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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504313568 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Balboa Press AU |
| Publication date: | 06/22/2018 |
| Pages: | 284 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
My Story
I was born on 12th February 1963, one of twin girls. Two girls had already been born into the family, all within 2 years and 3 months. My parents, like many others, were Italian migrants who came to Melbourne, Australia for a 'better life' after World War II. They adopted a strict parenting approach and focused on 'putting food in our mouths and shoes on our feet'. They demonstrated their love by providing for us. This was the most valuable thing for them, having come from the experience of the frontline.
The facts of my story are not extraordinary, they are quite common. However, it is not the facts and figures of my story that define the story, but rather it is how I experienced it that is my story. We each have a unique story in the way we experience it, a uniqueness that cannot be invalidated. No one can say to you that you didn't experience what you experienced. Even if the world judges it as insanity, it does not alter what you consider to be your reality. The sharing of a story bears witness to another being. It is an acknowledgement and an allowance: I see you, I hear you and I receive you.
When we have been seen and heard, we are often freed from the attachment to our identifications; we are freed from the character we act out in the stage of our lives and we can become open to the possibility of unveiling Who We Really Are. This unveiling can occur as we detach from the facts and figures and shift to perceiving from our hearts and Souls. Bearing witness from this place will change this world of ours.
So here it goes ...
There was much anguish. If he stayed, we would all die. If he died the two of us would live. As an act of pure and unconditional love, he chose to die so that we could live. This brother, I would later know as my own son, left the planet for the sake of me and my twin. From that moment, I vowed to protect my sister forever. I would never let anything happen to her. I had vowed it on the death of our brother.
In each moment, my resolve strengthened. I had also confined myself and felt that this was it. There was no other place, there was nothing else to do. I didn't allow myself to know that I was here to be born into this world. This world was foreign to me and the cloud of its density had already veiled me from remembering Who I Really Was. I had created separation and I did not acknowledge the body I was incarnating in.
When things started to move, I was in shock, and desperation overtook me. The words for the feelings were, 'What is happening? I have no control over what is happening to me'. I was being swept up in a force greater than my will. I had vowed to stay with my twin forever yet something was driving me away from her and she was not coming with me.
The journey was treacherous and painful but the deepest pain was the separation from my twin, the one I had vowed to never part from, the only thing I was here to do.
Suddenly I found myself sliding out of what I later realised was my mother. A sudden gush and I was out. I had failed. The one thing I had to do, I failed at. I left my sister behind!! I did not protect her. I did not keep my promise. The feelings were so strong.
I didn't know that my sister would be born soon. There was no concept of time. There was only this stationery moment in which I was a failure, something that I then felt could never be changed.
I screamed and screamed. Not from the physical journey. I was grabbed. 'Put me back! You don't understand, I don't belong here.' Twenty minutes later (after being manually rotated) my sister was born.
My father didn't come to the hospital after receiving the news that he had another two girls. He stayed at work. My pattern of failure strengthened: 'I was not good enough, I was not a boy'. His desperate need to perpetuate his name had failed. My mother had failed, again.
The shutdown showed up in full force. I realised that survival rested on maintaining my isolation. Any sense of protecting my twin was overtaken by the dread of surviving this foreign place. I took comfort in sucking my thumb and hiding under the security of my baby blanket. My mother would say I was a 'good baby', not demanding at all. A quiet baby was a Godsend. She didn't look beyond survival.
I felt I didn't belong here. I found no one that knew me. I didn't recognise anything. This sense of isolation presented itself in the world as shyness and quietness. I could not interface with this world. One clear characteristic was my silence. In particular, I couldn't speak or interact with boys. Within, I continued to experience dread and terror, a frigidity in being in this world. This continued throughout my early years and into adulthood. Fear was my constant companion. In any moment if I checked in with myself, I always wanted 'out'. I never felt I belonged in the world and deep within I continually questioned why I had to be here. This certainly didn't feel familiar or safe. I had no relationship with my body, the only feeling was an intensity of fear.
We all attended a Catholic primary school. I shadowed my twin and it helped that we were placed in classes together. She was outgoing and social, so I hid behind her, literally! Being physically taller than her I began to develop poor posture as I perpetually tried to shrink myself, to hide.
We lived virtually across the road from school. Being very strict, my parents required us to go home for lunch everyday (there were rare exceptions when we stayed at school). I didn't mind as it provided safety. It certainly didn't assist my social ineptitude!
In 6th grade my first glimmer of hope appeared. There was something else in the world that could support me other than the shadow of my twin and being shrouded in the rigidity of my family environment.
