Enlightened Chaos

I have been studying under Maia Berens in her program You University. It is an intense emotional program that leaves me drained and rejuvenated. I felt this the most last week as I was working on things in my distant past.

I was writing love letters daily and it seemed that chaos was just bubbling out of every pore of my body. So much that I was attracting it into my life. The chaos taught me some valuable lessons.
- I must not devalue any of my life. Every aspect of my path has something to teach me and I must go through the proper steps to resolve my emotions.

- I must take my time. Whether it is something to celebrate of mourn, I need to live in the now and not rush it.

I love Maia's favorite motto,"Life is a school". To learn from the events in my life, I must be open to receive the knowledge of what they have to offer. This might mean that I have to turn my speed down and savor the time of now.

Love Letters

As part of my YOU University course, I am healing my past by using Love Letters. These Love Letters are powerful tools for getting to the heart of a problem and getting all those hidden feelings out.

Dear Mum

I am angry that you were allowed to adopt an innocent child. How could the authorities not see beyond that weak facade of social compliance you wear?

I am angry that you used and abused me for years in secret and got away with it.

I am angry that you used me as bait to bring other victims to you.

I am angry that you never really wanted to get to know me.

I am even angrier that you prevented other people from getting to know me. You disconnected me with the rest of the world so there would be no opposition to you.

I am hurt that you always squashed anything good and pure within me. That you extinguished every ray of hope for a bright future for me. Anything I loved to do, like music or singing, you made sure I knew without doubt that I was so terrible at it that I should never do such things in public.

I was devastated when I developed nodes on my vocal chords and you decided that it wasn’t important enough to have them fixed. You knew I had a good strong voice, and you made sure I would never sing again. You told everyone that I wasn’t interested in music and singing any more.

I am hurt and angry that they believed you.

I am hurt that you turned every friend I ever had against me so that they believed your lies.

I am hurt that you didn’t love me – that you hated and despised me. You made a laughing-stock out of me with my friends, at school, everywhere we went.

I hurt that you never called me by name. You called me “it”, “that thing”, at the very best “she”, or to my face “you”. You would talk about me while I was in the room and think that I wouldn’t understand a single word you said because you spoke of me as “it”.

How could you possibly think that I didn’t know?

I am so sad that I was never a real person to you.

I am sad that you will die never having known me. I know that you don’t want to know me. I am still not a person to you – just a thing to be used.

I am sad that you will never change.

I am sad that, even now, other people think so highly of you and so lowly of me through all the lies you’ve told them over the years. People say terrible things to me because I don’t go around to your house and help you. I am sad that I can’t even begin to tell them why. I have to walk away knowing they despise me because of you and I can never change their minds.

I am afraid that nobody related to you, and nobody from my past, will ever know me because of you.

You destroyed all hope of me being accepted by your family. I was never allowed by you to think I even belonged in your family.

I am afraid that my two sons have no idea of what a grandmother should really be like because of you. I did not poison their minds against you. I had hopes that you would treat them differently than you treated me, but you didn’t. You tried to use them against me and my husband.

I am afraid that your only two grandsons despise you. They see you as you truly are and choose not to have anything to do with you. I’m sad that you don’t even recognise that they don’t have any contact with you. They are not people to you either.

I am sorry that you chose to use me against Dad. I’m sorry you bullied him into being your enabler. I think, at one time, he was a decent person. His biggest mistake was loving you.

I’m sorry that he chose to stay with you. I’m sorry he gave you everything, because you greedily took it all and pushed him out.

I’m sorry that I didn’t run away. Your influence over me was so great that I believed I had to stay in your house until I was 21. And I did stay until I was 21.

I’m sorry I believed every lie you told me.

I’m sorry I stayed so long with you.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone about the abuse and cruelty you subjected me to.

I want you to know that I do not love you. I do not like you. I don’t want anything to do with you.

I want you to know that I have seen the hate in you and recognised it for what it is.

I have seen your true face.

I appreciate that you looked after me physically. I was always well fed, clean, and well dressed. I also understand that appearance was important to you and you dressed me up so others would not suspect what went on behind closed doors.

You don’t realise it, but when I was younger I loved you. You were my mother. Mum.

You were the one I ran to for love, for help, for protection. I ran to you time and time again only to be cruelly laughed at and locked up for daring to cry or need something from you.

And still, through all the years of my childhood, I kept looking to you for love with a child’s innocence.

I know that you never loved anyone or anything.

I understand that you have a personality disorder and that you are not aware that you are a sadistic, narcissistic psychopath [clinical term].

I understand that you never have been, nor will you ever be, “normal”.

I understand now how your nasty, damaged, mind works. Your only enjoyment comes from hurting others. I’ve seen how happy you are when people die. It is a sickness in your soul. I’ve heard the things you say to people when their husbands, wives, or children die. I’ve seen the horror on their faces as you openly laugh at their grief and tell them they deserved it.

I forgive myself for not loving you. You do not deserve love.

I forgive myself for believing your lies all those years. I was isolated by you and had nothing to compare my life with. I had no idea of the depth of your depravity until I began to learn that other people did not live that way.

