“Just checking in and how you have been.”
Me: My energy is hypersensitive when around negative people. I need to let go of some people and spaces. I need to meditate.
“You must learn to protect yourself from negative people and places. Remember. Negative people don’t make you hypersensitive, you are already hypersensitive. You have to learn to navigate them. Do not run away from them, in order to protect the hypersensitive. Learn and heal from them so that you don’t attract the same in other people.
Meditation means to know thyself. It is not to be used as a distraction, but as a tool to help you navigate your thoughts and emotions in the real world. Meditation is a way of life. It’s not for fun”
Sean reminds me of a childhood memory.
A sack of egg, black and white one day starts moving. A massive head with a little tail swims around. One day, two bulging eyes with slimy skin of a body grows. Where did they come, these two hind legs? Another morning, three legs. Shortly after, the fourth leg emerges. Out, it hops, into its freedom out of water.
Sean reminds me of the time we first met.
The day after my first Vipassana meditation, I sit for 4 or 5 hours straight, without moving. Enjoying the silence. The stillness of observing respiration and diving deeper into self.
Sitting, I feel my heart tighten and knot coming undone. I feel my right leg shaking. Then my left leg. Few days later, my whole body starts to shake, as if I am possessed. A worry that subsides when my hands moving without conscious thought pat my chest gently, as if signaling, ‘you’re going to be okay. I am here with you, in your heart, in my hands. I am not here to harm you. I love you’
The body no longer a carcass I drag around. The mind no longer the master. Heart center opening and letting go of the seven oceans of tears that continue to pour out of me.
Shaking gets to be too much. Legs shaking while driving, bathing, relaxing. I lose balance and I don’t know how to stop the earthquakes and after shocks.
Do you know how your car works? The starter motor draws as much as 20 times of current to kick start your engine. Once engine is up and running, the starter motor needs to kick out. If not, it’ll burn out, as it is designed to start, not continue to run.
It was like that with the shaking. I needed the jolt to wake up my body. My engine was up and running yet the starter motor continued to run, burning me up.
What to do? Who do I call? What is wrong with me? I call the Vipassana center, and they cannot help me. I scour the web, and find that maybe 10% of the meditators experience such vibrations. I am lost in this spiritual world, with nowhere to go and nowhere to turn to.
I am wrong, and I will be wrong again. I am more wrong than right.
I am always surrounded by guardian angels. The universe is kind.
She and I become friends during the 10 days in silence, sharing bunk beds, rides and Moro Gelato. I get the ice cream for us, and the total comes to R88. How auspicious. She encourages me to go see her Shaman, and I think she’s crazy. A shaman? Seriously? You must be kidding me.
For my birthday, she gifts me a free session with the Shaman. Fine, I’ll give it a try. I lay there with my eyes closed. One hour passes, and my body feels calm. The shaking is gone, and I am not moving uncontrollably for the first time in 3 months. I see him once a week for few months, with him opening up blocked chakras, guiding me spiritually. The biggest lesson of all: empty beginnings.
I’ve continued to gift the session with Sean over the years.
One colleague was suffering from long covid symptoms with average resting heart rate of 88. After seeing Sean, it went down to 50. He brought his wife and child. His wife tells me they would have divorced, had it not been for Sean. They are expecting their second child any day now.
I gifted Sean’s session to a colleague last month, and she is seeing him regularly, and paid for a free session for her daughter.
The gift of paying it forward continues.
I am grateful to the friend who gifted me the session with Sean. And on the back of his recommendation, I tried Trauma Release Exercise (TRE), where his partner mentioned, “I see literature in you.” Another shaman before Sean asked, “Do you write?”
The universe keeps sending me the same message through different people.
On day 0 of 100 days of love letter writing, I willed myself to write the truest words that are kind and necessary. To continue the journey of not telling a lie. To be honest with myself.
And to do so, we need help from the universe. A nudge perhaps.
Thanks Sean, for checking in on me and being a spiritual guide and healer. For showing me that it is in the unseen and unknowable the truth resides, in the deepest parts of our body and spirits.
Thank you for helping me. I am grateful for your service.
PS. I will extend the love letter writing to 113 days.
PPS. I will add on the daily meditation for the remainder of 113 days, or 90 days in a row.
PPPS. I will set high expectations for myself and others around me.
23 is a prime number.