Note to a friend

I have decided it is time to travel back to provide inspiration to my mother just before my birth this time.  I don't want to spoil any surprises or avenge anything.  I merely aim to write as if I am the voice of encouragement to a very young, frightened mother-to-be.

January 1969

Dear expectant mother of baby June

You don't know me and it may happen that you never do.  I am a very good friend of someone you are about to care very deeply for and I'd like to share some things with you to support you through the next chapter of your life.

This baby that you're about to have is incredible!  A strong, capable, intelligent and loving miracle.  Please remember that this baby is not 'yours' and is simply on loan from God to you to raise.  This baby has asked to be born into this world to know love - to be love, loved, loving and lovable.  God has deemed you to be the perfect mother to help this baby achieve her dream.  There is no expectation upon you to be anything other than who you are.  You are enough.

You will not find this easy, nor will the baby.  The two of you are on a long journey together and you will lead for many years as the baby grows and learns.  You will learn learn much from this baby about love and you will doubt yourself, despise yourself and criticise yourself many times in the coming years.  Hold fast.  This baby will help to heal your pain and will, in turn, bring fresh pain too.  This baby will never intentionally hurt you.  The pain this baby brings will be the pain that only love can bring and that only love can heal.

You can do this and you will have guides with you always.  You will not know them as guides but they will always be there and will assist in many ways as you raise this child.  God loves you as you are and trusts that you are just right for this assignment so remember: love this baby in whatever way you know how.  What will be will be and you cannot control any of it.

A friend xx

Birthday wishes for myself

This year, I will be 45. That's 315 in dog years!! Wow!!

Mr Google once informed me that every cell in my body is replaced every 7-10 years and I have not dreaded birthdays since!  Just to imagine that I am never older than 7 is fascinating to me and, I now look at each age very differently and creatively than I used to.

According to my creative calculations, that makes me 4 again this year if I count the years from conception up :-).  I like to look back for patterns, lessons learned and unlearned.  For example, the first time my cells had existed for 6 years (my 5th birthday), I started my education.  Then 7 years later, at 12, I entered secondary education.  7 more years later, at 19, I entered a relationship with my future husband which was also an education.  7 more years down the track (26), I entered adult education for the first time at TAFE. 7 years later, at 33, I began my healing journey which has been an incredible , necessary, life-changing education.  7 years after that at 42, I applied for the job I have now which has been and continues to be very educational. At each stage, I have learned some profoundly new and helpful things and recognised some patterns I had not previously learned from and was therefore continuing to repeat.  I can only imagine what 49 will bring, almost certainly, another year of learning in preparation for my future.

Right now though, I am getting ready to celebrate 45, (4 again) and I must say, my 4 year old self is quite excited at what plans I can come up with to celebrate my new 4th birthday.  Right now, the most obvious pattern I see is that 4, 11,18, 25, 31, 38 (the other times my cells were 4) were all hugely pivotal years for me so I imagine this year will be too.  Now I'm off to look for the pattern of what I still need to learn that I hadn't learned last time my body turned 4.

Happy birthday to me

xxjxx

Another new year

Hello 2014!!

I had a fabulous Christmas wih the people I love most in this world. Lots of hugs, kisses and relaxation.  I've had a few triggers and a few sadnesses and they have moved through me with ease as I have learned to allow that to happen.  No more trapped e-motions, let it go!  Life is so much fun without the baggage of yesteryear :-) 

I've decided that this year is the year I'm going to get a home of my own again.  I've devoted the past 10 years to rebuilding myself and my life and it's time now to put down roots again and honour myself with my own home.  I worked ferociously hard to own one before and I feel ready to do it again in a healthier, more balanced way this time.

I'm not looking for a 'dream' home with all the mod cons although I would like one with running water, electricity and maybe internet reception. I will be very happy to merely get approval for a home loan but of course, I need to apply for one first and therein lies the challenge -saving for a deposit.

I have owned 2 homes before and was scrupulous in paying the mortgage.  I know that once I have the loan, the rest is easy for me.  Saving has never been a strong point for me though and I will need to learn how to do it successfully.  Due to the high costs of real estate, I will need to save at least $30,000 and it will take time to do that.  It will take perseverance and I will need to really apply myself and go back to being frugal without being miserly.  I can do it, I just need to start.  I need to see a mortgage broker to assess my position and get information.  I've redone my budget so I know what I can save and I've worked out I can afford repayments on $200,000 which is just enough to buy a home in my area.  It doesn't matter if the place needs work, I just want my own home again and it's time now to make it happen.  

