Mid-May Body and Mind
I’ve been going to see him for NMT (neuro-modular technique) bi-weekly for eight weeks. I improved in the third visit and after some cranial-sacral therapy with Linda, but then I had kind of stayed stuck with still heightened pain in the gut and joints that hovered without any of the other symptoms exacerbating. Dr. Schwartz had found a virus, and reprogrammed my neurology to recognize it as a target for my immune system, which is reacting properly, not “over-activating” as in an “immune disease” which is what Crohn’s is called by the conventional doctors. Schwartz cleared other blockages to healing, karma, and only he or my chart at his office could tell you what else. I had done shamanism, and psychotherapy too, but my somatic, bodily functions were still hovering at dis-ease.
Last week, Dr. Schwartz had released some negative emotions that had to do with my systemic inflammatory response, ulcerative colitis. He said that I could fine, or I could cry and be emotional. If I was, then that was okay, I was just releasing.
I went home and took a nap. In my dream, my niece Christine was hungry for a meat-snack, and she boiled my cat alive. I could hear Walter meowing from inside the pot, and I was in pieces about it, sobbing and crying, devastated. I woke up crying and sobbing! I remembered that I was releasing, and the emotions left me.
I told Antonio about it last visit with him. His first thought was that my unconscious mind was telling me that I wanted some meat.
Then I told him about my stress that I may be need to move in a year or less, and I know the change will be awful for the cats to bear and there will be peeing on stuff when moving happens. The fact that I have three cats has been overwhelming me when I think about my living situation- should anything change. The possibility of change is there because a) Chris and I have tossed around the idea of living together sooner or later and b) my room-mate has been perpetually late on bills and reasonably partaking in household chores. Something needs to change in that scenario (the stress and resentment is negatively affecting my health) and- we have made changes in the bill situation and rent payment deadline/consequences for late payments. One of consequences is termination of her living here! That would be sad though, in a way, she is a dear friend and living with her has been wonderful, too. It is secure for me and my cats, but I had to draw a boundary.
The stress of maybe moving my life around, and the thought of my cats and their peeing has made me wonder what I was going to do with my cats if I had trouble keeping them- if they would pee all over our stuff. I love them dearly! But that behavior is unacceptable. I’m not a stranger to this thought that a part of me would rather “kill” the trouble-maker if they kept peeing on our stuff, than take the cat to a shelter. They would suffer so bad there! Antonio said how acceptable it really is be released from suffering, however, it was interesting that I formulated the sentence the way I had. This got me thinking. “Killing” Walter, was maybe a strictly logical thing to do, but contrary to what could feel as right. Also I am very devoted to my values (take care of my kitties even if it means sacrificing my life moving onward, perhaps, to take care of them)… I must have had such an incredible internal conflict, when the murderous thought arose. It perhaps brought itself to light in the dream that I had… such an “unacceptable” thought of offing my cat was so unacceptable to me that I must have repressed the worst of it. Or maybe it’s anger left over from the fourth time my cat peed on my bed, when he pissed on it right in front of me and I lost it.
Nothing really happened in the journey, that day. But perhaps that energy was released in my dream, and talking about it with Antonio opened a door for the transformation of that energy back into my consciousness, uniting thought and feeling. I just kept coming up against the void in the journey, and fell asleep. I did find the deer and the elephant, toward the end, and elephant wrapped her trunk around me and said that I was deserving of healing. I had not been able to affirmatively answer the question a few days ago. That belief of not deserving may have been quite a block in my healing. The affirmation from elephant was wonderful, and felt real. The King of the Underworld didn’t say anything, but it felt like he affirmed that NMT was serving me.
I watch my mind lately and it, in situations, jumps by default to blame. I play the victim. I find someone to blame.
I must remember to be loved, and to be love.
I was in a personal situation at my house that I felt I had no control over, I was just kind of going along with it, and I was hanging out in a state of a kind of apathy. One of my house plants, the one that’s kind of tree-like and has winding brances with rounded leaves that spread out like an octopus, grew larger-than-life suddenly and imposed itself in the room, and I noticed that it had black marks on it that was an invasion of some kind of pest or disease. In the next moment, the plant turned into an elephant in my main room. It overwhelmed me, stood over me and held me down with its mouth, as if it was protecting me from the situation. My power animal?!?
I am growing healthy boundaries for my person. It has entered into my consciousness that others should not determine me. It is I that has final say about myself and my thoughts. I simply have to let others be others, and their things be their things, their thoughts theirs… I must maintain my own psychic space. My thoughts can either support me or do me harm, and it is in my power to see, to choose, and change them if necessary. Clutter in my mind about things over which I have no control, about things outside my healthy boundary, does not serve me. I let go, relax, and nurture myself.
The next potent memory arrived today during a cranio-sacral therapy appointment. I was lying on the table and Linda was doing work on me. I had an underwater sensation in my ears. I smelled something strange, something gaseous and unfamiliar. I mentioned this to her as the appointment came to a close. “Are you having a memory of your birth?” she asked me. Maybe… “Take your time getting up, dear,” she said. 
N. Lois Turtledove is a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver obtaining a Master's Degree in Humanities. She teaches yoga inside and outside the home, and is an apprentice in the ancient therapeutic art of shamanic practice. She understands that the only real enemy is the self, and the Self is the deepest source of nurture. She wishes freedom from suffering for herself and for all sentient beings.