Back in April I ran across a blog called Empowering Wellness which is written by Fred Krazeise who is "a Nationally Certified Massage Therapist and Intrinsic Coach" who "combines wellness coaching and therapeutic body work to provide a source of healing for women suffering from physical or emotional pain or stress." The words in quotation marks comes from Fred's "About Me" page on his blog.
http://empoweringwellnessnow.com/about-me/
The article that Fred wrote that caught my attention was called "Emotional Healing Tissue Memory and Bodywork - What Happens and Why It is a Good Thing."
http://empoweringwellnessnow.com/emotional-healing-tissue-memory-and-bodywork-%E2%80%93-what-happens-and-why-it-is-a-good-thing/
What I got from Fred's article is that abuse survivors have memories stored in the tissues of their bodies. I have heard this idea before but have not met anyone who does this type of massage as Fred does. Fred is like many of my healer friends and has incorporated several different healing methods into his own brand of healing. I have done the same with Reiki and several other healing modalities that I have been exposed to over the years. Thank you Fred for what you do. You are a treasure and a blessing to those who know you and to those women that you work with.
I have a dear friend who is a massage therapist so I asked if she knew anybody in our area that did this type of massage. She didn't. What she did recommend was that I go to our chiropractor who does Cranio-Sacral adjustments and ask if what he does would work at releasing body memories. Well, I did that last week. He also suggested that I use the services of an associate in his office who does EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) for releasing energy that no longer serves the client. I have experience with EFT. I have their manual and have used EFT on myself and a friend in the past. I have even taken two classes over the past few years on different ways to use EFT for healing. Rather than me trying to explain how EFT works, you can find a lot of information about EFT at the website of its retired founder Gary Craig.
http://www.eftuniverse.com/
I had my first session with my chiropractor last Monday. I figure it may take awhile before I see any results of the Cranio-Sacral adjustments. On Monday, I had a regular adjustment to get everything back into alignment, especially my neck. The chiropractor agreed that my headaches and nausea that I have been experiencing a lot of over the past month could be because my neck was so out of line.
I had my first session with EFT on Thursday of last week. EFT works on the assumption that "The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system." (From "The Timeless Principles of EFT" from the above EFT website)
I really didn't know where to start with the EFT. I told my therapist/counselor (Not sure what to call him. I will have to ask next time that I see him.) that I have been working on incest issues for over 20 years and have healed quite a lot over the years. I told him that I am wanting to find out if I have any body memories that need to be released.
I mentioned that every time that I do work on my issues that I have to acknowledge that a part of me resists doing the work. A part of me is very resistant to change of any kind. We did some tapping on releasing this resistance. I believe that a lot of my headaches come from this resistance. Those headaches may be an area for us to work on next time.
We then moved to him asking me where I felt anger. I told him that I feel anger/rage in my solar plexus. He asked what it looked like and I told him a big black ball of rage that I carry in my solar plexus. Then we did some tapping on the different energy meridians in the body as I repeated whatever affirmations he told me to say. You will need to go to the above EFT link and do some reading about how to do EFT if you want to understand how it works. I know I am not doing a good job of explaining it but I don't remember a lot of what we said. I know that the next step was to look to see what the remaining anger looked like and it was cleared out of my solar plexus. It was gone. I remember at some point being asked to let the anger/rage flow out of my body however it wanted and in whatever direction it wanted to flow. I remember it flowed down my legs and out of my feet into the earth. Then we replaced the anger/rage with healing light. I remember that the light was yellow. When I run healing light through my body, I have learned to be okay with whatever color it chooses to be. Sometimes it is white. Sometimes it is yellow. Sometimes it is the pink light of love.
Next we went to the sadness that is in my heart. I told him that sadness has been almost a life-time companion. We did the tapping and the affirmations. The sadness was resistant to completely leave. Only about one-fourth of it left the first time. We did some more tapping and affirmations and then one of the affirmations that he had me say was something along the lines of "I live my life fully." When he said that I started to cry and my voice got shaky. I told him that it has been many, many years since I have fully lived my life. We did more tapping and affirmations along those lines until the tears and the shaky voice stopped.
