Inside the Trains

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE from CAUGHT UP Truth and Metaphor | An Imaginary Tale

Inside the Trains

33

Resigned and tired of fighting, Petra tweaked her meditation practice.

Fixating on the black screen behind her closed eyes, she calmed herself and imagined the vast expanse of the universe. The image morphed into an immense internal space that followed the shape of her body. Along its edges, the skin thickened into robust cushioned walls prepared to absorb the weight of her suppressed emotions.

For the first time in her life, she sent an invitation to the hidden and most terrifying parts of her psyche.

“No more running. I’m ready to hear anything and everything you have to say.”

In response, a barrage of enthusiastic, volatile emotions rose from her subconscious mind. Attacking one another, punching, pulling hair and climbing over each other, they all attempted to force their way to the top of the line.

She flashed on a story from the Bible where Jesus came upon a lunatic who lived in a graveyard, a living dead man surrounded by tombstones.

“What is your name?” said Jesus.

“My name is Legion, for we are many.”

“Holy shit!” interjected Twelve-year-old Petra. “Are you sure you want to open this can of worms? It looks pretty fucked up to me. Why don’t you call it a day, eat a pint of ice cream and shut it the fuck down!”

Undeterred, adult Petra took charge of the situation.

“That’s enough!”

The unruly feelings eyed each other, hung their heads, scuffed their feet, and shrugged their shoulders like disobedient children. They ceased fighting and waited for instructions.

“Form a single-file line. I have enough space to deal with you one at a time.”

—

She awoke with a start seated on the wooden bench inside the subway station called “Nowhere.” Simone, unconscious, sat beside her, slumped forward, her arms dangling over the edge of the bench. She placed her flat hand on the child’s back.

“That’s okay. You stay where you are until it’s safe to come back.”

The ethers brought to her remembrance something Simone said after she disassociated.

“I dub you warden of the tunnels and the trains. It’s up to you now.”

A train pulled into the station. Through the windowpane, a young girl, a dirty ragamuffin with greasy shoulder-length hair the color of soot, blew steam onto the glass and traced the word, “HELP,” with a nail-bitten fingertip.

As Petra approached the opening doors, an intense whirlwind sent her body flying backward, slammed her against the wall of the station, and knocked her unconscious. It then proceeded up the stairs, through dimensions, into the Earth realm, where she lay in a deep meditation.

The emotional tornado roared through Petra’s physical body, unleashing waves of heartache, betrayal, confusion, and a profound sense of self-loathing. Tears streaming, her body shook and convulsed as screams of rage and pain rammed up against her constricted throat.

“You were such a delightful baby,” said Lou. “I never heard a peep out of you.”

Determined to break her family’s code of silence, sustained by a constant threat of severe punishment, the feelings forced their way through a narrow opening and exited her mouth as watered-down moans. The emotional release went on for hours.

When it subsided, she regained consciousness, seated with her back against cracked subway tiles on the floor of the station. The dark-haired waif, seated inside the train, its doors now wide open, beckoned her to enter. Still somewhat stunned, using the bench for support, she rose to her feet and stumbled into the subway car. The doors closed, the lights flickered, and the screeching train lurched forward.

“What is your name?”

With no hesitation, the unkept child answered her.

“My name is Unsupported and Alone.”

With a name to identify it, she recognized the core belief. It masqueraded, in her present day reality, as financial insecurity and fear of abandonment.

“When did this start?”

Out of thin air, cradled in the waif’s arms, a full-term fetus, its umbilical cord still attached, writhed in agony.

Her mother’s words, their intonation carried on scotch laden fumes, echoed through the subway car.

“I hated being pregnant with you for the first three months. Every time I drank, I got sick to my stomach. After that, I could drink any man under the table.”

Petra remembered the proud, smug smirk on her face.

“You were born six weeks premature and weighed only four pounds,” said the six-year-old ragamuffin. “And she’s bragging about how much she drank while pregnant?”

Next, a glass incubator appeared on the floor, rattling in the middle of the train. The blaring lights, the bleeps and blips from the machine monitoring the baby’s vital signs, and the artificial respiratory sounds from mechanical ventilation produced an unnatural otherworldly environment where a micro-premie fought for its life.

