I almost cried UNCLE!

This weekend with my teacher was quite a roller coaster for me. There were moments (minutes, hours) when I just wanted it to be over. I was in my stuff. I am rarely so deep in my stuff that I just want the weekend to end so I can go hide away in bed, but this was one of them at first.

My teacher picked at me pretty relentlessly Friday and Saturday looking for triggers in me. Jackpot! There was really just one trigger, I think, and that was a seed of unworthiness that was still in me. In truth I didn't even make it sporting for him. I was a pretty easy kill.

So like I said in my last post, I was really beating myself up and knowing that what I needed to do instead was stop turning to old patterns of guilt and unworthiness for my mistakes or shortcomings or failings, however you want to put that. I played on the edge and felt like I needed to be really careful to become unattached from my teacher's criticism while not becoming detached. I need to take heed without moving into my emotions or moving into a reactionary state, and I also need to stay in a state of love and humility and not just unplug and disconnect myself from my teacher.

So then Saturday evening as we were getting ready to begin personal sessions, my teacher walks in and things were not the way they should have been. The room was not ready. I can give a list of excuses that any "reasonable" person would not be able to argue with, but to make an excuse is much worse than almost any trouble I can create on my own otherwise. Excuses would have placed responsibility elsewhere when in fact it did belong squarely on me regardless of other factors.

So I got yelled at. Again. This time I was yelled at in front of the other practitioners, so there was an audience. Those poor guys didn't know what to do! They've heard of Joey's manner with me, and they've seen hints of it, but I think this was the first time they got a full frontal view.

What is that, like the 5,000th time I've been yelled at this month? Not really, but I was feeling pretty beat up on already (ooh, poor me! Don't I make a wonderful victim when I choose to?!). I kept asking myself what is the lesson here? What is the lesson here? If I am triggered, then there is a lesson here, something I need to look at within me. What is the lesson here? And I knew it had to do with the attachment and finding a space where I was okay with me, a space where I no longer projected my feelings of unworthiness onto my teacher, and finding some strength within my own self.

The other thing is that my teacher has really been going out of his way to trigger me when he knows I have to go be a presence in public. He's a wise one, I'll tell you! So in that I have had a crash course in strengthening the emotional and mental bodies in a state of humility. I've had to move into a state of love and hold that presence when left on my own I would have wallowed in sadness instead.

So after he yelled at me I got on the elevator and cried a few tears on my way down, then I had to suck it up and find my place of love so I could do my service. It was not so easy at first, but also it was not so hard. And yet it was extraordinarily difficult. I just had to make a choice to be love and to not go into my fear-based pattern.

For a few minutes I thought of writing on a paper, "Uncle!" on one side so I could just give up, and, "Is that all you've got?" on the other side to bring it on and be tough about it. But I quickly saw that these were both VERY much from ego and that neither would serve me in any way I would appreciate. I was feeling very sorry for myself, and it was apparent in the way I felt like I wanted to respond. I wanted to react, not respond. I wanted to be hopelessly pitiful or so tough it would bring tears of pride to his eyes. I saw that both were deep patterns in me.

For the first hour I was to escort clients, and the next hour I was a practitioner. I knew for sure that I could not take my crap into the session room! That would be SOOOOO not okay. And I also had to be love to escort and prepare people for their sessions. So I kept telling myself, "I am love. I am love. I am love," over and over and over. I am love, I am love. Before I even went into the session room I was smiling involuntarily. Even so, I kept repeating my mantra the whole time to maintain my state - I am love, I am love, I am love. I felt very connected with the clients during this and I could feel this energy of love radiating from me.

I figured if I could just get through sessions in a state of purity, then I could go back to the hall for the evening session and fall apart there - and that I would. That was my time for me, sessions are someone else's time to experiece unconditional love.

