Targets and Goals
5 January 2005
Comments from Angela
This particular reading was astounding to me in its practical and
revelatory insights on the difference between what we seek to achieve in
the external world (‘goals’) and what we are really here to achieve –
inner, or spiritual, development (named ‘targets’ in the reading). This
difference, so clearly and beautifully explained here, may be of
enormous benefit to us in generating peace from both success and failure
(as measured by the world) as well as in understanding the purpose of
physical life. There is also a fascinating explanation of how pain in a
left knee is being caused by female, parental pressures and some other
wonderful insights on:
• The value and necessity of self-appreciation
• Humility in relation to self-appreciation
• An alternative definition of success
• Internal, or spiritual, targets
• Not measuring ourselves by our children
• What should we be measuring ourselves by?
• The value of physical visions and the physical world
• External, or physical, goals
• The differences between goals and targets: external vs internal,
choice vs pre-determined, human inequality vs human equality
• Spiritual guidance for achieving targets, not goals
• Personal insight on pain in a left knee (female, parental pressure)
• Female sexuality
• Healing sexual wounds from the past
• Giving birth as potentially re-awakening previous sexual abuse
The Value and Necessity of Self-Appreciation
Welcome.
Firstly, of all those many things we have to present to you here, we
would begin with - as we so often do - some acknowledgement. Not only
for reasons of getting you comfortable, also for the purpose of raising
your own appreciation of self to the point where we may work with you in
the most effective manner. Appreciation of self is not a luxury. It is
not something we reserve for a select few, or those that perhaps have
taken steps that the world can see are in line with what they are
dreaming. No, instead self-appreciation we would consider more of a
necessity. It goes on the side of the shopping list where toilet paper
goes, not on the side reserved for when you have extra. Please know this
is a part of your message today.
Certain ‘projections’ - we would call them - from spirit, which is also
to say certain visions for you, certain information, certain ideas (all
in all projections), can only reach you when you are regarding yourself
sufficiently highly. Do you understand? As such we are giving this here
first to show you, firstly, why it is we include acknowledgement in all
of our givings and, secondly, to prompt you somewhat into a higher level
of self-appreciation. Not so that you can stop doing your work but so
that you can start. That is why we have termed it necessity more than
luxury.
If you human beings are to do grand transformation here, which you and
some many others at this point on your planet are desiring, you cannot
ever do so or even take the baby steps on this path if you are in a
position of low self regard. Can you see that? What we are suggesting to
you is that you cannot expect of yourself to do God’s work until you
regard yourself as God. Many of you at this certain point in your
evolution are expecting of yourselves massive change, very quickly, and
great results in pushing this planet, this ball of fire, more towards
the way of light. That is surely what we read from you, not so? Yet with
that desire on the one hand, you still hold certain views of yourselves
- this is more applicable than just to you - that are not commensurate,
or not matching, with the bigness of those dreams. So you are motioning
yourselves or pushing yourselves to do big work while your regard of
yourselves is yet small. Can you see how this imbalance cannot work?
I see how it cannot work, yet I also see that there has been, in my
case, a big shift in certainly seeing myself in a higher regard than I
did a year ago. There has been a dramatic shift there.
Indeed we would not even be able to talk as we do here now were it not
for such remarkable change. We have suggested to you right from the
start that certain of our projections to you can only be received within
a state of mind that holds the self highly. As such, you have made great
strides in what is available for you to receive - certainly in this
space. This is caused by many changes, yet also includes the one we have
mentioned to do with regard or appreciation of self.
Please know you can never hit a ceiling in this regard. In other words
it is not possible, when you are truly integral and honest with
yourself, to regard yourself too highly for God’s work. How could that
be? Simply what occurs is the more you understand and accept of your own
power and ability, also agility, you simply cause greater work to come
your way. There is no cutoff point here.
Humility in Relation to Self-Appreciation
Humility is something different from high self-appreciation. Humility is
the acceptance of self in its entirety, which is to say that those
beings whom we regard as humble also allow themselves to say ‘I am
extremely powerful in this particular area’. Humility does not mean
never saying a phrase like that. Neither does humility indicate any
sense of guilt about one’s power or refusal to use it or deferring it to
somebody else. Those actions are not born from humility, they are all
born from fear. The humble human is one who sees himself holistically.
The one who sees the very beautiful elements of his nature currently and
the very elements he does not regard as beautiful, which are currently
part of his makeup, and he accepts them both. Moreover he is not afraid
to talk about them both. So humility, therefore, is something slightly
different from what it has been understood to be and even taught to you
to be. To be humble does not mean, we repeat, that you do not say ‘I
will volunteer for this job because I am amazing at this’. Do you
understand?
Yes, so would it be correct that humility is displaying a high regard
for self, acting it out?
Yes, when that is what is appropriate yet humility may also be showing
where one is weak, or not yet fully empowered, when that is appropriate.
