I don’t want to have to work!” I heard a part of me yell this morning for perhaps the millionth time.

Over the years, I have related to this voice in myriad ways. I have told her to suck it up. I’ve pummeled her over the head with pillows. I’ve pulled out the belt and looked her sternly in the eye. I’ve run around her yelling “Fire! Fire!” until she got on board and helped me to get the thing done.

Today, I beheld her. Beholding is a transformational meditation taught to me by the most gifted healer I’ve ever known, (Elise in my book), who kind of brought me back from the dead.

I go into more depth in “Awe,” but here’s the gist: We interpret our experiences when they happen, including when we’re really young, and we often get it wrong. Beholding calls forth a part of ourselves that’s misinterpreted reality, and allows us to dialogue with it and to heal it. Though she’s since retired, Elise’s tool beholding was about to bring me back from the dead yet again.

As I beheld Ms. “I don’t want to have to work!” I both sensed and understood that she had escaped from life by being a victim, one that’s had a “hard enough life” to be able to say (with the back of her hand on her pale brow!) that she plans to lie down for the rest of her time on Earth.

I told Ms. that I didn’t want to lay in bed for the rest of my life, that I want to help, to be a part of it all, to risk and live and have adventures. I told her that others have had hard lives too, some much harder than mine, and that they can’t give up and go to bed, either.

As she released this age-old pattern, Ms. had a couple of requests: Don’t be too hard on me she said. I’m not really a jerk. I just wanted to separate from life to protect myself from further pain.

The first one who’s never wanted to separate from this life, go ahead: Cast the first stone.

She told me she’s willing to fully live and contribute again. She said not to rush or force or worry about money—that these things don’t help and they’re habits that will get in the way now, now that she’s coming on board to live.

She’s coming back to life to contribute and help.

I feel immeasurably tired.

Now that I don’t need to whip her or cajole her or terrify her into action, I notice sadness, like I’ve lost something.

Maybe it’s years that I’ve lost.

It feels like I’ve been losing time for centuries.

I have nothing to show for it. Where have I been all my lives?

I’m getting out of bed, do you hear me? I’ve put on my clothes. I’m walking outside and into the world to live at long last. I’m going to help. I’m going to live. I’m joining in.

Why was hiding my top priority above all else for so, so long? Why was I so unwilling to join humanity in our shared joys and sorrows? Before this lifetime, I’ve never been brave.

I take my brave now in spades.

Working Elise in my 20s, I began to claim my own power and hold onto it and do good things with it. I’ve faced countless dragons in my own heart since and healed them. Facing all those emotions took years and I stood my ground, my knees knocking together, as the dragons breathed smoke and fire and fear and grief and threw their best at me and I did not leave.

But now that I have become the dragon rider, now that it’s time to turn and fly out into the world, what I face is the countless old women in their beds.

I must face all those who would rather turn their heads to the pillow and die than live again in all that world, with all those people. People who can and do hurt each other in unpredictable ways.

I re-sheathe my sword. I roll my shoulders back. This dragon, she and I, we are ready. So why do I sit weeping in the cave’s entryway? I don’t understand. Is it really hiding that I grieve? Or is it that whatever life’s great losses were, the ones that swore me into hiding, that they now would take their fair sacrifice.

I look at my boots. Big thick tears plop onto the soft gray leather.

In one of those early sessions with Elise, we healed the belief that if I showed my sexuality, I’d be hurt again like I was when—as the only one in my class to go through puberty at 10—my peers bullied me.

I told her about the guy “Hans” I met at 19 in college—how when I’d first seen him I heard a voice in my head say “I’ve got to know that man.” How I’d flirted with him for months and finally hooked up with him after a party, when I’d been drinking. How, when he’d called me the next day and the alcohol had worn off I could not bring myself to call him back.

Are you letting in what this belief has cost you?” Elise asked me then. Using her fine tools, beholding among them, we shifted this belief. I wasn’t hurt because I was a sexual woman, or due to puberty it turned out, but because I hadn’t claimed my power and authority and stood up for myself.

And so I did. And I can and do that now. And I’ve enjoyed an ecstatic love life since then, thank you.

So maybe these tears upon healing the need to hide and sleep my life away recall Elise’s question:

Are you letting in what this belief has cost you?

I look out into the wild blue yonder with the valley below.

I forgive you, I hear my dragon heart say.

Okay then.

I cry a bit more. Then, I dig my heels into this wild beast’s scaled golden sides.

I put my arms around her neck. The tears stream down. The sun arcs past its zenith. I remember what she said, this beloved beheld aspect of me, as she changed into my ally ready to live the remainder of my days.

You won’t need to force or rush, now that I’m back.

Are you ready?” I ask the dragon. The dragon breathes steam through her nostrils and smiles.

As she swoops out into the air, I hang on and close my eyes. Then, I open them one tiny crack at a time. The cool air surprises my eyeballs. The sun shines golden overhead. I have no idea what’s coming. But I’m heading in.