Wednesday, January 18, 2012

I'm Afraid Of Water

Not when I see it like this, out the window of my friend's condo in Santa Monica,
but when I see it like this, out the window of hell.
My fear is so irrational that once in Ocean City, Maryland, a "friend" threatened to throw me in the water and I bit his arm so hard it surely had to be amputated. At least I hope it did because that's how much I hated him, especially while I screamed, "Please don't, I'm afraid of water, pleeeeeaaase don't!"

"Jean, did I kill a little boy on a water ride of motorized boats when I was 4 years old?" Jean stuttered a little. (AHA!)
"Uh, no honey, you didn't."
"Are you SURE?"

Jean, a friend of my parents, has known me since I was born. This memory of my murderous past had haunted me for years and I finally got enough courage to ask her about it. Surely there's a statute of limitations on killing someone on a motorized boat when you were a child, isn't there?

Jean was more than sure because she'd taken me to that particular street fair and no one had died. I thought she might have been lying. She probably thought I was insane.

When I was 13, my mother, sister and I took the Queen Elizabeth to Cherbourg, France, on our way to Paris to visit our grandparents, which we did every summer. On this particular voyage we met a man who took us down below, to the loading bay. It was wide open and there was a metal chain stretched across the opening. The Atlantic Ocean rushed past in a blue fury, whitecaps dotting the landscape as far as the eye could travel. The man told us to step back and be very careful.

When, many years later, I asked my mother why she let this stranger take us so close to danger she replied that IT NEVER HAPPENED. I'm pretty sure you can't get Alzheimer's at 13 but maybe I was singled out because of my bad perm and braces. Not to mention because I hated my parents.

The only time I went to sleep away camp I was in a pool that had no shallow end. It was a pool specifically designed to teach kids to swim. Terrified, I clung to the edges. Every time this one counselor walked by she'd step on my hands and make me shove off into the middle of the pool where I sputtered and took in water like the Titanic. I hope she's dead now because if I ever find her I'll make her wish she was.

A lifetime of strange water memories. It didn't appear that some of them were real. Then how did I remember them so vividly and what did they have to do with my fear of water? Like the chicken and the egg, which came first, my fear or those incidents?

I meditate and have for over 25 years. I've studied metaphysics longer. I read Shakti Gawain's Creative Visualizations in the 1980's and got in touch with my Higher Self, sometimes known as a spirit guide. It's the voice in your head that tells you what to do, or what not to do. Mine turned out to be a 7 foot tall man with a flowing white beard. His name was Raji and he WALKED TOWARDS ME ON A BEACH during my first meditation about contacting the Higher Self. A beach is next to water in case the cap locked letters weren't enough of a clue.

I depended on Raji for advice until I moved to California and he disappeared. How does a non-human form disappear? One day while I was out hiking I realized he no longer "talked" to me. The next year I had new guides, 4 or 5, depending on the day. They were very loving and encouraging, like Raji, and there was one in particular, a Scotsman, who kept calling me Laddie. And I would reply that I was a Lassie (not the dog) but he didn't seem to care and continued to call me Laddie. He spoke in a Scottish accent and in my entire acting career the Scottish accent is the one accent I could never replicate.

Everyone has a Higher Self. Everyone. You hear the voice but you may discount it as your own. It's not you. It's the voice that tells you to turn right at the stoplight but you turn left and then realize you were wrong. It's the same power that kept showing me a vision of my new apartment in June of last year. The apartment that I eventually moved into.

I worked a lot as a comic the first 10 years I lived here in L.A. I traveled to clubs all over the U.S., Canada and overseas and went to Hawaii once a year. On one trip I was on the island of Maui,  lying on a towel on the beach in front of my hotel. I went into one of my meditations and silently asked why I was so drawn to Hawaii that I cried whenever I left.

And one of my guides answered: "Because this is where you drowned."

22 comments:

  1. You always give me chills.

    In a good way.

