The Soft Part Of Me

“I have to cry” I said to Mandy, sitting up on the massage table. Like a sneeze, I just had to cry, and not a few tears rolling down the sides of my face either.  Body wrenching sobs that just had to come out.  It didn’t last long, probably not even a minute, but something had shifted inside of me. I had a moment of consciousness where I could see that I was pushing away, or denying the soft part of me.  The vulnerable or what I saw as the weak part of me.  And for a moment, during the energy work that Mandy was doing, I saw that part of me integrated with the rest of me. I told Mandy what I was feeling and realized I was afraid of that soft part.  Mandy suggested I embrace that part of me, invite her in, talk to her, maybe have a cup of tea with her, she was there to help me.    So I laid back  and as Mandy finished the massage, I embraced the soft part of me.

We had a conversation where  I learned she was as afraid of me as I was of her.  The strong, tough, hard part of me was scared to feel vulnerable and saw it as being weak.  The soft part of me was small and slight and all glowing yellow and  she told me how she could help me.   That if I listened to her,  she could warn me when something wasn’t right, when there was something I should stay away from or not do.  She was the sensitive part of me and if we worked together and listened to each other  and protected each other we could be a whole human being.

Then I saw the hulking shell of an old hollow tree, the inside rotted away, the bark hard and empty.  And as I watched, the inside of the hollow old tree  started to fill up with the soft  fertile stuff that a dead tree becomes.  Then flowers started to grow inside of  it and green leaves sprouted from the dead limbs.  There’s a garden inside of me, I thought.

It seems I keep finding pieces of myself.  I know the sensitive part of me, I believe in the importance of vulnerability and yet still I was pushing this part of me away.  Afraid of how it made me feel, weak and worthless and insignificant.  And yet when I embraced it, I could see it for the powerful, intuitive part of me  it really is.  I think it was my trying to come to terms with who I am now and the energy work that Mandy was doing that led me to be able to see myself as whole and incorporate these two parts of me.

When I came home I did a drawing of it so I wouldn’t forget.  Once I draw something I rarely forget it.  Today I drew it on my sewing machine.  I think it’s going to be a pillow.  I’ll let you know when it’s done.