By Elisa Novick
We exist in an unlimited universe in an unending lifestream and yet we can experience the phenomenon of missing someone. It is a pain that aches and says, “I wish I were with you” or even, “I’m not OK when I am not with you.” When that happens, being present is gone, peace is gone, freedom is gone. Large portions of energy can be held in that pattern.
I find that when I miss people (or my tree friends, pets, places, etc., but for the purposes of this article I will refer to people) it is because I am recalling my sense of their vibratory pattern playing through me, either because I stir it up within or because something triggers the memory.
Yet it is not the entire experience, not because I am not with them physically, but because I am not utilizing my entire ability to commune with another being. I might be judging that communion without the other present is not enough; that I need the outward response, but is that true?
When we work in family or systemic constellations in private sessions, in which the others in the group are envisioned as standing in spots on the floor, or seen in the mind’s eye, or laid out with coins, etc., we often get a clear response from the others in our constellations. The quality of the relationships and the changes in quality as we go through the process are easily “read.” You could argue that these may be just fantasies, and surely we know how to mock up all kinds of things.
But the power and grace of that work is that whether you consider what you experience in the session or workshop as real or accurate, it is highly effective in producing profound healing for the entire system.
When I work with clients who are grieving relationships for any reason, I find that most of them don’t allow themselves the right to fully savor their connections with the others in the relationship. They might assume that just because they’ve divorced or the other has died, that this experience is not available or even allowable, even though the restriction is one we are perpetrating on ourselves quite painfully. Just because we are not with someone we love does not mean we cannot be in the loving with that person. Truly, our relationships with others reside inside us and we can hold them in the ways in which we choose.
There is a fine but highly significant line between missing someone and allowing oneself to indulge and enjoy our inward relationship with that person. One is painful, the other can be deeply pleasurable. Why assume that I cannot fully be in the pleasure of being with someone who I am not with physically, whether that person is alive, dead, afar or estranged? I have their vibratory pattern/essence inside as a full sense memory that can be brought into the field of focus and then filed away again with gratitude. Everything I have ever experienced is stored in my field and how I hold people in my inner world always determines how I experience them. If I don’t allow myself the fullness of the contact, it is painful; when I allow myself the fullness, it is satisfying.
This practice has been so helpful to me in Bali and Malaysia. I feel in some moments so far from “home.” But what does home mean to a soul? Are we not universal citizens, cosmic light, the Beloved, eternal souls moving through incarnations in various locations and dimensions?
Today, on Thanksgiving, writing in my room in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I reflect on my stay here. This country comprises a mélange of Malay, Chinese, Indian and American/European cultures. I’ve been with highly sophisticated world and interdimensional travelers and with the Orang Asli (Original People) damaged in culture and spirit from losing their homes in the jungle. I’ve gone from being drenched in sweat to clambering around the cold waterfalls of Magick River in the rainforest. In this neighborhood, I can go to a modern mega-mall or eat at the local mamak or hawker stands, filthy local restaurants serving inexpensive, delicious food, containing MSG, sugar and God knows what kind of oils reused how many times, and tons of pork, prawns and starches that I would never allow in my body living back in New England.
In these inexpensive restaurants, you leave your meat bones on the bare table, devoid of napkins, knives, table cloths or mats, and you never pick up a piece of food that has dropped onto the table. I’ve enjoyed a huge Indian meal poured in mounds directly onto a large banana leaf at the table. I’ve suffered through trying to bend my knees enough and stretch my panties wide enough while twisting to peer down below me to get as low as I can onto a squat toilet so I won’t spray urine or explosive diarrhea outside that hole way down there on the already wet floor (no toilet paper provided, just a hose, so bring your own tissues if you want them).
I’ve been blessed to have as my guide Melissa Lin, who found me through Planet Waves and invited the Thriving Planet World Tour to Malaysia. She speaks Malay and Chinese and with her sweetheart Mehdi and others of my wonderful hosts here, I’ve been learning to navigate. At first I’m like a child, needing to be led through a world I cannot comprehend. For instance, bus stands I’ve been to, even in the bus terminals, do not have signs telling you which bus stops there or where the bus goes or even that a bus stops at a particular place on the sidewalk.
My internal response has ranged from “wow, I can’t believe I’m in this amazing place” to “yikes, what am I doing here?” Fortunately the wonderful people I meet and with whom I get to work in the workshops, and the responses I receive from land and trees and from Spirit, answer that question!
