"Destroy Me!" Two Words to Conquer Conflict and Pain
Right before my recent travels I felt a conflict arise with someone I held very dearly. It pained me greatly to feel dissonance rather than love. No matter what I tried I could not figure out how to resolve the conflict nor alleviate the pain. Then I remembered two things: the words from the spiritual teacher Matt Kahn, “Destroy Me,” and a visualization I was guided into where I allowed someone to “destroy me” and felt a great relief in response.
I believe Matt’s intention was to encourage us to have the courage to face our challenges head on and trust that will lead us to a greater victory. Trust builds with experience. I was lucky to have had a visualization where I experienced the benefits of surrender when feeling disharmony.
Almost two years ago in the fall of 2014 I was taking the level 2 Meditation Teacher Training at The Expanding Light Retreat Center in Northern California, where I was living at the time. Our instructor asked us to visualize sitting in the little sweet Lahiri temple where many beautiful healings have happened.
She asked us to invite someone in that we love to sit across from us and consciously send them love. A friend came to mind right away and I mentally invited him into the room. He sat across from me and I focused my mind on sending him love.
At the same time in my visualization there were hands were flying into the scene from the top right corner from a man I was having challenges with. I asked him to go away so I could focus on the task I chose to do in that moment. Those hands kept reaching towards me as if they were trying to grab something. I was also scared of what those hands were trying to do.
I could not figure out how to wipe away the visual of him peeking into the scene. I was beginning to think it might be better to just let him in instead of playing the game of resistance. Just in that moment the instructor asked us to invite someone in with whom we had conflict. So in my mind I said, “Ok. You can come in.”
He quickly took over the seat across from me and continued to flail his arms forward as if trying to reach inside of me. It seemed as if he was a vampire or vulture wanting to get inside of me and take something. I strongly tried to communicate, “No. I am supposed to be sending you love. Now stop and receive.” Yet once again the hands would not stop.
And once again I decided to surrender and let the hands in. After all this was just a visualization and how much harm could they do? As soon as those hands visually entered my body it looked like they did grab hold of something non-visual and take it out of me. Immediately I felt a sense of relief. I felt lighter, freer, and calmer. I could breathe more deeply. I no longer cared about the discord with that man nor felt it in myself.
This man stopped trying to reach his arms inside of me and kept holding onto his new prize possession. Instinctually I calmly and firmly told him, “Now that you have what you want, you can go now.” It seemed he was happy to have accomplished what he was trying to do. He slowly got up carrying his imaginary bundle and started to tip toe away.
Imagine a big man hunched over carrying a bundle of air tip toeing away. He kept stopping and looking back both as if surprised I let him take that away and disappointed it wasn’t giving him what he really wanted. I kept telling him to go and he did.
My guess is the man in the visualization probably wanted love and connection versus proving me wrong and taking something from me. As for me I realized that often what someone is trying to take is something you no longer need and will feel better without. Thus develops the trust to relax into the pain in a situation.
It can seem a bit crazy to have this whole visualization in my head and yet I felt an internal shift from imagining the whole thing. This visualization helped remind me of the soul being separate from the body. The soul is perfect and unable to be harmed. What we lose are the layers that block us from realizing our soul.
Right there in the middle of dance class a couple days before my recent trip it hit me I was gripping onto something and resisting what was trying to be released. With trust inside my head I declared, “Destroy me! Destroy me!” Within minutes I felt a release, joy came flooding back into me, and my dancing got more empowered.
With courage and trust we can come back to our wholeness more quickly the more we allow this universe to do the work it is trying to do.
