The day I arrived to Paris, Friday November 13th. 2015, was the day Daesh’s followers chose to show Europe just how vulnerable it is to guerrilla-like attacks. I wrote a blog post about it here.

Sunday 15th was Teal Swan’s workshop. In the morning, a group of us took a taxi to the place. The streets of Paris were almost empty. Almost every event in the city had been cancelled, as the government said it could not guarantee our safety when gathered in big groups. But Teal had wisely chosen to go on with it anyway. What more needed in such times than a seminar that would raise people’s awareness?

We found seats on the second row and the feeling of excitement was palpable. People (around 300) from many countries were there. Around 10:30 hs Teal arrived and sat in one of the chairs on stage…after an introduction on how her workshops actually work, she asked who had a question and looked around. Her eyes locked on me. But before I tell you about what happened next, let me introduce you as to why and how I got there.

Fifteen years ago I was studying medicine, teaching dance and learning about alternative methods of healing at the same time. After the insistence of a friend who knew me well, I traveled to Bs.As. and assisted to a Seminar given by Isha Judd.

I was blown away by the method, the results of practising it and by Isha herself. Since then, I have consistently thought my search for techniques to expand my consciousness and heal my emotional wounds was over.

The system is so effective, so deep, so powerful, and Isha so authentic and anchored in Union, that even when I remained open for other teachers and experiences, I kept thinking “there is so far nothing that gets even close to this”.

Last year, however, around October, I got into a deep depression. I was so sad and angry I was unable to close my eyes and meditate. The Isha meditation helps me connect with my emotions, and because I couldn’t make myself practice it, all those feelings were bottled up in my chest, taking away my clarity and filling me up with very unfortunate thoughts. I had so little energy it was hard to get up from bed. I could not come out by myself. I needed help.

I asked friends and colleagues, who supported me the best they could, I even found a bioenergetics therapist and started visiting her once a week. Another Isha facilitator was the one who managed to help me the most, with his loving presence and guidance. And still, I felt I needed to try new ways.

Surfing around the internet I found a picture of Teal Swan and a recommendation of her work that struck a cord within me. I read about her life and started watching her videos. I felt so happy to see that finally another spiritual teacher -besides Isha- was speaking about the importance of feeling our emotions, going deep into our shadows, being authentic and vulnerable to actually grow in awareness, instead of just “thinking positive”, bypass consistently any pain or “act already enlightened”.

What she says in her videos is totally compatible with the system I practice, and she has an endless amount of “tools” she shares generously, and a lot of clarity on many important subjects.

Therefore, when I knew she was going to be in Paris in November 2015, I felt an irresistible desire to be there. When I usually take a looong time to decide anything (very often letting the window of opportunity slip by because of indecision) this time I was driven by a force stronger than my mental doubts. I bought the ticket for the workshop and the flight in record time and remained super excited about it all the way.

And now back to Teal’s workshop. The information that follows is important to understand why I was called to the stage.

Teal Swan is a North American woman who was born with extra-sensory perception. This means that for example she cannot see objects as solid but as “vibrations”. Instead of seeing your skin as your outer body-limit, she sees it -in her own words-, “as a certain point of density within the energy that is making up a human”.

“I am able to see their bones, organs, nerves, veins etc. I am also able to see the energy channels within a body. I see Auras, which are thought forms both transmitting and receiving information to and from the physical structure they are associated with (such as a body). To me, an aura exhibits shapes, colours, textures, hues, sounds, patterns and emanates light.….An aura will respond to a thought and change its characteristics to match that thought.”

So there I was, reeeally wanting to go up there with her. In her workshops what she does is, she asks who has a question or something to heal, and if so, to raise your hand. She then “scans” the room, actually looking at your energetic field. Because at an unconscious or “supra-conscious” level, we are all connected and aware of each other’s issues, the energetic field of the person that has the question that best matches what the whole group needs to learn “lights up” or “shines brighter”. * 1 (see below notes to the reader)

Now, while I was at Isha’s ashram meditating for hours and hours, day after day, I experienced that this energetic field can also be altered or increased, depending on what I thought and where I put my focus.

If I thought of an ex-boyfriend, of my apartment in Bs.As., of a family member in another country,  part of my “energy-consciousness” would actually “go” there, “leaving” me. If I brought my thoughts back to myself and my body, my full energy would “come back to me”, thus expanding my inner awareness.

With this knowledge in mind, when Teal asked who wanted to go onto the stage, I started using the third facet *2 (see notes below) of the Isha system and bringing all my focus to my heart area and my whole body.

She looked around the room and her eyes went alternatively from where I was to the other side, where another guy was sitting. She said something like…”this group does not decide”, “there are two people lighting up”…after a while she said “ OK, you come” pointing to Manuel, a survivor of the Rwanda genocide, amazing man and with a life experience totally in accordance with the killing and trauma that had happened two days before in the city of lights.

After Manuel, she asked again. I started afresh to increase my energy field, how I intuitively knew. Until that moment, I hadn’t had an external confirmation of the reality of this. It was all my internal experience. I didn’t know either that it was possible for another person to actually see it.

Teal scanned the room, and again her gaze stopped on me. I don’t know how she perceives, but it was clear she “saw” me. I can infer that she was perceiving my energy field lightening up and therefore she said: “OK, come here green dress” and there I went.  

Being on stage with her, in front of hundreds of people, the whole thing being taped/recorded, plus the strong emotions I was carrying with me, you can imagine I was totally moved and it was hard not to start crying right away. Wait. I think I did.

