This perhaps is the hardest post I have ever written. One that I question myself if it is really a part of my life that I need to put out to the world, to make myself this vulnerable. For much to my dismay, I believed for most of my life that after all I went through as a child – that at least….at least I didn’t have this too to deal with.
Then as I sat in my Recovery from Life class a few years back, I was pricked just below the surface, just below the conscious level as my facilitator read a list of “characteristics of sexually abused”.
“That one,” I heard myself say in my head. “I have that one….and…that…one….and…
“No, no, no…NO NO NO….this is not possible. I remember all the way back to my second birthday. No, I don’t remember ANYONE doing this to me. No, this cannot be me…but it sure would explain a LOT of my life if it did. But no, no I cannot add this to my list I have to deal with. No, this is not true for me…”and I slammed my binder shut, walked out the door and stuffed the thought the best I could at least for that night…until another day.
Later, towards the end of that summer, I broke my foot. If you know my story, if you have read my blog, you know that that was the time where my life took a dramatic shift…where the earthquakes I had experienced through the death of my marriage seemed like baby tremors as I sat and watched my 16 year faith crumble to pieces…leaving me in wreckage that reeked of death and lies and oppression and abuse.
As I looked into the ashes of that wreckage, I remember bending down and picking up the deed to my sexuality and claiming that NO ONE, no man, no woman, no husband, no god, no church, no pastor, no doctrine…NO ONE and NOTHING would ever claim that right to that deed to me again. That deed, my sexuality was mine…it was mine and it was my connection to MYSELF and to the Divinity that lay within me.
It was then that I opened the window to possible sexual abuse once again and started looking at the possibility that this was my story…that at some point this had occurred in my life. I started looking as hard as I could into the memories that I did have while paying attention to the feelings that came along with it. I began working through The Courage to Heal, and looking for support groups. I came to accept that denying this as part of my past would no longer work…and knew enough that just because I didn’t have concrete memories of the events, that didn’t mean that something wasn’t there. What I could remember from my past (mostly being exposed to hard core pornography at age 10) could certainly be considered as abuse. Yet, I knew…I KNEW this wasn’t the beginning, I could feel it…I just couldn’t pinpoint it. So I came to a point that I would let this part of my life be, accepting that memories might never come and that was fine with me….I could still heal my sexuality and myself without the memories.
Fast forward two years from the time I first even remotely considered that I could have possibly been at the other end of sexual abuse…and the first glances into the basement of my Soul where my pre-verbal memories have been stored…
…there are NO words to describe what it is like to discover something about yourself that happened at such a young age, as a baby, as a toddler…for that is exactly a time where the world is wordless, labeless…when things just are.
All I can remember are the feelings of looking up at the man standing above me with love and being met with a glance I, as a baby, could not understand nor had any feelings of how to understand what I saw in his eyes at that time.
A little over a week later, I still have NO words to describe what is pulsing through me, what is coming out of me, what is begging to be let loose through me. I have no words now because I had no words then. Just feelings…just my body…just myself and my own inner world. All I know, all I can feel is there is a freakin’ lot of shit climbing up and out of my basement….coming out in twitches in the mildest form…and more violently out in gut wrenching screams and face twisting cries of my soul.
It is from this place I know I must write. It is from this place I know I am called to unleash the locks on my own doors to a past that is so full of secrets and shame…for I know I am not alone, for I know that unfortunately I am in good company. “Me too.”
For I know that I MUST speak up and have my voice heard, to speak for all those that no longer have the bodies to speak with…and not just for the those we would label victims.
For I have seen great movements recently that try to continue to perpetuate the Blame game – and this will not heal us. They build momentum not on Love but on blame, that turns to hate for the Other…which is perpetuating the separateness…the idea that the Other isn’t really part of us and therefore we can make the Other the scapegoat.
For I know that our World, both women & men are wanting healing from this past and present legacy.
For I have seen and tasted and felt the depths of the Masculine desire to be healed from this past…just as much as the Feminine…for WE ALL carry Both aspects – MASCULINE AND FEMININE – within. Women, our men – whether fully, partly, or still completely unconscious – they too want to be freed and healed from the bondage of this legacy.
SETTING MY INTENTIONS FOR THIS JOURNEY
During this last year, I promised myself to live my life in complete and utter surrender to doing the work of transmuting Fear and Powerlessness to Unconditional Love – offering complete acceptance of and complete freedom for myself and Other. It is with this that I put this post out to the Universe to say that I am choosing to go through this journey honoring this deepest part of myself ~ for myself and for the world.
What does this mean? What does this look like?
I really have no idea…and I am okay with that, for the most part.
In the meantime, I am setting these intentions for myself:
* I will not, no matter how hard it is, play the victim role. Playing the victim will only serve to psychology keep me a prisoner in my body and mind. I am consciously choosing not to be a victim of this act. I am choosing to consciously continue to view myself as the rightful owner of my sexuality…even from the beginning, even during the act.
