Do you have patterns in your life that are repetitive, whether positive or negative? Do you find yourself frustrated with these and wondering how you can solve them, change them or turn them around to create more freedom?

‘Meta-Magic & the Oracle of Repetition’ is a particular piece of work that I love to share, to help us find an innate sense of our own freedom. A sense of an internal freedom, away from the usual ties and frustrations that seem to be a part of the normal everyday trials of being human.

So what is it? How can this come about? Well, its roots are connected to my own story. And my ‘practice’ is to work from my own experience in life, creating ways to transform this into the work I teach. What has been my own journey, becomes a journey and an offering for others.

So I often like to share my own story in this work. I also write about it in my books. The latest one I am writing is all about the ‘Oracle Of Repetition.’

In order to share this work, I use the tools of Movement Medicine and writing exercises. Sometimes we work for a weekend and sometimes for further 4 or 5 days deepening the work we are doing. It’s all about going on a personal enquiry through movement so that the body, the heart and the mind are all connected, thus creating a container for the possibility of soul retrieval. We use shamanic journeying and repetitive movement calling in the ‘Oracle’ to support us.

I just shared this particular ‘medicine’ in Zagreb, Croatia, with a fine and committed group of dancers. It was such a blessing to share this work with people I did not know and who did not know me, yet to see and witness the effects was treasure for me that I will hold very dear to my heart forever.

This I feel is part of the ‘Meta’ that we work with, the patterns that connect us. So this journey of teaching Meta-Magic has many patterns in itself.

The patterns we have in our lives can be very useful to us and they can also be very debilitating. Some serve us and some destroy us. Some are so subtle that we would barely notice them, yet they might be running havoc in the undercurrents of our lives! So here we are learning to identify, understand and either learn to accept or learn to change what is needed.

There was a pattern in my life for some years, one that kept me lonely. I was frustrated with this. I wanted it to change, but I did not know how and nothing seemed to make any difference. This was the story of my victim at this time. It happened in the area of my work. I was unable to collaborate with others. Every time I tried I ended up feeling ashamed or humiliated. This was unacceptable to me and no matter how hard I tried it always seemed to happen. Here was a repetition going on that needed some attention.

On one occasion when this happened again a few years ago, I decided it was time to step fully into that area of shame and allow my body to dance with it and sculpt the necessary medicine for me.

Stepping into the dance, I feel my heart beat. Yes, I recognise these sensations, I’ve been here before! But last time I shrank through fear of it. I wished it had not happened, in fact, yes I remember, I wanted to turn the clock back and have it never exist in the first place. I wished and wished for the feeling to go away. Had I shamed myself with those stupid words again? Why did I do it? But no I would not try to change it now. And I called it in to make itself more known to me. Oh for sure I had shown my face, I had opened myself up to be seen, I had dared to uncover my mask for a moment and show them who I really was. Was it ok? Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, but what I did know was that I had been in this place before and here I was going to stay and give as much time to this process as was necessary. The guilty shame churns around in my stomach. My shoulders slump and I want to run, yet I keep calling in the  pain the sickness the agony of the heat as it burns my cheeks and my eyes fill with tears. I am learning, I keep telling myself, and I ask the Great Mystery to open my eyes and heart a little wider, to help me move my body with all that is happening to me. So it becomes one expression of all that is happening. One expression of this pattern that follows me through my life, asking to be noticed, because deep within its form, deep within its repetitive movement, there is a medicine far greater than its mundanity.

‘Why did this keep happening’ I asked myself. I stood in my own circle and called in all the help that I needed from my spirit allies, my guardians and teachers. I felt the repetition of the drum beat guiding me. It always took me across other plains, connecting me to the wisdom field I was here to receive. Pictures flashed past and the deeper I trusted this process and my own dancer, the clearer things became for me. I wrote in my journal whatever emerged in answer to the questions I was asking.

