A Mark In Time

I arrived at the Option institute for my week of discovery and healing with an open heart....ready for anything....up for everything. Four months ago I arrived wounded and in pain....no less open and ready but in desperate need of understanding and a connection to others ...to let me know I was not alone in the world...that I did not indeed live in a bubble. This time I have had time to heal and make some significant...no...life altering shifts in my consciousness. I arrived and I could tell immediately I was different and my experience would be anything but the same.
I sat in class Monday morning...Bears walks out to greet us. This was the first time I met Bears....I've read his books and heard his voice on Cd's. I have been changing my life....healing my son based on thirty years of his work. I was excited to meet the man I had come to admire and trust. I had imagined what it would be like and was not ready for the reality. I felt myself almost withdrawing from the experience. I had imagined my elation but I felt constricted in some indiscernible way. All the work I have done up until this point yet I still felt like I did not belong....almost like I did not deserve to be there. I wanted to jump in emotionally ...with all my force and not hold back but yet here I was unable to commit. Not nervous or insecure but unable to release...unable to expose myself. I felt like there was a spotlight on me as if to highlight my lack of presence. I was maddened that these emotions were distracting me from getting all that I came to do. I fought to discover what was working to distract me from what I felt such passion for but that was only further distracting me.
At one point in the morning Bears started an exercise...a meditation. We all milled about in a group in random and changing directions until he stopped us and we were told to find a person to stand in front of and look into there eyes. I found Minta...I stared down into her warm and inviting face. We were told to hold our gaze...Bears began to guide us through the meditation all the while we were to continue to stare into the eyes of this person...we were asked to send our love to this person....to express ourselves in a deep and meaningful way through silent mediation to someone we had never met before. I stood there gazing down into her eyes scared and still feeling that conflict of not revealing myself and jumping in and now I was asked to do it with all my heart. I had come so far...I decided to let go...that it was alright to be scared...it was OK and I was safe. What I felt over the next few minutes I can hardly describe. Surrounded by strangers but the world soon dropped away and all I could see was Minta's face. This face of a stranger was now my whole world and I felt that I was giving myself up to her completely....losing myself in her eyes. I could feel the heat of my love slowly filling me up rising towards my face....flushing my cheeks and flowing towards her. I was at such peace....I was completely open to this woman....I was hiding nothing and as I looked into her eyes I could see...I knew that she accepted me as I was accepting her. At first I wanted to look away but I began to feel such calm that I soon forgot all my fears and worries. Tears filled my eyes...Bears asked us to step closer until we were just a couple of inches away and I could feel our energies blending together. I could never have imagined I could be so utterly exposed and yet feel so safe. I knew I had crossed over to a new state of being...one that I could not step back from.
I came to Option with the goal of learning to find the self trust that has been eluding me my whole life...looking for completing my journey to love and acceptance of self for it is this that has been blocking the path to my full involvement in my son's recovery. When I came I was scared I had come all this way to fail...that I had not made the gains I thought I had. But I have come farther than I thought. Staring into Minta's eyes I discovered my love.....and that I can put it out there....I can reach down and discover all of me and show that to the world. Show it to the world and not fear the reaction....no longer fearing rejection. The world will do, say, and be what it is. I can choose how I see it...I can choose what serves me and what doesn't. It no longer has the power to make me unhappy unless I choose that and allow it to do so. It no longer has the power to dictate my reaction to it. I am insulated by my beliefs...beliefs I can choose at anytime.
In an instant my perspective changed...in a moment I went from struggling to be present to being not only completely open but never feeling stronger or safer. I had my first glimpse of the glory of being radically authentic. The last time I was here I wondered what would happen when I returned to my life...I felt stronger but not solid. I feel solid now...I now have the tools to start on my journey in earnest. No longer needing a crutch to get by on...no longer in need of a life line to Option and Son Rise. Now I can make it on my own and Son Rise is a recourse that will energize and teach me but the strength to stand is now coming from within. Freedom is what I am feeling and excitement. Excited with the idea of getting on with healing my son...seeing it all with a new understanding originating from a better sense and understanding of Self. I am thankful to all at option because there are many that have made this possible for me but it is Bears that I give my deepest thanks and love to...he has shown me how to turn the light on inside myself....a gift of a life time.
Bears ended the meditation and the spell was broken but not diminished. We were asked to turn around and I was face to face with Paul....an Aussie and a beautiful man. The same mediation but a different experience but no less meaningful. No longer a stranger to the experience I could gaze into to Paul's eyes and send this man my love and though different I feel it set the whole experience in my heart...it was not just a fluke...the repeated experience made it real and less dream like. I am thankful for that because it will be something that I carry with for the rest of my life. The meditation will forever mark the time when I was able to show all of me to the world and will help me grow into the man I have always wanted to be. Minta's kind and lovely face will always be the image...the symbol of that moment.