* I am choosing not to label the Other as the perpetrator, abuser, evil, dark nor any of the other words I have labeled Others with in the past…for I am aware that every time I label the Other, I have to look back and see where I wear that label.
* I will honor ALL the feelings that have been stored in me, all the rage and anger and disgust and…well whatever other feelings are there…I will honor them, hold them within the container of my Body and ask them how we together can SAFELY move the energy…to unleash its highly charged emotional energy in a way that will no longer continue the legacy of hate and separation and fear that the World has known.
* As best as I can, I will allow the emotions to flow in the present moment they are wanting to flow…while at the same time knowing I am an adult and will choose when to process and when I need to put this on the shelf so I can continue my life and my daily routines.
* I will ask that I am able to separate these feelings and resulting emotions from the Other, ask for understanding and compassion when I am tempted to fall into blame, hate, victim, abuser or any of these other energies that will not serve me in this process. Hurt people hurt people. I am not sure there will ever be an end to this pain and hurt and process, but as the feelings get moved, I want to find a way to offer compassion, forgiveness and love to the Other, especially since the Other is no longer in the body.
Mostly, I feel a deep sense of needing to explore and help with as to how to continue my journey of Opening Up and Surrendering to the Healthy Divine Masculine within me, within men, within humanity and the world.
MY ON GOING JOURNEY WITH THE DIVINE MASCULINEThis last year I have come into my Body with delight, purpose and meaning as I claimed my sexuality and learned about how She is sacred, holy, my rhythm, my grounding, my connection to Source and so much more. It has been a year of learning about what it really means to be a woman – defined by women and the Feminine essence in the world. It has been many months of re-learning about the Masculine essence in conjunction, in harmony and balance to the Feminine.
I find it not a coincidence that weeks before the memories surfaced that I was studying what used to be called the Sacred Prostitute (my poem about the Birth of the Sacred Lover), a hidden aspect of the Divine Feminine that I believe is desperately needed in my own life and the world. This is the part of the Feminine within that teaches us how to stop being victims and co-dependent, the part that speaks up out of love that knows how to Let Go of Her “baby bird”…the part of the psyche I believe will re-teach both women AND men how to be healthy individuals so we can once again become One.
I find it not a coincidence that just days before the memories were uncovered that I told the Universe that I was finally done running from Him, from the Divine Masculine however He shows up…that I learned the only way to live this life was by surrendering to the Strength I know He has IN me and around me….to hold me no matter what kind of Powerful life force energy is being conducted through me at any given time.
I find it not a coincidence that within a day of the shock wearing off and the reality of the act setting in, that I found myself subconsciously trying to associate Him with the act, sending repulsive shudders through my body…and my mind quickly shutting down these images/feelings thoughts. It would be so easy to shut down, close up, allowing my body to become tense, stiff, inflexible and hardened again as a means to “protect myself.” However, I have learned this only allows things to fester below the surface…and things that fester have a nasty tendency to turn into physical ailments. Therefore, I decided to face this reaction and realized it was my old creature comfort ways of justifying my running pattern…a pattern I thought was over.
A pattern I find myself once again being faced with at what is by far the hardest junction I have been faced with so far: do I run from the Divine Masculine out of fear, hurt and pain…or do I continue to practice the art of Surrender to Him. Do I trust Him enough, do I have enough faith to allow Him to hold me? Knowing that if I do surrender to the Strength the torrential downpour of Her will follow. Can I surrender to Her – this tsunami of emotions, the tumultuous storm that is sure to awaken?
I know I always have choices in this life. I have free will….and with this free will I have exercised my right to move through life by running away, by staying and waiting, by letting go. I have learned many deep lessons from each of these…most of all that none of these in the end really worked for me. In the end, these choices led me to became stuck in physical, emotional and psychological patterns that kept me from where I really wanted to go.
WHERE DO I REALLY WANT TO GO?
Home. Home to me and my body. Home to my soul and my Soul. Home to my Beloved. Home to what I call my KNOWING I AM. No names, no labels, no masks, no pretense, no separation, no Other.
So with one slow deep breath, I surrender to the Masculine inhale that begs to penetrate my body fully – from chest to perineum – to enlighten my being with the warmth of both the Light Lite from above and the cozy comfort of the Dark Lite from below.
With one slow full exhale, I surrender to the death of this moment that She comes to take from me…releasing, surrendering the energy of what is in this moment back out into the air that surrounds me.
Breathe in, Breathe out. Breathe In, Breathe Out. Surrender In, Surrender Out.
Hmmm…that is nice. That is okay. That feels safe and trustworthy.
I feel S/He is trustworthy and more than capable to handle the raging storm that is brewing inside.
I will get through this not by power nor by might…but by my practice of surrendering to His Strength and Her Power…by my practice of surrendering to what is and what was and what is to come.
I will get through this by remembering who I AM, by KNOWING who I AM, KNOWING I was made for such a time as this.
Amen. Om.
