“I could feel the sting of every whip of the cane, on my legs, my bum, my hands, my back. I’m jumping in pain, I can’t get away and I keep feeling the stings, one after another … all I wanted at that point was for it to stop, but it didn’t”
Why I Write This
I write, for one, because it’s a process of healing for me thru expression. It fuels my creative streak, where when I am creating, I am in my element, I am in a high vibrational mode .. and conversely downward when I am not creating.
But I also write as I love to help others. I like to tell stories that may inspire others, though at times leaving myself bare in the process. Stories that may help someone in their journey. Something I say may resonate with someone’s own experience. Something I say here may switch on something with someone for the better, an epiphany, a reflection, a paradigm shift? But who knows ehh ? 
I’d love to hear what you the reader take of this. Thank you for reading on.
“ its not about what happens / happened to us but more its about how we choose to live after that ”
Ok .. Here We Go
Its Monday, March 3rd 2025, I had only one client booked in for the morning but she had to cancel, so now I had the day free to plan for myself.
I had woken up before 6am, had my shower and intended to do my Kriya mediation and thereafter some movement based exercises and then get into making some cold pressed juices ….. but hey ho, no !! I started to feel depressed and suddenly out of nowhere this wave of debilitating despair creeped into me, “Its All Too Hard”, feeling the “Doom and gloom”. Seriously, what the hell dude ? 
… but it reality its part of a process that happens now and then. Well read on, this may help you if you experience the same.
The Shit Hits
So I did jack-shit and sadly succumbed to the wave of despair. I unfortunately and consequently, as a coping mechanism, ended up on my floor mattress in my room watching probably my 10th re-run of “The Good Place” … its my comfort binge TV series. Even that wore off and I turned off Netflix and decided to just sleep, something I do very well (and mind you, its about 7.30am only). Sleeping is my hiding place, the “bad world” disappears for a while. And I feel ok and safe just for that special time. But then the “bad world” comes back and I continue to keep finding ways to hide from it.
In my world of understanding as a cognitive therapist, often the injured younger-self calls out thru these sort of feelings and emotions, which are rooted in unresolved, unprocessed trauma and patterns still trapped within the adult body decades later .. in my case five to six decades later.
One helpful strategy I teach clients is the concept of “sitting within the emotions”, simply observing, allowing it to present and play out, without one having to label or judge it … I’m summarizing it here, but there’s a bit more to the process.
The voice in my head went .. “Dude !!!”, “Shouldn’t you be practicing what you preach” ? Truth be told, the process is easier said than done. When one is deep in that unwanted emotional state, it can prove to be hard to detach or side-step to look at it objectively. But it’s a process than can be learnt with repetition.
What’s This About ?
I attempted to sleep, eventually chose not too and / but to go into the emotion. Laying down on the mattress, I dug deep and allowed that feeling to present and envelope me … and I ask the question within, what’s this about ? The answer came back as “BEING SCARED”, “FEAR”, “NOT SAFE”. Man !! it was deep.
Now next question, fear of what ? 
Imagine if you would, a little puppy being beaten unnecessarily and its whimpering and trembling in the corner, now super sensitive to everything and everyone around it, desperately wanting some safety, love and comfort. Well that was what it was like.
Note, this likely would not have presented as it did, if I had chosen not to go in deep and look my demons in the eye.
I kept asking, where is this coming from ? … It’s a process I have learnt over time where my subconscious would show me images, sensations, feelings, etc. I become my own therapist.
The Scene / The Incident
Then the image / scene emerged of me below the age of 10, at the home I grew up in. The image or movie as it were, was as clear as the screen on the TV in my inner mind. The level of detail was amazing.
The scene was at the polished cement pathway between the bottom of the stairs, down from the upper level, leading to the kitchen located towards the back portion of the house.
I was facing the kitchen, to the left was our dining area and the place where I did my homework (btw lots of unwanted emotions anchored there). On the right was an open area and where my dad’s fish tanks were. Oddly enough, it represented a happy place for me, or at least there were no unwanted emotions or patterns anchored to the memory of that place.