The hope came in the form of my 6th grade teacher. She was a tall, loving and beautiful teacher and she cared about me. I sat in the back of the classroom and felt her caring. It was a feeling I remembered as familiar. For the first time, someone outside the construct of my family provided some safety. I secretly cherished her, I recognised true love in her and from then on, I began yearning to be loved in the world. I didn't understand it then, but the love I was yearning for was the Love that was Who I Am, that was my Nature. The separation I had created did not give me access to my Self. Her unconditional love revealed a glimpse of it to me. It would console me at night while seeking protection in my bed. I would rock myself to sleep, often rocking for hours as I retreated from this world into my internal world. This is where I lived more truly as my Self. It was such a relief to no longer reside in this world. When I got to a place of bliss I would sleep in its embrace. Much later in life I would recognise that feeling as Being and connecting back Home.
Being the last year in primary school, it was inevitable that I would part from my teacher but I didn't really conceive this in a reasonable way. The day she left, I, with my twin and a small group of her friends, escorted her to her car. I was quiet as usual. When it came to saying goodbye, a grief overtook me and I began to sob. I remember noticing the shock in the girls nearby, looking bewilderingly at my overreaction. I grasped her with both arms. I only reached the top of her legs. I didn't want to let go. My hope was leaving my life. I felt stranded in the world again. I had heard a hope in a song but she was real and in my life. After that day, I shut down further. I was incredibly overwhelmed as soon I would also be starting secondary school.
The hope in a song came in the 6th grade also. Every week the Education Department broadcast programmes that we would listen to during a free lesson. For a time, they would broadcast Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind (Dylan, 1962). I didn't understand what the words meant but I experienced a knowing, a familiar resonance of what I was yearning. It was a promise of what was possible and what was more truly real for me and that too gave me much comfort. I remember later in life reflecting back to these moments, being so grateful to that person in the Education Department who broadcast that song week after week. In my mind, I had that person pegged as a rebellious male teacher who needed to get the word out. To whoever that was, thank you. As they say, you never know where the ripples of your actions will reach. Bob Dylan's lyrics and later Van Morrison's, would provide me much solace and inspiration, capturing the resonance of what I was 'trying' to both articulate in my mind and express from my heart and Soul.
In the year that followed, I moved to an all-girls Catholic Secondary School run by the nuns of the Convent of Mercy. My teacher was a strangely attractive man and I liked him. He created a nurturing environment that cradled both my insecurity and my naivety.
My twin, being stronger in the world, began to rebel. She bleached her hair and began to smoke. I couldn't summons the strength to follow.
My teacher was also gay. I had never known someone who was gay. I envied his rebellion and my assumption of his freedom, such was my naivety.
In that class I met a student who changed my life. We didn't interact much, between her absence and my shyness we may have shared five words.
The reason for her absence was because she had leukaemia and she was dying.
Looking past her bad wig and her pale, unwell appearance, there was something different about her. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was drawn to her. I would long for her to be at school each day but that didn't happen very often.
When she did come, she didn't do much. I would glance at her continually as she sat quietly at the back of the room. I couldn't resist.
By this stage, my internal reflections and experiences were my real life. Her energy matched something I recognised and then I realised its' substance. She was angelic, maybe even literally. There I was, stuck in fear and dread and she had no semblance of those feelings. She was pure and clear. She was grace. I was drawn like a moth to a flame. This girl was dying yet she was not afraid, nor did she concern herself with the 'living in this world' that brought such fear to me. I was resisting this world while she was purely Being.
I continued to wish to see her, I felt blessed when she was there.
Then came the news. The beautiful angel had died.
It was the first time in my life that someone I knew had died. I became more numb than usual. Everything felt surreal. What was this grief?
The class attended the funeral. I sobbed and sobbed, but why? I didn't know her well, as I said, we may have exchanged five words.
I sobbed because I now knew. I sobbed because I had been in the presence of someone who had shed this 'mortal coil'. I had been in the presence of a Conscious Being in this reality and I was not isolated when I was near her. I felt deep grief over the loss of this angelic presence in my life, something that I recognised as familiar to me.
That day was also the start of something new. Without knowing consciously what I was doing, I continued to speak to this dear angel and even task her! Every time someone died I would ask her to greet them and escort them over. Where did that come from? I didn't know and I also didn't know if it was real, it didn't matter to me; it felt right, it felt like I was being of service to the person who was passing. My thinking then was that I wasn't able to assist from my current position, but she was. Calling on her came naturally to me. These days I call on others in both the angelic and astral realms to support those crossing, but more on that later.
During the remainder of my time at that school, I plunged myself into study, something that didn't come easily, even reading was difficult as I am dyslexic. I had to learn everything by rote, reciting over and over to get the content firmly enough in my head to pass my tests. I became interested in boys, but only from afar. I never had a boyfriend, I could barely sustain girlfriends. I was really only friends with my sister's friends. They got a package deal being friends with my sister. I felt like the girl that never got picked for anything. I didn't consider how others received my frigidity. My sense of isolation limited what I allowed myself to notice and to Be.