Wish me luck 

xxjxx

Happy birthday Nanna

The opportunity arose today to grieve again, in safety,  the loss of my beloved Nanna who was born 87 years ago today.  When she died, I was unable to cope with the enormity of my grief.  I felt like my very soul had broken, in fact, there was not one atom of my being that didn't break.  Even my thoughts broke.  Each time I tried to 'ground', focus, think, I saw slivers and fragments in my minds eye as I literally and figuratively shattered.  I had come out of psyche the day before and had no resources, no comprehension of how to get well and then... desolation, despair, horror, a gnawing, gaping, black chasm opened up inside me and I chose to dive in.  I was unable and unwilling to be part of life for the next 7 months and the blackness felt so comforting and understanding right then.  In that blackness I saw the tiniest spark of light and I nestled against it.  That spark became my new pseudo attachment figure  as I struggled to comprehend the depth of the loss, the shock, the pain, the nothingness.  I eventually found God in that blackness.

Today, my body felt the physical pressure I had been unable to feel in 1998.  Today it was safe to grieve -openly and unashamedly, to let the tears fall, to feel gratitude for the gift of unconditional love my Nanna gave me, to be joyful at having her in my life for 29 whole years and to acknowledge her presence in the air around me now.  How proud she would be if she saw me today.  She always believed in me and she was the first person to look past my behaviours and see my heart, my real self.  What she saw in me took me 38 years to find.  It took 36 years for another person to see it and recognise it in me too but my Nanna? She saw it at my birth and every time she looked at me, thought about me, spoke about me.

My Nanna was not perfect and she knew it.  What I always knew is that she loved me without any strings, limits or expectations and that she always will and I give thanks today for the gift of her and for the gift today of being able to feel the pain wrap around my heart again and be able to really feel it, release it and let it go, safely and surrounded by love.

xxjxx

Goodbye year

As another year draws to an end, I find myself wanting to let go of anything not serving me.  Where once I hung onto every experience, every memory, every slight, every pain like I had nothing more precious to 'collect', I have now 'grown up' enough to realise that holding onto that old baggage holds me back and keeps me a victim, chaining me to it as securely as if I were padlocked into it.

I am mindfully sifting through the 'baggage' of yesterday and offering it up to release myself from its control so that I may be free to experience the wonder of today, now, and look excitedly towards what bliss the future may have in store for me, if I am unencumbered by the misery of what has already passed and has served me in whatever way it has, in my 'past' (aka: a moment ago).

I once felt safest bound in the shackles of the misery, blame and if-only's that I clung to in desperation but now I have new beginnings to anchor myself to which offer to weave me into a rich tapestry of love, hope, faith and strength and I have vowed to myself that I do not want to be still wallowing in today's pain in another 20 years time just because I chose not to heal today's pain today.

I was once a mindless automaton who modelled self-doubt, martyrdom, powerlessness, unforgiveness and a lack of personal control and, having worked really hard for 10 years solid and giving up everything I held dear at the time, I am not going to make it all count for nothing and role-model the same things to another generation of people that I love dearly.

I remind myself often of what freedom once cost me and cost those I cherish and of the incredible journey I have travelled since then.  Where once I could only see my hatred, bitterness and despair, I now open myself up to the miracle I have learned to call life.  I drink thirstily from it.

As this year closes, so too do my wistful imaginings of how things should have been, could have been, might have been, once were.  I trust and believe that 2014 will bring a whole kaleidoscope of rainbow colours to my already miraculous universe and I want me more of that!  Goodbye this year, hello new year!

I hope you're able to let go of the old and make room for the new in your life too because you are so worth it!!

xxjxx

Memories

I used to despair of ever stopping the 'tapes' that played on instant replay in my mnd.  Back then, I wished my entire memory could be erased and the living nightmare would end.  Traumatic visuals assaulted me 24/7 and I had no idea how to shut them off or if anybody else experienced the same thing.  I hated how, with each new experience, more old stuff would play over in my mind.  The details were so raw and clear all the time and I longed to forget but it wouldn't happen.  Those tapes kept right on showing and I had a box seat to every re-run.

I first asked to see a shrink when I was 14 because I thought I was mad, crazy mad.  I cried a lot by then, which was not well received and if anyone asked my why I was crying, I never knew the answer, my mind would go completely blank.  I had to have a reason to cry or I would get more to cry about but whenever I tried to form an answer to what I was crying about - nothing - nada - zero - zilch.  My mind would completely empty and be still.  There was no answer I could access.  I remember that my mother thought the idea of me seeing a shrink was a huge joke, the funniest one she'd heard in years as I recall.  She did not think it as funny when our family doctor agreed with me.  She believed I was 'a normal ten anger with normal teenage hormones' and I would eventually 'grow out of it' without her 'forking out good money for some quack' to tell her what she, in her omnipotent wisdom, already knew.  I persisted and the doctor won that argument, thank you Dr Wilson.

Unfortunately, when I saw this learned professional, a psychologist, he proceeded to tell me what I "should" think instead of listening.  As it was 1983, Australia was about to recognise child abuse in a court of law and, had he listened he could have helped not only me but my entire family.  He didn't listen though and all I came away with was more confusion, frustration and questions.  It would take me another 32 years to find my answers - for myself.  My mother claimed afterwards that the psychologist agreed with her completely, that I was a normal teenager with normal teenage problems and that I would grow out of it.  She told everyone she met how she knew as much as a shrink.

