PC users will be familiar with a function called “system restore.”
The idea is to set a “restore point” on the computer and, when something goes wrong with the software, to restore the computer to the configuration that existed before the glitch occurred.
For me the last two months have felt like constant clearing. And I watched myself last night do in psychological terms what I can only call a “system restore” in computer terms. The effects have been wonderful, to say the least.
I was lying on my bed, after writing an article which I felt happy with. It was early evening, around 6 o’clock and these days it doesn’t get dark till around nine.
It had just finished raining and there was a cool breeze coming in from the window. The sight of the green leaves on the tree outside my room (after the dull days of winter) and the gentle breeze carried me back to a far younger year (the restore point).
And I marveled as I remembered and experienced the really different sense of peace that I felt.
I was back in my bedroom when I was six years old. That’s how far I had to go back to find life prior to the craziness that began in our family. What is the significance of six?
The first time I ever heard my mother and father yell at each other was when we were visiting my grandfather in Montreal, Quebec when I was seven. I remember how shocked I was. After that they seemed to fight more or less constantly.
But before that (with the exception of hearing them arguing when I was in the womb and saying “I don’t want to come out there!”), I have no recollection of them fighting.
My sense of inner peace was forever destroyed at age seven or so when my Dad shouted at me from such close range that I shattered and remained disassociated for more years than I care to remember.
Now as I lay there feeling the gentle breeze after the rain, I was carried back to my bedroom at six and I was thinking to myself what new features I would add to the diorama I was building in my room.
Perhaps it’s because I’m down to subterranean feelings that I could hold the space of so long ago. Whatever the reason is, I stayed there at six years for the rest of the evening.
In fact, I allowed myself to do things which increased the sense of being back there. Most amusingly, I took down the peanut-butter jar and allowed myself to spoon peanut butter from it. (Yes, I’d watched Meet Joe Black a day before, in which Joe did the same.)
And it felt so good, so relaxing, so comforting. There was no sense of my carrying any baggage any more, no muscular tension in my body.
I decided to go for a walk in the early evening and, in the course of it, I fell in love with myself. I know that sounds weird, but that was how it felt.
I walked through the Gastown area of Vancouver and all the restaurants were filled. And I didn’t feel drawn to the idea of being in one with people. I felt luckier at that moment to be with myself. And realizing I did felt counter-intuitive. But I admitted the reality of the feeling and allowed it.
This system restore point was the last time I could say that I Ioved life, loved being alive. After that, my experience of life was never free of emotional pain.
I “looked forward” in my life from the vantage point of the six-year-old and just dipped my toe in the unhappiness I felt from that moment on. I did everything I could to eliminate those memories wholly from my mind.
I imagined myself dumping them over a cliff, building a big bonfire and burning them. I cleaned with solvent anything that reminded me of those years.
Belief relief, as Genele said recently. (1) And the chuck-it list. (2) It seemed to work – for the moment.
I heard myself say, “You must become as a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven” and I saw how true that statement was.
I have no idea whether this came about because I was somehow ready for it, if I just stumbled on something by accident, or was guided to it.
But it’s the next day and I turned on the TV briefly and watched five minutes of Dave, the Dave who stood in for American President Bill Mitchell? And I laughed at the funny parts and cried at the touching parts. But with an ease I’ve never known before.
I also don’t want to over-estimate what occurred. While I dropped my baggage and am slower to respond to things, I notice that I haven’t dropped my habitual patterns. At some point, as we continue to ascend, our sense of elevation will have our very habits drop, I think. But that time is not yet here for me.
John Enright subtitled his book on gestalt: Waking Up from the Nightmare. On the one hand, dare I hope? But on the other hand, if I can do it, anyone can.
(Why I seem to have readings scheduled so soon after these events I don’t know, but AAM’s comment on it is contained in Footnote (3) from a pre-scheduled reading I had with him this morning.)
Footnotes
(1) “Genele Boyce: Belief Relief,” May 4, 2014, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/05/04/genele-boyce-belief-relief/.
(2) “Genele Boyce: The Chuck-It List” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/05/10/genele-boyce-the-chuck-it-list/.
(3) From a personal reading with Archangel Michael on May 9, 2014:
Steve: The experience I had last night where I went back to age six before all the fighting started in my family, is that going to produce a permanent effect or is it going to just pass again like so many other things?
AAM: No, it is not simply going to pass. It has been a true and deep transformation, release, but also what has been happening is that you have made the decision, and that is part of what has triggered all this, to anchor that release. So sometimes there are events or releases that are not fully embraced, can we say? Therefore they are not anchored in the permanency of your field.
But you have chosen, and we have anchored, the permanency of this situation to be gone.
S: Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. I can’t tell you. Thank you for that.
https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-May-9-Age-Six-Experience-.mp3.