Today I’m going to share a client’s story that illustrates the four phases on the healing process: find it, face it, feel it, and finish it. This story does all of that and more. It is Linda Paquette’s story and it is told in her own words. Linda now lives in Seward AK and operates a series of cabins called Angels Rest. For those of you looking for an exotic vacation spot in unsurpassed beauty Linda’s place has that beauty in spades. It’s got to be one of the most peaceful and inspiring places on the planet. Check out the pictures at www.angelsrest.com They will take your breath away.
Now here’s Linda’s story in her own words.
I first started having troubles with my back when I was in college (ʹ72-ʹ76). At that time I was a skier and as I recall the first time was after a ski trip and something between my shoulders wasnʹt quite right. I had a friend whose mom was a nurse, and she ʺcrackedʺ my back and all was well. However as time went by those types of occurrences would increase. Every time I moved for example (and of course college kids move a lot!). Later I also had a very small girl friend, and Iʹd get her to walk on my back to put things back. My back problems are never a huge issue and usually I could get someone to put it back when needed. I never had to see professional help at that point. Time passes and I moved to NYC and was managing a chic gift & candy store. On Valentineʹs day in ʹ81 I had to lift and set down a huge, heavy jar full of candy, multiple times. The next day I could barely walk, sit, bend over. I had a herniated disk in my lower back, but it took a while to find that out because the store didnʹt have any medical insurance and neither did I; nor did I have any $ for a doctor. So, the owners sent me to their chiropractor that they loved, and he helped a lot, but he also said I needed to stop working and lay in bed for about a month. Which, of course I could not do. So, time passes and I donʹt get better, gradually get worse and by the end of April Iʹm hospitalized and put in traction for three weeks. At the end of the three weeks I felt really well and could walk painlessly when they sent me home. I left within a few days on a cross country trip to Michigan to start a new job (I had actually at that time discovered my dream to move to Alaska, and while I had not been able to land a job in Alaska, I had been able to find a job in Michigan, which I figured was a good preview of what an Alaskan winter would be like (since MI actually has worse weather than AK), and would cut my distance to travel when I did get a job in AK. I either walked too much before I left on the trip, or the sitting on the trip did me in; either way, I got as far as my boyfriendʹs parents house in Ohio (he was driving) and was a goner. Couldnʹt walk, bend over, sit, etc. Went to their favorite chiropractor who helped some but not enough to get me better. There was no way I could care for myself, nor start my job in MI; so my car and the trailer full of stuff we were towing all went into a storage unit and I flew to California to stay with relatives until I was well again. Basically a month there not doing anything and I was well enough to get around. In Michigan I found a chiropractor right away and started by going several times a day, every day, 5 days a week. I was really ʺtweeked.ʺ Heʹd get me all good and by noon or evening Iʹd be out again. Months of this went by and then years, gradually weaning back to once a day 5 days a week, to 3 days a week to once a week, once every two……eventually, by the time I came to see you, it was about once a month or two. BUT, Iʹd go home just about every day and have my husband crack my upper back. Iʹd just go to the chiropractor when my lower back would be out which was the serious part (even back then, the back problem had involved the right hip, sciatica down the right leg, etc.), the upper part was easy to take care of at home. Time passes which brings me to my introduction to you and our first session.
My husband and I had friends that we normally spent most of the weekend with. One Friday night the wife, Jan, wanted to go to see a healer doing a talk at Michigan State University. (Iʹm thinking this was right around ʹ90 or ʹ91?) The healer, she told me was good at healing present day problems through past lives. I had gone to a psychic several times and believed in past lives. I have from my first memories, as almost a baby, the deepest sense that I was looking for someone (a man). I will jokingly tell people
I was disappointed by the delivery doctor, because in the womb I was sure HE was THE ONE I was to find. Thatʹs how far back this sense of ʺheʹs out here somewhere, I just have to find himʺ goes. So, the past lives part was a no brainer and going with her made perfect sense to me; I was and still am very curious about how all of this ʺstuffʺ that life is made up of works! (I have a long history of psychic~ness myself and to this day wonder if Iʹm supposed to do something more than I do with it). So, we attended. It was held in a large room in one of the upper parts of one of the older buildings on the north side of the MSU campus. I remember being surprised at how many people were there; AND how during the course of the night you were able to elicit such incredible emotional reactions out of the group.
Iʹm not one for letting my hair down to such an extent, in public, and you managed to get a huge room of people all crying and wailing and some laughing in a hysterical manner. My friend was one of those, and because of my reaction to her reaction I was unable to let loose with the rest of them. But I was all the more curious! So, at the end of the evening I put my name on the wait list for a private session. If you were able to touch those people in a public session, I very much was interested in seeing what we could do in a private session. My friend signed up for the next day, when you were having a small work group of pairs of people (as I recall). I couldnʹt see myself letting loose to that extent even in front of a small group of people.
As I recall I got a call on Monday at work that you could see me Tuesday; there had been a cancellation. I remember as I parked and walked up to the house in the neighborhood behind Frandor how strange I found my behavior. Here I was walking into a house of someone I didnʹt know to meet privately with a man I did not know, with no one else around and at that point, my husband not even knowing where I was. (I certainly donʹt think I could have done such a thing if I were still living in NYC for example.)
Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Oranienburg, Germany
So, in I go and you had a massage table or the like set up and nice music and I laid down and you placed your hands on my abdomen and your breath caught and you said ʺyouʹve been through the warsʺ with an incredible amount of compassion in your voice, and I BURST INTO TEARS!!!! I was overcome with the feeling that ʺfinally, someone who knows me.ʺ Shortly thereafter you coaxed me to describe the images I was seeing and a movie came forward of me in a Nazi concentration camp, in love with a Nazi officer who was using me yet at the same time claiming to protect me. My ʺjobʺ was to carry the dead out of the gas chambers and throw them in the pits/piles of other bodies. His promise to me was that as soon as he could he would get me out of there. My back problems all came from these activities, the lifting and carrying, or dragging when I could not lift (but the officers didnʹt like me to drag them, the wanted them carried). My back finally gave out on me, and I was no longer able to perform my job; my ʺboyfriendʺ was unable to protect me, and I was eventually stripped and gassed. My dying words were ʺit isnʹt fair, it isnʹt fair, it isnʹt fair……ʺ
Immediately I realized my entire life, one thing that had always caused me much pain and heartache were acts of un-fairness. It was always deeply upsetting to me, my entire childhood and adult life when things would happen that werenʹt fair. I used to meditate on ʺno where is it written hat life is fairʺ as a way to try to overcome this huge issue in my life. Suddenly, that all fell away. I no longer had a problem with fairness.
Secondarily, and it took a little while for this to become clear; I no longer asked my husband to crack my back and my visits to the chiropractor dropped to once in a year maybe; usually after some precipitating incident, like a move, or a badly designed desk/chair setup.
Finally, the whole ʺheʹs out there Iʹve just got to find himʺ all suddenly made sense to me. Iʹd always imagined a guy in a uniform; and here was a guy in a uniform. Plus, to follow the hole past lives thing through, it would have most likely been the very last life, since I was born in ʹ54. Interestingly enough, my first husband was German, liked to dress up in his band uniform, and looked A LOT like the guy in my vision…..
It was, as I have the numerous people to whom Iʹve shared this story ʺthe best money I ever spent!ʺ