“The hospital sent your parents’ home and instructed them to pick you up six weeks later.”

Petra’s mother materialized inside the subway car. Hanging from a grip handle, she towered over the frightened child, pointer-finger waving.

“Is it my fault you never bonded with me? I tried. God knows, I tried. You wanted nothing to do with me,” said Lou as she dissolved into vaporous nothingness.

“How dare she insinuate it was my fault!” said the waif.

Petra comprehended the depth and extent of this powerful self-concept with a clarity that broke the bondage of an unconscious dream state. It was a core belief hard-wired into her psyche from the womb and cemented into perpetuity inside the isolation of an incubator. Every cell in her body believed she was unsupported and alone. It had become a deceptive lens, a devastating lie, through which she interpreted and created her three-dimensional reality. The belief rolled forward through her life experience, expressing itself as a constant state of physical and emotional lack.

Trapped for decades, she teetered on the edge of financial collapse, with no family, community, or significant other to depend on. She watched as Unsupported and Alone drew her into one unhealthy relationship after another. Romantic entanglements that culminated in condemnation and abandonment, forcing her to start over from scratch again and again.

Conscious of its existence and origin, she began realigning her perceptions and creating new thought patterns.

“Didn’t I escape the likelihood of serious birth defects by escaping a toxic womb six weeks early?”

She considered the trauma pin that Buddy Handler insisted was overkill. It was not the incest, the physical or emotional abuse, or even her sister’s death, although in a cumulative sense, these were all contributing factors; it was this driving core belief.

In an unlikely twist, she acknowledged Unsupported and Alone as the primary catalyst that would insure her spiritual awakening. It wove its magic through intense patterns of suffering from the womb to the present moment.

Unsupported and Alone, along with all its mind-twisting consequences, was a savage savior. It was repetitious and relentless; screaming at the top of its lungs in a never-ending loop, until it woke her from the living nightmare. Stunned and overcome by a spirit of gratitude, she thanked the unruly core belief for its tireless service.

Re-narrating her mental storyline into a victorious tale was no small task. The outward manifestations of her present reality defended the unsupported and alone narrative in every way. Using the power of her imagination, she chose to believe that “a great cloud of witnesses,” both human and supernatural, surrounded her. She removed her focus from what she perceived was lacking and placed it, instead, on all her blessings.

Auntie Pat once said, “The universe is conspiring to support you.”

—

Within the transformation process, she recognized another unsettling fact. It was commonplace for her to wake up in the morning with her heart racing. As soon as she felt the anxiety, her mind would dredge up a laundry list of whatever she was worried about. In response, her heart raced even more and surged with adrenaline.

Her worries never materialized.

“I wonder if the act of worrying creates more things to worry about?”

She considered the connection between worry; her racing heart and adrenaline surges.

“Is it possible that I’m addicted to the adrenaline rush? Do I seek it out, regardless of its effect on my health or serenity?”

She took the idea to her home group and confessed her addiction to worry and the dirty-crack adrenaline rush it produced. She had never smoked crack but latched on to the idea of dirty-crack emotions. Getting all pissed off in traffic, starting arguments, taking offense, blaming others, judging and criticizing, back-biting, smack-talking and manipulating; all these behaviors produced emotions that jump-started the fight-or-flight response and culminated in dirty-crack adrenaline rushes.

She concluded that modern society, with its emphasis on material wealth, power and control, perpetuated, even encouraged, an addiction to dirty-crack adrenaline.

No wonder, as a species, we can never level up out of base emotions. With intention, albeit unconscious for most, we seek and create external situations that produce fear, anger, greed, jealousy, hatred and the like, so we can generate powerful full-body adrenaline rushes with little to no effort.

In contrast, elevated emotions like compassion, mercy, love and gratitude require hard, persistent internal meditative work.

Walking in unfamiliar territory, she considered those rare situations when an overwhelming sense of gratitude washed over her. Or the awe she felt when she experienced some beautiful sight in nature. She contemplated her purpose among fellow addicts and alcoholics. The intensity of their mutual predicament often birthed an overwhelming sense of compassion within her. Elevated emotions placed no unnatural demands on her internal organs. Quite the opposite, they engendered balance, harmony, and well-being.