It is the full acceptance of self - both of the areas in which one is
skilled and not skilled - as well as the acceptance and saying out loud
those two sides. Is that more clear? Please, therefore, do not find or
feel any conflict between being humble and having a very workable amount
of self-appreciation. They can, and do in many humans, co-exist
beautifully. They are not at odds.
So, indeed, that is where we start off with you on this day: some
teaching of the greater sense of importance to be attached to
self-appreciation as well as some understanding for you why
self-appreciation is regarded by us as necessary. It puts you into
spaces that you may receive from us certain information you could not
receive at lower levels of regard for self. May we also put in at this
point that some of those very projections that we speak about that you
can only receive when you are working from a high level of self regard
may well also be corrections to self. So what we are saying, in some
paradox as usual, is that certain types of correction for humanity only
come when that human has high enough self-regard to be able to hear and
receive and implement those corrections. Is that understandable? Thank
you.
An Alternative Definition of Success
And that, our dear friend, is how a human progresses, reaching an ever
higher sense of himself as Godly and an ever higher awareness at the
same time of how that Godliness is not yet fully on earth. Do you see
that? They come together. That is the beauty of development and
evolution. Some of you at certain moments have slightly misunderstood
this path and have presumed that the higher one walks the less one finds
that one does not like in the world, or in the self. It is not so, do
you understand? That would indicate to you that the journey here on
earth does not have a ceiling as we have already said. If you are aiming
to be at the place called success, if you regard that as a certain
ceiling where your development is sufficiently high that everything you
look upon including yourself is totally and forever satisfying, you may
stop working towards that right now. For that is not the plan of life on
earth. Please know that. As you reach a certain level of success -
indeed we could call it that, in terms of how you define success, which
we have heard, knew about already and greatly honour in you - as you
reach one level of achievement in that regard, quite naturally you will
be shown from your own highest wisdom, more and more places in the world
and in yourself where that does not exist and simply your work steps up
a level. Do you understand? Thank you.
That is our second knowledge piece we would give you on this day: to
suggest to you to remove from yourself any such hope of what can be
called ‘making it’. You are making it already. You exist, you are in
health, you are in beauty, you are working within an environment of much
love (we speak here of your family) and you are being yourself in many
different roles where before you were not. You are already making it.
There is nothing to do that will get you to a point where you suggest to
yourself or to the world or to your family: ‘now I have made it’.
The minute you have made it you will cease to exist physically here on
the planet, that is what making it means. Do you see that? So for your
consolation perhaps, if you choose to receive it this way, please know
there is no point towards which you need to work specifically. As you
reach certain targets - and these are rather subtle, the targets are
contained on levels of measurement not physical and you have already
passed, which perhaps you know, many of these targets - you did not stop
when you reached them. Simply what was given to you then, indeed, was
reward. The reward is greater awareness and greater responsibility and
so you move onto a different track with a higher dream and another
target is reached.
Internal, or Spiritual Targets
Another secret is to tell you that the targets have nothing to do
whatsoever with the external world. The external world is simply the
playground, the testing ground, where you and your own vehicle, your
body, are put to the test. When you move up to targets as we have called
them, the targets cannot be measured by results in the external world.
Targets are reached with internal shift, much of which may be realised
by what you do in the external world, but some of it can’t. Do you
understand that? So that is what you are being measured upon, in truth.
You are being measured upon yourself only and evermore.
When you pass certain targets or road marks along that journey, what
your soul will choose is either to remain here and continue the
magnificent work with even higher expectations of you or it will choose
to remove itself, if need be, because no more can be done in your
current body. Do you understand that, as perhaps an alternative way of
thinking about success in this life? We can see that this may be
somewhat of a disillusioning or disappointing picture of life as it
might seem to you that you never have the chance to sit back in the arm
chair with the whiskey and a nice belly and say ‘there you go, I have
done it!’
Yet, the truth is - and we have already spoken to you of
self-appreciation - you may do that far more than you already let
yourself do! You are moving towards and beyond certain targets of
yourself all the time. We have told you these are not measurable always
by what is evident to you in your physical reality, yet you move past
them. Every time you sense, as you have and do, that some major shift
has occurred in you, take out the arm chair, take out the finest quality
of whiskey you wish to drink, lean back in it for at least a full day
and simply sit. If you can manage to do that we will be surprised! The
truth is, as you will no doubt verify, after perhaps an hour or two of
sitting congratulating yourself, what are you going to want to do?
Move on with the next thing!