What I know from reading about EFT in the past is that when you hit a major issue, the emotions, usually with tears will begin. When we finished the tapping with this statement of affirmation, the tears were gone and so was the sadness and heaviness in my heart. I felt joyful and lighter.
When we had the energy flowing from the solar plexus I was aware that it flowed downward into my legs and feet and into the earth. When we started the energy flowing from my heart to be released, it came out of my heart straight in front of my body and then flowed upward like going toward the sky, toward the heavens. When we ran healing light to fill the empty space left from releasing the black energy of sadness, the healing light flowed and filled my whole body. I felt the joy of healing light flowing through me. This is where we chose to end the session until two weeks from now.
I will be alternating the Cranio-Sacral adjustments one week and the next week will be the EFT sessions for awhile. I scheduled them on Thursdays because Thursdays are when I also have my Grief Class. That way I have the class that night to talk about anything that comes up that I may need extra time to talk about afterwords.
I know that I haven't been writing as many posts over the past month or so as I usually do. I have had several of my readers who are also friends come back and leave messages and hugs as they check up on me. I thank you all for that. You are greatly appreciated.
Since I started the Inner Child Letters Series of posts and before that the post about the abuse by my uncle, I have been slower at processes some of the stuff that has come up for me. I am taking care of myself by not pushing too hard and by just going with the flow. I thank you all for your love and patience. I am in a better place now than I was when I first started the Series.
One of my Inner Child Letters Series posts did not get mailed out by Blogger.com or if it did, it didn't get sent to me like all of the others do. I don't know how many of you got that post so I am going to put the link to that post here. It is a really important post in the series ending the letters to the three-year-old inner child. The name of the post is, "Three Year Old Adultress Carries The Shame Of Incest - Inner Child Letter Series." This is the post that talks about the healing of the shame of incest for me. The link for that post is as follows:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/06/three-year-old-adultress-carries-shame.html
Thank you Fred for giving me the information to start this part of my journey. I honor you for the amazing work that you do with women. I wish you were here in my part of the world. I will do my best to take advantage of what God has put here for me to use.
I have asked two of my friends if they could see any differences in my aura since my EFT session last Thursday. Both said yes. One said my aura was not so dark as it was before. The other said that there is blue above my crown chakra. Blue is one of the healing colors. She said the blue hasn't been there in a long time. I see both of those as proof of the progress that I have already made with these two procedures.
Patricia
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Survivors Can Thrive Hosts Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse: Four-Year Anniversary Edition
Marj aka Thriver is hosting the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse: Four-Year Anniversary Edition on her blog Survivors Can Thrive! this month. She posted it on June 19 at the following link:
http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-carnival-against-child-abuse-four.html
Congratulations on the four-year anniversary Marj. You always do such a great job of hosting and running the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse each month. Thank you. I appreciate the work that you do to keep this running. I know it means a great deal to all of the survivors who read it and those who participate. I don't know if I will ever get the technical skills to host one myself but I can support you and the Blog Carnival by posting articles to announce it each month to my readers.
Here is the Trigger Warning that Marj posted at the beginning of the post.
"Trigger Warning: Understandably, the subject of child abuse can be disturbing. Please exercise appropriate self-care when reading the following posts. We all want to advocate and raise awareness, but remember to keep yourself safe!"
If I counted correctly, there are 27 posts included in this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I hope that you will join me in going to the above link and taking the time to read each of the posts. Feel free to leave a comment and let each person know what you think and feel about their posts about child abuse.
This month, because of all of the grieving that I have been going through with my Inner Child Letters Series, I have been going back and reading some of the posts that I wrote on grieving in the three years that I have been blogging. The post that I submitted to the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is called "Acknowledging Your Grief And Releasing It." You will find it listed with all of the others at the following link to Survivors Can Thrive! :
http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-carnival-against-child-abuse-four.html
I have been blogging for three years as of June 1, 2010. It seems like such a long time when really it isn't. I thank you, my readers, for coming along and sharing my journey with me. Now go read this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse: Four-Year Anniversary Edition. Welcome to the new bloggers who are posting for the first time. I look forward to getting to know you through your writing.
