Advice from Dreamland

Today I want to share the advice I got from my dreams last night:

-Feel all your feelings and when you remember what we have always known *, talk it out in group therapy. (*About your worth, about the love you carry, about the divine being you've always been, etc.) -You can mourn the version of you that never was*, but do not dwell on her. (*the untraumatized version) There was never going to be a different version of you. -This terribly challenging life was chosen by your soul for a terribly good reason and this says a lot more about the essence of your soul than the trauma you survived. And the soul's essence carries more importance than the human ego. -This version of you is miraculous.

A Chapel Without Walls

This is a story about a family of wounded hearts,

but mostly it’s a story about a man…

a man with a vision…

a vision of a chapel without walls.

Some of us came here with bruised hearts and battered souls.

Some of us came here at the end of our rope, when we had lost all hope.

Some of us came in search of meaning, in search of belonging.

And this man, this being of light, tended to our battle worn souls with

words that soothed:

“Just breathe”;

with words that comforted:

“you are loved”;

with words that transfused our souls with faith and hope:

“there is a purpose for you in this world, for we are all ministers of God.”

This man has given us a chance to shine in the spotlight,

has given us a platform to have our words heard.

This man sees the light within us all

even when we have trouble seeing it ourselves.

This is a story about a family of weary souls,

but mostly, it’s about a man who had the hands

to build this chapel without walls.

This has become your chapel without walls which rebuilds broken hearts

and tends to wounded souls.

Your chapel without walls has brought love to hearts fraught with

loneliness.

Your chapel without walls has brought peace to souls fraught with fear.

Your chapel without walls has brought love to hearts fraught with grief.

Your chapel without walls has brought sanctuary to those wounded by

life’s hard knocks.

You, Rev. Dr. Jim,

gave this community of wounded warriors

a safe place to walk each other home,

and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

You, Rev. Dr. Jim,

gave this community of battle worn souls

a blessed and holy sanctuary of light,

and we thank you, we thank you, we thank you.

I Didn't Know I Was Loved

Thanks to my trauma,
I didn't know I was loved.
I had always felt more like
the gum removed from someone's shoe....
since I let people walk all over me.
I felt like a tissue that's been sneezed in
that no one wants to touch.

I didn't know I was loved.
I had always felt unwanted and in the way.
But now I know the truth.
Now I feel the truth. 
I can truly feel the love
others have for me now
in a way that was impossible before.

I had felt as though no one could love me
as a person with such a complicated history
and when people would remind me they loved me,
I'd struggle to believe them.
Not because I saw them as liars
in any sense of the word,
but because my ego could not see me
as deserving of even an ounce of it.

And now a major barrier has been lifted
and I can sense and feel the profound love
that others have professed to me.
I now believe them and can experience
the joy and ecstasy that comes from
one's awareness of and acceptance of love.

I Didn't Meet God in a Church

I didn't meet God in a church.
Oh, I went to church growing up,
but I never saw God there...
only questions.

Questions like:
If God exists, then why does he let bad things happen all the time?
If God exists, why can't he save children from their abusers?
And when I learned of my own trauma...
if God exists, then why did he let me suffer?
Why did he let me forget I was loved?
Why did he let me forget my innocence?
Why did he let my father take my inner peace
and replace it with terror?

But in the end, I did eventually meet God.
I met God in Mother Nature.
I met God in the mountains
and She reminded me that I am powerful.
I met God in the evergreens
and She reminded me
that I, too, could remain green through the winters.
And I met the God within me
and was reminded of my deeper purpose.

Unconquerable

After living through the unbearable,
after going through the unimaginable,
I learned I was unconquerable.

I learned I was strong enough to be a survivor,
strong enough to be a healer,
strong enough to transform my suffering
into deep compassion and empathy for others.

I learned I was strong enough to grow,
strong enough to let it all go,
strong enough to show up for myself,
to wade through the melancholic mire.

I learned that my light
could still shine bright,
could still illuminate the night.

Another Day of Surrender

    Today is another day to surrender. All of the tough emotions came to the surface again today. Every time I feel over it, it hits me all over again. In the scheme of things, my history doesn't matter. In the scheme of things, my story is one that is shared by all of humanity...especially if you believe in past lives... I think it's reasonable to conclude that all of us have been through everything and maybe all of us have been the villain at one point or another. I have a hard time with that piece of it because I can't imagine a life in which I'd want to harm other beings. But I guess one of the ways a lot of people are able to hurt others is that they are unaware of how much their actions/behaviors harm those around them. And as for the physical and sexual violence, the person would be unable to see the humanity in others...including themselves.

Where Did All the Words Go?

I'm going to try to put to words what the last 10 or so weeks felt like when I sat down to write.

I sit down, close my eyes,
and dive deep within myself
searching for inspiration.

What I find instead...
grief,
pain,
and sorrow so profound, so oppressive,
no words could possibly encompass
the overwhelming melancholy.

In the pitch-black feelings, I could find no words.
My first instinct was to run from it, and I did so for a while.
No sitting down to meditate. No prayer calls. No stillness.

Eventually, I recognized my need to face it.
So I sat with it, waiting for the state of overwhelm to end.
When it refused to subside,
I chose to escape again through work,
through TV shows,
or with sleep.

I figured when the time was right, I'd begin writing again. But I admit, it took longer than I thought. Even now, I feel rusty. I feel like the words are hard to come by....like they don't want to be found. But I'm ready to try. I'm ready to begin my daily practice again. 

A State of Surrender

I place myself in a state of surrender, O’ God;
I surrender my pain to You.

I place myself in a state of surrender, O’ God;
I surrender my sorrows to You.

I place myself in a state of surrender, O’ God;
I surrender my grief to You.

I place myself in a state of surrender, O’ God;
I surrender my story to You.

I place myself in a state of openness;
I open to receive Your love, O’ God.

I place myself in a state of openness;
I open to receive Your grace, O’ God.

I place myself in a state of openness;
I open to receive Your peace, O’ God.

I place myself in a state of openness;
I open to receive Your light, O’ God.

I am ready for a higher vision, God.
I am ready for a higher vibration, God.
I am ready for a higher state of mind, God.
I am ready to live, to thrive, to experience bliss.

I am ready to release my burdens to You, God,
and replace them with Your abundant power.
I am ready to release my worries to You, God,
and replace them with Your thrilling joys.
I am ready to experience complete faith in myself.
I am ready to experience the complete freedom
that comes from my awareness of my power as God’s beloved child.

I accept that God’s infinite power lives within me.
I accept that God’s infinite loving grace lives within me.
I accept that God’s infinite peace lives within me.

I accept Your protective light, O’ God.
I accept Your protective love, O’ God.
I accept Your protective grace, O’ God.

In Homage to My Grandfather

    My family was finally able to hold a memorial service for my grandfather a couple days ago and I had prepared a poem to read for it and, to my great relief, it was really well received. As is often the case when I write, since I know my ideas aren't always new, I get concerned that my words will come across as cheesy. But anyway, now that the day has passed, I feel it is appropriate to share it here.

Over the last several days I have been writing letters to my grandfather, so that I might feel his presence more fully with each stroke of my pen.

It took a few days of pouring my grief out to him before I could feel the connection between my heart and his soul.
And this is what he shared with me.

I’ll live on in your heart
and speak through your generosity.
I’ll live on in your mind
and speak through your love.

Don’t doubt my presence.
I am embracing each of you
with unbridled love at all times.
I may not be “here”
in a way that you’d easily perceive,
but if you sit quietly
and open your mind to me,
you will know just how close I am.

You may be grieving the fact
that you cannot hug me anymore,
but I assure you that I am holding you.
You may be grieving the fact
that you cannot hear me anymore,
but I assure you that you can speak to me
any time you please, and I will hear you.
You may be grieving the fact
that you cannot see me anymore,
but I can see you.

I can still see you.
I can still hear you.
And I can still love you.

I may be gone,
but you will each keep me alive
in your own way
with your own memories
and with your own heart.