She asked my why I was there and I explained in a couple of phrases about my parents and my childhood. My father suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, my mother -still undiagnosed- narcissistic personality disorder, therefore I was brought up in the midst of intense instability (understatement) and emotional neglect. She embraced my disclosure with clarity and love and praised my survival and inner work up to that moment, helping me relax and be less judgemental of the whole thing.

She then asked me if I wanted her to do a session with me right there, using her completion process. Of course I said yes. Next she asked me what was the strongest trigger at the moment and I told her about a very disappointing experience with an ex-lover that had me very sad and very angry too. She asked me to go deep into the emotion and feel it.

To ask someone to feel their emotions and show their most vulnerable self in front of 300 people, while being videotaped, knowing it will be soon published on the world-wide-web, might work… or it might not. Before learning Isha’s System, for me to be able to do this would have been….let’s say very, very hard, next to impossible.

Fortunate for me, 15 years ago, I did learn how to do it. To stop the self-judging thoughts, fears and distractions and direct my full awareness inwards. So I started thinking the specific thought focused on self-love (3rd facet), putting my attention deep in my heart, and letting go of control, allowing myself to deeply feel and cry.

At some points the pressure of being in front of so many people, or sometimes because Teal would keep on explaining what she perceived of my process and other subjects, I would get distracted. She also saw this and kept assisting me to feel accepting of my own state. I love how non-judgmental she is.

After feeling what that particular trigger produced, she went onto dealing with past causes of this type of situation. We went to my early childhood, where she asked me to re-live those moments and then to imagine a whole new setting where my “child self” and “fractured aspects of my child-self” would experience protection and healing.

Thoughts like “will this work?” and  “this feels just like imagining things” kept popping up in my mind and at the same time I did have the hope it would have a positive, real effect on my life. Every time I had a doubt, Teal would allow me to have it, not pushing her certainties on me, just asking me to “leave the door open to the possibility of it being true”.

It took around one and a half hours, between the visualization process, feeling and listening to her clarify different subjects. She explained also about what she saw about me and my beliefs and how those factors influence my experiences. For example the belief “there is no way someone will want to meet my needs” or “I don’t deserve to be loved”. Every time she mentioned a factor that was stopping me from experiencing what I deeply desire it would trigger me again to cry. Anger was harder to express in front of the audience because I would have liked to punch a mattress or scream in a pillow and there was no prop for that. At the same time her comments and explanations were shining light on many important subjects and that made me feel more and more relaxed and hopeful. 

As I’m not ready to go deeper into each part of the session, I give you here the link of the whole recording in Youtube in case you are interested.

Towards the end, she asked if I had more questions and of course I could have kept asking things, but after such long process I thought “I had taken already a lot of time”, I could not get clear of anything in particular and felt like leaving the spotlight as soon as possible. I also needed to process and calm down on my own, so I said “no”.

Watching Teal from close is very interesting and also unsettling. She has this deep, piercing gaze and she looks a bit alien. If you look straight at her, behind her eyes there seems to be an infinite “space”, a deep pain, a fragility and an incredible strength at the same time. She has wisdom and intelligence mixed with impossible beauty, and an acceptance and understanding of the other that seem to have no limit. When I watch her videos I feel like hugging and supporting her to feel all that is there yet to feel. In her actual presence I actually felt very self-conscious and insecure.

After the workshop, in the next months, something in my pattern of relationships seems to have slightly changed for the better. However this difference is still small, not -yet- with the impact I’m yearning for. I have more understanding and acceptance of myself, which is good.

I have also done another session of the completion process with one of her facilitators. One thing that stood out in it was how much attention is put into acceptance and down-right humanity. Teal herself went through so much suffering, misunderstanding and lack of support, she apparently has made sure that the people she trains have a -very- loving and open attitude. The method seems quite esoteric and on a “mental” level, I am still not able to feel strong internal change from it, although I’m told we need to work much more to get there. At the same time the ideas Teal works with are perfectly compatible with the system I practise, so I am receptive to both of them working together for an even happier me.

Also to have shared at a house with other “Tealers” in Paris was great. People who watch her videos are usually very open-minded and aware of the importance of feeling one’s own emotions and that, in a sea of spiritual “positive bullshit” is very refreshing. It makes me very happy. At least in Nothern Europe, I’m not alone!  🙂  Actually Tealers would absolutely LOVE to learn and practise the Isha System, as they already know of the importance of shadow work, meditating regularly, of being vulnerable and authentic, and how our thoughts affect our inner states, bodies, energy fields and therefore our reality.

So now I look forward to sharing with them -and all the ones that are ready to dive deep-, the method that keeps helping me, among other things, put Teal’s concepts into practice.

with love,

Victoria

Notes to the reader:

*1 For the exclusively science-oriented: To accept what I’m saying you would need to believe several things that are not scientifically proven nor obvious to the eye. For example: that people are not only solid bodies with minds but also made up of energy fields that are somehow “seeable”  by others with “special perception abilities”, that those energy fields are somehow connected to the energy fields of others, and so on and so forth. At this point you might then choose to stop reading, to feel “if this rings true” or simply keep on until the end because you are curious.

*2 “Facets” are special phrases that stimulate both brain hemispheres at the same time with uplifting emotions -like love, appreciation, gratitude- generating more harmonious brainwaves, addresses root negative beliefs to heal them and bring your attention towards specific areas in your body. When used with eyes closed, leaving in between a free space in which we let the mind wander as she wishes, they produce a deep meditative state, a strong connection to the observer, faster and deeper than anything I have ever tried before or after. When used with eyes open, they anchor you in your body, increasing at the same time your “vibration” or -as explained above- your “energy field”. 

Completion Process facilitator I worked with:

Saradawnchandon(at)gmail.com or http://www.Saradawnchandon.com