Patricia
http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-carnival-against-child-abuse-four.html
Congratulations on the four-year anniversary Marj. You always do such a great job of hosting and running the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse each month. Thank you. I appreciate the work that you do to keep this running. I know it means a great deal to all of the survivors who read it and those who participate. I don't know if I will ever get the technical skills to host one myself but I can support you and the Blog Carnival by posting articles to announce it each month to my readers.
Here is the Trigger Warning that Marj posted at the beginning of the post.
"Trigger Warning: Understandably, the subject of child abuse can be disturbing. Please exercise appropriate self-care when reading the following posts. We all want to advocate and raise awareness, but remember to keep yourself safe!"
If I counted correctly, there are 27 posts included in this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. I hope that you will join me in going to the above link and taking the time to read each of the posts. Feel free to leave a comment and let each person know what you think and feel about their posts about child abuse.
This month, because of all of the grieving that I have been going through with my Inner Child Letters Series, I have been going back and reading some of the posts that I wrote on grieving in the three years that I have been blogging. The post that I submitted to the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is called "Acknowledging Your Grief And Releasing It." You will find it listed with all of the others at the following link to Survivors Can Thrive! :
http://survivorscanthrive.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-carnival-against-child-abuse-four.html
I have been blogging for three years as of June 1, 2010. It seems like such a long time when really it isn't. I thank you, my readers, for coming along and sharing my journey with me. Now go read this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse: Four-Year Anniversary Edition. Welcome to the new bloggers who are posting for the first time. I look forward to getting to know you through your writing.
Patricia
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Three Year Old Adultress Carries The Shame Of Incest - Inner Child Letters Series
As I have said before in this series, I don't have any memories of incest from my three year old inner child. The mind and body protects itself sometimes by just shutting down and shutting out those memories that might affect its survival. Since I don't have any memories of incest from the three year old, I have to assume that is what happened in this instance. Because of an inner child session that I went through with two friends about six to eight years ago, I got in touch with my inner three year old and found that she felt a tremendous amount of shame. She felt so shameful that she didn't even feel that she deserved to have guardian angels around her. She could not see any Light. All she felt was shame and darkness. Remember, this is a three year old that I am talking about. No three year old should carry shame. Here is my second letter to my self-acclaimed three year old adultress.
Dear three year old Little Patty,
I am so sorry that I didn't call you by your name in my first letter to you. The adult me needed the space that not naming you provided for me to be able to write that letter. Since I have processed all of your grief, the adult me can now call you by name, Little Patty.
First of all, you can't possibly be an adultress at three years old. You were much too young to even know about sex and to know about adultry. To be an adultress, you had to be having sex with someone while you were married. You couldn't be married at three years old. I have to assume for you to label yourself as an adultress, that someone was being sexual with you. For you to carry the shame of abuse, someone was abusing you. I know that is a hard thing for a three year old to carry which is probably part of why I have no memories of the abuse happening that young.
Know that I love you and am sorry for any pain that you have experienced in the past. I want to go back to that day at Carol's house about six or eight years ago. I felt your pain and your shame that day. I felt your desperation, your self-hatred, your hurt and the darkness that you saw all around you. Know that none of that was you. I don't know what happened to you to cause that much pain. Maybe one day we will both have that secret revealed to us. It is okay if we don't. If we ever get that information and memories back, it will mean that we are strong enough to deal with it and survive. You survived the original pain and I am proud of you for being able to do that. You are a very brave little girl. If we don't ever retrieve those memories, I won't think any less of either of us. We have both had more than our share of pain, humiliation, and shame directed toward us in this lifetime. Shame belongs to your abuser, not to you.
