Hi Open,

The enquiry around persecution and being killed off for expressing my authentic self is one that has come up for me before and I feel I have had multiple lifetimes where this played out. I realised I was scared to be the authenic me as that fear was palpable, and still is. Even in this life when expressing myself, I have been to some degree ostracised by previous work colleagues (my then-community) and my views and opinions stamped on by my own family. This conditioning has led me to hide my real self in an effort to fit in, but then you forget who you really are. I have started to express myself more since starting this work but feel I have a long way to go in expressing authenticity and find that I aquiesce all too easily.

Just yesterday I was with a family member who made an unwanted suggestion to which I immediately responded in an authentic way. You are right - people don't like it! They erupted, blaming me for the interaction that had just transpired. I was able to stay in my own power and the situation didn't affect my energy at all, it seemed like water of a duck's back but later I found myself aquiescing, agreeing with things they said with some kind of automation on my part (so not fully conscious) and then later I massively over-indulged on sweet treats. I just couldn't stop eating them and kept going back for more until the whole box was gone. I felt to share the food aspect as I feel it may have been part of the impact of the earlier encounter, or even connected with you guys fasting on retreat.

The work you are doing is certainly being felt by other openhanders. I have been getting karmic activations and stirrings, and in fact, just before you started the retreat I burst into tears for no apparent reason, accompanied with a feeling of agitation (which sometimes indicates intervention energies for me) and a moving pain in the sacral. I worked into it, did the bow but still felt a degree of agitation. However, I then saw in meditation a very old wooden shuttered window with a latch on it. I lifted the latch and opened the two shutters and a huge amount of very powerful light came through in waves. It was an incredibly powerful experience.

With love and an open heart for reflections

Nikki 🙏