Retracing and healing

Stopping in Penang for a few days gave me the opportunity to reflect. The past few days had been so full and so significant and I really needed to ask myself what I had done and what it all meant. I wrote in my notebook:

‘Was thinking earlier about going back. Doing over. Retracing. That is what I have been doing. I have ‘done over’ KL and now I feel comfortable. I used to live there. I said goodbye. I put it in the past.’

Written down, it seems very simple and in fact it was simple and easy to do, except that it took me over 30 years to find the opportunity to retrace. Once I was able to, I simply, very consciously, put myself in those places that for a long time had seemed like another world. The places that, when I thought about them, made me hurt so much that I put the thoughts away.

I am so very grateful that I did so much writing during this experience, because it is helpful to see that, only two days after the Magical Memory Tour, I can so clearly and confidently say that I had ‘put it in the past.’ I didn’t wait until I got home at the end of the trip to test the feeling, like poking a poorly tooth; because I committed to writing as much as I could every day, I was in the habit of reflecting on everything and as a natural consequence examined my feelings almost immediately. That’s the power of keeping a journal, of what Lisa Lister calls ‘heart riffing,’ and I would recommend it whole heartedly if you are planning any sort of significant journey or process.

Later on, I reflected and wrote some more about the process of healing and where and how it was taking place. This was after a ‘real tropical rainstorm with thunder,’ which I enjoyed enthusiastically:

‘A lot of the things that have been important have been sensations – the feeling of the heat, especially walking out of air con, feeling of walking round uneven pavements, jumping over storm drains and crossing roads. Sounds of course. Cicadas. Lanugages. Smells. …Then there is the feeling – the ease – of sliding into the back of a comfortable car to be driven from one place to another. All these things touch a place inside me far from intellect and language. A place beyond reason and explanation. That may be where sense can be made of things.’

Over the past couple of years, prior to this adventure, I had paid a lot of attention to the difference between logical thought and more right-brained, creative and intuitive processes. I began to realise that, although I had previously believed that logic was everything, and that I should be able to deal with anything using my intellect, in fact we have untold power within us that is nothing to do with logic or left-brain processes. And here I am, processing these significant events, dealing with my ‘doing over,’ and sensing that the place for this healing to happen is somewhere other than conscious thought.

Do these musings ring true for you? Do you have a painful memory that you might be able to retrace? How could you do that?

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