November, 2008 Jan

November, 2008
Jan

If you live all your life in a particular state, and have reason to think that everyone else does too, you may never realize that there’s a different way of being.

Just a year ago I could have easily reeled off a list of all the things going wrong with my life every day, but now I have to stop and think back, concentrate, to remember what they were: Feeling chased or pursued for no reason. Being unable to trust anyone, including myself. An almost frantic need to check behind closed doors, under the bed, behind the shower curtain. Trying to fall asleep on the edge of an anxiety attack, unable to draw a full breath. Outbursts of tears and/or anger triggered by the smallest, most unpredictable things. Meltdowns in the face of minor crises. A deep feeling of unworthiness for anything good that happened to come my way. A great difficulty forming healthy close connections with others.

After my first workshop at White Raven I noticed definite changes. I left feeling, for the first time in my life, light and relieved. That inner coil of tension had relaxed. I felt a little bit better about myself, had regained some of my self-confidence, and while I could still easily be triggered into tears or anger, I was much more aware when it happened, both of what caused it and of my own behavior.

Now, five or six workshops later, the changes I’ve experienced are nothing short of amazing if I do say so myself. I no longer feel the need to scour the house and check behind doors for a hidden menace. That phantom “other shoe about to drop” that used to hang over my head is gone. I trust myself and, as a result, have learned how to discern when others are worthy of my trust. I can imagine myself living into old age. I can look others in the eye without being terrified of what they’ll see in me. I no longer need to audit my behavior and speech.

There’s more. For the first time in my life, my self-image is of a beautiful adult woman, not a little girl or a scrubby teen. For the first time in my life, I am enough. Instead of looking for someone else to be my beloved, I can confidently say that I am the beloved. And I can mean it! Even better? I actually feel goodabout my life and about myself.

I’ve also learned that stored emotions and trauma affected my body far more than I’d ever thought. My old self-image included wasted, useless legs; my body reflected this, as well as the emotions stored from a bad leg injury, with a bad knee that would buckle at unexpected moments and was never quite “right”. Now my self-image has healthy, normal legs, and my body reflects that with healthy normal legs that no longer buckle or feel “off”. If you believe the doctors, the only thing that could have fixed my bum knee was surgery. And they were right, to a degree. It took major energetic and emotional surgery, required the courage to enter the unknown, to leap into stored terror and emerge on the other side — but the only surgeon affecting this positive change and all the others I’ve experienced was me, with the experienced guidance and facilitation of Floyd, Marianne and their helpers at the White Raven Center.