Indeed. So please know that we are not suggesting to you that the road
is not full of marvellous successes and amazing targets reached. Indeed,
we have told you you have already done so. In that sense you have
already made it, and it is fully honoured and indeed enjoyed by spirit
and all your accompaniers, or spiritual accompaniment. When you take
some moments aside from your business to celebrate who you are, we have
told you that not only is it fun, it is a necessity. So please know we
are not painting a picture of a life that may never be enjoyed, or
celebrated, or that will never reach certain material targets. On the
contrary, we ask you even more to be aware of when you move past
individual milestones and to celebrate those. Yet, we are also
suggesting to you that it is in your very nature, your basic building
blocks as a human being, to continue the journey beyond a point when you
consider ‘I have now made it. Is this clear? Thank you.
Can you see that understanding life in this fashion could actually
assist in relaxing you because there is no place to get to? Instead of
conceiving of it as a never-ending road and worrying how your tackies
are going to make it, let alone the rest of you, consider rather that
there is no place you have to get to in order to call yourself - and it
is only yourself ever that measures yourself - a success. There is
nothing you have to have created specifically, nothing you have to have
collected specifically, no place you have to be and no particular way
you have to look in order for you to measure yourself well. Simply
taking the steps that are presented to you, working on the inner shift
as you have been working, is what constitutes making it. If you will,
this thought may be extremely calming for you. Also remember that the
targets you are aiming for are inner. The outer world assists you
beautifully, faithfully, in getting there but the outer world is not in
itself the measurement, including also your own children.
Not Measuring Ourselves by Our Children
Take some care - as this is a trap many parents fall into - not to mix
up your own targets with that of your children. They may have completely
different paths to walk. You and your success this time round are not
measured in any way by your children.
You are part, indeed a big part, of their environment. At this point,
the biggest and in some ways forever the biggest, yet that is not always
seen. But what they do or what they become or how they are is not part
of what you will measure yourself upon, do you accept that? Thank you.
That may also relax many parents.
That is not to say the children you produce and raise cannot be
sometimes your greatest external teachers. Already you know that. Yet,
as we have said and again we will repeat it, the targets you will
measure yourself by are inner, they are not about the external world you
have created or failed to create. They are about the you you have
created or failed to create. Is that understood?
What Should we be Measuring Ourselves by?
Yes, so the inner world does not even include the physical body, is that
right?
That is correct, you are not measured on what you do specifically with
your physical body. That would be of very little consequence to the
bigger picture. Yet, of course, what you do with your physical body is
deeply indicative of your relationship to self. It can indicate respect
or disrespect, it can indicate high self-appreciation or low, it can
indicate levels of self-hatred yet unknown to you etc. etc. So the state
of the body, which one leaves and discards, is not measured, yet it is a
reflection, like everything in your external world, of the state of
self. Do you see the difference?
The same goes with the biggest possible picture - the world, the planet.
You are not measured on what the planet looks like when you leave it.
Yet, what the planet looks like when you leave it, has very much to do
with you and your quality of light. Do you understand?
Say that again, what the planet looks like…
When you leave this planet, you are not going to be lined up by the
teacher and graded according to what is going on on the planet. You are
not going to receive an F because there is yet war in the Middle East,
or because that rain that is coming down is acidic. No, that is not the
purpose of being here. The purpose of being here, again, is to move into
a fuller expression of your own Godliness while in physical form. Do you
understand that? And so we are not measuring the planet, we are
measuring you. Do you understand that?
The Value of Physical Visions
How does that relate to working with a Vision as vision very much
involves the physical?
Yes it does.
So would it not be more accurate to say that everyone’s vision is to
attain a higher respect for self, or value of self, and that is
reflected in the physical or outer world?
Yes and no. The purpose of being in physicality in the first place, the
reason why physicality, as you experience it here, exists and why
forgetfulness of who you really are is so strong is because of the
experimental nature of this particular place. There was no greater way
the universe could conceive of to push or stretch the experience of God
than coming to a place where you forget you are God and by, interacting
with the environment in certain ways, have the free choice to return in
ever-increasing amounts to the fullness of your glory or not, as you
wish. That is in a small way an explanation of this planet. The physical
environment exists only and solely for stimulation, if we could call it
that. It is what you interact with that allows you to reach fuller
expressions of your divinity or not, as you choose.
So indeed, focusing on the physical world and what you do there, rather
than focusing on what the physical world and all its many mishaps allows
you to be, is yes, slightly misfocused. Do you understand that? Yet,
without visions that are intensely physical, you could not make full use
of this experiment. Do you see that also? Otherwise you would be
bouncing (for they do bounce!) on another realm, somewhere without
physicality, and you would be extending yourself under those conditions.
You have chosen these conditions, which is to say you have put yourself
in a remarkable place at a remarkable time and with very clear reason.
Not interacting fully with your physical world and every component of
it, constitutes somewhat of a misunderstanding of why you are here,
which is displayed by some humans, not so?