He also says thank you to all of you for adding such richness to his life. For gifting him with such kindness. He’s grateful, truly grateful, for all the ways you showed him your love.

We may not be able to physically resurrect my grandfather, but we can immortalize him by living the way he did.

Don't Say Everything Happens for A Reason

    Well intentioned people will often tell survivors that everything happens for a reason and most of us do not want to hear that. Some survivors might cut you out of their lives for saying that because not only does it feel like a dismissive shrug of your shoulders, it also feels disempowering. Saying everything happens for a reason takes away any remaining sense of power a survivor of serious trauma has and empowers their abusers. Abusers know this is being said to us and are very likely using this phrase to avoid taking any accountability for their actions. If everything happens for a reason, and if everything that occurs is "God's will", then they don't have to have a conscience. The people who have survived major trauma(s) at the hands of others are very likely to understand what I have said thus far and I hope this break-down of the phrase will help the well intentioned people understand. Now that I have dissected why this is not useful, I will give you a phrase that will be more useful. I just spin the current one on it's head a bit. "Make sure what happened to you didn't happen for no reason." This gives the power back to the survivor to some degree. Some might not fully appreciate this one either since there is still the concept of having a reason behind the trauma, but it is one they can create.

Letting Go of the Baggage

Beliefs I want to let go of for my upcoming 30th birthday:

1- that the world is too dangerous a place for me to be authentic.
2- that I am not good enough as I am.
3- that success is impossible for me.
4- that suffering is my birthright and that will never change.
5- that happiness isn't in the cards for me.
6- that I cannot be loved as I am.
7- that I am not deserving of good fortune.
8- that the light and love that I have shared hasn't been enough.
9- that I will never heal enough.
10- that I will never amount to anything.

Why I'm Struggling to Write

    You may have noticed that I am struggling to write these days...at least in the creative way I usually do. The reason for that has to do with the things I expressed on the 25th of April. All the suppressed rage has been coming to the surface for healing and I believe that when I have sufficiently released it I will be able to write creatively again. Lately, I haven't been able to reach a true meditative state and when I attempt to, I just feel really quite melancholy. To get some mindful healing work done today, I went to Great Falls and hiked barefoot through the woods to reach it with the mantra "I release the anger and the barriers to its expression." When I walked over parts of the river on my way to the overlook, I imagined the water surging through my energy, cleansing it of all the release work. Despite all this and the fact the I ran much of the 1.8+ miles to my car, there is still a tremendous amount of anger left in the well and the resistance is still present. But I am working as steadily as possible on this and hope to reach a breakthrough soon....even if it entails a crazy breakdown first.

Busy, Busy, Busy

    I didn't write yesterday because I had spent the vast majority of it walking dogs in the chilly rain. And just like the last busy Friday I had, my schedule was crammed with gigs before and after my 3 to 4 pm appointment. On top of that, I had had an early morning walk and a late evening walk where I got home close to 9 and still had to finish up my laundry. Yes, I managed to fit laundry into my day somehow as well. I would have written earlier today but instead I took every moment of free time to do absolutely nothing. Both of my major breaks consisted of getting back into PJ's and crawling into bed. This time, no naps happened, but the rest felt nice compared to walking in the chilly, dreary weather. Being this busy makes me relish doing nothing. I didn't realize I'd miss doing nothing before getting this job, but money is money and I'm not complaining...this time. I'd rather be busy than looking for something to do all day every day, which is what I had been doing throughout most of COVID. Anyway, tomorrow there is an early morning walk, but no more late ones.

Five Leaf Clover on 5/5

    I found a 5 leaf clover this morning! Despite how busy today was, it was a good day. I moved into an intermediate place for the month of May and I will be continuing to move my items out of the previous apartment. (It's too much to do in one day when I had a full dog-walking schedule.) I had another excellent class this evening and hope the healing will carry into my sleep again. Tomorrow is another appointment with my therapist...once again, I will be running all around town for my job before and afterwards. But if my sleep continues to go well, it should be pretty alright, all things considered.
 

A Nice Long Weekend

    The last 4 or 5 days have been wonderful. I got four days off (Friday to Monday) and last night I slept really well. I woke simultaneously refreshed and feeling as though I wasn't quite done sleeping, laid in bed for a bit, made myself breakfast around 7 and then climbed back into bed and slept for another hour and a half or so. I had dog walks to do today but didn't have to leave until a bit after 10. After my last walk I took some time to enjoy a barefoot stroll through the woods, with some occasional running, of course. I had planned to write yesterday, but the day just got away as it does sometimes.
    Last night marked the start of some new evening classes and it proved to be a wonderful experience and helped prepare me for the night.
    On a totally different note, another one of my coworkers has caught COVID so I have another week with a full schedule. I guess it was a really good thing that I had a four day weekend to rest up even if I don't typically manage to get a lot of z's at any time of day.

Day-Dreaming: My Real Hope is for Happiness

    I did a completely out of character thing this morning that was spurred by a random day-dream I had on the night of the 27th of April. It came through my mind unannounced as a way to try to counter my habitual downward spiral of thoughts. I had been practicing the exercise I came up with on April 24th where I try to imagine what it would be like to be free from the weight of my trauma; free from all the fears, insecurities, and self-doubt. I sent an email to the Fab Five...knowing full well that it's just as unlikely as winning the lottery. I had called it my silly little gift to myself. "Silly" because of its improbability. But in all seriousness, that letter was sent as a way to show myself grace and as a way to show myself love. My real hope is for happiness no matter what the outcome. As I've been told, when you pray, you should say, "this or something better".  So does happiness HAVE to look like a visit from the Fab Five? No. But I do pray for happiness. I do pray for a way to actualize my goals with or without their help. I do pray for a sense of belonging and for the self-confidence and self-love needed to move forward in my life that I haven't yet been able to do. 
    I'm doing my best not to get my hopes up, to just be proud of myself for believing in my own deservingness for good long enough to write up the email, but I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't wish for this more than anything. Thanks to COVID and the number of trials aside from the pandemic, my last two birthdays have been 'meh' at best. I broke my ankle and got scammed out of money the week I turned 28 and my 29th occurred shortly after my grandfather died and I've been practically homeless (couch-surfing) ever since. Praying for the Fab Five or something better because I have no idea what to do to celebrate entering my 3rd decade.

Strange, Healing Dreams

    Last night before finally falling asleep, I was struggling to rein in the thoughts running through my mind. I would get caught up in all of the negative "what if's" of my new living arrangement. A part of me feels like I made a mistake in saying yes to this place; that I said yes so that I could stop looking, not so much because I loved the place. In order to interrupt this, I would return to my "what would it feel like to be free" exercise and would allow all those thoughts to drop away. It's a good practice, but I had to keep returning to it. When I did get to sleep, I had really weird dreams. Not in a bad way, just weird. In one of them, my sister (who was an EMT at one point) was driving an ambulance to see me...she was both the driver and the paramedic, and I hadn't even called 911 or anything. She comes into whatever strange place I'm staying in and starts checking my vitals and things in front of other people that I don't even know. It seems my angels and guides were administering to me last night. 

A Day of Good News

    Today turned into a pretty good day. I was tired and broody this morning...somewhat inevitable since I awoke around 4 again. I had a can of unsweetened Matcha tea with breakfast before my early morning dog walk. After spending some quality time with a canine, I did a brief shop and then headed home. Despite having the caffeinated beverage and despite my body's resistance to sleep, I was actually tired enough to choose to attempt a nap and actually caught some z's. Hooray! Also, it looks like my boss was kind enough to give me a three day weekend which will be perfect. And to top off the good news with more good news, I finally got my federal tax return and it will cover the security deposit and the first month's rent at my new place...the only time when being "poor" pays off is with the tax returns.

