You know those turning points in life? Something happens and you just know that nothing will ever be the same again. They seem to come around once in a decade, or so. I have had a few and still remember every one of them as if they happened yesterday.

The latest major turning point: April 2014 - A sunny, cold spring week near Norrköping, Sweden. Primal Therapy: without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever done or been through in my whole life. Imagine giving birth seven days on a row - while running a marathon at the same time - and you start getting the picture. After having followed all sorts of personal development and spiritual courses and therapies for a decade, I thought I had a pretty good idea about the different patterns controlling my life. But there was so much more and it went so much deeper than I could have imagined. 

From both family lineages I have inherited a deep, deep fear and distrust of life. Patterns of dissociation, addictions and living a life of death. A need to suppress life, by controlling the self and others through judgment, victimhood or checking out. All these energies still present in MY body, like a sticky, black, sickening substance, infiltrating every organ and every cell.

Me, totally carrying on with the family heritage, not feeling safe in my body, tuning out, addicted to food and comfort, keeping my anger & life force down, believing that if I could just control events and people around me, I would some day feel safe enough to be here, to live. To my shame, this included trying to control my daughter, squashing her life force and spirit. Not because anyone is or was evil (it is not about blame), but because these patterns are so damn hard to break.

All events from the past, including starvation, abuse and wars, the voices of our parents, are still stored in our bodies. Almost all of us are stuck at the emotional level of a 3 year old our whole lives, and we do not even know it. We think we are free, but in reality, we just keep on repeating (or rebelling against) the way our mothers, fathers and ancestors lived. Generation after generation after generation…
 
One week of Primal Therapy and things feel different, lighter somehow (and I am not talking about the extra kilos I lost in the process). The unexpected discovery: all those voices, all that baggage – it is not me. It was never me! I want to be here! I WANT TO LIVE! I had no idea what this body and spirit were capable of, the force that lies inside. I am DONE with living a life of death. From now on I choose FREEDOM and LIFE! 

It is a truly transformative process. One of the most rewarding things that happened so far is to see the change in my daughter and our interaction. She feels so joyful, vibrant and alive and even though she still has her temper and moods, I can finally allow her to be who she is, without trying to control her so that I can feel safe. It is a true blessing. 

And this is only the beginning. Sure, there is a lot of work ahead, but at least now I feel that I have a real shot at actually becoming who I came to be. Feeling like a newborn baby, I have no clue what is coming, but I am ready to trust –knowing with absolute certainty that life will never be the same again. 

Want to know more? Check out:
What is Primal Therapy?
Primal Therapy with Puja
Ground Zero Primal

You can post your comments and questions in the Comments field below, on FaceBook or send me an e-mail and I will do my best to answer. 

I must have been about eight or nine years old when my teacher at school asked each pupil in the class to write and illustrate his or her own fairy tale. When the project was finished, I held the end product in my hands – a yellow exercise book with orange dots containing a story about a princess. I do not even remember how the story went. What I do remember is the feeling of holding that book in my hand and realizing that the story did not feel like mine at all. It was no unique creation, but rather a mix of regurgitated fragments of tales I had read before. Although I loved to write, after that day, that feeling stayed with me – a voice at the back of my head, whispering to me that I was telling somebody else’s stories and not my own.

As I became older, my writing gradually became less and less free. The more I tried to follow ‘the rules’, the more difficult it became to write. The more difficult it became, the more pressure I put on myself to get it right. Writing a simple essay or column felt like the wrestling match of the century. I simply could not relax into the process and let the words come – I had to control them. I felt stifled by the form I thought was imposed by others on my writing. Although, in reality, I was being suffocated by the harness of rules and perfection, in which I had encased myself.

When I went to university, I basically gave up creative writing and focused on my scientific career instead. In science, the rules of writing are uncompromising; the structure of a scientific paper, including the placement of every dot and comma is predetermined. In essence, the rules imposed from the outside were even more constricting than my own. Strangely enough, at some level, it felt like a relief. I did not need to be creative; I did not have show myself or be myself, at all. At another level, after following those rules for ten years, after writing other people’s stories for a decade, every cell in my body was aching to be free.

I embarked on a journey of personal development and self-discovery. Peeling off layer after layer of protecting armour that was clouding my mind, encasing my body and surrounding my heart. Allowing my mind to absorb new knowledge beyond the conventional. Allowing my body to feel its pain and to express itself freely in movement. Allowing my heart to open up and express itself through my voice. Opening myself up to the present moment.