So indeed the vision you have worked with and the pushing of that vision
to be physically applicable is useful, but not because the reason you
are here is to improve the planet. You know, God’s power - if we may use
that term God - is so vast that to consider that God, in one motion (not
physical but one motion) could not create thousands more areas of rain
forest if he wished, or re-populate all the extinct species or stop war
is ludicrous, do you understand that? To expect humans, with their
limited memory and ability, to do what God could do in an instant would
be rather a silly purpose for earth don’t you think? Do you see that?
That is why we are suggesting to you that while this earth is your
playground, and while this is the place that supports your great journey
and work and while it is the very thing that allows you your growth, the
repair of earth is not why you are here. You are here to expand the
experience of God into a realm it has not been in before. You are here
without full awareness, yet many of you manage to express a Godliness of
such high quality that we are left breathless. Do you understand what we
mean? And the physical world, this earth, your children, your wife,
those are the tools given to you to stimulate your expression of
Godliness in a place where much of your awareness of Godliness has been
somewhat removed. Is that more clear to you? Thank you.
External, or Physical, Goals
While we are on that subject, we would somewhat briefly approach then
the notion of goals. You have been taught from just about every teacher
in your life the importance of goal setting. Correct? Even now you have
a book for the year that works with this notion and you are pondering
those things. Let us suggest to you, as we have begun to do in
explaining to you what the real targets of your growth are, perhaps a
dual system for you to work with regarding goals, is that ok?
Indeed physical goals are useful in that they provide focus and a means
of expressing intent. For this reason do not scrap them yet bear in
mind, as we have told you here already, that your real measurement of
yourself is not by those physical goals. Whether you reach them or not
it is possible that you reach your real targets of growth, do you
understand the difference?
In other words let us distinguish with these words for your use. We will
distinguish between the word ‘goal’ and ‘target’. ‘Goal’ we will
describe for you - and again please know these are useful to keep - as
something that can be measured externally. A goal is to create a certain
amount of money or to receive a certain award. It is measurable
physically, is that clear? Then on the other hand, as we have told you,
you and spirit - which is really one and the same - are not going to be
measured upon those goals, how’s that? You instead will be measured upon
what we will call for the purposes of this session, ‘targets’. We will
define targets therefore in the following way: targets are internally
measured, they are places that you reach in your own levels of awareness
and in your own ability to know and express yourself as Godly. Do you
understand that? And those are also important for you to track somewhat.
You cannot fully ever track them, yet it will be useful for you also to
set and track targets as much as you do goals.
The Differences Between Goals and Targets
For example, let us say it is a goal for you to receive an Oscar. That
is not one of your particular goals correct?
No, it isn’t.
That is why we will work with it, we do not wish to work with that which
pertains directly to your life when we are using this example. So let us
say it is your goal to receive an Oscar, which is to say, by the
definition we have given, an Oscar is an external recognition, correct?
It can be measured in the physical.
Let us get to work using this example of ‘I want to receive an Oscar’ as
a goal, something with the ability to be physically, or more accurately
externally, measured. Ok? In line with that an enlightened actor - and
believe me, there are some - may also set targets for himself. Targets
as we have defined them here - and they are simply our own definition
for this reading - are internal shifts that you wish to make to more
fully understand yourself as an agent of God. So, to cut that long story
short, an example of a target will be? Perhaps you would like to give us
one you can see, if you have?
I would see that the related target to reaching the financial goal that
I have set for myself would be having realized, in the outer world, the
inner values that I see in myself or the inner worth or Godliness that I
see or perceive to be in myself but have not yet experienced. The
importance of experiencing that on achieving that goal.
Or so you would presume. Yet, for the moment let us work with that
target. If we could summarise it: ‘of ever increasing levels of
self-awareness as Godly’, does that work? That could be a target. In
relation - and we will simply relate it here, for the relationships
between goals and targets are purely personal and are set by human
beings themselves - let us presume that the actor’s goal of receiving
the Oscar was part of what he presumed would allow him that target. Ok?
We will then show you this: whether or not he receives the Oscar
actually, is no indication of whether or not he reaches the target. Do
you understand that? Do you see possibly that not receiving the Oscar
and still regarding himself or being able to regard himself as intensely
worthy maybe even more of a tool to reach that target than if he were to
receive the Oscar? Such is the difference between goals and targets. Do
you understand now why we suggest working with both sets?
Because the truth of it is that the left hand side - the side of the
physical goals, results and exploration - exists, as we have already
said, as an essential part of living fully the privilege of being on
this planet. The left hand side column of physical goals is necessary
and may be extremely useful for you simply to focus where you wish to
play in the vastness of this playground called earth and also how you
intend to play. That is the usefulness of goals. Yet most human beings,
and at this point you are still doing this to a certain extent, measure
themselves according to the achievement of those external goals. Do you
see that? Yet, the beauty of this system is that the right hand side of
the page, the side we have called targets - those ways in which you
would love to see yourself become more and more and more divine (and use
that word divine as it conjures up a lovely picture for humans) - that
side of the page may be amazingly achieved when the left hand side of
the page hasn’t even gotten off the ground. Do you see that?