I battled on alone and it was another 3 years before I would willingly seek out professional help of that type again.  In 1984, I was in a motor vehicle fatality and lost my best, lifelong friend.  I was almost 16 and it impacted me horrifically.  I was a blithering mess for months and it was about 18 months later that someone recognised I needed help and support and only then because I dissolved into hysterics after hearing someone close to me had crashed their car.  Even though they were okay, I collapsed screaming, blaming myself, almost dribbling down my chin.  I remember being slapped and told to snap out if it but inside my mind I laughed at what I considered then to be a feeble and moronic attempt at futility.  I hid inside my head where all the horrors played out. 

I was taken to a counsellor who was really nice and she listened.  She told me I had Post Traumatic Stress and I told her it was crap - a new fad for shrinks that meant absolutely nothing.  I wailed at her that I must be some kind of freak to lose my best friend and not remember the couple of moments leading up to it but be constantly remembering things that were said to me and done to me at age 3, 4, 5, 6, 7..........what was wrong with me? What sort of person could I be?  I hated myself for that.

I was grateful to her for seeing me and listening.  I did feel slightly better after and I did see her again a few times but she put me off with this PTSD talk.  It was another 20 years of constant remembering before I read about the symptoms and realised she had been right.  For over 2 decades I lived with PTSD and didn't even know it, in fact, I had C-PTSD and it was compounded from birth to 35 years of age.

I saw about 1/2 a dozen other counsellors and psychologists over the years as well as 3 psychiatrists but none of them ever picked up what she did.  None of them wanted to know about my flashbacks, tapes, horror and hopelessness.  None of them understood why I felt so hopeless and behaved so powerlessly.  None of them listened, they believed they had the answers for me and I believed they had them too.  We were all wrong.  Medication helped to push it all down and treat the symptoms but it did not address the underlying cause.  These professionals kept telling me I had to live in the now but they did not hear that 'now' for me was reliving all the horror, over and over again.  I was mentally, psychologically and emotionally trapped in trauma and the memories never stopped their assault on my mind.  I was manacled to my childhood with chains of despair that bound me so tightly I could not be in the now.  When anyone spoke to me, I was reacting to some old memory of something else.  

I battled on believing I was certifiably crazy for all those years till I finally snapped and took 7 months 'off' life in 1998 after I lost my father-in-law and my Nanna a month apart.  I trapped myself in my mind with my memories and refused to come out, it seemed pointless to try anymore.  Eventually I came back from the void and fought again but it was only another 5 years before I was gone again.  This time I was determined that I should be locked up and observed.  I figured that if some shrink would see what I was like day-to-day, I may never even be released and at the edge of my sanity, that was okay by me.

I couldn't even get assessed!  I got taken to hospital a couple of times by police and ambulance but I couldn't get a mental health assessment for months.  When I finally did get assessed, I got the same spiel about how I needed to let go of the past but my horror was, the past wouldn't let go of me!!  Without any plan or prospects, I fled interstate and still got nowhere with the mental health system.  They were now referring me to a women's centre.  Why could no one hear me?  I was suicidal and completely alone, with no money, living in a car!  But I was not in need of mental health services?

Thank God!!  That is what I've been saying for the past 8 years.  Thank God!!

I finally found a counsellor (and other health professionals) who listened and understood.  People who supported me in finding my own answers and in stopping the constant playback of those memories.  I still remember in vivid detail, countless words, images, behaviours, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations.  I still remember too much but, now I have peace and the tapes have stopped. I can recall memories if I want to rather than the memories being in control as they were for all those years - 3 and a half decades in total.  I have never 'recovered' any memories because I was never able to forget any.  Now though, I understand my mind and I am at peace with the memories, they've done me a favour and helped me to be who I am today.  They're my memories, a part of who I am and I'm not mad or crazy.  My brain was simply having a very normal, neuroscientific reaction to very abnormal stimuli.

Onwards and upwards

Xxjxx

Growing Up Again

Throughout my life I have shouldered too much responsibility for too many things that did not belong to me.  For about 5 years, I tried in vain to find a word that would replace 'responsibility' in my vocabulary as I struggled to let go of that which was not mine to carry.  I still struggle with it although not nearly as much as before.

Annette Noontil (Your Body is the Barometer to Your Soul so be Your Own Doctor II) wrote that "my only responsibility is to be happy".  That quote has helped me immensely in my quest to let go.  I rejected her notion at first because it challenged the beliefs I had at the time. As I've opened my mind and heart more and realised how limiting and disabling many of my old beliefs were, I find her quote very helpful. Making my happiness my only responsibility has liberated me. Not only does it serve to remind me that my happiness is vital to my healing, it also has taught me not to try to expect others to shoulder more than what is theirs either.

