On... to the body...

Quick update:

Peggy came by first thing and brought homemade soup and tulips!!! Oh, how sweet is that? I had postponed getting up and ready literally until I heard her voice downstairs, so she had entered into a messy and cold dining room... interesting again how I play that game in my head, because I had not thought about it until she was here, but afterwards I felt that little nagging guilty feeling for not having had some tea ready and the fire lit to be able to sit down with her... or at least offered some kind of hospitality... hmmm... just noticing these things with more awareness now.

Today my first massage was booked with a wonderful massage therapist in Chatham, Brin, who has also done some journeywork with me. A massage is always such a luxurious experience, but this one was also really interesting, because she focused a lot on my abdominal area, and I could feel , I mean, physically feel the resistance that still sits in the tissue in there. It still carries this feeling of being invaded or being asked of too much, I had to really breathe and very consciously release. Not a whole lot of emotion that surfaced, feels a little bit like a lot has been released, and now the body has to catch up... not sure, but that was my sense.

We both also noticed a lot of movement in there. Brin described it as if at times there was a fist coming up inside my belly. We worked with some chi-gong too, flowing chi energy up through one leg and back down the other, wind energy came up and did its work... interesting because she told me that wind in Chinese medicine relates to the liver and to anger... no wonder! as the (enneagram) 9 type that I am... we tend to do everything we can not to trigger, or feel anger... ah yes...

The belly REALLY felt different afterwards, something got moved around in there, or opened up. That was really good!!

I feel very good!!

More tomorrow!

Jimmy is taking me out...

Love you, as always...
Tomma

My Journey today... Fri. Jan 6th

Wow, I've had quite a morning,

I had scheduled myself for two more journeys, one today and one on Sunday.
But first thing we noticed when we woke up was how cold it was in the house, moments later the phone rang and it was my tenant reporting that the furnace had gone off and his thermometer read 45 degrees. Ouch! On the way to school the car showed me a mere 7 degrees.

I am concerned about the pipes. Some are not bringing up heat.

And in all this focusing on myself I had forgotten to be present with the oil delivery schedule and not ordered a new delivery in time. Jimmy, my angel promptly ran out to get diesel from the gas station and relight the furnace, one more run he made brought us up to about 30 gallons which will hold us over until tomorrow when the truck comes.

Then Bruce, my second angel of the day, called for the journey process. He suggested a new format I had never experienced, from the conscious leadership workshops he had participated in. A "simple" process that brings up all the negative labels, beliefs and judgements you live with. At first it didn't feel all that powerful, a lot of them I had been conscious of, but then a few were new discoveries, and some came up with a lot of emotion, and the part that made it really amazing was visualizing them in their totality... in the very end they become visible as a structure that surrounds you, that you have lived in.. woh, was that a wake up call to what I am constantly schlepping around with me.

Here is some the the hidden stuff that I saw. The stuff I don't want other people to see, that I don't even want to see myself. I am writing this in the awareness that not just you, my beloved moon-circle women can read this, but a lot of other people, and so this will be part of my clearing and healing to pull it out into the open.

My biggest fear and greatest pain right now seems to be failure.

Failure in many ways. Ways I have failed my daughter Sophia, knowing that even though we dance every relationship WITH the other person... I must have contributed to her current state of depression and lack of motivation, vision or joy for her life, and her inability to let other people in, or help her, or believe she can't be helped by anybody... and thinking I know what it was that I did, the considerable pain over having let it happen.

Ways I have failed my home by not taking care of it and neglecting certain repairs and upkeeps... always from lack of money or time...

Ways I fail Jimmy when he doesn't get from me what he needs.

Ways I have failed to be successful, not just doing "ok" but reallllly being successful, because the means I have failed to reach people, failed to bring this work where it is needed.

Most of all ways I have failed myself, in not living up to my own high standards. Not having been able to always be what I believe I can be, not being able to pull myself up and live the full version of my potential. Not even able to keep my desk in an organized state. When asked who am I in my darkest moments that I don't want anybody else to see, what tumbled out of my mouth was: "That I am nothing but an average, needy person who doesn't really contribute anything significant to the world and therefore has no right to even be here." Woha! That hurt! And what about this judgement on "average" people?!
This erupted, was there with a huge wave of emotion for a minute or so, and then faded.