Housing Update

    I finally heard back about the room in a house-share I applied for and I'm in! I'm going to need to get some help moving all my things when the time comes, but I've got a place at long last. There will be 4 other people there with me and as far as I know it'll have a communal vibe. I do have to get my bed from someone's basement since I let them keep it for me while I continued to move around since it was too much trouble to worry about at the time. No pets are allowed sadly, but the person who showed me around seemed like a potential good friend. The room is small, but I think I'll still be able to get my things out of storage. Hopefully the move will be more effortless than it appears to be at the moment...we shall see.

A Prayer to Restore Self-Love

My biological father successfully convinced me that I am unlovable.
He successfully convinced me that there is nothing good about me.
His actions successfully convinced me that the world was made up of monsters
and that I was one of them.
He made me angrier at myself than I was at him.
He made me hate myself more than I could hate him.

I don't know how I let him get away with this for so long.
The amount of energy I have put into my self-hatred,
into suppressing all that needs to be expressed...
How did I let him so thoroughly ruin my relationship with myself?
And how can I begin to rectify it?

Dear Mother, Father, God, Great Spirit, Our Creator...
Angels, guides, and ancestors,
please pour Your healing light, Your healing grace into my crown. 
Dear Mother, Father, God, Great Spirit, Our Creator...
Angels, guides, and ancestors,
please dissolve all of the shame, guilt, and self-contempt
that still thrives in my consciousness.
Dear Mother, Father, God, Great Spirit, Our Creator...
Angels, guides, and ancestors,
please mend the fissures in my mind that allowed me to believe
that I was unlovable, that I was despicable, that I was the monster.
Please mend the fissures in my heart that ruptured my self-love,
and those that kept it ignorant
of God's unending, unconditional love for me.
Thank You, God. Thank You, God. Thank You, God.
Let this be so. And so it is.
Amen

Another Layer Brought to Light

    This afternoon I have begun to ponder the root cause of the hair pulling habit. It was our point of focus during my half hour therapy session today and I used the BLS (Bilateral Stimulation) while working on healing this issue. The first conclusion I came to is that this self-soothing habit is something I do in order to keep an extraordinary amount of suppressed rage bottled up. Specifically, all the rage aimed at my biological father that I continually fail to acknowledge. No matter how wild my discoveries are in terms of what he has done to me, the only anger and rage I ever acknowledge is directed toward all of the other adults who were around me at the time who failed to advocate for me and who failed to protect my siblings and me from our biological parents. Three of them knew what had happened to me and yet DSS would continue to send us back into the war-zone.

    The question that followed this conclusion was "what belief or aspect of my consciousness has been the stronghold against this impotent rage?" The answer that came to the fore there is my belief that I deserved everything he did to me and the part of me that still carries a great deal of self-loathing. I have directed a great deal of anger towards myself and towards the people who failed to help me, but not towards the abuser. And yet I know there's a huge well of rage reserved just for him that I have failed to acknowledge and express. As twisted as this discovery sounds, it's a good step forward because I know where to go from here; I know what needs to be healed.

What Freedom Feels Like

    This evening I have been asking myself what my life would look like and what it would feel like if I were free. Free from the past, free from the intrusive thoughts, free from the effects of the trauma, free from it all. What would that look and feel like? I'd be free of self-judgment. I'd be free of self-contempt. I would be free of the painful cycles. I would be free to fall asleep with ease. I would be free of my fear of falling in love. (I don't fear a broken heart so much as falling for someone who is charming at first, then turns into a monster.) I would feel alive again. I would feel as though anything is possible. I would feel as though nothing could stop me. If I hadn't gone through trauma, this is what I imagine my life could have felt like. And it still can if I can just maintain faith in myself and in the transformation that could be possible if I were to allow it. As I wrote a couple years ago, I have the key to my own cell. Yes, my biological father built it an threw me in, but I always had the key to my own freedom. I don't have to be trapped in the cell anymore.

What would it feel like to be free?
I'd have no worries. I'd have no guilt.

What would it feel like to be free?
I'd have no fears. I'd have no doubts.

What would it be like to be free?
I'd feel loved. I'd feel safe.

What would it be like to be free?
I'd remember to feel the warmth of the sun
and trust the falling rain.

A Not So Merry Merry-Go-Round

    I thought it would be easier to write during therapy, but it hasn't been. All the things that I am trying to overcome are coming to the surface to deal with and I haven't yet been able to get into a meditative state that would ease the tension in my mind. It's been a never ending merry-go-round of depressive, intrusive thoughts surrounding my early childhood experiences. As I read in an article recently, what's going on in therapy at that moment is that I 'm "actively opening up old wounds in an effort to reframe my experiences." Now that my work load has lessened, I find myself going back to binge-watching shows and trying to pull all my hair out again. (Still not sure what part of my history caused the hair pulling habit, but I might be able to find out through the EMDR.) I guess I just don't know what else to do to escape my mind. Other people use a drug addiction to escape and I seem to choose a screen addiction. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going on walks outside everyday, with and without the pets I walk, but I spend the whole walk thinking in circles. There hasn't been any real relaxing going on when I try to relax.

Another Brief Update

    I had a chance to hang out with a close friend Thursday afternoon and then had a good therapy session Friday. After having withheld a few big things, I finally gathered the courage to share with my therapist more from the list my intuition has compiled between March of last year and now. As hard as it was, it was also a relief not to have those secrets bottled up anymore. I managed to share 6 out of the 8 things on my list before reaching my threshold which was more than I expected to be able to do.  One of the reasons it took a while to share is because I have no evidence and no memories, just hunches and notions, so I had worried that what I wished to share wouldn't be believed or taken seriously. But so far, my therapist seems to trust my intuition.

    As for the COVID situation, I'm the only one in this apartment who doesn't have it...so far. One of my roommates is getting over it but still has a painful cough and the other tested positive yesterday. Both of them are vaccinated, so these new variants that have cropped up are starting to come for us. I wish more people trusted the vaccine because all of these crazy variants were only made possible by the number of people who have remained unvaccinated.

Looking Up

    Things are beginning to look up. For one, I have been getting more sleep, and secondly, I just this morning submitted an application for an apartment. Granted, I had to tweak things a bit since my current living space has been rent free & has no property manager that I correspond with. The last time I paid rent was for the November of 2020, just before my grandfather got sick and my mom and I became his caregivers. Then I stayed at his house until August of 2021, 5 months after he had passed. And lastly, after my brief trip to AZ, I began crashing at my friends place. 

    Now I just have to avoid catching COVID and try to arrange to stay somewhere else for the month of May. My friends need their space more than ever right now and I can't list their personal reasons for that here. But I am super excited about the new place and the person I met with to view the house-share/room said that he things I'd be a perfect fit, so I think I'm definitely in.  It has been quite a while since there have been any positive developments so I'm glad for this turn around.

Two Surprising Developments

     So there happens to be a lot of personal family and friend stuff going on at the moment. I found out yesterday afternoon that my dad had been in the hospital for two weeks and now one of my current roommates has tested positive for COVID. Her symptoms arose a couple of days ago, I believe. I just did an at home test and I am still negative. My dad found out last year that he has stage three kidney disease due to the Lithium he has been taking for the last 20 or so years and he has been struggling with finding a new medication to replace it. A familiar territory for me, too. It still has not been made clear to me why exactly he ended up in the hospital, whether it was due to physical ailments or deteriorating mental health or both. I would love it if life would be a little less exciting.

A Brief Update

    So I was able to get an extra half hour of therapy today which was good since I always have so much to talk about. I was able to fit 6 dog walks in between 10:30 & 1:30 and managed to buy myself lunch just before the 2:00 appointment. This session gave me a chance to admit some of the crazy stuff that came up for me while waiting 10 days between sessions a couple weeks ago... much of it being what I wrote, but there was one thing that occurred that I didn't write about and hadn't mentioned last Friday. Still not ready to mention here at the moment...
    On another note, I have a house-share to take a look at tomorrow evening to see if it will be a good match. I hope it goes well. It ticks a lot of the boxes I had in mind; close to most of my clients, affordable, house-share with people my own age. Crossing my fingers.

Who Am I?

Who am I beyond the trauma?
My ego would have me believe
that my identity is wrapped up in it,
that the trauma is my identity.