Now Tony Robbins, master coach of many, many thousands and public speaker talks about repetition as ‘the mother of skill.’ And this is quite correct, the more we repeat things the better we get at them, so repeat, repeat, repeat and we will get better at something. But what about the things we repeat that we don’t really like? Why would we repeat them? Why would we need to get good at something that did not seem to serve us? Well, in the Meta scheme of things, there has to be a purpose for this, and I was learning what my purpose in my own ‘drama’ was.

My victim/ego kept me trying to change my loneliness. So I kept stepping forward. And then the powerful feeling of shame happened again, which propelled me away into a world separate from others.

I saw this as a being, a women even, a kind of creature who was never far away.  She took me by the hand and led me, to a place where I created my own cauldron, my own work, my own style of doing things. I recognised then that the gift I had in my repetitive pattern of ‘connect-shame-propel-doing it my way,’ was that I was developing this strong work of my own. Without the victim-shame experience, it may never have happened. Whatever created the shame in the first place (and for me there were many stories connected to that) was immaterial, it was actually serving me! From this place, many interesting pieces of medicine began to develop. I did it all my way, my weaving, my tapestry, my artistry! The shame and pain was the catalyst, the being that reached in and took me from it was the bridgekeeper. But was this useful to me. Yes, it was. It was literally forcing me to develop my own skills and not rely on others to do that for me. Some might say I was learning the hard way, and that might be true. But it was all completely unique and individual to me.

The victim part of me was losing its grip! I recognised the imminent death of part of my psyche. This means, in shamanic terms, a mini death of the ego, or a loss of identity. It is a fundamental transformation of the psyche. Not easy or comfortable, but a necessary part of the process. The lonely ‘poor me’ had been the gateway for taking me back into the situation that would create the shame that would propel me out into my own field of work. I was very happy with my victim at this point, which was now not actually a victim at all, but a very trusty ally!

So did I really want to change this story? Of course not. I now saw how incredibly useful it had been. And the juiciness of the work I had taken on had created a strong enough field, that if I wanted to, I could now (without from victim-loneliness) collaborate with others with a fine and strong piece of workmanship, with my own tools to offer and an empowered sense of my own self-worth. And this was vital because the needy lonely part of me could never fully be taken seriously amongst others and was of no particular use anyway.

The dance really helped me to discover all of this because it had taken the engagement of my body, my heart and my mind to lead me to this place. My body knew the patterns already and by trusting the dancer and my physicality I could feel these actions like really old parts of me that were very familiar. I felt that through the movement and the support of the drum beat, the repetitive patterns that emerged were leading me into a state of trance and being able to find the stories through the memory field of the body. My mind was able to become clearer and find a way to ‘see’ what was happening, without trying to get too analytical. It also meant that when the time was right, the soul retrieval necessary for empowerment was activated. The heart had danced itself open, it was ready to receive.

This incredibly simple process is not difficult, in fact it is so simple it’s quite unbelievable, I wonder how we ever really get so stuck and so victimized by our patterns of behaviour. But then we don’t often look at things in this way and truly learn to value every aspect of what happens to us in our lives, even the suffering! And it is often within the suffering that the real magic and treasure can be found. And then we learn to say ‘Thank You’ to all those patterns, to whatever has occurred, just like Alanis Morissette’s song ‘Thank U’ thank you consequence, thank you disillusionment, thank you frailty.

So the ‘Meta’ of this, is that whatever is going on for us, there is a pattern being formed (often with no clear meaning to begin with) that will lead to a much bigger story, and often whatever we are creating or is happening that creates our own suffering, (and by this I mean within our own minds – not something harmful being done to us) is simply a bridge to ensure its healthiest outcome and survival. At least I have chosen to look at it in this way because it makes for a much easier transition with the least possible resistance.  After all, this is about finding inner freedom, and often that means taking a big leap of faith 🙂

What are your patterns? I’d love to hear about them and how you are transforming them into medicine.

Caroline Carey

Next Meta-Magic Prague … October 2015 http://www.alchemyinmovement.com/index.php/meta-magic-in-prague/