I was reminded this week (more patterns I observed in life) that once not so very long ago, I believed that I had no choices.  I was so trapped by fear (my own and that of others) that I was conditioned to believe that I had no options other than what I was experiencing.  I believed back then that life was some kind of horror film to be endured in agony and despair and that the only thing possible to hope for was death and so I longed for life to be over and never learned what living was.  

I feel sad about that and I feel so overwhelmingly grateful that I am no longer chained to those thoughts and beliefs because it is not even close to true.  I do have choices.  Everything I experience as an adult, arises through a choice that I have made and I am responsible not only for the choices I make, I am also responsible to own the consequences of the choices.  I am learning to accept that every action and thought of mine has a consequence and can help me to learn more about myself and others.  Blaming is not conducive to my pursuit of happiness.  Blaming is merely a synaptic map in my brain born of fear.  I choose love and I strive to change those brain maps and look at circumstances without needing to blame, and it's hard, sometimes very hard to catch my mind slipping into that old pattern of needing to assign blame, needing someone or something to take responsibility for what I have created with my own mindlessness.  I believe mindfulness is the highway to my healing and although my brain still welcomes the safety and comfort of unawareness, it it getting easier to practice mindfulness much more often than was once possible.  

Through mindfulness I have learned who I am and who I want to be.  I have learned what makes me happy and I've learned that I don't have to or need to control everything.  I've learned that if I am not in control of me, I am out of control and so will everything around me be.  I have recognised that life gives me cues, tips, answers and signposts to support me on my journey towards mindfulness and that I have often ignored those patterns.  I try to recognise them now and not beat up on myself when I miss them because I trust there will be more to come and there always is.  I am learning that when chaos and crises beset me, I have a choice as to what I take out of it and whether or not to allow the storm to batter and beat me, to ride it out with love or to take shelter from it and wait till it passes over. I have learned that after every storm, I can trust there will be a rainbow.  I have learned that after confusion (storm) comes clarity (rainbow).

Mindfulness has helped me to find myself and the many, many, different aspects of me.  I have explored so many facets of myself and I intend to continue exploring.  I have found parts of myself I had once despised, loathed, feared and misunderstood.  I have also found parts of myself that provide me with great joy and peace and I am determined that whatever it takes, I am committed to finding a way to love every atom of my being unconditionally and extend that same love toward others and all things.  Nothing in this life will bring me greater joy and the learning has already made my life more incredible than I once had the capacity to imagine.  I have learned that every part of who I am is what makes me who I am.  Every part of me has something very worthwhile to contribute and to offer to me.  Every part of me is a miracle.

I may have been raised with not-good-enough-parenting but now I have the opportunity to reverse what I have 'learned' and re-parent myself.  I aim to love each part of my being unconditionally, without strings attached, without fear as if each part of me were a real child or person and to have no 'favourites', loving each part equally, generously and without judgment.  I'm slowly getting there and I do not delude myself that it will be easy.  I do believe that it is simple though -through mindfulness.  

Recreating my awareness is a foundation stone for me.  How can I love every part of me if I allow myself or others to reject it, refuse to acknowledge it, malign it, abuse it, criticise it, rescue it, abandon or neglect it, if I dissociate from it?  I do not believe I can and so I welcome and greet each new aspect of my being with open arms and I lovingly walk alongside others with patience as they do the same for themselves.  I have no expectation of others than for them to be exactly who they are in that precise moment and love them regardless of their behaviour.  Any time I find myself unable to do that, I reflect inward and look for what I am unable to see in myself because I believe that every person I meet and hear about has a gift of learning for me and that belief feels much better than the old toxic beliefs I once set such store in.

In the past 10 years I have met and heard about people who have taught me so much and helped me to find hope, courage, strength and love and I am grateful now for every person I have ever encountered.  Some of those people I once hated or rejected but not now.  Now that I am committed to being unconditional love, I thank them too for being exactly who they are - perceived friend or foe and I love them unconditionally too.  Sometimes I lapse and sometimes I wonder if I can do it but it's who I want to be so I am doing it anyway and I feel so much better for it that I don't want to go back to believing anymore what I once judged them in my mind to be.  It was not them I hated, it was there behaviours.   Many people challenge me on that from their own fear and pain but I once would have challenged it too so who am I to judge?  My only responsibility is to be happy and I am, I would not be if I was unable or unwilling to grant others the same grace.

I am the parent of my spiritual self and I want to care for and cherish myself as much as I care about and cherish my own wonderful children and grandchildren, who I am captivated by.  They are miracles to me, teachers of divinity and light that guide me towards love and they have no responsibility to me, they owe me nothing.  They have taught me so very much about love and I am eternally grateful for the gifts of their being and for the opportunity to have shared so many wonderous moments of my existence with them.  They have been so instrumental in my journey towards myself and towards love and I aim to feel the same way about myself and others as I do about them.  They have taught me how to parent and I still have much to learn so I am learning; gratefully, wholeheartedly, mindfully and joyously.  