Who am I beyond the trauma?
My ego would have me believe
that I am all the flaws and shortcomings
that stem from it.

Who am I beyond the trauma?
It has obscured my true identity.
I find it hard to see
what lies beyond the mask.

My ego would have me believe
that I am the person who can't cope
with day-to-day mishaps.
My ego would have me believe
that I am the person who can't sleep,
who can't trust anyone
(including herself),
and who can't remember anything.

So who am I beyond the trauma?
What if I'm the person who
befriends other outcasts
and helps them feel a sense of belonging?

Who am I beyond the trauma?
What if I'm the person who
can be someone's ever steady rock
in a crisis?

Who am I beyond the trauma?
What if I'm the person who
can see the pain of others
hidden behind their smiles?

Day 10

    Last night was dose 10 and I FINALLY got a full night's sleep! And today there happened to be 2 less walks to do than what had been posted yesterday so that made it 6 visits before my 3 p.m. therapy appointment and 3 visits after. But there were still 2 visits to squeeze into the 7 to 9 a.m. window. I already drove over 41 miles today, apparently. What's funny is that despite my good mood, I was still able to get into a panic pretty easily this morning over small stuff. During one of my early morning visits it took forever to get a cat to eat and I couldn't find a bag for the kitty litter...small stuff and I was extra anxious. Due to the positive mood I woke up in, I didn't know I was so tightly wound up until then. But that's just the way I'm wired, I guess.

    Today, after waiting 10 days, is another day for therapy, so that will be good. A whole lot of nothing has happened and that's part of what has been bothering me. I need to move out ASAP, I am STILL waiting for the support group to start, despite the medication I've been on, I feel more or less exactly the same. But I think that is in part due to the fact that it interfered with my sleep. You can't expect an anti-depressant to lift your mood while it is taking away all of your sleep.

The Weight of the World

It has been quite a rough week. The hopelessness I feel continues to overwhelm me. Ages ago, I signed up for a support group for people who have survived CSA & it has been pushed back yet again. This time until May. The start date has now been changed so often that I won't believe it until I see it. And due to last Friday being Passover, my therapist shifted our Friday appointment to be three days earlier. So I've waited 10 days between appointments with all this mounting pressure. The insomnia coupled with the demands of my job has caused my exhaustion levels to continually rise. And tomorrow's work schedule is packed around my 1 hour of therapy. I quite literally can't cope right now. I keep getting the message to rest, but again, that's an impossibility. I'm the only one available to do the jobs that need doing tomorrow.

Another Night of Grief

    Someone told me the other day that the reason I am waking up at 2 in the morning is to work on healing "issues concerning my dad". This was confirmed during Monday night's channeled session as well. My inevitable concern is that since this wound runs so deep, how many days of working with my spirit guides on these "issues" will it take? Granted, now that I am not adding my ego's resistance to the 2 a.m. wake up calls, I feel more recovered by 7 or 8 than I was before I found all this out. I still can't tell you straight out that what I get after 2:00 could be considered sleep, but it is more restful. Hopefully this upswing continues because I have two or three early mornings in a row starting tomorrow with full workdays Thursday and Friday.

    On another note, I had another wave hit me last night. Things started feeling supremely hopeless to me. I can't help but feel like I've failed at life and that all I've done is waste time and space. Like I mentioned before, I may have survived the trauma, but at what cost? To me the cost often feels too steep. While I desperately want to be of service to others, currently I'm stuck crashing at a friend's place and I KNOW I have overstayed my welcome. It's been almost 5 months and the longer I stay the more I hate myself and the harder it is to manifest a place. You can't manifest your desires if you hold self-hatred in your heart. How can I help others out of their depression when I can't move out of my own? How can I serve others when I, myself, have failed at all facets of life? Last night was another night of wishing and praying for the end because my exhaustion and desperation had peaked yet again. I have spent a large portion of my life wanting life to be over already... Despite all my efforts, I have not succeeded in finding a way out of this dark and twisted labyrinth.

The Journey to God Continues

    I want to mention something that some of you may already know. The wave of grief I experienced a while back that led to the post "In Ruins" may have passed, but all the realizations that came with it are still very much alive and well. I'm still struggling to see that God was ever there for me. I'm still struggling to believe that God loves me. I still feel as though there is no grand gesture big enough for me to trust God again. If you look at all the ways in which God's presence was evident throughout the last 24 years (since my siblings and my adoptions), you would think I would have been able to accept God's benevolence by now... But since my trauma lasted long enough to lead to a near death experience, perhaps many short journeys across the veil, it hasn't yet been enough to convince me.

    The questions keep coming up. If God loves me, then why? If I am deserving of good, then why? If God was indeed there for me all along, then why? Why did I have to go through such a dehumanizing experience for so long? Yes, I have been aware of, and accepted the idea that I chose this life knowing what I'd likely have to face, but that hasn't been able to take the weight of these questions off my shoulders.

Day Six With the New Version of Insomnia

    Last night was dose 6 of Lexapro and I'm still waking at 2 a.m. and staying awake from then on. My intuition is telling me to wait it out, but I'm not sure how much longer I can function like this.  I still have work on a daily basis; weekends are not going to be a thing for the next two weeks. There will be days with less work, but none completely free to recuperate. It's possible to take it in the morning, but it definitely makes me too drowsy to drive for the first few hours after taking it. I'm dreaming of a day in which my life isn't so Goddamn hard anymore. Sleep is hard, and less sleep means more things will stress me out and trigger me. Accepting the fact that knowing the source of my mental illnesses is trauma doesn't change the fact that I need medication is hard. I always wanted to believe that my self-awareness of the situation would negate a need for medication, but clearly that isn't the case. It took me a whole year to start trying medications for ADD, depression, and anxiety BECAUSE of the exact problem I'm facing now. I already HAVE insomnia and the medicines they recommend for my mental health issues keep causing worsening insomnia. It's infuriating. The main reason I keep taking Lexapro is because the side-effects I have had are supposed to be short lived and the painful ones were. We shall see.

To Make Ourselves Courageous

If we can acknowledge that God lives within us
and that God cannot be harmed,
then we will have made ourselves invincible.

If we can acknowledge that God lives within us
and that God is omniscient,
then we will have made ourselves wise.

If we can acknowledge that God lives within us
and that God is love and peace
then will we have made ourselves loving and peaceful.

If we can acknowledge that God lives within us

and that God is grace,

then we will have made ourselves kind and forgiving.

If we can acknowledge that God lives within us

and that God is strength and power
then we will have made ourselves courageous.

To Pay Homage to the Ruins

Make peace with the ruins of your heart.
For it is within the ruins of your heart
that you will uncover
the precious, sacred mysteries of your power.

Pay homage to the ruins of your mind.
For it is within the ruins of your mind
that you will discover
the unsung songs and the undreamt dreams of your soul.

Make peace with the broken road.
For it is this broken road that shall lead you
to your inner well of love and peace,
to your inner well of joy.

Pay homage to the you that was
and the you that has yet to be.
Make peace with where you stand.
For only once you've done these things,
can you believe that you are free.

Dreaming of A Day

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I am thriving,
not just surviving.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I feel fulfilled
instead of empty and depleted.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I know of my power
and act with a sense of purpose.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which joy fills my heart
more often than despair.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I remember God's eternal love
more often than my heartache.

I hope one day I'll watch the birds
and learn to fly.
I hope one day I'll watch the river
and learn to flow.
I hope one day I'll feel the wind
and learn to breathe.
I hope one day I'll feel the rain
and learn it's ok to weep.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I see my path
as sacred and divine.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I see all of the courage and strength
embedded in the threads of my war-torn heart.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I know myself to be sane
and not driven mad by the scope of my pain.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I feel safe and secure
and happy to be me.

I'm dreaming of a day
in which I feel free
and not trapped in this life
that has felt meaningless to me. 