I am here today to tell you that none of the shame that you felt back then was yours. Shame comes from the abuser who knows that what he or she is doing is wrong. Since they can't seem to live with themselves while carrying their guilt, they pass it on to those that they abuse and it becomes shame. Shame tells us that something is wrong with us. Shame tells us that we are the cause of our abuse. Shame keeps us silent so that the abuse can continue. Shame becomes who we think we are. Shame tells us to be afraid and that others will blame us for our own abuse. Shame keeps us in a cage of our abuser's making, afraid of others and of our abusers. Shame makes us afraid to feel and to speak out. Shame makes us afraid that you will see the shame in us and condemn us for it.
Little One, my beautiful Little Patty, shame is not who you are. It never was. That is just what the abusers wanted you to believe. The abuse, in whatever form it took with you, was not your fault. You did not deserve the abuse that you suffered. You did not deserve to be neglected either.
That day at Carol's you were surrounded by guardian angels who only wanted to protect and comfort you. You did not think that you deserved their love and comfort. You did not want me any where near you either. You were so full of hurt and rage that day. None of that was you. It all came from what was done to you. You could not protect yourself as a three year old and I wasn't around for many more years to protect you, as I am today. You had taken on the darkness from your abusers. You were not the darkness of abuse. It was never who you were.
You were and still are a beautiful child of God. Before the abuse, you were full of love and laughter and joy. Today, you can be that child, again, full of love and laughter and joy. Know that I love you with all my heart and my soul. I am doing everything that I can think of to make your life more joy filled. You do not have to continue to carry the shame of our abusers. It is not yours. You can release it. Let it be removed from your body.
Our angels will help you to let go of the pain, the fear, the shame that should have never been yours. Let our angels wrap the shame in a blanket of white Light and carry it to the center of the Sun to be transformed into beautiful life giving rays of sunshine to nurture and feed our planet and all of the Universe. Let that space inside of you be filled with Love. Love is who you are. Love is who you were always meant to be. Feel the Love. Be the Love. That is who you are, beautiful Little Patty.
In my mind's eye, I see you Little Patty clapping your hands with a beautiful smile on your face and happiness in your eyes and your own being. I feel you in my heart. Thank you for finally letting go of all of that Hurt from our past. Now you can become the beautiful child you were meant to be - happy and free, loving and loved. I love you Little Patty.
Patricia
Link Love to other survivor blogs and articles:
"making friends with our fear" @ sharing our spaces blog @ http://sharingourspaces.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-friends-with-our-fear.html
Victim, Survivor, Thriver blog @ http://www.squidoo.com/victim-survivor-thriver . This is a blog that I discovered this week that is full of stories and information for survivors of abuse.
This Tangled Web blog is also a recently discovered blog for survivors of abuse that I wanted to share with my readers @ http://www.thistangledweb.co.uk
Becoming Myself blog has many articles about working with her inner child @ http://pneumeier.blogspot.com
Oprah had a show from an interview that she did with 4 child molesters this week. You will find an article from the show called "4 Things You Need to Know About Child Molestation" at the following link: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/4-Things-to-Know-About-Child-Molestation
Dear three year old Little Patty,
I am so sorry that I didn't call you by your name in my first letter to you. The adult me needed the space that not naming you provided for me to be able to write that letter. Since I have processed all of your grief, the adult me can now call you by name, Little Patty.
First of all, you can't possibly be an adultress at three years old. You were much too young to even know about sex and to know about adultry. To be an adultress, you had to be having sex with someone while you were married. You couldn't be married at three years old. I have to assume for you to label yourself as an adultress, that someone was being sexual with you. For you to carry the shame of abuse, someone was abusing you. I know that is a hard thing for a three year old to carry which is probably part of why I have no memories of the abuse happening that young.
Know that I love you and am sorry for any pain that you have experienced in the past. I want to go back to that day at Carol's house about six or eight years ago. I felt your pain and your shame that day. I felt your desperation, your self-hatred, your hurt and the darkness that you saw all around you. Know that none of that was you. I don't know what happened to you to cause that much pain. Maybe one day we will both have that secret revealed to us. It is okay if we don't. If we ever get that information and memories back, it will mean that we are strong enough to deal with it and survive. You survived the original pain and I am proud of you for being able to do that. You are a very brave little girl. If we don't ever retrieve those memories, I won't think any less of either of us. We have both had more than our share of pain, humiliation, and shame directed toward us in this lifetime. Shame belongs to your abuser, not to you.