“I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to break my addiction to dirty-crack.”

The next morning, she woke up with the familiar racing heart. This time, she started a conversation.

“Body, listen. It’s self-harming for you to allow your heart to race like this.”

She took several deep, rhythmic breaths and emptied her mind of thought.

“Let’s bring it back down… That’s right, slow yourself down.”

The process worked like a charm. It was amazing how many times a day she caught her heart racing. The irrefutable evidence suggested that Petra was, indeed, a dirty-crack adrenaline junkie in withdrawal.

—

Focusing on the basic principle of self-care, she took a couple of days off before setting an intention to bring up another negative core belief.

Well rested, she entered a meditative state, created space and invited a feeling to reveal itself to her.

A two-car train packed tight with passengers, standing room only, pulled into the station. Grandmother Evelyn stood pressed against the glass of the first car dangling from a grip handle. In the middle of the second car, Uncle Cornelius, identifiable by his unmistakable hooked nose silhouette, stood lost in thought with a tight grip on the vertical support pole.

Petra remained seated on the wooden bench, knees drawn up to her chest, bracing herself as the doors opened. Again, a whirling vortex of pain and suffering shot up the stairs, through dimensions, into her physical body.

The emotional weight was all-encompassing, eliminating all but a sliver of her conscious awareness. Again, she wept, gasped for air, moaned and shook in a strange contorted wave pattern.

“What is your name?”

“No Good.”

The psychological impact of those two words was like an electrical current burning through her veins. Its energy collected and swirled in the palms of her hands. No Good, an ancient entity, lived inside her blood.

“When did you begin?”

The current spun faster in the palm of her left hand. The intensity grew and energetic streams shot out through her fingertips down into the previous generations of her maternal bloodline. She witnessed a multitude of tiny suspended vignettes, cinematic flashes going back hundreds of years. She watched her female ancestors being accused, judged, condemned and gaslighted until they believed, hook, line and sinker, that they were no good.

Although often brilliant and courageous like her Grandmother Evelyn, they accepted their fate and allowed themselves to be treated like cattle. They became something to be owned, used for pleasure and often abused or discarded. She wept for them. She advocated for them. A profound sense of love washed from her heart running down into the generations that had preceded her.

When the physical manifestation subsided, she took a deep breath and noticed a distinct lightness in her left side.

The electrical current regenerated, collecting on her right side. It picked up velocity and shot down her right arm, spun around inside her palm, and shot out her fingertips down into her paternal bloodline.

Again, she saw cinematic vignettes descending through the generations. This time, it was her male ancestors. Flashes of physical beatings, rape, rampant alcoholism and incarcerations.

“You’re a bunch of no good failures. You’ll never amount to anything.”

The entire paternal bloodline, crushed by an apathetic stoicism, resigned itself to inescapable failure.

“They lied! It’s all a lie,” said Petra. “You’re brilliant. You’re gifted. Most of you have genius-level intelligence. Stop believing the lies. Help me stop believing these lies.”

Down in the train, her paternal ancestors, hyper-conscious, peered up through the generations. With complete clarity, they comprehended that Petra, incarnated in real-time, could harness the power necessary to break their chains. In response to her cry for help, they released an energetic tidal wave of masculine energy that harmonized, supported and integrated with her maternal ancestors.

The passengers on both trains exited onto the platform. They formed a two-by-two line, maternal and paternal ancestors pairing up, as they meandered up the stairs into the open-air. The empty train departed the station.

Exhausted, she did nothing but eat and sleep for the rest of the day.

Petra understood she was having profound revelatory experiences. In meditation, she moved through time and space unrestricted. She suspected that her practice had opened a portal to an alternate reality.

The question became: “How do I translate this information into my everyday life?”

Hyperaware of negative self-talk, she took it to the next level. Whenever she caught herself being critical or judgmental of others, she honed in on herself.

“I wouldn’t see this in them unless it is hiding in me.”

