My Experience in Barbados

Heart of the Initiate - Barbados - January 2002

An experience of my life I will never forget. Looking back at it now - two months later - it is more clear than ever how this has been the major turning point for me. I have a pre-Barbados life and a post-Barbados life. Both are so different. In the pre-Barbados life - I was often sad - alone - withdrawn - and so stuck in pain. Most of all - my Heart was closed. The hardest thing in the world for me was to really be close to people - really be open to them.

Then I came to Heart of the Initiate. My good friend Ralph had contacted me a few months before, when he saw a post on a discussion forum that I had written. He saw the pain, the fear but also the deep desire I had to open my heart. So Ralph invited me to Barbados - to come and experience the heart energy for the first time in my life. I knew I had to go - I felt it in my Heart. The seminar really began at that moment - when Ralph contacted me. Because whenever I chatted with him on the Internet - or whenever I spoke to him on the phone - I literally felt my Heart Chakra so strongly. It blew me away - I had never experienced anything like that in my life.

So I went to Barbados - and it did change my life in so many ways - many more than I had dared to dream before. As soon as I arrived there - I experienced the true warmth of Heart people - the Heart gang as we call them sometimes. And so my frozen heart melted - it opened. The first few days - lots of old pain came flowing out in the form of tears... And then joy & life came in - more and more. By the time I went back to my country - only ten days later - I was completely transformed. For the first time in my adult life - I knew my strength - my beauty - my wisdom. I knew it was all inside myself. I knew there was no outside source to look for. I knew that listening to my heart was my way.

Coming back to my regular surroundings - home - some might have thought that the effects of Heart of the Initiate might well have been wonderful - but they would eventually peter out and disappear - as life regained its normal rhythm.

What happened was the complete opposite. I experienced a blast wave of energy - a wave so strong that sometimes it felt like almost too intense... That blast wave of heart energy transformed every aspect of my life - nothing was left as it was before - nothing. Existing friendships deepened, new friendships came my way, new opportunities arose, my work-life was transformed (while before I hated going to work I now actually have fun at work and my boss is now like a friend to me)...

While before in my life, I had shunned romantic relationships - within three days of landing back in Europe - I met a sweet girl who I spent four beautiful days with, days filled with heart, love & caring... Later, going back to my home country - without looking for it - a new relationship knocked at my door - this time of a depth and intensity I had not thought was possible before. It wasn't trouble-free at all - but it taught me many things... I started learning about life and love at a geometric rate. It's like life around me speeded up to show me the things that I needed to learn and experience.

With that learning - with those new experiences - old pain came up to be healed. Life does not become pain-free once you start following your heart - but you learn that there is a place beyond the pain - beyond the ego - a place that is eternal - a place that is you... Pain doesn't have the same meaning as before - it's not threatening anymore - it's just part of life - part of being human. There's beauty - even in pain. One of the greatest realizations for me has been to discover that if you really accept whatever you feel - if you really agree to feel it without either holding on to it or pushing it away - then emotions can flow freely. And that's when you feel you are really alive - when emotions flow freely. Because it means that you are alive - that you experience life - with the beauty - the pain - the joy - the sadness - the enthusiasm - and most of all the love.

So now I'm there - two months and a week later - and I see now that Heart of the Initiate in Barbados was the start of a new life for me. Where it will lead me - I cannot say. I can only say that going to Barbados was beyond any doubt the most important and best decision I ever made in my life.

- Pascal Cauwe