And so at this point of your journey, if you wish to, we would suggest
simply as experimentation for you, yet over a reasonably long stretch of
time, that you work with both physical goals and internal targets. And
if you wish to have armchair moments, have them over targets rather than
the goals. Is that clear for you? Already you have moved up the list of
targets considerably.
Whether you are aware of it or not, a pre-written list of targets exists
for you before you are born, not a pre-written set of goals, that is
another difference. The goals are purely, as we have suggested, for your
focus and to set you on a particular path above many others that are
also available to you, but they are not set in stone. Your physical
goals for this life are not pre-determined before you get here. There
are myriad ways, a million ways if you like, for you to be in a position
to achieve the targets. Can you see that?
Can you see, for example, that a beggar may achieve beautifully high
targets, equally from a life of what is called underprivileged as
somebody else, even though he has extremely different goals? His goal
perhaps is to eat today, yet the targets or the inner shifts he may make
can be as vast as those experienced by someone with very different
goals. So the equality within humanity does not lie on the left hand
side of the page with the goals, how could it? You are not equal in
ability, you are not equal in resources, you are not equal in genetics
for that matter and neither should you wish to be. Those qualities
cannot be equalised, therefore the left hand side of the page, the
goals, can also not be equalised. Do you understand that? Yet many
humanitarians spend much energy trying to equalise them, correct?
Yet what is inherently equal and often forgotten is what exists on the
other side of that page. The spiritual, to use that word, the spiritual
achievements of human beings are fully equalized. Every human being,
regardless of physical circumstances, has the opportunity to achieve as
highly on the right hand side of the page [internal targets] as any
other. Is that clear for you? That is another difference.
Back to the second difference [pre-determination]: we have suggested to
you that it is written before you get here, your shopping list for the
right hand side, in other words that which, this time around, you wish
to press yourself on or stretch yourself in. How you do that is entirely
up to you and there are a certain number of paths available for you to
take to assist you to reach or not reach those targets you have set for
yourself on the right hand side of the page. So, while we suggest to you
and very strongly, if you wish it, to work both with physical goals and
internal targets, understand that in truth your list of internal targets
is already in existence, and what you create as a column with your
intellect may or may not be totally in line with what your spirit has
decided are your targets or themes for this time around. Is that
understood? Yet the more aware you become and the more you travel up
that road on the right hand side, the more your intellect will be in
line with your spirit [on understanding what your targets are].
At this point, when you are only working with external or physical
goals, the beauty of what you are really achieving is a little bit lost
on you. This is because you are only ticking or not ticking on the left
hand side of the page and all the strides you are taking on the right
are either unnoticed or are less celebrated than the left. Do you see
that? Thank you.
It will honour you enormously simply to switch priorities. Not to let go
of physical life by all means and certainly not to stop the usefulness
of physical goal-setting, yet simply to work within the deep knowledge
that your true measurement and success is not going to be measured on
that side. Is this clear? Thank you
Now, over to you. If there are particular questions we may deal with, we
will. If not, we will continue.
I think the question the that I came here with, which follows on from
the New Year’s Eve reading, is about what is blocking me from
experiencing abundance or - I would see abundance as a target as we have
just discussed it - experiencing abundance as a target
That is accurate, experiencing yourself as abundant, that is most
accurate.
That is what I came here with but a lot of that has already been
answered in what you have given.
May we interfere quickly? Do you see that it is far easier when in a
state of relative poverty to get to know yourself as inherently abundant
than it is to reach that target if you are rich? Do you see why, when
you are rich, you have no need to experience yourself as abundant? The
abundance exists in physical form and, whether you wish to or not, you
rely on it. Your abundance is all external when you have it. When you do
not have it you begin to experience abundance in new ways, ways that you
would never have been pushed toward, were you to have been cocooned or
buffered by many resources.
Most, though not all (please understand this, there has been some great
shift in this area in recent years) on your planet who are extremely
wealthy are those who have not even begun to reach the targets of
abundance. They have reached the goals, which in this particular case as
we have explained, can make it extremely difficult to reach the target.
Yet, the moment the target has been reached, we are no longer interested
in whether or not you are rich or poor, and we will simply remove all
barriers that exist. Do you understand that?
Spiritual Guidance for Reaching Targets, not Goals
Do you see, therefore, that we are here to serve you on the target side
not on the goal side? That is our job, and that is why so many people
pray inaccurately. They pray for the goals, not so? Not the targets. We
are only able to work on the realm of the right, of the targets, because
that is your highest quest. We are not interested in the goals. As we
have told you, you are not measured by those. We are interested in
helping to create the perfect playground for you to reach your targets,
whether that is in line with your goals or not. Thank you. Please
continue.
