Now for exercise #2.
In this exercise, I journey to find my inner "wise person". I
modified the exercise a little to get a firmer feel for it.
I go through the door and shut it. There, in a tunnel, are steps going down.
As I walk down these steps with irregular rises, a glow comes from me,
illuminating a six foot area in radius around me. I walk down these
stairs for a long time until I come to a tablet, bathed in soft yellow
light.
These are beliefs I have rarely challenged, though I have fought the
last one on several occasions. I acknowledge these beliefs for a
moment and gather my courage,
I walk into the dark tunnel behind the tablet. The glow is still with
me. I walk onto some ledge looking over a green valley bathed in a
faint blue light. This is the Valley of My Childhood. It is not
painful for me to look upon it as it once was. I have most of the
pain that occurred then. I feel very much at peace, as I survey what
I survived.
I walk back towards the tunnel and take a path that goes off to the
right of the ledge. It slopes gently downward into the valley.
Walking further, I find a graveyard of simple tombstones. This is
My Graveyard of Lost Illusions. Here lie the naieve beliefs I once
held:
{The book adds the belief that life is fair, but I don't think I
ever really had that belief.}
I acknowledge these lost beliefs and turn to walk further down the
valley into another tunnel. I do not glow in this tunnel--there is
no need for me to. The blue light from the valley is behind me and
a white light shines from the opening before me.
I walk out of the tunnel into a large forest, where the leaves are high
above me and light flows over them like water. It splashes and flows
over me too, as I step into the forest. There are two trees bent into
an archway before me, with a curtain of light flowing between them.
I part the light with my hands and walk through.
There stands a beautiful woman waiting for me. There is joy in her
sparkling grey eyes as she smiles at me. She is dressed completely in
white and her hair is the color of a jar of clover honey when sunlight
shines through it. I realize that she is the purified version of
me--the me God knows and loves.
Beffore I can say a word, she runs upto me and hugs me tightly, as if
she has no intention of letting me go. When she finally does pull back,
there are tears in both of our eyes and she hugs me again. This time,
she kisses my forehead and steps back.
I stutter a "thank you" and she squeezes my hand and kisses my cheek.
Then she waits for me to ask my question.
"What belief do I have that is causing me the most harm right now?"
She tries to tell me, but for some reason I cannot hear the last word.
She tries a few more times and I realize that I am blocking it out.
Finally, she holds my chin and looks me in the eye.
"The belief that you are not worthy of protection."
I nod and reply, "But I'm not very good at protecting myself."
She smile brightly. "No one said you had to do it yourself.
You can let others help."
I thank her and ask her what I needed to do to visit her again.
Suddenly, I hear the soft chords of The Blue Danube Waltz.
"Hum this and imagine butterflies flying through the liquid light
and I will be there."
I hug her and thank her again. She tells me, "We are one," and wishes
me well.
I go back through the curtain of light and through the forest with its
waterfalls of liquid light. I walk through the level tunnel and past
the graveyard. I skirt the Valley of My Childhood and enter back into
the main tunnel, where I begin to glow again. I pass my tablet of
commandments and climb up the stairs. Finally, I reach the door and
enter my stomach again. I jump up and pull myself back into my
esophagus and continue until I climb out of my ear and onto my left
shoulder.
Close friends of mine may realize that my inner wise person bears a
strong resemblance to a story character of mine. She is--and yet she
isn't. In a real sense the character is only a pale reflection of
my inner wise person, with many traits neither I nor my inner wise
person posses.