I have now re-experienced many of the healthy childhood developmental stages a child with 'good-enough' parenting moves through as they 'grow up'.  That has taken a lot of hard work, tears, fears, love, endurance and courage.  I did not find it easy as a 36 year old, feeling as vulnerable as a newborn for 2 years while I moved through the symbiotic stage of my development so I could learn to trust!  As exhilarating as it sometimes was, I did not find it easy to be a teenager for the first time at 35 or to face my own mortality many times over and question my very existence as those who are nearing the end of a long life usually do.  I did not find it easy to re-enter education feeling once again like a 6 year old in a classroom and navigating all of the questions and feelings that arose in me just as they had tried to arise in me decades ago.  I have been blessed in this re-creation.  I have recognised that, just as it takes a community to raise a child, so too have I needed others to help me re-parent myself.  People I have learned to trust, lean on, give back to.  Every single person has had something valuable to share, the angels by my side, and this journey to awakening has been painful but oh so worth it.

I have learned that pain is not my enemy, it is my guide and I believe that through mindfulness, I can release pain and let it go with love to come to a place where fear and pain are no longer responsible for my awakening and that I and only I am responsible for me and for what I think, feel, do and say, for my happiness.

Onwards and upwards 

xxjxx 

My experience of Heal For Life Foundation

I have travelled a long, hard road to today and I am who I am.  I've made many mistakes, some of them big and disastrous, and I have done things I carried shame about. I have at times in my past been blind, mute, deaf, unloving and unempathic, unfeeling and unreal. One thing I have never been is untrue. That may not make sense and I don't need it to, I have known me for a relatively short time.  In fact, until 10 years ago, I did not know who 'I' was. I knew facts about my experiences, I remembered minute details of my existence but I did not have the slightest sense of 'I'. But even then, I did know who I wanted to be and I tried with all my might to be that. What I didn't know then was that I didn't know how to be me. I read masses of books, studied, sought professional counselling, psychotherapy, psychiatry, medication, and expert advice in my determined effort to be who I knew I wanted to be but I did not know that the answers I was seeking were already inside me.  I learned that through the support of other survivors at Heal For Life. I had a great counsellor and support network who encouraged me to go to Heal For Life.  I had friends who had been and come home glowing with joy, turning their lives around.  I wanted that too but I was scared. I knew nothing about this place and my friends said I had to experience it for myself.  I did the only thing I knew how to do well, I researched it.  I found out that Heal For Life is run by survivors for survivors and does not give counselling or advice.  I learned that they have strongly enforced safety guidelines and I learned they really care about each person who goes there. I felt terrified but I trusted my counsellors and I took the step.

That was back in 2006. At that time, I was broke, disabled and feeling close to hopeless. I saw no future and I looked at the world through a broken lens. I believed I had nothing much to offer and I'd actually been told by Centrelink and 2 specialists that I would never work again. 

Going to Heal For Life was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Thanks to many wonderful people, most of whom were also learning who they were, I know now who I am and what 'I' means for me and to me.  I also have a full time job again which feels fabulous. I did a lot of training and volunteering with Wesley and Lifeline and returned to study in Welfare, Community Services and Mental Health and, even though at the beginning I thought that if I passed at all I would barely scape through because I believed I was stupid, I got 100%on 1/2 of my exams and not less than 90% on all the rest barring 1 (67%).  I then began training at Heal For Life myself to become a volunteer and later a facilitator.  I would not have studied what I did if not for Heal For Life who insisted that if I wanted to join their team, I must have external qualifications too. Even after such great grades, I still thought I might fail but I had never had the support I was now getting and it made a huge difference.  Heal For Life did not just throw me in to support other survivors, they stretched me to aspire and helped me, encouraged me to aim higher than I ever thought possible. They taught me so many things, not just trauma healing but, academic skills too. I did not know how to write essays or reports before I went to Heal For Life and now I write them easily and without fear.

I have learned so much at Heal For Life. I have learned the real definition of responsibility and self care.  To let go of the need to blame.  To re-parent my self in a healthier way.  To see mistakes as opportunities to learn. To give and receive feedback. To love myself and others equally. To give and receive in life in balance. To listen. To strive for quality and leave the need for perfection behind. To know that my feelings cannot destroy me and that other people cannot make me feel anything unless I give them the power to do so. To become the cause of my future and not just the result of my past.  I underwent 2 different psychological evaluations at Heal For Life as a condition of being a volunteer there and the results gave me such hope.  

The positive effects of what I have gained from Heal For Life have impacted more than just me, it has positively influenced everyone around me and I decided in 2012 I was going to enrol in a Grad. Dip in Counselling at ACU.  I had called up the uni and began the application when I received an email advertising for a full time position at Heal For Life coordinating the programs. I thought that as much as I would love to do that, everyone else stood a better chance (because I was sure they had better qualifications and skills) but I decided to apply anyway. I was interviewed by an external person in Newcastle and then I went back to Sydney to complete my uni application.  (Sadly, until about that time, whenever I prepared my CV, all I saw was that I only got as far as Yr 9 at school.  I did not see until that very application, just how many courses I had done since or how many qualifications I had gained along the way) and.......I got the job! I started 9th Jan 2012.

