Soul Rape

The tension in my lower chakras has meant that I keep my heart energy closed and turn off my third eye. Ive been told my psychic abilities are scary. My family gets upset everytime there is evidence of it. My body feels half. As if half of me shouldnt exist. I crave aloneness. As much as I try to not see the spirits in the home, I can’t help but see them. It is going to be okay. My father is being accompanied by angels and ancestors come every day to bless his passing. My family has great difficulty with this. I almost feel that if I talk about where he is headed, they will think I am killing him. I feel lonely, and helpless. The pain of his soul is like a wedge in my heart. In my pain, I close my eyes, and I see my teacher who has passed on a year or so previously. She says, “I will help you. He is afraid if he will go to heaven or not, but he is headed for the highest heaven. I will take him for you my dear. I see hordes of angels behind her. Tears roll down my eyes. Is there no other way?”. “No, He is looking forward to the next life. His work is done here.”

I sit in the acute care unit. Other people whose loved ones are dying are hypnotically attracted to me. People who channel from the other side are instantly recognized –we all know deep down inside that the world of touch and feel is only one part of reality. My family looks on in some surprise, as women come from nowhere to ask for prayers. Its hard for my family to accept me as I am. For them I am that little curly haired girl with the constant smile. And here I am, facing the biggest fear of our lives, as if it is nothing. It is death. Life is far more painful. I say that sometimes. My mother feels my pain and I feel hers. Empathy can be exhausting because as I mirror her I feel the disappointment that I didnt turn out normal after all with the same lust for life as the others. I never seemed to have that drive that makes people into winners. I want to tell her, you havent failed in any way. I could have the life of materialism, but for me God opened another door. Can’t you see it is the most beautiful place that was given to me? To be of service, to be able to give hope to the suffering, isn’t that the greatest gift? Her answer, yes, but I didnt want that for you. You were the light hearted one, pure and innocent, we even named you what we felt you were. You werent supposed to suffer. I have no answer for her, other than to say that the devil isn’t all that scary. We all return to God and all this suffering, this terrible pain of soul rape that has been my experience of love and belonging is just suffering. It isn’t me.

We use labels to cope. Are you ‘schizophrenic?’ You must be ‘crazy’. “I get goosebumps when I talk to you.”   I smile in empathy. We, as a collective society are insane and we make people insane. If they tell us how they feel, we call them crazy, and we have a series of labels for it. First the system breaks our legs, then we are told to run. If we don’t run, they tell us we have to.

Recently, I met a beautiful young man on heavy anti depressants. I was guided by my guides to offer free help to the mother. He is suffering because his brain wont learn medicine. He wants to be a doctor so badly because his father withdrew his love unless he became a doctor. I say to him, ‘maybe you don’t want to be a doctor?’ and he says, ‘no, everyone cool in my family is a doctor.’ First he doesn’t know who he is, second he wont belong to his family unless he becomes a doctor. Sadly I saw that he is emotionally stuck in childhood–I am not sure the level of trauma he experienced that keeps him stuck, but it was probably sexual domination based on the images I saw when I connected to his soul.

His parents ask me endless questions about what I am doing, what I think about his case etc. One of the problems I face in Pakistan is that people read a few things online and think they know. They don’t want to spend on  therapy. Their child’s mental health is not as valuable. He isn’t valuable to them unless he meets the father’s expectations. Since the mother has no income or identity without the father, she cannot pay for therapy.  In the second session, the father arrived to check on me. That was unfortunately the end of the sessions.

In my passion to serve, I spend time with this person and his family, hoping to communicate two things: 1. The difference between emotion and thought. 2. The importance of practicing self awareness.

It isn’t going very far. I give examples. I share my own feelings. The result is advice about how I ‘should’ think. Or people tell me how they know everything that I am talking about. Reflection seems to be nearly unknown. Except in the meditation circle, reflective listening is not practiced. I come home, my shoulders bent. I have spent a grueling day in a world that’s completely unaware of themselves and projecting all their demons on the world around them. People who have never practiced in the mental health area, still feel that it is their right to give me advice. They have no idea how to support someone emotionally and their degrees have never taught them how to talk to someone in emotional stucknes. Yet, because they carry the lable ‘doctor’, ‘Phd’ Boss man’, or a couple of courses, they believe that they are competent.

But without self work, which is the most essential part of being a therapist in my opinion, such people cannot do anything for others. I feel like an oxymoron here. In my world in Canada, the real learning happens after the course and we see education as a door way, not a destination.

My happiest moments are riding around in a rickshaw. I enjoy rickshaw walas. They are the kindest people…..they often just ask for prayers, and tell me to pay them whatever I want. Rickshaw walas are my secret friends in the materialism of Pakistan. I think my guides work overtime, because they find people who are willing to smile.