From the Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity

I’m currently working through my issues with a wonderful therapist and she gave me this story adapted from the Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity by Edwene Gaines, and it is worth sharing:

I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, so I know full well the devastation that kind of betrayal can cause in a person’s life. From the time I was four months old until I was four years old, I was sexually abused so badly that it almost killed me.

I had a particularly difficult time dealing with the effect it had on my self-esteem, and for many years I played the victim.

I will be eternally grateful for a teacher who one day abruptly called me on my act. In order to heal this childhood trauma, what you’ve got to do is create a new story about it, he told me. Okay, here’s your new story. Try this one on and see if it works for you. You came onto this planet to be a woman of power. Your soul chose this pathway, and because you chose it, you also chose to take an initiation in the misuse of power at a young age. During this initiation you leaned what it feels like when power is misused, and it is horrible. Therefore, it is now safe for you to be a woman of power in the world because you know now that you would never misuse nor abuse this power. And in this process, you have gained the most valuable of all spiritual gifts — the understanding heart.

My world reeled from this and cracked open a bit. It didn’t happen overnight, but little by little, one day at a time, I began to embrace this wonderful new story, a saga that completely reordered my personal history. It made me feel powerful rather than helpless, and it allowed me to give up the role of victim.

It also brought to mind the coaching of another teacher who told me Never ask a ‘why’ question. There are no absolute answers to why questions. But if you absolutely have to ask why, at least have the good sense to make an answer that pleases you.

Reframing the abuse has helped me to achieve peace of mind, and that is a joy.

The Void

For now the void is unknowable,
unreachable,
untouchable.

The void exists.
it is called many names,
it brushes this world.
Those in the void can reach through any time
with our blessing

Touch our lives,
guide us through
flashes of insight;
brush up and trigger
once forgotten memories.

Those who have crossed over
to the void do not cease to exist
for as long as any echoes
of their lives remain.

They are here.
Part of this world.
Part of the lives that we lead.

Those in the void are capable of
achieving their best.
Achieving what they intended
on this earth.

Their intentions are not hampered
by human flutterings, failings and frailty.

The void is filled with love.
The void is.
And those who have crossed over
through the veil
that  separates this world
from that:

They are not truly gone.
They are in a place where
they can understand what we mean
That we loved them.

They reach out and touch us
with the love
that they wished to be able to
express when they were with us.

They send whispers on the wind
to guide us,
to remind us
that we are loved.

Music For Mom

My mom passed away one month ago today, and it just felt right to put together a short playlist of significant songs.

The Rose by Bette Midler:

This is the first song that I ever remember listening to you with you…and we both really loved it.

Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel

The lyrics are very apt at the moment. And you introduced me to Watership Down, along with so many other books. Thanks for that, mom!

The Soft Goodbye by Celtic Women

Because this list would be very incomplete without a nod to your Irish heritage, and I know you enjoyed this album from Celtic Women the most.

Spirit of the Great Heart by Johnny Clegg

For so many reasons…the dogs, the memories of trips to the bush, the fact that you were a huge fan of Johnny Clegg. This video even has a lilac breasted roller! (And a chameleon.)

Forgiveness

One of the things that people keep telling me is that any wrong that I did towards my mom has been forgiven on her death. And part of me wants to scream at them: BUT HOW DO I FORGIVE HER?

How do I let go of all of the hurts and wounds that she inflicted on me. And some of the things that my mom did were pretty terrible.

I don’t know how to just let go of that hurt…and it is not exactly something that I am going to discuss with my family at the moment.

My mom was a good woman…she also abused me. People are like that, more than a single thing…more nuanced than we can ever begin to express or understand.

I don’t want to carry around this burden of anger and hurt…but I don’t know how to just let it go.

Soundtrack to this post: Metallica, “The Unforgiven”

 

What I wish my mom had told me

My mom touched a lot of lives and knew a lot of people. And in a quirk of fate, or circumstance, I was the person that people spoke to most. Possibly, because I was the most visible person or possibly because I appeared to be the calmest. (I think it can be frightfully intimidating to have to speak to the recently deceased’s family).

But for whatever reason a number of “strangers” spoke to me. And they largely spoke of the same things…my mother’s character as they knew it, that she was a kind, loving person. And how much she loved both me and my sister.

How proud my mom was of me. How much she loved me…and relished tales of my travels.

I wish that my mom could have told me those things.

But I understand that she couldn’t. My mom was also a very hurt soul…the things that she endured as a child were horrible. And while what she went through did not excuse what she put me through it helps with understanding…and understanding helps with compassion.

One of the things that I said after my mom died is that we each loved each other as best we could. And we did…and the thing that is sometimes difficult to remember is that humans are fallible, and sometimes it’s difficult to say things. Even if we want to.

The Soundtrack

I don’t do feelings very well. I don’t know if that is just the way I was originally wired or if it is a coping mechanism.

My sister-in-law made the comment that I didn’t really cry over my mom’s death which is not entirely true…but is not entirely false either. The truth is I battle to feel on the facts. Perhaps, it’s because of my professional training…perhaps, it’s a quirky personality trait.

But given the correct soundtrack I will go from emotionless robot, the strong person, to a blubbering puddle in the floor on no time flat. In fact the thing that made me the most nervous about delivering my mom’s eulogy was whether or not it would be to soon after one of the hymns in the funeral.

