Therapy in 20 minutes

I just went through a most wonderful process, though it certainly didn’t feel wonderful as I was going through it … I sat at my computer talking to my friend, and all of a sudden got a sickly, nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had this feeling quite a bit lately, it would cause me to collapse, then I would work through it, come back to myself only to collapse again a moment later and come back to myself again… I felt I was doing much better today, hoped the trauma was worked through, healed and over with, so when it showed up again I panicked. I could not deal with it by myself, I thought, I couldn’t reach Brooks, I was scared, confused, lost … and then I realized that there is nothing else I can do but to deal with it myself. So I stopped moving, stopped thinking, told myself to open as what I am and to accept this pain fully and completely, and just let things happen. And so they did, the feeling of pain intensified, it was a terrible burning sensation in my stomach, like the feeling one gets when told suddenly that their dearest love just died, the kind of feeling that bends you in half and leaves you lying on the floor unable to get up… And I stood there feeling it. I would repeat “accept it” to myself from time to time, I would say “stay present” sometimes. The more I accepted it the more clear it was to me that I am not IT. It was my conscious decision to let this pain happen – therefore I was not this pain. The pain would get stronger and stronger, and the more I allowed it to be, to open, the clearer it became that I am not it. Sometime in a middle of this I realized that this is the place where I am an artist, this is the place where I play with reality and create new beings, new images. This is the place where I could not be present, be myself, because of all the pain I could not face before. I stood still, feeling the nearly unbearable burning in my body, thinking: this is why I did not go to art school, this is why I could never paint more than one painting a year, this is why I would throw my pastels on the floor and run to bed screaming in a middle of drawing, this is this pain that caused all this. Because of this pain I could not be who I am. I stood still feeling it, and gradually it started to transform and open, the burning receded and there was a sense of spaciousness … and then joy. And curiosity, and adventurousness … all of a sudden I was grinning to myself for no other reason that that I could not stop. Everything turned around – the pain was still there but as something no longer relevant, something that was leaving and dissolving. And I thought: what an amazing experience this is! What an amazing process! There is no need for years and years of therapy, for workshops, classes, books, retreats. All that is needed for me to become me fully and only is to stay present. All that I have to do is be who I am – and the whole reality changes.