The scene was me being repeatedly caned by either my Mum or Grandmother, not totally clear to me whom. But what was clear and prominent to me was the image of the thin long beige bamboo cane, an all too familiar sight in my household and of the that era in the culture I grew up.
I am told that I was a mischievous child and too rather stubborn. Well I do have a stubborn streak, but I also was a happy go lucky, creative, dreamy kid, phlegmatic perhaps. Imagine this kid embedded into a family / household that was structured with lots of rules. Things had to be done in a certain way. I obviously (LOL 
) did not conform, which may explain the amount of whacking I received.
This scene was set in the 1960s, it was a common and acceptable practice back then among the culture in Malaysia, where I’m from, to punish children with really, … any instrument that was close by. Typically the cane and hands were the usual weapons of choice, but these also included slippers, wooden rulers, leather belts, etc … you get the picture. It was common to see children being chased around the house by an adult, the child screaming in fear and these expressions appropriately displayed on their faces. All the races and cultures did it and it certainly was encouraged by all, the Indians, the Chinese, the Malays, the Eurasians. This was Malaysia growing up for a lot of us as I imagine would have been the case across many other parts of the world.
So I was not a special victim, it was not personal, its was just business, to steal a quote from “The Godfather”. It was the “law”, the custom, the norm of the day. But the key factor here is its not what happens to the child or the circumstance around it that “make or seal the wound”. It’s the meaning, perception or energy that the child takes out of it that makes the difference and which creates the “trauma” as we all speak of.
Back to the caning scene, as I lay on my mattress, I allowed myself to walk thru that scene, I could feel the sting of every whip of the cane, on my legs, my bum, my hands, my back. It was surreal. I’m jumping in pain, I can’t get away and I keep feeling the stings, one after another … all I wanted at that point was for it to stop, but it didn’t.
As I lay on my mattress, hugging my pillow, my legs tremble in real time, twitch and move up and down in sync with the scene. I hug the pillow harder, trembling, tears now freely rolling down my eyes 
.. now bear in mind I am a 64 old (errr, young) dude. Recall the mention above re the puppy ?. You get it now.
Ok, A Side Step
A side step here, I have so far in the past refrained from writing in detail about a lot of these sorts events from my childhood as I did not want to portray my parents and carers in a bad light. In truth, they are / were truly wonderful human beings who wanted the best for me always, they would have laid down their lives for me if they needed to. They did what they thought was right for me, in the manner of the resources and knowledge available to them at that era .. yes they had their shortcomings and inadequacies, but I always believe their actions came from a positive intent, although the delivery of it did not seem to mirror that.
I had/have lot of love for them still, no hatred or resentment whatsoever. I hold them close to my heart, with love, fondness and gratitude for their role they played in my life regardless and for the sacrifices they made.
My role now is to come into harmony with the unhelpful perceptions the wounded child holds within.
I’ve always maintained “ its not about what happens / happened to us but more its about how we choose to live after that”. And this is demonstrated in what we do about it, how we think, how we act and how we choose to move forward as a result. THAT is what determines our reality.
Hmmm … Something Happens
I continue to ALLOW the process of me walking thru and sitting with those emotions. In therapy practice, there’s this concept of introducing a “resource factor” to help the consciousness in that space to cope with the issue at hand.
My mind gave the wounded child a suit of metal amour as a resource. Then in an instant, the child felt the protected. The sounds of the cane going clink, clink, deflecting against the metal amour was heard. The cane could no longer hurt him, he was safe, he felt safe.
Bit by bit he started to feel braver and less afraid of what was being afflicted onto him. The metal amour now being his buffer.
The elements of “BEING SCARED”, “FEAR”, “NOT SAFE” start to eventually subside, taper down and its grip, its impact on me lessened and loosened.
I have witnessed the impact this and similar process have had on clients I work with. In essence its about getting the subconscious mind to come into harmony with patterns and triggers where the emotional attachment and any pain associated with the event either dissipates or the emotional charge to it becomes lessened.
But I have no doubt there are more layers to this that I will need to revisit over time.
