38. Dreadful Divorce

It had been months since the divorce, and yet she had been unable to stop thinking about him. She often fantasized about being remarried to him, and often this was a common theme in her dreams too. She was trapped in her past. Her health had begun failing and she was mentally depressed.

As her therapy session progressed she suddenly exclaimed, the sofa I’m sitting on is moving. I feel like I’m in the midst of an earthquake. This occurred as she processed the memory of the day her ex husband came to return all her belongings. Deep down she wanted to be with him, but the divorce had rudely aborted that dream. Unfortunately, it was she who had asked for the divorce.

The threads of this entangled energy of worthlessness took her back to another memory when she was in class eight. She had just changed schools and couldn’t speak English. As the teacher interviewed her in front of the whole class, she felt confused, not knowing what to say. Feeling insulted and speechless at the injustice of the situation, her overwhelming thought was, I am trapped. Her body contracted as she recalled that memory and she drew herself into a protective shell. Once again she exclaimed, the sofa is shaking.

As that memory was processed, she arrived at what was the anchor experience of her distress. She was about four or five years old. At night all five members of her family would sleep in the same room. Often she would wake up in the middle of the night and her gaze would fall upon the calendar that hung on the facing wall. As the light from the garden outside entered through their window and fell on the calendar, it highlighted the frightening figure of Goddess Durga with her many arms.

Seeing that image she would shake with fear, terrified at the thought of what would happen to her if that figure walked out of the calendar and took her away. No one would come to her rescue as they were all asleep. She felt timid & trapped in her fear. Night after night this saga continued. She would shake with fear and her clothes would become drenched in sweat. So intense was that feeling that she felt she would wet her pants.

Her eyes started to water as she processed that memory. These are not tears she explained to me. They were most likely the energy of fear being released from her body (she also suffered from multiple sclerosis and had recently experienced an episode of blindness in her eye). As the fear dissolved, she found herself laughing at the thought that she had actually been terrorized, night after night, by a mere calendar. The prison of her fear was crumbling. Every time she felt helpless, this feeling of being stuck would overtake her and the earthquake like motion (from the fearful shivering) would be experienced.

But what was even more interesting was that her release from fear was occurring today, on the auspicious occasion of ashtami, the eighth day of the navrataras when it is believed, the goddess descends upon earth to cleanse it of all that is dark and unwholesome. Was the goddess herself healing this lady’s darkness? Was Maa Durga, who she had been so terrified of as a child, helping her conquer her fears and rebuild a new life?

For the first time in months after the session she could see that the hope of going back to her ex husband was futile. She was disengaging from the shackles of her past and was now preparing to journey ahead.