Chapter 9: Prisoner of The Mind
Written By: Denise Schaad
“Mastering the Mind to Navigate the Heart.” ~Anand Mehrotra
A signature story from Denise Schaads’s book: Spirit Speaks. To view the book, click here.
I can see now that my journey has been one of awakening to my true sense of myself. My journey has been one of many battles: feeling safe in my body, understanding what my emotional stories were revealing to me, fighting for my soul to be connected to my spirit.
Bringing all these parts of me in alignment has led to a synchronicity that has set spirit free to be expressed through me. At times, my journey has been excruciatingly painful and other times boring. Each phase has provided me with the lessons I needed to bring me one step closer to my truth.
The energy healing process with my clients also helped me. I started experiencing more and more spontaneous self-healing from all the energy clearing that I was doing. The truth was I still didn’t understand that I was merging my energy with the sorrow of my clients. By believing that their pain was my own, I created those familiar feelings that something was wrong with me.
One day, after a difficult session with a client, I decided to go for a walk in the forest of our family’s ranch to my favorite swimming hole called Slippery Rock. On that hot summer day, I remember the warmth of the rocks supporting my back while the sound of the rushing river drowned out my thoughts. My body relaxed. I closed my eyes and focused on my third eye, drawn into my navel center, where my spirit resides. The warmth of the sun made me tired, and soon I found myself dozing off as waves of emotional memories arose from the depth of my being.
My spirit took me into another spontaneous healing as my mind flashed images of past sexual experiences. Rumbling energy shot up throughout my entire body. The heat of anger was intense. I screamed and cried out to spirit for help. I can remember not being able to stand the pain that shook and contorted my body. Resistance in my body triggered my mind to return to the trauma of past emotional stories. I focused my strong mind on my core and brought my attention back to the wave of intense anger expressed by my body.
I screamed, and then I roared like a lioness who was protecting her cubs. I clenched my teeth and made my hands into claws, and used my animal strength to yell through the pain of all those times I was unable to stand up for myself.
I watched the internal battle between my mind, body, and spirit. Soon the wave of emotional energy passed. I stood, mindfully stepped to the river’s edge, plunged my naked body into the ice-cold water, and swam to cleanse myself of one more memory of the abandoned, abused child.
I felt more spacious and open as I dried my skin and slipped on my shoes, and walked the short steep climb through the forest home. I felt the spirit of the trees talking to me. The smell of pine warmed my senses. The needles crumbled underneath my feet. I crested the top of the hill and entered into the dense grove of maple trees growing along the edge of the Boston Gulch. There stood a wise old cedar tree. Her spirit called to me. I snuggled my back into her big belly.
As I tuned my energy into her, she began to whisper: You can choose at this moment to stop telling that story of the abandoned, abused child.
I wept when I heard her voice. I felt the resistance of hanging on to the identity of the abandoned, abused child slipping away. I listened to my spirit speak through that wise cedar tree. I cried because I finally knew that the old story of the abandoned, abused child no longer served me. I chose at that moment to be loved by that wise cedar tree.
It never occurred to me that I had a choice to drop that old emotional story. The abandoned abused child’s perception of love equated pain with love. I remember shaking my head in disbelief. How could I not see that I had a choice to feel love kindly?
As the summer went on, my mind would wander to that place, and I would simply remind myself that I had already chosen not to believe that old story. Most of that summer, I walked the forest, allowing the trees to remind me that spirit was in everything. Spirit spoke lovingly, kindly through the trees. I started seeing every living organism in nature as a spiritual experience.
Walking in the forest expanded my heart, and I was reminded of being loved and connected to all that I saw: the steadiness of the trees, the green swaying grass, the sweetness of the flowers, the blueness of the sky, and the puffiness of the clouds.
That day under the cedar tree, I chose to become aware that it was my mind that was playing that familiar movie. My relationship with the trees brought me closer to the spirit of my soul in my body. I began to love all that I could see. Feelings and sensations ignited my heart each time I entered the world of the trees. My connection to nature expanded that summer. I began to rejoice and look up at the trees when I needed to feel the love of my spirit. With the trees, I felt safe just to be.
For the first time in my life, it felt safe to be present and loving. The Final Death of the Old Me.
Once again, I found my mind rambling over that the old story of the abandoned, abused child. I fought the rambling. Not able to stand the chatter, I called my teacher Maia, and she said to me, “Your ego is dying.” Fear ran through me, and my mind and my jaw began chattering.
I was finally grasping that it was all in my mind. The story of the abandoned, abused child was a groove in my brain that was so deep it kept pulling me back into an old identity. Until that day, my mind had not stopped identifying itself as the story, and my ego wanted the identity of the abandoned, abused child back.