At the end of course I walked out, this whole structure crumbled and my mentor removed all this garbage out of my cellular consciousness and replaced it with something... well... better of course.

Now I am fairly tired.

Sophia packed up the remainder of her belongings and left with a stuffed car to move in tomorrow, when all her big items from Ikea come in.
Tomorrow I am receiving a first massage. And more to follow.

I am awaiting the order of food grade hydrogen peroxide.

And a new load of higher quality, DRY firewood.


I love you all!
Tomma

Becoming Selfish

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It's amazing the ways in which those little things show up that I have never paid much attention to.

This morning I was ready to get up and bring Anina to school and stay at the farm store for 45 min so I could go to my meditation group, which I figured would be a good thing for me to be doing today.

Then Jimmy offered to drive Anina and come back in time, so I could stay in bed a little longer and rest. I accepted that. I did get up to get the fire going and help the two of them get out of the house in time... but went straight back to bed after they left.

As I laid there I heard Kathleen, my sweet housekeeper come in downstairs and I remembered that I had forgotten to get glass and bathroom cleaner for her. I also had not straightened out the kitchen enough so that she could just use her time cleaning without the need to tidy up first. So I went downstairs to apologize. Being the caring person she is, she shooed me right back into bed.

I still had to call Jimmy on his cell to ask him to bring glass cleaner though. Of course his phone wasn't working right and obviously didn't ring, because he just didn't pick up. I kept trying.

By 8:30 he called himself to check in with me and the urgent glass cleaner purchase could be delegated.

It got to be 8:45 and I would have to get up to get ready to go to the meditation group, and I felt this heaviness in my limbs, my body just did not want to move. It was not that was feeling bad and couldn't get up, it was more that I was sooo happy to be laying down. Then the thoughts started nagging: Lilia would really like to see me, they can't watch the buddhist teaching if I don't bring my laptop, I have already stayed at home last week, meditating is really good for me... ... After a while I just stopped myself. What was I doing? Was I listening to my body? Had I not promised to be listening to my body above anything else? Would I be going for them, or for myself if I went?

A little more pausing and breathing and then I picked up the phone and called and left a message I would not be coming.

It seems such a little thing, but this stuff gets big when you do it all the time.

Learning to be selfish. Healthily selfish. What a curious experience!

Much Love,
Tomma

Wednesday Morning, Feb. 4th

Soooo,

This morning I did an imagery thing that Carol suggested, although it kind of took off into a bit of a different direction, but that was just fine.

In it I had intended to work with laser light on these two cysts as the exercise describes it, but somehow that didn't take off, instead I connected with the energy in each cyst and saw a visual representation of them. The first one looked like a greenish small little creature, a bit like the house elfs in Harry Potter, skinny little thing with big ears and very little hair, crouched together and pretty miserable, seems to have been complaining a lot. (Correspondingly that was the cyst that said: "I caaaaan't") I send this creature love and compassion , or rather I allowed myself to feel love and compassion for it, saying "I am sorry I love..." over and over until it started to change... That actually took a fairly long time, but finally it flipped into a healthy young man, who shouldered a bundle over his shoulder and sat out to go explore the world. With it came this old German song: "Das wandern ist des Muellers Lust..." an old song that describes the medieval apprenticeship tradition of walking from one master to the next across the country in learning your trade.

The second one looked like a worn out young woman, on her knees scrubbing the floor, in dirty grayish clothes... (Also consistent here, with the words: "I have to, I have to"...) When I started connecting with her, and said: "I am sorry, I love you." she changed into a younger girl with a colorful wide skirt about to go out to a country dance, twirling around in anticipation and a big smile on her face.

This felt really good to do, didn't take more than half an hour and feel like a great way to check in with those two each day.

Sarah sent me great material on Hydrogen peroxide, which I read and think I will do that. She has done this herself with good success.

I spoke with Doris Cohen, a medical intuitive that Christiane Northrup recommended to Carol for me. She pulled up some interesting things right during our little conversation.