A funny thing happened though. By the time I got the the hall I really did feel and experience myself as love. It was rough on the way down there, and I passed my teacher going the other way. He glanced into my eyes and kept walking. Something happened to me in that moment, some shift, and I moved fully into a state of surrender and humility and love. I went into the hall and sat by Joey's feet and I was joyful.

"What do you know?" I thought."This love thing really works!"

Joey spoke for a bit and then he said, "I'm going to give you all an example. Shani won't mind." He looked at me and I thought, "Uh-oh, here we go again!" Then he said, "But the rest of you will be very triggered by this. Even though she's fine, you will be triggered. Afterward you can all go and pet her and tell her how mean I am, okay?"

So he proceeds to tell everyone he yelled at me and why he yelled at me. He even made the case that he told me gently many times at other events to be prepared and I was still screwing up this simple task.

I was laughing because I could see the obsurdity in my behavior as he spoke, but he was right - people were pretty triggered even in the thought of him yelling at me and disciplining me harshly.

Then out of nowhere he tells me to get up and speak to them, to tell them about humility and about where I've been and where I am now.

He caught me totally off guard. He had not made me speak on humilty in Denver, but I had spoken with him about it in a private session, so it didn't seem plausable that he would call me out of the blue to speak after such a rough start (and middle) to the weekend.

I got up and took a mike. I stood for a moment looking into Joey's eyes before I spoke.

I told the beings there about my first session with Joey, where I'd experienced unity, and how I'd discovered in that moment that God had not abandoned me. This was my teacher bringing me a lesson in humility. It was in this moment of humility and surrender that I allowed my teacher to bring me an experience of great transformation and I remembered God as Love.

Then I told them about when the Universe had brought me an experience of humility, and I became homeless and had no food for my baby. I ended up standing in a county office in Texas, where I didn't know a soul for 36 hours by car in any direction, trying to figure out how to get emergency aid so I could feed my child.

I was crying as I told these stories, and my daughter was crying (that baby is now 17), and Joey was crying and I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. There may have been, but it was definitely a group experience.

Then I spoke of how my family had been affected, how my son was blind and I was told there was no hope of improving his sight to any degree of normalcy. Now my son can see 20/20 and he just learned to read. I told about my other daughter who was injured by a vaccine at birth (Heb B) and how she'd had severe asthma and allergies since birth, and arthritis and pain all over her body and autoimmune issues and how now she is perfectly healthy. I told how I was sick and dying when I met my teacher and how healthy I am now. All of these things with no drugs, no surgeries, all since I began working with Joey.

All of this is documented. There are stacks of medical records.

I don't know if it came across, but my point was that the Universe will bring lessons in a very harsh manner to get our attention - homelessness, illness, death, injury, trauma of any nature, but a teacher will bring those lessons in love to save me from myself. If my teacher has to scream at me to get me to learn humility, that is still very gentle compared to the loss of a loved one to bring me to my knees. And it's my choice. As he said, he spoke softly many times and I did not listen. That experience of unity was received gently and didn't require any yelling to reach me. I am the one who chooses the nature of the lesson. My teacher is saving me from the real bricks the Universe has to offer when he yells at me.

As for me, I have been transformed on some profound level that I don't even know the implications of yet. Such great gifts I am given in the love of my teacher!

After I spoke to the group, Joey told them all that he loves me very much and that he can take me where I'm going because he knows how committed I am, that I go everywhere with him and travel to be with him and to work with him no matter where he goes.

Then he asked the other practitioners if they were sure they wanted to be teachers after seeing what I go through. I had to chuckle about that. I think maybe I have it easier because I didn't know what was coming when he began to train me. I was blissfully ignorant. And on the other hand, there has been no one from whom I can learn these lessons by watching what happens to them, so I guess it breaks even in the end.

He does love me very much. I have always known that there is only love behind the discipline. He has never acted out of anger. He may sound angry, but that is to break through my paradigms. He is not truly angry. I know he's not. An angry person can't shout one moment, then speak with great love to the same being about something else one moment later. It's just a tool to be used when necessary.