I am here today to tell you that none of the shame that you felt back then was yours. Shame comes from the abuser who knows that what he or she is doing is wrong. Since they can't seem to live with themselves while carrying their guilt, they pass it on to those that they abuse and it becomes shame. Shame tells us that something is wrong with us. Shame tells us that we are the cause of our abuse. Shame keeps us silent so that the abuse can continue. Shame becomes who we think we are. Shame tells us to be afraid and that others will blame us for our own abuse. Shame keeps us in a cage of our abuser's making, afraid of others and of our abusers. Shame makes us afraid to feel and to speak out. Shame makes us afraid that you will see the shame in us and condemn us for it.
Little One, my beautiful Little Patty, shame is not who you are. It never was. That is just what the abusers wanted you to believe. The abuse, in whatever form it took with you, was not your fault. You did not deserve the abuse that you suffered. You did not deserve to be neglected either.
That day at Carol's you were surrounded by guardian angels who only wanted to protect and comfort you. You did not think that you deserved their love and comfort. You did not want me any where near you either. You were so full of hurt and rage that day. None of that was you. It all came from what was done to you. You could not protect yourself as a three year old and I wasn't around for many more years to protect you, as I am today. You had taken on the darkness from your abusers. You were not the darkness of abuse. It was never who you were.
You were and still are a beautiful child of God. Before the abuse, you were full of love and laughter and joy. Today, you can be that child, again, full of love and laughter and joy. Know that I love you with all my heart and my soul. I am doing everything that I can think of to make your life more joy filled. You do not have to continue to carry the shame of our abusers. It is not yours. You can release it. Let it be removed from your body.
Our angels will help you to let go of the pain, the fear, the shame that should have never been yours. Let our angels wrap the shame in a blanket of white Light and carry it to the center of the Sun to be transformed into beautiful life giving rays of sunshine to nurture and feed our planet and all of the Universe. Let that space inside of you be filled with Love. Love is who you are. Love is who you were always meant to be. Feel the Love. Be the Love. That is who you are, beautiful Little Patty.
In my mind's eye, I see you Little Patty clapping your hands with a beautiful smile on your face and happiness in your eyes and your own being. I feel you in my heart. Thank you for finally letting go of all of that Hurt from our past. Now you can become the beautiful child you were meant to be - happy and free, loving and loved. I love you Little Patty.
Patricia
Link Love to other survivor blogs and articles:
"making friends with our fear" @ sharing our spaces blog @ http://sharingourspaces.blogspot.com/2010/06/making-friends-with-our-fear.html
Victim, Survivor, Thriver blog @ http://www.squidoo.com/victim-survivor-thriver . This is a blog that I discovered this week that is full of stories and information for survivors of abuse.
This Tangled Web blog is also a recently discovered blog for survivors of abuse that I wanted to share with my readers @ http://www.thistangledweb.co.uk
Becoming Myself blog has many articles about working with her inner child @ http://pneumeier.blogspot.com
Oprah had a show from an interview that she did with 4 child molesters this week. You will find an article from the show called "4 Things You Need to Know About Child Molestation" at the following link: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/4-Things-to-Know-About-Child-Molestation
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Inner Child Letters Series - Processing
I am still processing the first letter in this series of posts. The grieving has lifted some. The headaches have gotten less frequent but the nausea of this past week is still hanging on. Last night I was talking with a friend about the headaches and the nausea and what their significance might mean to me. I know the headaches are from the stress and my own inner resistance to doing this work. I know that I had headaches as early as seven years old. I know that my first year in 12-Step meetings, I left every single meeting with a headache when I didn't have one at the beginning of the meeting. Some part of me was resisting what I was hearing in those meetings.