I’ve learned that homesickness or missing shows up when I am uncomfortable with where I am. Traveling in a culture that feels foreign, where I don’t know my way around nor recognize what I am seeing, hearing or smelling, can be exciting at first, but then I will go through a period of unease, or even a reactive phase — culture shock. It can show up as a strong distaste or a subtle tension, noticing that I have not fully relaxed in a long time. It takes me a while to feel at ease with the new surroundings, culture, even the electromagnetics of each place, and it happens in stages. Having spent so many years attuning to even subtle differences from one spot in the room to another, this could be overwhelming. But for having learned so many methods of harmonizing, shifting awareness from state to state, allowing another to be other than me, and the strength of my internal alignment with Spirit and my purpose, I think I would be in great difficulty.
Homesickness is not something I’ve been affected by much in the past. Usually when I travel I have little desire to return home. I so love learning and experiencing new places, seeing new faces and clothing, foods, learning about different ways of life. Just observing how different cultures handle worship, healthcare, water management, row houses, the Internet, etc., is fascinating to me. I know that returning home will come soon enough and I want to savor where I am.
This trip is different in that I have, as least in the physical sense, loosened my usual moorings. I left house, partner, friends, healers, my little cockatiel and more to take Thriving Planet on tour, with no clear commitment as to when I will return or where or whether I will settle again.
The moments of missing my neighborhood or a person or my little bird or autumn usually show up when I am tired or when I am put off by aspects of the lifestyle I am witnessing or the frequency range the new culture inhabits.
In Bali, where the entire culture is strongly focused on elaborate ceremonies and beauteous offerings, I still felt oppressed by a dampening field. What is a satisfying and compelling religious life to them just does not take me anywhere I like to go spiritually, despite my fascination with their customs. I had to find a way to lift into the higher frequencies I enjoy in my spiritual exercises within the huge field created by their practices. In Europe, the Pacific Northwest, and now in Malaysia, there have been other challenges.
In each place I have to bring great acceptance, patience, even forbearance, to the new circumstances. And I have to love myself unconditionally through it all, not assuming that I should be able to handle it all more easily or quickly. In those moments, knowing how to move through the feelings that arise of wanting to escape or be back with those I’ve loved for so many years has been essential. Rather than try to get rid of them, I indulge them and I am happy again.
You may ask, “What about the pain I feel when I think of that person, animal, place? Don’t I have to process that?” Yes, sometimes we do. Often the pain is an indication that there is incomplete karma or communication or understanding or honoring. But for me, today, all I had to do was go inside and allow myself to thoroughly savor each of my relationships. I went to visit my forest. I felt each of my beloveds in my inner world, taking distinct places around me, like stars sparkling into the night sky one by one, and the deep peace of our loving was all I needed to fulfill my Thanksgiving celebration.
To listen to and read past conversations with Elisa Novick on Planet Waves, plus her articles, please use this link. You’re invited to visit her website and Facebook page to view more photos of Bali and leave comments.
Elisa Novick, MSS does profound work as a healer, teacher, counselor, coach, minister, and facilitator of workshops and trainings in personal, professional, and spiritual development. She can assist you to clear personal, karmic and genetic patterns that have limited you and teach you exquisite attunement skills so you can become the magnificent master of life and Light that all of us are destined to be. Elisa has been assisting people in their growth since 1982 through her counseling practice and in facilitating over 1,000 workshops in holistic health, human development, family constellation, systemic constellation, organizational dynamics, planetary healing and spiritual awareness. You may email her directly at elisanovick [at] thrivingplanet [dot] org.
Loving you both. Thanks for the hearing, responding, engaging. It is precious.
Yes. Thank you for this beautiful piece, dear Elisa. Once again, I was there with you, this time squatting over a horrifc toilet bowl! I was thinking that living such a challenging and amazing experience in the vital and total way that you do means almost totally living in present time, which can be so overwhelming at times – but is also where joy and healing is.
Gorgeous, Elisa.
This year has taken me to so many new places within myself and my relationships, I hear your line: “I’ve learned that homesickness or missing shows up when I am uncomfortable with where I am” as a distinct answer to that inner displacement. In ways, I felt less lost in Cambodia than I do in my own body and home these days. Like Len was saying recently, growth is hard; it takes an effortful willingness to embrace it. Yesterday especially, I witnessed the gulf between where I’d been and where I am — and experienced it as a loneliness that felt unbreachable.
The idea that “how I hold people in my inner world always determines how I experience them” gives me a great deal to think about, especially in light of the question of how and when I allow myself to fully experience others as they are, or, if I’m not doing that, what it feeds in me.
As always, your ideas are so very provocative. Thank you.