So it seems fitting that I admit the soundtrack to my grief at the moment. There are two songs that I have always used in difficult times…when I was dealing with the aftermath of being raped and ever since.

Firstly, Jane Siberry’s “Calling All Angels” and Secondly, Jimmy Eat World “Hear You Me”.

I was surprised in the funeral with the one prayer that the priest said…The constant refrain was “May angels lead you…” I like to think that this is a bit of a sign.

Just Doing It

Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing this right. I get so fed up with how long this process is taking. With how slow and painful recovering is. I start hearing voices in my head telling me how pathetic and worthless I am. How I am an underachieving loser.

But I am getting better at silencing those voices. Knowing that I am slowly undoing years of conditioning. That I am slowly discovering who I am.

I wish it was easy, and yet part of me is glad that it is not. Some of me is terrified by it.

I am coming to terms with the fact that there is no right way of recovering and lessening the damage done. There is no wrong way either. There is just doing it and I am.

Giving myself permission to grieve

Yesterday’s realization bit really hard…I wish that this reality was not real at all. But it is.

And so, I am giving myself permission to grieve for what I did not have, what I do not have, what I wished was.

The greatest gift that I have been able to give myself is permission to be me…to recognize that my nature is not what my family have had me believe it to be.

That I am not a bad person.

So while I am hurting and giving myself permission to hurt and grieve…I am not going to hold it against myself…I am going to let go of this pain.

It is just a painful thing to realize that there are such things to let go of…and I will keep telling myself it is okay to treat myself with the compassion that I would give to someone else experiencing a similar trauma.

Forgiving myself

Adult survivors of emotional child abuse have only two life-choices: learn to self-reference or remain a victim. When your self-concept has been shredded, when you have been deeply injured and made to feel the injury was all your fault, when you look for approval to those who can not or will not provide it—you play the role assigned to you by your abusers.

It’s time to stop playing that role, time to write your own script. Victims of emotional abuse carry the cure in their own hearts and souls. Salvation means learning self-respect, earning the respect of others and making that respect the absolutely irreducible minimum requirement for all intimate relationships. For the emotionally abused child, healing does come down to “forgiveness”—forgiveness of yourself.

~ Andrew Vachss You Carry the Cure In Your Own Heart

I had a revelation yesterday, when I realized that I am still carrying around feelings and guilt and blame for what happened to me as a child.

I was a perceptive person, and I still am…but especially as a child, I had the ability to observe someone and tell you what was most likely going on in their heads…and most of the time, I was right (in a twisted series of events and a particular bout of bullying I ended up telling all of the taunters what was going through their heads, what their insecurities were…and it frightened them into stopping…but that is an entirely different story).

I think, part of the reason I developed this ability was because of the situation with my mother…there was no certainty, I never quite knew what was coming…some days it seemed as though I was going to have the fairy tale, a loving mother, and other days it was as though I had a monster not a mother.

But because I had developed this ability to perceive what was going on psychologically, I began to believe that if anything  happened to bring out the monster, it must have been my fault…that I should just have behaved differently, said something else or not said something, or whatever…

And so it began, that I started creating a garden of guilt…of course, the fact that I was told “you are making me do this to you”, “this is all your fault”, “look, I don’t treat your sister like this and so it must be how you are behaving” encouraged that garden to grow and flourish.

But the truth that I have begun to realize is what happened to me was not my fault. My one therapist once made the remark that I was not responsible for what happened to me when I was a child and a teenager.

But I don’t think I have believed it until now.

And so I am officially forgiving myself. Writing down that I did nothing wrong. That what went down was not my fault.

When I had this revelation yesterday it was as though a physical weight was lifted off my shoulders.

And if someone had told me a couple of days ago that I am carrying around feelings of guilt I don’t know if I would have believed them…it was a truth that I had buried rather deeply.

But it is the truth, and it takes me closer towards being whole again.

Although, I am not convinced that it is correct to say “whole again”, because the truth is I am never going to be that person again. I am moving beyond being a victim…and I don’t know where I will end up.

But the person who was born in the dark cave of despair and desperation and who felt that there was no love in the universe for them…I am not that person any more.

I get to choose my own path, and it’s going to be an amazing journey filled with special people and beautiful views.

Sunshine

I think sometimes there is something in the phrase “fake it, until you make it.”

I went for a walk this afternoon, and amazingly I felt much better by the time that I got home. As I said to my husband though, I don’t want to plod through life, slowly putting one foot in front of the other. I want to dance.

But the counter argument is…you gotta start somewhere. And that’s what putting one foot in front of another is. It is believing that this depression will pass.

It is knowing that even though it seems as though the life has been sucked out of you, and you will never amount to anything and the whole world is against you…those are the lies that the depression is telling you.

And that there will be sunshine after the storm…and it’s okay to let go and dance. And as naive as it seems choose to face the direction of healing…turn your face to the sun.

And even though depression cannot just be wished away, focus your intent on healing and hope not misery and despair.

Of course, that is easy in the good moments. The moments where you feel…where the sunshine is welcome.

In the dark moments it is a case of putting one foot in front of the other and stepping out into the sun.