I was very excited in 2012 when Heal For Life gained accreditation from QIC.  That was a dream of mine as I have seen the immense growth in the organisation since 2006.  I've seen people come and go, I've made friends along the way and said goodbye to some also.  I've grieved losses and celebrated triumphs and I've learned to listen, something which I know I was once totally unable to do.  I know when to refer someone for professional support and I know how important it is for that to happen because I've learned that at Heal For Life.  In the 2 years I've been in my new role, I have again given up the life I once knew to start over and I'm glad I had the courage to do that.  I love the work we do.  I love the people I meet and the joys that they share. I appreciate the feedback that every person is invited to give and I love that sharing stories is not part of the program coz I'm done with the story of my misery. I've been at Heal For Life since 2006 and most of my friends there don't know my 'story' because those details are not who I am. Who I am is who I am and I believe in what we do with all my heart.

I believe everyone has the right to ask questions, make complaints, be heard, speak up.  It is so important for survivors to take back their power - I have total respect for that and I encourage it although I feel terribly sad when it is done out of malice, that is not empowerment.  If my actions hurt others I am disempowering myself all over again, and others.  If I feel the need to make a stand on something, I get facts first, healthy balanced information so I can make an informed choice, because I learned to do that at Heal For Life too. That is the person I have always wanted to be. A person with integrity and congruence. A person who is flexible yet firm. I am still learning but it's much easier now thanks to the lessons.

I'm not a fool, I know Laws, ACTs, policies, procedures, ethical guidelines.  I know how to adhere to them and I am pedantic about it, which anyone who knows me knows. I have also trained in finance and admin and, If I make a mistake about anything, I am grateful to have it pointed out, I apologise and I begin making whatever change is necessary, then I look at what I can learn from it so I won't make the same mistake again.  I also know the people around me do it that way too - I see it daily.   I'm not ever going to say Heal For Life is perfect because nothing can be perfect.  What I do know and I stand by is this: the volunteers and staff are skilled, trained, capable and committed to excellent service delivery. With the vision of flat-style management and consensus decision making, with every person having equality and ownership, Heal For Life is an incredible place to be a part of and will continue to become even better as time goes by thanks to the survivors who continue to be the incredible people they are, giving as much as they do.  Each person there has fought their own battle and wants to walk alongside others as they themselves were supported at Heal For Life and each person tries to embody the philosophies of Heal For Life and supports each other in continuing to grow and learn and thanks to them, I have learned to do that too.

xxjxx

My body is a part of me too!

It might seem weird to some people, maybe even to most people but, I only recently fully realised that my body is a part of who "I" am.

I've accepted for a long time that I have a body and spent many years hating it, abusing it, using it and destroying it really. I believe I am a spiritual being having a physical existence but it had never, I think, really sunk in that my body is a part of who "I" am.

I recently became completely incapacitated for 4 weeks, unable for the first 3 weeks to even get up much. My body seemed to shut down and alarmed me with sharp painful spasms, headache and critically high blood pressure which I've never experienced before. I am not someone who suffers colds and illnesses often or gladly and even though I have severe physical health issues and suffer cluster headaches every year, I dont generally get 'sick'.  It was frightening.

Throughout my life, I have had multiple traumas on every level and my body has been terribly hurt. Some of those traumas were accidental, some from abuse but then there is much trauma that was self-inflicted through my own ignorance also.  I pushed myself so hard all the time trying to win the personality contest of life that I did damage and did not even realise I was doing any damage till only a few years ago when that damage started causing me excruciating, non-stop pain and showed up on scans.  I have always been in pain, I got so used to pain that I just learned to push through it and virtually switch it off - that is why I have only recently had this startling epiphany - my body is a part of who "I" am.

I have been actively healing my unseen scars for 10 years this month and I've done a really good job of that. I have no symptoms of mental illness anymore.  I choose to continue taking medication for that to further support my brain in healing from the effects of prolonged trauma as I figure my brain needs all the help it can get to heal from 35 years of that.

I have been healing my mind, spirit, brain and heart and trying to include my body but I've realised this past month that my healing has not been holistic in the true sense of the word because I sort of saw my body as some prison cell I was trapped in that had no value or worth. It was just a thing that had to be endured and survived too.  Sad really, so much time and effort into destroying the one thing that has truly been with me through all the years, tears, pain and joy.  This body gave birth to 2 incredible children and has taken me to the heights of pure ecstasy and yet, I could/would not attach to it - I didn't know I needed to and frankly, I didn't know how.  I have done study so I have the information I need and I have endeavoured valiantly to 'ground' myself in it but I have not really recognised its true value till right now. I feel sad about it, I have real grief around it that I am working through and I'm now using the same approach that has worked in healing the rest of me - one tiny baby step at a time:

To heal my body I know I need:

Safety

I don't feel safe in my body because it constantly hurts so I am using affirmations to help my brain change the patterns of what I believe about my body.  I am also allowing myself to use pain relief medication for a little while while I reverse the damage I've done and I am making safer choices with food.