This afternoon I have been thinking about the nausea and remembering. I remembered that every time there was a sexual encounter when I was a child that I would immediately get an upset stomach. I remember many times telling my dad or my mom that I felt like I was going to throw up and them ignoring me. What I learned was that how I felt physically and emotionally didn't matter to either of them. I remember for the first ten years of my marriage that every time my husband and I made love I would then, afterwords, experience nausea and I would ignore it as my parents had taught me to do as a child. As an adult, I continued to discount my feelings, physically and emotionally for many years. I didn't know any other way to be. It took several years of going to 12-Step meetings before I began to feel anything.
What I realized today is that the nausea that I have been ignoring this week may very well be a body memory since I am now opening up to the inner children who felt this as a way of trying to stop the sexual abuse. The nausea may not be related to the sexual abuse at all but with these thoughts coming up, I have to wonder. I know that all of this is pure speculation on my part. I know to some people this may sound totally crazy. I do know that there is a connection between feelings, abuse and physical symptoms of the body.
Louise L. Hay in her book Heal Your Body, The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them on page 52 says "Nausea Fear. Rejecting an idea or experience. I am safe. I trust the process of life to bring only good to me."
Those words could be very true in my past situation with the incest and my current situation of going back and visiting my inner children and the abuse that they suffered and continue to carry for me. A part of me is still rejecting the idea that incest occurred in my childhood and is still affecting me today. The part of me that still doesn't want to deal with this could be causing the nausea as a way of making me not face the truths that I am facing with writing this Inner Child Letters Series. It could be that because I am going back and revisiting this past trauma that the nausea is coming out as a body memory of what I felt back then. This could be the body's way of finally releasing its feelings of unease from back there. In many ways this whole thing is a new territory for me so I am feeling my way around. Does any of this make sense to you, my readers or am I totally losing it here and trying to make up something to explain away the feelings again? It would be nice if when I finally finish processing all of this that the headaches and nausea would completely go away.
This isn't the post that I thought I was sitting down to write. Oh well, what is is. This is my post for today. Before closing, I want to share these websites and blogs that really helped me to stay positive while dealing with this stuff in the past few weeks.
Kendra Kett blogs wonderful little tidbits of wisdom at http://www.pinwheelgirls.com .
Ellen Brown has a blog called Stepping Stones that offers help for going through many of life's transitions at http://ellen-brown.com/blog/2009/10/02/attitude-of-gratitude-helps-when-dealing-with-job-loss-or-other-life-transitions/
Thanks to Kendra and Ellen for the posts that you have written that haved eased some of my pain of last week. There are others and I will post them in my next articles. I have company coming over so have to get off the computer for now.
Love to you all,
Patricia
This afternoon I have been thinking about the nausea and remembering. I remembered that every time there was a sexual encounter when I was a child that I would immediately get an upset stomach. I remember many times telling my dad or my mom that I felt like I was going to throw up and them ignoring me. What I learned was that how I felt physically and emotionally didn't matter to either of them. I remember for the first ten years of my marriage that every time my husband and I made love I would then, afterwords, experience nausea and I would ignore it as my parents had taught me to do as a child. As an adult, I continued to discount my feelings, physically and emotionally for many years. I didn't know any other way to be. It took several years of going to 12-Step meetings before I began to feel anything.
What I realized today is that the nausea that I have been ignoring this week may very well be a body memory since I am now opening up to the inner children who felt this as a way of trying to stop the sexual abuse. The nausea may not be related to the sexual abuse at all but with these thoughts coming up, I have to wonder. I know that all of this is pure speculation on my part. I know to some people this may sound totally crazy. I do know that there is a connection between feelings, abuse and physical symptoms of the body.
Louise L. Hay in her book Heal Your Body, The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them on page 52 says "Nausea Fear. Rejecting an idea or experience. I am safe. I trust the process of life to bring only good to me."