Personal assistance with pain in a left knee (female, parental pressure)
So that was the one thing that I would like teaching on, which you have
already given, but if there is more that will be great. The other thing
that I would like to raise is the physical, the thing in my knee. The
pain I have experienced in my knee 3 times now. I am not certain what
target that is assisting me to achieve.
Thank you for reconstructing your sentence. Carry on.
I wonder if you could give me some insight into that, I would appreciate
it.
Were this particular problem, or physical pain, to be in both knees, it
would indicate something different from if it were concentrated in the
right only or in the left only. There is also meaning therefore in the
side of the body that the pain is located. So yours is specific to one
area, is that correct?
Yes, to the left.
So it is not, therefore, specifically to do with flexibility. Both knees
together - and this is a rare occurrence - in pain or being hurt or
injured indicate concerns or some rigidity to do with flexibility. So we
are not specifically poking you on that regard, although please know
that to separate reasons like this in such a logical, linear fashion
isn’t necessarily accurate for you. Many times issues blend into each
other not so? Flexibility may be related to abundance, may be related to
fear, may be related to the father, may be related to death. So, honing
in on one specifically also does not usually serve you as seldom you are
able to pinpoint it exactly. Let us start with that.
Yet we can isolate for you some of what is wrapped around your knee. You
have described it as something in your knee, we would correct that to
show you that, metaphysically, what is going on there is something
around the knee. There is something wrapped around it. We have spoken
before of that Bentley belt [a previous reading], it is not dissimilar
from that. It is a protection you are yet holding and it is building up
pressure around that knee – pressure that is not useful to it. A knee
does not like pressure, have you seen that? Certain parts of the body
get stronger under pressure, a knee is not one. A knee likes space to
move, it does not like to be crowded or surrounded by something that
puts pressure on its movement. And that is more accurately the
metaphysical picture of it, which may assist you in your visualising.
So, firstly, the realm of action in which you can be working here is in
the realm of letting go rather than the realm of adding or addition.
Certain physical pains are about something lacking, others are about
something in excess or something that needs to be released. Do you
understand? And yours is on the releasing side, is that clear? That is
firstly how we would paint this picture of your particular knee.
What you are holding in that knee is parental. Parental is to say that
it is pressure experienced on both sides of the parenting line, in other
words you as son and you as father, both of those are parental
relationships, understood? When do you recall your first major pain in
this knee?
When I was about 6.
It is also significant for other reasons, that age around it. Same knee
at 6?
I am not 100% certain but pretty sure that it was.
Yes, certain sides of the body relate usually to gender, therefore we
can be even more accurate in defining the parental relationship that we
are referring to. On the left is the strains of mother, and therefore
daughter also, with you in the middle. As we have said, an experience of
excess pressure in regard to both strands.
We will show you that your responsibility, or feeling of responsibility,
towards your mother began to increase the very first time you also
experienced the pain in the knee. The moment you became aware that she
needed some looking after and that you should do it. Do you understand?
I understand but I don’t have a recollection of what the incident was.
Yes, no specific incident. You may be aware of ‘a complex’ it is called
in psychological terms, called Oedipus. It comes into play at different
ages yet exhibits itself in most children where the child of the
opposite gender to the mother experiences a great attraction and
feelings of protection towards the mother and the girl child towards the
father, even bordering on sexual in certain cases (which is why Freud
became interested in it in the first place). So it is not an event, it
is a well-documented phase within nearly all children. They become
immediately more clinging or more resistant to the opposite parent of
their gender because of increased feelings of attraction, protection,
love etc. The beginnings of your experiences with your knee were also
your beginnings of that phase or complex. The difficulty with you is
that right in the middle of it you experienced the loss of the parent of
the other gender. Correct? So, in your case, the syndrome or the Oedipus
complex as we have called it or, more accurately, the feelings of
protection for the mother were increased dramatically. You see that
possibility? And you experience the same sense of heightened
responsibility to your daughters, correct?
It is a repeated strand always. It is also one we have mentioned to you
earlier on here: to take very particular care not to measure yourself by
the results you see or don’t see in your daughters. Remember that? We
have mentioned it specifically to you as we have seen you take some very
harsh stands with yourself on this regard and have extremely high
expectations to the extent that it is an area you even wish to work in,
so much is your commitment to it, not so? Yet, what we are saying to you
- with much love - is that there is too much pressure. Do you understand
that?
You are placing yourself under enormous strain in relation to that
parental relationship which shifts, when you have your daughters, away
from your mother. In repetition, the focus of your responsibility
shifted away from your mother when your daughters arrived. You will
notice that you have simply transferred the responsibility and the
pressure from the one down to the other, which is extremely common in
humanity also. Those relationships are intimately connected and so
therefore we ask you to become acutely aware of both strands - you in
relation to mom and you in relation to your two daughters, both of which
are implied in this equation. And to notice simply, as a start, where
you are placing pressure on yourself in regard to them.