Finally, the truth that I wasn’t the abandoned, abused child sank in. My mind freaked by sending waves of fear to every cell in my body. Tension in my stomach, toes curled, knees locked, fist clenched, shoulders tight, neck stiff – my body responded to the lack of acceptance of my mind and the unwillingness to let go of the abandoned, abused child. My mind and body fought each other, unwilling to accept that the heart was now becoming the master.
Grief constricted my heart and prevented my mind from thinking incessantly. I began to understand that I wasn’t my mind, but I still did not understand my spirit either. My body was confused and fought the sensation of love; my mind froze in fear. Chaos tore through my body, fear sprinted through my mind, the heart was on high alert.
I soon found myself in the middle of my living room, pulling at my hair, crying, and screaming into the phone as I yelled to Maia. Was I losing my mind? Was I going insane? Or was my mind losing control of my life?
Not understanding what was happening, I felt confused and afraid. The ego-mind tried to hold on as I moved down into my core, connecting to my innermost being.
I remember Maia making me look at the image in my mind of myself sitting behind bars in my mind prison. I recognized that I was a little girl who was trapped in a concrete jail cell in the center of my head, huddled up in the corner, paralyzed by fear. I couldn’t move the little girl I saw in my mind.
I heard Maia’s voice on the other end of the phone encouraging me to stand up.
I screamed, “I can’t stand up. I’m stuck.”
I remember focusing with my mind and willing that little girl to stand up. She felt so heavy.
Finally, Maia said, “I’m here to help you stand up.”
Focusing my mind on my six-year-old self’s image in that prison cell, I began to will her to stand up. It was hard to get her to move.
She felt cemented, and then suddenly, little by little, she began to rise. With the help of Maia’s voice on the phone, we helped her stand up. Stiff as a board, I saw myself standing up in my head, and my little girl stepped out of the prison of my mind. She stepped out of the darkness and into the light. I recognized that all of it was me. I was the only one keeping her trapped in the prison of my mind.
In a daze of disbelief, I couldn’t believe it was me all that time. I was imprisoning me. I finally chose to be free. I was laughing, crying, dancing, and screaming joyfully.
Final Relief
On my fifty-fourth birthday, I decided to go on a psilocybin retreat with Maia. Not knowing what to expect, and scared of what might happen, I trusted her and the process and went anyway.
On the first day, we journeyed to the beach. The mushrooms began to have an effect, and my mind was vital as it fought the impact. It was pushing me to see my reality – the truth of what I already had been seeing. Spirit was in every living thing. Plants dancing in the windvibrating at a frequency that I had seen in the forest.
I saw my resistance to letting go and being a part of nature. I was drawn to the light of the sun, knowing that I was the light. Distracted by the sand and irritated that I could not accept that I was dirty. I hated the sand and fought the reality that was grinding on me.
Finally, I began to laugh at my quirks, having to have everything perfect for me to be me. Surrender to the grit of the sand. I began to make swirling motions with my hands in the sand, circling and circling my hands until I let go and allowed myself to expand. Accepting the energy that I felt was me. I asked how to be in the world with all this energy. How do I accept myself as love?
I walked along the water’s edge, relaxing into the realness of who I am. I am the love. I began to move my body as the Goddess of Infinite Light (Spirit), mixing the energy and bowing to the Divine within and laying my back on the rocky edge. I stopped complaining about who I am. Acceptance occurred that day on the beach. The acceptance of love and compassion made my heart hurt. I loved myself so much that day. I could never return to the old tune that I had played.
The pain of the past no longer held me. Kindness and joy filled my heart. I rested at last, free of all the hurts. Loving the light, I played by remembering who I have always been. A child loved by her mother was laying dormant within her belly, waiting for recognition. I loved the essence of my spirit. Warm, happy, and fun-filled heart. I played that day with nature in me. I honored my journey and became the real me. The light of my true nature is and always has been love.
On the next day’s journey, I saw that I also liked playing in my sexual energy. The Divine love of my power feels so yummy to me. I also noticed that my sexual experience meant knowing that I was playing with my sensuality. Sexual abuse that happened to me should not be dismissed as an attack. It means that I wanted to experience my sexual reality. Forgiveness of myself for all my misery allowed me to let go of another layer of suffering.
On my way home, Maia encouraged me to stop and visit my mother. It was time for me to see her while dancing in my truth. It was finally time to see it all for its truth.
