| Current mood: |  relieved |
About 12 years ago, I started working with a therapist named Shelley. She didn't have a paticular therapeutic path that she followed but was willing to use whatever got the job done. We worked well together because I was willing to try anything that would help unlock what was going on inside.
Shelley taught me how to do meditation and how to use it as a less traumatic way to unlock some of the memories. She led me to create an internal garden and to use it as a way to step in and out of the memories. It was my safe place. It was a very large walled garden filled with riotous color with a formal courtyard in the center. It was here that I discovered my first animal totems: my dragon and my panther. Eventually I found a path that led to a smaller garden with a bench. This area was walled in with full, leafy treeas and along their roots grew abundant beds of lily of the valley. It was in this smaller garden that I was able to talk to God and to start to really understand for the first time what love is.
This particular internal visualization was very useful for many years. The garden didn't change much. It didn't need to. It was my safe place. One day I discovered a hidden door in the garden wall. With my dragon, I flew up over the wall to look where it led. There was a path and I started following it. Eventually I found a unique tower dwelling shaped sort of like a big mushroom. I started exploring this place in my meditations. I discovered my internal house where I let other people. Over the years, the area around my house became more and more detailed. Eventually there was a small forest and a meadow where I discovered my other animal totems: fawn and rabbit.
Over the last few months, I've tried to do meditation and I've tried to visualize both my garden and my tower dwelling. I have not been able to do it. I realized that my internal reality has changed so much over recent years that these places just aren't there anymore. I don't need a private place that keeps everyone out. Nor do I need to create a space for the people I love. My life is now openly loving and I don't need to hide away from the people I love.
Having these places inside meant that when scary memories came up, there was a place of absolute safety for my little girl to be. I wasn't even aware of her but she felt safe. Yes, there were icky things but the internal places kept them separate from her. The last few years have brought about radical changes in my internal landscape. I have become very emotionally open and more and more of the deepest memories have come out. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a place for my little girl to hide and she has once again experienced the absolute terror and confusion of that time.
I realized last night as I was falling asleep that I need to create a new safe place for my little girl. The old places don't work for me because they are no longer accurate reflections of who I am. So I need to create a place that works for both Faerie and lindy. Christopher gave me the first key last week when he reminded me that I have something now that I didn't have as a child: I have my dragon. The dragon is fierce and beautiful and strong. It is big enough to protect me from anything. So I have to create a new internal home and introduce lindy to my dragon so that she has a protector as well as a place to hide and feel safe. He also gave me the idea of rosemary, my favorite herb.
I'm not sure what it will be but once again I'm going to start with a garden. Instead of a formal courtyard in the center, there will be a large, round bed of white sand where my dragon can rest and where lindy can play. I'm not sure the rest of it yet but I know there won't be flowers in this part. It will be filled with herbs that fill the warm air with fragrance. Slowly I will create the garden and I will visit it in faerie form and I will teach lindy all about the herbs. In teaching her about the herbs, lindy will get to know Faerie and will start to trust her. I will introduce her to my dragon and lindy will learn how fun a dragon is to climb on. lindy will learn that leaning against the dragon is very warm and safe and that it is very comfy to nestle in the sand and fall asleeping leaning against a giant, sleeping dragon.
My last garden formed instantly as I entered and it was a reflection of a lot of work already done. This garden will be different. This garden I will create with the same deliberation that I have put into creating my current life. It was very painful when I moved down here and left a life that had evolved into a very comfortable place. I did something very different. I gave a lot of thought to the kind of life I wanted and although there have been some unexpected turns, it is a life that is very satisfying. Unfortunately, it isn't a life that my internal structures were designed to support. So the old stuff quit working but I didn't have new stuff. It's time to build the new stuff.
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