Just Another Free-Write (With a Troubling Confession)

    My exhaustion peaked today after sleeping 10-2 Tuesday and Wednesday night and 10-5 last night. Yes, I recognize that last night was 7 hours, but 7 hours doesn't help one fully recover from two nights of 4 hours followed by being awake 18 hours. So on the plus side, I managed one of my rare naps today. I haven't expressed it on this blog yet, but the reason sleep is often next to impossible for me, even during the day, is because the trauma my father put me through started while I was napping. So my body and mind are often working over-time to keep me safe simply by staying over-stimulated. Which means that when I am trying to fall asleep at night, my mind keeps me distracted with an endless train of useless thoughts.

    The other thing I have been wanting to unpack is that while I wrote the other day that my father is in fact innocent because the good in my father never had a chance to be expressed, I recognized a place in which I was digging in my heels against the healing process. I realized as I wrapped up that blog post that I do not want my biological father to become a good person because I apparently fear that this would invalidate my trauma somehow or make my story less believable. I want others to see him as the villain that I knew him to be. It's also because I have deified the trauma. Now obviously, I don't want him to keep hurting and traumatizing others so I know it's a ridiculous standpoint.

    With all that said, I relatively recently found out that there is no statute of limitations for what my father did to me and while I'm not entirely sure why this information was given to me, I will say that I do not want to take my biological father to court nor do I want to see him go to prison. Because I recognize that that would simply expose him to more trauma.

An Update and An Insomniac's Realization

    So after taking half a pill last night, things were a lot better. The painful side-effects were nil but the insomnia was still present. And the version of insomnia it has given me is that I am only able to sleep from around 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. After that my body seems to think it doesn't need any more. I even took a CBD gummy with melatonin, lemon balm, and magnolia in it and still not a wink was had after 2. But I feel awake and aware...not overly drowsy.

    While lying awake this morning I had a realization. Technically it was one of those that I knew in parts and pieces, but now it was made much more whole and concrete. What I realized was that the primary reason I struggle with feeling deserving of good things is because my inner child still can't wrap her head around the idea that she did not deserve what had happened to her. She thinks that the abuse could not have occurred if she truly didn't deserve it. As I have mentioned before, Dr. Gabor Mate says that children blame themselves for the parental abuse they go through because the alternative would be to acknowledge that no matter how they changed themselves to please their parents, their parents would still be unable to love them. It would mean acknowledging that they would always be in danger. So a part of me still believes that the abuse occurred because I was somehow innately wrong, because I was somehow innately unacceptable. This is why when someone calls me out on making a mistake (usually a social error) my first response is to grab the switch that I imagine to be in their hand and whip myself with it saying "You're right. I'm a terrible person". Obviously, just because they call me out doesn't mean they want to punish me, but that is what I often perceive to be the case. 

When Medication Breaks You In

    What I didn't mention yesterday is that I got a prescription filled for Lexapro and I took my first dose last night. And what a night that turned out to be. I fell asleep sometime after 10 and woke at 2 a.m. with a headache and severe nausea. The headache included pain in my sinus cavities (without the pressure present during a bad cold). This was just 10 milligrams and it's a trial run. I only have 10 days worth. I wasn't told to expect this, but apparently it is common for this particular medication to break YOU in. (Instead of "breaking in new shoes", the new medication does the breaking here.) After an hour of nausea bad enough to sit by the toilet, my dinner finally came up and then it progressed to dry heaves. This hasn't happened to me since my encounter with ruptured ovarian cysts 10 or 11 years ago. I was able to get the dry heaving to stop by massaging my stomach with my knuckles but the nausea was still there. Needless to say, I wasn't able to fall back to sleep. On the plus side, I managed to go to work today and had a good time with it despite the persistent queasiness. I talked with my new nurse practitioner about it all and when I asked about taking half a dose tonight, she said that would be ok. So I've taken half a dose with dinner and so far the queasiness has subsided since I ate. Now whether or not it will stay down throughout the night, that is a whole other question. We shall see.

EMDR Update 2

    Since this coming Friday is Passover, I actually had my therapy appointment moved to today and we started using bilateral brain stimulation to begin "resourcing". From what I can gather, resourcing is creating fairly tangible self-soothing imaginings. Or another way to say it is creating and accessing resources that can be used to help us remain calm. The examples I know so far include creating an ally, viewing yourself in a light stream, a safe place, nurturing figure, protective figure, an animal, and a container. Today, I worked on creating an ally and then used the bilateral stimulation to "install" it. Basically make the image more concrete and easier to bring fully into your conscious awareness. Apparently I was trying too hard. The point of the exercise is to let your mind do what ever it's going to do. But I can do this on my own now and keep practicing for the next 10 days.

What to Say, What to Say...

    Time has begun to slip through my fingers even more so than usual. I have been aiming to write something every day but there have a few occasions recently where I kept putting it off for a later part of the day and then the next thing I know I'm choosing to start my bedtime routine instead of writing. There doesn't seem to be much to write about some days but I recognize that it is good for my mental health to take the time to check in with myself via the meditative writing practice that I typically try to do on a daily basis. It is easy for me to suppress feelings (or at least, not deal with them fully) until they overwhelm me the way they did Monday night. When you are already used to chronic emotional pain, it can be hard to notice or acknowledge some of the small things that are sapping your peace until you come across the straw that breaks the camel's back. 
    Currently I'm pet sitting for three super sweet animals, two cats and a dog. My first day here has been a blast as usual. I got to play with the dog and walk her a couple of times and then this evening, I had one of the cats napping on my lap. They're really happy pets and the perfect therapy for me as well. I was able to stay in the moment more often today than usual thanks to their company.

    

On the Other Side

    Well, I've moved through that last onslaught of grief today. It was quite the tidal wave, but I'm back on my feet for now. I was able to do a peace and light filled visualization last night and imagined myself cocooned in the light of my angels. And I said several times over, "I accept and allow the healing and transformation you would offer me tonight" to keep my focus. Because what often happens in meditation is that the past insists on coming up and interrupting my attempts at experiencing peace. So even though I went to bed quite a bit later than normal and still woke up well before dawn, I felt well rested and more at peace this morning. And for once, that stayed with me for most of the day... The past still intruded, but I had plenty of moments of joy today as well.

    This evening we did another meditation and it was much less triggering. I had the company of my brother who had passed away at 4 months of age. Of course, I was once again focusing on healing my relationship with my biological father. During the course of this meditation, my brother informed me that our father IS as innocent as I perceive him to be...'him' being my brother here. My father is just as innocent as my deceased brother because the good in him never had a chance to be expressed...or the God in him, if you will. My father was so torn up by traumas that, essentially the good in him died. He was in survival mode his whole childhood, which meant he had to learn how to manipulate people, he had to learn how to defend himself, and eventually his defense became a constant offense that he couldn't turn off.

At What Cost

    There is still a part of my consciousness that says, "yes, I may have survived, but at what cost?" I have spent a fair portion of my life not wanting to be here. My challenges seem to be never ending; my inability to handle small mishaps continues to be a source of embarrassment. And not to mention, the grief can be hard to cope with and yet it continues to be a constant companion...like a toddler clinging to my leg while I'm trying to walk...all day, every day. I'm hopeful that my experiences with EMDR will help me figure out how to move forward because clearly my meditative writing practice hasn't been able to help me in that way. Despite what others may think, my inability to move past this is not a choice. This is the result of unprocessed trauma. Scientists have proven that trauma causes visible brain damage meaning that PTSD is not just a mental illness, it is a physical injury to the brain. This is why my trauma has made almost every facet of my life challenging.

To Build a Wall Against the Grief

    Still feeling a grief induced hangover today. I am aware of how much disturbance lies beneath the surface for me most days, but I do my best to ignore it so that I can go about my day. The problem with ignoring it is that small, inconsequential things can disrupt my fragile illusion of peace. It's a catch-22. I feel like I have to choose between letting it out and being a reliable employee. Plus, I still can't seem to grieve until the emotion has built up enough pressure behind my mask. A result, I am certain, of my biological father insisting that we mustn't cry and threatening us if we didn't stop. So I am always aware of my grief, but unable to release it most of the time.