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  2. Hmmmm. Creepily fascinating. I also remember a number of childhood and teenage experiences that other people insist never happened. I'm not horribly afraid of water, but when I think about going on a cruise, I remember Titanic. When I think about going out on a yacht, I remember Natalie Wood. I like confirming my fears so I know I have good reasons for them. If you find that camp counselor, let me know. I'll help you out, but you can take the first swing with the baseball bat.

    Love,
    Janie Junebug

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  3. -->That's just creepy.
    I have had a fear of drowning since I was little which Tim knew about. That's why when he first my parents and RAN ME OVER WITH A BOAT, it kind of put a damper on our weekend at the lake.
    I do love to swim despite his efforts to kill me.
    (Here's the story: http://www.websavvymom.com/2009/06/flashback-friday-part-24-meeting.html )

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  4. After that revelation, do you keep going back to Hawaii?

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  5. Joe, I went back to Hawaii many times after that, until I fired my agent and got managers. But they didn't do club bookings.

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  6. My mom has been frightened of boats since I was born. They gave her ether and as she was going under, she dreamed she fell into the water. She won't go on a cruise either.

    I am a hurricane maniac. When there is an Atlantic hurricane I track it for hours at a time.I always need to know where it is. I LOVE being on or near the ocean and I love cruises, but I'm certain that in a previous life I
    died in a hurricane.
    My husband wants to go on a cruise next September. My first reaction was "In HURRICANE SEASON???!!!"

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  7. If you'd like evidence of prior lives, pick up Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss.

    It's probably my favorite book of all time AND WILL SHOCK YOU.

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  8. Incredibly post, Suzy.

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  9. Wow. I have chills. I love my spirit guides. They never steer me wrong. At least not that I know of.

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  10. Suzy, this is beautiful. I did not get chills from reading this. Instead I found comfort. Thank you, sweetheart.

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  11. What about the voices in your head that tell you to do really stupid things? Like lick Rob Lowe to see if he tastes as orange as he looks. Wouldn't you know, my spirit guides are perverted assholes.

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  12. Wow, that was chilling.

    I'm glad I'm not afraid of the water... I had a friend tell me once that I haven't been reincarnated because I'm from space.

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  13. I have always been terrified of my kids drowning in a backyard pool, so we never had one. Now I want to get one--I figure I will be okay with it once I have grandkids. Not sure why that is.

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  14. to do a bad scots accent, copy that creep, gibson, in *braveheart*.

    as for water: i forget how many times i should have drowned... but

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  15. I too have remembered things that others say never happened. Good to know I am not alone...or the only crazy in the world.

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  16. Yikes. That is chilling.

    I have my own water incidents that leave me with a healthy fear. And all of them really happened. I was never sure I wanted to go on a cruise, but I know I don't now.

    Though, I believe in those guides or higher self. I need to spend more time meditating, listening.

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  17. Anonymous10:14 PM

    Your brain is a packed house, is it possible to get SRO tickets? Is there a drink minimum?
    I was telling a friend about my only out of body experience, she told me she has them all the time which is why she never sleeps on planes, she warned that the spirit may never catch up.
    Perhaps you lost Raji over a flyover state or the TSA confiscated him.
    Regardless Laddie, I would heed these voices to be on the safe side, life would be dull without you.
    X David

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  18. This is a fascinating read. I laughed out loud at the part about your mother denying that you went to the ship's hold with the stranger. Braces and bad perms have a way of attracting bad juju.

    And the cruelty of that camp counselor? What a sadist.

    The closest I ever came to drowning in this life (and I'm a good swimmer)was on Maui. True story.

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  19. Oh my God. This was fascinating.

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  20. My God, Suzy. This was powerful. I have nothing left to say but Thank you.

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  21. I am terrified of the water so my dear lord I don't think there there would be enough money in the world to get me on a cruise ship. It's pictures like this that make me scared to death to get on a boat. I can't swim and knowing that my feet aren't planted on the ground and when your on the ocean just the thought of falling in knowing that theres no end to the bottom or how deep the water is I know as soon as I would fall in I wouldn't drown because I would died as soon as I'd fall in.

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