Those words could be very true in my past situation with the incest and my current situation of going back and visiting my inner children and the abuse that they suffered and continue to carry for me. A part of me is still rejecting the idea that incest occurred in my childhood and is still affecting me today. The part of me that still doesn't want to deal with this could be causing the nausea as a way of making me not face the truths that I am facing with writing this Inner Child Letters Series. It could be that because I am going back and revisiting this past trauma that the nausea is coming out as a body memory of what I felt back then. This could be the body's way of finally releasing its feelings of unease from back there. In many ways this whole thing is a new territory for me so I am feeling my way around. Does any of this make sense to you, my readers or am I totally losing it here and trying to make up something to explain away the feelings again? It would be nice if when I finally finish processing all of this that the headaches and nausea would completely go away.
This isn't the post that I thought I was sitting down to write. Oh well, what is is. This is my post for today. Before closing, I want to share these websites and blogs that really helped me to stay positive while dealing with this stuff in the past few weeks.
Kendra Kett blogs wonderful little tidbits of wisdom at http://www.pinwheelgirls.com .
Ellen Brown has a blog called Stepping Stones that offers help for going through many of life's transitions at http://ellen-brown.com/blog/2009/10/02/attitude-of-gratitude-helps-when-dealing-with-job-loss-or-other-life-transitions/
Thanks to Kendra and Ellen for the posts that you have written that haved eased some of my pain of last week. There are others and I will post them in my next articles. I have company coming over so have to get off the computer for now.
Love to you all,
Patricia
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Inner Child Letters Series - Grieving
A friend earlier today emailed and asked me if I was okay? The following is a slightly edited version of what I emailed her back. It also explains why I haven't posted an article here in over a week.
No, I am not okay. Thank you for asking. When I started this Inner Child Letter Series, I expected to do some grieving but I never expected this intensity and it has knocked me on my butt. I am not handling it well at all. I have eaten most of 3 bags of chocolate this week and had my husband buy me a box of chocolate ice cream last night.
I haven't been able to write about the feelings because I don't know where to start or what to say. I did reach out early this morning and left a message on the Facebook page Reaching Survivors of Sexual Abuse and left a small comment. I haven't called my 12-Step sponsor about it. I don't know what to say to her. I did talk some Thursday night during my class on Grief. That helped some but only temporarily.
It doesn't help that my husband and I have both been sick this past week too. He has a really bad bladder infection that kept him home from work for almost a week.
With all of the energy shifts that have been going on, I have been having dizzy spells and the occasional nausea from that. On top of that I have been having headaches almost daily since I wrote my last post. I know the headaches are from stress and that part of me that resists all of the changes and the feelings. I can stay with the feelings for awhile and then I get scared and eat. I don't overeat during the day. I do it from supper on until I go to bed at night. Nighttime is a trigger for me. I am also not sleeping much. I go to bed sometime between 1:30-3:30 a.m. and get up sometime between 7:30-10:30 a.m. On the days that my headache builds, I finally take my prescription strength pain pills and then I am wiped out for the next 2 or 3 days from the headache and the pain pills which I hate to take for just that reason. With the headache, I am in too much pain to think clearly and with the pain pills I am drugged out and can't think. I have slept through several days this week because of either the headache or the pain pills.
The grief feels so big and deep. I did not expect this. It has been years since I have done grief work like this. I have forgotten how it feels. For years, I felt this way all of the time. That was years ago. It makes me afraid to continue this series of posts and I know that is exactly what I need to do.
Thank you (You know who you are. I am not mentioning your name as my friend because I didn't ask your permission.) for reaching out to me. I didn't know that I needed to say all of this. It is like your asking gave me permission to let go.
Patricia
My friend suggested that I might have the beginning of a blog post in the above email so now you have it. Before this, I have had lots of thoughts going through my mind and a whole lot of feelings that I haven't wanted to feel and know that is exactly what needs to happen. As another friend Stash Serafin recently said, "Feeling is healing." Maybe it was the 3-year-old me that shut down those feelings, I don't know. Some voice in me just said, "Yes, you do know." Another part of me is still resisting this whole process and doesn't want to know. That is where my headaches are coming from.
As I mentioned above, I talked some about this in my Grief class on Thursday night. The leader of the class believes that the 11-year-old inner child is the one who is holding all of the knowledge of the abuse and all of the pain and the memories for the 3-year-old. This work is harder than I thought it would be. I am trying to be gentle with myself and stay with the feelings as much as I can and not beat myself up when I can't.