One: don't let myself be dictated what the time frame of this healing is by locking myself into this one month limited schedule.

Second when asked for a number, I spouted out "7". Asked what had happened while I was 7, I told her, I started going to school, nothing much else. This prompted realization of the the significance which was that I very quickly was recognized as a VERY good student. Something neither of my parents had expected of me, as they themselves had been kind of on the average side... so it became a source of pride for them and standard for me to live up to. Doris zeroed in on this after I had elaborated a bit and said she has a sense this also has to do with filling other peoples expectations - man!!! is that a big subject for me!!!

The other thing that is interesting about my work with her is that she is from Israel, and you (in my mooncircle) remember the burden I had become aware of during the Abundance retreat, the weight I am carrying in working off the guilt of the German people toward the Jewish people. I think something beautiful will come out of this. My appointment is for next Monday.

I may do a rice cleanse... Any thoughts on cleanses, or other detox protocols?

Jimmy wants to give me a series of massages, so I will call Patrice today for that too...

That's it for now!
I am sitting by the fire...
I may come to Mary's circle tonight...

LOVE YOU!!!
Tomma

The Second Journey at the Intensive

And here is the surprising discovery in the second journey.

On the second day you do what w call the physical journey, which many of you know, it's the one where you go down a set of stairs and travel into your body to find the cellular memory that has manifested in a particular way in your life. Normally you find the emotion in some place that stands out and then that links you back to the memory itself.

Now, my emotion was very hard to identify. Almost as if it didn't quite wanted to reveal itself. After some probing it was a feeling as if I was wanting to push someone away. Someone like a man. It was odd, because it just didn't bring up a memory. None, nothing even close to it. We were about to go into what old vows or beliefs were attached to this when my partner mentioned, "you know this could also be from another lifetime." and no sooner had she spoken the words that a flood of emotion came rushing in and with it new images of a group of men trying to hold me down, wanting to rape me. I felt young, maybe not older than 10 years, and it felt like they had come back from a war... of course nothing in my life even remotely resembled a situation like this, but the feeling was SO real and SO vivid, the pain of what was about to happen so overwhelmingly present, I had no other explanation in the moment that indeed this must be from another lifetime.

Again, how blessed are we to have tools that can release the impact of such trauma, that I must have carried with me, for God knows how long. We did have a campfire dialog, and I was able to step into their bodies to understand what drove them. The despair I found in there was heartbreaking. The level of inner mutilation and loss of aliveness stunning. It was as if they were on the brink of starvation from this lack of aliveness and when they saw something in me that resembled that, an innocence and a freshness, it was as if they had to take it from me simply in order to survive.

The conclusions and survival mechanism I had brought with me are all pretty obvious and familiar to me... from the kind of men I feel safe with and have been in relationship with, to the way I dress and the way my body almost hides my female features... I had of course never dreamt they came from an experience like this.

After I forgave them, the script of this particular journey version invites a group of wise women to the campfire, and suddenly there you were all with me along with the women in my family. You sang a mysterious healing chant that filled my whole body and washed me clean... very beautiful and moving. Nobody had told you to do this, it just happened all by itself.

So, you see, you all helped even more than you thought.

Thank you my wonderful friends!!

My aunt did some drumming for me over the weekend, Annabel was here and performed a little miracle in the kitchen that had been neglected, Sophia cooked a wonderful dinner, and Jimmy picked up Anina in Hudson... I am so lucky!!!

Now I am going to take a salt detox bath and put a castor oil pack on my belly to pull out some more of those toxins...

much much love
Tomma

Tuesday, Feb. 3rd - After the Journey Intensive Weekend

Sweet friends,


We got back really late last night, and even though I had taken it slow, I was pretty tired. We had met Sophia in front of her new apartment on Thompson Street in Soho, and Jimmy and Constantin carried the contents of two cars up to the fifth floor. What a cute place!! Very small, but totally charming.

I only walked up once and stayed there to unpack some of the items from their wrapped state.

Afterwards we took her to Ikea to get some more of the necessary big items she needs, and even though I sat down a lot in between, that was a bit exhausting. We had it all delivered, so no more schlepping of heavy stuff up the stairs. It all just took so long, we didn't end up leaving the city until after 7:00.

