Daughter on Bail

Written 2000. Updated April, 2014.

Excerpts from ‘Coming to Ones Senses – By the Way’

One of 130 stories from life

A story from life of a young woman who profoundly changes her way of being and acting for the better after a very brief encounter

Introduces Laceweb Healing Ways,

hints of ways of being guided by the context -

embraces storytelling artistry,

and introduces relational mediating

A father I know is introducing me to his wife and they together ask me whether I can help their 19-year-old daughter who is facing charges for seriously hurting an elderly couple in the early hours of one morning…..

…the Daughter had crashed into the couple’s car while she was speeding under the influence of drugs and alcohol….

…….…and at the time of crashing…the daughter had had her license cancelled because of drug affected drink driving offences.....

The parents tell me that their daughter is ‘very difficult to live with’. …and that before the crash….the daughter had been living elsewhere….

....apparently the prosecution had resisted the granting of bail as in their view….the daughter presented a clear and present danger of re-offending…..

...the daughter’s barrister had arranged for bail to be granted conditional upon the daughter living with her parents and regularly seeing the local minister of the parent’s church in his pastoral care role….and the daughter detested having to abide by these conditions….

…and with all of this…the parents are very concerned that their daughter who is strong-willed..…impulsive…..and very ‘angry with everything’ would ….in all probability….breach her bail conditions…..and then have to wait in jail for the trial that could be up to 18 months away….

…and another complicating factor is that the daughter is resisting seeing anyone else for support and is generally refusing to listen to her parents...

…..yet another complicating factor is that their daughter.…shortly before the crash had become pregnant while under the influence of drugs and alcohol… and she has no idea whom the father is...

…..this had turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy...…a pregnancy that developed in one of her fallopian tubes.......which in turn had become infected.....and the pregnancy terminated….. and all of this had added to her emotional upheaval….and she had gained a lot of weight from the complications. …..

..so in all of this it seems clear that the daughter would probably refuse to see anyone unless a very good reason is found to do so. ...

.....so I ask the parents what they sense the daughter wants most of all right now....and the parents say that their daughter detests her weight gain…and her lack of body mobility…....she wants to loose weight.......gain more energy.....get flexible and get fit.....

....so I give the parents a short video of me talking with another person demonstrating graceful movement…

...so the parents show this video to their daughter and it really appeals to her......and she agrees to be at home and meet me one evening with both her parents present.

...on the evening I arrive after dinner and answer some of the daughter’s questions about how the person in the video became so graceful and flexible......

.....while I’m talking with her I notice that she is using what can be called ‘the sobbing breath’…breathing in through the nose.…and then holding for some time…then discharging the breath in a series of small explosive discharges through the mouth...…like one is quietly sobbing…...and this is commonly done in suffering…and my experience is that this breathing pattern soon has the one using it feeling awful….

…and this sobbing breath of the daughter reminds me of a time when I was in a human resources role for a large multinational company…and a member of the national executive asks me to interview a candidate for a State Manager position.…

The executive had interviewed this candidate who seemed to be ideal for the job…though the executive sensed that there was something about this candidate that he could not quite pick…and so the executive asks me to ‘check the candidate out’.....and the executive tells me that as his interview with the candidate had gone on for some time....the candidate may want a tea or coffee.....

I was introduced to the candidate and the executive left....then I asked the candidate whether he would like a drink and he asked for a coffee....and as I was passing him to tee up the coffee I heard him do a sobbing breath....

I turn and sink down onto my knees on the carpet beside his chair bringing my head down to his level and say in a very caring and gentle voice….

Are you alright?

He replies…..

…..this is much harder than I thought it would be.

I reply, again in a very caring and kind voice……

And would you like to…..share something about that?

Words pour out of the candidate as if he is talking to himself aloud....with silences between his utterances....

I thought I was ready.....

Now I know I am not.....

It’s all too stressful......

I need more time.....

We talked about this last week.....

I told him I’d be okay, and he wasn’t so sure.....

He talks about being in a psychiatric hospital for the past nine months after having a stress-based breakdown.

A number of times he says that he had no intention of bringing all this up in the interview....and that he did not know why he was telling me all this .....and that I reminded him of one of the people who had supported him at the hospital.....and he tells me that he’d mentioned none of this to the executive who had carried out the first interview......

