Adventures in The Process® is an on-going series of articles by Shana Kuhn-Siegel detailing her experiences of powerful transformation while doing The Process® with founder International Scherick.
Part IV - Lean, Mean Believing Machine
Part III - Abundance: Sound Your Note
Part II - The Process Continues...
Part I - Truth Is a Process
Adventures in The Process®
Part I -- Truth Is A Process
by Shana Kuhn-Siegel
"No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. There is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe what you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes... remember, all I am offering is the truth, nothing more."
-- Morpheus, in The Matrix
I may not be the lead in a blockbuster Sci-Fi film and the matrix I challenge looks different than the one I saw in brilliant Technicolor, but there is something about Morpheus’ speech that feels very familiar and resonates deeply. Call it karma, call it what you will, but somewhere along the way I decided to take the proverbial red pill and have been running after the truth ever since, or so I thought.
Six months ago, I realized that the pill I sucked down long ago must have been a placebo, a phony red pill manufactured by an old belief system that sabotaged my power and left me in a constant state of inertia and ennui.
The real red pill is something that cannot be disguised.
It would take meeting the real-life Morpheus to offer this new experience. His name is International Scherick and I met him at his home in Cotati, CA.
It all began when I arrived at this beautiful barn in the middle of an otherwise unspectacular city off the freeway in Northern California on a typically overcast day. I was with a group of women who I had traveled west with for a retreat with a leader in the raw vegan food movement. We all spilled out of the minivan buzzing with anticipation of what was to come. When the barn door opened and we crossed the threshold, the space felt just right - a huge kitchen with a kettle already started for tea, couches and chairs organized in a circle around a blazing fire, and a sense that great care had been made for our arrival. None of us knew quite what to expect, but we stepped into that space with trust and faith, allowing the process to speak for itself.
We all took our seats around a man called International, whose powers were only known to us through our group leader’s experience working with him. I was nervous, but in classic position, saddled myself right next to International in the circle. He started to share his experience in Hollywood as a screenwriter, the power of story and myth and the insight these forms held for transformational work. I was completely captivated. This was the real red pill. So, I swallowed.
What unfolded was sheer magic. International’s focus shifted to each one of us, asking permission and then giving us each the option, whether we wanted to begin sharing or let him intuit his way into our particular situations. He appeared to be conducting a symphony of our emotions. One moment he would summon a feeling of resistance in one of us and the next would yield ecstatic bliss. All the notes were there: pain and pleasure, happiness and sorrow, control and vulnerability, shame and pride, fear and courage, anger and sensitivity. International’s ability to hold the space was remarkable.
I left the barn that day exhilarated by what had taken place. The feeling was not the kind of high I was used to. It was the opposite of intoxication. This feeling was complex, expansive and very deep. I felt ignited. I felt joy. The experience of being in the barn and receiving powerful reflection while in the company of other women opened the floodgates for me.
I have continued to work with International over the past several months and the experience has been extraordinary. I see how deep the rabbit hole really is. With incredible support, I have begun to surrender old belief systems that no longer serve me or anybody else in my life for that matter. The steps that I have taken have not always been easy because the terrain can be really rough, but the experience is like nothing I ever dreamed possible.
Every journey takes us toward the truth, to one degree or another, and we get to decide how fast we want to drive. Over and over we confront the fork in the road that asks, “Do you want to live in the truth or do you want to live in the lie?” In Sanskrit the word is satya, defined as truth, reality, being, or ease. But what does this look like in practice? What does it mean to live in, or even as, truth? The work that I am doing with International has given me the support that I need to challenge the real world matrix that we occupy, so that I may orient myself in a way that fosters greater success.
I am learning to let go of control and to receive the guidance of the Divine. When I orient myself using the power of intuition, I see that life is miraculous. I seem to run into the people whom I need to meet, I find myself speaking with sincerity and compassion and the need to defend and protect seems to fall away. All other ways of behaving now feel false and excruciatingly painful. But it is a process, as all things are, and, as I have come to experience, there is never an end, as much as sometimes my ego would like there to be.
Instead, I keep showing up, unearthing more and more, so that I may live in the highest expression of myself and in doing so, offer that experience to others. Imagine living a life of limitless magic. I believe that it is possible.