The Journey Intensive itself was really quite amazing.
It was a small event, probably due to the bad economy, we were more trainers than participants... But, oh the amount of love and support and advice, and good wishes was huge! What wonderful people, what an extraordinary group of people have merged in this larger northeastern area to do this work! It feels like another soft cocoon of loving care I fell into this weekend.

Now, my two journeys were really powerful and interesting, and quite intense. They have provided more insight as to what I have been storing in these two cysts.

If you are interested here is a description:

In the first journey we went into each cyst separately to see what was present in them. The fluid one, which is also the one that has the slight chance of being cancerous, initially felt like something on hold and quiet, almost dormant, but beneath that I started to hear this tiny little scream: "I can't do this!!!" and with that came a flood of despair and sense of failure, a huge amount of emotional energy that emptied itself out through my whole body, no memory... and then a resting and a relief.

In the second cyst I felt something very different: a restlessness, a blind doing with a relentless summoning of effort. That one had words too: "I have to, I have to, I have to, I have to..." in constant repetition. And beneath that one a huge wave of anger that came out with some foul language: "Why the fuck can't you leave me alone?!" - Wow. No memory here either. ... and after this too had emptied itself out, again a resting and a sense of ease.

The memory itself came later, through a presence of doubt: "Can it really be this easy? Can you just live without effort and trying hard and failing a lot along the way?" It took me back to when I was two years old. We lived in Brussels at the time and my mother had a juicer in the kitchen which she liked to use for making fresh carrot, apple and beet juice. That day she had put me next to her on the counter and as I was sitting there, I heard the humm of the juicer, watched with fascination the juice come out of the spout and mesmerized by this magical machine, I stuck my little middle finger into the only opening I could see, which was the vent on the side where the blade was rotating. It cut off part of the tip of my finger. My mother had to rush me to the hospital where it was sewn up.

I had taken on a whole bunch of conclusions and beliefs from this experience. How lucky we are that we can remove such old baggage!

And finally source itself. I don't right now recall how exactly I arrived there, only the image and consciousness of it: an experience of everything penetrated by something that was hard to name... the closest description was a jubilant love. I was as if everything, even the smallest inanimate object was made up of it, visible in a sparkling glow that looked a bit like millions of tiny embers, or light filled crystals under the surface. Everything is filled with this, there is no difference, whether that is a cyst in my body, a piece of garbage on the street, a fruit in my hand, or an event taking place... the life force that fills it all has that same quality... more can be said how this jubilant love responded to all the previous layers in the journey...
... but it is getting late and I want to get it out.

Patrice is waiting for a return call... my stomach is waiting for a bit more food... and you may be waiting to hear from me.

I will write more later today.

with love and much gratitude...
Tomma

Friday, Jan 30th in Manhatten

Friday night, 10:15 PM,
Constantin's apartment, Manhatten.

I can't send anything today as we don't have internet reception here in the city... nevertheless a few words to memorize the day. I may be able to send it off to you all tomorrow morning back at the hotel.

Interestingly Sophia got really sick last night, after she and Anina came back from Karen's Yoga class. There was my oldest daughter sitting on the floor, moaning mostly and cussing in between. Violently nauseous. Later she started throwing up... and continued to do so throughout the night. Lucky for me it didn't wake me up.

Annabel had cooked this beautiful dinner for us, what a treat! And Denise was there too, more help and special treatment. Very unfamiliar to be taking such gifts of labor and love in, just letting them in... the impulse is to want to do "my part" too, or to justify silently on the inside why I am not doing... and talk myself into the permission to simply receive.

One of my journey friends walked up to me after the trainers satsang and offered again her help, as she had already done by e-mail. I told her I was getting better at asking and receiving help and support, which prompted her to tell me the story of Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross' Mother , who had always been a very active woman all her life and ... then she had a stroke and had to live the last part of her life with constant help and assistance. Someone said, it was a blessing she was able to have this experience, it might have saved her a whole lifetime as an invalid, because now it made it possible for her soul to learn how to receive.

Off to bed... reallllly tired...
Love
Tomma