I forgive myself for allowing you to use me and abuse me for so many years. I knew no different. I thought all people were treated by their parents the way you treated me. I forgive myself for not knowing.

I forgive myself for not loving you.

I release my guilt for not loving you.

I have spoken many times about this with God, my Father, and Jesus, my Brother, and with Raguel, my special angel. They have brought me truth, comfort, and love. They have granted great understanding to me.

I give the task of forgiveness to them. It is to them that you will answer, not to me.

You are finished with me.

I am finished with you.

I have no feeling at all for you.

You cannot hurt me any more. Even though you still try, your nasty words are taken by the universe and do not harm me.

There are things I have to thank you for, though. I thank you for my inner strength. I thank you for my vast and wild imagination, my creativity, my spirituality. I would not have the depth of all of those things had I not had to learn how to survive life with you.

My instincts are deathly sharp. My connection with the spirit world is strong. My inner radar for truth and lies is accurate. All these gifts, and many more that I can’t think of for the moment, were all born out of the darkness, terror, pain, hopelessness that you created around me.

I am strong because of you. And, although I lost myself for many years, when I finally reconnected with my true self and my inner wisdom, I discovered my incredible place in this wondrous universe of energy and light.

For all that, I thank you.

By trying to destroy me, you have made me what I am today.

Thank you, Mum.

A Great Dream!

I had a dream last night that, after I visited the Queen in England, I went to India and bought a Gryphon from an old man at a bazaar. Everywhere I looked there were brightly colored birds flying around everywhere.

The Gryphon was gorgeous. He had a deep copper head and beak. His head feathers gradually lightened down his neck to the lion's body. He had very sharp claws and I was a bit wary of his beak at first - it was so big and strong. He took to me right away and snuggled into me as I took him away.

I was very worried about getting him through customs and onto the plane in India. The man who sold him to me was also on the same flight from India and gave me some tips to keep the Gryphon calm. He was very good during the flight. There were other animals with people on the flight and a lizard crawled over me at one stage and I stroked it. The Gryphon looked like he might be a little jealous so I gave the lizard back to the owner.

We got back to Australia and I was waiting for the customs inspector to check him out so I could take him home. I hoped he wouldn't have to stay in quarantine as I wasn't sure of the bond between us yet.

I let him have a little fly around. I was a bit scared he wouldn't come back, but he did. Everyone who saw him seemed to love him, even though some people didn't quite know what he was.

What an odd dream! Now for the interpretation.

I use Gypsy dream symbolism to interpret my dreams. As there is no dream symbolism for a gryphon, I split the image into the eagle and the lion. Here are the symbols in order of appearance in the dream:

Queen - Prosperity

Birds - Success

Old man - You will be called upon to display your knowledge to others

Eagle - Great business success

Lion - You have great dignity and are much admired by others

Airplane - Spiritual advancement

Lizard - You need to watch your health, your diet in particular

Wow! That is looking really good. Especially when you consider what I've been working on with my Spiritual Life Coaching career and All About Life Coaching.

It kind of speaks for itself when you read the symbols. If I believe this dream - and I always take notice of my dreams - what I'm doing with my life coaching is going to be a success and I'm on track with my spiritual growth.

I'll have to watch my diet or I will become unhealthy. I guess this is true. I'm trying to motivate myself to regain the health and fitness I had before the cancer in my leg last year. I was actually feeling very well then. I now have to work hard to regain that.

I also take a lot of notice of the "feeling" of the dream. In this case, it was a great feeling. I started out with a little fear and nervousness, then gained confidence as I learned more about the gryphon and the bond grew strong between us.

No wonder I didn't want to wake from this dream. It was great!

Addiction- Time to ask for help

I have struggled with my own addictions especially before I was married. It seemed easy for me to just turn it on and off depending on my mood. I have been sober for 8 years. Still, I didn't see the destruction that it had on me until just recently. It seems that their is no end to addiction. We are surrounded by it and it warps our everyday living. We seem to get it under control only for it to try to surface in other areas of our lives. It doesn't take long before we adopt a different kind of addiction and all those old emotions begin to surface.

So, can we do it by ourselves? Can we kick our bad habits all by our lonesome? I don't think so. When I did I was still the same emotional mess just a sober one. I am sure I made better decisions after I had cleaned up but I still felt empty.

At some point in life you start to realize you are trying to fill a void. You may be clean from your darkest addictions but what other addictions have you picked up to replace it? You might have stopped drinking but are you now overeating. More addictions mean more denial about the truth of how you feel. Yes you are sober but are you happy?

I started realizing that being sober wasn't enough. I wanted more. I wanted to feel whole. I wanted to be at peace. I wanted a better me for my husband and children.

I knew that I needed support. I needed someone to help me see that I could fill this hole in me. I found that help through many different avenues; Christ, 12 step programs, life coaching, counseling, and sound friends. But I never found the answer through fulfilling my own addictions.

The sorrowful truth is that once you are an addict you are always an addict. That might make you sad and feel victimized but look at the enormous lessons that you can learn from this. I had to stop playing the martyr and look myself in the mirror. I couldn't blame this addiction on my childhood or on my past experiences. I had to look at myself and realize that I chose this. This means that I need help in creating the person that I want to be.