But it’s OK, because I came through it just fine.
I’d noticed over the last 6-12 months that any time I got into the bath, I lasted barely 10 minutes, and then just HAD to get out.
So I’ve been avoiding baths altogether and just sticking to the shower.
So last night, when my aching back asked me to lie in the bath, I thought I’d give it another go.
But this time, when the uncontrollable urge to get out came over me, I stayed anyway.
You see, I’ve been exploring the work of Lola Jones and Divine Openings, and one of the key pieces in her work is allowing yourself to feel.
You might not like the feeling, but it’s not going to kill you, and if you can sit with it, allow the feeling, and drop the story about the feeling, the energy can move and rise in vibration.
So I stayed with my feeling, my discomfort, my very loud internal insistence that I had to get out of the bath and get out now.
And it wasn’t easy, I can tell you. But I breathed and just experienced it.
The first thing that happened after that was the the sensation of water pouring down my throat.
Not in the current physical dimension, but it felt that real. I literally could feel the water choking me, even though my throat was dry and mouth was well out of the bath water.
And then the images started coming.
An icy pond, an overturned cart, and a waterlogged dress. That damn dress! So impossibly heavy.
God, I tried to get out. I had to get out. I was so desperate to get out. I tried SO hard.
But I couldn’t.
I was utterly powerless. Completely aware of my plight, under the cold water, held down by my heavy, waterlogged clothes, knowing that I was about to drown and powerless to do anything about it. Oh god, no!
Although it wasn’t vivid in my mind, I knew there were kids I was leaving behind. Kids who would struggle and suffer without me. Without me to protect them, to take care of them, they would be destitute, unloved and ruined.
I had to work really hard to stay in the bath during all of this, and I suppressed multiple urges to cry out in utter distress, for fear of waking my current-day kids.
But I was determined to just feel it. To stay with it and allow it, and I managed to.
And then it shifted. The panic moved, and suddenly I was angry.
Having realised that there was nothing I could do to save myself, and that my death was inevitable, I found myself insanely mad at the stupid society that required me to wear this stupid dress that was the death of me.
If I had been able to shrug it off, I would have been out of there in a heartbeat, but I was so tightly laced in that it was impossible. These stupid, stupid clothes and these stupid, stupid rules that I was supposed to live by.
And all for what? So they could be the death of me. Aaaarrggggh! So futile.
And then I left my body and found peace. A peace I hadn’t found before. A peace I could never have found if I hadn’t had the courage and the strength to stay in my bath and feel my way through.
I floated above the lake, watching my pale, lifeless body sinking to the bottom, still surrounded by that stupid dress. I watched the local townspeople reacting to the tragedy, and diving in to recover me from the cold, icy water. But of course it was all too late by then.
What a waste.
But now at least I’d found peace.
I lay in the bath for a while more after that, just trying to take in everything I’d just experienced, and wondering why my spontaneous past life regressions have to be so darned vivid!
Maybe so I can feel them. Because without pictures and sensations so detailed and real, I think I’d just shut the feelings down in panic and fear.
Phew!
