Transcending the Trauma with a book
November 11, 2008
There is so much information available to us...if we just tune in. As much as this can be painful, it also helps us to move forward. One of the most serendipitous methods around...is to just pluck a book from your bookshelf or stacks, and -- with a prayer in your heart to be illuminated -- open at random.
The book DAILY OM: INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHTS FOR A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND FULFILLING DAY beckons. It has a bright white cover, with a stalk of bamboo trailing the left side of the front. I open the DAILY OM at random.
Oh, no fair.
The chapter I open to says OPENING TO FEEL: WAYS WE NUMB OURSELVES. And right there is the list of lovely distractions -- no, I don't do alcohol or food or shopping or TV, but I've been doing M&M's since the Halloween trick or treaters abandoned my door around 9:45pm October 31st. I left the light on till close to midnight.
M&M's are my drug of choice. When those ran out, I ran out to the 24-hour Walgreen's and bought two bags of Christmas M&M's. They were on sale. And, as of about an hour ago, those red and green M&Ms are all gone as well. I am tempted to make another run, but seeing myself open this book to this very page...arghh!!!
Candy -- or TV or shopping or food -- distracts from what we feel, just as we need -- crave, really -- and that is spiritual nourishment. The author Madisyn Taylor writes, "Traumas and pain long hidden will emerge to the forefront of your consciousness and reveal themselves so that you can heal them."
Ironic that I spent ninety painful minutes today in the therapist's office, dancing with these very traumas.
So I pose a general question before I open the book to another page "what else?"
Oh, really no fair.
Now I get REINVENTING THE PAST: HEALING YOUR INNER CHILD. Who? the one who craved M&M's as a child -- crunchy on the outside, sweet on the inside? That's a vestige, a symbol. When you get raped as a child -- over and over -- by someone who is supposed to take care of you, things get very confused...and can mess things up in the present. Unless you heal that little child. My therapist reminds me how strong I was as a little girl.
I remember once when I was a teen, boarding a bus in NY, this older woman wanted to get on, too. She had gray hair, pink dots of rouge on each cheek, and she was carrying a doll. She was wearing a little girl's dress, although it fit her. And, she was talking to herself. I knew instantly what had happened to her -- she had been sexually violated, probably as a five-year old, like I had -- and she had cracked. The busdriver kicked her off. I couldn't say a word -- my mind had gone pre-verbal, and I had no words. But it was a powerful lesson to me. That could be my future. Or, the ladies with the teensy skirts and nothing on under them, flirting with men at the bus station at 42nd street -- this was before Rudy Giuliani cleaned up Time Square. I could be one of those ladies. No. My soul was stronger than that. I had a battle today in the therapist's office -- between the tough little girl who survived and that soul that knows the peace of the angels.
The DAILY OM -- that chapter about healing the inner child -- Taylor says to ask why you're attracted to certain people, feel what your child-self is feeling, and finally, offer that child a hug infused with love.
There was a moment today, when that five-year old girl inside stepped aside a little bit, to let the woman-I-would-have-been take another step in...and open her arms. There was a moment when they shared the same space, and they realized it could work. And it will happen. This journey of transcending the trauma is perilous -- and joyous. And, moments of serendipity are delightful and illuminating guideposts along the way.
Pick up a book. Open it. See what is reflected. And know that you are loved powerfully.
There is so much information available to us...if we just tune in. As much as this can be painful, it also helps us to move forward. One of the most serendipitous methods around...is to just pluck a book from your bookshelf or stacks, and -- with a prayer in your heart to be illuminated -- open at random.
The book DAILY OM: INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHTS FOR A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND FULFILLING DAY beckons. It has a bright white cover, with a stalk of bamboo trailing the left side of the front. I open the DAILY OM at random.
Oh, no fair.
The chapter I open to says OPENING TO FEEL: WAYS WE NUMB OURSELVES. And right there is the list of lovely distractions -- no, I don't do alcohol or food or shopping or TV, but I've been doing M&M's since the Halloween trick or treaters abandoned my door around 9:45pm October 31st. I left the light on till close to midnight.
M&M's are my drug of choice. When those ran out, I ran out to the 24-hour Walgreen's and bought two bags of Christmas M&M's. They were on sale. And, as of about an hour ago, those red and green M&Ms are all gone as well. I am tempted to make another run, but seeing myself open this book to this very page...arghh!!!
Candy -- or TV or shopping or food -- distracts from what we feel, just as we need -- crave, really -- and that is spiritual nourishment. The author Madisyn Taylor writes, "Traumas and pain long hidden will emerge to the forefront of your consciousness and reveal themselves so that you can heal them."
Ironic that I spent ninety painful minutes today in the therapist's office, dancing with these very traumas.
So I pose a general question before I open the book to another page "what else?"
Oh, really no fair.
Now I get REINVENTING THE PAST: HEALING YOUR INNER CHILD. Who? the one who craved M&M's as a child -- crunchy on the outside, sweet on the inside? That's a vestige, a symbol. When you get raped as a child -- over and over -- by someone who is supposed to take care of you, things get very confused...and can mess things up in the present. Unless you heal that little child. My therapist reminds me how strong I was as a little girl.
I remember once when I was a teen, boarding a bus in NY, this older woman wanted to get on, too. She had gray hair, pink dots of rouge on each cheek, and she was carrying a doll. She was wearing a little girl's dress, although it fit her. And, she was talking to herself. I knew instantly what had happened to her -- she had been sexually violated, probably as a five-year old, like I had -- and she had cracked. The busdriver kicked her off. I couldn't say a word -- my mind had gone pre-verbal, and I had no words. But it was a powerful lesson to me. That could be my future. Or, the ladies with the teensy skirts and nothing on under them, flirting with men at the bus station at 42nd street -- this was before Rudy Giuliani cleaned up Time Square. I could be one of those ladies. No. My soul was stronger than that. I had a battle today in the therapist's office -- between the tough little girl who survived and that soul that knows the peace of the angels.
The DAILY OM -- that chapter about healing the inner child -- Taylor says to ask why you're attracted to certain people, feel what your child-self is feeling, and finally, offer that child a hug infused with love.
There was a moment today, when that five-year old girl inside stepped aside a little bit, to let the woman-I-would-have-been take another step in...and open her arms. There was a moment when they shared the same space, and they realized it could work. And it will happen. This journey of transcending the trauma is perilous -- and joyous. And, moments of serendipity are delightful and illuminating guideposts along the way.
Pick up a book. Open it. See what is reflected. And know that you are loved powerfully.
Labels: book review., books, DAILY OM INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHTS FOR A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND FULFILLING DAY, Madisyn Taylor, reading, serendipity, transcending the trauma
posted by Diana Page Jordan @ 9:34 PM
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