Free the psychic hostage!

"Thinking for oneself is an opportunity not to be missed."  Yuki Tomo

"Alcoholics don't take lovers, they take prisoners."  Twelve-Step adage

Often we turn our lives over--not to a Power greater than ourselves as they say--but to a dominant person's energy.  Then we live in a walking dream as their psychic puppet, even when they're no longer even around us to pull the strings.

 I've had clients who have spent half their lives in therapy understanding the grip a particular parent has had on their psyche.  But they never fully cut the cord.  There's nothing more poignant than someone in their thirties, forties, or beyond who's still the slave of a childhood bully. 

 While my own father has a big and generous heart, he was also intensely demanding and critical.  As I grew up,  nothing was good enough.  And though I believe as a soul I surely selected him to resolve certain karmas, I couldn't fully free myself as an adult.   While I  eventually felt much compassion and forgiveness for him, a part of me still remained his obedient but disappointing child.  

A turning point came a few months ago.  I was hitting horrible blocks writing a book proposal.  The process was practically making me physically ill.  One day I just got on my knees and prayed for a miracle.  "Please show me how to get out of my own way with this,'  I begged with my whole being. "I need my own authentic voice."

Desperation can be a great ally.

The next thing I knew I felt drawn to go to San Francisco's Ocean Beach.  I took a recent letter from my dad that recounted the same sorry list of criticisms he'd shared since I was practically in diapers. Then I stopped at the store for a coconut and some flowers.

I was so ready.

It was time to offer the whole mess once and for all over to Divine Order and Lord Ganesh, the 'remover of obstacles' I wrote about yesterday.  I chanted for a long while, pouring everything into the coconut in my lap.  Then I got up and smashed it ferociously against a stone wall, watching the milk explode like a psychic grenade.  I'd used this technique from India many times before, but never about my dad. 

Now I just needed to burn the letter.  The wind was so fierce my lighter was useless.  But unbelievably I saw  a few yards away two young guys with a massive bonfire.  I thought, "For real?  At the beach in the middle of the day?" 

I walked over and told them what I wanted to do.  "The heat is wild," one guy cautioned.  "Do you want me to do it so you don't get burnt?"

"No!" I yelled. "I'm the daughter.  I have to do this!" 

And I grabbed a long stick to plunge the letter into the leaping orange flames.   As the pages burnt to gray ashes, the guys high-fived me, yelling jubilantly, "You're free, mama, you are free!"  Then they toasted me with their Heinekens while one even danced a little jig. 

I guess I was meant to have a couple enthusiastic male witnesses.

Later,  I left a trail of purple orchids all along the water's edge in gratitude,

especially to my blessed dad.

You know, at some point

you just have to free the hostage

for no one else

can.

You have to finally

storm the barricades

and

free

you