They say time heals all wounds...
and yet the passage of time
does not seem to lessen my grief.
They say to forgive and forget...
and somehow I have forgotten*
yet not forgiven.

The wound has been revealed
and remains unchanging
in its festering state.

Though the grief comes in waves,
those waves are always there
threatening to break over me.
I cannot hide from the tides
nor do I wish to.

Building a wall against the grief
will only encourage a tsunami.
So I will take the knocks
of the lesser waves
and keep coming up for air.

I'm doing all I can to stand firm
against the current.

*When I say I've forgotten here, I mean I still (for now) have no memory of the event, not that I forgot what has been disclosed to me about my past.

In Ruins

    What has come up for healing today is once again, my perception of God. I still perceive God the way I perceive my biological father. There is a part of me that still believes that God let my father traumatize me and is therefore just as guilty as my father...technically more so. Because my father only did what he did to me because he had been traumatized by his father and God let that happen too. So during tonight's group meditation, I started saying, "You ruined me. You ruined me." Hearing that God is giving me His healing grace now feels a lot like hearing someone claim that since your abuser got you roses and is acting sweet now, you should take him back. I know how twisted this sounds, but it is really hard to fully believe God is kind and benevolent when children are exposed to such trauma. I know that God gave us all free will, but that knowledge doesn't take away the pain of my past experiences and the way they have continued to affect me psychologically and physiologically. I do feel ruined. I do feel incapable of handling day to day life experiences. I do feel like I will always fall short because of my trauma.

I feel I have fallen into ruins.
I feel eroded by the eternal fallout of trauma.
I feel as though there is no getting better, only more tired.
Where was God when my father needed God?
Where was God when I needed Him?
With each passing hour,
my inner child felt more certain
that pain had come to stay
and that God had gone away.

I feel I have fallen into ruins.
I feel eroded by the tears I've shed.
I feel as though there is no end in sight.
Where was God? Where was He?
My inner child saw not a sign of Him.
I have tried to stay in the fight,
but all along I have prayed
to be taken by the night.

And yet the sun within me continues to burn,
continues to assert its dominion over the darkness.
No matter how weary, no matter how forsaken I feel,
the light within me demands to be seen.
I know not how to carry on,
only that I must...
even though I feel
I have fallen into ruins,
crumbled into dust.

EMDR Update

    So today I finally gained a better understanding of what EMDR is all about. The primary goal is to desensitize you to your various triggers and in the process of desensitization, some memories will surface, but not all of them. This makes the idea a lot more palatable for me. Having just followed the guidance of the universe, I didn't do a whole lot of research on this treatment. Plus, I felt I knew the gist of it anyway. But there is a big difference between remembering everything and remembering fragments, so I feel quite relieved.

    In a previous post I talked about how I had deified pain and how it had quite literally replaced God for me. One of the ways that it has come to me to express it is that pain had come to stay and God had gone away. Over the last year, I have come to find out that the trauma my biological mother informed me about wasn't something that happened just once. It had happened on one particular day, but it was repeated for hours. Which means, the pain I experienced from the trauma lasted days, if not weeks, after it was over. So again, to my childhood self, it appeared that pain had come to stay and that God had gone away. With all this said, you can see why I have been concerned about the idea of remembering all of it.

    We still haven't actually started the desensitization process yet, but we might get started next Friday or the week after that. And we're going to start with smaller triggers than the ones we know are associated with that particular trauma.

An Uncommon Night Out

    So for the first time in I don't know how long, I had a chance to have a bit of a social life last night and got to do Karaoke night at a Pub/Restaurant right down the road from me. I didn't buy any alcohol, but I did have a few sips of a friend's drink. That was the only buzz I needed. The funny thing about all this is I typically go to bed at the hour we arrived at the location. Despite my low tolerance for noisy, late nights, I had a really good time and even had the courage to sing a song, although the hand holding the microphone was shaking pretty much the whole time. Due to the mixed reviews I've gotten about my singing, it's hard for me to believe I have a good voice. But I got complimented quite a bit and there were some cheers and applause while I was up there. I was going to try to do a 2nd one but it was getting too late, so I left before they called me up.
    I went even though I knew I had a busy work schedule today. I wasn't too phased by this because my insomnia has commonly disrupted my sleep worse than a night out and I still manage to function with little to no sleep. Funnily enough, I only ended up knowing 4 people there, but I still enjoyed myself. 

New Meditation With the Legion of Light

    So this morning I created a new meditative experience. I imagined bringing or deploying my Legion of Light to my inner child at the point of trauma and having them fill her heart, mind, body, and soul with their light. The light that filled her heart would enable her to feel the presence of love despite the outer circumstances. My Legion of Light would say to her, "Yes, you are loved even now. You are loved even now. We love you." The light sent to her mind and body would help her block out the pain while the light that filled her soul gifted her with peace and the beginning traces of acceptance. My reasoning for phrasing it that way is because while I believe they can restore a sense of peace pretty readily, I do not believe it is possible to fully convince my inner child to accept those circumstances. In fact, I think it would be pretty cruel to try to talk someone into accepting that form of violence while it is happening to them. So traces it is.
    When my trauma finally ended, I am pretty certain that my biological father had to give me a thorough bath and instead of imagining that particular bath, I imagined, instead, angels bathing my with emerald light infused water; the color associated with Arch Angel Raphael. I imagined them scrubbing me gently with green soap, running the suds through my hair. While I lay in the small tub, they washed me thoroughly and gave me extra healing energy from their hands. My skin began to be infused with the emerald green water. My cells were drawing the light into themselves in order to begin mending. As my cells became infused with light, I directed my Legion of Light to help me heal my relationship with my body as well.

Legion of Light,
please fill the mind of my inner child
with Your divine healing light
so that she may cope with her plight.

Legion of Light,
please fill the heart of my inner child
with Your unconditional love
so that she may feel loved in this loveless moment.

Legion of Light,
please fill the soul of my inner child
with Your infinite grace
so that she can begin to know peace.

Legion of Light,
please fill the body of my inner child
with Your holy healing energy
so that she may block out the pain.

Legion of Light,
please bathe my inner child
in a tub of sacred, light infused water.
Please allow Arch Angel Raphael
and Arch Angel Metatron to bless the water
and to place their hands of light
upon my crown, upon my brow.
Allow that light to permeate my whole being.

Legion of Light,
please swaddle my inner child
in "a blanket so soft
it distracts her
from any residual discontent."*

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

* A quote I pulled from my post "Replacing Fears With Prayers" (Oct. 2, 2021)

A Couple Unanswered Questions

     I know I've used different words to say this before, but I feel I have a purpose beyond my trauma and my hope is that as I take this idea further, I will eventually see God in it. 'It' being the trauma. In a previous post, I had written that God was never absent in our lives, and nor was (S)he ever the bystander. Even though I came to that conclusion and put it in writing, I am still working on figuring out God's role in that part of my life. If God hadn't abandoned me in that moment and if God was not the bystander, allowing the events to unfold without any sign of intervention, then what active role was (S)he fulfilling in that moment that proves I was not abandoned or forsaken by Him/Her?

    Ram Dass calls our traumas and hardships 'fierce grace'. He says that "suffering is the sandpaper, from the spiritual point of view, that is awakening people"; he continues by saying, "And once you start to spiritually awaken, you re-perceive your own suffering and start to work with it as a vehicle for awakening." I think sandpaper is too gentle a term for my suffering, but I am willing to call it a chisel...something else used in wood-making. He also talks about how when we listen to and share in each other's grief with one another to the fullest extent possible, we can then "meet behind the grief". But the question remains, why is suffering necessary? Doesn't it seem a bit malicious to require us to suffer in order to gain enlightenment?

My Legion of Light (Day 3)

Thank You, Legion of Light,
for teaching me
that with just one quick thought,
I shall be able to feel You right by my side.
Thank You for assuring me
that with just one brief acknowledgement,
I shall be able to feel Your love
pouring into my heart.
Thank You for reminding me
that I have but to call on Your aid
and Your light shall wrap gently around me
and fill my soul.