With everything that has been going on this week, it slipped my mind that June 1 was the 3rd Anniversary of when I posted my first article on Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker. That first article had nothing to do with incest. It is about my beliefs about past lives. It is called "Three Of My Past Life Experiences". You can find it at the following link:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/06/three-of-my-past-life-experiences.html
This is enough sharing and vulnerability for today.
Patricia
Related Articles:
Inner Child Letter Series @ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/05/inner-child-letters-series.html
Three Year Old Adultress Revisited - Inner Child Letters Series - 1 @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/05/three-year-old-adultress-revisited.html
No, I am not okay. Thank you for asking. When I started this Inner Child Letter Series, I expected to do some grieving but I never expected this intensity and it has knocked me on my butt. I am not handling it well at all. I have eaten most of 3 bags of chocolate this week and had my husband buy me a box of chocolate ice cream last night.
I haven't been able to write about the feelings because I don't know where to start or what to say. I did reach out early this morning and left a message on the Facebook page Reaching Survivors of Sexual Abuse and left a small comment. I haven't called my 12-Step sponsor about it. I don't know what to say to her. I did talk some Thursday night during my class on Grief. That helped some but only temporarily.
It doesn't help that my husband and I have both been sick this past week too. He has a really bad bladder infection that kept him home from work for almost a week.
With all of the energy shifts that have been going on, I have been having dizzy spells and the occasional nausea from that. On top of that I have been having headaches almost daily since I wrote my last post. I know the headaches are from stress and that part of me that resists all of the changes and the feelings. I can stay with the feelings for awhile and then I get scared and eat. I don't overeat during the day. I do it from supper on until I go to bed at night. Nighttime is a trigger for me. I am also not sleeping much. I go to bed sometime between 1:30-3:30 a.m. and get up sometime between 7:30-10:30 a.m. On the days that my headache builds, I finally take my prescription strength pain pills and then I am wiped out for the next 2 or 3 days from the headache and the pain pills which I hate to take for just that reason. With the headache, I am in too much pain to think clearly and with the pain pills I am drugged out and can't think. I have slept through several days this week because of either the headache or the pain pills.
The grief feels so big and deep. I did not expect this. It has been years since I have done grief work like this. I have forgotten how it feels. For years, I felt this way all of the time. That was years ago. It makes me afraid to continue this series of posts and I know that is exactly what I need to do.
Thank you (You know who you are. I am not mentioning your name as my friend because I didn't ask your permission.) for reaching out to me. I didn't know that I needed to say all of this. It is like your asking gave me permission to let go.
Patricia
My friend suggested that I might have the beginning of a blog post in the above email so now you have it. Before this, I have had lots of thoughts going through my mind and a whole lot of feelings that I haven't wanted to feel and know that is exactly what needs to happen. As another friend Stash Serafin recently said, "Feeling is healing." Maybe it was the 3-year-old me that shut down those feelings, I don't know. Some voice in me just said, "Yes, you do know." Another part of me is still resisting this whole process and doesn't want to know. That is where my headaches are coming from.
As I mentioned above, I talked some about this in my Grief class on Thursday night. The leader of the class believes that the 11-year-old inner child is the one who is holding all of the knowledge of the abuse and all of the pain and the memories for the 3-year-old. This work is harder than I thought it would be. I am trying to be gentle with myself and stay with the feelings as much as I can and not beat myself up when I can't.
With everything that has been going on this week, it slipped my mind that June 1 was the 3rd Anniversary of when I posted my first article on Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker. That first article had nothing to do with incest. It is about my beliefs about past lives. It is called "Three Of My Past Life Experiences". You can find it at the following link:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/06/three-of-my-past-life-experiences.html
This is enough sharing and vulnerability for today.
Patricia
Related Articles:
Inner Child Letter Series @ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/05/inner-child-letters-series.html
Three Year Old Adultress Revisited - Inner Child Letters Series - 1 @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/05/three-year-old-adultress-revisited.html
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