Monday night, as I climbed into bed, an old familiar movie decided it was time to play a double-feature in my adorable little head again. It’s such a compelling movie with an old, familiar victim plotline, peppered throughout with plenty of martyr drama. There were blockbuster award-winning special effects that compounded the sense of resentment, anger, and an insatiable desire to prove my point.
As I lay in my bed, unable to fall asleep, my mind played all of the details to confirm without any question that I was indeed the victim. My mind happily replayed details of the so-called villain, my husband Pete. The evidence was so undeniable that anyone would agree whole-heartedly, “Yes, Missy, you are indeed the victim here, and Pete should feel awful! What are you going to DO about it?”
And my mind did what all revved-up, captivated, hypnotized minds do. It worked to sort through all of my options. It offered all kinds of short-term and long-term plans for proving my point, making my case, and rendering the villain defenseless. The longer the movie played, the more obvious it was that action was absolutely warranted. After all, this person needed to know where I stood.
And then, thankfully, by grace—because it is ONLY by grace that we are ever awaken from the trance of our mind-movies—I was pulled awake by a sharp pang in the center of my chest. It had been growing for a while, noticed and ignored multiple times during the movie. But this jolt in my chest was too sharp to stay hypnotized.
Tears welled up in my eyes as the phrase, “I will no longer abandon you” fell like snowfall on my chest. I will no longer abandon you. Tears continued to fill my eyes until they ran down my cheeks. I placed an open palm on my heart and the other open palm on my belly and just breathed.
Little one, I am here. I am so sorry that I left you for so long tonight. I am here. Feel my breath. Feel the love in the palms of my two hands. I will not leave you. I am your safe space; your soft place to land. Rest with me, now.
As I lay quietly under my covers, holding a space of tenderness for that Little One who has been part of me since the dawn of time, the rest of the outside world melted away. She and I were everything.
My mind naturally did its best to pull me back into the trance. Bigger evidence. More compelling and dramatic details. But, there was a quiet voice guarding the door to the theater, repeating the phrase, “No thank you. I will not abandon this little one. Not now. She is my everything.”
And after a little while, that mind-movie ended, the credits rolled, and the theater closed. I fell fast asleep, peaceful and tender.
Ironically, when I woke up the next morning, that villain from my hypnotic mind-movie lay sound asleep next to me. He looked so childlike and angelic. I felt the most incredible love for him. That movie from the night before had been SO convincing. But for that moment, there were no victims or villains. There was Life arising as this. And it was beautiful.
That beautiful feeling that guided me through the morning felt so expansive and free, which made what happened later that day SO PERFECT. After all, when Life somehow opens us up to a new level of awareness and awakeness, we’re clearly ready for another layer of old beliefs and programming to come to the light.
So a few hours later, while I was innocently working on some client notes, my mind played an even more compelling movie. THIS one, my mind boomed with conviction, is DIFFERENT. THIS ONE actually DOES need your undivided attention!
So back into the movie theater I went. Completely mesmerized. Running down all of the proverbial rabbit holes. THIS ONE was about an actual medical thing so it rendered everything I knew about the Little One useless.
For about an hour, I watched myself urgently google medical terms, diagnoses, and possible treatment options. My mind had decided that one little test ordered by my doctor was surely evidence enough that something was indeed AT STAKE. This movie could not be pushed away in favor of something as trivial and silly as going back to the Little One who was waiting patiently to be remembered. So, I googled and ChatGPT’d as if something in all of my searching would quell my anxious mind.
And again, thankfully, by grace alone, something broke the trance. I saw the movie for what it was: a movie! In the 60 long moments of that hypnotic state, NOTHING in my life had actually been any different from the previous hour or the previous day. The only thing that had happened was that my mind had suddenly made a WHOLE lot of meaning about a medical test that my doctor had ordered for me weeks ago.
In the waking up from the hypnotic state, once again, there was a call home. A call back to the Little One who had been patiently waiting as I researched and panicked and planned out my future based on a million possible catastrophes.
Hello, Little One, I said softly as I placed my hand on my chest. I am back. I will not abandon you.
She and I spent about five minutes together before it was time for my next client. And in that five minutes, it was as if tree roots were growing through me, downward into the Earth, grounding me even more firmly in the knowing that peace, wellbeing, and joy are not tied to a body. I had been innocently lost in an old, collective, habitual belief that I am limited to an Earth-costume. I had been given another opportunity—because of the movie—to see an old belief was still active within me; the belief: “my Earth-costume must be intact and in great shape in order to have peace.”
I needed the trance of that movie so that I could be reminded, once again, that who-I-am is not subject to disease or death. Who-I-am is timeless, eternal, and free already.
Later that afternoon, two miraculous things happened.
First, I received a note from my doctor that the test results were in and they were flawless. I still have two more tests to go later in December, but those will simply be whatever they will be. Nothing can touch who I am.
Second, as I entered the zoom room of one of my book clubs, one of the participants was reading this passage from the Rupert Spira book we’re all reading:
“Our being is the place of peace within us. It is prior to and independent of the content of experience. Our being is ever-present, always available and always in the same pristine condition. It is our true home.
Just as space is not contained within four walls of a room, so our being is not imprisoned in the body. It fills and pervades the body but extends beyond its limitations. This is why Rumi asked, ‘Why stay in prison when the doors are wide open?’”
After two pretty compelling movies back-to-back, one about my husband and the other about my health, three things seem ever more obvious to me:
1. We are designed to fall into the hypnosis of movies. There is brilliance in the design. Each time we are lost in the trance, all kinds of old identities and programming get stirred up. What was once unconscious is brought into the light. How miraculous that a hypnotic mind-movie could do that.
2. Even while lost in the movie, the Little One within waits patiently and without judgment for our return. She (or he) waits so that, when we are ready, we can continue the most amazing and miraculous intimate relationship we could possibly ever have while on this Earth.
3. The more compelling the movie, the greater the expansion once we are returned home to the Little One. The answers, the growth, and the peace are always in the sensations, the breath, and the emotions.
What a gift to be fully present to the little one. To that tender nervous system who has been my faithful ally from the very beginning. What a blessing to be able to ask her “what do you need most right now?” Even just a simple acknowledgment, “I see you, little one” is enough. I will never underestimate the real and practical power of spending time with that little one. It changes everything.
A little possibility for playing this week…
It can feel awkward when you begin getting reacquainted with your inner world—that universe within the apparent borders of your body.
So, one of the things I love to do is simply choose one simply area of the body. This week: my hands.
And I simply offer myself the gift of sitting still for 5 or 10 minutes with my favorite flute music in the background. I close my eyes and I simply begin, “Right now, nothing is more important that my hands.” And, with eyes closed, I simply feel the sensations that apparently arise from my fingers and palms.
In time, what I have experienced is that as attention settles on the pure sensations, the apparent boundaries between fingers and hands, between hands and arms, between body and not-body begin to fade. There is simply sensation.
THAT is the miracle of intimacy. And that is a gift that has to be experienced directly to fully appreciate.