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.

To Bury Sorrows

Last night,
another tide of grief
swelled up in me,
causing me to weep.

As is common,
it came on all at once.
It almost seems as though
my tears invariably rest
just below the surface
of my happiness and bliss.

Sometimes, I am aware
that I am burying my sorrows,
stifling them beneath
my faux certainty
that I am past the grief.

But the truth is
this continues
to be my comforting lie.
A lie I tell to mask the pain
so others will not see
how permanent the strain.

However,
this doesn't mean
my moments of joy aren't genuine.
Just like day fades to night,
just like summer cedes
to fall,
then winter,
my joy gave way to grief.

We know we cannot stop
the natural progression
of the days, nights, and seasons.
And I am equally unable
to evade or elude
my seasons of sadness and sorrow.

The Anniversary of My A.T. Hike

    So today is an exciting anniversary. Six years ago, I started the Appalachian Trail and completed its 2,189 miles six months later, summiting Katahdin on September 9th. It was a sensational experience, if insanely challenging at times. I was probably the only one on the trail unable to sleep despite the exhaustion that comes with carrying a heavy pack up and down mountains all day. It wasn't that I was afraid to fall asleep in the woods; I was very accustomed to spending nights in a tent pitched in the middle of nowhere. That's just the way it went for me. I'd have wildly vivid and disturbing dreams and then be wide awake between them. Surprisingly, I slept terribly in towns, too. And yet, I got up each morning and trekked on. One morning I tried to get down at least 3 cups of coffee, and another time I used a Monster drink to get me going. Of course, most of the time, we weren't leaving from a town, so these options weren't used more than twice a week.
    Some of you are probably wondering why on earth I took on this challenge. Well, I had gone through three major heart-breaks, the first in January of 2010. The day my biological mother informed me of the trauma I went through, I started day-dreaming about the possibility of doing the trail. Then, while at Shepherd University, my older brother attempted suicide. After that, a whole slew of other events snowballed to the point that I had to switch majors. So instead of an education degree, I got a general studies degree. For me, that switch was a 3rd source of heart-break. To me, this trail was a way to heal myself. It was a way for me to prove myself to myself. It showed me that I was actually all the things I had thought I wasn't and wished I was. I was strong. I was powerful. I had follow-through. I was tenacious and courageous. I was inspiring...according to those I had met along the way. 
    After the trail, I was able to write about it on this blog and called the posts "Trials of the Trail". If you're curious enough to take a peak at them, I wrote the first segment September 16th, 2016.

To Be All That I Can Be

I have held a fear deep in my heart
that I'd always be
misperceived from the start.
I have worried
that if all people see are my flaws
and not their root cause
they shall deem me unworthy
of love and compassion.
And so I tend to over-explain
hoping they gain just an inkling
of the scope of my pain.

I fear others shall see me as weak,
prone to falling apart,
if I don't choose to impart
just a piece
of my broken heart.
I want others to know,
just a little,
of what goes on in my mind
day in and day out,
so they can begin to perceive
my courage and strength
more than my
idiosyncrasies.

Yes, I have flaws,
but I assure you,
I'm not a lost cause.
Just give me a chance
to heal and to grow.
Just give me a chance
to be all that I can be.

To Derive Meaning from the Meaningless

I have pressed on through the night
even though there seemed to be
no end in sight.
I have stayed the course
even through the tumultuous storms.
Though the nights had been bitter
and the days not much better,
I was determined to keep putting
one foot
in front of the other.

I have travelled through the dark
without the help of the stars.
I have tried to find my way through the wilderness
with nothing but my broken heart
and its faulty compass.

Though I experienced senseless violence,
I have derived meaning from the meaningless;
I have found purpose in the purposelessness.
Don't get me wrong,
I should never have gone through
all that I lived through,
but since I cannot turn back time,
I have had to find a way
to reframe the crime.

Though no one can ever pretend
that the harm that came to them
was nothing but a blessing in disguise,
there is a way to find hope within the despair
and light within the dark.
There is a way to derive meaning from the meaningless.