After a while sitting (well laying down actually ) in that space, the nudge to tell this story emerges. And hence this blog.
I start to feel much better and back to my normal self and next thing I know I am unexpectedly inspired and pounding at the keyboard writing this out.
This is an expression of a concept I talk about which I refer to as, “Creating From Within The Chaos” .. there will be no blog, no lesson learnt, if not for the experience.
The Build Up Before This
The last two years have proved to be challenging and the worst ever experienced (by any contrast) in my adult life. But I guess the word “worst” is not what needs to be used to identify it. Imagine a once beautiful meadow but now being uprooted and reploughed for the purposes of seeding and new growth .. In truth that was what it was about.
The ebbs and flows continued, and sadly my physical body started to consequently pay the price in holding lots of physical pain and other issues emerging. But it ramped up around Nov 2024, my physical body now started expressing heaps and heaps of physical issues. It all happened at once .. it was like parts of my body conspired and planned this ..”Lets hit Tony all at once at 5pm on Tuesday evening”. Boom !! For the first time in my life I actually felt “old”.
In early 2023, I did a 12 day trex in Nepal, amongst the snow and mountains to the Everest Base Camp. Unfortunately with the pains in my body atm, I feel like a pale shadow of the 2023 me, relatively fit and gung ho. He would try and do almost anything. But I know I’ll get back to that level and pass through this current phase. Its just a phase, in my mind with some lessons to present for me to launch from and become even better than ever.
It is said that the physical body manifests those unresolved mental and emotional issues. It’s the last place to get hit and too it’s the past place to get healed even after those mental and emotional issues have been addressed. That’s me currently and I can easily connect all my current physical issues to things that have happened to me years back even to my 20s.
I have already done a lot of work on my self mentally and emotionally, am pretty happy with where I am in that respect. However the physical body needs to heal and catch up. As I see it as my physical body is now evolving, catching up vibrationally to where I need to be. Hence things need to get bad, torn up , broken down to be rebuilt. It’s a process and not necessarily a bad thing, but yeah if I had a choice otherwise …. Hmmmm !
The Need To Trust, Allow And Surrender
My intuition has always been and increasingly spot on for clients and while most of everything I do these days for myself is based on intuition and trust in my inner guidance .. I have found of late though, me dropping into even yet another level of trust and more importantly acting on these with a new sense of resonance ….. and its been next level for me.
Over the last week I felt lots of old emotions resurfacing that I felt I now need to visit and process these.
Oddly too, (and coincidentally) I had recently reconnected with a friend after something like a 1.5 year gap and intuition was telling me this was meant / needed to happen and that too I needed to get into a healing session with her. Those who know me would know that I don’t really go to other healers (very rare) as I get very little from them. Most of my healing and shifts comes from my own work on myself.
She did do a session on me over the weekend. It was a new thing for me, (out of character) i.e. me dropping into another level of allowing and surrendering to the process and too into yet another level of complete trust and comfort with another healer (yep .. yes, duhh …I am weird in that way).
She had an energy that I resonated with owing to the essence of who she is as a being. She applied her own signature mix of Reiki, Miri Miri and Romi Romi. The latter two being words I’m hearing for the first time. Its Mauri in origin.
The synchronicity if it all was that everything she did was exactly what I needed and what I am experiencing today (even yesterday) is what I interpret as a consequential clearing or shift following such sort of sessions.
It not anything, LOL, its got me back into writing. I have not written a blog since Dec 2023, more that a year ago. Strange, what sorcery is this .. hee hee
If there were two words I could impart to people based on my awakening journey over the last 13 years to where I am now. Its TRUST and ALLOW, to let go of the need to know and walk down the path of the unknown, darkness, that it is ok in not understanding the What, Where and How BUT simply trusting and accepting that what needs to happen will present for a reason.
It brings to mind a quote from the movie “CastAway”, where Tom Hanks says “who knows what the tide will bring”.
It does not matter what the experience is or is not. Our reality is created from the manner we CHOOSE to experience that experience. It’s a CHOICE we make.
If you’ve read thus far, I thank you and my blessings to you 