In this moment I request Your help.
Years ago,
having been lost in the anguish
of my human experience,
I felt the need to deify the pain.
In just one day,
God was replaced
by the agony of mortal wounds.

For how could I believe
that God was with me
through the misfortune,
when pain was all I could perceive?
That day,
pain became more reliable than God.
That day,
pain became my constant companion
and I found a way to convince myself
that there was protection in this pain.

Which is why I need Your help.
In order to fully connect with You,
in order to firmly re-establish a relationship with You,
I need to un-deify the pain.
I need to unlearn
what my human experiences taught me.
I am in need of a drastic shift in perception,
a drastic shift in perspective.

So Legion of Light,
please pour Your love and light
into the part of my consciousness
that still prefers the pain.
Legion of Light,
please pour Your healing grace
into the part of my consciousness
that still finds folly
in allowing joy and happiness
since it believes pain will inevitably
interrupt bliss.
Legion of Light,
please show me that bliss
doesn't have to slip
through my hands,
please show me
that it doesn't have to be
so hard to hold onto.
Thank You.
Thank You.
Thank You.

My Legion of Light (Day 2)

My Legion of Light
includes light beings
from many dimensions.
My multidimensional Legion of Light
includes the soul of my brother
and the soul of my grandfather.

This Legion of Light
includes the beings alive in this world
who have shown me support
and shared their love with me.
It is an all powerful Legion,
capable of swallowing
all earthly nightmares whole,
capable of rapidly transmuting
multiple layers of grief at a time.

This Legion of Light
provides me with
unassailable,
unconquerable protection
in the form of their invincible light.
It is a Legion of unconditional love
and infinite grace,
capable of filling my heart
to the point where it swells
with an overflow of joy and contentment. 

My Legion of Light
surrounds me at all times,
comforts me whenever I am in need of comfort,
assures me whenever I am in need of assurance,
fills my heart whenever I doubt the presence of love,
and lifts the weight of grief from my shoulders
with their grace.

Legion of Light

    Usually my titles pop out at me after I've finished writing a post, but today I'm starting a mini project under the title "Legion of Light" because there was even more grief to work through today in regards to the upcoming EMDR treatment. I keep worrying about how well, or not so well, I'll handle recovering the repressed memories especially since I already know a great deal about what happened... In fact, the list that my intuition has compiled has gotten so uncomfortably long that I am reluctant to believe the last portion of the list. And this list is just what my father did, not what he might have said to me during. So back to the Legion of Light... I want to write as much as possible over the next three days or so about what it is, about what it can do, about what their support would feel like etc.

    To start, I'm going to back-track a little and bring my brief poem from March 2nd here, albeit with some minor modifications.

To Reveal and Heal

I proclaim here and now

that the light that I am

and the light I call forth

shall be powerful enough

to simultaneously

reveal and heal

the events that took place.

I proclaim here and now

that the light that I am

and the light I call forth

shall be mighty enough

to effortlessly

reveal and heal

the past.

Hold Me Tight

I call forth the Legion of Light.
I call forth all heavenly beings, all angels.
I call forth Your power and grace.
I call forth Your love, Your peace.
May You hold me tight
and wrap me in a blanket of light.
May You hold me near
and whisper sweet assurances in my ear.

Remind me that I am loved.
Remind me that I am safe.
Remind me that Your love and light,
power and grace is mine to receive
if I but ask for and open to it.

Legion of Light,
please comfort me and my inner child
as we face our source of grief together.
Legion of Light,
please gently wrap
my broken heart and tired mind
in Your healing grace.
Legion of Light,
please hold me to Your heart
as I uncover the darkness of the past.

The Coexistence of Joy and Grief

I had a good day overall today but there were some hiccoughs. Nothing serious really, just hormone related challenges. The dogs, as always, were a joy to walk with; they make for good company.

But on the other hand, my grief has been heavy again today. I keep wondering how it's possible to have heard from 3 sources about my past trauma & how obvious it had been to these people that I had been sexually abused & yet DSS did nothing. And to me this means all 3 of these people failed to advocate for me (& my siblings) in terms of preventing us from being sent back to our biological parents. I don't know what stopped them from doing so, but it seems there was at least some degree of wilful ignorance on the part of DSS.

Don't get me wrong, there are often moments of joy within the days where grief fills my consciousness...but this question has been eating away at me this evening.

Goals for the Future

    I'm dreaming of a day where I don't think about the past 70%-80% of my waking hours. I'll wake up between 4 and 5 a.m. and that is what first crosses my mind, throughout the day, it pops into my mind at random times. When I am preparing to fall asleep, the past is where my mind goes. I know that it doesn't define me. I know that it doesn't make me less worthy of love. I know that it doesn't make me less deserving of happiness. But I seem to let it hold me back anyway and I don't know how to stop myself from going down the rabbit hole. Everything that happened to me still affects me to my core...even when it's not my conscious mind...as I explained in my post about the faulty foundation.
    I don't want to be sacred of relationships anymore. I don't want to believe that it's impossible for me to make someone happy, but apparently, I do on some level. It is easy to believe that my trauma did make me unlovable since that is where my inability to connect and form relationships stems from. Granted, if I choose to remember the times I was able to reach out to those who reminded me of myself and befriend them effortlessly, then I can flip that belief on its head. Anyone who seemed alone and lonely, I reached out to, and most of the time, the result was that we became fast friends.
    My current top-three goals are to let go of the weight of the past, to release my habit of self-criticism and self judgement, and to release the idea that I am unlovable as I am and therefore unable to make someone happy. 

Nothing to Say

    While there has been a lot on my mind, there hasn't been much worth writing. There are still daily stressors. There are moments of overwhelm where I don't feel like doing anything and then there are the moments spent walking dogs and running along trails to try to get out of my own head. But my living situation is more or less the same and I can't crash at my friends place much longer for a variety of reasons.  I have looked on Craigslist but the rooms are over my budget and not in the right neighborhoods. Thus, there is less to write about and it is harder to get into my meditative state. All that fills my head when I sit still for a while are lines I've already written in other poems on this blog. I'm just writing this tonight so that I can continue my writing goal of writing a post a day as many days in a row as possible. I have the time and energy to write, just nothing to say.

I sit here waiting for the words to come.
But they're not interested in stopping by.
I sit in silence and close my eyes,
only to have my own tired old lines
cross my mind.
There's simply nothing new to say.
There's simply nothing new.
There's simply nothing.

How I Found God

    So yesterday's post was all about one of my ways of trying to avoid the grief and heartbreak that stems from my own wounds by reaching out to others going through the same thing. Granted there is grief and heartbreak in acknowledging that this is something that still happens at an alarming rate in this world. But we can't get caught up in the despair. We have to act. One day, I plan to do more outward actions than what was described yesterday, but where I am now, this is the best I can do.
    I know many don't believe in God or in the power of prayer and imagination. I didn't believe in God for most of my life either. After spending six months on the Appalachian Trail, I started to feel God in my heart. I started to see God in all the wonderful facets of nature I got to bare witness to. Before the trail, I felt that either God did not exist at all, or that He/She was kind and loving... Yes, despite what I have gone through, I had felt that God, IF He/She existed, would be a beneficent being.
    Before the trail, I didn't believe in the power of prayer...but later I realized that I essentially used prayer to get onto the trail in the first place. I had done Yoga Nidra (a kind of meditation) every day, twice a day in the months leading up to my departure and I made it happen in record time. With each meditation my heart's desire was stated 3 times in the beginning and 3 times at the end, and I focused my whole heart, mind, and soul on doing the trail. Most people take a full year or more to prepare, and I just sort of hopped right on the AT with less than 5 months of planning.
    If a non-believer can suddenly feel God come alive in her heart, then I hope that I can bring that feeling to others in deep pain. They don't even have to call it God, as long as their shame and heartbreak begin to feel mended, as long as they can experience hopefulness again, that would be enough. I am not here to convert anyone, just to comfort those who need it the most. I know it's hard to believe in a benevolent, omnipotent being when you're a survivor of sexual abuse. But I was lucky enough to find a way to experience God's grace for the first time by choosing to hike this famous trail.
    Accepting that God is good AND that terrible things happen to good people (& children) is definitely a challenge. The only answer I have there is that we are made in the image of God...our souls are made in the image of God. We chose to enter the earth plane and knew what risks we were taking by coming here. I believe I chose this life and that I had big plans for it. But my ego still wants me to play small, so it is taking a while to manifest, for it to unfold. Yet I feel it is coming all the same.