I continued to go to church on Sundays, mostly on my own. I didn't question the teachings of the Catholic Church, I just felt comfortable as I contemplated while attending mass. I do have to admit, however, that another part of me checked off going to mass so that I didn't go to 'hell'.
What did begin to show up was a distinction between the routine of reciting prayers and mass and the warmth and comfort of communing with the energy of Jesus and God. I didn't fully grasp the connection then, but I recognised the same familiarity that I experienced with those that crossed my path and 'touched my heart'. These were the incidents that provided glimpses of Home.
This different experience of God was reinforced one day when I arrived at school only to be told that a bus was waiting for me to go to an Italian poetry recital competition where I was expected to recite a lengthy Italian poem. I went into shock and the situation became surreal (an out-of-body sensation). I never failed my scholastic obligations. What was this? I was totally unaware of the commitment, let alone knew the poem!! But then I felt rescued. I had no voice, literally. I woke up that morning as usual but without a voice. I wasn't unwell, I just couldn't speak. What were the chances? The day I was expected to do something I couldn't deliver, I had no voice. After my teacher's initial skepticism, she realised I was telling the truth and my twin took my place. She was not fearful; I think she relished the chance to get out of normal school work. I realised that day that God had my back and the communion I was finding comfort in was showing up in my life.
Living like this continued into college. God had my back again when I met my husband. We both were undertaking an undergraduate degree in accounting. I still could not interact well socially and lived life in a numb existence. He looked past all of that, took me by the hand and we were married a few years later. I am so grateful, for he is an amazing, loving and beautiful man and father whom I love deeply.
Things changed dramatically with the birth of our first child in 1992, a boy. We nearly lost him at birth. He was delivered with a vacuum suction that caused internal haemorrhaging in his right frontal lobe. He was resuscitated at birth.
Sixteen months later our second child, another boy, was born. I recognised this son as the brother that left my mother's womb so that my sister and I could live. He has been a gift in so many ways and continues to share his own awareness and knowing with me and the world.
During this whole time, I fell into a depression deeper than the numbing I had previously experienced. Functioning was difficult. My husband would be at work and with no other help I felt both inadequate and overwhelmed. I loved my children but the daily functioning was physically draining me. I would count the seconds until my husband would return home.
I knew my first son was not developing as expected. When I began noticing that my second child was doing things that my first child could not do, I began to panic. Assurances from others that each child is individual and that he would develop in his own time didn't 'cut it' anymore. I needed to act.
This realisation was the shock I needed to break through my depression, numbness and frigidity. I had to do something for my son. I began 'snapping out' of the numbness. I had a task to do, I needed to 'fix' my son. I began educating myself about what was happening to him, about intervention programmes. While I did this, it became clear that the person who was in greater need of help was me. This 'wakeup call' with my son's health was really my 'wakeup call'. I finally began to awaken in this reality and when I came to the point where western medicine could not offer any further help for my son, my journey to alternative therapies began. Before too long, while experiencing some of the energy and Consciousness work I was participating in, I began to recognise the familiarity of what I knew coming into this reality. I began consciously to 'seek' in this world, yearning for the match to what I knew already and had not found very often. I continued to hide, but underneath the covers, I was slowly emerging from within.
During this period, it became clear what was stopping me from functioning, and preventing what was familiar to me from showing up. I had found the words to describe it. The familiar feeling was Who I Am and 'stuff' was clouding my access to Being Who I Am. I couldn't find it in this reality because I bought this reality as real, and allowed it to be a buffer from me experiencing Who I Am. I remembered Who I Am before incarnating, and now I was choosing to Be that while incarnated. I totally committed myself to shedding what I could perceive was buffering me from Who I Am. I trained and practiced in various energetic and Consciousness modalities, attended and facilitated in personal growth workshops and events and even began seeing clients, as I was beginning to 'see' clearly what was stopping others from Being Themselves. My years of living internally had honed an ability to perceive energy and retrieve information beyond the five senses and I began utilising this capacity to facilitate others.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Enlightenment in Suburbia"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Enrica Mallard.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements, ix,
Introduction, xi,
Chapter 1 My Story, 1,
Chapter 2 Who Are You?, 16,
Chapter 3 Our Souls and Our Essential Nature, 46,
Chapter 4 Living as Your Self, 81,
Chapter 5 Karma, 143,
Chapter 6 Healing, 163,
Chapter 7 Let Go and Let God, 186,
Chapter 8 Death or is it?, 195,
Chapter 9 New World, 217,
Glossary, 237,
References, 269,