As we have said, at this point, your pressure has shifted more away from
your mother to your girls, yet still take note of some feelings of guilt
in relation to your mother. Do you see that? You still experience some
sense of responsibility for her well-being. It started, as we have shown
you, with the beginning of a very normal phase which, in most young
boys, ends round about 11, when they shift their focus away from
protecting their mother. Yet you did not do so because of the loss of
your father, it only increased. That is why your sense of responsibility
to your girls is so acute, so developed. It started with your mom, and
did not have a natural end the way some other boys did. Do you
understand this?
Can we show you perhaps some confirmation? Do you know that taking the
decision to spend some six days away from your girls doing your own work
on The Mile [a workshop offered by The Insight Training Centre] would
have lessoned the pressure on your knee? Do you see that you chose
rather to act in line with your own targets than to attempt to act in
line with them achieving theirs? And do you see the result on your knee
in that time? It was strong at that time, not completely, yet with less
pressure because of your decision to go there in the first place. And
the moment you came back to your responsibilities, the [pain in the]
knee returned, Not so?
It goes away each time I focus on myself.
Thank you for seeing that. It is also, please know this, in their best
interests that the pressure in relation to them be removed. Can you see
that? They feel it, and the implications are different for every child.
Some react to pressure from the parent in the way we have described it
with you. Some react with a great desire to please and they spend their
lives attempting to please their father. Others do just the opposite and
will, whether they like it or not, always act in opposition. Can you see
that neither of those two extremes serves the child?
So, that they pick up on your tremendous sense of responsibility and
protection towards them is obvious. How individually they will choose to
respond is not yet known and is not yet in any way [with his two
daughters] entrenched or in any way of serious consequence. That is our
source of great delight that you have asked the question and come open
to receive an answer. Your openness was indicated to us by the fact that
you said to us, ‘I do not know’. Do you remember saying that, ‘I do not
know why this knee…?’ As you say something like that - which most humans
consider a statement of weakness, though we see it as a statement of
openness - we can bring in some greater information.
Please know also as we have said that it is not fully accurate to reduce
the issue of the knee to one particular thing. Indeed with you its
focus, its primary focus, has been parental and parental on the side of
the female gender, yet that is not to exclude other factors, which are
spin-offs from that and which also function as the increased pressure
around the knee. Do you understand?
So while we give you the most potent or powerful area in which to work,
understand as you perhaps remove some of those blocks, you will notice
that that major block has also lead to some other things being used to
keep your knee locked so to speak. So do not exclude other things that
come up for you in relation this as they may all be a part of it. It is
not usually reduced to one and only one thing without that having
affected many others. Is that all right? Thank you. Any more questions?
Female Sexuality and Healing Past Sexual Wounds
There is one other question. How best do I serve my wife in working
through the issues she is facing with sexuality at the moment?
Thank you for that. We show her to you, as we may at this stage, locked
in a cupboard. It is a tall wardrobe, an old one, antique, not new and
modern. And she is inside there with the door locked and she is rather
frightened. What we are showing you here is that in the specific area of
sexuality, she finds herself at this point inside a cupboard, feeling a
little bit locked in. Can you see that with her?
Yes
She is not feeling free in this regard at all. Correct?
Yes
We have told you that the cupboard is an old one, an ancient one, an
antique, which is to show you that this particular issue with her
reaches back very far, like an antique. And you know things that are
from far back are usually far more sturdy in the psyche than those
things that are recent, you know that? They become entrenched over the
years and more and more a solid force. So what she experiences now has
not one single element to do with you. It is far older than that. Please
know that for a start. That may allow you some greater freedom in your
actions and certainly allow you no guilt here, ok?
The cupboard she is in is old and, as with so many women, becomes what
they choose to hold them back from many, many other things also. To
isolate sexuality from the rest of one’s life, particularly with the
make up or anatomy of a woman, is to be really inaccurate. Sexuality
with women is pervasive. Their level of freedom and self-expression and
satisfaction in the area of sexuality has deep impact on their level of
freedom, self-expression and satisfaction in every single other area of
their life.
Men are a little different in this regard. They are not, in truth, as
evolved in the area of sexuality as women, if we could make a rather
stark statement. It is by design they have chosen male bodies and it is
only with a great effort that they overcome this limitation, and neither
is it necessary. Yet women have come in with their sexuality centre far
more developed, far more connected or far more strongly connected to
every other area of their life than with men.
And so thank you for asking how you may help and the first thing to
realise is that she is differently wired from you as we have suggested.
And you will see that her sexual expression relates directly to her
ability to express in every other way in her life. And if you can, with
gentleness for her, you may point that out. We know that her chosen
route of expression at this stage is not anymore the arena of cooking.
Yet can you see that when she was involved there she was expressing
herself - and also creatively - quite vastly. Do you see that?