Take My Hand; I Am With You

    Last night while preparing to fall asleep, I did an exercise that I occasionally do to avoid going down the rabbit hole of revisiting the past. I sent healing light/energy to all the children suffering from instances of sexual assault...whether it be sex trafficking, whether it be incest, or any other manner of occurrence. Then I imagined my childhood self filled with and surrounded by the same light reaching out a hand to all those souls and saying to them, "Take my hand. I am with you."  And each time a soul grabbed her hand, that light would grow to encompass both beings. Then I thought to bring them on the huge boat I dreamt about and turned into the poem "Off To The Land Of Healing"*. So we were all crowded around the boat. I was sure to invite the friends I have who survived childhood sexual assault as well. Then I directed my inner child to roam around the boat with the soul of a brother of mine, who died at 4 months, in order to greet and comfort everyone. I'm not pretending that this will stop it from happening, but I am hopeful that this exercise does something to protect their psyches.

In a dimly lit room, a child dissociates 
to get a break from the pain,
when a new source of light gently approaches
extending a small hand.

"Take my hand; I am with you,"
whispers a little girl
wrapped in heaven itself**.
The child takes hold of the little girl's hand
and immediately feels lighter than air
as the ethereal light wraps around them,
as it infills them.

"Come with me. There are more children to help."
And the two set off.

When they have gathered a fair crowd,
the girl wrapped in light points to,
or perhaps conjures a door.
Golden light is streaming through it.
When the door is pushed open,
the crowd of children gasp.
They lay their disbelieving eyes
on a towering boat
set upon golden, glass-like water,
a perfect reflection of the sky.

With a single thought,
all the children find themselves
on the boat itself.

*"Off To The Land Of Healing" can be found on this blog (Aug. 30, 2020)
**This description was used in reference to my poem "A Heavenly Cloak" (Nov. 16, 2020)

Release and Receive, Trust and Allow

    My mantra after writing yesterday was "I release the idea that my mistakes are unforgivable. I release the idea that my flaws are unacceptable." I said it aloud over and over again on my late afternoon walk. And today the two words that keep going through my mind are "trust" and "allow". My head is always trying to figure everything out and trying to solve every problem I have that it drowns out everything else. When I sit quietly for a bit, I can at times, open myself up enough to receive a feeling of peace. However, the purpose of yesterday's writing was to let go of all of that energy. Yesterday was a day to release and today has been a day to receive. Currently the guidance is to trust and allow and to be sure my head doesn't get in the way.

Release all that no longer serves you
so that you can receive
all that you desire and deserve.
Release all the myths people put in your head
so that you can receive
the truth of your holy and divine identity.
Release all the expectations and comparisons
so that you can receive your own guidance.

You are not like everyone else.
Your story is not like anyone else's story.
Your reactions to your life are not to be judged harshly.
So what if someone else
with a similar background of trauma
seems better adjusted than you.
Don't draw comparisons
between your outer world and theirs
without knowing what their inner world is like.
They may have what you want on the outside
and yet have less peace in their hearts.

Don't put yourself down by calling yourself weak
when you see someone with a similar history succeed.
Some of us are the tortoise and some of us are the hare...
and yet almost all of us believe we are the tortoise...
no matter what strides, no matter what progress is made.
Both journeys are valuable.

There is no shame in slowness,
for there is no race.
There is no shame in slowness,
for there is no race.
There is no shame in slowness,
for there is no race.

My Faulty Foundation (Stream of Consciousness)

    Today I want to talk a little bit more about what I mean when I say I have a faulty/broken foundation. My core beliefs, the ones instilled in me by the trauma, have caused a great deal of self-hatred. They have caused me to feel unable to believe in and trust myself and others. I still get paralyzed by my mistakes and have trouble telling someone I've made a mistake because I feel, in my core, that I will be harshly reprimanded for every small thing. This has been very hard for me, because I make dozens of mistakes every day and criticize myself harshly for them. My foundation is faulty because it has caused me to believe that I must change everything about myself in order to be loved...that I have to be flawless in all ways in order to be loved. The faulty foundation consists of an inability to accept compliments and sometimes not even wanting the compliments to be true. When someone gives me an unexpected compliment my first reaction is to think, "let's agree to disagree" while some compliments have been known to trigger my body dysmorphia. Now just imagine trying to build a successful, happy life with these core beliefs still calling the shots about how you interact with the world. That is the challenge those of us who've experienced childhood trauma(s) face all day, every day. We feel trapped in our lives. We often feel trapped in our heads and we may even feel trapped in our bodies, wishing we could be anyone else.
    Just take a look at Erik Erikson's hierarchy of psychosocial development and you'll see how when the first stages of development are hindered severely by trauma, it sets us up for a much more challenging life as adults. That is why, at 30, I still have no coherence in my life. And I'm trying so hard not to judge myself for this, because given what I went through, I don't have a right to tell myself that I have fallen short. I have done all that I could possibly do with the cards I was dealt. How can one have enough faith to look for housing when they don't feel they belong anywhere? How can one apply for a job when they know they struggle so much with their mental health? How can one create a social life when they are so sure that the world is cruel? How do we build a life when we are so sure there isn't a point in trying? That every time we take a step, someone will knock us down? I got a job, and now I think that some small mistake will get me fired...how do I release the deep seated guilt enough to be honest about my mistakes without fear of severe reprimanding? Can you see the struggle we face? Can you understand why we can't move forward in our lives? We still perceive the world through the lens of our past pain and think everyone is against us.

Building a Life While Repairing One's Foundation

    A thought that came to me last night is that I've been trying to build a life for myself AND rebuild/repair the broken foundation of my childhood. Our childhood experiences are very foundational and profoundly affect how we view the world and thus invariably affects how we interact with the world. As I mentioned in another post, my trauma has been writing chapters. And since most of it has remained unprocessed, it has created an even greater divide between me and those without trauma (or maybe I should say with less trauma). But I am working on changing this. And I am beginning to have more patience with myself and more self-compassion. It is HARD to be building both your life in the present and to rebuild/repair a faulty foundation.

You have always done the best that you can
under your extreme circumstances.
Would you expect any stranger
to do much better
had they had a childhood like yours?

Your circumstances were extreme,
and you had to endure them at a very early age.
That is a formidable combination to survive.
Be gentle with yourself as you work through
all the ways this has affected you.
Extreme events cause extreme psychological reactions,
so do not condemn yourself for these idiosyncrasies.

To Fill People's Broken Hearts

Sometimes I get overwhelmed
by the unreality of it all.

We're all souls having an ephemeral human existence
and that idea occasionally sweeps through my whole being
in a way that makes life itself seem meaningless.
Why be here at all if 'here' isn't real?
Why stay in the Matrix if the Matrix isn't real?
I don't know why,
but I keep choosing to stay in it for some reason...
Like it's a puzzle I have to figure out.

As Viktor Frankl said,
"The meaning of life is to give life meaning."
What keeps me here
is the firm belief that I must be here
for some reason.
I can't be auxiliary...
I can't be ancillary...
I just can't be...

I want to spend my life
in service to others.
I want to spend my life
ensuring others don't feel
all alone on their journey
through the storms.
I want to fill people's broken hearts
with hopes and dreams.
I want to empower
the disempowered.
So even if this Matrix isn't real,
this quest is one worth striving for.