Typically....business interviewers may never notice a brief change in breathing patterns.....and kneeling down on the carpet beside a candidate is never part of business protocols....and my change in voice tone to caring concern was not consistent with a job interview.....

By this time I also had been exposed to Laceweb Ways...and what I’d said to him contained an embedded suggestion:

Would you like to…..share something about that?

The latter part of the sentence implies,

be open

He had shared very private and personal things with me as I had left the role of a job interviewer and entered the role of a compassionate nurturer.

I asked what he wanted to do. He said that he wanted to leave and re-admit himself to the hospital. I left it open for him to re-contact our organisation if he wanted to, and that I would not mention anything he had told me in confidence to anyone else unless he gave me clearance to do so.

He said he would still have the coffee before he left, and he composed himself while I was away. I later told the executive that the candidate wanted time to think about the job and that he would get back to us if he was interested. So all of this from noticing the soft sobbing breath as I was passing the candidate.

Now back to the Daughter on Bail story......I did not mention her sobbing breath pattern to her......and I have the daughter experience having both of her arms stretched out in front of her...and then gently extending her left arm further....by discovering how her shoulder can.....become involved in the reach....and soon she has discovered how to have her left hand around 13 centimetres (5 inches) in front of her right hand....discovering embodied learning.

....then she discovers how to do this with her right hand....and in doing this....her shoulders have become very flexible without any exercise....just through increasing awareness of function.....and discovering what is possible in the moving......

She tells me that doing exercises easily tires her....and that she would be pleased to see me again and have me help her to become flexible without having to do a lot of exercise...and then she says that she’s very tired and wants to go to bed...and she tells me that she has not been sleeping very well at all....

I say...

If you want to…..before you go to bed…….I could briefly show you…..how to…become relaxed very quickly…and…go into deep sleep.....

...she agrees to this and I ask her if she would be comfortable lying on her back on the rug with her legs long and her arms long with her hands down near her hips....and she agrees and does this....

It’s winter time....and it’s cold outside....and very cosy inside...and as she’s lying there.....both of her feet are pointing to the roof. The rug is very soft and comfortable and provides good support....the room is comfortably warm....and there’s an open fire that is making the crackling sounds that fires make....

Going back there now…..I ask her mother to kneel beside her on the daughter’s heart (emotional) side.....and her father to kneel near her liver (energy) side.....

...so you both can see what we are doing...

And the parents and daughter are okay with this.

I don’t mention about heart/emotion or liver/energy.

It’s a very cold night and I still have my coat on that I had worn on the previous weekend in the hills and in wrapping the coat around me as I sit down I feel ‘pebbles’ in my pocket....and I recall that I had attended a healing gathering on the previous weekend and that the ‘pebbles’ are rose quartz pieces that I happen to have in my coat pocket and during that weekend we had been sharing experiences of using crystals in healing.....and I had no previous thought of using them this night……

I ask the daughter if it is okay for me to sit on the rug behind her head (between her and the fire)...and with her agreeing to this...I say to the daughter...

...and as you’re lying there….…getting comfortable…..perhaps you can…….close your eyes…....now……and just be aware of how ……you are breathing…and I’ll place some little pebbles on your chest…..to help you.… notice your breathing more…....and help you….notice how your breathing changes as you breathe ......as….our breathing…begins to change.…..is that okay?

She closes her eyes....and says...

Yes....

…….and I then make the sign of a cross above their daughter’s chest to her very religious parents………and silently indicate where I’m going to place small pieces of rose quartz in a cross pattern…pieces large enough for the daughter to feel their presence….

…and I carefully place one on the middle of her breast bone…..on the midline…..then one to the right and another to the left of the midline…..then one above the middle piece…….and two aligned below…..so they are all in the cross formation…..and then I place a slightly larger piece of rose quartz above her heart …..

………and I press it down slightly as the daughter exhales in a series of little sobbing breathes…..then at a particular moment in her breath cycle ……...I take my finger down swiftly from pressing on the quartz over her heart to very slightly depress the lowest piece of quartz on her midline near her belly….