Information

Different specialists have told me for the past 8 years that I had to be very careful of moving my body and any exercise other than hydrotherapy was out.  No gym, no treadmill, no bikes, no swimming, no Pilates or yoga, no chiropractic, no osteopathy, no, no, no, no.  Last week, one of those very same doctors told me that's wrong and there is no reason why I can't.  He completed contradicted what he told me 6 years ago and now says there is no reason I can't exercise although lifting weights is still definitely out.  My first reaction was to drill him :-). Afterwards I was in complete shock, it really did my head in.  I had trusted those learned people to advise me on how to care for my body and I now realise, they do not know that because it is my body, not theirs!  I have done courses on lots of different physical aspects and I have the information to have a healthy body, I now need to put it in to practise again and the first step I am taking towards that is to lose 5 kilos before I resume exercising so there is slightly less pressure on my body and stress on my heart when I do begin moving more.

Support

I need professional and personal support to do this. I have now found a wonderful new gp and I've had masses of tests done to ensure it is safe to embark on this part of my journey. I am now stretching myself to let go of any stress I don't need and am on a 30 day salad challenge. I'm not going extreme, I'm trialling eating salad for 2 meals every day for 30 days and my salads include chicken, fish, feta, nuts, seeds, various beans, green leaves, beet root, fruit, peas, corn, carrots and different non creamy dressings in scarce proportion.  I have been on this challenge for 2 weeks and I am begininning to feel better in myself and less stressed. I am also drinking a lot of water which is huge for me! And I'm enjoying all this :-)

Connection to my Inner Child/ren

My connection is constant, I love all parts of me dearly, which is how I was able to recognise the importance of my body finally.  Because of all the healing I have done, I am no longer able to not love any part of me so that now includes my body.  It does not mean I will love my body perfectly immediately, it simply means that now I am able to see my body with the same love and affection I have for every other part of myself, I can work with that and that feels good too.

This is the simplistic way I have approached my healing all along and it has proved tremendously successful. Over the course of my life I have tried many times to have a healthier body and lifestyle and never been able to sustain it. It always felt like I had to, I cracked a whip over my head to do it and then resented it.  I think now I know why-how can I cherish anything I do not have an 'attachment' to?  So now. I have a new healing buddy -my body and I can already tell, we're gunna be great friends one day.

xxjxx

10 year anniversary of active healing

11th November is a date carved in my soul. It is the date I said goodbye to my beloved granddad. He played a huge part in shaping who I have become and I was blessed enough to have him continually in my life for 31 years. He and my Nanna were my GodParents and surrogate parents, my confidantes and my cheer squad. They were not perfect people by any means and made as many mistakes as anyone else probably does. For me though, they were the one true constant presence of unconditional love in a life I Thought was cruel and torturous.  They gave me hope and praise and if not for that, I would never have survived to get to here.

11th November 2013 saw me reflecting on the date and I realised with sadness and awe that it has now (last week) been 10 years since I walked away from two polar opposites - the absolute love of my children and the abuse of my past. I had to give up one to escape the other because 10 years ago last week, my hope was almost totally gone and I could not see any other way to change what my heart screamed to me I needed to change.  It was THE hardest and most devastating choice I have EVER consciously made and although I still sometimes wonder if, in hindsight,  I could have done it any other way, I remember the total self-annihilation I endured over the next 6 months that frightened my kids and me and I almost didn't make it through. I feel sad and I still grieve what my children and I lost. I also know to my core that it really was the best choice I could have made at that moment.  I was toxic.  I was on an implosive course to destruction and I would never forgive myself if I had taken my kids down that path too.  I left and I swore - vowed - (when multiple repeated failed suicide attempts finally convinced me to think outside the square - that I would go far far away and find some way to become a person my kids could one day be proud of. (They have always been proud of me but I couldn't then fathom why). I moved 600kms away and so the healng began.

Originally, the only idea I had on how to achieve This new goal was to drive to Sydney to see and hug my father.  I barely new him but my 3 year old self knew intuitively that his hug would be medicinal. It was the only idea I had so I decided to go with it and see where I went from there.  Little did I know that trip would bring back my hope and turn everything around.  Over the next months, I decided I needed to create so many good, happy memories that all of the trauma memories that replayed in my head 24/7 would have no space to inhabit in my mind. In essence I finally became a teenager, at the tender age of 35!  I was reckless, impulsive, excited, scared, exhilarated, sad and still, suicidal thoughts plagued me all the time, doubts about why. I Should keep trying.  I hated myself for not being with my kids.  I judged myself cruelly and constantly and I could not stop loathing myself.  I spent so much time      crying, I swear my eyelids have been puffed up ever since.