Mom’s Death
I went to visit her on my fifty-fourth birthday. Mom was now in assisted living. She had been diagnosed with dementia three years prior, at age seventy, and could no longer care for herself. Over time she had started not to be able to recognize me.
I would ask her, “Do you know who I am?” She would answer by saying, “You look like me.” But she couldn’t identify who that me was.
The home was located in a residential neighborhood where she had her own room off the big backyard. I had called ahead to let the home know that I was coming. When I arrived, she was sitting in the backyard under a big willow tree. I showed up with my heart open and a box of maple leaf-shaped cookies. Mom loved her sweet treats.
It didn’t surprise me when I was invisible to her. I remember, during that visit, when she turned her eyes sideways, she got a glimpse of me. I knew she wanted to look at me, but I blinded her in all my glory. Rick, my mom, and I sat under that big old willow tree, shading ourselves from the late September heat as we ate the whole box of maple cookies. Rick played songs on his accordion that invoked memories of the good old times the three of us had spent working in the bar and putting on music events. The three of us sang together about living on the river, an old Credence Clearwater Revival song that made her smile about the fun times we had living on the ranch.
I finally felt safe being in her presence as the light of my true nature. Love. Our spirits were working things out, and I had this knowing that this would be the last time I would ever physically see her again. Our spirits let us both know that I had finally completed our soul agreement. Radiating, I turned to her in the lawn chair and silently thanked her for all my gifts.
My inner voice spoke: Your soul Journey with her is complete.
My human self was astonished at knowing that my soul was now whole. The abandoned, abused child ultimately integrated that day sitting next to my mother under the willow tree. My inner being rejoiced and absorbed the knowledge that I had made it to the light. I knew she was proud of me. I had kept my word to find my way to the light of my true nature. I had kept my promise to find my way back to me, blinded by the light, yet relieved that I’dfinally released us both from the awful journey.
In the end, she played her role perfectly. She mistreated me, so I did not give up finding my way home to my spirit. She fought for me by mistreating me and showing me that I needed to find a way to love myself without her. Without her, I don’t think I could have kept up the fight for my love and light. She was now free to stop abusing me. And I was free to love her as my mommy. I freed us both that day from all the misery of denying ourselves the lovethat we spent our lives longing for.
She announced she was tired and ready for a nap. Unsteady on her feet, I took her arm and walked her down the bumpy sidewalk to her room. I remember her having to go to the bathroom. Every step from the bathroom to her bedroom felt so honest and timely. It felt like I was in a dream, and I could not handle the floor under my own feet. As I entered her tiny room, I noticed the picture of my daughters. I had also freed them that day by honoring me. I removed her shoes and helped her to bed, pulled the blankets up over her thin, frail body.
And I remember her saying, “I’m scared.”
I answered, “Yes, I know you are afraid. Life is scary.”
I placed my lips on her forehead. I kissed her for the last time and said, “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
And she closed her eyes. I left that day with tears of joy. I rejoiced in the battle over loving her and being disappointed by her. And the resentment I felt toward myself for loving her was dead. I was free to love myself again. She was now free to move on.
I would never see her again. She passed away eleven months later, on August 12, 2020. I knew deep inside that it was the perfect planned date for her death. Relief swept over me, grateful I let her go one year before. Her diagnosis didn’t matter because I knew she finally decided to let go. To let go of the fear of death. It was the destined day.
Denise Schaad
Meet Denise Schaad, a self-empowerment coach, Spiritual Mentor, energy practitioner and an artist who has traveled the world studying with spiritual teachers. With a passion for both nature and motorcycles, Denise has found healing in the great outdoors after experiencing sexual abuse and addiction. She has backpacked the Sierra Mountains with her husband Rick and ridden her mountain bike for countless miles to connect with her inner self and the source of all life.
Denise believes that when we quiet our minds and get in touch with nature, we can hear the voice of spirit speaking to us. Her personal journey of overcoming her ego mind has inspired her to write a memoir and share her insights with others.
In the end, she made it to light. I miss her. She taught me so much about how little we need to exist. She taught me that our wants and desires keep us distracted from basic living. She was a simple woman who raised me simply because material items didn’t mean anything to her. She never wanted those things. In the end, her children were her pride and joy, and she loved us the best way she knew how.
Human conditioning and society would have us believe that a mother should act and behave in a particular manner to be considered a good mother. The soul on its spiritual evolution here on Earth only evolves through relationships with other humans. Our relationships with our parents are always about the soul’s spiritual evolution, not the social meanings of a mother or a father. The spiritual unraveling of the human experience is dreamy and mystical. Each ending brings me closer to my heart’s desire for who I am. Each end brings me one step closer to the truth.