Fear of Betrayal Session
Present Issue:
The Client has an underlying fear that controls her life with memories and dreams of a past life where she was blinded and tortured for being a witch. She holds a misplaced anger against her husband and other unexplained anger. Her mother never owned her feminine power but abused it. She fears and doesn’t understand feminine power.
Journey: First Life
She meet a woman with ragged clothes in the time of Christ. There are Roman soldiers around and she is listening to someone teach of the Christian philosophy. She lives with her grandmother, daughter and small boy. Her mother is a leper. There is no male figure in their lives. The situation is tense with Roman Soldiers surrounding the crowds.
When she leaves home, she goes to tend to her mother’s leprosy with a potion. She is an herbalist. Then she goes about her business of visiting women with her healing herbs and teas. While she visits the sick and the women, she passes the words of the new ‘religion’ or philosophy. She is very careful because she knows it is dangerous.
Later her daughter moves away from her and marries. Her Grandmother dies. Before her death, her grandmother assures her she will always be with her to support her, but she feels very alone. She is afraid if something happens to her, there will be no one to take care of her young son since her daughter is now gone.
One of her teachers is captured and tortured and killed in the coliseum. As his heart is torn out, she feels her heart is torn out. She loses faith in her own abilities and the fear of capture and torture controls her life. She truly fears not so much death but if tortured, she will disclose and renounce her family, her teachers, and the others in her community. Her greatest fear is that she will renounce and betray GOD if she is in too much pain. This fear controls her life. The only support in her life is her son.
After this, she stops speaking of her beliefs, she withdraws from her healing herbal work and becomes very isolated. She lives to be an old woman mostly staying at home with her son and his family. At her death, she feels sad and regrets her life feels incomplete.
Second Life
She goes back to when is 10-12 years old. An herbalist/healer visits her mother who is pregnant and not feeling well. The Herbalist mentions an herb and the ancestor says she will get it. The Herbalist is impressed she knows what it is when she brings the right one back. She offers to take the girl as an apprentice. Although the ancestor is close with her mother, in this lifetime, she chooses to apprentice with the Herbalist and goes to live with her to study.
She becomes a formally trained healer. She mainly works with the middle class and becomes more self-assured and more aware of the political situation. She marries the same man who was a soldier and has 2 children before her husband is killed. She learns of the teaching of Christ and finds comfort in them and passes them on to her patients. She recognizes the dangers to herself and her family. After her mother dies, she decides to leave the country. Her grandmother decides to stay, so she leaves with the children and some other Christians.
She moves to another country where Christians are welcomed. She marries again and although her husband is not a Christian, he respects her beliefs. They love each other deeply and he accepts and raises her children as his own. The daughter marries young and moves away. She misses her daughter but accepts the loss. The son takes after her in studying herbs and becomes a healer.
Her husband, her son and his family are at her bedside at her death. She feels this lifetime was one of deep peace, happiness, acceptance where she could maintain her self-awareness.
Discussion:
- How did the atmosphere of oppression and fear control the ancestor’s first life?
- Was this truly necessary or did she create the fear?
- Was this fear under her control? If so, how?
- Why was she able to accept her situation in the second life?
- Why was she unable to act differently in the first lifetime?
- Do you think this second lifetime is sufficient to alter the family’s fear response now? Why?