One day, I felt words inside, words wanting to be released. A hesitant start, taking baby steps, unsure what was expected of me, how to navigate this uncharted territory. Being afraid that it was going to feel like before, that I would freeze, that nothing would come out. Grappling internally with my self worth – or lack thereof: What could I possibly have to say that would interest anyone? Incredibly afraid that my writing was not going to be enough; that I was not going to be good enough. A that moment a friend gave me the decisive push I so needed. ‘Milena’, she said, ‘I want you to write something to me, every day for the next two weeks’. The topic: ‘What I love about myself’.

I had tried free writing exercises before. For me, they had never worked. For some unfathomable reason, this did. The exercise gave me just enough structure to be able to find the beginnings of a shape, yet was boundless enough to encourage free fall. I started writing whatever came into my mind and miraculously a structure and distinct style started to develop from within.

I found out that I love writing about nature and the connectedness that can be experienced in the natural world. I look at all the ugly things in this world and give myself permission to change my perception and find beauty, even when my mental and emotional habits are telling me otherwise. I enjoy contemplating spiritual and existential questions – trying to feel and understand what this whole life experience is all about. And I adore the feeling when the words come out just right, engaging all the senses and capturing that fleeting moment of clarity. 

The process of writing always was (and still is) a perfect mirror of the level of freedom I feel and the room I have within myself to be myself. As long as I am not free to be myself, I cannot express what I feel inside. I cannot tell my own story. That 8 year-old girl already knew this. So she embarked on a journey, determined to find her own voice and her own story. She has travelled a long way, and has a long way to travel still; opening up to the present moment and whatever wants to be seen. In the process discovering that it is not so much about writing her own story, as it is about allowing life to tell its story through her.

Have you ever thought about what you deepest wish is? I am not talking about that beautiful dream house you want to buy, the six month trip around the world or the red Porsche with leather seat covers. Nothing wrong with those wishes, they are perfectly legitimate. But they are not true inner wishes in the sense of finding out who you really are and what your life purpose is. They are strategies you think will make you feel better than you do right now.

So let’s try this again. What is your deepest desire? What do you really long for? What would make you feel as if you have it all? What is that one thing / state of mind / experience you would like to have in order to die happy? Or let me put it another way: What is it that you want so badly that you can almost taste it. You probably do not have it right now, but you just know in your gut that if you had that you would feel really good.

These are interesting questions. I have been asking myself these very questions many times. For me, at least until very recently, my number one wish has turned out to be ‘complete inner and outer harmony, peace and quiet´. This is not a very big surprise to me, as it corresponds for 100% with my favourite enneatype, type 9, the peacemaker.

At one point a good friend and fellow colleague Rob de Best took it one step further by asking: You have this thing you want so badly, but you are convinced you cannot have it. Why are you not allowed to have this thing you really, really want? And here comes the punch line: What would go wrong if you got what you wanted?

My mind went completely blank. A glimpse of how things could be and the immense freedom it would entail. I felt panic. Restricted beliefs parading by: If I were to get this, then I would have no excuses anymore. If I were to have it, I would do nothing anymore. Who would I then be? Aaaaarrgh… Existential terror. And then I felt as if my mind shut itself down, because it just could not take this kind of information. Let’s tune out, numb out, disappear. We need to protect ourselves from this. Ego pressing the button for ‘automated programme number 9’ to protect itself from change.

Some time later another good friend, Miriam Kasbergen, had an interesting follow-up question. So, you know your basic desire… What would you do now, if you only had half an hour to live? Does your wish stay the same, or does it change?

As she posed this question to me, a somewhat unexpected answer came out. All I could think about was a range of physical experiences I still wanted to have. Something like: if I am going to die anyway and go into a different blissful state of being where I do not have a body, then I want to have a full body experience before I go. This desire was centred around food. I could see this huge buffet with delicious food, and I would stuff myself until I felt completely saturated. Half an hour left – never mind any highflying ideals or noble ideas I might have about who I am  – I just want to eat. Now… That’s a clue!

Funny, how a few innocent questions can tell us so much about how our ego operates. And it is very interesting to see what added time pressure (you have ½ hour to live) can tell us about areas in our lives where we still feel we lack something.

Try it yourself! I would absolutely LOVE to hear what these questions show you about you (ego and beyond)! So please, share!