food that she loved, and her parent’s ability to actually respond differently toward her, she saw how pretty and graceful she would have looked. She even witnessed a long relationship with a man that had never manifested beyond a light friendship in her actual past.
During the dialogue at the campfire she was not only able to express her feelings, her hurt and her pain to her parents, but she also understood what her parents had experienced themselves. For the first time she could see inside her father how much he was hurt emotionally during his time as a soldier during the second world war, how much that experience had left him forever damaged. She also understood that the choices she ended up making, gave her the very life her mother had always dreamed of, but had never been able to realize. After this substantial exchange she was at last able to forgive both her parents for the way they had treated her.
Selma called me very excited a few days later: She couldn’t believe how different she was feeling! Food was different, eating choices very easy, and when a call for help came from a friend, she was able to respond to it for the first time in her life with first taking care of her own demands, before rushing off to where she was needed. She was thrilled.

Case Study III

Vera came with an issue seemingly out of her control. It was a dispute with her ex-husband Matthew over their daughter. The child was facing some issues in her well-being, and while her husband wanted to stick to a more traditional method of treatment, Vera, who was herself working in the field of alternative health care, was convinced she had the tools that would help her daughter. She found herself vehemently opposed by her husband. Because she also believed that her daughter’s problems had their roots in the emotional disruption and aftereffects of the divorce, and that any further argument and disagreement between herself and her husband would only negatively affect her daughters well-being, she had agreed to not use any of her knowledge. And while she intellectually understood that this was a good decision, it felt as if she had been dealt a deep wound.
In the emotional journey we took, she too was taken back to a time during the first months of her life. Alone in her crib in her room, she was crying for her mother until she finally fell asleep. She couldn’t understand why she was all of a sudden so cruelly abandoned, as her mother would routinely lavish so much attention on her and nourish in her the feeling that she was important, wanted and needed. In her little baby brain the only conclusion she could reach was that there must be something wrong with who she WAS. The fear wasn’t about anything she might have actually DONE wrong, because as an infant, she wasn’t doing anything yet, but rather just being.
During the campfire dialog she expressed all of her deep pain to her mother. In the process she understood that her mother was in fact only doing what most people did at the time: teaching the baby to go to sleep on her own. Her mother had only wanted to do everything that was right and proper for her. Vera forgave her very easily.
Quite as importantly, she also realized that this very early experience had shaped the way she interacted with people throughout her entire life. It had sensitized her to read people and their needs from the very beginning. There was a second startling realization: because she had become so very good at responding to people, and so good at making people like her, it was only someone as impenetrable as her ex-husband who was still be able to show her this deep, old, inner wound. He had in fact provided her with an invaluable service.
Vera wrote to me a few days later.
“... So, now I understand that Matthew's fear, which has of course it's own story and roots, just gave me reason to be reminded of that pain, because what he was trying to stop me from doing has not so much to do with what I do or don't do, but has everything to do with my being, my purpose, my calling, my core. As if, by asking me not to work with Nellie, he was confirming my worst fear about myself: that there must indeed be something wrong with me at my core, so much so that I must be forced to stay away from helping my own child. What an astonishing discovery!
I have to tell you that the charge over this issue has almost completely evaporated. I do feel a new calm and peace inside myself...”


I hope you enjoyed reading about these journeys and find their descriptions useful.

As I have been gathering much new experience with this work, I found that first time journeys tend to take longer than I initially expected, often around three to four hours. They can be quite intense and deeply transformative. Second and third time journeys are increasingly even more effective, yet shorter. They will mostly complete in one to two hours.


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I am sending you all my best wishes.
Tomma

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TOMMA VON HAEFTEN 632 ALBANY TPK OLD CHATHAM NY 12136
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