Amid all this self-reflection, she passed by the hall mirror.

Catching her reflection, a voice in her head hurled the accusation, “You’re disgusting!”

The intensity of the statement knocked the breath out of her. It had been several weeks since she had made space for any negative emotion in meditation.

Instead, she had become obsessed with generating elevated emotions like gratitude, love, and compassion.

Along the way, she overheard several spiritual leaders say, “You don’t have to go back and relive the past to heal. Follow your bliss and your past will self-correct.”

It was a nice thought, invalidated on the spot, by a hateful response to her reflection. Surrendering to the process, she made it a point to invite Disgusting into her conscious awareness.

The feeling it generated was something akin to a drippy, leprous, bloated boil. Making space and sitting in that sensation was near impossible. She felt nauseous. How many times had she caught her reflection in the mirror and thought or uttered the word, “Disgusting?”

She admitted it was common, upon seeing or thinking about her body, to respond with that word. Disgusting had followed her into every romantic relationship. It was an emotional cancer. Once the novelty wore off, men always focused in on and attacked her damaged parts, their adoration replaced by disgust. She became disposable and ended up in the trash can.

“Where did you come from?”

Disgusting transported her to her childhood bedroom in the farmhouse. Her mother, doing her nightly rounds, peeked in to check on her. Appalled, she flew into the room in a rage and yanked the covers off.

“What are you doing? Take your hands off yourself!”

She slapped Petra across her face.

“That’s disgusting! What’s wrong with you? You’re just like your father. YOU ARE DISGUSTING!”

Next, transported several years into the future, she saw a tartan dress laid out on her bed for the annual Christmas party. Her mother bought the party dress at the end-of-season sale the previous year. By purchasing the next size up at a substantial savings, she could pocket the difference.

Lou never stopped scheming.

Petra, self-soothing with food, had packed on twenty extra pounds. Her mother, frustrated as she tried to squeeze her chunky daughter into last year’s dress, threw up her hands in disgust.

“When did you get so fat? I can’t have a fat daughter. IT’S DISGUSTING!—Raymond, get in here!—Do you see this? Your disgusting daughter has nothing to wear. She’s too damn fat!”

In actuality, she had a couple of cute little side rolls. Regardless, Lou, with a few gin martinis under her belt, found the whole situation embarrassing and insufferable.

Petra terrified by all the sexual implications associated with “Disgusting,” shut down the meditation with prejudice. Having sworn off men after the fiasco with Leo and the devastating relapse that accompanied it, she felt an intense resistance to further exploration. If she fell off the wagon, she would die, of that she was sure. Her aging body could not withstand the physical onslaught of another relapse.

Instead, she would meditate on beauty and do her best to feel beautiful, even though it was contrary to her basic programming. At her core, Petra classified beauty as a dangerous feeling. It had the power to draw in unwanted male attention. Still, it felt like a safe and somewhat relatable alternative to Disgusting.

The complexity of the part of her that called itself, “Disgusting” was incomprehensible. It went well beyond her physical appearance.

Unbeknownst to her, she was teetering on the edge of finding out everything.

—

Back in the subway station, Simone landed in her body with a thud as another train pulled up to the platform. Inside, the beast called “Daddy,” seething with a righteous indignation and a desire for vengeance, stood upright on his hind legs. He beat on the windowpane, his drippy paws defiling the glass with trails of slime.

“Let me out, you stupid little cunt!”

The station made a “ding-dong” chime alerting passengers that the doors were about to open.

From her left side, a clanking sound rushed down the stairs distracting Simone. In tandem, two door handles attached themselves to the exterior of the subway car doors, screwed in tight by an invisible power tool. A metal chain with enormous heavy links, worthy of a medieval dungeon, crashed onto the platform, slid across the floor and wrapped itself around and through the door handles. Next, a cast iron padlock with an ornate brass key attached itself to the ends of the chain.

“Nice save, Petra.”

Simone rushed to the doors, turned the key in the lock, placed it in her pocket and took her rightful place, alone, on the wooden bench.

“I’m the warden of the tunnels and trains.”

She waved at Daddy, furious and thwarted once again, as the train departed the station.

---

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