After about 3 months of living impulsively, I knew it was not enough and that if I did not get help of some kind,  I was still in grave danger of suicide. I approached the mental health service but they sent me away. They suggested 2 women's centres which. I Did not appreciate and I left.  2 weeks later, I stared at those numbers wondering which to call first. I decided I liked the one that had a woman's name in the title and called to ask what they offer and for directions. The receptionist was so lovely and welcoming that I felt immediately curious to see the place so down I went.  

When I arrived, I found her to be just as cheerful and kind as she sounded on the phone and I began to explain my plight. She gently informed me they had a 3 month waiting list for counselling and I panicked. I knew, without an ounce of doubt, that without help, I would not live 3 more months. I dissolve into uncontrollable sobs and she went out to speak with a counsellor who, wonders of wonders, suggested I go straight in.  Although I judged that counsellor as a new-age, weird, soft-touch do-gooder that day and it took me about a month to go back, I was also so very grateful because those 2 women saved my life that day and the rest as they say is history.

With their help and the help of all of the staff at WILMA Women's Health Centre in Campbelltown NSW,   I worked really really hard over the next 2 years and had some form of counselling or support every single day. I virtually became a newborn infant again and I did not feel confidant to handle any problem alone  as 35 years of trauma caught up with me.  I Had lived all that time with recurrent memories playing like a movie without a stop button and wondering why I couldn't forget, wishing that I could just forget but I couldn't forget one minute of my entire existence and it hurt so bad....and i blamed myself for it happening.  To have another human react in horror to my every-day reality helped me realise what I hade gone though truly was awful and that I was not just a 'bad person' or a 'sook' as I had so long believed.  I began to attach feelings to my memories which I had so distanced myself from, I was totally immune to.  I began to recognise my self as someone of worth and it was an excruciatingly painful process too as I also began to learn how I had caused others pain in many ways too and I found many new reasons to hate and loathe myself more.  I also vowed to keep going.  For the longest time, I had to believe I was doing it for my kids, so that what they had endured was not in vain. I felt I owed it to them to see this healing through to its end and whatever pain it caused me was nothing less than I deserved.  Over time though, I realised that an attitude like that was not really honouring my kids and nor was it fair to place that responsibility on them so I got to a place where I could do it because I  was worth it too.

Then I heard about a place where survivors of childhood trauma could release the emotions trapped inside and heal the wounds with the support of other survivors and I had long dreamed of a place like that but I had no money and no income and by then, I was physically disabled too so I gave up hope of anything like that and continued doing what was working for me - counselling (weekly by then), support and self-help groups, information sessions and, I banned mirrors. I so hated my appearance that looking in a mirror even left me having suicidal thoughts so I banned em all from my home for 2 years. I got rid of em or covered em up :-)

One night, 2 friends of mine returned from this place of healing (Heal For Life) and I could literally see how healed their bodies, minds, and spirits were - they were glowing radiantly and I longed to find what they had but I was still convinced I would never be accepted there because there were so many people in the world who had (really) suffered.....it took me 2 more years to stop making excuses and just go and from the first moment, I wanted to run away.  I had to tell myself every 5 minutes "just stay for 5 more minutes and if you still want to run, you can run" - EVERY 5 minutes!!

I dd make it though the week even though on the second day I was beating up on myself because I couldn't use the tools and do it perfectly on my own - on the second day :-) over the next 5 years, I continued regular counselling ( daily for 2 years, weekly for 2 more years, fortnightly for 2 more years, monthly for 2 more years after that and then, in the 8th year, I only need 4 sessions)!  I also did more self-help groups, read over 100 self-help books, returned to study and got high distinctions in 3 courses and began volunteering in 2 different places. I even planned on going to university one day. I had accepted the fact by then that I would never work again (as I'd been told by my doctors and Centrelink), that I would one day never walk again and long before I was ready,  that I would die prematurely due to a cyst between my spinal chord and brain stem. It seemed so unfair and inevitable and yet......

I began to hope and to heal and I learned to become the me I believe I was created to be. I began to judge less and love more and I learned to listen and empathise. I grew up, and I am learning to re-parent myself in a loving, nurturing way. I have learned how to be my own best friend and enjoy my own company and this month I am trying to learn to love my body too. In January 2012 I returned to full time employment and I feel so blessed, grateful and honoured to all of the wonderful people I have met at WILMA and now at Heal For Life (www.healforlife.com.au) because now I am a new me, the real me.  

The trauma did happen.  I was abused. It was wrong. It did hurt. It should never have happened.

I am happier now than I have ever been in my life and even though I miss my kids, I still see them and talk to them as often as they and I can make it happen.  I still love them totally and unconditionally and always will. I still grieve our loss at times and I still am determined to be someone they can be proud of even though I am well aware now that I cannot control or manipulate their thoughts and feelings :) it's about the vow I made 10 years ago and the vow I continue to make now regularly.........."I want to live in a world of love and I vow to be the change I want to see in this world."

XxjxX