Brand New Chapters

While my trauma has lived on
in the heart of my inner child
it has been writing chapters;
chapters full of instability,
chapters full of struggle,
chapters full of scarcity.

But I am beginning to heal and transform
that which lies within the heart of my inner child.
I have been ever so gradually
changing the core beliefs that have resided there.
There was a time when I believed
that I would always return to a place of suffering.
There was a time when I believed
that no one had my back.
There was a time when I believed
that all of my mistakes were unforgivable.
And these beliefs have been
vanquished, banished, extracted, and extinguished.

I will not allow my trauma to write any more chapters.
I will, instead,
allow the power and the grace of God that lives within me
to write chapters full of joy and peace and ease.
I will not allow my trauma to write any more chapters.
I will, instead,
allow the love and light of God that lives with in me
to write chapters full of laughter and contentment.

Making My Way Home

I am making my way home.
I see a house in which all the rooms are full of love.
I see a house full of young people and pets.
I am making my way home.
I see a house that feels warm, comfortable, comforting, and loving.
There is a room in that house that is waiting for me.
I am making my way home.
There are pets in that house willing and waiting to comfort me.
This place is a place where I feel safe, loved, empowered, and cared for.
I am making my way home.
This safe space will enable me to feel a deep sense of security.
This feeling will allow me to make steady progress with processing old wounds.
I am on my way home.

To Forge a Path Through Fire

It is time you acknowledged your strength.
For you have pushed forward
where others would not have;
for you have journeyed
where others wouldn't dare.

It is time you acknowledged your power.
For you have risen from the ashes
when others would not have;
for you have shone a light for others
while feeling mired in the dark.

It is time you acknowledged your courage.
For you have chosen to face your monsters
where others would hide from them;
for you have embraced the weight of your sorrows
where others would wage war against them.

It is time you acknowledged your light.
For you have done what others feel they cannot.
It is time you acknowledged your wisdom.
For you have forged a path through the fire
with the power of your words.
It is time you acknowledged your grace.
For you have done what others hope for
but daren't dream.

Moving Forward by Looking Backward?

    So today has been a hard day for writing. I never really settled into the zone. There has been too much on my mind in terms of the next part of my healing journey. I did find an EMDR specialist, and I think she will be a good match for me for this kind of therapy. Luckily this therapy is done in phases and we won't be retrieving/recovering suppressed memories until we lay some ground work; for example, teaching me coping skills among other things.
    Before getting to this point, the universe kept giving me signs to give this a shot and I thought to myself, I can't do that until I have x, y, and z. Specifically referring to supportive people around me, especially at work. And of course, I realized a moment later, I had that already...so here we are. Diving into the deep end without knowing how to swim...or if I'll actually float. I'm not saying that this will definitely get a lot harder before it gets better, but from where I stand now, I have no idea how it will unfold so I have been preemptively preparing for it as mentioned in a prior post by reaching out for added support during this time. Next Friday, during our appointment, we will create a 6 month plan for how we will proceed. 
    While I get, on some level, that this process will allow me to create new neural pathways that will essentially help me move past the trauma in such a way that it will no longer hold me back, it is all too easy to get caught up on the idea that I will be recovering suppressed memories of trauma. Granted, one odd plus side to this is that it will flesh out the memoir/autobiographical book I want to write. I had a dream, once, about having it published already and people were talking to me about what they thought of it. 

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 tragedy.

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 trauma.

To See a Future That's Bright

There was a time when
I hadn't wanted to remain alive
with the weight of so much grief
upon my heart.

There was a time when
I hadn't wanted to remain alive
with the tremendous burden of shame
upon my soul.

To this day, I'm not sure
how I kept moving forward.
I'm not sure how I succeeded
when I felt so defeated.
There were nights spent
with tears in my eyes,
praying for my own demise.
And yet still, with each morning,
I chose to rise.

Those days don't feel
that far behind me,
and sometimes these feelings
still creep up on me.
But I choose to stay.
I choose to believe
that I still have a purpose. 
I choose to see
a future that's bright
despite all the chapters
that took place in the night.