Greetings,

Hawkeye recently mentionned that he felt self-retrievals were authentic, so I thought I'd give one another try. I've long sensed something (someone?) was missing but didn't know where to start.

I recalled a year ago that a then newcomer to this site  [smiley=vrolijk_26.gif] asked my husband and I if he could visit us OB and we agreed.  The very next day, that 'newbie'  :D wrote us that our floors were uneven and that we had some ritualistic-looking stained glass around.  True!

(My husband has done most of the stained glass we have and we're surprised to find six-pointed stars in his finished original designs, even though he says he didn't plan them. I do have alot of information that he was Jewish in his previous life, but that's another story.)

So this fellow was right on regarding our surroundings! -- so how could he be so wrong about another sight he saw, a little girl riding a tricycle around and around the yard and block?! Children don't ride trikes around here now as it's too hilly and no sidewalks. And ghost  children don't relate to our lives.
Oh well, his two out of three wasn't bad, I thought.

Yesterday, looking for a way to find my missing part, I decided to meditatively ask the little girl on the bike if she might be part of me. I recalled I did have a trike when my mother and I lived within a city where there were sidewalks. The block we lived on was large and the children my age lived diagonally way across the block, so I soon learned to peddle hard to get over to visit them. We were all about four years old, pre-schoolers in slightly safer times than now.
--That's how  far my conscious mind got into this; then the scenario "took on a life of its own."

I was on my trike at the farthest corner of the block staring away down the side road. I was thinking that since I had a trike that goes fast and since that road goes on further, that if I were just allowed to cross the street, I could ride  to freedom!!  I could go far away and be free and safe !!
But maybe I would need to practice first, since I remembered I had to practice riding alot before I could get very far on that thing. So I postponed my 'flight to freedom' and started practicing, peddling as fast as I could for as long as I could ! I pedalled and pedalled!

My consciousness returned to my mature(?)  self as I walked up behind the little girl. She heard me coming and peered suspiciously back over her shoulder, keeping her hands and feet on the bike, ready to take off again.

"I think I know you," I heard myself say. "Please don't leave; I'd like to talk to you." A large tree stood nearby offering shade. Its roots had destroyed the sidewalk there so peddling was rough going. It seemed a good place to stop and talk. The child nodded OK.

"I know you've got a plan to get away," mature me said. She looked startled, then relaxed with her secret released. "You don't have to leave after all !  You can come with me, since we were made for each other." (? I was unsure as to what to say.)

I'd sat down on one knee and held my arms out to her.  She seemed relieved and moved toward me.  She easily moved forward and let her head rest on my neck.  "We're safe now, Dottsie." I ussed a pet name her brothers called her later after they were born. By this point, I figured time really didn't matter and maybe she'd recognize it, since our consciousness was really one.

As I took her  in my arms I felt the 'soul meld' vibration of other retrieval and non-physical visiting experiences. I didn't know how it could but these vibrations seemd to indicate that the retrieval seemed to be working! So I kept holding her close until she just gradually dissappeared and I fell asleep.

This morning I expected that with a sense of 'child' restored in me. that I'd be experiencing some joy. That's not the case yet; she was a serious child. My heart does feel some fullness that wasn't there before and I feel more focussed, like I'm no longer looking around for something that's missing.
If you have any ideas for how I can ' perk her up,' please let me know  :)

Thanks for reading all this, those who got this far!  :)
Betson

Hi Bets. That was really good. I could just sense that child so well as you told the story. Two things I wonder about. Just reading Bruce's Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook and on the chapter where he talks to his inner self about how he wants to go walking on the high wire and his inner self wants to protect him from it. He teaches how to have an extensive conversation with this Self and clear some stuff away.

Just thinking about this child and her craving for freedom and safety. I wonder what she felt she would be pedalling to if she went fast, what was "freedom" for her? If she was looking for safety, what was making her feel unsafe? Maybe you can talk to her as Bruce talks to his inner protective self. Just a suggestion, I haven't tried doing this activity yet myself, but I intend to try it with regard to why I am afraid to learn to drive and how to change that. When you talked about safety and freedom I felt you were right on the verge of telling us something about Bets and then clamped down on it. Vee

That's a really interesting experience, Bets. I remember those times, on the tricycles with my sister, going to the corner store with a nickel for some candy...no one kept a close eye on us back then. I remember wandering all over the place, for the majority of my young years. Later, as a girl scout, I could walk door to door with no fear, by myself, selling those girl scout cookies.

And, as you have, I have brought a very young spirit 'back' to me, much as you describe, in a meditative experience or two. However, yours was visible to another person, interesting.

It is a strange feeling? Just a bit?

For me, listening to you and recalling my own childhood, there is some 'melancholy' for the lost freedoms of children, in general, the atmosphere of fear that seems everpresent in our media-saturated lives.

Ooops! Well, off my soapbox.

Lovely experience. Balloons are good.

Maybe you are now reunited with a trait/longing of yours which you've had denied for a long time, so perhaps it could be that now you will notice you'd like to do things you haven't done before, things that are related to this aspect you retrieved.