...and my slightly depressing the lowest piece of quartz increases potentially her subjective sense of its weight over her pelvic area……

....and as I touch the lowest piece I quietly say…

…..just to….notice what’s happening down here….

…..and as soon as I say this……..the daughter’s sobbing breath changes to slow belly breathing…..and her face begins to change….to……becoming more relaxed now…..

......and I silently draw the parents’ attention to her breath-change……and to her face relaxing……..and signal for them to remain quiet…..

…..and the daughter’s breath is now becoming deeper……..in through the nose....…and out through her mouth in a continuous flow…....and now her breathing is starting to become even deeper as the daughter begins to raise her knees…..and the daughter is transforming herself without any direction from me……and continues to transform aspects of her being….

……..and now her belly begins to rise as she breathes in………now through her mouth……

…and her belly squeezes in to express her breath out of her mouth…and then her pelvic bridge becomes involved…rotating down as she begins now breathing into her pelvic area…with her belly rising as she breaths……and her pelvic bridge rolling up in the direction of her nose as she is expressing the air……and this is now becoming full-on slow…highly-energised pelvic thrusting….with metaphoric energy links to pregnancies .....and her head begins to come off the ground with the exhaling breath…and lower to the rug on the in-taking breath…..…and all of the quartz pieces begin falling off and are recovered by me and put away…….

……..and while this is happening……I silently reassure the parents that this is all okay…….and a good thing…

….and on the exhaling breath the daughter begins a very loud and long ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh’ sound……about seven of these……getting less intense and shorter each time…… and then the daughter extends her legs to become lying flat on the rug with her legs very relaxed now…..with toes pointing to the sides….and her face is looking absolutely angelic……

After a little time… the daughter’s breathing changes to very gentle in-the-nose-out-of-the-mouth breathing….and she’s very…very…….sleepy……

………and she rolls up into a very relaxed foetal position (relaxed in contraction) and nestles her head on her mother’s lap for a time…...and then she lazily and with feeling says ‘thank you’ to her mother…..….and then she rolls over and curls up again into a foetal position with her head nestled on her father’s lap….…..and then…..after a time she again says ‘thank you’ to her father…...then she suddenly pops up and stretches (contraction in extension)……..(a complete reversal of extension in contraction.....relaxed foetal....

.......and with a smile she sweetly says…

….‘Goodnight, I’m off to bed’….

...and promptly disappears……...and now the parents are totally intrigued …..and they don’t know what to make of what they had just witnessed.

I say…..

….wait and see…..as you may………have a new daughter in the morning.

The next day the mother rings me to say that indeed they do have a new daughter…she is relaxed….loving….and cuddly…wanting a good-morning hug….something she had not done since she was very young.....

And this was the daughter who had been distant and very difficult to live with…

The daughter had told her mother that last night lying on the rug…as soon as the ‘pebbles’ were placed upon her……it felt like all over her chest was a pink glow 2.5 centimetres….one inch…..deep that felt wonderful……. and that she was out in the countryside on a mild day….....and she’s lying under a very pale blue sky….and she’s lying on soft green grass……. and when she started saying ‘aaaaaaagh’…she could see what was like a jet black oil geyser spurting out of her belly……way up into the sky till it disappeared ……and with each subsequent ‘aaaaaaah’ another black geyser spurted out of her belly…..and with each spurt the wonderful pink feeling descended further into her belly until all the darkness had gone and she was left with the delightful pink feeling all through her belly and pelvis...

The mother said that the daughter, to her knowledge, had never experienced anything like this before. She had never experienced any trance work, or use of imagery. The black geyser made sense somehow to the mother as being connected to the ectopic pregnancy.

I do not discuss what had happened with the mother, or explain anything...

I thank the mother for the call and say words to the effect that everything was very encouraging. The mother said she would keep me posted as to how her daughter was going. Over the subsequent weeks and months the daughter remained very relaxed, caring and loving... had excellent relations with both her mother and father...had no contact with her former drinking and drug-taking associates...did not use alcohol to excess...did not take drugs...did not drive...and began going out with a boy whom had shown interest in becoming her friend for some time....became engaged to him and married him......and all of this was taken into account during her trial......

I only ever saw the daughter the once…and did not speak with her following that first night……seems my role as……catalyst for transforming …was finished….