Yes
She was putting herself out into the world with great confidence and
great creativity. Also at that time she was more sexually open. Do you
see that? They are related. At this point she struggles enormously to
put herself out in the world, not so? Her plans to bring in money, while
that may be the goal, are not about that. They are about seeing herself
once again as a powerful force in the world where she is creative and
confident and receives respect. Like she did when she was doing her
cooking. She is seeking that again, yet in more meaningful ways, and
when and if you have some chance to draw for her a link between her
sexual freedom and her freedom in that area also, you may draw that
link. You need not mention that you heard it here yet please do if it
serves you, and if it serves her.
The first way, therefore, that you can assist her is to show in some way
that her sexuality cannot be isolated form the rest of her life and if
she attempts to make strides in other areas, and ignore the sexual area,
it will not be particularly useful for her. Is that clear? With women
everything is in a pot. We simply use this analogy as we have been
speaking of her cooking. Things in a woman’s life do not cook in
separate pots. You do not do the vegetables separately from the meat, or
from the rice. Everything in a woman’s life is in one pot, affecting
each other, adding taste and texture to everything else. At this point
she wants to put the sexuality in a separate pot, does she not? That
would be the first area of healing. To understand deeply - and you may
assist her this again in whichever way you feel works - that her
sexuality is far more influential on the rest of her life than perhaps
she is able to see now.
Also, as we have said, that her current feeling of constriction in this
regard is not to do with you. Neither with the way you approach her. It
is older than that. Of some use, in returning to that initial hurt, will
be for her to assist beautifully in the sexual awakening of her
daughters.
Giving Birth Can Re-Awaken Previous Sexual Abuse
There is not some great hidden sexual event in her life this particular
time. Yet most woman in experiencing themselves as sexual or giving
birth in one incarnation will have some memory of previous hurt in these
physical areas of another life. She does have some of that and the
birthing increases that memory. Do you understand? The genitals are
involved, pain is involved and it feels invasive, birth does. So the
body automatically recalls previous similar experiences involving the
genitals, involving hurt and involving invasion. Do you understand? That
is why many woman create for themselves physical reasons not to engage
sexually straight after birth. Do you see that? It is from a powerful
memory that their bodies have released during birth which is not in
their immediate awareness as abuse but is part of the pain they
experience at birth and also part of their resistance to love making
after birth. Sometimes it never comes right again if the amount of pain
was very high. That is not the case with your wife, yet it is
significant to her even if it is not of the variety that will remain a
wound necessarily for the rest of this life. Is that clear?
She may return to her innocence for that is what she would like. She may
return to her innocence in so many ways and you may assist with this.
Firstly, as we have said, by beautifully honouring the sexuality of her
girls. There is no time too early to do this. Human beings do not become
sexual at 12 or 21. You are sexual in essence and allowing your
daughters the fullness of this experience and allowing them to be
beautiful and pure and sexual is a wonderful way of her own healing. Is
that understood?
Furthermore there are other activities that will return her to her
greatly desired state of innocence. Perhaps we can show you that her
attraction to play, to certain kinds of music and other little details
you may notice, indicate that she is yearning to be innocent again. She
has a sense of sexuality not being innocent and she wishes to experience
innocence very strongly at this moment. Maybe you can treat her with the
notion of innocence in your mind. Maybe you can treat her the way you
imagine a husband would treat a young virgin before they get married and
have intercourse for the first time. He is in awe of her body yet he
shows this to her in means other than sexual, at least for the moment.
He knows that the sexual relationship will come, yet because of
society’s norms in our example, he is not permitted to honour her body
sexually. He has to honour her body in other ways and so he brings
flowers for her to put in her hair and he rubs her hands with oils and
he strokes her cheek and he writes to her. He writes to her of the
beauty of her body that he is not yet permitted to touch. Do you
understand what we are saying?
She will, from those actions, have the choice to experience herself
again as innocent, as a virgin, as pure. It is not true of course that
sexuality and innocence are not bed partners. You can be beautifully
innocent and very sexual, as are young children. So she is not accurate
in her divorce of the two. Yet for reasons of some wounding, as we have
indicated, this is what is strong for her at the moment. You may honour
that. Is that useful for you?
Thank you
Indeed the thank you is, as we have already said, for you: for allowing
yourself to ask such a question. Our thanks comes to you in the form of
what we hope is useful.
You may return to us with this question if your chosen means of
accomplishing returning her to innocence are not working, ok? We have an
understanding of your wife!
Then can we give you some ‘padkos’ [something to take with you to eat on
the way]. It is round about suppertime anyway. So let us give you what
may feed you, at least for a moment.
He draws the Family Harmony Card
We see that you gain much nourishment from this.
This reading has been slightly edited by Angela to facilitate easy
reading and understanding.
© Angela Deutschmann
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