Spooky

Thank you Vee, moonsandjunes, and Spooky!

Yes, balloons and some other things I haven't tried --that sounds good!  And I appreciate the reminders that one session might not finish it -- why would I even think that? Now I feel like maybe I was trying to avoid her, but I will go back and talk with her more.  
Your encouragement is appreciated!

Bets

Vee, she needed to escape from her relatives who thought babies and children were theirs to use however, for whatever gratification they could get sexually. It sounds bizarre but it certainly happens.
I can mention this now so that anyone in that situation can perhaps learn that these self-retrievals are very useful in putting oneself back together again. -- I do feel better  :)
Retrievals of others also benefits the retriever but the issues of personal fear have to be dealt with directly eventually--as Kathy is discussing in the current 'Ego, I go' thread on Afterlife Forum.

Hiya Bets,

This sounded like a neat experience.  I liked how you said you were your conscious self up to a point, then your perspective changed, then your consciousness changed back.  

Was this girl a fragmented part of you from your childhood, or from your adulthood?  Do you know when she was "created"?  

You alluded to sexual abuse.  Are you saying that's what really happened to you and that's what this was all about?  I'm confused because you said, "It sounds bizarre but it certainly happens", so I wasn't sure what you meant by that.

It seems that the person who saw this little girl on her trike had tapped into you and found this aspect of yourself.  I love that concept, that we can do that with each other.  

I also believe there is guidance for these sorts of experiences.  They can't just be random happenings.  If you look back Bets, do you remembering thinking about or setting any kind of intention before this fellow tapped into you, of wanting to do a self retrieval, or wanting to fix something inside yourself in some way?  

Vicky

:-[  :P  :)

OK, well,  :) I was trying to say some things between the lines but now you've added some other valid questions,
Dear Vicky,
valid for anyone trying to get a handle on this retrieval business, so I guess we're all pretty much friends and can discuss these things maturely  ;)  gulp --
Yes, the child was me. I sense that peddling the tricycle brought some memories into semi-consciousness when I was about four. The memories were of trying to kick away abusers when I was even younger, something I've been told of more recently by one of the abusers.  

'Our' Alan McD saw the girl on the bike when he OB'd over to our house, not too long after he came to this site. I invited him to come visit when he had asked if anyone wanted to prove that he was able to.
I think both Alan and I assumed that the visit was in current time but somehow the girl was there too, at the same time as he saw and described our current home, pet dog, etc!-- Time sure is goofy when beyond the physical !

Yes, I do think that at the time of Alan's visit I was OK with dealing with the past, but only in small self-determined amounts.  So it was much later that I thought of treating the little girl as a part of myself. All things in due time, eh? In this situation, about 65 years later--good grief !

I do not however think it's necessary to fully rationally comprehend each retrieval, particularly of self and loved ones. Someone said to just do it and get out, and that works fine. I started this thread to show (maybe not this fully tho) what some retrievals can lead to.
Especially the weird turns that 'time' takes when in the non-physical!  :)

Many thanks to Alan and all of you who've posted and brought out various aspects of this.  All your comments have helped me alot.

PUL, Bets

Not to worry Bets.  I too have issues in my childhood of sexual abuse.  I can only assume that I've buried tons into my subconscious and that I can benefit from self retrieval work.  Also, I (hope) believe that the more unpleasant stuff to deal with still gets dealt with on levels we choose to not be too consciously fully aware of.  As you say, not everything needs to be fully comprehended.  

When I can delve into and understand the experiences of others, I know it opens me up to my own learning and experiences.  

As for the time factor, I just love anything to do with "out of time".  It's fascinating.  As a matter of fact, the past few days my son and I have been watching all the old Twilight Zone episodes, which make for fascinating conversations.  My son is asking me questions about time and reality the same as I used to ask my mom when I was a child and we watched that show together.  He's so much like me!  Some of his questions give me the opportunity to introduce concepts of nonphysical reality and such, which makes it easy to get him a little familiar with the new stuff I've learned in the past several years I've been on my spiritual quest.  

My questions about your self retrieval were to get an understanding of what little girl was retrieved, a nonphysical girl in a nonphysical situation?  But it sounds like you are saying that you essentially were revisiting a real-life physical-world memory, and then placing your current self there and resolving some issues.  I really like that idea, and that's a type of self-retrieval that's easy to understand and do.  I could give that a try on many situations/memories I can easily think of off the top of my head.  

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing! That was really beautiful.

Good job Betson. Whether the retrieval was done on a part of yourself from this lifetime or a past one is not as important as its successful conclusion. Being a kid and having these incidents happen in our lives has the potential to "kill" a part of us. Your successful retrieval of this moment in your life is the important thing that happened. Really, wasn't that part of you, that time in your childhood, dead? Now fluidity can reenter into your potential spiritual awareness. Movement beyond the experience itself. I think it important to go back and see that little girl again. Just to check and see if there is anything else you need to shair with yourself. Go and give her(you) a big hug and all the love you can muster because loving yourself opens your heart to love others.